Fight or Flight

Chapter 22

Simon

Present day.

I sat quietly and listened to the fearsome pink dragon while she shared her story. The cloth bandage on her shoulder had grown dark, suggesting that one of her cuts was still bleeding, but I didn't interrupt to mention it. The expensive-looking supplies that had been stored in the saddle now lay strewn in the dirt around us, but I didn't make any move to clean up the mess.

Enola didn't need my help.

"I was not able to fly very far. The naga's spell was still suppressing my magic, and without magic it is hard for a dragon to fly. I was barely halfway back to the guard post before I had to land to rest. The Sea Guard found me there later that night." Enola grew quiet, and I had begun to think she was finished before she spoke again. "They dealt with the magic-draining spell and went searching for the naga, but they could not find them. Nor the egg the naga spoke of – it was probably hidden deep in the lake, deeper than we could search. And it seemed the naga sorceress was very skilled at hiding her spells. No one was able to track it down."

Enola shook her head and stared out at the lake, though I had the feeling she was seeing something much different than the water before us. "All they could find were the bodies of two dead humans. A man and a woman. Humans who had been killed by the naga. Naga I had been supposed to protect them from, as one of the Sea Guard. All so they could get something from me – either to fight off the naga who had invaded their home, like I should have done regardless, or for some reward of treasure and magic."

Enola grew quiet. We stared out at the lake in silence, until I was sure she had finished.

"Did you go on to join the Sea Guard?" I was pretty sure I knew the answer already, but I wanted to give Enola the chance to keep talking if she wanted to.

"No." The dragon slowly shook her head. "I did not deserve to join. Every time I see weapons or think about being paralyzed, it terrifies me. I ran from a fight and left naga free to spread pain. I am not fit to serve in the Sea Guard. I am a coward."

"No you aren't. Anyone would have run after that; it sounds horrible."

"Maybe a human would. But any other dragon would have turned and killed those naga, working magic or not." Enola shook her head again. "It did not matter anyway. My magic was already starting to drain away from the magedebt. I was too young to join the Sea Guard as a proper fighter, and only had a special exception made to serve as a healer apprentice. Without being able to cast any spells, and with what I had just done... they told me to go back home until the magedebt had cleared."

Another silence stretched between us, but something told me Enola wasn't finished. I waited, and after a few minutes she started speaking again. "I came back here instead. I cast one last spell with what was left of my magic. A 'web' of sorts. It covers the lake and most of the surrounding land. It is attuned to my magic – wherever it encounters it, it disperses it. As long as that spell has magic, whatever the naga tried to do won't work. After I set up that spell, the magedebt drained away what remained of my magic. And it kept draining me of any new magic, every day, for the last thirty years."

"That's why you're living around those crystals. They hide your lack of magic from mages." I frowned as I thought of something else. "And you can use them to recharge your web spell, if it is running out of magic."

Enola nodded slowly. "Yes. Most of a crystal's magic is lost to the magedebt, but I have learned how to move enough of the magic into the spell to keep it working. When my spell is strong everything is fine. When it grows weak, the land becomes sick. The humans grow ill. The crops start to fail. The animals migrate to somewhere else."