Broken Wizards by Jeffrey Bardwell

Author:Jeffrey Bardwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Twigboat Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16. STYX, YEAR 495

Years and wisdom healed me, like a tree trunk scarring after a limb has fallen dead on the ground, smoothing my rough perception that I played any role in the estrangement between my father and my grandfather. Back when the wound was fresh and ragged, I blamed myself for the break between my young sapling father (who was in truth more of a sap) and my ancient oaken grandfather (whose majestic stature concealed a fragile, hollow core). I was such a foolish, callow youth. Every attack and doubt would penetrate my bark and pierce me to the pith. My bark is thicker and rougher now and my scar tissue has its own scar tissue: another legacy of age.

The Day the Trees Died, which my sour, solemn father remembers as The Day I Killed the Baby Dragons, when he pains himself to recall the events of that day at all, I should say I awoke to the sounds of screaming and chaos, but I do not sleep and was checking the morning breads in the baker's ovens, say my eardrums were destroyed, but I have none, and say the glass windows in the bakery shattered. They did. When father destroyed the roads and tunneled through the trees and blanketed the land with such thick magic that he must have smothered and choked what baby dragons he did not crush, the evil brass watch launched off the wall like a frog and trilled as though the world would end. The noise made every customer bleed from their ears and fall down.

If these poor people collapsed, what happened to Grandfather? I thought. After checking that everyone was still breathing, I made my excuses to Abby's prostrate form and ran home. Nobody was outside. All the windows were gone. All the cobbles were gone. I walked through the mud and opened the door to our house. There he was, motionless on the ground. Why wasn't I here to help? The memory of the leaping watch came to mind as I dabbed the blood from his ears. I cradled Grandfather's head in my lap, stroking his hair and reminiscing about the little pond behind my copse of trees.

Every spring, the rain would fill the little pond and all the frogs would gather and sing every night. The boy frogs would gather in groups and serenade the girl frogs. The male groups who sung the sweetest, or the most complex, or maybe just the loudest, according to the lady's tastes won first mating rites and thus new baby frogs were born. Those warm nights were filled with a cacophony of frogs. The trilling of the watch was much louder. If only the watch were a frog, he would have his pick of the lady watches and thus new baby watches would be born.

Sometime later, Grandfather awoke and grabbed my hand. “What do you think you're doing?” he asked, shaking his head with a puzzled frown and repeating the words, mouthing them slowly. My grandfather began touching his ears and uttering a soft incantation under his breath.

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