The Wizard And The Dragon (22 page)

What I had seen in
the study was not enough to sway my decision. The bookshelves may have been
lined with books that shouldn’t exist yet, but that didn’t stop me from trying
to recreate Bryce’s first day as best as I could. I wondered if it was a futile
endeavor. I may have already made mistakes and misremembered things.

Still,
I was ready for the boy in the morning. I brought up a fresh bucket of water
and placed it on the table with cleaned plates, utensils, and the gemstones I
had collected. He woke up and came down the stairs as I recalled doing. I
remembered my intention of slipping out unnoticed and smiled warmly when I
caught the boy’s eye.

I
motioned to the chair across the table and he took his place. I gave him a few
moments to consider everything on the table and myself. I used the time to
prepare what I had to say. Lies were necessary, I could see the wisdom in that
even early on. If I had been told the truth, that this strange man was myself
all grown up and sent back to protect me, I’m not sure if I would have
understood. At the very least I would have thought the man mad and ran back out
into the wilderness.

I
knew also that it wasn’t just enough to lie. I needed to make the boy believe
it so he would settle quickly enough that I could begin teaching him. I only
had a year, I reminded myself bitterly. A year to make the boy self-sufficient
before I was gone.

“Bryce,”
I said. “Your name is Bryce.”

He
nodded.

“You
must be hungry,” I said, and swept my hand over the gemstones.

He
put a hand on his stomach as I spoke but also looked at me strangely, not
understanding what the gemstones had to do with what I said.

“Yes,
sir.”

I
picked up one of the gems—a green one. Normally I would have placed it onto the
plate in the middle of the table and transformed it to the first idea that my
stomach gave me, but I stopped myself. I narrowed my eyes at the gem and tried
to remember what the first meal had been. I strained my memory but couldn’t
recall. The boy was staring at me. I needed to act.

I
flicked the gem toward the plate and made a show of morphing it as it fell
through the air. I finished the spell off with a burst of light from a small
amount of leftover energy caught in the gem. It was an unnecessary addition but
it felt right at the time. The boy turned his head from the light and was
unable to see the grin I had from showing off to my younger self.

The
plate was full of food. A roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots, turnip, and a
small loaf of soft bread. The boy’s eyes boggled in his head at the feast that
had seemingly came out of nowhere, and he wasted no time in eating directly
from the large plate. I stared at the food with confusion at first. I didn’t
recognize this as the meal I ate on my first day in the tower.

“That
wasn’t right,” I said to myself. I shook my head in confusion. I was suddenly
unsure if I had already made a mistake.

Eventually
I joined the boy in the meal. I was hungrier than I expected to be. So much of
my time had been spent getting prepared that I hadn’t eaten since going through
the windowed room. We ate about a quarter of the food in total before we were
both full. The boy leaned back in the chair with his hands on his belly.

“Feel
better?” I asked.

He
nodded.

“Good.
Last night I said we would talk. We have some things to do today but you can
ask questions for now, if you like,” I said as I leaned back in my chair.

I
tried to remember what the first question would be before he asked it, but the
boy was too quick.

“What
are you?” he blurted out and the memory of it hit me along with the question. I
started laughing, both at the ridiculousness of the question and how startled I
had been when it had ripped out of my mouth when I had been the boy. I
remembered the momentary panic I had about offending the stranger and laughed
harder.

“Oh,”
I said, as the laugh settled. “What am I? It’s a fair question. I would ask it
too. I am a wizard. I am a man too, like you will be someday,” I smiled at that.
“But I am also a wizard. Magic is the only thing that is different between us.”

The
boy nodded and I remembered the next question I asked as he did so. I readied
myself to begin the lie.

“What
is your name?” he asked.

“I
don’t have a name,” I said. I forced a smile on my face and continued, “I was
born here and have lived in here all my life.” I felt a lump grow in my throat.
“Sometimes I’ve had guests and
things
have invaded over the years, but
there’s never been a need for names. I am part of the tower more than anything
now. Call me that if you need a name. Tower.”

He
believed the lies just as easily as I had back then. I kept the smile on my
face but inside my guts felt like they were being wrenched together.

“Do
dragons ever come here?” was the boy’s third question.

At
least it was one I could answer truthfully. I shook my head.

“How
do you know?”

The
dragon had been so important to me back then. I tried to put myself in place of
the boy once more, having just seen the monster engulf my entire life and home.
It had been such a huge part of my life back then. It was strange how distant
it seemed now.

He
continued his questions. At the end of it, I had explained some of the magic of
elemental familiars and the tower, frightened him away from the cellar door,
and offered him the room as a permanent place to stay. I had gotten through the
first step. I knew next I had to lead him up to the roof.

On
the way I stopped and explained which floor of the tower was mine. I kept the
door closed so I didn’t overwhelm him. We passed the empty rooms near the top
and I kept a close watch on him out of the corner of my eye. I remembered one
thing clearly about that first climb: how afraid I had been of falling.

At
the top, before we stepped out onto the roof, I pointed out the channel that
ran through the wall of the tower.

“Did
you notice this as we came up here?”

He
shook his head and I watched as he leaned closer to it. He ran one his fingers
through the groove in the wall and frowned at the dirt that rubbed onto him.

“This
runs along the stairs,” I explained. “It winds all the way to the bottom.
Follow me now.”

I
kept pointing at the channel as I stepped onto the roof. The boy stopped at the
doorway as if he was reluctant to step outside. I couldn’t remember doing that
and waved him closer to me. He looked scared as he shifted over the roof to
stand next to me. He kept close.

I
moved the rain water barrel closer to the doorway and explained how the water
collected in the compartment in the wall. Despite how hard I was trying to word
everything to match my memory, I enjoyed the look of wonder as I gave him the
warm, enchanted water to hold. His eyes lit up as the gems released their magic
and even then I saw the beginnings of how magic would replace the missing
pieces of his, and my, life.

A
red gem was placed above the water in the bowl and I gave a second one to the
boy. I had a moment of hesitation before I sent him down the stairs. I
remembered that first farren attack all too well and I hoped that things would
repeat the same way and that he would survive it.

When
he raced down the stairs I stood as close to the doorway without stepping into
the tower. His footsteps grew distant until I couldn’t hear them anymore. The
gem above the bowl began to drip water and still I hadn’t heard the boy scream
out about the monster.

I
began to wonder if my Tower had not been feigning ignorance all those years
ago, and that he truly hadn’t heard me. I remember how shocked he looked when I
told him about the monster.

A
few more minutes went by and just as I was about to go down and check on him, I
heard his footsteps on the stairs. I shifted back to the compartment and stared
at the water.

“The
water made it! I put the gem in,” he said after bursting onto the roof.

I
furrowed my eyes at him and titled my head slightly, a habit I must have
learned from Candle.

“That’s
all? Nothing else?”

“Nothing
else,” he said slowly and his eyes widened. “Did I do it wrong? Was something
else supposed to happen?”

“No,”
I answered firmly. “No,” I repeated, softer. “I’m sorry, you did nothing wrong.
The water is coming from here now. Follow me. I need to check something.”

I
hurried down the stairs. The air rushed passed my face as I descended quickly.
I felt like things were already spiraling out of control. I tried to convince
myself that our breakfast must have been over a little faster. The water must
have ran down the tower a little quicker. The farren wasn’t through the door
just yet but would be soon.

The
boy took each step carefully and I left him trailing behind me. The monster
would barge in at any moment and I needed to place myself between it and my
younger self. When I reached the bottom I put a hand in my pocket and
preemptively squeezed my fingers around some gems.

My
eyes were locked on the door. There were no noises. I was already worrying when
Bryce stopped behind me, panting from having run up the stairs and then
following me back down again. The only sounds were his breathing. There was
nothing behind the door.

Had
I already made too big of a mistake? I thought back to my version of this day.
Tower had seemed genuinely surprised when I told him about the monster. Had he
set up barriers and they failed? Was there no attack when he had been a boy?
The thought of my Tower as the boy behind me threatened to cascade into a
barrage of questions and thoughts. I thought of my sanity and the words in the
windowed room and ignored the questions.

“I
have to go down there,” I said without looking back at Bryce. “I want you to
move to the front door and stay there. If anything comes out of there that
isn’t me, anything at all, you open the door and run. Do you understand?”

My
perception of what was going on bled into my memory of the day. I had been
scared. I remembered watching Tower leave, his back to me, as I walked forward
now and left the boy. It was all too similar but too different at the same
time. It felt wrong.

I
opened the door and walked down the stairs without closing it. I waited until I
was halfway down the stairs before I brought Candle out. He looked angry and
confused—I hadn’t had time to explain everything to him yet. I soothed him by
channeling short bursts of energy through my hand.

The
first barrier in the cellar was intact. I studied it closely to look for signs
of damage. Maybe this time the farren had given up. There were no cracks on the
surface and I shrunk the barrier. I stepped into the tunnels and carried on.

I
was underground for a number of hours. I searched each tunnel meticulously. I
even forced myself down the slope and checked all the way through to the
chamber of statues. None of the barriers showed signs of tampering. Even the
ones closest to the underground were as sturdy as I had made them.

My
mind wandered back to my Tower. When he had been a boy there must not have been
an attack, so he didn’t think it was necessary to set up the barriers that I
had. And what about his Tower, had he remembered to set them up like I had? Was
there a cycle to how the older me and the younger me interacted? Was this
something that alternated each time? A farren coming up the cellar for me, none
for the boy waiting for me upstairs. When it’s his turn there will be an attack
that he won’t expect. He’ll think the past has changed, just like I did now.

My
head hurt. The pain intensified when I tested my memories. Had those changed
too? Were there rules to what I was doing? Could things change without changing
me?

Back
in the cellar I filled another bucket of water and climbed up to the tower. I
extinguished Candle and placed him in my pocket before we got too close to the
top of the stairs. Bryce was still standing at the door. I tried not to let my
concern show on my face.

We
sat at the table and we ate another meal. The boy ate heartily and asked me a
stream of questions about the stairway. When we were finished we set about
cleaning the room. I wondered how many years the tower had been vacant before I
stumbled into it. There was a surprising amount of dirt for a place that was
meant to be hidden.

The
afternoon turned to evening and I watched as my younger self marvel at the
sparkling gleam that now ran through the tower. I remembered that moment, the
second time that magic enraptured my imagination. I smiled at him.

The
smile turned into a scowl as I remembered the warning I had to give him before
he went to bed. I called out to him as he was climbing the stairs. He looked at
me happily, eager to hear something else about the magic around him.

“You’ll
soon be able to answer some questions yourself, Bryce. When we’ve cleaned the
rest of the tower I’ll have to go back into the tunnels. You should get
prepared. You’ll be coming with me.”

I
forced myself not to look away as I saw his expression become conflicted, torn
between excitement and fear. He nodded once and then went up to his room.

I
didn’t enjoy scaring the boy, but I wasn’t sure what was vital to creating the
wizard that I was now. I remembered how frightened I had been trying to sleep
that night, but it taught me to respect and fear the tunnels. It served as a
way to temper my curiosity. It was hard to judge if that had saved my life when
I explored the tunnels my first time alone.

In
the study I sat at my desk and began to write. I tried to collect my memories
of the year I had lived with Tower. It was an attempt to separate what I could
safely change and what was essential for the survival of both of us. It was
only one year but it was an important one.