The Dragon Hunter and the Mage (44 page)

“I can do this,” he told himself, eyes closed.

Fadan had learned that magic was a tricky business. A single fraction of a moment of doubt and the spell was gone, sometimes, literally up in smoke. The problem was that most spells weren’t as intuitive as moving an object. Causing fire, for instance, was more of an intellectual process. He had to imagine objects and substances and what particles they were made of. Then, he had to visualize them heating up by friction while providing the right amounts of fuel and oxidizer to maintain the required flame and so on. It was a deeply rational thing that required tremendous amounts of previous study of the physical world, which conflicted with the deeply irrational feat that was believing it was possible.

No, not just possible. That it was
actually
happening as he visualized it in his mind. It could be as frustrating as it was overwhelming.

Fadan tried to relax, shaking his arms and steadying his breathing.

This is easy,
he thought.
I’ve done it before. Well, kind of… No, stop it! No doubts.

“Ah crap!” he heard himself say, punching his bed’s mattress.

It was so hard to fight his own instincts. He did, however, have an idea. It had occurred to him often that he was an over thinker. There was really nothing he could do about it. The solution then, was probably to do it the radical way. So far, he had just tried to make small objects, like spoons, go through his fingers. What if, instead of risking a few cuts and bruises, he
actually
risked his life? Maybe his mind would focus once and for all.

Maybe it was a genius idea. Maybe it was insane…

No!
he thought.
I’m just overthinking it again.

He gulped, but he had made his decision. He was going to try to cross the wall to the room next door. Provided he survived the crossing itself, it should be completely safe. The room had been empty for decades. It had once been his aunt Junia’s room, until her marriage, and it would have been Aric’s room if the Emperor hadn’t cast him to the servant’s wing.

Fadan took a long, deep breath.

I’ll have to jump before I dematerialize,
he thought.
Otherwise, I’ll fall through the floor.

Which meant he would have to rematerialize before landing on the floor on the other side. What a pity… his spells always worked better with his eyes closed.

Shoving any second thoughts away, and as if he wanted to surprise himself, he darted forward, shooting towards the stone wall opposite his bed. He jumped, visualized himself crossing the wall and-

BAM!

He smashed, nose first, against the granite and fell flat on his back.

“Goddess damn it!” Fadan groaned.

He rubbed his forehead as if that could somehow make the pain go away. There would be some lumps on his face the next day, but he was not about to give up just yet.

“I can do this,” he told himself, taking a couple of steps back and filling his lungs.

I can do this.

Fadan lunged forward, readying his Runium reserve to cast the spell, and jumped. The wall came closer and closer. Then, at the last possible moment, he closed his eyes, pushing his fear of failure away.

It all happened in an instant.

He realized he should have collided against the wall and hadn’t, so he opened his eyes and saw the other side. It must have been enough to break the spell because his feet connected with the floor and then-

BAM!

He crashed into a tall, wooden wardrobe. It was a sturdy old thing, because, at his speed, Fadan should have torn the doors to pieces. Instead, he fell flat on his back again, just as he had done with the granite wall moments before.

“Fire take this!” he complained, rubbing the back of head.

Then, it dawned on him.

I did it,
he thought, his eyes going wide.

Fadan jumped like a cat after a fright. “I
did
it!” He smiled, making a huge effort to contain a celebratory yell.

I have to do it again,
he thought.

One successful jump was nothing. He had to make sure it hadn’t been pure luck.

Shaking his arms, he braced himself for another jump back into his room. Then, still smiling, he ran towards the wall, but just when he was about to jump, he aborted his own run, stopping before hitting the granite once again.

“No,” he said to himself. “Eyes open this time. Eyes open.”

Fadan resumed his place at the back of the room taking quick, deep breaths. He lunged towards the wall leading to his room. He tapped his power and jumped, this time keeping his eyes open, completely ignoring the incoming granite barrier in his way.

It worked beautifully. His vision was blocked for a moment, but his room quickly came into view and Fadan landed as gracefully as if he had just jumped over a puddle of water down in the courtyard.

He had done it. He could cross walls. Just as a precaution, he began inspecting his body to make sure he hadn’t somehow hurt himself in the process. He was fine, of course. There was no pain – besides the thumping on his forehead – or blood anywhere, and he began laughing hysterically. His heart was racing so hard he could hear it.

I can’t believe it,
he thought, so happy he started jumping as if he couldn’t contain his own energy.

It was amazing. He could do it now. He could finally rescue Doric. It was so exciting he began to tremble slightly. The last time he had felt like this had been months ago, and Aric had been by his side. They had nearly done it. They had actually broken Doric out of jail and even left the sewers when…

Fadan didn’t remember much. He had never seen them coming. Only Aric had. All Fadan remembered was his brother’s hands gripping his collar and shoving him down the manhole. It had been a fall of several feet. Fadan had landed on his shoulder, and the pain had nearly blinded him, at least for a moment. Then, he had realized what was happening.

The room seemed to grow darker around him and Fadan sat on his bed as if his legs had decided they didn’t want to support him anymore. He looked left and saw himself in the mirror, framed by his bedposts. Just like then, he was alone in the dark.

Fadan could still remember the smell of moss on his face as he had gotten back on his feet. He remembered the screams, the sound changed by having to cross the metal cover of the manhole. The memory wasn’t exactly complete. He couldn’t remember the exact words, only the Soldiers barking threats followed by the thuds and groans of Aric and Doric being hit.

In the mirror, a tear slid down Fadan’s cheek.

Hearing the screams, Fadan had climbed the ladder up to the manhole but had stopped halfway through, his hands refusing to move further while the rest of his body shook so much it was a miracle he hadn’t tumbled down again.

Aric had screamed the most, and his father had begged the soldiers to stop.

In the mirror, Fadan saw his own hand shoot up to cover his mouth and push down a sob, warm tears collecting around his fingers.

He cursed, jumping up and turning his back to the mirror.

“Goddess damn this,” he said, kicking a wooden chest.

Pain shot through his foot, but he ignored it, focusing instead on wiping the tears from his eyes as if they burned.

“I can do this,” he said between sniffs. “I can
do
this.”

Fadan cleared his throat and steadied his breathing, then looked at his hands. He tapped his power, and even though the Transmogaphon didn’t allow him to clearly feel how much Runium he still had, he knew it was plenty. He tested his powers, using the warm up ritual Sabium had taught him, and a blue aura shone around his hands and wrists, spreading down his arms.

“I’m going to
do
this!”

Fadan wasn’t planning on springing Doric out of jail that night. He knew that to pull it off a lot of preparation would be required, and he didn’t even have a plan yet. The first step then, was doing some scouting. Fadan decided to begin right away. He was just too excited to simply go to sleep.

The first problem he had to solve was entering the dungeons. Using the same sewage entrance as the last time was out of the question. The door Aric had shown him required a climb, which would be impossible to do while dematerialized, and Fadan had a feeling that opening it would not be as easy this time. It was, however, still an option for the escape.

The dungeons were located in the underground section of the Legion’s Headquarters, a large, stone building that looked more like a vault than it did a Palace.

Fadan left his room, climbing down his window just as he had dozens of times the last couple of months. This time, however, instead of heading for either the sewers or his hideout, Fadan sneaked towards the gigantic rectangle that was the Legion’s Headquarters.

Getting inside wasn’t too hard. The main gate was, of course, guarded, but armed with his new spell, any of the dozens of side and back doors feeding the building would do. He chose one at random and found himself inside a darkened corridor, dozens of non-descript doors flanking him. He penetrated the building, casting a tiny ball of fire, which he kept in the palm of his hand, to light the way forward.

The decoration of the building was suitably austere. Occasional statues of great Generals were interspersed with long, hanging banners of famous Legions.

It didn’t take long before he found the first patrol. The pair of Legionaries droned across a corridor, far too drowsy to ever notice him hiding behind the hanging banner of the Fifty Seventh Legion of Awam. The more he dug into the building, however, the more numerous the patrols became. He was forced to patiently inch forward from one shadowed nook to the other, timing his movements to coincide with the Legionaries turning his back on him.

Aric would have loved this,
he thought.

He, however, was definitely far more nervous than he was excited. Or maybe terrified was a better word.

Fadan eventually found the entrance to the dungeons, a thick, wooden door at the bottom of a narrow staircase. Unfortunately, it was being guarded by a sergeant, rigidly standing at attention beneath a torch.

In his discussions with Sabium, Fadan had learned about the existence of dozens of spells that would have been useful to him right now; spells that enhanced his hearing and vision, spells that allowed him to detect nearby people no matter what objects stood in the way, spells that created illusions or somehow played with other people’s senses, making them hear or see things that weren’t really there, the list went on and on. At the time, Fadan had considered the ability to cross walls the only truly essential one for this particular goal. Now, however, he was reconsidering that notion.

The problem was that he had overestimated the advantages of the dematerializing spell. Not knowing what was on the other side of a wall, for example, made it impossible to cross at will, because he never knew if he would land on a clear space, or right in the middle of a shelf. He could always not rematerialize if he found himself within a piece of furniture, but that meant he would also fall through the floor, and he had no way of knowing what would be down there either.

This meant that he had had to abandon his technique of blindly jumping at walls. Therefore, the only safe approach, when he didn’t know where he was jumping to, was to only cross doors, as the likelihood of there being something standing on the other side was minuscule. Unfortunately, as it turned out, crossing doors wasn’t a very helpful ability to have when trying to access a prison complex.

There was only one way he was going to get inside. He would have to distract the guard long enough to cross the door. At least he wouldn’t have to come back through here on his way out. He could always drop through to the sewage tunnel Aric had shown him.

Fadan crouched. He was at the top of the stairs, hiding just around the corner that led down to the dungeons. He could see the guard’s steel helmet down below, reflecting the torch’s light like a fireball.

It gave Fadan an idea. After all, he
did
know a couple other spells.

He tapped his power and ran the usual test, just to make sure he didn’t mess the spell up. Then, he focused on the flames. He visualized the flames in his head, making sure his mental image perfectly mimicked the real ones. Then, he saw them burst upwards, as if a bottle of brandy had spilled on them.