The Blood of a Dragon

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  That took some thought.

  In theory, wizardry was a perfectly respectable profession, and Doran should have no objection to seeing his youngest son pursue it, but somehow he just wasn't comfortable with the idea. Wizards were such strange people, either showy braggarts or ill-tempered recluses, from what he'd seen. And wasn't magic supposed to be dangerous stuff? All that messing around with unseen forces simply didn't seem safe.

  It could be worse, of course, it could easily be much worse. The boy might have wanted to be a demonologist. Now that was dangerous work, dealing with the forces of evil themselves, and trying to wring good from them!

  Or maybe not trying to wring good from them, for that matter; Doran had certainly heard plenty of rumors about demonologists performing assassinations and the like. And nobody ever denied that they laid curses on people. And every so often demonologists would disappear, leaving only the most bizarre and fragmentary evidence behind, and nobody really knew whether they'd lost control of their demons, or lost out in a dispute with other magicians, or maybe been struck dead by the gods for their tampering in places where humans weren't supposed to meddle.

  At least Dumery wasn't interested in that!

  And he wasn't interested in witchcraft, which was such a peasantish sort of magic, or sorcery, which still had a rather unsavory reputation even though the Great War had been over for centuries, or warlockry, which was new and strange and whose practitioners all seemed to make everybody very nervous.

  Theurgy, though—that was respectable enough, and nobody ever heard about theurgists getting a spell wrong and vanishing in a puff of purple smoke. Talking to gods seemed a lot healthier than messing around with runes and powders and so forth.

  He suggested it at dinner one night, and Dumery sat silently for a moment, pushing his greens around his plate with his fork.

  “Well?” Doran demanded at last.

  “I don't know, Dad,” Dumery replied. “I mean, it just doesn't interest me the way wizardry does. None of the other magicks do—at least, not the ones I've heard of.”

  Doran was baffled. “What's so special about wizardry, then?”

  “Oh, I don't know,” Dumery replied. “It just ... I mean, it ... it just is, that's all.”

  Doran sighed. He knew he couldn't argue with that. It rarely did any good to argue with anything Dumery said.

  “We'll see what we can do,” he said.

  He tried to think of an alternative, or an excuse for delay, but nothing came, and three days later he and Dumery slogged through muddy streets in a steady spring downpour, hats pulled down tight on their heads, on their way to an interview with Thetheran the Mage.

  “Spoiled,” Doran muttered under his breath as yet another puddle turned out to be deeper than it looked, “I've spoiled the boy. Wizardry—ha!”

  Dumery could hear that his father was muttering, but couldn't make out the words, and took it for curses directed against the gods of weather.

  He didn't mind the rain, not really—the important thing was that he was going to be a wizard! He really was!

  Oh, he'd start out as a mere apprentice, of course, and he'd have to work harder than he ever had in his life, and study night and day, and practice, but after six years—or nine, or twelve, depending—he'd be a wizard! A real wizard!

  They were on Wizard Street now, and Dumery pushed his hat back a little, so that he could see the signboards better as they walked along. He didn't want to miss Thetheran's place.

  “There it is!” he called, pointing.

  His father looked up. “Yes,” he agreed, “that's it.”

  As they approached the little shop the door swung open; Dumery felt a tingle of excitement run through him, and he shivered with anticipation.

  A tall, gaunt man in a midnight-blue robe appeared in the doorway, then stepped back to make room for them as they crossed the threshold.

  Something Dumery couldn't see snatched their hats away, sprinkling his face with cold rainwater spilled from the brim.

  “Come in,” the tall man said. “Come in and dry off.”

  Dumery looked up at him expectantly, thinking that their clothes were about to be dried magically, but the wizard—if this was he—performed no magic, he merely gestured toward a half-circle of velvet-upholstered chairs arranged around the hearth, where a fire was crackling comfortably.

  Mildly disappointed, Dumery followed along and slid onto one of the chairs. His father took the next, and the tall man the one beyond.

  “So you're Dumery,” the tall man said, staring at him intently.

  Dumery stared back, but said nothing.

  “I am Thetheran the Mage, master wizard and master of this house, and I bid you welcome,” the tall man said.

  Doran discreetly prodded his son with an elbow. “I'm Dumery of Shiphaven,” Dumery said, remembering his manners. “Thank you for making us welcome.”

  “I understand that you wish to apprentice yourself to me, to learn the wizardly arts,” Thetheran said, still staring him in the eye.

  Dumery threw his father a glance, then looked back at the wizard. “That's right,” he said. “I want to be a wizard.”

  Thetheran finally removed his gaze from Dumery's face, looking instead at Doran. “If you will forgive me, sir, I must speak to the lad in private, and see whether he has the makings of an apprentice. You may wait here, or go where you will and return in an hour's time.” He raised one hand in a peculiar way, the wrist twisted in what looked to Dumery like a very uncomfortable fashion, and added, “Should you choose to stay, you will be brought food and drink, if you wish. Simply call out what you want; I have oushka, if the rain has chilled you, and ale, to wash the oushka down or merely to slake your thirst, and a well of clear water that I keep pure by my magic. To eat, I fear I have little to spare at present but good bread and a fine wheel of Shannan red cheese.”

  Doran nodded politely, and was about to say something, when the wizard stood, staring at Dumery again and obviously no longer interested in anything the boy's father might have to say.

  He reached out, and Dumery stood as well.

  The wizard started to lead the boy toward a curtained doorway in the rear wall of the shop—if a shop it actually was, with no merchandise nor displays of any kind, but only the furnishings that one might find in an ordinary parlor.

  “Wait a minute,” Doran called.

  Thetheran turned back toward him.

  So did Dumery, and for a moment the boy thought his father looked uneasy, though he knew that couldn't be true; nothing ever bothered Doran of Shiphaven, master of the sixth-largest trading fleet in the city's harbor.

  “Just call?” he asked.

  Thetheran nodded.

  “Call who?" Doran asked.

  Thetheran sighed. “What would you like?” he asked.

  What Doran really wanted was to take Dumery and go home and forget all about any involvement with wizards or magic, but Dumery wanted to be here, and it was pouring rain outside, which made the prospect of strolling about for an hour extremely unappealing.

  He didn't understand what the wizard was talking about, telling him to just call for what he wanted, but right at that moment he thought he could use something warming to drink. "Oushka," he said. “I'd like oushka."

  Thetheran nodded. "Oushka!" he called in a firm, clear voice, pointing at Doran.

  With a sudden swirl, the curtain hiding the back room was swept aside, as if by a strong wind, and a silver tray sailed out into the room, unsupported and rotating slowly. Upon it stood a brown earthenware jug and a small crystal glass.

  It sank gently onto the chair next to Doran, who stared at it—fearfully? Distastefully? Dumery wasn't sure.

  Then Thetheran took Dumery by the hand and led him through the doorway, and he saw no more of his father or the magical tray for quite some time.

  Chapter Three

  At Thetheran's behest Dumery seated himself on a tall stool that stood close beside the wizard's littered work
bench. He sat there, staring at the room around him, while the mage puttered about with various mysterious objects.

  This room was as large as the front parlor, maybe a bit larger, but far more crowded. The parlor had held six chairs around the hearth, a few small tables, and a divan, with a few assorted knicknacks and oddments here and there; the walls had been mostly bare. In this workshop Dumery couldn't even see the walls, behind all the clutter!

  A stair leading to the upper storey ran along one side, and an incredible miscellany of pots, pans, and boxes was jammed under it, stacked every which way. On the opposite side several hundred feet of shelving were piled high with books, scrolls, papers, pouches, boxes, bottles, jars, jugs, and other wizardly paraphernalia. The great stone workbench ran down the center of the room midway between these, and while half of it was kept scrupulously clean and clear, the other half was strewn with scraps of paper, spilled powders in every color of the rainbow and several colors of more doubtful origin, bits of bone and bent metal, and other arcane debris.

  At either end of the room a curtained doorway led somewhere—one to the front parlor, the other the gods knew where. The walls around both doorways were plastered over with diagrams and sketches and outlines, none of them making any sense at all to Dumery.

  Something small and green was staring at Dumery from behind a jar; he stared back, and the thing ducked down out of sight before Dumery could get a good look at it. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly; he'd never seen anything quite like it. Some of his brothers’ friends had been telling stories about strange little creatures that had been stowing away aboard ships from the Small Kingdoms and then getting loose around the docks; maybe the stories were true and this was one of them.

  Wizard Street wasn't anywhere near the docks, though. Maybe it was some magical creature, like the sylph, the air elemental, that must have brought his father's oushka.

  Or maybe it wasn't a sylph, maybe the tray was enchanted—wizardry was so varied and wonderful!

  He sat there, surrounded by the artifacts of wizardry, and stared at it all in amazement.

  Then Thetheran was back, holding a small black vial and a pair of narrow silver tongs. He put them down on the workbench and turned to Dumery.

  “So, boy,” he said, “you want to be a wizard?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dumery said, nodding enthusiastically. “Very much indeed.”

  “Aha,” Thetheran said. “It's not your father's idea, then?”

  “No, sir; I believe he'd much rather I do something else. But I want to learn wizardry!”

  Thetheran nodded. “Good,” he said, “very good.”

  He drew a dagger from his belt, and Dumery tensed, wondering if some sort of blood ritual of initiation was involved.

  Thetheran reached out and touched Dumery's forehead with the tip of the dagger, very gently. “Don't move,” he warned.

  Dumery didn't move. Not only did he want to make a good impression, not only was he worried about magic spells, but that knife looked very, very sharp.

  Thetheran muttered something, and Dumery, looking up as best he could without moving, thought he saw the blade of the dagger glowing first blue, then purple.

  Thetheran blinked, then pulled the blade away. He looked at it closely.

  Once again it looked like a perfectly ordinary dagger to Dumery.

  Thetheran muttered something again, then said, “Hold still.”

  As before, Dumery froze.

  Thetheran reached out with the dagger again, but this time he touched it to Dumery's black velvet tunic, directly over the boy's heart. He held it there for a moment, and then ran it lightly down Dumery's breastbone and across his belly to his navel.

  Dumery held his breath until Thetheran finally pulled the knife away. As Dumery exhaled, the wizard held the blade up in front of his eyes and studied it closely, his expression at first puzzled, then annoyed.

  He put the dagger down on the workbench and picked up the vial and tongs.

  “Here,” he said, gesturing, “watch very closely, now. Very closely. I'm going to do a simple little spell, and then ask you to try and do it.”

  Dumery nodded, almost trembling with anticipation. He leaned over and stared intently.

  Thetheran opened the vial and fished out its contents with the tongs. He held up a roll of white fabric for Dumery to see.

  Dumery nodded slightly, keeping his eyes on the little cloth bundle.

  Thetheran put it on the bench and unrolled it with the tongs.

  Inside lay a sliver of greyish wood roughly the size of a man's finger, a tiny glass bottle half-full of a brownish-red substance, and a wad of brown felt.

  Thetheran spread the wad of brown felt to reveal a lock of hair. He plucked out a single strand with the tongs and held it to one side.

  Then, using his other hand, he pried the black rubber cap from the miniature bottle.

  He dipped the single hair into the open neck of the bottle and drew up a single misshapen drop of the substance within, and as he did so he said something, speaking very slowly. The words sounded to Dumery like, “Fulg the walkers nose arbitrary grottle.”

  Then he moved one hand in a circle while the fingers of the other seemed to dance madly about, and then he lowered the hair with the drop of stuff down to the piece of wood.

  The instant before it touched, he said what Dumery took for, “Kag snort ruffle thumb.”

  When the stuff did touch, a white spark appeared. Thetheran dropped the tongs and let the hair fall—except that it seemed to Dumery it fell the wrong direction, and when he tried to follow it with his eyes he couldn't find it. Then the wizard reached down and picked up the glowing spark between his two index fingers. He brought his thumbs down to it, hiding it from sight.

  Then he announced, “Behold, Haldane's Iridescent Amusement!” He drew his hands apart, and there in the air between them, stretching from one thumb to the other, was a string of gleaming polychrome bubbles the size of oranges, each joined to the next at a single point, colors shifting eerily around their surfaces almost as if they were somehow alive.

  Dumery stared, delighted.

  Then the bubbles all silently popped and were gone, without leaving even a trace of moisture. Thetheran smiled a tight little smile, then touched his hands together and drew them apart again, and there was a new string, the bubbles even larger this time. Where before the commonest hues had been blues and reds, now green and gold predominated.

  Then these, too, popped, and once more the mage drew out a new string, this time milky and streaked with purple.

  When those vanished there were no more.

  “There,” Thetheran said. “Now you try it.”

  Dumery blinked, and reached out for the tongs.

  The hair had vanished, along with the drop of stuff, so Dumery picked up a new one from the felt. He was unfamiliar with the tongs, so it took several attempts before he managed to pick up one, and only one, strand.

  He dipped it in the little bottle and drew up a drop of the reddish gunk. He announced, “Fulg the walkers nose arbitrary grottle.”

  He waved one hand in a circle while wiggling the fingers of the other.

  He touched the hair and goo to the piece of wood and said, “Kag snort ruffle thumb.”

  Then he waited for the spark to appear.

  Nothing happened; the thick stuff on the hair dripped onto the wood, but that was all.

  He waited, but his hand quickly grew tired, holding the tongs steady like that, and at last he had to put them down.

  “It didn't work,” he said.

  Thetheran was staring at him.

  “My boy,” he said, “you are a phenomenon. A curiosity, really.”

  Dumery blinked. “What?” he asked.

  “You are a fluke, an aberration. You have absolutely no talent for wizardry whatsoever!”

  His previous blink had been from startlement; this time he blinked to hold back tears that were suddenly welling up. “What?” he said again.
>
  “Lad, I tested you first with a simple spell with that dagger,” Thetheran explained. “It should have glowed green, at least, when I touched you with it. If you had the talent strongly, it would have been golden, and if you were destined to be one of the great wizards of the age it would have glowed white-hot. You saw what it did—a flicker of blue, no more, and it stayed as cold as iron.”

  Dumery stared up at him, uncomprehending.

  “I thought perhaps I'd misspoken the spell, or something else had gone wrong,” Thetheran continued, “so I tried again, with your heart instead of your head, and still got nothing. Well, I thought, perhaps you're a special case. So I gave you a chance to show me a spell. I took the hair and blood of a beheaded murderer, and a piece from the scaffold he died on, and I worked one of the simplest little spells I know, one that can't go wrong easily, if at all, and then I let you try—and you got every single step wrong! Not one word of the incantation, not one gesture, was right! You didn't even speak the second stanza until too late in the procedure. And with some of the most potently charged ingredients I have on hand, short of wasting dragon's blood, you raised not a single spark of eldritch energy. Not one little twinge. Nothing."

  “But...” Dumery began.

  “It's amazing,” Thetheran said, shaking his head.

  “Let me try again!” Dumery said. “Please! I'll do it better this time, I swear I will!”

  Thetheran stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Go ahead,” he said.

  Eagerly, blinking away tears, Dumery picked out another hair with the tongs.

  Maybe, he thought, the power wasn't there because I didn't know what these things were. The hair and blood of a beheaded murderer—gods!

  He trembled slightly at the very idea.

  He dipped the hair in the bottle of blood and drew it out, and Thetheran coached him. "Pfah'lu gua'akhar snuessar bitra rhi grau k'l," the wizard said.

  “Fall oogah acker snoozer bid rory grackle,” Dumery said. He watched closely the gestures Thetheran made, and tried very hard to imitate them.

  "Khag s'naur t'traugh f'lethaum," Thetheran said.