The Accidental Sorcerer

by K. E. Mills

  'I'm horizontal and breathing.'

  She sniffed. 'And that's better than horizontal and not breathing, believe me.'

  I think…' he began, then frowned. Something was wrong. He closed his right eye… and stopped breathing.

  'I can't see….' He opened his eye again. 'Reg? Reg, what's happened?'

  She wouldn't meet his gaze. 'Do I look like a doctor to you, sunshine? Is there a stethoscope hanging around my neck?'

  'Oh God. I'm blind.'

  She rubbed her beak against his hair, a rare caress. 'Half blind,' she said gruffly. 'And it may be temporary. No need to panic yet.'

  The little brown skink had been blind in one eye. Was reborn a half-blind dragon.

  ... the acid poison burns his mouth, dissolves his teeth, runs down his gullet and eats out his guts. The little brown dragon is dying… dying…

  A pawn. A sacrifice. Killed without mercy on the altar of his necessity.

  'I'm sorry' he whispered as the lamplight dimmed and soft oblivion claimed him. 'I'm sorry…'

  The second time he woke Shugat stood beside the bed, supporting his bent old body with his staff. The bedroom curtains were still closed, and candles burned in their holders. The same night? Another night? He didn't know. He didn't care. He closed one eye and Shugat vanished.

  So. It wasn't a dream or his imagination. In darkness he heard Shugat say, 'You said you would pay the price, wizard.'

  Darkness was safe; he decided to stay there. 'Your gods did this to punish me?'

  He heard a gentle sigh. 'No, wizard. You did this.'

  'To punish myself?'

  'Forget punishment,' said Shugat. He sounded impatient. 'Think… consequences. Look at me, wizard.'

  He opened his eye. Shugat's grave expression rearranged itself into a fierce and unexpected smile. The stone in his forehead was quiet. Unremarkable. 'You have courage.'

  Rolling over beneath the blankets, he pressed his maimed eye to the pillow. I don't have the strength for this. 'I have blood on my hands, Shugat. That's what I have. The dragon I made killed people. Innocents it was my duty to protect.' He had to stop. Gather himself. 'And then there's Lional.' Another difficult moment, I helped make him what he became. I showed him what was possible.'

  'And you destroyed him. That debt is paid.'

  Lional groaning. Lional dead. Dead by my hand. Like him I'm a killer. 'You think I'm proud of that?'

  Shugat shook his head. 'There is no place for pride in wizardry; you have learned a bitter lesson.'

  Resentment welled. 'And what have you learned, Shugat? Holy Man Shugat and your omnipotent gods. Where were they when people were dying? You're very good at reading lectures—are you going to lecture them?'

  He flinched as the dull stone in Shugat's forehead burst into life. Power licked his bones, threatened an inferno. Something ancient, something living, pressed him to the mattress like a claw—a talon—a padded paw…

  In his short life a man is many things,' said Kallarap's ancient holy man. 'A lover. A liar. A killer. A king.' Shugat bent down, his dark gaze incandescent. 'A hammer… and sometimes the hand which holds the hammer.'

  Gerald turned his face from that implacable regard. 'So you used me. You and your gods.'

  Shugat shrugged. 'Better to be used by the gods than a Lional.'

  'I don't want to be used by anyone!' he said hotly, glaring now. 'I just want to be left alone!'

  'The choice is not yours, wizard,' said Shugat, shaking his head. 'The power within you has seen to that. You can choose your master… and that is all.'

  His fingers fisted in the bedclothes. 'I can choose to walk away! I can choose to have no master. What am I, a dog, to be whistled for whenever someone needs something fetched?'

  'Not a dog,' said Shugat. 'A lizard. Reborn a dragon. Destroyer… or defender. The choice is yours. Choose wisely, wizard. My holy man's healing is a precious gift. It is not to be wasted.'

  Heart thudding dully, Gerald stared at him. 'You saved my life? I really was dying and you saved my life?'

  Shugat nodded.

  'Why? It didn't seem to matter to you when you refused to help me fight Lional! The bastard nearly killed me before I—before the end.'

  Another infuriating shrug. 'The gods willed it.'

  He struggled to sit up. 'Why? What have your gods got to do with me? I don't worship them, Shugat. These Three of yours, who the hell do they think they are?'

  Shugat thumped his staff into the carpet. Behind the curtains panes of glass shivered. Echoes of thunder, rolling. 'Does the hammer demand of the hand that holds it why the chosen nail should be struck?'

  'This hammer does, yes.'

  Incredibly, Shugat smiled. 'Yes. It does.' Then he nodded and headed for the door. Reaching it, he slowed. Turned. 'You tread an interesting path, wizard. We will meet on it again.'

  Oh terrific. Just the news he wanted to hear. 'We will? When? Why? Shugat—'

  But Shugat was gone.

  'Damn.' he said. And was ambushed by exhaustion.

  The third time he woke it was in daylight. The curtains were open, letting in warm sunshine. Melissande sat reading in an armchair close by his bed, and for once she actually looked presentable. Well groomed. Green silk blouse with cream pearl buttons. Darker green linen trousers. Not baggy but tailored, and crisply ironed. No disastrous bun; her auburn hair was sleek and smooth and captured demurely in a flattering braid. She was even wearing… makeup?

  She heard his little sound of surprise. Looked up and smiled at him nervously. 'At last. You've been asleep ever since Shugat left and that was three days ago.'

  Muzzily he stared at the ceiling. 'Three days?' He closed his good eye and the ceiling disappeared.

  Not temporary, then. So much for Doctor Reg's diagnosis. I am. I'm blind. It is a punishment.

  Melissande cleared her throat. 'Look. I'm not very good at this, all right?'

  He unclosed his eye. 'At what?'

  'Apologising!'

  'There's no need. None of what happened is your fault, Melissande.'

  'Of course it is,' she said harshly. 'I brought you here.'

  Her pain was palpable. I'm not strong enough for this. I don't have the stamina. 'I brought myself. I wasn't kidnapped. Melissande, forget it.'

  Her eyes filled with tears. 'How can I forget it? Lional was my brother.'

  Lional. Memory flexed its cruel, sharp claws. 'And so is Rupert. What's your point?'

  'Yes… Rupert…' Despite the tears her lips twitched in a curious smile but it didn't last long. 'Gerald, let me talk. I've been rehearsing this speech for three days, all right?'

  Oh lord. Can I pass out again, please? Can I sleep till I'm fifty? Melissande was staring anxiously. He sighed. 'Fine. If you must.' For all the damned good it'll do either of us.

  She dropped the book to the floor and tangled her fingers together. 'All my life I made excuses for Lional. I said, he's just temperamental. He's highly strung. Burdened with being the heir. I told myself that people were jealous. He was so… beautiful. And he could be kind. When it suited.' Her breath caught in her throat, and at last the tears spilled. 'I should've faced the truth about him, Gerald. I was a coward, a disgrace to every Melissande who came before me. I should've stopped him before—'

  He reached for her. 'Melissande, don't. Please, just don't. This is my fault, not yours. The blame is mine.'

  She dragged an angry hand across her wet face. 'Yours? Don't be stupid. You didn't make him read those awful grimoires or murder Bondaningo and the other wizards. You didn't—'

  I made him the dragon.' Oh God. The dragon. Emerald and crimson and brimful of death. 'How many people did it kill? Do you know?'

  She wouldn't look at him. 'Gerald, don't. You can't—'

  'How many?'

  'Ninety-seven,' she whispered. 'More than twice that number injured.'

  His heart boomed like a drum. Nearly one hundred. Nearly one hundred murdered. 'Were any of them children?'

  H
er fingers laced and unlaced in her lap. 'Twelve.'

  Retreating into his blindness didn't help… but he stayed there regardless.

  He heard her swallow a sob. Then the creak of the armchair and the swish of her linen trousers as she stood. 'I'll leave you alone. The others can come back another—'

  'Others?' Reluctantly he admitted light and the altered world. 'What others?'

  'Nobody dreadful.' She pulled a face. 'Well, Reg. But Monk and Rupert, too.'

  The last damned thing he needed was a conversation about butterflies. Monk, though… 'Don't send them away.'

  'You're sure?'

  'Yes. Melissande… you will feel better. Eventually'

  She folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. 'You mean there'll come a day when I'll wake up and there won't be this great gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be? When every breath doesn't hurt me and every corner I turn in this wretched mausoleum of a palace doesn't ambush me with a memory? And that soon, dear God, I'll stop talking like some dreadful heroine out of a book I wouldn't be caught dead reading?'

  Incredibly that made him smile. 'I promise. Now let the others in before I fall asleep again.'

  But instead of going to the door she frowned. 'I'm so sorry about your eye, Gerald. Did you know it's turned silver?'

  ' What?'

  She fetched his hand mirror from the chest of drawers. 'Gerald?' she said, as he stared at it, remembering… 'What's wrong?'

  With a convulsive shiver he banished the clawed memory: his naked body butchered and eaten… the glistening snakes… his battered heart, bleeding a river… and pain… such awful pain…

  'Nothing.'

  He took the mirror and made himself look. It was true: his left eye shimmered an opaque silver beneath a strange creamy film… like the scaled underbelly of a full-grown skink. The mark of the dragon. Magic's thumbprint. Payment tendered…

  And so much less than I truly deserve.

  He thrust the mirror back at her. 'Thanks.'

  Standing there, fidgeting with the mirror, she said. 'Gerald. Can I ask you something?'

  He owed her so much, she could ask him anything. 'Sure.'

  'What was it like… to make a dragon?'

  Anything but that. 'Melissande—' he began, and then stopped. No. She could even ask him that, 'it was terrible,' he whispered. 'And it was wonderful.'

  And how he was going to live with that, he didn't know.

  She swallowed, hard. 'Oh.'

  Then she turned away, put the mirror back on the chest of drawers and opened the bedroom door. 'He's awake, but you can't stay long,' she said to whoever was outside.

  Markham entered first, grinning like a shark. Reg sat on his shoulder, doing smug as only she could. And Rupert—

  He sat up, gaping. What the hell? That was Rupert?

  All traces of the butterfly-obsessed buffoon had vanished. His lank fair hair had lost its tarnish, was neatly trimmed and shining. His faded eyes were bright and sharply focused, his lips firm, not foolishly trembling. The loose-jointed shambling was gone, replaced by a taut and muscular discipline. He was dressed in severely cut black velvet, no puce or lace or butterfly dust in sight.

  'Your Highness?'

  Rupert crossed to the bed. 'Dear Gerald. What a relief to see you on the mend. You had us worried you know. If it hadn't been for Shugat—well—' He smiled. 'Let's give thanks for miracles, shall we?'

  He stared into that new-made face. 'You look so—' Lord, no. He couldn't say normal. '— different.'

  Rupert exchanged swiftly amused glances with Melissande. 'I know. Sorry to spring it on you like this. You see—'

  Melissande sighed. 'Honestly, Rupert. Don't be a goose. Gerald, he's the king now. Rupert the First. Despite appearances to the contrary, he never was a gormless twit. Turns out he was wearing camouflage as well.' A dark look at her brother suggested the matter was far from being closed for discussion.

  'Camouflage?'

  'Yes,' she said. 'Don't you remember? Just like me, he was hiding from Lional.'

  'Of course I remember. I'm half-blind not senile.' He stared at Rupert. 'So… you knew what he was?'

  Rupert nodded. 'For a long time now'

  A flicker of rage, building swiftly. 'And you kept silent?'

  'It's complicated, Gerald,' said Rupert, his hands coming up. 'Please. You must—'

  'Complicated?' he echoed. A terrible pain blossomed in his blind eye. 'Tell that to the children who—'

  Reg cleared her throat with an ominous gurgle. 'Good morning, Reg, how lovely to see you again, thanks so much for everything you did to get those useless bureaucrats at the Department hopping!'

  As he struggled to control the rage, Melissande turned. 'You? You didn't do anything! That was all me and Rupert! And Monk, a bit. You had nothing to do with it!'

  Reg bridled, I beg your pardon? I'll have you know that I looked at those anal-retentive civil servants in a very meaningful way, madam! And how would you know what I did or didn't do? You were too busy impersonating a headless chook and bleating "Save Gerald!'"

  Melissande gaped. 'I never did! I never once bleated! And anyway, chickens don't bleat, that's lambs, chicken cackle, just like you, and—'

  'Well if I cackle, ducky, I'm not the only girl in here who does!' Reg retorted. 'So I've got you coming and going, haven't I? Ha! You'll have to pull off your mismatched flannel pyjamas mighty early in the morning to get the better of me, young lady!'

  Monk grabbed Reg from his shoulder and plopped her onto the bed. 'For ether's sake, she's your bird, Gerald! Take her, would you? She's driving me crazy. And anyway…' He pulled a face, I have to go.'

  'You can't!' he protested. 'You haven't told me what happened….'

  Monk shrugged. 'Sorry. Duty calls. Reg'll fill you in, she's dying to do it. Anyway, it's your own fault, Gerald, snoring in bed instead of entertaining your guests.'

  He knew his friend very well; beneath the disrespectful humour lurked trepidation. 'What duty? Monk, what's going on?'

  Another shrug and a sheepish smile. 'Seems I've got an interview with the Department's Thaumaturgical Ethics Committee. I suspect they want to rap my knuckles over the portable portal .… and a few other things.'

  Gerald threw his blankets aside. 'Then I'm coming with you. Blimey, are they stupid? Don't they realise—'

  Monk and Rupert bundled him back into bed. Humiliatingly, he couldn't stop them. His body was weak, his muscles petulant and protesting. 'Back off. Let me up! I'm—'

  'Staying put,' Rupert said sharply, but with a smile. 'Aside from sore knuckles, Mister Markham will be fine.'

  'Fine? Rupert, you're clueless! You don't know what that damned Department's like! They'll skin him alive and charge him for the labour! They'll—'

  'Gerald, it's all right,' Monk said. 'Honest. My Department bosses do have a point.' He glanced at Rupert. 'His Majesty's put in a good word for me. I'll survive.'

  He had to lie down again. Falling against his pillows he said, his voice unsteady, 'But your career's cactus because you helped me.'

  'Not cactus,' said Monk. 'Compost, maybe.' Another sharkish grin. 'You can grow good stuff with compost, I'm told.'

  He had to smile. Typical Markham: lemonade from lemons, every bloody time. 'Even so…'

  Melissande patted his shoulder. 'Don't worry, Gerald. I'm going with him.' She flicked a gaze at her brother, I'm still the prime minister around here, for a few more days anyway, and I'll make sure those Department idiots remember what Rupert said. Or else.'

  Rupert considered her. 'Melissande… it's a lovely gesture and I'm sure Markham appreciates it immensely, but as much as I love you I couldn't in all conscience call you diplo—'

  'Oh, please!' she retorted. 'You're calling my judgement into question? The man who let himself get bitten by vampire butterflies when it said quite clearly on the box Do Not Open In The Presence Of Light? Spare me, I beg you!'

  As the king and his sister bickered, Gerald looked at M
onk. 'Are you sure you want her defending you? She can be a bit... overwhelming.'

  Monk pulled a face. 'Right now I'll take all the help I can get. Besides. You should've seen her talking to Attaby and my Uncle Ralph. She nearly threw their teacups at them. She was magnificent.'

  And you're in love with her. He knew the signs. Maybe this time Monk's lightning-strike passion would last longer than a month… and maybe it wouldn't.

  But either way it'd be an interesting ride.

  For himself he didn't mind. He liked the princess; perhaps even cared for her. But she wasn't for him. Not like that.

  'Ha,' said Reg, finally joining in. 'Teacups. I was all set to poke them in the unmentionables, that would've made them sit up and squawk!'

  Monk shook his head. 'I dunno, Gerald. How do you stand it?'

  He stroked Reg's wing with one finger. 'Well, you know. She kind of grows on you…'

  'Yes, yes, I remember. Like fungus,' said Reg, and sniffed. 'I suppose,' she added, grudgingly, 'the girl didn't handle herself too shabbily. I suppose I could stand it if I saw her again.' Then she shuddered. 'But only if she swears to burn her wardrobe!'

  Melissande, finished with putting Rupert in his place, turned. 'I heard that, bird.'

  Reg smirked. 'You were meant to, ducky'

  'I really have to go,' said Monk, forestalling bloodshed. 'If you're coming, Melissande, then come. Your Majesty—' He bowed. 'Thank you.'

  Rupert rested his hand on Monk's shoulder. 'No, my friend. The debt is mine and New Ottosland's. Visit us whenever you can.'

  'I certainly will, sir, provided I'm not chained to my desk. Or a damp wall somewhere deep underground.' He turned. 'Look. Gerald. Don't do it, mate, all right? Not unless you really want to.'

  Gerald stared. 'Do what?'

  'I'll see you later. Back in Ottosland.'

  'Markham! Don't do what? What are you talking about?'

  But Monk was gone.

  Melissande glared, hands on hips. 'I'd better go too. Now you rest, do you hear me, Gerald? Or when I come back I'll—I'll be snippy!

  Reg rolled her eyes. 'That'll make a change.'

  'Melissande!' Monk bellowed from beyond the bedroom.

  'You've been warned!' said Melissande, and fled. As Gerald stared after her Rupert sat in the armchair by the bed.