The wizard, Meredin, cleared his voice thrice, his cough bouncing off the dome’s marble walls. He stared at the pentagram-shaped oakwood platform where King Drexel’s charred corpse lay. Its decaying reek made his spine shudder and brought the taste of his breakfast eggs to the back of his throat.
“Now,” he said to Gwendolyn, the golden-armored kingsguard looming behind him. “Before I begin the ritual, you have to understand. Rowan didn’t mean it. He’s a peaceable dragon.”
Her sword poked his back. “Get on with it, traitor. Lest I send King Kimdran your severed head along with the formal declaration of war.”
“Why in heaven’s name would I side with a feeble rival kingdom such as Kimdran’s? A wizard picks his battles—”
The blade pushed harder. “I said get.”
“All right. But promise no harm will come to Rowan. In fact, it’s his own flame, crystallized into the purest form,” he pulled an orange crystal the shape of a multi-faceted egg from his blue robes, “that will allow me to resurrect the king.”
“Logistics don’t bother me. Revive his grace and keep the recipe to yourself.”
He sniffed. “Fine.”
Meredin brought the crystal over the king’s chest and spoke the words. “Azdum, bizdum, barum, from tight vessels torn, return his soul twice more.” Then added some baritone ancient-sounding gibberish and sparked lightning from his fingertips. None of these tricks were truly necessary of course. Resurrection, albeit complex in its preparation, lacked the necessity of any external performance during the actual event. Recipe was: lay the corpse over an oakwood pentagram for five days, and nest a dragonfire-tempered gem upon the chest. The rest was a matter of time, and to appease the bystanders, idle time is better spent looking busy.
Five, ten, twenty minutes passed and Meredin’s tongue grew sore and knotted by all the words it stumbled over.
“You’re sweating,” the gruff woman said.
“Don’t break the incantation!” he snapped, then added a convenient lie: “Now, I have to repeat it.”
Six, twelve, twenty minutes?
The kingsguard growled impatiently behind him.
A crack. The king’s chest heaved and Meredin leaned over the corpse, hope rising in his chest. The woman leaned closer, too.
Then a bright flame burst from the king’s chest and scalding blood showered them both.
§
As guardsmen pounded on the dome’s iron door—which Meredin had hurriedly shut and sealed with magic—Meredin rubbed his forearm, mending the wounds formed by King Drexel’s boiling blood. At least a wizard’s skin was tough enough to survive that explosion. Nothing like Gwendolyn’s body, now lying on the floor, armor and skin honeycombed and smelling of burned meat.
Great. Now there were two corpses to revive.
He scooped the crystal from the king’s charcoal innards. It was now translucent and lacking fire.
Meredin sighed. No choice left. He cupped his hands and whispered. “Rowan, flee the wardens and come to the tower.”
§
Rowan crashed through the stained glass window, toppling to the floor in a mess of wings. Meredin covered his face against the hail of glass shards.
“Please tell me no one died during your escape,” Meredin said.
Rowan stumbled to his feet, shook his head and blinked, eyeing his master with serpentine yellow eyes and lowering his head like a dog that had peed on the rug. “No,” he said in a voice so bass it could shake mountains.
Meredin enlisted his own severe voice. “Rowan…”
Rowan’s nostrils flared, as if he were about to sneeze. “Just a hand from the warden is all. Had to bite it off. He wouldn’t let go of the chain.”
“Rowan!”
Rowan shifted his head and sneezed, fire blooming from his snout. The scent of molten glass rose from the floor. “What could I do?”
“Whip your neck. Shake him off. Threaten his family. Anything but sever his limb!” Meredin wiped his brow. “It’s all right. It’s all right. We can fix it all. King’s life takes priority. Then his kingsguard.”
Rowan sniffed Gwendolyn’s corpse. “What happened to the kingsguard?”
“Body exploded. Probably the amount of fire in the crystal was off. Ritual went wrong and—Doesn’t matter. Breath fire into the crystal. Do it right this time. This is where you really redeem yourself.”
Rowan leaned closer, smoke pouring out his nose and enveloping the crystal in a warm cloud as he whistled a tendril of flame around the gem. The crystal buzzed with warm power on Meredin’s palms.
He lay the artifact atop the king’s remains, and waited as the doors thrashed behind him, hoping iron and magic would be enough to bar them.
Then came the hammer-like drumming of a ram, and a fissure formed on the door.
Rowan’s head shook, and his nostrils began to flare.
§
Sweat beaded Meredin’s forehead as he scratched his dragon’s neck to soothe both himself and his faithful beast. The pounding on the door separating them from the armed men reached crescendo.
“Can’t hold it,” Rowan said, nostrils flaring something mad.
“Just aim it away from the king and his men.”
Rowan bobbed his long head, turning his scaly snout to the window.
Then the doors banged open, and despite Meredin’s protestations, the guardsmen charged Rowan, yelling, “for the king!” And what is a dragon to do when men pick at his scales with ticklish toothpicks they call swords but to twist around in surprise?
Meredin shook his head and cast an incantation that enveloped himself in a water bubble as Rowan sneezed with a loud roar.
§
“I didn’t mean it,” Rowan said to Meredin as they glided along the skies, approaching Kimdran’s palace. It peeked from the cloudy mountain, and its shape reminded Meredin of a fork—a bent fork, given one of its towers lay in ruins.
Meredin eyed his king’s half-burned head hanging from the supplies hoisted on Rowan’s side. A proper gift for King Kimdran. Maybe a traitor’s life wouldn’t be so bad.
“I know, Rowan,” Meredin sighed, patting Rowan’s neck. “I know.”
Akis Linardos is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He’s also a Greek who hops across countries as his career and exploration urges demand. Find his fiction at Apex, Dread Machine, ApparitionLit, Heartlines, Gamut, and more at https://linktr.ee/akislinardos
“Rowan the Kingslayer and Meredin the Traitor” was first published in Cosmorama and is reprinted here by permission of the author.
1 comments:
Well written and very entertaining! I laughed out loud.
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