The Wizard And The Dragon (17 page)

I
pried a rock loose from the cave-in, like I had many times before over the
years. The rocks above me toppled forward as I pulled and I stumbled backwards
into the cellar. The sound of it was immense, like the tunnel was collapsing
all over again. Dust blasted into my face and I stepped away, covering my eyes
as best as I could.

When
the air finally cleared I looked at the tunnel. Candle was next to me, his head
tilted to the side staring along with me. I had been teaching myself for nearly
five years. All of those months of magic and spells and now the mines were open
once again.

For
all of my studying I could only stand there stunned. I had no idea what to do.

I scooped up
Candle from the floor and held him out toward the open tunnel. The light from
his fire stretched forward and penetrated the first few meters of darkness. The
cellar was always a cold, dark place but it looked as inviting as a sunny day
in comparison to the tunnel.

The
next few minutes stretched out for me as I stood there, struck dumb by
indecision. I felt frozen in place, stilled like my food was each day, by how
unprepared I was.

Too
many questions came hurtling to my mind:

How
can I cause another collapse? What kind of spell did Tower use to create a
barrier? Should I risk it? How can I sleep now that this is open? What if
something attacks me now—right now? Should I leave the tower? What if Tower
comes back and I’m gone?

Candle
tilted his head to the side as he looked into the tunnel as if he was
considering it. Tower’s return was the least of my worries over leaving. I felt
shame admitting it to myself even then, that my fear of the dragon was even
stronger than the unknown monsters of the tunnel. I made other excuses to
stay—that I was too young to survive outside, that I needed gems to feed Candle,
that my magic would make me a target—but it was that fear that really kept me
captive in the tower.

Once
it was decided that I was staying, I tried to remember my days with Tower in
the mines. We brought food and pickaxes. We tried to move quietly until we were
deep enough to dig. There was a fork in the tunnel that I needed to turn left,
not right. He used gems to create barriers to close the tunnel after we left.

I
crouched down and picked up a small piece of rock and shattered it against the
wall. I had no time to be precise and pick out individual gems. A handful of
whatever broke apart would be enough. I shoved them into my pocket and faced
the tunnel once again.

A
scream came out of the darkness, so shrill and loud that I swear I felt it as a
rush of air slapping against my face. It must have heard me smash the rock. My
legs almost buckled as they shook and I tried to steady myself. The scream
sounded like one of the farren, the blind monster Tower had burned on my first
day. I pushed away any possibility that it might be one of the dragon-like
creatures that made even Tower run away.

Candle
seemed unfazed by the noise and I focused on his light as I stepped forward. My
boots crunched down on small rocks as I climbed over what was left of the
collapse and into the mines. My familiar’s fire gave off much better light than
I remembered from the enchanted water bottles that I used so many years ago. I
tried to take some comfort in that.

The
little skittering shapes that I had seen as a child weren’t at the edge of the
light, and I had to wonder if my boyish imagination had seen things that
weren’t there. The gemstones still glistened in the walls as we passed them and
I decided that, if necessary, I could collapse the tunnel deeper in and have
enough gems to survive for many years. I didn’t plan on staying in the tower
forever. My mentor’s warning of ruining the mines seemed frivolous in the face
of constantly worrying about monsters climbing up the stairs in the night.

At
the fork I paused and considered both directions. I had never been told what
lay down the right tunnel and I remembered all too well what was down the left.
The giant spider’s nest was supposed to be collapsed but Tower had been
attacked in the process. I remembered an explosion but I didn’t know if he had
been successful. I also remembered the filled sacks of stones that we had
collected and left behind, choosing to drag the spider instead. That decided it
for me. I would collect the bags and then come back here. I hoped I could
create the barriers out of the gemstones.

I
turned left and started to walk again without a second look into the other
tunnel, unaware that I had just made my first mistake in the mines. I walked as
calmly as I could but I could feel my heart beating faster with each step that
I took.

The
first bag I came across was empty. The rocks were strewn around it and the bag
had been tossed aside. Someone or something had found it and rifled through it.
I spent a few miserable minutes filling the sack up again, paranoid the entire
time that something could creep up on me from either direction in the tunnel.
When I was finished I hauled the stones over my shoulder.

Another
scream came from behind me and I whipped around on my heels so quickly I almost
dropped both the bag and Candle. The sound echoed through the tunnels and then
was replaced with an eerie silence.

A
few minutes passed and there were still no other sounds. Whatever had made the
noise had been from the other tunnel. I exhaled and realized I had been holding
my breath. I turned around and started walking again to the end of the tunnel.

The
second bag of gems was near where I remembered this section of the mines
ending, but something seemed wrong. Behind the sack there was no wall but a
deeper darkness, as if the floor stopped just a few paces behind it and then
fell like the edge of a cliff.

I
sent a surge of energy through my arm and Candle’s light burst outwards for a
brief moment. It flashed through the tunnel and I saw what had happened. I was
both terrified and impressed by what Tower had done.

The
tunnel ended in a crater. I wasn’t sure if he had caused a chain reaction with
the gemstones in the walls, or if he was capable of more destruction than I
realized, but there was a huge spherical abscess in front of me. It was so
large across that it was possible the spider’s nest had been destroyed
completely in the blast.

I
sent a second wave of energy through Candle and sustained it. I peered down
into the crater as the light was released. There must have been hundreds of
loose rocks and stones pooled at the bottom, all glittering with gems. There
was no danger of digging into something like another spider’s nest with these
rocks. I knew that if I could seal off the other tunnel that I could safely
survive for years without even using a pickaxe.

The
light from Candle receded and I felt a dull ache build in my arms from
channeling magic. Despite all of my exercise I was still a growing teenager,
and my body wasn’t happy about losing energy when it still wanted to grow.

Candle
climbed up my arm and settled on my shoulder. I knelt down and picked up the
second bag and then turned to walk back to the cellar. I was surprised and
impressed that I was able to carry both at once. The last time I had been down
in the mines I hadn't been able to lift one of them.

My
thoughts were cut short when another sound came from down the tunnels. It
wasn’t a scream this time. It sounded like something striking against metal.
The clanging noise was echoing through the walls and I was getting closer to it
with every step.

I
slowed my pace at the fork and intensified Candle’s flames for a few seconds.
The sound was louder and I wasn’t taking any chances by letting something leap
out at me from the dark. The tunnel that led to the right was empty but that
seemed to be where the noise was coming from.

I
carefully placed the bags on the floor, slowly enough so they didn’t make a
noise. I stuck a hand in my pocket and pulled out the largest gem that I could
find. It was a vibrant green color and I didn’t think much more of my selection
at the time. That was my second mistake I made in the mines, although I
wouldn’t discover it for days yet.

My
focus was brought around the single gemstone and I floated it in the center of
the tunnel. There was little to read about the barrier spell in the books. I
got the impression from the few pages there were on the topic that it was
deemed too simple a spell to be even worth writing about. A sadistic sort of
laugh wanted to burst out of me when I thought about it.

The
banging noise was getting louder and I forced myself to concentrate. I trusted
Candle to warn me if anything was approaching us and closed my eyes, trying to
picture the times I had seen Tower create the spell.

The
gemstone looked like it melted into shape over the area, spreading through the
air like jam over a slice of bread. When it was reverted back to a stone it was
the same size as it had been. Little energy was lost in the process.

I
opened my eyes and focused on the gem once more. That final piece was enough to
get me started. If the magic energy was preserved then I knew I was only
manipulating the form of the magic instead of changing it into something else.
I needed to change the way the pattern of the gemstone was layered, not the
pattern itself.

It
took me a few tries and reminders to ignore the clanging sound. I pictured a
monster shambling through the tunnels, slamming some metal tool it found
against the tunnel walls. When the gem started to change I felt a rush of
relief and finished the spell. The gem filled in the tunnel like rain water
taking the shape of a puddle as it fell.

I
placed my hand on the barrier and smiled. It looked like a huge pane of glass,
stained to the point that not even Candle’s light could penetrate through it. I
tapped my knuckles against it and a ripple of light shot out over the surface
from where I struck. My hand tingled as if it had been shaking from the
resistance.

I
picked up the bags, turned from the barrier, and started to walk back to the
cellar. It was only then that I noticed that I could still hear the noise as
clearly as ever, and that’s when I realized my first mistake. I had left the
tunnel open and vulnerable while I went to where the spider’s nest had been.
Anything could have climbed its way out while I was down there.

The
light from the cellar was a fuzzy glow in the darkness as I got closer and I
rushed toward it. There was something standing in front of the spider’s cage
and I wanted to scream. The sound was too loud and too close now. It had some sort
of club and was beating it against the metal bars. Each time the giant spider
let out a low growl.

I
dropped the bags without thinking and they hit the floor with a loud crash. The
monster whipped around on its heels from the noise and I saw that it was a
farren. It was larger than the one I had first seen but just as blind. They had
exceptional hearing however and I had just given it two loud sounds to pinpoint
exactly where I was.

The
monster lurched forward at me and Candle hissed at it from my shoulder. I felt
his heat brush against my face. The farren stopped at the noise and snuffed at
the air. Its eye sockets were empty holes where its skin had grown to cover,
and yet it still felt like it could see right at me. It drew its arms forward
and let out a screech.

The
giant spider behind it screamed back and dived forward against the bars. Its
legs shot out and yanked the farren back just as it was about to dive at me.
Its body was brought back against the cage and its head collided with one of
the bars, letting out another loud bang as if it had struck it with its club.

It
was enough time for me to snap out of my fear and panic. I tried to ignore that
my hands were shaking as I raised them. Tower had taught me often to focus
magic under pressure. He had drilled me on it so many times before I even cast
a spell. He would shout random words and numbers at me while I tried to keep my
focus.

I
was brought back to the times we would stand on the roof in the rain or a
snowstorm in winter, making me learn how to keep my focus no matter what my
body was feeling. He had done that for a reason.

The
farren thrashed out of the spider’s legs and it recoiled back into the cage
with another scream. The monster shook itself free and staggered toward me but
I was ready.

I
attacked with the same shackle I would have put on the spider, but I aimed it
at the farren’s legs. It clamped around its ankles and smashed them together,
sending the monster hard onto the ground. It roared and swiped at its own legs,
expecting to find something binding them. It dropped its club to claw at them
but the binding spell might as well have been
in
its legs rather than
on
them.

I
stepped forward and readied another shackle but then it happened. The farren
flailed wildly on the ground and its muscles strained against the energy I had
trapping its legs. My spell was cut short as I felt the pressure of its
movements reaching back to me. I could feel its resistance draining more of my
energy as the spell struggled to hold.

It
felt like I had been smacked in the back of the head when it happened. The
farren’s legs parted free and I stumbled backwards, disorientated and weakened.
I had never experienced something fighting back against my magic before. The
spider was usually asleep when I chained it. The shock of it was both physical
and magical. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and was winded.

The
farren scrambled to its feet and wasted no time in rushing at me. It leaped at
the end of its run and I raised my hand more out of instinct than anything
else. I pushed back with waves of energy and slowed it just long enough to dive
out of the way. It slammed into the wall where I had been.

The
monster was quick to recover but I was expending too much power. The gems in my
pocket were going unused and I was spending too much of my body’s own energy.
The farren dived at me again and I fell into a heap on the floor. It dug both
of its clawed hands on either side of my neck and opened its mouth over my
face.

The
sight of seeing its jagged teeth must have sobered part of me. The monster
reared its head back ready to bite into my neck just as I refocused my magic on
its throat. I funneled all of the energy that I could find in myself through
that shackle and tightened it around its neck. My grasp on it was so strong
that it couldn’t even let out a scream or a whimper.