Bryce rolled out of the way from the spider’s bite and it failed as it smashed itself down into solid rock instead of the boy’s soft flesh. I knew that was when I stepped in.
“Bryce! Get away from it!” I roared, with an urgency in my voice like I had been trying to work out what was going on the entire time.
I stepped forward as the boy scrambled behind me. I shot a suspension spell at the spider. It left my hand as a red beam, more radiant than usual in the darkness of the tunnel, and was deflected by one of the spider’s legs. It hissed at me and began backing up.
The spider’s hind legs began to press around the hole to its nest and I shot at it again. It swatted at the beam and continued shuffling back, protectively covering the hole with its body. Its legs were outstretched to hold itself up and that was its mistake.
I slung both of my arms out together and sent two streams to still the monster. The spider lashed its arms out but they were stretched too far. One of the beams connected and latched onto the spider. The spell spread out over its body and it squirmed only for a moment longer before freezing in place and falling forward. It landed on its back and toppled over, moving as one solid object like it was made of stone.
I was already at the breach before the spider stopped moving. I pulled out a clear gemstone and sealed the hole just before the smaller spiders covered it. Seeing their mass of tiny, furry bodies would have made me shudder if I didn’t know we had little time.
We dragged the spider back to the cellar. I pushed it into the jail cell and then turned, leaving Bryce with only a warning about running out of the tower if the spider began to move. It was only then, when I ran back into the tunnel and pulled Candle out of my pocket, that I remembered the final warning. I stopped and looked at him in my hand.
This was when Candle died for my Tower.
I kept him in my hand and held him close as I ran. I couldn’t go back to the cellar without sealing the nest but I wouldn’t let Candle die either. Did my Tower know about this happening like I did now, or was it something new like the farren coming from the cellar? Could I prevent it? Was I allowed to prevent it or was that too big of a change?
I tripped as I neared the spider’s nest and Candle launched from my hand. I watched as he flew through the air and landed at the gemstone barrier. I looked up from the floor into the nest and that’s when I saw it through the barrier.
The same monster that had chased Tower out of the mines when I had been the boy. The same kind of monster that had nearly killed me two years ago. It was much smaller than that one had been but I knew it would still be resistant to magic. It was covered in thick streams of the spider’s webs but it was quickly breaking loose. It must have been in there all along. The giant spider had been keeping it trapped while they prepared it as a meal.
The krogoth was rolling its massive legs underneath the webs. Young as the monster was, those legs still looked formidable. It was breaking out quickly now that the spiders had retreated away. I didn’t have much time.
I pressed off the floor and quickly onto my feet. The monster must have seen me moving and that only enraged it to struggle faster. It saw me as a threat and thrashed free from its confines and charged at me. Candle was only a few meters from me but it was much closer to the spider’s nest.
The barrier would be no match for the heavy monster and it would be shattered easily, not even slowing the krogoth as its fierce legs clawed into the stone floor, launching itself faster with each step. It would consume Candle easily in its charge and his core would be lost. This was how Candle died. This was what Tower went through. To save Candle would mean I would be run down in the monster’s charge. It was too big to change.
I refused.
I slammed one foot down in front of me and put all my weight on the front leg. I had no time for gems. I snapped my arms violently in front of me, drawing all the strength I could muster from my body as they moved.
We moved as if we were underwater now. I needed the extra time. The monster’s head made contact with the barrier and it crumbled like glass, shards of the magic gemstone glittering in Candle’s light as they fell through the air.
A small blast gathered under Candle, ready to pop and catapult him toward me. Another blast, a larger one, was coalescing above the krogoth’s head. That one took most of my energy. I was risking too much. I knew that I only had enough to safely do one of those spells, not both. Time released and I unleashed an inferno in the tunnel.
The explosions happened all at once. Candle soared through the air and was then punched faster by the second, larger blast. I saw the monster’s jaws, too many rows of teeth, close around his core and then snap down on nothing, only the empty space where Candle had been a split second before. I caught my familiar as the tunnel ceiling collapsed onto us.
The monster kept coming through the blast. It had been moving too fast to be caught in the cave-in. It collided into me and kept running, propelling me down into the tunnel along with it.
My feet scraped along the floor as I pushed back with my body and my magic. My energy waned against the brunt of his charge, threatening to shatter if it was strained too hard. The monster’s face was a hair’s breadth away from gnashing at my hands as I concentrated to hold the distance. It wasn’t enough to keep him back and so with each pulse forward that the monster pushed with, I was pushed back farther.
Its milky eyes and dragon-like face were all that I could see as it pressed against me. We were nearing the fork and I knew that my body was seconds away from being completely drained. It was then that I reached out for the power around me. The gems began to glow in the walls and I let myself go, drawing wildly with no consideration or regard for my safety. I had always drawn from a gem with physical contact out of fear that I would otherwise burn my body from holding too much power at once. I had decided to change something and this was the price of that choice.
The tunnel filled with light and the rocks around us began to redden with the heat of the energy vibrating through them. The monster swatted helplessly at the power I was funneling into the air between us. I was a conduit for more power than I ever thought I could possibly hold.
Kinetic energy had always been a clear, physical force made real without contact from my body. As more power seethed through me that changed. It was if the air was filling with energy between us and I knew it was too much. Too much to control and enough to burn me up if I released it at the wrong time. I could feel the heat from it on my face. The monster in front of me felt it too and was shrieking in pain.
I cut off the flow of energy from the wall and held all I had drawn in front of me for just a second. My arms and hands felt like I was bathing them in lava. I drew one last time from my body, pulling from reserves of energy I didn’t even know I had built over the years, to engulf the monster with that energy.
The magic flared up as it caught the beast’s flesh and I ran. All at once the monster finished its charge, smashed into the wall, exploded, and I ran. It wasn’t just the entrance to the cellar that I had collapsed. The stretch of tunnel from the fork to the tower was coming down above me. A wall of air caught me from behind and rushed me forward through the tunnel and I landed on my back, sliding into the cellar as the mines kept collapsing.
I saw the boy in the cellar when the dust cleared. I was panting and coughing, both from the exertion and polluted air. The boy was covering his mouth with his shirt. My hand went to Candle’s core and he was still there, still with me, still alive when he should have died. I felt like I had just done the impossible. I looked back at the rocks spilling into the cellar and then down at my singed hands. I felt that the price had been worth it.
The giant spider was in a frenzy in its cell, stirred up from the explosions. I must have lost my thread on its suspension when I focused all of the energy on the krogoth. Bryce took a step toward it, fascinated by the huge monster. I remembered how I felt both scared and curious at once when I had been him, and how the spider had been so tame
after Tower nearly killed it.
But I hadn’t done that. Candle hadn’t died. I hadn’t came back in furious. I hadn’t lashed out at the spider in blood lust. It hadn’t been tortured into obedience. And Bryce was standing too close to it.
The spider’s legs shot out from between the bars before I finished my thought. They wrapped around Bryce and yanked him toward the cell. He stuck out his arms as if to shield himself but it wasn’t enough. His right arm was locked along the bars while his left stuck through it, between the bars, and toward the spider’s mouth.
I snapped my focus into place and sent too weak of a surge at the spider’s head. I had used too much of my own energy. I stuffed my hand into my pocket and gems scattered all over the floor as I pulled some out. I didn’t care or look to see how many I had.
The time it took was enough for the spider to bite. I heard something crunch and break and Bryce screamed louder than any child I had ever heard, magnified as the sound bounced between the tight walls of the cellar. The sound rattled through me, chilling me from my skin right down to my heart and I raged with the power in my hands, crushing the spider against the back of the cell and snapping it away from Bryce.
Its legs receded and its body crumpled. I didn’t know if I had killed it and I didn’t care. I rushed to the boy and swept him up in my arms. His left hand was bloodied and mangled. There was so much blood that I couldn’t tell how many fingers he had lost and how much was just missing chunks of flesh.
I raced up the stairs and he screamed the entire time. I swept away the food, plates, and cups from the table and they clattered onto the floor. I laid him out on the table and looked down at his hand. His middle finger was gone. Bits and pieces had been torn from the surrounding part of the hand. The bone of his knuckle was exposed.
One large change had been made and already it had unraveled into several other changes. As night came and I tried to heal his hand, I was unsure of just what I had done.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The boy continued leaking blood onto the table and I continued staring down at it, wordlessly berating myself. I shouldn’t have been so reckless. I should have spent more time learning how to heal. I should have stopped thinking and tried to soothe the boy’s pain.
The missing finger taunted me. I had no idea how to restore bone, veins, and blood. I had only worked flesh and skin, and poorly at that. My Tower had been a pillar of knowledge and confidence. I’m not sure what unsettled me more in that moment: that in reality I knew next to nothing, or that my Tower had been in the same position all along.
I thought back to the question I had asked him—me—so long ago. I had made one of my first roast chickens. Could I create a live one? The bones were underneath the roasted flesh. The flavor of it tasted correct. It might be possible but risky, he had said. I looked down at the boy’s mangled hand. Risky.
I gathered my focus around the wound. The pattern of ruptured flesh was familiar to me. I could easily work that and mend over the opening. The bone was a mystery to me, but one I felt I could solve in time. I’d need weeks and dozens of farren bodies to get it right. Could the wound be reopened then and the bone worked later?
Then there were the arteries, veins, and capillaries. The shape and position of the muscle around the bones. The joints and tendons. The ligaments and nerves. Could I create those and bridge them to connect with those in his hand, or did I need to extend those that already existed? The books on healing had been thorough and I barely understood most of the pages. This was a finger that needed to move and function. It wasn’t a chicken that I could mimic a simple pattern and be done with it.
Bryce had long since stopped screaming. Tears rolled down his face and he started silently up into the tower. I worked as quickly as I could, mending the flesh around the knuckle and filling in the missing pieces of his surrounding fingers.
The stump looked unnatural and discolored next to the rest of his skin. The other fingers looked better but deeply scarred. I wondered how bad my back looked. It dawned on me once again how lucky I had been. My injuries were never grievous enough that I couldn’t stumble my way through fixing them.
The boy stayed silent as I carried him up to his room. He stared at the wall as I covered him with furs and left him with the candle flickering in the dark.
I slumped down onto the floor outside his room and stared down at my left hand. My finger was still there. Candle was still in my pocket. I had changed something to be better for myself and my younger self had paid the price. I squeezed my finger with my other hand as if to make sure it was real. I felt like I didn’t deserve it.
I fell asleep there, propped against the wall. My body seized the opportunity to rest after the strain I had put it through in the tunnels. I had channeled too much too quickly. It was a wonder that I had been able to carry the boy out of the cellar and heal him before succumbing to sleep.
I woke up in agony but I expected as much. It was nearly morning and I hobbled down the stairs in slow, stiff motions. My muscles would be aching for days but I couldn’t rest. I had too much to put right.
The spider was alive in the cell and backed away at the sight of me. I shackled it—and nearly screamed at the pain of doing so—before giving it food and water. The gems we had already extracted had been knocked all over the room in the tunnel collapse. I filled my pockets with them and then carried a bucket of water up into the tower.
I brought Bryce a plate of food and water. He stirred when I walked into the room but didn’t turn to me. I left everything on his table and went back to the cellar for more water. I intended to scrub our dining table clean of all the blood before he came out of his room.
It was days before he spoke to me. He turned to me one evening as I brought him dinner. He looked scared. I had been so ashamed of what I had done that I hadn’t tried to speak to him. I opened my mouth to say something but he blurted out before me.
“I’m sorry.”
Deja vu struck me and I was stunned. I stood still for a moment and then set his food down. I sat at the table and turned to him.
“What for?”
“The spider. I stood too close. You told me to run if it moved and I didn’t. I was scared and,” he held up his hand and his eyes welled up behind it. “Please don’t make me leave.”
I felt my heart break. I leaned forward and took his hands.
“It was my fault, not yours. You can stay here as long as you like, Bryce. You never have to leave.”
“You’ll stay too?” he stuttered as he continued to cry.
“Yes,” I lied. “I will.” I wished I could mean it.
When he stopped crying I moved the table and he ate from the edge of the bed. I watched as he only used his right hand, leaving the left anchored in his lap. Regardless the act of eating seemed to settle him.
I wondered if my Tower had gone through a similar experience. He had been shocked when I stopped him from killing the spider. He had been so sure that it needed to die. Had he witnessed that when he was a boy? Did he let Candle die and then find out after all that he could have saved him? His week alone in the study suddenly made more sense.
The future seemed more dangerous and unpredictable to me. I needed to begin teaching the boy. I had less than a year now and I wanted to prepare him better than I had been. As he slept that night I began my plans, remembering the best parts of my own lessons and combining them with my own ideas. If things could be changed then I intended to make them better.
After finishing our breakfast the next morning, I withdrew Candle’s core and placed it on the table. The boy straightened up in his chair at the sight of it.
“There’s going to be some fire, Bryce. I promise that you won’t be hurt. I need you to trust me,” I said gently.
He turned his head and looked uncertain. He looked down at his hands and then gave a small nod.
I ignited Candle and tried not to frown when Bryce flinched. Candle walked slowly around the table and then stopped near the foo
d platter. He looked between me and the boy, tilting his head back and forth as though he couldn’t tell who was who.
“What is it?” Bryce whispered.
“A familiar,” I explained. “Wizards sometimes have them. They’re a friend or a companion. You saw him once before but I’ve kept him away until now because of how he looks. He won’t hurt you. He’s like me. He doesn’t have a name.”
Candle flared up in disgust at my lie and the boy flinched again. I didn’t enjoy lying but I didn’t want to influence the boy’s decision when it was his turn to name his elemental. I held out my hand to the table and Candle climbed up my arm to sit on my shoulder. It was good to have him out again.
“You’ll have one someday too,” I said.
“Have one what?”
“A familiar.”
“You said that only wizards have them,” Bryce replied slowly.
“Yes. I did,” I said back, just as slowly.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. I’m going to teach you, if you’ll let me. Would you like to learn?”
He was quiet for a long time. I remembered that moment. I weighed the decision in my head as if I had any idea what I was considering. I wanted to smile but I forced myself to look plainly at him. He would say yes but I knew it was important that it felt like his decision.
“Can you teach me to hold fire in my hands?”
I tilted my head as I looked at him. I didn’t remember asking that. Had fire really been that important to me?
“So that it can never hurt me?” he added.
“In time. I can.”
“Then yes, please.”
“We’ll start tonight,” I said, and rose to my feet.
Things became clearer over the months as I taught Bryce how to read, write, and set the foundations for his magic.
At night I would write in the study. As more time passed the more I began to accept that I had become the Tower I once knew. I would write to trigger my memories of learning as a boy. It was a slow process but they did come back to me. They helped immensely when I was teaching Bryce.
The Wizard And The Dragon Page 20