There was hardly anyone left in the village. The wild raksha, insatiable, had ravaged the herds. The herds themselves had stampeded too often and destroyed the few crops that had been planted. The village was no longer green. Soon it would be abandoned.
“We have gold,” Calbert had told her when she’d mentioned it. “Gold is all you need.”
You? Paksa thought. Perhaps Father meant the two of them but Paksa was worried. She went to her room, with her dolly and the castle of gold.
Dolly—little Nina—was not very interesting that afternoon. For once, Paksa felt drawn to the gold. It would protect her, Father had said. It was all she needed. She ran her fingers through the pieces, feeling their coolness, smiling as the pieces were warmed by her touch. Idly she stacked them, pushed them down, rearranged the pieces into a latticework; spread them out in a mosaic across the wood floor. She stepped on them, feeling their coolness on her bare feet in contrast to the warmth of the wood.
Father was right! Why did she ever want to play with a silly dolly anyway when she had gold to comfort her?
Father, can I have more gold?” Paksa asked that evening. Calbert gave her a probing look. “It’s just that there’s not enough to build a proper fort.”
“I will see what I can do,” Calbert said. “I have some set aside in the storeroom.”
Paksa smiled at him sweetly, dimples and all. “Thank you, Father.”
The gold, a small casket, thrilled her for the rest of the month. But by month’s end, Paksa was asking for more.
“Your birthday,” Calbert told her. “I’ll get more for your birthday.”
“But that’s months away!” Paksa whined. She flounced up from her chair at dinner and raced up the stairs to her room.
Calbert found her later, lying on her bed. It was covered with coins.
“Please, father, I need more!” Paksa told him, making her eyes as big as they could get.
“You’ll have all you need come your birthday,” Calbert promised.
“But that’s two months away and I need it now!”
“It won’t be ready,” Calbert said. “You must wait.”
Paksa pouted at him. Sighing, Calbert left her.
Monique, Calbert’s aging horse, died the next morning. She’d been ravaged in her stall by a raksha. Calbert spent all day digging a huge ditch in which he placed her corpse; dragging it there with two oxen he’d borrowed from the last farmer. He came in to dinner covered in sweat and mud.
“We’ll have to start making our own dinners,” Calbert said when they’d finished. “The Marquettes are leaving.”
“They are?” Paksa said. “But who else is there?” Her eyes got wide. “Couldn’t you pay them more, Father?”
Calbert shook his head. “The raksha killed their last cow; they want to leave before it kills their oxen, too.”
“Can’t you do something about the raksha?” Paksa shuddered at the thought of them: teeth, claws, fangs—leathery killing machines that tore, ripped, savaged.
Calbert shook his head. “There are too many of them. If I were even to find a lair and kill the dam, I’d only be killing one of many families here in the valley.”
“Maybe we should leave, too,” Paksa said.
Calbert shook his head. “No, I promised to steward over this land. My brother gave it to me when my father died.”
“How will we survive, then?”
“We’ve a few hens and some crops,” Calbert told her. “We’ll manage.”
“The raksha eat hens. The raksha eat horses. They eat cows. What eats raksha?” Paksa mused.
Calbert’s eyes lit for a brief moment and then he shook his head. “The only thing I know that eats raksha is a dragon.”
For a moment, Paksa wondered what it would be like—to be a dragon.
The village was a ghost town. Paksa had the full run of it but she stayed in her room. Calbert worked in the fields most days and they ate, if sparingly, on his produce. He seemed older, frailer, than Paksa had ever seen him.
He seemed as if he were ready to die. He was waiting only for her.
“We should leave,” Paksa said on the night before her birthday. “There’s no one here and the raksha will kill the last of our hens soon enough.”
“We’ll stay,” Calbert said. “It is the least I can do.” He met her eyes. “Tomorrow is your twelfth birthday. You are growing into a fine young woman.” Paksa felt her cheeks flush red. “We will go for a walk, tomorrow. It is time I showed you.”
“Showed me what, Father?” Paksa asked. But Calbert shook his head and refused to meet her eyes.
That evening, as she was in her bed, Calbert knocked and entered. He knelt beside her and stroked her shoulders. “I hope I have been a good father to you.”
“You have, Father,” Paksa assured him, trying to hide her alarm at his actions, clenching her blankets tightly. Calbert rarely touched her and never came to her when she was in bed.
“Tomorrow we will get your gold,” Calbert told her. With that, he rose and strode out of her room.
Your gold.
It was a long time before Paksa fell asleep.
Paksa was up with the first rays of the dawning sun. Even so, she found father dressed and sweaty from his morning’s labors. He gestured her to the table which was bare except for a small handful of hard boiled eggs and a pitcher of water.
“It will be enough,” he told her when he caught her eyeing it warily. After a moment, he added, “Today you are twelve.”
“And we get to see my gold,” Paksa said, her heart suddenly beating faster in her chest.
Calbert nodded and closed his eyes, seeming weary from his labors.
Paksa jumped out of her seat and hugged him. “It will be all right, Father.”
“I hope so,” Calbert replied, raising one hand to cover hers. After a moment he moved it away again and made to leave his seat. When he was standing, he looked down at her—but not so far down as he had done years before—and said, “Are you ready?”
He was answered with a bob of her head and a huge smile. He gestured toward the hall and the front door. Before they left, he strapped on his sword, Vengeance.
How far is it, Father?” Paksa asked, eyes darting around on her swiveling neck to see into all the nooks and crannies they passed. The land was parched, dusty, barren. Paksa knew they were going to where Calbert had slain the dragon. Sometimes she would skip ahead and then come racing back, one hand extended as though she would grab him and tug him forward.
“Not much further,” Calbert said. He was breathing heavily. His eyes seemed full of sorrow.
“This is from the painting!” Paksa exclaimed as they crested a small ridge and took in the distant cliff. She twirled back. “This is where you killed the dragon!”
“Aye,” Calbert said, pausing to take in the view with pain etched on his face. “This is where I did the evil deed.”
“You saved the village!” Paksa cried in fervent defense. “What else could you do?”
Calbert did not reply, trudging along to a point halfway to the cliff where he found a boulder and sat on it. Paksa came back to him. She stood, looking up expectantly.
“This is where I tell you everything,” Calbert said wearily. He gave her a troubled look. “It was a terrible thing I did.”
In the distance a raksha’s cry echoed against the hills.
“It was a dragon!” Paksa cried. “It was killing villagers!”
“Aye, it did,” Calbert agreed. “There were no more raksha to eat.”
“You did what you had to do, what you were commanded to do,” Paksa said, stoutly defending him. Her eyes wandered over the terrain and, in a lower voice, added, “Where is the gold?”
Calbert stirred and moved away from her uneasily. “Close.”
“It was the dragon’s gol
d, right?” Paksa said, moving closer, her eyes gleaming with passion.
“It was,” Calbert said. “I took a little afterward but the rest is there, in her lair.”
“Her lair?”
Calbert nodded. His eyes grew clouded as he remembered. “I met her here on this field. She didn’t flame me when we fought.” He snorted. “If she had, I would not be here talking to you.”
“Not all dragons breathe fire, right father?”
Calbert narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you know that?”
Paksa shrank away from him for a moment before regaining her courage and saying, “I heard you talking with that bard.”
“Bard?” Calbert repeated to himself, brows furrowed as he strained to recall. Then, he said, “That was years ago!”
Paksa nodded. “I wanted to know all about dragons and you and that bard were so secretive.”
“I didn’t want you to know,” Calbert said. “I wanted to keep you innocent until …” he shook himself. “It’s time now.”
“So she didn’t flame and that saved you,” Paksa prodded.
“She could flame but she chose not to,” Calbert said. He paused as a pair of rakes called in the distance. They were getting closer. He judged them still far away. Even so, he loosened the strap on his sword. He smiled at her. “Did you know that dragons can change their shapes?”
“They appear as old hags and try to steal gold,” Paksa said, repeating the stories she heard from the other village children when they were trying to scare each other. “And when they get it, they eat the children.”
“The bard told me many things,” Calbert said vaguely. “He sent me parchments and scrolls over the years and I learned much about dragons.” He smiled secretively and met her eyes. “I know more about dragons than anyone in this kingdom, maybe even others.”
“Why, Father?” Paksa wondered. “You killed the dragon.”
“I killed a dragon,” Calbert said. A ripping, tearing roar cut through the air and Calbert turned in alarm. “Raksha! Run, child, run!”
“Where?”
“Follow your heart!” Calbert called after her, climbing to the top of the rock and drawing his sword. He gestured toward a place in the distance. “It’s not far!”
Paksa could have stayed, could have argued but … she had no sword. And Calbert had given her an order.
If there was one thing she was good at, it was running. And Paksa ran, ran with all her might. The wind tore at her, pulled her hair out in a stream behind her. She was nearly flying.
The sound of the raksha dimmed behind her but not before she heard one of them give a yip of pain. Calbert had got one!
There was a small opening in the hill. Paksa made for it. As she neared, she discovered that it had been disguised, cleverly hidden by stones rolled in front of it. The opening was much larger, large enough for a horse when all the rocks were removed. Paksa had no time to ponder on that before she was inside. She ran around one twist in the track and then stopped dead.
Gold! Mountains and hills of gold! More gold than she could imagine. The sounds of the raksha were distant in her mind as she climbed up the nearest pile. It was cool, it was brilliant—and it was all hers!
With a laugh, Paksa poured the gold over her head, rolled in it, buried her body under it. It was marvelous! It was wonderful!
And suddenly Paksa was scared. Her body felt different, wrong. She was hungry. Terribly, terribly hungry. She was ravaged by the hunger. She wanted meat, bloody and red, she wanted to tear into it, gorge on it and—
A raksha’s cry startled her. She replied with a roar of her own. She burst out of her gold cocoon and raced down the pathway.
Only … she didn’t run—she flew!
She glanced toward her arms and found wings. Wings!
She was out into the daylight now, out of the cave, even as the gold called to her. The raksha had cornered something, someone.
Father! She tried to call out but produced only a roar. The raksha paused in surprise and she was upon them, tearing, rending, destroying. She would protect him. She would save her father.
Two, three, four raksha fell to her fierce onslaught. One snagged its claws in her wing. She roared with pain but a moment later, she had darted her neck toward it and impaled it on her sharp teeth. She landed then and chewed the dying beast off her, pausing only to swallow hastily before turning back toward the others.
She could find none. She turned again, her hunger sated, to the crumpled mass on the top of the boulder.
“Father!” And suddenly Paksa could talk again, she could run toward him.
He was broken and bleeding. His sword was broken in half: one part was sticking out of a dead raksha; the other was still in his hand.
She reached him and knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms.
He opened his eyes at her touch. “Daughter,” he croaked. He raised a hand up toward her but was too weak to reach her. She grabbed the hand with one of her own and dragged it to her breast.
“Here,” she told him. “I’m here.”
He smiled. “I saw you fight. You were magnificent. As gorgeous and deadly as your mother.” His smile faded and he coughed once, with blood flowing freely from his lips. “I gave you this valley. It is free from humans. It is full of raksha. You have your gold. It is all I can do to make amends.”
“Father!”
But Calbert did not answer.
In the distance, Paksa heard the cry of raksha gathering for another assault. Gently, she lay his head back on the ground. She stood for a long moment, staring at him before rising to her feet.
Her belly grumbled. She was hungry. The raksha howled again. A feral smile crossed her lips. Good! Let them come! She was hungry for revenge, and thirsting for blood.
Paksa leaped from the boulder and in an instant was airborne, her wings flapping strongly toward her dinner. Later, she would bathe in her gold and cry for her parents.
Now, Paksa, dragon-daughter, reveled in her newfound wings.
Useless Magic
written by
Andrew Peery
illustrated by
Hanna Al-Shaer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Peery lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife and their two children. He works as a physician at the same hospital where he was born, both taking care of patients and training junior doctors as they start their own careers. After decades of reading and watching science fiction and fantasy, he has spent the last six years enjoying the humbling challenge of writing his own stories. This is his first speculative fiction publication.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Hanna Al-Shaer was born in Denver, Colorado in 1995.
She has loved art for as long as she can remember. She loves being able to draw and make the viewer feel something. She has always drawn and has had a constant thirst to improve her skill and try different mediums. Hanna was self-taught up until she attended Kendall College of Art and Design. Her inspiration comes from history, reading, music, videogames, and film.
Hanna currently resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she is attending Kendall, working hard in her endless quest to improve her art. She hopes to one day be successful in the film and game industry.
Useless Magic
It is the fourth of July, and Dad is trying to humiliate us with fireworks.
The man is seventy years old, and he makes explosives the old way, from the centuries before gunpowder. The splintered boards of the deck are covered with his materials—seashells and gull feathers and a dead loggerhead turtle that he dragged from the Atlantic. He has drawn dagger-like symbols on his jaundiced skin with turtle blood which has dried to brown. The dead-language letters tumble down the wattles of his thin arms and over his taut, vein-marked paunch, stopping at the frayed waistband of his shorts.
; I don’t know how he could have written them himself. Perhaps he has a witch girlfriend that he hides from us, a spine-humped crone who doesn’t mind the smell of the dishes in the sink or the cigarette-burned couch where he falls asleep drunk.
On the deck, the reek from the turtle carcass is overwhelming, a fish-and-iron odor I can taste when I breathe. I stand as close as I can to the grill, with the smoke of the Food Lion burgers swirling around me to help cover the smell. By midnight, when we are finally allowed to leave, I will be desperate for a shower.
Not that we ask, but Dad casts a different spell every year on the fourth. Last July he summoned sheets of rain, four inches in under an hour, because there were too many tourists on the streets. The year before he made butterflies, a swarming mass of orange-yellow monarchs that covered the house. He said he was trying to impress his granddaughters, but Tommy’s girls called them bugs. They cried for twenty minutes and their mother refused to let them go outside. Jeannie is a nurse and not always practical about the difficulties of our family, but even I was horrified. There may be a charm to one butterfly that lands on your hand, but one hundred on your skin activates a primal fear of being eaten. I was thirty years old, and I still have nightmares about it.
Yesterday Tommy swore he would not come. He said our promise to our grandmother couldn’t have been binding, and he said he didn’t want to bring his girls anywhere near that asshole. Tommy is a surgeon and used to getting his way. Only our sister could convince him. “Grandmother wrapped a rope around our wrists,” Susan said. “She made us promise under a full moon, after we had drunk something that tasted like bile. It doesn’t matter that you were eight years old. It doesn’t matter that you don’t want to see Dad every year on the fourth. In our family, you don’t screw with anything that might be a curse.”