The Cost of Magic

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Nor was I.

“Do something, you damned fool!” shouted Adekin.

Over the gates, the stick-bundles walls plastered with mud, the serpents thundered their wings, sweeping to and fro. The young men of the village rode in wild circles on their steeds, the glint of steel broad swords flashing like lightning. It was early afternoon, yet the blaze of burning homes darkened the sky.

“What doesn’t he do something?” whimpered Avery, the young peasant girl, huddled in her mother’s field dress. “Won’t he help us?”

Adekin knelt before me, grabbed a fist full of my tunic. “You’ll just sit there?” In his youth, Adekin was a powerful knight, and as an older man and grandfather, he was no less dangerous. “You’ll sit idle and let us be killed? Our livelihoods destroyed?”

I didn’t answer.

“You alone can end this,” he said, shaking me, tearing the fabric across the nape of my neck. “Go out there and use your magic. Damn it, boy! This you owe us.”

I could not answer.

Adekin knocked me flat onto my back and stood over me like a giant. Then he drew his sword, stormed through the timber doorframe of the stable house and stepped out into the open.

He was slain forthwith.

The screams of the villagers filled the warm summer air. It would be hours yet until the pair of beasts had lit aflame every structure in the village. But by the tender grace of God, thereafter had they met their measure of satisfaction. They had taken grain and goats, what few jewels they could find, and raided the blacksmith’s forge for precious metals. Lastly but not least, they made off with three poorly hidden maidens, kicking and screaming in spiked leathery claws, disappearing in the clouds.

The evening was spent in haste. First the fires were put out, then the wounded were treated. Finally, the bodies collected. Some were charred and blackened, others raggedly dismembered. I found Adekin’s sword in the mud, still gripped tightly by thick fingers attached to his severed arm.

Vance, his grandson of eight or nine years, snatched it from me. “This is your fault,” he squeaked through a red face of tears. “You could’ve stopped this!” I staggered back, fearing the wee lad might swing his grandfather’s sword and slay me. I fell to the mud of my own misbalance. It was my luck that the boy was too weak with grief.

When the sun arose on the next morning, smoke stagnated in the wet, blue dawn. What had been a village rich with tradition, witness to innumerable weddings and births, and once famously hosted a visit from the archbishop of Canterbury, lay now in smoldering ruin. Generations of hard work, diligent worship and generous community had been rewarded with calamity. And it was my fault.

I had passed the night in the stable house, upon the same spot where I sought refuge during the siege of the twin serpents. It was the sturdiest structure there was, and its massive timbers, though blackened on their surface, had held through the night.

“He’s in there!” shrieked a small voice. I stood, brushed the hay and dirt from my clothes and entered the gray morning light. “He left us to die!” the voice said.

Women with tired faces and sleeves stained crimson greeted me. They had been treating wounds the entire night, mending deep slashes by the teeth and claws of the beasts. A pack of little boys led by young Vance snickered, pointing at me. One with a round face spat over the muddied grass, his spittle landing at my feet. Vance and the rest followed suit.

“Why didn’t you help us?” said Avery, the young peasant girl. I did not see her father or two burley brothers among the growing mob that surrounded me. There were no men of fighting age to be found at all.

Maynard came forward, his presence hushing the peasant girl and the spiteful survivors of the attack. He was an older man, of Adekin’s generation, and by my account, the two men were close friends. But where Adekin was daring and outspoken, Maynard was cunning and even tempered. Or so I hoped.

“Maynard, sir,” I said. “I wanted to. You know that I—”

The man cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, demanding my silence without having to speak the order. The wind whistled through the blood-soaked village, a chill creeping up my skin.

“You shall be gone,” said Maynard.

I did not take his meaning. “You can't mean to—”

“I mean what I say, boy,” he snapped. “Henceforth, you are banished.”

“But I could not do it!" I pleaded. “Had I done so, it would have . . . I cannot rightly explain it. The magic you’ve seen from me, it isn’t—”

“Be silent,” he said. “You allowed those wretched dragons to take everything from us. For all we know, you brought them here. We should have never taken you in, boy. Return to from whence you came.” He stopped forward, his boots squishing in the mud, and pointed a boney finger in my face. “Should you set foot in this village again, you will be killed.”

The faces around me glowered with righteous satisfaction. Justice had been done, or so they believed. There was a small huff of air as Avery, the young peasant girl, arms crossed, curled her lip at me.

If I had any earthly possessions, I might have asked for the necessary moments to collect them. If I had had any friends, I might have asked to say my goodbyes. But since I was little more than their regrettable ward, a poor investment that in their present estimation would yield nothing in return, I could do nothing but turn my back and start walking into the abyss.

It would not be the last time the dragons found me.