Pointy Ears and All

If It Were Only A Dragon [Chapter 5]

“I will prove myself!” Farvin announced, jamming his finger into my ornamental court armor before we left the restaurant. “I won’t ask anything else of you but to follow in your steps. Until I have led you back to my home and watched you slay the beast, I will serve you any way that I can!”

The man from the east would not take a hint, even as we were walking faster and faster the way of the Ministry of Magics.

“Fine, only if you ask for nothing else,” I said, verily dubious that he would keep that oath. “I’ve already promised my squire’s cohort meals, including rations of meat no less, if they shall join us on this quest. I believe that if I limit my excavation of the royal treasury, it will reflect on me greatly. Sir Gladius the thrifty, they might call me.”

Eriques tugged on my sleeve and leaned up close to my ear. “Glad, going off all we’ve heard, I don’t think the lads would dare join us.”

“Even with two mouthfuls of meat?” I said, face tilted down at him and mouth shielded with my hand.

Farvin stopped suddenly, raising his voice to a raspy pitch. “You must face it will all the force you can muster! Once the dragon is bored with my homeland, it will invade further into this kingdom! It will eat and burn all in its way. It will come here to the capital!”

I nearly tackled the man to silence him. I managed to hold myself back and only clasp my palm over his mouth. “Perhaps you do not understand the humor bred here in the refined houses of the capital,” I said to him with a smile of gritted teeth.

Eriques clicked his tongue. “How come you’ve never busted out a bit of this high-brow humor for me, Glad? Ah, wait, was I just not getting it?”

Farvin struggled out of my grasp, but I patted him heavily on the shoulder to maintain my dominance.

I cleared my throat. “What I mean to say is… under the Ministry of Arms, I am able to draft any able-bodied man, starting with the trained guards that serve this city as our capable peacekeepers. But why decide already that physical force is our only option? If what you say is true, that the… danger could reach us here in the capital, then it would be in everyone’s interest to stop the dragon where it stands. And thus, we turn to those with a… similar level of wisdom. Yes, perhaps they have a different point of view of the world, but they are wise nonetheless. We know them as the magi.”

I waved my hand up to the white towers of the city, nearly seeming to scrape the clouds. Farvin looked them up and down and then shrugged. “Yes, I’ve been here before, when I arrived looking for help. There’s not a single person in there. But if you know a back door… well, I’m still following you.”

I shook my head. “True, it is rare that I ever come to the Ministry of Magics, but I am certain there are people that inhabit these towers. Follow.”

The path to the Ivory Towers took us across a bridge over a waterway, and then through a garden of perfectly maintained shrubs. A few robed onlookers inhabiting the spaces turned to look our way, but none of them fit the description of those I was seeking. I mean, they all looked the frail, dreamy, odoriferous types, but without the particular feature I hoped to see.

Finally, we were upon the tall arched doorway of the central tower. Inside were similar arched ceilings, reaching many yards above us in the air. The entryway split off into three distinct wings that seemed to trail off to nothing but rounded alcoves. The whitewashed walls bared no windows or decorations, but the space was alight as if the sun itself had come to rest in the space.

The only thing apart from the endlessly repeating tiles on the ground was a plinth, bearing a clear glass orb.

Eriques spun around, looking at the ceiling and walls all over. “Are these towers this tall simply to hold all of this boring empty space? Wait, I have an idea.”

I tried to pull my eyes away as he bunched up the side of his shirt, spat in his palm, and shoved the moistened hand into his armpit to release a flatulence-sounding emission. There was a faint reverberation of the foul sound. I sighed and glanced at the door to make sure no witnesses were present.

“Perhaps a real one would have echoed better,” he sighed and turned to Farvin. “I’m all empty, though. What did you last eat?”

The traveler rolled his eyes. “I exhausted my rations a week ago. I had to eat a rat-chewed bread crust from the gutter today. That gave me just enough energy today to march up to the castle this morning.”

“Can you two shut it so I can figure out how this thing works?” I huffed. I was finally able to focus on the orb in the middle of the room, the only thing that looked like it did anything. I trod carefully to it and placed my hands on either side of its smooth, cold surface.

A haughty voice echoed about the room. “Do not touch!” I pulled my hands away, leaving the orb in place. It turned cloudy, then those clouds began to swirl. “I shall be down soon to receive you.”

I clasped my hands under my armpits while the owner of the voice was supposedly on his way. Even the other two seemed to be behaving themselves. Suddenly, from the central wing, a round platform descended from the ceiling, seeming to float all on its own. Upon it was sole figure, dressed in lapis dyed robes.

The garment crept around his feet as he approached us. It made him seem like he was floating, too, which could have been a neat trick. I would have even chuckled at the thought of a really short person doing the same trick in a long robe. Alas, I was too focused on the man’s ears.

“Sir Gladius,” the elf man greeted. “I apologize for the delay, it took me a moment to recall the face of our visitor. My name is Scender.”

I looked between him and the orb. “That was… you?”

Scender whipped his body around and examined the orb, returned to its clear state. “Yes, I apologize if I frightened you. We do not often get outsiders, so this device serves us better than having someone sit around here all day. It is called an orb of insesation. When a user is attuned to it, it is an extension of all of the user’s senses. We can also speak through it if needed. And, well, fingerprints on its surface negatively affect its attunement.”

Despite his previous encounters with strange sorceries, Eriques approached the orb, looking upon it. “When you say all senses, does that mean… taste, as well?”

Scender nodded. “All of them, indeed. Sometimes against our wills. For example, I know that the Minister ate roast pork before coming here today. Perhaps another reason not to touch it.”

I hastily hid my hands at my sides and rubbed them on the cloth of my pants. “Once more, my apologies. And once more, for our intrusion. I have need of certain members of the Ministry of Magics. An elf, perhaps.”

I saw what could have been a twitching of his long, pointed ears. Surely he heard a lot with them. “If that is the case, you need not go much further.”

“No, I mean, a knowledgeable elf,” I said back hastily.

He didn’t frown with his mouth, but his ears did betray an emotion. “Perhaps you can give me a name, and I can set up an appointment with this knowledgeable elf. One to two months from now.”

“I believe I’ve misspoken!” I said before he could turn around. “I mean… you very well may be versed in this topic. Someone must. Are there any of your kind that were alive during the last time a dragon was spotted?”

This seemed to make his ears twitch in a new way. “A dragon, you say? What a rare encounter. And I can assume you’re here not to just learn about something from pure interest. Come up with me.”

Farvin, Eriques, and I followed the elf to the magical lift. It seemed to move upward despite no conscious command. As it rose, it was so steady as if it were not moving at all. The four of us were all huddled there in the center of the platform, not a single guard rail in sight. Eriques inched closer to the edge, peering off below to watch as the ground floor left us behind.

“Falling from here wouldn’t be fun, squire,” I warned him.

Eriques shrugged. “If I were to fall, I’m sure they would have some magic to fix me up.”

I glanced at our guide elf who rolled his eyes and nodded. “Yes, a fall from this height would break one, if not both legs, if you were to land luckily enough. You know, the magics to heal broken bones requires first magically extracting them from the body, every last little shard. It’s an efficient process actually, but the magic formulas to dull the excruciating pain can be less effective on some people.”

Eriques gulped and inched back to the center of the platform like the rest of us.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Scender spoke up again as the magical lift was reaching the upper floor. “The last sighting of a dragon in these lands was nearly three hundred years ago.”

“You can remember back that far?” I asked, looking for any signs of age on his face.

Scender shook his head. “I am but two hundred and thirty-three years old.”

“You don’t look a day over two hundred,” Eriques declared.

“Can’t judge a book by its cover with your type, huh,” I surmised. “Speaking of which, you aren’t just going to show us more books, are you? I mean, books are fine, but we’ve had our fill of book-learning. We’re looking for practical knowledge, which is why we came specifically to you. Surely you understand. Like you must have your mages in training practice actual magics instead of just shoving their noses into books?”

The lift stopped on an upper floor. The long hallway in which we found ourselves was much more dark and disorganized, with tables of magical artifacts and shelves of endless tomes. The lighting was provided by countless floating candles, probably burning with energy rather than fire.

“On the contrary, actually,” the elf said, urging us forward with the tips of his fingers. “Especially with human magi, it takes many years of studying the techniques and principals before they are allowed to produce a proper incantation. After all, they are not as long lived as us. An elf, on the other hand, could spend decades alone to dawdle with runes and spellcraft to find the most efficient way to magically cook raw dough.”

Farvin stopped glancing around the interior for a moment to respond. “And here, in my town, we were using an oven and fire and cook bread dough.”

“I learned how to use a sword in a week,” Eriques butted in.

“Thank you, squire,” I complimented, knowing the process was actually a fair bit longer. “Well, perhaps there is a magic to kill a dragon. That is what we are in need of.”

“Killing magic is not in our repertoire here, but I can offer you better,” Scender said, maintaining his swaying walk deeper into the magical structure. “We have an local expert on dragons here. Nemona is over five hundred years old, so she both remembers and has the practical experience.”

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