The Wizard And The Dragon

by Joseph Anderson

  Kate didn’t seem to care. She brought over the rest of her empty jars and placed them around the bodies. She took the glass objects that I had thought were arrows and pierced into the troll’s neck with them. She put one on each side of its throat and worked it around inside the neck until it punctured the artery she wanted.

  The jars were placed underneath the glass cylinders and fastened down with a strap. She then started pressing down on the troll’s chest, pushing hard between the ribs until blood rushed through the glass and into the jars. She would stop and check how much she collected each time. Sometimes she filled the smaller jars in only two compressions.

  That part of her work was the most time consuming. I was feeling well enough to stand before she was finished. She had to secure each individual jar and then pack it away when it was full. She was careful about not wasting the blood since she had butchered the other trolls already. She had nine jars left and had been working on the last troll for an hour by the time I was walking again.

  I went through the north gate and followed the wall to the river. It was a route that purposely avoided my old house and I was keenly aware of that decision as I knelt down and submerged my head in the water. I drank deeply afterwards, enough water that I felt bloated and sick but I knew that I needed it. I left the river without looking at the spot where my parents always used to fish.

  Kate was thumping her fists on the troll’s chest when I returned. The last bits of blood were spluttering out but she still had six jars to fill. She got up and began dragging the other corpses back and I wondered again at her strength. Was the potion she drank responsible for that, or was it something she maintained alchemically over years?

  I was lost in such thoughts when I reached the tavern. There was a terrible stench coming from the door that abruptly sobered me and I scowled at it. I took the steps slowly down in the cellar. There was another fire burning below, much smaller than the bonfire, and the smoke from it made the smell worse.

  There were bones at the bottom of the stairs and I knew that I had made a mistake. The bone the troll had been holding had been enough to send me into a rage and now I saw more than I could count over the floor. I took a step into the room and tried, uselessly, to brace myself for what I should have walked away from. It wasn’t enough.

  I should have known when Kate said the troll’s would eat their own kind. They had thrived in my village. There were too many bones and skulls for the survivors. They had gotten at the buried corpses too. Some parts still had flesh on them, too rotten even for the trolls to eat. The fresher ones, probably travelers that had unknowingly followed the road, were picked clean. Those were the bones that had been cracked open for the marrow inside.

  My family was here. My parents and sisters. Maybe they were among the bodies that I couldn’t recognize and maybe it was a blessing that I couldn’t. There were flies everywhere and piles of feces in every corner. The largest troll had settled deeply into this cellar and made it his den. I was suddenly angry at how quickly I had killed him.

  “They’re just animals,” Kate said from behind me. I had no idea how long she had been standing there. I had no idea how long I had been standing there. “I know you’re angry but they’re no worse than wolves or crows. They saw an opportunity for food and shelter and they took it. There was no malice. Only survival. Your anger is misplaced.”

  “What anger?” I said as I turned to her. There was still blood all over her arms and clothes. There were smears on her face and splatters in her hair now. She had come straight down here to find me.

  “Friends, you said? That died. You’re here to kill the dragon. I didn’t believe it at first, or that you were a wizard. But I do now. Trolls aren’t monsters, no matter how many times they’re called such. They deserved to die and were a threat on the road but they shouldn’t get your anger. You should be saving that for what destroyed this village.”

  She had been all smiles at her campsite but now her face was straight and firm. The blood on her should have detracted from the solemn look but it didn’t.

  “You might be right,” I said.

  “Might be,” she repeated. “I meant what I said before. You’re too young to be a wizard. Who taught you?”

  “I taught myself,” I said honestly, although it sounded stupid even to me.

  She narrowed her eyes at me and I couldn’t tell if she was suspicious of what I said. Once again I found myself at a loss to read facial expressions after being alone for so many years. I suddenly appreciated the obvious signals that Candle would send at me.

  “I’ve traveled to many places in the world,” she said. “I’ve met many wizards and all of them have been old men and women, and none of them would be able to do what you just did to one troll, never mind three in the space of a few minutes. Do you know this? Are you lying?”

  “No,” I shook my head. I had always thought our village wizard was a retired old man, resting after a long youth spent with magic. “I didn’t know that, and I am not lying.”

  She looked at me intently for a few moments and then grinned. She turned around and I followed her up the stairs and back outside. The jars of harvested organs and blood had been packed away but the corpses were still strewn about the clearing. I helped her lift and throw them onto the bonfire. My hands were bloodied from the work and I went back to the river with her to wash. I was finished before she was and left her alone. She had far more to wash than I did.

  We ate a small meal when she returned to the camp. She gave me some of her fish and a tough piece of bread. I thought about adding more food to match her supply but the barest thought of manipulating magic made my stomach roll. I made a promise to return the favor with one of the dozen potential feasts I had in my gem pouch.

  I thought of the dragon as I ate, and how I had already been diverted by the trolls. I stared off into the darkness surrounding the village, watching how the effects of whatever Kate had put in my eyes began to wane and fade away. It would be morning in a few hours and I would have to resume my search after I slept. I had exerted myself too much with the trolls but I needed to press on. I had no idea how far away the dragon might be.

  Kate must have been staring out with me, following my eyes for something she saw me looking at so closely. She waved a hand in front of my face when she saw that it was nothing. I turned to her and watched as she bit off a chunk of the bread and spoke as she chewed her way through it.

  “So you are serious about fighting the dragon, then. I was right?” she spoke as if it were an admission rather than a question. I nodded. “Even if I do believe you’re a self-taught prodigy—and I’m not saying I do, you could be an old man made young again by some spell for all I know—I don’t think it will be enough. That dragon will rip you apart, cook the pieces, and gobble you up. If you’re lucky it’ll be in that order.”

  I looked at her without an answer. The words hung awkwardly in the air between us for a few moments. She looked back at me until she grew impatient. She took another mouthful of bread and spoke again. “Is there any chance I can talk you out of it?”

  “No,” I said. “I have lied to you once so far. I didn’t have friends here. It was my family. My mother and father and sisters. This place was once my home and the dragon took that away from me.”

  “You’ll die,” she said. “I am sorry about your family but your reasons don’t make any difference. You could be hunting it for fun or for revenge and your chances are still the same. It will kill you.”

  “Maybe,” I said softly. “Maybe this time, but eventually one of us will kill it.”

  She put the last of the piece of bread into her mouth and narrowed her eyes at me. I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed by my apparent stubbornness or if she was thinking of new ways to try to convince me to leave the dragon alone.

  “How are you going to find it?” she asked after swallowing the last of her food.

  “I’m going to follow the road north until the next village--”

 
“No. It’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Dragon destroyed it six months ago.”

  “South then,” I said.

  “That’s a few days out and in the wrong direction since you must have already come from there if you didn’t know about the other village being gone. Seems like you just walked out of the field and onto the road at random. There’s something you’re not telling me, Tower. You don’t make sense.”

  I could feel how tense my face was as I looked at her. Like in the tavern cellar, her smiles and grins were gone. She was taking me seriously now and I was apparently being difficult. I put my hand in my pocket and closed my hand around Candle’s core. I wished it was just the two of us again.

  “I can’t explain everything without sounding crazy,” I said honestly. “If you’ve heard about another village being destroyed you must have heard other things. You know where the dragon has been sighted, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said and raised her head slightly, unsure of what I was about to say.

  “But you won’t tell me.”

  She nodded.

  “Then how about another deal. You can keep the half of the bounty you promised me for helping with the trolls. You can lead me to the dragon. If I kill it then you can strip away its body parts and I’ll even help you carry them. They must be powerful compared to a troll’s. And rare, if a dragon hasn’t been killed in so long.”

  Her eyes narrowed again and I thought I had finally piqued her interest.

  “I won’t help you fight it,” she said. “You’d be alone in that fight.”

  “I don’t expect you to.”

  “Can I still try to talk you out of it on the way there?” she asked.

  “If you must.”

  “And if you survive you will answer all of my questions, crazy answers or not?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “Though I don’t see why you’re so curious.”

  “You’re stranger than you know, Tower. The fact that you don’t know makes you even more strange. Okay, then it’s a deal. I will lead you to the gigantic monster that will bite you in half and eat you like a snack.”

  “You’re starting right away I see.”

  “Of course,” she said and smiled sweetly.

  She extended her hand and we shook over the agreement. It was an awkward handshake, the first I had had since I was a boy meeting people with my father. She left me at the fire and went to sleep at the side of the tavern, far enough away from the door to avoid the stench from the cellar.

  I stared into the bonfire’s flames until I fell asleep. The exhaustion of my body came quickly after our conversation was done, urged on by having food in my belly. I woke up often throughout the morning, with half-formed thoughts of being burned alive and panicking over the futility of holding back walls of fire. There were a few fleeting thoughts of hope for success, although in my dreams I never fully conjured up an image of the dead dragon, only thoughts of what kind of potions could be made from its remains.

  * * *

  I woke up in the late afternoon. There was a thin blanket over me that hadn’t been there when I had fallen asleep. I saw that Kate was still laying down when I looked over at the tavern. She must have gotten up once already and then went back to sleep.

  The bonfire had died down throughout the day. I brought Candle out of my pocket and ignited him. It was one of the longest periods of time that he had been dormant and he was a flurry of excitement around my feet after finally being let out. His little head would twist and turn as he looked around the village. I wondered at how small his world had been up until this moment, and then frowned when I had the same thought for myself.

  He jumped into the bonfire after a short time poking around the clearing. What was left of the piled wood and corpses were once again burning as his fire caught onto them, filling the air with crackles, heat, and popping sounds once more. It was the largest fire he had ever been in and it looked like he relished it. His sollite core was glowing brighter than the flames around him before long.

  Kate made a face at my familiar when she woke up. She kept her distance from the fire at first and only came closer when I made us breakfast from one of my gemstones. Manipulating the magic no longer sickened me but my focus felt off and wrong, as though it was aching like an injured muscle. Kate was equally suspicious of the food as she was Candle. She sniffed at the chicken and potatoes before taking tiny bites, chewing more thoroughly than the small mouthfuls needed.

  “Tastes a little funny but it’s mostly okay,” she muttered and then ate the rest heartily. I wondered how many days she had been eating nothing but her fish and stale bread.

  Candle came and sat on my shoulder part way through our breakfast. Kate watched him closely while she chewed her food. Despite how long he had been sitting in the fire, I offered a small gemstone to him and he engulfed it quickly. It began its slow orbit around his core as it was slowly absorbed by it.

  “What is that? A pet?” Kate asked.

  “My familiar. He’s an elemental. More a friend than a pet.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “I didn’t. I made him,” I explained.

  She was quiet for the rest of the meal. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t believe me or if I had once again contradicted the other wizards she had met. I made a mental note to ask her more about the other wizards if I survived my fight with the dragon. If, I thought, and set down my food. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore.

  We didn’t stay in the village ruins for long. I helped her pack her supplies and load them onto her horse. The rest of the bags were split evenly between us. I offered to carry more and she just laughed at me. She led the horse on foot and I could hear glass clinking softly together, matching the rhythm of each step that we took.

  We exited the village through what was once the north gate. I followed Kate’s lead off of the road and we followed the river for the rest of the evening. The ground was mostly uneven and we moved at a slower pace than we would have on the road. We were also slowed by Kate constantly stopping to look at different plants that I would have marched straight passed.

  She would inspect everything that we found, sometimes for only a few seconds. Sometimes she would click her tongue in disappointment and leave the plants alone. Other times she would yank clusters of flowers from the ground and stuff them into her bags. Some flowers she plucked the petals from one by one and carefully wrapped them in a cloth bundle. Some small shrubs she pulled out of the ground, severed and collected the roots, and tossed the rest into the river.

  “You make potions,” I said, hoping to start a conversation as she cut slivers of bark from a tree trunk.

  “Yes,” she replied, and then said nothing else. She finished with the tree and then walked ahead of me, leading us along the river. I thought I could see her smiling but I wasn’t sure.

  “Is that why you collected the blood?”

  “Of course,” she said and, once again, said nothing else.

  I let out a huff of air and I heard her laugh ahead of me. Candle stirred on my shoulder at the sound of it. I tried again. “What kind of potions can you make from troll’s blood?”

  “You’re not good at this. Talking,” she said, and I could hear the smile this time. “Not many different kinds of potions from troll’s blood. Its a very potent ingredient and dominates most others. All of them involve healing in some way, but it depends on what is added to it. Disease and illness can usually be cured. If its prepared correctly it can heal injuries or reverse the effects of aging. It won’t make a person immortal but it can prolong a life.”

  “It’s that powerful?”

  “Yes, but it’s difficult. The person who drinks the potion must prepare a base for the troll’s blood with their own blood, and even then it must be created carefully so it will not be overpowering. There’s only a few people I know that can do it.”

  “How did you learn?”

  She stopped and turned her head back to me. S
he was already grinning. “I taught myself.”

  Her grin widened when I glared at her. She resumed walking and I let a few moments pass before I continued my questions.

  “Could you heal an injury from a long time ago?” I asked as I looked down at my hands. I rubbed at the finger Bryce was missing. “A missing arm or a toe?”

  “Yes, but it would be difficult. You’d have to cause another injury at the point that you want to fix. If a hand was missing you would have to cut off another part of the wrist before taking the potion. I’ve done it a few times for other people. It is,” her words dragged out as she searched for the right one, “a painful process.”

  “The blood was your real target then. The bounty was secondary?”

  “Clever boy,” she said, and then sang the next words as if they were a cheery song. “It’s too bad the dragon will eat you.”

  We turned back onto the road as it got dark. Kate continued to study the trees and bushes as we passed them. She would carve up pieces of fungus and they would join the rest of the jars she had filled. She seemed to have her own way of cataloging each specimen in different pouches and bags that I couldn’t decipher.

  I asked her more questions about potions and alchemy when we made camp that night and began to be more direct with how I spoke to her. She responded better to those questions and I felt that I was learning how to talk with people all over again, relearning after spending sixteen years talking to myself in more ways than one. She would still get in her quips about how the dragon was going to kill me.

  “I wonder what wizard parts would make as a potion,” she said before she went to sleep, in the same tone as someone would discuss the weather. “If there’s anything left I might find out.”

  The next two days passed in the same manner. We woke up earlier each day and walked along the road as long as there was daylight. The trees thickened the further we got away from my village. Sometimes Kate would circle us off the road and slow our progress. I began to wonder if she was deliberately stretching out the journey to give me time to reconsider. Her verbal jabs and reminders about my imminent death never ceased, although she also continued to collect different herbs and plants as we walked.