Ten Apprentices Read online

  “Good enough, I suppose. For a servant. You’ll have to get better if you’re to move faster in your learning than a snail. You don’t want to be an apprentice forever, do you? You want to be a magician yourself someday?”

  I gaped at her.

  “Well, do you? Or would you rather go back to the marketplace and try again? I swear to you, I’ll let you go without ill will.”

  I almost believed her. But the truth is, I did not want to go back. She was interesting. And the work she gave me had nothing to do with hauling pig slops. And there was a future in it, or so I thought then. Magicians were respected. Magicians didn’t have too many children to feed. Magicians owned homes of their own.

  “What have you learned, then?” she asked.

  It was a test and I knew it. I swallowed, then repeated the necessities in the list. I might have forgotten one or two, but I thought I did a fair job.

  “And what have you learned?” she asked again.

  I stammered through the list again, racking my brain to think of anything else.

  But she shook her head.

  What was I to do? She was the kind of woman who would never be happy with me.

  “It’s a bunch of crap,” I said finally. “Any fool could have written that book.”

  “Ah,” she said. Her eyes were alight with laughter. “You mean, a fool like yourself?”

  “Yes,” I said, my mood brightening.

  “So what does that teach you?”

  “That books on magic are crap?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “That some books on magic are crap,” I said, with more confidence.

  “And how do you tell the difference?” she asked.

  It was an important question, and I did not know the answer to it. “You try it out?” I said, flippantly.

  She lifted the wand at me and hit me over the head with it. I know, it was a little wand, but I think she added some kick with magic, because it stung like hell.

  “If you want to die, you try out something that you have no knowledge of. Just like you trust a man you meet in a dark street to lead you to his nice room and give you food, just because he likes the look of your face.”

  “So, you don’t try it out,” I said.

  She hit me again.

  “Hey!” I said.

  “You’re the one who wanted to learn by pain,” she said. “I didn’t suggest it.”

  “Then how are you supposed to know the difference between a book that tells you true magic and one that doesn’t?” I asked.

  “You guess,” she said.

  That was it? That was the answer?

  “You guess and you better learn to guess damn well,” she said. “It also helps if you know some of the bastards’ names. You can never trust a book of spells written by Julane, for example. The man didn’t right a true sentence in his life. He was completely paranoid. Brilliant, from all accounts, but he killed his apprentices at the end of a year, regularly. To make sure they never told anyone about any spell he did. Not one of them could defend himself, poor things. His books are just a way to make sure that the rest of us burn ourselves up with our envy for him.”

  “Oh,” I said. I closed the book and looked at the cover. The magician whose name was on the front was not Julane. It was Harcourt.

  “Harcourt, on the other hand, isn’t dangerous at all. You can read and practice anything in his books without fear of pain. Without any hope of learning anything, either, unfortunately. But it’s a good book for fools. I hope you are not a fool?”

  “Uh—” I said.

  She hit me again with the wand.

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Good. Then try this one.” Another book floated down at me. I looked at the front first. There was no name listed there. I opened the first page. No name there, either.

  “How do I know—” I started.

  “That one is mine,” she said. “You can trust it. I don’t have to worry about apprentices. And I happen to be one of those magicians who looks forward to the future and hopes that the next generation will do better than this one has. It will only happen if we decrease the number of fools who use magic, however. Of course, I might do as well using Julane’s method as mine.”

  I opened the book.

  “Do the first spell,” she said.

  I looked through it. It was a spell for increased strength. It required three hairs from a familiar and it promised greater strength relative to the strength of the familiar.

  Ah, I began to see the reason for the she-lion.

  I started the spell, but when it came to the part where I actually had to get the hairs, I hesitated.

  Then I noticed she was watching me.

  Not offering to help me.

  It was another test.

  “Here, kitty,” I said. That was what she had called it.

  The she-lion turned her head at me.

  I stepped closer.

  She growled.

  “Nice kitty,” I said. I was sweating so that I could see it dropping from my hands onto the cold stones of the floor. I reached forward, closed my eyes, touched fur, and yanked—hard and fast.

  I had more than three hairs. Thirty, maybe. I sighed relief.

  I was alive, too. That was a bonus.

  “I’m not sure if I would recommend the eye-closing method. But at least you didn’t hurt her by dithering,” she said.

  I finished the spell with the three hairs, and left the rest to the side to be used later.

  I stirred until the concoction turned to smoke, then I breathed it in. I felt stronger. I felt strong enough to wrestle a she-lion.

  “I hope it doesn’t make you stupid, as well. I do not understand why the two seem to go together for men, but they often do.”

  I did not touch her lion.

  “Do something useful instead,” she suggested. Read: commanded. “Go outside and cut some wood. There is a woods behind the house. We need logs for the fire. If you are ever to learn to do more complicated spells.”

  That was what my strength was for?

  I trudged outside the house and looked for the woods. I hadn’t seen them before.

  Oh. That was why. They were about four miles from the house.

  “You can run,” she said, from behind me. Somehow, she always seemed to surprise me like that, sneaking up on me and speaking in a soft voice that made me jump.

  I ran to the woods, then cut down trees with a small axe she had been good enough to hand to me. (Otherwise, I would have forgotten the necessity of anything and had to cut the trees down with my bare hands.)

  I came back by dark, with three trees, then chopped them into logs in back of the farmhouse and stacked them neatly.

  By then, the strength spell was gone.

  I went inside, hoping for food. There had been a smell that made me wonder. It was sour, but perhaps she was only a bad cook.

  There was nothing on the stove, however.

  The smell was coming from the basement.

  I went down and found the whole place was filled with smoke. She was standing over a book, choking, but not retreating. She had her lips pressed firmly together.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “Learning that Kristo is not a reliable writer of spells,” she got out.

  So, it turned out her first answer to how you learn about magic was true, after all. But she took all the risks herself. She protected me from them. I don’t know if that was because she knew that I was never going to be much of a magician or if it was because she was waiting for me to get better.

  Too bad she wasn’t around long enough to see it happen.

  On the other hand, maybe she was right, after all.

  I found out about her feud with the magician Yuri after I had been her apprentice for three months. She sent me out to the marketplace to buy some supplies. She didn’t have much coin, but what she had, she put in her purse and gave it to me. I threw it over my shoulder and went o
ut.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  And I thought, what could happen in a marketplace like this one?

  Did I mention already I was a fool?

  I had nearly finished getting the bunch of sage that she had put second to last on her list when I bumped into someone. Then I looked up and saw the size of the “person.” And the way he looked at me, his eye glittering with anger I had not provoked. There had been no bumping involved.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Words,” he said with a grunt. He lifted a fist and threw it into my face.

  I felt my nose break, felt blood spurt, felt myself fall backwards.

  I would never get up again, I thought. I would die here and she would find me. She would never know I loved her.

  I waited for the huge man to finish me off, not knowing what I had done to offend him. That is the way life is, sometimes. There are not always answers.

  His face appeared above me.

  I counted breaths, since I knew they would be my last. One, two, three, four.

  The man kicked me in the stomach.

  I heaved.

  And began to pray, silently. I did not know if God heard a magician’s prayer or not. The priest in my childhood had certainly not believed it. But desperation made me faithful.

  Then the man disappeared, and I thought for a moment my prayer had been answered. I tried to remember what I had promised. Not to be a magician?

  “Young man, I believe you are the apprentice to the magician Francine,” he said.

  It was the first time I had heard her name. I had never asked it. Yes, I had thought about it. But I hadn’t thought she would tell me. She was private, and she never drank, so far as I could tell. I figured she would tell me, in her own good time. I hadn’t told her my name, either. I figured I would tell her, when she told me.

  “I don’t—” I started.

  He held the paper that had drifted out of my hand above my eyes. “This is her handwriting,” he said. “Do you deny it?”

  I gasped something out.

  He gave me a hand up. He was one of those men who no one is fooled by. He had manners, but that did not mean he was kind. I had seen nobles like him, and I feared them, as well. But never so much as I feared this man.

  “My name is Yuri,” he said. “Perhaps she has mentioned me?” He leaned closer to my face and I smelled his breath. It was strong and spicy, a mix of cloves and curry. The kind of breath a magician puts on to disguise the other flavors he has tasted.

  Like black magic and blood.

  I winced. “No,” I said. “She hasn’t.”

  He was angry, and I saw a flash of the emotion cross his face before he covered it. It was enough to make me wish Emmaline at my side.

  “Well, then. Perhaps she thought she was protecting you. Please give her a message from me. I invite her to a duel of magic. We will meet tomorrow at midnight, at the fallen tree. She knows where it is.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the farmhouse. And the woods behind it.

  “You will tell her?” he asked.

  “I will tell her,” I said.

  He nodded to the huge man who had attacked me. “But just to be sure,” he said.

  The man punched me in the face again, and I fell backwards into blackness this time.

  When I woke, I could feel I was missing a tooth. And I had once prided myself on my teeth. They were my best feature. I had thought that I might find a rather more handsome wife than another man, if only for the sake of my teeth. I hoped that a woman might look into my mouth like a man looked into the mouth of a horse.

  I was nearly eighteen by then, and should have known better. But I had little experience with women, and Francine the magician wasn’t exactly typical. I couldn’t base other women on her, as much as I was beginning to want to.

  I crawled back to the farmhouse. It was long past dark by then, and the sky was clouded over so there was little light from stars or moon.

  When I opened the door, she rushed at me. Her mouth was open and I heard the shape of her words more than the meaning of them. She thought I had dawdled. She thought I was drunk. She thought I had used her money for anything but what she asked me to. She threatened me.

  But she didn’t kill me.

  At last, I got out the sack I’d put her list in. I threw it at her.

  And she went silent. She could do that, sometimes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. It was not the last time she apologized, but it was the first, and it was sincere. All my anger at her flew away, just as her with me had done. I stared at her, at the light in her hands that illuminated her wild hair. She usually kept it back, because she looked more the stereotypical mad magician with hair like that, and she hated to be stereotypical in any way.

  She put a hand out to touch my face. It had stopped bleeding by now, but it was swollen and tender.

  I gasped, then stifled it.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t think I’ll be fooled into believing it doesn’t hurt,” she said. Then she used magic on me.

  The pain faded instantly, and I could feel as the swelling went down.

  She swayed a moment, and that was the only way I knew how much it cost her to heal me. Speaking of stoicism.

  I put out a hand to hold her up.

  She batted it away.

  “What happened?” she asked. Then, before I answered, she said, “Yuri.”

  I nodded.

  “Another challenge?” she asked.

  “Yes. At the fallen tree.”

  She let out a breath. “The man has no imagination. That was where he asked me to meet him last time. And the time before that. As if I can’t figure out there’s a reason he wants that particular place.”

  “You think he’s got an advantage there?” I asked.

  “Of course. Some trap. I’ll walk over a fallen tree branch, and he’ll be there to see me curse at him as I die.”

  “So, you’re not going?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You’re ignoring his challenge?”

  “That is what I said.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  She laughed. “Such a man you are. And Yuri thinks for some reason that because I am a powerful magician, he can assume that I am a man, as well. He thinks that eventually I will tire of ignoring him and want to prove myself.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  She looked at me. “It’s what you would do, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I reddened.

  “Yuri couldn’t kill me in a fair challenge, by the way. Both of us know that. And because I know that, I see no reason to face him.”

  “Would you face him if he were stronger than you?”

  “No. That would be foolish. I have no death wish,” she said.

  “And if he were just as strong as you are?”

  “That would be tedious,” she said. “It would take years for either of us to win.”

  So, in the end, there were no conditions under which she would accept a challenge to duel with magic. It was hard for me to understand that.

  I was not sure that this was how women were instead of men. It was just her.

  I thought of her name. Francine.

  I didn’t think it fit her.

  I didn’t use it.

  “By the way, you won’t do it,” she said. “You won’t go out into the woods and try to find him and fight him on my behalf.”

  How could she read my mind like that? I spluttered.

  “I will make sure you don’t. I will put a spell on you that will draw you back to the house. You won’t be able to break it.”

  But I tried, nonetheless. The farther I went from the farmhouse, the stronger the spell became. And even with a double spell, using up the rest of the hairs from Emmaline that I had gotten the first day, it was no use.

  I fell back and slept hard that night.

  In the morning, there was a woman at the door. She was dressed in rags and she smelled of clov
es and curry. “Please,” she said. “Please.” It was then that I saw that her tongue had been mangled.

  I ran for Francine, going slower when I got close to Emmaline. She didn’t like anyone to sneak up on her, and she had a tendency to chase things that were either nervous or sweaty.

  “There is a woman here,” I said.

  “I’m busy.” She was hunched over one of Julane’s books. She liked that kind of challenge.

  “I think you should see her.”

  She waved a hand at me. “As if I care what you think. Give her some coin and send her on her way.”

  I waited a long moment. “She needs you,” I said.

  I don’t think I need have said anything. If I’d gone away and given the woman money, she would have been upstairs before the woman left. But there was something in me that wanted to prove that she would listen to me, that she should listen to me. For all I was her apprentice, and a fool.

  “Oh, all right.” She twisted her face, then closed the book and sent it back to the shelf with magic. This, to prevent me from taking it out when she wasn’t looking, and reading it myself, I think.

  The woman was Yuri’s wife. His fifth wife, in fact. She was sixteen years old, and had been married to him for over a year. Fifteen hellish months. Her tongue had been mangled the first day, when she dared to ask him a question.

  He preferred his women silent.

  “I’ll kill him,” whispered Francine.

  But she didn’t. She healed the woman with magic, then changed her appearance and scent, so that Yuri could not follow her, and sent her on her way with more coin than I thought we had in the house.

  When I was still staring at the door afterwards, she said, “Emergency fund.”

  “Is there more?” I asked.

  “Are you going to steal it from me?”

  I stared her down.

  “Yes, there’s more,” she admitted. “But not much.”

  “Are you going to challenge him now?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “You could choose a different place. He would come.”

  “No matter what place I chose, he would be sure to cheat,” she said. “And I would lose. Do you want me to die?”

  I wanted to tell her that I loved her then. I wanted to kiss her chapped lips and run my fingers through her frizzy hair and touch the freckles on her nose.

  But she was my master. And she could never see me that way. I had to be almost twenty years younger than she was. And how many times had she called me a fool, and been right about it?