Dara Renwicklucky wizard's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Dara Renwick had sold three false things before noon, and each one worked. A rash salve that also mended a broken plow. A cough syrup that made a lame goat run. A love charm that was really a ward against fever. The buyers thanked her, paid their coins, and called her a clever peddler. None of them saw the truth. Her staff hummed under her hand, its runes warm and dimming a little more each season. She was old. Her magic was leaving with her. And no child in these villages would ever ask a peddler to teach them. That was the whole trouble. Dara wanted an apprentice. She wanted to pass the staff to someone worthy before the light in it died. But a worthy student looks for a wizard, not a woman hawking cough syrup from a cart. To find one, she had to be seen doing something no peddler could fake. So she came to the Harvest Fairgrounds. Striped canopies snapped in the wind. Barrels of cider and crates of apples lined the stalls. Farmers haggled and children ran between the posts. Dara set her cart at the center and waited for her chance. It came screaming out of the north. A shadow crossed the sun. Wings the width of a barn beat once, twice, and a dragon dropped onto the fairgrounds. Its scales were dark as slate, its tail long as a wagon train. People scattered, knocking over barrels. A boy froze between the beast and his mother. Dara did not run. She planted her staff in the dirt and spoke a word she had not spoken aloud in forty years. The runes blazed white. A wall of hard light bent up from the ground and caught the dragon's dive. The beast slammed into it and roared. Dara pushed. Her arms shook. The staff burned so bright the crowd threw up their hands. Then she twisted the staff and flung the light forward. It struck the dragon like a fist. The creature screamed, wheeled up, and fled over the trees. Silence fell across the fairgrounds. A hundred faces turned to the tiny old woman in the patched green robe. No one called her a peddler now. They saw exactly what she was. The fear passed into wonder. People crept closer. And from behind an overturned cart stepped a girl of maybe twelve, soot on her cheek, eyes wide, not afraid at all. She walked straight up to Dara while the grown folk hung back. "Teach me to do that," the girl said. Dara's heart lurched. Here, at last, was a student who had come to her for the real thing. But her staff was cold now, its runes gray and empty. The great feat had drained it. She looked at the eager girl and knew the hardest part was only beginning. She had found the apprentice. Now she had to relight the staff before she could teach anyone to hold it.