Magdala watched the fetid mixture sizzle and bubble in her cup, wondering where she’d gone wrong. Cautiously, she poured a drop of the liquid on the table and watched it burn a hole through the wood and down to the floor. Covering the hole with her cup, Magdala returned to blaming her lord uncle for being late and giving her time to experiment. Her nQe spells were always unstable, but they got worse when she was tired or stressed. Well at least this result was new. She pulled a vial from underneath her cloak and poured some of the former cider into it. When she got back to the academy, maybe she could shock her teachers with her “creativity.”

“Need anything else, ma’am?”

The waiter smiled down at Magdala. Magdala tried to return that smile. The corners of her mouth strained with the effort.

“I’m fine,” she said. Seeing the pained expression on her face, the waiter politely bowed and fled. Sighing, Magdala heard her mother’s words echo in her reddening ears.

If you smiled more often, it wouldn’t scare people off!

Her mother scared people off too. Mostly members of her own family, sure, but still—

“Do you want more cider? That one looks…done.”

Not bothering to smile this time, Magdala looked up and growled, “No, I’m—”

She saw the speaker and her jaw dropped. On hearing a classically melodic Souran accent, she’d expected a wide ruddy face with brown eyes underneath nearly blonder brown curls. Instead she saw a face that was the color of stained hardwood with nearly black eyes that watched her reaction. His wide lips moved.

“Sorry?” asked the Wesen man.

“I-I…uh…t-thought you were someone else,” Magdala said as her face started to match the color of her hair. “You’re not, ha ha…”

“Lady Magdala Gallus, right?”

Her father’s training kicked in. Magdala grabbed the knife in her cloak as her eyes searched the man for weapons, finding only a large tome strapped to his side. However, he was wearing a worn leather cuirass from the Farrells, Magdala’s family armorer. That gave her pause.

“Lord Kalan was supposed to meet you here?” the man asked, stepping back and showing that his hands were empty.

“How’d you know it was me?” asked Magdala, her hand still on the knife. The rest of the tavern was watching them.

“He described you as a ‘short red-haired girl with a spine like an iron rod.’ You’re taller than he remembered. I’m Dwayne.” He offered his hand. Magdala noted he didn’t offer his family name.

“A pleasure,” she said, wondering what to do with the hand extended toward her. Before she could ask, Dwayne pulled it back, gave a stiff bow instead, and sat at the table. As he settled in, the rest of the tavern started cautiously to go about their business.

“Where is my lord uncle?” Magdala asked in a low whisper, starting to recover from her embarrassment.

“Back at the inn,” Dwayne answered, leaning in. “He’s been working on a paper for the past couple of days.”

“How did you know to pick me up?”

“Oh, I read all his mail.”

As Magdala’s jaw dropped for a second time, Dwayne explained.

“If it’s not a paper or something, he’ll lose it before he gets to it. Sorry I was late. It’s a pain for me to walk around town.”

“Because…you’re…ah…”

Dwayne blinked and then chuckled.

“No I, uh, get lost easily,” he said. “Anders is bigger than I thought it would be.”

“Did you come from over the Great Desert?” Magdala blurted out.

Dwayne gave Magdala a brief smile as her face started to redden again.

“How was your trip in?” he asked, sitting back. “You didn’t run into any bandits?”

“No, but it was still miserable,” said Magdala, “and it took forever! We had to eat beans every day for every meal because they said that was the only thing that would stay fresh, and I haven’t taken a proper bath in forever. I have butt sores, real ones. How do people do that on a regular basis…What?”

Dwayne was smiling again.

“What?”

“From Bradford to here, how long did it take you?” he asked.

“Two weeks. What? Why are you laughing?”

Dwayne wiped tears of amusement out of his eyes.

“It’s just you traveled hundreds of miles in just two weeks, and you’re complaining about the food.”

Magdala watched the Wesen man fail to hold in his laughter.

“Why? Is that weird?”

“Most people have to walk, and it takes them months.”

Dwayne glanced at Magdala’s cup.

“You sure you don’t want more cider? I can pay.”

“No, let’s go deal with my lord uncle. I can’t believe he sent a servant to pick me up.”

“I’m his apprentice.”

Magdala stared.

“Wha— really? But you’re not Souran!”

“Let’s get you to your uncle.”

When he stood, the rest of the tavern’s patrons flinched. They’d heard the same stories that Magdala had, stories about dark skinned monsters raining fire and lightning on their enemies, but Dwayne ignored them and walked straight up to the waiter, who started to panic.

“How many did she have?” Dwayne asked him as Magdala caught up to him.

“J-Just one.”

“How much?”

The waiter glanced at the owner behind Dwayne. The owner made a sign.

“Uh, three counts.” Magdala opened her mouth, but Dwayne had already pressed the coins into the waiter’s hand and walked out of the bar. She jogged to catch up with him.

“That cider wasn’t more than four barons,” she said. Dwayne kept walking.

“Why did you pay him that much?”

“It’s not worth the fight.”

Magdala followed Dwayne’s hurried steps deeper into Anders, his long strides equal to two of hers. Then, after they were out of sight of the tavern, he stopped and looked around.

“Ah…where…are we?” he asked.

Magdala glanced around and panicked. Twilight had turned Anders into a mass of dark shapes and shadows. The wide cobbled boulevards that had funneled crowds of people and carriages from place to place during the day had become broad, empty stone fields. Worse, Magdala couldn’t see any of the signs she’d used to get to the tavern.

“Ah damn,” she said, pulling a map out of a pocket in her cloak and peering at it.

“We can’t be that far from the…damn, can’t see.”

Dwayne pulled close to her, filling her nose with the smell of earth and the distinct chemical smell of a magical lab.

“Allow me,” he said. “Ri’a’tha.”

The unfamiliar Wesen spell, sung softly in a low baritone, pulled a small flicker of flame from thin air. Enthralled, Magdala started to reach out and touch the playful orange flame when Dwayne asked, “So where are we on this map?”

“Ahem. Right here,” said Magdala. “Do you know where your inn is?”

“Ah…which way is west?”

Magdala frowned and after consulting the map, pointed down the street.

“Oh, good. Ri’t.” The flame went out.

“You’re a flame mage,” said Magdala. “Why are you here? I thought all of you lived in Wesen.”

Dwayne froze, his lips tightening for just long enough for Magdala to notice. Then the slight smile and exaggerated calm returned.

“At least one of us has to see the world,” he said. Again, he strode down the street, forcing Magdala to practically jog to keep up. At his pace, it took only a few minutes to get to a small rundown inn where the Criminal Element, as Magdala’s mother would call them, were huddling up for warmth. A man, dressed in decaying rags, tried to sidle up to Magdala, his empty-toothed grin leading the way.

“A coin, pretty lady?” he asked. “Mayhaps a duke?”

“Not today, Walter,” said Dwayne, pushing the man away gently and pressing something into Walter’s palm. “She just got here.”

“Oh so she’s yours, hur hur,” said Walter, backing away. Magdala advanced on Walter.

“Listen here, you—”

Dwayne pulled her into the inn before she could finish.

“He thinks we’re married!” she said. Dwayne blinked.

“Um…no. They definitely don’t think that,” he said.

“Really? What else could he mean?”

Without a word, Dwayne turned and headed up the stairs, waving vaguely to the barkeep as he passed. After one last look at the door, Magdala hurried after him, catching up just as he reached the top of the stairs.

“This place is a dump,” she said. “Can’t you afford better?”

“Lord Kalan spends his money and time on his research,” said Dwayne, searching for the key in his pockets. “He doesn’t do anything else.”

“Then who’s been writing all those letters back to Mother?” asked Magdala.

“Me.”

Dwayne found the key and opened the door partway.

“Since when?”

“Since your mother nearly drowned us with a remote flood spell last year,” said Dwayne, inching his way into the room. Peeking in, Magdala saw that the floor was covered with dozens of bottles filled with liquids and powders of various colors and consistencies. Every other surface from the bed to the drawers was crammed with stacks of papers piled high to the ceiling. There was barely enough room for a mass of clothes lying on the edge of the bed. Magdala slipped carefully into the room.

“What is all this?” she asked, picking up a bottle off the floor. Dwayne shrugged.

Stilling her mind, Magdala whispered “nQeuom.” Her nQe responded, whispering her the contents of the bottle. She blanched, put the bottle back down very carefully, and pulled Dwayne back out into the hallway.

“Why do you have that much firewater?” she asked in a furious whisper.

“Firewater? What’s that?”

“An explosive. Did my uncle make it?”

“No, we bought it off a trader…a couple weeks ago, I think.”

“Get rid of it now!”

Dwayne saw the fear on Magdala’s face.

“It’s not that dangerous,” he said. “We’ve used it to show that—”

“Dwayne? You back with that cokop root yet?” said a gravelly voice from inside the room. Magdala peeked back into the room. The pile of clothes had in fact been her uncle, Lord Bartholomew Kalan.

“Got it for you last week,” Dwayne called back. “It’s right next to you.”

“Really? Ah, so it is. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were in the middle of your paper on the effects of tup-tup on fell rats.”

“Isn’t tup-tup poisonous?” Magdala asked Dwayne in a whisper.

“Yeah, but when you feed it to fell rats, they can shade with magic much better. Then they suffocate on their own blood.”

“What?”

“Who’s that with you?” asked Lord Kalan. “I told you not to bring anyone around while I’m working.”

“It’s your niece, Magdala.”

“What? By the cup, is my sister here too? Quick, we have to—”

“It’s just her,” said Dwayne, opening the door and gently pushing Magdala into the room. Her uncle was attempting to make a break for it through the window. Before he jumped, he looked back and peered at her, blinking his watery blue eyes. Magdala stared at his unshaven chin, which actually had something stuck to it, and had to force herself to remember he was the present count of Sanford, the seat of her family’s holdings.

“You’re too tall,” said her uncle after getting off the windowsill. “My niece is shorter than you.”

“I thought my lord uncle would smell better than you,” replied Magdala, “but there you are.”

“Oh heavens, she’s got my sister’s tongue. And her hair. And Gary’s chin. Still, you’re too old to be Maggie. Maybe you’re Drusilla.”

“Aunt Drusilla’s married with kids.”

“She is? To whom?”

“Lord Vander’s eldest son.”

“The fat one?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe you’re—”

“Lord Uncle, if you say I’m any of my cousins or aunts, I will march back home and tell Mother that you turned me away despite the beans and butt sores I will invariably suffer along the way.”

Lord Kalan sprung to attention for just a moment. Recovering, he turned to his last refuge.

“Apprentice, did you check her seal?” he asked Dwayne.

“Her what?” Dwayne looked appalled.

“All nobles have a seal that confirms them as part of the family,” said her uncle, refusing to look Magdala in the eye. “Get her seal and show it to me.”

Still clearly confused, Dwayne held out his hand to Magdala, who pulled a simple ring out from underneath her robes and dropped it into Dwayne’s hand. Without looking at it, Dwayne tossed the ring to Lord Kalan. Both nobles panicked. Her uncle dove off the bed and caught the ring before it hit the floor, just barely brushing a bottle of firewater. Her heart pounding, Magdala wondered if she more afraid of dying in a firewater explosion or her mother’s wrath. Once she and her uncle realized all was well, they turned to the apprentice.

“Treat it with respect!” they said. Seeing Dwayne’s continued confusion, Magdala explained.

“The seal proves my house, my rank, and who I am. If we had lost it, my mother would kill us both.”

“I once left my ring back at the academy,” said her lord uncle while inspecting Magdala’s ring, “and my sister locked me in a water prison spell and flung me all the way back to find it.”

“She tells my little brother that story every morning before breakfast.”

“Qeuiveut,” said Lord Kalan.

The ring floated gently from her uncle’s hand to Magdala’s, who secured it in her robes. Lord Kalan sighed.

“Well, it’s good you made it here safely,” he said to Magdala. “I was just…oh, Dwayne!”

“Sir?”

“We can prove magic works by resonance and not emittance! I have an experiment that will put Lady Pol in her place!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Magdala.

“Ah, just a sec,” said Dwayne. He rummaged through the piles of papers on the desk and handed a single sheet to Magdala.

“Read this,” he said.

Magdala read the paper, which was apparently an abstract. Written in a clear hand completely unlike her lord uncle’s, it first detailed the three known schools of magic, Qe, Ri, and Xa. Qe was the magic that Souran mages like Magdala and her lord uncle used, and it gave them two abilities: to move and manipulate earth, air, and water (Qe) and to transmute them into materials of the same type (nQe). Wesen mages, Ri mages, like Dwayne were able to produce and manipulate light, flame, and electricity. Xa was from Tuqu, the empire to the west of Soura, and enabled mages to change their physical bodies into animals and plants.

Magdala read on. The paper’s abstract stated the fact that one mage only had access to one school of magic at a time. Each mage was born knowing one congenital spell and used that spell as a base to learn other spells, starting with the ones that were the most similar. As such, there was no spell that allowed a Ri mage to figure out how to move water like a Qe mage or vice versa. Magic was fundamentally divided into the three schools, and one mage only had access to one school.

“Lord Kalan’s theory is that magic is the same for everyone, from mages to dragons,” said Dwayne.

Magdala scoffed.

“That’s ridiculous. No one being uses multiple schools of magic.”

“How do you know that?” asked her uncle. Magdala looked at him.

“They taught us that in school.”

“How do they know it then? Have they definitively proved that only one kind of magic is used by every single creature in existence? I believe currently they claim that animal magic is different from human magic, but upon dissection we see that animals have a number of similarities with humans. Why should magic be different?”

“I, uh…”

“It’s good you came now,” said her lord uncle, drawing himself up. “Your nQe magic will be very useful in proving my theory that not only is all magic drawn from the same source, but we can convert that source into any magic that we want. You have heard of the Wishes, right?”

Magdala repeated the saying from memory.

“The First Wish was lost. The Second Wish was to move heaven and earth. The Third Wish was to live and talk with nature. The Fourth Wish was to harness the power of the gods. We’re taught that in nursery school.”

“Let’s assume that the Wishes were real,” said her lord uncle. “If so, then our magic must stem from a common source because all the stories start with someone finding the Font of Magic and making a wish. I intend to make an instrument capable of converting that source into any kind of magic.”

“That’s…impossible.”

“Let’s find out!”

“Well if you’re right you’d make the family rich,” said Magdala. “I was wondering why Mother let you go on these long expeditions when you should be producing an heir.”

“Sir, you said we can prove your theory. How?” asked Dwayne. “Our experiments on that jackalope we caught last month were inconclusive.”

“A what?” asked Magdala.

“Of course they were! Jackalopes are much too weak magically speaking. We need something much stronger to react to our tests.”

“I’m not digging up human—”

“Oh, that would have been a total bust anyway. Humans lose their magic far too quickly after death and, live humans, oooh, let’s just leave them be. No! I’m talking about a creature whose very bones have been used to enhance magic for millennia.”

“Unicorns again? Last time, they gave us horse bones with little shiny sparkles sprinkled on them,” said Dwayne. Magdala’s uncle glared at his apprentice.

“Are you enjoying this?” he asked.

“Your ‘proof’ has been the same thing done multiple ways. What are we going to do differently?”

Lord Kalan continued to glower at his apprentice for a moment and then started to talk.

“We’re going after a—”

“Dragon?” asked Magdala. Her uncle sulked.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“There’s a picture of one stuck to your…beard,” she answered. Her uncle pulled off the offending paper and tossed it.

“We leave in the morning,” he said, sitting back down on the bed and starting to write again. Magdala started to speak, but Dwayne pulled her out of the room.

“I’ll start preparations to head west to Yulan’s Pass. That’s just south of the region where most of the dragons live.”

“West? Isn’t that way full of bandits?”

“We’ll slip right by them,” said Dwayne, walking over to the neighboring room and opening the door. “The preparations will take a while, so you can just sleep in my bed tonight.”

Magdala looked into the room and despite the tiny bed, thin straw mattress, and pig-iron frame, thought it looked like heaven after sleeping in the coach. She fell onto the bed.

“I’ll wake you up tomorrow,” said Dwayne. He closed the door behind him.

“Okay…”

As Dwayne’s footsteps faded, Magdala pulled out a letter and looked at it in the dim light from the window. She couldn’t read it, but she still remembered every word. The first paragraph set the tone.

Dearest Magdala,

I am disappointed. Sen Laurence informs me that you’ve been spending your time making explosives instead of focusing your rare alchemical nQe skills on more productive pursuits. Your father and I discussed your habit of holing up in the library reading up on ancient wars, and while your father said that you were just letting off steam after studying hard, you’ve fallen to 10th place in your class. As such, we felt that we had to take action. It seems you do not appreciate what you have. That will change.

The letter had been accompanied by her father’s version of an apology, a new pair of leather soldier’s boots, fitted perfectly to her feet.

She wondered if her parents knew what her uncle had really been up to.

***

For the first three days of the long trip to Ti Mei, Dwayne listened to his new companion’s complaints. She’d started out strong on day one, complaining about her well-made and expensive pair of boots and how they hurt her feet. She went to bed whining about how her mother didn’t ever think about her needs and what she wanted. On the second day, she’d petered out after five hours of complaining about the heat and the dirt on the road even though it was autumn and early morning drizzles were keeping the dust down. On the third day, she zeroed in on the mere existence of routine, starting with their daily task of gathering herbs for Lord Kalan’s research.

“Why didn’t we just buy all this at an apothecary before we left?” she asked, kneeling to inspect a group of pink flowers blooming merrily at the foot of a tree, her pocketknife at the ready. Satisfied, she cut off the petals and secreted them away into a pouch neatly labeled “Pink Arms.” Dwayne was dumbfounded by how many pouches and vials Magdala had on her person. Apparently she didn’t mind their weight.

“I mean seriously, he has money. I’ve seen the estate and—Don’t touch that!” Magdala slapped Dwayne’s hands away from a large bright blue mushroom. “These are poisonous. Use these.” She reached up into a songmaple tree and pulled four large leaves off of it. She handed two of them to Dwayne.

“Hold the cap while I cut away the stem,” she said. Complying, Dwayne watched as she sawed away at the stem with her knife.

“This would cost just knights in the city. It’s not worth walking all the way out here just to grab it fresh. It’s just another sleep inducer.” She took the mushroom cap from Dwayne and stuffed it into yet another pouch.

“After all this, we get another confusing lecture from Uncle,” she said. “How do you learn anything from him anyway? He forgets what he’s talking about every ten seconds!”

“I read his papers mostly. He’s more focused in writing since his right hand aches if he writes too long.”

“What are you talking about? His hand is fine.”

“It’s been that way since I’ve known him,” said Dwayne, his hand resting on the book strapped to his side. “Though I guess that hasn’t been that long…”

“He hasn’t come home in a long while, but at the last Consortium I saw him at, his hand was fine.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Eight years ago? He came with this woman from Wesen…She wasn’t related to you, was she?”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“Well, they worked together to create this really detailed model of Father’s estate in Bradford, complete with little flames in all the torches. They even made it look like wintertime with snow falling on the roofs and everything. Even my mother was impressed.”

Magdala stopped talking and frowned into the bunch of lebelweed she was harvesting.

“So…how did you get apprenticed to my lord uncle?” she asked. “It’s still kind of a shock even seeing you. He’s never taken an apprentice before.”

Dwayne pulled up a plant, inspected its root and then stowed it in a bag.

“Lord Kalan bought me two years ago,” he said finally, moving on to another plant.

Magdala stopped in the middle of pulling out lebelweed.

“You’re a slave,” she said.

“I was a slave.” His tone made Magdala fall silent and go back to working, carefully hiding her face in weeds. After several minutes of silence, Dwayne sighed and then concentrated, letting true joy fill his mind for a moment. He held his hand out.

“Ri’a’tha.”

A flickering orange flame burst into being just over his hand. Magdala rushed over to see, a fascinated grin already on her lips. “This was my first spell,” he explained. “I’d just arrived in Soura, and Lord Kalan was passing by with a huge stack of books in his arms, trying to cram himself into a carriage. Next thing I knew, he tripped and I was buried in this huge pile of books. The first one I picked up was this.” He tapped the massive tome strapped to his side. “When I touched it, I heard that song and just sang it.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure. Lord Kalan calls the book Na’cch. I don’t really get the details, but it basically sings a spell when I’m ready to cast it.”

“Do you know any other spells?” Magdala asked, still entranced by the little flame as it flickered.

“Just one other,” said Dwayne, pulling a leaf off the tree. “Ri’upo’it.” The leaf started to smoke. Magdala gave a weak smile.

“That’s nice,” she said.

“It’s a heat spell,” explained Dwayne. “I mostly use it to cook small things. If I hold it for too long, I start to feel nauseous.”

Magdala nodded.

“Thaumaturgical shock,” she explained. “Usually happens when you try a spell for too long or you’re just not ready for it. Mother forces me to learn water spells and I’m usually vomiting within the hour. How long can you hold the other spell?” She pointed to the little flame, which was still merrily burning.

“Days, I think.”

“So that spell is who you are, warm and steady.”

Dwayne looked down at his feet. “I…hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. “What’s your congenital spell?”

Magdala turned away.

“It’s not that interesting,” she said.

“Is it Qeuiveut?”

Magdala jumped at his melodic pronunciation of the spell. Adjusting herself, she turned back to Dwayne.

“What did you just do?” she asked.

“Lord Kalan reacts like that whenever I repeat his spells too,” said Dwayne. “I wonder why that happens…”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Lord Kalan says it tickles.”

“He would…”

“So what’s your spell?” Dwayne pressed.

“It’s really not impressive.”

“You’re your mother’s child. I once made a man cry by mentioning she was coming to town.”

“Well, my mother is ashamed of me for a reason.”

The little flame flickered again.

“I’ve been an apprentice for a year and know two spells,” said Dwayne. “I know you know more than that. I’ll repeat that spell over and over again until you tell me.”

Magdala shook her head.

“Fine, Qeui—”

“No, don’t! Fine, it’s Nqerm.”

Dwayne looked around.

“Okay…” he said. “What happened?”

Sighing, Magdala pulled an empty vial from her cloak. She filled it with a dash of dirt and a couple of the herbs they’d found. She then spat into it. Holding out the vial, she took a deep breath.

“Nqerm.”

The vial flashed and morphed into a glowing green liquid. Once it stopped bubbling, Magdala threw it against a tree several feet away, where it smashed with a bright green flash and a pop. As tendrils of smoke rose from the tree, Magdala turned back to Dwayne.

“Pretty much all my magic does that,” she said. “I have to focus really really hard to not make explosives.”

“That was so cool!”

Magdala’s jaw dropped.

“What?” she asked.

“Can you make stronger explosions if you change the ingredients?”

“Uh…usually? I haven’t had time to focus on impact. Mostly I’ve been working on different effects.”

“Like what?”

“I…created an explosive that knocks out everyone within fifty prinwirs.”

“Impressive. How did you do it? Can any Qe mage do that? What about…oh, too many questions?”

Magdala was staring dumbly at him.

“No, but—”

“Hey! I heard something over here!”

Dwayne grabbed Magdala and pulled her into the bushes. As they hid, two men entered the clearing, the tall one kneeling down to inspect the remains of the blue mushroom.

“Freshly cut,” he said. “That wizard was lying.”

“There’s two of ‘em,” said the other one, inspecting the ground. “One of them has a nice pair of boots.”

“Two? We only found female underclothes back at the camp.”

“There are two sets of boot prints, one big, one little. And one of them is a southern mage.”

“You can tell that from boot prints?”

“I can tell that from that little flame floating right behind you.”

When the tall man turned to look, Dwayne burst out of the bush and tackled him.

“Gah! Get it off me!”

The other bandit pulled out a wooden club and ran to free his comrade.

“Just hold him still!” A vial hit the man in the face and engulfed him in azure smoke. The bandit wiped glass and goo out of his face and scowled at his fingers. “What is this shi…” He collapsed, his club falling to the ground.

Grateful, Dwayne focused on the bandit he’d tackled. While they were matched in strength, the bandit was the better wrestler. With a grunt, he twisted around and caught Dwayne in a headlock.

As his vision darkened, Dwayne reached up and put his right hand on the man’s breastplate. “Ri’upo’tha.”

“What the fuck you do?” The bandit released Dwayne and jumped back. “Must’ve been a dud,” he said, drawing his sword. “Now come quietly.”

He wiped sweat off his brow, letting a drop of it fall on his breastplate, where it sizzled. Dwayne stayed out of the reach of the bandit’s sword, watching.

“I’m going to have me a little fun when I get back to camp,” said the bandit, stepping forward. “It’s just…why am I so hot? What did you do to me?” He charged Dwayne, who sidestepped and tripped the bandit. When the bandit fell on his face, he screamed as his skin blistered from the heat off his armor. Appalled, Dwayne rushed to the man’s side and floundered. Maybe he could knock the man out? He grabbed the dropped club and raised it, but another vial hit the wailing bandit in the face and the azure smoke claimed the man’s consciousness.

Relieved, Dwayne raised his hand. “Ri’t.” The little flame went out as both bandits snored peacefully. He’d just gotten the second bandit’s breastplate off when Magdala crept out of the bushes, her eyes wide in shock.

“What did you do?” she whispered, gingerly touching the still hot breastplate.

“I heated up his armor. What did you do?”

Dwayne kicked the sleeping bandit, who mumbled something and turned over.

“I synthesized an explosive mixture to induce sleep.”

“Fascinating. Same thing you used to knock out all those people?”

“Same thing that got me kicked out of school.”

“Huh.”

Dwayne rifled through the bandits’ belongings and found two lengths of rope and a few copper knights. Leaving the coins on their laps, he trussed up the bandits.

“Let’s go save your uncle,” he said.

“Do you have a plan?”

“You make more of that stuff and knock them all out.”

“What if they’ve spread out? What if one of them is a mage? What if one of them is a Ri mage just like you?”

“We’ll figure it out then.”

“We’ll figure it out now,” said Magdala. “Father says plan, if only so we know what can go wrong.”

“Your father is a mage?”

“My father is a general.”

Dwayne saw the pride in Magdala’s eyes. He also saw excitement and not a hint of the complaining girl he’d traveled with on the way here. He grinned.

“What’s the plan?”

“Well we still have most of that mushroom left…”

***

A few minutes later, Magdala, her heart beating so fast it was buzzing, watched Dwayne stride right into the middle of their camp where four bandits were talking and laughing. All of them paused to watch Dwayne stop and put his hands up in surrender. One of them, a portly man with badly shaved stubble, tossed aside one of her uncle’s books and spat onto the fire.

“Who’re you?” he asked, looking Dwayne up and down. “Some sort of manservant?”

Dwayne gave a polite smile.

“I’m Lord Kalan’s apprentice,” he said, “and I’ve come to surrender myself.”

“Bullshit,” said the bandit. “No way that’s a lord. Where’s his crew, his retinue?”

Still hidden, Magdala searched the bushes and trees around the camp, remembering what her father had taught her over his battle maps. New information could turn any battle.

“Lord Kalan finds anyone who can’t understand thaumaturgical theory useless,” said Dwayne. “So it’s just me.”

“You look like a slave,” said a gangly bandit, standing up. “A chatty slave.” As the bandit stood and drew her knife, Magdala saw that she’d been sitting on her unconscious uncle.

“I assure you that I’m his apprentice.”

All four of the bandits laughed. One of them, a large man dressed in a tatty robe, stood up and towered over Dwayne. Magdala waited for Dwayne to close his fists, his signal that he was about to attack.

“Apprentice, slave, same thing,” he said, bending down so his face was inches away from Dwayne’s. “Does he have you do his housework? I’ve seen your like. Traded them too.”

“Well he’s too ugly for anything else,” said the gangly bandit. “When we sell him, let’s beat that look out of him.”

Dwayne stopped smiling and turned to the gangly bandit.

“You can try,” he said. His head smashed her nose.

“Oh god,” said Magdala. Her father had said that the only thing that got a man into more trouble than his pride lay between his legs. She’d hoped Dwayne was smarter than that. As she watched, Dwayne threw one of her sleeping potions into the robed bandit’s face, tackled the portly one, and smashed a vial into his face too. As they collapsed, Dwayne turned to the last two bandits, pointing at the gangly girl and muttering something under his breath.

“A potions master,” said the fourth bandit. “Don’t let him throw anymore!”

The gangly bandit yelped and dropped her knife.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“It was fucking hot!”

“Rush him!” The two bandits ran at Dwayne as he pointed at their faces.

“Ri’a’tha! Ri’a’tha!”

Both bandits howled as their faces lit on fire.

“You idiots! Qemilo!”

A gust of wind blasted Dwayne into the tent. Before he could stand, a woman dressed in light leather armor landed right next to him and kicked him in the stomach.

“I can’t believe you can’t take a fucking apprentice!” the air mage said to her men.

“I can’t believe you forgot about me,” muttered Magdala, throwing a vial.

It exploded in the woman’s face, and she fell to the ground fast asleep. Two more vials took care of the still-howling bandits. As silence fell on the camp, Magdala ran to Dwayne, who was still lying in the remains of the tent. She pulled him to his feet.

“Why didn’t you signal?” she asked.

“Sorry, forgot.” Limping a little, he walked over to her lord uncle and looked him over.

“He’s just bruised,” he said. “He survived an inn collapsing on him, he’ll survive this.”

“When did that happen?” asked Magdala, sitting down next to her lord uncle. She dumped a mixture of herbs into a vial and added water from her canteen.

“Two months ago.” Dwayne started to tie the bandits up with rope he found in their packs.

“What happened? Nqerm.”

Magdala put the potion under her uncle’s nose. He came to.

“Oh, did you get the herbs?” he asked. “Ugh, why does my head hurt?”

He looked around at what remained of the camp then jumped to his feet.

“My books!” He rushed toward one that was perilously close to the campfire and tripped over one of the bandits. He peered at her.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“A bandit,” answered Dwayne, gagging the mage with a strip of lcoth he’d torn off one of the bandit’s tunics.

“Did they have anything of use?”

“Unfortunately not, sir.”

“Hmm…a pity.”

Magdala stared at her lord uncle and his apprentice.

“We were just ambushed!” she exclaimed. “That’s a big deal! How can we take on a dragon like this?”

“We’ll hire…what are they called? Mercenaries?”

“Yes, sir, mercenaries.”

Magdala groaned.

“How far is it to Yulan’s Pass?” she asked.

“A couple more days,” answered her lord uncle.

“Then let’s hurry up before we have to fight more bandits,” said Magdala. “We’ll buy herbs at the pass.”

“But they won’t be fresh!”

“Dried herbs are more than worth the price of not being fresh bodies!”