Dimwater's Dragon (3 page)

Janik knew he was in serious trouble without Cyrus there to help. He reached for the short sword hanging from his belt, hoping against all odds that the blade would somehow affect the beast. The demon cracked his whip and sparks of lightning exploded over it. A moment later, Janik was flying through the air as scorching pain seared through his left leg. He stretched out his left hand to break his fall, but his wrist and forearm snapped in three different places. He called out in agony, writhing on the floor as the burning made its way through his leg up into his hip, while radiating pulses shot through his chest and shoulder from his left forearm. His vision blurred and he gasped for breath.

He rolled over and saw the fiery whip coming down for his face. The weapon seem to unfold over him slowly, as if time stretched out allowing him to watch his death for much longer than he should have needed to. Yellow and gold sparks leapt from the bright red whip, but he felt no fear. He lay still, watching the weapon soar down toward his face and then all went black.

Death was anything but what he had expected, for there was no bright light and no imp to drag him down to hell either. In fact he wasn’t even sure he was dead for he was still breathing and from what he could tell, the sounds of battle still raged around. He tried to open his eyes, but they would not obey him, so he listened with his ears as Cyrus continued to throw spell after spell. He guessed that what he heard was lightning, or possibly spears of ice as he had seen before, but he had no way to be sure. He knew only that there were large, crackling sounds flying in the air around him followed by gusts of wind and heavy thumps.

Janik had lost all feeling in his body. It was replaced by a cold numbness that left him confused and paralyzed. Then he felt a scorching heat on his right side. His eyes flickered open and a great flame stood before him. His left eye saw only red blood, presumably from his own face, but his right eye looked up at the demon from below with one leg standing on his right side and the demon’s other leg standing on his left arm which he could no longer feel. Instinctively Janik reached for his short sword that was still tucked into a sheath on his right hip and thrust it upward, driving the point of that sword into the demon’s groin and twisting it as he pushed farther into the demon’s body. The demon howled and cried out as sparks of fire jumped out of its mouth. Blood as yellow as liquid gold coursed down the demon’s legs. The demon collapsed backwards, its four arms flailing and fire spewing out of its mouth. Janik saw a trio of blue spears strike down into the beast’s chest and the demon was no more.

Cyrus walked over and stood next to Janik, looking down and shaking his head in dismay. “There’s nothing I can do for you, other than to ease your pain if you are ready to die.”

“I don’t want to die,” Janik said.

“Everyone dies,” Cyrus said callously. “You fought well. You will be remembered as a hero.”

“Khefir take you!” Janik spat. “I don’t want to be remembered, I want to live! I want to live!”

Cyrus stiffened and arched a brow as he looked down at Janik. He tugged with his left hand on his gray beard and narrowed his eyes on Janik.

At that moment, a terrible burning overpowered Janik’s body. His back arched up on the floor and his right arm trembled and shook. He had no way of knowing if the wet he felt on his forehead was blood, sweat, or both. He cried out incoherently as his body spasmed and cramped.

Janik didn’t see the spell that Cyrus was weaving around him, nor did he comprehend the silver orb that encased him a moment later, all he knew was that he had been saved from his terrible torment and was now lying still and wet upon the ground.

“Your body is indeed broken, Janik. However with a will as strong as yours, I can save you. I can end your torment and restore you to your body. It will not be easy, and I doubt I can fully save your arm and leg, but I can preserve your life.”

“I thought you said there was nothing you could do for me.”

Cyrus nodded his head slowly as he brought a hand up and smoothed his hair. He knelt down on to the stone floor on Janik’s left side. He waved a hand over Janik’s left eye and the blood was gone so that Janik could see out of both eyes again. With the vision in his left eye restored, Janik could see that the left side of his nose was gashed open and a bit of flesh from his eyebrow hung over his eye as well. The wizard brushed the flap of skin away and to Janik’s surprise there was no pain as the flap was moved.

“There was nothing I could do for you unless you vowed to serve me.” Cyrus brought up his left hand and pulled a small dagger from his belt. “If I offer you your life again, will you dedicate yourself to my service?”

“What would you want me to do?” Janik asked.

Cyrus sneered, stretching his thin lips across his face. “I have not come to save Lady Caspen. I am willing to give you the glory of saving Lady Caspen and restore your life to your body so that you may enjoy a comfortable retirement according to the ways of the Middle Kingdom. In return I want a wizard’s oath that you will serve me and any request I shall make of you for the rest of your life. I should warn you that if you make this oath, your heart will cease beating should you ever decide to go against it.”

Janik hesitated, he could tell by Cyrus’ voice that the wizard had no good intentions. The fact that he had not outright said what he wanted Janik to do was more than a little unnerving. Cyrus must have sensed Janik’s hesitance and reticence, because whatever spell was keeping his pain away weakened enough so that Janik got another taste of the horrible agony and fire. Janik spasmed and clenched his jaw.

“It would be useful for me to have somebody like you,” Cyrus said. “I will not ask for much, mostly information and books. However, when the time comes there will be individuals who will need to be removed from the plane of the living. Do these things for me and I will take away your pain now. What do you say?”

Janik nodded. The pain was gone instantly. Cyrus drew a line horizontally across his palm with his dagger. It was not so deep that the flesh hung open, but it was deep enough that droplets of blood formed and started to run down his palm and wrist.

“Now repeat the words that I will say to you, and your life will be restored and your power renewed.”

Janik held his right hand up, reaching out towards Cyrus’ hand. “I want magic too,” Janik demanded.

“What would you do with magic?”

“I will serve you, wizard, but to do so I want to be more than what I was. If I am to be your servant, then I want enough power that I will not need to serve others around me anymore.”

“That can be arranged. I will restore you, and I will give you a great portion of magic. Then together we will go and rescue Lady Caspen and return her to her family. You will take her back, while I remain here and look for something that the vampire has in his possession.”

“What is it you search for?”

“That is none of your concern. It is something
I
am looking for, something personal. We will do this and you will do your end of the job. When I need you I will call upon you. Otherwise, do not speak of me to anyone ever again.”

“You are not Cyrus, are you?” Janik asked. “For Cyrus was recommended by the Academy to aid me, and I doubt they would have sent someone like you.”

The wizard smiled wide. “No, my dear Janik. I am not Cyrus, nor am I a wizard who has ever dealt with Kuldiga Academy. However, my name shall not be made known now. It is enough to say that I am a warlock from a land far, far away.”

“So you killed Cyrus to take his place with me? Let me see your true form.”

The warlock shook his head. “It is not so simple as that.”

“Then at least tell me what it is you’re looking for. If I am already bound to your service I will further covenant not to speak of you to anyone without your permission on pain of death under this wizard’s pact that you are giving me now. I must know what it is the vampire has.”

“It is simple Janik, he has a book. The book is called Aikur’s War. It is the story of a man who managed to infiltrate Hammenfein, and rescue loved ones who had been falsely imprisoned in hell.”

“Who do you know that is in hell?” Janik pressed.

Cyrus bristled and his tone turned cold. “That is a question for another time. Come, let us finish this pact and this nasty business with this foolish vampire. Remember, you are now bound to me. Play your part as the valiant knight of the kingdom, but remember that I will and can come for you at any time to request your services. I swear to you now that if you ever betray me your death will make the pain you suffered at the demon’s hands feel as a warm, gentle spring by comparison.”

The warlock took Janik’s hand and the two made their binding oath.

“Come, we will destroy this vampire and then you will be the hero, and I will get the items I came for.”

Janik nodded and then paused as the wizard began to walk away.

Items
? The wizard had only mentioned the book. What else did he want?

Five years later, Cyrus paid Janik a visit in his home late one night. The wizard had arrived suddenly, appearing at a time when Janik was alone.

“Why him?” Janik growled. “Why should my brother get the girl when I am the one who saved the mother?”

Cyrus grinned from across the table in the dimly lit chamber. “I know it has been a few years, but surely you don’t believe that
you
actually had anything to do with Lady Caspen’s rescue, do you?”

Janik huffed and folded his arms across his chest. “I only mean that it doesn’t seem appropriate. Why should my younger brother be the one to wed the girl?”

Cyrus sneered and scraped a long fingernail across the table. “It isn’t important,” he said. “The simple fact is that your brother is closer in age to her. You are several years older than your brother. Beyond that, you are not publically viewed as a Master anymore. We will have to pander to Lord Caspen’s greed, which will include throwing him a son-in-law that still has a proper title and fame.”

Janik shook his head and hooked his finger into the loop on the ceramic jug before him. He pulled it up to his lips and pulled a long drink of whiskey. “Fine. I will set my brother to marry the girl, but it won’t be an easy task. I have to convince Lord Caspen, and my brother.”

“How’s that?” Cyrus asked.

Janik took another drink and then set the jug down. “My brother is a very honorable sort. He won’t readily accept the offer. He will fight me on it and insist that I claim her hand. After all, as far as he knows,
I
was the one who rescued Lady Caspen.”

Cyrus reached down below the table and brought his hand up with a small leather bag clutched tightly in his fingers. “Make your brother drink this. You can mix it with anything. It doesn’t matter what the drink is so long as it is mixed with this powder and goes down his gullet.”

“What is it?” Janik asked.

“It is an enchanted blend, something of a proprietary secret, you might say. Get him to drink this, and then you should be able to control his mind. Come, I will teach you a charm spell. It won’t take long to master, but it will enable you to manipulate him in almost any way once he drinks the mixture. The powder itself is odorless, and tasteless, but it might dissolve better in something hot. Once he has this in his body, you will only need to give him more every few weeks at most.”

“I understand,” Janik said as he reached forward and took the bag.

“You won’t be able to force him to do anything, mind you, so do use caution while exercising the power. If you ask him to do something that wholly goes against his character, the spell will break.”

“But it will be enough to get him to agree to marry the girl?” Janik pressed.

Cyrus sniggered and nodded. “That and much more, my friend.”

*****

Kyra reached out to test the door to her father’s study. She knew he was gone. He was meeting with another nobleman downstairs in the south parlor. The cold, smooth metal did not turn in her hand as she had hoped. She frowned and let out a small sigh. Her left hand went down to retrieve her lock pick set from a pouch that she normally tucked into her pocket. Her instinct to grab it was faster than her mind was in recalling the memory that her father had taken it from her the week before after he had caught her in his study. It wasn’t that she wasn’t allowed to read books and study, but father’s library was always off-limits’s. Perhaps that was why she liked going there so much.

Certainly she could get many books just as good as the ones in her father’s library in her own study, which was really just a small corner of her mother’s library in the east wing of the manor. Frankly, her mother had many books that were more detailed about magic and the types of spells that she liked than her father would ever be able to collect in his own library. Still, she found herself drawn not only to the myths, legends, and the secret arts spoken of in her mother’s works, but also to the myriad languages, histories, and chronicles of the peoples of Terramyr which her father had collected. That, and she liked the thrill of going to places where she knew she was not supposed to be.

She would have made a new lock pick set had her father not also followed her back to her bedchamber and taken her metal file and the other hairpins from which she had made the first set. But that was not about to stop thirteen-year-old Kyra Caspen. If the study was locked, then she would find another way in. She turned and walked quietly over the red hardwood planks in the hallway. The next door on the left put her into a small sitting room with a large hearth and a cabinet filled with brandy. It had always seemed peculiar to her that her father’s study should ever be locked when a room filled with liquor sat unlocked nearby. She moved through the sitting room, hardly more than glancing at the brandy in the cabinet, before throwing the window open and scampering out onto the side of the manner. She didn’t need to be careful, for no one would see her here. She was on the northwest corner of the manor, and from this side she was invisible to the road that led up to the manor’s entrance. She slid her slender fingers into the grooves between the flat flagstone rock used to create the wall of the manor as she also slid her feet along.

Slowly but surely she made her way back toward the study, but this time she would not enter through the door. She had long ago disabled the lock on the study’s window for just such an occasion as this. She liked to pride herself on being one step ahead of her father. For instance, recently when her father would tell her to go and play while he conducted official business, he had no idea that she knew the real reason for the noblemen’s visits. In two weeks she would turn fourteen years old. That was the time her betrothal would be announced.

“That is the way of noble women in the Middle Kingdom” Kyra’s mother had said.

“It is proper and right for a lady to be married to a nobleman,” her father had told her many times.

Neither had asked her opinion about it one way or the other.

Perhaps that was the real reason she had broken into the study more often in the last year. It was her way of getting back at him, showing him that she could control her own life, at least in part.

She slid her hand onto the window. Pressing against it, she lifted the pane of glass. She slipped under it into the study. Within seconds she was in the room and gently pulled the window down behind her. She couldn’t have it slamming shut and causing a ruckus.

Kyra moved into the room and noticed that her father had left a book out on his reading table. She moved closer to see what it was he had been reading. She slipped her hand under the red leather book and picked it up from the table, turning it over to read the runes on the side. They were Elvish, written by the Sierri’Tai in fact. The Sierri’Tai were a race of drow, or dark elves as many others called them. She squinted at the runes, trying to decipher them. She had studied some Elvish books before, but the writings of the dark elf races still were difficult for her to decipher.

When she finally deciphered the runes, she almost retched.

“The art of selling carpets,” Kyra read aloud. She knew that her father was not selling carpets, nor had he ever done so. More likely he was using the text on trade to become a better negotiator for selling her hand in marriage. She dropped the book and moved to the large green armchair and flopped down inside it. She lifted her feet and snapped her fingers, magically calling a small footstool to place itself under her waiting legs. She relaxeed down inside as she looked up toward the picture on the wall in front of her. It was a painting depicting two men fighting numerous winged beasts. One was a wizard and the other a warrior who held an axe. A brass placard at the bottom of the painting read simply, “The rescue of Lady Caspen.” She looked at the man holding the axe in the picture and sighed in disgust.

Kyra already knew who her future husband would be. She had known since her fifth birthday, which was exactly five years and eight months after her mother was rescued from a vampire’s lair. The wizard in the painting, a man by the name of Cyrus, had disappeared after the rescue. No one knew whether he had made it out alive. Most presumed he had been killed, as had numerous heroes before the pair of them made their way into the vampire’s lair. Only the warrior named Janik had survived. Kyra’s mother had never spoken much of her rescue, nor of her captivity. Kyra’s father, however, had spoken often of the hero’s bravery, cunning, and strength.

It was on her fifth birthday that she met the warrior’s younger brother, Feberik Orres.

Kyra’s father did not know she had been listening that day, as she was playing with a pair of dolls at the far end of the table in the dining hall while the men chatted among themselves. She had nonetheless heard every word her father spoke that day, and she did not fail to catch the fact that Janik was demanding Kyra be wed to his younger brother as recompense for his heroism. Her mother had come to take her away then, before the conversation progressed too much farther, but Kyra still remembered her father’s next words.

“Though I appreciate what you did in winning my wife back for me, what other tangible consideration can I expect for such a betrothal?” her father had asked.

As Kyra reflected on it now she realized it was not long after that conversation she had started rebelling against her father. Still, her mother raised her to be a lady, and that meant bending to her father’s will. That was exactly what she was going to do. Kyra would accept the announced betrothal, to whomever it may be, and then she would go off to Kuldiga Academy for four years. Her father had wanted her to choose the school of wisdom, to become an apprentice scholar and follow his footsteps. Luckily, Kyra’s mother had intervened and instead insisted she join the school wizardry.

Kyra took her eyes away from the painting and shut the memory out from her mind. She twirled out of her father’s chair and walked along the long row of cherry-wood bookshelves, scanning the titles as she walked. Her eyes browsed from the floor to the ceiling, not finding anything in particular she wanted to read that day. That is, until she came to an odd set of books. Surely she must have seen them before, for she had been in the study hundreds maybe even thousands of times over the years. But she could not recall seeing this boxed set. Each book had black leather binding with gold letters stamped into the spine. The letters were an ancient hybrid of cuneiform and Peish, the language of the dwarves. More peculiar than this extremely rare language, was the fact that each of these books was locked into an ebony shell with a glass front.

Her hand almost instinctively went back for her lock pick, but this time her mind cut in faster and she stopped. She reached up to move the box and see if she might open it some other way, but the very box itself was secured into the bookshelf. She would have to settle for reading the words on the spines of the books and nothing more.

She studied the ancient hybrid language for several minutes trying to remember what she knew of the dwarven language, which was even less than what she knew of the dark elves’ languages. Not one to give up easily, Kyra turned around and moved toward the opposite wall where her father kept his language books. She traced along the shelves with her fingers. She glanced over the shelf filled with several manuscripts and books about the history and proper usage of Common Tongue. She grimaced as her eyes saw those books, for they had been instruments of torment for her. The proper use of Common Tongue was a subject that her father had painstakingly shoved into her mind from a very young age. She could remember many times during lessons with her father that she would ask if she could go to the bathroom or if she could get a drink, only to have her father reply with something along the lines of “I hope you can,” or if she were terribly unlucky, she would receive a ten minute lecture on the difference between the use of the words ‘may’ and ‘can.’

Other language references on the shelf included those for Terryn and Silamite, the various dialects and languages of the elves known as Taish, a couple of rare records on the Orcish languages as well as one on the language of the goblins, and an extremely small record of giantish and ogretic. None of those were the ones that she was looking for. Kyra was looking for the language of the dwarves. She found more than half of an entire shelf dedicated to tomes and references about the dwarven history of language and finally the languages themselves. Like the elves, there were many different races of dwarves, all with their own complete language system and many had more than one writing system. However, despite the vast amount of books kept in her father’s study, there was only one book that addressed the hybrid language that she was looking for. While all of the other books about the Peish language were extremely thick and complicated, this book was only sixty pages long. She pulled it from the shelf and open the first page to see an alphabet conversion chart. There was a list of cuneiform characters and symbols on the left page. On the right page was a corresponding list of dwarven runes.

She took the book back across the study to find the sealed books. Kyra set her finger to the first book and pointed to the first symbol. Then she looked down to her cipher, looking for what letter the complex symbol stood for. However she found that instead of representing one letter, the complex character in fact represented an entire word, thus saving space upon the spine of the book.

Kyra flipped the page and found a similar list to the first, but this one translated the dwarvish runes into Terryn letters or words. It had been a while since she had studied old Terryn, the predecessor of the Common Tongue, but she remembered enough of it and she started to successfully decipher the title of the books in front of her. She found that the first symbol on the spine of each book was actually the same symbol. So in deciphering it, she would decipher part of each book’s title instead of only one. After a laborious ten minutes, she settled upon the meaning of the symbol to be “Chronicles.” She moved onto the next complex symbol. Able to decipher this one faster than the first, she fell into a rhythm. The second symbol on each spine meant “Dragon.” The third symbol was a word she had never heard or seen before. She could tell from its structure that it was a possessive formation of the word but she did not know what the word itself referred to. Even when looking to the old Terryn, she could not find an appropriate cipher for it. So she moved on to the next symbol and discovered that the fourth character meant “world.”