The Mad Apprentice

by Django Wexler

  Geryon greeted her at the door to his suite. He frowned at Ashes.

  “I’ll be raising the wards,” he said to the cat. “So you’ll have to stay outside.”

  Alice knelt down and scratched Ashes behind the ears—something he enjoyed, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

  “Don’t do anything silly,” he said, soft enough that Geryon couldn’t hear. “I won’t be there to rescue you this time when it all goes wrong.”

  Alice smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Ashes,” Geryon snapped.

  He heaved a feline sigh and coiled away, all wounded dignity, tail flicking back and forth behind him. Geryon stepped out of the way and let Alice through, then closed and locked the door behind them.

  “Every Reader keeps a single open portal into his fortress,” Geryon said as they walked down the corridor. “A front door, if you like. Most of us maintain many other portals as well, of course, but this one is for official business. The place it leads to is heavily warded and alarmed, so it’s impossible for one of us to use it to sneak up on the others. That helps prevent . . . misunderstandings.”

  He stopped at the door that led to his vault and placed his hand against it. Something inside the room clicked, and the door swung open.

  “Of course,” he added, “I keep the portal carefully locked away in any event. Better safe than sorry.”

  Alice peered around the corner. The dog-spider-thing she remembered from when Isaac had broken in was gone, and if another guardian had replaced it, it wasn’t visible. The shelves full of chests were still there, though, and Geryon went to a corner and picked up one of the smallest lockboxes. It was a solid metal cube, with no visible hinges and only a slight bulge to suggest a lock. Geryon tapped the protrusion with his finger, and the shiny surface rippled like still water broken by a flung pebble. A circle in the top of the box dissolved into thin air, revealing an interior lined with red velvet. A thin book, barely more than a pamphlet, lay inside.

  Geryon lifted it out and handed it to Alice, pressing his hands around hers for a moment. His skin was rough, and he smelled of ink and the weird, too-sweet concoction he used for gluing and binding new books.

  “I want you to be careful,” he said. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  “I thought you said it wouldn’t be dangerous.”

  “Assaulting a Reader’s fortress by the front door would be impossible,” he corrected. “With the defenses gone, I said it would not be difficult. But there may still be dangers. Creatures from the books will have found their way into the world, and some of them will be hostile.”

  “Ah.”

  “And you must watch your fellow apprentices. If any of them attempt to steal books or treasures from the fortress, report them to me, and their master and I will . . . have words.” The old Reader cleared his throat. “I don’t anticipate outright treachery. But every Reader trains his students as he sees fit, and not all of them are as liberal in their approach as I am. Remain alert.”

  “Yes, sir.” A thought occurred to Alice. “Will they speak English, sir? If they’re from all over . . .”

  “Not ‘all over,’ in this case. Only those who had close dealings with Esau will send representatives,” Geryon said, as though he’d genuinely forgotten the problem. He smiled gently. “It matters very little. Do you think Ashes learned English as a kitten?”

  “I . . . I hadn’t considered it, sir.”

  “It’s only humans who suffer from the curse of Babel. The words of Readers, and magical creatures, carry pure meaning. Suffice to say that if you wish to be understood, you will be, and vice versa.”

  “I see, sir. That’s good to know.”

  “Be polite and respectful,” Geryon said. “But do not grow too friendly with the others. Remember that, however you may feel toward one another personally, they must obey their masters, and the will of those masters may set them against you someday. It does not serve to become too attached to those who may eventually be your enemies.”

  Isaac had said something similar to her, the last time they’d seen each other. I wonder if he’ll be there? She had no idea if his master, Anaxomander, had had “close dealings” with Esau, but it would be nice to see a familiar face. Even if I still owe him a punch on the nose.

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Very well. Good luck. I will be waiting for your return.”

  Alice nodded, and flipped open the book. As usual, there was a moment where the letters were a mass of flickering, incomprehensible light, and then they twisted and resolved under her gaze.

  She read, The air smelled musty and damp, like cold, wet stone . . .

  The air smelled musty and damp, like cold, wet stone. A faint breeze was chilly against her cheek, and she could hear the plink, plink of dripping water in the distance. It reminded her of the world of the Swarm, but only for a moment. The rough floor under her boots felt like natural stone, not bricks, and there was none of the faint sewer smell of that place, just the clean scent of ancient rock.

  Even after Alice counted to fifty, her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the utter darkness. She reached out with her mind for the devilfish thread and tugged, summoning the creature’s ghostly glow. It cast weird, green-tinted shadows.

  She was, as she’d guessed, in a cave. It was roughly circular, big enough to hold a couple of tennis courts, with the ceiling perhaps twenty feet overhead. There was no way in or out that she could see. A couple of the walls had long cracks, and she could feel a steady breath of fresh air through them.

  Lining the wall of the cave was a row of boulders, too evenly spaced to be natural. One of them was right behind her, and she could see a duplicate of the little book she’d come in through. Engraved on the rock was a single rune, which, while unfamiliar, nevertheless carried the meaning Geryon as clearly to Alice as if it were spelled out in familiar Roman characters.

  Those must be the other “front doors,” she thought, looking around at the other boulders. There were more of them than she’d expected, at least fifty. Curious, Alice went to the one beside Geryon’s. She could see where a rune had once been, but someone had chiseled it through with deep cuts. No book lay above it.

  She raised her glowing hand above her head and looked around the room for any sign of the other apprentices she was supposed to meet. Nothing moved except for shadows. Maybe I’m early.

  She started walking the circle, looking at each rune in turn and parsing its meaning. Helian. Coldheart. Jezail. Vin Einarson. Master of the Closed Circle. Each of them had their own book, in a variety of shapes and sizes. Alice didn’t venture too close, for fear of tripping magical alarms. There were more empty spaces too, names scratched out and pedestals empty.

  Before she’d gone a quarter of the way around the circle, a light appeared ahead of her, cheerful and yellow against the green glow from the devilfish. Alice squinted and made out a figure carrying a lantern. She waved her glowing hand, and the light bobbed in response. Encouraged, she went closer.

  “Hello,” Alice said. “Are you here for the expedition?”

  “I am!” It was a girl’s voice, with an odd, lilting accent. “And you must be one of our company as well!”

  The other girl raised her lantern higher, throwing back the shadows. She was Alice’s age or a little older, with dark skin and black, frizzy hair tied back. Her clothes were strange: a sack-like robe of pure white fabric tied at her hips and shoulders to leave her limbs free, and sandals secured by a complicated web of straps. She greeted Alice with a broad smile.

  “I am glad to meet you, sister,” the girl said, giving a formal-looking half bow. “May auspicious signs shine on our endeavor.”

  This caught Alice a bit off guard. She nodded as politely as she could.

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” she said eventually. “I’m Alice.”

  “Alice!” the
girl said delightedly. “From Adalheidis, signifying nobility of being or birth. Most promising. I am Dexithea, named after the Telchine, though of course there is no true relation.” Alice’s confusion must have been visible, because the girl added, “On previous expeditions my companions have found it convenient to address me as Dex. Please do so if you wish!”

  “Dex,” Alice said. “Got it.” She paused. “You’ve done this kind of thing before?”

  “Indeed. My master, the Most Favored, has sent me to venture out with my brothers and sisters whenever the stars favor it. Though never, I must admit, to punish one of our own.” Her smile faded slightly, then brightened again. “This is your first outing of this sort?”

  “More or less,” Alice said. She didn’t think her trek through the library with Isaac really counted.

  “Then I am glad I was the first to greet you!” Dex shook her head. “Some of our brothers and sisters worry more than is good for them. First meetings can sometimes be rather tense affairs.”

  “It’s called a healthy paranoia,” a deep voice growled just behind Alice. “And frankly, you could stand to develop a little more of it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE GANG’S ALL HERE

  INSTINCTIVELY, ALICE YANKED AT the Swarm thread, pulling it inside her to make her skin tough and rubbery. She dove forward, rolled across the rocky floor, and came up in a crouch a few yards away.

  Where she’d been standing, there was . . . a shadow. A patch of shadow, solid and three-dimensional, boiling in the direct glow of the devilfish. Scraps of darkness flapped like ribbons of black silk in a gale, coming loose and dissolving into nothing, replenished by a constant upwelling of shadow from below. From this strange thing came the sound of—

  Laughter?

  “I’m sorry,” said the voice, apparently from nowhere. “I know I shouldn’t do that. It’s just so cute watching new kids jump.”

  The shadow dissolved, breaking apart into a storm of flying scraps that fizzled into black sparks, like a photonegative of a spitting fire. In its place was a tall, pale young man in a black silk cloak, smiling broadly but, Alice thought, with more than a bit of malice in his eyes. He had a long face and light brown hair, which he wore slicked back in a careful part. She guessed he was sixteen or seventeen.

  Alice straightened up, slowly, and let the Swarm thread slip away. She glared at him, wishing she didn’t have to look quite so far up to do so. There was something about his grin that she wanted to hit with something heavy. She took a business-like tone.

  “You really shouldn’t,” she said. “I could easily have hurt you.”

  “Next time I’ll be sure to announce myself,” he said, still grinning, and took the edge of his cloak in hand to make a pretentious bow. “Garret Arcane, at your service. You have my apologies, Miss . . . ”

  “Creighton,” Alice said. “Alice Creighton.”

  “And Dex,” Garret said. “You’re looking well, considering.”

  “Of course,” Dex said. “The Most Favored was able to reattach the arm you so thoughtfully retrieved for me.” She held up her arm to the lantern light, showing a thick band of shiny scar tissue just above the elbow. “See? Good as new.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Garret caught Alice’s expression and winked. “Sometimes these little trips can get a bit rough. But I’ll take care of you, never fear. Any sign of the others?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone,” Alice said.

  “Ah, but you didn’t see me, did you?” Garret grinned. “Healthy paranoia, like I said. What if I’d been something horrible?”

  Before Alice could think of a response, sudden light bloomed on the other side of the cavern, followed by a girl’s voice, shouting. She couldn’t make out the words, but Garret rolled his eyes theatrically.

  “That’ll be Ellen, being her usual charming self,” he said. “Come on. We’d better sort it out or they’ll kill each other before we even get started.”

  Garret led the way across the cavern. Alice, walking beside Dex, couldn’t help staring at the scar on her arm. When Dex caught her looking, Alice cleared her throat uncomfortably.

  “I was just wondering what happened,” she said.

  Dex smiled. “I encountered some difficulty during a joint expedition into one of the Lower Third Septieth worlds.”

  “She fell into a swamp,” Garret said from up ahead, “and a giant crocodile-thing bit it off.”

  “Bit it off?” Alice said.

  “Fortunately Brother Garret was kind enough to lend me his assistance,” Dex said. “All’s well that ends well.”

  “But didn’t that hurt?”

  Dex shrugged. “Pain is an illusion. The body is only a clay vessel holding the immortal essence of the soul, so it is a mistake to attach any import to the difficulties it may encounter. In fact, the whole episode reinforced my fundamental understanding of—” She caught Alice’s expression. “Yes. It hurt quite a lot.”

  Garret pulled up short, shading his eyes with one hand. The light had grown steadily brighter as they approached, until it was almost too intense to look at.

  “Ellen!” he shouted. “Is that you?”

  A girl’s voice came back. “Garret? I ought to have guessed you’d be here.”

  “You know me, I never miss a party,” Garret said. “Would you mind turning your halo down a few notches before you blind everybody?”

  The brilliant light dimmed to a more comfortable level, and Alice could see the girl who stood underneath it. She was tall and skinny, with short blond hair and pale skin. Alice guessed she was the same age as Garret. Her outfit looked a bit like Alice’s, durable and practical, though it had seen considerably more use.

  “Is that Dex with you?” Ellen said.

  “Yup,” Garret said. “And this is—”

  “Alice,” Alice interrupted.

  “She’s new,” Garret added.

  “There’s another girl around here somewhere,” Ellen said. “But I barely got a look at her before she ran off.”

  “I’m not surprised, with you shining that searchlight around,” Garret said. “Anybody would be frightened.”

  Ellen scowled. The light—which emanated from thin air a foot above her head—rippled and brightened, as if in response to her anger. “That’s hardly my fault. She startled me.”

  “I’ll find her.” Garret raised a hand, and wisps of shadow started to gather around him.

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, sneak up behind her. I’m sure that will help.”

  The shadows paused. “You’re not still sore that I caught you last time?”

  “Of course not.” Ellen sniffed. “And you did not catch me.”

  “Oh, come on. You must have jumped five feet!”

  “It’s a perfectly rational reaction when you’re waiting in some nasty bog and you hear something moving behind you.”

  “And you screamed.”

  “I did not—”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Alice said. “Which way did she go?”

  The two older apprentices paused their argument to look at her. Ellen pointed, and Alice nodded curtly and brushed past them. Dex caught her eye and flashed a grin where the other two couldn’t see.

  Their bickering resumed behind her as Alice walked out into the darkness. She pulled gently on the devilfish thread, summoning the soft green glow, and walked slowly around the ring of boulders. Aside from the rocks, the cave wall was smooth, and there didn’t seem to be anywhere to hide.

  “Hello?” Alice said. “I’m sorry if they scared you. We’re not going to hurt you, I promise.” She paused to look behind one of the rocks, and found nothing. “Hello? Are you there?”

  A flash of motion caught her eye. Alice looked around in time to see a small girl take a long step away from the cave wall and gasp for air, as though she’d just broken the
surface after a long swim underwater. She hadn’t been there a moment before, Alice was certain.

  She was a tiny, frail-looking thing, a few inches shorter than Alice and painfully thin. Everything she wore was made of leather, a vest and short pants that didn’t reach her knees, so haphazardly stitched that Alice wondered if she’d made the clothes herself. Her mouse-brown hair was pinned up on the right, but the other side she let fall in a long, straight curtain that touched her shoulder and obscured that half of her face.

  Alice forced herself to remain still. The whole of the girl’s tiny body vibrated with tension, ready to turn and flee.

  “Hello,” Alice said, in the most reassuring voice she could manage. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I saw the light,” the girl said, in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. “And I thought . . .” She blinked, and shook her head. Her stance relaxed a fraction, and Alice nodded encouragingly.

  “I’m Alice,” she said. “You’re new at this like me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, after a moment’s careful consideration.

  “What’s your name?” Alice prompted.

  “Soranna.”

  “That’s a nice name.”

  There was another silence. Alice found herself somewhat at sea with this strange girl who spoke in monosyllables. In the days before Alice had come to Geryon’s—which now felt like memories from another lifetime—she’d never been comfortable around children, preferring the company of adults. She based her manner on the slow gentle tone taken by grown-ups who didn’t know her, which she’d always privately thought sounded like someone talking to a lapdog.

  “Why don’t you come back and meet the others?” Alice said. “They’re all very nice, and they won’t hurt you either.” She paused, compelled to be honest. “At least, I hope that they’re nice, I’ve only just met them. But I’m pretty sure they won’t hurt you.”