Dark apprentice, p.14
Dark Apprentice, page 14
“I said I don’t like being interrupted, but as you’re anxious to start we may as well begin.”
He rolled onto his side, gasping as he struggled to draw breath. After an eternity, his lungs recovered and he sat up to search for his wand. He could do this. What were the most powerful spells he knew, aside from Lance and Bleed? Lightning, Fireball, Slicing Wind, Fear, Barrage, Pain. She’d said he didn’t need to hold back, so he wouldn’t.
He launched Fear and Pain back-to-back, hoping at least one of them would hit, buying him time to land damage spells. Fear was parried. Pain was plucked from the air with her bare hand, as if it was the most normal thing to do. She flexed her fingers and shook her wrist, like someone attempting to discard the tingling sensation after sleeping on their arm wrong.
Slicing Wind was met with some sort of pointed barrier that neatly deflected it to either side. Lightning was grounded. Fireball blocked. Barrage rebounded and he had to dive to avoid being bludgeoned.
He lurched to his feet and nearly fell over as his whole body trembled. Mana exhaustion. Never before had he cast so many powerful spells in such a short sequence. He stood with his hands on his knees, panting.
“Your mana reserves are terrible. Take a potion.” She nodded at his new pouch.
The drawstring defied his fingers the first several attempts, but soon his hand gripped a thin vial containing a milky white substance.
“Isn’t this”—he inhaled sharply and rubbed his temple—“supposed to be yellow?”
“My version is better. Drink. You look ready to pass out.”
He obeyed. Most mana potions took some time to work. Not Medea’s. The trembling subsided almost immediately and was replaced with a warm, almost euphoric tingling throughout his body. “This is strong!”
“Mine have an initial boost, in addition to the accelerated regeneration effect. Give it, oh, ten minutes and we can begin again.” She sat down on the grass and he did the same.
“That fast?”
“You don’t have much mana to regenerate. Let’s talk about your wand. Do you use it for everything?”
“Of course.” Shit, she was going to take it from him. He should’ve crafted a backup.
“And yet you see I do not use one. I want you to think back to the first time you used magic. What was happening? And before you answer, remember you have sworn to tell me the truth. I do not care how embarrassing the memory is. I cannot help you if I cannot show you what you did right.”
He considered this. First-magic stories were a significant glimpse into another’s life. At the Academy, some students shared theirs openly; others only told close friends. Magical ability often woke under duress, and while a few stories were humorous—one boy accidentally set his cousin on fire during a spat—more often than not, given the time in which they’d grown up, the stories were bleak.
Harper had accidentally given himself blond hair and blue eyes, an illusion he still maintained. Another boy was the sole survivor when a bomb destroyed his apartment. One hollow-eyed girl spoke of Nazis searching her home; they’d taken her parents but looked right through her as though she wasn’t there. Nikolai had listened to each tale before concocting his own, one which garnered sympathy and made him out to be a bit of a hero.
Medea looked at him expectantly, though not impatiently. Saving Kate from the drunks had won him points. There was no reason he couldn’t create a new story along those lines. Medea was unlikely to run into his former classmates, and he could always claim the story he’d given her was what really happened.
“Father was drunk again. Mother was making shchi and I was playing on the floor nearby. I think I was about five. Father tasted the shchi and became angry—he was forever complaining about the way she cooked. He backhanded her, then grabbed her hair and shoved her toward the boiling pot. She was crying and struggling . . .” He paused, closing his eyes as if overwhelmed by the memory.
“And you intervened?”
“Yes, though of course I didn’t realize it at the time. He yelped as if his hand burned and released her. Mother froze in place. He hit her again, blaming her for making him burn his hand, then walked by me. Stumbled, actually. He was so drunk he could barely walk, but he saw me and my toys as culpable and made to kick us both out of his way.
“I dodged his boot and focused on his neck. He gasped and choked, clawing at his throat. Mother rushed to his aid. The ungrateful bastard swatted her away and collapsed. I’ll never forget how his face turned ashy blue.” Nikolai picked at the blades of grass, casually shredding them as if torn over what he’d done. “When he passed out, I released my grip. It was then I knew I’d done something extraordinary.”
“You nearly killed a man and you didn’t need a wand to do it.”
“That was different. More . . . primal. Isn’t that how a lot of Magi first find out their abilities, they get mad and stuff starts flying across the room?” Telekinesis was supposed to be the most basic, instinctual form of magic. Most of his teachers’ first-magic stories involved flying objects or things mysteriously falling.
“Yes, but that isn’t what you were doing,” said Medea. “The dishes weren’t flying around the room. You didn’t slam your father into a wall. Instead, you focused intently on one thing, and you made it happen. Magic requires three things: mana, will, and focus. Mana gives you the energy to perform the action. Will is something many people have, including the Mundane. Without will there can be no commitment to action. Focus is your ability to see precisely what you want to happen. A Magi that lacks sufficient focus may cause items to fly around when they are upset, but to no purpose.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with how I cast. I have mana, will, and focus.”
“No, you have the first two. The third has been stripped away by that.” She pointed to his wand. “Like any tool in your arsenal, wands are not inherently bad, but how they’re used matters, and what I see in use today is vastly different than the wands of old.”
Medea’s youthful countenance might disguise her true age, but at heart she was just another old woman. He leaned back on his arms and braced for the obligatory “kids these days” lecture.
“In my day—”
And there it was. If his time with Petrov had taught him anything, it was to act interested whenever an old person rambled on about how good things used to be.
“—wands were imprinted with a single spell. They were not meant to be used for anything and everything.”
“Imprinted?”
“If you wanted to cast a spell above your ability, you could buy a wand to cast it for you. The spell utilized your mana, and your will told the wand to cast, but the focus was built into the wand itself. You needn’t know any of the magical theory—useful if you needed a spell for a particular task. For instance, a family might store a healing wand for a child to use in case a parent was incapacitated. A thief could use a wand of Sleep, Silence, or Unlock.”
He abruptly sat up. “What kind of thief doesn’t bother to learn spells of his own trade? And how would a child even have the mana for something like that?”
“The Mundane kind, and almost everyone had a degree of mana back then. Of course, some wands had mana built in, but they had limited uses before the wand ran dry.”
Clearly she was getting senile. Mundane with mana? Witches didn’t even have mana, only Magi.
“Wands became more complex later. Instead of single spells, they replaced the focus of the caster. I saw from your textbooks that you were expected to drill extensively with a wand. Is this correct?”
“Yes. An hour a day for each new spell learned until our form was perfect.”
Medea snorted. “I’m not opposed to drilling. Some people are easily distracted or flustered in combat. Drilling that often with a wand though . . .” She shook her head. “Current wands bypass focus. They join with the caster, interpreting what you want to do, even if you cannot quite formulate the right thoughts. The burden of focus falls to the wand, not the caster.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? I know several people who can barely cast with a wand.”
She waved her hand. “That is due to an unrelated issue. The problem with allowing a wand to do the focusing is you can’t cast anything remotely original. Wands like to stick to the book, so to speak, and work best with standard spells. If you’ve trained a wand to summon bread every time you use a certain movement and say Panem . . .”
“You summon bread instead of Beef Stroganov.”
She nodded. “Now imagine if, instead of a disappointing meal, it was your life at stake.”
He looked down at his wand, the wood worn smooth at the base by frequent handling. The making of a first wand was a rite of passage. Students chose a wood most compatible with the spells they wished to cast, then went in search of a tree during the waxing moon. They placed a palm to the trunk and begged permission from the tree to take a clipping. If the bark felt warm, then permission had been granted.
Nikolai had chosen oak, a masculine wood known for its strength and endurance. Casting had been so much easier since he’d crafted it all those years ago. Could he really give it up? Should he?
“You will not use a wand while you train with me, not without my explicit permission. The potion should have worked by now. Let’s try again, this time without the wand.”
The removal of choice irked him, but he slid his wand back into its holster without complaint.
Medea stood and picked flecks of grass off her dress. Nikolai attempted to take the sparring stance but couldn’t figure out what to do with his wand hand. Holding it empty in front of him felt odd, but allowing it to dangle limply at his side didn’t work either, nor did placing it in his pocket. As he experimented with placement, Medea covered her mouth with a fist, holding back a smile.
“You look ridiculous,” she said.
“I don’t hear you making any suggestions.”
“Why should I? This is far more entertaining.”
At last he stood with both arms slightly bent at his sides, like some sort of strongman ready to wrestle.
Medea shook her head. “No, that will never do.” She fumbled with her hip pouch and withdrew a sad twig of a wand, which she tossed to him.
“You want me to give up my wand and use another?” It hadn’t even been sanded or inscribed.
“That’s not a wand, it’s a stick.”
“All wands are sticks.”
“Ah, but not all sticks are wands.”
“Why do you carry around a stick?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I pretend to cast using a wand.”
“Why?”
“Because then my opponent wastes time trying to disarm me.” She grinned.
He chuckled in spite of himself. He’d have to use that one. The look on his opponent’s face would be priceless.
“A fake wand will help with the transition,” she continued. “You can still go through the movements, but there will be nothing to inhibit your focus. As you gain confidence, we will start by dropping incantations, then wand movements. A few spells require such things, like those which invoke spirits, but most do not.”
“Is some movement required? I see you cast spells using your hands and face.” Her slight nod back at Petrov’s had filled the wooden beam with pockmarks.
“Not really. Some of it is habit—most is for the people around me. If you hadn’t seen me move, would you have realized I was the one doing magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. People stare around stupidly for the source if they don’t see you doing magic.” Her arms waved in an exaggerated casting motion, then she chuckled into her hand like a child about to confess something forbidden. “I, heh, I have a couple spells I use when I really want to make an impression.”
Medea planted her feet and held her upturned hands in front of her like claws. Wind whipped her hair and dress. The air tingled with electricity. She rose ten feet off the ground, her body taking on an eerie glow. When she spoke, her voice was a booming echo.
“FEEL MY WRATH, MORTALS!”
If he had known nothing of magic, it would’ve been a stunning sight. Instead, he found himself laughing at the overly dramatic effects.
“Shh! You’re making me break character. Ahem. BOW BEFORE ME, FOR I AM MEDEA, CONQUEROR OF . . . OF . . . uhhhh, I’m no good at this.” She sank back to the ground, straightening her dress and putting on a casual air. “You get the idea.”
He grinned. “If you ever get bored being a hermit, you could make a killing entertaining the Mundane.”
She shuddered. “Ugh. Why did I even show you that? What were we talking about?”
Definitely senile. It would make manipulating her easier.
“We were discussing wands, and how I’m impotent without one.” He frowned at his word choice. Why did he say that? The sunny day was suddenly oppressive and gloomy. Wind cut through his coat and chilled him to the bone. Medea spoke of wands, all noise and no substance.
“Are you even listening?!” Her fingers snapped in front of his face.
He blinked and looked down. “I . . . I’m sorry, I don’t feel well.”
“You’re already behind for today, and I have yet to see how well you perform without a wand.”
He found himself unable to care about her irritation. She insisted he try his spells again, but they were impossible to cast without his wand. He was a failure. A fraud. Why did he ever think he was going to succeed?
A slap interrupted his wallowing, but he could do no more than look down at Medea with disinterest.
“You will push past this,” she said. “Do you understand? Focus!”
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Yes, it is.”
He bowed his head at that. No matter how she yelled, focus and will eluded him. When her frustration reached a boiling point, she stalked back to the hovel. Nikolai meekly followed.
12
TAINTED
Nikolai awoke the next morning with a crick in his neck. Damn the mattress. It hadn’t been a good night. After he left Medea, he’d returned to his room and lain down, mired in his thoughts. He’d been torn between wanting to pack and wanting to stay. Neither option seemed good, and so he lay awake for hours, past dinner and well into the night. At some point he must have fallen asleep, yet when he woke, it was as if he hadn’t rested at all.
He stood and pulled on his robe, making his way to the bathroom for a shower. At least he had that modern amenity. The hot water tap appeared to be for show, for the water that came out was icy even after a sufficient wait. Nothing he wasn’t used to. He stepped into the chill water and scrubbed. Halfway through his shower, the water abruptly turned scalding and he nearly fell trying to escape the torturous stream.
Belatedly, he recalled the bathroom didn’t have a mirror. How was he supposed to shave? The process took twice as long as usual. Every time he checked his work with his hand, he found more stubble he’d missed.
He dressed in his dueling garb—loose-fitting wool pants and shirt—and strode to the kitchen, determined to have better success with summoning today. He got a decent kolbasa on the second try. Summoning black tea resulted in a wet table, which combined with the dust on the towel he grabbed to create a sort of brownish sludge. Back and forth he went from table to sink, rinsing and wiping until at last the table was clean. His second attempt to summon tea took place over the sink, and eventually he found he could control where the liquid arrived by encircling a mug with his hands. By the time he sat down, his sausage was cold, but it didn’t matter. He was getting the hang of this.
As he ate, he tried to puzzle out the previous day. The dark moods had struck without warning. He felt fine this morning, and yet there’d been a brief period of lucidity yesterday too. Perhaps gateway travel did not agree with him.
When he returned to his room, he found a note instructing him to seek a blue door. After a quick circuit of the common room, he found a door with a blue rune glowing on its surface. He touched his palm to the symbol and heard the snick of a latch unlocking.
He opened the door to a laboratory larger than his old apartment. Like the common room, it was lit with large flat crystals. A long, sturdy table, scorched and blemished from centuries of use, stood in the middle, providing ample room to brew multiple concoctions simultaneously. Counters at the back boasted a variety of cauldrons, flasks, and alchemy instruments. Shelves of ingredients took up well over half the wall space.
He passed a rack for drying herbs and perused the closest shelf of bottles. There appeared to be quite a few duplicates. No, not duplicates, variations. “Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, marsh, full moon, Aug 17, 1940.” And another, “Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, pond, south side, Jan 9, 1936.” There were several more for milkweed, including different species, and over a dozen for mandrake. He admired the thoroughness of the labeling, which bordered on obsessive. Many of them contained not only locations, but map coordinates, time stamps, and weather.
“Ah, good, you’re up.” Medea’s voice came from an open cabinet. She stepped into view, arms laden with flasks, and closed the door behind her with one bare foot. She wore the same red dress as always.
Back in Haven he’d figured she was simply traveling light, but now that he knew about the gateway, he realized she hadn’t slept in the Hanged Man at all. Yesterday was fuzzy, but he vaguely remembered her wearing the red dress then too. Did she ever change? Did she have twenty identical dresses? One dress kept clean with magic?
“I’m feeling much better today.” He gestured to the jars. “Why so many variations?”
“Contrary to what some people believe, the conditions under which ingredients are grown and gathered matters, which is why I collect my own.”
Nikolai recalled the slighted potion ingredient merchant back in Haven and smiled.
“Feel free to make use of anything here. The brown cabinet back there contains completed potions. If you need one, take it. Rule One: if you use a potion or ingredient, you must replace it doubly, and as soon as you can. I do not mind apprentices grabbing things in a pinch—it beats waiting a month or more for some longer potions to brew—but I expect that you replace whatever you take, times two.”
