Five Kingdoms: Books 01, 02 & 03

by Toby Neighbors

  “That’s not true,” Brianna interjected. She was holding a large bottle of wine and pouring a goblet for Zollin to drink from between patients. “Zollin healed him.”

  “What is this nonsense, Kelvich? Don’t tell me you believe this charlatan.”

  “He’s no charlatan,” Brianna said loudly.

  “And who are you? There are no women allowed in my barracks for this very reason. Control your tongue, woman, or I’ll have you removed.”

  “That won’t help your back,” Zollin said softly.

  No one had noticed that he had finished his work and turned toward the group of soldiers. He had sent his power out in case the soldiers tried to detain him and had noticed the pinched nerve in Sir Hausey’s back.

  “I’m guessing you fell off your horse,” Zollin said. “Pain shoots up your back and down your left arm, and sometimes down your leg as well?”

  “How did you know that?” Hausey asked in surprise.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kelvich said. “Just let him help you, it’s the quickest way for you to understand.”

  Zollin reached out with his power and felt the bones that were tilted in his spine, pinching the nerves between them and causing the commander such pain. It was a small thing to straighten the bones and the relief Hausey felt was immediate. The pain simply vanished and the big man moved his arms and shoulders, timidly at first and then with greater confidence. He twisted and turned, expecting the shooting pains to strike at any moment, but they didn’t. His back felt strong again and completely without pain.

  “Remarkable,” said Hausey.

  “Here,” Zollin said, handing him the letter from the King. “I need to sit down.”

  “Sit here, sir,” said one of the soldiers he’d already healed. The man swung his feet off the bed and Brianna helped Zollin sit down. He was exhausted and hungry again. He took the wine Brianna offered him and drank deeply. The cool fluid was refreshing as it washed down his parched throat. He felt the heat of the alcohol spread through him and cool the magic that was coursing through his body.

  Miriam handed him a sweet cake and an orange that she had already peeled and pulled into wedges. He bit into the fruit and sucked the sweet, tangy juice into his mouth, then practically swallowed the orange wedge whole. He drank more wine and ate the food Miriam had ready for him. He felt his strength returning, although he was still tired. It was getting late and he had been on the road all day and working magic for the last few hours.

  “So,” said Hausey, “you’re a wizard?”

  “Yes,” Zollin said rather matter-of-factly.

  “Odd, I would have expected you to be wearing a robe and perhaps a pointy hat,” Hausey said, half joking.

  “He does have a staff,” Brianna said, pointing to where the tall, white walking stick was leaning against the wall.

  “What he’s able to do is astonishing,” said one of the healers who had been working with Kelvich.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Hausey said. “My own back is proof. It’s been hurting since I was thrown off my horse a few days ago. Our mounts don’t like being anywhere near the dragon,” the commander told Zollin.

  “I doubt anyone does, but we’ve got to do something.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I have some ideas, but nothing is set in stone. I was hoping that we could all put our heads together and come up with one.”

  Hausey nodded. He was the youngest son of a noble family and had been given his commission from that privilege as a young man. But since then he had proven himself to be a talented leader of men and the troops that survived the dragon’s attacks were glad he was in charge.

  “We should meet and discuss it, then,” he said. “Would my staff quarters in a couple of hours be acceptable?”

  “Yes,” Zollin said. “I won’t be much good here, tonight. I’m simply too tired.”

  “You’ve dealt with the worst cases,” one of the healers said. “No one is in anymore danger tonight.”

  “Right,” said Kelvich. “Then we can start again tomorrow. We should all get cleaned up now and meet at the fort.”

  The commander bowed his head slightly and spun on his heal. Zollin watched him go and then said to Miriam, “Is there a place where I might get a bath?”

  “There is a bathhouse near the fort,” she said. “But it isn’t cheap.”

  “That’s no problem,” Zollin said.

  “A warm bath sounds wonderful,” Brianna said.

  “Then it’s settled. Come on, Kelvich, I need to talk to you.”

  They made their way back to the town proper on foot and Miriam went to get everyone clean clothes from their packs, which were at her home. Brianna was taken to another section of the bathhouse, which was made of cut stone and polished marble. Only the ceiling was made of wood, and Zollin guessed it had to be rebuilt periodically because of the constant steam from the hot water which flowed from the heating room into the bath via a long aqueduct. The bath was actually a long, marble-lined trench that was cut down into the floor. The water flowed into one end and out the other, creating a mild current that cooled as it flowed along. Where you sat in the bath depended on how warm you liked the water. There was a separate pool for scrubbing with soap and one that was reserved for soaking in the water.

  Zollin and Kelvich hurried through the scrubbing bath and then settled in to soak for a while before setting out for their meeting with Sir Hausey. They sat on opposite sides of the bath near the warm end. There was a long bench seat cut into the marble on both sides of the bath, and they sat with their feet propped up on the opposite bench.

  “So,” Kelvich said, “you defeated Branock.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Zollin admitted.

  “But you drove him out of Orrock—and without getting yourself killed. That’s saying something.”

  “Thanks, but it feels like as soon as I take care of one problem, a dozen more pop up. Tell me you know how to deal with a dragon.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t,” Kelvich said. “But from what I hear, you did just fine on your own at Brighton’s Gate.”

  “I think I got lucky then,” Zollin admitted. “I know there must be a way to deal with the beast, but to be honest, I really don’t have a clue.”

  “Well, we know from what you’ve done that the beast is vulnerable.”

  “Was vulnerable,” Zollin said. “I met a dwarf who said that dragon scales grow harder. The dragon tried to hit me with its tail as if nothing could hurt it, and it seemed surprised that the building falling on it penetrated its hide. What if the scales have hardened and we can’t wound the beast?”

  “What do you do when something doesn’t work?” Kelvich asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, let’s say for instance that you’re building a table and for some reason the legs aren’t even. Do you just give up and announce that you can’t do it?”

  “No,” Zollin said.

  “No, you keep working until you figure out either what you’re doing wrong or a different way to do things that works. This dragon problem is just the same. If our first plan doesn’t work, we’ll keep trying new things until we find something that does work.”

  “If we live long enough.”

  “What do you mean we? I’m not going anywhere near that creature.”

  “Come on, Kelvich, I need you.”

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” Kelvich said.

  “We don’t have a fort,” Zollin said in mock seriousness.

  “Tell me about what you’ve learned healing people.”

  “It’s easier than it used to be,” Zollin said. “I studied your books and scrolls until I felt like I knew everything that goes on inside a person’s body. Now when I reach into them I can feel what’s wrong on an instinctive level. Basically, I know my way around now, so it doesn’t take me as long to get where I’m going.”

  “What about the amount of power it takes to heal someone?”

  “I
don’t know, but I’m more comfortable with my power. I can tap into my inner reservoirs at will and without feeling like I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “What about your defenses? Are you keeping them up?”

  “What do you think? Honestly, it’s second nature to me now, I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

  “Well, I didn’t notice you were coming, and even now I can’t sense your power and I should be able to.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes, I was a little worried that your power might be diminishing.”

  “Can it do that?”

  “Yes, magical might is the same as physical strength. At some point you’ll peak and rather than your power growing, it will diminish.”

  “But didn’t you say the wizards of the Torr were hundreds of years old? How did they keep from losing their power?”

  “Again, it’s the same as physical strength. The more you exercise, the stronger you get, but when you reach a certain age, you begin to lose that strength or it takes more exercise to maintain it. The older a wizard gets, the more time he must spend on simply maintaining his power. It’s one of the reasons wizards tend to lock themselves up in towers. They spend a majority of their time either studying to gain more power or exercising their magic so that they don’t lose it. At a certain point nothing else matters. They lose all sense of what it means to be human. They have no passion except for increasing their power.”

  “You mean they don’t care for women anymore?” Zollin said, surprised.

  “Not just women, they lose interest in money, in happiness, in friendship. They only care about holding on to their power. It becomes even more important than life itself. They don’t prolong their lives out of fear of death, but rather to hang on to their power.”

  Zollin shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “So why do the Torr care so much about me?”

  “Because you are a threat to their power,” Kelvich said simply.

  “Wait, King Felix said that the Master of the Torr wants to rule all of the Five Kingdoms. Doesn’t that prove that he cares about something other than magic?”

  “In a way, perhaps. But think about what your King is saying: that Offendorl wants political power. In my opinion, power is power, whether it is magical power or something else. The wizards of the Torr care only for power, not even for what that power can do for them. They just want as much of it as they can get.”

  Zollin thought about this for a moment before sharing his thoughts.

  “Greed is greed, I guess, whether it’s money or power or whatever.”

  “True,” said Kelvich.

  “So, how do I avoid falling into the same trap?”

  “I don’t know,” the old sorcerer said. “I think that is something you have to discover for yourself.”

  “Oh, well thanks for nothing,” Zollin teased.

  “Come on,” Kelvich said as he climbed out of the water. “I’m afraid I’m wrinkling up worse than ever and I simply don’t have the power to fight off wrinkles anymore.”

  Chapter 10

  “What exactly do you plan to do?” Sir Hausey asked Zollin.

  “Well, there are a few things we know. First, when I fought the dragon in Brighton’s Gate, the tail was vulnerable.”

  “The tail?” Hausey asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s your plan? Shoot it in the tail,” mocked one of the other officers. His name was Luca and he obviously thought Zollin was a fraud.

  “I’ll do whatever works,” Zollin replied coolly, not rising to the bait. “Now, it might be that the scales have hardened, but we should be able to wound the beast if we can keep it occupied long enough to attack it.”

  “We’ve tried,” said the army commander. “We can’t even get close enough to try.”

  “Leave that to me. I think I can distract it long enough for you to get in and out.”

  “You mean like a sortie?”

  “I don’t know the technical terms, but basically you hide until the dragon is focused on me, then you run out, hit, and run away again.”

  “Where’s the honor in that?” Luca asked.

  “We’re not trained for that sort of thing,” Hausey said. “It sounds more like a Skellmarian tactic or, worse, a Shuklan raiding party.”

  “We’re facing an enemy with superior strength,” Kelvich said.

  “And that breathes fire,” Brianna said, trying to mask her nervousness.

  “You can train your men,” Zollin said. “We’ll need another day to help the wounded and probably a few more to find a suitable place of attack.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking that we pretend to be a village, or at least pretend to be rebuilding one. Your troops can masquerade as villagers until the dragon arrives and then we’ll be in a perfect position to attack it.”

  “Really?” Luca said in a smug tone, as if he thought the idea was ridiculous. “And how do we get the dragon to come to us?”

  “With gold,” Zollin said. “That’s what the beast is after, so let’s bring it some.”

  “And where do we get gold?” Hausey asked.

  “I suppose you need us all to chip in?” Luca said.

  “No, I’ll supply the gold once we select the place of attack.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “I’ll transmute some other metal into gold.”

  “What? Do you really expect us to believe that you can create gold?” Luca said. “This is bordering on insane, you know that, right? This isn’t a bedtime story.”

  Zollin sighed. He hated Luca’s attitude. The man simply didn’t believe that Zollin could do the things he said he could do. At every point he had to prove himself, and it was getting old.

  “Give me a few coppers,” Zollin said.

  “What? Why?” Luca asked.

  “Just do it, man!” Zollin said loudly.

  The commander gave Zollin a hard look, one that said he had better be able to back up his bravado. Zollin simply returned the man’s gaze silently. Finally Hausey reached into a pouch that was tied to his belt and produced three small copper coins.

  “Good,” Zollin said.

  Then, without another word, the coins rose up into the air. Hausey’s aides were amazed, but the commander was silent. He was looking for some sort of trick. The coins seemed to shimmer and then dissolved and reformed into a little horse. The horse was then turned into a small windmill with spinning blades. Then the coins formed themselves into the shape of a small bar. Sweat popped out on Zollin’s forehead as he concentrated. Transmuting one substance to another was tricky. He had to locate, contain, and control the thousands of tiny particles that made up the substance and then rearrange them until he had the right mix, which changed the material on the most basic level. Sometimes he was left with extra particles which had to be disposed of.

  It only took a few moments, but in those moments a river of fiery magic flowed out of Zollin and into the small bar. Soon the copper shimmered, then blurred as if it were being shaken so fast that it was hard to see. Finally it slowed and stopped and the bar came to rest on the wooden table before the army commander. It was bright yellow gold, reflecting the lamplight.

  “Do you believe him now?” Brianna asked.

  Hausey picked up the little gold bar. It was heavier than he expected and he put it between his teeth and bit down, feeling the soft metal give slightly between his teeth.

  “I don’t believe it,” Hausey said. “You just turned copper into gold.”

  “It’s just a trick,” Luca said. “I warn you not to put your hopes in this boy, commander. He’ll get us all killed.”

  “You’ve seen what he can do with your own eyes,” Hausey said in a decisive tone. “He has a letter from the King and we will help him, if that is what he desires.”

  Zollin nodded, but was drinking more wine. He felt the liquor going to his head and kne
w that he wouldn’t be much good if he kept drinking, but he was so tired. The hot bath had relaxed him and the magic had drained the last of his strength. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and go to sleep.

  “What do you think of the plan, commander?” Kelvich asked. “Can we get enough men together to have a chance against the dragon?”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Hausey said. “There are a few holes in it, though. For instance, villagers wouldn’t have much gold, but a religious group might. We could pose as missionaries building a temple or mission. Some of the men could pose as refugees. We’re cavalry troops, but it would be hard to train our mounts for sorties, especially when the sight of the dragon sends them into a panic. We’ll need archers and spearmen, so we can hit the beast while it’s in the air. Also, we should be able to locate its vital organs. That’s where we’ll need to concentrate our attack.”