The Most Important Thing About Magic
In which a small dragon offers unsolicited homework advice
Theo sat by himself at a table in a quiet corner of the courtyard. There was a notebook open to a blank page lying in front of him. He’d been there for close to an hour. Occasionally he frowned at the notebook or tapped his pen restlessly on the blank page.
But he still hadn’t written anything.
A sudden clattering sound made him jump and look up. A tiny black dragon — smaller than a cat — had just landed on the other side of the table. It was looking curiously at Theo’s notebook with bright orange eyes.
“What are you staring at? Something interesting? Can I look?”
Theo blinked in surprise. The dragon was able to speak, which meant it was a wizard’s familiar. He didn’t remember any of the academy staff having a dragon like this, though. It must belong to someone visiting the campus.
“It’s not really….” Theo finally recovered enough to realize the dragon had asked him something. “It’s just a notebook. I’m working on my homework.”
“Oh.” The dragon tilted its head. Theo could see two little horn buds growing between its ears. Didn’t only male dragons have horns? “Then how come you’re not writing anything? Doesn’t homework mean writing stuff?”
“Well, usually it does. But I haven’t decided what to write yet.”
“It’s hard? What kind of homework is it?”
Was it normal for a dragon to be this interested in homework? Theo didn’t really know much about dragons. How would he? Even the common, non-magical breeds were painfully expensive. Elemental dragons — the kind that could use magic and become familiars — were completely out of the realm of affordability for ordinary people. The little creature sitting in front of him was probably worth more than everything Theo’s family owned combined. The thought made him feel slightly sick.
“It’s…a little hard, yes. It’s a project for my enchanting class.” Theo pushed his thoughts about the unfairness of life aside. One thing he did know about dragons was that any wizard who was able to have one as a familiar was most likely wealthy and powerful and not at all the sort of person you wanted to offend. It was best to just politely answer the dragon’s questions. “The assignment is to design an enchantment matrix to inscribe on an everyday object. I’ve altered inscriptions to fit different objects before, but this is my first time designing the whole thing from scratch, without any specific guidelines. I’m having a hard time figuring out what to make.”
It didn’t sound like a big deal the way he said it, but the fact was that Theo was in trouble. He’d always planned to study enchanting when he came to the academy, and he’d done his best to prepare for it. But the classes were even harder than he’d expected. He’d made it through the first year reasonably well due to sheer grit and hard work. But now, in his second year, the difficulty was only increasing, and Theo was starting to fall behind in spite of his desperate efforts. This assignment was the final project for the class and would have a significant impact on his end of term assessment. If he couldn’t come up with something good enough….
But he didn’t want to talk about that. Didn’t even want to think about it.
And surely a dragon familiar — the symbol of wizardly success — wouldn’t care about the struggles of a lowly academy student. No point bringing it up.
The dragon did seem plenty interested in Theo’s homework for some reason, though. “You need to make a new enchantment?” His tiny body was wriggling with excitement. “I know, I know! You should make a toy!”
“A…toy?” Theo wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. Even if he hadn’t said anything about needing something brilliant enough to save his academic career, wasn’t it just common sense that you didn’t make toys for school assignments? This was the Royal Academy of Magic, not a children’s playground.
“Yup! Alfred’s always making toys. He comes up with lots of new enchantments that way. So if you need a new enchantment, you should make toys!”
“Alfred is your contract partner?” Theo had a hard time imagining a rich and powerful wizard who made toys all day.
“Alfred is Alfred,” the dragon said, unhelpfully. “Oh! And I’m Iggy. What’s your name?”
“It’s Theo.” Shouldn’t the introductions have come before now? This conversation was a bit of a mess.
“Okay. I’ll remember. Theo.” Based on the resolute way Iggy nodded as he said this, Theo guessed that for him to actually remember someone’s name was the exception, not the rule. “So, Theo. It’s like this. Making toys for magic beasts is really tricky, see? Because we’re good at destroying stuff!” The little dragon looked rather proud of himself.
“I guess that makes sense. Most magic beasts are strong.”
“Right? So Alfred has to come up with lots of ways to keep my toys from breaking and catching on fire and getting lost behind the bookshelves. That’s why toys help him think of so many new enchantments! He says it’s annoying that toys need so much stuff, but he learns lots about enchanting and scribing that way. Lots and lots! He said making things for me is even better than going to school!”
Theo, who was currently in school studying enchanting and scribing and was working himself to the bone trying to stay there, frowned at this but didn’t say anything.
“But that’s not even the most important part, you know? Alfred says making toys helps him to not forget the most important thing about studying magic. Because, see? He complains sometimes about how he has to make new toys with better enchantments when mine break or get lost. But really he doesn’t mind. Because he thinks making toys is fun. And that’s it! The very, very, very important thing!” Iggy fluttered his wings dramatically. “Magic is supposed to be fun!”
Theo stared incredulously. “Hah…?”
“Magic should be fun,” Iggy repeated. “Alfred says magic schools are way too much work, and certification exams are a serious pain in the neck, so if you don’t think magic is fun, you’re better off becoming a chicken farmer.”
“A…chicken…farmer…?” There was a muscle twitching in Theo’s left cheek. Both his parents were magic assistants — a term that most people in the magic community equated with “academy flunkouts.” Assistants were people who had some magic training but weren’t certified by the Wizard Association. They were allowed to do magic-related work, but it was restricted to low-level jobs, like copying inscriptions or prepping alchemy ingredients, under the supervision of a certified wizard. It was decent enough work, but it brought neither high regard nor a high salary. Not compared to the kind of jobs fully-qualified wizards had. This discrepancy had been rankling Theo’s parents for years, and as a result, magic study was taken very seriously in their household. He had grown up with constant lectures on how important it was to graduate from the academy and secure a good future for himself. And now that he was here, there were constant lectures about the privilege of studying magic and the need to take responsibility for his growing abilities, including plenty of horror stories of what could happen to magic students who were reckless or lazy. These ranged anywhere from death and dismemberment, in the worst cases, to being expelled from the academy and doomed to spend the rest of his life struggling to make his rent payments.
Magic was a serious matter. It wasn’t about having fun.
Theo knew he was at a disadvantage compared to most of his classmates. He wasn’t especially talented at magic, and he didn’t come from a family with wealth and connections. His only chance of making it through school and getting the certification he desperately wanted was to work harder than everyone around him. He didn’t have time to play around.
And he certainly wasn’t going to give up and go raise chickens!
“Well, sometimes he says turnip farmer instead.” Iggy seemed oblivious to Theo’s indignation. “But usually it’s chickens.”
“Like turnips are any better!” Theo snapped, completely forgetting his earlier resolution to be polite. “Is this Alfred of yours even a real wizard? What kind of wizard would say farming is a better career than magic?”
Iggy flattened his ears and scowled. “Of course he’s a real wizard. He has a badge and everything.”
“So what if he has a badge? He probably comes from a crazy rich family, right? Maybe he’s even a noble? I bet he only managed to get certified because his parents put out a load of money to pay for private tutors and to let him take the certification exam as many times as he needed to. Look, they could even afford to buy him an elemental dragon! There’s no way he earned the money for you all on his own. School is too much work? Certification is too big a hassle? The most important thing is to have fun? I don’t care if he’s got a badge. A clown like that doesn’t deserve to be called a real wizard!”
“He’s not like that!” Iggy smacked the table with his wings, making a surprisingly loud sound. “Alfred’s a good wizard! A really, really good one!” A few sparks flew out of his mouth as he spoke. His element must be fire? Theo hastily pulled his books out of the way. “His parents didn’t help him with school at all. And he did too buy me with his own money! He won a contest and got lots of money for a prize. And he bought me when I was still an egg and helped me hatch!”
“He got that much? In prize money? Do you have any idea how much dragons like you cost? What kind of contest has a prize that big?”
“It was…um…the flower contest…um…some kind of flower….” Iggy screwed up his face and started tapping his tail against the tabletop. “Daisy? Begonia? No….” His expression suddenly brightened. “Rose! It was the Rose Craft Contest!”
“Rose Craft? I’ve never heard of — ” Theo broke off, his face stiffening. “Wait…. You’re not talking about the Roshencroft Contest, are you?”
“Ro…shen…croft?” Iggy cocked his head to one side. “It’s not ‘Rose Craft’? Huh. I always thought it was weird that he won a flower contest by making a new kind of water pump. But I thought maybe it was because it was for watering flowers. So it still kind of counted?”
Theo shook his head, his expression somewhat dazed. “No, that can’t be right. Roshencroft is one of the most prestigious magic competitions in the world. You need a Master-level certification to even participate.”
“I told you he was a really good wizard.” Iggy flattened his ears again. He seemed to have stopped thinking about flowers long enough to remember he’d been upset. “You’re the one who won’t believe me and said lots of not-true mean things. But I can prove it! I’ll show you that Alfred really is a really good wizard. Really, really! Just let me get my ball. It flew over here somewhere….”
A ball? Theo had been so caught off guard by Iggy’s sudden appearance and their odd conversation that it hadn’t even occurred to him until now to wonder why the dragon was here in the first place. Was he playing with a ball in the courtyard and ended up chasing it over to this corner by coincidence? Such rotten luck. Theo cursed himself for deciding to study outside today instead of in the library.
Iggy didn’t fly off to start looking for his ball, as Theo had hoped he would. He simply lifted his right foreleg. When it caught the sunlight, there was a sparkle from a dark blue band just above the paw. It was only a little lighter than Iggy’s black scales, so Theo hadn’t noticed it before. The dragon channeled some of his magic power into the band, making it glow softly. A few seconds passed. Then there was a rustling noise, and a bright blue, apple-sized ball came floating out of a nearby bush. It flew over to Iggy, who jumped and caught it deftly in his front paws.
“See?” he said proudly, rolling the ball across the table to Theo. “This is my ball. Alfred made it!”
Theo looked at it skeptically. It looked like an ordinary rubber ball. The sort you’d see children playing with at city parks. He had to admit that the levitation and attraction functions that allowed Iggy to retrieve the ball when it was lost in the bushes were clever, but they weren’t exactly Roshencroft Contest level.
“Not like that. You’re looking at it wrong,” Iggy scolded him. “Don’t you have a glass? You need to look at it with a glass.”
Theo raised an eyebrow but obediently opened his school bag and pulled out a scribing loupe. Presumably that’s what Iggy had meant by “a glass,” although technically they were made with transparent magic crystals, not actual glass.
Enchantment inscriptions took up physical space, so you could only fit so much on a small object like Iggy’s ball. Obviously, you could get around this to some extent by simply shrinking the inscription, though there were limits to how small they could get before they stopped working properly. Higher level scribes were able to work at smaller scales. But even an Apprentice level scribe could create inscriptions that were too small to read with the naked eye.
That was where the loupe came in. It showed a magically enhanced version of the inscription and would let Theo see the little blue ball’s enchantment work in detail.
He wasn’t really expecting to see much. He already knew the ball had attraction and levitation functions. Based on what Iggy had said about his toys breaking and catching fire, there would probably also be physical reinforcement and fire resistance. Plus some kind of signal relay that connected the ball to the bracelet Iggy had used to summon it out of the bushes. That was five functions. If this Alfred fellow was an Apprentice enchanter — the lowest certification rank, which Theo thought was the most likely, despite Iggy’s grandiose claims — there would be one or two more, at most. If he was actually a Journeyman, there might be as many as twenty. And in the unlikely event that he really was a Master enchanter…. Well, that probably wasn’t the case. And how many enchantment functions did a rubber ball need, anyway? More than a dozen would be stupid, even if you were capable of it.
Repeating these pessimistic, yet oddly comforting, thoughts to himself, Theo held up the loupe.
And promptly choked.
“What in the — ? What is this thing?!” The loupe slipped from his hand and clattered to the table, but Theo ignored it. He was too busy staring, aghast, at the ridiculous object in front of him.
“It’s my ball,” Iggy repeated. “Alfred made it. It says so in the box.”
Slowly, Theo picked up the loupe and looked into it again. It wasn’t quite as startling the second time, but the sight still made his head spin. He thought a dozen functions was too many? This had to have hundreds. Magic formations upon magic formations. Layered. Intersecting. Engraved with incredibly tiny and precise writing. It was by far the most advanced enchantment matrix Theo had ever seen. And it was inscribed on a rubber ball, of all things….
Theo stared a moment longer and then shook his head to clear it. He turned his gaze away from the intricate formations and looked around the edges of the inscription for the information box that Iggy had mentioned. This was a standard feature for inscriptions. It usually contained a brief description of the enchanted item and the name of the maker, but it sometimes had things like dedications or usage instruction. Or even totally unrelated things like proverbs or poetry.
Iggy’s Ball, Prototype #37
Version notes: Adjustments to collision avoidance. Improved power transfer efficiency of controller. Glow function updated with flame imitation feature (Iggy’s request).
Created by Alfred Denifort
There was an identification seal below the text. This mark both uniquely identified a wizard and showed their certification type and rank. Theo had already suspected it when he saw the inscription’s unbelievable complexity, but now this seal told him for sure.
Alfred Denifort wasn’t an Apprentice.
He wasn’t a Master, either.
“Grandmaster enchanter…?” Theo whispered in dismay. “Are you serious? I called a Grandmaster a clown? I’m so dead….”
“I don’t think he’ll mind the clown part,” Iggy said thoughtfully. “But he might be a little unhappy that you think he’s not serious about magic because he’s a clown. Magic is serious. And hard. But magic is fun, too! That’s why he can keep being serious about it. He says otherwise he would get sick of how hard it is and quit. And we would go live on a farm and raise chickens. I like chickens. But I like Alfred’s toys more! So I’m glad he doesn’t want to quit magic.”
What was it with this guy and chickens…? Theo sighed. “Well, I can’t say he’s not serious after seeing this thing. If anything, he’s too serious. The 37th prototype? Really? For a toy ball?”
“I told you, they keep having problems, so he has to make better ones. The very first ball he made for me when I was a baby was just fire-proof and chew-proof because he didn’t know it needed other things. But that ball was made from leather, so I couldn’t play with it in the bathtub. So he made me a waterproof ball. Then I got bigger and learned to fly!” Iggy spread his wings wide in illustration. “So I started taking the ball up to play on top of the bookshelves in the library, and it kept falling behind them by accident, so he added the floating magic to make it easier to get it out. Only it went under the big cabinet sometimes, too, and the floating magic didn’t help there, so he put in the magic that makes the ball come when you call it. But it was too strong! Alfred accidentally used it instead of the floating magic one time when the ball was behind a bookshelf, and it came out by knocking the shelf over! We almost got squashed! So he had to fix that. And then I hit one of the academy deans in the face on accident with one of the later balls, so Alfred added another enchantment that made it avoid people. But that one was too strong, too! The ball kept running away, and nobody could catch it! Alfred finally got it with a net on a long pole. And he fixed the anti-people enchantment. But then it gave him the idea of making the ball run away from me sometimes, so I could chase it around. And so then….”
Theo listened in amazement as Iggy rattled off the developmental history of his toy. Was it really okay for a Grandmaster enchanter to mess things up that much? Though it sounded like Iggy was responsible for most of the ball’s necessary upgrades. Who knew there were so many ways for a tiny dragon to cause mayhem with a single toy…?
“…but then when it was wintertime, I kept losing it in the snow, so Alfred made it so the ball could change color. So then he would turn it bright red for me whenever I took it outside. Then later, when I started learning how to use magic, he taught me how to change the color by myself so I could do it to practice my magic control. Only…well, it was really hard at first, you know? So with one of the balls — I think it was number 24? — I kind of…used too much power. On accident. And the ball sort of…blew up. And set the table on fire. So we don’t go to that restaurant anymore. Even though I’m lots, lots better at controlling magic now! And when he made the next ball, Alfred stabilized that formation, so now it doesn’t — ”
Iggy’s monologue was finally interrupted by the chiming of the academy’s clock tower, echoing across the campus.
“Oh.” The dragon turned his head toward the sound. “I have to go. Alfred said to come back when the clock made sounds. His meeting is supposed to get over now. And he said that when we’re done here at the school, we can go to Mr. Kraken’s place and get spicy fish balls! They’re my favorite!” He turned back to Theo, his tail waving excitedly. “Have fun making your toy, okay? I’ll come back and see it when Alfred has a meeting again.”
Before Theo could even say anything, Iggy jumped off the table and flapped off in the direction of the academy’s administration building. The blue ball floated after him.
“Bye, Theo!”
The little dragon vanished almost as abruptly as he had appeared, leaving a bemused Theo staring after him.
“I never said I was going to make a toy…” he muttered to the empty air. “And who is Mr. Kraken supposed to be? Honestly…. Are all dragons that weird?”
Theo looked at his abandoned notebook. It was still open to a blank page. The clock chime meant he had another hour before he needed to head back to the dormitory for dinner. Now that the bizarre interruption was finally over, he could forget about that crazy little dragon and get back to work.
Except….
He stared down at the notebook, looking almost the same as he had before Iggy landed on his table. But the thoughts running through his head were a bit different now.
“What kind of toys do dragons even like?” he found himself wondering aloud. Balls, obviously. But Alfred the Grandmaster already had that one well covered. Any ball that Theo tried to make would be only the palest of imitations compared to that masterpiece. He had no idea what else would make a good dragon toy, though.
Come to think of it, he wasn’t even that familiar with human toys. He’d never had very many of them. His parents thought things like toys were a waste of time and money that could be better spent on magic studies. As soon as Theo was old enough to start reading, he was given books and magic tools rather than children’s toys.
He’d seen dogs playing with toys…. But he wasn’t sure about the specifics of those either. His mother didn’t like animals much and thought that pets were a waste of time and money just like toys. They did have a cat for a while when Theo was small, but she wasn’t considered a pet. Just a cheap, temporary way to control the mice while his parents saved up enough to buy a set of magic traps. They’d never even given her a name, let alone toys.
No, wait. That wasn’t completely true.
Theo had once dropped a crumpled piece of paper on the floor unintentionally and was surprised to see the cat pounce on it and start batting it around. After that, he would occasionally ball up scraps of waste paper and let her play with them before he threw them away. Though he got in trouble with his mother over it, since the cat usually tore up the paper and made a mess.
“Structural reinforcement would keep it from tearing,” he mused. “But I’d have to alter the standard formations to make sure it isn’t too rigid. The edges could get really sharp. I should try to keep it close to the original paper texture. And if Iggy’s really going to come back and see it, it had better have a fire resistance formation in there…maybe water, too….” He stopped and shook himself suddenly. “What am I even doing? Am I seriously thinking about enchanting a crumpled piece of paper? The professor will think I’m completely….”
He stopped again. He couldn’t help thinking back to Iggy’s blue ball. It was just a childish toy, but it was an amazing piece of enchanting work. Surely nobody would give that a failing grade. Wasn’t his assignment to enchant an everyday item? Didn’t a crumpled ball of paper fit that description?
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that scribing on crumpled paper was actually a surprisingly complex task. Could you add the inscription when the paper was still flat? Or did it have to be done after it was crumpled up? Some of both? Does the change in shape affect the function of the magic formations? Ink the inscription or engrave it? Was engraving on ordinary paper even possible with his skill level? If he used ink, what kind was best?
Thoughts buzzing, Theo picked up his pen. Then he hesitated, pen poised over the blank page. After being so critical of what Iggy had told him earlier, his pride stung as he realized he was actually on the verge of following the little dragon’s advice.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Well…I don’t have any better ideas right now, do I? And it’s not like I actually have to turn this in. It’s just…a warm-up. Right? Someplace to get started.” He slowly lowered the pen. “Even a Grandmaster had to remake his project thirty-six times to get it that good. So let’s…let’s just call this Prototype #1. And we’ll see where it goes.”
Then Theo finally started writing.
Off-Stage Chat
Alfred:
Do you have something against chickens, Theo? What, you think they’re boring? You’ve never seen dullahan chickens, have you? Non-stop action, right there. It’s a bit of a hassle to keep them under control, actually. You wouldn’t believe the kind of enchantments my Uncle Barnaby had to have put on his chicken coop…. The eggs are good for making magic crystals, though, so the profits aren’t bad, even if the initial investment is a bit steep. And the chickens themselves are great for keeping hyper little dragons busy. Iggy can chase those things around for hours.
You shouldn’t underestimate turnips, either! Zombie turnips are loads of fun. You don’t even have to pull them up to harvest them. Just wait until they’re fully grown, and they’ll dig themselves out of the ground. You just have to chase after them and pick them up. They’re slow, so it’s not hard. But they bite sometimes, so you’ll probably want gloves. Or a net. Or both.
Did you know? Zombie turnips are actually a hybrid of turnips and mandrakes. They were developed by an alchemy professor at the Royal Academy, who originally sold the seeds under the name “Turn Up Turnips.” But nobody calls them that anymore. Seeing a horde of them shambling around the farmyard trying to eat the tops off the other vegetables seems to put people out of the mood for puns for some reason….
Theo:
Who immediately thinks of undead when somebody mentions chickens?! Aren’t those a Class C Restricted Species? Don’t you have to be certified in necromancy to raise them?
Alfred:
That’s right. My uncle is a Master rank necromancer. He’d probably be a Grandmaster by now if he’d stuck with traditional study instead of becoming a farmer. Unfortunately, they don’t test farming knowledge in the necromancy certification exams.
Theo:
A Master-level necromancer working as a farmer?! As if the Grandmaster enchanter making toys wasn’t bad enough! What’s wrong with this family?!
Iggy (singing):
Spicy, spicy, spicy
Don’t you taste so nicey?
Fiiiiiish balls!
Spicy fiiiiiish balls!
Theo:
I can hear my normalcy breaking…. (╥﹏╥)
