The Dragon of Trelian

by Michelle Knudsen

  What change? Calen almost asked. But he thought he knew. He nodded instead.

  Serek eyed him silently for another few seconds, then went on. “I must admit that in recent years I began to fear I had made a mistake about you. Oh, you showed moderate ability, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing like what I’d sensed — or thought I’d sensed — in the beginning, and you lacked the focus and drive required for any kind of serious advancement. I had resigned myself to the probability that you would remain a mediocre student and grow into a mediocre mage, and eventually go off to serve in a minor household somewhere. Nothing to be ashamed of, I suppose, but certainly nothing to be especially proud of, either. I confess that I . . . relaxed somewhat with regard to your training, believing any additional effort would likely be wasted and preferring to focus my energy on my own studies instead.

  “In the last day or so, however, I’ve been forced to reconsider yet again. Something began to seem different about you, and you showed that surprising skill with divination . . . and now, as of this moment, the spark is there — I can sense it strongly, as I haven’t since the very beginning. It’s as though it’s been hidden, or in slumber, and only now has reawakened.” He shook his head distractedly. “I don’t entirely understand it. I would swear to you that yesterday morning it wasn’t there at all.”

  Calen stared, unsure whether to feel insulted or hopeful or angry or something else entirely. His jaw worked soundlessly, waiting for his brain to supply some sort of intelligent response. Finally he managed, “But —”

  Serek silenced him with a glare. “Don’t interrupt. I’m not finished. Spark or no spark, I’m not going to waste my time. You’ve never demonstrated that you can apply yourself consistently and fully to your studies. Perhaps this is my own fault, in part, since I’ve stopped expecting or requiring the necessary level of dedication from you. But that ends now.

  “You have a choice to make. You will swear to me that you will fully commit yourself to the path before you, working to the absolute best of your ability, pushing yourself to learn and excel and master every challenge I set before you from this moment forward. Or you will acknowledge that you are not willing to commit the amount of energy and dedication required, and we will set about finding you another apprenticeship more suitable to your personality and temperament. You would always bear the marks you already have, of course, and there would be safeguards put in place to prevent you from continuing to practice magic. You would not be the first apprentice to leave the order; it’s rare, but it does happen. The mage’s life is not for everyone.”

  Serek pulled out his chair and sat down, facing Calen across the desk. His voice was low and serious, his gaze level and direct. “The choice is yours, Calen. I will not bear you any resentment if you choose to leave, but if you choose to stay, I will not accept anything less than your full dedication. Think, now, and decide whether you truly wish to follow this path.”

  Calen tried to recapture his whirling thoughts, tried to ignore Serek’s heavy gaze and direct his mind where he wanted it to go. This was crazy. Since the day Serek had pulled him from the kitchens six years ago, he had never anticipated any other future than that which lay before him as a mage’s apprentice. A second choice was not something usually granted. His hand strayed up to trace the small initiate’s tattoo under his left eye, given when Serek brought him before the Magistratum to recite the vows of training. He had never bothered to consider whether he wanted to be a mage or not; he was a mage’s apprentice, and that was that.

  He tried to consider it now. Was this truly the life he wanted for himself? A mage’s life was not an easy life, by any means. A mage in service could have any number of masters during the course of his years, and he would be expected to serve each one faithfully and fully, using his abilities without hesitation in whatever manner required, barring certain forbidden practices no mage would willingly engage in.

  There could be a whole new life waiting for him, a future not bound by the walls of a dark study or years of secret tradition or the solitary practice of the difficult mage’s arts. No more memorizing useless information, cataloging trivial names and dates and formulas. No more running off on pointless errands or tiptoeing around trying to avoid Lyrimon. No more living with Serek’s constant disapproval. Maybe he really wasn’t meant for the mage’s path; if so, there was no shame in owning up to that fact.

  For a second, it was tempting. The dark walls of the room, the weight of Serek’s eyes (and Lyrimon’s, still, curse him), and the endless years of study that lay before him — all of it seemed to press down relentlessly until the thought of breaking free was infinitely appealing.

  But then he thought of the way it felt when he successfully mastered a spell — the way he had felt when reading the spirit cards, the energy flowing through him, the clarity of mind, the rush of power and purpose. He thought of the Erylun book, its countless pages filled with the mysteries of the universe. He thought of all the other books in the library, all the other books that must exist in the world, everything there must be to learn and see and explore and find out — he didn’t want to walk away from that, he realized. He wanted to know, wanted to understand. He wanted to learn to control the power he’d had only fleeting glimpses of, wanted to find out what else he could do, how far he could go.

  He thought of Meg, and Jakl, and his promise to help her. And he knew he didn’t want to walk away from that, either.

  He looked up at Serek, meeting that level gaze squarely across the desk. He could feel his spark brightening, even now, feel it burning within him, waiting for him to help it grow into a blazing fire of knowledge and power.

  “I’m staying,” Calen said quietly.

  “Good,” said Serek. “Then let’s begin.”

  “Right now?” Calen asked, surprised. Serek merely looked at him, and Calen nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Serek rose from the desk and began to pace slowly around the room. Calen waited. Rorgson’s yellowing skull was back in its usual place at the edge of the desk. It grinned at him silently.

  “When I said I had relaxed with regard to your training,” Serek said after a minute, “I did not mean to imply that I had neglected it entirely. Everything you’ve learned so far has been part of the essential grouping of basic skills necessary to any sort of more advanced practice. These must be mastered before one can even attempt anything more serious. So, right now we need to discover which of these you have indeed mastered and which you have not.”

  Serek stopped pacing and leaned against the far wall. “Candles,” he said. “Now.”

  Calen closed his eyes and emptied his mind. Lighting candles was one of the first acts of magic an apprentice learned; not only was it relatively easy, and a good stepping stone to more difficult magics, but it was also highly practical. Quickly he visualized the candles he wanted to light — two fat, solid cylinders of wax on the desktop, the iron candelabra on the table across the room, the ring of candles set into the simple chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A gentle push, a flicker of mental energy, and he felt them all burst into tiny flames at once. Opening his eyes, he was rewarded by the soft glow emanating from each source of light.

  “Good,” said Serek. “Now the fireplace.”

  Same principle, just bigger. Calen reached into himself to draw upon a slightly greater amount of energy. He extended one hand toward the fireplace; not necessary, really, but it helped him to focus. He sent the gathered energy, barely visible as a faint, golden flow of light, out through his fingers across the room and into the small pile of kindling. At the whoosh of the flames, he looked back to Serek expectantly.

  “Doors.”

  Calen smiled; he liked this one. Objects could fairly easily be manipulated to move in ways they were used to moving. He reached out with his mind to the three doors off the study — the main door; the side door, which led to Calen’s own small room; the back door, which led out to the yard — and pulled them all shut with one satisfying slam. The c
andles flickered wildly, then recovered.

  “Good,” Serek said again. “Now —”

  But just then the door to the main hall burst open again, and one of the king’s household guards staggered through, panting. “Sorry,” he managed between breaths. “Sorry Mage Serek, to — to interrupt —”

  “Gods, man, what is it?”

  The guard swallowed and seemed to get a better hold on himself. “There’s been an accident, an attack — a man wounded. Your skills are required.”

  Serek was striding toward the door before the guard had finished speaking. “Calen,” he said over his shoulder, indicating that Calen should come, too. Serek grabbed a pouch of medicinal herbs and powders hanging on a cord near the door, then took off down the hall on the heels of the guard, who had broken into an unsteady run. Calen leaped from the chair and ran after them. The pleasant warmth of the magic energy from his exercises was driven out by a chill of dread. What had happened? He knew he’d find out soon enough, but he couldn’t help imagining various possible scenarios as he ran, unseeing, past the tapestry-lined walls.

  The guard led them out toward the main castle gate, where a small crowd was clustered around a figure lying on the grass. The guard who’d fetched them pushed some of the gathered people aside to clear their way. New uniforms? Calen thought distractedly as they approached the wounded man. The style was that of the Trelian Royal Guard, but the color was wrong, too dark, sort of a blackish red —

  Then he realized it was blood.

  He stumbled to a stop as Serek and the house guard dropped to their knees on either side of the fallen man. He appeared to be unconscious. Someone had wrapped thick strips of cloth around his torso, but the blood had soaked through both cloth and what remained of his tunic. Serek swore, tearing open his pouch of medicines.

  “We could not stop the bleeding,” the house guard said quietly.

  “Unwrap the bandages,” Serek commanded as he pulled assorted items from the pouch. “I need to see the wound.”

  The guard paled but began to gently unwrap the sodden cloth. Several people standing nearby turned away. Calen stared, horrified, as the layers of covering came off to reveal an enormous gash across the man’s chest. The edges of the wound were dark and angry-looking, and blood continued to well up from within, refusing to congeal.

  “What happened?”

  The other guards looked at each other uncertainly. “We don’t really know,” one said, finally. “We were returning from patrol when they set upon us. Bandits, we thought at first, although we’d never expected them this close to the castle. But then something came at us out of the woods. Something . . .” He shook his head. “Some thing. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was huge, and — wrong.” He looked at the other men again, as if for support. “It was no natural creature, sir. None that any of us had ever seen. We think the bandits themselves actually drove it off; at least, it fell back when they did, but not before it took a swipe at Roeg. It seemed only a shallow wound . . . but there was so much blood, and when we reached the gate, he suddenly went white and fell to the ground —”

  Serek waved his hand impatiently, silencing the man. “Calen.”

  Calen swallowed and walked over to kneel beside Serek. This close, he could feel a terrible heat radiating from the fallen guard. He could also see spidery thin red lines in the man’s skin, branching out from the wound.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Calen whispered.

  “Don’t ask questions,” Serek snapped. He handed several vials to Calen and tossed the pouch with the rest of its contents to the grass. “Find the bloodleaf and terric powder and set the rest aside.” Serek closed his eyes and placed his hands a few inches above the man’s chest.

  The house guard peered uneasily at his comrade. “Can you save him, sir?”

  Serek’s mouth tightened irritably. “Don’t you ask questions, either,” he said without opening his eyes.

  The guard opened his mouth again — perhaps just to apologize, unless he was a particularly stupid man — but at a warning glance from Calen he shut it without speaking and sat back on his heels. Calen nodded. Once Serek made it clear that he didn’t want to be interrupted, it was very, very unwise to say anything else. That danger averted, Calen hurriedly turned his attention to the vials. The bloodleaf was easy to recognize. The large red-tipped leaves were wrapped tightly around one another inside the glass container. The terric powder was a bit harder — it looked a lot like snowdust, and confusing the two would be extraordinarily bad, although he couldn’t remember exactly why. Thank the gods Serek hadn’t asked him to identify anything too difficult or, even worse, suggest which medicines to use. Memorizing reagents and their uses and effects was one of those things Calen had always considered a waste of time. Why memorize something you could just look up in a book or chart whenever you needed to? Clearly he’d never really thought it through before. The man on the ground — Roeg, the other guard had called him — didn’t exactly have time to wait for Serek to page through reference material in his study.

  Calen found the terric and held the two vials out to Serek, who was muttering to himself as he moved his hands slowly through the air above his patient. The mage was gathering information, trying to determine the nature of the injury — Calen could just see the faint white tendrils of energy flowing between Serek’s hands and the wound. The man groaned and tossed his head, although he still didn’t seem to be awake. Serek opened his eyes and frowned. Looking up, he picked out two of the other royal guards who were standing around watching. “You and you. Come here and hold him down.” Glancing at the house guard, he added, “You, too. What we’re about to do is going to be painful, and it’s essential that he remain still.”

  He noticed Calen holding out the vials. “When I tell you, start sprinkling the terric into the wound. There’s a poison at work, and if we don’t stop it, nothing I do will save this man.” Calen nodded, tucked the bloodleaf vial between his knees, and then carefully opened the terric powder. He could smell its acrid odor and tried desperately to remember if this was one of those powders that was dangerous to inhale. Probably Serek would have warned him, but if it was something he was already supposed to have learned . . . Calen breathed discreetly yet forcefully out through his nose and held the vial as far away as he could.

  The guards Serek had selected — one appeared to be the patrol unit’s captain — were all in place, one holding the man’s legs and the other two each gripping an arm and shoulder. They nodded at Serek to confirm that they were ready. Serek held out his hands again over Roeg’s chest. Serek didn’t speak, but Calen felt the hair on his arms and neck standing up in response to the sudden flow of energy. He’d seen Serek heal minor ailments before, but this felt different, not like healing energy at all. Calen let his eyes unfocus, a trick he’d discovered long ago that would sometimes let him better “see” a spell at work. Different kinds of spells involved different kinds of magic energy — sometimes he could just feel the difference, as a person might note a difference in the weight of the air before a storm — but he’d found that color was usually the best clue to puzzling out something Serek was doing. This wasn’t something Serek had ever taught him — on the contrary, Serek had never even mentioned the significance of colors relating to magic, probably because he didn’t want Calen using the colors as a shortcut. Why teach your apprentice a shortcut when you could make him waste hours studying the long way around?

  The man groaned again and tried to move, but the other guards held him fast. Another came forward to grip his head as it tried to turn. Red, Calen thought suddenly, as images of energy began to take shape at the edge of his vision. Why would it be red? Healing energy was green, or golden . . .

  “Now, Calen,” said Serek. Calen jerked himself back to the task at hand. He tipped the vial and began sprinkling the thick powder onto the exposed wound. As the first particle touched Roeg, he began to scream. The guards held him tight, but it was clear that he was trying to ar
ch his back and pull away from the pain. Calen glanced at Serek, wondering if he should stop, but Serek remained focused on his own efforts. Well, he’d warned them it was going to hurt. Calen swallowed and kept pouring. The man’s screams became even more intense. The other men looked at each other nervously. Calen didn’t blame them. He felt sickened by it himself. The guard seemed to be in such agony.

  Only Serek seemed unaffected, and Calen couldn’t help but admire his focus. Like stone, he thought again.

  The man’s voice was beginning to go hoarse. One of the guards spoke hesitantly. “Please, Mage Serek. Can’t you stop now? The pain, it’s killing him.”

  Serek didn’t respond. Calen doubted he had even heard. Apparently the guard had the same thought, because he swallowed and tried again. “Please —”

  “Be quiet!” Calen hissed. He understood the guard’s concern, but distracting Serek certainly wasn’t the answer. They had asked for his help, and now they had to accept it, whether they understood what he was doing or not. The guard glared angrily at Calen but did not speak again.

  Finally Serek looked up and told Calen to stop pouring. Calen tipped the vial up immediately, with relief. The man’s screams tapered off to exhausted whimpers.

  “Now,” said Serek, “take three leaves and lay them across the wound, covering as much as possible.”

  Calen winced as the first leaf touched the man’s flesh, but there was no reaction from the guard. Either the bloodleaf didn’t hurt or Roeg had passed out completely again.

  “Will he be all right?” the house guard asked.

  Serek looked down at the leaf-covered gash. Roeg seemed to be breathing easier, but the edges of the wound peeking out from behind the leaves still looked swollen and unhealthy to Calen’s eyes. “I don’t know,” Serek said finally.

  The captain sighed heavily. “I’ve got to make my report to the king.”

  Serek nodded and rose to his feet. “I’m coming with you.”