The Wizard And The Dragon (13 page)

We
burned, sometimes literally, through eight gemstones before I succeeded. I was
able to remember the pattern correctly and properly change the energy. From
then I had to visualize and stretch out the energy into the desired shape of
the apple.

I
was reminded by how Tower created barriers out of the gems as I worked the
magic. Suddenly I also saw the wisdom in using red gems to make the apple. It
was much easier to imagine the red apple forming around a gem of the same color.

As
the energy spread into the form of the fruit it felt easy and natural. It was
like trying to read a word that I had never seen before and, as I sounded it
out, I realized that it was a word I already knew, a word that I had said aloud
my entire life but never seen on paper. I had been eating apples for so long
that its shape was so familiar and simple for me.

Unfortunately
that burst of confidence made me complacent in the final moment of the spell. I
was excited and proud and tore my focus away too quickly. It morphed the shape
of the apple into a distorted mess. It was lumpy in places, and had corners in
others. I looked at it and my triumphant expression faded. I felt like I wanted
to cry.

“Wow,”
Tower said and then started laughing. “It’s okay, that’s not the important
part. Look.”

He
moved quickly and carved into the apple. He trimmed away the protruding pieces
until it looked closer to a real apple. He sliced the remaining piece in half
and handed it to me. He took the other half himself and bit into it.

“See?”
he said with his mouth full. “The shape is easy to fix. Just don’t rush the end
next time. The important part is if the energy was changed correctly. Try it.”

I
took a bite. The apple was juicy and firm. It crunched as I chewed it and tasted
just like every other apple I had eaten. I felt a surge of pride build up
inside of me and took another bite. At that moment it was the most delicious
thing I had ever tasted.

“I
really did it?”

Tower
nodded and I grinned back at him. I straightened in the chair and looked at the
other gems on the table.

“What
else can I make?”

Over the following
weeks I provided almost all the food that we consumed. At first we ate fruit
and bread, but as I grew more confident Tower taught me more complex meals. If
I had trouble remembering a pattern, he would create something for me and then
guide me as we reverted it back into the form of a gem. The gem was always much
smaller than it was originally and much of the energy was lost in the process,
but in doing so I learned the pattern of the food and could recreate it.

I
created roast beef and ham, potatoes and turnips, carrots and cauliflower. I
made onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and sweet corn. Chicken was my favorite and I
made that more often than anything else.

The
more that I worked with the gemstones the faster the process became, and I
discovered that the quicker I was at filling out the energy into the pattern,
the larger the end result of the food was. Less energy was wasted when I could
manipulate it faster. Tower explained that when I was good enough to transmute
a gemstone in under a second, I could create a week’s worth of meals out of the
same gem I used to make my first apple.

“Could
I create a live chicken?” I blurted out one day, the same way all the sudden
questions came crashing out of my mouth.

“No,”
Tower said and then hesitated. “Well, yes. Maybe. It would be difficult. When
you make food you can make mistakes and it’s okay, like your first apple. We
likely get some things wrong all the time, but it doesn’t matter because the
food is made to be eaten, not to live and breathe. Most likely you would end up
with a very horrific result at worst, or the chicken would die part way through
the process at best.”

I
nodded but it seemed to have sparked something in Tower. He stared off into
space for a few moments and then shook his head.

“No,
no. You might be able to learn by breaking down the life energy of a chicken
into a solid form, like when you learn a new food by turning it back to a gem.
But it would be far more complex. You’d need many chickens. No, it wouldn’t be
worth it. Possible, but too costly.”

The
weeks continued and I started reading from the library myself. Tower had kept
his promise and given me access to a book of words and their definitions. I
referred to it often and tried my best to commit the new words to memory,
although it usually took finding it a few times before it really stuck.

My
proficiency at writing and drawing was increasing at a much faster rate and I
spent my evenings copying Tower’s drawings and sentences for practice,
emulating the way he created his curves as best as I could. I became hungry for
more knowledge and became enthralled with reading as much as I could.

Toward
the end of winter I was taught how to make the gems release heat and light on
the roof. That was a different kind of manipulation that required a steady
change of energy instead of one sudden change, like transforming a gem into
food.

I
made many mistakes. I could imprint the pattern well enough but I failed at the
rate of which energy was released. The water was filled with too much light and
was blindingly bright for hours as it ran down the tower walls.

Another
failed attempt shattered a gem I had been using for heat and half of the water
boiled away in the channel. We spent a miserable evening in the doorway on the
roof, finding it unbearably hot to be inside. We had to melt the ice in the
frozen water barrel to replenish the supply for the gems. That gave me ample
opportunity to experiment and understand what I did wrong.

I
grasped those basic lessons as winter turned to spring. The foundations of my
education were nearly complete and, as the weather began to warm, Tower decided
it was time to test me.

We sat in the
cellar with my copy of the giant spider’s beastiary entry on the work table in
front of us. We had cleared it of rubble, dust, and tools. I sat staring at the
page that I had written in my own hand, copying as much of Tower’s handwriting
style as I could along with each of the words. I had copied it again and again
until my letters had been small enough to fit all of the words on one page as
he had.

“Read
it out to me, Bryce. If you don’t remember what a word means then don’t worry,
just sound out the letters and move on. You don’t need to understand every word
to understand a sentence. Sometimes you can work it out if you know the rest,”
Tower said encouragingly from the other side of the table.

“Okay,”
I said in a low voice. I took one last sweeping glance over the page and then
began:

“The
Giant Spider.

“Although
usually found solely in underground areas of high magic resonance, reports from
other books have rare sightings above ground and in the caves of creatures of
high magic potential. A prominent example is that of a hibernating dragon. It
would seem that certain insect species are highly susceptible to absorbing
residual magic. The giant spider is one of them.

“Size
and strength vary widely but most sources agree that any spider greater than
double the standard size may be considered a giant. They retain most of the
agility of their smaller siblings but lose a significant portion of their
strength. The most popular theory is that the build and inner workings of most
insects do not translate well to increased size, which would explain the lack
of scaling strength and the perplexingly light weight of the giant spider.
Further studies would have to be made in order to confirm this.

“Other
drawbacks include the loss of the ability to administer venom. It would seem
that the method in which spiders inject toxins through their chelicerae—did I
say that right?—is rendered useless with increased size; however, it would seem
that a side effect of this disability is a high toxicity of their blood. Unless
an antitoxin is also provided, it is advised that no giant spider blood or body
parts be used in any alchemical experiments.

“The
exception to this rule is found in the giant spider’s silk. Although the silk’s
properties are largely unchanged from its transformation, the quantity that can
be produced lends itself to a vast number of practical uses. Spider silk has
great tensile strength, is extremely light weight, and is capable of
withstanding blows from blades and blunt weapons alike.

“Spider
silk should be harvested from webs produced naturally by the giant spider
although, if necessary, the spider’s silk gland can be expressed for forcible
extraction of additional silk. The process would require a great amount of
restraint, knowledge, and nerve, and is not recommended.”

I
lifted my head from the page. My eyes burned from the concentration expended on
each of the lines. Usually I found that reading relaxed me, but I had tried my
hardest to impress Tower and the efforts had temporarily drained me.

“Mostly
good. A few stumbles on the larger words but that’s to be expected. Chelicerae.
Kuh-lis-er-ree,” Tower pronounced the word slowly.

“Chu-lis-er-ree,”
I repeated back. “Chelicerae. That one’s hard.”

“It
is,” Tower smiled. “Did you understand what you read?”

“Not
the big words. Some sentences I didn’t understand,” I said. I often felt like I
was reading to learn new words rather than the message of each sentence.

“Come
and look at the spider now,” he said as he turned to face the cage.

“Do
we need more silk?” I asked. The thought of having to go inside and manually
extract it from the spider was at the forefront of my thoughts. I never wanted
to touch the thing, never mind force it to do something with my hands.

“No.
This will be your final lesson in the basics of magic. We discussed yesterday
about the different forms of energy and how a wizard is able to control them.
Do you remember how I restrain the spider before we go into the cage?” he asked
without taking his eyes from the jail.

“You
shackle it with a form of energy. It’s different than when you make a barrier
with a gemstone. It’s physical but not a solid object. It’s still energy. I
don’t know the word.”

“Kinetic
energy. Go on,” he said.

“You
focus energy in a form of pressure at a point on the spider. I can feel it when
you work the energy. It doesn’t take a lot, does it? A lot less than making
fire.”

“Correct,”
he smiled. “You’d be surprised how little force is required if it is put in the
right place. Well done. There are other forms of energy that I can show you but
those are more advanced lessons. There’s one last thing about this spider,
however. Do you remember the first time that it was stunned? In the tunnel?”

I
nodded.

“Tell
me about it. What was different about that time?”

“That
wasn’t energy. You froze—suspended—it that time. Like you do with our food. I
don’t know what that is. That’s different,” I said quietly, unsure if there was
something I had failed to notice.

“That
was an influence on time. That’s the other, more complicated, side of the magic
that I can teach you. When you take energy from your body or gemstones and
create fire, you are transforming energy from one form to another.

“This
other side is influencing that energy without changing it. You can accelerate
the speed of the energy and make a fire burn through its fuel faster, or you
can slow it down or even stop it, if you are capable enough. The more volatile
and excited the energy is, the more difficulty you’ll have in slowing or
stopping it. Those are the only ways you can influence it, however. It’s impossible
to reverse the course of energy.”

“You
can stop fire?” I whispered.

“In
theory,” Tower responded slowly. “In my years I have only managed to slow fire,
but not stop it. But I am young still. I may learn one day.”

I
gawked at his comment about him being young and he laughed at me. It was a good
laugh. I found myself smiling.

“Fire
is a very active state for energy to be in,” Tower continued. “Food is easy.
It’s almost entirely stationary to begin with. Creatures and people vary,
depending on the amount of magical energy they have inside of them and their
size. It requires a great deal of concentration and knowledge on the part of
the wizard, but little to no energy is actually expended on your part. You are
manipulating an already existing form as it is, not transmuting something from
yourself into another form.”

“How
else can you alter time?” I perked up as I asked the question and, as if he
knew the reason why I was suddenly so animated, Tower frowned at me.

“I’m
sorry Bryce, but not in the way you’re hoping. It is possible that two moments
in time can be linked to each other but only under very specific circumstances.
The link would also have to be created beforehand and then returned to much
later. You can’t travel backwards unless you were able to create that point
yourself.

“The
amount of magic involved would be immense. I’ve only come across it once in the
collection of books upstairs. Even if you found a way, you wouldn’t be able to
save your village from the dragon.”

I
turned my head from his view and nodded. I didn’t like to get upset in front of
Tower even if there were still nights that I was terrified that the dragon may
find us. I had been safe for almost a year and my nightmares still hadn’t
stopped.

I
felt Tower move away and begin to shift around the room. I raised my eyes and
watched as he picked up a handful of stones from the corners of the room. They
were pieces of broken stone, a mess that we hadn’t bothered to clean up after
extracting the gemstones.

“Watch
then, this will be the last lesson before you can truthfully call yourself an
apprentice,” he grinned as he spoke and I immediately gave him my full
attention. My need to impress Tower cleared away other thoughts.

I
studied his movements with both my eyes and my magic focus. He placed three
stones on the table, leaving a small space between each of them. He left the
first one alone, as if it was to serve as a point of reference. The second he
picked up with only his forefinger and thumb so I could still see it as he
lifted it above the table. He parted his fingers and the stone remained in the
air. I could feel the energy drawing out of Tower to hold the stone in place.
It was similar to what I felt when he held the spider in place so many months
ago.

“So
far this is something you have seen me do,” he explained. “You are capable of
this and you’ll be trying soon, so pay attention. First I want to show you the
other way to contain things, and how it’s different.”

He
took up the third stone and held it up. His eyes locked on it for a brief
moment before he looked at me.

“This
is suspended now, just like our food. Just like the spider in the tunnel. Now,
what do you think will happen when I move my fingers from holding it?”

“It’ll
stay in the air,” I said, thinking it was obvious.

He
smiled and moved his hand. The stone fell and bounced off the tabletop like
there was no spell at all.

“But?”
I looked between him and the stone in disbelief. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s
okay, I got that one wrong my first time too,” he said. “Suspending something
only effects the object and energy of the target itself, not the forces acting
around it. We could still move the spider, remember? You can still move the
food on the plate. The stone will still fall.”

I
looked at the other stone still hovering in the air as Tower moved back to
standing in front of it.

“However,
I’m holding this one in place with energy stronger than the gravity pulling at
it. A larger amount of energy than I am using to keep this in place would be
required to move it now.”

“The
other way doesn’t seem very good then,” I said with a frown. “What good is it?”

Tower
laughed, “Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. If I held our food in place with
kinetic energy it will still lose heat. It will still rot and decay. Suspending
something has different uses, that’s all. The spider didn’t feel any pain and
wasn’t aware of us when we moved it because of that spell. In addition, well,
watch.”

He
walked over to the cabinet that held dozens of our picks, chisels, and other
tools. He brought a small hammer back with him and aimed it at the suspended
stone on the table. The hammer slammed down onto it with a loud clang and
bounced off of it. Tower had arms as large as the guards in my village and I
knew the stone should have crumbled to a blow that strong.

“It’s
unbreakable!” I shouted. The spider shifted in the cell at the volume of my
voice and I sheepishly squirmed in my seat.

“Not
quite. Watch now when I release it,” he said.

He
held his hand out once more and snapped his fingers. It was more of a signal
for me rather than a requirement of the spell. Immediately the stone shattered
to shards and dust on the tabletop as if the hammer had only just hit it.

“These
kinds of spells require a constant connection with you. It cost me some energy
for that not to break at the point of impact. Not a lot, but if I wasn’t able
to provide that energy it would have broken. This other stone is the same. I
want you to try this now, and then I’m going to give you a real test.”

Tower
held up the first stone that he had previously left on the table. I centered
myself around it and found the pattern to be quite easy to replicate. I had
gotten better at learning from other spells that he showed me first rather than
stumbling around trying to guess at the correct alignment for the focused
energy.

He
let go of the stone and it wobbled in place. I poured more of my energy around
it and it stabilized. It was one of the few times I had worked magic from my
own body rather than an outside source. I felt a little faint and I was suddenly
grateful for all of the climbing I had been doing each day on the stairs to
strengthen my body. An image of the frail old wizard from my village flashed
into my head and I vowed, once again, not to be like him.

“This
type of magic will get easier as you get older and stronger, but you should be
able to do some now,” Tower explained as he pointed to the spider in the cell.

“What?”
I said, so shocked that I bolted upright and lost all of my concentration. The
stone I had been keeping in the air dropped and bounced down onto the floor.
Tower’s was still levitating.

“This
is your test. I want you to shackle the spider the same way you just did the
stone. Then go inside and collect some webs. You can do it.”

“Will
I hurt it?” I said meekly. I had grown a little attached to the spider. I was
the one who gave it food and water lately.

“No.
It’s only a little force put in the right spot. It’s like if I held part of
your body down. Like this,” he said as he put the palm of his hand on my
forehead. “Try to push against my hand.”

I
did so and was met with pressure. My head felt like it was stuck and couldn’t
move against his hand. There was no pain.

“Now,
imagine that I had a hand for each part of your head. You wouldn’t be able to
move in any direction. You do that around the base of its legs and they’re
useless. If the spider is resting it won’t even know you did it.”

I
was skeptical but only because I doubted my own ability to hone my magic,
rather than not trusting what Tower said to me. I leaned forward and rested my
hands on my legs, reaching out through the bars and into the jail cell.

The
spider wasn’t moving and I couldn’t tell if it was already back to sleep. Over
the weeks I had gotten better at separating the imaging of my magic from the
visualization I associated with my eyes. Instead of seeing the beginnings of a
kinetic shackle around each leg, I felt the potential for them to be there with
my magic. It was a subtle difference at first, but it was a considerable help
to me, especially when I had to work quickly or manipulate something that was
blocked from my view, like the hind legs of the spider.