Chapter 9: Betrayal

When Nana opened her eyes, she was in a cave, the heat so overwhelming, her heart missed a beat. Sweat trickled down her face and between her breasts. Her soggy clothes clung to her. She lay on a ledge snuggled against a rock. In front of her, water gently boiled in a pool some twenty feet across. The only light came from three flickering candles, rapidly melting, set near the water's edge.

The beast spoke from the other side of the pool, from the dark recesses of the cave. She could feel its hot breath. Its smell was of rotten eggs and smoke; its voice the rumbling of thunder. “Welcome.”

Quivering, she pressed backward as if to seep into the rock. Slowly, she came to her feet.

“Why do you tremble?” The dragon moved forward, its snout emerging into the meager light. As it breathed out, points of colored light appeared on Nana's clothes. Another smoky breath from the dragon, and the lights, like miniature stars, converged on Nana's hands.

“No! No!” She tried to push away the sparkling colors. Warmth seeped into her hands, into her joints. Uncontrollably, she closed her eyes, soaking in the touch of the magic; first a moan, then a cry of pleasure, parted her lips. The bones in her hands knit, her cartilage regrew, muscle fibers in neat rows mended. Her skin took in moisture, repairing itself until her hands were those of a young maiden.

She gazed in awe at her beautiful fingers, at her smooth skin.

“Did you think we ruled for five thousand years without rewarding those we valued?”

Frantic, she looked to the left and right. Perhaps she could climb the rock. But seeing no means of escape, she took a step forward and looked the beast in the eye. “Magic's a fool’s game. You think I can be bought for ten bonnie fingers? I won't be your slave.”

A small swirl of a flame departed from the beast's mouth. More colors danced in front of Nana's eyes, swirling about her head. The room tilted. She clenched her fists, trying to resist, but the colors took away her will. 

“What is your name?”

Drunk on magic, she whispered, “Alyse.”

As the door to her mind inched open, the dragon chuckled, spewing ash into the air. “Ah . . . but that is not what you are called. You are only Nana. Tell me, Alyse. He spoke her name gently, like a lover. “What happened to your dreams?”

The heat, the stars . . . so difficult to think.

“Tell me about your youth.” He pressed into her mind, “Let me hear the voices of your past.”

She closed her eyes. She couldn't fight the magic. She didn't want to fight the magic. She welcomed the beast and opened the door to her thoughts and her secrets.

“Ah . . . yes . . . ” The beast breathed in the knowledge of her past, the knowledge she gave him. “You were beautiful. Hair with a touch of the raven's wing. Skin unblemished. Your breasts, what abundance. A suitor bowed before you and asked for your hand in marriage.”

“Yes.” She was lost in the memory of his kiss.

“Hot dreams filled your nights. How you longed for your lover's embrace, and a child to suckle.”

In her mind, she twirled in circles in the garden. She felt the press of Sean's lips against her own. He moved, kissing first her cheek, then her neck; his lips tickled. She pulled away, giggling. “Where do you think you're going?” he asked, his mouth curled in a mischievous grin. Again, his lips claimed hers. His hands against her back pressed her body into his.

“But Lord Togair's grandmother sent him away. Didn't she?”

A cry of anguish escaped her lips. The awful scene replayed itself. She'd run up the stairs, bursting into her ladyship's dressing room. “How could you? I wanted to marry him.”

“You are a servant! Your duty is to this house.” With an arrogant flick of her hand, she batted away Alyse's feelings like a troublesome fly. “In time, I will find someone for you. Now, you need to be concerned about me.”

“But . . . No, I won't stay here.”

Slap!

Even now her cheek still stung.

Tears slipped from Nana's eyes.

The dragon's voice was kind. “You dared to dream, to want happiness for yourself, and she sent the young man away. Did she pay him, I wonder? Or threaten his family? Maybe she simply lied and said you'd decided to marry another?”

“I was supposed to be happy with the honor of mending her clothes and filling her bath.” Her quiet tears grew into weeping. Like the melting candle wax, she oozed to the floor, too weary to stand.

“But I can give you back your dreams, Alyse.”

She dared to hope; she raised her old, weak eyes to receive his gift of magic.

Pinpoints of colored light appeared embedded in her clothing. These lights the dragon drew out. They swirled around her, bringing her to her feet, lifting her into the air. As the heat intensified—she could barely draw a breath—more and more stars appeared, as if her clothes were full of magic. Blues and purples, deep ruby reds, threads of silver and gold, splashes of clear bright green dazzled her eyes. Gently the colors seeped beneath her clothing—and touched her. When they penetrated her skin, she cried out. “It burns!” But as quickly as the pain came, it was gone, replaced by a euphoria that took her reason and her fear. Her head wobbled on her neck. She cried out in pleasure. “Yes, please, yes.”

Supplanting her white thinning strands of hair, curly black tresses grew from her scalp, and flowed down her back. Her eyesight was restored, revealing the colors of the magic in all their glorious beauty. Gone was the roll of fat about her waist, and her droopy thighs. Her ankles were strengthened, her muscle tone restored. Her breasts lifted and firmed. And the pain, the constant daily pain, evaporated. Gently her feet touched the ground. Now she stood as she had been at nineteen.

His voice swirled about her, a black web, ensnaring her with soft threads. “Only tell me what I want to know, and I will free you and give you gold to start a new life. Oh, Alyse, think on it. You will be wooed and married, and in due season blessed with a child. Don't you deserve a child of your own?”

She remembered the kisses stolen in the shadows.

“You know who the magical person is. Tell me, Alyse.”

You are reading story The Death of Magic at novel35.com

They took everything. My life, my work. Sean.

“You owe them nothing. Haven't you already given a lifetime of service? Don't you deserve some happiness?”

Yes! They cheated me!

Again, she opened her mind, she let him see Saoirse cuddled against her in bed.

“Thank you, dear Alyse. Go and live your dreams.”

She glanced down at her beautiful hands, at her trim waist.

No, no. Oh, Saoirse, what have I done?

“Wait!” she shouted as the dragon began to withdraw into the darkness. “Please, she's only a child.”

“You think me a beast? Why? Because I can breathe fire? Because I can fly? Or do you hate me because I am more powerful than you?”

“She's just a babe.”

“You are the one who betrayed her, Alyse. Not I. I am simply trying to survive. Who is truly the beast?”

Alyse bowed her head, guilt crushing her, weighing her down, threatening to break her shoulders.

Reason whispered in the dragon's mind. “A few years will only increase the magic within the child. Let us put this one in our debt.”

“I am starving,” the beast rumbled, “but to show you how merciful I am, I will grant your request in part. I will allow her to grow to adulthood before I come for her.”

The dragon with the twitch of a claw signaled the mage hiding in the shadows, who in turn threw a sleeping pellet. Purple smoke surrounded Nana. She fell into a deep slumber, collapsing onto the rock. In the bodice of her dress, the dragon deposited twenty gold coins, enough to buy her a house and keep her in food for ten years.

“Take her to the port of Tirikan,” the dragon commanded. “Do not allow her to awaken before she arrives. I want her well gone.”

“Why not simply kill her?” the mage asked as he looked up the steep side of the cave. It had been hard enough carrying her in.

“She has betrayed the child once,” the dragon said. “I may need her to do it again.”

The mage sighed. “She is heavy, my lord. I have been a faithful servant. I ask that you also restore my youth so that I can better do your bidding.”

The temperature of the room rose another ten unbearable degrees. Yet, the dragon's voice was calm, devoid of anger. “How little you know of magic. You thought Alyse was the one I sought, because the slight dribble of magic I gave you clung to the magic on her clothes. But that magic was but the faintest remnant. It was simply the magic that had rubbed off the child.”

With each sentence, more of the dragon's anger was revealed. “Faithful? No, rather you are clumsy—incompetent.” The boiling water in the pool churned, splattering hot droplets into the air. As the cave filled with steam, the dragon roared, “I am still starving!”

Realizing his mistake, the mage bowed low. Climbing into a narrow boat, the bottom filled with wool blankets against the heat of the water, he paddled across the boiling pool, sweat dripping from every pore. He struggled to lift the unconscious Alyse, dumping her onto the blankets in the wildly rocking boat. He bruised her stomach with his knee as he crawled over her to regain his seat. Almost swooning from the heat, he finally reached the other side.

“My lord, please help me. I can't carry her out of the pit. I'm an old man.”

Growling low in his throat, the dragon lifted the girl's body, flying her up through the twisting passageways out of the pit. The mage followed, but much more slowly, frequently pausing to wipe the sweat from his face and his hands. The way was often so steep that he feared for life. Only the ropes he had used to lower Alyse saved him from plunging to his death when twice he lost his grip and fell. When he finally lay beside the young woman in the grass, the autumn day had him shivering. He took the gold from her, pausing to fondle her ample breasts. Then he left her, sleeping and defenseless. He changed his clothing, cut his hair, and shaved his long beard, now looking for all to see like an old farmer. He climbed up on the bench of his wagon and traveled west, away from Tirikan to the south, and Castle Togair to the north.

As he went, he grumbled, “I'll not serve that wretched beast again.” But the dragon had placed his magic in the mage's hair, in his ears, in the folds of skin around his mouth and elbows and between his butt cheeks. The further he traveled from Tirikan, the more he itched, then burned. He scratched himself raw. Finding a pond, he bathed, but magic doesn't wash off; it's not water soluble. After burning his skin, it burned through his muscle and ate away at his bones.

In agony, he shouted, “I'll do it!” He stumbled toward his wagon and fell, blood dripping from his face, his arms, his bottom. “Stop it! I'm going back! I'll take the wench to Tirikan!” Grasping the trunk of a sapling, he pulled himself to his feet, only to see standing between himself and his wagon the yellow eyes of a wolf.

“My horse is old,” he snapped at the wolf. “Why don't you eat him?”

The wolf's reply was a snarl; the horse had long since bolted.

The mage wiped his face, trying to harvest the dragon's magic, but it clung to him, it would not be manipulated. He spotted a lizard, a chameleon, thinking it could hide from his sharp, well-trained gaze. He stretched out his hand toward the lizard, focusing on its snout, pulling at the magic within that sat on its long tongue, giving the creature the ability to taste the faintest of scents. Dribbles of sweat appeared on the mage’s brow. His hands shook. Nausea brought harsh bitter bile into his mouth. Faint lights, sparkling a pickle green, left the small reptile and flowed toward the mage. “Yes, just a little more. Perhaps I'll have enough to fly . . . ”

Behind the mage a second wolf leapt with open jaws, its teeth piercing the mage's jugular. As the mage fell, as the blood drained from him, he saw the stars, the wondrous colored lights swirling above his head. They enchanted him as they had when he was a child. He brought the magic, the green he'd stolen from the chameleon, to his own face, and for the merest second before he lost consciousness, before one of the wolves ripped open his thigh with its sharp teeth, he felt the bliss, the total complete joy that only magic brings.

 

 

You can find story with these keywords: The Death of Magic, Read The Death of Magic, The Death of Magic novel, The Death of Magic book, The Death of Magic story, The Death of Magic full, The Death of Magic Latest Chapter