Wizards (4 page)

She put out her hand and hauled me to my feet. "Do you have any ideas as to the how?"

I reached for the small backpack I was carrying and removed the bag containing Mum's stones.

"These stones are at least as lucky as his and they are freshly empowered."

"Why did you bring them here?" Esmeralda asked as the girls shared the stones out.

"I wanted to trade these for a trinket for a gift for my girlfriend. I had no idea they could do such damage," I told her as I rubbed my jaw. If there was an Olympic sport called 'face slapping', this girl would be certain for gold.

"Do you realize how incredibly stupid that sounds?" she asked and I nodded.

"Do you also know you can withdraw the luck from the stones you gave the Master?" she asked and this time she was grinning. I shook my head in astonishment.

"You are truly a most ignorant wizard," she said. "But I've decided you aren't an evil one."

****

"This is really pretty," Jenny said when I gave her a small, exquisitely decorated china pot with lid. "It's a shame the lid is stuck."

"Best not to try and open it," I said hurriedly, though I didn't think any power on earth could do it.

"Did you find it in one of the antique shops in town?" Jenny asked.

"I was given it by a friend, for safe keeping."

"You mean it isn't yours to give away?"

"Oh, she suggested I give it to you. She regards me as a bit of a klutz."

"It will look good on the mantelpiece and you must introduce me to this perceptive friend of yours, one day."

'I would if I could,' I thought.

Esmeralda had to teach me how to shrink and place the Master into that pot and seal him in. Killing him would have been a much lesser punishment than imprisoning him forever inside a pretty piece of pottery.

Chapter Four: Fluffy to the Rescue

I
f you happen to be an eighteen year old wizard from the valleys of Wales and you should happen to have a girl friend of similar age and you also happen to have a pet dragon, I have some advice for you. Don't let your girlfriend find out about your dragon. Let me explain.

Jenny Owen is my first proper girlfriend. This was not for lack of trying on my part, but while girls are often attracted to a 'bit of rough', a 'bit of strange' tends to weird them out and they go elsewhere in search of kicks. Jenny, on the other hand, seems to find the magical side of my life fascinating and is always going on at me to tell her stories of the things that have happened to me.

Despite this encouragement, I worked hard to keep Fluffy's existence a secret. I think of Fluffy as my pet dragon though pet isn't really the appropriate word. I have come to suspect Fluffy is entirely as clever as I am and the truth is we have been mutual friends ever since he worked out I wasn't his real mother.

Fluffy is about fifteen foot from head to tail and has a wingspan of thirty feet or so. He looks a little like those dungeons and dragon statues you see in shops, except his front claws are more like hands, his wings are more elegant and his face is less lizard-like. Not that you would notice any of these things if you were to meet him. What you would wonder at was the beauty of his iridescent orange and green scales.

He was not always this big of course. When I stole his egg from his mother's nest it was about the size of a tennis ball. He's grown a lot recently.

It's his increasing size that led to Jenny finding out about him. I was reading the local paper in her parent's house while she was busy making us a cup of tea. The newspaper was open, I found the front page and folded the paper back. The headline on the front caused me to let out an uncharacteristic yelp.

"Fluffy, you'll have to be more careful," I said after giving said yelp.

"About what? And who's Fluffy?" Jenny asked as she looked over my shoulder.

'MASSIVE BLACK CAT STALKS THE HILLS OF WALES! '

The headline read. A blurry blow up of a photograph showed a long dark shape against a rock strewn background. The shape appeared to be eating something. I scanned the article quickly before I answered Jenny.

'This is the first photograph of the mysterious big cat that has been stalking the hills and valleys around Snowdon. Wilfred Jones, a local shepherd took this photograph at dusk on Wednesday. By the time he reached the scene, the cat had fled, taking its prey with it. Mountain farmers have been complaining for some time that sheep have been disappearing in increasing numbers, though up to this time it had been believed sheep rustlers were the culprits.

Stories of big cats, panthers or even tigers, have been common in England and Wales, but this is the first photograph that gives any proof to the story. Local shepherds are planning a hunting expedition to track down and kill the beast. Your intrepid reporter plans to bring you news of the hunt next week as I have been invited to take part
.'

"That's your cat?" Jenny asked me in an accusing tone of voice. "You have a panther as a pet and you never told me?"

"Fluffy is not a cat," I replied angrily. "It's just that he's very fond of roast lamb."

"Your Panther catches sheep and takes them back for you to cook?" Jenny asked in outrage. "What kind of a man are you, Jake?"

"Fluffy is not a panther. He's a dragon," I explained. "And he cooks his own food with his own built in flame-thrower."

"You have a dragon called Fluffy?" Jenny asked, leaving her mouth attractively open at the end of the sentence. Jenny has a very attractive mouth and the O it formed made me want to cuddle and kiss her.

"When he first hatched he had feathers, but they fell off," I told Jenny as if that explained everything.

"You have a dragon here in Wales and you never took me to see him?" Jenny said in a tone of voice that informed me if I didn't rectify this situation soon I would be short one girlfriend.

"It's not that simple…," I said. But I was soon to find out it was.

You can take the blindfold off now," I informed Jenny and she dragged the scarf from her eyes. Standing before her on all fours with his wings neatly folded against his body, Fluffy looked at her curiously.

I was expecting Jenny to scream, or possibly to faint in shock. What she did was extremely surprising. She put out her hands and smiled warmly at my dragon.

"Oh, you are the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. How could you let him call you Fluffy?"

Jenny and I had cycled to a place close to the secret cave entrance that led to Fluffy and the immense cavern I referred to as the Bat Cave. When we parked the bikes under a large bush I made Jenny put on a blindfold and led her round on a circular route that finally led back to my hinged boulder door. Only when we walked all the way into the Bat Cave through the long stone tunnel did I let her take off the blindfold. I couldn't take the risk she might bring someone else here and put Fluffy's life in danger.

Fluffy is very partial to flattery, and while he's never made anything more comprehensible than 'meeping' sounds I'm sure he fully understands English. He shuffled towards Jenny, balancing on his short back legs and gently put his arms around her. Then he gave her a long reptilian lick across her face.

Jenny laughed in delight.

"You're so beautiful. Come, so I can see you in the light."

Fluffy was only too willing to oblige and was soon posing like a supermodel in front of the massive entrance that opened out halfway up the cliff. It couldn't be seen from outside unless you looked at it directly because of some magic I placed over it. It was the spot Fluffy flew from every day.

Jenny turned to me and punched me so hard I almost fell over.

"How could you keep him from me?"

"How was I supposed to know you were a dragon lover?" I replied rubbing the spot she punched to ease the pain. Jenny ignored me, placed an arm over Fluffy's back, and began to stroke him gently near his wings. Fluffy began to croon in a way I've never heard before and arched his long neck around to stare lovingly into Jenny's eyes. Their obvious closeness was beginning to make me feel jealous, though I wasn't entirely clear in my feelings as to which of these two I was being jealous about. I love them both though I wasn't planning to tell either of them anytime soon.

"Fluffy often carries me on his back when he goes flying," I said. I think I was trying to make Jenny jealous.

"Isn't that uncomfortable, with his wings flapping?"

"He rarely flaps his wings," I explained, "Dragons fly by magic and the wings are more like stabilizer wheels. Flying with Fluffy is like sitting on the outside of a glider."

"Will you take me flying?" Jenny asked Fluffy and he nodded eagerly. Again, I felt a twinge of jealously as he never nodded his head like that for me.

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea," I said backtracking rapidly, "What if you were to fall off him or something?"

"I've been riding horses since I was four," Jenny replied a little contemptuously. "If you can ride him, I'm sure I can too."

I gave up and showed Jenny how to mount Fluffy and where to hold on. Fluffy was so eager that as soon as Jenny was mounted he rushed to the entrance and dived out.

"Watch out for his landings!" I called after them, though I'm sure neither of them was listening to me.

I sat down in the armchair I had painstakingly brought up to the Bat Cave some months before and settled down to wait for their return. I hoped it wasn't going to be too long because I was already feeling lonely.

Jenny felt exhilarated as Fluffy dived out of the cavern and down the face of the cliff. She wasn't frightened in the slightest. As she held tight to Fluffy's warm snake-like skin she knew she was safe, that Fluffy would never allow her to come to harm. She was also sure he was showing off.

Jenny felt like she was riding a rollercoaster as the young dragon spread his wings and pulled out of his dive without the slightest effort. Jenny couldn't stop herself from laughing out loud, as they rose high up into the sky leaving mountains behind as they soared into the blue.

"It's so wonderful," she told the dragon as she hugged him. He turned his neck so he could see her and grinned. Jenny wondered how and why she and Fluffy bonded so tightly on first sight. It was as though there had been an invisible hole in her life she only noticed when Fluffy arrived to plug it.

Fluffy started to do some fancy flying, rolling across the sky in increasingly tight figures of eight. Jenny often felt sick on fairground rides, but not on Fluffy. She giggled and held on tighter to the dragon's neck.

Eventually Fluffy returned to horizontal flight and Jenny took the time to look at the magnificent landscape below. The Snowdonia National Park is one of the most beautiful places in the world with majestic hills and deep winding valleys. It's a landscape embedded deep in the hearts of the Welsh.

Fluffy took them lower as his keen eyesight noticed movement at the top of a ridge. A group of men walked the ridge some way in front of them and it looked as though they carried shotguns.

"Don't get any closer," Jenny advised. "Jake told me the local farmers were going to try and find what's been killing their sheep. That's you, according to Jake."

Fluffy gave out a meeping sound Jenny knew was dragon laughter. He began to bank so they could turn away long before they reached the hunting party.

A man lagging behind the other members of the party was busy taking pictures. He stood right at the edge of the ridge trying to take photographs straight down its face. Then he turned towards them with his camera raised.

Perhaps he caught a glimpse of Fluffy through the lens. Whatever the reason was, he stepped backwards and fell straight over the edge.

Fluffy passed over the ridge as the man fell out of sight.

"We have to go back, Fluffy," Jenny urged. "That man fell over the cliff and he may be injured."

Privately, she thought he must be dead. The drop to the bottom of the cliff was hundreds of feet and the ridgeline looked close to vertical. Fluffy meeped his understanding and continued to turn in a widening circle that would lead them back to the ridge in line with where the man had been standing.

Jenny saw the man's camera smashed on the rocks below, but there was no sign of the man himself. Fluffy turned his head towards her and lifted Jenny's head by placing his tongue under her chin and pushing. She spotted him. A dozen feet or so down from the top of the cliff a solitary weedy bush had grown out of a small overhang of rock. Clinging to it for his life was the man. It looked as though he wouldn't be there much longer and the fall would mean his certain death.

"Can you fly so I can grab him?" Jenny asked and Fluffy gave out a tremulous meep somewhere between a yes and no. "Will you try?" Jenny asked and Fluffy swung round to fly parallel to the rock face.

His wingtip was only inches from the side of the cliff as they flew. It was perhaps fortunate the man was facing the other way, as the sight of a very large dragon flying towards him might well have made him let go.