The Lazy Dragon and Bumblespells Wizard (20 page)

Moire Ain slammed her eyes shut again. She'd knocked her head hard against the skeleton horse's flank and blacked out. When she awoke, she was lying on cold stone in a creepy rock chamber with a prickly rope around her hands and ankles. She had seen Sir George but not his horse. She guessed the bloody stallion had bolted away from Sir George as soon as it could, just like his other two steeds. Too bad it hadn't fled before she ended up tied up on a flat rock in a cave.

Before she did anything that made the crazy knight angrier, she decided to listen and learn.

The first thing she realized was that she heard someone else in the cavern besides Sir George. By the footsteps, she could tell the horse hadn't returned. She slit her eyes to try and see, but the other presence was a darker spot in the shadows. Afraid to open her eyes wider and give away that she was awake, she continued to listen.

Moire Ain made out rough breathing and a hoarse voice with a familiar southern Albion accent. Someone
she knew was here? Who? Moire Ain didn't know anybody important enough to know a knight, not even a rusty, clunky one. She listened as the shadow lectured Sir George about failing to accomplish what he'd been hired for.

Sir George complained, “For all my success, you treat me ill! You owe me more.”

Despite echoes that bounced and distorted the voice, the haranguing shadow sounded too familiar. Cold suspicion wrapped her heart. Moire Ain barely kept her eyes from flying open or gasping when the argument took an ugly turn. She opened her eyes the tiniest bit. With a frozen hiss, a knife swept the air over her chest. Keeping her slitted eyes on the rimed weapon, she heard Sir George rattle away from her side. He too knew the double-death the iced knife could deal.

The knife slipped lower, and the knight whined to be let go. Moire Ain couldn't stop herself. Frozen dread making her breathe hard, she turned her head. There she was, the person Moire Ain dreaded most, the witch who had created the frightening slow freezing death that froze the victim in a slow, pain-filled final death—Hedge-Witch. Blocking Sir George from moving, the old crone swept her arm, and the sword-sized dagger flew away from Moire Ain. It stopped and hovered next to Sir George. She snapped her fingers, and the sword pressed against the knight's chest where he cowered on the rock floor.

Moire Ain struggled to yell at Hedge-Witch to leave the knight alone, but a drumming of thunder rocked the stone Moire Ain lay on and bounced the knight against the floor. The sword pierced his armor, and Sir George screamed. When no blood flowed, Great and Mighty was relieved that he hadn't actually been stabbed.

Hedge-Witch snapped her fingers again, and the sword shrank back to knife length and flew into her hand. Once she held it, she gave the blade a shake and let it grow to sword length again. “Do you know what that was? Do you know who broke the air and shook this mountain? It was the dr'gon you were supposed to kill, fool.” Her eyes had that maniacal shine Moire Ain had learned to fear and to hide from.

Still trapped on his back, Sir George whimpered from the floor. “I did everything else you said. I acted like I didn't know you even when we were alone. I ….” Flailing his arms and legs backward, still upside down and turtle helpless, he tried to scoot away from the witch. He scrambled so hard his face was beet red. Hedge-Witch slammed the sword into the rock floor. The vibration made Sir George tumble a good three feet into the air. He came down on hands and knees. She tossed the sword to him and yelled, “Get that dr'gon. Kill him now!”

Sir George struggled to his feet and backed toward the cavern's entrance. But he ran into the skeleton horse as it stepped out of the shadows.

“Ride!” Hedge-Witch commanded. “Make sure that River Dr'gon dies. He's the obstacle.” Red eyes glared from the depths of the hood she drew farther over her head.

Sir George threw himself up on the skeleton horse. Before he could grab the reins, the steed broke into a gallop, heading across the cavern straight for a wall. The knight screamed as they passed through the wall and disappeared.

“I know you are awake, Moire Ain,” Hedge-Witch said in a voice so snowy Moire Ain felt her bones freeze. But the pain in her body was nothing like what came in the next moment. Icing mist poured out of Hedge-Witch's hood, encasing Moire Ain.

Refusing to say a word that might tell the old witch how petrified she was, the want-to-be wizard wiggled to get away from the fog, or at least loosen the restraints on her hands and ankles. This was not the first time Hedge-Witch had used icing mist in front of Moire Ain. It was the first time Moire Ain had been the victim. If Hedge-Witch did not counteract the spell quickly, her quarry died of the frost. Moire Ain remembered when Goodwife Oak would not pay Hedge-Witch to prevent the witch from releasing a fungus to kill the Oaks' crops. No one else in the village spoke about the goodwife's frigid death in the warm season, but Hedge-Witch had a fancy new silver chain a week later.

The cold crept along her skin, and Moire Ain felt her muscles go hard. If she'd learned to be a for-real wizard, she could cast a spell that kept a warm aura on her skin. She'd have armor to protect her from Hedge-Witch's favorite form of slow murder.

With her skin becoming ice inch by inch, Moire Ain imagined the words she'd use if she could call up a warm armor. “Like sunshine on my skin, armor to protect.” But it was too late; the mist's cold drove her forward to the dark sleep. With the last of her strength, Moire Ain repeated the words two more times, just like a real wizard.

As the last word echoed in her clouding mind, her lips too frozen to move, she felt warm fingers race over her body. A cracking noise echoed through the cavern. Moire Ain forced her icy lashes apart, forced her hands wide, and kicked her feet. Another echoing pop and she was warm and freed from the restraints. She sat up.

“Nicely done, Moire Ain. I thought you'd never learn. When you found that book, I feared you'd be dependent on others and never find your own power.” Hedge-Witch pulled down her hood. She appeared as she always did, a wrinkled old face with muddy brown eyes, and eyebrows as white as her thin hair. The only thing that didn't match was her smile. Although her teeth were a threatening pointy mouthful, her lips were soft and full like a young child. It was one of the many creepy things about her.

“Power?” Moire Ain was not about to admit anything about having done any magick. She'd run from the old crone when she heard the conspiracy to kill a king. Moire Ain had been glad to think she might have a future as a wizard, but she refused to help Hedge-Witch do evil. This friendly tone of the old crone's was a trick. Moire Ain knew there was some way the witch thought Moire Ain would be useful.

“Don't play stupid with me, girl. Why would I keep a miserable peasant like you unless you had power?”

Moire Ain almost laughed to see the evil old harridan go so fast from uncharacteristically nice to her usual nasty. “Power to clean your pig pen of a home? To feed your animals? To gather your herbs? To heal the people you would rather kill?” Moire Ain couldn't help herself. After years of this old horror, if she was going to die, she was going to stand up and say what was true.

“Granted. You make a very sufficient serf.” Hedge-Witch shrugged and paced around the rock Moire Ain sat on. “But I could enslave a thousand elves to do such petty work. Think. Why would I, Themora, take in an orphan?”

The old crone had a name. Moire Ain almost laughed that she'd never thought Hedge-Witch had one. But Moire Ain held her tongue for a moment. All her life she'd seen Hedge-Witch do cruel little magicks, but Moire Ain had never seen a sign that the woman could
do any kind of big magick, like the skeleton horse Sir George rode. Could the old witch really call up elves?

And what was this Old Language name, Themora? Moire Ain had never heard the word before. Despite the warmth clinging to Moire Ain's skin, she shivered. Hedge-Witch was something different from what Moire Ain had always thought, and that something felt even worse.

“I'm waiting for an answer, girl!” Hedge-Witch paced. “Never mind. You may have the power, but you are certainly not that bright. Clearly intelligence and power are two different entities with you. All the better for me.” She stopped in front of Moire Ain. “What did you use?”

“Pardon?”

Hedge-Witch growled. “What did you use to counteract my freezing spell? Do not bother to pretend you didn't do it. Before I took you in, I tested you. If you did not have the potential to call power, then I would have been wrong about you.” She shrugged and slit her eyes at Moire Ain. “But I am never wrong.”

Moire Ain refused to speak, but an inferno broke loose in her brain. All this time she'd believed she couldn't do big, impressive magick but hoped somehow she might learn it. She'd managed the small bumblespelled magick she'd done with Cl'rnce, but something had changed.

Hedge-Witch was saying Moire Ain had released herself from the freezing spell. There was no one else here. That meant that even without believing she could, Moire Ain really had cast a big spell-breaking. A life and death spell-breaking. Without any bumblespelledness.

Moire Ain was astounded as she realized she had real magick. How much, and how fast could she access it? What was the key to getting to it? Was it as simple as not worrying and simply focusing on doing it? She needed to get away from Hedge-Witch and get to Cl'rnce before Sir George killed him.

Hedge-Witch stamped her foot, and a crystal staff grew from the cave floor. Gripping it in her left hand, the crone broke it loose from the ground and pounded it on the floor. A whisper of smoke formed, looking like a man, like the shadowy figure who had met Hedge-Witch in her hut. The smoke swirled and became a small dr'gon, black-brown instead of green like Cl'rnce, but with a growl twice as loud. Using the crystal rod, Hedge-Witch tapped the floor again, and the dr'gon began to grow. When it was twelve feet tall and its tail lashed about, knocking boulders loose, Hedge-Witch bowed to the dr'gon. “My lord, this is the girl. She is the key. She has the power you seek. I have seen it.”

The dr'gon eyed Moire Ain, but not in the friendly or joking way Cl'rnce did. This dr'gon's eyes were black like anthracite, with a burning red fire in the center. He
didn't speak, but he nodded to Hedge-Witch and took a step toward Moire Ain. His fangs dripped red.

Moire Ain swallowed a scream and tried to think. She felt the warmth-armor she'd made to repel the freezing spell. It was still on her skin, but dr'gons had their own fire. Fire and warmth would not protect her and keep this guy from eating her, or whatever he planned. She needed the opposite of warm. Cold. Moire Ain thought of the elements of warm that repelled the ice spell and turned them inside out.

Slowly, she sat up and focused cold in her fisted hands. She bowed her head, letting her hair drape over her face. Moire Ain concentrated and gathered from inside herself what she hoped she could use. A moment later, her hands felt like blocks of ice. She looked up. She hadn't heard him move, but the dr'gon's muzzle was only a foot away. Using all the strength she had, Moire Ain jumped up, slamming her iced hands onto the dr'gon's muzzle.

The creature bellowed and fell back far enough for Moire Ain to run past. But Hedge-Witch blocked her way, holding the crystal staff, pointing it at Moire Ain. Moire Ain didn't hesitate; she ran faster, straight at the witch. Moire Ain screamed, “To me!” She slammed a shoulder into Hedge-Witch. The rod flew to Moire Ain's extended hand.

She did not wait to see if Hedge-Witch followed, or
if the dr'gon was a frozen statue. Instead, she focused on the rod she held in front of her. Moire Ain ran for the wall and the spot Sir George had passed through.

Thinking
Escape in one piece
three times, she ran into the wall. And ran, and ran.

Outside the mountain, Cl'rnce had hit the dirt, stumbled, rolled twice, and hopped to his feet. He didn't have time to check for injuries before the little dr'gon buzzed around his head. In a blur of black feathers and loud caws, Raspberries zoomed past the dr'gonelle and straight at Cl'rnce. The raven pecked Cl'rnce on the nose.

Cl'rnce looked up, ready to bat at the feathered fleabag, but he saw something more important. Nasty Sir George on his skeleton horse soared down the side of the mountain, headed straight at Cl'rnce. The killer knight screamed something so high pitched it hurt Cl'rnce's ears.

“That's not good,” Cl'rnce said. He concentrated and sucked in a deep breath. The air went straight to his fire pit, fanning a blaze so hot it almost hurt Cl'rnce's chest. He muttered to himself, “At least Great and Mighty isn't here to tell me no. No matter what she thinks, I'm going to fry this knight until he helps me get to the little wizard!
And kill him after.”

His throat roasty-hot from the gathered flame, Cl'rnce blew a long tongue of fire, scorching over the horse and rider. The horse went up in flames and ash. The knight fell from the sky, charred to a crisp. He landed with a spray of ash.

Cl'rnce edged over and kicked the burnt knight. He wasn't sure if he heard a whimper, but the knight didn't move. “Ah, river
rats
!” Cl'rnce said. “I didn't mean to do that. He's dead. Now how am I going to find Great and Mighty?” Cl'rnce looked back up at Ghost Mountain. “Why did Nasty Sir George leave her?”

The little dr'gon flew up to Cl'rnce's face, snorted a hot breath that clearly said Cl'rnce was an idiot, then smacked Cl'rnce in the chest with his tail.

“Ouch! That hurt. Are you crazy?” Cl'rnce patted his chest. “You might have broken the Whisper Stone. Hazel will have my hide if it gets damaged. I don't have time for repairs or finding a replacement. No, wait. I dropped it. It could be around here. I guess we should find it. I still have to get it into the Council Chamber.”