The Artful Apprentice

by Christopher Nuttall

  She pulled the robe on, smiling at how snugly it fit. It had clearly been professionally tailored, designed to hint at her curves rather than revealing anything... she wondered, suddenly, how it had been done. Void had never asked her for her measurements. Magic? Probably. She studied herself in the mirror, feeling a twinge of déjà vu. Mountaintop’s uniform had clearly been based on the apprenticeship robes. Their jackets had had white bands too. She thought, suddenly, of Frieda. Her friend had gone back to Whitehall to start her fifth year. Emily had barely had time to dash off a quick note to her before Lady Barb had teleported her to Zugzwang.

  The stone floor felt oddly warm against her bare feet as she returned to the entrance hall. She wasn’t surprised to notice a second door waiting. She braced herself and stepped into the next room. Void stood there, wearing a long dark robe that was very similar to hers, save for the absence of a white band. He was no apprentice. She felt a sudden shiver as his dark eyes met hers. He looked... younger than she’d expected, but his eyes reflected his true age. He was easily old enough to be her grandfather.

  She studied him for a long moment, waiting for him to speak. His face was pale and sharp, pitch-black hair hanging to his shoulders. He was handsome, yet... she felt no spark of attraction. She told herself, sharply, that she certainly shouldn’t. He was a lot older than her. And he was her teacher. And yet... she kept her face carefully blank. She thought she should have felt something. She’d met enough handsome men over the last six years to know she should have felt something.

  He has to speak first, she reminded herself, as the silence grew and lengthened. Lady Barb had drilled that into her head too. But how long do I have to wait?

  Her stomach rumbled. She was suddenly very aware she wasn’t even sure what time it was. She’d left her watch with her clothes — and besides, it was set to Zangarian time. Where was Void’s tower? She didn’t know. It could be anywhere. She’d certainly never had the time to look around when Void had rescued her from Shadye and sent her to Whitehall. They could be next to the school or right on the other side of the world. She simply didn’t know.

  “Emily.” Void’s voice was calm, carefully controlled. If he felt anything, if he was eager or nervous or anything, she couldn’t tell. “Are you ready to begin your apprenticeship?”

  Emily swallowed, hard. “Yes.”

  Lady Barb had told her what to do, drilling it into her head time and time again until Emily could have recited it in her sleep. She started to kneel, flushing slightly at the thought of kneeling before him... before anyone. She’d never liked showing respect to aristocrats and senior magicians. She simply hadn’t grown up in a world where people bowed and scraped to masters who could cut off their heads or turn them into frogs if they felt disrespected. And yet, Void deserved respect. Didn’t he?

  Void put out a hand, stopping her. “Don’t kneel,” he said. “You’re here to study magic. To understand magic. You’re not a servant.”

  Emily hesitated, torn between Lady Barb’s instructions and Void’s wishes. She knew his wishes were paramount — masters had huge authority over their apprentices — but she honestly wasn’t sure what to do. Was it a trick? Or a trap? She’d dealt with at least a dozen tutors who’d delighted in forcing their charges into making sadistic choices between following orders or standing up for the rules. And here... what were the rules? She didn’t know.

  She stood, clasping her hands behind her back to keep them from shaking. Void’s face was expressionless. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She waited, telling herself to be calm. He wouldn’t have summoned her just to dismiss her. He’d been an apprentice himself, over a century ago. He’d understand what she was feeling. Wouldn’t he?

  “Welcome,” Void said, finally. His dark eyes, so dark they were almost pools of shadow, bored into hers. “Are you ready to commit yourself to magic?”

  Emily nodded. “Yes...”

  She stopped. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to call him. Sir? Master? Lord Master? She didn’t know. There was no hard and fast rule. Lady Barb hadn’t told her either.

  Void smiled. It transformed his face. “In public, you can call me Master. In private, you can call me what you like.”

  “Provided it's respectful.” Emily smiled back. “Right?”

  “Right,” Void agreed. “Insulting one’s master is not a good way to begin. Being stupid enough to do it within earshot is worse.”

  “Yes...” Emily hesitated. Calling him Void felt wrong, almost over-familiar. “I...”

  “And disrespecting one’s master in front of the other masters is even worse,” Void said, dryly. “It makes your poor master look bad.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said.

  Void nodded, then studied her for a long moment. “While you’re here, I expect you to commit yourself to studying and understanding magic. By law and custom, I am required to give you a day off every fortnight. You may contact your friends or teleport to Zugzwang or do whatever you like on those days. Otherwise, your time is mine. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said.

  Void turned. “Come.”

  Emily blinked in surprise as he led her through a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Lady Barb had told her that there would be oaths, oaths of obedience and secrecy and a handful of other things, but... Void hadn’t asked her to swear anything. Did he intend to do it later? Or... she doubted he’d forgotten. It wasn’t the sort of thing one forgot. She wondered if she should ask, then shook her head. Better to let him bring it up in his own time.

  “We’ll eat,” Void said. He walked into a mid-sized dining room. A single large pot sat on the table. It smelled like stew. Emily felt her stomach rumble again as she took the proffered seat. “And then we’ll talk.”

  Chapter Three

  THERE WAS NO WAY TO TELL, Emily decided as she ate her stew, if Void was sending her a message. The food was nice, but strikingly plebeian. It wasn’t the kind of meal that would be served in Alassa’s castle or Melissa’s mansion or even Whitehall itself. A clue to Void’s origins, perhaps? Or... maybe he just liked the food. One didn’t have to be a member of a particular social class or ethnic group to like their food. Emily ate slowly, savoring the taste. The meat — she thought it was beef — was cooked to perfection. The dumplings were even better. Her lips twitched as she took a sip of water. She knew better than to develop expensive tastes.

  Void was a surprisingly animated dinner companion, once they’d satisfied their hunger. He said little about magic, or her apprenticeship, but talked about the Zangarian Civil War, Alassa’s Great Charter and the implications for the future. Emily thought he was being a little cynical, but she had to admit that the Magna Carta had lasted only a few weeks before being buried and — later — resurrected. King John hadn’t wanted the document to last — of course — but neither had some of his enemies. The Magna Carta had been a threat to their interests as much as it had threatened the king himself.

  “People will act in their own interests,” Void said. “And very few of them will deliberately compromise their interests, even if they think they have something to gain in the long term.”

  “Perhaps,” Emily countered. “But if they don’t compromise, they could lose everything.”

  “Or gain everything,” Void said. “You’d be surprised at how many people will risk everything on one last throw of the dice.”

  Emily shrugged. The New Learning had spread too far. There was no way the genie could be put back in the bottle, even if she died tomorrow. The kingdoms that failed to adapt to the new reality would be destroyed, either by internal or external factions. And the only way to adapt was to grant commoners more rights before the commoners took them for themselves. One could not build a modern economy on the backbone of slaves. The slaves wouldn’t do more than the bare minimum for their masters.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  Void nodded, then leaned back in his chair and pushed his plate to one side. “
Keep eating, if you like,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m about to lecture.”

  Emily grinned. “Oh dear.”

  “You may already know some of this,” Void added. He took a sip of water, nodding to himself. “Bear with me a little, please. There is a point to this.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said.

  Void said nothing for a long moment, clearly composing his words. “There is a hierarchy among magicians,” he said. “Whitehall will have taught you some of this. Other aspects... are not commonly discussed. Some truths are considered uncomfortable or unsettling and are therefore quietly ignored. Others might upset the balance of power and are therefore open secrets. But you cannot afford to look away. The hierarchy touches on the innermost truths of magic itself.”

  Emily nodded, slowly.

  “Right at the bottom, we have sparks,” Void said. “They show a flash of magic, perhaps two, and little else. Some of them — the more powerful — become hedge witches. Others stumble into places of power and become voices, giving up their humanity as they bond with the wild magic. And still others become blademasters or weaponmasters, binding themselves to a blade and shaping their magic to suit it. They can be deadly enemies, under the right conditions, even to a far more powerful magician. You have to treat them with extreme caution.

  “Then, we have students... students like yourself, six years ago. They have more power, but they have to be trained in its use. They learn, slowly but surely, how to adapt spells for different purposes, coming to grips with the underlying structure of magic itself. The older ones — like yourself, two years ago — start crafting whole new spells for themselves. They see magic as a series of small elements, worked together into a larger whole.”

  “Like someone might spell out a word using letters,” Emily said.

  “Precisely!” Void grinned. “Once you start thinking of a spell as a single thing, with no awareness of the underlying components, you start crippling your ability to advance further. You might be able to read a single word, to borrow your analogy, but you might not be able to read a longer word that includes the first word. You can read weapon. You cannot read weaponmaster. That’s why wands and staffs are so dangerous, when given to unprepared students. They give the students a slight boost, but — in the long term — they prevent them from advancing further. By the time you sit your final exams at Whitehall — the exams I know you didn’t take — you have to be able to devise spells from scratch. If you can’t, you’re not ready to advance. You might never be ready to advance.”

  His voice hung on the air for a long moment. Emily shivered, despite herself.

  “Above them, we have apprentices and masters. They focus on a certain aspect of magic and master it. An alchemy master cannot just brew every potion known to mankind. He views his subject as an integrated whole and can compose a completely new potion to suit every need. He can even refine older brews into something new. They’re often among the most innovative magicians, because they know their subject so well. At the same time...”

  He met her eyes. “What might their limitations be?”

  Emily hesitated, carefully considering her answer. “They don’t work outside their specialty?”

  “Correct,” Void said. “Masters can, on one hand, do wonders within their field. Outside their field, they can be... I won’t say incompetent, because they’re not, but they can be limited. An enchanter might not be able to brew potions; an alchemist might not be able to craft himself a pocket dimension. And some of them never realize it.”

  “They must,” Emily said. “Surely...”

  “You’d be surprised how many people fail to realize the limits of their knowledge,” Void said. “And how many people lose their skills when they don’t practice.”

  He shrugged. “And some masters never really become... real masters. They can brew anything, craft anything, as long as someone else does the work. They don’t have the imagination to brew anything new. They’re called masters, but they’re not. They don’t innovate for themselves.”

  “I see, I think,” Emily said.

  “A student may put together a cumbersome spell,” Void said. “A master can take that spell and smooth it down into something more practical.”

  Emily nodded, slowly.

  Void met her eyes. “And then there’s us. Your apprenticeship will not be in charms, or alchemy, or enchantment, or any specific subject. Your apprenticeship will be in magic itself. You will learn to manipulate magic on a scale few can match. You’ll be able to duplicate the feats of an alchemist without either a cauldron or a collection of ingredients and much — much — more. You’ll be able to do wonders, if you work hard. I believe you can do it. I wouldn’t have offered to take you as an apprentice if I had any doubts.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, quietly.

  “You may change your mind about thanking me, afterwards,” Void said. “You are going to work harder than you’ve worked in your entire life. And you’ll be doing things for me too.”

  “I...” Emily looked back at him. A hundred questions were bubbling in her head, but only two came to her lips. “What are the downsides? What... what do you wish you’d known before you started?”

  “Ha.” Void looked pensive, just for a second. “You may find it a lonely life. Your friends will shy away from you, if they realize how powerful you’ve become. Others may try to use you as a living weapon. You’ll find that being able to get anything you want, practically speaking, palls after a while. And... you may find it hard to get a partner, someone who is comfortable with such a massive imbalance of power. If you have children, they may never live up to you. They’ll spend their lives in your shadow.”

  Emily swallowed. Caleb’s mother had been married to a mundane, but she was very much the exception. “Are people really that shallow?”

  “Mixed marriages between sorceresses and mundane men are rare,” Void said. “There’s a reason for that, Emily.”

  He snorted. “You may discover you’re no longer interested yourself,” he added. “Or that you simply can’t have a steady relationship.”

  “I see,” Emily said. “How do others cope?”

  “Different people, different ways.” Void looked down at the table. “A couple of powerful sorcerers I knew vanished somewhere near the Inverse Shadow. This was well before Shadye took it for himself. Another learned a harsh lesson and devoted the rest of his life to making up for his crimes. Another went up a mountain to study the whichness of the why and never came down. As far as I know, he’s still there. Another...” — he shook his head — “went mad and had to be brought down.”

  He looked up at her. “It isn’t just about power, Emily,” he said. “The necromancers have power. It’s about knowing how to use the power you have to best advantage. You’ll have an edge over just about everyone else, if you complete your training before you peak. And then the sky’s the limit.”

  Emily nodded, slowly. “I understand.”

  “You only think you understand,” Void said. “The real pain will begin soon enough.”

  He took a sip of his water. “I realized your potential when we first met. That alone was enough to attract my interest. It wasn’t, however, a guarantee that you’d reach a point where I could teach you effectively. You had to develop both your magic and your intellect before I dared take you on as a student. I saw to it” — he met her eyes, very briefly — “that you wouldn’t have to swear any major oaths. I didn’t want them getting in the way when I took you as a student.

  “And I won’t be asking you to swear any to me.”

  Emily blinked. She’d thought the oaths were an insurmountable requirement.

  “That said, I do expect you to do your level best to honor the oaths as if you’d actually sworn them,” Void continued. “If you haven’t researched the requirements for master-apprentice relationships I suggest you do it over the next few days. I will do my best to honor my side of the oaths. If the apprenticeship fails, it will not be through l
ack of effort on my part. Any questions?”

  “Yes.” Emily forced herself to meet his eyes. “Why don’t you want me to swear any oaths?”

  “Oaths — magically-binding oaths — can impede one’s magical growth,” Void told her. “They can also impact on one’s personal development, depending on precisely what you swear. There’s no shortage of horror stories. It’s never easy to predict what will happen if you do swear, but... I don’t want to take the chance. And I think I can trust you not to take advantage of me. “That said...”

  He studied her for a long moment. “What do you think I’ll do if you do break the rules?”

  Emily swallowed. “Beat me?”

  “No.” Void’s voice was very even. “I’ll dismiss you. This is not a simple apprenticeship, Emily, and you are not a teenager any longer. I expect you to act like a grown adult and treat the forces we’ll be studying with the respect they deserve. There are rarely any second chances. If I have any reason to doubt your commitment to this apprenticeship, I’ll terminate it on the spot.”

  “I understand,” Emily said, very quietly.

  “Good.” Void studied her for a long moment. “Right now, the rules are very simple. Treat this tower as your own. I’ve told the wards to accept you. Go anywhere you like, save for the two top floors and the basement. The upper levels are mine, the basement belongs to the servants. I don’t want you disturbing them. If you need something at night, use the wards to make the request.”

  Emily nodded. She’d known Void had servants, although... she shook her head. Of course he had servants. It spoke well of him that he’d told her to leave his servants alone. They didn’t need her disturbing them. And... she’d never been comfortable with servants anyway.