Wizard in the Woods

by Jeffrey M. Poole

  Peanut gave a sharp piercing bark. The corgi had yet to move from her playful crouch.

  “What is she doing?” Pravara inquired. “What does she want?”

  “I’d say she wants you to sniff noses with her. It’s her way to say hello.”

  “Of course. Now I remember. Mother has sniffed noses with her before, hasn’t she? Peanut. The name is Peanut, correct? Or is the species called ‘peanut’? I do not remember.”

  Mikal chuckled. “It’s Peanut. That’s her name.”

  Pravara took a small step forward and touched her nose to Peanut’s. The corgi finally bounded forward, barking excitedly, and then dropped straight to the ground to roll over onto her back, exposing her furry belly to the whole world.

  Smiling, Mikal looked up at huge green dragon.

  “What are you doing here, Pravara?”

  “The same as you, I would imagine,” the dragon answered. She lifted her head back into the air and turned to look at the blackened forest. “My father wants to know what happened. Dragons did this. My father wants to know why.”

  “Do you know which dragons are responsible?” Mikal asked.

  “Aye. Catrin and Jasmyre.”

  “Have you talked to them yet? Maybe they could tell you what was going through their heads when they did this.”

  “I spoke with each of them yesterday. Neither can remember anything other than going about their normal lives and suddenly discovering themselves here. They both had no recollection of how they got there or what they had been doing upon their arrival. I have been out here investigating the surroundings ever since. No matter how hard I try I cannot find anything significant about this location. I do not know why this area was targeted. Was there a hidden purpose?” Pravara growled irritably. “Clearly someone better than I should be searching for clues. I think my father chose poorly when he picked me.”

  Mikal took in the extent of the damaged ground and burnt trees and whistled softly.

  “That must have been one heck of a fire. I don’t think Steve could have put that one out.”

  Pravara’s neck turned until she was looking down at him.

  “Tell me, young Mikal, is that why you are here? Is the human king looking for answers, too?”

  “Don’t call me young. I’m older than you are, remember? By a number of years.”

  “Very well. My apologies. I meant no disrespect.”

  “It’s okay. I get that all the time. I have been under the assumption that my parents don’t take me seriously enough and then all of a sudden here I am, conducting an investigation on behalf of my father. I’m starting to doubt my father’s decision to send me here, too.”

  “You, too?” Pravara asked, interested. She dropped her head back to the ground. “My father decided it was time I became an adult and tasked me with unraveling the mystery of why several of our brethren would jeopardize the peace we have with the humans.”

  “Nobody was hurt,” Mikal pointed out. “We don’t know for certain if the purpose of this fire was to hurt us humans. If it was, don’t you think they would have started the fire closer to Verdayn?”

  “You have a point,” Pravara admitted.

  “We’re both trying to solve the same mystery,” Mikal told her, smiling. He had just thought of something that would make his father proud. “What do you say we work together to try and figure this out? It sounds like we could each use the help. Besides, I’ll bet both of our fathers would agree.”

  Pravara slowly nodded.

  “I see the logic in that decision. Very well. I agree. Where would you like to start?”

  “Well,” Mikal began as he scratched the back of his head, “you said you’ve been out here for a while now. What have you learned so far?”

  “There’s nothing noteworthy about this locale,” Pravara told him as she took a few steps back and started walking towards the center of the scorch marks.

  Mikal scooped the corgi up off the ground and rested her against his shoulder. He gave the dog a few friendly pats before he started walking towards the scene of the fire. Peanut whined and tried to get down.

  “I’m sorry, Peanut. We have work to do. You’ll hurt your paws if you try to walk across the burned ground. Just bear with me, okay?”

  He looked over at Pravara and saw that the dragon was already standing in the center of the torched earth. Mikal’s boots crunched noisily on the blackened vegetation as he joined Pravara. His companion looked over at him.

  “I have searched the Collective. This is just an insignificant corner of the valley.”

  “Okay, so the location is irrelevant. What about the trees? Or the vegetation?”

  Pravara glanced at the blackened remnants of several trees.

  “I see oak, pine, and birch. There are dozens of healthy specimens all around this valley. I fail to see why these trees would be targeted.”

  “How big of an area was burned?” Mikal asked as he turned to walk away from the scorched earth. He turned around and silently regarded the large swath of destroyed vegetation.

  Pravara glanced east to look at the far left-hand border of the burnt trees and slowly tracked her head to the right, stopping only when she had reached the other side.

  “It’s just a guess, but I would say at least 500 meters.”

  “500 meters,” Mikal repeated. “What about the depth? How far did the fire burn inside the forest?”

  Pravara approximated a shrug. “Unknown. I have not investigated inside the forest as it would be difficult for me to move around. In my youth I’d be able to do it but not like this. Do you believe this is information we need?”

  Mikal nodded. “I’d like to know.”

  “Very well. I will investigate from the air.”

  Pravara leapt straight up and snapped her wings open, mimicking the standard takeoff Mikal had witnessed Pryllan, her mother, do on numerous occasions. He watched the dark green dragon fly back and forth overhead as she inspected the area. Several minutes later she had returned to his side.

  “The extent of damage inside the forest is minimal. No more than 100 meters were burned. No more, no less.”

  “What, all the way across?”

  “Aye. Why?”

  “You’re telling me that the area the fire burned looks like a perfect rectangle from the air? Since when does a fire burn so evenly?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Allow me to do a more thorough investigation.”

  Pravara returned to the air and circled slowly about above them. Mikal shifted Peanut to his other shoulder and gave her a few friendly scratches behind her ears. He was rewarded with goose bump-inducing lick on the back of his neck.

  Mikal looked at the burned ground again. How could the dragons only make a specific portion of the forest burn? Why would they? The only person he knew of that could accomplish something like that was Steve. He and Sarah had attended his birthday party only last week and have since returned home. Besides, hadn’t he heard his father say that Pravara’s father, Kahvel the Dragon Lord, had ended up putting out the fires? Why hadn’t the fires spread to the rest of the forest?

  Mikal shook his head. There must be something he was missing. Pravara swooped in from high above and snapped her wings open to arrest her descent. She landed twenty meters outside of the burned grass and waited for Mikal to join her. As soon as he did so, Mikal lowered Peanut back to the ground and let her run around on her own. The playful dog looked up at Pravara and barked excitedly at the dragon. Pravara crouched low and swished her tail through the grass. Once Peanut was running around in circles, chasing absolutely nothing, Pravara straightened and approached Mikal.

  “I found something you should know about.”

  Mikal’s pulse quickened. She found something?

  “What? What did you find?”

  “Upon closer inspection I can see that you were right. The fire burned a shape into the forest.”

  “A shape? What shape?”

  Pravara extended a foreleg and u
sed one of her talons to scratch a symbol onto the soft ground they were standing on. She drew a rectangle with two interlocking diamonds in the center.

  “How did you miss that before?” Mikal wanted to know.

  “Those marks are only slighter lighter that the rest of the scorched earth. I had assumed they were mere discolorations. I know now they are not.”

  “It’s a picture of two joined diamonds? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Pravara shook her head. “Unknown.”

  Mikal stared at the symbol as a thought occurred to him. The dragons had placed it there for a reason. The symbol, while unknown to him, had to have a purpose.

  “What is it?” Pravara asked. “Your pulse has quickened and you are expelling more air than most humans need in order to survive.”

  “Pravara, this is a clue. It has to be. The problem is, what does it mean?”

  “I would agree that the symbols are too specific to be random patterns. That is, unless there was a human structure that matched that shape and it resulted in the ground being marked as it is.”

  “Do you believe that?” he asked the dragon.

  Pravara shook her head no.

  “I do not believe so.”

  “Neither do I. Hmm, you know what? I think I know what this might be.”

  “What?”

  “A wizard’s mark!”

  Chapter 2 – The Rogue Resurfaces

  “Are you sure? Mikal, it could be from random striations in the rock on the ground. It could be some type of vegetation that perhaps burned hotter than the rest. We don’t know for certain this was the work of a wizard.”

  “Pravara, you saw it for yourself. Do you think it to be coincidence we found two interlocking diamonds that had been branded on the ground? Left by dragons?”

  Pravara was silent as she studied the scorched earth.

  “And if you are correct? What then?”

  Mikal gave Peanut a few friendly pats on her head.

  “Then my father should be told. He’ll want to know.”

  “It would be prudent to notify my father as well.”

  Mikal turned to look up at her with a skeptical look on his face. Pravara, sensing she was being watched, glanced down at him.

  “What?”

  “Are you sure you’re younger than me? You sound like you’re much older. It’s hard to believe you’re the same dragon that played with Peanut several years ago and consequently got me into a lot of trouble.”

  “Dragons mature far faster than humans,” Pravara informed him. “I achieved my adult size last year after my last sloughing. As for you, are you at your adult size yet?”

  Mikal looked down at himself. With his boots on he was nearly six feet tall. Not as tall as Steve, he thought bitterly, but still several inches taller than his father and over six inches taller than his mother. His body was lean and fit thanks to Steve’s interest in a type of exercise called ‘taekwondo’ and Mikal’s own desire to best him at it. Which, Mikal wryly thought, he had done on more than one occasion.

  “I think I am done growing,” he told the dragon. “At least my mother hopes I am. She still thinks of me as her baby boy.”

  Pravara grunted by way of acknowledgement.

  “So you need to tell your father what we found today, is that it? How long will it take you to fly home?”

  “Why would I fly home?” Pravara asked, curious.

  “Your father is the Dragon Lord. Don’t you need to tell him what we found?”

  “I already did.”

  “You did? When?”

  “Just now.”

  “You used the Collective, didn’t you?”

  Pravara’s giant head nodded. “Aye.”

  “I wish we had something like that we could use,” Mikal muttered under his breath. “It would make things a lot easier.”

  “Humans cannot telepathically communicate with other humans,” Pravara pointed out.

  Mikal sighed. “I know, Pravara.”

  “Inform who you must,” Pravara told him. “I will continue to investigate the environment to see if anything else can be learned.”

  “Want to meet back here tomorrow morning?” Mikal asked, hopeful the dragon would want to resume their investigation together. “Then we’ll be able to compare notes.”

  “Very well. Until then.”

  Pravara moved off, towards the closest corner of the large mark and brought her nose down to the ground as though she wanted to follow a scent. Mikal pulled the leash from his back pocket, clipped it to Peanut’s collar, and headed back to Verdayn. He looked up at the four sets of human eyes watching from a distance.

  “I’m heading back to the castle. See you guys there.”

  As expected, there wasn’t any response.

  ****

  “Let’s go, Peanut. We can play later. We have a job to do.”

  Mikal had made it about three steps into the castle, past the activated portal, when his leash arm was yanked to a stop. The portal room wasn’t empty and Peanut had felt it was her responsibility to make sure everyone received the Corgi stamp of approval. She had been trying to pull Mikal over to a small group of kitchen staff who were having some type of meeting with the head chef.

  The entire group ceased talking at Mikal’s appearance. The head chef bowed while the rest of the staff dropped their gaze to the floor. Mikal nodded back. He gave the leash he was holding a couple of soft tugs to get the dog’s attention and moved toward the exit. Determined to stay by his side, Peanut abandoned her attempts to stop and greet every passerby and hurried to catch up. Servants and guards alike saw him coming and hurriedly stepped to the side in order to allow him to pass.

  Mikal stepped out into the Great Hall and almost collided with Commander Rhenyon. Peanut hesitated only long enough to cast a quick glance up at the commander. Rhenyon changed course and matched Mikal’s pace as he angled toward the Antechamber.

  “Is the matter settled up north, your highness?” the commander casually inquired. “Was the fire an accident as the king believes?”

  Mikal shook his head no.

  “I don’t think so. We found something I think my father should know about.”

  “Excellent. He and the queen are in… did you say ‘we’? Did one of the Javyn help you with your investigation? I expressly forbid them from interfering with your activities.”

  Mikal finally paused and turned to look at the commander.

  “Commander, is their presence by your order or my father’s?”

  Rhenyon kept his face neutral.

  “Why do you ask, your highness?”

  “I feel like I am still being treated like a child.”

  The commander stared at him silently for a few moments before he began walking again. Mikal automatically started walking, too.

  “Both.”

  “You think I still need a personal guard?” Mikal demanded, incredulous. “I can best anyone with a sword except for maybe you. I can beat anyone in a fight thanks to Steve and Marshall.”

  “Marshall?” Rhenyon repeated, confused. “Who’s Marshall? Is he a friend of Sir Steve’s?”

  “Aye. I haven’t personally met him but Steve talks about Marshall Arts all the time. I think Marshall might have taught Steve all those fancy moves and he, in turn, taught them to me.”

  “You’ve bested me in hand-to-hand combat for several years now,” Rhenyon admitted as he smiled. “Your highness, please understand. You are the crown prince. Do you know what your father would do in order to get you back should you ever be abducted?”

  Mikal sighed. “Probably anything.”

  “Exactly. For that reason alone you must have protection at all times. It is no different for your father except his bodyguards number more.”

  “I have enough protection for this mission, thank you very much.”

  Rhenyon glanced over at him as they walked.

  “Oh? Please elucidate. And do not tell me you are referring to your canine companion, your high
ness. I’ve seen her with strangers. She’d lick a person to death before she’d be willing to take a bite.”

  “Says you,” Mikal argued. “You’ve never seen her try to bite the bright red bug.”

  “What red bug?”

  “It’s a type of toy that lives in a pen,” Mikal explained. “It… it’s not important. As I was saying, I have enough protection up there and somehow, and I don’t know how, I think my father is responsible for that.”

  Mikal and Rhenyon approached the heavy wooden double doors leading in to the Antechamber, private chamber of the king. This chamber, Mikal knew, could repel all but the strongest jhorun. His father’s favorite room was the chamber in which he could feel safe and secure. Since the room prevented most people from using their jhorun it was also where the king conducted closed door meetings where he could rest assured no one would be able to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  The guards standing on either side of the chamber’s entrance leapt to attention and hastily pulled the doors open. Rhenyon indicated Mikal was to enter first. Once the two of them were standing inside the enchanted chamber, with Mikal holding onto Peanut’s leash, they observed the scene before them. The king was sitting in one of the plush armchairs by the hearth. He had an open book in one hand and a half empty tankard of ale in the other. Kri’Entu glanced up at his guests and smiled, but then remembered he was holding something that he shouldn’t be and smiled sheepishly.

  “Didn’t mother make you promise you’d stop drinking ale?” Mikal accused. “You must watch your health, father. Too much ale isn’t good for you.”

  Kri’Entu eyed his tankard before leveling a gaze at his son.

  “She doesn’t need to know about this.”

  “Father, are you asking me to withhold information from my own mother? From your wife??”

  His father’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “What do you want, son?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, father.”

  “You haven’t called me father this many times in the last ten years combined. Again I ask, what do you want? What is your price for your silence on this matter?”