Dragon's Breath
A wizard and his apprentice journey deep into the abandoned domain of dragons in search of second chances and long-buried truths.
“Albhe,” Caelin cried, his voice raised in order to be heard over the steady rush of wind. “We should take a break.”
The wizard was limping. Haunched over his gnarled wooden staff, he struggled to climb a jagged rock along the steep incline of the mountain. He did not look back or reply.
“Master?” Caelin tried again.
“It should be here.” The strain was evident even in Albhe’s voice. “It has to be.”
The blue crystal at the tip of the wizard’s staff glowed faintly as he cleared the foothold. He was expending too much magic, too much energy, but Caelin knew better than to point this out. He knew better than to pull out his wand, to try to help him, but he worried about whether they could keep this up. He wondered if they’d be able to survive yet another night in the domain of dragons, however dormant it may appear.
“Maybe if we—?“
“Enough,” Albhe hissed. The contents inside the thick leather satchel strapped to his side clanged as he spun around. His gray beard, peppered with stray leaves and twigs from the climb, sagged with his scowl. “Stop if you must, but I will see this through to its completion.”
The wizard did not wait for a response.
“Time is short.”
He grabbed hold of his satchel, spun back around, and made to climb the next rock, leaving his young apprentice to simmer.
Caelin was getting nervous. This trip was only supposed to take a day. They hadn’t come prepared to stay overnight, yet their third on the mountain was fast approaching. But the wizard insisted that he was being too cautious. Albhe was much older than Caelin, and therefore infinitely more practiced in both magic and the art of chasing rumors of magic, but the young apprentice knew him. Their many long years together had shown him who the wizard was, and of late he was being uncharacteristically reckless, impatient, and careless.
For starters, the Qern, the fabled ancient home of dragons, seemed abandoned. There were no other signs of life along the volcanic wasteland, let alone any dragons or caves, yet the wizard remained resolute. Stubborn and blustering as ever, he refused to pause long enough to rest, let alone to discuss a plan or their utter lack of preparedness.
“Time is short,” Albhe kept insisting. But for whom?
The wizard’s tattered robe lifted about an inch off the ground as he continued to climb the next cliff of rocks, offering a sobering glimpse at the withered, blackened leg beneath. The sight made Caelin’s stomach drop, his throat constrict with remorse.
“Master, please. If we could just—”
But as both wizard and apprentice cleared the next set of rocks, they were each halted in their tracks. Caelin’s words and his guilt slipped off the side of the mountain as they stared, at long last, at their intended yet elusive destination: the open mouth of a cave.
At first, neither said a word. They just stared. After a few stunned moments, they exchanged a quick look and then continued forward, eager to enter and see what awaited them inside.
“Gods,” Caelin murmured, his voice echoing through the damp dark. With his wand in one hand, emitting a dull light, he reached out with his other to touch the jagged, reflective surface of the walls. Volcanic glass, the likes of which Albhe had foreseen. “You were right.”
“Which means you were wrong,” the wizard teased. Never one to linger, his eyes passed over the glistening walls only momentarily before settling on the path ahead, the cave’s dark depths.
Raising his staff, the wizard pulled the gem affixed to its top close to his lips and whispered a soft, indecipherable incantation — “Sol g’alia un sér,” Caelin guessed.
At once, a pale blue light that was much stronger than anything Caelin could produce flooded the cavern, making the walls shimmer like gemstones and the darkness reveal a way forward.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever. With Caelin following close behind, Albhe shuffled slowly, carefully, and quietly into the depths beneath the Qern’s massive, albeit dormant, volcano. The deeper they went, the colder the air, which only deepened Caelin’s worry that even though they’d found the place, they’d find no dragons here.
Eventually, they came to what appeared to be a dead end. There, the tunnel opened up into a giant chasm, the floor falling away into a deep, dark pit. Before Caelin could ask, or even think to say anything at all, the wizard held out his staff and muttered yet another incantation — this time, perhaps, “Sol g’oliúm ou nér.”
A second light emitted from the gem at the tip of the staff. It hovered in midair, traveling in a straight line out over the chasm, stopping only once it reached the center. Then, it began to sink, slow but sure, down into the abyss.
In no time at all, the light revealed the seemingly endless dark to be anything but. Only a few short feet down from where the wizard and apprentice stood, the bottom of the pit became illuminated, along with something else, something huge.
At first, they only saw the massive figure’s round scaly hips, but then they saw its wings, its long pointed horns, and its slack open jaw.
“Is that…?”
“Our dragon,” Albhe finished for his young apprentice. “Yes.”
“But it’s… what happened to it?”
The wizard, who stared down at the beast with a flat, muted expression, answered only, “Me.”
With a flick of his wand, Caelin conjured a rope, and together the pair made their way down to the bottom of the pit, to where the body of the dragon lay. As they got closer, however, the apprentice realized that the beast showed no signs of decay. Its scales were still intact, its flesh still attached to its skeleton. It was as if it had only just died, but the layers of dust and debris that had gathered upon it suggested otherwise. It was as if the beast were not simply dead, but asleep. Only it wasn’t breathing.
“Stand back,” the wizard commanded once they’d reached the bottom, and their feet had once again landed on solid ground.
Caelin didn’t argue. He stopped as instructed and watched, with his wand held out before him, as his master continued forward without him.
Albhe approached the dragon with his staff held high, the light washing over enormous arms, legs, and taloned claws. He frowned at the creature’s wings, drooping tongue, and open, expressionless cat-like eyes.
“My old friend,” the wizard muttered to himself. “I am so very sorry.”
Kneeling in front of the dragon’s horned head, he swung his satchel around to his front. From its depths, he pulled an empty jar and set it on the ground before him. Then, he stood up, stepped back, and held the glowing gem of his staff over its open lid.
Albhe muttered an incantation that Caelin couldn’t hear, couldn’t even begin to guess. Whatever it was, though, it had an immediate and explosive effect. At once, the entire pit flashed with a bright, blinding light. Both wizard and apprentice had to hold up their hands to shield their eyes from the blaze. But as quickly as it came, the light was snuffed out.
With it went the light of the staff.
The gem that had been at the top of the wizard’s staff was gone, and the jar was no longer empty. Inside — swirling, bouncing, and rebounding around the confines of its glass prison — was a spirit.
“What is that?” Caelin asked from afar, raising his wand and craning his neck to get a better look. “Who is that?!”
The wizard stared at the jar, then back at his apprentice. He did not answer. Instead, he hoisted his gemless staff high over his head and brought it crashing down.
Caelin heard the glass break, felt the momentary rippling compression of air. Then, as if shoved by some invisible force, he was blown backwards, slamming him hard into the wall of the pit.
Sputtering and gasping for air, the apprentice struggled to get back to his feet.
“Albhe, what—“
Before he could finish his sentence, however, his eyes detected movement. Behind his master, he observed with spine-chilling horror the massive chest of the dragon rising and falling. Rising and falling.
The dragon was breathing once more.
Its head began to lift, but Caelin was too stunned to speak, to call out and warn the wizard about what he saw. It didn’t matter, though. Albhe was looking right at it. He was kneeling on the ground before it, his hands held up in surrender as the dragon flexed its weak, atrophied muscles.
“I’m sorry,” Caelin could hear his master screaming, over and over. “You’re free. I’m sorry!”
Testing its arms, and then its legs, the dragon became reacquainted with its body slowly. It seemed to ignore, or maybe not quite understand, what Albhe was saying. It struggled to stand, after all, which in its daze was its one and only focus.
The dragon’s new legs, which hadn’t held weight in who knows how long, trembled violently. With every attempt, it collapsed back down the ground with a thundering crash. The effort, if its expression could be properly read, was painful.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
For a moment, the beast seemed to look right at the wizard, and for a moment, it seemed to recognize who he was.
Without warning, the dragon let out a deafening roar. The sound was so loud, so full of frustration, confusion, and despair. It made Caelin’s heart stop and the cave vibrate, like it might come crashing down.
“You’re free. You’re free. You’re free.”
The dragon began to rear back its head, and both wizard and apprentice dove to the ground. Covering their heads with their hands in anticipation of what was coming next, the dragon sucked in a deep breath and aimed its snout directly at the open ceiling. They did not see the beast release the plume of fire and heat that tore through the ceiling of the cavern, but they certainly felt it.
The bulk of the flames crawled up through the throat of the dormant volcano, sending bits of melted rock and debris raining down from on high. If there were still any living souls on the Qern, they might have seen the fire burst forth from the mouth of the volcano, as if the volcano itself was what had come back to life.
The heat hadn’t yet subsided when the dragon let out another roar. Caelin held his breath as rock, fire, and ash fell all around him, the dragon finding strength in its massive size once more. It towered over them like the buildings back home, but bigger.
When Caelin finally dared to look up and see what the beast might be doing, to try and anticipate what it might do next, he saw that it found its footing at last. It was climbing the cavern walls. Its taloned claws dug into the rock like it was butter, and it seemed to be heading toward higher ground, toward the mouth of the volcano.
Caelin watched the creature go. Only after it had disappeared into the darkness above did he turn his attention back to his master.
“Albhe,” Caelin called, quiet at first. “Where are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m here,” the wizard responded, coughing. “Over here.”
The apprentice spotted the lump of blue and gray beneath the rubble and rushed over to his master’s side. He was surprised, however, to find him relatively unscathed. His robes were seared, and his gray hair was singed, but his flesh was mostly spared.
“What in the world were you thinking?” Caelin chided, kneeling down to Albhe’s side, helping him get upright. “What did you do?”
The wizard took a long look at his gemless, powerless staff. “I gave it back.”
Caelin was baffled.
“It could have killed us!”
The wizard shook his head.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I gave it back. My magic. It’s gone.”
Caelin didn’t know what to say. He wanted to argue, wanted to ask for clarity, but he thought he understood. He’d never thought to ask before, but it made far too much sense for the gem affixed to his master’s staff all this time to be a soul stone.
He had far too many questions to know which to voice.
“Why?” is all he thought to ask out loud.
“It wasn’t mine,” the wizard answered. He turned to face his apprentice, who held up his wand, their only remaining source of light, to better see his face. “I stole it. His soul was the source of my magic, and you know as well as I that my time will soon be up. I had to give it back. I had to make it right.”
There were tears in his eyes, remorse the likes of which Caelin had never seen in all their long years of study.
“You must always make it right. Do you understand?”
The apprentice didn’t know what to say. He thought about the dragon’s soul, which had been trapped in the gem at the top of the wizard’s staff for all this time. He thought about what that meant about the wizard’s magic, and about his own. He thought about his master’s gnarled leg, and the wayward spell Caelin had cast that set them on this journey in the first place. His magic was supposed to be keeping it at bay. What would happen to him now that it was gone?
The guilt roiled his stomach, but he couldn’t help but wonder, too, about what might have fueled the wand that cast it. Was there a soul trapped in it, too?
He couldn’t bring himself to ask.
“Always make it right,” the wizard repeated.
Had this trip been enough to make it right?
Shaking the storm of thought from his mind, at least for the moment, Caelin placed a hand on his master’s bony shoulder.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
The wizard nodded, slow and affirmative.
“I think so.”
With Caelin’s help, he did.
“There’s another way out,” Albhe explained, once they were both standing. He gestured ahead, at the opposite end of the cave from where they entered. “Just down there.”
Without the magic of his staff, and in the aftermath of the dragon’s resurrection, the wizard was very weak. He had to hang on to Caelin for support, but the apprentice was happy to take the lead. Together, with master following apprentice, they made their way onward. Deeper they went into the cave, but on an entirely new path. It was a path that would not only lead them home, but on to something, somewhere new. A path, Caelin was certain, that would help them both make things right.