The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  “Are the Faewraith another branch of Fae?”

  “For every good thing that groweth, a bad thing groweth as well. A tree grows and somewhere mistletoe tis born. A human tis born and a disease kills another one. Just like a halicorn tis the opposite of a unicorn, Faewraith art the opposite of Fae. They art born when a plant disease kills a plant. That fungus ate the magic, so Faewraith eat magic. Plants reflect in both worlds, Faewraith can reflect betwixt worlds.” He takes a deep breath. “Wow. Enough blabber. I want to show ye some more of this realm before we hast to head back.”

  “Head back? You said we had twenty-two days.”

  “Yea. But I art the last wizard. If I be gone for more than two’ish days, the Faewraith shall enter the realm and –”

  “I got it,” I snip, maybe a little too harshly. Because I don’t want to leave.

  We finish the rest of our questionable food items and head outside. Apparently everything in this realm is free because we don’t pay for our food.

  I fall into step beside him as he leads me down the cobbled road, having to either gallop to keep up with is longer strides or stretch out my own which also lacks grace, so I do an awkward mixture of both until he notices and shortens his pace to better equal mine.

  “Did you sleep better?” I ask.

  It takes him a curious moment to respond and when he does, it sounds like he is ashamed. “Yea. I thank thee.”

  The cluster of buildings we approach appear to be built with colored glass. I shake my head at the monstrous task of trying to understand even a part of this world. My confusion and curiosity charge into a sprint and my hair flips into my eyes with the speed of which I turn my head to see everything at once.

  I recognized some of the creatures, either from Durain’s own – obviously over-dramatized – tellings or from Zadicayn’s book I had purloined from Durain’s room. These creatures which were once the fabric of imagination I see here shopping, socializing, eating food on the patios of what appears to be some semblance of a café. I see a centaur – a horse with its neck replaced by a woman’s upper torso. An elf. A dwarf. A giant spider with hooves. A creature that stands taller than a human, five times as thick, green skin, and a face uglier than Joseara’s. I see another creature lounging in the shade of the tree. The first time I laid eyes on this creature was in Zadicayn’s book. The book called it a Moorias if I read the Old English text correctly. It’s the size and shape of a horse, though with blue scales, canine teeth, and a snake for a tail which is slithering in the grass.

  “Ye shalt break thy neck doing that. There tis still much more to see than ye ever wilt in thy lifetime.”

  I stop looking around so fiercely, but only because I’m getting a headache.

  “Where do all of these creatures come from?” Right now, my eyes are fixed on a creature that stands upright like a human with two arms and two legs but every other feature about them screams fish.

  “Remebereth my tellings about other worlds?”

  “…Yes?” I say hesitantly, because I’m not willing to believe it.

  “The Fae Realm tis the hub of a wagon wheel connecting all these realms. I hath even been to another realm with my father. There wert humans there also, but this realm had a functioning government made up of ten races of people, to include dragons, ecthore, seadwellers, pegasi… I canst nary remember the rest. I went there with my father on behalf of the Life to maketh an offer to the human king to accept the Fae magic. It wast to my understanding that this realm already hath magic, but some malady made the magic nearly inaccessible. There art other types of magic besides Fae magic, but I speak of that another time. The human king twas interested, but they wert amulet deep in some war at the time so he telleth us to come back some other time. We wert nary able to do so because that tis when the wizards started dying.”

  “You mean…” Zadicayn, my friend, had just opened up a whole new universe for me. “You mean you can take me to those other realms?” My heart is racing.

  My new future is flashing in brilliant sparks in front of me until he kills it all with, “I couldst. But I must hast Life’s permission to cross borders if I bringest someone with me. I can nary do that, however, since it wouldst take time and I can nary be away from the Human Realm for that long.”

  My disappointment is hard to push away. Now that I’ve had a taste of the Fae Realm, I only want more. Now I think I have an idea what Ivan the Terrible went through. I think of Aklen who is nearing a Lordship granted by Queen Victoria and he wants to harvest the magic out of Zadicayn’s amulet to still get more money. Then I think of Joseara, who expressed she is glad she isn’t part of my fine society. Rich men only want more.

  Apparently I have stopped walking and I’m looking at all this realm has to offer because Zadicayn presses his arm into my back to guide me into a shop with the glass door wide open. Shelves spread across all four walls from floor to ceiling. A human is standing behind the blue glass counter. I’m so shocked to see her that I exclaim, “Oh! A human!”

  Zadicayn laughs and I blush furiously.

  The woman laughs too. She is soft of features, gentle wrinkles around her eyes laying testament to her valor upon bearing every one with humbleness. “First visit to the Fae Realm?” She has an accent where she hangs longer onto vowels. It sounds like English is not her first language. What other languages are there in all the other realms?

  I can only nod, though I have relocated closer to the woman. She is something I recognize.

  “You’ll get used to it, sweetie. Here to live?”

  “Just to visit.” Zadicayn approaches the counter as well. “She’s got a betrothed waiting for her in the Human Realm.”

  The woman clucks her tongue a couple of times and shakes her head as she continues to fold the clothing articles on the glass counter. “Too bad you’re not betrothed to the young wizard here.” She tilts her head to Zadicayn and winks at me. “He’s quit handsome.”

  “Lorcrante…” Zadicayn exaggerates, though he still turns away and rubs the back of his neck under his ponytail. “Ye thinks the troll outside tis handsome.”

  “Tssssk, Zadicayn. Nice guys finish last. Why haven’t I seen any of the human wizards in over three hundred years? Things going that good?”

  Zadicayn finally faces us both. His face is still rogued. He nods my way. “I brought Brine here to show her the wonders of your shop.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sure she didn’t come to hear and old woman badger. But you, Zadicayn, cannot avoid it.” She looks at me with an easy smile. “There is no currency in the Fae Realm. We function on a system of trade. If you find something in this shop you like, I will ask that you trade it for something equal in usefulness. Or if you tell me a fun story, you can have it for free.” She winks at me.

  I smile back and move to the nearest shelf, followed by Zadicayn. There is a smorgasbord of items my eyes trace up and down on the shelves. Some high enough it would take the ladder next to me to reach. Some things I recognize. Some things I don’t.

  “What is all this stuff?” I say, picking up the nearest thing within reach which happens to be a cylinder of some lightweight, shiny material with a cone on one end and something like glass covering it.

  “The Life hath roving wizards who travel through all the realms to bring them Fae Magic, and these wizards collect items and sometimes donate them to shops like this either to interest, teach, or use.” He takes the cylinder out of my hand. He pushes something on the side and a beam of light shoots out of the top of the cylinder.

  “What?” I gasp, reaching for it. He hands it back. I take it and wave it, directing the beam of light all around the room like it might be a sword, managing to blind myself in the process.

  “The traveler called it a flashlight.” Lorcrante appears beside me. “He said it was from a realm that had something called teknology. Said he saw metal wagons flying in the air, too.”

  How can I possibly go back into a tied dress knowing there is a universe out there I can
explore?

  Achingly, I put the flashlight back on the shelf. It takes Zadicayn to press a black nub on the shaft for the light to disappear. Now I just want to touch everything in here. And so I start to do just that. I rove about the shop, Lorcrante following me with an explanation to each item and a little about the realm it came from. Realms entirely underwater. Realms completely on fire where the people there have scales for skin. A realm where everything flies. And more and more so I don’t remember them all.

  Zadicayn is waiting patiently by while I exhaust my curiosity, but at this rate it will never be sated, not until I’ve touched every object in every realm just described to me. Like Ivan… Brinella the Terrible.

  It’s with force I back away from the shelves. Well, maybe with a little prompting from Zadicayn. Promising to Lorcrante that he will return, Zadicayn and I leave the shop.

  It only occurs to me in that moment of something else that’s curious. “She remembered you.”

  “The Fae Realm tis immortal. No one in it can die, so no one can age. Rather, if they choose, they can be recycled into the land to support or create new life. Rememberest what I sayeth about magic cannot create?”

  He is right. It is too much to understand. “She asked if I lived here. Could I choose to live here?”

  “Certain. But I shan’t let ye.”

  “Why?”

  He looks at me with those gold eyes and it answers all of my questions. My family. I’m betrothed.

  He walks me down the cobbled road until the colored glass buildings stretch further behind us. A smaller path snakes left which we follow until we reach a grassy spot needled with fruit trees and patched with a pond fed by a stream.

  A herd of horses lounge in the area in the shade under the trees, but they all lift their heads upon our arrival.

  They all have wings. There is a pegasus on my hairbrush Zadicayn gave me. The color and breed of horse vary. Some breeds I recognized, some I don’t. Some have horns on the center of their heads.

  “I needeth a ride back to the Eldenshod Castle.”

  Two pegasi climb to their feet and trot toward us; a white splotched with brown patches and the other a stormy gray swirl.

  “She hast nary ridden a pegasus before. She shalt need some instruction.”

  The white and brown nods. It’s unnerving to have an animal act so intelligently. The pegasi bends so both knees press into the grass. “Get on between the base of my neck and wing span,” the pegasus says, startling me in the same way that hearing the gryphon did when it spoke, and the dragon.

  I look at Zadicayn who has already mounted the gray pegasus. Zadicayn’s long coat I’m wearing will still cover most of what my dress will not once I mount. I slide a leg behind the pegasi’s neck and grip handfuls of the brown mane.

  The pegasi shakes her head. “Not so tight. Your legs against the base of my wing span will brace you when I fly upward. I won’t do anything that might compromise your safety as long as you stay seated. Ready?”

  “Yes,” I mumble nervously, stomach clenching. I lean forward so I can hug the entire neck, ignoring Zadicayn who is laughing at me. I want to fly, much like a moth attracted to flame except I am aware of the danger and Zadicayn is not behind to hold me.

  Both pegasi swoosh wings downward. Higher and higher they take us, the brown and white following the gray. Zadicayn’s black ponytail whips behind him.

  I lift arms above my head, the wind tearing at the blue sleeves on Zadicayn’s coat. Zadicayn thinks he’s taking me back. I clutch the silky mane between my fingers, memorizing the pulse of muscle beneath my thighs, the whoosh of freedom as it tosses my hair between the straining wing span.

  The glass buildings shrink to salt granules beneath me. Air gushes down the neck of my dress, flapping my clothes as if they have wings of their own. I inhale cloud and sunlight.

  We soar through five of the air portals until we pop above a rugged mountain range like a jaw line of broken teeth.

  The pegasi land on the castle bridge too soon. A full year of flying would still end too soon. We dismount. As if marching to my funeral, I walk next to Zadicayn into his castle with head bowed, preparing for the death of my time with him in the Fae Realm as easily as preparing for my upcoming marriage.

  “Someone else would like to meet with you,” I say to distract the silence pounding in my ears… or to distract me from crying? I’m not sure. I wouldn’t even know why I would be crying. Why do girls even cry without reason? I don’t know. And I am a girl. Who has cried before. Without reason.

  “Who does?”

  “His name is Corden. He’s one of the people who lied to my parents, saying he was taking me to Bristol for a week so I could spend that week, instead, looking for you. And then I found you. He’s good friends with Joseara and is also on your side.”

  Your side… as if a line had been drawn and the people of Valemorren had been hoodwinked into one of two categories in my mind.

  He takes a deep breath and releases it in a whistle. “I dost nary wit, Brine. I…” His fingers flex.

  I’ll give a moment to figure out what was trying to say. And then I’ll blast him with more questions because I don’t like the tone he used in his refusal. Like… like he’s not counting on anything beyond today.

  I still knoweth the spell that let me live for three hundred twenty-four years in the vault. If Life shalt approve my spell again…

  No. Now I’m scaring myself and making up stories. Zadicayn agreed he wouldn’t do that. Didn’t he agree?

  He walks me back through the arch. I think about kicking and screaming to stay in the Fae Realm but I doubt I’ll have much luck.

  “So…” he says, as if standing before his peers waiting to be judged for a performance, “wast all that worth it?”

  I look at him. Wordless.

  “I shalt take that to mean, ‘Zadicayn, ye art a minor pagan god and all the land shouldst worship thee.’”

  “And you’re humble, too.”

  He nods. “I encompass overmany things. I hopeth ye shalt take this as suitable payment for everything ye hast done for me.”

  I think his self-proclaimed mission to “pay me back” was unnecessary, but then I have never in my whole life been so happy or free and I could go a lifetime of reprimands from both my parents if they ever found out and still never regret this day.

  I want to launch myself at him, then I think upon why I want to embrace him so much. I don’t know why. I don’t allow myself to make up reasons, either.

  I settle with a lacking-in-luster, “I am wordless to describe my joy over this gift you have given me.”

  “Then we art finally even in both our gifts. I shall now be at rest knowing I hath paid my end and so shall be at peace with never seeing thee again.”

  My smile drops. “What?”

  He keeps walking. We’ve reached the Grand Hall and he keeps across it as if his destination will be the Fae Gate. I stop, my bare feet cold upon the floor. He turns around.

  “What did you say?” Fear lodges in my throat. His refusal to accept meeting Corden and the shivering memory of, I still knoweth the spell that let me live for three hundred twenty-two years in the vault has panic rising my chest.

  “Brine… I must get thee back –”

  “You’re going to put yourself back in the vault?”

  “Brine… cometh with me.”

  “No!” It comes out in a shriek I did not intend. I turn around and run back into the corridor. The tromp of his boots are quick to pursue.

  He catches me thirty steps deep into the corridor. Now I’m kicking and making incoherent animalistic noises as he throws me over his shoulders like I’ve seen farmers do to their sheep.

  “Put me down! Don’t put yourself in the vault! I won’t let you! I will only come back! Put me down! Don’t put yourself in the vault! You’ll torment me the rest of my life knowing I freed you only so you could go back in!” I don’t know where the tears are coming from but I let them flow,
letting them wash my heart out of my eyes and onto his shoulder so he will feel what devastating blow he’s nailing into my chest.

  He stops walking. I think it’s my tears that have halted him so I keep crying. He slides me off is shoulders which was a bad move for him because if I can’t run far enough to hid then I will cling onto his clothes so he will have to remove them if he has any chance of breaking my grip.

  “Don’t put yourself back in the vault…” I whisper into his chest, some reasonable sense in my head saying my tears are ridiculous but I won’t stop them because, for the moment, they are keeping him rooted to the spot.

  “Brine…” He’s not returning the embrace, standing like a wall against my grief I am trying to slam into him. “I hath already told thee why I must.”

  I shake my head vigorously. “No. NO! There is another way. No one ages in the Fae Realm. You could… you could stay in the Fae Realm for as long as possible, visit the Human Realm just long enough to chase the Faewraith away, and then go back to the Fae Realm.”

  “Nay. The Faewraith nary come the moment I leave this realm because they art nary expecting it. But if I shall be out of the realm more than I art in it, they shall soon notice and watch for the moment I leave to come in.”

  “Well, fine, speak the spell to make yourself live forever, but you don’t have to lock yourself in the vault!”

  “I can nary speak a spell to makest me live forever. I only knoweth the words to prevent me from aging. I can still fall off the bridge, get struck by lightning, catch the plague –”

  “We don’t have the plague anymore!”

  “Ye dost nary understand. I must live forever. I can stop my aging. The vault wilt stop the other mortal maladies.”

  “No!”

  “Yea, Brine.”

  “I shan’t let you!” I don’t know why that Old English word fell into my vocabulary just now. Maybe I subconsciously thought he wasn’t understanding my pleas because they weren’t in his dialect.