The Wolf's Heart

by Rain Oxford

There were several large buildings and many shops. Based on the sounds coming from one of them, I figured it was the armory. Another was a barn full of animals. We passed shops selling fresh fish, meat, and vegetables, leather shops that fixed things like boots and harnesses, and many more, but most of the smaller buildings were houses. People were lined up at the well, although they seemed to be more interested in gossiping than filling their pails.

  Merlin stopped. “There it is,” he said in my mind. In the center of town ahead of us was a massive tree. It didn’t have normal leaves, though; the leaves were long and flowing like a mane of green hair.

  “Is that a normal tree here?”

  “It is a Weeping Willow. I chose it because it was so special.”

  As we neared the tree, three people in brown robes intercepted us. They were muscular, but not as much as the other members of the village. Two were men and one was a woman. All three of them were similar in appearance with light brown hair and blue eyes.

  “What business have you here, travelers?” one of the men asked.

  I looked at Merlin, who said, “We will play nice until they give us a reason to be hostile.”

  “We’re here to see this tree.”

  “This is a sacred tree,” the woman said.

  “How is it sacred?”

  “It cannot be cut or burned. It protects us from dragons and the wrath of the gods. We don’t let just anyone near it. Praying to the gods is allowed, but we are wary of strangers from the south.”

  “We’re not from the south.”

  “You were coming from the south.”

  “Only a short distance. Besides, if the tree is indestructible, what do you have to worry about?”

  They looked at each other. “He has a good point.”

  I glanced up at the branches, looking for an amulet hanging from them. I saw nothing.

  “We cannot get the amulet without magic, and we cannot do magic on the tree with these people watching,” Merlin said.

  “I can make us invisible,” I responded in his mind.

  “It would divide your attention from the spell. We must sneak out at night when everyone has gone to bed. Ask if they have an inn.”

  I did, and they pointed to a building. It was simple, large, and wooden with heavy beams and a sturdy door. “You can sleep in the dining hall.”

  “Dining hall?”

  “Yes. It is where the entire village eats and discusses village affairs.”

  “That sounds good. Thank you for your help.”

  As I turned, one of them said, “I advise you to feed your boy better, Wolf. He’s awfully scrawny. That might be fine where you came from, but runts don’t stand a chance here in the north.”

  Sorcerers believed they gained strength in body from eating strong and powerful beasts. Zeustrum and Bevras, my oldest brothers, had both hunted down their own bears when they were seven and ate the hearts. I was dreadful at hunting because I couldn’t stand to kill an animal, and my brothers never shared their food with me. Furthermore, until I accepted my light magic, I was never able to conjure meat.

  Merlin and I entered the dining hall. It had high ceilings and a stone floor. Beside the door was a lavish rope attached to a bell in the ceiling. Most of the room was taken up by four massive wooden tables that could collectively seat more than a hundred people. On the far side of the room, however, were four small beds. One of them was occupied with a man while two women catered to him. He was only wearing trousers and a bandage wrapped around his torso. There was blood seeping through it.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “He was stabbed and the wound is getting worse because the sword was poisoned. Our healer says he will die. He’s not strong enough for battle.”

  I opened my mouth to ask why he would go into battle, but Merlin stopped me. “On this world, they believe a person’s soul will go to a good place if they die in battle, but a bad place if they die any other way.”

  “That seems harsh.”

  “Think of them as warriors.”

  “Oh. Can we help him?”

  “If we can get a sample of the poison that he was dosed with, I can create a healing potion for him. It would mean revealing your magic, though.”

  “I could give him one of our healing potions. They’re already made. They aren’t specifically for poison, but they have to be better than waiting.”

  “It is more likely to work the sooner you give it to him, but you have a limited number of healing potions.”

  “We can get another one later.” I pulled one of the two bottles out of my bag. “But will they attack us for having magic?”

  “They do not see healing potions as magic, but be vague about it just in case.”

  “I have some healing herbs,” I said, trying to get around them to the victim.

  The women stopped me. “Healing herbs from where?”

  “From my homelands.”

  “How do we know you’re not trying to kill him?”

  “What good would killing a dead man do? If I don’t give it to him, he dies. If I do, he could live long enough to go back into battle. What do you have to lose?” After a moment of considering it, they stepped aside. I uncapped the bottle and lifted the man’s head just enough for him to drink it. “This is going to make you sleep, but the longer you do, the better it’s working.”

  “Thank you, travelers,” the woman said.

  “You’re welcome. I’m Ayden. This is Merlin.”

  “I am Bodil, and this is my sister, Brenna. He is Colborn,” she said, gesturing to the injured man.

  * * *

  After a while, the women left and Merlin and I waited until everyone was asleep. Some people convened in the dining hall to chat, but they didn’t stay long since Merlin and I were there. Eventually, everything became quiet.

  Merlin and I snuck out to the tree. There were five candles around it, making it glow eerily. The single moon and numerous stars provided some light, but the moon was small. “How do we do this?” I asked.

  He gestured to my bag. “Get out the paint and do as I explained earlier.”

  I pulled out a paintbrush and bottle of white paint. On the flattest part of the tree, I painted a small door as neatly as I could. I made it as tall as the length of my fingertip to my elbow, and half as wide. To my surprise, it started glowing.

  “Trespassers!”

  I jumped and turned to see the three tree guards from earlier rushing towards us. I backed up against the tree and grabbed my staff that had been leaning against it.

  “We showed you kindness and you repay it by harming our sacred tree?” one of the men asked when they reached us.

  “We weren’t harming it,” I said. One of them aimed a bow at me. I transformed my sword back into a staff and aimed it as him. “You can shoot me with that arrow, but it won’t hurt me,” I lied. “My magic will hurt you.”

  The three suddenly looked nervous. “How can you perform magic?” the woman asked.

  “We are not from here,” Merlin said aloud.

  This earned an even bigger response. The two men bowed and the woman looked too shocked to do so. “You’re not a wolf,” she said.

  “No, I am not.”

  “You’re a…”

  “Yes, we are. Now leave us.”

  They left without another word, none willing to look us in the eye.

  “What do they think we are?” I asked.

  “Powerful beings,” Merlin said. “I have learned it is usually better to go with it. Complete the spell.”

  On the miniature door, I painted a sigil Merlin showed me in my mind.

  “Sésame, ouvre-toi,” Merlin said.

  “What is that?”

  “A phrase I knew no one would ever use. Say it. It is not working for me.”

  Without pointing my wand at the door, I repeated the phrase. I felt my magic stir inside, but instead of it flowing out of me, the lines of the door separated. I gaped as the door opened to reveal a small s
helf in the tree with a gold vase on it.

  “I thought we were after an amulet,” I said, pulling the jar out of the hole. The jar was gold with a decorative wave design down its side. Other than being valuable for its gold, I would never have looked twice at it if I saw it in someone’s home.

  “The amulet is inside the vessel for extra protection.”

  I shook it lightly and heard metal inside it.

  A cruel laugh caused chills to crawl down my spine. I spun around. Merlin growled. Gmork was standing there, his fur as black as ink, his eyes like green fire. “It amazes me how easily you fell into my trap. You led me right to it. Now hand the amulet over.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, changing my staff into a sword with a mental command.

  “Even cursed, I have more than enough magic to kill you,” he said.

  He attacked, too fast to block. His fangs sunk into my arm, but I swung my sword and struck him across the chest, forcing him to let me go. His right paw swiped me across the side, throwing me to the ground. Merlin lunged at him, sinking his fangs in Gmork’s neck. Unfortunately, Merlin was quite a bit smaller and Gmork was able to smack him away. I transformed my sword back into a staff.

  “Turn Gmork to stone!” I demanded. The staff pulled energy from me and red magic hit the massive black wolf. He fell away from Merlin and his paws started turning to stone. I helped Merlin to his feet before taking a deep breath and aiming the staff at Gmork again.

  “No,” Merlin said, panting. “That will not hold him for long. We need to get out of here.”

  I waved my staff and transported us back to the dining hall. Then I got to work making the portal to Gmork’s castle. Merlin didn’t argue that we needed to go home first; we didn’t want to leave Nimue and Kalyn unaware and in danger. I was only half done when Gmork crashed into the door. Fortunately, it held, although the sound was thunderous and probably woke the entire village.

  “Hurry, young sorcerer,” Merlin urged.

  “I am.”

  Colborn woke from the commotion. “What is happening?”

  “A… monster is attacking.” He climbed out of bed, limped towards the bell, and rung it. Then he collapsed. Merlin went to him and helped him up. “We need your help,” I said. “We have to go through this portal and then we need you to scuff it up. Can you do that?”

  “You’re not going to fight with us?”

  “He’ll follow us. He came for this and he’ll leave when he realizes we’re gone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I hesitated, my resolve fading. “He should, but Gmork does seem to be in a destructive mood,” I said when he slammed into the door again. “Maybe I can turn us invisible and attack,” I suggested.

  “He would be able to smell us. We cannot risk that he will incapacitate us before we warn Nimue and Kalyn. The amulet inside this would give him the ability to make them and anyone else powerless. We have to go.”

  “You should always listen to a talking wolf,” Colborn said.

  I nodded and finished the spell. Just as I heard the door brake, the world around us vanished.

  Chapter 6

  We appeared in the magic room of Gmork’s castle. Nimue and Kalyn were there, waiting for us. Nimue was asleep in a reading chair that hadn’t been there before, while Kalyn was looking through the potion ingredients. I wondered what she thought about them. She was extremely powerful even though she couldn’t do wizardry or sorcery. I wondered if she ever got jealous or if she was happy with what she had.

  Nimue woke.

  “Gmork is coming,” I said.

  “You found him?” Nimue asked.

  “He found us.” I held up the jar. “This is what he was after. He set us up so that we would get it because he couldn’t find it. How did he find us? How did he make a portal to us?”

  Nimue shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t believe her. “We need to go.”

  “I’m staying here.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No. He won’t hurt me. If he comes back here, I can stop him from going after you.”

  “You’re not foolish enough to want to stay, right?” I asked Kalyn.

  “Of course not. I’m with you, no matter how tough it gets.”

  “I can protect myself,” Nimue said.

  Merlin and I didn’t buy that one bit. “What are you really protecting?” Merlin asked with suspicion. I knew it was breaking his heart not to trust her, but he also wasn’t an idiot.

  “Nothing,” she lied.

  Merlin stared at her for a long moment before lowering his head. “Ayden, make the portal back to Caldaca.”

  “Where to? Not the castle.”

  “No, that would endanger Thaddeus, Mason, and his family.”

  “I know where we can go,” Kalyn said. “It’s a village of magicians called Shimmering Valley. Only magicians can find it, but I can take you there.”

  “What is the closest major city?”

  “There isn’t one. You have to take a boat to get there.”

  “Great,” Merlin said sarcastically.

  “Which is closer, Akadema, Mokora, or Ademora?”

  “It’s east of Mokora, on an island called…” She trailed off, clearly not wanting to say.

  “Called what?”

  “Nightmare Island.”

  “Well, that’s not a friendly name at all.”

  “It’s the homeland to the worst thieves’ guild in all of Caldaca.”

  “Great.”

  * * *

  Kalyn disguised the jar as an apple and put it in my bag in case Gmork attacked. I created the portal to Red Rock, the southernmost city of Mokora, and Merlin didn’t say another word to Nimue. Despite having a lot of his own secrets, he didn’t handle being lied to well. Since he could usually smell lies, there wasn’t any point in doing so.

  I had written a book on all the history of Caldaca I knew and gave it to Merlin as a welcoming present for being on Caldaca for a year. It was a wizard tradition I had learned from Mason. Merlin knew as soon as I thought it up that I was keeping something from him. Fortunately, I told him it was a surprise and he let it go. When I gave it to him, he said he was glad he hadn’t insisted and that it was wonderful.

  It was early morning in Red Rock, a fair-sized city and the largest market on Mokora. It was the best place on Mokora to buy, sell, or trade, and had the busiest docks. In fact, it seemed a little larger every time we visited it.

  We went straight for the docks and spotted a few passenger ships among the merchant and pirate ships. There were new signs in place for locations and prices. None of them went to Nightmare Island, but two of them passed by it, according to Kalyn. We chose the boat that looked the stillest for Merlin’s sake and found the captain collecting money from passengers as they boarded with their luggage.

  He was a tall man with an athletic build, short, black and silver hair that looked like it was freshly cut, and light auburn eyes. I didn’t need magic to know he was a sorcerer. That was a good thing in this case; he wouldn’t be afraid of the island’s reputation.

  “Hello, we would like to go to Nightmare Island.”

  “Find another boat. I don’t allow guild members on my ship since they stopped taxing the pirates’ guild on stolen goods in Mokora. Because of that, we honest captains have to pay a higher docking fee.”

  “We’re not thieves,” I insisted.

  “Can’t you see that he’s a wizard?” Kalyn asked. “Wizards don’t steal.”

  “With new magic users cropping up, we can’t tell by appearances alone anymore. You could be a new one.”

  “Are you against the new magic users?”

  He scoffed. “Of course not. It’s just confusing. Nevertheless, I’m not stopping at Nightmare Island. I’m not even going close to it. I have passengers to protect.”

  “Could you get us close enough that I could see it and transport us there?” Without a perfect image of where I wanted to
go in mind or sight, transportation was impossible. Even then, it was extremely dangerous.

  “I might be willing to do that. However, it would require sailing closer into more dangerous waters.”

  “Are you saying the price is higher?”

  “No, I’m saying that if we get attacked, you’re going to have to help us.”

  “Oh. I can do that. How long will it take?”

  “If we leave on time, we will get close by sunset.”

  “I don’t know that we want to go there at night,” Kalyn said.

  “I can’t wait half a day or speed up time,” the captain said. “My ship is difficult to steer and slow-moving, but it is the strongest ship at sea.”

  “What about sea-sickness?”

  “No one has ever gotten it on my ship except during a storm.”

  “That sounds promising,” Merlin said in my mind.

  I pulled out the money required to take us one stop past the island (in case we changed our minds) and he let us board. The ship was impressive. It looked like a regular large ship from a distance, but closer up, I could tell that the wood, sales, and even the ropes were better quality than any ship I’d seen before. The deck was wider than usual and the bulwark was curved differently. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “So far, so good. I feel fine. At least he did not say it was unsinkable.”

  “This is a beautiful ship,” Kalyn said.

  “Do you like ships?” I asked.

  “Not usually. They tend to smell like sweaty men and vomit, thinly masked by salt water. This one smells of wood varnish and salt water, with a hint of roasted fish. I’m going to find us a room.” She left to go below deck.

  Merlin and I watched the captain and his crew members prepare for departure and then actually start sailing away. It was fun to watch, because I had read many adventure books in my life of people who traveled by ship. It was the destination that drove a hero onward, but it was the adventure that made the story.

  It felt like so long ago that I was sneaking out of my mother’s house, terrified I was going to get caught. It wasn’t about adventure; it was about survival. I could never have imagined the way my life would turn out. I had friends, I could be who I wanted to be without shame, and I could go on adventures whenever I wanted. Most importantly, Merlin was there. Despite his good-natured teasing, his advice was always from his heart.