Dragon Talker (11 page)

“You were wise not to trust me, Xeron, because I do need to run a few tests before I try this with a dragon. Your power, as you no doubtedly feel, is being drained out of you. It will either kill you or simply leave you like a peasant, I’m not sure which. It will be interesting to see, in any event. So, get free or die. And, if you get free, I do have a reward for you, something you will not want to pass up, or ruin by trying to kill me.”

Xeron heard little of this; instead, he began looking for the source of his confinement. “End this now, Perante, and I will call this a good practical joke. There are others we could use for this.”

“Yes, we could, but none as powerful as you. The strong get tested, my friend, the weak eaten. Let’s see which one you are.” Perante summoned a leather chair from against the wall. It scraped across the floor, stopping behind Perante and ten feet in front Xeron. Perante sat in it, steepled his fingers, and stared at Xeron.

Xeron turned his back to Perante, who called out to him, “Now that’s just childish.”

The first thing Xeron did was cast a seeing spell. Anything under the influence of magic began to give off a glow in his sight. All the sheets of bronze in the room where glowing, which he expected. The workers, were, too. Perante himself was giving off a large blue aura. Now he could see markings on the floor and on the wall. He could see the markings, but he could not make sense of them. Even the colors, the significance of which every mage learns early, were not clear to him.

“What is…this?” He felt a weight on his mind, no pain, but it was making him dull. Reaching into the leather pouch he kept at his waist, Xeron pulled out the dried powder made out of a rare, blue mountain flower. He inhaled a pinch, and immediately everything became more clear. The weight that was dulling his mind and sense was gone, but it felt like his body was now under the weight. Still, many of the symbols were familiar entrapment spells. Those were on the walls. Draining spells were on the floor; these he would have to deal with first or he wouldn’t have the strength to deal with the others.

As Xeron focused his mind, a light golden sphere began to form around him. He stood still, his brow furrowed as he stood motionless. At first, the sphere was faint. Tendrils of black energy reached up from the ground and raced around the sphere, finding openings and sinking into Xeron. He didn’t let them break his concentration, but he flinched with each attack. The sphere glowed brighter, and the black steaks of energy stopped finding ways in. Instead, they swirled around the sphere. Four separate strands were slithering around the sphere. On some unspoken command, all four lifted off the sphere and simultaneously dived back at it, exploding on impact.

Xeron smiled. Taking a deep breath, he resumed searching the room for symbols and clues as to what types of magic were being used against him. Perante encouraged him, “Well done. I thought it would take you longer for that one. Impressive, Xeron, impressive.”

Xeron flicked his right hand, first two fingers extended, at Perante. Perante laughed. It wasn’t magic, but it was an insult. Basically, Xeron wished Perante an encounter with a dragon’s tail. “I do love your spirit.” Xeron went back to work.

He saw the containment glyphs on the wall, but he was not about to rush into anything. This room was designed to contain dragons. He mentally checked himself. His mind seemed clear. He could remember the seven laws of casting and recite them backwards. He could move, within the sphere, at least. But what was happening to his wrist?

He pulled back his shirt sleeve and saw what once had been a small cut had expanded. It was over an inch long now and bleeding. He tried a basic healing spell, but that just caused him more pain, and the wound expanded another to twice its size. Blood flowed freely from the wound, but he could tell that no major vein or artery had been pierced.

Ripping a strip of the bottom of his shirt, Xeron wrapped the wound tightly. It slowed the bleeding, but it did not stop it. Xeron cast another healing spell, but the wound only grew wider and bled more. The pain brought him to his knees.

Xeron turned on his knees so he was facing his tormentor. “It’s time to stop this, Perante. Much farther and there will be no repair possible. Do you hear me?”

“Ah, but you are just getting to the good spells. Buck up, mage. Beat this test and I will give you rewards enough to forget what I put you through. Fail, well, you can only bleed so long. I will leave you to your work, but I will not leave you alone.” Perante whistled and one of his black dogs came out of the shadows. Perante commanded the dog, “Watch him,” and left.

“I will make it through this, you son of a whore.” He knew Perante wasn’t really leaving him unattended, only moving to a place where he would have an even greater advantage over him. Xeron knew it would be safer to have Perante where he could see him, but turned his attention momentarily to the dog, “What are you looking at?” The dog stared in return. “Fine, be that way. Stick around and learn something. Maybe I can use, you, too?”

He had a more pressing issue at hand, though.
If healing spells only make it worse
, he thought,
what will a wounding spell do?
He cast a small spell, one that would annoy a person more than really wound them. The bleeding slowed. “Did you see that, you cur? And I’m not talking to the dog, Perante. I know you are out there.” He cast another spell, strong enough to mangle his hand beyond recognition. The wound began to heal. “Now get out of here.” The sphere surrounding him discharged a bolt of gold lightning, zigzagged, and struck the dog in the head, knocking him to the ground.

Dragon’s Bane, Perante’s favorite dog, rolled back up, gave a furtive glance back at Xeron, and walked out of the room. As he neared the door, Perante entered. He patted him on the head and headed for the center of the room. When he got there, Dragon’s Bane hiding behind him, he said, “That wasn’t very nice. I might have to let him take a bite out of your dog in return.”

“Seriously, Perante, are you trying to get me to kill you, or are you just mad?”

“I am going to save the world from dragons, Xeron. There is no greater goal nor any sacrifice that isn’t worth it. It is as simple as that. You are wasting time.” Perante waived his dog forward. Dragon’s Bane looked at Xeron and kept his place behind Perante. “This test is only beginning.” Perante shook his head at his dog. “Let’s leave the canines out of it, shall we?”

Xeron didn’t reply. For the first time since the ordeal had started, Xeron did think of his dog. The last time he saw Tail Biter, Perante had convinced him that they should leave the dogs in the courtyard. After all, they were animals and animals belonged outside. “And aren’t we,” he had chided, “beyond trying to impress each other with our fierce dragon killers?”

Xeron had smiled at that. Dogs were good at giving warnings, even carrying some magic with them, but they were no dragon killers. Throughout history, no one had managed that. To dragons, dogs were snacks. To mages, they were an early warning system, luggage to carry spells, and prestige objects. Sometimes, they were even friends. Always, they were to be compared and showed off to other mages.

Tail Biter was carrying four different spells that Xeron could tap into when he was near his owner. One, a disrupter spell, he realized just might help him move from the center of the room, but he would need the dog near him to retrieve it. He had already tried it himself, but even a novice mage would have spells to counter a disruptive spell. Perante was not novice Xeron reached out with a summoning spell but felt it stop at the walls. There was no way that spell was leaving this room.

He searched for anything that might be living in the walls with a brain large enough to carry a message - insects would not do. Behind him, he felt the presence of a rat. He also felt Perante’s presence on the rodent. The rumors were true: Perante used the mice in his castle to spy on his guests. If Xeron could feel Perante’s effect on the rat, so might Perante feel Xeron’s.

Xeron cast a fire spell in the room. There was not much to burn, a few chairs, some saw horses, and some unused wood, but it was enough to get Perante’s attention.  As Perante was creating his own spell to put out the fire, Xeron broke Perante’s control of the rat and send the rat on his own mission, contacting Tail Biter. Rats are smarter than one who hasn’t spent any time with them would think, but they are not in a hurry to search out animals that like to kill them. Xeron sent the rodent to the courtyard, where he hoped his spell would be loud enough to get to his dog. 
If he’s dead
, thought Xeron,
I might be, too.

Stone castles would more accurately be called stone walls, with floors, rooms, etcetera, built in-between them with wood. It does not take long for animals to find out how safe the spaces are between the stone and wood walls. Perante’s walls were even safer for rodents then most, since he used them and kept a set number of them alive and well to do his work. This rat, mostly gray with white feet and belly, quickly headed to the east corner of the room. The fastest route to the courtyard was in that corner due to a leak from the roof that had been rotting away a path since spring.

In the courtyard, Tail Biter was chewing on a bone, a thigh bone of a cow the butcher just happened to leave unattended. In addition to that “carelessness,” Perante had cast a spell on it that would make it Tail Biter’s one and only mission in life. Because this was naturally going to be the case, anyway, the special was all the more powerful. So, when the gray rat did reach the courtyard, feeling relieved for fulfilling its impulse, it continued on its ratly ways, looking for food around the edges of the courtyard. As it did, Xeron’s call to Tail Biter was transmitting from the rat, but the message was not getting through.

Upstairs, Xeron was beginning to wonder if he would make it out alive.

Chapter 18

Back in Mandan, a sickness had started ailing the youngest and oldest members of the village. For some, it was only discomforting, aches and nausea, but for a small percentage, it lead to death. Hental was one of the first to get sick, but his case was minor and it only slowed down his mischief for a few days. Selma, an elder woman of the village, was not doing as well.

Selma’s children had died years ago, a son in a logging accident and a daughter who died in childbirth. When her husband, a goat herder, died from a cough that turned fatal, she bucked convention and took over his herd. The men didn’t like it, thinking their offer to purchase the prized goats generous. It wasn’t, and Selma knew it, and being one who never cared much for other people’s opinions, she ignored the men. Over the following years, the other herders learned to accept it even as they never truly accepted her.

Hental looked after them while Selma was in bed. The ram had knocked him down more than once, but Hental had also clobbered the ram with a rock or two, so he felt even. He ran into the hut after checking on their water. “Everything’s okay. Plenty of water for now.”

“Thank you, Hental. You are a good boy.”

“You should tell that to our neighbors. They’re always complaining about me.” Hental plopped down on a chair next to Selma’s bed. “Why do they expect me to act like an adult?”

“Because they are stupid.” Hental smiled at that. Selma continued, “At least the Uris family is - good grief. They couldn’t find a hole to crap in if they were born with shovels for arms.”

Hental laughed. “How come you and I are the only ones who know it?”

“Others know, Hental, but it just isn’t nice to say out loud.”

“So why do they get to say stuff out loud about me?”

Selma coughed, “Hental, that is the arrogance of age. Some people forget what it means to be young. And some young people, I won’t name names,” she winked at Hental, “have more energy than most adults can handle.”

“Can you come back tomorrow, Hental?”

“Of course.” Hental jumped up and started putting wood in the low burning fire. “I’ll set up your fire now and bring in wood for your morning fire, too.”

“Thank you. I know you are a good sort, but Hental…”

Hental stopped adding fire to the fireplace and looked at Selma.

“Stop throwing rocks at my ram. He doesn’t like it.”

“I didn’t…” Hental stopped when he saw the look Selma was giving him. He smiled sheepishly, “Okay, I won’t, but he better stop butting me!”

“Hental, birds fly, snakes crawl, and rams butt. You don’t want those beautiful horns to go to waste, do you?”

“Well, it’s funny when he does it to others, but I don’t like it.”

“Then,” Selma cautioned, “you best keep your eyes on him when he’s around.”

Hental put one more log into the fire. “I will. See you tomorrow.”

“If I am still here, count on it.”

***

Hental’s father was putting logs on their own fire as he entered the hut. His mother Agardia was standing and rocking his baby sister in front of the finished ingredients for potato soup - his dad’s favorite. His younger brother Lared was smashing a wooden dragon figure against a wooden mage figure. Hental heard Lared speaking, casting spells from one of the figures. Hental couldn’t tell which, but he knew Lared was hungry because all the spells had food words in them.

“Take that, mage, my carrot spell!” Lared’s dragon was casting. “I block it with my soup bowl.”

“Lared!” Tadeus turned from the fire. “We know you are hungry, as are your dragon and mage. Food is coming. You are going to have to be patient.”

Hental added, “Listen to Papa, Lared.”

Tadeus and Agardia looked at each other, wondering where this new found and heretofore rare helpful attitude was coming from.

Tadeus hooked the kettle above the fire. “Soup will be ready in a while. What shall we do ‘til then?”

“Eat!” yelled Lared.

“I’m just fine like this,” Agardia lifted up the baby, letting Tadeus knew that entertaining the boys was going to be up to him.