by Rain Oxford
Then he slowly, dramatically, pulled his shirt up with his left hand to expose the gushing wound and with his right hand, he painted over the hole. The paint spread over his wound and sealed it off like healing skin. Then he leisurely climbed to his feet, stretching his arms, and tucked his shirt into his pants. “I love a good workout in the afternoon. We should do that every day. Oh, but you’ll be dead tomorrow. Too bad. Now, this is a bit one-sided, don’t you think? How am I supposed to play if I can’t see who I’m playing with?”
That was the moment I had been waiting for. If he could make her visible, he couldn’t be beaten. If he didn’t make her visible, then that meant there were limitations to his power. He put his paintbrush to his book and… was struck by a fireball from my father.
It did have the intended effect, except it would have made more of an impact if he wasn’t planted face-first in snow an instant later. He rose unharmed. “That was a surprise,” he said sarcastically. “A dragon trainer uses fire. How original.” He shook his head as if he wouldn’t even bother with my father and finished his painting.
“We have to get that brush away from him. It’s his wand,” Shaerl said quietly to her husband. My wolf ears heard it easily.
Merlin was staying out of Nimue’s reach, and she wasn’t picking up any speed. It was creepy, which I suspected was the point.
Ilvera and my father shot him with magic simultaneously, before he could paint anything to defend himself with. The other Rynorms joined in and one of them landed the perfect shot. The paintbrush went flying out of his hand and into the snow. “Oh, no!” he shouted dramatically. “That was my only means of defense! If only I’d had it on a string or something.” He sighed. “Well, I guess that’s it, then. You got me. I suren— oh, wait, I forgot! I can do this.”
The brush shot into his hand and met the book before anyone could realize how much trouble we were really in.
And then he was next to my father, but his attention wasn’t on him. He reached around what looked like open space and snatched something out of thin air. I heard the familiar snap of a wand being broken and my mother shouted, appearing in front of him. Father grabbed her and pulled her back, as if to protect her, while she fought him. Her wand was broken.
Unlike me, she never learned to do magic without it.
None of us were expecting another blast of magic, striking him from behind. He was thrown forward, losing his grip on the brush again. The Painter rolled over onto his back and opened his hand for his brush. Father rushed forward and stepped on the Painter’s hand.
He shouted with pain. The Painter’s hand was his weakness, not invisibility.
The other Rynorms swarmed around him, their wands aimed at him. “It’s a mother’s job to protect her children,” Shaerl said calmly, standing over him. “I’m sorry your mother failed you. It was never Merlin’s responsibility. Now you have threatened my children and you will not walk away from that.”
She shouldn’t have said a word. She could have ended it there, but she chose to waste time talking. I had thought she was better than that.
The Painter laughed. At the feet of nine powerful sorcerers, he laughed. “I didn’t plan on walking away. Nimue, because you failed to kill Merlin, kill yourself!”
“No!” Merlin shouted.
Too little, too late. It only took an instant for Nimue to stab herself in the chest.
And in that instant, no one was looking at the Painter, who had pulled out another paintbrush with his left hand, stabbed himself in the leg with the sharp end of it, and dipped the bristles in his own blood.
Faster than my own eyes could see, he painted something on his arm and vanished.
Merlin was not paying any attention; before the sorcerers could figure out what had happened to the Painter, Merlin had opened the syrus. Nimue cried in his arms as he held the dagger over the box. Her blood dripped slowly and a bright glow lit up the inside.
“I’m sorry, Merlin,” Nimue said.
He dropped the knife in the snow and kissed her head. “Do not apologize. I will get you out very soon. The syrus will not let you die. It will protect you until I have the ability to save you. It will feel like sleeping.”
“Will it hurt?”
He shook his head. Her body dispersed like a cloud of smoke and was absorbed into the box. As soon as it was, the lid closed. Merlin’s chest was drenched in blood, as was the otherwise perfect white snow in front of him.
That blood smells strange, I thought out of nowhere. I should have been thinking of a way to help him. Instead, I couldn’t get over the smell. Wait, that’s not blood. That’s… danger? Did danger have a scent?
The wolf instincts came over me stronger than ever and I found myself growling. Something was hunting us.
Thus, I was not surprised at all when the Painter appeared behind Merlin. “Oh, did the wizard lose his---” the man was unable to finish his sentence on account of his entire body being shoved face down into the snow.
Behind him, there were huge paw prints.
Familiar paw prints.
The creature that had followed us through the Mirror Realm had found its way here. I suddenly realized why it had followed us and why it attacked the Painter; it was attracted to blood.
“What is on me?! Get it off!” he screeched, barely able to lift his head. Something massive was on top of him and he couldn’t move his arms let alone paint. His backup paintbrush was buried somewhere in the snow.
A loud roar filled the air a moment before he was picked up, shaken violently, and then slammed down. From the pattern made by the prints, I was able to figure out what it was doing to him, which included repeatedly stepping on him. A few times, the creature let him get up and start running, only to pounce on him and then toss him around like a…
“Merlin, I just had a really strange thought.”
“Me, too.”
Unfortunately, the creature who could so easily defeat the Painter did not understand the Painter’s power. He was getting closer and closer to the brush. The instant the creature let him get up and run again, I knew he was going to gain back all the advantage it had stripped him of. The sorcerers shot curses at him, but he dodged them so easily it was as if he wasn’t even controlling his own body. He didn’t look at any of us; his entire focus was getting the brush before the creature got him.
“Dauðr!” Merlin yelled. His power shook the air throughout the clearing. Everything seemed to stop except for him, for just and instant.
Then the Painter cried out. He wasn’t thrown, he wasn’t stepped on, and he didn’t bleed. He simply cried out and stopped reaching for the paintbrush.
Merlin went to him and turned him over gently. The Painter’s face was tight with pain and he clutched his chest. “You have a minute, maybe two,” Merlin said solemnly. He sat in the snow and put his hand over the Painter’s heart. “I could have saved you. You came to me for direction and I sent you down a path of darkness.”
“I know, and I blame you.” The Painter was struggling to speak. “Every villain has a sob story, and I can’t wait to hear yours. My mother sent me to you because she knew you could help me. I promised her you could. You turned me away.”
“I know.”
The Painter coughed and winced in pain. “This is your fault.”
“I know.”
“I could have been so great. I only wanted to help people.” His voice was weak, as if there was a heavy pressure on his chest.
“I saw you do some wonderful things. I was confused and I made the wrong choice.”
“Tell it to my mother. Oh wait, you can’t. She’s dead. I couldn’t save her because you went back on your word. This day has been coming for a very long time. This will not be the end, for any of us.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Painter grinned. “And it’s going to eat at you.” He stretched out the “eat” with enthusiasm.
Merlin didn’t respond. I went to the Painter’s book and flipped it open. O
n the front cover was a portal, painted in gold, except that there was a third circle containing extra sigils. That was how he could appear and disappear. He could make up a portal ahead of time and somehow open it by touching it.
The first painting I saw was the cabin, covered in snow. He had said it would be beautiful and he was right. He had created the snow because he wanted it to be beautiful. There was nothing evil on that page. There was nothing evil about the man’s power. I clumsily turned the page to see a painting of Shaerl in perfect likeness. I touched her gently with my paw and felt his magic in the dried paint. There was no hate for her.
How he managed to do harm with something that was not made to hurt people was beyond me. What it did tell me was that his magic hadn’t done this to the Painter. He wasn’t born malevolent. Had he been raised with love and kindness, he would not have become this.
I looked at Merlin and saw it on his face that he knew this. He killed the Painter to save the world from a terrible enemy, which he believed he created.
I didn’t believe it. Anyone else could have given him what he sought from Merlin. I hadn’t exactly been raised with love and I turned out halfway decent. Still watching Merlin, I turned the page and felt a chill. Startled, I looked down…
But before I could see what the Painter had done, the book turned to dust. At the same time, the ground rumbled and it stopped snowing.
The Painter was dead.
Shaerl picked up the paintbrush and studied it for a moment. “I thought you said he had a magic paintbrush.”
“It is magic,” I said, though she didn’t hear me because I was still in wolf form. I could clearly see that it was the paintbrush Hawk made.
“The magic must have gone with him, then, because there’s nothing in this but metal, glass, and paint.”
I went to Merlin and sat beside him in silence. The others went inside, but I stayed with him. Soon, we were switched back. Shaerl brought me my robe and boots and, since it wasn’t snowing anymore, it was enough to keep me from freezing.
I sat with Merlin even when the sun set. The two moons illuminated the rapidly melting snow. Finally, Merlin stood. “His people had a ritual for death and I should honor it. Go inside and get warm.”
“No, I’m going to help you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your friend and that’s what friends do.”
“You have forgiven me for tricking you?”
“You didn’t trust me, and that hurts. I haven’t forgiven you for that, no, but I will. I don’t know what I did to make you think you had to trick me. I don’t think I’m unreasonable. You could have explained that you wanted to face him yourself. I would even have understood that you wanted to protect me. So, I’m going to be upset with you for a while. You’ve already proven that you trust me, it’s just hard to focus on that right now. The rest of this wasn’t your fault. The Painter wasn’t your fault.”
He didn’t respond because he didn’t want to argue. Still, I knew he blamed himself. I would have to figure out some way to help him.
As I stood, I noticed something on the Painter’s hand. “Isn’t that Ascelin’s ring?”
Merlin scowled at it. “It does look as Ascelin described it.”
I pulled it off his fingers, shivering as I did. There was something extremely morbid about removing a ring from his limp hand. I put it in my pocket and stepped back. “What was the Painter’s name?”
He was silent for a long moment before saying, “I don’t know.”
* * *
Shaerl searched the Painter’s body and found the bottle of paint, which she said contained no more magic than the brush. We burned the Painter’s body. It wasn’t a particularly strange custom to us considering our world was once ruled by dragons.
In the middle of this, Ilvera managed to steal Malaki’s wand and use it to shoot my father. Then she walked right into my trap. She pointed the wand at Shaerl, but the curse backlashed and burned her arm, causing her to shriek and drop it.
A wand or staff that was bonded to its owner could never be used against its owner. Malaki’s power was strong enough that his wand couldn’t be used by anyone except its owner.
I pushed every drop of my power into the portal, focusing my mind as hard as I could. I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to look when I heard my mother ask what they were doing. Soon, I felt Merlin helping me, giving me what energy he could in his cursed form.
She must have realized that it was me who had trapped her in the portal, because she started screaming all kinds of threats. Many of them, I had already heard from her.
“Focus,” Merlin said.
I refocused my attention and a moment later, her threats fell silent. I opened my eyes. It hadn’t been a trick; Ilvera Dracre was gone, possibly for the rest of my life. I looked at my father, dreading the anger on his face. I expected him to curse me. Instead, his expression was blank. Without a word to me, he went inside the house.
“Great. Now I have a new enemy.”
“Your father doesn’t like changes to his plan,” Shaerl said, “but you defeated your enemy, which he respects. Give him time to make a new plan.”
I was afraid I would be part of that plan. Besides, I didn’t have time to worry about him yet; I had one more thing to take care of before we headed back to Yuri’s castle. Merlin and I went to the house and grabbed the small mirror, confusing Yuri.
“Is the battle over?”
“Yes. We won. Call Alice,” I said, handing the mirror and my wand to him.
Frowning, he did as I asked. As soon as her face appeared, I took the mirror from him.
“Hello again, Ayden,” she said politely.
“We found your cat. Come get him.”
* * *
When Alice appeared in front of the cabin, the gigantic, invisible cat darted out of the forest and stopped in front of her before becoming visible. It was taller than a horse and twice as stocky, pure black, with large wings and two long fangs that grew out of its mouth and past its chin.
Alice beamed as the monstrous cat rubbed its head against her back. “That’s your cat?” Yuri asked.
She scowled at him. “Of course.”
“I don’t understand. How did he get here?”
“He was with us the entire time,” I said.
“Not the entire time,” Merlin corrected me.
“Right. He was going in and out of the Mirror Realm. He followed us when we were there, especially when I had that head wound, because he was attracted to blood.”
“So that’s why you told us to make the Painter bleed?” Yuri asked her. She nodded. “How did you know he was following us if you didn’t know where he was?”
“Actually, he didn’t follow you to Caldaca,” Alice said. “That was when I lost track of him. When you said that you needed my help, that was when I decided to send him to help you.”
“But if you didn’t know where he was---”
“I used you to find him,” she interrupted. “I decided to send him to you at a point in the future, so that I could find him now. Someday, I will send him back in time to that moment to help you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Merlin put his paw over his eyes. “I will explain later, young sorcerer,” he promised.
“Oh, I forgot!” Alice shouted. “I’m still grounded!” She and the cat vanished with a flash of light.
“I don’t think I like her very much,” Yuri said. The hatchling used his ear and hair to climb from his shoulder to his head. She was now silver and the light made her look blue.
“Well, according to Dessa, your destiny can’t be foreseen, so whether you want to work for her in the future is up to you.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I decided you’re right; my dragoness comes first. I love my parents and I want to return to them, but in the time since my dragon has hatched, I’ve realized it’s more than that with her. I feel what she feels and hear her thoughts. She nee
ds me more than my parents do. If it’s this strong for us, then I imagine it’s just as strong as for the other immortals.”
“Then you’re going to warn them?”
“Yes. I have three favors to ask, though. First, I need a way to find them. Second, I need a way to get to them. Third, and most importantly, I need you to help my kingdom.”
“I can help with all three. Since you’re an immortal, you’re connected to the other immortals, and you can use the magic mirror to find them.” He pointed my wand at the mirror and said, “Show me every person on Caldaca who is immortal, and their names.”
The mirror’s surface changed to show us a map of the world. Spread out across it were ten glowing blue dots and their names. Yuri pointed to the closest one. “It would take me a month by ship to get to him.”
“Not if you use magic.”
“I can’t transport myself.”
“You need something more reliable if you’re dealing with a person without magic and a dragon egg.” I took my mirror and wand from him and pointed the wand at the mirror. “Contact Mason Minof.”
The mirror chirped three times before Mason appeared on its surface. His face was red, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “What do you need, Ayden?” he asked, looking at something beside the mirror.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He expended great effort to tear his eyes from whatever was holding his attention. “What do you need?”
“Can Yuri borrow your boots for a month? He’s going to help some people.”
“Sure. Are you going with him?”
“No. Merlin and I are coming back to the kingdom to help defend it.”
Mason nodded and Yuri leaned in to see the room. “Are my parents okay?”
“They’re fine. You know there’s a dragon sitting on your head, right?”
“Yes. She seems to like it there.”
After bidding him farewell, we went to tell Shaerl the plan. Shaerl was in favor of it and promised to be ready for the new dragon guardians. I agreed to explain everything to Yuri’s parents and convince them to allow the new guardians and their dragons to stay at the kingdom.