by Rain Oxford
“Yes,” Even though his voice was only in my mind, I heard pain in his tone.
“I escaped. I’m going to sneak up and free you. Which cabin are you in? Can you describe it?”
Instead of answering, he howled.
I followed the sound to the one-story orange cabin. As soon as I reached the window, Merlin’s howl was cut off and he yelped in pain. I looked through the window. Sorcerer had a dagger and Warrior had a sword. Merlin’s four paws were bound and he was covered in new wounds. It looked like they had been hitting him with something.
I felt no remorse when I aimed my staff at Warrior. In fact, I focused on my disgust that they would attack Merlin, who was completely helpless. Stop them, I thought.
My magic flowed from me into the staff and out as blue energy. It crashed into both Warrior and Sorcerer. They froze.
I didn’t waste time; I entered through the front door and cut Merlin free. He whimpered when I tried to help him up, so I levitated him instead. Before leaving, I scowled at Warrior. “I get Sorcerer being cruel, but you should know better. There is no honor in hurting a defenseless person or animal.”
He couldn’t answer and I didn’t want to hear his excuses anyway, so we left. It didn’t take long to get to Merlin’s den. There, I settled him on the grass as gently as I could.
“Thank you, young sorcerer,” Merlin said aloud.
“I stick up for my friends.”
“Yes, I know you do. I cannot remember everything, but I do remember that I care about you.”
“Whether I’m a sorcerer, a wizard, or a Sjau, I don’t know. Am I a good friend?”
“You are a great friend.”
“How did you get your memories back?”
“I said Nimue’s name. For some reason, that caused the spell to unravel. Again, I do not remember how we did the spell, but we must have done it to keep Gmork from opening the jar.”
“Then we shouldn’t break the spell?”
“We will have to. He knows me, so he has a huge advantage.”
“Do you remember enough to break the spell?”
“No. Furthermore, without knowing what was done, there is no way to break it. Instead, we have to create a new spell to regain our memories.”
* * *
“We need a mirror,” Merlin said.
“The only mirrors we’ve found are in the orange cabin, and I’m not going to have the element of surprise anymore.”
“If we knew what spell we used, the solution would be simple, but this is what we have to work with. A quill pen is necessary as well.”
“And ink?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Then what are we going to use with the… oh.”
“Fear not, young sorcerer. This will not require all of your blood. You have plenty to spare.”
“Just how many spells are you planning to do with my blood?”
He grinned, displaying his sharp fangs.
* * *
I snuck back into the village with my staff ready. It seemed to be much more powerful than my wand. I waited behind the orange cabin and listened for what was going on.
Magician, Sorcerer, and Warrior were arguing about me. Magician didn’t believe I was capable of sorcery, but the other two were trying to convince him that I wasn’t a wizard. “He must be a sorcerer in disguise,” Warrior insisted.
At least they weren’t in the orange cabin. Unfortunately, they weren’t far from it, though. I pointed my staff to the south. “Distract them,” I said, letting my magic choose the distraction. I was curious what my staff would do.
I felt my magic flow through it and leave invisibly. It reached the other side of the village before it exploded with colorful flames and sparkles. The instant they started running to see what the commotion was, I entered the cabin and grabbed the first two mirrors I could. Then I had to find a pen. Unfortunately, by the time I searched everything, I found no pen and heard the others returning from the distraction.
I grabbed my staff. “Impress me. I need to get across the village without being seen. What can you do?” Although I wasn’t giving it specific directions, I focused my mind on my desire to be unseen. I was definitely impressed when my magic engulfed me, my skin tingled, and I became invisible.
Just then, the door opened and Sorcerer entered. I ducked behind him carefully and darted out the door. It was strange and disorienting to be invisible because I couldn’t see my eyelids or feet.
I hurried across the road and into the pink cabin, where I found the bag exactly as I’d left it. When I touched the bag, the invisibility covered it, too. I returned to Merlin and dropped my spell.
“Will these mirrors work?”
“Yes.”
I pulled out the quill pen. “Now, what do we do?”
“You must prick your finger and draw on the mirror.” An image came to mind of a seven-pointed star in a circle with seven strange symbols between the points. “You will do the same with my blood on the other mirror, since I cannot draw.”
“I don’t know what those symbols mean.”
“They are sigils— words of magic. You need not know what they say since you are following my directions.”
I used blood from his open wounds to draw the spell. When I was done and he was satisfied, I started on my own. “What if this goes wrong?”
“It will only go wrong if you expect it to. Trust me.”
I nodded. I did, even though I knew nothing about him except that we were friends. “What do we do now?”
“Look into your eyes in the mirror and ask it who you are.”
“Seriously? That’s all? What about using magic?”
“The magic is in your blood, and the spell you drew will direct it in the same fashion as your wand or staff.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“Really? You understand?”
“Of course. You explained it perfectly clearly. Why?”
“I seem to remember it being more difficult to explain this kind of thing to you.”
“Let’s find out, then.” I faced the mirror, looked into my eyes, and asked, “Who am I?”
Chapter 4
Six days ago…
Mason checked his scroll and grimaced. “This is going to be a fun one. I’ll open the doors. All of the doors, and windows.”
“What is it?” I asked. We were in the throne room of Magnus’s castle. Although I didn’t like sitting in the throne chair, Merlin insisted it was best for the curse breaker to appear professional. Since I kept getting kidnapped outside of the castle, I agreed to it.
Mason Minof was a Sjau, like me. Although he has done necromancy, his strongest abilities were wizardry and healing. His family members were wizards, but he didn’t look like them. He wasn’t scrawny like me, but since his father and brothers were warriors, he wasn’t as muscular or tall as them. He also wasn’t blond with blue eyes like them. Instead, he had dark red hair and dark green eyes.
Since the Minof family moved into Magnus’s castle after his death, they were slowly getting rid of the stark white and silver décor and replacing it with wood and colorful art. It made the castle much more pleasant and the throne much less intimidating.
Before Mason could answer, the door opened and a middle-aged man stormed in. He was quite average in appearance with brown hair and green eyes. I figured he was a mage, which was odd, because mages usually weren’t this brash. I wasn’t able to ask him what the problem was, though, because he stopped in front of me and started making demands.
“My wife’s jealous sister put a curse on me, and I want you to break it!”
The stench that wafted from his mouth was enough to gag a goat. It somewhat smelled like rotting fish and burnt garlic, only much worse. I opened my mouth to speak and immediately regretted that decision.
The air tasted worse than it smelled.
“He was cursed with dragon’s breath,” Mason explained, covering his mouth with his robe.
I scrambled out of the
chair and across the room, but the odor was hard to escape. “I’ve never smelled a dragon that bad. Go outside!”
“I’m not leaving until you help me,” he said.
“We’ll help you! Go outside!” He did, and with a wave of his wand, Mason opened all the windows and doors in the castle.
He and his family took care of many of the easier curses, but I was pretty sure this one would be all on me.
“Merlin, can you help with this one?” I asked in Merlin’s mind.
“You need help with a curse?”
“A man was cursed with terrible breath and I can’t get close enough to him to break it.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Switch with me and then you can say I was kidnapped by assassins again and I won’t be back for a month.”
“You can deal with a little stench, young sorcerer,” he said.
With a miserable groan, I stepped outside. There was a line of people waiting on the other side of the gate. Usually, they crowded the door, but they must have been avoiding the putrid-smelling man.
“I can break your curse, but I’ll need a bit more information. Breathe in the other direction. Why did your wife’s sister curse you?”
“Like I said, it was out of jealousy.”
“You couldn’t have gotten her to break the curse?”
“She’s not speaking to me.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s not speaking to me, either.”
“Are you sure you didn’t do anything to anger her?”
“I’m certain! I only kissed her.”
“Your wife?”
“Her sister. I knew she always liked me, so I decided to let her have a---”
“Yes, I get it. This will cost you, and if you try to kiss her again, she’ll probably curse you again. You might want to apologize to her and make nice with her instead.”
“I don’t need advice. Just break the curse.”
I heard that a lot from people who deserved the curse they were inflicted with. I was used to Merlin giving me advice and often wanted to help people not get cursed again. Most of the time, it was unappreciated.
“I’ll be back in a moment.” I went inside and found Mason. “Please bring me a bottle and some rose petals.”
“We have dried petals, but you and Merlin used the last of the fresh ones on that secret project of yours.”
It wasn’t a secret, just embarrassing. Transformation was one of my strongest talents as long as I had my wand or staff, but Merlin was convinced that I needed to learn magic without them. Thus, he was teaching me alchemy. I was pretty bad at it without a tool to focus my magic.
When Mason returned with what I needed, I crumbled the rose petals and put them in the bottle. Afterward, I went to the foul-breathed man. “I have to touch you to do this, so try very hard not to breathe.”
“Because it will mess up the spell?”
“Yes.” It would mess up the spell if I vomited.
I put my hand on his arm and focused my magic on him. I had been able to break curses since I could remember, but when Merlin taught me to detect magic around me, I learned to use it to make breaking a curse over someone safer. My magic quickly flowed into him and encountered sorcery, which I had expected. I also sensed his mage magic, although I was surprised how bad he was at it. He had never had training and it appeared that he never cared to practice it. I let go of him and pulled my wand out of my pocket.
Although almost everyone on Caldaca had magic, breaking curses over people who had magic was tricky. If they never used their magic, it usually faded to a miniscule amount, which made the risks less. However, even if their magic was nearly undetectable, it could have dire consequences to break a curse if it bonded to their magic.
Fortunately, it was clear that this wasn’t the case in the mage. It seemed that certain curses bonded to certain types of magic better than others. I ordered my magic to separate the sorcery from the healing magic. Sparkly gold magic flowed from my wand into the mage, embarrassing me as it usually did. The sorcery resisted, but my magic was well-trained to do this.
The weakness in this curse was in the details, which was pretty common. The strength was that it was created with anger and disgust, so I tried to soothe it with more light magic. The magic changed from gold to white.
I focused on the details. She had cursed him with “dragon’s breath” because she thought dragons had bad breath. The reason it smelled as it did was because she thought that was the way dragons smelled. It wasn’t true, however. I had known dragons and they never smelled bad. Actually, they smelled like smoky reptiles, but not this bad. My magic couldn’t explain this to the curse, though. Instead, it changed the curse so that his breath actually smelled like a dragon. Once this was done, it was easy to draw the sorcery out of him and into the bottle of rose petals. The curse was dampened by the more pleasant odor of roses.
I put the lid on the bottle and decided to keep it in case I needed the mildly unpleasant breath of a fire-breathing dragon. Merlin’s magic required that kind of thing all the time. “Now, see Mason inside about payment.”
The man sniffed his breath. “Actually, I’ll try it out for a few days to make sure it’s permanent and I like the results.” He started to prance away, confident in his ability to get away unscathed.
I pointed my wand at him and thought the command. It wasn’t often that I used dark magic, but I was getting better at it each time. The man froze mid-step. “Many people are confused as to how I can do what I do. I’ll tell you the secret; I can do both wizardry and sorcery,” I explained calmly. “That means I can curse you as easily as I can break a curse, and I would charge you for breaking my curse if it comes to that. I suggest you take care of your payment now, because I know quite a few humiliating and painful curses thanks to my curse breaking experience.” With that, I released him.
Not surprisingly, he ran inside.
I glanced at the line of people. Some of them looked awed, while others looked afraid. I didn’t know how to feel about either response. I didn’t like hurting people, but I was done being taken advantage of. There were enough people in the world that I could help who weren’t out to hurt me.
I aimed my wand at myself and focused my power. “I am always happy to help those in need.” My magic amplified my voice so that all of the onlookers could hear me. “If someone wronged another and brought the curse on themselves, I will still help them, but at a price. This gives me the time and energy to help innocent people who were cursed.”
With that, I turned and went inside.
* * *
I’d been fascinated by dragons for most of my life, despite their near extinction. Dragon trainers didn’t actually train dragons; they protected each other. Dragons taught them magic and people protected them from hunters, because a “trained” dragon wasn’t allowed to be hunted.
Since their return, there was a lot of controversy about them. Many people thought they were too dangerous to live, while others wanted to use their hide, claws, teeth, and blood for magic, weapons, and armor. This meant hunting dragons was on the rise as well.
Yuri Romanus was a great advocate for dragons and made progress in stopping the hunting of dragons. Because many magic users of all types started losing their magic and discovering that they were bonded to certain dragons, all hunting should have come to a halt. Unfortunately, it didn’t, because some people wanted to weaken their enemies by killing dragons.
It was a mess. Certain lands instigated war with others over the treatment of dragons and dragon guardians. Lands that welcomed dragons were being overrun and invaded. Yuri’s kingdom was the only true safe place for dragons, so it was crowded with dragon hatchlings and their scared, confused guardians.
Surprisingly, with the return of dragons, several wolves were spotted in the ice lands.
It was a messy time for everyone, especially Yuri and me. I was mistaken for Yuri all the time, since we were identical,
so I usually didn’t bother explaining except when people tried to capture me. Telling them I was a curse breaker rarely resulted in anything better. Disguise spells never stuck because I wasn’t a magician. Thus, I spent a lot of time as a wolf when I was out of the castle. This gave Merlin a chance to regain his stamina and magic. We could stay switched for twice as long as when we first started, but it usually wasn’t long enough.
Being a wolf was a reprieve. We didn’t leave Magnus’s castle much because people seemed to need a curse breaker more than ever. Fortunately, after word got around that I would charge people if they brought the curse on themselves, I stopped getting so many people who deserved their curse. However, I still enjoyed my time as a wolf because no one but my friends knew it was me.
I also enjoyed learning magic from Merlin. He had even suggested that we start traveling to other worlds. I definitely wanted to, but I kept putting it off because I was worried someone would need me.
* * *
I wasn’t surprised to see Merlin sitting beside the throne, looking amused. “That was quite an interesting speech,” he said.
“They need to know I will help those who are wrongfully cursed.”
“That was not the speech I was referring to. You have come a long way from the naïve young sorcerer who could only conjure apples and broccoli to eat. Soon, you will be ready to learn the famous Rynorm glare from your grandmother that can decalcify every spine within a ten mile radius.”
“Only Rynorm women can do that.”
“Have more faith in yourself.”
“By the way, where is Goat? She wasn’t chewing my blanket when I woke up this morning and I haven’t heard her cries of…” I trailed off, not liking his expression. “Did you do something to her?”
“Define ‘something’.”
I groaned. The goat was the most annoying creature I had ever met, but I’d grown to like her. “I told you not to eat her.”
“I did not eat her. I might have made sure she was on Rita’s wagon when they left last week.”