The Dragon Gem (Korin's Journal)

by Brian Beam

  I tried and tried to justify it in my mind. The man had tried to kill me. All of them had. What else could I have done, let the men kill me?

  After a few seconds, I got enough feeling and awareness back in my body and mind to realize that if I didn’t do something, I was going to bleed to death in my saddle. I kicked Telis into a gallop beyond the light of the fire and into the dark forest, fumbling with shaking fingers to remove his feedbag as we fled. I had killed a man. I had killed him.

  Chapter 5

  Broken Laws Can Heal Wounds

  Ending a human life really makes you evaluate every little aspect about yourself. Dozens of questions spring to your mind. Were you a worse person now? Were you changed forever? Did you deserve to live any more than the person you killed?

  The shock of what I had done faded slightly as Telis carried me to the northwestern edge of the forest over the next few hours, but I still felt numb, both inside and out. Of course, that may have also been from blood loss.

  While I rode through the near-silent night, I had somehow been able to get my spare shirt from my shoulderbag to create a makeshift bandage for my right shoulder and to tie around my stomach for the wound in my side. There was nothing to do for the one on my back.

  I was really having trouble coming to grips with what I had done. I could not for the life of me think of anything I could have done differently. All I had done was try to stay alive during the fight. Still, why did someone have to die for me to live?

  In my mind, I formed a story of a man who had come to the end of his rope, forced into a life of banditry to take care of his indigent family. As my imagination was just starting to conjure up images of his starving children, I violently shook my head as if the action would shake the images out of my mind. My actions had been justified, right?. I would have died otherwise. Anyone else would have done the same thing, right?

  As Telis carried me further into the darkened and roadless fields outside the forest, I tried to focus my thoughts away from what I had done to the other questions that had arisen that night. Who was Menar and what was with his reaction to the glowing black stone when he neared me? Had he really been expecting me or had he mistaken me for someone else? How did Menar know who Max was? Why was he so surprised at Max’s appearance? What was it about Menar that made him dangerous enough for Max to command me to run and expose his ability to talk and use magic? What was that flash of light and explosion all about? Was Max even alive to answer the questions for me? If he was, would he?

  Most importantly, if Max was dead, what was I to do about my Contract? Maybe a life of servitude to Galius would be retribution from Rhalina, the goddess of karma, for what I had done that night. I said before that I’m not religious, but times like this made me selfishly want there to be something else behind everything to take some of the blame off of me.

  That last thought brought me right back to dwelling on the dead man. So much for trying not to think about it.

  I pressed Telis onward for another hour or so before finally allowing him to stop. I practically dropped out of the saddle, barely holding myself erect upon wobbly legs and grabbed my lantern, flint, and steel. Setting my lantern alight, I set it on the ground and peeled off my cloak and bloodstained shirt. I lowered myself to a sitting position on the ground and placed the lantern before me.

  Reaching to my back, I felt for the gash stretching diagonally for what felt like the whole of my back. It was shallow and not bleeding heavily, but my hand still came back stained red. A quick assessment of my other two wounds revealed that I was going to need stitches if I didn’t reunite with Max soon. If he was even still alive. I had never given myself stitches, but it looked like I was going to get the chance to learn.

  I staggered back to my feet and pulled out an apple from my saddlebags, feeding it to Telis. Even though I hadn’t eaten dinner, I had no appetite whatsoever. I was sure that anything I tried to put down would come right back up with the dead man in the forefront of my thoughts. The man I had killed.

  Even so, I grabbed the loaf of bread I had started on earlier and broke off another chunk, pulling out some cheese to eat with it. I would have to try my hardest to keep it down. With my blood loss, I was going to need some sustenance to keep cognizant. Menar could have been on my tail. I needed to be able to pick up my sword or at least have the energy to mount Telis at a moment’s notice.

  Once I washed down the meager meal with my waterskin and poured some of the water into Telis’ mouth, I put on my cloak over my bare torso and laid back against the grassy field to rest, partially because I could barely hold myself up anyway. The stars were bright and beautiful in the night sky, with few clouds to obscure them. The moon was big enough that I could probably have managed without the lantern. I wanted to be clearly visible if Max was looking for me, though.

  The beautiful night sky took my mind away from everything for just a moment. When I was a child, Max and I would go to this large hill close to home and he would teach me the constellations. I searched for Vesteir’s but it was not in the portion of the sky visible to me this night.

  I must have either passed out or fell asleep because I turned my head to see a noticeable decrease in my lantern’s oil. My back ached from lying on my wound while the other two wounds felt almost numb. There was no sign of Max.

  With a sigh, I dizzily rose, and allowed myself to fall against Telis’ side to keep myself from collapsing. I dug into the saddlebag for the brandy. If I was going to stitch myself up with my sewing kit, I wanted to be as numb as possible.

  “Put that down,” a voice weakly rasped before I could uncork the bottle. Max’s voice.

  I dropped the bottle and stumbled to the edge of the lantern’s light against the pain and wooziness to meet Max limping towards me.

  “Are you okay?” I blurted out, dropping beside him. He didn’t look injured aside from holding up his right forepaw and looking like he was fighting to not collapse.

  “As well as I need to be,” he coughed, dropping to his haunches and supporting his front with only his left leg. “Sit down,” he told me as he examined me from where he sat.

  I lowered myself cross-legged to the ground. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” he questioned. I assumed he had taken in the fact that my shoulder and side were bandaged.

  “Just a shallow gash down my back,” I replied.

  “Do not move,” he commanded as he usually did before healing me. I considered telling him to stop. I didn’t know if he could live through healing my wounds after what he had been through. However, I did know that he wouldn’t listen.

  Max rose and limped towards me, climbing into my lap. He didn’t normally do that. I started feeling the familiar warmth of his magic, but something felt a little off. Before I could put my finger on it, agony burst throughout my skull and the world went black.

  ****

  My parents were standing before me, my father in his crown and royal-blue kingly robes, my mother in her flowing blue gossamer gown with her golden hair glowing. Everything was slightly blurry as usual. My parents gazed at me with loving smiles just like I had seen so many times before. Something was different, though.

  Behind my parents, just off to the right, was a blurry-faced man in a voluminous,s red pullover robe. Beside him stood a muscular man. I couldn’t make out his face either, but I could see his long brown hair tied back behind his head. Menar.

  ****

  Bright morning sunshine hit my eyes as I jerked awake, breathing heavily. I sprung up to a sitting position and spun my head in both directions, trying to make sure Menar wasn’t going to hurt my parents.

  Reality set in when I took in the rolling grasslands of Urdale with the forest behind me and wooded mountains far ahead of me. In the distance, smoke rose from a structure with what seemed like fields of crops around it, most likely a farm.

  With a start, I looked down at my shirtless torso and reached up to my shoulder. There was no wound or even a scar to speak of. My side was the same
. I could feel no wound on my back. My skin was free of blood. I felt surprisingly good–health-wise at least. The morning chill was biting. I had been laying on my torn cloak in just my pants and boots. Max was sleeping at my feet. Telis was grazing on grass a dozen or so paces away.

  Tucking my hair behind my ears, I thought back to my dream. Why had my recurring dream changed? Even if I had reason to have Menar in my thoughts, nothing had ever changed in that particular dream before. The scary part was that it felt right, like I was finally remembering something just a hair outside of memory.

  In my head, I told myself that the previous night had just gotten to me. And with that thought came crashing waves of guilt for the life I had taken. As the guilt washed over me, anger started to well up behind it. Anger more harsh than I had ever felt before. Anger towards myself. Anger towards Galius. Anger towards Menar. Strangely, the strongest portion of it was towards Max.

  Max had been hiding so much from me. He knew who Menar was. He knew Menar was dangerous. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had known Menar had spent years waiting to find me according to what Menar had said the previous night. If Max had been open with me from the beginning, maybe everything that had happened could have been avoided. I wouldn’t have taken a life. There was some tie between Max, Menar, and myself. Max was hoarding his knowledge of it. And what had he done to me the previous night? I may have been healed, but there was something wrong about that explosion of pain that knocked me unconscious.

  My whole body trembled with rage. I stood up more easily than I should have been able to after everything that had happened to me the day before, thanks to Max’s healing. All of that renewed energy fed the burning furnace of hate and fury I felt towards him at that moment. I drew my sword from the scabbard still buckled to my belt and tensed, wanting to kick him as hard as I could again and again and…

  I paused. I had every right to be angry, but not as angry as I was. A tiny voice in the back of my mind told me to calm down, that something was wrong. I held on to that voice—the voice of reason—as tightly as I could, and lowered my sword. The anger still tried to bubble to the surface and my muscles remained tense. Part of me still wanted to attack him.

  While trying to latch on to rationality, and only marginally succeeding, I forced myself to sheathe my Vesteir-sigiled sword. “Max,” I grated through teeth clenched so hard that my jaw ached.

  Max blearily opened his eyes. “If you want me to be any use to you, you would be better off—” His eyes widened when he saw the look on my face. “Korin, just sit back down for a while.” His voice was filled with unease. I found myself having a hard time caring.

  “I’m through with your secrets,” I growled. I struggled to restrain myself from grabbing for the hilt of my sword again. “Tell me everything. Now.” That little voice in the back of my head was trying to tell me that I wasn’t being myself. I ignored it.

  Max’s expression went from concerned to severe. “Sit back down and rest. We will talk about this later.”

  That was it. The dam burst and the anger flooded every fiber of my being. I drew my sword. I found myself screaming. “No, you will tell me everything. Who are you? Who is Menar? Why did he want to kill me?” My throat burned as I spat out the words like fire.

  “Korin, trust me. Take some deep breaths and sit back down.” His severe expression hadn’t cracked in the least during my tirade.

  “Trust you?” I shrieked. “By Galyndrid’s twin, I will never trust you again!” “Galyndrid’s twin” wasn’t so much of a curse than just comparing Max to Galandror, the god of betrayal and twin brother to Galyndrid, goddess of trust. Are you keeping up with all these ridiculous gods?

  That voice of reason continued to try to talk me down, but the anger had pushed it beyond my reach. My hand tightened on my sword, my eyes locked onto my target and I leapt in to attack Max. In doing so, I learned a valuable lesson: don’t attack a wizard cat.

  I slammed into an invisible wall, and as if that hadn’t been painful enough, I was thrust back through the air a good ten feet to land flat on my back with my head slamming into the ground immediately after. At some point during my flight, my sword had been thrust from my hand and landed at least a hundred feet away.

  Now, I don’t know if the blow to my head or to my pride was worse, but at least being put in my place allowed the voice of reason to take control again. Maybe it was just the fact that I had just been taught a lesson in humility by a cat. I just lay there, staring at the sky, afraid of what I would do if I got back up. I was in pain, but I was calmer than I had been.

  I heard Max move through the short grass to my right and I turned my head to see him stop right beyond my reach. He was going to be ready if I tried anything else stupid. He didn’t look angry. Maybe regretful. At that moment his expression didn’t make sense to me.

  “I am sorry Korin. Please don’t try to get up. You are suffering some side effects from the magic I used on you last night. It is my own fault that you are acting like this.” His voice sounded weary. I was sure he needed more rest due to what all he had done the previous night. My forcing him to act against me was not going to help him recover.

  I took a deep breath. The anger was rising. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab for his throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed the strange anger and urges down. “This never happened to me before. Did something go wrong? I remember the pain.” The pain he had caused. I wanted to cause him the same pain. No, I couldn’t let myself hurt him. He would never have hurt me on purpose. My rage was unnatural. I needed to control it. I needed to listen. I kept my eyes closed thinking that maybe if I didn’t see him, I would have an easier time keeping my anger at bay. The struggle was mentally exhausting.

  Max remained silent for a time. I wanted to open my eyes and try to get a feel for what he was thinking from his face, but I also knew I might lose myself to the fury that wanted so desperately to claw its way out of me. Instead, I just let myself drift through the blackness behind my eyelids, pretending that I didn’t have an Activated Contract hovering above me or anyone out to kill me. I imagined that I was home in my bed in Huran and that the Karells were the only parents in my life. I imagined that things were simple. The only problem with that way of thinking is that nothing is ever simple.

  After a seeming eternity of my letting my mind wander, Max broke the silence. “Korin, look at me.” I reluctantly obliged. “What are you feeling right now?”

  Thankfully, the aberrant anger was ebbing, even with the source of it beside me. “Confused,” I admitted.

  Max let out a breath and tension that I hadn’t even noticed left his muscles. He really had been worried. “I did not expect the effects to last long, but I had to make sure they had passed before I told you what was going on.”

  I propped myself up on my elbows. “I understand,” I whispered. I could have hurt or killed him. What had come over me? I pushed myself up into a sitting position. “You can tell me now.”

  That look of regret returned to his whiskered face. “Korin, I pulled the energy I used for the magic to heal your wounds from you.”

  All of a sudden, his regret made sense. The pain I had felt with his spell had as well. His concern that I should be calmed before he told me was well warranted. Powering magic from anyone human other than yourself against their will is a crime punishable by death or lifelong imprisonment no matter what kingdom you live in. It is almost akin to rape. You take something from that person that can never be given back. Let me explain.

  Have you ever heard of mad wizards? You know, crazy old kooks who stay locked up in towers and talk to themselves? Well, those are wizards who power their magic through their own bodies. See, magic requires two components to work.

  The first component is energy used to direct the spell once it is created. This energy is no different than the energy used to run or lift something heavy. Wizards are perfectly safe in powering this part of spells through themselves. All it can do is wear them out. True, it c
an be dangerous, just as someone can technically run themselves to death, but overall it is very safe. This energy tells the spell where to go, or what to have an effect on. The more complex the spell, or the more places it has to go, or the more things it has to do, the more tiring it is. Max directing a healing spell to repair my muscle, fat, blood vessels, and skin that the blades had cut into as well as fight any infection and leave no scar would be like running up a mountain with rocks tied to your feet.

  The second component is a different kind of energy that creates the actual magic. This is the component that makes the magic take shape, whether manifesting as something intangible like healing, or tangible like fire. From what Max has told me of magic, this energy can’t really be explained. No one has ever been able to discover exactly where the energy comes from. Some say it comes from the mind. Others say the soul. Either way, something is taken from the source the energy is pulled from. The only caveat is that the wizard has to be touching the source in order to use it. Those crazy old kooks I mentioned earlier are the types of wizards who choose not to use other sources for that energy and use themselves up bit by bit until they go insane. Or kill themselves.

  There is no telling how long it will to destroy someone in this way. Some wizards have been known to lose their mind after a single spell created from themselves. Others have taken years or decades. Most are smart enough to not use themselves for the energy.

  This is why using another human for creating magic is such a serious crime. Max could have ruined me. I could have woken up as only a shell of myself, my body being the only remnant of who I used to be.

  There have been instances of wizards using unwilling humans for their spells. You know, the evil bastard types. Conversely, there are humans who willingly allow themselves to be used for money or maybe just because they are already crazy. Humans have a lot of energy—whether it be from their mind or soul—to create the magic and therefore can be used for bigger, more complex magic with little fear of being killed in the process.