The Wizard And The Dragon (12 page)

He
shook his head and said nothing else. His eyes were moving around the room as
if they couldn’t decide what to settle on. It was an expression I had never
seen on Tower’s face before. I think it was fear.

He
walked away and went inside his bedroom. Even the chance of a glimpse inside
there wasn’t enough to take me away from the other door. After seeing the study
and the mines I thought I had learned all of the exciting, dangerous places of
the tower. I went to bed that night with my imagination burning with ideas of
what could possibly be locked inside.

That
same imagination gave me one of my worst nightmares that night. It had been
weeks since my previous one and I had hoped that they were behind me.

In
the dream I was outside collecting leaves and I walked too far from the tower.
Something pressed me away and urged me further into the forest and I could
never find my way back. Even though the trees were bare from the approaching winter
I was still stifling hot as I wandered through the trees. It felt like summer
in my dream.

The
forest surrounded me and became denser with trees the longer I walked. The
trees felt alive and could move closer to me when I wasn’t looking at them. It
frightened me and I ran until I hit a wall of them, as if the trees had merged
together like the gemstones in Tower’s study.

I
turned behind me and saw that I was trapped in a circle of them with no gap big
enough to squeeze through. The sound of something creaking and cracking
assaulted my ears and I turned to see branches stretching out to me like
clawed, bony hands. They froze when I looked at them but I heard more sounds
behind me. I couldn’t keep my eyes on all of the trees at once. Some of them
would always be moving to grab me.

I
kept my eyes on the nearest tree and jumped at it. The noise behind me
increased and was joined by a stomping noise, as if something colossal was
marching behind me. I climbed as fast as I could, not daring to look behind me.
I was too afraid to see what was chasing me. I was too afraid that the tree I
was climbing would start moving if I looked away.

The
tree was impossibly tall as I climbed higher, as if its trunk kept stretching
all the way up into the clouds. Inexplicably, the higher I climbed the louder
the crackling noise became until it suddenly wasn’t a tree at all. I was
climbing a stone wall. The nightmare changed instantly, as dreams often do, and
I was no longer in the forest. I was climbing the wall in my village.

The
crackling sound was the fire. There was too much smoke to see anything and I
fell, my hands slipped from the wall as though the smoke reminded me of the ash
that coated it and made me loose my grip. I landed on my feet and there were no
piles of bodies to greet me this time. The villagers weren’t dead yet and were
scrambling around me. All of them were on fire and all of them were screaming.

I
didn’t have time to run. A crash came from above the smoke. It sounded like
thunder but I knew better. I stared up at the direction of the sound and felt
helpless. I knew it was the dragon before another crash came and its wings
parted the smoke and revealed its body. It was looking at me.

The
sounds of the dream turned to silence. The dragon reared its head as though it
was roaring but I heard no noise. The fire began to swirl around its tail and
wings and spread over its body toward its mouth. It was still looking at me. I
raised my hands.

The
nightmare was real to me and I groped for my focus. The fire concentrated
around the dragon’s mouth and poured down at me. My mouth contorted into a
scream that I couldn’t hear and I tried uselessly to catch the fire in my
hands, to hold it like Tower could. The flames washed over me and I burned. My
flesh ruptured and my blood boiled on my skin.

Even
in my dream I failed to control fire.

In the early days
of winter I spent a lot of time on the roof. The tower was caught in the
awkward phase before the temperature became consistently cold. Snow fell and
then melted the next day. In the morning I might wrap myself up in the furs on
my bed to keep warm, but by evening the tower might be too hot now that an
extra gem had been added to the water.

The
roof offered an escape from the heat on the warmer evenings. The chill of the
air would be cool and pleasant on my skin, if only for a little while. Some
nights I would climb up there to escape from potential nightmares. The skyline
that I used to find so unnerving now had a reassuring effect. I felt confident
that nothing would be able to see me and I could confirm that there was no
dragon nearby in safety. Sometimes it helped me sleep.

Each
day was now filled with more lessons. Tower focused solely on magic and left me
to continue reading in my own time. He pressed me to learn quickly but also
expertly knew when to slow down on some of the more complicated techniques. It
was as if he knew ahead of time which areas I would find the most troublesome.

One
night, after dinner, he cleared the table so that there was nothing between us
except for his bag of gemstones. I moved my chair and sat close to him. We
shared a corner of the table.

“You’ve
developed your focus well so far,” he said. “You could be faster with it but
some things come with time, not just practice. So far you are using your magic
like you use your eyes to read. It’s an accomplishment but you should also be
able to change things. You should be able to use your magic to write.”

I
looked from him to the bag on the table. I shifted in my chair.

“Relax.
You’re ready. Now watch closely,” he said softly.

The
drawstring on the bag began to move independently. I heard the sound of it
scraping through the holes along the rim of the bag, but Tower wasn’t touching
it. I reached out with my focus and felt his presence manipulating the string
and then moving into the gems. They clinked against each other as he surrounded
one of the stones. I felt him grasp it and then levitate it out onto the table.

“That’s
amazing,” I whispered.

“Do
you still think magic is doing the impossible?”

I
looked once again away from him and to the table. My eyes shifted between the
bag and the gemstone. I turned back to him and reluctantly nodded.

“Sorry,”
I muttered and lowered my head.

“That’s
all right, Bryce. Remember the last time I asked you that question. We spoke
about the apple tree. What did you say was impossible about that scenario?”

“The
speed that the tree grew. It was too fast,” I replied.

“Good.
What do you think is impossible this time? What happened?”

“You
moved something without touching it. That’s impossible.”

“Very
good. You think it’s impossible because you do not yet understand what’s
happening,” he explained. “The special quality that wizards have is their
ability to manipulate energy in all of its forms. Keep that in mind. I am going
to move the stone again. This time, I want you to focus yourself on me instead
of the gem. If you do that, I think you’ll understand.”

I
nodded and took a deep breath before finding my focus once more. I did as Tower
asked and centered myself on him and ignored the table. For the first time I
felt him acknowledge my presence with something akin to a gentle tap. It
reverberated back to my chest and I smiled at the sensation.

He
started to gather energy after he knew I was watching. It reminded of the day
he had channeled fire over his body and shoulders when he burned the farren
monster to death. The energy looked like a pale blue that swirled around his
arm and then reached out to the table. I felt it envelope the gemstone and then
lift it, the trail of energy still connected back to Tower’s body.

He
abruptly broke the channel and it was gone. The stone fell back onto the table
and he turned to me.

“Still
impossible?” Tower asked.

“No.
I think I get it.”

“Ah,”
he smiled. “Explain it to me then.”

“It
would still be impossible if you weren’t touching it but you are,” I stopped
after I said that, thinking I might be wrong. A grin crossed over Tower’s face
and I was encouraged to continue. “You reach out with something other than your
body. You’re connected to the stone for a few moments by changing the energy
between you. Though, I don’t know how you did that,” I added sullenly.

“Well
done, yes. Think of it like heat or light. You can see the source of where
they’re coming from, usually fire, but you can still feel their effects even if
you aren’t touching them. The energy is reaching you. Wizards are capable of
changing energy into other forms, from magic to light or heat. Or from the
energy within ourselves into kinetic energy.

“This
is the easiest kind of manipulation there is, both to learn and to use,” he
continued. “Changing the energy within yourself into fire is not only difficult
but it leaves you drained of most of the fuel you have stored from eating.
That’s why gemstones are so important. You use energy from them instead of your
own.”

Tower
reached over and cleared the table again. He placed his right hand down on top
of it, palm up, and I saw the energy build around his arm even without finding
my focus. The fire lashed out as it raced down his arm and joined at his hand.
I leaned back in my seat as far as I could.

The
flames shot up without warning and roared through the tower. I craned my head
and saw that they reached up like a pillar, burning through the center of the
room. I looked at Tower and saw the sweat that was already pouring down his
face. I knew, somehow, that it was from the exertion of the spell rather than
the heat of the fire.

When
the fire stopped he slumped forward and braced himself on the table. The
roaring sound of the fire was gone and I could now hear him panting as if he
had just run all the way to the top of the tower.

“I
may have tried too hard to show off there,” he said and laughed between deep
breaths. “The wizard from your village. A frail man? Not interested in maintaining
his body?”

I
was taken aback by the change in subject but I thought back to my meetings with
him. He had been old but also thinner than other elderly men. He had been all
skin and bone with hardly any muscle to speak of. I nodded, impressed by his
guess.

“That
is not me and it shall not be you. A wizard must be strong physically as well
as mentally. The fire I just created would have likely killed him,” he said
flatly. “From now on you will exercise your body every day. The stronger your
flesh is, the more energy that it can withstand and conduct.”

I
kept my eyes on him as he spoke. I couldn’t believe how exhausted he suddenly
looked. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Ah,”
he smiled. “From the look on your face I think you understand why you should
mainly use gems for magic. Go down to the cellar in the morning and get
yourself a pouch. You’ll keep a small stash on you for emergencies like I do.
Only draw on the energy of your body if your life depends on it.”

He
tried to get up and groaned. He fell back onto the chair and winced.

“Or
if you want to foolishly impress your apprentice,” he muttered.

He
reached down for the bag of gems and placed them back on the table. Even though
we just had dinner he created another meal from one of the gems. He immediately
started eating like it was the first time he had eaten in days. I went down to
the cellar to get him some water and he was still eating when I got back.

“Thank
you,” he said before gulping down a cup of water.

When
he was finally finished, and he had eaten twice as much as he usually did, he
placed the empty cup in front of me. He suspended what was left of the meal and
moved it to the opposite end of the table. He gestured toward the cup.

“Before
bed, I want you to try to move that with your magic,” he said. “You might not
be able to lift it tonight, but try to give it a nudge. Don’t be afraid to get
it wrong.”

I
sat up straight and looked at the cup like it was the most complicated thing I
had ever seen. I gathered my focus and surrounded the cup with it, just like I
had when witnessing all of Tower’s spells and channeling before. I thought
about making the cup move by imagining it. I pictured it floating in my head
and nothing happened.

After
a few minutes I switched to a different tactic. I visualized a building force
in my head and then pushed out with it against the cup. Still, nothing happened
except my head started to hurt. I released my focus and turned to Tower.

“I
can’t do it,” I said.

“You
can’t do it, yet,” he said, with a strong emphasis on the final word. “You’re
trying to move it with your mind. That
is
impossible. Remember, you must
be connected to the object with your magic. Move it with that.”

I
turned back to the cup and tried again. After a few more minutes of nothing
happening I began to get frustrated. It felt like I was trying to write a word
without knowing what it looked like. I was about to give up again when I
thought back to what I had seen Tower do.

I
remembered the flow of energy that had protruded out of his hand and onto the
table. It wasn’t enough to move my focus to the cup, I had to reach out through
that as well. I put my right hand on the table and I felt my forearm begin to
ache as if I was straining to lift something heavy. It didn’t hurt but it was
close.

Through
that I grasped the cup but it still didn’t move. I remembered how Tower had
nudged me with his presence when I honed in on him. I tried to recreate that
with the cup and it shifted in front of me. I had lifted one side of it up
slightly and I was so shocked that it worked that I panicked. I lost my
concentration and the cup fell back onto the table, spinning around with the
force I had pushed into it.

“I
did it!” I yelled, not caring that I only created a small tap. It was the first
tangible thing I had done with my magic. Until that moment I hadn’t really
believed that I was a wizard like Tower. All of the work of the previous months
had been validated all at once.

The
next few weeks brought a flurry of progress. Each day I practiced moving things
along with reading, writing, and drawing in my book. Each day I could move
something a little more and I was already feeling the effects of drawing power
from my own body.

I
exercised regularly by running up and down the stairs, from the floor up to the
roof. Falling from the stairs was still a fear of mine so I kept close to the
wall each time I ran. After feeling drained from using magic I understood the
importance of keeping my body strong. I also had a new found respect for
Tower’s abilities now that I understood how strong he must be to channel so
much fire.

During
those weeks Tower made smaller meals each night. He showed me that gems could
be split as well as merged together. He had me focus on the smaller gems as he
transformed them into food so I could learn their patterns.

After
a dozen examples he started halting the process half-way through. The pattern
would be visible to me but the gem was caught, shining brightly, just before it
would turn into the meal. He would have me guess what the food would be based
on the pattern. It was in this way that I first started learning how to
manipulate the energy found in gems.

Patterns
were hard to remember and I was wrong more often than not. Still, Tower was
patient with me and we created more food than we needed. I was happy to eat
more since I was burning so much energy while I practiced moving objects.

“Here,”
Tower said one day. “I think you should, ah, ‘cook’ for us tonight.”

He
placed a red gem in the middle of the table.

“What
should I make?” I asked as I took my seat.

“An
apple. It’s a fitting start, I think. You’ve been able to identify that one the
most. You want to move your focus inside the gem instead of around it. You want
to move and change what’s inside the gem, not the gem itself. Imprint the pattern
onto the energy while drawing it out.”

I
took a deep breath and slowly exhaled through my teeth.

I
reached out and touched the gemstone with my focus. I had gotten better at
handling it since I started moving things. My other senses could work in tandem
with my magical one. I could feel the weight and texture of the gemstone as if
I was holding it my hand. I could see the vibrations of the potential energy
trapped in the stone.

Slipping
into the gem was easier than I thought it would be. It was more a matter of
letting go of the preconception that barriers were physical obstacles. I had to
remind myself that the rules that applied to my physical body weren’t always
imposed on my magical sense and, if I kept that in the forefront of my
thoughts, I could move into the heart of the gem.

From
then on the evening was full of mistakes. The first time I tried to effect a
change on the magic of the gem I ended up reshaping its mass instead of
imprinting the pattern of the apple. I drew back, thinking I was successful,
and saw that the gem was now rough and misshapen. It looked like a bumpy rock
instead of a smooth stone.

My
second attempt was at least successful in manipulating the energy. The pattern
I used was wrong and resulted in a burst of white light that consumed the
entire gem. It was blindingly bright and hovered in the air above the table as
if I summoned a star into the room. It refused to fade and continued shining
until Tower condensed the energy back into a gem. It was much smaller after
that, having been used to create the light.