I healed over a period of weeks after discovering the complexities of healing spells. Tower had been able to weave magic and knit cuts closed and relieve bruises. I stared at the techniques in the books as if I was learning to read for the first time all over again.
I didn’t go back into the tunnels again for months but it was not out of fear. I recognized that I had only lived through the fight because of luck. If I had been hurt more severely I would not have been able to climb back out. I hadn’t even realized the nuances of some of the spells even Tower had shown me.
When he had used fire against the farren, he had interwoven an additional blast of kinetic energy, something I had just taken for granted. He was able to hold the enemy in place while he spewed forth his fire, not allowing it to mindlessly charge in and slash at him.
I knew that I also needed to learn more spells, some that could protect me if I was overwhelmed. I needed a better way to light up the caverns without causing loud noises. I needed to learn more about what kind of monsters lived in the underground. The list seemed inexhaustible.
Once again I dove into the study’s book collection. I resumed working magic on the roof, especially when there was a storm to challenge my concentration. I taught myself how to hold lightning, both to cut through the darkness and to crash out from my hand. I remember how impossible that had seemed when my village wizard had sent it toward the dragon. I was capable of doing the same before I turned twenty.
Candle became my sparring partner. I would fill him with gems and he would roll around the roof and dodge my attacks. I only used fire against him and whenever I landed a hit, he would simply engulf the fire into his own form. He seemed to love those mock fights.
I would often read to him and sometimes he would sit and listen intently. I read him the books on familiars and he would nod along, as if confirming what was being said. Some books on spells would bore him but he would stay when I was reading from the beastiary.
The version Tower had given me was a copy. It must have been one of the first books he copied from the old, leather bound originals. I held those books as if they were fragile and could crumple at any moment, even if the tower had done its job of preserving them.
“The Farren,” I began.
“A species of underground dwellers that share several key characteristics with trolls. Due to these similarities, it is widely believed they are related and share a common ancestor.
“Farren are blind and rely on their sense of smell and hearing in order to survive. Their hearing is particularly sensitive and can be utilized not unlike the way a bat navigates dark caverns while in flight. Although they have lost a functioning eyeball and socket over time, they still do retain some ability to register light. Experiments have shown that an extremely bright light source applied directly will sometimes cause a reaction.
“The farren, like trolls, have no ability to resist magic. As such, they are commonly referred to as the ‘vermin’ of the underground. They serve the role of rats, likely as that is mostly all they can overpower and eat. Most other creatures have built up tolerances for magical energy and benefit from it. As such, the farren are commonly hunted by the larger inhabitants of the underground.
“The size and strength of farren wildly varies. They share the same potential for growth and regeneration as trolls; however, unlike the trolls that flourish in woodland areas, the growth of the farren are stunted by their inability to find sufficient food sources. It is not uncommon to see packs of the creatures with each individual sporting a different size.
“The ability to regenerate allows farren to recover from a surprising amount of damage. The only ways to permanently kill one of the creatures is to decapitate it, starve it, sufficiently burn it, or cause enough damage that the farren lacks the required muscle tissue and fat stores to regenerate. It is recommended...”
I put the book down and was very still. I was suddenly thankful for the gory mess the spider had made in the cellar two years ago. I had only broken that farren’s neck and I was then unconscious for so long afterwards. If the spider hadn’t consumed the body it may have regenerated and came for me. The realization was sobering and drove home once again how lucky I had been. I pressed on in my efforts to learn.
My return to the underground was a meticulous endeavor. Each time I went back into the tunnels I did so with a specific purpose. I kept a smaller amount of gems in fewer, better secured bags on my belt. I portioned out enough for the spells I wanted to practice and a few extra for emergencies.
I used a black gem to cover the entrance to the tunnel in the chamber where I had fought the three farren. The barrier blended in easily with the rock around it and allowed me to leave a beacon of light as a way to escape quickly. The light was pooled around a gemstone to sustain itself and left levitating a few meters above the tunnel. It was a cold, harsh light in the darkness amongst the stone.
I kept Candle with me, but I fed him no magic. Stirring up his fire caused too much noise to be used safely. I held a light in my hand instead, and its silent, pale blue glow guided our way.
The first few months I searched for farren. I avoided the larger packs of them as best as I could. I intended to restrain one each trip to bring back to the cellar with me, and that wasn’t always possible when I was outnumbered.
Those I did capture I used to teach myself healing. I would break their necks and then cut into them before they regenerated—I had no wish to cause them pain, and that was the most humane way I could think to do it.
I fumbled through the procedures at first, sometimes creating horrific mistakes. Pouring too much energy into tissue could cause rampant growth. Drawing too greatly on sources close to the wound themselves could kill nearby flesh in the process.
The more experienced I grew at healing, the more I realized how I could have hurt myself if I had experimented on my own body. It was the first time I saw magic as too general a term for what I was doing. As a child I had seen it as something similar to reading; once learned, I knew the basics for every word, sentence, and paragraph. In magic I saw more complexity and depth in healing than I had in all other spells combined. The way farren could regrow limbs mystified and eluded me. I had to wonder if I was just as ignorant in how I handled fire or light.
Eventually I grew competent enough to heal myself of deep cuts and bruises. The books I read detailed ways to do so without scarring but those were beyond me. As the months in the underground turned into years, my body began to show that lack of knowledge. Still, I survived and learned from each scar.
The farren did become vermin to me in time and ceased to be a threat as I could channel greater amounts of magic. I learned to weave multiple spells and focuses at once, as I had seen Tower do. I found other nests of giant spiders and other creatures morphed after centuries of living too close to the magic in the stone.
It was during those years that I think I lost sight of my intended goal. The underground became another world to me, full of wonderful and vicious things. I explored it eagerly, sometimes lost in the rough beauty of the place.
The caverns sometimes gave way to vast expanses of lava or water. I once stumbled upon a place where the two met, endlessly colliding in a deafening hot hiss of steam. I often wished that I could sleep in the underground and venture even further, to see where the water poured down from above. My experience had taught me that there was no safe place to rest.
The lakes of water were often as dangerous as the lava flows. Creatures would come to drink and be snatched below the surface by the things that lived in the water. They were too fast for me to ever see, and burst out in a spray of frothing water and were gone before the air cleared. Whatever was unlucky enough to be drinking nearby was taken with them. I kept my distance and never risked a drink.
I often searched for a way into the chamber full of pillars and statues but never found it. Following the lava rivers was dangerous and I couldn’t be sure if they would lead to the one I had seen. The light of the fire
attracted all sorts of beasts, most too large for me to fight if they weren’t alone.
There were lizards that could live in the lava. Sometimes I would catch them slouching out onto the river banks, glowing hot and pouring molten rock in a trail behind them. Their bodies would cool and turn as gray as the stones around them. They would lay still like that and snap out when something passed close to them.
I had three long years in the underground before I met something that I couldn’t either defeat or run away from. I was twenty-three and, although I didn’t know it yet, I had only two years left alone in the tower.
Chapter Eighteen
For all the hours I spent deep in the caverns, it was when I was attacked near the tunnel that I came closest to death.
I didn’t even have time to erect the barrier or ignite Candle. I could see the thing shifting in the dark at the edge of the light. It was heavy enough that I could feel the vibrations it sent out with each step as it snuffed at the ground. The tunnel was so close that I took it as a challenge I had no chance of losing. My escape was right behind me.
I stepped forward and felt the familiar tingle as the lightning crawled up my arm and over my shoulders. It shot faster down my other arm and I unleashed it at the back of the monster. It was only then that I realized the magnitude of my error.
The lightning bolt made contact in less than a second and broke up the darkness for less than that, but it all the time I needed. I saw the monster’s body in the flash of light and my body tensed. I had just attacked the same type of monster that had chased Tower out of the mines so many years ago. A krogoth.
A roar returned my strike and I felt as if it had physically struck my body. I was stunned as it launched itself toward me. It was easily triple the size of the one I had seen Tower fight. That one must have been young. The fully grown version had even more teeth and longer claws. Its four legs still looked too big for the rest of its body, as if it used them to tear out chunks of rock. The head of it looked less like a dragon than it did before but it was still charging at me. My attack had only made it angry.
It twisted as it got close and slammed its tail into my side. I expected to be knocked to the floor, not smashed clear into the air, and hit the wall hard. I fell quickly onto the floor and scrambled to my feet. I didn’t know how injured I was but I couldn’t risk staying down.
Somehow I had kept my grip on the gemstones and fired another lightning bolt at the monster. The spell smacked into its face but it kept on running at me as if I had done nothing at all. Either lightning did nothing to it or my power wasn’t strong enough. I threw one of the stones to my feet as the monster grew closer and released the energy as a percussive blast. I dived as the power was unleashed and blew myself out of the krogoth’s way.
The monster had been running too fast to stop in time. It collided with the wall as I landed and scraped over the ground, still moving from the force of the blast. My left arm was snagged by a sharp rock and it tore into my flesh before I came to a stop. When I was on my feet I could feel the blood trickling down my forearm.
I ignored it and looked at the monster. Its front claws were embedded into the wall but he was already working on tearing them free. I grabbed a fresh fistful of gems and took the opportunity to hone my focus on the krogoth. It was then that I realized why Tower had run from the previous one. My focus was like an extra sense, and trying to gather it on the monster was like trying to see through a thick fog. Like it did with the lightning, it was resisting the magic.
Focused or not, I blindly sent a blast of energy—three gems worth—toward the monster and I might as well have tried to punch a stone wall. It was knocked slightly forward but reared back as though it felt nothing. It yanked its left claw out and pressed it higher into the wall, pushing down to free the second one.
I grabbed the emergency gems from my pocket and I ran. I wildly channeled lightning as I sprinted toward the tunnel, sending out random arcs to light my way. Another roar came from behind me and I turned to see only its teeth and eyes glistening in the darkness.
Two paces from the tunnel the krogoth caught up to me. Its claws lashed at me as I flung my body into the tunnel. The tips of the claws drove down the flesh of my back but the tips were enough to tear chunks out of my body. I landed on my side, barely a meter into the tunnel, screaming as my back felt like it had been smothered in fire.
The monster was too big to get into the tunnel but that wasn’t stopping it. I could see it carving its way in already, cutting deep gaps in the wall of the cavern. I tried not to think of my back as I watched it claw through the stone as it had done to me. I pressed weakly with my feet, pushing myself into the tunnel and shrieking each time my back moved.
I was too hurt and the krogoth was digging closer to me faster than I could squirm away. I grabbed the bag from my belt and looked inside. There were at least two dozen gems within and only a few more in my pockets. I kept only two of them and shoved the rest inside. I tied the top closed and threw it on the ground.
To this day I still don’t know how I got to my feet. My back felt like it was being torn open all over again, as if my body was splitting apart. I stumbled forward, away from the bag and fell down again after a few paces. I crawled the rest of the way, feeling the rush of air from behind as the monster brought down another part of the wall and leered deeper into the tunnel.
The pain was what stopped me and I knew I had no other option than to risk it. The bag still looked so close when I turned around and focused on it, gathering around every gem within it, unlocking the energy of each in tandem with the rest. I held one of the gems I had kept as the power began to stir. The stone spread out as a barrier over me, shielding me, and I hoped it would be enough. The krogoth may have had the ability to resist my spells, but the walls around us didn’t.
The explosion rocked the tunnel as if it had been unhinged and torn away from the rest of the world. Even the monster’s roar was drowned out in the sound. The ceiling and floor cracked around me, and fissures opened letting loose torrents of stone and dust. The barrier was coated in debris and I was left in darkness.
I brought out Candle’s core from my pocket and he served as my light. He turned his head at me, confused, and watched as I painstakingly drew out the energy of my final gem and worked at healing my back. The wounds were dirty and that made the process even longer and more painful. Part of me was glad that I couldn’t see just how bad they were.
The gem ran out before I was fully healed, but it was enough that I could move without being in agony. The barrier above us sported as many cracks as the walls and had barely held. I shifted it slowly, reshaping the energy until I had enough room to wriggle out. Candle went out first and lit my way.
On my feet I turned and saw the destruction I had caused. The downward slant of the tunnel made it look like the floor had been flooded with rubble. There were no more sounds, not even of the krogoth digging, and I had to wonder if the wall above us had collapsed on top of him. I wouldn’t risk finding out.
I turned and staggered up in the direction of the cellar. Each step sent a spasm of pain from my back. I had enough energy in my body to complete the healing but I didn’t know if it would leave me with enough to walk home. I endured the pain to be safe but still winced every other step.
I tried to take some comfort in knowing that I had sealed the tower from harm. The tunnels that were left open had ample amounts of gemstones to be mined out. Still, after healing my back and settling in once again to a comfortable life in the tower, I bitterly missed my expeditions down into the underground.
Those final two years passed just as quietly as the first few I had spent alone. The only differences were that I often took walks in the forest and was adding my own books to the collection in the study. I wrote about my experiences that I could find no reference to in the other books. I added information to my copy of the beastiary that Tower had made me start.
I still practiced with Candle, but part of me had lo
ng since lost the goal of leaving the tower. I became attached to my home that kept me warm, dry, with an unlimited amount of food and paper to busy myself.
The giant spider died part way through my final year. I buried it in the crater in the tunnels, as close to where its nest had been as I possibly could. It may have been a beast, perhaps even a mindless one as Tower had said, but I still mourned its passing. Aside from Candle, it had been the only being I had interacted with over all the years.
I continued adding to the gem in the study as time passed. Near the end of that final year it was nearly as big as I remembered Tower’s being. It was a small thing, but it made me happy to see that I had fully restored at least one piece to the room.
I often wrote about Tower. My theories on him and the magic around me were intertwined. Over a decade had passed since I began learning magic and still the enchantments in the tower baffled me. The very books I wrote on were restored and regenerated themselves from magic drawn from the tower. I could not even begin to reverse-engineer those spells.
My writings often pondered who had built the tower. I imagined an ancient group of incomprehensibly powerful wizards, who would look at my own crude spells and laugh at them. I could hold energy in my hands and transform it into light, fire, and then back again into a solid state. How did the creators of the tower view that energy when they could so easily draw it from the ground?
I wondered if Tower may have been one of them, or if he had never even left at all. The room with the window, still blocked all these years later, might have acted as some sort of portal that he had come from. A wizard that had taken pity on a young boy and then gotten tired of his stumblings through magic, something that came as easily as breathing to him. The years alone had made my opinion of him exponentially grow.
The Wizard And The Dragon Page 17