CHAPTER XV

Draken collapses on the cottage floor, his whole body aching. He stares up at the pulsing ceiling.

Cuts on his arm sting, a reminder of the explosion. He can still feel himself tumbling in the air, certain of death. He remembers the idea seeming so simple and yet …

***

“Transform this rock’s dull granite to gleaming gold!”

The rock begins to shake and hum like a bee hive.

“Draken, you fool, dont--!” Morro shouts but is cut off by the earth shaking boom.

The world spins and Draken feels himself twisting like a corkscrew in the air.

Pain is followed by blackness.

A dim sense of awareness bubbles up out of the dark.

“You’re a damn fool!” A voice chides.

Opening his eyes feels like a hammer blow to the face. He groans at the sight of Morro’s scowl.

“I was just trying to,” Draken moans.

“I know bloody well what you were trying to do.” Morro snarls, absently pulling on his mustache to the point where it looks straight on one side. “If sorcerers could just conjure up gold why would any of us work? The periodic table is nearly impossible to manipulate safely. ”

The ground gently recedes and Draken hangs helplessly.

“You can rest up in the cottage.” Morro waves a hand and the boy slides through the air, passing the quivering opening and floats gently to cold floor. He stares up at the ceiling, contemplating his mistake as the pain of his error washes over him. Clopping footsteps approach from the left.

“Rub this on your wounds.”

The weight of a gourd burdens the boy’s hands. Draken finds that the bright green fruit contains a sweet smelling liquid. He splashes some on his wounds.

It burns like fire, literally. An alabaster flame blooms brightly on his wound. He cries out as the fire painfully dances on his flesh. In his panic he tries to smack out the flames, searing his palm with blazing pain. He closes his eyes, afraid to look at the crippling damage done to the flesh of his still burning leg. He feels a hard smack in the mouth.

“Quit being a baby.”

Draken opens his eyes and is stunned. The bloody gash on his leg is gone and the dark bruises on his right hand, gained while shielding his face have faded to nothing.

“Honestly, whimpering like a child. You act as though you’ve never seen healing fire before.” Morro chides, snorting loudly. “You should be embarrassed.”

“What the fuck is healing fire?” Draken demands.

Morro, looking perplexed for an instant, chuckles.

“So, you’ve never actually … that is funny!”

Draken looks at the liquid in the gourd, sloshes it around and sniffs it’s sweet scent.

“The fuck is this shit?”

Morro smiles.

“Healing fire, a specialty of sorcerers. I sell so much of the stuff to nobles and the like I sometimes forget commoners rarely see it. The flames the salve produces rapidly heal wounds, though there is some discomfort involved.”

Draken dribbles some on his swollen wrist, wincing as the small flurry of flame flares up and burns out. Leaving the sprain on his wrist healed, though a burning sensation lingers.

“How do you make it?” He asks.

Morro shrugs. “We transform grain alcohol, commanding it to heal. The flame spreads and speeds the healing process. So, it’s more effective than healing water if not as soothing. In time I’ll teach you to make it.”

The quiet of the morning is shattered by a howling gale. Three firm knocks reverberate through the membranous door. Morrro looks at his apprentice nervously.

“I’d better get that.”

A moment later Veronica Tamrin waltzes into the cottage like she owns the place. Her face is a thin mask of revulsion as her eyes asses her surroundings.

“An absolute dump.” She announces. “What possibly possessed you to bring our apprentice to this dreary mountain hovel not fit for a goatherd to call home?”

Morro stifles a fierce reply with a cough and puts on the fakest smile he can muster.

“Veronica, I thought we all agreed to have the lad train first with me.”

Roughly yanking on his collar, the witch pulls Draken to his feet.

“Not even been two days and you’ve nearly killed him by the look of it.” She snatches the gourd from Draken’s hand and pours nearly all of it’s content over his head.

“What the hell are you.. Oh gods!!” The fire washes over Draken like a tide sweeping him up in a burning agony.

“Best to get it over all at once,” Veronica says.

The boy spasms on the floor like a seizing chinchilla, unable to wrap his mind around the blanket of stinging pain that enshouds him. A hard kick to his stomach knocks the wind from his lungs as the witch stares down with unsympathetic eyes.

“Act like a man, it’s only healing fire.”

Unseen, unfelt hands seem to pull him to his feet.

“Veronica, you forget that the boy’s a commoner from an unprivileged background. You should have guessed he’s never touched healing fire in his life.”

Draken’s irritation is plane on his face as he stares at the mustachioed mage.

“You did the exact same thing!”

“Oh dear, all the pain has made the boy confused,” Morro says.

Veronica takes Draken by the shoulder, pulling him into a busty embrace that gets his blood running hot.

“He clearly needs a feminine touch,” she says.

Draken’s eyes lock onto her bosom.

“Touch me all over.”

She pushes him to arms length.

“Not remotely what I meant, you little creep.”

He shrugs. “Been called worse.”

“Wasn’t Hood supposed to teach you manners?”

Draken pulls the simulator from his pocket with a smile.

“Sure he taught me how to keep strangers from killing me dead. You an me ain’t strangers toots, we’ve already joined minds. What’s the harm in joining bodies?”

“Take your mommy complex to somebody else,” she says. “Even if you weren’t way too young, master-apprentice hook ups are recipes for disaster. Stop picturing me naked and try to think of me as a big sister.”

Morro clears his throat.

“You still have not explained why you are interrupting the boy’s sorcery training.” He crosses his arms, looking very much like the magistrate who’s kid is brought before him for judgement. Veronica smiles, not unlike the aforementioned relative who shows no shame for his crime.

“You initiated him hours ago. Besides an unexpected celestial movement has empowered my goddess tonight. If I can initiate the lad now he can learn a great deal from the cross-time mind link. ”

Morro twirls his mustaches a fascinated grin creeping over his face.

“Cross-time, are you positive?”

Veronica nods. “There’s no doubt with a nova occuring this close.”

Morro Grins broadly. “It seems our little experiment has the gods’ seal of approval. I’ll need time to study this nova’s effects on my own. I’ve waited a long time for something like this, can’t have the boy underfoot.”

Morro paces back and forth muttering to himself. He stops and looks at Veronica. “What are you two still doing here? I’m busy, get out and take the boy with you!”