The Apprentice's Path: The Alchemist #1
Page 25
"And I still do," I answered.
"If you say so," Joe replied, skeptically.
Mages earned more than alchemists, except for the truly remarkable alchemists. It was natural to assume that a magician-alchemist would spend their life practicing magic. But I didn't avoid Initiation just because my magic was weak, whatever grandpa thought; I wanted to stay an alchemist. Learning magic wouldn't stop that.
"I'm still an alchemist," I told him. "Why would I bother to catch up on all the courses, otherwise? I was only gone for two months, but it seems like enough material for a full semester was given in that time."
"You'll catch up," Joe replied, nonchalantly. He never worried about his studies; he had a guaranteed job at his uncle's company when he graduated. It frustrated me to no end. "But," he realized, "you'll have to double your coursework, right? If you don't want your magic blocked, you'll need to learn how to use it. And you need a master -- must be tough for you, the need to obey somebody."
"My master, Professor Bedwen, hasn't ordered me to do anything so far," I replied. "Except I'm moving with him, to facilitate learning. With my busy schedule, the only time I have for learning magic are the evenings."
"Well, at least the summer vacations are near -- in a month, you'll have a lot more free time..." Joe stopped, realizing something. "Wait -- Professor Bedwen? The light mage? He's your master?"
"Yes, yes, and yes," I replied, as I had told my other classmates before. I haven't checked whether this is the first opposed polarity master-apprentice relationship, but it's the only one I've ever heard of. Which is why it wasn't banned -- nobody would think of doing something that stupid. Except for me -- not sure whether I should feel proud of it or not.
"But... but... but..." Joe stammered, "how is he going to teach you anything? How can a light mage teach you dark magic?"
"I already know the theory," I pointed out, "as do you. He only needs to teach me the practical aspect, and, at least at the basic level, dark and light magic are the same."
"But there will be differences," Joe said, shaken. "At some point, he won't be able to teach you..."
"He can teach me how to control my magic, and that's enough," I said. "Look, the only requirement for a magical license is that you can control your magic and you aren't a danger to others. Doing something useful with it is not."
"But you're so good in alchemy," Joe complained. "You're so smart and talented. You could achieve great things in magic."
"There are plenty of ambitious mages out there," I pointed out. "And I never wanted to be a mage. I'm an alchemist, and Initiation won't change that."
"If you feel like that, why did you go through with it?" Joe accused me. He had a point. I didn't have to go through with Initiation, I could have remained a magical person without an ability to use it for life. If it hadn't been for the spontaneous illegal Initiation I had gone through, that is.
"I was fooled," I replied. "Professor Bedwen convinced me I could start seeing magic after Initiation, and that would be helpful with magical alchemy devices. I didn't realize it would affect my health so much."
"But they tell you all about it before you go through with it," Joe pointed out. "You need to sign a ream of papers acknowledging that you're aware of the risks. You couldn't have gone through with it without knowing the risks."
Since when does Joe have so much knowledge about the internal workings of magical Initiation? My paranoia flowered again, whispering suspicions into my ear. Why had he come looking for me, asking these questions? Joe was the person who had told me about the job. Was he involved with them? It hurt to think that -- Joe had been my only person for the last three years.
"Well, I never thought all that applied to me," I replied, giving a typically dark arall answer. "I thought it was lawyerly ass-covering."
"Why didn't you discuss this with me?" Joe then asked.
"And why would I need to discuss it with you?" I asked him. "Who are you, to demand I discuss my life decisions with you?"
Joe was surprised and hurt; he didn't expect my pushback.
"I thought you're my friend," he said. "But you then disappear, leaving no note, without saying anything, and came back visibly thinner and after having gone through Initiation. I thought..."
"What?" I asked, starting to get a bit testy.
"That you joined a cult."
I was dumbfounded. How could he think that? Although... It may very well seem so from outside, considering what Joe knew. I suddenly changed my opinion drastically about something I had been vehemently against before; I cut contact with friends; he didn't know I had been with my family, and I looked like somebody who had been starved. It was quite reasonable for Joe to think that, if he didn't know about my troubles.
But it was still ridiculous. Dark magicals never join cults; that's a light magical affliction. We are too independent and disobedient. So I laughed.
"Joe," I said after I stopped laughing. "I think sometimes you forget who I am. Maybe because you aren't used to women of my kind, because all the ones in Ashford are in Applied and Practical magic."
Both dark and light mages tended to have a parallel life to everybody else in university, leading their own mysterious lives. They even had separate dorms. Students usually didn't interact with them much at all.
Joe was chastened, and seemingly relieved.
"So you didn't join a cult," he said. "But then, why did you suddenly change so much? Why are you spending so much time with Professor Bedwen -- he's even your master now!"
I decided to share some of the truth with Joe. True -- he was suspicious, but he was my friend.
"He's my grandfather," I told him. "My mother, she's his daughter."
"His daughter? The one who died?" Joe asked.
"She's perfectly alive, let me tell you. But don't go around telling people that. We've decided to keep it secret. Some of his enemies are still alive -- and they may come after me."
Joe sat, trying to assimilate what I told him.
"But... if he is your grandfather, why are you dark?" he asked.
"It must come from my father's side," I replied.
"You told me your brothers are light, once," Joe reminded me. "How could you be dark, with light brothers?"
"As for that," I answered, "my family thinks it's because I'm female. They seem to think that light magic comes through the male line."
"Doesn't seem to make much sense," Joe pointed out, "since you got your dark magic from your father, presumably, and your brothers got theirs from your mother."
I shrugged. I never particularly cared about the reasons why my family was atypical. My parents were my parents, and my brothers were my brothers. Why would it matter which genes I inherited from whom? In school, I had to shut up everybody who questioned my family. Some seemed to think that my mother cheated on father; I never took those insinuations kindly, always escalating whenever somebody talked like that about my family.
"Look, Joe," I replied. "Don't think too much about it. I've heard all kinds of different theories about my family. If you dare mention most of them, you'll stop being my friend forever. So don't talk about it."
"I won't, I promise. I won't discuss your family, with anybody."
The conversation had been uneasy enough; I decided this was enough.
"Thanks," I replied. "I need to go now; I need to take a nap. I feel so tired lately. How about we go to the pub after I catch up with everything? I'm so busy recovering the lost labs and seminars, I barely eat."
"Of course," Joe said. "I'll be hanging out in the usual places."
"Great."
And with that awkward end, I left to take that nap, this time without any interruptions.
34
The three weeks after that were the busiest weeks of my entire life. I had to attend all the usual classes, labs, and seminars, plus all the catch-up lab sessions. Writing up all those reports, figuring out how to perform the calculations without having attended the seminars, and writing all th
ose papers consumed all my time. When I arrived at Jack's home, I would eat dinner, which he cooked, and we would eat in silence. Sometimes, if I had any energy, we'd spend some pleasurable time in the bedroom. More often than not, though, I just fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow, with the weight of Jack's arm around me helping me sleep through the night.
We talked at breakfast when I had energy and could share my plans for the day (study, study, and study some more). By the Friday of the third week, Jack shared his concerns with me.
"You know," he told me, "I think you're working yourself to the bone. This is unsustainable. I get that you need to catch up and keep up, but how long is this gonna last?"
"Actually," I replied, spreading some jam on a toast (I got sick of oatmeal), "today is my last day. I'll still have classes, but I'm back to my normal schedule."
"That's good," Jack said, relieved. "I wanted my girlfriend back."
"Thank you," I told him. "I'm not sure I could have done this without you. It was exhausting. Your support was important for me, and I appreciate everything you did."
"I'm just glad this is over," he replied. "This calls for a celebration -- maybe even a party."
"Sure," I replied. "Let's do something nice tomorrow."
"I'll make sure to wrap up everything today," Jack said, "so I'm completely free on the weekend."
"Thank you," I said, reaching over the table to kiss him.
The kiss was brief, just an expression of affection. We didn't have much time left; I had to run to class, and Jack had to go to work.
"What time are you coming home?" Jack asked as I was putting on my leather jacket and fedora. No scarf or woolen coats anymore. May is not that cold, although it's not quite warm yet in Ashford.
"After dinner," I replied. "I'll go have dinner with grandpa today. I haven't seen him for the last three weeks, and we need to catch up. And then we can spend the entire weekend together, with no interruptions."
"I'll be staying in the office until late today," Jack said, opening the door.
"OK," I replied, as we were going down the stairs. "I'll go to sleep when I come back, then. Just make sure you also eat dinner."
We parted at the door with a kiss. I was so looking forward to this intense schedule to be over.
Submitting the last lab report felt great. I put the stack of paper onto the shelf for that class' assignment and felt the relief circulating through my entire body.
As I went to grandpa's home, I was feeling guilty. I hadn't visited Billie in all this time; I didn't have the energy or time to play with him. I hoped I could make it up to him tonight.
When I rang, I noticed that Bettie took longer than usual to answer the door. She was usually much faster. As I came in, I noticed that there was much less furniture than before.
"We've been packing, Miss Bedwen," the housekeeper told me. "We're moving into the house Professor Bedwen bought next week."
"That's great, Bettie," I replied. "I'll go play with Billie now. Just call me at dinnertime, please."
"Yes, Miss Bedwen," she replied, as she hurriedly left on whatever business had occupied her.
I went to Billie's room, where he greeted me with great enthusiasm. We spent the afternoon playing until we got called for dinner. I hadn't talked with grandpa since that day at the interview; he was happy to see me, although he expressed it in his usual repressed manner.
"I see you're finished catching up on lost classes, Dana," he observed.
"That's right, Gramps. I'm back! I'm taking a break this weekend, but next week, it's all back to normal. We can resume the magic learning sessions, and I'll resume polishing off the thesis."
"That's good," he said. "But hold your horses. Things aren't normal yet. You still have to go through the magical tribunal. I've handled most of the issues; paid for the repairs and prepared a defense. Which we need to prep you for. It will be the week after the next, so we'll need to drill down on this."
"Can I still get the weekend off?" I asked. "Jack and I wanted to spend a bit of time together. He's been very patient, and I'd like to thank him."
"Maybe not the entire weekend," grandpa said. "But if you come for a few hours on Sunday, we can get a good start. It's great if you get some rest; you need to be fresh for this battle."
"OK," I nodded. The number of problems I had to tackle never seemed to end. Every time I felt like I had a handle on things, boom! Another heap of problems seemed to surface. "But why didn't you tell me earlier, Gramps? I could have squished in some preparation."
"I didn't know it would happen this soon," grandpa said. "These things usually take forever. Just assembling a magical tribunal is a very non-trivial thing. But it seemed like they had things ready, so by the time you arrived, the jury was drawn. I spent this time presenting our written argument; you'll need to give your testimony."
"Thank you," I had been so busy with other things, and the relief of getting rid of my problems with the gendarmerie so big, I had forgotten about the magical tribunal. But then, I'm not a worrier, and it's better to let professionals handle these things. And grandpa was a pro. "Did you mention the nitroglycerin?"
"I did not," grandpa replied. "It won't help you much, and it would seem like you're making excuses. We're going for uncontrolled magic due to emotional shock."
"But who will believe that?" I asked. "Emotional shock? For a dark arall? You know we never get scared. I wasn't in shock." The last thing I wanted was to look like a sissy who got scared by a minor wound.
"Drop it, Dana," grandpa cut me off. "Emotional shock doesn't mean you were scared; you could be angry or upset. That's what we're going with. Everybody knows that the time after Initiation, mages become emotionally unstable; it wouldn't be too surprising if you had a fit of rage."
"But I wasn't. Emotionally unstable, I mean. I didn't feel bouts of anger or anything after my real Initiation."
"That's because you spent a week in hospital, sedated. And after that, you were too weak to feel much of anything. Your magic has barely recovered, and with your intense schedule and health issues, it will take a very long time until your magic recovers fully. The emotions will come then."
"Fair enough," I felt more magic inside me, but it's true it wasn't overpowering me or my emotions. Could it be that I hadn't recovered enough?
"By the way, Gramps," I changed the topic because I didn't want to spend the entire dinner discussing our legal strategy for the tribunal. "I heard from Bettie you found a house? Where is it?"
"It's close to campus," grandpa replied. "And well-defended, too. It's not very good looking, but the structure is solid. And it was affordable, too. And it is magically protected."
That spiked my curiosity. An affordable building near campus? I knew grandpa was rich, but the area surrounding the university was infamously overpriced (it was among the most expensive areas in the nation, I think). If you didn't get dorm space, private housing anywhere within walking distance of campus would set you back by a pretty penny.
"So where is it, exactly?" I asked.
"Well," grandpa was being cagey, "you should see it when the workers finish it. It will be finished right after the tribunal date, and we should move in straight after that. Bettie will start organizing the move then."
"Was it in such a terrible state, that you don't want to tell me about it now?" I asked.
"Well, you could say that," grandpa said.
"OK, Gramps, I'll see what dump you bought after the tribunal," I said. "But if it's bad enough, I'm staying with Jack. Mother wanted me to be safe, and I'll be safe with Jack."
"Your beau, despite his many wonderful qualities, is not a mage," grandpa said. "And can't defend you against magic. I can."
I was about to snicker when I remembered the story Jack told me about grandpa. He wasn't lying. I don't know how, but grandpa could use his magic to kill people; he could probably use it for defense, too. They must have trained Inquisitors in stuff they don't teach most light mages.
"That's good. But you must have the basics solid before that. We'll start training after we're done with the tribunal and the move. Now, pass me the sauce, and will you stop picking the mushrooms out of your stew?"
"I don't get why you'd add mushrooms to a perfectly good stew," I grumbled. "Meat, sauce, potatoes. Why mess with perfection?"
"Quit whining. You need those extra nutrients. You haven't gained any weight since we came back; it seems like you've been skipping lunches. That needs to stop."
Grandpa had a point; I hadn't gained any weight. I was still skeletal, and my ribs were still visible. Jack still gave me weird looks whenever he saw me naked. Not the kind of look you'd want from a lover, that's for sure. So I dug into the stew, carefully picking out the mushrooms, but eating all the good bits. I'm not sure how long Bettie will try to fight me on this. She shouldn't expect surrender; mother had fought that war for eighteen years, and she only ever won a few skirmishes. I never ceded any tactical ground. Veggies are no food for humans. They are the food of food.
Once dinner was over, I bid Billie goodnight and went back to Jack's place. He wasn't there yet when I came there, but I climbed to bed without him, after a shower. I was exhausted.
I'm not sure what time Jack came back yesterday, but he was solidly asleep when I woke up. The sun shone through the solid black curtains, making everything visible to my morning mole eyes. He was still asleep after I emerged from the leisurely bath I had, so I went to eat breakfast without him. We had the full day; he needed rest, too.
So I made breakfast, leaving his portion on the stove, and sat down to eat and have some tea. He was still asleep when I finished eating and cleaned the dishes. I sneaked into the bedroom to check on him. He rarely slept in that late. As I tiptoed towards the bed, I noticed his breathing pattern changed a bit. I leaned in.