An Unexpected Apprentice

by Jody Lynn Nye

  What had come after was in no way his fault or his doing. His allegiance never wavered from his cause. He had brought all this information home. It supplemented gleanings brought to Soliandur by other spies. All of the details confirmed the scrying of the court wizard, who was proving to be a true seer.

  Magpie emerged from the privy room covered with dust and feathers just as a maidservant went by. She squawked with surprise, but didn’t drop the pitcher of water she was carrying. He gave her a grin and unlocked the door of his chambers. They were as tidy and free of dust as the secret passageway, as if his mother had had foreknowledge of the exact moment of his arrival home. Gratefully, he stripped out of his dirty clothes and ran a bath for himself. There was no need to light a lamp, with the summer evening sun still pouring in through the unshuttered windows. He was tired of the glare, anyhow. Cradled in the porcelain bath full of steaming water, he remarked upon how little it took for civilized life to break down.

  Magpie squeezed out the bath sponge and applied it to his face and neck. Grime rolled off his skin in layers. He had never thought that Nemeth had been much of a magician. His great workings usually failed. An attempt to bring rain to relieve a yearlong drought had been disastrous. Nor was Nemeth able to charm beasts, destroy insect plagues, or enchant weapons. It seemed that his greatest and heretofore untapped talent lay in clairvoyance, the ideal gift for an enchanter whose liege was pitted in a battle of wits with another. Too bad, though, that his father, disappointed in his enchanter’s previous failures and distrustful of everyone, discounted almost everything that Nemeth told him after one incident, in which the enchanter warned him that advance scouts were avoiding lookouts by traveling through the old river tunnels. The king at once sent elite troops, only to find collapsed mine shafts, and no sign that anyone had passed that way recently. Again Nemeth pleaded for the king to listen, that there were other underground passages that the enemy was making use of. The king reviled him and denied his gifts. In vain, Nemeth had protested his innocence, saying that his seeing was true, and he was working on other means of defending the country. Magpie and Hawarti had defended the hapless wizard, who was no better at dealing with angry kings than he was with rainstorms.

  Instead, Soliandur put his belief in information that had been bought from a traitor who claimed to be close to Halcot’s general. They found out later that the man had been a spy in Halcot’s pay all the time. They caught him and hanged him when the war was at last over, but it was too late for Soliandur. He threw too many men at too many points along the border, decimating his forces, and blaming Nemeth for each successive failure.

  Two years after hostilities began, a herald had made his shaky way to the front line and surrendered to the nearest officer, and begged to be brought to the king without delay. He had a message of the greatest import from King Halcot. The Rabantavian king was suing for peace.

  Soliandur took news of the surrender with grim satisfaction. Details arrived along with Halcot’s chief minister who came to ask humbly for terms at the king’s pleasure. It seemed that the most ancient of maps had been compared by the southern king and his ministers. They had realized their mistake. Halcot offered to halt the fighting and to to pay restitution, for their mutual benefit. Magpie believed that his intelligence was far better than Soliandur’s, or that he paid more attention to it, and realized that little would be left of the two lands if the fighting went on for much longer. A proud man, he had swallowed his pride for his people. Soliandur drew up the terms of the treaty, demanding that Halcot pay tribute for twenty years and acknowledge Orontae as its master. That latter term Halcot would not agree to, but he accepted payment of the monstrous sum Soliandur demanded as weregild.

  The war was over, but two years of battle had left Orontae scarred and, though few people realized it, near financial ruin. Soliandur had to try and rebuild a nation without seeming to need to. The king concealed from his people how much he hated the status quo, but he took out his anger on everyone close to him. To keep from revealing to the people how bad things were, Soliandur had borrowed heavily from the queen of Levrenn, his wife’s cousin, and was paying it back mainly from the tribute that Soliandur had exacted from Halcot and new taxes levied upon an already groaning populace. Magpie knew all that had gone through his father’s mind, and how devastating it was to a proud man.

  It went without saying that the tunnels were found within a month after the end of the war. They were the course of underground rivers that had gone unnoticed for eons by any humans except possibly smugglers and a few children.

  No one knew what had become of Nemeth. Soliandur had dismissed him from his service, for once and all. At Hawarti’s urging he offered the angry wizard more gifts and a generous settlement, but to anyone who would listen he still said that Nemeth was to blame for their defeats. Nemeth had disappeared not long afterwards. The tower, from which they had heard angry shrieks, was still unoccupied.

  A faint snick sounded in the next room, the noise of the door latch being opened very quietly. Before conscious thought took hold, Magpie’s reflexes jerked him up and over the far side of the bath as silently as an otter. He wriggled across the floor toward his clothing and the daggers hidden in sleeve and boot. His father’s antipathy toward him was known. It wouldn’t be out of the question for a reward-seeking assassin to make away with the unpopular prince. While he had luxuriated in the hot water the sun had gone down, and shadow favored stealth.

  On elbows and knees, he crawled around behind the bathroom door and peered through the hinge side to spy upon the intruder. Someone was moving around in his bedchamber, someone else who did not choose to light the lamps.

  The door catch clicked a second time, again very quietly, and footsteps receded faintly down the corridor. Puzzled, Magpie crept to the end of the door and ventured a look around.

  There was a note in his mother’s handwriting: “Give Inbecca my love.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  They were gaining ground on the Great Book, but not fast enough for Tildi. The gold dot on the map always showed it to be farther away than they thought it would be. The soundlessness of their passage through the air made it possible for the searchers to speak together while they rode. Lakanta narrated the features with which she was familiar, among them towns, rivers, and roads, adding funny little stories from her long experience as a traveling tradeswoman. As they had not fallen out of the sky, Tildi began to get over her fear of the heights, and saw the land unfold before her like a glorious tapestry. The map the schoolmaster had had in Clearbeck was a faint pencil sketch by comparison.

  On the third day the trace on the map began to fade. It vanished entirely under the noonday sun, leaving them to seek about helplessly in midair. Tildi feared that the thief had managed to break the spell on the map, but it had only run its course. They landed in a field outside a huge farmhouse that was so much like Daybreak Bank that Tildi felt tears starting in her eyes from homesickness. Edynn had taken her briskly in charge and got her mind off past sorrows by insisting that she renew the map’s spell on her own. To the relief and dismay of everyone, the dot sprang up again as bright as ever and as far out of reach.

  Over the days that passed Tildi began to daydream about meeting up with the thief. She pictured Knemet as a handsome giant, with a black beard and bright golden eyes. In some of her dreams, the huge human handed over the book without trouble. In others, he started a war that consumed the whole world, leaving no one alive but her and him on a cliff. In order to save the world she must take the book and jump off, leaving him behind. She reached out to do it, and found herself falling, but she had never been so happy in her life. The sacrifice was worth it, because she had the book in her keeping at last.

  No more demons had pursued them, but she viewed all clouds with suspicion since the first attack. Other things had harried them in the air, looking like snakes or deformed birds or shapeless blobs of flesh whose touch burned, but Tildi found it easier and easier to drive them
back. Even Serafina had praised her growing skills with wards and protective runes. All of them kept a weather eye out for thraik. To Tildi’s relief, the slimy, black-green creatures had not turned up again.

  There was one bright spot, at least: since they were no longer tied to following the thief’s tracks, they were able to detour for the night to more hospitable surroundings. Between them, Teryn and Lakanta had picked out the nearest habitation that had the chance of a decent inn or guest house and put down there, often to the open admiration of the clientele. Being able to sleep in a bed had done wonders for Tildi’s morale. She was able to face the daily climb into the skies with resolve, if not outright enjoyment.

  Edynn encouraged her further by helping her with magical studies. The wizardess was very tired when they landed in the evenings, but she insisted on squeezing in a little time for Tildi. In the Hourglass Inn, a picturesque spot in central Rabantae, they sat together over a handsomely laid table in the corner of the main room beside a lively, crackling fire that was meant as much to cheer as to warm.

  “There are so many disciplines of magic that you will be encountering over the coming years,” Edynn said, as eagerly as a girl, leaning toward Tildi. By contrast, Serafina sat back in the inglenook, her slightly hooded eyes staring at Tildi. The smallfolk girl tried over and over again to offer friendly overtures to the younger wizardess, but they were always rebuffed. “The biggest problem you will have, once this task is over, is deciding in what order you will want to approach each subject, or whether you’ll want to learn some of them at all.”

  “I’d like to try everything I can,” Tildi said. “I’ve had so little experience in magic that I don’t know what I won’t like.”

  Edynn leaned back a bit and gazed at the ceiling. “Let me see, there is Healing, Teaching, Naming, Making, Influence, Transformation, Psychometry, Weatherchange, Alchemy, Astronomy, Protective Magics—Olen has given you a good grounding in that, but you must learn to be less timid in its use—laws of Magic, Evocation, Invocation, and True-seeing. Weather-witching is fairly common. Healers are also common. There are natural seers, but that is one of the rarest talents of all. Psychometry is useful. Contact with important artifacts can cause memories long buried in the item to surface, or give the seer insight into things happening elsewhere. This is a function of the Law of Contagion, in which that thing that touched another maintains a bond with it, no matter how distantly parted they are, and can cause things to happen to one part by using the other.”

  “Is that which makes the runes in the book change?” Tildi asked.

  “No, that would fall under the Law of Macrocosm, in which, as you know, a small thing is tied to a larger thing that is identical to it. There is known to be dark magic that perverts this. It ties images to the humans they resemble. Misfortune that is visited upon the images also affects the person. There are dark analogues to all magics, I am sad to say. As a true rune is changed, the item it describes is also changed. We discussed this in Silvertree, you must recall.”

  “I do,” Tildi said, turning her attention to her neglected plate, long grown cold. “I won’t ask again. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, no, no,” Edynn said, smiling. “I’m only reminding you. I do not want to stop you asking questions. You should feel free to ask questions, as you did with Olen. I am your teacher, temporarily, until we have returned from our mission, successfully or unsuccessfully. I only remind you so you can tie together what you learned. The Great Book is a work for the ages, like the mountain halls of the First Kings, indeed, like our world itself.”

  Rin let out a mild sound. “Sn-sn-sn. Would not some of your fellow humans consider those words to be blasphemy? Natural phenomena are not to be compared with man-made.”

  “You are toying with me, Princess,” Edynn said, with a humorous look at the centaur. “It could be considered so by some deep adherents to the Mother and Father, but most of what we wizards do question are all the elements of existence. You understand that what I say goes against those teachings, but only in a narrow interpretation. I believe, as you do, in Time and Nature as the architects of creation. And part of what Mother Nature has given us is the ability to question, so question I do. I must not refuse to use her gifts.”

  “And what do you think?” Rin asked Lakanta.

  The little merchant threw up her hands. “I’m not what you call a normal adherent of human faith. Don’t ask me!”

  “Smallfolk don’t approve of magic. It wouldn’t matter if you had the gift, especially if you are a girl,” Tildi reminded them.

  “Nor is magic acceptable in every human culture. You should not have been afraid to use your gifts. Being a girl is not a disadvantage or a disgrace. You may put yourself forward. It is your responsibility. I know it’s not the way it is in your world, but magic does not care if you are a girl or a boy, old or young, elf, dwarf, mermaid, human, or centaur, or any of the other wonderful permutations of life. It is power and therefore formless and without regard. It will not seek you out, nor will it spare you. If you have chosen this path, then you must understand that. That is your responsibility.”

  Tildi was impressed by Edynn’s passion. If only Teldo could have lived to be there with her! Ah, but then she would not have been here with him. The apprenticeship would have gone to him, and he would be here with the page of the book, in the company of wizards and centaurs. She would have been at home in the Quarters, keeping house for Gosto.

  “There is so much you can do with your skills. Talents are different between wizards, even members of the same family. I have many skills, but Serafina far outstrips me in Transformation. We are of similar skill in several other arts, including Healing. Weather-witching is a discipline I particularly enjoy, though I seldom practice it. There are too many natural repercussions one can suffer if one meddles too greatly with the flow of the climate.”

  “Olen is going to send me to Volek one day,” Tildi said.

  Edynn and Serafina exchanged glances. “Ah. Yes. I learned my skill with storms from him, but Olen is greater than Volek.”

  “He is?” Tildi asked, her voice rising to a squeak. “He told me Volek was the master of that craft.”

  “Oh, no. He’s too modest. You could have done far worse than to apprentice yourself to Olen. You don’t have to make up your mind where your talents lie. You’ll find that out in a few years, and then you can decide if you will choose to develop that skill, or pick another field of study that interests you, whether you have a natural bent for it. You can still learn. You have the time. Once you begin to study magic, it stretches out your life. It is as if we put ourselves more in tune with Father Time, learning the slow pace of existence, and he gives us more of his precious gift in which to learn.”

  Tildi frowned, thinking of the book. “In the council, the wizards said that the Shining Ones lengthened their lives by changing their runes. Wouldn’t wizards be at risk if the thief interferes with each of them?”

  “That is what I believe,” Serafina said severely. “It is much more than likely that we will be his first victims, as the ones who are most likely to be able to stop him. Only time will tell what his plans are.”

  “Edynn, would he be able to tell by reading each rune who is fated to live or die? Is our future written in the book? Does it say what is foretold to happen?”

  “No, Tildi. It is only a record of what is now, if I can use the word only to describe the Great Book. The changes to the runes within run parallel to that which is occuring to the natural object, and no faster. It has no effect upon what is to come. As Olen told us all, it is only a tool. How you manage fate is up to you. For example, I know my fate. I have known it for years.”

  Serafina straightened up at once, aghast. “Mother, this is none of her business.”

  Edynn turned to her, the same mild expression of patience on her face. “But it is, daughter. If she is to be my apprentice, however temporary, it must be known to her. She deserves that.” She put her hand on her daughter’s,
but turned to Tildi.

  “You have the right to know, since you have been entrusted to me by Olen, that our time together may be limited. It is not that I have been deprived of a long and full life. I’ve seen several centuries come and go, like Olen. I have traveled widely, and enjoyed my time observing my fellow beings,” she added with a nod to Lakanta. “I have been the adviser to kings and queens in three continents. I’ve served them in war and in the prosperous or thin times in between. In fact, until Olen summoned me to help gather rumors of the book’s return, I had retired—to a lovely estate, the gift of my last employer, a very wise and ambitious merchant—to study magic and to raise my children.”

  “Children?” Tildi echoed, surprised.

  Edynn dimpled, making her look younger than her daughter. “Yes. I have two sons, a general in a kingdom in Sheatovra and a merchant seaman, the master of his own fleet of ships. Serafina is my only daughter, and by far my youngest. I believe that she is also the one closest to me in temperament.”

  Lakanta let out a disbelieving chuckle, echoing Tildi’s own thoughts, then assumed an innocent blue-eyed expression. “My apologies, honorable one.”

  “You must admit you are not seeing us at our best,” Edynn chided her mildly. “It’s been difficult for her. She has lived in the shadow of a famous mother all her life, and has resented it with the full force of an ambitious soul.”

  “Mother!” Serafina said indignantly. Her back went as straight as the fireplace poker. “I love and admire you dearly.”

  Edynn sighed and stroked her hand. “And that’s the contradiction, of course. In time, you too will come to be respected and held in awe, for you are immensely talented, but only once I’m not here to be given all the credit. I do know all too well how she feels, Lakanta. I felt it with my father, who was more renowned than I will ever be. But I cannot do anything to change the way things are.