“Dragons used to frequent our realm. Some even lived their lives here, advising the ruler of this world as the generations flew by. They live much longer than men do, you know.
“Long ago, they decided that mankind had reached the point where their help was no longer needed. Kings stopped listening to them and went their own way. They departed. Eventually, a wizard devised a spell that could call a dragon and bind it to his will. He captured dragons and made them into slaves. He used them as weapons. Those that escaped crossed over to their home, never to return. After the last battle, the sorcerer died, and his spells along with him. The dragons were free once more, but by then, they had developed a habit of avoiding man and his deeds. They rarely visit any longer. Only when great danger looms.”
“And one of them came to guide us?” Rotiaqua asked.
“Yes, he said you would be here soon. That I was to expose you to the dragon lore so you would be able to help.”
“How could we help a dragon?” Rotiaqua asked.
“The ancient spell,” Em’hin said. “It has been found. This time, the wizard who wields it has discovered how to summon the dragons from their realm, not just call those who are already here. He is summoning them to their deaths. You are the only one who can save them.”
“How?”
Em’hin shrugged. “That is all he would say. That one day soon, you would save their race from true extinction. He would not tell me anything about their future beyond that.”
“I thought dragons were immortal.” Rotiaqua said.
“Not immortal. They can be killed. It takes strong magic to harm a dragon.”
“And someone has that strong magic?” she asked.
“Yes, he does.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“No, but you are somehow bound up with him. You may succeed in stopping him ... I pray that you do.”
Em’hin picked up the book he had been reading and handed it to Rotiaqua. “Take this. It is a compendium of dragon lore that will help you. You can save them. You have the power.”
With that, he closed his eyes and relaxed. “Go now. I am old and tired.”
When they’d returned to Garlath’s abode, Rotiaqua paged through the book. When she saw something interesting, she pointed it out to Zhimosom. The book contained stories of how the dragons had influenced the rise of kings and helped establish nations, but the text ended abruptly when the dragons crossed the veil and returned to their own world. Garlath explained that afterwards, they made only scattered appearances in times of great upheaval. He encouraged Rotiaqua to read more of the book while he salvaged what was left of the meal they had so hurriedly abandoned earlier.
Since meeting with Em’hin, Garlath’s demeanor had changed completely.
“We have to go to Amedon.” Garlath brought a plate of bread, cheese, and roasted meat from the kitchen. He placed it on the table next to the pot of ale, pulled out his chair, and dropped into it.
“There are wizards there, beyond count. They gather to study. The young ones go there to learn. They have a library the likes of none you could imagine. We will most surely find something there to shed light on this looming danger.”
Rotiaqua wondered how he’d prepared a meal so quickly. Had he created it using magic? Was that something they would learn? The aroma of the roast meat made her stomach growl, but his words stirred a hunger in her she had not known had existed. A hunger for magic.
She tried to imagine a place where wizards congregated. It must be amazing to have access to those who had mastered the spells she wished to learn. A place where being a wizard was nothing unusual, where she wouldn’t have to hide her powers.
“How far is it?” Zhimosom interrupted.
“It’s far ... more than a moon’s travel. We should follow the foothills of the Swion Mountains until we get to Gritton.”
Rotiaqua had learned geography as part of her studies. She recalled the maps she had studied. “I’ve never seen that on a map.”
“Of course you haven’t. Amedon is hidden in the mountains. You find it when you are ready. Not before. It’s not a bad journey. If we follow the foothills, there are plenty of woods and wild game to keep us fed, and plenty of fresh water.”
“Have you made the journey?” Rotiaqua inquired.
“I have. I was trained in Amedon, but my family needed me. My father died, and my mother was sick. I came back to tend to her and stayed two summers, then went back to Amedon to finish my training. When I was done with that, I went back home for a while, but I don’t often stay in one place too long. Amedon is busy and thick with wizards. You can’t move without stepping on one. I do miss the library, though. I could use a few moons in the place ... just to freshen up on some of my spells.”
“Can’t we just travel there by magic? It would save a lot of time.”
Garlath drummed his fingers on the table. “Travel by magic. You’ve done that, have you?”
“We have. Not very far, but yes, we have,” Rotiaqua said. Zhimosom had traveled by magic on several occasions, but not as far as a distant land. She wondered what that would be like. No coach for days on end, no walking until her legs ached, but her hopes were dashed when Garlath continued.
“You need to be familiar with your destination to travel by magic, and it takes as much out of you as if you had traveled by foot, only all at once. You’d need a strong reserve to make it all the way to Amedon. That or a sorcerer’s stone, and I don’t have one of those.”
“A sorcerer’s stone?” Rotiaqua had heard of a sorcerer’s stone. An ancient text she had found spoke of them. If it was to be believed, there was one in the very castle where she had lived. The idea of having access to such power intrigued her. How was it different from Sulrad’s crystals? They needed to be charged with magic. From what he was saying, the stone absorbed it without intervention. That meant the magic would be pure.
“The stone draws energy from the world around it and stores it up. When you need to travel or perform a particularly strong spell, you can draw from it. But I have none. They’re rare and hard to acquire.”
“So we walk?” Rotiaqua asked.
“Yes, we walk. It will also give you time to refine your spells.”
“Please tell us about Amedon,” Zhimosom said.
“Amedon is located along the Swion Mountains, on a ridge that stretches to the sea. The city is in the foothills and it is much like any other. There are tradesmen and farmers. They have a market and shops. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“The wizards’ keep is located up the mountain. The tower is built into the stone and reaches into the sky.”
“Why do they have markets and shops? I thought they were wizards,” Rotiaqua said.
“Do you think wizards sit around all day doing magic? You can’t make food out of magic. Someone has to farm and craft the things that we use every day. Most of the wizards have a life outside of their study. Once they are finished with their initial training, they study wizardry after they’ve completed their regular chores. It’s now uncommon to see a young student sitting beside a grizzled stone mason in the library studying the ancient texts. You’ll love the library. There are books there that are older than the hills. They’ve been translated and translated again as the language changes and the old tongue is lost.”
“Will we be permitted to study in the library?” Zhimosom asked. “Rotiaqua taught me to read, and I’m getting better at it, but I’ve never been inside a library.”
“Most likely,” Garlath said. “I will advocate for you with the wizards’ council. They are the ones who approve of new students. I don’t see why they wouldn’t allow you.”
“When do we start?” Rotiaqua asked. She was eager to get to Amedon and learn from the masters.
“As soon as I wrap up my business.”
Garlath said no more about Amedon for the rest of the meal.
31
It had been a moon or more since Tustow, and Rotiaqua was growing tired of all
the walking. Horses could have made the journey easier, but Garlath said they would only make the trio a target for bandits and that he would rather not have to use magic to protect them. They rose at sunrise, packed their gear, and walked until sundown. The days were long, the road dusty, the sun hot, and the insects were a constant irritant until Garlath showed Rotiaqua and Zhimosom both how to shield themselves from the tiny pests. Zhimosom had caught on immediately. It had taken Rotiaqua several days to discern the subtleties of the spell. She was glad when it came time to rest and make camp for the night. She ate in silence and finally rolled her bedroll out in an open meadow. The nights were cool and there was little need of shelter. She settled in, exhausted from days of walking, glad of the respite, yet she was unable to sleep. Something nagged at her that she could not identify. She attempted to distract herself by watching the sky, identifying the constellations in the crisp evening air.
The light snoring of both men told her she was alone with her thoughts.
As the sliver of a moon set, the stars came out in numbers beyond counting.
She strained to see the faintest stars, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shooting star, but what she saw was quite enthralling. The darkness of the night was suddenly rent asunder. It was as if the curtains, formed of the most delicate silk, dropped from the heavens, rolling and billowing across the sky. Leagues tall, the ethereal lights stretched across the sky, glowing brightly in colors of red and green.
Rotiaqua stared at the lights in wonder, considering what had made such a thing. She had never read anything about lights in the sky such as these. She knew she should share this with Zhimosom, but she wanted to keep it for herself.
She decided to let him sleep.
She lay back, watching as the flimsy curtains fluttered lazily. It was mesmerizing and just a bit frightening.
As she watched, high up in the sky, there appeared a flash of darkness. A great shadow sliced through the light. It was as if the artist who had drawn the sky had taken a great brush of black and drawn a gash across the whole panorama.
This was too much. She couldn’t keep this to herself.
“Zhimosom,” she whispered. “Wake up. You need to see this.”
Zhimosom sat up, rubbing his eyes. It took him a while to wake, but when he saw the sky, he came quickly to his senses. “What is that?” he whispered back.
“I think it’s the dragon.” She leaned in close to him and pointed to the shadow streaking through the lights. “There.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’s the dragon. I caught sight of it earlier as it crossed through the lights. It’s coming closer.”
As the dragon approached, she moved closer to Zhimosom. He straightened up and didn’t shy away from her touch as she pressed her shoulder into him, but kept his gaze firmly on the shadow as it played with the lights. The dragon wheeled in the sky, dipping and rising as if catching the wind and riding it along. It was almost playful in its manner.
Slowly, the great shadows drew near until the outline of a large, red dragon became clear. The dragon passed over their heads and turned in the night sky. It swept out a graceful arc and returned again and again, swooping overhead several times before it folded its wings and came to a halt in mid-flight, then fell to the ground like a stone.
Just before it reached the ground, it stretched out those mighty leather wings with a snap and stopped just above the grass. It gently settled to the ground.
The dragon was easily three times taller than a man. Rotiaqua would barely come up to the crook of its knee.
It took a step toward them and lowered its head, the stink of rotten eggs and brimstone almost overwhelming. When it spoke, its voice was low and powerful, yet gentle and quiet. “You may approach,” it rumbled.
Rotiaqua approached the dragon with Zhimosom close behind her. Even as it rested near the ground, the dragon’s head came up to her shoulder. It could easily have eaten her in one bite.
Rotiaqua was hesitant but continued onward.
The last dragon had not harmed them, yet the beast still frightened her.
As she drew closer to that smoldering jaw, her heart beat faster. She reached back and took Zhimosom’s hand. It was cold and sweaty and trembled slightly.
“Wizard. Sorceress,” the dragon said. “You must stop him.”
“Stop who?” Rotiaqua asked.
“An evil wizard has discovered a spell to command my kind. He is calling us from our home world into yours. Soon he will devise a way to kill us and take our power. We are doomed if you do not stop him.”
“Why us?”
“Because you have dragon’s blood running in your veins and you are tied to this wizard. Your magic is mingled with his.”
“Sulrad!” Rotiaqua just knew that someday they would cross paths with Sulrad again.
“You know him,” the dragon said. “You and he are tied. I can feel a faint echo of you in his call. Through you, we may yet survive.”
“What do you want us to do?” she asked.
“There is a magic that lies deep beneath the earth. You can tap into it and gain the power to defeat him.”
Rotiaqua wondered about this. When the spell on the castle in Frostan had been broken, there had been a surge of magic. Almost as if it had been dammed up and released. Was that the way of it? Did magic well up from the earth in some places and seep from the ground in others? Was that the reason the wizards of old had chosen the location for their cities that they had? If so, would they acquire power faster in one of those locations? How would one tap into such power? She had no idea.
“How can we possibly save you? We are nothing special. We have no power,” Zhimosom piped in.
“Go to Rohir to gain power. It is the place you will find your true self. From there, we will guide you on the remainder of your journey.”
“What are we to do there?” Rotiaqua squeezed Zhimosom’s hand to silence him.
“That is hidden. But you will find your true strength and purpose there. If you do, you may yet save us. It will be at a great cost to both wizards and dragons, but there is a path. I regret that there is no easy way. Many will die no matter the path. If you fail or refuse to help, all of the dragons will die. If you succeed, we will live on. Not as we are, but we will continue, one day to be reborn. More than that, I cannot see.”
“There must be some way to save the dragons without lives being lost,” Rotiaqua said.
The dragon smiled, showing teeth as long as Rotiaqua’s forearm. “The dragon’s blood runs in your veins. You are more like us than you know.”
With that, the dragon lifted its mighty head.
It inhaled a deep breath and shot fire into the night sky.
Rotiaqua was blinded by the light, but she heard the flap of the dragon’s wings and knew that it was gone.
32
After the dragon’s visit, Zhimosom’s plans were completely set on end. He had hoped for a leisurely journey to Amedon with stops in exotic locations. Instead, he found himself on a forced march across desert terrain that threatened to scorch the very skin from his neck.
Along the way, Garlath taught Zhimosom and Rotiaqua the basic spells he felt they might need in the coming conflict. After reviewing various methods of escape, Zhimosom thought he was beginning to understand. He imagined a spell used against him and posed the question to Garlath about how to counter it. The idea that the dragons were being summoned to their death weighed heavily on his mind. “How do you defeat a summoning spell?” he finally asked.
“There are a number of ways to defeat a spell,” Garlath said. “You can defeat a summoning spell by creating a repulsion spell that works on the same object. It won’t send the object back to where it came from, but it will defeat the summoning and send the object elsewhere.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. We wouldn’t just want to push the dragons away. We want to protect them.”
“There are spells that ban an action. If you were to learn what
barrier separates our realms, and how Sulrad manages to open it, you might build a counter spell to seal the opening as soon as it’s created. You will need to be vigilant so that you can counter him as he attempts to use the summoning spell. There are transformative spells,” Garlath explained. “Spells that change one thing into another thing. Summoning spells usually work on a shape. If a thing has a change in shape, the summoning may no longer work.”
“Lastly, some summoning spells work on the essence. If that is the case, there is little you can do. You could not change the thing enough to avoid the summoning without destroying it. It would cease to be itself.”
It all sounded complicated. The spells Zhimosom had learned so far were general in nature. Garlath had told him that as he learned more, things would come to him that extended his knowledge at a faster pace. He encouraged Zhimosom to practice, with and without Rotiaqua’s help, until he had mastered all that he had learned.
Zhimosom was practicing one such spell when a dust storm rose in the west. Garlath said they were nearing Rohir and that spells to create a dust storm were just one of the ways that the city protected itself from intruders.
What started out as a wispy, wind-whipped cloud of dust soon became a wall of dark brown that menaced their route. The dust cloud billowed up from the desert floor, twisting and turning until it reached high overhead.
“Feel it?” Garlath jutted his chin at the wall of deep brown that slowly crawled toward them.
“I don’t feel anything. It’s just a storm,” Zhimosom said.
“Look deeper.”
Zhimosom extended his senses to the storm. He felt the dust swirl in patterns too complex to follow, but sensed nothing more.
“It’s just a storm.” Zhimosom let the frustration show in his voice. If he couldn’t even tell what was driving a storm, how was he going to recognize how Sulrad was calling the dragons?
“There.” Rotiaqua’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder. She pointed to a concentration in the spiraling mass of dust that seemed to hold steady in the face of shifting winds.
The Sorceress: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Origins Book 3) Page 22
