Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga Read online

  It was a hospice, Raphael realized, a place where the Sisters provided those who were going to die with as much comfort as they could. He felt fresh tears well up again, and this time, he wasn’t sure he could fight them down.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Raphael,” Sister Amalia said as she pushed the doors open. “I’ll have you know that plenty of people who come here eventually do leave this place, hale and hearty once more thanks to our skilled physicians and devoted Sister-nurses.”

  The interior of the hospice was a long building of bare but clean stone, and as the doors swung shut behind them, they were greeted by the sight of rows upon rows of beds, most of them occupied. A small crowd of visitors filled the air with their murmurs, forming a collective buzz of disjointed voices that echoed off the tiled ceiling.

  “Yes. Alright.” Raphael took a deep breath as he followed the nun. He dimly registered Sylvia and Eliza trailing in his wake and Rayne squirming in his pocket. “A while back, you told me that you worked as a Sister-nurse here for some time.”

  “Seven years, until the diocese saw fit to elevate me to the rank of a Sister Superior.” Sister Amalia shook her head softly. “Now I spend most of my days filling out forms and doing sums, though I am grateful for the chance to help wherever I’m best able to. Here, this bed is for Koshi. I’ll arrange for a physician to check on him as soon as one’s available.”

  The nun gave Raphael a brief hug and walked away.

  With Eliza’s help, Raphael tucked Koshi into a bed with a straw mattress and soft blankets. As he lowered Koshi’s head down onto a pillow, it seemed to him that the lines on the older man’s face had become less pronounced and his features carried less pain.

  “He’ll be fine, Raphael,” Eliza said. “Just let him get some rest. Go take a walk and stretch out your legs for a bit. I’ll be here, keeping an eye on him.”

  “Oh no, you won’t,” Sylvia declared, placing an arm over Eliza’s shoulders. “I’ve decided. If I’m not getting Raphael today, then at least I’m getting you.”

  “What?” Eliza demanded, her eyes widening.

  “That pie you made was heavenly. I could use a cook. And someone to tidy up around my quarters in the Guild. And organize my things. Plus laundry and all that other tedious stuff. Consider yourself a Hell Drake as of right now,” Sylvia said. “And in case you’re wondering, your wages start at one gold coin a week.”

  Raphael looked up at that. A single gold coin was more than he and Koshi earned in a year.

  “But Raphael—” Eliza began.

  “Will be fine. Let’s sort your paperwork out. If we’re quick about it, maybe you’ll have time to come check on him tonight.” Sylvia began pulling Eliza away. The younger woman’s jaw fell slack, and her eyes darted frantically back and forth in their sockets. She was trying to speak but obviously failing to do so.

  “Er… congratulations?” Raphael offered.

  “Yeah, thanks, kid,” Sylvia replied. “I’ve always wanted a personal assistant to do all my stuff I don’t want to do. Now I finally have one.”

  “I didn’t mean… never mind. What about Fenix?” Raphael asked.

  “He’s my understudy, but he gets very touchy when I tell him to do things he thinks are beneath him. He even complained to the Guild Master, who agreed that I can only give him one “personal convenience task” every other day. Right now I’ve got him emptying my weekly chamber pots, so he’s got his hands rather full already.” Sylvia was already halfway out the doors, dragging Eliza with her. “Alright. See you later, kid. And don’t forget: I’m going to get you, too.”

  Weekly chamber pots? Raphael shuddered at the thought, especially since most people usually only had one, and they washed it out daily. Or they just went to an outhouse.

  As the hospice doors shut behind Eliza, Raphael felt a lot of pity for her.

  Chapter 10

  “I’m fine, Raphael, really,” Koshi grumbled as he petted Rayne, who was curled up on his lap. The faerie dragon had just gorged on two whole apples and was in a state of satiated drowsiness. “If you keep fussing over me, I’m really going to start getting annoyed.”

  “Alright, alright. I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable,” Raphael said, adjusting Koshi’s blankets one last time.

  It was shortly past nightfall. Koshi had awoken briefly during the late afternoon, muttered something unintelligible to Raphael, then fallen unconscious again just as a physician arrived. The solemn, lean man, clad in plain gray robes, examined Koshi, sighed, and told Raphael to make sure that he got plenty of rest.

  Shortly after that, Sister Amalia had come by with bowls of barley porridge. She murmured numerous reassurances to Raphael as they ate, but he let them wash over him, his mind clouded by worry. The sun had just set when Koshi opened his eyes and spoke Raphael’s name, lifting a huge weight off his shoulders.

  Now, Koshi was dozing off again, having eaten half a bowl of watery gruel. Raphael doused the candle beside his bed and got up.

  “Good night, Koshi,” he said. Rayne yawned and zipped into Raphael’s pocket once more. The faerie dragon hadn’t returned to its usual size yet. Amazingly, no one else in the hospice had noticed it. Perhaps they were all too wrapped up in their own suffering or too engrossed with their visitors.

  Koshi murmured inaudibly in response. His eyes closed, and soon, he was fast asleep, his breathing shallow but steady. Raphael stroked his brow softly and walked away, heading for the hospice’s double doors, where Sister Amalia was speaking quietly to another nun.

  She turned to him as he approached. “How’s he feeling? Better?”

  Raphael nodded. He didn’t fail to notice the wary, mistrustful look the other nun directed his way. They’ve always treated me like this, except Sister Amalia. I don’t know why, but now, I don’t really care.

  “If you want to stay by his side, we can pull up a pallet for you beside his bed,” Sister Amalia offered.

  Raphael shook his head. “I’ve got to go somewhere. I’ll be back in the morning to see him. But before I go, Sister Amalia, I want you to have this.”

  He pulled out a handful of copper coins from his belt pouch. He’d gone home for it sometime in the afternoon, after Sylvia had dragged Eliza away. It was all the money Koshi and Raphael had. “It’s for taking care of Koshi.”

  Sister Amalia folded her palm over his and pushed his coins back toward him. “You should hold onto that, Raphael. The Order of the Crescent Moon doesn’t need anything from you at the moment.”

  “Koshi always said that we should take nothing for free and always be fair in our dealings.” Raphael held out the coins again. “I know that this isn’t enough to pay for the food, the bed, and the physician, but I’ll get more money to make up the rest soon.”

  Sister Amalia sighed. “You’re as stubborn as your father. Very well, Raphael. The Order of the Crescent Moon will gladly accept your alms, on the condition that you give them later, when you’re in a much better position to do so. So hold onto your coins for now.”

  Grinning, Raphael tucked the coins away. For all that Sister Amalia bemoaned Koshi’s and his stubbornness, Raphael knew very well that the nun was as stubborn, if not more so. This compromise would be the best he’d get out of her right now. In any case, he was fairly confident that he’d be more than capable of paying for Koshi’s food, board, and medicine very soon.

  “Peace guide your steps, Raphael,” Sister Amalia said.

  “And yours, Sister Amalia,” he replied. She smiled at him as he turned to leave, but her fellow nun followed him with her gaze, her lips tight and brow furrowed.

  The city was still busy, despite the hour, and the night air felt different within its walls. It was filled with voices shrill to rumbling and footsteps both frenetic and languid, all accented by the constant trundling of wooden carts against the stone-paved streets.

  It was also heavy with the smells of humanity, food, and industry. The marvelous lingering scent of cooling meat pies fro
m the marketplace was doused with the sickly sweet miasma of axle grease, only to be undercut by the rancid sharpness of rotting refuse.

  Raphael realized that he’d never stayed inside the city so late before. The closing of the marketplace usually signaled that it was time for him to go home. Now, he stood in its streets, bathed in the soft, yellow glow of lamps hung from iron posts spaced every dozen paces or so.

  People walked by him, chattering away idly. Some of them were laborers or store clerks, heading home or to a tavern after a busy day at the marketplace or docks. Others were parents on a night out, accompanied by their children after having dinner at one eatery or the other.

  “Raphael!” a little girl cried, waving at him. She was accompanied by her father and mother, a fairly young couple dressed in the coveralls of mill workers. They couldn’t have been older than him by more than ten years. Tessa’s parents regarded him with a gaze that held an equal mixture of surprise and worry, and Raphael knew why. He was dressed in gray, tattered clothes that sported more patches than their original material. Scissors, used by Koshi’s trembling hands, had always kept Raphael’s dark hair in check. At first, second, and even third glance, Raphael didn’t look much different from the many beggars that loitered in the myriad alleyways surrounding the marketplace. He was cleaner than them, perhaps, since Koshi had always insisted that they wash at least once a day.

  “Hey, Tessa. You’ve grown taller,” Raphael said, smiling at her. She’d just started school last year, and on her first day, she’d fallen and scraped her knee badly. Raphael had carried her to the Maestro, so that he could clean and dress the child’s wound. Since then, Tessa had always gone out of her way to greet Raphael, at least until he’d stopped going to school.

  “Have I?” she asked, returning his smile. Her parents muttered nervously and ushered their child away.

  “Bye Raphael!” Tessa’s voice trailed away as she turned a street corner with her parents and vanished into the night.

  Raphael felt his smile grow brittle and fragile. A heartbeat passed, and then it fell from his face. She has a mother and father. Everyone has a mother and father, but I don’t, and I don’t know why. I have Koshi. I have only Koshi.

  He began walking, doing his best to ignore the trembling in his lower lip and the cold, heavy feeling in his heart. He was now absolutely certain about what he had to do.

  Raphael had only Koshi, and he wouldn’t let him go, not until both of them could hold on to each other no longer.

  The city’s streets flashed by. Raphael knew the southern-western part of Lucia quite well. It contained the marketplace and school, after all, and he’d spent many a late afternoon running through its streets with other children. The docks were only a short distance away from the marketplace, but further north from there, past a right turn and then a left, across an elevated walkway and a small town square with a fountain, was a place Raphael had never stepped foot in before:

  The Hell Drake District, where the Guild made its home.

  Raphael tried to remember what his teachers, Sylvia, and Fenix had said about the Hell Drake District. It was a part of the city that belonged to the Guild. The King’s guards and constables held no sway there, since within the District, the Guild Master’s word was law.

  In one of his classes, his teacher—Maestro Colombo, the schoolmaster—had gone over how the Hell Drakes intervened in the Ogre Wars twenty years ago, lifting the city from a siege that had threatened to crush its walls and sweep all its inhabitants into the hungry maws of the Ogre King Valgrush and his horde. Thanks to Eliza, Raphael now knew that it was Sylvia who’d been the one to slay the Ogre King, after her fellow mercenaries had broken the back of Valgrush’s forces and sent them fleeing in disarray.

  In gratitude, the King himself had gifted parts of the city to the Guild, and its Master had been more than happy to accept. Other versions of the story had the Guild Master demanding land from the King, who was in no position to refuse. However things actually played out, the Hell Drakes did hold a significant portion of Lucario’s capital city. The District was only one of the Guild’s largest holdings, followed closely by nearly half of the wharves at the docks.

  A simple stone archway marked with the Guild’s insignia—a sinuous red lizard curled in on itself, front claws rampant—signaled the border between Lucario and the Guild territory. Raphael took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stepped through it.

  Rayne poked its head out of Raphael’s pocket and nuzzled the back of his hand. Magus?

  Raphael opened his eyes. Nothing had changed except that he was now beyond the archway. He sighed. Of course. The notion that some magical spell would whisk him straight to Sylvia was a silly one. He would have to walk, as he always did.

  The District’s streets were even busier than the ones Raphael had left behind. Taverns and storefronts stretched as far as he could see, and the combined light of their lamps and lanterns formed a radiant halo that held the night’s darkness at bay.

  Boasts boomed from warriors wearing steel and leather. Tired witticisms zipped out from robed mages, seeking to undercut the most horrendous claims of conquest, riches, and adventure. As Raphael swept his gaze across the carousing Hell Drakes, he noticed that all of them wore the Guild’s insignia somewhere on their person, be it as an etching on a breastplate or embroidered into a silken cuff.

  Where did Sylvia wear hers? Raphael stopped the thought before he could carry it further. Asking the elf such a question would only invite merciless teasing from her.

  The closest mercenaries, lounging on a tavern’s wooden patio, were beginning to notice him, too. They stared at his tattered clothes. Some of them nodded. Others shrugged and returned to their drinks and conversations. Raphael realized that he hadn’t been the first, much less the only, desperate youth to arrive at the District, seeking fortune and glory among the ranks of the Hell Drakes.

  “Hour’s a bit late, so I don’t know if the Guild House is still entertaining applicants,” said a gigantic man with a bristling red mustache, leaning over the wooden railing of the tavern’s patio. He wore a brass breastplate over a padded tunic. “Maybe come back tomorrow, boy.”

  “I’m looking for Sylvia, actually. Where can I find her?”

  The mercenary quirked an eyebrow. Raphael didn’t fail to notice the shudder that the massive man visibly tried and failed to suppress. “The High Captain of the Ninth Seat? Her quarters are in the Guild House. Just carry on down this street and follow the signs. Ask for her at the front desk.”

  “May whichever deity you pray to have mercy on your soul,” said another mercenary, lifting her mug in mock salute. She was a robed woman who wore her dark hair in a long, elaborate braid.

  “Stop scaring him!” the mustached man chided her, before turning back to Raphael. “Well, off you go, then. And good luck.”

  “Why are you wishing me luck? Is Sylvia so difficult to find?” Raphael asked.

  The mercenary winced. He shuddered once more, this time not even trying to hide it. “No, she isn’t. It’s just… Well, I’ve said too much. Be on your way.”

  As Raphael turned to leave, he remembered how Sylvia had Fenix cleaning her weekly collection of chamber pots. He gulped. Surely she wouldn’t have him do the same? Still, with Eliza there as her personal assistant, perhaps she would take on the majority of such tasks…

  Stop! Stop thinking of such things! Koshi needs you now. I’ll do anything she needs me to do! And shame on you for trying to push such dirty work onto Eliza! Raphael gritted his teeth and hastened his steps, making his way down what he now realized was the District’s main street.

  Despite his resolve, he still found himself distracted by the sights and sounds rolling from the taverns and storefronts. He stopped at what could only be a weapons shop, a fenced-off lot with an anvil, forge, and bellows alongside racks and racks of blades, hammers, and polearms. Its proprietor, a red-haired woman wearing dark blue sleeveless coveralls, stood behind a wooden counter. She c
ast him a disinterested glance before looking away.

  Raphael shrugged, more than aware he looked nothing like a paying customer. Still, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the weapons and the sense of adventure they promised. Every child in Lucia City grew up listening to tales of the Hell Drakes’ exploits and conquests, and Raphael would be lying to himself if he hadn’t fantasized about being an adventurer, striking off into the depths of the unknown, vanquishing all manner of dreaded foes, and basking in glory and wealth.

  “Hey! Don’t touch if you aren’t going to buy!” the proprietor snapped. She’d walked around her counter and was now standing right beside Raphael, her fists against her hips. Her voice was surprisingly high and squeaky, utterly at odds with her well-muscled arms and neck.

  Raphael blinked. He’d drifted closer to the weapon racks without realizing it, and his right hand was inches away from a polearm, two feet of curved steel blade atop a five-foot pole of dark, lacquered wood.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. My daydreams got the better of me,” he said.

  The frown fell off her face. It had a small, stubby nose, and light freckles dusted her cheeks. Her hair straggled down the sides of her face like a ragged auburn mop, stopping just short of her shoulders. Up close, Raphael realized that she was much younger than he’d thought her to be at first, perhaps no older than he was.

  She shrugged. “Well, there’s no harm done, so don’t worry about it. Besides, it’s nighttime, so wouldn’t you be having night dreams, instead?”

  “No, that doesn’t seem right. Night dreams are the type you have when you’re asleep in your bed,” Raphael replied.

  “Or in someone else’s bed.” The proprietor grinned. Her eyes lit up as if she’d just said something very witty.

  “I don’t get it. Why would you sleep in someone else’s bed instead of your own?” Raphael asked her, meeting her gaze and keeping his voice deadpan.

  “Uh, well, because…” She blushed, looked away, and scratched the back of her head. “Well, that’s not important! My pa says that if you worry too much about the details, you’ll grow old too quickly!”