Dragonlinked

by Adolfo Garza Jr.

There was a smell too. He was sure it emanated from the beast, and it was revolting. The stench was multilayered and thick, filling his nostrils with its cloying odor. Aeron tried not to gag as he struggled on through the path in the mist. He needed to find the creature before it found him, but he could sense that he was running out of time.

  The beast appeared near him, opening its jaws, and it was horrible. For, though the fog made it difficult to make out anything else of the beast, he could somehow see its mouth very clearly. The terrible orifice, stretched open so wide Aeron would not have thought it possible, was half the size of its head. Its lips had pulled back in folds of thick flesh to reveal the enormous ragged maw.

  Through his terror, he heard something, the first sound he had heard yet. Loud and grating, it seemed to come from the creature. Its awful mouth had thick saliva streaming from its lower lips, and from it issued the fearsome noise.

  As Aeron gazed in fascination and horror at the thing’s mouth, its sharp gleaming teeth, he felt an abrupt wrenching, a straining in his heart. The pain was so intense he was close to blacking out. It felt like what he imagined a heart attack might feel like. He had heard of being scared to death. Was that what happened? Your heart failed from sheer fright? His mother had died from heart failure. Maybe he would see her now. Maybe she could make the pain stop.

  Louder and louder the creature’s odd sound grew as it stood, mouth agape. It sounded familiar somehow. He couldn’t think on it long though, because the pain in his chest was terrible, growing as the creature waited. He could see its eye now, a small glittering orb of pure evil and malice. It stared at him coldly as he trembled in fear and pain. It felt as if his heart was being twisted, like a wet cloth wrenched tighter and tighter to wring it dry. He was going to faint, or explode or tear into pieces. The pain twisted more, and more, and more. He was dying.

  Aeron sat up in his bed, hand pressed against his chest, and stifled a scream.

  He blinked. Was he still dreaming? He heard a buzzing. Was it still after him? He whipped his head around, to the sound. On the nightstand beside his bed, the alarm chronometer pelted out its fast-ringing buzz. Aeron sighed with relief, leaned over, and pressed the metal stud that silenced the alarm.

  “That was a horrible nightmare,” he mumbled, lying back down.

  He’d been . . . somewhere. He wasn’t exactly sure where, but it was dark. And there had been fog or mist. And running. And ugly teeth. He tried to remember more, but further details eluded him. He shook his head in frustration, got up and began his morning.

  Willem had been the one who noticed the alarm chronometer three nights ago when he and Sharrah had come over. They had been very impressed with his room. It was a fairly simple room, but still, it was luxurious in Aeron’s estimation.

  “This room is amazing!” Sharrah had said.

  Willem had looked around, impressed as well. “I love how big the room is. And look, a reading area and over there, a workbench. And a desk. And look at that fantastic bed! A real bed!”

  Sharrah had looked at Aeron and asked, “Would you mind?”

  Aeron had laughed and said, “Go ahead you two, though it really doesn’t feel that much different from a cot.”

  Willem and Sharrah had glanced at each other, chuckled, and then had run and jumped onto the bed.

  “This is much more comfortable than a cot,” Sharrah had observed, an accusing look on her face.

  “And bigger too,” Willem had said.

  Aeron had shaken his head and smiled at them.

  Smoke had been wandering around the room, sniffing various objects. He had sniffed the moving trunk, tilted his head to the side, barked, and then licked the trunk before continuing to examine more things.

  “Smoke, be a good boy. No barking,” Sharrah had said, looking apologetically at Aeron. “Sorry about that.”

  “No worries, he’s a nice dog. I can see why Martin likes him.” Aeron had glanced at Smoke and said, “Smoke! C’mere boy!”

  Smoke’s ears had perked up. He had looked at Aeron and run over, his tail wagging.

  Aeron had laughed, crouched down, grabbed Smoke’s head, and said, “Who’s a good boy!” He had scratched either side of Smoke’s head vigorously with both hands, and Smoke had barked and licked Aeron’s face, his tail wagging even more quickly.

  Sharrah, who had smiled at Aeron’s antics, had risen from the bed and walked over to Aeron’s desk, admiring it.

  “There’s a map here of the Caer and its surroundings,” she had said. “Oh, and look, I can show you where the study team is at.”

  When Willem and Aeron had reached the desk, Sharrah had traced an area on the map with her finger that started west of the Caer and extended to a spot farther down along the valley.

  “This is the winter range of the bison,” she’d said. “The team is setting up a study camp about here.” She had tapped a spot on the map between the Caer and the upper end of the winter range. “And look, this map even has the old quarry indicated on it.” A marker on the map in the hills of the northern edge of the valley, north of the camp location, indicated the stone quarry.

  “Hmm,” Aeron had said, trying to figure out where the map had come from. “I still haven’t had a chance to look at everything in the room. Didn’t know there was a map.” Eventually he had noticed several rolled up items that looked like more maps in one of several cubbyholes that sat atop the back of the desk.

  “And there is Baronel Farm.” Sharrah had indicated an area on the map east of the Caer where several buildings and fields that made up the Farm were shown. Much of the food for the Caer was produced there.

  Willem had eventually explained to Aeron how to use the alarm chronometer on the nightstand. He had said his father had once mentioned them to him after seeing some for sale at a trade caravan. It was a mechanism that kept track of the time. And it had a way to set an alarm so that you could wake up the same time every day and never be late. Which was perfect for Aeron, because it turned out that there was indeed no Assistant Proctor with a wake-up call at the Magic Craft Hall, and Aeron was not a morning person.

  Now Aeron glanced back at the device as he left his room on his way to the bathing rooms down the hall. The alarm was convenient and annoying at the same time. But at least it was going to make it easier to avoid being late. Which he was going to be if he didn’t get moving.

  The morning had been uneventful, though tiring, for Aeron. He had helped with the moss gathering and actually got to see more of the extraction process. But even so, it was not exactly how he wanted to spend his mornings. He really hoped he’d be off moss gathering duty soon. He wished the guys would at least show him more of the special caverns; they were astonishingly beautiful. As he had helped with the moss, he had decided that he would spend some of his free time exploring those caverns. And that he was going to have to show them to Willem. They were amazing.

  The afternoon had been even worse than the morning. Magic training, it turned out, might be very boring for a while. It had been a bit of a letdown for Aeron. Just a few days ago there had been the excitement of discovery, finding out he was going to be able to try magic, and then finding out that he could actually do magic. And there had been the excitement of learning things about magic itself: the different kinds of magic foci, the various frameworks, and seeing how it all fit together. It had all been very exhilarating. He’d been looking forward to actually casting full spells. It didn’t look like he was going to be able to, however, at least not any time soon.

  Training that afternoon with Master Doronal had been very short.

  “You are progressing very well,” Master Doronal had said. “We can now begin your main phase of initial training, which is learning spells. I am going to allow you to proceed at your own pace for now, and see how we progress.”

  Aeron’s heart had begun to race. What spells would he be casting? He had been all ears.

  “The spells in the primer, along with being fairly safe, are ordered in the way th
ey are to allow provisional apprentices, accepted, to learn not only the spells, but also about magic itself.”

  Master Doronal had handed him a small piece of parchment with several spells listed. “Start with these. Study them well. When you have memorized them, we will have a test and move on to more.” He had paused then, with a stern look for him. “And Aeron, only memorize them as you study them. Do not attempt to cast them.”

  Aeron had nodded, soberly. And with that, training that afternoon with Master Doronal had been over.

  He was to memorize—but not cast!—the list of spells, which turned out to be the first few in his primer. He’d get more spells to memorize when he was successfully tested on those. And so on, for who knows how long. The test, he fervently hoped, would be to actually cast the spells. He wanted to do more magic! Whatever the test turned out to be, however, it wouldn’t happen until he was sure he had the spells memorized.

  He had been in his room sitting at his desk for the last several hours working on just that, flipping between the symbol sections and back to the spells. But he was pretty sure he had the first and second spells down.

  Aeron closed his primer and sighed. Memorization was boring. And not being allowed to cast anything more than frameworks for now was frustrating. He was doing magic, though, he had to remind himself. And as his mother had always told him, nothing great comes without hard work. Aeron drew his brows together. It was odd how some things about his mother were crystal clear, while others . . .

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his mother’s adept pin. He ran his thumb over it. “I miss you mom,” he whispered. After a moment, he placed it back in his pocket.

  He should write a letter to his father. He probably missed her too. The last letter Aeron sent was last month, and there was actually a lot to update his dad about. He had just enough time to do that before heading to the Dining Hall for dinner, so he pulled out a piece of parchment from a drawer, grabbed a fountain pen, and began writing.

  Willem applied glue to the edge of the sole near the heel and then folded down the last piece of leather. He placed the shoe into the clamp and tightened it, being careful not to overdo it. The clamp was hung from hooks above his worktable next to its twin with the matching shoe. The hooks, of which there were several, dangled at the end of long wires that hung down from the ceiling to within three feet of the worktable.

  There, he thought to himself, the second shoe was now nearly done too. Tomorrow he would treat the soles of both shoes with hardener to stiffen the leather up a bit, making them more durable, then apply the stain. And that would pretty much complete the shoes. He nodded and smiled to himself, excited to be done with the shoes so soon.

  The smith had been as good as his word. The plates had been ready for him today, allowing him to complete the shoes tonight. And they looked great too, if he did say so himself. Lord Baronel’s daughter was going to love them.

  “Now, where was I on the satchel?” he asked himself aloud.

  He slid open the bottom of the four rather wide drawers on his worktable. Inside were the various pieces and parts that he had so far gathered and prepared for the satchel he was working on for Aeron. From within, he removed the partially completed handle and shoulder strap and smiled. Aeron was a bit energetic, one might even say heedless, so Willem wanted to be sure both were very strong. In fact, he had ordered steel hardware, the clasps, snaps, buckles, rings, connectors and other metal bits, in preparation.

  He wasn’t going to make the satchel too fancy, just a few minor embellishments along the handle and shoulder strap, but nothing that would weaken them in any way. Simple, clean, and beautifully functional was his overall design idea for the satchel. Inside he would include a holder strip for writing implements and maybe even a few pockets that could be closed with snaps. Who knew what odds and ends Aeron would have to carry around for magic?

  It didn’t take him long to finish work on the shoulder strap and the handle. Like the entire satchel, they were going to be fairly plain, most of the design aesthetic was perfect, beautiful leather and the stitching. And he’d already completed most of the stitching on them yesterday. Leather stitching was done with strong thread coated in beeswax, which made sewing through leather easier using a needle device that allowed for two rows of stitching to be completed at once. The device required some practice to get the hang of, but using it was much faster than sewing one row at a time.

  He ran his finger along the stitching and nodded with satisfaction. All he had added tonight were his maker’s mark on the bottoms of both, and on the underside of the handle he’d added Aeron’s name using letter punches. He would have to wait for the rings and clips before he could actually complete them. He placed them back into the short but very wide drawer and then brought out the large pieces of leather he would need to cut to size and shape in order to form the carry-all body.

  He wanted the satchel to last quite some time, so he was making it strong. And because Willem had no idea what Aeron would be carrying, he was making it large. At seventeen inches wide by fourteen inches tall, it might seem a little oversized for Aeron right now, but once he got some growth on him, it would be perfect.

  He wanted the inside of the satchel to have a divider running from left to right, dividing the inside into two sections, one about half the size of the other. And, again keeping strength foremost in his mind, he didn’t just want to sew in a separate piece of leather. Instead, he was going to make the divider an actual part of the structure of the satchel. He cut two long pieces of leather to be sewn together at one end for the divider portion. The ends that would become the divider he had cut with flaps on either side to form the inner left and right sides of the satchel. The free ends of the two pieces would form the inside front and bottom of the satchel and the inside back and bottom. He laid the pieces on the worktable. In their final configuration, from the side, they looked like a flat-bottomed, very tall and very narrow letter W, the inner bar of the letter being the divider.

  A piece of thicker leather, which he had already cut eight inches wide and just over forty-five inches long, was going to be sewn to the divider piece to form the bottom and both sides of the outside of the satchel. He placed it on the worktable, wrapping it around the divider pieces. Looking at it from the front, from above, it looked like a large and very wide letter U cradling the inside pieces.

  He looked at the side of the table where he had placed two large pieces of even thicker leather, one for the front and the other for the back and closure-flap. He had cut these out carefully, avoiding any blemishes in the leather, because these would be part of the outside of the satchel. All of the leather pieces he had cut using templates he made for the purpose.

  There were other smaller bits of leather he’d be using as well, like the pieces for the two shoulder pads, which would be able to slide along the shoulder strap. And which, he reminded himself, he would need to slide onto the strap before attaching the clips on the strap’s ends. There were also the reinforcing bits of leather that would be sewn to the tops of the sides of the satchel where the rings for the shoulder strap clips would be sewn on, and also the pieces of leather that would become the small straps that would be used with the buckles to close the satchel, and, not the least, the pieces that would become the pockets themselves, along with little embellishments like the straps holding steel rings at the bottom and back, and the writing tool strip inside. There would also be riveting done at stress points for strength.

  Willem shook his head and smiled at the work he’d set for himself. It was a lot of leather, which, along with the steel hardware, was why it was going to cost a full three marks. But when finished, it was going to be a satchel that would last a lifetime.

  After he had cut all the remaining pieces of leather, he decided the next finished piece he would make would be the divider, because he didn’t need hardware to work on that. He had just finished sewing the ends of the leather pieces together for it, including stitches along
the center from left to right and top to bottom for strength, when he realized it was already time for dinner. He shook his head. Time went so quickly when you were having fun! He ran his hands over the larger well-cured leather pieces, he loved the rich feel of leather, before placing everything back into the bottom drawer.

  He looked about the workroom and noticed that there weren’t any other people around other than a journeyman working at a table on the other side of the large space. Everyone else had already left for dinner. He sighed, stood up, and made his way out.

  As he walked up the cobblestone road to the Dinning Hall, he thought more on his projects. All-in-all he was happy at the progress he’d made on the shoes and satchel. The shoes were pretty much done, but he would come back after dinner and finish the inner body and sides of the satchel, which was as much as he could do without hardware. If he was lucky with the smiths, and he might be, the various bits of hardware he had ordered were actually fairly standard parts, he could possibly finish in a day or two.

  A small smile worked its way across his lips. He couldn’t wait to see Aeron’s face when he gave the satchel to him.

  Aeron fell over onto his bed. Dinner had been great, featuring fried chicken and roast tubers, with cherry pie (and whipped cream!) for dessert. They only got fried chicken maybe three or four times a year. It was one of his favorites. Other times the chicken was used for soups or stews, or even roasted, which was tasty too. He smiled and burped, then patted his stomach and thought back on the excellent meal.

  Willem had been smiling about something almost all through dinner. He’d also asked Aeron a lot of questions about what kinds of things were used in magic. In actuality, Aeron had truthfully replied, there were not a lot. There were books to read and maybe notes to make, but that was really it so far. It was mostly using your head. And practicing. Lots and lots of practicing. There weren’t any tools needed to perform magic. Not in the normal sense, like a leatherworker’s tools, or a smith’s, or any such. Though there were some things that could be used to assist with magic, like the training bracelets. And, he had told Willem, you might find a lot of interesting items that you might want to keep to study. For example, things that had interesting affinities and what-not. Willem had seemed a little disappointed after he had explained all this.