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Solid Magic (draft one WIP preview)

by Tagenar

Full book available everywhere! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59410691-solid-magic)

#SESSION 1

I guess I have to trust all of you. I never did learn how to read or write, and I have no reason to start now. You really are writing down everything I say as I say it? That's hard for me to imagine. Funny it sounds impossible, since I've lived so many impossible things in my life. Everything I've done in the last forty years has been impossible, so why can't I imagine being able to write as fast as a person talks?

Scribe's shorthand? Eighty years and I've never heard of it.

Thanks for the chair. Most of them can't hold my weight, so this is definitely one of the chairs from a mansion somewhere. Where did you find this? A donation from the House of Terend. How generous. Nice to know I didn't make an enemy out of everyone. It's a custom-made chair built to hold a dragon in an eight-foot-tall man's body. It's designed to let me spread my arms and legs so my muscles don't bunch together too obscenely. I remember years ago telling someone I liked how their design felt on my scales. Something about the polish and fabric they used. Next thing I knew, all the noble houses had a chair like this. One reserved just for me in case I stopped by. Almost a throne, but unlike the monarchs, I fill the chair. Yes, thank you. I'm glad I'll be comfortable.

Well, here goes. I used to be a mercenary. Hired sword, I guess they're calling it now. My parents were merchants, trading in crafts made by other people, but I didn't care about that shit. As soon as I was old enough to be on my own, I left. Got odd jobs here and there and finally got in with a group of mercenaries. They trained me to be a hired sword, doing the covert stuff kingdoms wouldn't trust one of their own to do, or just didn't want to get their hands dirty in case something went wrong.

That's really all I did. Transport secret documents between kingdoms, slaughter a guard or two so the real soldiers could get into a fortress. It paid well enough, and I seemed to be good at it. I preferred combat only when I myself wasn't in danger of being in combat.

Must have done that from age thirteen until age thirty-eight. Just after that winter was when the court wizard of the Hirinda kingdom—queendom? Is that right? Doesn't sound right to call it a kingdom when there's no king on the throne.1 [highly informative Footnotes in full version only!] Domain? Realm? Sorry.

My name used to be Michael Ferrante, son of Albert Ferrante and Michelle Despoe. Merchants in the northern kingdoms. They had four children. I was the only one to leave home, from what I hear. I don't know where they are now or how they're doing, and I didn't care until now, I guess. Now that I can't go home, I want to. I don't have any feelings of attachment or anything. I just keep wondering if they ever knew what happened to me. If they ever saw me like this and realized who I was.

Before I came along, the nine kingdoms did not get along. Each was its own separate country, and they did not cooperate for anything. Things sure are different now, and I don't like the direction they're heading. So much has happened that I don't even believe I have to get someone to write it all down. Hope you're not squeamish, because I'm giving details.

Sometime after my thirty-eighth winter, I was staying at an inn in the Hirinda kingdom. A queen named Unari sat on the throne back then. I forget how she was related to all the other noble families, but she had only been on the throne for about six years and she made her priorities clear: she loved the mystic arts, and she gave lots and lots of patronage to the mages. Wizards and witches migrated to the Hirinda kingdom in caravans—I wouldn't sell you water2—in the hopes they would find funding for their craft.

By the time I wandered that far from home, the queen had been on the throne for four years. I had been hired to fetch this magical ingredient or that magical ore since the week I arrived, and I was doing well enough to buy a house by that point, but I held back, expecting it wouldn't last forever. It couldn't. Was too good to last long, having work all the time, being in demand, not having to travel for weeks at a time before finding work.

That's when I met her. Era. Not her birth name—she got it when she was initiated into the mage guild. Wanted to move on from her old life, and I don't blame her. She walked in and came straight to me. I wasn't much of a drinker, but I did enjoy this tavern's cider, and I had a pint next to me along with a cut of venison. I will never forget what she said as she took a seat in front of me.

“Whatever your usual fee is, I'm willing to pay double for this task."

For the first time in my life, money didn't motivate me. I asked her to go on.

“There's a dragon in a cave a few days south of here. We need someone to test a new weapon on it. Killing the dragon is not necessary. We only need a report on how well the weapon performs."

I was dumbfounded. Double my fee, and I don't even have to kill the damn thing? Only the craziest bastards3 would dare go near a dragon, and if I understood what she was asking, I only had to poke it and run. I wasn't even drunk and I said I was interested.

Next thing I knew, I was being escorted to the castle. I didn't meet the queen, but that's when I started to get the feeling the queen was quite the patron of the magic arts. Research into magic was flourishing under her reign. Now it makes sense, but back then I hadn't made the connection between all the magic I was seeing around me and the new monarch. I really didn't give much thought to the bigger picture back then, especially when it came to politics and marriage and noble families. I preferred to stay as far away from the nobility as possible.

Let me tell me something about the noble families. They want you to respect their grand lineage and the accomplishments of their ancestors, but all they do is sit on their asses and charge the people to live on the land they own. That's it. They're the only people legally allowed to own land—the very people who got the monarchy to pass decrees forbidding anyone to own land except for themselves—and then they look down their noses on everyone else for being poor and having no land of their own. They'll tell you their bloodline is pure, so that's why they deserve to own the land and their subjects surrender a third of their harvest every year, or pay them a tax to hunt deer in the forests their family owns. They want everyone to believe the aristocrats are the best people in society because they have money and land and their ancestors were brave on the battlefield, but all they do is gossip about each other and complain about all the poor people in the country. After taking a cut of the harvest as tribute, they throw people in jail for trying to hunt deer, conscript farmer's children to fight the wars they start—all to prove they deserve their station—yes, they start wars just to prove they can command people to victory, and that justifies everything they do in their minds—and then they complain about all these hungry people everywhere who toil in the dirt and wonder why they resent the nobility.

I didn't really see it that way at the time, though. All I knew was that if you didn't lick their boots just right, they'd fuck your life up worse than a bear. Saw it happen a few times. Man turned his back on a nobleman's wife, she had him locked up and flogged. I was the one who got on my knees and begged forgiveness on his behalf. So yes, I just left them alone.

Now here I was in the arcane chambers. I was staring at a sword, and Era was telling me they had to perform a ritual to bind me to this magical weapon. A few chants and sparks later, I felt something. Like an invisible rope tying me to this sword, and then something strange happened. The sword began to change shape. Before, it had been just a standard blade, but after the chanting stopped, it changed into something else. The blade curved and gained a serrated edge. It looked like the kind of sword I had always wanted, if I'd ever wanted to spend money on something as luxurious and impractical as a sword. Impractical for my line of work, I mean. I couldn't believe it. It was my sword. The one I had always imagined. I watched it become that before my eyes, and when I picked it up, I felt complete.

Era told me the sword was magically bound to me, and it would become whatever I needed it to be. It was an experimental form of magic, so its effects had not been fully studied. It had won me over right then. It was too heavy when I picked it up, so it became lighter. The serrated parts of the blade were too large, so as I held it, they became finer, almost too fine to see.

And they were paying me to wield this thing?

I had a feeling something was wrong. The weapon didn't feel like metal. It didn't feel like it belonged here. Like, I was holding it, but it wasn't normal. What's the word? It felt like it existed somewhere else, far away, and yet I was still holding it. It scribbled me up,4 but I went along with it anyway. It was just another magical job. It stood out, but I didn't think it was strange enough to back out. In fact, I was curious. Yes, for the first time in my life, I think I took a job out of curiosity. It's what happens when money doesn't motivate you.

Era paid me half up front. I had a map to the dragon's cave, and Era claimed to be able to tell from the sword itself if I had done the job or was just making it up. I believed her, and I intended to follow through. These mages were fucking rich, and I wanted them to hire me again. I didn't have any magical talent myself, and I had sure tried, but I was useful to them for fetching things they needed from the far reaches of the realm. Just a nick on the leg or something, and then sprint back home, though the more nicks the better, she said.

They offered to hold my knives for me while I was gone, but I kept them as a precaution. I had never carried a sword before; too bulky and heavy for my kind of work, so I expected this would be a change of pace. Just as I thought that, the sword shrank into a knife-sized version of itself, and it fit into one of the holsters I already had strapped to my belt. I was dumbfounded, but I left that knife with them. There was a time in my younger days I would have been tempted to sell such a weapon and flee to another kingdom, but this thing scared me. If the mages could make something that did this, I didn't want to find out what they would do if I crossed them.

The path I had to follow would take me eight days walking, and I had enough supplies to last me that long. Era told me I had to avoid all other magic sources while carrying the sword, so I couldn't risk taking carriages or meeting anybody else along the way. Something about it affecting the new magic. These people were doing serious research under the queen, so I planned to follow their instructions exactly.

I remember it being sunny most of the way, even staying off the paths and cutting my own trails through the underbrush. I had to climb a few trees to see the stars and get my bearings. When I set down for the night, I passed the time playing with the sword. I imagined the blade was longer, and it became longer. I imagined it as a pitchfork, and it stretched and separated into three prongs.

I spent hours changing it into various pieces of cutlery, and then on a whim I pictured it made of wood. The sword shrank and thickened into a small wooden sword, the kind every carpenter makes for the children with the leftover scraps of whatever project. It even had a wooden hilt. That's when I realized it looked exactly like the one I remember playing with as a child. Same size, too. That thought took me back to the many times I hit my brothers with it, and the many times they smacked me with theirs. As a kid I had wished for these things to be smoother so we wouldn't get splinters. The sword became like glass in my hand. Wooden glass. Polished like a nobleman's table.

Over the next few days, I got to know this weapon extremely well. It was like I was figuring out how to talk to it, and it was figuring out what I wanted. The bond was strange. A rope tying me to the sword. Even when I let go of it, I felt I was still holding it. I tested it a few nights. I set it on the ground and walked away from it. Sure enough, the farther away I went, the more I felt like I was leaving a piece of myself behind. At five yards, it was just a vague feeling of unease. Fifty yards and I was starting to feel sick. A hundred yards and I could barely breathe. Twenty more yards and I slipped and fell. It was as if the sword had yanked the rope and was pulling me backwards. I had to crawl back it hurt so much.

I'd heard about binding spells before, but this didn't feel anything like that. Those were just supposed to prevent people from using a certain object, or opening a particular lock. This felt like the sword was my third arm, and I couldn't leave it behind. I wondered what else the mages could do, and what would be the consequences of giving mages too much money? I couldn't get that fable out of my head. You know that one.5 Maybe there was a reason nobody had funded the arcane arts this much before. Yeah,6 I thought that even at the time.

I was coming up to the foothills. The map gave details for how to find the cave, but I didn't need them. I could smell the dragon.

Please understand I had never been this close to a dragon in my life. People saw them everywhere, but I'd been everywhere, and I'd never seen one, so I began to doubt they even existed. As soon as that smell hit my nose, I knew it couldn't have been anything else. Another clue: no animals anywhere. I followed my nose up the hillside.

How to describe it? A little like fish, but not the bad stench of rotting fish, or fish sitting at market. Smelled like a good meal at a tavern where they just barely cook the fish. I've been to some places where they don't cook it at all; they just cut the meat up and serve it with vegetables. That's the kind of smell it was, but much stronger. A bit like how you can tell a cow from a fox. Neither smell is bad. Just distinct.

I followed that up past the point where the grass ended. Thankfully it wasn't so high up I had to trudge through snow. I stopped about a hundred yards below it and decided to rest. I hoped the dragon would come out and I could escape back into the trees, but then I wondered. If I could smell the dragon like this, could it smell me? I'd be the only creature in a mile. It would be easy to find me even among the trees.

I knew nothing about dragons. Absolutely nothing, and I hadn't thought to ask. Did anyone know about dragons? I'd heard some wild stories over the years. Some man in a tavern said he saw one breathing ice and freezing a lake. A woman in another town said she saw one swallowing the sun. A dragon ate an entire herd of sheep. A dragon made a sinkhole in one farmer's field, and an elderly man told me he saw a dragon touch the ground and evaporate into a spirit that washed over the town, and not long after that, nine children fell dead.

I had no idea what to expect.

Poke and run.7

I built a small fire under a cliff, not sure if I hoped the dragon would smell it or not. I promised to strike as soon as I felt rested. I wanted to be ready to run for hours if I needed to. I amused myself pondering the idea that the dragon wouldn't feel a prick from something as small as sword no matter how big and sharp this was.

The sword grew to as long as a house's roof beam. The blade became so sharp I heard the air being cut as I waved it. It should have been heavy, but it was as light as paper in my grip. I tested it on the cliff face, and it sliced the rock clean. The impact had as much force as a weapon that weighed a hundred pounds.

The whole time, I didn't only feel that I held the sword. The sword also had a grip on me.

Then I had an idea. The sword could become any weapon I imagined, so I wondered if it could be used for defense, too. I experimented with making it change into a shield. Then I imagined it could become a shield that hid my presence. A dome that projected forest surroundings and hid my scent, too.

The sword seemed to have trouble with this one. It opened like the top of a fountain and poured down and around me. I still held the hilt, but the sword had now become a curtain surrounding me. I couldn't tell if it hid my scent, or if anyone could see me through it.

I tried walking, but the weapon couldn't hold its shape. It retracted back into the sword I had always wanted. It seemed to be its normal shape. Required no effort to hold it like that. Everything else I had to concentrate and will it to stay. I had just found a limit to what it could do. The mages hadn't mentioned limits, and now that my eyes were watering from all the dragon scent in the air, I felt a pang of worry.

I tried changing it into other objects. Bottles. Food. A mirror. A book. The sword could mimic the forms of these, but not always the functions I had in mind. The book did not open and had no individual pages. The bottles couldn't be opened. The food was solid. The mirror worked, though.

Apparently I couldn't make it become anything too specific, and I couldn't give it any other enchantments, so no changing it into a poison-tipped sword that would kill a dragon with a single stab.

I spent another few hours trying to make the sword become a pillow. I eventually made it soft enough to be comfortable but firm enough to hold my neck straight. I felt proud of myself for figuring out how to manipulate it.

At dawn, I found the fire cold, and the sword underneath me. It had collapsed back into its normal shape in my sleep.

I left everything that could make noise under the cliff and began the climb up the steep slope. That smell... By the time I got to the mouth of the cave, I could practically see the scent flowing like water on the ground. I hadn't heard anyone describe the smell of a dragon this way, so strong it became a mist on the ground. I had to hold my breath on the way inside.

I held the sword in front of me as I crept. It began to give off a faint glow. Glad it could do that. It meant I wouldn't have to make a torch.

I had time to notice the entrance was only large enough for a man, so how did the dragon get in? I figured there must be another entrance somewhere. It seemed a bit strange to me that there should be more than one way into this cave, but that wasn't really on my mind. Breathing was difficult enough, and trying to walk without making noise took a lot of effort.

The passage narrowed so much I had to squeeze through sideways, and it went on and on. I didn't realize it at the time, but later I went back and measured it. It's seventy yards deep, twisting and turning back and forth. If not for that smell and the mages telling me something was on the other end, I never would have risked such a tight squeeze for that long.

The cavern opened up, and there it was, fast asleep. It would easily fill the town square, but the cavern could have held five creatures its size.

It was blue. All the times I'd heard of dragons, nobody ever described one with blue scales. Black horns, red claws. Four legs. Wings sprouting from its shoulders. Its scales had different shades of blue all over. I remember pausing and staring at it for a moment. Blue patterns hidden inside of blue patterns. Blue highlights over the fingers. Darker blue stripes shimmering on the legs. I thought it was pretty.

I felt bad for what I had to do. I hated it when people woke me out of a sound sleep. I crept closer, parting the mist made of dragon scent with my ankles. I decided to go for the tail, hoping it wouldn't feel pain as bad as if I stabbed it in the face. Also I'd have more time to hide if I was farther away from its teeth. I walked down its flank so slowly I think I made the sword impatient. I could feel it pulling me onward. I had a feeling it wanted to get this over with as well. I passed the foreleg. The stomach. I could hear its heart beating, and its breath sounded like a storm. I came to one of the claws on a hind leg. Its claw was as long as me, and the paw, or hand, was half as tall as I was.

I looked the other way and noticed the cave walls were reflective. I could see myself creeping in front of the dragon's thigh. I would later realize the whole cave was made of obsidian, and I saw the dragon's reflection behind mine. Some facets were clearer than others, and some were so distorted I couldn't even make out my beard. This would have been a nice place to explore if not for the dragon sleeping in it.

I followed the tail as it tapered to the tip, and then paused again and just looked down its length. My first time seeing a dragon, and all I could think about was going back to that tavern and telling people the tale of the dragon I found in a cave. It wasn't doing anything. Just sleeping. What a boring story. I'd have to add that it was lying on a gigantic pile of shoes and dead babies so people would pay attention.8

It could swallow me whole and not even have to chew. I had a hard time believing it even existed. How could I not have seen one before? Why hadn't they burned the whole world by now? And why did mages need me to test a weapon on one? What was there to test?

Well, time to earn my fee.

While I wasn't looking, the sword had changed into a terrifying device of torture and slaughter. Serrated blade, multiple prongs coming out of the shaft like ice crystals. The sword had changed to a blue color, patterns inside of patterns, matching the scales of its target. Looking back on it, I think I was struck by those scales and I must have wanted my ideal sword to be that beautiful mix of colors, too.

I lunged. The sword slid through the scales vanished into its tail all the way up to the hilt, and for a brief instant, I believed the dragon wouldn't even feel it.

It gasped and raised its head. I wasn't taking any chances. I pulled back. The sword had lost its serrated edges and prongs, so it slipped out easily. Blood followed. I had planned to tell the mages that dragon blood was dark as wine and smelled about the same.

I ran to the cave wall, hoping it wouldn't see me. The floor trembled, and a five-clawed hand slammed down in front of me. I held my arms out to keep from falling as the ground shook, hoping nothing fell from the ceiling and crushed me.

I turned, and all I could see was a dragon's mouth. I only stood as tall as its shin, and the muzzle was the same size as me. It roared, and I held the sword out. It had already reshaped itself into a shield, and just in time; the cave lit up in flames. The fire flicked around the shield, but I still broke into a sweat. The dragon must have roasted me for a solid minute before it took a breath. The shield remained unscathed. I turned to the dragon's hand, raising the shield as it became a serrated nightmare blade again, but longer, thicker, bigger—far larger than I would have been able to wield naturally.

I chopped. The blade slid into the dragon's hand. The monster roared, lighting up the cave again in flames. It moved its hand out of the way, leaving a trail of thick blood behind, which is what I wanted. I righted myself as the sword shrank to knife-size and ran under the bleeding hand. It roared and stomped after me. I found the cave entrance and dashed for it.

The cave floor shook, and the dragon's tail crashed in front of me and curled inward. I slid to a stop and turned around. The dragon had surrounded me with its body, and now I stared at its teeth. I held the sword ready. In a couple seconds, the sword grew into a double-sided ax emitting light bright enough to rival the sun. I aimed the beam at the dragon's face, crossing an eye once. Twice. The dragon winced and raised a hand over me.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed its tail curling inward. Just as I thought. The hand was a distraction. It was going to whip me first and then claw me. I aimed my weapon at the approaching wall of blue flesh. The sword grew a point at the tip along the path of light it emitted, and the tail smacked into it.

The blade expanded in girth, and it grew spikes. The dragon roared and flicked its tail backwards. The blade slid off it, and I hopped backwards just as the hand crashed down where I had been. I swung again. The ax pierced its forearm. Still roaring, the dragon ran in a circle around me, creating a moving wall of blue scales. I turned with it, keeping its eyes in sight and the weapon between us.

It had green eyes. Slitted.

It didn't attack. I waited eagerly for it to make a move as I looked for an opening.

I noticed its wings rising, and as soon as I saw it, it flapped them in my direction. The force blew me backwards a few steps, and the sword became a shield again. I held it up, and it blocked the wind so I stayed on my feet.

An arm and the tail moved—it wanted to attack from three sides, and I wished the sword were long enough to reach the dragon's face. The shield melted before me and stretched out. I braced myself, but the dragon noticed and crouched under the reaching blade. I stopped it from growing just before it hit the cave wall, and then willed it to come back.

It took about four seconds before I noticed it retracting. The weapon could do everything I needed in a fight, but it didn't change forms quickly, and stupid me, I had just extended the weapon too far for me to use.

The dragon reached up with one hand and pushed the blade down to the ground. I tried to pull it out, but it hadn't shrunk far enough yet. The dragon turned and glared at me, and then it jumped on top of the blade. All four feet.

The blade bent, and then snapped in half.

Something inside me snapped, too. My heart. My bones. I saw the weapon evaporate. My hands evaporated with it. The dragon looked just as surprised as it fell to the ground.

You need a break? Sure, good place to pause. The good stuff is coming up right after this, so I hope you're ready.

--end Session 1 preview--

Full book available everywhere! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59410691-solid-magic)