Wizards (5 page)

Jenny wrapped her legs around Fluffy; riding him the way she might have ridden a horse. As they passed the man she grabbed him and dragged him from the bush.

The next few seconds were chaotic as the extra weight caused Fluffy to drop. He veered away from the ridge headed for a grass covered hilltop a short distance away. Dragon and passengers toppled head over heels, as he brought them down to the ground with a typical lack of grace. If Jake had been present to see it, he wouldn't have been the least surprised.

Jenny recovered first.

"Are you all right?" she asked the man as she helped him to his feet. The man seemed dazed and didn't appear to know what was going on. Then he looked up straight into Fluffy's face as Fluffy gazed back at him.

The man gave a high-pitched girly scream and pushed backwards, knocking Jenny to the ground as he flailed in panic.

"Well, if you are going to be like that about it," Jenny muttered and climbed back onto Fluffy's back.

"I think we had best be off, don't you?" she said to Fluffy who seemed to be only too grateful to jump back into the air and leave the screaming man behind.

"Where the hell have you two been?" I asked angrily as Fluffy folded his wings and collapsed onto the cavern floor in a belly flop of a landing. Jenny managed to hold on and avoid being crushed on the rocks though you could see it was a close call.

"Don't act like such a baby, Jake," Jenny said breathlessly. "Can't a girl take her boyfriend's dragon for a walk without all this fuss?"

"Firstly, it was flight and secondly, have you forgotten the hunters are out today? What if one of them saw Fluffy and took a shot at him?" I protested. The truth was, my feelings were hurt that they were gone for so long.

"Well, we rescued one of those hunters, if you must know," Jenny said as she staggered off Fluffy. "Pulled him off the cliff face we did, where he was dangling about to fall to his death."

"You did what?" I asked, words failing me for a few seconds. Then I recovered enough to let her have it.

"Do you think Fluffy will be safe now people know he exists? That they won't hunt him down and kill him?"

Jenny’s face screwed up, close to tears. "What were we supposed to do, let the man fall to his death?"

"You weren't supposed to be there," I said furiously. "I've kept Fluffy safe from harm since he hatched and after half an hour out with you he's been seen by a hunter."

Jenny sat down in a corner of the cavern and burst into tears. Fluffy turned his head sideways and looked reproachfully at me, and I swear he actually tutted at me in disapproval.

I sat down besides Jenny and tried to put my arm around her, but she pushed me away.

"I worry about Fluffy's safety. I would have taken him back to his own world years ago if I knew how. By the time I realized it wasn't right to keep him as a pet he was too big to travel through the hopscotch court."

Jenny turned towards me and buried her face in my chest.

"I love him, Jake," she said between sobs. "The moment I saw him I knew I've needed a dragon all my life. Don't you think I know what I've done?"

"Meep, meep, meep," Fluffy told us in an annoyed tone.

"He's telling you he was there too and it was his choice," I explained. I've always understood Fluffy's meeps.

"I know," Jenny said. "I sort of understand him too."

"What's done is done," I said, sighing at the unfairness of it all. Fluffy folded his wings on the other side of me and put his head on my lap so we could cuddle him.

Being a wizard with responsibilities is sometimes no fun at all. I suppose though, that I have to be thankful for the friends I have.

Chapter Five
: Wizard's Ring

I
knew I shouldn't have come to this place, but I just couldn't resist it. Fortunately, it was very cold, so I knew I could get away with wearing my large grey duffle coat with its massive protective hood. There were only a few people who might recognize me in any case and they were mainly girls who would be too busy looking at all the pomp and circumstance.

I had returned to Salice to watch the annual reconfirmation of their king and queen. The kingdom of Salice on the continent of Mystrang was the place where I had given a wise-man a handful of lucky stones and he used them to usurp the rightful rulers. As a result, the people of Salice had been confined to dungeons for the last few years when they hadn't been working their socks off to keep said wise-man in comfort.

Not surprisingly, I wasn't the most popular wizard in this particular place, even though I had returned and rescued the imprisoned people. The locals took the view I should have been more careful in whom I entrusted powerful magic objects. I have to admit they might have a point.

Princess Esmeralda told me this ceremony would be taking place in two weeks when I left Salice to return to Earth. Esmeralda and I met in the town when I first visited. I still carry a fading bruise on my face from where she slapped me.

Given this was always a big celebration in Salice and would be even bigger this year since everybody was glad to be free, I figured I should come and join in. This had nothing to do with the fact that Jenny wasn't currently speaking to me, of course.

It had been two days since I introduced Fluffy to Jenny. They bonded on the spot in a way I still found disconcerting. The upshot was she demanded to know exactly how to find and get into the Bat Cave. I refused because she'd already exposed Fluffy to danger and that was within minutes of meeting him.

We had an argument and she refused to wear the blindfold she wore when I took her to the cave. That was the moment I discovered I can cast sleeping spells. It was when she woke up a short time later by our bicycles that she decided she was never going to speak to me again.

Which is why I was in Salice. I'm used to living a solitary existence, but when Fluffy turned his back on me in the Bat Cave I knew I had to get away from Earth and Salice was the only place I knew on another world about to have a party.

The party in question looked pretty spectacular. The streets were filled with stalls and decked out with streamers and garlands of every size and color. It really was a street party among friends, people moved from being customers for beer and wine to serving the suckling pig and roast beef. Children ran with wild abandon and barely a minute went by without fireworks bursting across the night sky.

I watched the reconfirmation without getting anywhere near to the stage. Pretty well everybody on that stage could recognize me if I got too close. The king and queen met me after the counter-revolution. Apparently, the king had once been a portly man, but he didn't have an ounce of fat on him when I was introduced. Spending your time chained up in a dank dungeon will do that for a man, though I'm certain he wouldn't thank me for his weight loss.

The Queen was as thin as her daughter and I backed away from her when we met. I'd already suffered at the hands of her daughter, and it was instantly clear to me I hadn't been forgiven by this woman for my stupidity. I knew that the wise-man killed half a dozen of her friends, so I suppose she might have a point.

The Bishop and the senior officials on stage had also met me. At least one of them demanded my death until Esmeralda pointed out the danger of attacking a powerful wizard. That was nice of her, because she was well aware that though I certainly was a powerful wizard, I still had no idea how to use my powers. She taught me more spells in one brief period than I had learnt in ten years. The king's library in Salice was full of wizard lore and Esmeralda had always been interested in the theory behind magic.

I supposed that since my discovery of how to make people fall asleep I could use the power to sneak into the library and steal some of their books. I'm not so pure it hadn't occurred to me, but having done so much damage to these poor people's lives I found I couldn't steal from them. I might be an idiot, but I'm not a bastard.

I was lost in gloomy thoughts when the palace was lit up in bright white light. The King's Palace in Salice is one of those picture book places, like something out of a Disney cartoon. It looked lovely glowing in the dark and I began to clap my hands in appreciation.

"Stop clapping, stranger," a man said in worried tone of voice, "This is none of our doing."

"The evil wizard must have returned," a voice in the crowd opined. "The King should have killed him when he had the chance."

"Perhaps he's only come back to join in the celebration," another voice suggested. "The palace looks lovely lit up like that."

Somewhere from the direction of the palace, a woman screamed. It was the most bloodcurdling sound I've ever heard.

A few men started to move towards the palace and then noticed nobody was following them. They stopped, obviously torn between the desire to go to the rescue and the risk of meeting whatever caused the woman to scream.

"I can't go back to being imprisoned again," a man said plaintively from behind me. "My wife died in there."

The crowd stood, unable to decide on a course of action. The silence continued for about five minutes. I wanted to go to the palace, but the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was draw attention to myself. These people could easily turn into a lynch mob if they discovered who I was.

Then there came the sound of running feet heading in our direction. A very fat man in an imposing costume came running round a corner from the direction of the palace.

"It's the king's treasurer!" someone in the crowd shouted and the crowd held its collective breath until he reached us. The man doubled over, completely out of breath and someone brought him a drink. He drank it down and then spent another thirty seconds coughing and spluttering.

"Wizard," he managed to get out at last.

"He's come back, the Bad Luck Wizard," somebody said with a moan. I felt offended by that because it was clear I must be the Bad Luck Wizard.

The fat man shook his head violently and waved his hand in negation. He was still having trouble getting his breath. Wherever he spent the last few years it wasn't out working in the fields.

"No, another one. You know, I worked for the Master, looking after the kingdom's money while King Petre was imprisoned. I had no choice in the matter, you understand?"

He seemed to be looking for some kind of forgiveness from the crowd but they stared at him blankly. When he realized they weren't going to thank him for looking after the kingdom's money for them, he resumed his story.

"A wizard came to visit the Master about a year ago. Not the one who gave him the stones but another one seeking somewhere to make his own. He stayed with the Master for about a month before deciding he would continue with his travels. I think those stones he had in his pocket protected the Master from the wizard, because while the two of them seemed amicable enough, I know the Master was relieved to see him go."

"In any case, this wizard is back and is demanding we tell him where the Master is. He turned King Petre into a statue when he refused to tell him. The scream was Queen Janti crying out when she saw it happen."

"How did you get away?" someone asked.

"He's sent the courtiers out into the town to spread the word. Unless the Master is returned to the Palace within the hour, he will turn the Queen and Princess Esmeralda into statues as well."

"But the Master is gone with the Bad Luck Wizard and in some other world," someone pointed out.

The fat man shrugged. "I felt safer in the town than in the palace."

"I'll have to go to the palace," I said and started to walk towards it

"Stop stranger!" a commanding voice shouted. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Bad Luck Wizard," I said. "And it looks like this is my fault again."

I carried on walking. I'd like to tell you the people of Salice fell in behind me and we marched to the palace as an army. I'd like to tell you, but that's not what happened. Not one of them joined me as I began the lonely trek across the bridge and up the hill to the King's Palace.

As I passed through the majestic gold-plated wrought iron gates of the palace the bright light around it faded away. I presumed the wizard had lost interest in it. While magic requires little effort to maintain once established, it still took some power from the wizard. I never even noticed the drain the Master's lucky stones took from me, but it had undoubtedly been there.

Now that I knew a little of how magic worked I was being much more careful about how I used my magic. However, I had taken the trouble to use a special locking technique Esmeralda taught me to permanently seal the Master in his cage. Even if I died, he would remain trapped inside the pot.

The other wizard must know enough about magic not to waste his power. Having made his point by lighting up the palace he had recovered the magical energy he used to do it.

The grand carved doorway of the palace led to a foyer where two enormous curved staircases on either side led up to the upper floor. In line with the grand doorway was another set of double doors that led into the Royal Ballroom. Those doors were wide open and the ballroom was packed with people in fancy clothing milling around uneasily.