A Proper Wizard (3 page)

“As I said,” Verent said. It was highly unlikely that this boy wizard would be able to help.

“I think I know what the problem is,” Conn said. “You know how the magic of any city was once a dragon, right?”

“Yes, I have read the disquisition on the draconic nature of magic,” Verent answered. The one this boy claimed to have written.

“Well, dragons are living creatures like any others, and they can have the usual sorts of problems that living creatures have.”

“What is your point?” Verent asked, growing impatient.

Conn grinned. “You have fleas.”

Verent frowned. The very idea! He took a bath every single day! “I do not!”

“Not you,” Conn said. “The magic of your city.”

On the table, the baby dragon eyed Verent and then, deliberately, lifted a hind leg to scratch its ear. Verent's own ear suddenly felt itchy, and he forced himself not to scratch it. “Fleas?” he asked.

“Well, not fleas, exactly,” Conn said. “It's a kind of magical thing like a flea that sucks small amounts of magic out of the magical being of your city.”

Verent leaned forward, his breakfast forgotten. “Like a kind of parasite, you mean?”

“Right,” Conn said, with a nod.

Verent shook his head. “It sounds serious. Could these parasites drain all the magic from Danivelle?”

“Not any more than a couple of fleas could drain all the blood from a dog. They're just a nuisance. We should be able to figure out something to help.”

“We'll do experiments with pyrotechnics?” Verent asked, feeling a surprising jolt of excitement. His master would scold him for such interest, but he couldn't help it.

Conn grinned at him, his eyes sparkling. “Yes, pyrotechnics. But,” he said, looking around his workroom, “not in here.”

 

After Conn had handed him an armful of supplies to carry, Verent followed him down the stairs and out to the courtyard that lay before Heartsease. The cobblestones were slick with rain and dotted here and there with muddy puddles. It smelled of murky river and of baking biscuits from Benet's kitchen.

“That's the Sunrise over there,” Conn said, pointing with his chin, as his arms were full of bottles and a sack. The tiny dragon clung to the boy's shoulder, further shredding his knitted sweater with its claws.

Verent saw, on the east bank of the river, a set of neatly laid-out city streets leading to a fine palace on a hilltop.

“And the Twilight over there,” Conn added.

Ah. A much smaller and darker part of the city, on the other bank of the river. That was where his ship had landed. “The Twilight is full of thieves and other riffraff, I suppose,” Verent said with a sniff.

For some reason, that made Conn smile. “And pickpockets, sure as sure,” he said. He looked up at the tree that spread its black branches over their heads and set down the things he was carrying. “This is a good place.” The little dragon hopped to the cobblestones and cocked its head, watching.

Being extra careful not to drop anything, Verent set down the wooden box he was carrying. Then he laid one of his scented handkerchiefs on the cobblestones and knelt on it—to protect his trousers from the damp and mud. “Why must we do the experiment out here?” he asked.

Connwaer was pulling vials and bottles from the box. “Oh, well.” He paused. “I blew up Heartsease.”

“Blew it up?” Verent repeated, aghast.

“More than once,” Conn said, with a wry shrug.

“That's terrible,” Verent said. The doubts were rising again. A proper wizard would never take such dangerous risks, would he?

The boy's keen blue eyes were studying him again. “D'you think wizards never make mistakes, Verent?”

Verent blinked. “I wouldn't think— I mean . . .”

“Your master never makes any mistakes at all?” the boy went on.

Verent thought of stern, gray-bearded Senior Wizard Poulet, who scolded every time Verent put a foot wrong. “No,” he said bleakly. “I don't think he does.”

“Well, then he doesn't ever do anything interesting,” Conn muttered.

“My master is a very great wizard,” Verent said stiffly. Trusting this young scamp with the health of his city—it was not a good idea. He knew what Master Poulet would say: This was a terrible idea, and Verent was being an incompetent fool—as usual—for going along with it.

“Hold this,” Conn said, and handed him a glass vial. Verent inspected it. Inside the vial was some kind of black liquid, or extremely fine powder, and the slightest movement sent it swirling into smoky eddies. “And this,” Conn said, handing him another vial that was icy cold to the touch but filled with what looked like purple sand.

“Right,” Conn said, sitting back on his heels and surveying the pyrotechnic materials he'd set out on the cobblestones. “This could be interesting.”

What did he mean, exactly, by
interesting
? “I'm—I'm not sure—”

“Don't worry,” Conn reassured him. “We'll be careful.”

Careful
, was it? From a boy who'd blown up his own house more than once? Still, even though he knew his master would not approve, Verent watched with growing interest as Conn assembled the pyrotechnic spell, trying to follow the boy's explanation of what he was doing. They wanted a small explosion, he said, precisely controlled, just enough to get the parasite's attention, and then a banishing word—but not enough to alarm Danivelle's magic in any way. It was all highly esoteric and difficult to follow. Verent pulled a small notebook and pencil from the pocket of his apprentice's robe and started jotting down hurried notes, his handwriting worse than usual. Hopefully he'd be able to make sense of it later. “You put the shadowbane in next?” he asked.

“No!” Conn said, and gave Verent a wide-eyed look. “That would be, well, not a very good idea.” With scarcely a pause for breath, he rattled off a paragraph of explanation that was, Verent realized, straight from the Prattshaw book on pyrotechnics. The other wizard Keeston was right—he really
did
have it memorized. “And don't worry,” Conn added quickly. “I'll write it all down for you.” He paused. “Or maybe Keeston will do it.”

With a sigh of relief, Verent put his notebook away.

“Ready?” Conn asked, and held up the vial full of purple crystals. “D'you want to add the last ingredient?” He pointed to a silver bowl on the cobblestones, where the rest of the pyrotechnic materials bubbled and smoked.

Verent blinked. “Well, I suppose . . .” He was only pretending to hesitate, though. This really
was
interesting, and he did want to try it. Master Poulet would never trust him to complete a spell like this.

“Good,” Conn said, handing him the vial. “Just a—”

As he spoke, Verent tipped the vial, emptying a stream of scintillant crystals into the silver bowl.

“—just a pinch!” Conn shouted.

But it was too late. The purple crystals hit the pyrotechnic materials, and an enormous flash and a percussive boom rolled out along with a wave of heat that scorched up Verent's nattily suited front, singeing off his eyebrows and the front of his neatly combed hair, then flinging him back onto the muddy cobblestones. A tight column of smoke and flame beamed from the silver bowl, cutting a narrow swath through the black branches of the tree. Beside him, Conn covered his face with his arm while his dragon clung to his hair with its claws.

Blinking the smoke and flame from his eyes, Verent saw Conn shouting magical spellwords, and abruptly the roaring of the explosion stopped, and the smoke and flame died back into the bowl as if Conn had put a magical lid on it. A sudden silence fell.

Coughing, Verent got to his feet. He felt bruised all over. His face felt red and scorched. His eyelashes had been singed off, too. His suit and robe were covered, front and back, with ashes and mud puddle. He checked and—yes, his hair was sticking up straight on his head.

Oh, what a fool he was! If he'd done such a careless thing at home in Danivelle, Master Poulet would be shouting at him, telling him he'd never be a proper wizard and threatening to take away his locus magicalicus. He knew, because he'd made mistakes before. Not as bad as this mistake, but bad enough. Steeling himself, expecting the worst, he faced the wizard Connwaer.

Instead of shouting and scorn, Conn was getting to his feet, rubbing a bit of ash from his face. He looked up at the column of broken branches over the silver bowl. His dragon locus stone hopped from the top of his head to the shredded shoulder of his knitted sweater. “Mind the claws,” Conn said absently, and crouched to examine the silver bowl.

“I'm—I'm very sorry about that,” Verent stammered.

Without answering, Conn picked up the bowl and tilted it, as if trying to see something better. “That's strange,” he said.

Verent felt a twist of dread. Connwaer was going to write his master a letter, complaining about his clumsiness, his ineptness, his basic wizardly incompetence. How was he going to explain the failure of his mission?

Suddenly Conn leaped to his feet, still holding the bowl. “That should not have happened.”

“I know,” Verent said miserably. “I can only offer my most abject apology, and—”

“No,” Conn interrupted, with a flashing grin. “I mean it's brilliant, Verent. The residue here. See?” He held up the bowl and tilted it.

Leaning closer, Verent peered into it. Sure enough, inside the curve of the bowl was a thin sheen of glistening dust.

“It shouldn't be there,” Conn explained. “I think you've discovered a completely new pyrotechnic material.”

“I—I have?” Verent stuttered. “Will it work to stop the magical fleas in Danivelle?”

Conn shrugged. “The spell will work for that, I think. But this is different, and it's a lot more interesting.”

Verent was starting to realize what Conn meant by
interesting
. “You mean dangerous?”

Conn's eyes gleamed. “Maybe. We'll have to do some more experiments to find out.”

We
, he had said. “You want me to join you?” Verent asked hesitantly.

“Of course I do,” Conn answered. “It was your discovery.” He crouched to set the bowl on the ground, and his dragon leaped from his shoulder to sniff at it. “Don't eat that, Pip,” he warned. He glanced up at Verent. “All right?”

Verent's heart pounded. Did he dare? Should he agree to help Conn with his experiments? Or would that be a mistake? He knew what Master Poulet would say:
Don't be any more of an idiot than you already are, Verent.

Conn got to his feet. “Let's have lunch and we can talk it over. I'll write out the experiment for you, but I have to warn you. My handwriting's terrible.” He gave a wry grin. “Nevery's always complaining about it.”

“My handwriting is terrible too,” Verent confessed, falling into step with Conn as they crossed the courtyard to Heartsease. “Master Poulet scolds me most harshly about it.”

“Oh, I'll bet he does,” Connwaer muttered, and he frowned down at the cobblestones as they walked. Then, suddenly, he stopped. “Look, Verent. Wizards make mistakes all the time,” he said. “Sometimes I make really huge ones that I feel terrible about after.” He glanced at Heartsease—the building he'd blown up more than once, he'd said. “But some of the things I've done turned out to not be mistakes at all. D'you know what I mean?”

Before, Verent would not have understood what Conn was asking. But the pyrotechnic explosion had rattled something loose in his brain. Maybe . . . maybe you couldn't tell a proper wizard by his fancy robe or by his age or by how long or how gray his beard was. Maybe a wizard couldn't be too careful; a wizard needed to try things that were interesting and maybe dangerous, and sometimes that meant making mistakes.

Oh, how Master Poulet would scold if he could see Verent now. He'd call him an oaf and say that Verent was just about to make the biggest mistake of his entire life.

But he didn't care. “Yes, Conn,” Verent answered at last. “I do know what you mean. And . . . and I do want to help you with your pyrotechnic experiments.” He couldn't wait to go back to Danivelle and tell stern Senior Wizard Poulet and the other graybeards that Danivelle's problem was that its magic had fleas. And that they'd have to do pyrotechnics to get rid of them.

Conn nodded. “Good.” They turned to continue across the courtyard. As they walked, the little dragon swooped past them, then banked and, with a flutter of its golden wings, landed on Conn's shoulder, clinging with its sharp claws.

“You . . .” Verent began. “If you put a leather patch on your sweater, it wouldn't be shredded by the dragon's claws.”

Conn blinked, and then shot Verent a quick grin. “You mean I'd look more like a proper wizard and less like a pickpocket from the Twilight? Is that what you're saying?”

Verent started to nod, and then he stopped. “Well, no. Maybe a wizard could look a lot like a thief.”

For some reason, that made Conn burst out laughing. The dragon on his shoulder lashed its tail.

Smiling widely, Verent looked down at himself. His new suit was muddy and scorched, and the hem of his robe was torn, and his shoes had lost their shine. He sniffed at his sleeve; it smelled like smoke. “You know, Conn, I am never going to be a proper wizard,” he admitted. “But I am going to be a wizard that makes excellent mistakes.” Then he started laughing too.

And he and his friend, the not-at-all-proper wizard Conn, went into Heartsease and had biscuits and tea for lunch.

Excerpt from
The Magic Thief: Home

 

 

See how Conn grew to become a great and powerful wizard in the Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas. In
The Magic Thief
, Conn goes from gutterboy to wizard's apprentice, and his talents only grow in
The Magic Thief: Lost
and
The Magic Thief: Found
. But can Conn ever escape his past life as a thief?

 

 

Read a sneak peek of
The Magic Thief: Home
, the fourth book in the thrilling series, now!