Path of the Magi (Tales of Tiberius) (45 page)

The monster flew into the air again; gesturing, it breathed again, but this time ice, not fire.  It had as little effect on Tiberius as the fire had.  Tiberius fired back with a spray of whistling silver blades that homed in on the dragon’s chest, looking for a weak spot.  Barcharosias at least paid attention to that, rolling out of the way and casting another defensive spell of his own.  Then Barcharosias tried another breath; this time a dark green poison gas emerged.  Tiberius was glad it hadn’t breathed near Maci with this one.  His own defenses held.  He cast a truthlight spell aimed at the dragon's chest.  There was a crack there in the dragon’s natural armor.  It was heavily protected by the dragon’s own spells.  Still, it was something to work on.  If he could dispel even some of the dragon’s defenses, he might be able to open a path for a deadly bolt though the dragon’s chest. 

Barcharosias took to the air, climbing high.  As the dragon circled around overhead, Tiberius had a moment to think.  Physically, he was still largely undamaged.  He had some cuts and bruises.  That demon’s claw had been the worst, but he’d managed to heal that.  He had a headache and a number of first and second degree burns, but none of it was serious.  His own regenerative spells were coping.  His defensive spells had held so far.  The trouble was that he had not seriously hurt the dragon either.  They were evenly matched.  Unfortunately, the dragon showed no signs of fatigue.  If they just kept hammering at each other with spells like this, Tiberius would lose.  Eventually the small cuts and bruises that got through his shields would wear him down and the dragon would win. 

He needed to find some weakness he could work on.  That crack in his chest was a possibility, but Tiberius had his doubts.  It was an obvious weak spot and the dragon had woven his darkest spells to defend that spot. 

The dragon made another pass.  It was also hurt and the hit and run attacks from the air were giving it a chance to heal.  At least it could fly better than the wizard.  Tiberius sent a metal dart in its direction on the next pass.  He grazed a wing, but he was sure it wasn’t serious damage to the dragon. 

At least this flyby attack pattern of the dragon gave Tiberius a second to think.  There had to be a way to defeat this creature.  Dallen had confidence in him.  He wouldn’t have taken his rest without complete confidence in his ability to win this fight.  So what was he missing?  The only other real ‘weaknesses’ anyone had ever mentioned about dragons was catching them sleeping.  What then?  He’d tried fire, lightning, cold, metal, gas, wood, psionics, and kenetics.  Nothing seemed to slow this creature down.  

“Any ideas?” he called out to Maci.

“Not really, you’re doing fine.  What about Dallen’s riddle?” she shouted back. 

Dallen’s riddle.  “Why does a dragon fly?”  Should he be attacking the wings?  That couldn’t be it.  Should he be flying?  Was it only vulnerable when flying?  Did the dragon only regenerate when in contact with the earth?  What?  Why did Dallen think that question was so important?  It seemed to have nothing to do with fighting a dragon at all.   

The dragon circled around in the sky. 

“Why does a dragon fly?”  Tiberius spoke aloud.  What could he have meant by that?

“Just answer the question will you?!”  Maci said.  “You make everything too complicated.”

The dragon laughed at him.  Dragons have excellent hearing and it heard his question.  “You want to know why I can fly, Magus?  It’s because I am the strongest!  I fly because I have the strength to bend the very elements to my will!”

Tiberius gave the dragon a disgusted glance. 

“Well, that’s not the answer,” he thought to himself.  “You can fly because of the difference in air pressure going over your wings.”

“Let me show you the power of a dragon’s flight!”  Barcharosias said.  Climbing up into the sky, it readied itself for a powerful diving attack.   Flight, power, might, that was its edge over the magus.  No doubt Dallen had tried to warn him about that, but the magus had caught on a little too late.  Barcharosias gave a mighty roar and then turned and went into his dive.  He smiled as he felt the wind rushing over his wings.  Even Tiberius could not survive this next blow.       

Suddenly, a thought hit Tiberius.  “Of course!  Now I understand!  A difference in air pressure.”

The fifteen-year-old girl was right.  Like most riddles, the answer was perfectly plain once you knew the answer.  The question wasn’t about dragons at all.  It was about him, Tiberius, and being a better magus.  He stood up, straightened his shoulders, and turned to face the approaching monster. 

“The true power of the magi is knowledge,” he thought.  “The study of God and his works.   I’m a magus; I know the secret of flight!  A dragon can fly because it has wings, and a difference in air pressure between the top and the bottom of the wings gives it lift.  Such a little thing,” he thought, “and so easy to change.” 

“Egaligu aerpremo!” he said, pointing his staff towards the rapidly approaching dragon.  A simple spell equalized air pressure around the dragon.  It was not a combat spell at all, but a spell he’d learned from Greentree while studying basic science.  It wasn’t a spell he needed to hurt the dragon, it was the knowledge of how to apply it. 

For an instant, everything seemed to move in slow motion.  With the air pressure equalized around the dragon, he lost all lift from his wings.  Tiberius saw just the slightest departure of the dragon from his intended flight path, and he knew he could win this fight.  The dragon started tumbling in the sky, completely out of control.  To correct the problem it frantically flapped its wings, confident that its strength would save it.  It didn’t need more strength, it needed lift from its wings.  Maybe the dragon could have worked something out in time, but unfortunately for him, he was in a power dive when he departed from controlled flight.  He had built up a good bit of velocity, though.  His dive continued straight into the ground.  There was an enormous crash as the dragon hit the earth. 

Unsteadily, it tried to stagger to its feet.  Its head was ringing.  That hurt!  Not only was that painful, but how had the magus inflicted such a blow?  The dragon sensed that something had changed.  Something dramatically not in its favor.   

For Tiberius it was all crystal clear now.  He knew exactly what old Dallen had been trying to tell him.  He couldn’t fight a dragon power to power.  He had to fight with the weapons of the magi: wisdom, knowledge, the love of God.  These were the real sources of power in the universe.  It was against these and only against these that the dragon could not stand.  It wasn’t enough for a magus just to command the elements.  He must fight with a true understanding of the world and its interactions. 

The dragon was getting up; it was a dragon; it would probably try breathing fire again. 

Well he knew the true name of fire, didn’t he?  Fire burned things. 

The dragon saw Tiberius give off a feeble blast of electrical sparks around him.  Good, the magus was running out of power.  The dragon breathed another blast of fire at Tiberius, but the first spark of flame caused a massive explosion as the air around the dragon exploded.  

“I thought you might enjoy a bit of hydrogen about you,”  Tiberius said.  “For all your years, you never even tried to learn the true name of fire, did you?”

The dragon hauled himself forward; its movements were painful and slow, but it hauled itself closer, nevertheless. 

“I have no need of your simple tricks, wizard.  I’m not beaten yet.  You’re clever; I grant you that.  But there is still one thing that separates a mere mortal from a dragon.  Power.  Look at me, mage.  Beaten and battered I may be, but I am still a dragon, the mightiest creature on earth.”

The dragon raised itself up.  Its eyes seemed to glow faintly.  Tiberius held a hand in front of him. 

“That’s right, wizard; cower behind your puny shields.  They won’t help you this time.  I’ve been too subtle with you.  So let me now pronounce your doom.  I am going to put all of my energy into one pure blast of destruction.  Conjure whatever shields you wish for from this attack; there is no escape.  This will be a question of raw unbridled power.  And I will finally crush your puny mortal form once and for all.”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to reconsider that.  It isn’t really raw power that runs the universe, it’s the logos, the living word of God.  Maybe you’d like to hear a bit about prisms before you do anything rash,”  Tiberius said. 

“I’ve no time for silly children’s toys.  Are you ready wizard?  Your doom is at hand.”

“Oh, I’m ready, but I wouldn’t if I were you,” Tiberius answered.

“Behold the secret fire of the dragons!”  he said with a mighty roar.  Then, gesturing at Tiberius he let loose with a mighty blast of fire.  This was something beyond mere flames: an incredibly intense blast of heat energy, focused, indomitable, and quite deadly.  But the dragon had not understood the ways of the universe, that even the mightiest powers can be redirected, given the right sort of lever.  The Prismatic Shield that Tiberius had been strengthening as the dragon readied its final attack neatly reflected the energy back in the direction it had come from.  Tiberius felt an incredible blast of heat, enough to give him some minor first degree burns, but this was nothing compared to what the highly efficient complex conjugate reflection shield directed back towards the dragon. The reflected beam went right into the dragon’s chest.  It cut a hole clean though the dragon.  It gave a gasp of surprise and pain and then fell down, breathing its last. 

Tiberius approached the dying dragon.  “Understand the universe and you can command it.  That’s what Dallen’s riddle meant,” he said.  “A simple child’s toy can be the key to unlock the universe.  A prism is the key to the perfect mirror.”

The dragon wasn’t listening, though.  It had just one powerful thought left.  With superhuman strength, it managed to lift its head slightly for one last gasp, one last thought. 

“My … my treasure…”  was all it had left to say.  Tiberius didn’t give a damn about the dragon’s treasure.  He already had more than enough money for his needs.  But the dragon’s last thoughts were intensely powerful.  They flashed though Tiberius' mind.  It was sad, really, that gold was the only thing it loved in the world. But Tiberius now knew exactly where it was. 

Tiberius lifted Maci out of the rocks where she’d been hiding.  She came up coughing slightly. 

“I suppose you know how insanely dangerous and idiotic it was following me out here?” he chided.

“This from the man who attacked a dragon with a stick.  How were you going to solve Dallen’s riddle without me?” she said. 

“I’d have figured it out.  Are you alright?” he said, frowning at her coughing.

“No, I think I burned my lungs sometime during that last fire exchange,” she said.

He pushed a bottle towards her.  “Drink this; you’ll feel better.”

“Is this magic?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Oh, good,”  she said, taking a drink.  Meeting his questioning glance, she added, “I thought you were going to say I’m too young or something.”

“You’re too young to be here; you aren’t to young to get well.  If you’re feeling better we’ll go have a look at the treasure.”

“What?  You know where it is?”  Maci said, surprised.

“It’s near here, about a half-mile away.  The dragon gave it away with its dying thoughts.  Or it might be a last trap, so stay behind me.”

“Right.”

Maci looked over the corps of Barcharosias.  “What are you going to do with the body?”  She asked. 

Tiberius stopped, and gave a puzzled look at the smoldering body of the dragon, then he glanced at Maci.  “I don't know.”

Maci smacked him in the shoulder.  “You've been studying dragons for how long and you never had a plan for what to do if you won?!”

“It was hard enough to figure out how to kill him.  I guess I should burn the body; we don't want the spiders feeding on it,” he said.

“Are you sure?  Don't you turn its skin into a shield or something?”  Maci asked. 

Tiberius shrugged.  “I don't want to haul bits of Barcharosias around with me.  But maybe you're right.”  He stopped, pointed his staff and said a few words.  A moment later the dragon's corpse was encased in ice.  With another spell and he cast an illusion on the ice bound corpse, making it look like a small hill.    

“There that should hold it for a while.  I'll send a note to Salina and Russ.  If anyone can make use of that thing they should be able to.  I did promise the head to Pastor Adams.  You don't think he meant that literally do you?”  Tiberius said.

Maci thought for a moment.  “He was pretty sore about having his garden toasted.  I don't think he'd mind.  It would be good for the city to have a trophy.”

“Let's take a look at the treasure; then we can finish with dragon disposal,”  Tiberius said.      

They walked along the hillside until they came to a flat place along the hill.  It looked like a solid wall of rock, covered by a few bushes and some ivy.  The plants were real, but the wall of rock, that was another matter.  Letting his staff give off a bit of light, Tiberius pushed past the illusion. 

“Remember, stay close and don’t touch anything.  I got a pretty good feel for his usual method of walking down here at the end, but I don’t trust him.  He likely was trying to trick me.  A form of revenge.”

“I understand.  I won’t touch anything.  I promise,” Maci said.

“Just remember to look with your eyes.”

They followed a wide cavern twisting down under the hillside.  It opened at last into a large cavern.  It wasn’t entirely a natural cavern.  The dragon had used its arts to enlarge it, but there was still some evidence of stalagmites and natural formations.  On reaching the final large chamber, the light was swallowed by the size of the room.  Tiberius had his staff give off a brighter light.  It shone out across the room and suddenly light shone back at them from everywhere.  The room was filled with coins, gold, and jewels winking back at them from every place imaginable.  In a couple of spots it had been piled into stacks. 

“Wow!” Maci whispered.  “You are really rich!” 

“I suppose I should cut you in for a share.  I can set up a college fund for you…”

“Oh don’t you dare.  I don’t need to go to college; I’m joining the Rangers, remember!  Darras said I could!  Anyway, if Dad even thinks for a second that I came here for a share of the treasure he’ll kill me.”  A sudden question hit Maci.  “Do you actually get to keep all this?  I suppose it’s all stolen.  I don’t know if you can figure out from whom.  You work for the government; do you have to give all this back to them?  I know you’ll have to pay taxes.”

Tiberius glanced around the room.  “Ordinarily I get a small percentage of what I find, but that’s when I’m patrolling in government service.  I took a leave of absence to fight the dragon, so the rate goes up a bit for this.  You’re right; probably most of this is stolen property.  I’ll return what I can to the rightful owners, but what he took from goblins or other dragons … I doubt that can ever be traced.  I’m just guessing but there is about thirty million shillings here.  I’ll probably be able to pocket about a third of that. Minus your college fund, naturally.”

“I told you; I’m not going to college.  I’m bored with school already.  Oh, hey!  A wakizashi.  Looks like a nice one.”

Maci moved towards the Japanese short sword.  An Asian sword was unusual enough to attract Maci’s interest, especially as it had been strategically placed on top of a pile of treasure. 

“Don’t touch that!”  Tiberius screamed.  Maci froze and slowly backed away from the short sword. 

“It’s a cursed sword.  Can’t you feel the evil?” he yelled.

“I wasn’t going to touch it!”  Maci said. “I just wanted a closer look.  I’ll just back up a bit and let you sort things out.”  She did look worried. 

Tiberius walked over to the sword.  He shone his truthlight spell over the weapon.  “Cute.  Looks like it’s cursed to kill whoever draws the blade.  Wonder where he picked up that little trinket?  He put it just where you would be sure to see it too.  I bet it’s not the only little surprise waiting around here.  I wonder if he’s got any useful magic items about.  A decent sword for Darras would be too much to hope for, I suppose.  I’m going to need to rent some mules.  You can help me drive them up here.”

“Me?”

“What, you’re going to leave when you can actually do something useful?  We’ll need help moving this.”