The Wizard And The Dragon

by Joseph Anderson

  I couldn’t calm myself enough to appreciate the magic. I scrambled to my feet and got away from the door. I wanted to be near Tower in case whatever the thing was got through the door and clawed its way up the stairs to us.

  “What happened?”

  “I shouted! When the water! And then the door. I didn’t go near it, I promise. Something is behind it! It made a noise, then I screamed, and another noise. I ran!”

  Tower’s face tensed and he marched to the door. I heard his steps begin down the stairs and then abruptly stop. I crept to the doorway and poked my head through and saw that he was leaning over the stairs. He must have seen something at the bottom because a look of confusion covered his face, as though he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

  I stepped into the tower and he snapped his head at me from the sound of my footstep. He raised a hand to his face and placed a finger over his lips. He kept his eyes on me as he took a single step down the stairs, moving his legs deliberately to make no noise. He extended his hand to me and I tried my best to mimic his actions.

  He nodded once at me, seemingly satisfied. He made a swirling motion with his finger and then turned from me to begin his silent descent down the stairs. Despite how careful we were being I hung back by more than a dozen steps.

  The journey was tedious but the constant grunts and snuffs that I heard below us kept me moving slowly and quietly. My legs ached from the effort but it was better than attracting the attention of whatever monster was below us.

  When we were more than half way down the tower we stopped and both looked out over the stairs. There was something moving around on the floor, scuffling around the table. I saw that the wooden door had been reduced to pieces and splinters that were strewn everywhere. Whatever the creature was it had been strong enough to break through the door.

  The thing looked human at first and moved around on two legs and felt out the surface of the table with two arms and hands. It didn’t seem to care that its feet were pressing into a mess of sharp, broken wood.

  I realized it wasn’t human when it raised its head up in my direction. I stopped the shriek that threatened to burst out of my throat when what I thought were its eyes found me. Then another grasp of horror came around my body when I got a clear view of its face: there were no eyes. In place of eyeballs there was more of its sickly gray skin, draped and stretched over where a man’s eye sockets would be. Its nose was twice the size of a human’s and dominated its face. It inhaled deeply through its nostrils and I heard the same snuffling noise as I did when it was first at the door. It was blind and was trying to smell us.

  When I turned my head away from it I saw that Tower was moving down the stairs once more. We must have been too far away for the monster to smell us and it had returned to investigating the table. The food was still there, protected and suspended in whatever spell that Tower had placed on it. The magic must have confused the creature because it continued to sniff the air around it, able to detect the lingering smell of the food that it couldn’t find with its hands.

  When Tower reached the door to my room he waved for my attention. He pointed to the creature below us. He then pointed to his own eyes and shook his head. He pointed to his ears and nose and nodded vigorously. He firmly jabbed the air in front of him in a downward motion, which I took to mean to stay put. I nodded and hoped that my comprehension was correct.

  I looked back at the creature and studied it again now that we were closer. It was mostly hairless and made up of scrawny, stringy muscle that seemed to be too small for the bones it covered. It looked smaller than the average person but not by much. I saw that the thing had a pair of vicious looking claws at the end of each arm, and that I had been wrong before to call them hands. It scraped them in a futile attempt to find the food on the table and its claws bit into the wood and peeled it away.

  Tower came into my view of the creature and I turned my head to watch him. The thing must have sensed him at the same time I did and it whipped around from the table. It let out a screech much louder than I expected from something of its size. It was a high pitched whine that hurt my ears and reverberated through the stones below my feet. I let out a cry from the pain and my chest constricted when the monster heard me and starting charging to the stairs instead of Tower.

  “Hey! At me! Focus on me!” he yelled and stamped his feet. His boots slapped against the stone floor.

  The creature emitted another screech and I covered my ears this time. I watched Tower stand and let the sound pass over him as if he felt nothing at all. He shoved a hand deep into his pocket and pulled out one of the large, rough gems I had seen earlier that day. He gripped it tightly in his left hand and held it behind his back while he extended his right hand in front of him, the palm of it facing the creature.

  The next few seconds seemed to elongate and pass slowly. I wondered if it was some sort of spell that Tower was using or simply that I was holding my breath and clinging to the stairs, hoping that I wasn’t going to lose someone else the very next day after losing my village.

  The monster leaped through the air at Tower. I saw flames begin to spark and spread from his hand behind his back, extending up his arm like a curtain of fire not unlike how the dragon had focused its fire along its body.

  From my vantage point it looked like a race: if the fire could focus and be unleashed on the monster before it finished its jump through the air and tore Tower to pieces. The flames came up to his shoulder and, even as things were slowed, shot quickly across his back and along his extended arm. The monster was nearly in striking distance when Tower twisted his hands and the fire erupted from his fingers.

  The flames spewed from his hand and all at once things regained their normal pace. The creature was enveloped in fire and caught in midair, suspended and kept aloft by the force of Tower’s magic. The monster swiped through the fire as it roared and screamed in both agony and rage. The shrieks soon turned to a howl and to a wail and then to silence. The limbs of the thing went limp and hung dead in the torrent of fire.

  Tower stabbed forward with his hand and a final blast knocked the creature away from him and into the wall. It fell onto the floor, charred and burning, and I saw the remnants of the door around the body catch fire and begin to burn alongside it. I saw Tower put the gemstone back in his pocket. It looked to be about half of its original size after being siphoned into the spell.

  “Bryce,” he said, without turning to face me. “I am going down there. I want you to open the door outside and stand in it. If anything comes out of here that isn’t me, anything at all, you need to close the door and run. Run and don’t come back. Understand?”

  I nodded but he didn’t turn around to confirm that I had heard him. He stepped through the doorway and I saw his image get lost in the darkness. It looked like there were steps leading downward but I was too scared to look. I opened the stone door and lodged myself between it and the wall, thankful that there was no windy storm to fight with to keep it open.

  The scattered fires around the room eventually died down, leaving small piles of condensed ash around the floor. The table and chairs had luckily been spared from the flames and the food that the monster had been after still sat untouched. I tried not to look at the smoldering corpse of whatever the creature was that Tower had fought, but curiosity got the better of me. I kept glancing between it and the dark doorway, as if repeatedly studying the creature would help me better identify another one.

  Many times I thought about running and weighed the possibility of the smaller monsters with the dragon. Each time I chose the smaller ones and stayed at the tower. It was a choice I would make time and time again over the years.

  Tower must have been gone at least a few hours. It had been warm and bright out when he first left and it was dark and cool when he finally came back. There was a tension in my back and chest that I didn’t realize I was keeping until I saw him.

  Both of his hands were full. In one he grasped another lumpy bag that I gu
essed was full of jewels. In the other he carried a bucket of water and I wondered how our water came from a doorway that appeared to lead down into the ground.

  He set both items on the table and I crept into the room, still afraid of attracting more monsters. Tower emptied the bag out onto the table and I saw that I had been correct: a pile of gems fell out onto the table along with two small bottles with stoppers.

  He rummaged through the gems until he found one that was as clear as glass. He walked back to the broken doorway with it and placed it in the middle of the opening. When he stepped back the gem stayed in the air, floating as if it was held by an invisible string from the ceiling. I watched as the gem began to flatten and stretch out from itself, melting out of its form and into a thin barrier that covered the doorway.

  When he was finished the substance of gem appeared altered in more ways than being stretched out. Tower tapped his knuckles on his magic barrier and it responded to his touch, a ripple of light running through it. I stared at the magic wishing I could understand it.

  He seemed satisfied with his work and came back to the table. We sat down and with a wave of his hand the covering he had made for the food seemed to evaporate. The smell of the food wafted around us and I was surprised to find that it was still as warm as it had been that morning.

  “Eat. Drink,” he said while he scooped up water from the new bucket with our cups. “I’m sorry this happened. It’s not meant to be like this.” He stated the words firmly, with the force of something he knew to be true driving them. “Something must have stirred up the tunnels. Something strong enough to get through the wards I set up. I made them stronger now.”

  “Tunnels?” I asked while my imagination already hurtled ahead. There were tunnels below the tower?

  He dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. I began to spoon food onto a plate to hide my disappointed. I tried to remind myself that he said I shouldn’t be curious.

  “We’ll have to make a new door,” he said as he ate. He separated the gems with his free hand, pushing them over the table with his finger tips and sorting them with the dozens he had placed on the table that morning. Some of them had been knocked onto the floor by the monster and lay discarded amongst the shards of wood.

  We ate the rest of our meal in silence. We were too hungry to talk and I was impressed by how much of the food we ate in just one day. Tower reapplied his spell to preserve the food and left the table.

  The floor was a mess and we started to clean it. I gathered up the pieces of wood while Tower scooped up the gems and put them on the table. We were nearly done when he looked at me with a grin as though he had noticed something I hadn’t.

  “Do you like how our work paid off?” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s night now. And you can still see me, right?”

  I suddenly understood and I looked up through the interior of the building. There was no more sunlight coming through the windows. The water that we had sent running through the walls was shining. It was as if a vein of moonlight had been woven through the stones of the tower.

  “Bryce,” Tower said, pulling my attention away. He handed me the two glass bottles he had brought up with the bucket of water. “Fill these up from the stream. I’m going to get rid of our, uh, guest here.”

  I did as he asked while he dragged the body of the monster outside. I opened the bottles and held them carefully above the purple gem to catch the water. The magic seemed precious to me and I tried not to waste any of it by spilling it on the floor. When Tower returned I had finished filling both of the bottles. I placed one on the table and held the other one in my hands.

  The water was warm and radiated a pleasant heat through the glass. I rolled the bottle in my hands and watched the miniscule flares of light swirl around in the water. The more I moved the bottle the more heat and light it produced. When I shook it hard enough the individual sparks grew until they seemed to be join into one, large gleaming source of light.

  “Don’t do that too much,” Tower said. “The magic will last a few days, maybe a week, but less if you demand more light and heat out of it.”

  I still smiled at my new toy. It was like I had my own piece of magic now to go along with the candle in my room.

  Tower sat back down at the table and was fiddling with a small pouch. I guessed that he must have found it on the body of the creature. He emptied it out next to the pile of gemstones and I saw a mess of items spill out: some coins, bones, scraps of dirty food, cloth, and rough shaped carvings made of stone.

  “What was that monster?” I asked as I stepped closer to the table.

  “They’re called farren. I’ve seen them before. They’re common beneath the tower. I think they’re a distant relative to trolls. Smaller, blind cousins with paler skin. They prefer to be cold and are susceptible to fire. They’re not very smart or strong but almost anything can be dangerous when it’s cornered.”

  “There are a lot of them? Where do they come from? Are they the worst thing that’s down there?”

  “So many questions,” Tower smiled. “I will tell you eventually. For now we need to rest. We have a lot to do over the next few days. Summer is ending and we need to prepare for winter. Don’t be afraid of what might come up from the door. I’ve made sure that nothing can get to us. I promise.”

  I yawned and then nodded. I felt safer as I climbed the stairs. Seeing Tower put himself in danger to protect me had made me trust him more than I realized. However, I was just about to push open my door when he called out to me. I turned and looked down at him over the stairs.

  “You’ll be able to get your own answers in a few days, Bryce. After the rest of the tower is ready I’ll have to go back down into the tunnels. You should prepare yourself, because you’ll be coming with me.”

  I saw a scowl cross over his face as if he hadn’t enjoyed saying those words. I went to bed both excited and terrified, not knowing which was worse: reliving the dragon’s attack in my nightmares, or a dark tunnel full of monsters.

  Chapter Four

  A week passed before we went below the tower. It was a relatively calm week but I was thankful for it. After the dragon attack, witnessing Tower’s magic, and seeing a monster that apparently came from underground, I was happy to settle into more normal things.

  Most of my time was spent cleaning the tower and making myself familiar with it. The channel that carried the enchanted water around needed to be cleaned often in those early days. Dust and grime that had collected over the years gradually came loose and clogged sections of it. I always kept an eye out for any leaks when I traveled up and down the stairs.

  The roof was particularly dirty and Tower and I spent most of the week scraping dirt and moss from the stones. The more time passed the more I realized the truth in Tower’s statement about keeping to his own floor for so long. If it weren’t for him I would have thought the tower was abandoned.

  The water barrel was emptied, both for helping us loosen the dirt on the roof and to clean the inside of it. Tower explained that it was one of the few items that wasn’t magical in some way and needed the usual maintenance of a mundane item. I spent the majority of a day scrubbing at the build up of greenish mold from the wood. I also removed clusters of dead insects and decayed plant matter before it was pushed back upright.

  Each day was filled with tiring, slow work but I took a feeling of satisfaction from it. I had hated doing chores in my village but in the tower it was different. I felt like I was contributing to something and genuinely helping instead of doing work solely because I was ordered. I didn’t feel like a child that was constantly in the way.

  The work also gave me something to focus on and keep my mind off the loss of my family. Each night I continued to have nightmares but I found comfort in busying myself during the day. I wonder if a boy has any other option to deal with such a loss or the ability to truly comprehend the death of his parents.

  Our trip down to the lower levels of the to
wer came suddenly one morning. I had woken up each day dreading the looming threat of venturing down to where the things apparently lived. My imagination had run wild with it. I imagined all sorts of dungeons and prisons, brimming with monsters, murderers, and savage animals. Each day I would brace myself during our breakfast and each day I would be relieved when Tower listed simple, yet safe, tasks that had to be done.

  “Ah! There we go. Much better, that’s more like it,” he exclaimed that morning, after shaping another gemstone into a roast chicken. “It’s been so long since I needed to conjure larger meals. I was worried I had lost my touch.”

  “What are we going to do today?” I asked between taking bites of food.

  “Today will be different,” he explained. “After we eat I want you to portion out a meal we can share. I’ll suspend it for us and we will take it with us. Today we’re going down into the mines.”

  “The mines?” I asked, initially not understanding. I looked to the doorway, still protected by the glass-like shield that Tower had placed there, and my heart sank.

  “Yes. You asked where I get all the crystals and gems. This tower was built on a mine. There are tunnels far underneath our feet. It was probably the reason why it was built here in the first place, however many years ago that was. It was already ancient by the time I got here.”

  A mine. I had never seen one before, but the thought of being so far underground surrounded by rocks was scary enough without all of the monsters. I looked down at the floor as if I couldn’t trust it anymore. I felt unsafe and unsteady on my feet.

  “I placed several wards down in the tunnels like I did over the doorway. Over the next few days we’ll be going down there to prepare for winter. After that I’ll place many more wards to keep us safe. While the tunnels are open you’ll have to be near me so I can protect you.”

  I tried not to look sullen as I separated some food and handed it to him. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for my new home and sanctuary after the dragon attack. The thought of monsters rattled that feeling of safety and I tried to look brave as we left the table.