The Cure

 Pacing the vacant halls Thomas searched his soul and found it empty too. "How long?" He asked the night. "When did I stop caring? Will I ever care again?"

Hours passed as he walked aimlessly in darkness. Exhaustion forced him to stop but sleep would not come. The bliss of unconsciousness evaded him. Realizing he stood outside the library he thought, "Perhaps I need a book."

The smell of old books accosted him as the doors swung open and he stepped into the library. Lamps blazed to life in response to his presence evicting darkness but not from his soul. He passed up well worn volumes of spells, familiar works he had mastered long ago. He walked on by unfinished volumes in his own hand thinking, "Nothing in me to write."

He stopped at an ancient tome he had from his own master, now long dead. "The old man was afraid of this book," he thought. "He never let me see it's pages. Why have I never opened it? Perhaps I learned his fear. Well tonight at least, I don't care." Taking the volume he carried it to his reading desk.

Settled into a plush chair he examined the leather cover. It showed it's age. There was a faded title. "Book" he translated the ancient tongue. "Revealing," he told the empty room. Then he mumbled a few syllables under his breath as he passed a hand over the book. "Just a simple spell to protect the brittle pages" he informed the stale air.

The first page was blank. He reached to turn the page and when his fingers touched the paper a familiar scene filled the page, the interior of the great lecture drawn in exquisite detail.

It was that hall as he remembered it, not as he knew it to be. The school was closed. Fifty years were gone since he graduated his last student. The lecture hall was full of dust and spider webs. As far as Thomas was concerned the spiders could keep it. He had no heart to teach and the room had no other use.

The image before him was the hall as it should be, full of light and so clean that even the white onyx floors glistened. There was no dust or dirt of any kind. Thomas knew that well. He remembered the days of his apprenticeship when helping to clean that hall was one of his regular chores. The memory was unpleasant. His master could have accomplished the task with a word and a gesture. But it was a good teaching tool and he had used it himself as long as he kept the school open.

As Thomas gazed at the page he soon realized this was no picture but a window into the past. A tall young man entered the hall. His gray novice's robe sweeping the floor as he walked briskly to the kneeling rail near the front of the hall. There he fell to his knees and turned his face to the ceiling. His hood fell back revealing black hair that fell to his shoulders creating a sharp contrast against his light complexion.

"How long since I prayed?" he wondered turning turned the page. There again was a blank surface. Again a scene unfolded at his touch still looking into the great where the novice prayed. The young men rose suddenly and faced the main entrance as the door opened admitting a young woman.

"Janice," Thomas told the empty room, "But that beautiful red hair must be gray by now."

A clear soprano voice rose from the pages of the book. Janice sang to herself as she entered the hall. The singing stopped. The picture vanished.

Thomas turned the page and heard that familiar voice say, "Tom, I am glad I found you." He was watching a scene from his own youth. Janice was the only one who had ever addressed him so without invoking his ire.

"Oh! Hi Janice. What can I do for you?" the words sounded in sync as the memory played out in his head as clearly as what the book revealed. Thomas could see admiration in his young eyes. He remembered the depth of that admiration. "Did Janice saw it too?" It was time to turn the page again.

A pleasant conversation began. Every conversation with Janice was pleasant. He could remember drawing immense satisfaction just from knowing she was in the same room with him. She moved closer and Tom stepped back. He could never bear anyone standing that close to him. Not even Janice, perhaps especially not her. Again she moved closer and Tom found himself standing against the kneeling rail.

Thomas closed the book but in his mind the scene continued. He remembered a moment of desperation, feeling like a cornered rabbit. Then he sat down on the rail forcing her to stay out of his face. He could breath again.

"Why was I so afraid of the woman? Why couldn't I let her stand there? I was a young fool."

Leaving the book on his desk Thomas returned to his pacing. He wandered about the dark halls of the ancient school until his feet brought him to the great lecture hall. He stood long in front of the door on the verge of entering. He turned and walked away.

Eventually Thomas found himself in the "hall of honor," a large burial chamber beneath the school's foundations. The magically preserved remains of all this school's masters lay there. Their great hope had cheated them in the end. He would be their last heir and he had stopped seeking a cure for death.

He walked past the older graves until he came to those who's spirits could still be heard. Their voices came to him. "Is it time? Has our long wait ended? Will we live again?"

Thomas ignored the ghosts. They were the most cursed of spirits in his opinion. Dead as all the rest but imprisoned in bodies that would not decay. Powerful spells preserved the flesh and so bound the spirit within. Their beliefs agreed that far with what the priests taught. The body must return to dust to set the spirit free. But the priests thought that a good thing. Their bodies were burned in death in hopes of speeding the release.

He stopped when he came to his master's grave. For nearly a thousand years the old man claimed to have walked the earth. Thomas believed it. He knew the spells and was convinced he had improved on them.

"Thomas?" his master's voice asked from the grave. "Is that you Thomas?" Why have you come boy? Is it time? Have you found the spell to free me?"

"It is I," Thomas responded. "I am sorry, no."

"Why then have you come? Are you also dead? Are you come so soon to your long sleep?"

"Dead? Yes, I suppose I am but I'll not rest in the grave just yet."

"There is no rest here boy. Find the cure. Set us free."

"Master?"

"What is it son?"

"Why? Why did you fear the book?"

"Do not open that book. It will rob you of your destiny. It will destroy our hope."

"Your hope is a fool's. There is no cure. You should have turned to the priests. They may have your answer."

Thomas turned from his master's grave. He walked farther down the hall to an open vault. There beside it lay the slab with his name on it.

"Perhaps I should begin the long sleep after all," he thought. "No spell to cheat me of the rest though. When my time comes, I will embrace decay."

He turned and walked back up the hall. He climbed the long stair back to the library. He stared at the book's blank pages struggling with fear of what they might reveal. In the end he decided to see the rest.

A vast gorge lay before Tom as he braced himself against the wind. He stood alone at the entrance to Thanatos' lair. Great serpent that he was the dragon was arrogant to name himself so. Still, few wizards dared come so near. No one else did. Tom was there to be tested.

This was the most difficult and deadly of the twelve ways a novice could earn wizard's robes. Few chose this path and most of those fed Thanatos, but there was an added reward.

A savage roar announced the monster. "Are you to much a fool to heed the warning I sent before me?" The dragon mocked.

"Cease!" The novice commanded with a faint gesture of his left hand and the wind died. "I could cause a better storm," he told the dragon.

Thomas remembered it all. He had hoped to anger the creature enough to cloud its mind. Survival was the task set before him. No novice could hope to kill any dragon much less this ancient red.

He recalled choosing this trial. Janice tried to convince him to take a safer way. "Why?" he asked himself. "Did she care for me? Was I so blinded by ambition?"

Thanatos grinned and responded to the novice. "I understand. You are another of those pesky maglings come to earn a golden sash. You should have chosen some lesser task. You want to be your master's pet. Instead you'll be his dinner."

"The golden sash," Thomas mused. "Yes that was the badge of wizards who chose this test. It signified one who studied directly with the master. I wonder how the dragon knows so much." He turned the page.

The novice was still facing the dragon. He needed a scale to prove the encounter took place. Lacing his fingers together he counted aloud. "one, two, three . . . seven." Then throwing out his arms he yelled, "Now." The dragon was surrounded by images of the little man. He laughed out loud. "Young fool, do you imagine I would fear your images more than you?"

"Not really," he answered. He was not among the many images but on the back of the dragon's head clinging to a loose scale. Loatheall flicked his head back sending the man rolling among his many images. Now each held a dragon scale. A few rushed the dragon. Most scattered in flight. The dragon charged one running along the easiest path back toward the town. One image separated itself from the group that rushed the dragon and slipped off up an animal trail and out into the wild.

One by one Thanatos attacked every image left in the gorge but never found the man.

Thomas closed the book. He remembered what followed. He became absorbed in his studies spending days on end in the library or in sessions with the master. Not long after his promotion he heard that Janice was leaving the school. He thought of asking her to stay but just never got around to it.


Janice tossed about in her sleep. It was another nightmare, a dream of a man she loved and hated. She no longer remembered just when she realized that he didn't care. All she knew was that he didn't and that she could never forget or forgive.

Actually she had forgotten for many years. She had thrown her life into causes. Fighting what she had called evil had absorbed her. She had grown strong learning more in the struggle than she could have ever learned at the school. But with time she'd lost interest in the fight.

She had grown aware of her solitude and it galled her. She had tried finding a companion. Those who weren't afraid of her were either too boring or too conceited. Somehow she'd begun to blame the man from her youth. That was when the dreams began.

The door to her room opened. Instinctively she made the gestures and spoke the syllables. Lightning leaped from her finger tips. Then she looked. There stood her nightmare. His ancient frame was silhouetted by the light of the fire raging in the hall behind him.

The voices of servants came to her ears. Some shouting orders and others proclaiming, "The mistress has set the place afire again. Will there never be an end to her nightmares?"

Janice looked into the sad eyes of the man she despised, the man she adored. This was no dream. He was there.

Thomas spoke a word and clapped his hands together. The fire died and servants slept wherever they fell. Janice could see him more clearly. He stood there in black robes but the gold sash was gone. The doctoral hood he should have worn was absent as was the Medallion of office.

"Tom?" She asked at last.

"Yes Janice. It is me."

"Why? After all these years. It's more than a century old man. What happened to your precious books? What about the school? These are everything you ever love."

"Not for half that century. I can't even remember caring about anything, ever. Janice, I am afraid."

Janice sat up. She looked more closely into those eyes. "Not sadness after all," she thought. "Emptiness. Where is my hatred now? I might kill him in this state or at least provoke him to end my pain."

"Janice, I want to live."

Janice shivered at the words. "What do you mean? You know the spells. You are not yet near your limit."

"No Janice. Not the spells. They are no good. They never were. Don't you understand? I hoped you might. You of all people must understand. I want life my old friend."

"Have you lost your mind? You are talking foolishness."

"I am so tired." He said as he sat down on the floor.

Awe filled Janice's heart as she looked at the great master wizard sitting on her floor. And he did look foolish there. More than a little fearful, she went to him and joined him on the floor.

The gesture was a hug, the semantics, I love you. Two tired old fools died there. Thomas found his cure.