Rise of the Fire Tamer (The Wordwick Games #1)

by Gow, Kailin

  The beard fell out in a shower of gray hairs.

  “Be more careful,” the troll grumbled. Gem kept going.

  “There’s orator, that means speaker.” She heard her voice take on an almost musical tone. “There’s capacious, that means very large or spacious.” The troll seemed, if anything, even bigger. “And there’s longevity, which means long, particularly a long life. I’ll just-’

  “Don’t you dare,” the troll snapped. “Not after last time. You can have that one. Go on. Through the gate with you.”

  Gem went through to where Sparks, Kat and Jack were waiting. They seemed to be staring at the gate. It gate slammed after her.

  “What is it?” Gem asked. Sparks nodded at the gate.

  “Look.”

  Gem glanced back, expecting to see only brass, but somehow she see through it from this side. Through it, she could see Rio perfectly well, working his way down the troll’s list. He didn’t seem very confident.

  “Well, there’s… hedonist. That’s… that’s…”

  “You don’t know it, do you?” the troll said.

  “I do. I just…”

  “Come on, come on,” the troll said.

  “I didn’t pick the right word, that’s all,” Gem heard Rio say. “Let me choose another.”

  “I’m getting hungry here, boy.”

  “Me too.” Rio looked up at the troll. “And you know what? I have a really hard time remembering definitions when I’m hungry.”

  “Well you’d better start remembering soon,” the troll snapped back. Gem knew she had to do something. But what? An idea came to her.

  “Excuse me,” she yelled over the fence. “I have some food here, if it will help.”

  Gem started at the feel of Sparks’ hand on her arm.

  “What are you doing?” the boy demanded.

  “Trying to help Rio. We can’t just leave him.” Louder, she called to the troll. “If you’ll let me back through the gate, I can give him the food and you’ll get your answer.”

  It was quite disconcerting when the troll leaned its head over the wall, obviously standing on tiptoes.

  “Why would I do that? What do I get out of it? Unless…”

  “Whatever it is, don’t do it,” Sparks said. Gem just looked up at the troll.

  “Unless…”

  “If you come back through and the boy gets it wrong, as he will, I get to eat you both. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Gem echoed. Sparks gave her an imploring look, but she hurried over to the gate, which opened to let her back through. She walked over to Rio slowly, trying to buy him time. That was what this was about, she was sure. After all, Rio had food of his own in his satchel.

  “Any ideas?” she asked Rio, who just looked nervous. He took a swig out of his water bottle.

  “I don’t know. I’ll look at the list again.”

  He stared at it. He kept staring at it. Gem started to get a sinking feeling. She moved in close behind Rio, putting one hand on her bow, ready to draw it. She didn’t know if arrows would pierce that slimy troll hide, but she’d give it a good try if it came to it.

  “Look,” Rio called up to the troll. “I can’t read this. I think I need like, glasses or something. So unless you’re willing to lend me yours...”

  They were probably the size of a sofa. The troll looked disgusted.

  “Oh, honestly. Do I have to do everything?” It reached down and snatched up the scroll with an impatient sound. “Very well. I will read out the words. If I get to the end and I still haven’t heard a definition from you, you and your little friend are no more than a snack. Now listen: abate, abhor abstain, arid…”

  The troll rumbled on. Gem tried to think of something. Something that would help against the troll. Hang on, arid meant very dry, didn’t it? And the troll was wet and slimy…

  “Arid,” Gem said, pointing at the troll. It paused in its reading with a crackling sound.

  What happened then looked to Gem a bit like one of those commercials you saw for moisturizers on TV, only in reverse. With a sound like tearing cardboard, Gem watched the creature’s skin dry, and dry, and finally crack. It made a hoarse gurgle, then fell over backwards into the gate. The gate resisted for a moment, then gave in, toppling over as quickly as the troll.

  “Is it dead?” Goolrick asked, moving forwards.

  “Yes, I think so,” Gem replied. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It did mean though that there was now a conveniently troll sized hole in the gateway, which Goolrick’s men would be able to get through. Somehow, if dragons were worse than trolls, Gem had a feeling that they would need them.

  Sparks helped Gem climb over the fallen troll before pulling her into a tight embrace. Just the thought that she might have been eaten frightened him. He looked past her to Rio and felt anger build in him. If he wanted to get himself eaten by a troll, that was his business, but not Gem…

  Rio clambered over the body a lot more dejectedly. He hadn’t been able to get a single word right, and Gem had seen the whole thing. Worse, she was hugging Sparks now. It was obvious what she felt…

  Kat hung back, thinking about the ruler words. She could do so much now. They all could. She looked over to Rio, and wondered if it would do any good to use the aesthetic word when he was around…

  Jack was still trying a few of the words, and trying not to jump every time he did. The idea that they had that much power seemed like a lot of responsibility. If it would help them survive here though…

  Goolrick was the last over the troll. He should have guessed it would be Gem who found a way to get them all through. Perhaps that would once have sparked a small spark of jealousy, but now it produced something else entirely…

  Chapter 10

  From the troll’s gate, the road sloped upwards in a climb that just kept going. Only when the trees thinned a little did it become clear why. The upper slopes of a mountain, rocky and bare of trees, dominated the horizon. They were obviously on the first slopes up to it.

  “Behold,” Goolrick called out from near the front of the column, “the dragon’s mountain home.”

  “How long will it take to get there?” Gem asked. “It looks a long way off.”

  “To reach the mountain will take the rest of today. To get around the other side to the lair might take another two. It is a long way, and the route will be difficult.”

  “Behold,” Kat muttered, too low for Goolrick to hear. “Could he sound any more like a hackneyed cliché of a wizard if he tried? Maybe he is trying. He’s far too young to be a proper wizard.”

  “You just don’t like the fact that he’s announced we’ll be walking for days,” Gem guessed.

  “I just wish I had brought my board. It’d be better than walking, anyway.”

  “You’d only roll back down the mountain,” Gem pointed out. Kat smiled.

  “I suppose so.”

  Kat seemed happier than she had. In fact, most of the others seemed happy. Maybe it was just getting past the troll, but Gem suspected that it had a lot to do with the ruler words they had acquired. Gem certainly felt more confident now. The five of them could do so much between them that it was hard to believe they wouldn’t be all right. Between them, they could destroy enemies, protect themselves, alter what people saw and change the world around them.

  At least, four of the five of them could do all that. Maybe that explained why Rio was the one member of their troupe who didn’t seem very happy. He slouched along at the side of the road, avoiding the others. Gem moved over to join him as they walked, leaving it a few minutes before she said anything.

  “You’re upset about not knowing the ruler words, aren’t you?” she asked at last.

  Rio shrugged.

  “You wouldn’t understand. You got them right.”

  “They’re just like the words I’ve been studying for my SATs, that’s all. You shouldn’t feel bad. Not everyone would know them.”

  Rio laughed.

  “Yeah, and I had
better things to do in school than learn SAT words.”

  “That’s too bad.” Gem smiled to take the sting out of it. “If there hadn’t been someone there who did know the words, you’d be troll food by now. Probably with mustard.”

  That got another laugh out of Rio, but then his face sobered.

  “Gem, why didn’t you leave me to be eaten? Anyone else would have. You could have been killed.”

  “Friends don’t go around abandoning each other, Rio,” Gem said. “Not when they need help. Anyway, I can’t go letting cute guys get killed, can I? Even if they are too much into the whole “dark and mysterious” thing for their own good.”

  Gem didn’t give Rio chance to reply to that, heading back for the center of the marching line. Some things, you were better off letting people think about. They kept walking, as Goolrick had predicted, for most of the day before coming to the base of the mountain. There, the wizard called a halt, declaring that they would eat before continuing. Gem was grateful for it, because the slope had made the journey particularly enervating. She almost collapsed by the side of the road, and saw the others do likewise.

  The only one who didn’t was Goolrick. He walked over to Gem with a confident smile.

  “Could we talk privately?” the wizard asked. Gem nodded, moving back with him into the trees a little way.

  “Is everything all right?” Gem asked.

  “There it is again.” Goolrick seemed genuinely pleased about something. “You care about the people around you, as a true leader should. Your solution to the troll problem was perfect. Most people would have settled for getting past, but you removed the danger completely. Travelers won’t have to worry about it any longer.”

  “It was more luck than anything,” Gem admitted.

  “Fortuitous or not, you still did it, and you still came back for your friend. Just as you refused to let me leave the others.”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “It was the thing a ruler would have done.” Goolrick seemed very pleased when he said that. “I want to give you two gifts, Gem. The first… you may recall that back at the castle I said there were only two ruler words I could give you with certainty?”

  Gem nodded.

  “That wasn’t true?” she asked. The wizard adjusted his golden robes nervously.

  “You have to understand that I had to be cautious. I had to give the five of you some power so that you could help, but I couldn’t risk giving too much away until I was sure someone was worthy. I have five more words for you. Intrepid, meaning fearless. Fortitude, or strength. Compromise, or meeting in the middle to settle differences. Reclusive, meaning hermit like or withdrawn, and reverence, meaning-”

  “Deep respect,” Gem finished for him. “But what will these do?”

  “I suspect that is up to you,” Goolrick said. “After all, ruler words are so much more flexible than my formal magic.”

  There was a trace of the bitterness she had heard in the castle there.

  “Ruler words or not, you’ve helped us a great deal, Goolrick,” Gem said.

  “Thank you. That was kind of you. My magic can still be of some use, anyway, which brings us to my second gift. Hold out your hand.”

  Gem did so, offering him her right hand, and found herself shocked when the young wizard bent over to lay a courtly kiss on her open palm. She opened her mouth to say something, and Goolrick slipped a ring of plain gold onto her little finger.

  “So it matches the other you wear. Though I doubt that can do what this one can.”

  “What does this do?” Gem asked.

  “It will let you see into people’s hearts, Gem. It will show you what they desire at any moment. For example…”

  The wizard’s hand closed over Gem’s, and in that moment, she knew, just knew, that he wanted to kiss her. She could see the desire, feel it, nearly taste it.

  Maybe it was the strength of that desire. Maybe it was just that the wizard was actually very good-looking. Whatever it was, Gem felt the sudden urge to do it, to kiss him. She leaned in and their lips met, delicately at first, but then with real passion. Gem found herself surprised by how well the young wizard kissed, and by how much she wanted him to.

  “A-hem!”

  It was to discrete coughs what a battering ram is to a polite knock on a door, but the sound from a few feet away was enough to make Gem pull back. Goolrick looked angrily over her shoulder, and Gem turned to see Kat standing there, an amused smirk not quite hidden.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Kat’s tone didn’t sound very sorry at all. “Only everyone’s ready to get going.”

  “But we’ve barely stopped,” Gem said.

  “Yeah, well frankly, no one wants to stay here any longer than they need to. It’s all getting a bit creepy. There are… like some really weird shadows in the trees. Some of the men say that they’re moving.”

  Gem smiled at that.

  “It’s probably nothing, right Goolrick? Goolrick?”

  The wizard’s hand clamped around her wrist and he started back past Kat.

  “What is it?” Gem demanded. Goolrick’s face looked ashen.

  “Shadow creatures. We have to hurry.”

  Gem didn’t know what a shadow creature was, but she ran anyway. So did Kat. Even so, by the time they reached the place where they’d stopped, cat sized shadows were leaping from the trees, landing on Goolrick’s men with solid impacts that said they were a lot less insubstantial than they appeared. No two of them were the same, some taking the form of woodland creatures, others of creepier things; spiders and centipedes and things with far too many tentacles.

  Goolrick drew a sword from beneath his robes, striding forward, while Gem reached for her bow. Kat stayed by her, knocking away a leaping spider with her shield as Gem searched for a target.

  “I really hate spiders,” Kat said. “I mean, I really hate…oh my god, I think there’s one on me!”

  It turned out to be a shadowy bat. Gem swept it off as best she could and it squeaked at her harshly. A flash lit the road, driving the creatures back for a moment, and Gem realized that Sparks must have used the evanescence word. It was good thinking. Although it didn’t hurt the shadows, they recoiled from such a bright light. It came again, then again, forcing some of them back.

  “We need to get closer to Sparks,” Gem said, and Kat nodded. Together, they ran for the boy as he kept producing bursts of light. Beside him, Jack and Rio were looking around, their weapons drawn. The problem was with Goolrick and his men, who didn’t seem to have understood the idea of staying close.

  “Maybe if we all use the word?” Gem suggested, yelling to be heard above the sound of the battle. Five shouts of “evanescence” rang out, accompanied by flares of light. Each was bright, but each was just as short-lived, and none of them did much to protect the men of the Perfidious tribe.

  Worse, the shadow creatures seemed to be weaving together shadows the way spiders might spin webs. One by one, Goolrick’s men were becoming entangled in their own shadows, falling over helplessly. The wizard himself was a splash of gold under half a dozen shadowy monkeys, chipmunks and weasels, and more were dropping from the trees every second. Even with the five of them working together, there were simply too many of the creatures to fight off.

  It was then that Gem saw the larger shadow. It was twice the size of the others and trailed shadows behind it like a cloak. More than that, no matter how Gem stared at it, she couldn’t seem to pin down quite what it was. One moment it had feet, the next insectoid legs, then sucker tipped tentacles. Suggestions of other animals flashed through it, like someone inexpertly making shadow puppets. At its arrival, the other spiders stopped their attack, waiting as it made its walking, sliding, and occasionally hopping way towards Gem and the others.

  “Should we kill it?” Sparks asked. Gem thought she saw the other shadows twitch, just a little.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  The shifting thing got closer, un
til it was finally close enough to extend one strand of shadow like a hand, brushing it over each of them in turn. It reminded Gem of the way a blind person might run their hands over someone’s face to learn their features. Sparks held his ground. Rio and Jack shuddered. Kat bit back a small shriek and raised her sword.

  “It’s all right, Kat,” Gem reassured her. The other girl held still, though she obviously didn’t like it.

  Then it was Gem’s turn. The tendril brushed over her. Gem felt the ring on her right hand come to life, and in that moment she knew everything the Shadow King wanted.

  “This is a test,” she said to the others. “They wanted to see if we were as strong as their legends say. I… I think we’ve passed.”

  “That’s nice,” Kat shot back. “Can all the… things go away now please?”

  The shadow creatures didn’t move. There was more to what the Shadow King wanted than that. Gem could see the image clearly; the king asleep in a hammock-like web woven from shadows and slung in a peaceful corner of the forest, with no threat nearby.

  “I think they mostly want to be left alone.”

  Images of humans came to her. Humans hunting their own kind throughout the woods.

  “I think they want us to promise that humans will leave them alone.”

  More images came. Of a crown, then two men, one of whom was Goolrick.

  “Oh I see,” Gem said at last. “They want us to promise that if we become ruler, we will make the two tribes leave them alone. Well, I’ll promise.”

  “Me too,” said Sparks. Rio hurried to agree, obviously wanting to keep up with the other boy. Jack nodded nervously.

  “Will they go away if I promise?” Kat asked. Gem nodded. “Then I promise.”

  It was like most of the creatures simply melted away, taking their shadows with them. By the time Goolrick’s men started to pick themselves up, only the Shadow King was left. He only stayed long enough for more images to flash through Gem’s mind. The dragon. A map. An old catacomb. The shuffling dead.