The Wizard's Secret

by Rain Oxford

  “I’ll go and distract Gmork. You save Merlin and get him out of here,” she said.

  “That wouldn’t work. Merlin won’t leave knowing Gmork still has you.”

  “I do know magic, and defeating Gmork is going to take ruthlessness. From what you told me, that isn’t your style.”

  “We can both go rescue Merlin. Maybe we don’t even have to face Gmork. There’s no reason to face him if we don’t have to.”

  Nimue nodded. “We can try it. Can you… talk to him? Can you tell him I’m sorry?”

  “You can tell him that when you see him again.”

  Nimue told me to go on ahead and that she would catch up. I didn’t bother asking why. She caught up to me before I made it down the stairs. Fortunately, we reached the door to the dungeon without encountering anyone. All the servants Asiago and I saw the previous day must have been making themselves scarce. It felt way too much like a trap. “Merlin? Any change?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “Nimue, Asiago, and I are on our way down. I have my staff.”

  “Nimue is with you?”

  “She’s on our side. Just let her explain.”

  “She trapped---”

  “I know,” I interrupted. “Trust me.”

  After a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. Then he said, “I trust you, young sorcerer. Do you have a plan for facing the dragon?”

  If I can’t conjure another dragon, maybe I can conjure my monkey monster to distract him. Can you tell me how to talk him into letting us go?”

  “I failed to save Nimue; he is not in a forgiving mood. Furthermore, if you mispronounce something in the dragon’s language, he will be even more infuriated. This time, the only chance you have of saving me is to be true to yourself.”

  At that point, we reached the kitchen and found Asiago standing by the door, completely visible. “I guess the potion wore off.”

  “Yes it did, before you dropped the invisibility on my clothes.”

  “So you were…”

  “I looked like I was. Can we just get this over with?”

  He opened the door and we went down. It was very dark, very dry, and very hot. The steps felt like they were carved straight out of the edge of a rock cliff and they weren’t all equal size. I had to turn my foot to step on some of them. To my right was a rock wall, but when I reached out to my left, there was nothing.

  “I’m not trying to complain or anything, but… can’t you create light?” Asiago asked.

  “Oh! I forgot about that.” I pulled my wand out of my pocket. Give us light. Warm energy flowed through me into the wand and a gentle white glow emanated from the tip. As I had figured out, there was a wall on one side and a drop on the other. What I hadn’t realized was that the stairwell lined the wall of the dungeon, so the dragon had been watching us the entire time we were making our way down the stairs.

  The light wasn’t bright enough to make out the features of the dragon, only that he was huge. As if he knew we spotted him, he moved. When light spilled in, I realized the dragon had been blocking a cave entrance. With this new light, I could see the dragon much better.

  He was dark brown with long spikes down his back and tail. He was also much leaner than the dragon I had conjured. Overall, he was massive and covered in spikes, so I was impressed and said the first thing that came to mind. “Wow. He’s beautiful! I wonder if my father trained dragons this big.”

  “If you are done ogling the dragon, young sorcerer, I would like to be rescued now.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “I expected nothing less.”

  “Okay. What do I tell him to make him let you go?” Before he could respond, the dragon roared. “No!” I yelled back. “I said I wouldn’t fight a dragon, so you’re just going to have to sit down and listen!” I stomped my staff for good measure and gaped at the deep blue pulse of light that erupted from the crystal. “Oops.”

  The dragon roared again… then sat on his butt and fell silent.

  “What did you do?” Nimue asked.

  “You broke it,” Asiago said.

  “I did not.” I climbed the rest of the way down the stairs and very slowly approached the dragon. When he growled, I stopped and pointed my staff at the cage. “Merlin, get back.” I waved my wand at the lock. Blast it. Just like before, the lock exploded and my staff pulsed with red light. “Oh, be quiet,” I said to the staff.

  That was when the dragon attacked. I was expecting him to blow fire or maybe eat me, not for his massive tail to swipe my staff right out of my hand. His right front paw reached out for me, so I dived and rolled to the right. Before I could get out of the way, he blew fire. I barely felt the heat before an invisible barrier went up right in front of me. Nimue was protecting me, and she didn’t even have a wand.

  It gave me enough time to stand and grab my wand, which I had dropped right after I lost my staff. “Go away!” I yelled, hoping the dragon did as I commanded. He didn’t, and that nearly went down in history as the worst last words.

  As he opened his mouth to blow fire again, I dived for my staff. Merlin howled and attacked the dragon’s face, moving way too fast for a normal wolf. Unfortunately, even with Merlin clawing and biting his face, the dragon had enough sense not to let me reach my staff; he slammed his paw down on my leg and jerked me back, barely missing my flesh with his sharp claws. I tried to kick him off, but each of his claws was longer than my foot, and any maneuvering I did was more likely to get me stabbed. With no other choice, I pointed my wand at the dragon’s paw.

  I imagined the dragon turning to stone. Attack! My wand did as I commanded and I felt the magic inside me react, but the burst of energy that shot into the dragon did not turn him to stone. In fact, it didn’t do anything.

  With me still trapped firmly by his right paw, the dragon managed to pull Merlin off his face with his left. He held Merlin upside down and opened his mouth to eat the wolf. I once again reached out for my staff, and this time, every part of me called out to it. When it shot towards me, I didn’t have time to be surprised. I stabbed the base of it into the dragon’s paw, effortlessly transforming the tip into a blade.

  The dragon jerked his hand away and the weapon changed right back into a staff. I didn’t let that slow me down. I stood, suddenly feeling like the magic inside me was building and building, desperately trying to get out. “Put him down!” I demanded. Once again, deep blue light pulsed from my staff, and some of that magic was released. I didn’t know what I’d done until the dragon dropped Merlin and roared at me.

  I was terrified.

  But I wasn’t an idiot.

  The dragon took a swipe at me with his massive talons. I held the staff out in front of me like it could hold him off. “Get back!” I yelled. The blue light flashed again and hit the dragon, throwing him back further than I expected. He tried again, but the blue pulse struck for a second time without me saying anything. Even though the light hit all of us, it only attacked the dragon, and it obviously affected the dragon quite a bit. That last blow was all it took to convince him to take off through the cave entrance.

  For a moment, it was very quiet. Merlin struggled to his feet, getting Nimue’s attention. When she ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, he growled in pain. Nimue brought her hands back covered in blood. “Oh, Merlin, I’m so sorry!” She then put her hands on his side again. “I don’t have any potions, but I can stop your bleeding.”

  I gaped.

  “Is she healing him?” Asiago asked. Asiago and Nimue couldn’t understand each other without the Siren, so he was probably a little confused. “I thought she was a witch, not a mage.”

  “She is a witch.”

  “A witch who can heal wounds? This is a weird world. I want to go home. I don’t even mind the zombies anymore. In fact, I think I miss them.”

  “I’m starting to think you’re the weird one,” I told him. I frowned when Merlin growled again and jerked away from Nimue. “Don’t you need a wand or
something?” I asked.

  “A wand? No. The fairies taught me to heal, but the dark magic I’ve done has tarnished me.”

  “Tarnish? I thought wizards here did both light and dark magic.”

  “We can do both, but magic comes at a price. For Nimue to heal and preserve her purity, she must resist the lure of dark magic. Using dark magic for us is a slippery slope that will ultimately lead to our own destruction. Caldaca doesn’t have this problem, so I cannot hope to explain the concept to you.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I never said you were. However, your attention span is far too short to---”

  “Oh, no! Where’s my wand?!” I asked, looking around desperately. I saw it by the steps and picked it up with a relieved sigh. “I’m sorry for interrupting. What were you saying?”

  “It’s really creepy when you two talk to each other,” Asiago said.

  “I’ve been told that before. We should get out of here while we have the chance and you can heal him at his cabin,” I said.

  “He won’t make it that far,” Nimue argued.

  Merlin scowled. “This is merely a scratch; I will be fine. I want to get back to my cabin and start working on breaking the curse.”

  “Well, about that… I found out what Dessa meant. We may have to delay that.”

  Merlin had been staring into Nimue’s face until I spoke, and then he looked at me. His eyes widened and he lurched forward, but Nimue stopped him. “Get down!” he yelled in my mind.

  Too late. I felt a blade press against my back. “Seriously? Not again!” I groused.

  “Gmork, let him go!” Nimue said.

  Asiago rushed to get away. Obviously, he hadn’t seen the dark wizard appear behind me. Gmork laughed. “Why would I do that? Drop the staff,” he demanded.

  With a sigh, I leaned over to set it down gently. He didn’t say anything, though he moved the blade to keep it pressed against me. If it weren’t for my robe, I would have already been bleeding. Once I stood back up, he returned his attention to Nimue.

  “Before, I had to keep Merlin alive to make you mine forever. I was not expecting more of your friends to come. Now I can kill two of the three and still have you completely at my mercy. Who should it be?”

  Nimue stood up and approached me slowly. “Let them go. I know you will never let me go. If you let them walk out, I will never fight you or try to escape.”

  After a moment of considering this, I sensed his movement as he adjusted his stance. “Good. Come over here.”

  When he moved his dagger from my back, around my shoulder, I reacted instinctively. I wasn’t as strong magically or physically as my brothers, but I was faster. Mikron and Bevras were always going for my throat. Since he was reaching around my right shoulder, I stepped into his side, turning my body so that my right side was against his front. With my left hand, I grabbed his wrist and twisted it so that the knife was pointed away from me. With my right elbow, I struck him in the face, then grasped his right arm and twisted it more. As he started to double over, I leaned forward and kicked backward, striking the side of his right knee. Finally, I pulled on his arm until he was tossed over my shoulder. He grunted with pain and I let him go. “I’m sorry!”

  “Why are you apologizing to him?” Merlin inquired. “And where in Valhalla did you learn to do that?”

  “Finish him!” Asiago yelled.

  I reached for my staff to try to turn him to stone, but Gmork grabbed it and swung it. I had to jump back to keep from getting hit. Although he was obviously in pain, he climbed to his feet and pointed my staff at me. “That was a mistake,” he growled.

  Merlin didn’t move, and neither did I, for we both knew what would happen if Gmork tried to attack me with my staff. The magical tool was bonded to my magic and wouldn’t hurt me. Nimue didn’t know this and ran right to him, trying to block me from him.

  “If you hurt him, you’ll never have me.”

  As discreetly as I could, I put my foot on the dagger, which he had dropped, so that he wouldn’t notice it. Gmork missed this, took Nimue’s arm, and jerked her against him. Asiago was close enough now to reach over and put his hand on the Siren, probably tired of not being included.

  “If I let them go, you will stay here with me and never try to leave?” Gmork asked. Nimue nodded. “And you will love me?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated and kissed him instead. Merlin howled. It was an eerie and heartbreaking sound. Then, Gmork pulled away from her, a mixture of shock and confusion on his face.

  “What did you do?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he clutched his chest in pain. “How…? The sun has already risen.”

  “I drank another bottle after sunrise, knowing you would make me kiss you.”

  “There wasn’t another bottle!” He ran for the stairs, panting. With every few steps he climbed, I heard either a bone breaking or his shout of pain. Several times, he stopped to try to get his footing, because he was forming paws. The black fur was sprouting all over his body and the torn clothes didn’t help.

  By the time he got to the top, I realized he was going to be much, much bigger than Merlin. I also realized something else. “There’s a portal! We can’t let him get to another world before he loses his magic!” I pushed Asiago’s hand away and started running up the stairs after him, followed closely by Nimue and Asiago. Merlin was a little slower up the steps.

  Outside the kitchen was a large hallway, where we found Gmork unconscious. Merlin had fought off the vicious, feral effects of the potion after a moment. For some reason, I highly doubted Gmork would try. Even without his magic, he would be deadly.

  And then he lifted his head.

  Gmork was now a wolf the size of a bear, blacker than my mother’s heart, and very, very angry. His eyes were still green, but now they glowed with bloodlust. He stood, struggling on account of his massive size, yet adapting quickly.

  “Now, you will all die,” Gmork said, his mouth contorting oddly to pronounce the words around his very long teeth.

  I think we all gaped, completely shocked. “You can talk?” I asked. I absentmindedly slipped off the Siren and put my arm through it, allowing Asiago to do the same.

  Gmork grinned cruelly, though it may have been a snarl. “I may be under the same curse, but I am much more powerful than Merlin.”

  That was the moment Merlin caught up to us. “Not powerful enough to do magic anymore, I bet,” I taunted.

  “I still have my ways. Quinn!” he yelled. He had to call the little wizard’s name again before Quinn finally appeared, running towards his master. When he saw Gmork’s new form, he tried desperately to slow his running and ended up falling flat on his face at Gmork’s paws. “Why did you run? Why not just appear here?”

  “I’m sorry, Master…” he said, panting. “I can’t… I’ve lost… my magic.”

  “What do you mean you lost your magic?”

  “That would be my fault,” Asiago said demurely. He glanced at me. “Remember when you woke up and asked me what I was making and I said it was a sensory enhancement potion? I lied.”

  “You made a potion that stripped someone’s power?! How could you?!”

  Gmork was just as angry; he turned on Quinn, pounced, and began devouring the little wizard… who was still alive and screaming during it. I threw up.

  “How much do you have left?” I asked.

  “I used it all in the soup. I had hoped Gmork would have eaten it.”

  “I could have eaten it!” Nimue said, shaken.

  “I didn’t know if you were on Ayden’s side or not,” he shrugged. “I figured it was worth the risk. If Quinn hadn’t lost his power, past Merlin would have been killed before you had a chance to put him in the syrus.”

  At this point, Gmork was done with Quinn and charged Merlin. When I held up my staff and it immediately shifted into a sword, Gmork stopped a hair’s breadth from impaling himself. “What are we going to do with him?” I asked.


  Nimue sighed. “I have to stay and protect him.”

  Merlin growled.

  Nimue knelt and hugged Merlin. “Please don’t hate me. I’ve done everything I could out of love for you. I can’t bear for you to hate me. I have to stay and protect him because I did this to him and I have to atone for my dark magic. Maybe I can bring back the Gmork who was your friend.”

  Merlin growled again. I felt like he was trying very hard to speak to her privately, but I was still the only one who could hear him.

  “Merlin, we have to go and save my aunt. As soon as we break the curse, we can come back here and you can save her for good.” I didn’t say anything else for a while, because he was only staring into her eyes. “It didn’t occur to me before, but you can stay with Nimue. I’m sure Magnus can help me find a way to break the curse and I can return to break it.”

  He turned and looked at me for a moment before responding with a heavy sigh. “No. I will return to Caldaca with you and help you break the curse. No matter how hard I try, Nimue cannot hear me. Until the curse is broken, I cannot be the man she loves. I do not want her seeing me this way for longer than she already has, for I want her to only remember me as I was. It is time now to return to Caldaca.”

  * * *

  Since all the servants had lost their magic, Nimue had no trouble single handedly taking over. Merlin warned me that since Gmork could still talk, he could still do some forms of magic, and even make bargains with powerful creatures. I relayed this to Nimue, who said she would find something to muzzle him with until he stopped fighting her.

  Nimue was a lot tougher when she wasn’t a captive.

  After we were certain that Nimue had control of the castle, Merlin, Asiago, and I went to the tower so Merlin could see the portal. When he did, he growled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I believe I have figured out what made Gmork surrender fully to dark magic.”

  “You recognize the world?”

  “I do, but not the date. It is extremely specific.”

  “What world is it?”

  “One of the most powerful worlds there is. If he could reach it at the right moment in time and kill the right person, he could destroy the world and have unlimited power. That would be enough magic to break any curse.”