by K J Taylor
He took the spear up to his room and hid it under the bed, wedging it through the slats under the mattress so that it would stay out of sight and not be disturbed by Adèle’s bed-making. Maybe he would dream about it again, and then he would know what he was supposed to do with it.
***
Days passed, and Nils’s training continued. Every day he would meet up with Theobald, who would teach him more about how to use his magic. Most of it was simple enough and, although it still felt unnatural to use his hands for it, Nils quickly found that he was best with fire.
‘Every Jünger has a kind of magic they’re most suited for,’ Theobald told him. ‘My talent has always been manipulating objects. Yours is a simpler skill, but don’t be fooled: fire is subtler than it seems. We should work on it together and see what you can learn to do with it.’
Nils nodded eagerly. ‘I want to learn how to manipulate objects as well.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll cover that as well,’ said Theobald. ‘And fire can help. Now, see here . . .’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a thin iron bar, which he put on one of the stone fire platforms that ran down the middle of the hall. This one was currently empty, and Nils had been using it for practice.
Nils eyed the bar. ‘Do you want me to heat it up?’
‘Not yet,’ said Theobald. ‘First, let’s try shaping it as it is. Channel your magic into it.’
Nils tried it. It was difficult; the moment the magical energy left his body it wanted to become something else — fire or wind. Pure force was harder. But he managed it after a few attempts, and an invisible energy hit the bar with a solid thump, denting it.
‘That’s a start,’ said Theobald. ‘Now try again.’
Nils gritted his teeth and tried again. And again. It was simple enough to hit the bar, but anything more precise took more control than he thought he had. Still, he persisted and, after about half an hour and time out to rest, he hit the bar in just the right spot and made it split open down the middle.
‘Well done!’ said Theobald. ‘Next, see if you can push it back together. It will be simpler if you use both hands.’
Nils sent out power from both hands as suggested, and the bar’s two halves pushed back together.
‘Harder!’ said Theobald. ‘Try to make them re-join.’
Nils pushed harder, channelling more magic into it, and the bar melded back into a whole.
‘Excellent!’ said Theobald. ‘You can have another rest now.’
Nils slumped into a chair. His ruby was burning. He coughed, accidentally bringing up a small fireball. Theobald eyed him cautiously, but said nothing.
‘Should I heat up the bar next time?’ asked Nils. ‘I could soften it.’
‘Yes, that will make things easier,’ said Theobald. ‘But wait until you get your strength back.’
Nils stood up. ‘I don’t need to use that kind of energy for fire,’ he said confidently. ‘When I do it my way it doesn’t take any energy from me at all. Watch.’ He went to stand over the plinth, braced himself, and blew fire over the iron bar — more fire than he had ever breathed in one go before. His throat and stomach grew hot, but the ruby in his chest barely reacted.
When Nils finally stopped, the iron bar was glowing orange and the plinth beneath it was blackened. But Nils felt absolutely fine. ‘There,’ he said proudly, ‘I did it.’ He gave Theobald a triumphant, and defiant, look.
Theobald stood quite still, face carefully expressionless. He stayed like that for a long moment before he finally spoke, and his voice sounded stilted. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Now the metal is hot, try shaping it again.’
Nils tried, buoyed up by his achievement, and now it was much easier. The metal had softened, and he could twist it this way and that. He pulled it apart and put it back together again, and it flowed under his magic like hot toffee. When it started to cool he spat fire on it to reheat it, and once he was satisfied with its new shape he summoned a wind to cool it down.
The effort left him exhausted, but he didn’t care. Breathing hard, he picked up the metal bar and offered it to Theobald. ‘I did it!’
On a whim he had shaped the bar into a crude spearhead. Theobald turned it over in his hands. ‘Excellent work!’ he said. ‘You learned much faster than I expected.’
‘Maybe I could be a blacksmith!’ Nils grinned. ‘I—’ At that moment, something twinged inside him. He winced and doubled up, clutching at himself. The heat had suddenly risen in his stomach, and now it was spreading into his bones. It felt as though his very being were beginning to twist just as he had twisted the bar.
Theobald caught him by the arm. ‘Are you all right?’
Nils breathed deeply, and the burning slowly faded. ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I only need to rest.’
‘Go and rest, then,’ said Theobald. ‘You’ve done well.’
Nils’s discomfort went away, leaving him feeling worn. He stifled a yawn and shuffled off back to his room.
There, he flopped down on the bed and lay looking up at the ceiling. He was proud of what he had done today. The fire and the metal had been his to control, and it had felt so natural — especially the fire.
Silently, Nils made a promise to himself: from now on, he wouldn’t summon fire the way other people did it; that wasn’t how his fire was meant to come. Theobald was wrong; it didn’t hurt him, or tire him out. It wasn’t dangerous. It was just the way he did it, and he would do as his instincts told him to.
He blew a small flame upward, to make the point to himself, and smiled. He couldn’t wait to show his mother.
Chapter Five
Weeks went by, and Nils continued to perfect his new skills. He learned more about fire, and now that he insisted on breathing it he discovered he could use it in combination with other magic from his hands — summoning wind to shape the stream of fire and send it in different directions. He could even draw water out of the air into the path of his fire, to create a cloud of steam, which looked pretty even if it was more or less useless. And he continued to learn how to shape metal with it, making a whole string of small items out of the iron bars Theobald provided. They were crude at first, but grew steadily finer and more sophisticated with practice.
There were only two blots on his newfound contentment: the lingering guilt and fear over his crime, and the absence of his mother. She had been gone for over a month, and there was no word on when she would come back.
And then something strange began to happen.
As time passed and Nils used his fire every day, he started to feel odd. Not ill — simply odd. His body began to do strange things. The burning sensation began to come back, and this time it didn’t always confine itself to his stomach, or even his bones. It spread further, filling every nerve and fibre, and when that happened he would feel that twisting inside; that feeling of something shifting.
At night the flying dreams came more and more often, but now it was always him alone. There were no more visions of battle; only the endless sky and the land, and himself soaring above it. He enjoyed the dreams, but when he woke up he would feel that twisting inside more powerfully than ever, until it felt as though he were fighting to contain it. But exactly what he was trying to contain, he didn’t know.
One morning, after yet another one of those dreams, Nils went to breakfast as usual. These days he ate his meals alone, but even so he couldn’t help but notice that something felt different. There was an atmosphere in the castle which he didn’t like — a kind of tension, and an unnatural silence. The servants who brought him his food looked subdued.
When Nils went for his lesson with Theobald, he noticed his tutor was looking grim as well.
‘What’s happened?’ Nils asked him. ‘Why is everyone so quiet?’
Theobald hesitated, then put on a smile. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Let’s begin — we have more to do today.’
Nils shrugged and settled down to listen, but all that time he couldn’t shake off the sensation that
something wasn’t right. He blew a nervous wisp of flame and tried to ignore it, but by the time the lesson ended he was convinced that Theobald was hiding something. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ he said. ‘I know it has. Why won’t you tell me?’
Again the hesitation, and then Theobald said; ‘You can go now. Go and have some lunch. We’ll meet again tomorrow.’
Irritated, Nils left the hall. He took his lunch in the dining room, then went back to his bedroom. An idea had come to him recently, and to distract himself he decided to try it out now.
He closed the door, then took the spear out from beneath his bed. Banishing the fire from its platform, he put the spear on its spot, then unearthed the stolen jet. Even now, touching it made him uneasy. But perhaps there was another way to hide it.
He put the gem aside, and began.
By now he had learned very fine control over his fire. He breathed the thinnest stream he could manage onto the spearhead, at the spot where it was widest. In very little time the metal had begun to glow, and Nils pulled it open, peeling it away in strips to make a hole just the right size for the stone. He picked that up and quickly thrust it into its new home. His finger brushed against the hot metal, but he didn’t feel any pain.
Before the metal could finish cooling, Nils bent the lifted strips back into place with magic, melding them in place to create a cage around the stone.
Once it was finished and he had cooled the metal down again, he picked the spear up to admire his handiwork. The jet sat in the middle of the spearhead, visible on both sides through the strips of metal that held it in place. It made a fine decoration, he thought. Since he had stolen the stone, he may as well find a use for it, and this seemed as good a one as any.
He put the spear aside, leaning it against the wall, and re-lit the fire on its platform without effort. Then he sat down on the bed to rest. Idly, he inspected his finger, which had touched the hot metal. It still didn’t hurt, and he had forgotten about it. But now he looked at it he saw nothing but a black mark. No blister, no redness — nothing.
‘Odd,’ Nils said aloud.
He was just starting to wonder whether he might be fireproof when a knock came on the door and Adèle came in with some fresh bedclothes. Nils got up automatically and moved aside to make room for her — until he saw her face. Her cheeks were red, her eyes bloodshot.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nils.
Adèle quickly looked away. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Nils came over and touched her on the shoulder. ‘You’ve been crying — why?’
‘It’s nothing!’ Adèle said again, too fast. She pushed past him and started to strip the bed.
‘You can tell me,’ said Nils. ‘I won’t laugh at you.’
Adèle said nothing. She finished stripping the bed and efficiently started to remake it — but then she stopped suddenly. For a moment she stood there, staring at the opposite wall, and then she sank down on the bed and put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, Drachengott save me . . .’
Nils sat down next to her. ‘What is it?’
To his amazement, Adèle put an arm around him and held him to her side as she started to sob. ‘Nils, I’m so sorry.’
Nils stopped trying to pull away from her. ‘Why are you sorry? What’s going on?’
Adèle looked up at him and gently brushed his cheek. ‘They wouldn’t want me to tell you this, but how can I not? You deserve to know.’
Fear filled him. ‘To know what? What’s happened?’
Adèle shuddered, suppressing another sob. ‘It’s your mother, Nils. She’s . . . she’s dead. We got the news this morning.’
Nils jerked. ‘No! That’s not true!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Adèle. ‘She went to Drachenburg — I think she was there as a spy. But she was caught by the Gottlosen. One of our dragons saw her killed and brought us the news.’
Sound dimmed in Nils’s ears, and the sensation of falling came back to him as though a part of his dreams had come true. ‘He did it,’ he heard himself say. ‘The Dragonsbane killed her.’
‘We don’t know who did it,’ said Adèle. ‘And it doesn’t matter; she died a hero, serving the Drachengott — she’s a martyr. She died for you, and for me, and all of us. That’s what matters, Nils. That’s all that matters.’
But Nils did not hear her. He pulled out of her hug. ‘Go away,’ he growled, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own anymore. ‘I want to be alone.’
‘I understand.’ Adèle got up and quietly left.
Alone, Nils went to the window and thrust it open. Leaning on the windowsill, he stared out at the city. He could feel the fire in his throat again, and now it was in his stomach as well, spreading down and out and into every part of his body. Even his mind felt as though it were burning. Maybe it was the fire alone, but maybe it was anger. But he felt strangely calm — at least until he opened his mouth and unleashed the inferno.
‘Dragonsbane!’ The word came out with a blast of fire. Nils followed it up with another blast, and another, disgorging his flames out over the city rooftops, red as rage. And as he sent his fire he shouted on, cursing the name of Rutger Dragonsbane. The glass in his window cracked and melted, and the frame crumbled into charcoal, but even that was not enough.
Nils ran to the corner and snatched up the spear, holding it so tightly it hurt. ‘I swear,’ he snarled, ‘I swear in the Drachengott’s name that I, Nils Schächer, will take this spear and put it through Rutger Dragonsbane’s evil heart. I swear it by my mother’s life and mine, and I—’
As he ranted on, the words suddenly choked in his throat. He stumbled, gasping, the spear dropping out of his grip. The heat had risen inside him, unbearably, and the twisting began as well, and this time he had no will left to try to contain it. He groaned and fell to his knees, and then—
Something inside him flexed, like a muscle he had not known he had. And the instant it did, everything changed.
In a second he felt his entire body melt and shift. Two extra limbs spiked out of his back, his spine extended, his skin thickened. He fell down with a hiss of fright, and his arms thrust out to catch him — only now they weren’t arms anymore.
Nils turned in a circle, staring at himself, flexing his changed limbs. He could hear himself hissing and growling, and his tail smacked against the floor, spikes scratching on the stone. A wing extended, passing through the fire on its platform without so much as scorching.
He was a dragon.
That fact slowly soaked into Nils’s mind, and a strange calmness followed. I am a dragon, he thought. I was . . .
He walked slowly over to the mirror, talons clicking, and looked at himself. His scales were a dark brownish-red, like dried blood, his horns silver, his wing membranes pale gold. His eyes were the same dark green as they had been before, but now the pupils were slitted. They glared at him with a dragon’s ferocity. He opened his mouth, exposing sharp, serrated fangs, and hissed again. A small puff of flame followed.
Nils’s calmness stayed. Thoughts trickled into his mind, clear as ice water. Of course. Of course! Everything made sense now. The flying dreams, the fire in his breath, the gaps in his memory. He wasn’t human at all — he never had been. This was his true shape, a dragon’s shape.
The mouth of the dragon in the mirror twisted into a savage parody of a human smile.
I am a dragon, said Nils, and now his voice came out of the air rather than out of his mouth, just as a dragon’s voice always did — even that of the Drachengott himself.
He turned his back on the mirror, shattering it with his tail, and leapt nimbly over the bed. The spear was still there on the floor, and he picked it up with a foreclaw. Then, clutching it to his chest, he climbed up onto the blackened window frame. He thrust himself out into the open air as far as he could, until he had room to spread his wings. Still gripping the window frame with his hind legs, he began to flap. His wings caught the air, lifting him. On instinct he kicked away from the
window and launched himself into the air.
Panic touched him as he lost contact with solid ground, but only for a moment. His wings beat hard, and after a flurry of erratic blows they settled into a steady rhythm. Nils soared upward, then went into a glide. Around him other dragons flew, and he joined them, circling in the warm air over Zauberwald. As he flew, it all came back to him. The light feeling in his stomach, the wind between his horns, the world all laid out below him like a laden table, ready for him to pick what he wanted from it.
But the sensation of love — the presence from his dream — was not there.
Nils’s joy faded, and anger rose again in him as he remembered his vow. His mother was dead. Murdered. He had nothing to keep him here in Zauberwald now. But he had something to send him away.
Still holding the spear to his chest, he angled himself and flew away, heading for the mountains to the south. And while he flew, he planned.
He would find a place in the mountains to live, and would prepare himself. There, he would practise with his magic, and teach himself how to use the spear, and when the time was right he would fly to Drachenburg, just as in his dream. And there he would challenge Rutger Dragonsbane, and kill him for all to see. And once Dragonsbane was dead, Nils would take his head to the Drachengott and present it to him, and perhaps that would earn him forgiveness. But that would only matter half as much as revenge.
Chapter Six
Nils found a place in the mountains, not too far from Zauberwald. The mountains here were thick with fir and birch trees, and few people were willing to venture into them. There were giant spiders, he had heard, and bears and wolves. And dragons. He saw a few of them flying around the mountains, but he avoided them. None of them lived here; they had been sent to patrol, watching out for any signs of Ketzer. They wouldn’t pay any attention to another dragon.
Nils explored the mountains until he found a small cave high up on a peak, and there he landed. The cave entrance faced east, which meant it would catch the morning sun, and the ground at its entrance was thick with ferns for cover. Nils trampled them as he went inside. The cave’s floor was fairly flat, and water dripping from the ceiling made a small pool in one corner. There was enough room for him to stand up on his hind legs, and a few nooks and crannies in the walls where he could store things. It would do.