The Wizard And The Dragon

by Joseph Anderson

  There had been hundreds of books. She expected to see an ancient, worn face as she turned the mirror. Instead, she saw a youthful woman. There was scarcely a line or wrinkle on her face, save faint ones from the corner of her nose. Her eyes were green and looked as young as the rest of her, with no years of wisdom or experience hidden behind them. Her hair was a dark chestnut brown and blended with the dark walls around her. She had no opinion of her image, dumbstruck above all consideration that she didn’t recognize her own reflection.

  You are far older and far stronger than you appear, she recalled, and began to squeeze the metal handle of the mirror. She felt something give and put her other hand on the back of it, applying what she thought was a small amount of pressure and seeing the metal bend easily from her strength. She stopped and looked at the damage she had inflicted on the item. The iron below the glass was pale and strained. She straightened it just as easily, afraid it would snap as she did so. She placed the mirror back on the table.

  She ran her hands down each of her arms and then placed them together in her lap. Like her appearance, what she felt didn’t make sense. She knew, like she had known the sheepskin and how to read words on a page, that her muscles were not large enough to do what she had done to the mirror. Her arms did not bulge underneath her sleeves, and yet they felt firm under her fingertips. She had looked slender and delicate in her reflection, but she felt strong and heavy now, as though her flesh was packed denser than it should have been.

  The fire swayed in her eyes as it had when she had woken up. She stared at it again.

  Who am I? Kate thought to herself. More importantly, what am I?

  * * *

  There were no dreams of lost memories. No recollections of past lives. The effects of the poison were permanent and her dreamless sleep was no comfort.

  There was a noise. A crackling or popping. The fire? She opened her eyes and saw that the room was dark, save a sliver of cold light coming from the fireplace. The wood had burned away and even the smouldering ash had extinguished itself. Still, the noise. Not a popping, but something being struck.

  “Kate?” a voice called when the noise stopped. The word was muffled through the walls of the house. She sat numbly on the bed before she remembered that it was her name.

  She got up and opened the door. The study was full of light from the window, but it was still cold without the fire. She moved quickly to the far door and into the small entrance vestibule of the house. She was wearing a plain, buttonless tunic and pants made of the same thin material. The coats were still hanging on the wall and she grabbed one and pulled it over her tunic. Her feet were cold and she reached for a pair of boots when the door began to knock again. She froze in place and turned to it.

  “Hello?” she asked and felt ridiculous.

  “It’s me. Open up. Since when do you lock your door?” the voice was a man’s and the door rattled after he spoke, as if to confirm what he said.

  “Me who?”

  “Calder. Who else? Is something wrong?”

  Kate narrowed her eyes. A coincidence? Some part of her, an analytical part that had lived through the poison, was screaming that something was wrong but was vague about the details. She weighed her options. This Calder may be responsible for her poison and the missing pages in the books, but then the note didn’t make sense. Why would he have left her alone when she was poisoned and vulnerable? However, if he wasn’t responsible, then why were the pages removed?

  Or maybe you removed them, the thought came suddenly. Maybe you weren’t a good person, but you would still have your best interests even if you weren’t. Maybe Calder knows something that you did and is a threat. What kind of a person knows how to make poison?

  She unbarred the door and opened it slowly. Her body tensed and was ready to slam it closed if the man rushed inside to strike her. He did no such thing, remaining stationary and looking directly at her. It was her own senses that came to attack instead, bombarding her like they had the night before:

  Hands first. Gloves. Leather. Holding nothing. Weapon on his hip—short sword, left side, right handed. Stance tense, expecting a fight, but not a physical one. Face now. Hair brown, eyes brown, beard brown. Three days growth. Usually shaven, skin underneath is uniformly tanned. Eyes red and heavy. Drunk? No. Tired. Worried. Nervous. Pouch on his belt. No knife. Pants. Boots. Bulge around right ankle. Knife. Boots are clean. Didn’t circle the house before knocking.

  She exhaled and found that she had been holding her breath. She shook her head from the strain of it. The back of her eyes were throbbing. She leaned against the door and stared at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Calder said immediately.

  No movement of his hands. Mouth twitched, almost a smile. Eyes not looking away. Didn’t shift on his feet. Honest.

  She tightened her grip on the door handle as if she could choke herself to stop the flood of perception.

  “You told me to leave you alone for a while,” he continued. “I’m not here for me. We don’t have to talk about what happened. The town sent me. Something has been slaughtering some livestock up in the hills. It’s just a troll, only one and probably small, but you know what they’re like. Why risk some guards when you live so close.”

  She nodded once and wanted to blurt out that she didn’t know what he was talking about. What was a troll? She wanted to close the door, get the fire burning, and read every single book she could find. Had that been the plan all along? Was that why he had been told to leave her alone? Why were they on speaking terms at all if she wasn’t supposed to trust him?

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me get ready.”

  He stepped forward before she could close the door. She calmed herself and managed to suppress her inner processing to merely noting that he was used to waiting for her inside. He closed the door behind himself and she turned only when his back was to her, quickly opening the kitchen door and stepping inside before he could see her. She hurried through to the workshop, naturally counting his footsteps as he followed slowly behind her. She struggled against it at first, trying to ignore the mental tally that she was keeping until she succumbed to it, realizing that she was paranoid without it. She needed to know where everyone and everything was at all times, and felt at ease when she accepted it. He took seven steps while she was in the workshop, enough that he made it to the kitchen table.

  “You kept the apples?” he called through the door. “But you hate them.” He sounded pleased.

  Not so different then.

  Kate looked around the room and still had no idea what a troll was. She thought of the books from the night before, with their pages of creatures and monsters. A small, weak one if Calder was so casual about it. Routine work for someone like her, she guessed. The leather armor she had seen the night before looked well used in the light of day. There was dried blood on it and she took that as a good sign. She took off her coat and strapped the chest piece over her tunic, tightening its belts until she couldn’t breathe. She loosened them and felt like she squirmed beneath the leather rather than it moving with her. She fiddled with the buckles until she was satisfied.

  The armored pants were easier, with only a single strap around her waist. She tapped her knuckles against the coarse surface of the armor and had no idea if the resistance it offered was good or not. Her forearms were exposed and the leather was thinner around her legs, but her movement felt unrestricted as she stepped forward.

  There were five swords on the floor. Two short, one long, and two in between. She picked up each of them and swung them awkwardly, one at a time, gleaning no information from any of them.

  I had forgotten how to use a blade.

  She chose one of the medium length swords, about a third longer than the one Calder had at his hip. The sword looked to be in the best condition out of the five, still rough at the base of the blade but sharper closer to the tip. There was a simple strap on the belt that she carefully threaded the blade through, shifting the handle of the weapon
when it reached the thicker base to work it further through the strap. Once satisfied that it was secured, she walked back into the kitchen.

  “You’re going in that?” Calder asked, his eyes wide.

  “Yes,” she said, surprised by the stirring in her chest at being challenged. “You said it was just a troll.”

  “I know, but,” the last word droned out of him and then he was quiet. She counted his footsteps back to the front door while she went to her bedroom cabinet. There were socks and gloves in the top drawer. She took only the socks and pulled them on, doing the same with a pair of boots at the front door. Unlike the armor, they fit her perfectly.

  She followed him out, closing the door and preparing a response when she realized she didn’t know how to lock it from the outside. He said nothing, however, watching her closely as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  “You’re serious about wearing that?” he asked again.

  Kate shrugged and felt the upper straps tighten around her chest. The lower ones felt too loose. She stepped forward and felt the sword sway at her hip, the broad side of it hitting her thigh.

  “Kate, don’t be like this. Talk to me at least. It doesn’t have to be about what happened.”

  “No,” she said firmly, drawing from the only source of knowledge that she had: what he had already said to her. “You said you weren’t here to talk. You’re here for the town. Walk.”

  She gestured forward. She had no idea where she was going and had to rely on him to lead the way.

  There was a path leading from the house. The trees had looked more imposing through the dark windows the night before, but she saw that they were sparsely strewn around her home. She had either found a clearing to build the house or cleared it herself. Most of the trees were devoid of leaves, bony and bare branches reaching up to the sky. The path was mostly clear of fallen leaves but the occasional one still crunched underfoot as they walked. They followed the path to the main road and she could see the river when they reached it. The water was far wider than she expected, a massive slow moving river that would have taken considerable effort to swim across. When they reached the road, they turned and walked in the same direction that the water was flowing.

  Calder kept turning to her. It was distracting, each time making her consciously aware of the tiniest details on his face. He looked either angry or confused, usually ranging somewhere in between. She knew for certain that he wasn’t aggressive or a danger to her. If anything, she surmised he was looking to her for direction. She couldn’t understand why her note had said not to trust him.

  “Tell me about the troll,” she said, keeping her voice casual.

  “It’s a troll,” he said as though he were talking about one of the trees around him. “Everything I know about them I learned from you.”

  She nodded once. A dead-end, then. No way to ask anymore without drawing suspicion. She focused on her surroundings instead, getting her bearings for the area she lived. The direction of the river meant that she had built her house upstream from the town. The settlement was visible after only a few minutes of walking, after a gentle incline lead them out of the trees. She saw the road curve closer to the river and continue to more than a hundred houses built around the water. Despite the width of the river, the town had been built on both sides of it, with a colossal bridge connecting the two halves. On the other side of the town, along the water she saw the beginning of farmland that stretched farther out than she could see.

  The details in the note came back to her as they neared the town. She tried to remember the list of names at the bottom and found that the image of the words came effortlessly back to her, as though she could hold the page to her eyes once more if she only closed them for a moment. The town of Harkam’s Bridge, with at least thirty names of people that she knew, their professions, and how they were related.

  But no way to know their faces without asking for their names.

  The sword on her belt kept smacking into her with each step. The area was starting to ache and she rested a hand on the sword’s handle, keeping it steady as they neared the town. Calder’s face changed from sullen to cheerful as they entered the streets, and she was surprised to recognize that it was fake. He smiled with only his mouth and not the rest of his face; his eyes and cheeks remained gloomy.

  The townsfolk gave her a variety of looks as they passed. Some greeted her by name and smiled, whereas an equal amount of others glared and shook their heads. It was then that she began to grow annoyed with her past self for the lack of preparation. Even with the reminder that she had asked Calder for time alone, she felt betrayed. Each new person she passed felt like a potential threat. By the time they reached the heart of the town, near its central bridge, she was already considering leaving the house behind. Her past self had built it, not her, and she had not yet grown attached to it. She could just leave.

  A group of children raced up to the two of them, falling along side them as they walked and darting ahead and then back. There was a young girl amongst them, Kate guessed no older than ten years, who stared up at her with adoration. The look of pure recognition combined with an innocent idolization cut into her sharper than any of Calder’s looks. This young girl loved her.

  “Anabelle,” Calder barked. “You’re not allowed to cross the bridge.”

  That name, Kate thought, closing her eyes to the list. Calder’s sister. Only sibling. Nothing else next to her name. How could you leave out that she loved you?

  “Mother said I could! Kate hasn’t visited in so long that she said I could!” she was hopping in front of them, grinning up at Kate.

  “She was here last week,” Calder grumbled.

  “That’s a long time ago! Did my brother do something to you?”

  Kate found herself smiling back at the girl. Calder looked shocked. For some reason it made her smile wider.

  “Are you going to kill the troll?” one of the children asked.

  “Of course!”Anabelle answered for her. “It’s just a troll!”

  “Are you afraid?” another child called out.

  “No!” Again, Anabelle was the one who answered. “Kate once beat up an ogre with her bare hands!”

  “I heard that was because it was drunk,” the same child taunted.

  “So was she!” Anabelle stuck her tongue out.

  Kate kept smiling even as she began to feel sick. She hadn’t recognized a vampire or a troll, but the word ‘ogre’ conjured a clear image in her head: an oversized man of muscle, three times her height and several times her weight, and as stupid as it was strong. There was no way she had bested it in a fistfight. The word drunk rang hollow in her, sounding foreign and imaginary. She was unsettled by it, a reminder that she was incomplete and that any word said to her might expose her.

  They came to the bridge in the center of town. It had looked massive in the distance and it was even more impressive up close. It was wider than the streets: twenty people could have comfortably walked over it side by side. Stone pillars supported the bridge from underneath, stretching from beneath the water and holding the bridge high above the river. Kate could see why Calder had been concerned about the little girl crossing it. The structure dwarfed the other buildings of the town. Questions burned inside of her as they neared it. It looked like the bridge had been built first and the houses had been added later. She was forced to swallow her curiosity as they stepped onto it.

  The children scattered as they crossed the bridge. Only Anabelle remained. She had wormed one her hands into Kate’s and another into Calder’s. She walked between them.

  “You should visit more,” she said with a confident nod. “Even if that means kissing my brother.” She scrunched up her face.

  “Anabelle!” he growled.

  Kate’s smile vanished as the little girl ran ahead. She turned to Calder and saw that he looked grim rather than embarrassed, his mouth a tight line. She looked at him now and saw that he wasn’t unattractive, but she felt no stirring of des
ire when she looked over him. She thought of the missing words, and how she had bitten into the apple, and wondered if it was another change. Had she once been with the man, and that was all the note was about? A lover’s quarrel? She felt her face mirror his expression in contempt of herself, and hoped it wasn’t true. It felt petty and absurd.

  On the other side of the bridge, the town opened up in a small market. There were stalls lined with food and furs. There were many objects she didn’t recognize and she managed to keep herself calm as she passed the merchants. She was either learning to temper her analytical survey of everything or was becoming used to the sensation as second nature. They passed a food stall and she tried to recall each of the different vegetables she had seen. She stumbled on the names of things that she didn’t know but the image was there all the same. It was only when she gave it conscious thought that the information pressed and smothered around her.

  There was a large building directly outside the marketplace and Calder stopped at it. There was a sign hanging above the large, double doors that had a crude painting of a dancing horse, complete with an overflowing mug inexplicably held in each of its front hooves. Anabelle was waiting at the door. Calder stepped up to her.

  The Dancing Horse, she recalled from the list. Calder’s parents own the tavern. Their names weren’t listed next to it. An oversight, or a ploy from my past self to make it appear that I wasn’t close to them?

  Kate went inside.

  There was a large fireplace that dominated the left wall, its stone spanning from the front windows of the tavern all the way to the bar. There was a man standing behind it that was unquestionably Calder’s father. She found the old man handsome, no less so by his gray hair and weathered face, and wondered if it was circumstance that made her unable to see the same in his son. She was disappointed that no name came to her as she watched Calder walk over and begin talking with him. She was too far to hear them. There were only two others in the tavern, a man and a woman, huddled at a table next to the fireplace. The fire was a tiny thing so early on in the day, looking miniaturized in the massive hearth.