by James Duvall
Grimlohr sighed.
“You carried Talya's Honor,” he explained. “I am surprised that our enemies were able to discern that you carried it. Had I realized, I would not have sent it with you and Syrrus. Your ignorance was your safety, no one would have ever known that it had passed through your hands.”
Joshua lifted a paw again, staring at it, memories of trying to ward off the assassin with unprepared human hands flickering through his mind. Another memory returned, unbidden.
“What is Frostnettle?” Joshua asked, narrowing his eyes. “I heard Rickthicket say something about Frostnettle.”
“This is the reason you are what you are. I had planned to explain this to you right away as you would be, no doubt, confused by the unexpected state of things. However, things do not always pan out as planned.”
There was more than a little scorn in Grimlohr's tone. He paused to glance Joshua's way, almost certainly to see if this had landed as expected and indeed Joshua felt himself chastened.
“Right, go on.”
“Frostnettle is a poison that has a paralytic effect on dragons. It is fatal to most other species, humans included. So we improvised, given the tools at hand.”
“Cabor's Honor...”
“Yes, that,” Grimlohr said. He paused for a moment, gathering himself.
“There are other details, that merit... discussion,” he said, choosing the word carefully.
Joshua searched their faces. There was something they weren't telling him. He could see it in the way they avoided his eyes. In the quagmire of it all a question formed, rising slowly like a bubble in thick syrup. That was it, the bell had been rung. He asked it carefully, as though he tread upon a crumbling bridge. “How long does this... last...?”
Of course they knew what he meant, their downcast eyes were all the confirmation he needed.
“Forever...?”
A single solemn nod from Grimlohr, by then back in his human form. He had resumed the Alter sometime during the quiet. Joshua was uncertain how long he'd stood there dwelling on it. At least a few minutes.
“Your would-be killer's name is Erlo Stolge,” Grimlohr announced. “I would like to say that his capture is paramount, but there have been other developments in your... absence,” he said, carefully.
Joshua looked on in silence, repeating the name over and over in his head. He vowed he would never forget that name and the face it belonged to. Grimlohr stole a glance down at Rickthicket. Joshua tracked the slayer's gaze down to the questioning mouse. All of his hosts seemed to be at a loss for words, each trying to urge the others to speak while Joshua looked on, mystified.
“What?” he asked, feeling their eyes boring into him.
“You spoke, as you... passed,” Rickthicket said quietly. “You said there was something watching you. Something white...?”
He knew what they wanted to know. His voice came out quiet and introspective. “He called himself the Witness. He said I faced my... he said I had a choice to make. I could go back or I could go... onward.”
The announcement seemed to set his audience ill-at-ease. Rickthicket removed his hat and wrung it tightly, shifting from paw to paw. The sadean girl, Syrrus, looked searchingly into his eyes.
“You... saw Dakrym?” she asked. Joshua could tell she thought he was lying, but only nodded in answer.
“You spoke with him?”
Again, he simply nodded.
“Well what did he say?!” Rickthicket barked.
In his mind Joshua could still see the Keeper of Death standing in glory before him, light shining all around, his exuberant voice echoing through the night on an endless plain. He shut his eyes tight and shook the image away.
“I'm sure that's quite private,” Grimlohr said, stepping in.
Joshua nodded slowly and looked up at Grimlohr with pleading eyes. “When can I go back home?”
Grimlohr visibly flinched and tried very hard to keep the pity out of his voice. “That is a much more ah... complicated... matter this time.”
“I can't go back looking like this,” Joshua said, entertaining the consequences. Mayor Weslin would have him on house arrest or perhaps simply locked in the weather station, a great beast chained to stand as guardian of he gateway between worlds.
“Obviously not,” Grimlohr agreed, human again. “Syrrus is quite capable of remedying that, however.”
Without her weapon looming in his face, Joshua noticed she was actually quite pretty. She was tall and auburn-haired. Her skin was fair and pale like Tarus, a trait common to the sadeans it seemed. Like Tarus, this woman's humanity ended in a smooth line of fur that curved gracefully over her feral hips. From the waist down she had the sturdy, silver-furred body of a snow leopard. Her eyes were like polished silver coins, bringing some harmony between the two disparate halves of her being.
“Syrrus will teach you about magic,” Grimlohr continued. “With time, you will learn how to shapeshift into an Alter.”
“I'm going to learn about Alters from a sadean? Why not another dragon?”
“You are not... well-favored by the dragons, right now,” Grimlohr explained. “As I said, things have changed in your absence. I am not sure if you are away of how much time has truly passed, but the process, well... suffice to say you have lost a few weeks. If people knew what you were, they would have you and I both on the end of a lance. Normally, yes, you would have a dragon tutor until such time as your First Flame or denouncement as a Smoulder.
“Unfortunately there are no suitable dragons available that I can trust. Be that as it may, you must still be trained. Syrrus is quite adept with magic and recognized by the Frostwind Circle. I am confident in her ability to bring you up to speed. Now, I will leave you two to become better acquainted. Syrrus, please teach him the rules.”
“Rules?” Joshua asked after him, but Grimlohr was already on his way up the hill, making his way toward a cabin nestled into the lush mountainside. “What rules?!”
“Don't wander too far from the estate, Sangor's Refuge,” Syrrus said, waving her hand over the whole of the green valley of coniferous trees, divided in uneven halves by a river wandering through the ripples of the mountains. “We're in hiding and you should remember it at all times. Do nothing to draw attention.”
“Who are we hiding from?”
“Well, you're hiding from Venarthiss. The rest of us from King Isaac and the ralians.”
Joshua mulled the name over and found it distinctly foreign. “Who is Venarthiss?”
Syrrus shook her head. “You really are new around here aren't you? Grimlohr said as much.”
“I'm from Earth.”
“He had mentioned. I am from Fendiss,” Syrrus said. “We're at war with Ralia, if you were unaware.”
Joshua shrugged his wings helplessly. He was scarcely aware of what Ralia was.
“Still getting used to those?” Syrrus asked, looking just past him.
“Huh? Yeah...” Joshua said, distantly. He turned to look at his new appendages. He could feel the membranous wings folded across his back. The muscles there felt the strangest, as there was no human analog to relate to. They were long and slender, and connected from the shoulder and down much of his back, allowing the weight of his body to be better distributed on the milky-white wing sails.
“We've been here a few weeks already, working on Marreth.”
Joshua grimaced. That name seemed to be cropping up a lot in bad situations. “We have...” he grumbled.
“Well that simplifies things,” Syrrus said, though Joshua couldn't see how. It seemed every time someone mentioned the man his life became further complicated. “I'm glad you came along. I was going stir crazy around here without something to do.”
“Do you do this sort of thing a lot?” Joshua asked.
“Teach magic to a dragon?”
“Yes.”
“Never,” she said, smugly. “I look forward to the challenge.”
Joshua frowned, or at least tried to. Instead his
ears and wings drooped subtly. Syrrus seemed to pick up on this.
“You'll do fine,” she assured him. “I'll give you the day to get used to yourself. We'll get started on the magic when you're a little less wobbly.”
Joshua's training regimen began early in the morning while Arcamyn's startlingly blue moon was still high overhead. Syrrus led him down to a relatively flat spot that had been cleared of underbrush. Rickthicket had joined them. He was seated on a stump, reading from a book that floated in the air before him.
“Breathing fire is the most basic magical skill practiced by dragons,” Rickthicket read aloud. “Long ago, It became so fundamental to their identity as a species that the day a young drake first breathed fire supplanted his hatching day to measure his age. This ensured that those hatchlings with the greatest magical acumen were the ones to inherit coveted titles and positions.”
“That seems a little strange,” Joshua said. He had it in his head that birth order ought to matter for things like inheritance and kingdoms and titles.
“Well the way I heard it,” Rickthicket said, ignoring the book for the moment. “Things got started that way after Brammodar and Venarthiss hatched from the same clutch and no one saw who hatched first. The legend was when they came of age, Brammodar declared that he should be first in line to the throne because he had the first flame. Venarthiss thought he was stronger and so he deserved to be first in line. The two of them went into the Cold to test their strength and courage. Venarthiss apparently attacked his brother, intent on killing him, and the two fought and Venarthiss was believed slain. Since then, first flame has become the tradition, modeled after Brammodar's ascension to the throne of Hal'Durrath. In fact, dragons usually don't even call it magic. To them it is fire, and you ought to have a lot of it.”
Syrrus coughed before Rickthicket could go on, drawing attention back to herself. “Focus.”
“Are you sure I've been a dragon long enough to do this?” Joshua asked. He had lost count of the number of attempts he had made so far to produce a flame. His best effort had produced little more than a few feeble puffs of smoke.
“You're full grown,” said Syrrus, patiently. “It doesn't matter how long you've been that way; just that you are. Try it again, and this time without that horrible screaming.”
Joshua took a deep breath, opened his mouth wide and-
“No no, not like that,” said Syrrus, starting toward him. “You're thinking about it too hard, trying to force it.”
Joshua snorted his frustration as the sadean sat on her haunches in front of him. When she was this close she really did look human.
“You have to feel it,” she said. “You feel it already, I'm sure.”
“Everything feels strange. My wings, my tail...” He gave each a swish in turn. “Maybe I don't have magic.”
Syrrus took him by the chin and looked into his eyes. “I can see the nightstorm's glow in your pupils. It is exceedingly rare for a dragon not to have magic.”
“Nightstorm...?”
“Give me your claw,” Syrrus said, holding out her hand. She took it as he raised it and put her palm against it. “Hold it steady, feel that? Ignore where the magic is going, concentrate on where it is coming from. That's your storm.”
Magic buzzed and crackled against Joshua's claw, tingling through the skin beneath the scales. Chilling blue flames formed at the tips of his talons. After Syrrus released him, the flames lingered for a moment and disappeared in thin wisps of smoke, painted silver by the moonlight.
“Did you feel it?”
Joshua nodded, eyes wide. The nightstorm raged in his eyes. He could still feel it, an ancient, primal wellspring of power now awakened. He had felt it flowing through him, drawn out through the nexus of power Syrrus had built in the palm of his claw.
“Try again,” she directed.
The new dragon drank deep of the well within him. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, clearing his mind of distractions. The subtle chill of arctic magic brought into focus by Syrrus's hand still hung in the air around him. Bracing himself, he extended a tremulous reach into the perilous unknown. In wide-eyed wonderment he watched as the faintest flickering spark of sapphire light formed at the tip of his claw. The deep blue ember flared to life and drifted to the ground like falling snow swaying on the cold morning breeze.
“I felt it!”
“Now you've got it,” Rickthicket said, looking up from his book. The mouse mage stood up on his stump at the edge of the clearing, overseeing and now applauding. “Very good!”
“Now that you can feel it, try putting more force into it,” Syrrus urged.
Closing his eyes to focus, Joshua put away all other feelings, all other thoughts. Nothing existed but him and the nightstorm. He could still sense the memory of Syrrus's own will, tugging on the power like candle flames drawn toward an opening door. It was like fire, intangible and energetic, but this fire burned with a cold intensity, and in his mind's eye Joshua could see the fierce blue light of it. His next attempt brought to life a pillar of sapphire flame nearly three feet high. The roar of fire broke the novice dragon's focus and the flame snapped out of existence as suddenly as it had begun. Stunned by the brilliance, he sat there blinking in the darkness, feeling the magic burn within him. His eyes blazed with sapphire light, casting soft blues across his muzzle even in the morning light.
“Well done, Joshua!” Syrrus cheered.
“Grimlohr's book says fireballs are next,” Rickthicket said, eagerly tracing his finger down a page.
“Soon enough,” Syrrus said, a warm smile on her face.
Joshua went for another go and found the cold fire burning within him. He siphoned power from it, producing another luminous gout of flame. On the third attempt he found the fire was reduced to only embers, and so that was all he could produce, hacking and wheezing on it like an ill-taken breath. The well was empty, and the nightstorm had calmed from a tempest to little more than a drizzling cloud.
“I think I need a break,” he said, once he had spat all of the little sparks from his mouth. “It's gone.”
Aghast, Rickthicket sprang from his seat. “Already?!”
“We'll take a break,” said Syrrus to her grateful student. “He's new, it's to be expected,”
“Well... You're doing fine for someone so new to the art,” Rickthicket said as the weary dragon lumbered over to him, head hanging in exhaustion.
“Thanks. So what kind of mage are you? Are you a Frostwind mage like Syrrus?” Joshua asked him.
“Frostwind is nightstorm territory really. My element is emberstorm, so I am of the Emberfall order. But these days?” Rickthicket lounged back on the stump. “These days I'm a glorified courier. It's far beneath my skills.”
“Then why do it?”
“It's not about me,” Rickthicket said. “It's about what must be done. My duty. Things were simpler when I first started out. We were at war with Banida. I joined up to fight the barbarians. I had such grand schemes. I was going to be the first anthilmarrian archmage.”
Rickthicket used the empty air in front of him as a canvas and began conjuring a rough image of himself as he narrated in dreamy fashion. “There I'd be, standing on some hillside, fire erupting around me at my beck and call; magic and destiny, the very fabric of creation spreading before me like rivers.”
The rivers formed, made of tiny, sparkling stars with light flowing through them in thin, wispy currents.
“Alturis himself could do no better,” he said, wistful and distant. His story trailed off as he added little sparks of magic to his drawing. He scrutinized it with a frown and added a few more.
When the mouse did not continue, Joshua spoke up. “Who is Alturis?” he asked, half-expecting them both to bemoan his ignorance of a culture quickly becoming more relevant to his life.
“Alturis the Wolfmage, of course. One of the greatest mages that ever lived. Don't you know anything? They say the werewolf curse is descended from the leftover magic from
the warriors he enchanted, that he conjured great storms with the wave of his hand. Now there was a real archmage. Of course that was just the beginning of him. He's got books and books of spells he found or invented. Got a whole shelf of them back home.”
“Have you invented spells?” Joshua asked.
Rickthicket brightened. “Why yes, I have. Perhaps I will teach you one or two. Once I'm sure you won't singe my tail off.”
Syrrus tugged the book from Rickthicket's paws and started thumbing through the pages. Some say Alturis is still alive; that he was around during the War of Ashes.”
“He would be hundreds of years old by now,” Rickthicket said. “Far longer than any man could live.”
Syrrus shrugged at him. “He would not be the first old soul to outrun death a little longer than the rest of us.”
The mouse grumbled his dissent. “Maybe... What about you? How does a sadean girl end up working for a dragon? That hardly seems like a normal plan.”
“I met Grimlohr during the War of Ashes,” she said. “But I was too young to meet a dragon on the front lines. The Second Army needed mages, so there was a callup at the university. Journeyman and above were asked to volunteer; nearly all of them went. Those that stayed behind were too young or cowards. They wouldn't take apprentices, but my brother Tarvo was a journeyman and he went across the Rilrath River with Caedus Beldin. He didn't make it back. His unit was sent to the Temple of Sasherai to interrupt the ralian supply line and intercept a caravan of Arcamynian prisoners of war being taken to a work camp. Details as to what happened are very sketchy, but they found a half-written letter to me in Tarvo's personal effects. They sent it to me, along with a letter explaining that they couldn't find him, or anyone else from his unit. The death toll was very high that month, so they were only sending one letter per soldier. I had to break the news to our parents.
“After that I tried to enlist, but again they said I was too young, even though I had magic. They were afraid I wouldn't have the courage to face the enemy and told me of the danger of having a unit's mage cravenly retreat in the face of the enemy. It could break a unit's morale and cause the line to falter. They asked me to come back when I was seventeen. I went looking for Tarvo, or at least those that had killed him. I never found him, but I did find the ralians.”