Dragon Master (8 page)

When Warley attacked next, I could see him commit to the attack, but I wasn’t in position to counter. I stepped aside and parried the blow then took another sidestep, making him whirl to face me. I could see now that our last match had winded him, too, and he didn’t have the benefit of coming off six weeks rest to help him recover. I decided to try a risky maneuver that, if properly blocked, could leave me momentarily exposed to a killing blow. Reading the situation, I was willing to risk that Warley wouldn’t be quick enough to get off that blow. If he tried it and didn’t execute then I would have him. I started running laterally, then pivoted and was running straight at my opponent. I saw a glimpse of wide eyed fear before he could mask it. I could feel the grin in my own eyes and let it shine. I signaled my attack by pulling my arm back, making sure I had the maximum force behind my coming thrust. I struck. He blocked, then tried to counterattack. As I suspected, he was too slow to pull it off and I had time to adjust my footing and duck under his wild swing. I came up close to him, sword first, and sliced at his midsection. Victory.

We were standing face to face, then, and I nodded slightly and whispered, “Good match.” Then I stepped back and sheathed my sword.

Warley began to chuckle, and when that turned into a wheeze he just shook his head once at me in amused agreement and stuck out his hand. We shook. I don’t think I could have been so gracious in defeat.

Commander Hawk had the victors take turns choosing partners, and the process involved very little drama. Nobody else tried to choose Boe, so that was easy enough—I didn’t even consider choosing anyone else, even if there were stronger members of the Stone Soul class to choose from. One of the victors tried to choose Bayrd but was stopped short with a curt “no” from Master Walker. The remaining unpaired Stone Souls had another round of skirmishes to further pair up until we were left with eighteen pairs and a dozen leftovers. Warley ended up among the leftovers.

Before we broke for supper, Master Walker put Boe and me with Bayrd and Gable, then added Warley to complete our dragon quest team. I didn’t respect Gable, and I didn’t much like Bayrd, but I still felt lucky to have him on a team with me. I had no qualms about Warley. He was a good, solid fighter, even though we’d never been particularly friendly. And after all, he had been gracious in defeat.

***

“You were really great out there,” Boe said, eyeing my spinach bread load. He’d already polished off his own loaf as soon as we’d sat down in the mess hall.

“I felt great,” I offered. “I’ve had a few weeks of extra rest and relaxation time, after all!” I laughed, then gave in and handed him my bread. My appetite still hadn’t fully returned, though it seemed Boe’s had doubled. He was even starting to add a little bulk to his frame, though perhaps bulk wasn’t the right word for it. It was more like a second layer of batter on a fried fig.

“What in the Realm happened to you anyway?” Boe was suddenly serious, concerned.

“I don’t really know. I guess I haven’t really thought about it.” I paused, trying to remember. I couldn’t come up with anything but images of the stone floor of the keep rushing at my head. “I just felt sick and I fell and hit my head I guess. Maybe something I ate.”

Boe looked down the bread loaf in his hand. He’d already consumed half of it. He dipped the remaining half in his tomato barley soup and downed it before continuing.

“Maybe you were too busy daydreaming about someone’s twin sister and weren’t watching where you were going,” Boe teased. So we were back to that. I didn’t contradict him.

“What did you tell her? I mean her and your family and everyone, about why I wasn’t there to say goodbye?”

“Oh.” He got quiet. “They didn’t really ask.” He half heartedly shrugged, then stuck a forkful of roasted potatoes in his mouth.

“Oh.” I said. “So, did they say anything about my fall?” What I really wanted to know was whether Daija had ever considered coming to check up on me herself. The journey from Chialaa Valley to Helmsbridge wasn’t at all short, but it should have been relatively safe if she’d joined a caravan traveling through Rægena.

“I didn’t think to tell them.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“Uh, it’s okay.” I guess it made sense. In a way. It wasn’t like I normally kept my parents informed about what Boe was up to. Or even what I was up to. Still, we’d just spent a whole month together. Daija didn’t think it weird that I never tried contacting her again after that last night at the festival?

Boe kept stuffing his mouth, not pausing between forkfuls.

Finally I asked, “Have you heard from Laciann?”

He blushed at that. “Well, she sent me something.”

“Something?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Something.”

“Something like?” I wasn’t about to let this one go.

“Something like a secret.”

Okay, so he wasn’t going to talk about it in the mess hall. I’d ask him again when we got to the bunks after training ended for the day.

“It’s just something small, okay? Not a big deal.”

Okay, so he wasn’t going to want to talk about it at all. Boe was giving me nothing here!

“How is Daija?” There. I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, examining his empty plate. He finished chewing the food in his mouth and saw me watching him.

I expected more of an answer. I’d just laid my heart down here, opening myself up to ridicule and teasing. And anyway, I really wanted to know.

“I haven’t heard from my family,” Boe finally said, helplessly. “They’re safe. I mean, they obviously got back home okay. Laciann was with them, and she’s back home okay.”

Well, so much for getting any information out of Boe. He was useless! Plus he hadn’t even told Daija what happened to me.

“So I didn’t get any letters then?” Maybe Daija had at least written to me directly. I hadn’t been to the bunks yet, I could have a letter waiting. Daija didn’t even know that I hadn’t been conscious or even at the academy, so it would make sense that she would write to me here.

“No letters.” Boe said. “Did you and Daija promise to write to each other or something?”

Well, no.

But … still.

I was starting to just feel confused. Like maybe I was remembering things wrong. I wasn’t, was I? I conjured up the images from that last night of the festival. I saw swirling mists. I saw glowing eyes. No, those weren’t right. Well, they were, but they weren’t. I tried harder. I saw a smile. Yes, Daija, smiling shyly. Her eyes twinkled. Green like the shooting star. It was a sign, that star. It was telling me to start paying attention to Daija, that she was someone special. And I’d almost missed it. But then the log ride happened, we held hands. We laughed. We connected.

So why hadn’t Daija written to me? Or at least to her brother to see why I hadn’t written to her? Why hadn’t I written to her? That’s right, I’d tried to write to her. Before the accident.

“Did you take my parchment?” This came out as more of an accusation than I’d intended.

Boe looked startled. “Woah, what? What parchment?”

“I was…” I trailed off. What was I doing? Doodling? Writing out exercises? “I was just writing some stuff, that day in the study, and then it went missing and when I was trying to figure out what happened to the parchment, that was when I fell.”

“What were you writing? What do you mean it went missing?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t know, not exactly. “I was trying to write but I couldn’t figure out what to say.”

“To my sister.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“But I didn’t write anything to her. I drew a bunch of scribbles on a piece of parchment. Kind of a picture of the shooting star from the Stoneflame.”

“And the star flew out of the parchment and knocked you out? Then disappeared?”

“No.” I scoffed.

“Okay.” Boe was clearly getting concerned about me. Like I’d gone completely crazy from the fall. Maybe I had?

I stared up the ceiling and tried to explain myself. “I also wrote out one of those writing exercises. You know, the one about the Jade and Silver.”

“The one about the Stoneflame,” he corrected. “Dragon born a’rage bewith, twice o’eachery year fifth—”

“Yeah, that one,” I said, cutting Boe off before he could recite the whole thing. That part wasn’t important.

“And it was stolen and then you felt sick and fell?”

“Yes,” I said, uncertainly. I wasn’t sure that stolen was the word I would use. “Did you take that parchment?”

“No.” Boe’s voice was quiet, cold. I finally looked down and noticed that all excuse for color had drained from his face, turning it to stone. “I think we should go talk to Magnilda. There are some things you probably should hear. And she’ll probably want hear about this, too.”

What in the Realm did that mean?

Boe stuffed his mouth with potatoes from my plate before guiding me out of the mess. I didn’t think we should leave, but once he could speak again Boe insisted in a whisper that we couldn’t wait two more days for our next scheduled study hall.

I pretended to feel faint so that people would see Boe leading me out and assume that we were visiting the apothecary, which would explain our absence at the rest of training. I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing that, but Boe really wasn’t giving me a choice in the matter. Plus I did feel like I needed some answers to all the questions that kept coming up. Like, what did Magnilda have to do with anything, and why would Boe know anything about our former study hall teacher? And where the heck was it we were going to find her?

I found out the answer to that last question first, and then gradually more answers came, though also more questions.

Boe led me into the empty front room of the study and through the stacks of books and a series of further rooms, deeper into the study than I’d gone the last time I’d been here. Everything had an eerie quality to it since no light streamed directly in through the east-facing windows. Once we were deeper than I thought even possible, we had to squeeze past a tall stack of books behind which there was an open trap door set into the floor. Its heavy oak frame was being held open by a thick rope tied at one end to a stanchion on the wall and at the other end to an iron handle bolted to the door. I didn’t get the impression that the door had been closed in a very long time. I could smell smoke rising from the dark within.

Slowly and carefully, we descended.

I expected a dungeon of some kind, or a crypt, or maybe a cave, or at least something dark and spooky. But as we passed through what seemed to be a narrow stone hallway, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see a spacious, homey room. A simple four-post chandelier hung above a wide clearing in the center of the room, its lit candles providing dim illumination. The walls were lined with fine mahogany book shelves, and there were two large matching desks to one side. Mismatched but comfortable looking chairs sat in front of them, likely appropriated from the royal chambers two floors above. A heavily bearded man lay asleep in one of the chairs, snoring softly. Through all the hair I recognized him as Magnilda’s husband, the one who had been lost and presumed killed in the forest years ago. In the chair beside him sat Magnilda. She set her book down and turned to face us, in no hurry, then smiled broadly when she saw Boe. When she registered that I was standing behind him, she let out a small exclamation of surprise and then shot up in her seat.

“Welcome, welcome Caedan,” she said and gestured around the room, “welcome to the real study.” She winked at me and then disappeared through a doorway set into a far wall, returning with two small yellow birch chairs for Boe and me to sit in. We did, and she brought her own chair around so that we formed a triangle in the middle of the “real” study.

“Caedan wrote down the Stonedragon Flame prophecy,” Boe began, “and then it was stolen and he was knocked out.”

Magnilda furrowed her brow and looked at me and then at Boe. “Whatever are you talking about?”

Boe looked to me for help.

I tried to explain to her about the doodle, and writing the exercise, and then taking the walk. She stopped me when I told her that the parchment was gone and made me confirm that only the two pages I’d written on had been taken and that the desk was otherwise as I’d left it, then let me finish.

“I just felt a kind of twisting in my stomach, and then I fell and hit my head.”

“Dragon’s toxin,” Magnilda said quietly, almost to herself. She got out of her chair and walked toward one of the taller bookshelves. She pulled a step stool over so that she could reach a book near the top of the shelf, then asked me to continue.

“That’s basically it,” I said, “when I woke up again it was weeks later and I was at home.”

“Where’s home?” Magnilda asked.

“Near Helmsbridge.”

“So you just woke up in bed?”

“I was in a chair. My mom was caring for me.”

“And you felt tingly, slow?” I tried to remember. It had been something like that. I agreed, and then she looked at me puzzled. “Can you come get this book for me?” She gestured to a large volume that lay flat on top of the book shelf.

I walked over and stood reaching up from atop the step ladder and could barely get my fingers on the edge of the book. I had to jump up slightly to get a grip on it, but my grip wasn’t firm and I just ended up causing the book to fall off the bookshelf. I reflexively protected my head and was able to catch the book by trapping it against the bookshelf with my arms. A shower of dust came down on me, and I had to close my eyes and cough to expel it from my lungs.

Magnilda took the book from me and tossed it casually on the floor. “Very interesting,” she said. Then, to Boe, “You didn’t tell me about any of this when it happened.”

Boe looked apologetic. “I didn’t really know the story, just that Caedan hurt himself.”

Magnilda waved her hand, setting the issue aside. “So he hasn’t shown any signs of weakness since returning?”

Boe looked at me and I answered for myself that I felt just fine, thank you, and what did she mean by dragon’s toxin?

“Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I have dragons on the brain.”