Dragon Magic

by Megan Derr

  MEMORIES

  Mahzan moved his latest pile of stones one by one to form a small pyramid. His vision started to swim by the halfway point, but he would get it, Dragon damn the world.

  He passed out before he'd finished another quarter.

  When he woke, only a few minutes had passed, but he was soaked in sweat, parched, and ravenous. He rolled over to his stomach and pushed to his knees, grabbed the crumbling wall to his right, and pulled himself to his feet. He swayed a moment but stayed upright.

  Heaving a sigh, he headed back across the overgrown remnants of a city long forgotten to where he'd set up camp. He kicked over the pathetic attempt at a pyramid as he passed it.

  Other attempts at control littered his path through what remained of streets, from various attempts at stacking, to flat, artful arrangements, and places where he'd simply tried to fill in holes. All small stuff, things he should have been much better at—

  But every time he tried, all he saw was Binhadi slamming into the wall and dropping like a bundle of broken twigs.

  He hadn't meant—hadn't wanted—

  And even angry, he should have had better control than that. Anger was no excuse, how many times had he heard that? Told himself that. Knew that. He was better than the mind mages of old, better than the fears and superstitions that chased his kind. The world might fear shadow mages most, but only because they thought mind mages were a problem that had long ago been taken care of.

  Ever since the fall of Terem, when a mind mage had snapped and lost control. No one could prove for certain that was what had happened, but once he'd learned to read, Mahzan had gone after every account, no matter how slight or seemingly insignificant.

  It had been the breaking point of decades, centuries, of tightly controlling mind mages. Any mind mage found had been documented, forced into training, then forced into certain jobs. If they were caught abusing their powers, to the noose they went, or were locked far away from people—one of the original uses of the places where Prince Seda and the Grand Dukes were now imprisoned.

  The most dangerous ones were those like him, capable of reading emotions and moving objects. If anyone ever figured out he could also read actual thoughts when Oathbound… Mind mages were no longer regulated, but they were heavily punished if caught abusing their powers, and most, when discovered, were still 'encouraged' to take up jobs where they could be watched closely.

  Now that he'd proven to be one of the bad mind mages, would Sule or Cemal or Binhadi inform authorities and see that he was taken care of, one way or another? Or would they be content that he was out of their sight?

  His stomach cramped, and Mahzan shoved all thoughts of the others aside for what must have been the thousandth time that day alone. The sooner he was able to stop thinking about them, the better off he would be. Whatever the rest of them did, nobody would give a damn about him. He had ruined any chance of that, between almost killing Binhadi and then saying all those awful things to Sule and Cemal.

  Mahzan flinched, remembering the look on Sule's face when he'd said he had no reason to stay. He'd regretted the words immediately, but…

  But it didn't matter now because a bridge destroyed was a bridge uncrossable.

  He would get control of his powers and then he would find a job somewhere. He could read and write, work hard, learn quickly. Surely that made him useful for more than entertaining crowds.

  Bile scraped the back of his throat as the words Cemal and Sule had hurled echoed in his head. He'd never manipulated the crowds. He could feel their emotions, get a sense of what worked and what didn't, but other jesters did the same by non-magical means. That wasn't manipulating. He'd never forced them to be happy or throw coins; there was nothing to be proud of in cheating and violating people.

  But just the thought of performing again made him sick. He'd rather do something quiet, where he wouldn't draw attention.

  And if it sounded rather bleak when he thought about it too long or too honestly, well, maybe he should have thought about that before he threw away everything he'd had. Before he'd thrown a man into a wall and broken his bones, probably just barely avoided killing him. Told Sule and Cemal they weren't worth staying for.

  Reaching his little campground, Mahzan got a fire going, and then went to fill his cookpot with water. Once the water was boiling, he threw in various roots and other edibles he'd scrounged up. The mushrooms were his real triumph, but he was saving them for dinner. His attempts at catching any sort of wildlife had failed miserably, something he'd always been happy to leave to Cemal and Sule. Thankfully he'd noted the plants Cemal often gathered or he shuddered to think how starved he'd be, since he hadn't been smart enough to ensure he had coin when he'd stormed off and the supplies he'd bought in the village he'd passed on his way here hadn't lasted as long as he'd thought they would.

  It wouldn't be hard to return to that village and entertain for coin, or just room and board, but the thought of it left him frozen. And he couldn't bear the thought of whoring again, either. That wasn't something he wanted to make a regular practice again. He'd done it for these supplies, but it had bothered him in a way it hadn't when he'd worked the streets of the Heart. So here he was, until he could trust himself again. It seemed the most suitable place for a violent, useless, pathetic mind mage with no place to call home.

  While the soup was bubbling, he hung a kettle over the fire as well and prepared his tea while he waited for it to heat. The supplies and foodstuffs had come easily, even if it had been a long time since he'd had to whore himself out for money. It wasn't work he'd missed, but it was still better than taking to any sort of stage.

  And now he was away from all of it, alone in a ruined city.

  Hopefully by the time he left it he wouldn't be such a damned mess.

  By the time he'd finished two cups of tea the soup was ready. It didn't have the kinds of flavors Cemal had always managed, but it was edible. After he was finished, he cleaned everything up, relieved himself in the woods, then crossed the city again to get back to work.

  He'd always avoided mind moving because, aside from drawing the kind of attention he preferred to avoid, it was exhausting. Pulling down the ceiling should have caused him a great deal more harm than it had; he assumed the bond was responsible for that. Moving Sule out of the well had drained him even with the bond, since precise movement was significantly more difficult than careless destruction.

  Which was why throwing Binhadi around had worked too damned well.

  He stopped as he reached the clear area he'd been working before, several paces away from the pile of stones he was trying to stack into a pyramid shape. Hard enough to do with his hands, given the way the disparate stones had to be carefully arranged to hold themselves together. Even harder with his mind. So far, impossible. He could move them into a pile, had been able to form a single, flat square. Difficult, but he'd done it.

  So now he'd work on this next step until it too became merely difficult.

  The first layer was easy enough, pulling the scattered stones together and settling them in a large square. Even the next step was bearable: pulling stones close, lifting them in the air, arranging them one by one to form the second layer.

  By the third layer he was sweating, the effort of holding the other stones as they wobbled or threatened to give taxing on top of moving other stones to stack on top. No doubt one of the city engineers could manage it easily, but Mahzan's job had always been to juggle rocks, not stack them. Though he'd been worlds happier when he'd been able to give up the stones he'd used at the start for the professional juggler balls he'd been able to buy after months of saving.

  Everything went downhill after that. He made it through the fourth row, barely, but that was the halfway point, and two layers later, with only two more to go, his vision blacked out and everything collapsed.

  Well, mostly collapsed. Two and a half or so layers remained, but the rest had burst and tumbled as his control snapped and lashed out. Why had he been
stupid enough to think he would ever be able to do this?

  No. He wouldn't give up. He would learn control. He wasn't a manipulator or a coward or a monster. He wasn't going to be one more mind mage hunted down and killed for the safety of the kingdom.

  All right. Pyramids weren't working, so time to return to simpler things. He could tumble rocks into a hole. He could lay out designs. Stacking was too hard. What was between them? Of all the books he'd read, why hadn't he read more on training exercises for mind moving?

  Because someone would have noticed he was reading them and started asking dangerous questions, but right then Mahzan wished he'd taken the risk.

  Heights, that was it. He could find a high wall, or something similar, and practicing lifting objects of increasing size and weight onto it. So he just needed to find a suitably high surface. He stood up—and promptly dropped back down as dizziness struck him like running into a wall.

  Maybe it was time for a break and a cup of tea. Then he'd resume practice. Dragon, he's forgotten how exhausting this could be. He hadn't needed to stretch his magic for years, not since he finally got the hang of reading the crowd without accidentally sharing his own emotions.

  At least he had thought he'd mastered it, but with Sule's words ringing in his ears, he wasn't so certain. Apparently he'd been fooling himself along with everyone else, and had no real skill at all.

  Flinching, Mahzan slowly stood again and began the trek back across the city. He'd learned hard the first day to keep where he lived and where he worked well apart.

  He'd just started the kettle boiling when he felt tingling through his mind, like a limb coming back to life after being dulled from too long in an uncomfortable position. Ugh. There were people drawing close. Likely another merchant train stopping to rest for the night, since Terem was apparently a good place for that. Well hopefully they wouldn't notice, or at least bother, him.

  The tingling grew sharper, turned into sharp prickles, then a stabbing sensation. Whoever they were, they must have a mind mage with them, to affect him so strongly. Wonderful. Mahzan finished his tea, cleaned the cup and put everything away, then stood to resume practicing.

  He hadn't taken three steps out of camp when the stabbing stopped and a sensation like a wall coming down echoed through his mind. Thoughts spilled through the opening, clamoring around and triggering a throbbing headache.

  Worse, they were familiar thoughts. Sorely, desperately missed thoughts. Mahzan started crying and hated himself for it. He slammed barriers into place as he fled deep into the city ruins, desperately trying to ignore the images crowding his mind. Binhadi and Cemal kissing. Cemal and Sule kissing. All three of them. Binhadi laughing and smiling. A recent hunt. A fight with two manticores. Dragon, that was Cemal in his strange wolf-man form. As a griffon.

  He saw Sule wielding an ordinary sword in one hand, and a blade made of fire in the other.

  They fought like a real team. Had clearly become lovers.

  Didn't need him. Seemed perfectly happy as they were. The one real thing he had thought he contributed was the mental bond that brought them together, made it easier to communicate. But apparently they hadn't needed him at all.

  Of course. He missed them, would give anything to undo what he'd done… but the secret, stupid hope that they'd missed him as well had clearly been as pathetically in vain as he'd feared. They didn't miss him. Didn't need him. Nobody needed him unless they were bored and wanted to be amused and entertained. He was a fool in every sense of the word.

  So why were they in Terem? How had they known to find him here?

  Mahzan increased his pace, desperate to get as far away from the campsite as he could. It wouldn't take them long to find it, and he needed to make sure they wouldn't find him. Hopefully they'd give up after a few hours of searching and he could go back to being alone. Unless they were here to kill him or arrest him. But surely if that were the case they would have brought reinforcements? Or maybe they knew they wouldn't need them—because they wouldn't. He'd rather go quietly than hurt them.

  When he finally reached the center of the ruins, he headed for the remains of what had probably been a great temple. What was left resembled the walls he saw in the Heart's temple, specially built to support the towering archways meant to resemble the spine of the Great Dragon.

  He went down a set of cracked, mold-covered stairs into darkness, what had been a wine cellar at one point. Bits of broken casks remained, dusty bottles that still had wine, decanted but never taken to where they were meant to go.

  He'd explored it thoroughly the first couple days of his arrival, as he had several other places, searching for a dry, secure place to 'live' while he practiced. The cellar obviously wasn't suited to living quarters, but it was dark enough there were no shadows. At least, there wouldn't be by the time the others found it, if they came this way. No shadows, no shadow magic, though if Sule came along and lit a fire…

  Still, they weren't likely to look for him in a place where he couldn't see.

  Sitting down on a fallen bit of wall, where he was well hidden by the rest of the wall—an old storeroom, probably—he curled his knees to his chest and waited. Their thoughts still trickled through his mind, fainter now, like they'd thought to put up their own walls. Clearly they'd stopped practicing without him to harp. Except Binhadi, as impenetrable as ever.

  Mahzan pinched his eyes shut, trembling as images of Binhadi slamming into the wall came over him again. The way he'd crumbled. He'd seen it for himself, and through the eyes of everyone else. Had felt Binhadi's shock and hurt and pain in the moment before Mahzan shattered the bond.

  Clearly he'd only made it dormant, though, if it had woken again so easily with merely their presence.

  He let their thoughts wash over him, picking up worry, concern, frustration. He could see his campsite through their eyes, but didn't dare pry further into their thoughts. Most people didn't notice the sensation for what it was, if they stirred from whatever they were doing to notice it at all, but as well as they knew him, as much as they must have noticed the bond reinstating, they would know what he was doing and after that it wouldn't be hard for one of them—probably Binhadi—to find him.

  Where in the Dragon's name are you, fool? Sule asked, though from the tone of it, the question was rhetorical, not actually for Mahzan.

  We'll find him, Binhadi said, and that thought was so loud and clear, Mahzan had the sinking feeling it was meant for him to hear. Damn Binhadi.

  Cemal said nothing, only continued to radiate worry as he examined the campsite, the feeling increasing sharply as he examined Mahzan's foodstuffs and dumped out the bowl of mushrooms Mahzan had worked so hard to collect. He'd spent two hours collecting those. Why was Cemal ruining all his hard work? What was he supposed to have for dinner now?

  "What's wrong?" Sule asked.

  Cemal scooped up the mushrooms and threw them in the fire Sule had started. "These are Harper mushrooms. They look almost exactly like the Shapiro mushrooms we're always eating, save for the brown bits here. One Harper mushroom can kill three large men."

  Mahzan's shaking increased, grew so bad he could only huddle in the corner and hold his legs tighter. Mercy of the Dragon, he couldn't even forage for himself after all. He'd been proud of himself for managing that much, even if he was too stupid to be capable of hunting, and now to learn he couldn't even pick mushrooms. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere, he proved to be even stupider than previously believed. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  They all froze, and Mahzan realized his walls had slipped. Damn it. He shoved them back into place and reinforced them, focused exclusively on keeping them strong. Except to say, Leave!

  No, Binhadi replied, voice soft but far more booming than Mahzan's bellow. I will find you.

  Mahzan didn't reply. They had to sleep sometime, and when they did, he would leave. One man on foot couldn't travel as quickly as three men on horses, but he could hide far better. Eventually they'd give up and go back t
o the fearmonger problem they should be focusing on. Yet another reason he was a damned fool. Whatever his personal feelings, there was still a fearmonger out there that could destroy another city, or the whole damned kingdom, if they didn't stop it.

  But that wasn't enough to make him go out there and face his former friends.

  It had been nice to have friends, and he definitely hadn't minded they were friends who were also lovers. Sex wasn't hard to find in the castle, especially for the King's Jester, but sex and friendship was a rare combination. He'd never enjoyed his magic so much before. Though really just the bond between the four of them had been enough. Like he'd never be alone again.

  Too bad he'd ruined it.

  Mahzan shoved his brooding thoughts away, focused again on his walls, determined to keep Binhadi from finding him. He just had to wait until they fell asleep. That was all. He'd make his way to a village, obtain new supplies, and go somewhere else.

  Eventually he had to get up to piss, or risk pissing himself. Mahzan moved furtively, following his fingers to a different corner to tend the matter. When he was done, he kicked dirt and rock over it as best he could to bury the smell, then shuffled back to his corner.

  He couldn't tell if minutes or hours had passed. But he was getting tired, and sitting around in the dark and quiet wasn't helping.

  Sleep was just starting to get the better of him when he heard voices. Audibly, rather than in his head. Mahzan wanted to shake them all. Why couldn't they just leave.

  "…won't…necessary…I can…and bring…"

  Silence fell after that, and Mahzan waited, waited. Nothing. Maybe they'd decided he wasn't here after all. Maybe now they'd finally leave.