Son of a Witch

The wizard, dubbed Ignacious the Inept by his mother, treks through the Mullenwood, carrying the final ingredient in a sling across his back. His feet should not be howling, his back should not be in a constant state of spasm. A warm trickle of pee runs down the back of his robe.

Why must it be a child?

If he were a greater wizard, he tells himself, he’d have devised a better way of travel. Or at least some sort of containment for the toddler. Perhaps an incantation to put him in a deep sleep until they reached their destination. A lack of dribble alone would be a welcome change in circumstances.

The pair come across the ruins of another village, now nearly swallowed by the forest, stones protruding from the moss like teeth from a skull. The toppled buildings are burned and broken, just like the others they’d come across in the last few days. But this time, Ignacious can smell it– sulfur and ash. It’s a smell he doesn’t have to remember, it’s strong enough for him to know precisely what it is.

“We’re close,” he tells the child called Toad. “I can smell the dragons. The face of the mountain is close. All we have to do now is follow my nose.” He’d grown into the habit of constantly speaking to Toad, if only in an effort to organize his scattered mind.

Despite the aching of his soles, Ignacious increases his gait. His eyes widen like an animal on the hunt, searching the vine-strangled forest for any sign of what he’s been searching for. The air becomes evermore laced with the stench of burning wood and meat. It wasn’t food the wizard was after, but a cave, a specific sort of cave. With any luck he’d find a burned skeleton at its mouth– a sign that a dragon dwells therein.

Dragons are rare, indeed, though not as rare as the squirming cargo on his back. The incredible fate that had brought him to find a witch’s male child was not lost on Ignacious. Witches did not often have male children, they drained them of their eternal mana, made them age and wrinkle as nature intended. Toad’s witch mother hadn’t shed a tear when she’d handed him to the wizard, and for the first time in his life, he’d felt the stars fall in beautiful alignment, smiling on his efforts.

Toad begins to screech and wriggle against the fabric of his sling. At this age, Ignacious had discovered, the little imp was not content to hang off his back for very long. It could not speak. It could hardly walk without stumbling. It was understated to say it had been a long journey.

Why did it have to be a child?

“Alright little monster,” the wizard says through a dirty red beard. “You can walk a bit. But not for long. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

He unties the sling from under his ribs and it unravels, releasing its contents to the forest floor, a tiny cloud of dirt rising from the impact. Toad stands, wobbly and inept, and wipes his hand over his nose. He is consistently, and mysteriously, wet and sticky.

A few crows circle overhead, lightly cawing to one another. Toad mimics the sound and claps his hands, ripples flowing through his fat little arms. His tiny tuft of silver hair dances in the breeze. It will be dark soon, Ignacious knows, and Toad will be looking for his favorite meal– toad of all things, thus his name. It was abhorrent to the wizard, the way he gently mushed them with his tiny square teeth and gulped them down whole, but then, he wasn’t sure what else to expect from the son of a witch.

“Come, Toad.” Ignacious grabs the child’s fleshy hand, guiding him along the forest floor, eager to find what months of searching must soon uncover. The babe follows happily, blubbering and spitting as he stumbles along, blissfully unaware of where he is or where he’s going.

Once again, fate seems to smile on Ignacious the Inept. Just before dark, he comes upon the cave. Its mouth is worn and eroded from the scraping of dragon scales. No moss covers the ground before it and no plants hang from its opening. There are no scorched skeletons but the smell is undeniable, it floods the senses and even Toad pinches his tiny nose in disgust.

Ignacious is cautious– inept, he may be, but not imbecilic. He peers from behind the trees, which are thin but plentiful, and listens for any sounds of branches cracking or leaves stepped upon. There is an ashy path carved through the Mullenwood, and it ends at this cave. He tries to curb the fluttering of his heart, but it’s a task unattainable in this moment. He believes Toad can hear it beating, and the babe stops blabbering to follow his gaze.

Darkness comes quickly to the Mullenwood, and despite his excitement, the wizard is not yet prepared for the ceremony. He gathers Toad into his arms and retreats from whence they came, not following the dragon path, but weaving back through the trees, to wait.

***

If he were a more powerful wizard, Ignacious might summon a proper shelter. He might mobilize the forest, bend it into a roof, walls, and solid floor. He might invoke his mana into a shimmering dome of protection, translucent but powerful, to sleep soundly through the night.

Instead, he waves his hands around his thinning body and pulls what little power he can from the depths of himself. He once owned a staff, belonging to his grandsire, topped with a swirled mauve garnet and his family crest. His mother had confiscated it the time he’d nearly burned her garden to nothing, and never returned it. He’d been a child then, not much older than Toad was now.

Plumes of white smoke trickle from his fingers, with tingling sensations he pulls the smoke around him and Toad in a wizards’ circle, over and over until it flickers for a moment, a dull shade of blue. He mutters the incantation, praesidia fumono, and knows that it will have to do.

His leather knapsack is enchanted to carry beyond its physical means. Still, he did not pack enough. The robes inside are caked with dirt and grime, and smell terribly like Toad pee. He rummages through the items and pulls out the fae-crafted candle, a defense against the darkness. It takes him ten minutes to light, and almost all of his mana, but it will burn through the night– the last night, he reminds himself.

Toad hasn’t eaten and he cries and clutches his pudgy stomach. There are only a few more loaves of elven bread and he hands one to the babe who mauls it with saliva before swallowing it. Ignacious lets him guzzle water from his flask to wash it down– it will be pee in less than an hour.

The forest floor is soft and wet, so Ignacious spreads a soiled robe over the moss for the child to sit. Then he digs through the pack again and brings out the items he needs– a lump of coal from the mines of Dullos, a shard of cerulean quartz from a merchant in Qual, a vial of viscous myrrh, and the burnt petals of a phoenix bloom.

He carefully lays them out, marveling again that the items are here, together, in one place. The coal alone had taken a year to acquire. The quartz had cost him the promise of his first born child. The myrrh was easy to find, though difficult to keep, even stored in a volcanic glass vial, pieces of it had dried and cracked. The most dangerous ingredient to acquire, the petals, he had stolen from his mother’s own wizard cellar. And yet, it was all here, at long last.

“Toad, we’ve done it,” Ignacious whispers to the child. “We’ve finally done it. They say I am inept, a fetal disaster of a wizard, yes, that is what they say. Not even in whispers, little Toad, not even in hushed tones. But here we are, you and I.”

Toad, now finished with his bread, mumbles to himself and gnaws on a stick that is thankfully too large to swallow. His tunic is stained with soil, his pink face smudged and glistening in the candlelight, his eyes large and green. The wizard read once that babes are born giant-headed and wide-eyed to keep their mothers from smothering them when they scream. Too sweet to smother, his own wizard mother had said of him, too dense to teach. The thought grabs him and he feels his cheeks burn.

“Your mother was no gem, either,” he tells Toad, though he hadn’t asked. “Traded you to a stranger for the return of her youth. Tragic, really, mothers are. Selfish and greedy. We didn’t ask to be birthed, did we? No, no we did not.”

With a trepidation he does not understand, Ignacious begins preparing. He pulls a weathered piece of parchment from his sack, and spreads it over the ground. The writing is old and messy, the goat skin wrinkled from being folded and refolded. He’s read it a thousand times throughout these long years, but his mind has never been one for memorization. Nothing seems to stick.

“First, we prepare the quartz,” he tells Toad, running his finger along the written lines. “Yes, simple, simple.” He grabs it in his left hand, or is it his right? He rereads and transfers it to the right. He gathers his mana and infuses it into the stone, whispering the words over it, slowly pronouncing each syllable, knowing there is no room for error.

The quartz does not glow or float to show result, he can only assume its efficacy. He places it in Toad’s hand for a moment, and the child hurls it outside the protection barrier. The touch should be enough, should. Ignacious retrieves the quartz and places it back amongst the items.

“Now the rest,” the wizard says. “Now the rest, yes?” He continues with the ceremony, burning the coal over the fae candle, channeling the vapor toward the child who sputters and coughs from inhaling it. He grinds the petals and myrrh together into a sticky mess, holding it in his hand to soften it, and molds it into a bite-size ball.

Now he must coax Toad into swallowing it, which seems an easy task, the son of a witch swallows toads after all.

“Now, little one,” he whispers. “Swallow this. Just a piece. A tiny piece. Look, I’ll show you.” He takes the extra mixture and pushes it down his own throat. It sticks there, unapologetically blocking his windpipe. The wizard chokes and gags.. Toad stares, wide-eyed, as Ignacious struggles to swallow the concoction, eyes welling with tears and spit dripping from the mouth. The child’s tiny eyebrows meet in the middle.

“No!” he says. “Nuh nuh no!”

It was the only word Ignacious had ever heard him say. And he said it often, chanting it from his sling into the wizard’s ear. If he never heard the word “no” again it would be too soon.

Ignacious finally chokes down the myrrh and petals and takes a gasp of air. “See? Easy! Now you try.” He holds the pellet to Toad’s mouth, half expecting him to suck it down like a forbidden cake. He doesn’t.

Instead, the babe turns his head and blocks his mouth with his hand, “Nuh uh.”

If he were a cleverer wizard, he tells himself, he would have purchased a sweet in the last village. A honey cake or a slice of pie. He could have inserted the pellet carefully, giving the child a treat while also fulfilling his duty. That’s what his mother would have done.

“But I didn’t,” Ignacious says out loud, though his mother cannot hear him. “I didn’t get a sodding sweet, did I?” His face twists and anger blossoms in his chest. In a moment of rage, he reaches out and grabs Toad by the cheeks, the flame of the candle wavering in the background, and pulls him near.

The child wails and screams, trying to squirm out of Ignacious’s clutches. The wizard shushes him hastily and uses his right hand to pucker his mouth into an oval opening. Toad is so weak, so frail compared to himself. His thrashing does nothing.

With his left finger, he pushes the pellet past the child’s lips, ignoring his tiny teeth, and down his throat. Saliva drips from the sides of Toad’s mouth and down his chin and quickly, Igancious pinches his lips closed and blows air into his nostrils, forcing him to swallow, and then lets him go.

Toad cries and screams, his face turning the color of Ignacious’s beard. He balls his tiny hand into a fist and strikes the wizard with the force of a feather.

“No!” he cries. “ No! No! Nuh- no!” He sits back and howls, startling a nearby owl who escapes through the night the way Ignacaious cannot.

“I’m sorry!” the wizard says. “I’m sorry, Toad, please. Hush now. You’ll wake the dragons! Shush now. You’ll wake the forest!”

Ignacious tries to coddle the babe, but Toad refuses, pushing him away, and turns to run, teetering on his tiny haunches. He hits the enchanted barrier and the smoke wavers as he bursts through. If Ignacious were a greater wizard, he would know how to summon barriers that kept things in as well as out.

It isn’t hard to catch a child of two. Ignacious takes three steps and scoops him up to his chest. To his surprise, Toad does not fight. Instead, he clings to his robes, burying his face in the folds, sobbing uncontrollably. The wet of the tears seep through to his heart, to his very essence. He feels the tiny trembles of a hurt child, asking for both forgiveness and answers, unable to understand either.

“Now, now,” Ignacious says. “Now, now. No more tears. It’s all over. It’s done. You were brilliant, you know that? You were great.”

Toad begins to settle in the darkness of the Mullenwood, far from the land he was born. Ignacious recalls the day he took him from his mother’s arms, sobbing and screeching, anxiously reaching for the witch who did not want him and did not worry herself with the reasons why.

If he were a stronger wizard, perhaps he would not have to fight the tears that mirrored the babe’s.

Safely back inside the barrier, Ignacious straightens the robe blanket on the ground, and lays on his back, pressing Toad’s face against his chest and stroking his hair. Toad hiccups and gasps with the last of his cries, his body ample and warm against the wizard’s.

“Shall I tell you a story?” he asks. “Yes? A story, it is.”

The story was the same he told every night since they’d set out on their journey.

“Once, before you were born, there was a great wizard named Ignatius the Igniter. He was tall and brave, with a thick red beard that went all the way down to his knees, and long locks of hair that he braided each morning into a magic rune. You might think, being so brave and powerful, that he was not also well-read and clever, but you would be mistaken, little Toad.

Ignatius had many skills, trained in the most famous schools, but he possessed a natural affinity for the flame arts and became the greatest fire mage this world has ever seen. He was an esteemed general in the Battle for Yorn, and Master Toren’s right-hand strategist in the wars to follow. It is said he could summon flames to fall from the clouds like rain with naught a staff to hold, and erase entire villages with a flick of his hand.

‘But Ignatius the Igniter was not content to burn and fight. Inside, he was filled with a yearning for knowledge and the compulsion to teach. He left the battlefield a hero, and traveled back to his home, to become a teacher of magic. And he was the finest there ever was.

‘And do you know what happened next, little Toad? My grandfather, Ignatius the Igniter, became a sage. He created a class of talented wizard students, trained in the very arts he had mastered, and journeyed with them to study the plants and beasts of the world. It was called the Traveling School, and oh how I wish I had been a part of it, even seen it with my own eyes.

He fell in love with one of his students, my grandmother, Juliah, and they birthed my mother. And when I reached my first year, my grandfather, in an effort to cure a rare disease, traveled to the far reaches of the land, and was never seen again.”

Toad had drifted to dreams far before the story’s end, as it had been every night they’d been together. With the child nestled in the crook of his arm, the wizard is trapped, unable to move throughout the night lest he wake the child, or worse, crush him in his sleep. His back aches, his arm tingles under the weight of Toad’s head, and yet he is smiling.

Tomorrow, he will go back to the mouth of that cave and he will wait for the dragon to emerge. In his mind’s eye, he sees it happening as if it has happened already– holding the son of a witch outstretched, facing towards the dragon, and if he was fortunate, the dragon would approach. The beast would roar, or whatever dragons did, but it would be in vain, because as soon as the creature locked eyes with the child the enchantment would take hold. The mana of the dragon would ripple through time and space, through the child, and end the curse of Ignacious the Inept.

He imagines for a moment walking into his mother’s home, with the marble columns and winding staircases, and lighting the candles all in one motion of his hand. He’d throw flames into the fireplace and watch her expression grow fond and proud. He’d join the ranks and become the warrior his grandfather was, or perhaps find some other prestigious position in the world. Surely, a wizard with dragon’s power could go anywhere, do anything.

He would be named again, inept no longer, and carry that name for the rest of his days. A great wizard, yes, a fine wizard. Like his grandfather.

***

Ignacious wakes from his slumber with a start. Immediately he is aware there is no warm bundle beside him. He curses himself for sleeping so soundly and bolts to his feet.

“Toad!” he calls into the forest, sparkling with dew and morning’s first rays. “Toad, where have you wandered off to?” His mind races, summoning images of the babe kidnapped by trolls, mauled by bears, poisoned by mushrooms. The wizard rushes off, leaving his belongings where they lay, searching the Mullenwood for any sign of the son of a witch.

If he were a cleverer wizard, he may have tracked the babe down, studying the sticks and plants for signs of breakage. But he had no mind for such things and instead ran in widening circles around the camp, wandering further and further from where they’d slept only hours before.

“Gods, Toad,” he mutters. “Why must you be such a child? Why must you be so… inept!” He catches himself saying that word, and shakes his head as if to remove it from his tongue. The child knows no better. He probably wandered away to find toads for breakfast.

Another thought grips the wizard and this one he cannot shake. Ignoring all reason, he runs through the woods of Mullen towards the smells of fire and ash, to the cave where nothing grew. His heart is beating so fiercely, he’s certain the dragon can hear it even in the depths of its lair.

Finally, he comes upon the cave, stopping just before the clearing in case he is wrong. And by the gods, he hopes he’s wrong.

It takes a moment for Ignacious to spot Toad, the child’s tunic is the same color as the rocky ground surrounding the cave. He only sees him as he moves, scooting on his rear and holding a scorched animal bone like a quill in his hand.

Ignacious whispers a curse to himself and gathers his wits. He sees no dragons, just a flurry of footprints in the layer of ash around the cave’s opening. They were here, but he does not see them now. The smell of sulfur is nauseating.

“Toad!” he whispers as loud as he can but the son of a witch does not hear. He babbles to himself as he scribbles in the dirt with the bone, happily content to sit in impending doom.

The wizard follows the treeline, coming closer to Toad with every step, and closer to the cave. If he were a wiser wizard, he might have known that dragons can smell a thousand times better than dogs, that they rise with the sun, and that they were most hungry upon rising. None of this information was helpful, of course, not now.

As he creeps closer, Toad looks up and recognizes him, gifting him a drooly smile. The wizard beckons, but Toad does not follow.

“Come Toad!” Ignacious says again. “Come now, you–”

A hissing sound erupts from inside the cave, and the wizard turns his attention to its source. A snake-like neck extends into the light, and attached, a head of blue scales, teeth, and slitted yellow eyes. The dragon’s snake-like tongue flickers, gathering the scents outside, filtering them through whatever enhanced senses it uses to find its prey.

A bit of pee runs down Ignacious’ thigh, but he does not notice. All he can imagine is the five seconds it would take for the dragon to snap the babe up like a mutton chop. He is not holding Toad, he is not channeling Toad, and without him, there is no enchantment, only death.

In a panic, Ignacious gathers his mana, using his hands to call upon the only power he has. Puffs of white smoke fan from his fingers, and he chants over them as quickly as his lips will move. If he can create a strong enough barrier, perhaps he can protect Toad.

If he weren’t Ignacious the Inept, if he were his grandfather, he would have blasted the dragon with lightning and flame. He would have levitated the babe out of harm’s way, back into his arms. He would have cast a spell so great, the dragon would never again bask in the light of day.

Toad’s attention is solely focused on the danger before him, the enormous head that slowly creeps from the cave. Its mouth opens leisurely, teeth like rows of daggers, able at any moment to sear them both into oblivion.

Instead, the dragon and the son of a witch lock eyes, just as Ignacious’ incantation swirls around him like a rogue cloud. He prays it is enough, oh, please let it be enough. There is a tightening in his chest, a lump in his throat, a fear he has never felt. The thought of leaving the Mullenwood empty handed, no child to wake up and feed, no tiny body snuggled against him in the night, is an unbearable notion and he begins to choke back tears, feeling so helpless and… inept.

But something is happening. The dragon lets out a painful screech and the babe covers his ears to block the sound. Ignacious’ barrier is broken, the smoke blown away by the creature’s bellowing. Ignacious does not think, he only acts, plunging out of the Mullenwood and into the clearing, grabbing the startled child into his arms. The dragon’s eyes are closed and it continues to shriek into the air, blue flashes appearing around its throat and head.

Ignacious turns to run, but he cannot move with the babe. Something is happening, and he does not understand. The child is locked in place, eyes closed tightly as his little body shakes and shivers. Ignacious can feel the tingling of mana, but it is not his own. It courses through his body, like lightning through a tree, but it does not go deep, it does not land.

The dragon bellows harder and tries to turn its body back to the cave, as if to flee. But it too, is locked in place. Its claws dig into the ground but it cannot move forward. The smell of ash and smoke in the air heightens, nearly intolerable to the wizard now. He grabs Toad tighter against his chest, believing that if he does not let go, nothing horrible can happen. He will not leave this place alone, even if he must carry the name Ignacious the Inept for the rest of his life. He will not let go.

With a final screech, the dragon collapses inside the cave. The wizard watches as its legs give out and its belly rests on the ground like a lizard on a rock, innocuous.

Toad goes limp in his arms. The wizard turns to run and this time, is able. With speed he did not know he possessed, Ignacious bolts into the trees and heads for their camp, occasionally tripping over roots, but always catching himself before falling.

He looks over his shoulder, half expecting the dragon to come after them, but the woods are quiet and undisturbed. When they reach the camp, Ignacious lays Toad on the mossy ground and shakes him gently.

“Iggy,” he says through a cracked throat, catching his mistake immediately, and letting his sorrow overwhelm him. “Toad, please. Little one. Wake up now. Wake up. You’re a strong boy, are you not? Show me how strong you are, Toad. Show me, please. You survived your witch of a mother, you can survive this now.”

Toad’s belly rises and falls with the breath of a sleeping babe, his eyelids flutter as if he’s dreaming, and with one more gentle shake, his eyebrows furrow and he opens one eye, then the other.

The feelings that flood the wizard are more powerful than anything he has ever experienced. Relief, concern... love?

“Oh, Toad!” Ignacious is shaking, his nerves overwhelmed. “Yes, you good strong child! You made it. You bloody made it, you little imp.” He folds over the toddler and relishes the sound of his heartbeat fluttering, that familiar smell of innocence and unspoiled virtue. His tears soak the front of Toad’s tunic and the child begins to wriggle and moan.

“Let’s flee this dreadful place,” Ignacious says. “It’s time to go. And I swear this to you now, I will never allow anything to harm you again, my little one..” He props Toad up to sit, marveling at how clear and green his eyes look in the sunlight.

Toad babbles something and lets out a hiccup– a tiny blue flame curls from his mouth.

“You son of a witch.”