The Dragon Hunter and the Mage

by V. R. Cardoso

  It was so hard to fight his own instincts. He did, however, have an idea. It had occurred to him often that he was an over thinker. There was really nothing he could do about it. The solution then, was probably to do it the radical way. So far, he had just tried to make small objects, like spoons, go through his fingers. What if, instead of risking a few cuts and bruises, he actually risked his life? Maybe his mind would focus once and for all.

  Maybe it was a genius idea. Maybe it was insane…

  No! he thought. I’m just overthinking it again.

  He gulped, but he had made his decision. He was going to try to cross the wall to the room next door. Provided he survived the crossing itself, it should be completely safe. The room had been empty for decades. It had once been his aunt Junia’s room, until her marriage, and it would have been Aric’s room if the Emperor hadn’t cast him to the servant’s wing.

  Fadan took a long, deep breath.

  I’ll have to jump before I dematerialize, he thought. Otherwise, I’ll fall through the floor.

  Which meant he would have to rematerialize before landing on the floor on the other side. What a pity… his spells always worked better with his eyes closed.

  Shoving any second thoughts away, and as if he wanted to surprise himself, he darted forward, shooting towards the stone wall opposite his bed. He jumped, visualized himself crossing the wall and-

  BAM!

  He smashed, nose first, against the granite and fell flat on his back.

  “Goddess damn it!” Fadan groaned.

  He rubbed his forehead as if that could somehow make the pain go away. There would be some lumps on his face the next day, but he was not about to give up just yet.

  “I can do this,” he told himself, taking a couple of steps back and filling his lungs.

  I can do this.

  Fadan lunged forward, readying his Runium reserve to cast the spell, and jumped. The wall came closer and closer. Then, at the last possible moment, he closed his eyes, pushing his fear of failure away.

  It all happened in an instant.

  He realized he should have collided against the wall and hadn’t, so he opened his eyes and saw the other side. It must have been enough to break the spell because his feet connected with the floor and then-

  BAM!

  He crashed into a tall, wooden wardrobe. It was a sturdy old thing, because, at his speed, Fadan should have torn the doors to pieces. Instead, he fell flat on his back again, just as he had done with the granite wall moments before.

  “Fire take this!” he complained, rubbing the back of head.

  Then, it dawned on him.

  I did it, he thought, his eyes going wide.

  Fadan jumped like a cat after a fright. “I did it!” He smiled, making a huge effort to contain a celebratory yell.

  I have to do it again, he thought.

  One successful jump was nothing. He had to make sure it hadn’t been pure luck.

  Shaking his arms, he braced himself for another jump back into his room. Then, still smiling, he ran towards the wall, but just when he was about to jump, he aborted his own run, stopping before hitting the granite once again.

  “No,” he said to himself. “Eyes open this time. Eyes open.”

  Fadan resumed his place at the back of the room taking quick, deep breaths. He lunged towards the wall leading to his room. He tapped his power and jumped, this time keeping his eyes open, completely ignoring the incoming granite barrier in his way.

  It worked beautifully. His vision was blocked for a moment, but his room quickly came into view and Fadan landed as gracefully as if he had just jumped over a puddle of water down in the courtyard.

  He had done it. He could cross walls. Just as a precaution, he began inspecting his body to make sure he hadn’t somehow hurt himself in the process. He was fine, of course. There was no pain – besides the thumping on his forehead – or blood anywhere, and he began laughing hysterically. His heart was racing so hard he could hear it.

  I can’t believe it, he thought, so happy he started jumping as if he couldn’t contain his own energy.

  It was amazing. He could do it now. He could finally rescue Doric. It was so exciting he began to tremble slightly. The last time he had felt like this had been months ago, and Aric had been by his side. They had nearly done it. They had actually broken Doric out of jail and even left the sewers when…

  Fadan didn’t remember much. He had never seen them coming. Only Aric had. All Fadan remembered was his brother’s hands gripping his collar and shoving him down the manhole. It had been a fall of several feet. Fadan had landed on his shoulder, and the pain had nearly blinded him, at least for a moment. Then, he had realized what was happening.

  The room seemed to grow darker around him and Fadan sat on his bed as if his legs had decided they didn’t want to support him anymore. He looked left and saw himself in the mirror, framed by his bedposts. Just like then, he was alone in the dark.

  Fadan could still remember the smell of moss on his face as he had gotten back on his feet. He remembered the screams, the sound changed by having to cross the metal cover of the manhole. The memory wasn’t exactly complete. He couldn’t remember the exact words, only the Soldiers barking threats followed by the thuds and groans of Aric and Doric being hit.

  In the mirror, a tear slid down Fadan’s cheek.

  Hearing the screams, Fadan had climbed the ladder up to the manhole but had stopped halfway through, his hands refusing to move further while the rest of his body shook so much it was a miracle he hadn’t tumbled down again.

  Aric had screamed the most, and his father had begged the soldiers to stop.

  In the mirror, Fadan saw his own hand shoot up to cover his mouth and push down a sob, warm tears collecting around his fingers.

  He cursed, jumping up and turning his back to the mirror.

  “Goddess damn this,” he said, kicking a wooden chest.

  Pain shot through his foot, but he ignored it, focusing instead on wiping the tears from his eyes as if they burned.

  “I can do this,” he said between sniffs. “I can do this.”

  Fadan cleared his throat and steadied his breathing, then looked at his hands. He tapped his power, and even though the Transmogaphon didn’t allow him to clearly feel how much Runium he still had, he knew it was plenty. He tested his powers, using the warm up ritual Sabium had taught him, and a blue aura shone around his hands and wrists, spreading down his arms.

  “I’m going to do this!”

  Fadan wasn’t planning on springing Doric out of jail that night. He knew that to pull it off a lot of preparation would be required, and he didn’t even have a plan yet. The first step then, was doing some scouting. Fadan decided to begin right away. He was just too excited to simply go to sleep.

  The first problem he had to solve was entering the dungeons. Using the same sewage entrance as the last time was out of the question. The door Aric had shown him required a climb, which would be impossible to do while dematerialized, and Fadan had a feeling that opening it would not be as easy this time. It was, however, still an option for the escape.

  The dungeons were located in the underground section of the Legion’s Headquarters, a large, stone building that looked more like a vault than it did a Palace.

  Fadan left his room, climbing down his window just as he had dozens of times the last couple of months. This time, however, instead of heading for either the sewers or his hideout, Fadan sneaked towards the gigantic rectangle that was the Legion’s Headquarters.

  Getting inside wasn’t too hard. The main gate was, of course, guarded, but armed with his new spell, any of the dozens of side and back doors feeding the building would do. He chose one at random and found himself inside a darkened corridor, dozens of non-descript doors flanking him. He penetrated the building, casting a tiny ball of fire, which he kept in the palm of his hand, to light the way forward.

  The decoration of the building was suitably austere. Occasional statues o
f great Generals were interspersed with long, hanging banners of famous Legions.

  It didn’t take long before he found the first patrol. The pair of Legionaries droned across a corridor, far too drowsy to ever notice him hiding behind the hanging banner of the Fifty Seventh Legion of Awam. The more he dug into the building, however, the more numerous the patrols became. He was forced to patiently inch forward from one shadowed nook to the other, timing his movements to coincide with the Legionaries turning his back on him.

  Aric would have loved this, he thought.

  He, however, was definitely far more nervous than he was excited. Or maybe terrified was a better word.

  Fadan eventually found the entrance to the dungeons, a thick, wooden door at the bottom of a narrow staircase. Unfortunately, it was being guarded by a sergeant, rigidly standing at attention beneath a torch.

  In his discussions with Sabium, Fadan had learned about the existence of dozens of spells that would have been useful to him right now; spells that enhanced his hearing and vision, spells that allowed him to detect nearby people no matter what objects stood in the way, spells that created illusions or somehow played with other people’s senses, making them hear or see things that weren’t really there, the list went on and on. At the time, Fadan had considered the ability to cross walls the only truly essential one for this particular goal. Now, however, he was reconsidering that notion.

  The problem was that he had overestimated the advantages of the dematerializing spell. Not knowing what was on the other side of a wall, for example, made it impossible to cross at will, because he never knew if he would land on a clear space, or right in the middle of a shelf. He could always not rematerialize if he found himself within a piece of furniture, but that meant he would also fall through the floor, and he had no way of knowing what would be down there either.

  This meant that he had had to abandon his technique of blindly jumping at walls. Therefore, the only safe approach, when he didn’t know where he was jumping to, was to only cross doors, as the likelihood of there being something standing on the other side was minuscule. Unfortunately, as it turned out, crossing doors wasn’t a very helpful ability to have when trying to access a prison complex.

  There was only one way he was going to get inside. He would have to distract the guard long enough to cross the door. At least he wouldn’t have to come back through here on his way out. He could always drop through to the sewage tunnel Aric had shown him.

  Fadan crouched. He was at the top of the stairs, hiding just around the corner that led down to the dungeons. He could see the guard’s steel helmet down below, reflecting the torch’s light like a fireball.

  It gave Fadan an idea. After all, he did know a couple other spells.

  He tapped his power and ran the usual test, just to make sure he didn’t mess the spell up. Then, he focused on the flames. He visualized the flames in his head, making sure his mental image perfectly mimicked the real ones. Then, he saw them burst upwards, as if a bottle of brandy had spilled on them.

  The real flames reacted immediately. The explosion of fire wasn’t as impressive as the one Fadan had imagined, but the spell did its job and the guard jumped, startled.

  Cursing, the sergeant looked up, readjusting his helmet. Fadan had to force himself not to giggle out loud. The man was probably questioning his own sanity. Torches didn’t do something like that.

  Just as the man seemed to decide he had imagined it, Fadan sent another burst of power, making the flames taller, and twice as bright. The Legionary probably felt the heat on his face.

  The poor man staggered back, tripped on a step, and fell backwards, yelping. Then, Fadan made a fist as he visualized the fire burning out. The real flames died as well, sending the staircase into darkness.

  “Ava mother!” the sergeant cried. “Odrian! Odrian, are you there?”

  Fadan heard the clanging of the sergeant nervously getting up and climbing the stairs in the darkness.

  “Odrian!” the man repeated. “Sergeth? Anyone!? Where are you?”

  Making himself as small as he could, Fadan stood still as the sergeant scurried past him in the darkness.

  “Odrian? Sergeth?” the soldier kept calling, his voice getting further away.

  The Prince did not waste any time. As soon as he knew the sergeant had turned a corner, he raced downstairs, reigniting the torch so that he could see. He jumped towards the door and went right past it, as if it wasn’t even there, then landed softly on the stone floor on the other side.

  He looked back through the bars on the door’s tiny window and chuckled, feeling tremendously happy with himself. He sure could get used to these abilities.

  He was standing in some sort of main hallway, from which several cell blocks fed. It looked almost like his father’s wine cellar; a succession of low archways where three men would have had a hard time fitting side by side. There were only a couple of torches in sight, their fuel seemingly about to run out, giving the place a cold, grayish light. Echoes of water drops falling on puddles reached him from every direction, and Fadan could swear he heard mice screeching in a corner. The smell was nearly overwhelming. The last time he had been here, he had assumed the stench from the sewers had followed him, lingering in his nose. It appeared, however, that the two places smelled exactly the same.

  The sergeant would surely be back soon, so Fadan walked away. The poor man would have a hard time explaining to his friends what had happened.

  Voices alerted him to the presence of guards inside. He had been expecting to find them, so the sound was actually welcome. It was far better to know where they were than bumping into them by accident.

  He turned into the first block and walked between the rows of cells, inspecting them. Most were empty. The ones that weren’t though, did a horrible job of housing the inmates.

  There was no furniture of any kind. Not even a carpet. Everyone was just lying on the ground, snoring next to foul looking puddles and rats. At least they weren’t too crowded. Usually, prisoners stood in pairs, with the occasional cell holding either three or just one lone prisoner.

  It was impossible to see the faces of every single prisoner, as the darkness inside the cells obscured their features. Unfortunately, waking them up to check if any of them was Doric didn’t seem like a sensible idea, so Fadan just kept looking.

  He had no luck in the first block, so he doubled back, heading for the second.

  “Water…” a hoarse voice said from one of the cells.

  Fadan froze, turning to the source of the sound, a bald man whose bare chest displayed a mess of scars.

  “Please,” the prisoner continued. “Water.”

  Where was he even going to find any water in this place?

  “I’ll… see if I can find some,” Fadan replied in a whisper.

  “Please,” the prisoner begged, rolling and dragging himself across the floor. “Please!”

  The man was becoming too loud. Fadan had to rush away. He got back to the main hallway, peeking to make sure it was clear before turning the corner. He could still hear the guards’ voices. It sounded like a casual chat.

  Fadan tiptoed to the edge of the second block and the voices became louder. Carefully, he took a peek. There were two shapes at the other end of the cell block, one of them holding a bright torch. They seemed to be discussing the contents of a particular cell.

  Well, I hope Doric isn’t in this corridor, Fadan thought.

  With a hop, the Prince skipped across the hallway and headed to the next block. Just like the first, the third block had no guards. It was safe to inspect.

  Fadan found no one inside the first couple of cells. The next ones were occupied by a pair of mice chewing at something in a corner. Then, Fadan saw him.

  Doric was lying on the ground, his head resting on what looked like a bag of flour, although that was very unlikely. He was mindlessly playing with a gem tied around his neck, his eyes glued to the ceiling. Dark stains covered his gray, linen clothes,
as if someone’s dirty boots had been walking all over him.

  Realizing he had not been noticed, Fadan cleared his throat. Doric jumped, startled, and quickly hid the necklace under his raggedy shirt.

  “What do you want?” Doric demanded, raising on his elbows.

  “Quiet,” Fadan whispered. He took a quick look over his shoulder. “Are you alright? Is there anything you need?”

  Doric frowned, suspicious. “Wait…” he said. “It’s you. What are you doing here?”

  That had been way too loud.

  “Shh!” Fadan whispered. “There are guards nearby.”

  “Where is Aric?” Doric asked, jumping up and grabbing onto the bars of his cell. “What happened to him? Is he alright?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Doric shook his head. Now that he was closer, Fadan noticed how feverish he looked. His hair and beard had grown like a wild bush. His skin was pale, and hung to his bones like dried leather, dark smudges covering it, and there were deep, dark circles carved under his blue eyes.

  “Aric is… He’s gone to Lamash,” Fadan replied.

  “Lamash?” Doric asked, his shoulders sinking. “Oh no… what have I done?”

  “You didn’t do anything,” Fadan said reassuringly.

  Doric didn’t seem to listen. He covered his eyes and began to sob loudly, tears rolling down his dirty cheeks.

  “Doric,” Fadan pleaded. “Doric, please!”

  The Prince slid a hand between the metal bars and squeezed Doric’s arm. It seemed to do the trick, as the man went silent. His watery, blue eyes gave Fadan an empty stare.

  “It will be over soon,” Fadan told him. “I promise. Just hang in there a little longer.”

  “Over? What do you mean?”

  The Prince weighed his words. “I’ll help you.”

  Once again, Doric gave him nothing but an empty stare, but his hand moved up to touch the necklace under his shirt.

  “That necklace,” Fadan said, trying to sound friendly. “Can I see it?”

  “No!” Doric backed away. “They won’t take it from me. Not this.”