by Toby Forward
“There should be salt,” he said, “and a leaf, and other things.”
“Just pretend,” said Flaxfold. “Just to show us.”
Sam traced the letters on the side of the plate. Green and blue smoke dribbled from his nose and fell into the plate. Sam drew back, startled, then leaned forward and looked down. The smoke hovered for a second, and then contracted, gathered together over the plate and, in a moment, formed itself into a tiny Green and Blue dragon. Sam sat back in fright. Then he fell down, unconscious.
The dragon woke
from a blue dream of sky. He dragged his claws on the forest floor. Beech mast and acorns, the dropped twigs of autumn, and the sweet brown earth under the greenly fallen leaves. He had been roused from something deeper than sleep.
The dragon drank in the scented woodland air, the ears of his ears awake, the eyes of his eyes opened.
Lifting himself from the sleep that had swallowed him, he scrambled up the trunk of a wide oak, scampered along the topmost branch, looked down at the forest top that spread in all directions away from him, and, with an effortless push of his legs, launched himself into the high air.
This was his birthday. He was newly made in limitless sky over the endless earth.
Pages from an apprentice’s notebook
COINS. You can never tell the value of a coin by its appearance. A heavy coin may be worth very little. A small coin may be the most valuable. A coin does not lose its value no matter how many times it is spent, but a coin is only worth as much as people are willing to give you for it. You can buy a chicken if the farmer will sell it to you, but if he won’t sell you will go hungry, even if your purse is heavy with coins.
Learn what your coin is worth before you spend it. Find out what is for sale before you try to buy. Don’t be deceived by the appearance of the coin. Find out what it is really worth.
Look closely at a person, but look deep, and look around.
Sam set the places
at the kitchen table.
Flaxfold, Eloise, Axestone, himself, December, Starback, and an empty place.
The trout were frying in butter, the almonds toasting to sprinkle on top at the last moment. Thick slices of bread. Axestone had insisted on a salad as well, fresh leaves from the garden tossed with herbs and sweet oil, sharp vinegar.
“Where shall we sit?” asked Eloise.
“Wherever you like,” said Sam.
Flaxfold poured cider into clay bowls, and apple juice for Sam.
Starback scrambled onto his chair and squatted on his haunches, then slid down and lay in front of the oven.
December looked at Sam with quiet pride. He was alive, more than alive. He was well. The moment that the small dragon had appeared on the blue and white plate, and he had fallen backward, they all sprang forward to help him; but he rolled and gasped, stood up and laughed. His legs were straight, his back lost its crooked twist, his eyes were bright and clear.
He laughed again, and smoke and flames burst from his mouth.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll get rid of that.”
He ran out the door and looked high into the sky.
They followed and stared with him.
“How far away?” asked Axestone.
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Minutes. Not much. I can see us.”
“Dragons have good eyes,” said Flaxfold.
A shape was already forming high and far from them.
Sam clenched his fists and hugged himself tight.
Eloise took Axestone’s arm and whispered, “He’s both at once. He’s Dragonborn.”
Axestone nodded.
“I’ve heard of it. I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t believe it was true. When I need to see with the wolf’s eyes, I disappear into the wolf. I stop being Axestone until it’s over.”
“I know,” she said.
“But this …” Axestone pointed at Sam.
Flaxfold stood with her arms crossed, her white hair flocked by the breeze, smiling at Sam.
Starback was close enough for them the see his wings, pick out the blue and green against the sky.
Sam sighed and relaxed. His fists unclenched, and he raised his arms.
Starback circled around and around, dipping and soaring.
December felt ashamed of her face in the presence of such beauty, and made to walk away, back into the inn. Sam put his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, and he smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
December’s face broke into a smile of her own. She regretted her shame. It was her face. As good as any she needed. Better than some more regular.
“I’m a dragon,” said Sam.
“I know. Dragonborn.”
“You did it,” he said. “With the tapestry.”
“No. I just saw it there. No one did it. It’s what you are.”
“Part of what you are,” said Flaxfold.
They all looked up.
Starback looked down. He saw a group of houses and an inn with a sign, with trees framing the scene. Circling low, he came to rest beside the door of the inn, completing the picture.
Sam looked at Starback. Starback looked at Sam.
“It was always a dragon,” said Flaxfold.
“Always,” said Sam.
They left him and Starback and went inside.
Being a dragon and a boy at the same time was like learning to swim. Sam splashed around at first, gulped some water down and half choked. But soon enough he knew the difference between one and the other. He blew a little smoke for a few hours, but that stopped, and he didn’t mix up Sam and Starback. He was sitting at the table and curled up on the floor by the oven at the same time, with no sense of strangeness.
“There’s an empty place,” said Eloise.
Sam sipped his apple juice.
“Who is it for?” she asked.
“Who is missing?” asked Sam.
“Khazib,” said Axestone.
Sam remembered the day they stood side by side at the riverbank and he looked up at them, dark and light versions of the same thing.
“Sandage,” said Eloise.
The old man had brought Sam water. He deserved to be here now.
“Caleb,” said Flaxfold.
“Oh,” said Sam. “Him.”
“Waterburn is missing,” said Eloise. “He did not join us for Flaxfield’s Finishing.”
“There is a reason he was not there,” said Axestone.
Flaxfold raised her eyebrows.
“Waterburn is Flaxfield’s only apprentice who did not come,” he said. “There’s a reason. Who took Sandage and Khazib? That was strong magic.”
“Dangerous magic,” said Eloise. “Whoever is in the castle is at war with us.”
Starback rolled on his back and scratched behind his ear.
“Why don’t people all use magic properly?” Sam asked.
Axestone put down his knife and fork. He took a deep drink of the cider and refilled his bowl from the jug.
“You have a notebook?” he said, at last.
Sam looked down.
“We all have a notebook,” said Axestone. “Do you want to see mine?”
“No,” said Sam.
“No?”
“Notebooks aren’t for sharing,” said Sam, who thought he would die before he showed someone the inside of his notebook.
“Everything is for sharing,” said Axestone. “Just be very careful who you share it with.”
He left the room and came back with a book, very like Sam’s. As the huge wizard sat down again, Sam noticed that Eloise and December had also produced books. December’s book was least like Sam’s. Eloise’s book was very like his.
Axestone opened the book and found a page. He turned the book to Sam, who read what it said.
Pages from an apprentice’s notebook
MAGIC IS LIKE MUSIC, LIKE READING. There are dots on the page, there are words in the book. Anyone can pick out a clumsy tune, and there are people who can become good at playing
but who don’t care for what they do.
To make real music, music that people sing to, dance to, music that people carry with them in their heads all day, music that sets the teeth on edge and drives the heart to race with fear, music that alarms and consoles, that inspires anger and love and tenderness, music that will drive men from their homes to fight and to die, music that changes worlds—to do this, there has to be something more. There has to be the dedication to learn, to practice, to go hour after hour until the fingers ache and the joints of the body scream out for rest. There has to be a hunger in the heart to make the music, not just for an audience, but for the performer first. And there has to be, inside, at birth, unexplained and unexplainable, a quality, a talent, a natural gift that singles out a boy or girl from all the rest.
So it is with magic. You will meet many who have no gift but who have learned a few spells. There will be more who, without knowing they have a gift, and who have never been taught to use it, will work magic every day, unnoticed, sometimes good, often bad. And there are those, gifted and trained, who become what we are, skilled artists in magic, using our talents with training and knowledge. We are never quite at home with the rest of the world. We have privileges, but we also carry burdens they know nothing of.
Now, whenever magic is worked, it does more than was meant, and it lives a life of its own. So never, never make magic just to make life easier, or to do something quicker. Always keep your magic for something that matters.
The other books were open
at the same page. Eloise and December and Axestone had exactly the same words in their notebooks.
“This is what we live by,” said Axestone.
“But not all of us,” said Eloise.
“What happened?” asked Sam.
“We don’t know,” said Axestone.
“Not exactly,” said December.
“Not all of it,” said Flaxfold.
“We have lost Khazib and Sandage,” said Axestone. “They may be dead. We may be able to rescue them.”
Starback stirred. Sam felt a tumbling movement in his stomach and his head was dizzy.
“I took them there,” he said. “Starback took them.”
“There’s a time,” said Eloise, “when you and the other part of you are coming together. It’s a time of confusion. Starback led them to a place where they couldn’t hurt you. But he led them to a place he remembered from many years ago. Long before you were born.”
“I don’t understand. How can Starback be older than I am?”
Flaxfold patted his hand.
“This isn’t the time for that question.”
“We didn’t know about Starback, then,” said Axestone. “It’s only now that we know what he did and why he did it. You should know better than we do.”
“If Starback is old, why don’t I remember all the things he remembers?”
Axestone stroked the wolf’s ears.
“Perhaps you will, one day.”
“Things fold over each other, like sheets in a linen press, like pages in a book, like a map that has been creased by age. Sometimes the edges fray,” said Flaxfold. “Just give it time and see what comes.”
“It’s enough to know that he didn’t want to go to the College, didn’t want you to go, and that he tried to protect you from the others.”
Sam closed his eyes.
“He waited for me outside the College,” he said. “To stop me from going in. Then he left, before I arrived.”
They sat in silence, then closed their notebooks.
“What happens next?” asked Sam.
“That’s for you to decide.”
“I left the College to find a new master,” said Sam. “To be an apprentice again. Now, I don’t know.”
“What else can you do?” asked Axestone. “You won’t go back to the College.”
“No. I won’t.”
“There is a battle ahead,” said Eloise. “We need all the fighters we can get. All the magic we can find.”
“If you go off,” said December, “you will not be able to help in that fight.”
“Why should I fight? I’ve seen the harm that magic can do. I’ve felt how it hurts.”
“Not yet,” said December. Her quiet voice interrupted Sam.
“Enough,” he said. “I’ve felt as much hurt as I want to.”
“You haven’t really tested your magic since you came here,” said Flaxfold.
“I don’t need to. I know it’s there again.”
Sam stood up and went to the door, Starback scuttled after him.
“I’ve decided,” said Sam. “I won’t serve another master, not after Flaxfield.”
Axestone raised his voice.
“A spoiled apprentice is dangerous,” he said. “If you don’t stand with us, you may find one day you’ll stand against us. You can never be a real wizard without a master. Not until your apprenticeship is finished.”
“And will you be my new master?” asked Sam.
“If you ask,” said Axestone. “I have to say yes.”
Sam smiled.
“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that,” he said. “I have given up magic. I have given up the search to be a wizard. I don’t want it anymore.”
“It isn’t that easy to walk away,” said December. “I tried it once.”
“Perhaps,” said Sam. “But it nearly killed me. And because of it other wizards are now captured, perhaps dead. I won’t do it. I won’t go on. You’ll have to fight your fight without me.”
“What will you do?” asked Eloise.
Sam shrugged.
“I’ll just be me,” he said. “I’m going for a walk now.” Sam fastened his cloak and left.
Starback dodged around his legs and ran out, leaped into the air, and soared overhead.
Ash didn’t like the spring. She liked
cold days, dark nights, the smell of smoke in the autumn air, the gray of charred wood in the forest, the black of beaten iron from the forge.
“There are three of them again,” she said.
“You’ve found them?”
“The boy and the dragon are together. The girl is on her way back to the College.”
“What shall I do?” asked Smedge.
“Go back to the College,” she said.
Smedge nodded.
“But you can’t go looking like that,” she told him.
Smedge stood a head taller than when he had arrived. He was wearing a black leather jerkin and black boots. He was a little taller than Ash now. His spectacles were gone.
“I’ll say good-bye to Sandage and Khazib,” he said. “I can leave in a couple of days.”
The air in the tower room thickened. Smedge struggled for breath. Ash yawned, drawing in deep lungfuls of the gray smoke. She smiled.
“You’ve enjoyed yourself too much with those two,” she said. “You’re forgetting your place.”
Smedge was red-faced with the effort of breathing. The smoke was hot and scorched his nose and throat as he gasped.
“What have you learned from them?” said Ash. “Nothing.”
“They don’t know anything,” said Smedge. His words were choked, almost impossible to hear.
“Then leave them,” said Ash. “Go back.”
She opened the door. The smoke poured through, clearing the room. Smedge leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He coughed, gasped, retched, and wiped his arm across his mouth.
“Don’t waste any time,” said Ash. “Clean yourself up and go back.”
“What am I to do?”
“Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. You’re to make sure Duddle gets his way, as long as he does what you tell him to. And you’re to make sure that fool Frastfil carries on ruining the College. I want the library destroyed. Everything that could hurt us is to be thrown out.”
Smedge pulled off the leather jerkin and kicked the boots from his feet. He held his breath. His hair straightened itself into a neat part. He shrank down t
ill he was about an inch taller than when he had arrived, not quite as tall as Ash now.
“Get your uniform,” she said. “Don’t waste time here. Send me news when you arrive. Close the door behind you.”
Smedge made to leave.
“Most of all …,” said Ash.
“Yes?”
“The girl, Tamrin. Nevermind that she hates you: make her your friend. Spend time with her. Gain her trust. I want to know what happened when she disappeared. That is the most important thing. What happened when she disappeared? I want to know everything about her. Understand? Whatever else you do, never let her leave the College unless you know where she is going. Get it?” Ash interrupted him as he tried to answer. “Just go. Don’t get it wrong.”
“What will you do?”
“Never open a door unless you know what’s on the other side,” she said. “Never open a door unless you close it again.”
Ash smiled. A black beetle spilled out of her mouth and fell to the floor.
“I want to leave this place,” she said. “I want that boy here. I have things to do. I need him to let me out. Don’t let me down. Now go.”
Smedge was glad to leave the room.
When Flaxfold went to wake Sam,
he had gone. His bed had not been slept in. She summoned the others to the kitchen.
“It’s a bad lookout,” said Axestone.
“I’m not chasing after him again,” said Eloise. “He’s made a choice.”
December tapped her fingers on the tabletop. Her eyes were constantly on the window. Flaxfold laid her hand on December’s. She felt it tremble.
“You brought him here,” said Flaxfold. “You did all you could.”
“I didn’t think we’d lose him,” said December. “I thought he’d choose to stand with us.”
“He’s very young,” said Eloise.
Axestone stood up and paced the room.
“It’s because he’s young that he’s dangerous,” he said. “He’s an open door. Anything can walk in, take him over.” He glared at them. “You know what I’m talking about. He would be a very powerful enemy.”
“We already have many powerful enemies,” said Eloise.
