The Soulforge

by Margaret Weis

  “I hear you kiss his arse every morning, ‘Master Raistlin.’ ”

  The boy, known as Gordo, made vulgar smacking sounds with his lips. Those sitting nearby responded with smothered giggles.

  Master Theobald heard and turned his eye on them. He rose to his feet and the boys immediately hushed. He headed for them, the willow branch in his hand, when he was distracted by the sight of a small pupil actually slumbering soundly, his head on his arms, his eyes closed.

  Master Theobald smiled. Down came the willow branch across the small shoulders. The pupil sat bolt upright with a pained and startled cry.

  “What do you mean, sir, sleeping in my class?” Master Theobald thundered at the young malefactor, who shrank before his rage and surreptitiously wiped away his tears.

  During this commotion, Raistlin heard a flurry of activity behind him, a sort of scuffling, but he didn’t bother to look around. The antics of the other boys seemed petty and stupid to him. Why did they waste their time, such precious time, in nonsense?

  He said “ai” quietly to himself until he was sure he had it right, and even wrote down the vowel combination upon his slate in order to practice it later. Absorbed in his work, he ignored the muffled giggles and sniggers going on around him. Master Theobald, having completely demoralized one small urchin, returned to his desk well satisfied. Seating himself ponderously, he continued with the lesson.

  “The next vowel in the language of the arcane is o. This is not pronounced ‘oo,’ nor yet ‘och,’ but ‘oa.’ Pronunciation is most important, young gentlemen, and therefore I suggest you pay attention. Pronounce a spell incorrectly and it will not work. I am reminded of the time when I was a pupil of the great wizard—”

  Raistlin fidgeted in irritation. Master Theobald was off on one of his tales, stories that were dull and boring and served invariably to laud the mediocre talents of Master Theobald. Raistlin was copying down carefully the letter o with the phonetic pronunciation “oa” next to it when suddenly his stool shot out from underneath him.

  Raistlin tumbled to the floor. The fall, completely unexpected, was a hard one. Stinging pain shot through his wrist, which he’d instinctively used to try to catch himself. The stool toppled to the floor with a loud clatter. His neighbors broke into guffaws, immediately silenced.

  Master Theobald, his face purple against his white robes, sprang to his feet and stood quivering in rage like a mound of vanilla pudding.

  “Master Raistlin! What is the meaning of this disruption to my lecture?”

  “He went to sleep, sir, and fell off his stool,” Gordo offered helpfully.

  Crouched on the floor, nursing his injured wrist, Raistlin located the string that had been tied to the leg of his stool. As he reached to grab it, the string slithered across the floor to disappear up the sleeve of Devon, one of the Gordo’s minions, who sat behind him.

  “Sleeping! Interrupting me!” Master Theobald snatched up the willow branch and bore down upon Raistlin. Seeing the blow coming, he hunched his shoulders, and raised his arm to make himself as small a target as possible.

  One cut of the willow sliced the flesh of Raistlin’s upraised arm, narrowly missing his face. The master lifted his hand to strike again.

  Rage, hot as a forge fire, burned through Raistlin. His anger consumed his fear, consumed his pain. His first wild impulse was to leap to his feet and attack his teacher. A trickle of common sense, icy cold, ran through Raistlin’s body. He felt the idea as a physical sensation, a chill that tingled his nerve endings and set him shivering, even in the white heat of his fury. He saw himself attacking the master, saw himself looking the fool—a puny weakling with spindly arms shrieking in a high-pitched voice, flailing away impotently with his tiny fists. Worse, he would be the one in the wrong. Master Theobald would triumph over him. The other boys—Raistlin’s tormentors—would laugh and gloat.

  Raistlin gave a strangled gasp and went limp, lying on his back, his legs twisted at an angle, knees together. One hand slid nervelessly to the floor, the other lay flaccid across his thin chest. His eyelids closed. He made his breathing as quiet as he could manage, quiet and shallow.

  Raistlin had been sick many times during his short life. He knew how to be sick, he knew how to feign illness. He lay, pale and shattered and apparently lifeless, on the floor at the master’s feet.

  “Cripes!” said Devon, the boy who had tied the string to the stool. “You’ve killed him!”

  “Nonsense,” said Master Theobald, though his voice cracked on the word. He lowered the willow stick. “He’s just … just fainted. That’s all. Fainted. Gordo”—he coughed, was forced to clear his throat—“Gordo, go fetch some water.”

  The boy ran off to do as he was told. His feet pounded on the stone floor; Raistlin could hear him fumbling at the water bucket. Raistlin continued to lie where he had fallen, his eyes closed, not stirring or making a sound. He was enjoying this, he discovered—enjoying the attention, enjoying their fear, their discomfiture.

  Gordo ran back with the water dipper, slopping most of the water over the floor and the skirts of the master’s robes.

  “You clumsy oaf! Give me that!” Master Theobald cuffed Gordo, snatched the dipper from him. The master knelt down beside Raistlin, very gently dabbed the child’s lips with water.

  “Raistlin,” he said in a soft, whining whisper. “Raistlin, can you hear me?”

  Laughter bubbled up inside Raistlin. He was forced to exert an extraordinary amount of self-control to contain it. He lay still one more minute. Then, just as he could feel the master’s hand starting to tremble in anxiety; Raistlin moved his head from side to side and made a small moaning sound.

  “Good!” said Master Theobald, sighing in relief. “He’s coming around. You boys back off. Give him air. I’ll take him to my private quarters.”

  The master’s flabby arms lifted Raistlin, who let his head loll, his legs dangle. He kept his eyes closed, moaning now and then as he was carried in state to the master’s quarters, all the boys traipsing along after them, though Theobald ordered them angrily several times to remain in the schoolroom.

  The master laid Raistlin down upon a couch. He drove the other boys back to the classroom with threats, not the willow branch, Raistlin noted, peering through a slit in his closed eyelids. Theobald shouted for one of the servants.

  Raistlin allowed his eyes to flicker open. He kept them deliberately unfocused for a moment, then permitted his eyes to find Master Theobald.

  “What … what happened?” Raistlin asked weakly. He glanced vaguely around, tried to lift himself. “Where am I?”

  The exertion proved too much. He fell back upon the couch, gasping for breath.

  Master Theobald hovered over him. “You … um … had a bad fall,” he said, not looking directly at Raistlin, but darting nervous glances at him from the corner of his eyes. “You fell off your stool.”

  Raistlin glanced down at his arm, where an ugly red welt was visible against his pale skin. He looked back at Master Theobald. “My arm stings,” he said softly.

  The master lowered his gaze, sought the floor, looked up gladly when the servant, a middle-aged woman who did the cooking and cleaning and took care of the boys, entered the room. She was extremely ugly, with a scarred face, missing the hair on one side of her head. It had been burned off, purportedly because she’d been struck by lightning. This perhaps accounted for the fact that she was quite slow mentally.

  Marm, as she was known, kept the place clean, and she’d never yet poisoned anyone with her cooking. That was about all that could be said of her. The boys whispered that she was the result of one of Master Theobald’s spells gone awry, and that he kept her in his household out of guilt.

  “The boy had a bad fall, Marm,” said Master Theobald. “See to him, will you? I must return to my class.”

  He cast a final anxious glance backward at Raistlin, then swept out of the room, inflating himself with what was left of his pride.

  Marm brough
t a cold, wet cloth that she slapped over Raistlin’s forehead and a cookie. The cloth was too wet and dripped greasy water into Raistlin’s eyes, the cookie was burnt on the bottom and tasted like charcoal. Grunting, Marm left him to recover on his own and went back to whatever it was she had been doing. Judging from the greasy water, she was washing dishes.

  When she was gone, Raistlin removed the cloth and cast it aside in disgust. He threw the cookie into the fireplace with its ever-present fire. Then he lay back comfortably on the couch, snuggled into the soft cushions, and listened to the master’s voice, which could be heard droning, in a somewhat subdued tone, through the open door.

  “The letter u is pronounced ‘uh.’ Repeat after me.”

  “ ‘Uh,’ ” said Raistlin complacently to himself. He watched the flames consume the log and he smiled. Master Theobald would never strike him again.

  7

  THE LESSON ANOTHER DAY WAS PENMANSHIP. NOT ONLY DID A mage have to be able to pronounce the words of magic correctly, but the mage must also be able to write them down, form each letter into its proper shape. Words of the arcane must be penned with precision, exactness, neatness, and care on the scroll, else they would not work. Write the spell word shirak, for example, with a wobble in the a and a scrunch in the k, and the mage who wants light will be left in the dark.

  Most of Master Theobald’s students, true to the naturally clumsy characteristics of small boys, were fumble-fisted. Their quill pens, on which they had to carve the points themselves, either split or sputtered, bent or broke or leapt out of their clutching fingers. The boys invariably ended up with more ink on themselves than on the scrolls, unless they happened to upset the ink bottle, which accident occurred on a regular basis.

  Any visitor entering the school on the afternoon of penmanship classes to find himself confronted by the inky faces and hands of innumerable small demons, might well have imagined that he’d wandered into the Abyss by mistake.

  This thought crossed the mind of Antimodes the moment he walked through the door. This and a sudden swift memory of his own days in the schoolroom, a memory brought on mostly by the smell—small bodies overly warmed by the fire, the cabbage soup they’d choked down for lunch, ink and warm sheepskins—caused him to smile.

  “The Archmagus Antimodes,” announced the servant, or something approximating that, for she completely mangled his name.

  Antimodes paused in the doorway. The flushed, inky, frustrated faces of twelve boys lifted from their work to stare at him with hope in their eyes. A savior, perhaps. One who would free them from their toil. A thirteenth face looked up, but not as quickly as the others. That face appeared to have been intent upon its work, and only when that work was completed did it lift to stare at the visitor.

  Antimodes was pleased—quite pleased—to see that this face was almost completely devoid of ink, with the exception of a smudge along the left eyebrow, and that there was not an expression of relief on the face, but rather one of irritation, as if it resented being interrupted in its work.

  The irritation passed swiftly, however, once the face recognized Antimodes, as Antimodes had recognized the face.

  Master Theobald rose hastily from his chair, officious and ponderous, jealous and insecure. He did not like Antimodes, because the master suspected—and rightly so—that Antimodes had been opposed to Theobald’s appointment as schoolmaster and had voted against him in the conclave. Antimodes had been outvoted, Par-Salian himself having presented very strong arguments in Theobald’s favor: He was the only candidate. What else were they to do with the man?

  Even his friends agreed that Theobald would never make more than a mediocre mage. There were some, Antimodes among them, who questioned how he had managed to pass the Test in the first place. Par-Salian was always evasive whenever Antimodes brought up the subject, and Antimodes was left to believe that Theobald had been passed on the condition that he accept a teaching assignment, a job no one else wanted.

  Antimodes could offer no better suggestion. He himself, given the choice, would have preferred going to Mount Nevermind to instruct the gnomes in pyrotechnics to teaching snot-faced human children magic. He had grudgingly gone along with the majority.

  Antimodes was forced to admit that Par-Salian and the others had been right. Theobald was not a particularly good teacher, but he saw to it that his boys—the girls had their own school in Palanthas, taught by a slightly more competent wizardess—learned the basics, and that was all that was necessary. He would never light any fires in the average student, but where the fire of greatness already burned, Master Theobald would stoke it.

  The two mages met with a show of amicability in front of the children.

  “How do you do, sir?”

  “How do you do, my dear sir?”

  Antimodes was gracious in his greeting and lavish in his praise of the classroom, which to himself he thought was unbearably hot, stuffy, and dirty.

  Master Theobald was profuse in his welcome, all the time certain that Antimodes had been sent by Par-Salian to check up on him and bitterly resenting the fact that the archmage was carelessly wearing a luxuriant cape made of fine lamb’s wool that would have cost the teacher a year’s salary.

  “Well, well, Archmagus. Are the roads still snow-covered?”

  “No, no, Master. Quite passable. Even up north.”

  “Ah, you’ve come from the north, have you, Archmagus?”

  “Lemish,” Antimodes said smoothly. He’d actually been much farther north than that quaint and woodsy little town, but he had no intention of discussing his travels with Theobald.

  Theobald had no use for travel of any sort. He raised his eyebrows in an expression of disapproval, manifested his disapproval by turning away and ending their conversation. “Boys, it is my great honor to introduce to you Archmagus Antimodes, a wizard of the White Robes.”

  The boys sang out an enthusiastic greeting.

  “We have been practicing our writing,” said Theobald. “We were just about to conclude for the day. Perhaps you would like to see some of our work, Archmagus?”

  Actually there was only one pupil in whom Antimodes was interested, but he solemnly walked up and down the aisles and regarded with feigned interest letters that were every shape except the correct shape, and one game of x’s and o’s, which the player made a vain attempt to cover up by overturning his ink bottle on top of it.

  “Not bad,” said Antimodes, “not bad. Quite … creative … some of these.” He came to Raistlin’s desk—his true goal. Here he paused and said with sincerity, “Well done.”

  A boy behind Raistlin made a noise, a rude noise.

  Antimodes turned.

  “Pardon, sir,” the boy said, with apparent contriteness. “It was the cabbage for lunch.”

  Antimodes knew that noise hadn’t been caused by cabbage. He also knew what it implied, and he immediately realized his mistake. He remembered the ways of small boys—he had been a bit of a troublemaker himself as a youth. He should not have praised Raistlin. The other boys were jealous and vindictive, and Raistlin would be made to suffer.

  Trying to think of some way to rectify his mistake, prepared to point out a flaw—no one was perfect, after all—Antimodes looked back at Raistlin.

  On Raistlin’s thin lips was a pleased smile. One could almost call it a smirk.

  Antimodes swallowed his words, with the result that he very nearly choked on them. Coughing, he cleared his throat and walked on. He saw nothing after that. His thoughts were turned inward, and it wasn’t until he came face-to-face with Master Theobald that Antimodes realized he was still in the classroom.

  He stopped short, looked up with a start. “Oh … er … very nice work from your pupils, Master Theobald. Very nice. If you wouldn’t mind, I should like to speak to you privately.”

  “I really should not leave the class.…”

  “Only for a moment. I’m certain these fine young gentlemen”—Antimodes gave them a smile—“will be content to study on th
eir own in your absence.”

  He was fully aware that the fine young gentlemen would probably take advantage of the opportunity to play marbles, draw obscene pictures on their practice scrolls, and splatter each other with ink.

  “Only a moment of your time, Master Theobald,” Antimodes said with the utmost respect.

  Scowling, Master Theobald stomped out of the classroom, leading his way into his private quarters. Here he shut the door and faced Antimodes.

  “Well, sir. Please make haste.”

  Antimodes could already hear the uproar break out in the classroom.

  “I should like to talk to each pupil individually, if you please, Master Theobald. Ask them each a few questions.”

  At this, Master Theobald’s eyebrows nearly took wing and flew off his head. Then they came together over the puffy eyelids in a suspicious frown. Never before in all his years of teaching had any archmagus ever bothered to visit his classroom, much less demand a private chat with the students. Master Theobald could only jump to one conclusion, and he did, landing on it squarely with both feet.

  “If the conclave does not find my work to be satisfactory …” he began in huffy tones.

  “They do. Quite the contrary,” Antimodes said, hastening to reassure him. “It’s just some research I’m conducting.” He waved his hand. “Investigating the philosophical reasoning that prompts young men to choose to spend their time in this particular course of study.”

  Master Theobald snorted.

  “Please send them in to see me one by one,” said Antimodes.

  Master Theobald snorted again, turned on his heel, and waddled back into the classroom.

  Antimodes settled himself in a chair and wondered what in the name of Lunitari he was going to say to these urchins. In reality, he wanted only to talk to one pupil, but he dare not single out Raistlin again. The Archmagus was still pondering things when the first, the eldest boy in the school, entered the room, abashed and embarrassed.