Dragonmancer

by Simon Archer

  “Would you just look at this place!” she said, waving her arm around the room. “There’s no room for you to do anything else!” She was absolutely right.

  “I guess taking a break for a little clean up would be a good idea,” I agreed. I spent the next twenty minutes converting everything back to its original form and giving it to Gail to put back in the cupboard. When we finished, both of us took a seat at the table. I was buzzing with excitement about my newfound abilities. I had no desire to stop practicing.

  “What should we try next?” I asked as Gale leaned back in her chair. She didn’t look tired, but she definitely appeared to need a relaxing moment. I had different ideas, however.

  “What would you like to do?” she asked. Up to that point, she had directed every moment of the process, so this was a bit surprising.

  “I’m rather confident that we have tested the transformation of one thing into another enough,” I started. “I’m curious as to whether I can change the properties of something without changing its form completely.” She gazed at me for a long moment, no doubt trying to figure out what I meant.

  “Tell me an example of what you are thinking,” she replied. I looked around the room, which was empty once again. The only thing to see was the brightly lit stone walls, which gave me an idea.

  “How was the Academy built? It’s made up mostly of stone, correct?” I leaned back in my own chair while waiting for her answer.

  “The building was erected hundreds of years ago, and put together one stone at a time,” she said, leaning her head to the side with curiosity.

  “Unless the stones are magic themselves, aren’t they rather heavy to be placed three stories in the air?” I asked.

  “It took years and several lives,” she replied. “Why?”

  “I think I can make projects like that easier,” I told her. “Do you have a couple of stones in that cupboard of yours?”

  “I can,” she said as she sat up in her chair. She snapped her fingers, and the cupboard doors closed momentarily, then opened it again. She reached inside with both hands and pulled out two stones. One was slightly larger than the other, and both were black. “Will these work?”

  I took the stones from her and examined them. As expected, the larger stone weighed more.

  “Yes, I think these will do just fine,” I responded. Standing up, I walked a few paces away and set both rocks on the floor. I waved at Gale to join me. “Pick up each rock so you can feel how heavy they are.”

  With a nod, she bent over and quickly picked up each rock, held it in her hand for a moment, and put it back down.

  “Of course, the larger one is heavier,” she said, standing back a few paces. “What are you going to do?” Without answering her, I closed my eyes as I squatted down and touched both rocks at the same time. I conjured a specific image in my head, then removed my hands, opened my eyes, and stood back up.

  “Now, pick the rocks up again,” I instructed.

  “What am I looking for?” Gale asked me as she bent over to grab the stones.

  “You’ll know,” I told her. She wrapped her hands around them and began picking them up off the floor. The hand with the large stone, the one she expected to be heavier, flew back, nearly knocking her off-balance while the small stone barely lifted off the ground.

  “This thing weighs almost nothing!” she called out, regaining her balance. She left the small stone on the floor and stared at the large one in her hands, flipping it over several times. “What did you do?”

  I picked the small stone off the floor and felt that it was indeed ten times heavier than it had been originally before I answered.

  “I changed the density of the rocks. The small one’s mass is now so closely packed together that its weight has increased exponentially. I pulled the mass from the large stone in order to do that, making it lighter.”

  “You kept the elements the same but changed the position of their makeup?” I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind, trying to be sure she understood.

  “Yes. The weight in the small rock is from the material that was in the large one,” I confirmed for her. “I think that would make the use of stones for construction a little easier, don’t you?” I smiled her way, waiting for her to see my point.

  “In theory, yes,” she stated, setting the rock down. “How would you get the mass back into the original stone once someone built into a structure, though? You had to touch both rocks to transfer the mass, didn’t you?” She made a point I had not thought of.

  “I have no idea, but I’m sure we can find out very quickly!” I told her cheerily. The more I learned about the magical powers I suddenly possessed, the more I wanted to use them constantly. I walked five paces away from the large stone and set the small stone down. Then, I stood directly between the two and held a hand towards each. Closing my eyes, I pictured the mass shifting from the small rock back to its original place in the larger stone. When I opened my eyes, I looked at both. As before, nothing looked different. That was also when I realized that this was the first time I’d used magic that left behind no trace that I’d done anything. Hell, there weren't even lights or smoke like when I transformed elements.

  “Try that,” I told Gale as I took a step back. She picked up at the larger stone which was closer to her.

  “It’s heavy again!” she yelled out before letting it fall to the floor. She went straight to the smaller stone and picked it up with ease. “They seem to be back to normal! That means you don’t have to touch them for it to work!”

  “Now, do you believe I could make the construction sites operate a little easier around here?” I joked with her. She was staring at me with her mouth half-open in amazement.

  “I thought I had been educated about all possible forms of magic, even the ones I had never witnessed personally. This ability is not listed anywhere in any of the journals, or texts, or stories I have ever run across.” A small expression of sadness flashed across her face.

  “Don’t let it upset you! Just think! You will be the author of the journal that talks about it for the first time in your history!” I walked over to her and put my arm around her shoulders boldly. “Now, let me see a smile on the face of Blenwise’s new historical author!” She looked up at me, and a slow smile appeared.

  “You do you make a good point, Mr. Masters,” she agreed, smiling larger with each passing moment.

  “Blake!” I reminded her. “Now, let’s brainstorm about other activities that I could make easier for you guys around here!” I took my hand off her shoulder, and the two of us returned to the table once again. She was looking in the cabinet for ideas when a large knocking sound throughout the room. She sat up in her chair and looked back towards the doorway we had entered through.

  “Who could that be?” she wondered out loud. With the wave of her hand, a small window appeared and showed two faces, one female, and one male, directly outside. The male face belonged to Fitz.

  Both of them had a combination of excitement and worry on their faces.

  A second wave of Gale’s hand and a glass door appeared. Both guys rushed in without waiting for somebody to open the door.

  “Ms. Gale! We need your help!” the unfamiliar woman said as they approached. She was nearly a foot shorter than Fitz but walked with a gait that made it clear she was nobody to mess with.

  “Selena, what is it?” Gale asked as we both stood. When Selena was at the table, Fitz by her side, she looked up at him as though he was a foreign object. She shifted her gaze to Gale.

  “This young man just bested our most experienced swordsman,” she huffed, as though the accomplishment was a crime. “Then, I put him up against a Warrior.”

  “What happened?” Gale asked, seemingly very concerned herself suddenly.

  “He didn’t win, of course, but he fought better than he should have,” she stated angrily. Fitz stood silent, his head turning from one woman to the other as they spoke. When they both looked at him, he shrunk back
a tiny bit.

  “How did you win?” Gale demanded to know. Fitz licked his lips, not even trying to hide his nerves.

  “I don’t have an exact answer for you. We were fighting, and I made a strike that landed on my opponent's chest plate. The next thing I knew, it was like five years' worth of training information about sword fighting dumped into my brain. I just knew what to do. Every move he made, I knew how to counter it.” Fitz’s voice was more confident than he looked, but I could tell he was just as upset by what had happened as the two women.

  “There has been more than one occasion, like this morning, when you have used magic you weren’t necessarily supposed to. Be honest, was that what happened in this case?” Gale spat back at him. Selena put her hands on her hips and squared up to Fitz.

  “No! I swear it!” Fitz put both of his hands up in front of him, defensively. “I don’t have any talent with magic. Mine just happens to all be in a very few select spells. I truly have no idea what happened during the fight,” he replied, sounding like he was pleading for his life. I began to wonder if he actually was.

  Selena leaned forward slightly and opened her mouth as though to scream at him, but he rushed to continue before she had a chance. “There’s something else you should know.”

  “What?” Selena straightened herself up and huffed, clearly becoming more impatient with every millisecond that passed.

  “I have this thing on my arm now,” Fitz said very slowly, looking ashamed. With the speed of an injured turtle, he held out his right forearm for all of us to see. There, on his wrist, was in a circle that looked like a tattoo. It was the exact same size as the one on my wrist, and solid black completely filled it in. It would have looked exactly like mine, except it did not have the additional circle outline on the inside. I immediately looked at Gale.

  “When we talked yesterday, our conversation began because of that,” I said, pointing a finger at Fitz’s arm. “We got a bit off track, however, and never returned to the subject of the circles. Is that what happens when somebody is a…”

  “Yes,” Gale cut me off. “But that cannot be the case here,” she snapped. Apparently, she did not want me to use the word ‘Dragonmancer’ in mixed company. Fitz’s eyes darted between Gale and me.

  “What is he talking about? Do you know what the circle thing is?” he asked, sounding frantic and curious at the same time. “When it first popped up, there was a sword inside it, and a wand-looking thing, but when I tried to wipe it off, it turned black, and suddenly I knew everything about sword fighting.”

  “No, he doesn’t know anything about…” Gale started, but it was my turn to cut her off.

  “Yes, I do. I think I know what happened,” I said loudly, making certain Gale knew I was not going to let her silence me that time.

  “Then, please, man, let me in on the secret!” Fitz called out and with both relief and nervousness.

  “Do you remember what I said to you the last time I saw you, right before your sword match?” I asked Fitz.

  Gale stood up a little straighter. “I remember—”

  “I was asking Fitz,” I told her sternly, puffing my chest out. I had spent more than the last twenty-four hours frustrated from not getting answers as I needed them. I was not going to have Fitz feeling that same way.

  “You wished me good luck,” Fitz replied, staring at me.

  “I also told you that you would level up,” I reminded him. “It’s something we used to say where I’m from to boost people’s confidence. I think, in your case, it literally happened. When you tried to wipe the symbols away, which one did you touch first?”

  “It would have been the sword. It was closer to my other hand. Why does that matter?” Fitz glanced down at his wrist, trying to remember more positively.

  “I believe that when you made the strike to your opponent’s chest plate, you leveled up and also had a choice as to what skill to advance,” I told him. “Because you touched the sword, you were granted swordsman skills at a level higher than what you already possessed.” Gale dropped her face towards the floor, and Selena glared at me.

  “Gale!” Selena yelled. “What sort of whack are you sitting in here with? How can you let him cut you off like that and spout a bunch of nonsense!” She was furious, clearly had zero respect for men, and had no concern about manners at all.

  “Selena,” Gale said, raising her head. “He’s not just any man speaking out of turn. He is our Dragonmancer.”

  The room went silent. Even I couldn’t believe, after making sure I had not mentioned who I was, that she had. Perhaps she was worried about losing face in front of Selena, whose expression went completely blank.

  “There’s no way he could be. Ours wasn’t born, again, for the third time!” Selena protested.

  “He wasn’t born to us. He fell through the portal yesterday. Prenna caught him, and Deyla took him to Aron, who brought him to me. I assure you, I have tested him in every way possible to be sure. He is the Dragonmancer.” Gale’s voice grew stronger, and louder with each word. By the time she finished, acceptance had crawled onto Selena’s face. She looked at me and nodded slightly.

  “My apologies for doubting you,” Selena told me. While her entire demeanor changed towards me, she didn’t seem resentful or doubtful as I would have expected her to be. She was simply respectful. I got the feeling she had not shown a male any level of respect in her entire life. Just then, Fitz cleared his throat a little.

  “Excuse me, but can I please get an answer about this thing on my wrist?” he asked politely, with a note of fear about interjecting. I turned it to him and shot him a smile. Before saying anything, I held up my forearm for him to see the marks on it.

  “Somehow, it would appear I gave you the ability to gain advantages by elevating your levels of skill at knowledge. Normally, leveling up, in the games I’ve played, that is, occurs after completing a difficult task. They are almost like rewards. Sometimes, however, they are very necessary to continue on a journey.” I realized I was slipping into game-speak and cut myself short. The last thing I wanted to do was try to explain gaming to anybody in a society who’d never seen one.

  “You’ve only been here one day. How can you have so many circles?” Fitz stared at my arm in amazement.

  “I’d venture to guess it’s because he already possesses many powers,” Gale answered for me. A smile crept across Fitz’s face.

  “This is fantastic!” He cried out suddenly. “Do you think I can do it again?” His excitement grew by the second.

  “Hold on, now,” Selena started, but Gale held her hand out to stop her.

  “Fitz, I would like to request that you not tell anybody about this just yet, please. I imagine it could be very possible for you to level up again. However, not many people would understand. Until we have the chance to present Blake officially, we need to keep this to ourselves,” Gale said, seriously. Then her face softened, and she shot Fitz a mischievous wink. “After all, there was a reason I didn’t want him seen yet.”

  Fitz turned his head away, chuckling.

  “Can you take it away?” Selena piped up, regardless of Gale’s previous interruption. The three of us turned to stare at her.

  “Aside from me having no idea whether I can or not, why would I?” I was instantly defensive of Fitz’s new skill level. Selena looked to Gale for support but received none. It was clear that she simply was not comfortable with a male having advanced skills. After a significant space of uncomfortable silence, Gale looked at me, completely disregarding Salena’s question.

  “It might be a good idea to find out, just so we know more about your capabilities,” she suggested.

  “I’m not taking Fitz’s level away,” I stated to make it perfectly clear. “Give me someone else.” Gale instantly looked at Selena, who spun around and quickly walked out of the room. The three of us watched her go, and then Fitz started fidgeting in place.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked, even though there was absolutely n
othing he could help with.

  “You can go back to your studies and say nothing about what has happened to you, or what you’ve learned here today,” Gale instructed him. His face fell flat, and I could tell he had something to say but didn’t want to.

  “Hey, Gale?” I started. “If Fitz is okay with it, would you mind moving him into my hall? I think it would be beneficial for the both of us, being that we can’t talk to anybody else about any of this.” Gale looked to Fitz, whose entire demeanor had lit up with excitement.

  “That would be…” Fitz nearly yelled before gaining control of his buzz. “That would be amazing, if you’ll allow it.”

  Gale didn’t even hesitate.

  “Fine. Fitz, go get your things and transfer them to Blake’s hall. Choose any room you would like. Tell nobody where you are going. If they ask, tell them that you are on special assignment to the janitorial staff.” She nodded her head in his direction, a clear sign for him to get moving along.

  “Thank you, Ms. Gale, I appreciate it!” He skipped out of the room.

  Gale turned to me and let out a deep breath.

  “Well, we’d better figure out what you can do with this ‘leveling up’ stuff, and then start your preparations,” she said. “We’ll have to keep testing your abilities as we go, but it is clear we can’t keep you a secret for long. We must plan your presentation to Blenwise.”

  “Is it like a whole big affair, or is it more like you sending out a newsletter?” I asked jokingly.

  “It is a day-long festival, with a demonstration of your abilities directly before you meet the Academy Dragon,” she informed me, not laughing.

  “Oh, so kind of a big deal,” I replied, still trying to lighten her mood. She wasn’t cranky by any means, but I could tell a flurry of activity filled her mind. She caught my intention, though, and smiled. Just then, Selena came back into the room, a young man trailing behind her.