The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  “Please!” I shout, desperately, restlessly pacing about the small space of my disc of light as my brain tries to absorb the entirety of what this all means. “I hast nary killed selfishly. I just want to live. Humans just want to live. There art selfish humans just like there art selfish dragons or elves. Dost nary condemn the whole race because of a few. Help me keep the Faewraith away!”

  “Twenty men could not do it.”

  “Then how about twenty women?”

  A hiss so loud and deadly rattles my bones. “Females cannot do this thing. It is not their role. Females give life. Males protect it.”

  “And why canst they nary switch? What remarkable balance wouldst it hurt?” I will argue until I am out of breath, out of time, out of life.

  “Because males cannot give life. If they gave life too, who would protect it?”

  “Not every female is going to –” It is useless. Arguing. “What if I findeth nineteen good men?”

  “You could find a hundred, but the cycle of selfishness is immortal. It would only start again. And again. And again. At some point the humans will simply kill all the wizards and the Faewraith will still come.”

  That would still be better, I think. At least then Brine could live a complete, happy life and not be slaughtered by the Faewraith. “Asketh the Essence of Human what she thinks upon thy decision.”

  “She speaks with us.”

  “And she tis a’right to killeth all the humans?”

  “We would not kill all the humans. We would pull in one female and one male to repopulate again. Maybe by doing so it would erase all the faults these humans were born with.”

  “One more chance,” I beg, dropping to one knee. “Please.”

  “We have a thousand realms to watch, Human Wizard. You are no more special than the others. Your realm is not the first to be consumed by the Faewraith. Nor will it be the last.”

  “Please…”

  The voices do not respond.

  They are done.

  OOO

  I storm down the tunnel in the mountain, likely leaving shatter spots in the Fae wood floor with how heavily I tromp. Fury, hate, and sorrow swirl behind me like a damned shadow.

  I stop, slamming my fist into the wall. Pain radiates up my arm but nothing breaks or bleeds in the Fae Realm.

  I slump against my arm, against the wall, strangled by sobs and every snake of my emotions biting at my throat so I can’t breathe.

  The humans will die… they will all die and it will be my fault because I can’t live forever… I will die… Brine will die…

  I slide to the floor in a heap lesser than a naked man stolen of his dignity and honor. Brine is my lighthouse on the shores of my stormy ocean I cannot get to. Someday I’ll find my anchor, direction, the courage to brave the ocean, but if that lighthouse extinguishes before that time I’ll drown.

  I’m still recovering from three hundred twenty-four years of having no one to touch and my emotions are still broken beneath me. I don’t know to what emotion should be pieced together with what. The only sure thing I know right now is that lighthouse, shining upon me in the direction I need to go.

  But she’ll be gone upon my death. I am able to wrangle a wedge between what I need and what I want so enough room between them lets me accept she will be married to another man. And why not? She had a life before she found me, and I’ve got nothing to offer her. But seeing her die because I can’t prevent the Faewraith from coming drives rusty nails into my chest.

  I stand and fist the wall again. And again. And again. The pain maxes to a muffled hum up my arm but I don’t stop until I’m out of rage.

  “Every life matters!” I shout to the mountain. “Every… damned… one!”

  I attempt to package my emotions small enough to where I can hide them in my pocket and keep Brine from seeing. They don’t shrink gently, but I jam them down anyway. She doesn’t need to be involved in my war with Life.

  I walk across the bridge. Coming off the other side, I stop, putting both hands on my hips. I would have expected her to be sleeping. After all, it is about the time in the Human Realm when she would naturally be asleep. I, of course, haven’t slept well since the last time she spent the night with me in my kitchen, but I doubt she is haunted by such things as what keeps me awake.

  But, in either case, she is neither sleeping nor awake.

  She is gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  BRINELLA

  It’s alive.

  Of course it’s alive.

  Nothing dies in the Fae Realm.

  I want to touch it.

  Really.

  Bad.

  I creep down the grassy hillside speared in places with clusters of crystal. The dragon looks like a cat in the way all four legs are tucked under him, wings folded upon its back. Its long neck is stretched forward on the ground, massive ribs heaving in and out as it breaths.

  Now I’m standing in front of it, the breath from his two nostrils like dinner plates fluttering Zadicayn’s blue coat.

  A dragon.

  I’m looking at a dragon.

  How would Durain react to this? My heart aches to share this with him. I take a tiny step forward. I probably will die when I touch the dragon, but I can’t think of a better way to go.

  I rest my palm on his green nose, the texture of the scales like flattened soap bubbles stuck together, bumpy and smooth. I rub back and forth to feel them better. The dragon does not move.

  Total reason goes out the window now and I begin rubbing my hands all over its horned face, around the closed eyes, behind the two fans that I think are it’s ears.

  “Brine!”

  I spin around at the sharp tone, hiding my hands behind my back as if to hid what I had been doing.

  Zadicayn walks down the hill and I finally feel ashamed for wandering away when he told me to stay. But that was like throwing sweetmeats around a child and telling him he can’t have any.

  I open my mouth to say something when a louder, deeper voice above my head says,

  “You ruined my massage.”

  I tilt my head back. The dragon’s green neck is swaying above me, looking toward Zadicayn. “Go away so the girl can get back to it.”

  Zadicayn’s gold eyes fix on the dragon, and then on me. “I shall. I just came to reclaim me coat.”

  The dragon rests his head back in the grass covered in velvet dusk and moonlight. “You may continue,” he says.

  Zadicayn stands beside me. I feel his irritation.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t realize how far I wandered. Then I didn’t know how to make it back.”

  “Tis a’right. Just sent me into a panic when I feared I wouldst nary find ye again. Ye shan’t die or harm here, but there art things that wilt find ye as interesting as ye findeth them. Like the gorgakes. They shall kidnap thee.”

  “I know. Again, I’m sorry.”

  “If you are not going to get back to your massage, then leave my nest so I can sleep.”

  My hands go to the dragon again.

  “Brine…”

  “He likes it. Just another minute.”

  I rub around the joint that connects the canvas-like wings to his back. A steady hum pulses beneath my fingers. Is the dragon purring?

  I rub harder and the dragon growls in pleasure, rolling onto his side, and finally his back so I am rubbing his belly.

  “Brine, under my chin…” the dragon moans. I oblige.

  “Brine, we must goeth now.”

  “Where are you headed?” the dragons asks, stretching his body.

  “Espelyniumthriwath.”

  “Let the girl finish her business on me and I will fly you there.”

  Zadicayn sighs and sits in the grass, lounging back in his elbows. He’s not as happy as usual. His meeting with Life must not have gone well. I’ll ask him about it later.

  I notice a sparse cluster of Lethea beneath the dragon as he rolls. These people in the human world – or whatev
er realm the Fae Realm encompasses right at this spot – have been rolled over by the dragon and don’t even know it. Then I wonder how many times I’ve been stepped on by a dragon in the Human Realm.

  Only when my fingers are sore do I stop. The dragon shudders and stretches one more time before rising to his feet.

  “My name is Varlith. Next time you are in the area, call for me and I will let you honor yourself again with touching my body.”

  I giggle. Then I see his narrowed eyes and see that he is serious.

  “Okay.”

  Zadicayn pulls his body onto the dragon’s back first, reaching a hand down to me. I’m pulled in front of him.

  I feel the dragon’s muscle pulse beneath my legs as he stretches his wings. With a whoosh that flings my hair and Zadicayn’s blue coat into disarray, the dragon propels off the ground with more force than the gryphon. I gasp and lean forward but Zadicayn already has his arms around me and is holding tightly.

  I don’t watch the land slid beneath me this time despite how I want to enjoy it all over again. Nausea crackles in the back of my nose. I pinch my eyes, grateful for Zadicayn holding onto me because I have to shift my focus so I don’t throw up.

  The dragon lowers his head. I lean back but a reassuring, “Tis a’right,” in my ear calms me like it has done already. The dragon lands with a massive shifting and titling of his body. He lowers his chest to the grass and we slid off.

  It was only a ten minute ride but already the purple dusk thickens to black, speckled with stars as if someone had spilled salt across a table cloth. I recognize some constellations, so it is the same sky.

  “We thank ye, Varlith.”

  The beast nods his massive head once. “So long as your girl here comes back to honor herself on me again, you are welcome.” With a bark, the dragon jumps and swooshes massive wings away from us.

  I feel less nauseous now that we aren’t flying. But now I’m tired. I would normally be asleep during this time in the Human Realm. But I don’t need to mention this to Zadicayn because he says,

  “Let’s get somewhere to sleep.”

  I follow him to the small cluster of buildings I saw when we landed after flying on the gryphon. It’s like a small hamlet. Who lives here?

  He directs me to the closest building. For everything I can tell, it looks like it’s made of glass.

  The doorway has no covering. No door. We walk inside. It looks to be a sort of common room, like for a hotel, but with glass furniture popping with pillows and blankets. And in the wall… it’s wrong to call it a fireplace, because there is no fire. Just a cluster of red crystals that feel as if they are actually putting out heat. Shadows even flicker from them, looking like surreal flits of movement.

  Zadicayn urges me forward and up the stairs. We pass doorways shrouded with sheets until we reach an open one. Zadicayn steps inside. I hesitate before following him.

  “Ye shalt sleepeth here.”

  “Don’t we need to check in or something? Pay?”

  He shakes his head, his short black ponytail strung with colored beads brushing the back of his neck. The glow from the yellow crystals affixed to the wall for light magnify his gold irises. “Nary in the Fae Realm. I shalt sleep in the common room if ye shouldst need to find me during the night. Hast a pleasant sleep, Brine. I shalt see thee on the morrow.” He unties the blanket from the doorframe and it falls closed behind him.

  Inside the room is a glass framed bed with a mattress and blankets neatly folded at the foot. Next to it is a table with a pitcher of water. I’m hungry and thirsty, and daring this water, I drink it. Food, I suppose, will have to come later.

  I lay down, remembering at just that moment that I’m still wearing Zadicayn’s coat. Its touch has become as natural as my dress.

  I should return it to him. He said he’d be down in the common room with the weird crystal fireplace.

  I consider just keeping his coat for the night. I am so tired and this bed… my conscience won’t let me. He only didn’t ask for it because he’s being nice. I won’t take advantage of that.

  I stand from the bed and tie back the curtain so I’ll know which room is mine, and head downstairs.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ZADICAYN

  The fire crystals actually make the same popping noises as real fire would do against wood. They even throw snakes of shadows about, too.

  Mostly, it is warm. And despite that warmth I’m still wrapped in a wool blanket provided on the glass couch. Warmth is like touch, two things I didn’t have in the vault. The vault wasn’t, really, cold, but it was not warm. About as warm as stone is in a shadowy place deep in a castle. I eventually got used to it, but now feeling this… warmth was like blood filling again a limb gone numb.

  “Zadicayn?” I turn to see Brine walking barefoot into the common room, my coat draped over her arm. She looks as tired as I feel, though I am still glad that at least she will get sleep tonight. “I’m returning your coat.”

  “Hold onto it,” I say. “We shall fly back on the morrow. Tis always colder higher up. I thank thee for thy concerns upon my coat, but nary worry thyself this night. I pray thee sleep well. I shalt see thee on the morrow.” What I hope was a respectful dismissal of her instead, somehow, empowers her to come closer.

  “Are you okay?”

  No. “Yea. Just tired.” She doesn’t move. Can she see my drooped shoulders as if someone is pushing down on them? I straighten up. “I art fine, Brine.” I try to forge a smile from the remains of hers. “I shalt see thee on the morrow.”

  Of course that is not what my body language is screaming and she, apparently, can read it.

  “I’m still a little hesitant in the Fae Realm,” she says. “Things are still… weird to me. Can I sit with you a little while?”

  Her excuse is a bad lie. “And yet ye wandered off on thy own to fondle a dragon.”

  “I wasn’t fondling him!”

  “The dragon sure thought so.”

  She fidgets awkwardly. “Okay. But sleeping is different. I always have trouble sleeping in a place I am not familiar with.”

  I’m not sure how she expects me to fix that for her, but then I know that is not the reason she is down here. She’s already sitting on the couch, leaning in too close and manages to find a spot of skin on my arm not covered by my blanket to touch with her fingers.

  She knows how I’m still affected by touch, how every time I’m touched it stitches my Snakes to my body so they don’t wave about at random. Problem is, the more I’m touched the more I want it. Badly. Someday, some way, that need will be fulfilled, but it cannot be by her.

  I pull my arm away. She takes a breath as if to say something but stops. I hope she knows it already so I don’t have to explain it.

  But now that she is sitting squarely beside me, she’s going to pick up on that I haven’t slept for a while and nitpick me about it and likely offer solutions I cannot take, so I start our casual conversation in her direction. Maybe I can distract her enough she’ll forget about the things I can’t concern her with.

  “So… I shall act the big brother and demand to knoweth everything about Jaicom Whaerin to make sure he be a suitable husband for thee. Such as, how didst ye meet him, dost he hast a job, ye know.” I smile her direction but she doesn’t return it.

  She shuffles about in her blanket. “Well… when I told you I didn’t know if he was serious, I was being honest. You see, he’s the richest bachelor in Valemorren. My father has money too, but when it comes to status, there are other girls more equal to Jaicom. The first day he started to court me was the day of my cousin’s funeral. He shows up, out of the blue and asks if he can escort me to the parish, which is seen as an oddity in my society because…”

  Most of her telling is taken up with can do’s and can’t do’s of the current society. I find it hard to keep track but she assures me it is important for me to understand how odd it is that Jaicom was even courting her in the first place. Apparently, her soon
to be father-in-law, Aklen Whaerin, doesn’t like her, and when Brine tells me of all the cases that make her think so I have to agree with her.

  “…It was especially odd that Jaicom didn’t come see to my health after I was returned from my kidnap.”

  I sit up sharply. “Thy what?”

  “Oh… I didn’t tell you about that. Well…”

  And so Brine was kidnapped. By a gypsy named Jesaro and a monkey named Tommy. From her telling, she was blaming the monkey.

  It’s clear she is safe and sound beside me but my heart is beating in my throat just from hearing her tell the story, as if maybe she would not get rescued by Joseara.

  “While I was tied up in the tent, I thought I heard Aklen’s name pass among my kidnappers but I know that’s not right because I already don’t like the man and my mind was just looking for stories to make up so I could hate him further. And then I…”

  She inevitably ends at the Ball where Jaicom asked to marry her. Or rather, she was told she was going to marry him.

  “Huh,” is my response. I leave it like that for a long moment, trying to recall details of Durain’s death that she has so far told me. A suspicion is nagging on me. “Well, I sayeth ye hath my blessing to marry Jaicom Whaerin.”

  “Now my parents are putting me on a train to send me to Bristol to visit my grandparents because they won’t be able to come to the wedding. They did this without asking me. I am so tired of people telling me what to do.”

  “A train? What tis that?”

  She looks at me oddly before realization dawns on her. “Oh. It’s… a big machine. And really long. Like… a bunch of enclosed metal wagons linked together. It travels really fast on things called tracks, powered by steam. I really don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Faster than a horse?”

  “Much faster.”

  “And whence dost this trip commence?”

  She looks sharply at me though a smile teases the corner of her mouth. “Why, so you can show up unexpectedly like you did at the ball?”