Years later, Grezhakh described the impulse that led him to purchase me as insanity engendered as vengeance from a lifetime of unadopted cats. But he found that I was intelligent and obedient, and the challenge of turning me into something useful appealed to him.
For my part, Grezhakh terrified me. He outweighed the two largest goblins in my village together, had large, sharp tusks, and a deep, gravelly voice that seemed to have come right out of my nightmares. And that was BEFORE I knew that he could call fire from thin air. I spent the first few days in a sort of trance, too lost and frightened to do anything more than do exactly what I was told.
Grezhakh dragged me to the nearest town and poured civilization into me. Over the course of the first year he managed to turn a near feral and profoundly ignorant adolescent whose only possession was a tattered loincloth into a tolerable valet who not only wore shoes and clothing, but knew how to clean and repair them. Gradually my fear metamorphosed into respect and, even more gradually, affection.
Once I was useful, Grezhakh began to wonder just HOW useful I might become, and he started teaching me to read. That went well, so he started me on algebra, and THAT went so well that he decided to teach me Draconic, which was miserable. Grezhakh assured me that the first lessons in Draconic are ALWAYS miserable, even for dragons who are raised to it, but that was small comfort for what seemed like pointless torture.
And then one day he gave me a crystal about the size of my thumb. It was shaped like a thick-waisted sand timer with rounded ends. He had me hold it in an open palm, touched it, muttered something, and it began to glow brightly. My eyes went wide.
“Master,” I stammered, “Are you going to teach me spells?”
Grezhakh didn’t quite growl. “Hedge wizards learn spells,” he said. “Sorcerors learn magic. You have the language; make your own spell. Or don’t you want to be a sorcerer?”