The Wizard And The Dragon

by Joseph Anderson

  I closed my eyes. When he vanished, I repeated the thought. When I vanished. The reality of it came crashing down on me. It was a year from now that Tower disappeared. I had a year left before whatever came for him would come for me.

  Chapter Twenty

  What I had seen in the study was not enough to sway my decision. The bookshelves may have been lined with books that shouldn’t exist yet, but that didn’t stop me from trying to recreate Bryce’s first day as best as I could. I wondered if it was a futile endeavor. I may have already made mistakes and misremembered things.

  Still, I was ready for the boy in the morning. I brought up a fresh bucket of water and placed it on the table with cleaned plates, utensils, and the gemstones I had collected. He woke up and came down the stairs as I recalled doing. I remembered my intention of slipping out unnoticed and smiled warmly when I caught the boy’s eye.

  I motioned to the chair across the table and he took his place. I gave him a few moments to consider everything on the table and myself. I used the time to prepare what I had to say. Lies were necessary, I could see the wisdom in that even early on. If I had been told the truth, that this strange man was myself all grown up and sent back to protect me, I’m not sure if I would have understood. At the very least I would have thought the man mad and ran back out into the wilderness.

  I knew also that it wasn’t just enough to lie. I needed to make the boy believe it so he would settle quickly enough that I could begin teaching him. I only had a year, I reminded myself bitterly. A year to make the boy self-sufficient before I was gone.

  “Bryce,” I said. “Your name is Bryce.”

  He nodded.

  “You must be hungry,” I said, and swept my hand over the gemstones.

  He put a hand on his stomach as I spoke but also looked at me strangely, not understanding what the gemstones had to do with what I said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I picked up one of the gems—a green one. Normally I would have placed it onto the plate in the middle of the table and transformed it to the first idea that my stomach gave me, but I stopped myself. I narrowed my eyes at the gem and tried to remember what the first meal had been. I strained my memory but couldn’t recall. The boy was staring at me. I needed to act.

  I flicked the gem toward the plate and made a show of morphing it as it fell through the air. I finished the spell off with a burst of light from a small amount of leftover energy caught in the gem. It was an unnecessary addition but it felt right at the time. The boy turned his head from the light and was unable to see the grin I had from showing off to my younger self.

  The plate was full of food. A roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots, turnip, and a small loaf of soft bread. The boy’s eyes boggled in his head at the feast that had seemingly came out of nowhere, and he wasted no time in eating directly from the large plate. I stared at the food with confusion at first. I didn’t recognize this as the meal I ate on my first day in the tower.

  “That wasn’t right,” I said to myself. I shook my head in confusion. I was suddenly unsure if I had already made a mistake.

  Eventually I joined the boy in the meal. I was hungrier than I expected to be. So much of my time had been spent getting prepared that I hadn’t eaten since going through the windowed room. We ate about a quarter of the food in total before we were both full. The boy leaned back in the chair with his hands on his belly.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Good. Last night I said we would talk. We have some things to do today but you can ask questions for now, if you like,” I said as I leaned back in my chair.

  I tried to remember what the first question would be before he asked it, but the boy was too quick.

  “What are you?” he blurted out and the memory of it hit me along with the question. I started laughing, both at the ridiculousness of the question and how startled I had been when it had ripped out of my mouth when I had been the boy. I remembered the momentary panic I had about offending the stranger and laughed harder.

  “Oh,” I said, as the laugh settled. “What am I? It’s a fair question. I would ask it too. I am a wizard. I am a man too, like you will be someday,” I smiled at that. “But I am also a wizard. Magic is the only thing that is different between us.”

  The boy nodded and I remembered the next question I asked as he did so. I readied myself to begin the lie.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a name,” I said. I forced a smile on my face and continued, “I was born here and have lived in here all my life.” I felt a lump grow in my throat. “Sometimes I’ve had guests and things have invaded over the years, but there’s never been a need for names. I am part of the tower more than anything now. Call me that if you need a name. Tower.”

  He believed the lies just as easily as I had back then. I kept the smile on my face but inside my guts felt like they were being wrenched together.

  “Do dragons ever come here?” was the boy’s third question.

  At least it was one I could answer truthfully. I shook my head.

  “How do you know?”

  The dragon had been so important to me back then. I tried to put myself in place of the boy once more, having just seen the monster engulf my entire life and home. It had been such a huge part of my life back then. It was strange how distant it seemed now.

  He continued his questions. At the end of it, I had explained some of the magic of elemental familiars and the tower, frightened him away from the cellar door, and offered him the room as a permanent place to stay. I had gotten through the first step. I knew next I had to lead him up to the roof.

  On the way I stopped and explained which floor of the tower was mine. I kept the door closed so I didn’t overwhelm him. We passed the empty rooms near the top and I kept a close watch on him out of the corner of my eye. I remembered one thing clearly about that first climb: how afraid I had been of falling.

  At the top, before we stepped out onto the roof, I pointed out the channel that ran through the wall of the tower.

  “Did you notice this as we came up here?”

  He shook his head and I watched as he leaned closer to it. He ran one his fingers through the groove in the wall and frowned at the dirt that rubbed onto him.

  “This runs along the stairs,” I explained. “It winds all the way to the bottom. Follow me now.”

  I kept pointing at the channel as I stepped onto the roof. The boy stopped at the doorway as if he was reluctant to step outside. I couldn’t remember doing that and waved him closer to me. He looked scared as he shifted over the roof to stand next to me. He kept close.

  I moved the rain water barrel closer to the doorway and explained how the water collected in the compartment in the wall. Despite how hard I was trying to word everything to match my memory, I enjoyed the look of wonder as I gave him the warm, enchanted water to hold. His eyes lit up as the gems released their magic and even then I saw the beginnings of how magic would replace the missing pieces of his, and my, life.

  A red gem was placed above the water in the bowl and I gave a second one to the boy. I had a moment of hesitation before I sent him down the stairs. I remembered that first farren attack all too well and I hoped that things would repeat the same way and that he would survive it.

  When he raced down the stairs I stood as close to the doorway without stepping into the tower. His footsteps grew distant until I couldn’t hear them anymore. The gem above the bowl began to drip water and still I hadn’t heard the boy scream out about the monster.

  I began to wonder if my Tower had not been feigning ignorance all those years ago, and that he truly hadn’t heard me. I remember how shocked he looked when I told him about the monster.

  A few more minutes went by and just as I was about to go down and check on him, I heard his footsteps on the stairs. I shifted back to the compartment and stared at the water.

  “The water made it! I put the gem in,” he said after bur
sting onto the roof.

  I furrowed my eyes at him and titled my head slightly, a habit I must have learned from Candle.

  “That’s all? Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else,” he said slowly and his eyes widened. “Did I do it wrong? Was something else supposed to happen?”

  “No,” I answered firmly. “No,” I repeated, softer. “I’m sorry, you did nothing wrong. The water is coming from here now. Follow me. I need to check something.”

  I hurried down the stairs. The air rushed passed my face as I descended quickly. I felt like things were already spiraling out of control. I tried to convince myself that our breakfast must have been over a little faster. The water must have ran down the tower a little quicker. The farren wasn’t through the door just yet but would be soon.

  The boy took each step carefully and I left him trailing behind me. The monster would barge in at any moment and I needed to place myself between it and my younger self. When I reached the bottom I put a hand in my pocket and preemptively squeezed my fingers around some gems.

  My eyes were locked on the door. There were no noises. I was already worrying when Bryce stopped behind me, panting from having run up the stairs and then following me back down again. The only sounds were his breathing. There was nothing behind the door.

  Had I already made too big of a mistake? I thought back to my version of this day. Tower had seemed genuinely surprised when I told him about the monster. Had he set up barriers and they failed? Was there no attack when he had been a boy? The thought of my Tower as the boy behind me threatened to cascade into a barrage of questions and thoughts. I thought of my sanity and the words in the windowed room and ignored the questions.

  “I have to go down there,” I said without looking back at Bryce. “I want you to move to the front door and stay there. If anything comes out of there that isn’t me, anything at all, you open the door and run. Do you understand?”

  My perception of what was going on bled into my memory of the day. I had been scared. I remembered watching Tower leave, his back to me, as I walked forward now and left the boy. It was all too similar but too different at the same time. It felt wrong.

  I opened the door and walked down the stairs without closing it. I waited until I was halfway down the stairs before I brought Candle out. He looked angry and confused—I hadn’t had time to explain everything to him yet. I soothed him by channeling short bursts of energy through my hand.

  The first barrier in the cellar was intact. I studied it closely to look for signs of damage. Maybe this time the farren had given up. There were no cracks on the surface and I shrunk the barrier. I stepped into the tunnels and carried on.

  I was underground for a number of hours. I searched each tunnel meticulously. I even forced myself down the slope and checked all the way through to the chamber of statues. None of the barriers showed signs of tampering. Even the ones closest to the underground were as sturdy as I had made them.

  My mind wandered back to my Tower. When he had been a boy there must not have been an attack, so he didn’t think it was necessary to set up the barriers that I had. And what about his Tower, had he remembered to set them up like I had? Was there a cycle to how the older me and the younger me interacted? Was this something that alternated each time? A farren coming up the cellar for me, none for the boy waiting for me upstairs. When it’s his turn there will be an attack that he won’t expect. He’ll think the past has changed, just like I did now.

  My head hurt. The pain intensified when I tested my memories. Had those changed too? Were there rules to what I was doing? Could things change without changing me?

  Back in the cellar I filled another bucket of water and climbed up to the tower. I extinguished Candle and placed him in my pocket before we got too close to the top of the stairs. Bryce was still standing at the door. I tried not to let my concern show on my face.

  We sat at the table and we ate another meal. The boy ate heartily and asked me a stream of questions about the stairway. When we were finished we set about cleaning the room. I wondered how many years the tower had been vacant before I stumbled into it. There was a surprising amount of dirt for a place that was meant to be hidden.

  The afternoon turned to evening and I watched as my younger self marvel at the sparkling gleam that now ran through the tower. I remembered that moment, the second time that magic enraptured my imagination. I smiled at him.

  The smile turned into a scowl as I remembered the warning I had to give him before he went to bed. I called out to him as he was climbing the stairs. He looked at me happily, eager to hear something else about the magic around him.

  “You’ll soon be able to answer some questions yourself, Bryce. When we’ve cleaned the rest of the tower I’ll have to go back into the tunnels. You should get prepared. You’ll be coming with me.”

  I forced myself not to look away as I saw his expression become conflicted, torn between excitement and fear. He nodded once and then went up to his room.

  I didn’t enjoy scaring the boy, but I wasn’t sure what was vital to creating the wizard that I was now. I remembered how frightened I had been trying to sleep that night, but it taught me to respect and fear the tunnels. It served as a way to temper my curiosity. It was hard to judge if that had saved my life when I explored the tunnels my first time alone.

  In the study I sat at my desk and began to write. I tried to collect my memories of the year I had lived with Tower. It was an attempt to separate what I could safely change and what was essential for the survival of both of us. It was only one year but it was an important one.

  I had to wonder what was coming for me. I was certain that I couldn’t possibly leave on my own. Something had to have come to take Tower away from me, just as I was sure now that I wouldn’t abandon the boy to live in the tower alone. Perhaps the changes were that answer. Had too much of the past changed and Tower had simply ceased to be? I tore out the page where I had written the thought. It didn’t make sense.

  My mind settled on those changes. I realized that I had forgotten to bring the bottles to fill with water. That had been a good memory, one that I cherished. I clutched the bottle of heat and light as though it was my own personal piece of magic. I had found comfort in it. That was another memory I had denied my young self. Had my Tower forgotten things in the same way?

  They were small changes, I reasoned. Still, I slept poorly that night. The pieces were all around me, but they didn’t start to come together until we went down into the tunnels. It was only then, after there was a big change, that I began to understand.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There was one final warning from Tower that I had not yet remembered as we went down into the mines. In all fairness, it was difficult to remember so much after fifteen years. I kept Candle in my pocket as we walked through the tunnels.

  Although the first farren had never attacked, I felt relaxed in the mines for those days. I had accepted the small changes that kept happening but was confident that the larger events still remained the same. I knew my barriers would hold and that we wouldn’t be attacked. Looking back, even though I was right, I wonder if that thought was foolish.

  Bryce was nervous whenever we were in the tunnels and I let him learn from his fear. I knew all too well how useful that paranoia would be when he was down here alone. Still, it was not pleasant to see him jump and gasp as he thought he saw something crawl along the edges of the light. I remembered all too well how my eyes played tricks on me back then.

  We collected the rocks and gems for winter. We ate lunch in the mines. We dragged the bags back to the cellar and I taught him how to grind down the stone and extract the gems. They were long days, made longer by how miserably I was sleeping at night. Something I was missing was bothering me and keeping me awake. Something important.

  The final day arrived and I knew the trip would end with us breaking into the spider’s nest. I had been careful not to dig too deeply at any one spot in the wall. On the final day
I attacked at it, knowing it was necessary to cause the breach. When the first bag was filled I suggested we take our lunch early to minimize the clutter when we had to deal with the spider.

  “Will we have to replace the gems on the roof soon?” Bryce asked between bites of food.

  “Probably. We’ll need to use more when it gets colder. That’s part of why we’re mining so much now. We’ll need the gems to last us through winter. You’ll see,” I answered.

  “Why winter? Couldn’t we just come down here and get more months from now?”

  “We could,” I said, and then chewed my way through a piece of chicken. “This place is more lively during the colder months. I’m not certain why. You’ve noticed how it’s warm down here, even though there’s no sunlight? It gets even warmer during the winter, and I think the creatures try to go up where it’s cooler. I’m not sure why. I’ve only explored a small area down here.”

  “You went exploring here? You’re brave. I would never do that.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh before it shot out of me. “We’ll see,” I added after I was finished.

  We set our plates down and I resumed digging into the wall. I remembered the collapse happened after our meal but I couldn’t remember how many hits it had taken. I started striking with the pickaxe at slower intervals, and listening closely to the sound it made. As the sound of the strikes changed I braced myself for what was about to happen.

  The blast came like a bolt of lightning and I dived back away from it. Bryce stood still as the wall fell away from us and was caught in the dust and debris that was vomited out. I stood and watched the scene unfold, loathing that I knew he had to take the brunt of the spider’s attack.

  I saw the cobwebs as the dust cleared and watched the boy peer curiously inside at the nest. The giant spider looked like a shadow at first before it jumped out at Bryce. My legs shifted as I watched them struggle, knowing that it was a few more seconds before I intervened.