The Wizard And The Dragon (16 page)

I
went back to Tower’s floor and checked all of the rooms except the closed door
that the massive gem used to sit beside. The warning about that room was
strongest of them all and I couldn’t bring myself to open that door. I backed
away from it and left the study, promising myself to check the rest of the
tower before opening that door.

I
walked back into the stairway and checked both of the chairs. He was either
above me or in the cellar and hadn’t come up yet. Those were the only options.
I was sure I would climb up the stairs and find him on the roof, maybe reading
in the sun. He’d grin at me and think I was ridiculous for being worried. Maybe
he’d be cross with me for going into his room. I was hoping for it.

I
climbed the stairs and checked my room. Nothing. I walked back out and climbed
higher. I went through all of the empty rooms and floors as I neared the roof.
They were places I had never gone into since my first few days in the tower.
They felt neglected and cold and scared me. Their emptiness gnawed at the back
of my neck when I was inside them. I closed the doors tightly when I finished
my search.

My
heart sank when I reached the roof. I walked carefully around the edge,
stupidly looking over the side of the tower to see if maybe he fell and was
hanging on. It didn’t cross my mind to think of how that could happen or why he
hadn’t been calling for help. I was desperate.

On
my way down the tower I was equally sure that I would find him in the cellar as
I had been about finding him on the roof. When I first went into his study he
must have come out of the bedroom and went downstairs while I was busy looking
where the massive gem had once been. That was the only explanation. He must
have done some complicated experiment with the gem and that’s why he slept so
late. I’d find him in the cellar drinking water or maybe gathering spider silk.
That had to be it.

The
chairs were still in their respective places and Candle was now jumping down
the steps one at a time. It must have learned that it was never hurt from
falling and bounced down each step. I moved the chair and went down into the
cellar. It was dark and I focused all of my senses on my hearing, straining for
any noise that might give away that Tower was there.

I
stepped into the cellar and it was as I had left it. The spider rattled in its
cell at the sight of me, as a reminder that I hadn’t fed it yet. I checked the
entire room, even going as far as to dig through the pile of rocks in the
corner. Any possibility. The tunnel was still collapsed as it had always been.
He hadn’t been down here.

My
body felt numb when I climbed back to the tower’s main room. I scooped up
Candle on my way up, after finding it diving down the cellar steps after me. I
carried my familiar as I entered the study and walked to the closed door at the
far end.

“That
door is locked and it’s locked for a reason. You must never try to get inside
that room,” Tower’s words came back to me as I neared the door.

I
placed my hand on the door handle and stopped. It was probably locked and he
wasn’t in there. I considered that Tower might have left for a walk and had
simply lost track of time. He said he could sense where the tower was, after
all. He might be cross with me about going into this room.

I
shook my head and wanted to cry. There were too many conflicting thoughts for a
young boy to have. I decided to try to open the door and let the lock decide
for me. I turned the handle and pushed and the door didn’t move.

I
closed my eyes and tried pulling instead. The door jerked out of its frame and
opened into the study. I pulled it open further and took a deep breath before
stepping inside.

The door closed by
itself behind me. I could see no mechanism that caused it but there was a
feeling of resistance as I opened the door, as if it wanted to stay closed. I
pushed on the door to make sure I could still open it and it shifted to my
weight. I wasn’t trapped but I wished the door would stay open.

There
was no light in the room except for Candle’s. I held my hand out and the fire
elemental’s light radiated out enough that I could see the floor. My familiar
was still too small to fully light the room. The shadows felt like an
uncomfortable veil around me as I walked, masking the walls so I couldn’t see
the size of the room.

The
darkness reminded me of being in the tunnels and I shuddered. Candle vibrated
in response on my hand and I had a moment of concern for its well-being. I
considered turning around and leaving it in the safety of the study but I
selfishly felt safer with it with me. It was more than its light that was
keeping me from running out of the dark.

Ten
or so steps into the room I saw the far wall. It was curved and seemed to
stretch around back to the doorway. I estimated that the room was circular and
no more wide than the study. It made sense since there was no room protruding
out of the tower from outside.

I
took a few steps closer to the wall and saw Candle’s light catch something
amongst the stones. The reflected light made me think of a mirror, but as I
drew closer I saw that our image was too blurry and distorted. The object
looked more like a window built into the wall, but only stone could be seen
through it.

Candle
and I looked like a blurry mess of shapes and colors in the glass but even that
didn’t feel right. The material looked to be closer to the clear gemstones than
anything else.

I
reached up to touch it with my free hand, curious to find out if it was the
same gemstone barrier spell that I had seen Tower create. Perhaps it was some
sort of spell that would let me know where he was. I know now I was grasping
for any reason to bring my teacher back but as a boy I truly believed it.

My
fingers pressed against the window and I felt like something snapped at them. I
snatched my hand back as if something sharp had bitten into my fingertips. The
pain was surprisingly potent for only barely touching the thing but I had no
time to wonder at it. The glass, or whatever it was, had started to shake and
glow.

I
backed up away from it and I couldn’t stop Tower’s words of warning from
repeating again and again in my head. The glow from the window spread to the
stone wall around it and ran horizontally around the room. It snaked through
the gaps of the stones, illuminating the pieces that were holding the walls
together, and filling the room with light.

The
room was empty now that I could see it all. Tower wasn’t there, but fear was
currently stronger than my disappointment. There was no furniture except for
the window but the walls were covered in writing. Large, red letters as if they
had been burned into the stone.

The
words frightened me more than the window. It was as if they could reach out and
grab me from the walls with their warnings. The letters were rough and uneven,
as if the person who scored them had been afraid as they did so.

“DO
NOT DIG,” one said.

“DO
NOT TRUST THE BOY,” was another.

“THE
TOWER IS ALIVE.”

“i’m
so hungry.”

“I
died but I’m still here.”

“Dragon.
Dragon. Dragon.”

The
phrase “can’t leave” was repeated all over the walls, in varying sizes and
squeezed between different words. Some of them were too faded to make out.

My
eyes rested on “THE TOWER IS ALIVE” and I walked toward it. My heart jumped at
the words. The tower? Not Tower? I put my hand on the letters and I could feel
the familiar sense of magic in them. There was a pattern in the stone that I
could recognize.

I
moved back to the door and focused my magic on the wall there. I recreated the
pattern in a simple line and saw the same red marking appear as the words were.
I looked closer at the wall and saw similar straight lines as if many others
had made the same discovery that I just did. Whoever had written these words had
been able to use magic.

Candle
began making spitting noises on my hand and tore my attention from the wall.
Behind me the door whipped open and I flinched from the sudden movement. I ran
through it quickly, not willing to risk being in the room any longer.

In
the study I was shocked to find that the light was continuing to spread through
the walls. The gaps of the stones were glowing just as they had in the room.
The light stretched all the way to Tower’s bedroom door and traced through the
perimeter of the entire study.

I
opened the bedroom door and saw that the light didn’t reach into the walls of
that room. I looked into the main chamber and saw that it was only the study
that was being effected. I walked back in and started back to the room with the
window’s door to close it.

I
was near the room when the light abruptly stopped. The window flashed for a
moment as if it had sucked all the light back into itself and the door slammed
itself shut. Without thinking I dragged one of the chests from the wall and shoved
it against the door so it couldn’t open. The thought of the words on the wall
made me shiver even after the room was closed off.

The
shock of the room lingered with me for a few hours. It was evening when I
finally recovered and I was slumped at the dinner table. The food I made that
morning had gotten cold and stale and I didn’t care. Even with Candle next to
me I had still failed to find Tower. There was nowhere left to look for him.

My
familiar with me or not, I was abandoned and alone.

More than a week
passed before I fully accepted that Tower wasn’t coming back.

I
spent those first days in a miserable haze. I barely ate and, I shamefully
admit, neither did the spider. I only recall giving it meat once during that
week and I didn’t care enough to check if it was too much or too little food.

Not
even Candle’s early days of growth and discovery could improve my mood. I even
began to resent my familiar, as if it was his fault—I had began to consider the
familiar a ‘he’—that Tower had vanished. I couldn’t help but think that by
using the wrong kind of fire that I had disappointed my mentor enough to
abandon me.

At
the end of the week I realized that it was ridiculous to think that Tower would
have left his own life behind, his home and book collection, just as a way to
punish me. That thought was the spark that I needed to cast off the gloom
around me. Even without Tower I still had a home, a friend in Candle, and a
life to maintain until Tower returned. I would not yet consider that he might
be dead.

I
used a few gemstones to make myself feel safe in the tower. I was too small to
move some of the heavy furniture, and I expended a few gems worth of magical
energy to stack the heavier chests and trunks in the study to barricade the
door that led to the window room. It hadn’t seemed as dangerous as Tower had
warned at the time, but as the days passed I felt more afraid of the scrawled
words on the walls. I couldn’t lose the feeling that I had avoided something
horrible.

In
the main chamber, I moved the dining table with another gemstone. I propped it
against the front door of the tower. I had no idea how the protective magic of
the tower worked or if it would even still remain now that Tower was missing.
With the table blocking the door from opening, I felt safer knowing that I had
at least a few minutes of warning before someone, or something, broke its way
inside.

I
began exercising and eating regularly again. I fed the spider extra portions of
meat as an apology for neglecting it.

Candle
followed me around faithfully wherever I went. I slept in the main chamber near
the table, wanting to be near if Tower did come back and start knocking when he
found the door to be blocked. Candle took to sleeping next to me and radiating
a gentle warmth near my body. I would look after him during the day and then he
would watch over me at night. It was one of my few comforts during those early
days.

At
the end of summer I started reading again. I still had a large supply of
gemstones to work with but I was never taught how to suspend food. Each meal I
made would quickly decay and be wasted, although I did teach myself how to heat
food up by drawing magic from another stone. It was similar to the same heat I
could channel through Candle’s body.

I
spent days sorting out Tower’s book collection in a way that I could
understand. I made separate piles for books that Tower did and did not write. I
discovered that roughly half of those in his hand were copies made of the older
ones, probably to save the information in case of a fire. I further separated
those books out by their topic, wanting to keep all of the books on magical
theories, spells, and practices where I could easily find them. I made a mess
of the study by the end of it.

Surprisingly,
most of the older books were written by the same person. The name Suzanne Eliot
accompanied almost all of the leather bound tomes, and every book on magic. I
wondered if she had been the person to teach Tower magic and frowned. I tried
not to think of him too often.

I
read the book on elemental familiars first and I learned to properly take care
of Candle. He required either a fire source to gather energy or a gemstone. I
moved the candle from my bedroom and he spent a few hours each day bathing in
its flame.

He
stopped growing near the beginning of autumn. The tallest point of his fire was
nearly above my knee and he could climb stairs much more comfortably. I learned
that I could temporarily extinguish his fire and hold the sollite core if he
was ever in danger. It would cool quickly and be placed in my pocket if needed.
Water had a similar effect and would not do any permanent damage to Candle. It
was the core that was the important part of him.

Teaching
myself magic was a slow process and it was the beginning of winter before I
could suspend food and other items. From then on I wasted significantly less
food and created much larger meals from each gem. It was a proud moment when I
fully accepted that I had taught myself something, independent of Tower or
anyone else. It changed something within me and awakened a hunger for more
knowledge and information. I read through as many books as I could looking for
new spells to master.

I
harvested the spider silk alone to seal up the windows from the cold. The idea
of stepping outside of the tower’s boundaries was still a daunting one, and I
didn’t risk collecting leaves for the silk. I used more paper from the books
instead, although it was a painstaking process to tear out each individual page
and then close it back up again for them to reappear.

More
gems were added to the water on the roof to warm the rooms below. I began
extracting gems from the rocks spilling in from the collapse in the cellar. The
thought that I might exhaust that supply bothered me from the very first day. I
had no idea how far the cave-in stretched inside the tunnel or how many gems I
had before I dug back into the mines.

The
thought of reopening the cellar to the underground full of monsters was one
that kept me up at night. I only took the loose rocks at first and left the
tightly packed ones alone. I spent as little time in the cellar as possible and
took all the gems upstairs with me.

By
the end of winter I had moved into Tower’s floor and used his bedroom. I had
left it alone up until that point and spent a horrible first night in there. I
was terrified that I would wake up and find him there, furious with me for
sleeping in his bed. Then in the morning I woke up and cried when he wasn’t. I
was still alone.

At
the end of the first year I learned how to combine gems and began my own
replacement of the one that sat in the corner. The stack of furniture blocking
the window room had become normal to me by then and I barely thought about the
door any longer. Still, I only went near that side of the room to add more
magic to the giant gemstone. I loved adding new gems and seeing the magic run
over it like honey being poured over the surface. When the stone was small it
would change colors and react to whatever the last gem been added to it. As it
grew larger it maintained the deep red that Tower’s had. It felt like I had
restored a small piece of the room.

The
next few years passed in a similar way. I continued learning and growing both
physically and mentally. I became much more accomplished in magic and, as the
winters came and went, I looked forward less and less to how impressed Tower
would be when he finally returned. I gradually accepted my new life with Candle
and strove to learn for myself. My life became comfortable.

I
found a supply of clothes in the drawers in Tower’s room. Most of them were too
large at first and hung loosely on my body. I continued to exercise and
strengthen myself, always keeping the image of the frail old wizard in my mind
and how magic could burn so easily through a body that weak. I grew from a boy to
an adolescent in those years, caught in that awkward phase before adulthood.

The
comfort of that life was probably necessary after losing my village and Tower.
Still, looking back, I can’t help but see how foolish and complacent I was,
even if I was a boy. Most young men make mistakes when they first strike out on
their own. Some are too overconfident and rush into things. Some are scared
into inaction.

For
me, it was a lack of preparation. I was sixteen years old and it was the
beginning of my fifth winter alone in the tower. The first snow had just fallen
and I was considering adding another gem to the roof. I had just added my last
few gems to the now giant one in the study so went down into the cellar for
more.