The Apprentice to Zdrell

by David K Bennett

  Kason’s jaw just hung open. He obviously wanted to hear Jonny’s response too.

  “You probably don’t remember me, but I was an apprentice at Castle Salaways the last time you were there. I remember seeing you, but I doubt you would remember me. I was quite a bit smaller and younger then too, so I doubt I look much like I did then.” Jonny said.

  “And now you’ve been apprenticed to Master Kason?” Boregond asked.

  “Yes. I’ve worked for Master Kason now for some time, and he’s taught me much. In fact, he just recently awarded me journeyman status.”

  Jonny knew that he had to get Boregond away from Kason quickly. He now knew the assumptions Boregond was working under, and he did not want to give Kason a chance to question them any further. For that matter, he knew that Kason was very upset by the deception Boregond had already used with him by posing as a trader.

  “Master Kason,” Jonny said, trying desperately to get Kason to go along with him. “I think it would be wise if Master Boregond and I were alone to talk of this business. I think there are things he wishes to discuss that he does not want most people to overhear.”

  Jonny could see that Kason was about to explode, so he hurried on.

  “Could we possibly take a walk down by the river for a time, so that we could discuss these things in private?”

  Boregond saw where Jonny was going and jumped in. “That is, if you can spare your young journeyman for a short time, Master Kason,” Boregond added in a conciliatory tone.

  Kason looked back and forth between them with something like loathing and said through gritted teeth, “Yes, we can spare him for a short time, though I don’t know why I should allow any courtesy to a man who hides his true identity from me for any reason.”

  With that, Kason turned and stomped back into his office and slammed the door.

  Chapter 65

  Jonny was careful to talk only of the weather and other pleasantries while he walked with Master Boregond through town and down to the river. Boregond played his part as well and did not try to steer the conversation to more serious matters until they were on the outskirts of town walking along the side of the river. Jonny was afraid, but was doing everything he could to appear calm and in control.

  Once they were in an open area with the river on one side and open fields on the other, with no one else in sight, Boregond stopped and faced Jonny.

  “Now, boy,” Boregond said, steel behind his words. “I’ve been patient long enough. Tell me where those enchanted blades are coming from. Tell me where Silurian gets them, and I’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. You’ll never have to work another day in your life.”

  Jonny tried to appear unaffected, though he was not, not by the offer of riches, but by the unspoken ‘or else!’ in Boregond’s words.

  “I would tell you, Master Boregond, if I could. But I can’t.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t? What did Silurian promise you?”

  “Master Silurian has promised me nothing other than what he’s promised all who work for him.”

  Jonny could see the rage building in Boregond. He was frightened by it, but he knew he needed to get Boregond to react before he realized who and what Jonny was.

  “Then let me tell you what I will promise you,” Boregond said, menace in every word. “I will promise you that if you don’t tell me all I want to know, and tell me quickly, you will never live to see the sun rise again!”

  Jonny believed him. He was scared, but he knew there was much Boregond did not know. He tried to tell himself that this was no different than his earlier duels, but he knew there was no one to make sure the rules were followed here, worse, he doubted there were any rules.

  “I told you I can’t, because you’ve already been told where those enchanted blades came from and you didn’t believe.”

  “You claim you’ve created them?” He snorted derisively. “My patience grows thin boy. There’s not a master wizard alive today who could do what’s been done to those blades, let alone a rejected apprentice.”

  Boregond clearly did not believe Jonny’s claim, but he was still not quite ready to attack. Jonny had to goad him into acting before he realized what Jonny could do, and prepared to defend against him.

  “You fool,” Jonny said with contempt he did not feel. “Whoever said I was a rejected apprentice? I am Master Silurian’s star pupil. It was I, and I alone who made the blades you’ve seen. You don’t remember, but I was the one who made you leave castle Salaways in disgrace the last time you were foolish enough to come there!”

  Jonny could see that his insults had hit their mark. Boregond was clearly enraged, but he also was still in control.

  “Yes, now I do remember you. You were right earlier, you look little like the beaten whelp you were then, but I still remember how Silurian used you to stage that trick to humiliate me. Silurian thinks himself the only one capable of power in other branches of magic. He thinks that those of us who use demons as our primary mode are helpless without them. Well, you shall see just how wrong he is, before you die!”

  Jonny had been holding himself ready for this moment, without hesitation invoked his invisibility amulet, and started to run as lightly as he could into the field.

  “Ha! You think a simple invisibility spell will save you? I see you still; you little rabbit. That spell does make you a bit harder to see, but it also marks you for the magic I will send your way.”

  Jonny ran over a natural levee separating the river from the fields and turned to face Boregond who was walking rapidly after him.

  “Which of the five amulets you wear will you use to show me your power, Master? Or maybe you’ll use one of the two rings you also wear or the one hidden next to the amulets beneath your shirt?”

  Boregond was obviously taken somewhat aback by Jonny’s knowledge of the magic he carried. Jonny had made a point of using his sight to its fullest while they had been walking to the river. Boregond fairly reeked with magical items. He also knew that even if Boregond had used his demon sight amulet on Jonny, all he would have seen was the invisibility amulet and power ring. Jonny’s other two rings were concealed within the cancellation locket.

  Boregond may have been put off by Jonny’s knowledge, but the taunts had been effective in making the man not consider the full extent of Jonny’s power.

  “You tell me,” Boregond said bringing his right arm back and throwing it forward as if he were pitching a rock at Jonny. Midway through the throw, a ball of energy appeared within his hand and flew at Jonny.

  Again, Jonny was ready and had invoked his shield spell, the same one he had used in his previous duel. The ball impacted the shield and failed to break through, but exploded with a great detonation. If Jonny had not been feeding additional power from his ring into the spell, it would not have held.

  “Impressive, young fool. Your shield held that time, but can it hold against this,” Boregond said as he threw a small black ball at the ground just outside Jonny’s shield. Almost immediately, the ball began to throw off great clouds of smoke.

  Jonny knew that the smoke would get through his shield, so he quickly concentrated on the ball and sent it flying over the levee and into the river. Jonny knew that if he stayed on the defensive he would lose, so he rapidly sent three fist-sized rocks flying at Boregond. They rebounded off a shield that Boregond must have invoked from an amulet. Once again, Jonny cursed himself for not having taken the time to create a shield amulet himself, since the effort of throwing the black ball and the rocks had taken enough of his concentration that his own shield spell had dropped.

  Jonny did not wait for Boregond to realize that Jonny’s shield was down and jumped straight into the air.

  This had the desired effect. For a moment, Boregond was stunned by Jonny’s action. The only problem was that Jonny was not sure what to do to press his advantage. Then he remembered his last duel and reached out to pull Boregond off the ground.

  The old wizard was very annoyed by Jon
ny’s tactic, but he did not panic.

  “No more playing boy!” he shouted and activated a pair of amulets.

  Immediately Boregond was surrounded by green translucent sphere. Jonny lost his hold on him and the sphere settled gently to the ground. As soon as it touched the ground, a whirlwind sprang up around it. At first, it was only a few feet taller than Boregond, but each moment it grew wider and taller. The wind of it was now picking up small rocks and throwing them, and not just in random directions, but right at Jonny.

  If Jonny had not spent hours defending against just this sort of attack, he would not have been able to stand against the assault. As it was, he was able to move the rocks with relative ease, so that he was in no danger. He tried turning the rocks back and sending them at Boregond, but he quickly found that once a rock entered the whirlwind it was grabbed and whipped around and thrown back at him. So Jonny settled for pushing the rocks enough that they flew harmlessly past him. Jonny knew that he would have to do something else soon.

  With every passing moment, the whirlwind was getting bigger and stronger.

  Jonny looked around and saw a large boulder several yards away. The farmers probably thought it too large to move when the field had been cleared. Jonny thought it might be a good thing to throw at Boregond, but for now it would provide enough shelter from the rocks leaving the whirlwind that Jonny would have time to think. Jonny flew over, took shelter on the lee side of the rock, and turned his attention back to finding a weakness in Boregond’s attack.

  Jonny focused first his zdrell sight, then his demon sight on the spell Boregond was using. It was unlike any spell Jonny had ever seen. He could see the power being used and the force lines being warped, but the manipulation looked like no sort of magic Jonny had previously witnessed. One thing was sure; the spell’s power kept growing. The whirlwind was now over one hundred feet high and grew taller and wider each moment. Larger and larger rocks and pieces of dirt were tearing loose and being thrown by its power.

  Jonny considered flying away. He knew that he could get away, but he also knew that now Boregond knew who and what he was that he would never get another chance like this. Boregond had not believed that Jonny could have been the creator of zdrell objects so he had not been prepared to duel with a zdrell wizard.

  Now he knew.

  If Jonny ran now, there would surely be another conflict, but Boregond would not come alone and he would be prepared. Jonny had to win this duel now, so he stayed.

  The problem Jonny faced was that the cyclone that Boregond had conjured was both an awesome offensive and defensive spell. The sheer quantity of debris that the cyclone was now throwing made it both a devastating weapon as well as blocking anything Jonny could think to throw at it. The boulder that Jonny was hiding behind was taking repeated hits from rocks thrown against it and the wind was starting to make it rock back and forth with the force of the gales.

  “That’s right you fool!” Boregond shouted over the wind. “Hide like the scared little rabbit that you are! See how your foolish zdrell tricks stand before a real power!”

  Jonny knew he had to do something fast. He realized that the magical cyclone shared something in common with a natural one; it had an empty center. Jonny figured that even Boregond would be hard pressed to throw rocks straight up. He waited for a momentary lull in the barrage and leapt straight up heading for the top of the whirlwind.

  Boregond roared with rage when he saw where Jonny was headed, but he could not do anything to stop him. Jonny was able to hover in place above the top of the cyclone. It was tricky staying away from the main turbulence, but Jonny’s practice again paid off. Jonny could tell that this maneuver would gain him some time but it was not going to do anything to stop Boregond, who was already doing something else. Jonny tried conjuring some magic missiles, but nearly fell from trying to split his concentration. The missiles bounced harmlessly off the green sphere surrounding Boregond. He had to come up with something better to attack Boregond.

  Then Jonny remembered the master ring. He flew a bit higher and pulled out his canceling locket. As soon as he opened it, Boregond roared again.

  “You do have the line cutter with you! Now I will kill you and retrieve that infernal device as well.”

  Jonny fished around in the locket to get the master ring, but it was hard to get it and at the same time maintain his position above the whirlwind. Just as he was slipping the master ring on his finger, a burst of wind knocked his hand and sent the demon ring, the line-cutter, flying. He almost flew after it, but decided that if he survived he could retrieve it easily enough. If he didn’t survive, it wouldn’t matter.

  Jonny had considered trying to use the line cutter to disrupt the power of Boregond’s spell, but the wizard’s lack of concern for its power had made Jonny go ahead with his choice of the master ring. As soon as he got it fully on, his perceptions shifted and he was able to see the power that made up the cyclone’s spell much more clearly. It was immensely powerful, but it did not use power the way Jonny did with his zdrell. The spell was somehow converting all of the energy bound in the matter around Boregond into pure liberated energy. Jonny suspected Boregond was using only a tiny fraction of the available power, but even so, it was stunning to behold. Jonny could see that the cyclone rather than being the primary reason for the spell was a side effect of the energy Boregond’s spell was releasing.

  Just in time, Jonny moved aside to avoid a bolt of that pure energy that Boregond projected at him. To Jonny it looked like Boregond had only limited control of the power he was unleashing. With his enhanced vision, Jonny could also see that if the spell were even slightly unbalanced it could easily destroy the wielder. As soon as Jonny realized how fragile the spell was, he knew what he had to do.

  He was about to act when Boregond released another blast at Jonny. This time Jonny did not completely get out of the way. His whole left side felt as if it had been set on fire and he felt himself falling. He struggled to maintain his altitude, but even as he struggled to stay in the air he felt himself starting to black out.

  He was falling; all he could hope to do was control where he hit.

  With one last burst of will, he aimed his fall straight at the green sphere that protected Boregond, this was the last thing Boregond had expected, so he did not hurl the next bolt of energy at Jonny that would surely have killed him. Instead he diverted the power into the energy shield so that when Jonny hit it, he bounced.

  Jonny was thrown laterally over twenty feet from his impact with the shield, but that actually was a much softer landing than Jonny would have had without it. He had been over two hundred feet in the air when he had started to fall. The impact also shocked Jonny back awake. He landed in a heap, but did not even try to get up.

  Without even moving his head, he reached out with his zdrell and grabbed the boulder he had been hiding behind earlier and threw it in a high arc at Boregond.

  Boregond saw the boulder coming and sent a blast of energy at it that caused it to explode into thousands of fragments. But Jonny had expected that and had been using all the enhanced vision the master ring gave him to watch the flow of energy in Boregond’s spell as he destroyed the boulder. As he watched, he saw what looked like a weak spot in the spell. Jonny knew that if he could find just the right place to push with the master ring he could collapse the spell, but he also knew he would have just one chance.

  Boregond was greatly enjoying himself now.

  “Did you see that, you little zdrell mouse! Your boulder did you no good at all. I destroyed it easier than swatting a fly. Now it is time to swat you and end this whole affair!”

  Jonny needed to keep Boregond talking. He was almost certain he had found the weakness in the spell, but he needed a few moments more to be ready. If Boregond struck too soon, Jonny would have no way to exploit the spell’s flaw.

  “You are right, Master Boregond,” Jonny yelled above the noise of the storm. “Your power truly is awesome. I have never seen anything lik
e it. How do you do it? Could you tell me how that amulet works? Even with demon sight I can’t understand it?”