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After what felt like mere moments of true slumber, Myranda was jarred from her rest by a gentle prodding on her uninjured shoulder. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Myn standing over her, wanting breakfast or some such. Instead she saw Wolloff.
"Good morning," he said with forced gentility.
"Good morning," she said, yawning and stretching.
"Oh, please, don't get up. Are you aware that you've a dragon on your lap?" he asked.
"Oh, my, I am sorry. She must have climbed in the window last night. I tried to get her to leave, but--" she hurriedly explained.
"Never mind that. No harm done," he said quietly.
"I thought you would have been angrier," Myranda said, slightly concerned by the rare and excessive showing of civility she was experiencing.
"Oh, aye. I am particularly perturbed, but it is my considered opinion that when dealing with a wild beast, it is best not to provoke it with harsh words," he said.
"So, you will not yell until Myn leaves?" she asked, sliding herself into a sitting position and waking the dragon.
"Aye, but as soon as the wee creature is out of earshot, you will hear what I am at this moment only barely able to contain," he said, twitching with suppressed anger.
"Why am I tempted to keep her around?" she said meekly.
"Because you have forgotten that, as a wizard, I've a host of more powerful and far more permanent methods of disposing of the creature than a blasted sleep spell!" Wolloff said, the final words carrying a hint of the rage he was feeling.
The awakened dragon looked sleepily at Myranda, and then at the wizard. When she noticed the second human, her eyes shot open and she leapt to the floor. Situating herself between Myranda and the perceived threat, she shot Wolloff a steely stare and adopted a fierce stance. She opened her wings and bared her teeth. When the wizard refused to back down, Myn lashed her tail back and forth, knocking down a pile of books. Instantly, Wolloff grabbed his medallion. Myranda placed a reassuring hand on Myn's side.
"Myn, don't worry. Wolloff here is a friend! He won't do anything . . ." she began, before glancing at the furious wizard just in time to see another twitch. " . . . terrible to me."
She continued to pat the dragon on the neck and soothe her until she was willing to relinquish her defensive stance.
"That is right. You must be tired of being cramped into this tiny room. Why don't you just go play outside in the warm sun, and catch something to eat?" she said.
As Myranda gestured repeatedly to the window, Myn shifted her gaze to the broken shutter, which had once again come undone. A bird fluttered by. Myn locked onto the creature and darted out the window and down the wall in a twinkling. Myranda ran to the window and watched as the little dragon rushed toward the same stand of trees she had terrorized the day before.
Wolloff joined her at the window, concerned solely with the distance between himself and the dragon. As he watched he spoke, his voice rising as the overprotective creature moved further away.
"These books around you represent three lifetimes of tireless search. My grandfather, my father, and I have spent our youth scouring this embattled land for any scrap of knowledge that it could muster. Every hint of mystic knowledge available in the realm of healing has been assembled here. I will not allow all of that to go up in a puff of smoke because an uneducated apprentice could not follow orders and let her blasted dragon let fly a spark! Understood!?" he cried with growing anger.
"Yes" Myranda said, sheepishly.
"Right . . . then let us begin," he said, quickly composing himself. "First, you will need to learn how to pronounce each rune. As a whole, they compose a complex written and spoken language, but for our purposes, you will need to learn only a small part of it. However, if you learn anything of the mystic language, learn it well. A misspoken arcane word can be dangerous."
"Dangerous?" she asked.
"Aye. At best, the spell will not work. Equally likely is the mistake changing the behavior of the spell in unpredictable ways. I cannot stress this enough. Ignoring all else, you must only speak a spell with an effect that you are absolutely sure of. Years ago, a colleague of mine attempted a spell intended to light a fire. He mistakenly substituted the target rune for the self rune. Needless to say, it was an unpleasant thing to witness. Even more unpleasant to clean up. It was, though, a fine reminder to speak with care," he said.
Aside from two breaks for meals, the day was utterly filled with study. Learning to pronounce these words was far more difficult than any other she had learned. This was because each word carried power, and if too many were spoken together, a spell would be cast. So each attempt was separated by a long and purposeful silence. Whenever Myranda was not as careful as Wolloff would like, she would be treated to a variation on the same long lecture about the "undesirable" results that such behavior could bring. Despite the difficulty, she did manage to learn a handful of words. During dinner, she decided to ask some questions that had been bothering her.
"Wolloff?" she asked.
"Aye," he said, as usual without looking up from the ever-present book.
"Why do we have to learn a different language to cast spells?" she asked.
"Strictly to save effort. The language that these spells are scribed in is one that the spirits are attuned to. When you speak an incantation, you entreat the forces around us for help. I've seen similar effects brought about in nearly any spoken language, but in those cases the mind of the caster must attune itself to the spirits. The process tends to be longer and slower. Sometimes chanting is involved. I personally cannot see the benefit, but to each his own. Nothing you will be doing will require much more than you'll learn of the runes," he said, as though he'd answered the question countless times before.
"What if---" she began.
"Listen, all that needs to be answered shall be. Any question that you have that does not find an answer in the months ahead is not one worth asking. Please keep your magic-related inquiries to yourself," he said.
From that point forward, he rigidly refused to answer any more of her questions, rather forcefully suggesting that she retire to her room and practice what she had learned thus far. She climbed the increasingly familiar staircase to her room. The fading light of the setting sun illuminated the page that she had left open on the table. After finding and reminding herself of the runes she knew, she carefully located the book she had found earlier and analyzed the spell that bore her name. Not surprisingly, most runes that she had learned were present in the spell. She grinned at the thought that Wolloff was preparing her for this very incantation. A few days more of study such as this and she would know all of the runes on the page. She could be casting it by week's end. With this thought in her mind, she felt the wound on her arm. The sliver Wolloff had removed was enough to take from it the constant pain. Soon she would be rid of the wound, once and for all.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the violent swinging of the shutter, and she knew without looking that it was not the wind that had dislodged it. Sure enough, the little dragon was at her side again. She stroked the loyal creature's head and continued her review. Myn delighted in the sound of Myranda's voice as she muttered this word or that from the symbols scribed on the page. Soon the sun was behind the mountains, leaving her with no light to learn by. This was Myranda's cue to retire, with Myn taking her usual position on top of her.
"So, how did your day go? Keeping busy?" she asked her silent companion. "New words. You know, I haven't learned a new language since I was a little girl. It wasn't particularly easy back then, but now there is the distinct possibility that if I mispronounce a word I could wind up as a jackrabbit or invisible. That has added a whole new dimension to the learning process, I can tell you. I'll tell you something else, too. He may know this magic backward and forward, but he could stand to learn a thing or two about manners. I was afraid that when my time here was up I couldn't bear to leave it, but if he remains as he is today, after six months
I shall be glad to be rid of it."
Morning came quickly, and Myranda was sure to be up with the sun so that she would have time to coax Myn to leave before Wolloff arrived, lest she receive yet another of his long-winded lectures. She managed to do so with little time to spare. Wolloff's slow, plodding footsteps could be heard approaching just as she closed the shutter.
The day passed almost precisely as the previous one had, as did one after, and the one after that. Daylight was spent studying, night spent with Myn to keep her company. It might not have been the most luxurious life, but it was just exactly what she needed: stability, safety, and even education and companionship. For the first time in ages, she could feel her tightly-bound mind decompressing, her perpetually tangled nerves unraveling. She was living, not merely surviving. After so long, it was a state she was unaccustomed to, and brought with it the nagging fear that it would be fleeting.