Dragon Mage (The First Dragon Rider Book 3)

by Ava Richardson

  “You remember my wife Maya, of course.” Lett leapt onto the back of the horse already occupied by his small and dark-haired wife. “And Daros, Sami, they are your second cousins, or was it third?” He laughed as the two young men shrugged. Each had the same dark hair and tawny skin of the Shaar, although Sami kept his cut short as I did. They were about my age, perhaps a little older, but their dress and manner couldn’t be more different from my restrained and somber monastery black. Daros wore a white linen shirt, embroidered with red and purple swirling lines, while Sami wore a sleeveless leather jerkin, heavily beaded, and a crimson sash belt. I greeted them all as I tried to encourage Stamper to take a walk with us.

  Stamper was eager to be moving, but as soon as we had got out from under the shadows of the monastery stones, he started throwing his head and chomping at the bit.

  “Pshaw! Neill, have you forgotten everything I taught you?” Lett nudged his own horse aside mine, and leant over to loosen Stamper’s bit, all the while murmuring whispered words to him at the same time, rubbing his nose and neck. To my surprise, my recalcitrant little pony swiveled his ears and huffed at him, and was rewarded with some mysterious treat from a hidden pocket.

  “He doesn’t like the bit, and he doesn’t think he needs it,” Lett said by way of answer, and I duly unfastened the bridle with a jangle of steel and leather, as Lett pulled from his saddle bags the wide padded leather halter to reattach the reins to, and for a wonder Stamper was remarkably easier to handle from then on, and that gave me a thought.

  If Stamper here doesn’t like a bit between her teeth, then maybe the dragons won’t want one either? We didn’t have a bit for Paxala, because, well, Char and Paxala had almost grown up together, and most of the time that Paxala had offered to take me on her back, we had been in the throes of battle or urgent missions when I had no time to set up the complicated arrangement of leather straps and metal buckles and bits.

  But it was something I would have to raise with Char, when I got the chance, or—now that Paxala is helping to train the dragons –with the Crimson Red herself!

  Uncle Lett had always tried to teach me such small little things when he passed by. How to ride a horse, how to palm a coin, how to speak a few words in the Shaar Gypsy tongue. How could I have forgotten so much? I thought, my heart feeling heavy.

  “Ah Neill, you look like your father did at that age,” Lett advised me sagely as we climbed up onto the ridge, and back down the other side.

  “My father who is dead,” I said, suddenly sunk into that cold and grey silence whenever I thought about him.

  “Neill, I know.” Uncle Lett reached over to place a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I have heard the news of your father’s passing, even on the southern roads. That, and stranger tidings besides…”

  I struggled to swim out of my grey blanket of mourning, coughing as I managed to ask, “You knew my father when he was young?”

  “Of course! He was the first man to throw me in chains when we traveled through Torvald lands. He looked like you did now, young, worried, with too much on his shoulders and his mind.” Lett laughed. “Until he met my sister, of course, and the rest is history. Your history,” he said with a scandalous grin towards me.

  That was my uncle all over. No care that couldn’t be overcome, and no troubles that couldn’t be left behind. It was a balm being in his company, and he and the others soon had me laughing as they recounted their exploits up and down the Three Kingdoms.

  “Your father hated me, of course, and I disliked the Midlander who would make a settled woman out of my sister…” My uncle laughed. “But when the Gypsies came under the curse of that old Sorcerer Thrangor, well, it was your father who rode with me to hunt him down,” Uncle Lett said.

  “The Sorcerer Thrangor?” I asked. I’d never heard any of this.

  “Oh, it was a long time ago, and far away. An evil sorcerer who tried to enslave the Gypsies. Just let me say this: Never, ever offer a sorcerer cake. That is my sage advice on the ways of magic, young Neill.” Uncle made me laugh as he always did, but as we neared the secluded lake, all of our thoughts naturally turned to the dragons.

  “Everywhere, everyone is talking about the boy who rode a dragon,” Lett confided in me as we slid from our steeds, and Maya and the boys started gathering dried wood for the fire.

  “Really? Even down in the south?” I asked, looking out at the lake that was burning with the lowering sun.

  “Especially in Prince Griffith’s realm, young Neill.” Lett nodded emphatically. “They have their own wild dragons down there you know – I’ve seen them! Orange and yellow and as vicious as a snake.”

  I listened, enraptured. Despite all of my dark feelings around my own capabilities as a leader, the very thought of the dragons was usually enough to lift my spirits a little. My uncle told me how they lived in outcrops and towers of rock that stuck out from the desert floor, surrounded by verdant green oases, and how they terrorized the local tribes and occasional merchant travelers who passed by those routes.

  “That is why the south are in awe of you, Neill, of managing to ride a dragon, and overthrow the Draconis Order.” Lett gave me an elaborate clap with his hands, as if this were a show and I was performing.

  But that’s half the problem, isn’t it? If this were one of my uncle’s plays, I would know what my role was. I would have learnt my lines…Whatever confidence I might’ve had seemed to have vanished along with my father.

  I am not half the man that my father was, I reminded myself. He was always so big and gruff-voiced and strong. I had seen all my life how the others responded to him. I could never do that – I could never be that!

  “Well, maybe they shouldn’t be so easily impressed,” I grumbled, knowing that I sounded churlish, but unable to stop myself.

  “Neill! What is the meaning of this?” Lett frowned at me in the deepening night. “The last time that I came here, you were being punished by that old Abbot and the Prince Vincent, that monk friend of yours helped me to find you – but all of that is over now, isn’t it? You are your own man again!”

  “It’s just…” I started, unsure of what I was going to say even, but the look of kindliness in my uncle’s eyes – the complete lack of judgment or expectation poured the words out of me. “It’s just that I don’t feel like my own man. I feel like I belong to everyone else. The students want me lead them, the monks want me to make them safe. My brothers want me to disappear forever, and who knows what Prince Vincent wants of me…” I said.

  Uncle Lett didn’t say anything, just nodded, and started to pile the wood for Maya to set sparks to the kindling. In a strange way, his silence helped me to speak more, not less.

  “And it’s not as if I know how to give anyone what they want, anyway…” I said. “If I did, if I knew what words to say and how to act around people so that they would respect me and believe me, I would! But I don’t! I have no idea what it is that I am doing….” I ended on a plaintive note, and Maya made a sympathetic, hushing noise as she patted my shoulder.

  “I see your problem, Neill, and I will think on it – but first, we eat! No problem is helped by an empty stomach!” Uncle Lett said, waving over to Daros and Sami as they came wading back from the shallows of the cold lake, and dangling from the short lines in their hands a brace of long, silver-scaled fish. In no time at all we all pitched in to have the fish cleaned, skinned, and were cooking them over the embers of the fire.

  “You are a young man, Neill Shaar-Torvald,” my Uncle Lett said, and his words made me sit up. He had never called me by my mother’s heritage before. Shaar was a distant, distant land, so far away as to only be guessed at on the maps, and all of the southern Gypsies claimed to have come from it, although none could remember the way back. What was my uncle trying to tell me, by calling me by my mother’s and his heritage name? The question flashed through my mind, before I shook my head at my own twisted thoughts. Why was I second-guessing my own uncle? That was what I ought to do wi
th Berlip and the other monks back there, not my own blood! It saddened me that the politics of being a leader had changed me so much, even the way that I thought about things. When could I just be riding the Crimson Red, free and wild?

  “Like your father,” Lett continued, “you have had a lot of responsibility thrust on your shoulders at a young age. Did you know that was how he began, as well? That his father before him died in battle, and so Malos, your father, had to unify his clan quickly, and fight off the raiders when he was barely a handful of years older than yourself?”

  “Oh,” I said. No, I didn’t know that. It made me feel strange towards my father, as if knowing more about him made me resent the memories that I did have of him, like they were fake, and this man that Lett was talking about was the ‘real’ Malos Torvald. “I wish he had left some diaries or something of how he did it, then,” I said, making Lett laugh.

  “Ah, Neill, you sound either very wise, or very old. Too wise and too old for such young shoulders! You should be thinking about music, and dragons, and food, and girls, if that is your fancy!” Lett nudged me in the ribs, almost making me choke on my piece of cooked fish.

  “Hey! Uh – what?” I said, covering my sudden blush as I coughed and patted my chest. Daros and Sami laughed at my discomfort, but I also noted that it wasn’t a nasty or a cruel laugh like the ones that the old Monk Olan, or even Berlip had sounded.

  “Oh, and what do you two know about girls or boys, huh?” Maya scolded the two. “What happened back in that port town we passed by this spring? I was sure I saw you, Daros, get slapped at least twice, and you, Sami, get a bucket of horse-water tipped over your head!” She cackled, making the two younger boys and the rest of us guffaw as it was their turn to plead, argue, and blush that it wasn’t what anyone thought. When we had wiped away our tears of merriment, it was Lett who cleared his throat and turned back to me, however.

  “But that girl. The fair-haired Northlander. She likes you, I can tell,” Lett said with that same old twinkle in his eye.

  “You mean Char?” I asked, my cheeks burning. I was suddenly quite thankful it was nighttime, so at least no one would see my embarrassment. Char was a princess, and I am a warlord’s son. Even to think of such things was madness, surely?

  “Oh-ho! So you know which one I was referring to then, huh?” Lett offered with a wink.

  “No, I mean – she’s the only Northlander I know here…” I said, which was technically true, as the other Northlander monks and students I didn’t know by name. Anyway, what did my uncle mean that Char ‘liked’ me?

  “Of course, young Neill, I believe you – but it is not my intention to make fun of you, just to point out that other young men your age have different preoccupations. Some which don’t leave them walking around with a heavy frown on their faces! You do not have to always walk in your father’s footsteps, Neill, my lad,” Lett said, and I knew then that must be one of the reasons why he had brought Daros and Sami with us. It wasn’t just that they had never visited the great and grand Dragon Monastery of the Middle Kingdom, it was because they stood as my peers. Versions of Neill Shaar-Torvald that I could be, that my uncle even wanted me to be?

  “Yes, thank you, uncle,” I said with a sigh, my embarrassment temporarily forgotten. “Really, thank you for this – for this evening away from the monastery, for reminding me of who I am – but I have responsibilities that mean I don’t have time for music and food and girls.” –I said the last part a little quickly— “These people here, they are depending on me.” I remembered everything I had gone through just to get this far. I had been pushed out of my family home before I was ready to leave. I had been shoved and scolded and harassed, called out for my mixed heritage by Quartermaster Greer. I had been imprisoned by Char’s father, Prince Lander of the Northern Realm, I had ridden against Zaxx. How could I throw all of that away to go on dances and enjoy myself, when we were in so much danger? It would be like becoming someone else, I thought.

  Someone else. The thought struck in my mind. That was the essence of the problem though, wasn’t it? I didn’t feel like me at the moment at all. I felt like I was trying to be a different person, a leader like my father, and in the process, I was failing to be the friend that I should be, and the leader as well. I couldn’t be like my father, even though I knew that I had to be—that Char must want me to be a leader like him. That the academy needed me to be a leader like the great Malos Torvald… No, I was just Neill, not anyone else.

  I was trying to be someone else. When could I just be myself? The boy who loved dragons. The boy who loved flying dragons? The boy who didn’t have to pretend to know what he was doing all of the time?

  Neill Shaar-Torvald, my uncle’s words came back to me. That sounded like a good person to be. That sounded like a young man who wouldn’t have to worry about whether he was in the wrong, constantly. I wouldn’t have to be the warlord’s son all the time, I wouldn’t have to try and be a copy of the great Chosen Warden of the Eastern Marches. The Gypsies were always a free people, they were mistrusted, sure, but looking at Uncle Lett I could see that he didn’t care. None of his family cared what the settled Three Kingdomers thought of them. They made their own rules, and made their own names to live up to.

  When I looked up from my contemplations of the embers of the fire, I found my Uncle Lett once again waiting patiently, and, at seeing my consternation he gave me an easy smile. “I know that these responsibilities weigh heavily upon your shoulders, Neill. They would on anyone’s. You are ‘the boy who flew’ after all.” My Uncle looked sad, as if the legend wasn’t a great accolade at all, but a burden. I was starting to think that it was. I had so many questions that I had to consider: How was I going to rebuild the monastery? How was I going to make peace with the older monks? What was I going to do about my brothers? About Prince Vincent? About Prince Lander, Prince Griffith? And then there was Zaxx and the Abbot Ansall to consider, somewhere still out there and clearly already plotting our downfall.

  “All I am saying, Neill, is that I am an old rover, and a Gypsy Chief, and your uncle.” He sighed heavily, patting his belly that was full of fresh fish. “I worry for you, and I want you to be happy. I like to think that I have discovered a thing or two out there in the world….”

  “Hah!” Maya rolled her eyes, but despite whatever she thought about her husband’s questionable ‘wisdom’ she didn’t go into details then and there.

  “…And I have come to learn that whenever great attention is brought to someone, especially to us Gypsies, it usually means that bad will follow. We Gypsies do not have the same types of heroes as the Middle Kingdomers, as you know, young Neill. Our heroes are flesh and blood, real people, they swear and they spit and they pull off great deeds. They are not lofty lords and knights whom we bow and scrape to…” my uncle lectured. “We know that heroes have all of the rocks thrown at them. That every time one stands up, there are a ten willing to drag them down. We know that all heroes have flaws and imperfections and make mistakes—that no one can be perfect all the time. There is talk of the Dark Prince, Prince Vincent, rallying his forces, of rumors of war and revolution in the Three Kingdoms, and every time I ask about these rumors, they always come back to this place, this Dragon Monastery, and to the boy who flew.

  My uncle’s look turned serious, his large mustache dragging downwards into a scowl. “There is talk, abroad, of the Sons of Torvald riding out again. That they have been accepting many strange travelers into their halls, before riding north.”

  “What do you mean, uncle?” I said.

  “The monks. The old ones of this place, those nasty little Scribes with their schemes and plots.” My uncle never had time for the monastic traditions.

  “The Draconis Order who served the old Abbot?” I said.

  “Yes,” Uncle Lett nodded. “There are rumors they have been gathering themselves to Torvald land, and it makes me ill to think of it.”

  “Impossible!” I burst out. My father had mistrusted the
Draconis Order completely, and with good reason too, it seemed, as they had poisoned him in the end.

  “They may be just the tall tales and rumors of the road, young Neill. You know how it is. The dust gets in one’s eyes, but the ears hear all sorts of stories,” Uncle Lett said. “Anyway, I know what you are doing here is brave, Neill, but I do not wish this trouble for my sister’s son. I would sooner have you happy and safe.”

  “Believe me, I want to be happy too, uncle…” I said, with tears springing into my eyes. My uncle had come here, bringing his family all the way up to the Dragon Mountain because he was worried about me. He had heard the stories of the overthrow of the old Draconis Order, and perhaps even my rebuff of the Sons of Torvald attack, and he had immediately dropped everything to make sure I was okay. Who else had done that? Who else would do that? His compassion and respect for my well-being touched me, and once again I found myself fervently wishing that I had experienced the same from my own, real father.

  “Then the way forward is simple, Neill,” my uncle said seriously, sitting back up and putting a strong hand on my shoulder. “You are a man now, I see that in you, I see your strength. You must decide if you are going to stand on your own two feet like we Gypsies do, or whether you are going to give your life away to the others. Whether you are going to spend your life forever managing this or that alliance, this contract, that enemy. It is a form of bondage, Master Neill, and that is why we Gypsies of distant Shaar will have none of it. We were an enslaved people once—or so our oldest legends tell us – and we will never be so again!” he said, his eyes flashing with an indignant anger. “Do not be a slave to this monastery, to these people. Give to them only that which you can freely give, and for which you will be rewarded.”

  “But, but how, uncle?” I was confused.

  There was a warning cluck of noise from Maya, and I realized that the two must have discussed all of this conversation intimately before they had arrived. She did not want my Uncle Lett to suggest whatever it was he was going to suggest next, but I pushed him.