Dragonborn

by Toby Forward

  Wands can be woven together to make a basket. If you weave wands in straight lines you can make a hurdle, for a fence. Or you can weave a wall of wands and cover it with a paste made of clay and mud and cow pats. This is called wattle and daub.

  A wand can be used to make a horse ride faster, but it is cruel to whip a horse with a wand. A horse that is whipped too hard can throw its rider and kill him.

  The secret of a wand is that it is flexible. It bends. It can be made into something else. Sometimes, as with the horse or the pupil, the wand is used on its own. Other times, as with baskets or hurdles, wands are plaited together with other wands to make something bigger.

  If it does not bend, it is not a wand.

  Wands make good fishing rods. A thick stick that does not bend is no good for this. You need to feel the wand move in your hand when the fish bites. There is a connection between the fish and the fisher, and it is the wand that makes the connection, just as there is a connection between the rider’s hand and the horse’s backside.

  The wand used for fishing is sensitive and springy. It draws the fish to it, and it helps the fisher to play the fish, to land it safely.

  The wand used to punish the pupil or urge on the horse flicks more painfully than a hand would. It gathers the pain into a single point, to sting.

  This is why a wizard may use a wand. It makes a connection between the wizard and the object of the spell. It concentrates the magic and makes it stronger, sharper.

  Whenever a wizard uses a wand to help with a spell, he should always remember Tug Turner, and be careful that whoever the spell is working on can’t turn around and make the magic hurt the wizard.

  There’s nothing very special about a wand. A wand is a bendy stick. That’s it.

  A wand does not make a wizard. A wizard makes a wand.

  A wizard’s staff is a different thing and needs a page of its own.

  Book Two

  WIZARDS EVERYWHERE

  It was a moment

  of contrasts. Sam had never seen a building as grim and gray as Canterstock College. And he had never met a person as twinkling and friendly and welcoming as Professor Frastfil.

  As they were entering the town Sam wanted to turn around and run away. The College was vast. Hard stone, small windows, and great iron doors with cruel spikes. Frosty was small and plump, with a round, open face, spectacles, a smile, and the longest hooked nose Sam had ever seen. His clothes were loose and shabby, and he jangled his money in his pocket all the time, whether he was speaking to you or trotting happily along the long corridors or mumbling a spell. No situation was too solemn or too simple to stop him from jingling his pockets.

  “Welcome, welcome. I’m so glad to see you. Come in, dear boy, come in.”

  He jingled and smiled Sam through the iron door and into the College.

  “Good morning, Trelling,” he sang out to the porter in his little lodge.

  Megatorine pushed open the door into Trelling’s little office and sat down on his barrel. He poured himself a cup of tea from a pot on the bookcase and settled in for a chat with his old friend.

  The porter nodded to Professor Frastfil.

  “Letters for you,” he said.

  “Splendid. Splendid.”

  Trelling lifted his arm. A stack of letters on a high shelf fanned up and formed themselves into a line like a skein of geese in flight and swooped down in formation. They came to rest in the air just in front of the Professor, who took them and put them into a deep inside pocket in his baggy jacket.

  Sam blushed to see magic used for such a little task.

  As they hurried into the quad he tugged at Frosty’s sleeve.

  “Couldn’t he have handed you the letters?” he asked.

  Frosty jingled and smiled, and pretended to box Sam’s ears in a jolly way.

  “Got to use the magic,” he said, “or it gets rusty.”

  “Does everyone know magic here?”

  “Oh, indeed, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Got to have magic all around the place. It’s what we’re for.”

  “Even the man who watches the gate?”

  “Trelling? The porter? Oh, yes. One of our best pupils, was Trelling. Could have gone on to do anything, but he loved the College so much he didn’t want to leave. Everyone who works here, cooks, gardeners, everyone was once a pupil.”

  They stepped into the building and plunged into a world that Sam never believed could have been. Frosty led him along highly polished wooden floors down a long corridor with classrooms off to one side. It was lit by globes, floating in the air, that bobbed and drifted and glowed. As they passed each door, Sam could see and smell and hear the business of magic going on in the classrooms.

  They climbed a narrow, winding stone staircase almost all the way to the top of the building. Professor Frastfil waved his hand and an office door swung open. He flung himself into an armchair and pointed to another for Sam to take.

  “This desk,” he said, “belonged to Cosmop, my third cousin, twice-removed, and one of the greatest and most respected wizards there ever was.”

  Sam thought it was just a desk, whoever else had sat at it. Sitting at a great man’s desk didn’t make you a great man.

  “Our friend the roffle speaks very highly of you,” said the Professor with an encouraging smile. “But I really need to see for myself that you are a serious candidate for a place at the College. You are also, well, a little older than most students when they arrive, and perhaps you will need to be put with younger pupils than yourself, to catch up.”

  Sam was annoyed at this, and his eagerness to prove that he was as good as any other twelve-year-old took away some of his caution.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Let’s test you on your recipes,” said Frastfil. “What are the ingredients for a charm to keep a man free from colds all winter?”

  “That’s not the thing to do,” said Sam. He quoted Flaxfield’s words exactly: “Colds keep a man sensible. Never try to stop them coming, or he will walk about in winter without a woolen coat and die of stupidity.”

  “The correct answer,” said Frastfil with a frown, “is goose fat, dried mandrake root, the hard snot from a butcher’s handkerchief, and seven drops of lemon juice.” His money jangled louder than ever in his pocket.

  Sam laughed, thinking it was a joke. Then realized it was not.

  The Professor made his face merry again and twinkled at Sam.

  “Never mind. Let’s try this one. What spell would you say to rid a house of all its spiders?”

  Sam couldn’t understand why he was asking these questions, except to test his understanding. They had nothing to do with magic as far as he could see.

  “Why would you do that?” he said.

  “Just tell me the words of the spell.”

  Sam could only tell the truth. It was all he knew to do.

  “You would never drive all the spiders out of a house,” he said. “They keep down flies and other insects that are dirty and cause diseases, and the spiders do no harm to anyone.”

  “Ladies are very frightened of spiders,” said Frastfil. “Sometimes they ask us to get rid of them. What spell would you say?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders and looked away through the window. A kestrel hovered, wings trembling. Sam admired the fire of its feathers, the freedom of its flight. How much better to be a bird than to be sitting with Professor Frastfil smiling at him and jingling the money in his pockets.

  “I won’t say it now,” said the Professor, “or it will drive all the spiders away from the College, and then where would we be?”

  Just where I said, thought Sam. Infested with flies.

  “But even a beginner at the College would be able to tell me how to do that,” the Professor carried on. “I really don’t see how we could think of taking you on here. I’m sorry.”

  Sam’s dream of the freedom of the falcon melted away. He was alone and without friends or money. That was more of a prison than a freedom.


  “Where shall I go, then?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid,” said the Professor, “that I really don’t know.” He smiled happily and jangled. “I would offer you a job in the College, but, as you have seen …” His smile was broader than ever.

  Sam nodded again. Even the kitchen staff were old students here, every one of them a wizard.

  “Sorry, sorry.” He jumped and jangled to his feet and started to show Sam out.

  “I don’t do spells and potions,” said Sam.

  “Quite so,” said Frosty. “All the roffle’s fault. He must have misunderstood.”

  “I do magic,” said Sam, standing up.

  “Rabbits out of hats? Card tricks? Wonderful stuff for children’s parties, but not for us, I’m afraid.” Frastfil gave him another encouraging smile. It was the smiles that had begun to annoy Sam and make him want to demonstrate what he could do, just to show this man.

  “Proper magic,” said Sam. “Not tricks.”

  Frastfil was eager to get rid of Sam and waved him to the door. Sam stood firm where he was.

  “I’ll show you.”

  “We really must go. I have to, um, that is, uh …”

  Sam folded his arms.

  “Are you ordering me to show you some magic?” he asked. “Really?”

  Frastfil gave him a silly smirk.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I’m ordering you to.”

  Sam clapped his hands. The door slammed shut, wrenching itself away from Frastfil’s hand. Frastfil found himself swept back into the room and forced around the silly desk that his whatever had owned and into the armchair. The chair spun around and around and around, and lifted into the air, with Frosty holding on in terror of falling out. All the books jumped off the shelves and formed a cloud of paper and boards around Frosty’s head, spinning in the opposite direction from him, like a dust whirl in hot summer.

  “Put me down. Put me down!”

  Sam dropped the chair to within an inch of the floor, jolting Professor Frastfil but not hurting him. Still it spun. He turned the books into crows and had them break out of the circle and dart at the Professor, jabbing their orange beaks at him, cawing and flapping and diving till he was dizzier from dodging than he was from spinning. Sam clapped his hands again, and the crows became books once again and roosted on the shelves. The chair came to rest exactly where it had begun, and Frosty sat, gasping for breath and fumbling for a handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

  “I’ll go, then,” said Sam, picking up his bag and opening the door.

  “Wait! I think we can find you a place.”

  Just to be in the air was enough

  for Starback, for now. It was his rest, his food, and his strength. He rode the currents and reflected.

  The danger was still there for Sam. The wizards were after him.

  He folded his wings, lowered his head, and arrowed to the ground, pulling out of the dive at the last moment, and swooped up again.

  Khazib, the dark one with the fast horse—he should be first. He would be fastest. He must be stopped.

  It would be easy enough to kill the wizard, for a dragon. For a Green and Blue. That would stop him.

  Except that Khazib was a Flaxfield wizard. He had served his apprenticeship under the best there was and might be difficult to kill. Starback had never killed yet, and he didn’t want to start. He didn’t want to fail.

  There was a place, the Palace of Boolat. It was many years since Starback had been there. It would be a good place to lead Khazib and the others. It would detain them without danger. He sped back to Flaxfield’s house and followed Khazib’s trail, with dragon sight and dragon wiles.

  Khazib had already passed the weaver’s house and was well on his way to catching up with Sam. Starback flew ahead, swooped down, and scattered the trail that Sam had left.

  He could feel Khazib’s magic probing the road, testing the route. It thrilled Starback and made him shiver with the strangeness of it. It was a scented, intricate magic, of shadows and colors. The dragon would have liked to stay some time within it, but there was a task to do.

  He threw a false scent, trailing in a gradual curve away from Canterstock. A sudden diversion would make the wizard suspicious. Starback led him around, away, and pointed him to Boolat.

  Tim Masrani walked on one side of Sam

  and Smedge on the other.

  These were the pupils that Professor Frastfil had summoned to take care of Sam and to show him around.

  “Best to get you straight into lessons.” He smiled. “Throw you in at the deep end.”

  Sam was so relieved that he didn’t have to go out friendless from the building that he was glad to agree to anything.

  “Whose lesson are you in, boys?” Frosty asked.

  “Dr. Duddle’s,” said Tim.

  “Splendid,” Frastfil jangled. “Couldn’t be better. Run along now, and look after, uh …”

  “Cartouche,” said Sam, feeling a little foolish with a name that didn’t fit him.

  “We’ll have to get you outfitted,” said Tim.

  “Can’t have you looking like that,” Smedge agreed.

  “Aren’t we going to lessons?” Sam asked.

  “Later.”

  “I don’t want to get into trouble,” said Sam.

  “Old Frosty meant us to get you outfitted first. He just didn’t think of it. No good at all on practical things.”

  “What is he good at?” asked Sam.

  “So,” said Tim. “First off, the uniform.”

  He ran shrieking with pleasure down the corridors, followed by Smedge, who tried to sound the same, but didn’t seem as comfortable with the noise as Tim was. Sam had to run as well to keep up, but he didn’t shriek at all, just in case.

  “Come on, Vengeabil,” Tim called. “Wakey, wakey! We need some clothes.”

  The storeroom was a long, low-ceilinged room that ran underneath the corridor on the ground floor. Lit by the same bouncing globes, though dim and weak down here, it was full of dark corners and suspicious nooks.

  “Vengeabil!” Tim shouted. “We’ll help ourselves!” He prodded Sam. “Vengeabil is past it, really. Sleeping in a corner, I shouldn’t wonder. Should have retired ages ago. We’ll just have to help ourselves.”

  He jumped over the counter and started to look through a pile of pullovers with the Canterstock crest on them.

  “You should wait for Vengeabil,” said Smedge.

  “Give me a hand,” called Tim.

  Sam watched the two boys. Smedge was a little shorter than Sam. He looked as though his uniform had been ironed on him. There was not a crease or a loose button, and everything fit him perfectly. He smiled a lot, but seemed to think about everything before he did it or before he spoke. Nothing came rushing out.

  “I think we’d better just stand here,” he advised Sam. “Frosty said I should keep an eye on you.”

  Tim Masrani, though clean and tidy enough, was more ragged around the edges. He looked as though he might just have had a fight, or have run away from a farm. His clothes looked lived in. Just now, as he was rummaging through the pile of jerkins, one of them wound itself around his head and turned into a bat, its wings covering his face. Tim grabbed it and tried to pull it off. Another jerkin slid down, turning into a snake as it fell, and wrapped itself around his legs. Then a third leaped from the shelf and, becoming a jellyfish in mid-air, splatted onto Tim’s own school jerkin, and slithered down to the floor with a wet flop.

  “Ugh,” mumbled Tim. “Ugh, disgusting. Groew, urrgh” He was tugging at the bat and trying to kick away the snake, and flailing about, getting more and more tangled up.

  Sam shuddered. He lifted a hand to send a flash of magic to help his new friend.

  “None of that,” said a quiet voice.

  A dry, wrinkled hand settled on Sam’s shoulder.

  “Save your magic,” he said. “He’ll be all right.”

  “Vengeabil, you old fraud. Get them off,” Tim gasped.

/>   “Can’t you work it?” said the old man. “Try Book Two of Charms for Beasts.”

  Tim groaned.

  “Forgotten already?”

  Tim nodded as well as he could with a bat wrapped around his face.

  “You?” Vengeabil asked Smedge.

  The other boy took a wand from his pocket, a slim twig of elm, brown and worn, and, waving it at Tim, chanted a quick spell. The bat and the snake and the jellyfish turned instantly back into jerkins with the College crest on them.

  “New boy?” asked Vengeabil.

  “Yes.”

  “Name?”

  “Cartouche.”

  Vengeabil, who had been grabbing shirts and jerkins and socks and trousers, paused, looked hard at Sam, and said, “Really?” his eyebrows raised.

  “Leave him alone, you,” said Tim. “I’m looking after him, and I don’t want him to end up in some dusty storeroom after he’s finished here.”

  The jerkin that had been a jellyfish slid across the floor and up Tim’s leg, leaving a soggy trail on his trousers.

  “Oh, Vengeabil, that’s not good,” he complained.

  Vengeabil laughed and gave Sam his uniform, which was mostly just the College jerkin.

  Smedge gave him a hand while Tim made a drying off spell that more or less worked, though his shoe was still soggy and squelched when he walked.

  “You need to pay a bit more attention to your work, young Tim,” said Vengeabil. “Good-bye, Master Cartouche. Come back and see me for a chat when you haven’t got that idiot with you.”

  “I will,” said Sam. He looked at Tim and blushed. “Not that, I mean.”

  “That’s all right,” said Tim. “Vengeabil is a dry old fossil”—the storekeeper raised an eyebrow toward the slimy jerkin—“but he’s not far off about me being an idiot.”

  “You’ll do,” said Vengeabil. “Off you go.”

  They clattered up the stairs.

  “I’ll show you to our dorm,” said Tim, “and you can get changed.”

  “Someone should teach Vengeabil a lesson,” said Smedge. Sam wondered what sort of lesson he meant, and looked at Smedge. The boy’s face was set with an idea. Sam felt it, and it was as though he had eaten something disagreeable, his stomach protesting. Smedge caught Sam’s expression, and his face changed. He smiled broadly.