Origin Read online

  Origin

  Dragons & Magic Book 1

  Higgins & Cantan

  Origin is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  Published November 2016.

  Copyright ©2016 Simon Cantan & Dave Higgins.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without permission of the publisher. The moral right of the contributors to be identified as the authors of their work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  Cover by MickeyMik (99designs.co.uk/profiles/mickeyart).

  Published by Dave Higgins, Bristol.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Simon’s Afterword

  Dave’s Afterword

  About Simon Cantan

  About Dave Higgins

  Chapter 1

  Escape

  From the shouts, Edmond felt sure there would be pitchforks. He might only be nine, but he’d seen enough angry mobs to know there would be pitchforks. Probably a few torches too—even though it was midday.

  So he wasn’t surprised when his mother, Patty, burst through the door of their shack, a look of confused panic on her muddy face. He could tell she was panicked because her mouth wasn’t moving. Patty had a mouth that seldom shut, either explaining her schemes or talking her way out of the consequences.

  Running into the table seemed to shake her jaw loose. “Come on, Eddie. We’re going on a trip. No reason to panic. Just thought it’d be pleasant to go somewhere else for a change.”

  Edmond jumped off the bed and scooped up his meagre possessions. Without looking, he stuck his arm out for his mother to grab it as she passed him heading out the door.

  He wasn’t really listening as she continued her muttering about other places being pleasant this time of year. It was yet another part of the routine, and the growing sound of the crowd from several directions was too distracting anyway. A jerk on his shoulder brought him to a halt beside his mother.

  Mrs Crombie, the village elder, blocked their path, a be-rolling-pinned fist resting on each hip. Her face was mostly wrinkles, each usually curved up as if she’d spent a lifetime smiling. However, her current frown had managed to defy history.

  Whatever his parents had done, the village elder wasn’t happy about it. Edmond hadn’t paid attention to this particular scheme, but if it was anything like all the others, the elder had every right to be furious.

  “Mrs Crombie,” Patty said, her smile as genuine as her change in mood. “How lovely to see you. We were just coming for a visit.”

  “Stow it.” Mrs Crombie brandished a rolling pin. “The others are on the way, but I knew you’d sneak out before they got here.”

  “Really?” Patty pushed her free hand through her hair. The resulting red mess looked like it had been combed by crows, but Edmond knew it was a distraction. She did it every time she was about to apply her Charisma.

  A wave of compassion and admiration washed over him. His mother’s Charisma was unbelievably high, making her almost impossible to resist. It was how so many of her ridiculous schemes got as far as they did.

  Mrs Crombie lowered the rolling pin, her wrinkles curving up. “Were you really coming over?”

  “I promise. I found out a moment ago that those geese we sold were actually swans. The darned trader tricked us, lied straight to our faces. So I was coming to return everyone’s money.”

  “That’s… admirable of you,” Mrs Crombie said.

  “We just have to go fetch it first,” Patty said. “Could you tell everyone we’ll be right there?”

  Mrs Crombie paused, already half-turned away. “As long as you promise you’ll be right there?”

  “Of course,” Patty said. “Give us five minutes.”

  “One minute.” Mrs Crombie’s eyebrows lowered. “You’d better get the money quickly; everyone’s furious.”

  Patty nodded while tugging Edmond through the village in the opposite direction from the shouts.

  Despite not having many inhabitants, the village was spread out enough that he didn’t see the people chasing them. Or anyone else. “Where’s Dad?”

  Patty kept dragging, pointing ahead of them to where Edmond’s father, Dobb, waited. Each huge fist clutched a large sack, one of which struggled mightily.

  “Drop the swan. We won’t need it,” Patty said. “Bring the gold, though.”

  Dobb let go of the bucking bag. An irate swan burst free, hissing at him. He stare back, a perplexed expression fighting its way past the jutting jaw and across his low forehead. His thick eyebrows furrowed over eyes with all the depth of a spoon of water, after you’d emptied it.

  The swan, seeming to know better than to tangle with someone who made walls look flimsy, hissed again to prove it wasn’t scared then flapped off in the other direction.

  “We need to reach the river,” Patty said. “And we’ve less than a minute.”

  Edmond grimaced. The river was five minutes brisk walk—for a normal person. He gulped a breath as Dobb threw him over his shoulder. An instant later, Patty landed across the other shoulder, the sack now in her hand.

  Dobb took off in long, loping strides. Not bothering with the muddy, winding road, he leapt a wall and tore across a field of corn. The cornstalks whipped against his legs as he ran, but that didn’t seem to bother Dobb much.

  The roar of the angry mob receded behind them.

  In between the whump of each stride, Edmond glanced over at his mother. Her long fingers tugged at her eyebrows, as they always did when she was nervous. It left her eyebrows thin and uneven, making her appearance even more ragged; but it never mattered. Patty’s father had put all her points into Charisma when she was born, even taking points from her Intelligence and Wisdom. He’d hoped to marry her to a noble, but not many nobles want an idiot for a wife, no matter how personable she was.

  A jolt drove the breath from Edmond’s breath, along with a new curse word he’d been saving for later.

  “Language,” Dobb said.

  Edmond shook his head. He was nine, old enough to curse. But his father had been told they were bad words and taken it to heart.

  His father’s points were in Strength: enough to put most carthorses to shame. Dobb’s father had figured it would help with the family mines. But Strength without Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom in a small underground space had been a recipe for disaster.

  After Dobb dug them all out of the cave in, his father sent him off to seek his fortune. Unfortunately, he found Patty instead.

  Dobb sprinted from the edge of the field onto the other end of the muddy road. Ahead, a giant oak trunk spanned the river. The village kept meaning to build something more substantial, but never had.

  Rather than putting them down, so they could walk across one at a time, Dobb leapt onto the oak trunk and teetered out over the raging river.

  Edmond remained silent and still. His father couldn’t handle two thoughts at once; the last thing Edmond wanted was to end up in the water below because Dobb got confused by a bit of complex breathing.

  Less risk-aware, Patty opened the sack and stared into it. “We’re going to be able to buy so many Scratchums. Just watch, Eddie.”

  “Maybe you should count it later.” E
dmond forced the words out without moving his lips. “After we’re safe?”

  Patty gave him a scornful glance. “What could possibly go wrong now? No one can run as fast as my Dobb. They’ll never catch us.”

  Dobb jumped over a knot. The tree bowed beneath his foot, turning his wobble into a sway.

  The sack slipped from Patty’s grasp and plopped into the depths of the river.

  Edmond sighed. He’d watched his parents lose their fortune so often that nothing shocked him any more. It had happened so often, it was almost inevitable. If it hadn’t been dropping it into a river, it would’ve been buying a magical chicken from a shady man in the next village they came to, leaving it with a one-eyed pedlar to be cleaned overnight, or whatever else a sensible villager was least likely to do.

  Patty cursed loudly enough to echo, a few of her words ones Edmond didn’t know yet. He filed them away for later use.

  “Language.” Dobb vaulted onto the opposite bank and set Patty and Edmond down on the moss.

  Edmond glanced at his mother, whose eyes were locked on the torrent of fast flowing water. “It’s gone. There’s no way to get it back.”

  Patty screwed up her brow, and ran her hands through her hair. After a moment, nothing happened. Her face creased harder.

  Edmond could almost see her struggling to think of an argument that would work on a river.

  Dobb, meanwhile, wrapped his arms around the end of the trunk. It was big enough to challenge even him.

  A few cries drifted on the wind from the other side of the river. Patty’s distraction hadn’t worked quite as well as she’d hoped.

  Dobb strained until his face turned scarlet through the dirt, but the tree didn’t move. He tried again, fighting against the solid weight of the tree.

  A chanting mob, torches and pitchforks raised, approached on the other side of the river.

  “Roll it,” Patty said. “Back and forth, until it falls into the water.”

  With a nod, Dobb put his shoulder against the side of the tree and shoved. The trunk groaned over, then over again. Angling as it rolled, the tree shifted closer to the edge.

  The villagers stumbled to a halt on the far bank, glaring furiously across at Edmond’s parents. A few of the kinder hearted people included Edmond in the insults so he wouldn’t feel left out. The mob milled around, each pursuer seeming reluctant to be the first to jump onto the trunk. Then one of them plucked up the courage.

  As he did so, Dobb heaved again, turning the trunk again.

  The adventurous villager leapt back. His torch flew into the air as his feet skidded from under him. One of his companions paused the pitchfork waving long enough to help him up.

  Legs pumping, Dobb kept the tree moving. Building speed, the trunk tumbled from the bank. And sank into the reeds.

  Edmond stared down at the two-foot gap between the end of the tree and the bank. Even he could probably jump that.

  But, before the mob could push the designated risk-taker back onto the bridge, the tree shifted with the current, rising slightly. Drag reduced it turned further out into the river. The other end clung to the bank for a while, then fell.

  As Edmond stared at the enraged villagers on the other side of the river, Mrs Crombie shoved her way to the front. Thrusting her rolling pins into her apron, she shouted something that, for the sake of Dobb’s sensibilities, was fortunately lost beneath the rushing of the water.

  Edmond risked a small smile. There wasn’t another way to cross for hours in any direction.

  Patty began to dance on the bank of the river, pointing at the villagers and laughing.

  “We should go,” Edmond said.

  “They can’t hurt us.” Patty waggled her backside at their pursuers, before adding a gesture for the hard of understanding. “Your Dad lost my gold, so I deserve to get something out of this.” She stopped gesturing and lifted her skirts, mooning the villagers.

  Teeth bared, Mrs Crombie grabbed a pitchfork and hurled it at the most obvious target.

  Edmond’s tunic tightened around his throat. Feet scrabbling, he found himself hanging in the path of the missile.

  Already peeved at the ruckus of the bridge splashing down, an irate swan burst from the reeds. Then tumbled back into the river, pitchfork speared through its back.

  The villagers fell silent, wide eyes following the swan-kebab until it sank from sight.

  Dobb, meanwhile, lowered Edmond to the bank, and patted him on the head.

  “You lifted me up like a shield!” Edmond said.

  “You’re lucky,” Dobb said. “I knew you wouldn’t get hurt.”

  Edmond sighed. No matter how many times he explained it, Dobb never seemed to get it. “You’re strong. Does that mean you can lift anything? Can you lift a mountain?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Dobb ruffled Edmond’s hair and ambled away from the bank.

  Edmond took his mother’s arm and led her away from the river before the villagers decided to launch the rest of their farming implements at them.

  “Where next?” Dobb asked.

  “Some of the villagers mentioned trading with a town called Greater Splendid on Mud.” Patty tugged her skirts down. “If village idiots get paid a few coppers a week, what will town idiots get?”

  Dobb raised his fingers and considered them. After a moment, he stuck one in his nose. “Good idea. You’re so smart, Patty.”

  “My Luck doesn’t always work.” Edmond ran both hands through his hair, just in case. “You can’t just use me a human shield whenever you feel like it.”

  “No kidding it doesn’t always work,” Patty said, “Or you would’ve saved that sack of gold. Or won at Scratchums.”

  Edmond turned away and stared into the silent woods. Scratchums. All his parents ever talked about was Scratchums. As if the answer to all life’s problems lay in a small piece of card covered in silvery foil. They kept buying them and scratching off the foil, but they never won. Dobb even bought used Scratchums—sometimes for less than cost.

  Scratchums were the whole reason for his fate. His parents had been losing at Scratchums for years before he’d been born. So, when they had heard the word Luck, they put all his points into it. Leaving him the luckiest idiot in the kingdom. He wasn’t strong enough to wrestle a chicken, but at least he was lucky, right?

  Edmond clucked and shook his head. Whatever Greater Splendid on Mud was, it wasn’t going to be their home for long. His mother would hatch another plan to get rich and there’d be a repeat of the torches and pitchforks.

  He just wished the swan hadn’t fallen in the river. He could have done with a decent meal.

  Chapter 2

  Childhood

  Edmond sat on his straw mattress in the corner of the hovel. The roof leaked, the floor squelched and there were holes in the walls. It was still better than most places he’d lived; giving the village idiots a crappy place to live seemed to be just as funny as the rest of it.

  His parents were arguing about something stupid. A cold, manure-scented breeze blew through the hole above his head; not that it made much difference, what with the other eight holes his father had knocked in the walls. Dobb wasn’t a violent man; he just hadn’t met a floor he couldn’t slip on or an object he couldn’t trip over.

  The pig standing on the kitchen table wavered on its legs. Its skin was more green than pink, and its tail extended straight out. Even Edmond’s three points of Intelligence were enough to recognise that the white foam and wonky eyes weren’t a good sign.

  “And another thing,” Dobb said. “That pig is going to make us sick.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Patty said. “That pig is going to make us rich.”

  “With the coppers it cost, we could have bought a Scratchum,” Dobb said.

  “With the money we make off this pig, we can buy twenty Scratchums.”

  “Who’ll buy a sick pig?” Dobb asked.

  Patty gathered up the animal and dumped it in Edmond’s arms. “Edmond swaps it for
a healthy pig at his work, then we’ll have a new pig that’s not sick. Which we sell for a gold.”

  Dobb’s eyes sparkled. “A gold?”

  “That’s right.” Patty shook a finger at Edmond. “So get a good one.”

  Edmond’s mother always had a plan, but she never thought ahead. What would happen when the pig’s owner noticed the sickly pig in the midst of his sounder? What would happen when the pig made the rest of the sounder sick? However, he knew better than to argue with her. She always won when she put her mind to it—usually because she didn’t realise when she’d lost and kept going.

  He rose halfway, then sat again. After putting the pig down, Edmond tried again. Upright, he tied a string around the pig’s neck and tugged it out the door.

  Drizzle seeped through the holes in his clothes. Greater Splendid on Mud was heavy on mud, but rather light on splendid, so—on average—the name wasn’t a lie. And everyone had put plenty of effort into coordinating with the mid-brown colour scheme. Pulling his sackcloth sleeves as low as they’d go, Edmond headed toward the east gate.

  After tying up his sick pig around the corner from the gate, near enough for him to see but out of sight of the gate, Edmond waited. Tomorrow was market day, so it didn’t take long for farmers to appear: cabbage farmers, chicken farmers, goat farmers, and—finally—three middle-aged pig farmers. They looked around them with barely concealed fascination, as if they hadn’t been to the town often. The ideal marks for his mother’s scheme.

  He hurried to them. “Watch your sounder for the day?”

  “Get lost, kid,” the farmer with the ruddiest nose said.

  “Can’t take pigs in the pub,” Edmond said. “Not here in town.”

  The farmers stopped and frowned at one another.

  “Three coppers to watch them until nightfall,” Edmond said.

  “Come on, Bard,” Hairy Ears said to Ruddy Nose, “Otherwise, we have to watch them in shifts.”

  “Two coppers,” Bard said.

  “Okay.” Edmond managed not to grin; he’d been willing to settle for one.