Dark apprentice, p.12
Dark Apprentice, page 12
“Nikolai Fedorov.”
Medea placed a hand on his head and mumbled something in another language, along with his name. “There. Follow me.” She led him up the beach, bare feet dodging pieces of driftwood and strands of seaweed buzzing with flies.
The stench of seaweed retreated as sand gave way to grass and a narrow path. The few scattered trees were deciduous, which narrowed their location to a temperate zone. As they crested the slope, Nikolai scanned the horizon, trying to gauge the position of the sun in relation to where it had been in Haven. It seemed lower, but given he was distracted when they left, he couldn’t be sure.
Up ahead squatted a dilapidated hovel. Beyond that, in the distance, he could make out a forest. The path veered off to the right of the hovel and headed toward the dense cluster of trees—as good a place as any to hide an estate.
Magi towns did their best to prevent Mundane incursion, but they were still public areas that could be located by anyone with a map. Those who lived outside these safe areas were more careful, with fences to block casual access and bushes to obscure the view of passersby. The Academy, which had to hide a large number of practicing students, was built inside a mountain. The rooms were a network of caves, carved and reinforced with magic, the only entrance well hidden. Concealing a home within a forest of trees on a deserted island unknown to man seemed on par with Medea’s level of caution.
As they approached the hovel, the ground became more cluttered. Remnants of a stone wall, broken pillars, and the occasional statue littered the left side of the path, as if someone had taken a smattering of fixtures from a Roman temple and unceremoniously dumped them in the field.
Further up the path lay several neglected garden beds. The area was a riot of color. Wildflowers and weeds battled for space inside the beds and everywhere in between. Bees moved purposefully from bloom to bloom. Cracked pots lay stacked and forgotten next to a rain barrel. An assortment of gardening tools were propped haphazardly against the statue of a crowned woman holding a bundle of grain.
The neatness of the area opposite the garden was jarring by contrast. A low wall surrounded a flat area of gravel. Large moss-covered stones poked out of the gravel like islands. The placement looked intentional, although he could discern no pattern. In front of the wall, a rake leaned against a stone bench. Aside from the moss and a single twisted tree, it was devoid of plant life.
The whole area seemed mismatched. Nikolai half expected to see a rusted bicycle or cans littering the ground. He suspected the hovel had housed several generations of servants, each adding something of their own. Perhaps the latest occupant had no need for the garden beds and chose only to keep up the gravel pit, but to what end he could not see.
At the hovel, Nikolai turned to follow the path veering toward the woods. Medea’s voice called him back. She stood at the hovel door.
“You can see the forest later. For now, I’d like to show you your quarters.”
She expected him to live in this dump? Bullshit! It didn’t even look weathertight. Weeds sprouted from the thatched roof, which threatened to cave in, and the whole structure sagged ponderously to one side.
Medea seemed to guess some of what he was thinking. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s nicer inside. I just never bothered to keep up the exterior. Come.” She opened the door and entered.
He didn’t move. Harsh training was one thing, but expecting him to live in squalor while she lived in comfort elsewhere? No. He’d lived in poverty before and had no desire to experience it again. A small part of him wanted to storm back to the beach and take the gateway home, if it was even still open. He hesitated a moment longer and then approached the derelict structure. Sometimes one needed to go forward to go back.
He realized a second too late the door was a touch shorter than average. His head struck the frame. He cried out, then narrowly avoided falling as his feet tripped over something—a pile of muddy boots that had been carelessly piled by the door.
Medea kicked the boots out of the way. “Sorry, I, uh, don’t usually have guests.”
He rubbed his head and looked around. It did not look nicer on the inside. To call it quaint would be generous. The room contained no more than a single table pushed against the wall. It was so cluttered with books, papers, and dried plant clippings that he could not see the surface. A thick layer of dust covered everything. No bed. Not even a hearth. His eyes fell to a bucket under the table, and he belatedly recalled he’d seen no backhouse outside. Unacceptable. No wonder so many apprentices tried to kill her.
“This way,” said Medea, crossing to the opposite side of the cramped room.
“I think I’ve seen enough.”
“Don’t be silly. The rest of the house isn’t nearly as bad. I don’t really keep it up, as I only come through here on my way out. Not that I’m the tidiest person, but the work areas are far more organized. Come. Place your palm here.”
Relieved this was not to be his bedroom, Nikolai approached. The wall must hide another gateway for an added level of security. He should have realized the hovel was a decoy. He placed his palm upon the wall, and she covered it with her own.
“Say your name again. These wards are different.”
“Nikolai Fedorov.”
The wall grew warm and a section of it vanished. The room beyond was large—too large to be contained in the hovel they’d entered. Two cozy chairs beckoned toward a crackling fire in a hearth. Ornate rugs adorned the stone floor. As they entered, flat crystals embedded in the ceiling sprang to life, casting soft white light over the room. Dark wood lined the walls, with matching bookcases crowding every available space not taken up by door or hearth. Toward the back, a circular iron staircase led to a loft with a single door.
Something felt off—almost patchwork, as if the room beyond had been cobbled together hastily with no real floor plan. Maybe it was the size. He couldn’t make sense of it.
“How . . . ?”
“You just place your palm on the wall and it will open for you,” said Medea.
“Not that.” He stepped through the opening and gestured around the room. “This! Is it invisible from the outside?”
She frowned. “It’s just a simple volume-increasing spell.”
Impossible. No, not impossible, as she’d clearly done it. Talented Magi could increase the volume of a container to hold far more than normal. He had enchanted his pack to hold a trunk’s worth of space. Enlarged rooms were almost unheard of. The larger the container, the more difficult the spell and the less space, comparatively, you could create. At some point you hit a wall, as if the universe itself pushed back at you. Going beyond that point was dangerous. The Academy told them horror stories of wizards who’d taken it too far and been sucked into their own bags, which then collapsed in on themselves and vanished forever. You had to be careful and know your limits.
This . . . this was ridiculous.
“You have two stories here. And I count seven doors leading elsewhere. How did you do it?”
“I thought you were familiar with the mechanics of the spell—I detect it on your bag.”
Did she really not understand how unbelievable this was? Or was it simply that easy for her?
“At the Academy—”
“Which we’ve established isn’t very good. Sorry, go on. Did your school tell you there were limits on this?”
“Well, yes. The largest increase they have on record is a room—I don’t remember the dimensions—but it wasn’t large, and it only increased by about thirty percent.”
“I see. I suppose this does look incredible by comparison. Skill plays a role, though maybe I’ve succeeded because I added rooms gradually over the years as I’ve needed them. But I can’t possibly be the only person to try that.” She shrugged, as if it were of no consequence.
The patchwork vibe made sense now. He tried to piece together the order in which she’d added rooms. “You started with the shack, then added this room, then . . . the stairs?”
“No, that came later. The house outside and the entrance room—that’s original. I never saw the point of starting from scratch with a new building. I’d already added so many enchantments, I doubt I’d remember what to cast all over again. And the size of the house made it easier to transport to the island.”
Medea began to talk about the order in which the rooms had been created, except she couldn’t remember and kept stopping to correct herself. Soon he was sorry he’d asked. After five minutes that seemed like an eternity, she came to a close.
“The stairs were last. I had two bedrooms down here originally, but I pushed the second one upstairs.”
“You moved rooms after they’d been created?”
“It’s easier if you think of them like separate boxes, or bubbles, or what-have-you.” She mimed moving small objects around. “Just push this one over and make a new one in the middle, connecting the two.”
It sounded as if she wasn’t expanding space so much as creating all-new spaces. In the middle of nothing. Out of nowhere. And then swapping them around. To his knowledge, no one else had ever done such a thing.
“Now what else did I need to show you?” She pulled a scrap of paper out of her pouch and consulted it. “Ah, yes. Work areas on the left. They will remain locked and warded until I’ve had a chance to go over them. Common areas on the right. That’s your room there. Kitchen is this way.” She led him to the last door on the right.
A carpet of dust covered every surface. Tendrils of cobwebs speckled with tiny corpses swayed in the draft from the open door. Just standing in the doorway made him want to cough.
As he crossed the threshold, he had the curious sensation of stepping back in time. Most Magi homes lacked modern appliances, but Medea’s kitchen looked as though it hadn’t been updated in centuries, with its stone oven, hearth with a spit, and low table. Shelves hosted a modest collection of mismatched plates and cups. Pots hung from the ceiling on metal hooks. At the back of the room a larder sat open, old food decomposing inside—no, not food, some sort of rodent’s nest.
Medea strode forward and cried out as she walked face-first into a cobweb. After much spitting and flailing, she held her hands out as if clutching an invisible ball. Dust and debris drifted from around the room into the space between her hands. It gathered into a swirling grey sphere. When the particles stopped flying toward her hands, she looked around with a frustrated grimace. “Where did I put the trash? Bah!” She turned her attention to the mass between her hands. It shrank and hardened until it became compact, then abruptly, the ball was gone.
“Where did it go?”
“Outside somewhere.” She waved her hand as if it was of no import. “Do you cook? Or can you summon food?”
“I can conjure a variety of breads and pastries filled with fruit, nuts, or meat.” His chest swelled with pride. The other Academy students could get only plain loaves or unleavened bread.
“You should be able to get far more, and it’s summoning, not conjuring.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes. You can’t make something out of nothing.” Her tone implied this was obvious. “That’s not how magic works.”
He stared at her. Wasn’t that exactly how magic worked?
She sighed and sat at the table, motioning him to join her. “I suppose the distinction has been lost over time. Observe.”
She stretched out a hand, and a wooden spoon flew off the wall into her palm. “That’s telekinesis. I am magically moving something.”
She set the spoon on the table and raised her hand. Flames erupted in her palm. “That’s conjuring. Shields too. It’s—well, I’m not sure how exactly to describe it. Conjuring creates something, but it’s not solid. Not in the traditional sense. It’s more like . . . playing with energy.” She tilted her hand back and forth; the flames curled into a ball and rolled with the motion. “Much of elemental magic is conjuring. The spells you use in dueling—those are mostly conjuring or telekinesis. Understand?”
“I believe so. And summoning?”
She snapped her hand shut and the flames disappeared. “Summoning is different from conjuring. You cannot conjure a thing. The physical substance has to come from somewhere. When you say you are conjuring food, what you are really doing is summoning food across space to you.”
“Wait a minute, are you saying that when I conjure—I mean summon—bread, I’m stealing it off someone else’s plate?”
“Probably.”
He laughed, longer and harder than he’d laughed in a long time. Oh, he could have fun with that. How much control did one have over the origin? He’d have to learn the favorite dishes of people who irritated him.
“Yes, well. You see the difference now. The distinction matters, because you have to visualize exactly what you want. If you are too vague, you may end up with something half-eaten, undercooked, poisoned—yes, poisoned. Or otherwise contaminated. You have no control over where your food is coming from, so be specific.”
The thought was concerning, given how frequently he used the spell. Bread wasn’t usually enough to live on long-term, not unless it contained other things baked in, as Nikolai’s did, but it was enough to keep Haven alive during the Great Famine. Most people could only summon one type of bread. Even if the Collective hadn’t put limitations on how often the spell could be cast, the monotony alone meant people didn’t use it more than necessary.
“Is there a range on the spell? Like a limit to how far away the food can be?”
“Not to my knowledge, but there have been times when a summoning has failed to work. In my case, it’s usually been a side effect of living so long. Plants that were once common are either no longer cultivated or go extinct.” She sighed. “One of my favorite teas vanished like that. Dishes may be lost forever when a civilization is wiped out.”
A chipped plate drifted from the shelf and landed in front of Nikolai with a gentle tinkle.
“Show me what you can do. Remember to concentrate on exactly what you want.”
He stared at the empty plate. Food had been heavily rationed when he was growing up. What would he have eaten then if he could’ve had anything? He pulled out his wand.
“Panem.”
A stale loaf of rye appeared on his plate, a far cry from his usual fare, let alone what he was trying to summon.
The corner of Medea’s mouth twitched into a half smile. “And that is why I require my students learn Latin.”
“That’s not what I was going for.”
“I imagine it wasn’t, but your mind said one thing and your lips said another. Your incantation called for bread. Try again without the wand and words.”
“I can’t do it without the wand.”
She made a dismissive noise. “Yes, you can, but we will tackle wands tomorrow. For now, you may use the wand. Do not say the incantation and think only of what you want on the plate.”
Ten minutes later he slammed his fist on the table, rattling the empty plate.
“Now, now,” said Medea, stilling the plate. “What are you trying to summon?”
“Beef Stroganov.”
“And are you very familiar with this dish?”
“I’ve never had it, but I always wanted to try it.”
“Ah, that’s the problem. Best start with something you know well. Intimate familiarity is required for summoning, which is why most people can summon food but not other items. They can imagine the smell and taste, how it feels in their mouth. It is a primal thing, food, and social. A dish shared with friends, a grandmother’s hands kneading dough, sneaking forbidden sweets with siblings—memories and emotions form connections. They make the thing we are trying to summon feel more real. Try again.”
Nikolai stood and retrieved a bowl. It took him three more tries, but at last it filled with shchi. He stirred the watery cabbage soup, looking in vain for lumps of meat. Alas, it was as plain as he remembered Mother making. Not his favorite dish, but at least it wasn’t bread. Now that he knew what the spell required, he vowed to familiarize himself with as many fine dishes as he could.
“Well done. Here.” Medea summoned a meaty dish to the chipped plate and pushed it toward him. Strips of beef lay on a bed of curled egg noodles. The hearty brown sauce covering the dish smelled heavenly.
“Is that—”
“Yes. You will probably need to have it a few more times before you’ll be able to summon it on your own.”
Nikolai carefully pushed a single piece of beef onto the rim of the plate. The sacrifice wasn’t as difficult as it had once been, back when memories of starvation were still fresh, but the ritual seemed important to maintain. He tackled the Stroganov with gusto, suddenly famished. He would have preferred potatoes, but noodles were fine.
“Have you had it much then?” he asked between bites.
“A few times. Enough to get a feel for it, though I had it in America, where it’s known as Stroganoff.”
He snorted. “A French name for a Russian dish in an English-speaking country.”
“English steals much of its vocabulary from neighboring languages. Speaking of which, what language do you prefer for instruction? English or Russian?”
“I speak Turkish too.” He dropped the information casually. She might speak several languages, but he doubted she spoke that, especially when it had changed in the 1930s.
“Is that what you prefer? I can probably manage.”
His fork clattered against the plate. “You’re telling me you speak English, French, Russian, Latin, and Turkish?”
“I speak far more than that.”
Ridiculous. No one was that good at everything. “How many?”
“I don’t know. I think you underestimate the benefit of being an academic with unlimited time. For centuries I traveled the globe looking for new spells. I couldn’t very well learn from the local populace or read their texts if I didn’t pick up their languages. The written word is easier. It doesn’t change as rapidly. Speaking, well, I’ve had some trouble if I haven’t visited a country in a long time.”
