Drakonika (Book 1) (43 page)

“
Alright, at least we know that it does not bite,” Fjalldís said, feeling a little safer now. However, it did not please their new reptile acquaintance much, because he shot her a venomous look.

“
Well maybe I don't bite, but my skin is poisonous and anyone who touches me will suffer the most painful death,” Said the dragon curtly, but it didn't seem to affect anyone.

Magnus remained in thoughts for a while. “We're taking him,” he said finally.

“What?” Maren and Fjalldís said and gave a shocked laugh.

“
He's going with us,” Magnus repeated firmly. “He knows something... I can't get into his mind... but I am going to make him talk.” As soon as he said that, the dragon had begun shaking as though Magnus was the one with the poisonous skin.

“
Oh no, no... Please, Your Cruelty, have mercy!” The Dragon squealed, squirming even more and trying to release himself from Magnus' grip.

“
I am quite merciful, don't worry... Well, at the moment at least,” Magnus said with a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

Maren made a step forward. “Magnus, we have to go back to the party, Aedan will be looking for us... we can't take him with us, everyone will see him!” She said desperately.

“Then we have to hide him first.” Magnus said, still holding firmly the little dragon who seemed to be ready to get a heart attack now. “One of you will go get my backpack... I will wait with him outside... then stuff him in... and go back to the party.”

“
That's crazy... what if he talks? Somebody could hear him... Especially when he cries like a baby,” Fjalldís said, looking at Magnus and totally ignoring the dragon's affronted stare.

Magnus seemed to have decided. “I have an idea.” He said and gazed at the squirming lizard in his hands.

“What... what are you going to do with me?” Said the dragon with such fear in his eyes as though he had seen death coming for him.

“
Well, you're not going to like it, little fella...” Magnus said and right after that, he muttered something so silently that nobody could had heard it. There was an explosion of sparkling golden dust and when it faded, all that he held was a small sized pebble in his right hand. “That's something I've learned from Aedan.” Magnus said, a faint smile on his face.

Maren and Fjalldís gasped. “That was brilliant!” Maren said, speaking her thought out loud in her astonishment. But after the tournament, they could not had expected anything else from him.

“Yes... I know.” Magnus said, broadening his smile and slipping the pebble into a pocket under his robe. “Well girls, shall we go?” He gave them a significant look.

“
But, what about the police-” Fjalldís started, but Magnus cut her off.

“
I'll deal with them later, but now, first things first.” Magnus said, patting his pocket gently. “We need to find out something more about the dragon haunting, and about myself, too. I am sure he knows something about me. He slipped twice when he was talking...”

“
Y-you mean...the part when he implied to you not to eat him?” Maren stammered, as they stepped forward to return to the underground trap door.

“
And... when he called you
Your Cruelty
?” Fjalldís said in a slightly terrified tone.

“
Well, yes... but don't worry, I'm all right now, really-” Magnus said, but when he reached his arms out to give a friendly embrace to both of them, Maren and Fjalldís flinched away from him. “Hey, what's wrong?” He asked in a shocked tone, but then he realized what was going on. They were afraid of him.

Magnus had suddenly stopped. He looked desperate and sad.

Seeing his face, Maren could not stay away from him any more. “Magnus... I'm sorry... I don't know why I did that,” she said in a guilty tone. But Magnus only shook his head in disagreement.

“
No... we all know why you did that. And you had a perfectly good reason to do that...” Magnus said, sounding rather downcast, and gave a slow, long sigh.

“
Okay, we'll talk about that back in the underground...” Said Fjalldís , trying to set Magnus in motion. “If we stay here, the big dragons will come for us and roast us for dinner.”

“
I'm not afraid of them,” Magnus mumbled. “I'm one of them. I will protect you, fire can't kill me.”

“
But the big sharp fangs can, though.” Fjalldís said impatiently.

“
Wait a minute...” Maren said in a distant voice, gazing into nowhere. “If fire can't kill you, then... then it means that I did not save you from the dragon from the night when we had met! It was your own ability, and my spell failed... because nobody had come to arrest me anyway,” she said, lowering her voice as she was fighting the tears coming to her eyes. It almost sounded as though she was sad that there was no attempt to arrest her for casting the spell, because it meant that the spell was actually not cast at all. If it was, the police would had surely come to get her; they had detectors for magickal energy and spells. “I didn't help you one bit!” She cried.

The situation had turned around; this time it was Magnus, who tried to comfort Maren. “You helped me countless times,” he said, taking her around her shoulders.

Maren gave a heavy sob.

“
You guys? I think you're forgetting one thing,” Fjalldís said, embracing the both of them. “We've made a promise. As long as we live, we'll support each other and fight with all we have so that we stay together. No matter what happens and how hard it gets, we'll never give up. Together, we can do anything.” Fjalldís said devotedly.

Magnus gently wiped Maren's eyes with the back of his sleeve. “You're right... We have to stick together. No more tears...” He said quietly. He felt that it was a crying night; first the five-year-old mage, then Lars, then Magnus, then Maren... It was like a flu.

“Let's go,” Magnus decided and all three of them stepped forward, calming down a little as they made their way through the dark lanes of Ragna back to the trap door that led to the underground. They slammed on the door a few times, then heard Jackal's suspicious voice and had to answer several questions and guess several passwords that Magnus had read from his mind, before Jackal opened the locks and bars and finally let them back in. They strolled past Eagle, who was sitting on the floor and nodding over the cards again and dashed to the party room, where they found Elmar and Lars, impatiently waiting for them.

“
Thanks goodness you're here, Lars was going to eat his fifteenth cake! And he said he would make it twenty...” Elmar said, sounding rather relieved.

Magnus gave Maren and Fjalldís a shocked look, then turned back to Elmar. “Well, we have some interesting news for you. But we'll tell you when we return to Sinei, it's not safe to talk about it here.” He whispered swiftly.

“Lars, stop eating, you're going to be sick,” Maren said in a worried tone and dragged Lars farther from the tables as he was reaching to grab another cake. When they were leaving, the tables were full; now there was less than a half of the food they had seen before. All of the guests seemed to have a good appetite.

The party had continued to the late night's hours. It was a great opportunity for Fjalldís to get another drawing with her and Magnus, this time the artists had painted and drew also Maren, Elmar and Lars. Aedan and others were proudly clapping their hands into an audible applause, smiling warmly, and he could not stop himself from saying another few comments about the glorious victory of druids. Later, when the artists  finished their works, a few excited fans of Magiker had persuaded Magnus to play a few games with them, which he won all, since he was reading their thoughts and knew precisely what cards they had and what they were going to do. Finally he could let go of his troubles and worries... at least for a while.

While they did have a good time in Ragna, it ended when they had returned to Sinei. Magnus was just about to turn the pebble stone back into its dragon form, which all his friends were very excited about, when Maren's other two house mates stopped by and said that he had been called to Aedan's house. As he was passing the street, he saw the black squad standing nearby, their voices full of malicious laughter, throwing seemingly furtive glances at Magnus. He quickly dived into their minds and immediately understood that they knew what all this was about. Darius and Rodrick

When he was nearing the door of Aedan's house, he fixed his hood to make sure that his ears were hidden well and knocked on the door with a feeling of great trepidation. Seconds later, Aedan had opened and let him go inside, without saying a word.

“
Sit down,” Aedan said finally, watching Magnus with his usual grim gaze again. It was not hard to guess that his sympathies towards Magnus  had all faded. “I am... very disappointed with you,” he continued in a strict voice, as Magnus swooped down into the chair. “You lied to me, you pretended to be who you were not and you dragged others into this
game
of yours as well. You should know that I had high hopes for you, you've been a talent from the very beginning. But I never thought you would do something that irresponsible, I am just shocked...” Aedan said in a strict tone, yet there was something in his voice that was still making him doubt what he said, as though he did not even want to believe it.

Magnus' eyes darted downwards. He felt his heart torn to pieces from all the guilt that had suddenly fallen on him. For quite a while, Aedan kept talking but Magnus was unable to listen to what he was saying. He felt like running away, but how he could run away from himself? Besides, he did not had the slightest idea about which self of those that he had experienced was his true self. After some time of hearing Aedan's indignant voice, he was finally brought back from his thoughts.

“Two months of detention.” Aedan said with finality in his voice. “No visitors, no games, no experiments, no nothing... You will study, study, study and one more time, study. Elmar and Lars will bring you food, if not, you will be hungry. And if I find you outside for one minute, you will be expelled from the guild. I have nothing more to say... Now, get out.” He said gravely, before Magnus could even say a word in his defence.

Magnus slowly stood up and limped to the door. As he was opening them, he cast one last defeated look at Aedan, who had already turned his back to him and slumped into the chair behind his desk covered with herbs, scrolls and books.

“Hopefully this will teach you some good manners,” Aedan muttered in a highly disappointed voice. It seemed they both felt defeated.

Two months of detention; Magnus would had surely turned into a dragon by then. There was only one thing he could do. He had to give the dragon either to Maren or Fjalldís, who could, possibly, get some information from him and act on Magnus' behalf. There was no time to waste. Since Maren lived in one room with Serena, which was absolutely unbelievable how she could had endured it until then, he decided to entrust the dragon into Fjalldís' hands. Her house mates, Belinda and Aurora, seemed to be quite trustworthy and understanding. He called Maren, Elmar and Lars to Fjalldís' house, with Belinda and Aurora present as well, and they well all waiting for his stunning spell that should had turned a pebble into a dragon. Fjalldís and Maren knew he could do it, but were  worried of the troubles that keeping a dragon there might had caused. Belinda and Aurora seemed to be a little sceptical, Elmar had his eyes bulged and fixed upon the stone, while Lars was a bit scared and, being the youngest of them all, he grabbed Maren's hand to calm himself down.

“Remember, nobody else must know,” Magnus repeated for the third time, just to make sure that everyone had heard him all right. He pulled the small pebble out from his pocket and stretched his arm in the midst of the little circle they were standing in. He muttered something silently, then there was a small explosion of golden glittery dust, and as it was fading, the Belinda, Aurora, Elmar and Lars had seen a real dragon being for the first time in their life.

Lars flinched back. “Is that really a... dragon?” He asked in a frightened tone.

“Well, it's not a pigeon, that's for sure.” Magnus said, clutching the dragon firmly.

“
Watch those wings, watch those wings!” The little dragon implied frantically. “They are very tender...” And indeed they were; his wings were nothing like the hard scales and the strong membranes on Magnus' ears. They looked more like a butterfly wings, or fairy wings, if you will; their beautiful colours of rainbow were glittering in every refraction of light, slightly covered with soft fur near the place where they were attached to his back. He had no hard horns, no thick scales, nor huge sharp fangs; only a smooth, long body of green colour that was changing from light to dark, strewn with glittering dots that looked like golden dust,  those wonderful soft rainbow wings, four elegant legs with five fingers on each, a pair of gleaming golden eyes on his head, and a long, flexible tail that was now swirling around Magnus' arm. Suddenly, everyone wanted to touch him.

“
Dear Mother Nature... It talks!” Said Belinda in awe. “So, Aedan was right! Dragons do exist!” She shrieked out, carefully patting the dragon on its head.

“
D-does it bite?” Lars said, peeking from behind Maren and watching the little dragon in terror.