Modern Magick

The Striding Spire: 14

All right, we didn't set fire to all of it. Not even very much of it. But enough to keep Headmistress Jenifry very busy indeed, and the Mayor, too. It caused a great deal of frustration, I believe. Jenifry knew what we were up to, and we knew that she knew, but she was in charge here. She could hardly leave her precious town to burn, and its people with it, while she protected her own home. That kind of thing never does a person's public reputation any good, now does it?

We'd chosen empty buildings in disparate parts of the town. Being conscientious, heritage-preserving citizens of the world, we had also selected buildings of little value, material or otherwise, and preferably those with easy access to a body of water besides. And considering Jenifry's professed talent for calling down rain, little real damage would be done, all told. That said, I privately resolved to leave out those details when I made my report to Milady. Why bother her with trifles?

Archibald performed his part with gusto. By the time we had finished, his cloak of purple flame had diminished significantly, and we were no longer in danger of being fried alive if we got too close to him.

Which was convenient, because it was time and past for us to hightail it out of there, and over to Jenifry's cottage. Or whatever it really was.

Archibald was happy to oblige.

'Wait!' I cried, as he reached one vast foot towards me, his claws still crackling with flame. 'You still have too much fire, Archie. We will burn.'

'Oh.' He regarded his foot in pensive silence for a moment, and I felt a twinge of apprehension. What unpromising mental processes might I have sparked in that dim brain of his?

We were in a meadow on the edge of Dapplehaven at the time. A half-ruined barn of ragged oak planks was situated a ways to our left, purple flames licking up the empty frame of its doorway. If there had ever been a farmhouse that went with it, that building was long gone.

Archibald turned his head, coughed, and belched a gout of weak lavender fire all over the grass.

The grass promptly caught alight.

'There,' said the dragon, inspecting his polished claws with greater satisfaction.

The fire roared up towards my feet. 'Er, time to go!'

Oof. Archibald swept me up, then Jay. Mabyn he caught in one back foot, almost as an afterthought as he rose into the skies. I heard her distant squawk of protest, and silently sympathised.

Archibald's getaway was not quite so speedy as I had hoped, for he paused, circling the air, to admire his handiwork. The ground below was rather more ablaze than I had bargained for.

'Note to ourselves,' said Jay, eyeing our retaliatory diversion with dismay. 'Be careful when playing with dragons.'

'I would not hurt you,' said Archibald, in an injured tone.

Jay patted his leg comfortingly. 'I know you would not.'

Archibald smiled, and puffed a jaunty little ball of fire into the air.

'At least, not deliberately,' Jay amended, as Archie's fireball missed his head by inches.

Mercifully, Archibald flew on after that.

The house of the headmistress proved to be a humble-looking place, though it was amply provided with a large garden ringing the cottage all around. Timber-framed, white-washed and crooked, with a neatly thatched roof, it was spriggan-sized, which must cause Jenifry no end of inconvenience.

It was not, of course, unattended. Archibald landed in the middle of the stone-cobbled street outside of it, but he had trouble squashing his huge bulk even into the widest part of the thoroughfare, and a sweep of his wings upset a cart full of fruit an outraged spriggan was trying to hawk on the corner.