A Dragon In the Palace

by William King

  I waved my hand around and glow followed it, leaving an after image in my eyes. I felt myself growing weaker in a familiar manner as the spell drained away my strength. Hastily I tried to reverse the casting in the way I would have done to kill the light spell but the process I’d used to invoke it was far too complex. I stood up, the chair crashing against the roof and waved my hand in the air again, completely unable to control the spell.

  In panic Red took to the air and flapped around me, wings fluttering against my face, panicked bleats coming from his mouth along with small bursts of sulphurous breath. I could barely think. “Help, master,” I said. “I can’t stop it.”

  The smile disappeared from Master Lucas’s face and he reached out across the table, tapped my chest with his finger, spoke a single word and suddenly the power died away like a thread cut with a sharp dagger.

  “I’m sorry, master, I could not stop it. I could not bring it under control.”

  “That’s all right,” said Master Lucas, slumping down into his chair. He suddenly laughed. “I feel like a fool.”

  I wondered what he was talking about. I was the one who had cast the spell without being able to reverse it. I was not even sure that I understood how I had done so. It had come upon me so suddenly. “What do you mean, master?”

  “I spent a good ten minutes blathering away about how you would never be able to cast the spell and there was nothing to worry about. The last thing I expected was for you to be able to invoke it so perfectly the first time.”

  “So perfectly, master?” I said. I was unable to conceal my astonishment. “I could not shut it off.”

  “That’s a different problem, lad. You cast the first spell of healing perfectly. And with a great deal of strength. I could feel the radiance of it. Amazing.”

  I wondered if he was mocking me. He seemed overenthusiastic, to say the least. “You cut the spell off, master. How did you do it, when I could not?”

  “It is a simple enough matter to reverse a spell you know, if you’re in close proximity to it and you can see the weaving being made. One of the very simplest forms of dispelling magic that there is.”

  “It does not seem so simple to me, master,” I said. Again he chuckled. He picked himself up from the chair and began to walk around on the roof, pacing backwards and forwards, with one hand behind his back and the other clutching at the wrist. “That was quite amazing, lad. The most astonishing performance I’ve seen, ever.”

  “I’m sure you’ve witnessed more powerful spells, better cast, master.”

  “I have never seen anybody just look at a scroll, and be able to cast the inscribed spell perfectly first time, the way you did. It is quite prodigious. I begin to understand everything Mistress Iliana sees in you. You could, perhaps, be an Archmage someday.”

  It sank in that he was not simply rambling on. He really meant what he said. He was not trying to flatter me, except perhaps as a side effect of his words. He was quite genuinely astounded by what I had done. When I thought about it I began to be a bit astounded myself.

  It was not so much because I was filled with the same sort of awe as the old man. It was because I remembered the amount of effort that had gone into casting the first spell. My life had not even been on the line here and I’ve managed it easily. Something had happened and I was not at all sure what it was. “Do you think I might have a gift for healing, Master Lucas?”

  It was just about the only thing I could think of to say that point.

  He almost capered with glee. “Do I think you have a gift for healing? Yes, lad, I do. A remarkable one. If you can replicate what you’ve done just now.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth then he made a cutting off gesture with his hand. “I did not mean that. You have just been drained of almost all your strength. You need do nothing more today. In fact, I think we both had quite enough excitement for one morning. Please, sit down, have some tea and eat something.”

  He took the jug from the table and poured some greenish liquid into a cup, put the cup in front of me then repeated the process from himself. “Go ahead. It’s good,” he said.

  It would have been churlish to refuse. The liquid was bitter and I never tasted anything quite like it. It was some sort of herb but I did not recognise it.

  “I find this quite stimulating,” Master Lucas said.

  “It’s not like the elixir you gave me,” I said. He nodded and then looked off to one side with a faint frown.

  “No, of course not. But it is refreshing. You will become accustomed to it if you drink it. On a hot day like today, it’s just the thing.”

  I wished I’d not mentioned the elixir not only because of the effect that had on the old man but because of the hunger it stirred within myself. Red curved around my neck and began to lick my face. I thought at first it was trying to comfort me then I realised he’d probably caught the scent of the tea I was drinking. He dropped down onto the table and moved forward to investigate it.

  “Do you mind, master?” I asked.

  Master Lucas sat back and smiled. “Not at all.”

  Red began to lap away at the tea. It looked as if he enjoyed it considerably more than I did. I felt some of the satisfaction he did as he drank. I began to drink again thoughtlessly. If Master Lucas was offended, he gave no sign.

  He picked up the scroll with the first glyph of healing on it and inspected it as if he could see something wonderful there. He turned it over and around in his hands and looked at it from multiple angles as if, somehow, by doing so he would get a clue as to how I’d done what I did.

  “I believe that you have a remarkable talent, lad,” he said. I did not understand why he felt the need to repeat himself. I was tired and edgy and a little uncomfortable with his manner. I remembered the way I had been presented to the Duke after I had cast my first spell and I wondered if I was in for a repeat of that performance. On the plus side, I might get to see Alysia again.

  “It’s very good of you to say so, master,” I said.

  “I look forward to our lessons and to what further wonders you will be able to work.”

  He actually accompanied me back to my chambers and forced me to go up to Mistress Iliana’s room. She opened the door even before he knocked on it and she looked out at us, staring at me as if to ask what new outrage I had perpetrated. Then she noticed that Master Lucas was beaming.

  “I have never seen anything like it, Iliana,” he said. “First time. Straightaway. He just cast the spell. I was babbling away like an idiot, explaining how difficult it was and how he would not be able to get it right and he lifted the scroll, closed his eyes and before I knew it he was casting the spell. I could feel my beard curling. I think my rheumatism has improved.”

  I knew then that he was exaggerating for dramatic effect but the essence of what he was saying communicated itself to my mistress. She smiled, pleased and a little disturbed.

  “I look forward to discussing this with our pupil.”

  “He will be a better healer than I am someday,” Master Lucas said. “Take my word for it.”

  “I do,” Mistress Iliana said. She chatted quietly with Master Lucas for a few more minutes. He did not want to go. He seemed quite content to stand there and sing my praises. I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable with it.

  I was glad when she finally managed to get the door closed. “Tell me what happened,” she said. “All of it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  She listened and nodded as she always did and, in the end, unsurprisingly, said. “Well, I suppose it could be worse.”

  “Worse, mistress? What do you mean?”

  “Ignore me,” she said. “You have done well. In fact, you appear to have done magnificently. Are you sure you can cast the spell again?”

  Of course, there was only one possible response to that temptation. I conjured up the glyph in my mind and then it struck me that I still did not know how to cancel it. Mistress Iliana saw the look of confusion on my face a
nd said, “what is it?”

  “I can cast the spell, mistress. I’m just not sure that I know how to stop it. Master Lucas had to do that for me last time.”

  She smiled, almost as if she was relieved. “Our young prodigy has some limits. Don’t worry, this is not uncommon. Beginning wizards often can only manage one part of the spell. The important part is that you can cast it. Pay attention to what you do then and you should be able to work out how to reverse it.”

  What she was saying made sense but I did not find it particularly helpful. It seemed as if she was glad to find out that I had limitations. My resentment showed on my face.

  “By the Light, boy, there is no need to look so sullen. I have already told you that you have done well. There is no shame in not being able to master a spell perfectly the first time. I would have thought you would realise by now exactly how far you have come. Haven’t I stressed how long some apprentices take to learn spells. You have done more in one session, at your first attempt, then many would achieve in a year. Your performance has been remarkable. It is not a problem that you cannot yet undo the spell you’ve cast.”

  Her praise somewhat mollified me. I realised the effect that Master Lucas’s teaching style was starting to have on me. Already, I expected fulsome praise for every success. This was not Mistress Iliana’s way. She was trying to be honest. If I had been a bit older, I would have realised that perhaps her method was the better one for me but I was still young and finding my feet.

  “I’m not sure I can follow what I’m doing,” I said. “Mistress.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It happened so fast when I cast the spell. It’s just like tying the knot you have mastered. You do it without thinking. That’s what this feels like.”

  She frowned. “That is not natural.”

  I felt a sudden stab of fear. The way she said it made me immediately think of the Inquisition. I wondered if she was going to report me. “What do you mean, mistress?”

  “That is the way that casting spells eventually becomes once you are very familiar with the glyphs and patterns of them. That you should be able to cast such a spell in such a way on your first attempt is just downright strange.”

  I thought of what she had once told me about possession by demons and other things. My mouth was suddenly dry. My heart pounded against my ribs. I closed my fingers into fists. “What are you saying, mistress?”

  “I’m not saying anything as yet. But you have told me a very remarkable thing. Ten days ago you were a promising but not so extraordinary student. No, let me rephrase that. You were an extraordinary student but not in such a way as I would expect anything like this. Something has changed and I don’t know what it is.”

  I thought about the events of the last couple of weeks. Many things have changed for me. We had finished our journey to Solsburg. I had woken up to find myself in a palace. I had recovered from the ill effects of my first spell casting. I had my first real lessons in casting spells. I tried repetition of spells. I had fallen sick again. I went over all of these events with Mistress Iliana point by point.

  “Things changed after you were sick,” she said. “That’s when you mastered the light spell. And immediately after that you learned how to perform simple healing.”

  It had not seemed so simple to me but I ignored her remark. She was correct, of course. She had isolated the exact point in time when things became different. After I woke from my illness.

  I thought about it for a long moment and then it hit me, where I had seen the healing spell before.

  “It was when you and Master Lucas healed me,” I said. “As I was lying sick I saw the glyphs you were casting. They were very complicated. There was an element of light and an element of something else. There was the healing glyph, all of them interlocked. I could not really follow what you were doing but I recognised the patterns.”

  “You saw the patterns?”

  “Yes mistress, I saw them as clearly as if I was looking at a page. Except that they were in motion. Parts were rotating and there were flows of energy moving through the glyphs.”

  Her frown deepened and I could tell that she was struggling with the words that I had used. “You’re telling me that you were aware when we were casting spells upon you and you believe you saw the glyphs made manifest as we did so?”

  “I might have been hallucinating, mistress. That happened to me before when I had the breakbone fever. But this seemed real.”

  “Drawing upon your knowledge of glyphs, your mind may have synthesised an image made up of what you remember and of speculation. On the other hand, if you really did see what we were casting, you have a rare gift.”

  “What would that be, mistress?”

  “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” she said. She went over to her bookcase and removed one of the heavy volumes. She leafed through it and all the while kept talking, “we already know that you have rare gifts. This might be another one. It may be nothing. But we should test it.”

  That did not sound good. Testing usually ended up with me feeling drained and awful. Then I thought about the device that Master Lucas had used upon. Perhaps she meant that.

  She took the book and walked back over and slammed it down on the table. It was a massive tome and it had more pages than any I could remember seeing. It was open to a page inscribed with a glyph of phenomenal complexity and sophistication. I recognised the penmanship as belonging to my mistress. It was as individual as handwriting, the calligraphy she used, which I suppose was only natural since it was a form of handwriting. I was shocked to realise that I really did recognise the glyph. “That is the one.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am, mistress. That is the one I saw. Except, of course, it is not moving. I recognise the individual components. If you trace those lines there,” I said, being careful not to touch the page as I showed her what I meant, “you can see what seems to be part of the light glyph. And, this part here, bears a great resemblance to the healing rune that I just learned.”

  “Indeed, it does. And I begin to believe that you really did see something when you were sick. This is the spell that Master Lucas and I cast upon you. It is meant to purify the body of evil humours and begin the process of restoration. A modified version of the light spell is used to direct it. And also to purify. It burns out certain parts of the illness.”

  I was fascinated by her description of it but even more fascinated by the rune. Red descended upon my shoulder and studied it intently. As I moved my head from side to side, I could tell he was doing it too, a perfect mirror of my actions. Presumably it looked a little humorous because I heard a faint laughter from Mistress Iliana but when I looked up she was completely serious, her face like stone.

  “This is the spell,” I said, my voice was low and full of wonder. “I saw this.”

  I felt as if I could understand it given time. Once Mistress Iliana had explained it, I saw the relation of the components to each other. It was a wonderful thing, as if someone had taken the spells and woven them together.

  There were parts of the inscription that looked a bit like knots. Perhaps those were for holding the various elements together. I mentioned this to Mistress Iliana and she said, “Yes, that is how it works. You do show a great intuitive understanding of the processes of magic.”

  She sounded very thoughtful. I had given her a lot to think about. Red lost interest as soon as I stopped looking at the rune. I rose from the chair and began pace up and down. It took me a few moments to realise that I had not asked Mistress Iliana’s permission. I felt self-conscious about it.

  Fortunately, she was distracted by her own thoughts. She snapped the book shut and said, “it is too early in your career for you to be trying to learn a spell like this. This is potent third order magic. It took me many years to be able to cast that spell.”

  “As you say, mistress,” I said. I was thinking about what I had seen, about the way the parts had moved. That was something
that could not be replicated on a page. It was something you could only see when a spell was cast.

  I began to consider the possibility that what I had witnessed was the way to make the pattern of casting materialise. Perhaps the glow had come in the order the spell was invoked. The patterns worked that way in my own mind. It was as if I was drawing them by visualising them. Perhaps that was what the movement was, the various elements coming into being. Once I considered it, I saw that that was part of it but it was not all. The movement continued even when the spell was being cast. I had been given a lot to think about.

  Mistress Iliana put the book back on the shelf then walked back over to the table and sat down. She propped her chin on her hands and looked up at me. “You have come very far in a very short time. We need to be wary about that.”

  I heard the warning in a voice and was immediately on guard. “Why, mistress?”

  “Because if word of this gets out you will become of interest to even more people than you are now. There are those who would see you as a threat. A mage such as you might become could upset the balance of power in the land. Who would want to take the risk of such a wizard taking sides against him or perhaps deciding to usurp his position?”

  She let that question hang in the air. “You mean they would take steps to ensure that I never became a threat.”

  “Precisely,” she said. “A potential Archmage is a mighty threat. Those who already possess great magical power might decide that they do not need another rival.”

  “It would seem the world of the magician is a dangerous place,” I said.

  “So I have taken pains to impress upon you,” Mistress Iliana said. “There are hazards on every side. It is best to appear as unthreatening as possible to as many people as possible for as long as possible.”

  I remembered the way she disguised me as a servant on the way to Solsburg and had not wanted the word of what I was to get out.

  She already been thinking in such terms back then. I wondered if she had suspected what I was going to be. I also wondered whether she saw me as a potential rival. Perhaps she was trying to subtly discourage me.