Chasing Dragons

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go out to my friends: Rene’, John and Stacey, that helped proof the book and the staff over at TKEdit that attempted to put a final shine to it.

Also I’d like to thank SelfPubBookCovers.com/Steven for creating the cover art.

Table of Contents

Prologue

One: Up the Creek and in Pain

Two: Our Hero Surrounds Some Chicken

Three: First Impressions

Four: Starting Out, Tracking an Ox-Drawn Cart

Five: Sharing a Dream

Six: The Cat in the Sack

Seven: On to White Oaks via the Dream

Eight: The Talk

Nine: The Aftermath

Ten: Twas The Night before Battle

Eleven: Time to Meet the Little Woman

Twelve: Projecting Confidence

Thirteen: Eve’s Thoughts

Fourteen: Peace Offerings

Fifteen: Another Extended Dinner

Sixteen: No Rest for the Wicked

Seventeen: A Quick Trip Home

Eighteen: A Trial of Patience

Nineteen: Alarms at the Fence Line

Twenty: Mending Fences in Sandy Springs

Twenty-One: Altercation at the Goblin Delvings

Twenty-Two: A Rescue

Twenty-Three: Reunited at the Frontier.

Twenty-Four: An Invitation to Go Hunting

Twenty-Five: Finally, a Wedding

Prologue

In the beginning, man sat in the warmth of the campfire, stared up into the heavens, and saw the stars, sparkling, spinning, all uncaring in the icy void above. And these are the times when men ask the big questions. Why are we here? Are we alone? Is there any more of that stew left?

Somewhere in the middle, man left the comfort of his campfire and spread himself among those sparkling, spinning, and uncaring stars. And he was changed thereby. Tiny men with tiny wings maintained giant space stations between the uncaring stars. Short, hard men colonized brutal planets with gravity several times that of Earth. Thin-boned men with giant eyes plied their trades in the darkness between the stars. Tall and thin, idealized men settled low-gravity worlds and raised their children in fairy-tale castles. Brutal and leathery, asteroid miners delved for gold and other things of value and guarded their claims from one another. Some peoples were changed by their environment, and some were changed for their environment. And whether man sat with his family in an environmentally perfect forest spinning around a space station, or he huddled just inside the mouth of his mine with a satchel of ore in one hand and a weapon in the other; whether man loaded into the corridor of a massive transport and stared out of a porthole, or he stared up through the clouds on a world where rainwater fell with the force of hammers; whether families contemplated the setting sun in aesthetically proportionate walled gardens, or where they toasted marshmallows over an open fire—man still asked those timeless questions.

And one day the impossible happened. Man found that he wasn't alone. But what he found was beyond his comprehension. He had not found a long-lost brother. He had not found a companion, a friend, or even an enemy. He found the galactic equivalent of a virus: brutal, unthinking, destructive, and implacable. We shared many traits with our newfound enemy, and yet there can be no mutual understanding. Lights, sounds, psychics, three-dimensional poetry, atomic particles, and atomic bombs were used in hopes of opening a dialogue, with no detectable response.

Finally, it was decided to create an isolated world and monitor it. It would be engineered such that it could contain every conceivable form of man. Against the threat of annihilation, seeds of each type of humanity would be gathered, and peppered with small contingents that had already been exposed to the enemy; because contact with these beings changed the survivors in unexpected ways, there was the hope that a breakthrough in perception or communication might be made. Toward this end, new strains of humanity would be gestated, in the hopes that somehow this mélange of humankind would find a way to communicate with, or failing that, to destroy the scourge that would in time surely wipe them from the universe.

Four people were chosen to direct the masses below; they would act as archetypes of  mercy, justice, strength, and knowledge. Each would have agents scattered on the planet below, and all would work together to promote the dream of humankind’s immortality—or perhaps just its survival.

One: Up The Creek and in Pain

I wake up slowly, wanting a return to sleep but realizing that something is very wrong. The stars above have a blurred quality, and I ached all over. My geriatric spells had failed, and I might need to do something about that before anything else. I slowly gather power from the area around me, a muddy ditch. Several people were lying about—all injured or otherwise compromised, all covered in mud, and all foul-smelling.

Wow—I don’t know where we found this mud, but I’ll use skunk urine for aftershave before I lay down here again. Someone is moving to my right; a corona of power announces that whoever it is has the ability to heal or destroy me. In my present state, the latter would be far easier.

A muffled noise accompanies this mysterious figure, but I can’t make any sense of it. There’s also a low moaning noise that stops almost as soon as I notice it. I just hope it isn’t me. Ha! I’m lying in a ditch, covered in mud, wearing a hundred extra years, with less power than it takes to light a match, and I’m worried about whether this approaching stranger heard me moaning to myself. Don’t care if he kills me, might be a relief, just don’t want to lose my machismo—what a dope.

Dad, are you back among the living?

As the stranger stands over me, making his annoying noises, I realize that if he is not going to kill me, maybe he won’t mind my borrowing the odd cup of power, as it were.

Okay, Dad, do something, or so help me, I’ll roll you over and bury you there.

As I begin drawing power, I receive a sharp jolt; apparently my benefactor anticipated my needs and is willingly transferring power to me.

That’s it, Dad, up and at ’em.

I have to work slowly, and I can see the stars shift in position while I concentrate on reproducing a two-week ritual of fasting and meditation in an evening. Or a morning? Jason?

Apparently I said that out loud, because he answered. Yeah, Dad. There’s some food by the maple tree, and I’ll need your help with some of the heavier bystanders, when you get back with it.

"Whoa—are you too tired to get up?"

Yeah, I figured I could recuperate faster once you were up and around to help.

That’s just stupid; I could have killed you and never even known it.

Yeah, yeah, sure, maybe later—dinner first, okay?

Oh, sorry. I’ll get it now.

That was actually quite a risk the boy took. I had no way of knowing he was in danger without a third party to monitor the spell and intervene if things got dicey. Normally, his mother would do that for me—WHERE IS SHE?

Calm down, calm down, feed the boy, get some rest, he’ll tell us when he can. I couldn’t knock over a liquor store run by drunken hamsters, let alone threaten anyone capable of harming his mother. Hey, there’s the food; ah, it’s the only thing around that doesn’t smell like a crack whore’s toe dough.

Delightful—I need a bath. If I’m going to keep down what I eat, I’ll need one first.

"Jason, what is this tantalizing odor?"

That’s your work, Dad, don’t you remember? You cast that rigor mortis spell on the whole village to make the raiders think that everyone left was dead. Worked, too—even worked when the wolves came down to town two days ago. Think you can take it off? I haven’t been able to keep food down for three days.

Three days? Shoot. Okay. Immediately, as the spell lifts, I can feel power rushing back into me; I can remember a little more of what has been going on.

*?*?*

Horseman, wearing no livery, rode into the village and demanded a fallout of every able-bodied man for conscription in the king’s army. I saw right away where this was heading and began hiding villagers down past the creek and sent messages to the men in the fields to disappear for the afternoon. I could do nothing for the people already in town, but I sent Jason in to anchor the illusion of several farmers, cowed and servile.

Jason and I were probably the only ones not shocked when a closed slaver’s wagon with a tarp over it appeared on the road into town, and another six bandits approached town behind it. At the sight of the wagon, the horsemen began to strike down the illusory farmers—and some of the actual townsfolk as well. The six footmen came screaming into town, pulling people from their houses, looting (there is only so much looting to be done in a peasant’s cottage) and frequently burning, as they drove the few who had not been able (or willing) to answer my call. With the bandits standing, or ahorse, and the villagers on the ground to avoid further injury, I made my move. Pushing the few standing villagers to the ground—my mistake—I threw a protection spell, created a fireball, and cast the illusion that the townsfolk were dead. The protection spell was blocked—damn. The fireball drew some of the energy from the blocked spell and was a little more intense than I had anticipated. The footmen were caught at ground zero and flew into the surrounding buildings like straw men. The horsemen were largely spared, but their mounts were panicked and would have injured many if not for what happened next: the grain silo, nearly empty this close to harvest, exploded. Bricks sleeted out from under the roof at nearly flat trajectories, destroying everything in the center of town taller than three feet. Small house fires and scorched victims were immediately extinguished, as all the oxygen in the area was exhausted from the double blast. An unfortunate side effect was that everyone still alive in the village was rendered unconscious, including my own stupid self.

*?*?*

I’m sure we’ll have all the time in the world for self-recrimination later; I’m feeling lightheaded and dehydrated. Jason’s sack of food is oddly heavy, for stale bread, crumbly cheese, and some mutton (do they have goats around here?) or beef jerky. A feast! And a couple of waterskins. Everything a groaning boy needs. After a minute I decide that I should be able to talk around the food. Since we are both lying on a mud bank, I think that court manners can be suspended. What happened?

Well, Dad, slavers rode into town, only they acted like king’s men—

No, after the explosion; I’m clear up to the explosion, but—

You blacked out.

Right.

For three days.

Right. What happened to the slavers? What happened to your mother?

Oh, the slavers in town were killed. All of them—and the horses they rode in on. But you missed the wagon, and the slavers in the far houses.

How many did I miss?

I have to wait out a particular noisy swallow. I’m getting to that. Probably ten or so; I was pretty messed up at that point and wasn’t thinking about numbers or motives or descriptions. I stayed on the ground, and the wagon turned and circled the village and went north toward White Oaks. I’m pretty sure that they took Mom and three or four other women from the village.

Okay, okay. Did they kill the sheriff?

No, they took the sheriff, and his horses, but they didn’t take his kids, or burn his house.

Fine—get them, and anyone not incapacitated, and arrange food and water for everyone, and get the children organized to feed the chickens and cows. And milk the cows; after three days they must be near terminal. I’ll look after the sick here, and we’ll meet in town at the courthouse.

As soon as I give him my list of things to do, I realize that he has probably already handled all that; after all, he’s not an idiot. Thankfully, he chooses not to take offence. Ha! Neither of us is up to dueling form right now. He does get even more snippy as he replies, There’s no courthouse, Dad; someone blew it up, remember?

No, smartass, actually I didn’t, but thanks for the heads-up. What’s left that didn’t go up with the granary?

Remember the seedy little pub, just down from the square, opposite of the Grand Hotel?

"Yeah. Short-term memory loss, okay?"

The one you took one look at and said—he pauses for just a moment, for his voice to coarsen and rise—‘I’d rather sleep in the stables than the common room in that thieves’ den.’

I think we’ve conveyed the basic irony of the situation, thanks; I remember.

Then let’s meet up there; we made it our new town hall and evac center until after harvest.

Might I mention that you seem usually witty for such grim circumstances?

Would you rather I punch you for screwing up? I’ve had a little more time to deal with this than you have, Dad. I sent runners out to Duke’s Seat and Winold, day one; if nothing else, real armsmen should be arriving in the next couple of days. As soon as relief shows up, we can deal with ten pretend armsmen. At least we can now that there are two of us.

Let’s not commission ‘Got too cocky’ on two headstones; I’m going to want backup, probably local, and we will leave this evening, unless Duke’s Seat sends the type of help I’ve come to expect of them. There was a huge amount of magic that grounded itself here, and the Brotherhood is going to want to investigate. Just to find out if I’ve stopped being an embarrassment to them.

You’ll stop being an embarrassment when you’re dead.

Exactly. Let’s hope they don’t have any plans to speed that process up.

Okay. I’ve got wards out on the cardinal’s, at just over half a mile—blue means armed forces; red, magicians holding power. I’ll get the town organized. How many people are we taking with us?

Good. I'm glad he set that up. The wards are enchanted stones that form a magical fence line and should alert us if that line is broken by military units on wolf sleds or by magicians holding power. We normally use them to define a perimeter around our camps while traveling, but this was a very good use as well.

Assuming that you have the wolves up and ready, we can take out two each, but we’ll need to appropriate transport for the prisoners before the return trip begins.

No problem—later.

So he left me. Alone. With eleven injured and irritated townsmen. Sometimes it’s good to be me. Just not at this time.

The burn victims are the worst. The spell had kept the pain and most of the necrosis at bay but also slowed the healing, and I have seven people in dire pain. I heal Tom Miller and am sounding him out for tonight’s pursuit when he starts questioning me about damages to his mill and his house and why his son is here and where, by Truth’s toes, are his daughter and wife, when a gnarled hand clamps down on my ankle. It‘s Mayor Dave’s gaffer (all four gaffers are numbered on the injured list; the front of the general store must have sustained a direct hit).

Where’s my Cathy? What have you done to us? I ache everywhere; when the king’s men get here, you’ll pay for this! It comes out as a jumble, and, once he’s started, eleven angry voices condemn me to various unsavory fates and destinations, one going so far as to suggest that I perform a sexual act that I am fairly certain would result in death, or at least severe and permanent discomfort.

"Enough! I am, as you well know, a friend. And if you wish to be cured of your ills, I will need quiet. If Tom will help me with the rest of you, I will patch up Tom’s son, and he can dash into town and get a report of what is going on and bring back friends and neighbors who wish to see your lot."

A sullen round of fine, all right, and okay was my only reply. By now Little Tom was up and ready to go. Little Tom—no, that can’t be right; this was the youngest Millerson, Timmy or Teddy or something. Heck, I don’t know—in his shoes I’d probably be giving them numbers by now: Seven, go get your mother, Number Nine has sprung a leak! I guess I’m not what you would call natural parenting material. All this introspection aside, I send him off and shout after him, "And bring back some soap and a bucket, gaah!

Look, people, an advance party for the praetor’s army just marched through town to scout our defenses and weaken our ability to raise an army. It was a party of slavers. I pause for the obvious gasp of astonishment and am not disappointed; however, I paused too long. Tom speak up.

And who are you, exactly, that we should be trusting your telling of this?

I pause in my work on gaffer Tony, who I was now thinking of as gaffer number three, then one more, and then Sadie, and then the burn victims would be done.

Oh, come now, Tom. My name is Jay. I always wear blue. I seem to know magic, but I can also heal. My wife is two feet tall. I travel with a man who claims to be my son, but he is obviously older than I am. Who could I be?

The bloody mad baron, mumbles Gaffer Tony; obviously age had not dulled his wit or perhaps had just freed his tongue.

Right, the mad bloody Baron Bluejay, famed warlock and protector of the Summerlands, reeve of prince’s Seat, at your service. I decided to forgo the obligatory bow at the end of the introduction, having learned that introducing oneself as a black magician was frequently responded to with a rain of stones—and not at all because my sense of balance was still a bit iffy.

The bloody mad baron, mumbles Tony again. Perhaps I was overgenerous in my remark about the wit. I moved on to gaffer number four.

Look, I plan to head out after the scoundrels at moonrise, but first I need to get you people ambulatory.

What kind of story?

Gaffer Tony again, definitely not as sharp a quill as I had thought—although, I may have begun to slur my words; I do tend to do that when I get tired. "Ambulatory—it means walking, as in back to town. We are just down by the creek. Jason thought that your being close to me when I woke up might speed your recovery."

On to Sadie. A cloud passes in front of the sun. I sit down. Hard.

Sorry, almost blacked out there. Healing takes a lot out of a person. I’ll just sit here a minute. Anyone who wants too, anyone already healed, can go down to the creek and wash up a bit. I block Sadie’s pain with a shudder—my newfound strength is fading fast—and I get a jolt of what she has been feeling while I work. Fortunately, the chandler’s daughter is a good bit younger than the gaffers, and I could tap her body’s reserves for the lion’s share of her healing. The unfortunate side effect of this was that neither of us would be well enough to get to the creek once I was done.

Water splashes my face, and I sit up, perhaps a bit too precipitously. Gaa. I’m not liking the shape the day is taking. Okay, four remaining victims that I owe a debt of healing. Bring food? I’m staring at Tom Millerson, right at belt level, and it occurs to me that he’s talking too. I have to struggle to focus on what he’s saying. What? Slow down and repeat that.

Your neck is glowing red; is that bad?

Could well be. Get us all some food, and bring me a chicken or goat, or sick cow or some kind of animal; I need to draw power!

Draw power?

I’ll need to sacrifice the animal for enough magic to finish healing everyone. Not true, actually, but once you start sacrificing animals to the Lord and Lady of the Moon, well, let’s just say that white lies are the least of your worries, Karmatic backflow-wise. The scared boy gives me a heavily buttered roll and a skin of warm milk, then runs away, back toward town. And tell Jason that his neck is glowing! I shout out after a mouthful of milk.

Next thing I know, the boy is back. Liam. And he’s packing live chickens. I get an image of him running back with a goat in his arms. The boy is about thirteen or fourteen. He’s got his growth, but hasn’t filled out; he’s sweating like a man, but hasn’t got his spots yet. He is wearing sandals and a tan shirt and brown trousers, but whenever I turn away I picture him in a rope-tied tunic that is slightly too large, like his little brother’s. He is covered in dust from his run and his now dirty bowl cut is sporting a tall cowlick. He’s one of the children that we are here to test for admission for the Princeton Magical Academe.

Technically I’m poaching potential students from another duchy, but I find that these frontier towns have a disproportionate number of potential students, and the current duke doesn’t admit lowborn into his schools. Being lowborn myself, I cannot agree with his view on the matter. I’m not ready to try to pull magic from the chickens until Jason gets back to help make sure that I can do so safely, so Liam and I while away the time watching a little play he puts on with some little stick figures. It’s not exactly high art, but the kid has me holding my sides laughing. I take a moment to magnify his gift, and then drain some power off to help with the healing.

The last four wounded are just routine minor burns, bruises, and broken bones. I decide to attempt to heal them before Jason returns. It’s not that risky, and I’m getting more impatient as the day progresses. Once again I can use the victim’s own strength to perform the healing, and fusing bones back together is destructive, so I actually get a little bit of power back as I work. Finally I wake Sadie, and we move down to the stream to clean the worst of the crust off. Sadie is an old friend, and she’s as tough as nails. I can see in the water that my necklace is glowing red: three short pulses, steady, with maybe four seconds of darkness before they start again. If it were two pulses, I would imagine that another pair of graduates was coming to test their newfound powers against the evil Summerland Warlock. But three pulses—that didn’t make sense, unless this group was a more accomplished coven come to destroy me. I never understand that; where I come from, assassination is a personal crime: one assassin, one target, one attempt, and one paycheck. It is possible that I’m looking at one pair of graduates and one assassin, or possibly two pair. Sometimes twins or even siblings register as just one threat source. Yeah, maybe. Meanwhile, I’ll just rest here and wait for Jason, and my ride.

I have time to reflect on the Kingston Magical Academe’s practice of setting a task for each young graduate. The task was simple, and nearly always the same: find and successfully duel Baron Bluejay. It's an impossible task for a newly minted magician; however, it gives me a chance to review recent graduates and test their mettle in combat. There's something about combat and the risk of life itself that focuses the ability of these young minds, and once focused I can use my own unique abilities to either intensify their understanding of magic or destroy it entirely. Occasionally, some bright mind at court will use this arrangement to slip in an assassination attempt.

My meditation is later disturbed by a nearby, for want of a better word, jangling in the local magical field (it tasted like metal pots banging). It was Jason, driving a wolf sled and towing another. Favored by smugglers and the king’s personal guard, wolf sleds are designed for speed, maneuverability, stealth, and, to some extent, terror. Thin, fast, and armed with multi-shot crossbows, they are illegal for use by anyone not in the Royal Guard. As the only manufacturer, I reserve the right to field test new units before delivery. The design is simple enough that several mages make similar products for transportation of bulk goods (and of course, for the aforementioned smugglers). These particular units looked like nothing so much as two floating tree trunks made of thin, swirling mist. The regrettable jangling was a side effect of anti-projectile and anti-magic shielding built into all military units.

Jason, we have company.

Two waiting on the south end of Main Street, and one high up somewhere, probably on the roof of one of the remaining houses, or even the hotel. The loner is wearing so many stealth and look-away charms I should have been able to find him by listening for the chains rubbing together around his neck.

I’ll need to bind them to our cause before we can leave to collect your mother.

The two in the street looked pretty serious, not just your average graduates; it might make more sense for me to take care of them, or even to just drift away now.

It does make more sense for us, but if we leave, they’ll just follow, and then we have to watch forward and back trails for hostiles. Besides, that would leave the village unguarded, just before harvest. I need them here, to cover for me while we chase after the praetor’s advance scouts.

Fine. Do it the hard way. But I’ll take the third one my way. There is no honor in that one.

Agreed. Where did those chickens get to?

They’re right here. Sadie’s dad donated them to the cause. There’s quite a celebration going on the town right now, and I’ve managed to scare up two more wolf sleds, and a harvest floater, that we could tow out to bring back any prisoners, or wounded.

Cool. Give me a minute, and then pass the chicken.

Sitting on the ground, I again begin to pull in the magic around me, but this time I focus on the energy of the bird in hand. After a few minutes, I motion to Jason. We’ve done this often enough in battle conditions that he knows what I want, and I feel a small, irritated bird placed in my hands. Since I have the time, I slowly pull the life force from the chicken, releasing it only after it has stopped struggling and lies near death. That is actually the secret of gray magic: if you can possible leave your donor alive, then the blast of power released on death will not harm you. The danger is that it is hard to judge where you might encounter the wall between life and death, and you must always be prepared for that final blast.

The second chicken went as smoothly as the first, and, with any luck, they would be pecking at dirt again in another day or so. Now to harvest the energies of our recent graduates. This would not be a fair battle, with every other thing going wrong; I just don’t have time for honor. Oh, well.

Ready? asks Jason, obviously eager to be gone.

Yes. Mind if I ride back with you? I want to talk while we travel.

Fine, but I’m splitting before we hit town. I can’t sneak up on your mystery date if we ride in tandem.

Okay, just until the north end of Main Street, then I’ll take the second wolf and the floater on alone.

No. You’ll take both, and you’ll go slowly, and I’ll pace you on foot one street over. Ha, I mean behind the buildings—this one horse town doesn’t have a second street.

Yes, sir, I spat out. Then feeling Jason stiffen in front of me, I added, That is a much better idea; my way would have just made you a target—sorry, just my native contrariness causing trouble.

Apology accepted. If that’s what that was. Anyway, what did you want to talk about? We’ll be in town in no time.

Oh, that—I wanted to know who our drivers would be and who owned the illegal wolf sleds.

The sheriff and the miller. We have our pick of Liam and Emily Millerson, or the sheriff’s boy Bull.

Someone named their son Bull?

"No, Bluejay,—he paused for maximum effect—it’s more in the order of a nickname; you know how these things work. His name is Tom as well, but he’s a bit slow, and strong as an ox, so Bull."

Does he want to go?

He wants to clear his father’s name; so, actually, I think that he would follow on foot if we left him behind. His father has given him some training with a sword, so we might risk bringing him along. Besides, with harvest in the fields, we can only get a few real fighters: the miller and his two kids, Bull, and a couple of shepherds that might be worth bringing if we have room to swing a sling.

Well, we’ll be picking the battleground, so let’s bring all the archers we can find. It will be up to the two of us to protect the prisoners; if the rest can protect themselves and cause a diversion, then the battle’s won, I’d say. This is a rescue, not a mission of retribution.

Time to split up. Watch your back. Tell your Mistress I don’t want to meet Her this evening.

Go with the Goddess, my son.

Some mumbling and grumbling follows, then a discernible avoid the Lady’s eyes … His voice trails off as he sprints around the side of what would have been the old granary.

On the Lords of Destiny.

Perhaps I should take a moment to explain Jason’s near-blasphemy. There are two ladies and two lords of Destiny. The Lady of Morning represents mercy and strength and beginnings. Journeys and births and medicine are her domain. Her totem is the phoenix. The Lord of Morning represents honor in combat and strength of arms and mercy offered to the deserving. His totem is the griffin. Once upon a time he was my lord. The Lord and Lady of the Moon have a less savory reputation. She represents knowledge and justice, passion and endings. Her totem is the unicorn. He represents final justice and rules the souls of the dead. His totem is the dragon. Since my rebirth his hand has ruled my existence. Of the dark couple it is said that she weighs every soul in the moment of its death, and he judges it accordingly. No one but a fool invites the scrutiny of the dark couple. I should really stop taunting Jason this way, but by now it is such an ingrained habit that I’d feel unlucky if I didn’t tease him before each battle.

So I take control of the sled and remove my amulet. It’s pulsing so fast it almost looks steady, so I know I am close enough—no need to let them know that I know they are here. As I park the sled outside of the town’s remaining hotel, a flash of light catches my attention—right where Jason said they would be. Good. They are going to play it by the book. I wonder if they have figured out that the ones that ambush me rarely escape intact, but the ones that offer formal challenge are almost always spared. I cause a flash of light to appear between my hands, and allow it to pulse twice. Challenge accepted. I can sense the power of the two before me, and yes, there is another to my right and above me.

I cause a glowing wall to outline the base of the shield that I have already erected behind me and stretched around and above me, so that I am half enveloped in a globe of shimmering heat haze, with purple (I’m in a purple mood) flames eating at the base. At this point, screams erupt, doors and shutters slam closed, and curtains twitch aside as curiosity overrides good sense. The two boys approaching me do not close the circle. This really annoys me. The circle is there to protect the townspeople from the side effects of our battle. I expect that they need to leave it open to give their accomplice a way to attack me, but given my reputation, this breach of etiquette is unforgivable. No problem; I’ll just close the circle and wait for them to enter. As the circle closes, I hear the two students yell something, just before I hear a brief scream followed by a damp thud.

It’s okay now, man, just two left! Jason shouts down from somewhere behind me. I can feel the third assailant lying still behind me. She is in a great deal of pain—broken arm, broken leg, punctured lung, internal bleeding—and that throwing knife stuck in her back is going to keep her from working any magic until it can be removed. I know. I made it that way.

Okay, boys, one chance. Your accomplice is in critical condition behind me. You boys agree to a forty-eight-hour truce, and I’ll take the time now to heal her.

The young man on the right pauses, but his friend sends a blast of fire toward me, with a shout that may have been no quarter. Or it could have been a comment about my possible parentage—I don’t know, and the roar of the fire is much louder than it should be. Not that much more than a puff of warm air gets all the way down to me. Well, a fire mage! Not unexpected, but let’s see what his partner has to offer. I toss a wave of darkness, filled with pinwheels of light and popping noises, back down toward them. Just like dueling your kid brother.

A wave of fire and