Dragonsbane (Book 3) (44 page)

“Have you forgiven him, then?”

Gwen sighed heavily. “When my brother got … lost, it was the cat who found him in the woods. That’s how Griffith knew his name — Silas must’ve stayed with him all night. So as much as I wanted to crush his furry little skull for deceiving me,” her hands tightened again, “I couldn’t. Not after I realized that he’d protected Griffith. Instead, I’ve decided to punish him by binding him in service to the wildmen. He’ll do exactly as I say until his debt is paid. Or I
will
crush him.”

Silas’s eyes glowed haughtily as he glanced over his thick shoulders, and his tail swished in an unconcerned loop.

Chapter 41

Misguided Courage

High in one of Midlan’s winding towers, Argon the Seer was more frustrated than ever.

The book that’d once been so troubling now lay open before him. The words were no longer sealed, but written plainly. He’d read
The
Myth of Draegoth
once already, expecting some great secret to come pouring out from between its pages. But instead, he’d found the tale to be disappointingly vague.

There was very little information at all about the monsters called
draega
— the beasts that’d inhabited Draegoth before the rise of the first King. A precious few lines mentioned the draegas’
savage ways
and their
dark, terrifying magic
. Even the pictures showed them as nothing more than the shadows dancing around yellow flame.

No, Argon realized early into his reading that he would gain very little knowledge of the draega from this book. He wished there’d been more lines dedicated to the history of the tale … and far fewer on the illustrious nature of the first King.

The book droned on about him, talking of how he’d come to the Kingdom from the barren Westlands — seeking a new life for his people. The historians bemoaned the fact that no matter how the King tried to befriend them, the draega refused to turn from their savagery. And so he’d been forced to lay siege to their royal city of Draegoth:

By his magic had the King conquered the whole Wildlands, but not even his mages could stand against the draega. Their champion would rise from the city’s white walls, using the deep night as his cloak. He laid waste to the King’s army with a single spell — devouring both flesh and steel. So great were the champion’s powers that whole of the King’s mighty army trembled at his coming.

As night passed into day, mankind was forced to see how the draega had ravaged them. The King knew he could not breach the city’s walls until the champion was slain. So in his wisdom, he sought the advice of his archmage — who knew at once what must be done.

From the bonds of magic pure and earth’s most gleaming vein, the archmage did forge the King’s salvation: a protection called the Dragonsbane.

This was the part of the story that had Argon most puzzled. He wondered what sort of magic the draega might posses that a mage would not. There was no doubting that the chamber Crevan had led him to was heavily spelled — crusted in symbols written to seal in a powerful enemy … but which enemy?

Surely not the child they’d discovered hiding in the ruins. Argon was certain he had no gift for magic of any sort, least of all one that might strike fear into the hearts of mages. No, he was certain the boy was perfectly, completely harmle —

A loud
whoosh
startled him, followed by a flash of light from under his door. Argon cursed as he threw it open. He stumbled out into the tower’s main room and clawed his way through a cloud of rather foul-smelling smoke — already dreading the damage.

A handful of young mages clumped tightly in a far corner of the room. They whirled around at the noise of Argon’s shuffling steps. He knew things were going to be dismal when he saw the guilt staining each of their faces. But it wasn’t until they parted to let him through that he saw their latest mess.

How many times had he warned them?
You can’t drop lion’s teeth into a cauldron with troll blood
, he clearly remembered saying. But of course, they’d had to try it for themselves.

He supposed he should’ve expected nothing less from a roomful of young mages — especially ones who’d spent their lives bound in service to the King. Their studies had been neglected straight though their most formative years. None of them had developed enough to forge his own impetus. Each one still carried a wooden staff: a coarse vessel whittled by an older mage and inscribed with only the most basic of spells.

As the last of the mages parted and Argon got a clear look at what they’d done, he couldn’t help but be little proud. One of mages had actually thought to cast a shielding spell around the cauldron. It was very crudely-drawn and leaking slightly out the bottom. But for the moment, the bulk of the disaster was contained within an orb of swirling, foul-looking smoke.

“Now do you understand why I warned you not to do this?” Argon said, fixing as many of them with a scolding look as possible. “You’re fortunate that shield survived the blast. Otherwise, you might’ve put a hole in the tower’s roof. That certainly would have attracted the King’s attention. Do you want him locking you up again?”

They shook their heads, and several of them glanced nervously at the smoke orb. After a considerable amount of tugging on the curls of her hair, one mage-girl finally worked up the nerve to raise her hand.

“Not until I’m finished,” Argon said firmly.

Her hand slid down.

“I need you all to pay very close attention. My neck is stretched out just as far as it will go. The King’s only allowed you in here because he believes we’re working to solve his problem. One more misstep and I’ll have no choice but to — in a
moment
young lady!”

“Please, Master Argon, I think you should know …”

When the mage-girl glanced anxiously at the orb, it finally struck him. “Who’s in there?” Argon said, doing a quick head count. When he noticed which head
wasn’t
among them, he let out a string of curses and sent an arrow spell into the side of the orb.

It popped like a soap bubble, bathing them all in a thick cloud of smoke. Argon pinched his nose closed against the odor of burnt troll and stumbled his way towards the cauldron. “Devin … gah! Devin, can you hear me?”

“I’m right here.”

Half a step more and Argon collided with what appeared to be a man-sized stuffed doll. The young mages had Devin wrapped in several layers of gauze. Ice spells and shielding charms had been scrawled clumsily across each layer. It took Argon nearly a full minute of unwrapping just to find Devin’s face. When he finally managed to pull the last layer free, he was relieved to see that the boy looked mostly unharmed.

For all the mischief they caused, the young mages had proven themselves to be very useful in one matter: they’d gotten Devin to speak.

Argon had known nothing at all about the boy they’d found living inside the fortress’s hidden courtyard. He’d tried several times to ask him questions, to no avail. For days on end the boy had simply gazed around the tower, his mouth opened in wonder at all of Argon’s books and instruments.

But he seemed to enjoy magic, and he liked the young mages. It wasn’t long before Argon heard him chatting with the others, asking all sorts of questions about the spells they cast. And he’d made it a point to listen in whenever he could.

That was how he’d discovered the boy’s name was Devin. Other than that, he’d learned precious little — except that he’d lived with his mother inside the courtyard, and they had a garden where they grew fruits and vegetables.

Argon stripped the rest of the gauze away and bellowed for someone to open a window. When he’d sent the last of the foul smoke out into the weather, he fixed the young mages with an iron gaze.

“He is
not
a plaything.”

“We’re sorry, Master —”

“
Sorry
won’t bring him back,” Argon said over the top of them. He let them stew in their guilt for a moment before he dropped his voice to a more scathing level. “I’m disappointed in you — every one of you. You all know better than to use a human for an experiment. The next mage I catch tampering with Devin will have his impetus locked away for a week. Understood?”

They nodded stiffly. Several of them clutched their staffs tighter against their chests.

“Good. Now I would like you all to march down to the library and compose an essay on the dangers of mixing maleficent ingredients — by
hand
. No writing spells,” he added, stirring up a fresh wave of groans as they filed out the door.

Once they were gone, Argon dropped the gauze into the cauldron and set its contents ablaze. It was a cleansing fire — a spell of flame linked to one for drawing poisons out of wounds. It ate the potion and the spells off the wrappings, all without producing one wisp of smoke.

He could feel the weight of Devin’s strange blue eyes upon him while he worked. “It isn’t their fault. I volunteered.”

Argon snorted. “Yes, in the same way a fledgling volunteers to be first out of the nest — with a good deal of misguided courage.”

“What does that mean?”

Argon gestured at the smoke-soiled walls. “When you volunteered, did you know that you might die in a fiery blast with enough malevolent heat to turn your very bones to ash?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I would say you were misinformed. And your courage, then, misguided.”

It wasn’t only magic that Devin seemed oblivious to: it was as if … well, as if he’d been locked up somewhere that stood still while the Kingdom grew up all around him. When he thought about it that way, Argon supposed he should’ve expected nothing less.

And he knew he should try to be a little more patient.

Devin was missing most of his left eyebrow — which gave him a rather quizzical look. He touched the raw skin around his brow and cheek. There were other patches down his arms.

Argon sighed. “You were fortunate, child. Very fortunate, indeed. Those young ones can hardly stitch two spells together without causing some sort of fiery burst.”

Devin shrugged, as if a violent magical death was simply a part of life. He wandered over to the cauldron, scratching madly at his collar as he went.

One of the first things Argon had done was throw Devin’s rat-hide attire into the hearth. He replaced them with a plain tunic and breeches — and though Devin seemed to like the breeches, he often went without his shirt.

The male mages didn’t seem to notice. In fact, Argon doubted if
he
would have ever noticed, had a young female mage not wandered into his office one day and asked if he knew anything about mixing love potions. When Argon had looked up to frown at her, he’d noticed that a small crowd of tittering mage-girls had gathered around Devin.

They’d been pretending to have trouble opening their vials and had all but trapped Devin in a corner of the room, begging for his help. The giggling that ensued each time he pulled a cork free had been enough to make Argon grind his teeth — and poor Devin had looked absolutely terrified.

The whites had shown the whole way around his stark blue eyes as he uncorked the next vial. He’d offered it to a mage-girl at the head of the line and flinched under the others’ giggles — as if he expected them to swarm at any moment.

Most young men in the Kingdom would’ve been thrilled with half of the attention, but Devin had seemed to be on the verge of tears. And Argon realized he would never get any studying done with so much laughter billowing up every few minutes.

So he’d told the curious mage-girl that he actually knew a great deal about love potions — and warned that if he ever caught her trying to mix one, he’d make sure she fell madly in love with the royal beastkeeper.

That threat alone would’ve likely been enough to keep the girls from toying with Devin’s heart. But Argon had ordered him to wear his shirt at all times, just in case.

Now the strange young man from the courtyard seemed perfectly at home amongst the mages. He dug through the wrappings Argon had set ablaze — searching for char marks. When he found none, he shook his head. “Amazing.”

A few of Argon’s instruments had tipped over during the blast. He was settling them upright when he suddenly had an idea. “Have you not seen magic before, Devin?”

He shook his head.

“Really? None at all?” When he shook his head again, Argon decided it was time to simply ask — the worst the boy could do was ignore him. “That courtyard where you lived … were those truly the ruins of …?”

He couldn’t say it. The shackle around his wrist burned hot the moment he thought of bringing the word
Draegoth
to his tongue. Crevan had ordered him never to speak of it to anybody, and his command burned hot. Still, he thought there might be a way around it. “Were those ruins truly your home?”

“That
is
my home,” Devin muttered as he fiddled with the dials on a golden spyglass. “It isn’t ruined.”

“Are you one of the draega, then?”

Devin froze. His ghostly stare wrapped tightly about Argon, measuring him. “My mother warned me this would happen someday. She said the people who locked us away would come for us, and they would question us … and she said that I wasn’t to answer them.”

From the way he’d spoken, Argon half-expected him to turn on his heel and march into another room. But he didn’t. Instead, he stayed frozen in place. “Forgive me, child. You’ve spent enough time around the mages to know what curious creatures we are.”

After a moment, Devin sighed. “I know.”