The Dragon's Apprentice

by Ben Marble

  The world she would create for Michael would be like a dream to him. She would have full control. The idea was to test and see if she could get his mind back on track to where it needed to be. This meant creating situations where he would have to make choices. Ember would have to put his morality to the test. This was something that all wizards underwent eventually, but not until they were chosen to move beyond apprenticeship. Since most wizards would study a decade or two with their dragons that meant that this was extremely early to be giving someone such a test. But at this point it was necessary.

  She watched Michael wake. To him, he would just suddenly be in this empty hallway alone. The positive to this test is that it should leave any madness of the chaos behind and she would be able to see Michael as he was, and see if there was any permanent damage that they would not be able to get rid of. The dream would act as a filter and help remove the chaos while he was in this state. It meant that Ember would get some of the effects but it would not have much if any chance of driving her mad or penetrating her mind. Rather it would just weaken her slightly for a few days to weeks. It was nothing that she could not deal with.

  He was up and moving down the hallway. Michael moved slowly and carefully looking around trying to figure out how he had gotten there. Ember stretched the vision so the Hallway seemed infinite in both directions. For right now there were no doors, the dark green walls went up high enough that Michael would not see the ceiling, and the floor would seem an unbroken slate gray. This was necessary to ensure his mind was completely in the dream. If he could suddenly snap out of it and wake, it could damage his mind even further. Ember had to make sure he was accepting the dream as reality.

  After a few moments, Michael summoned a globe of light to his hand to brighten what he could see. Ember smiled because you could not pull magic into the dream unless you either accepted it as reality or understood the nature of where you were. He was deep enough that she could start playing with the landscape.

  She allowed him to move about fifty more feet or so before he came to a bright red door in the hall. Rather than just open it, Michael looked around carefully first. He tossed his globe of light up in the air, where it traveled and then fizzled out. Ember created the illusion of a ceiling up high enough where it couldn't be accessed. No use in letting her student decide there might be another way out rather than the door.

  His hand touched the door, and it swung open even before he turned the knob. The room it led to was a plain square with one cherry wood bench at the side. On this bench sat an image of Ember watching Michael carefully. She made sure that the image was just slightly off how she appeared to the mortals. The skin was just a shade too tan, the hair a little less red. Her eyes more of a Hazel then green. This was done on a level where Michael might notice, but more on a subconscious level. She needed him to have doubts about what her image was going to tell him.

  The shadow Ember stood up and addressed her apprentice.

  "Good, you're here Michael. I was worried that you might not make it," Ember smiled at how Michael's back stiffened at her words. Good, he didn't trust her shadow, that was as it should be. "I am sorry for the short notice but it's time for you to take a test."

  "How did you bring me here?" Michael kept his motions stiff as he approached shadow Ember. "I was in bed after," He closed his eyes for a moment and hesitated. "I tried to kill Xander. Is this test because I tried to kill him?"

  "Yes,” shadow Ember put her hand on his shoulder comfortingly. Ember eschewed physical contact unless necessary so this would also feel strange to him. "This test will decide whether or not you will keep learning as my apprentice, or if it will be time to replace you with another. I don't want to replace you so please don't fail at this." Shadow Ember moved her hand to the far wall and another red door appeared.

  "Beyond that door is a girl. You have never met her and will never meet her again. She did murder another apprentice much in the same way you tried to kill Xander." Shadow Ember held Michael's eyes as she spoke. "You have a choice when you go in there, and I cannot tell you what the right choice is because this is something you have to figure out for yourself. You will have to either execute this girl for her crimes or let her live."

  "So, I am to decide if she lives or dies," Michael crossed his arms. "That seems too simple, what is the catch."

  "You will discover the catch when you get in there." Shadow Ember grabbed his arm slightly to add more unfamiliar touch. "I will tell you that she killed the other apprentice not out of malice, but because she felt she was in the right. She claims the apprentice was undermining their master and planned on killing them all. As this is a problem with human fallibilities, I think a human would be best to judge this matter."

  "Why do I have to kill her? Can I just pass judgment and let her master punish her? That is his job as her master is it not?" Ember read Michael's hesitance as a good sign.

  "If you are the one to pass judgment you need to be sure of your choice." Shadow Ember looked sad for a moment. "That means if you judge you are the one to mete out the punishment. I want you to understand the full responsibility of your actions. That means if you feel that you need to call for a beheading, you will swing the Axe." Shadow Ember shook her head. "I know this is a lot to put on your shoulders, but it needs to be done and I trust you to make the right choice."

  With that Shadow Ember simply faded and was gone. This left Michael alone in the room with the first one of his choices. He could go back the way he came and try to find a way out, or he could go into the other room and start to face the decision. He stood a few moments and looked around as if hoping another option presented itself, and when one did not he walked right up to and through the door without looking back the way he came. Score one for Michael, Ember thought. Most hesitated more at this point, or few even decided to go the other way. Very few did what Michael had just done and walked right through the door.

  In the next room, Michael found his second choice. This room was longer, and the about two thirds of it was contained behind bars. The bars themselves had some spell work on them that would make it easy for Michael to open them if he wanted to. The girl at the end who had not noticed him come in was working frantically at a wooden door on the opposite side of the room. A slight glow around her showed she had been shielded from being able to touch magic. The state of the rags she wore that used to be clothing made it appear she may have been here a while. Her long brown hair lay clumped and greasy around her head, but Michael could not get a look at her face from where he stood.

  As he approached the bars, the door the girl was working at cracked loudly. The girl stiffened and started to back away in fear. The door continued to make a cracking sound, and something started banged hard on the other side. The door was visibly breaking. The girl scrambled backward as quickly as she could. The door finally flew to pieces with one last mighty smash, and a large figure walked in.

  Magical creatures were part of any student’s studies and the ogre was common enough that Michael should recognize it right off the bat. The resurgence of magic with the dragons meant that all kinds of creatures had awakened with them, and the apprentices need to know how to deal with such monsters. Ogres were brutal and remorseless. They also enjoyed eating the flesh of humans when they could get away with it. The creature would make quick work of the prisoner if left unchecked, and the choice would be taken out of Michael's hands. This was another chance for him to dodge the responsibility of judging the prisoner. It would be a choice that Michael could argue was the dragon's fault for not securing the prisoner properly.

  Her apprentice did not hesitate. Michael quickly threw a fireball at the ogre's chest, not with enough heat and force to kill it but enough to beat it back. The creature backpedaled a little and then focused its small cruel eyes on Michael rather than the prisoner.

  The prison bars swung open as Michael calmly entered, then snapped shut back into place. The ogre reached down and grabbed a long flat section of the door an
d swung it back and forth like a club and growled. Michael being the better part of six and a half feet was not used to having to address other's by looking up, but the ogre was easily three feet taller than her apprentice and several times heavier.

  "I will give you a choice," Michael stepped in front of the prisoner and crossed his arms. "You can turn around and go back through that doorway, and we will pretend this never happened." Michael uncrossed his arms and formed another fireball that hovered above his hand. "Or, you could stupidly keep trying to make this girl a meal and I will be forced to destroy you."

  Ember watched her apprentice with a little bit of pride. Once again he made the right choice. He had made it without hesitation. Michael held his ground steadily and waited to act. The ogre for his part rubbed his bald head and seemed to be thinking about it. Then, without warning, it charged forward.

  The Ogre slammed its club downward and Michael threw his fireball at the creature's face as he dodged to the side. The club cracked loudly as it hit the granite floor and Michael threw a blade of air which cut the club in half.

  "I was trying to be nice you ugly," Michael started throwing blades of air at the ogre forcing it to back up. Every time he hit it, it left cuts across the ogre's skin. Ember knew that Michael could have killed the creature with one well-placed cut, but instead he was backing it back through the doorway. He still wanted to avoid killing the large murderous creature. Ember smiled. That could be a problem later but not during this test.

  It could not be that easy. Ember had the ogre suddenly throw itself to the side and grab a handful of of wood shards from the door. He launched them through the air, not at Michael, but at the prisoner behind him.

  Once again Michael avoided the easy way out and started deflecting the wood out of the air. This, gave the large creature enough of a break to charge Michael.

  The ogre broke forth quickly, and despite the blood running down its front and the rest of the damage, the beast was not slowing at all. No more games, Michael would have to face this beast head on.

  Ember's apprentice barely got his shield up in time. He took the full impact of ogre hitting him with its shoulder and running him back into the bars with all its weight. The sound of metal screaming as it bent filled Ember's ears as Michael held onto his shield. The ogre backed from its charge and grabbed Michael throwing him to the other side of the cell and with a loud thump. The shield went out around Michael.

  With a groan, Michael pulled himself shakily to his feet. The shield would have protected him, but it would have been a sharp pull on his energy to keep himself protected from both impacts. There were full wizards who would not be able to get up at this point. The ogre had gone back to ignoring Michael again and was approaching the prisoner. Now no one could fault Michael if the ogre made a meal out of the girl. There was no reason to expect him to use what energy he had left to save the girl when he might need it to get out of there alive.

  "Hey, we are not done yet freak show," Michael stepped forward and the ogre hesitated. It slowly turned towards Michael and braced itself to charge. Her apprentice never gave it the chance. A large ice lance appeared in his hand and he launched it full force at the towering creature. Backed by magic the lance went straight through the ogre's hands which had been raised to block the four-foot spear, and then straight through the ogre's chest and out it's back where it buried itself in the far wall past the bars. The ogre stared at Michael in surprise for a moment and then fell forward dead before it hit the ground.

  Instead of falling in the exhaustion Michael must be feeling, Ember watched him walk to the back of the room and magically wall off the doorway the ogre had come through. Instead of doing a magic field he would have to maintain, he simply pulled from the stone around where the door had been and grew it until it melded together and formed a solid wall. Then, and only then he allowed himself to collapse.

  Ember let Michael feel like he lost consciousness. It was mere seconds before his eyes opened again, but as far as his dream-self was concerned Michael would feel like he had slept for several hours and awoke fresh and energized. There was no daylight in the cell that Ember had to play with to make it seem time had passed. Instead, she simply made it seem that the blood from the ogre on the floor had dried and darkened. The prisoner in the cell was sitting a few arms lengths from Michael watching him carefully.

  Michael stood as he "woke" and stretched. He watched the girl as she sat there and tried not to look startled. Ember had molded the girl's face to resemble Michael's little sister to the point of just not quite being twins. The resemblance should have an emotional effect on him. Ember needed him unbalanced as possible. Not only did Michael need to make the right choice, but for the right reasons.

  "Are you hungry? I know I'm hungry," Michael channeled and created a couple small apples in his hands. He offered one to the prisoner and took a bite out of the one he was holding. The prisoner hesitantly reached forward and grabbed the fruit. Michael calmly ate as the prisoner gobbled hers down. Politely, he let the prisoner finish before he spoke again.

  "Now, tell me what happened to put you in here. I have heard your master's version of events, but I want to hear yours." Michael sat back and crossed his arms looking as non-threatening as possible.

  "I killed Marcus, that's what happened. I could see what he was but the master couldn't." The prisoner closed her eyes. "The Master should have but he couldn't so it was left to me to keep us safe."

  "What's your name?" Michael took a bit of bread and chewed slowly.

  "Emily," The prisoner stood up and walked to the other side of the cell, putting some space between her and Michael.

  "Well Emily, I need to know what Marcus was doing that made you think that he needed to die." Michael stood but let Emily keep her distance. "I am here to evaluate you, so I need your side of the story."

  "If you’re here to kill me then, well don't let me stop you. I've been in this hole long enough that it will probably be a relief to not sit here in the dark anymore." Her words were strong but there were tears in the prisoner's eyes which showed that she did not believe what she was saying.

  "I don't want to kill anyone," Michael stepped forward now and walked over to Emily and stood next to her, making sure he was not close enough to threaten her personal space. "I will do what needs to be done though. Why did Marcus deserve to die?”

  "I caught him studying the ways to kill dragons,” Emily turned to face Ember's apprentice. "He was planning on killing the master and leaving with all he had learned. He had plans mapped out in his chamber on how he was going to escape, spells listed to help him hide. Marcus was going to kill him, and yet he threw me in here!" Emily was suddenly screaming, and her eyes went wide with madness. She growled at Michael and her hands drew into fists.

  "You know as well as I do an apprentice wouldn't be able to kill a dragon. Didn't you take this to the master?"

  "Of course I did. He said that Marcus was studying the information on his orders. But I could see the master was troubled. He lied to cover for Marcus. He didn't want to believe one of use could kill him."

  "How did you kill Marcus?" Michael had his head cocked, he was listening carefully.

  "I waited until battle practice. When we were fighting I ripped through order, and in the confusion, I killed him before he could kill us." Emily's eyes narrowed, and she was all but frothing in the mouth. "I ripped the order in the air and suddenly it was all so clear! I killed him! Then they turned on me and I would have killed all of them, but the master subdued me! I should have killed them all for betraying me!"

  "You ripped reality?" Michael looked back at the door he entered through. There was no chance he would mistake the similarity between this situation and his own. His mistrust of why Ember had sent him there should be growing as well with the revelation. Ember added to this by suddenly making the symbols on the bars wink out. Michael was now locked up in the cell as certainly as Emily, and he would know it. Now the question on his mind would be wh
ether or not he was a prisoner. Ember hated manipulating her apprentices, but it was what had to be done.

  "I ripped reality and they won't let me do it again. I would save us all, I would kill them and save us all!" Emily threw herself at the bars and Michael stared wide eyed as her display of madness. He would question his sanity as well after this, but it could not be helped.

  "I need to see something Emily, could you please hold still?" Michael stretched his energy out to touch Emily. He recoiled quickly when he felt the darkness that had attached itself to her mind. Ember could see him shiver, and he backed a step away from Emily in fear.

  After a moment he looked back at the door and called out loudly, "I am ready to pass judgment, but I need some information first Ember."

  Shadow Ember appeared next to him in the cage. At her appearance, Emily ran to the other side of the room and huddled in the corner covering her head and whining incoherently. "What would you like to know?"

  "She is obviously mad. Is this because of the magic she..." Michael's eyes closed and he looked tired. "We used?"

  "It is. She took a larger backlash than you. Your madness will fade quickly if it hasn't already. Emily on the other hand, there is no way to know if this is permanent or if the madness will eventually fade." Shadow Ember watched Emily impassively. It made Ember herself ponder how inhuman she must appear to her apprentices.

  "You are asking me if I can condemn her to a life of madness, or if you should kill her quickly and save her the suffering." He did not wait for Shadow Ember to answer him. "There is no right answer here so how can I pass this test? I would choose to let her live." Michael then rounded on Shadow Ember and looked darkly threatening. "You will treat her better than this. Get her master to work on curing her, she is his responsibility, he should be actively working on getting this madness out of her head."