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Chapter 1 Once upon a time, there was a young enchanter who wanted to get away from her mother. My mom was at it again. Do this, do that, was bad enough but since I had been to the University, she was worse. I mean you'd think that using magic was a crime, or that you were instantly corrupted by the touch of it. Not that most of my spells worked right anyway. Oh, have I mentioned who I am? My name is Carri, but my friends (well... at least some of them) know me as Carri De Greatest Apprentice Magician Since Before Yesterday! Or C. D. Gamsby for short. At any rate I was on summer vacation, I had been attending the University for a whole year. I wasn't flunking out, but there did seem to be a few bugs in my spells, but I already knew three. "Carri, its time to go dear." my mother called. We were going to go to Southtown. It was the nearest town not counting the village we lived in. I hurried after her. I can't say exactly why, but I have never liked walking through the forest in the dark, and it was dark. This seemed a little odd to me but I couldn't put my finger on it. All of a sudden I realized that it was only three o'clock in the afternoon. Now I was really scared. Mother didn't seem to notice. "Mom! I....... Ahhhhh!" I screamed. Something jumped out of the trees in front of me. Mother threw something at it. I couldn't see what it was. Something grabbed me from behind and I saw mom fall to the ground, then the whole world turned black. There was a face above me, it was scaly. Wait a minute, I thought, a scaly face? I scooted up on my elbows, the face scooted back a little. I found that I now had a very good view of the forepart of a dragon. A very large, scaly, purple dragon. "Hello, my name is Geoffrey." The dragon, excuse me, Geoffrey said. A talking dragon, I was so startled that I fell back and hit my head. I remembered that this wasn't the first time, a fact I was reminded of by the pounding pain that rewarded me. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," apologized the dragon. "That's O.K." I managed to say. "What's your name?" Geoffrey asked. "What?" I asked. "What, a strange name but..." Geoffrey started to say. "Oh," I said hastily, "my name is Carri...mmm...I mean C. D. Gamsby." "Here, let me help you up CD." He said, hooking a claw around my waist and pulling me up. "Uh, thank-you," I said. Geoffrey was several feet taller than I was and I was not short. "I'm very sorry about your escort." Geoffrey said sadly. "My...escort"? "Yes, they got caught by the Silver Flooks, and unfortunately that means that there isn't any point in even searching for the remains," he replied. "Umm....what are the Silver Flooks?" "Oh," Geoffrey frowned, "I suppose that the best way to describe them is to say that they are even bigger and meaner and uglier than their relatives, the Brass Bumbles." That explained a lot. Everyone had heard of the Brass Bumbles. Horrid, half seen things that lurked in dark corners. They would suck most small objects into nothingness if they could. The idea of something big enough to do the same to a person was horrible. "That was a pretty bad fall you took when that Trapping Elevation spell wore off." Geoffrey continued. That probably explained why I had escaped, Brass Bumbles are afraid of magic objects, although I had no idea what a Trapping Elevation spell was. "Would you like to come home with me and have some tea?" asked Geoffrey. Tea? I hadn't known that dragons drank tea. On the other hand, I had never heard of them talking either. Since Geoffrey seemed friendly enough I decided that it would be okay. So we set off down a fairly large path in the woods. Now I took the time to try and sort out what was going on. What was a Trapping Elevation spell? Who had captured me? Was mother all right? Where was I? I decided that there were just too many questions so I started listening to Geoffrey ramble on about his life. "Actually life in the forest can get really boring," he was saying, "there just isn't anything interesting going on anymore. Ahh... Here we are." We were in the middle of a clearing. Geoffrey uttered a peculiar noise. A dozen fairy folk seemed to appear out of no-where with some tea trays. They had a pot the size of a stove, and the cups looked like huge bowls. "Why are fairies bringing you tea?" I asked Geoffrey. "Oh," he answered, "that's because I got rid of a Glob for them a while back." I decided not to ask what a Glob was. Now I had learned three spells while at the University. One of Fieyer, one of Wahter, and one of Erth (which, unlike the first two, instead of producing fire or water, allows one to move around the dirt and rock that already exist.) Being very unwise, I decided to practice my Fieyer spell by warming up my tea. I forgot to ask my host if that was alright with him. To my surprise it worked perfectly, except for one small detail. "Ahhh........ Ahhhh........ Achoooooo! Oh my, YOU....you should have told me first. You see..." To my surprise Geoffrey was blushing (red on a purple dragon is astonishing.) "I'm allergic to fire." Great! I thought, I have run into a Purple Dragon who drinks Tea and is Allergic to Fire!! "Oh," I said. There was a long silence. "Well, you know that I'm going to the University," which Geoffrey thought was somewhat to the north of his forest, although he had never heard of my village, which wasn't surprising. "Perhaps someone there could cure you." "What a great idea! Wait here, I'll go pack!" Pack?? Well I had already decided, Geoffrey was not a normal dragon. |
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