Dark apprentice, p.15
Dark Apprentice, page 15
Great, more rules. “Why times two?”
She sighed and lugged a small cauldron to the sink and began filling it with water. “Because experience has taught me not to trust people. They use a thing, get busy, and forget to replace it. Others are sloppy, buying ingredients with no thought to source, or they take and take without replacing anything. Those apprentices don’t last long. I’ve added the buffer to make up for the inadequacies of others. It’s not a perfect system, but it helps.”
Nikolai nodded. At the Academy he’d been paired with incompetent partners on more than one occasion, and he shared her irritation with such people.
“Now, first things first. Sit there.” He approached the center table. Medea carried the now-full cauldron over and set it before him.
“What are we making?”
“You are boiling water.”
“Er, okay . . .” He looked around for a burner and made to pick up the cauldron.
Medea slapped his hand away. “Not like that. With your mind.”
“You want me to boil water with my mind?”
“Yes. Every morning. That is your first task of the day. Did you cast any spells yet?”
“I summoned breakfast.”
She waved a hand. “A minor enough spell that it won’t matter. Here, focus on the water. Bring it to a boil, then hold it there as long as you can.” She turned away from him and busied herself in one of the cabinets.
He stared into the cauldron. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Anger helps. Pretend it’s someone you hate, and you want to boil their brain inside their skull.” Medea set a skinny jar of dried plants on the counter. She removed a stalk, sniffed it, then tossed it in a bin and removed another.
He focused on the water and thought of past slights he’d endured but felt nothing. Anger was a fleeting emotion, not something he clung to. When provoked, it came upon him suddenly, raging like a wildfire and threatening to burn all in its path, but it fled just as quickly, leaving only the memory of the event. His desire for retribution was conceptual, not emotional.
“Here, let me help you.” Medea slapped the back of his head.
“What the hell?!” He spun to face her, fists balled at his sides.
“Ah-ah!” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the cauldron. “Focus your anger there. Pretend it’s my head.” He glared at her as she walked around the table and settled across from him with her plants. With both Medea and the cauldron in sight, it wasn’t difficult to imagine it was her. He let the fury build and focused it all on the cauldron.
Nikolai held his concentration as long as he could, but the task was exceedingly dull and soon his mind drifted. Few of Medea's plants seemed make the cut of her sniff test. Halfway through her inspections, she gave up and dumped the remaining contents in the bin.
A magical shove sent his face into the cauldron. He jerked back, wiping lukewarm water off his nose.
"Focus," said Medea. A jar of plants flew over his shoulder and into her hand.
He wished the water was boiling so he could dump it in her lap. He directed his anger at the cauldron, but even with his rage swelling anew it was an eternity before bubbles appeared along the sides. By the time the water began to churn in earnest, his hands trembled.
Medea smiled. “Nice to see I haven't lost my touch for picking the right cauldron size. Maintain the boil as long as you can."
Not a minute later he slumped back in his chair. Shivers ran over his body.
“What was the point of that?” Exhaustion made his voice break. He hid his trembling hands under the table.
“You tell me. What do you think it does?”
“It feels like mana exhaustion, but I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Yes, you were. Boiling water requires energy. Just as athletes lift weights to gain muscle, so too must we push our magic to the limits to strengthen our abilities. This exercise is designed to increase your mana. Speaking of which . . .”
She pulled out a flask of milky white fluid and passed it to him. He unstoppered it and drank. The trembling stopped.
“I cannot overstate how important mana is in combat,” she continued. “A rapid burst of damage may win some duels, but showy spells tend to be expensive, and when fighting an opponent of equal skill, whoever has the most mana will likely win. Every morning, while your mana reserve is full, you are to boil water. Twice daily is better. It will get easier. Don’t think of skimping on it. I’ll know if you haven’t been practicing.”
“Can I stop when it gets easy?”
“Of course not, we simply get you a bigger cauldron. Now, on to your second task. Do you remember what I said yesterday about potions?”
“You want me to make a mana and healing potion every day.”
“No, I want you to make ten of each.”
“Ten?” Apprentices were often used as free labor, but they were usually learning new things in the process, not repeating rudimentary tasks. “Why do you need so many?”
“You really think they’re for me?” She smiled and held out a hand. A sheet of paper flew from somewhere in the room and landed in her palm. She slapped it on the table in front of him. “Here are the instructions. Get to it.”
“Why can’t I use my own recipes?”
“Because they’re wrong.”
“You haven’t even seen them.”
“I don’t need to.” She began sorting through herbs again.
Nikolai rubbed his chin as he read the paper, grimacing when he felt another patch of stubble he’d missed. Most of the ingredients were the same as what he remembered, with slight variations. Medea’s mana potions used harp root instead of ginseng, and it had to be collected from a sunny field. This part was underlined several times. Her healing potions used ox’s blood instead of sheep’s, and there was a scribbled notation to use alpaca when available.
The sheer number of potions meant it took several trips to bring the required supplies to the table. At least he could make a big batch and simply increase the quantity of each ingredient by ten, except for the blood, which she’d already written as 30 cc instead of 3 cc.
As he mixed, Medea swooped in to nitpick over his work. He was adding things in the wrong order. The flame was too high. That root had gone bad, he needed a new one. It was difficult to concentrate with her constant hovering.
“You’ve forgotten to multiply the blood.”
“No I haven’t. See?” He held up a small beaker about the size of a shot glass.
“You need 300 cc.”
“I think you wrote it down wrong.” He slid the paper across the table. Medea peered at it, frowning.
“You’re absolutely right. My apologies.” A pen flew into her hand, and she added another zero. “There, 300 cc per potion. Carry on.”
He chuckled. “Medea, these vials don’t even hold that much.”
“That’s because you grabbed the wrong kind. Healing vials are in the drawer over there, and you can find more ox blood in jugs under the counter.”
“That’s over a cup of blood in every potion.”
“And?”
He stared at Medea in consternation. Was she fucking with him? Was this some sort of test to see if he knew the proper quantities?
She sighed. “You don’t understand how they work, do you?”
“Uh, I drink them and they heal me?”
“They accelerate the body’s natural healing capabilities, but the raw materials have to come from somewhere. If you don’t provide them, the body will make do with what it has, consuming itself to make hasty repairs. The blood helps, as do food and rest.”
She sat next to him. “It is important you understand how they work. Potions can only do so much. They can’t get around curses or diseases that impair healing, and if a wound is filthy or necrotic, using a potion is risky. The wounds will also scar easily. The body only cares about structural repairs. The faster the healing, the worse the scarring.”
Nikolai shifted on his seat. He took great pride in his appearance. One scar might not be so bad, or even a couple, provided they were in suitably attractive places that allowed for a good fabricated tale, but she was talking about using ten potions a day.
“What kind of injuries will I be treating with the potions? Minor cuts and scrapes?”
She laughed as she got up.
“I ask because I don’t want my body disfigured.” His voice was deadly calm.
“Scars exist to remind us of our failures, making us less inclined to repeat them.”
He made no move to continue his work as she sorted herbs. Eventually she looked over and shook her head. “My training is quite . . . vigorous, and repeated injuries make it harder for the body to do repairs. I usually repair injuries properly a few times a week, depending on how bad the tissue is. If I didn’t, my apprentices would be unrecognizable before long. I merely want you to understand the cost of using potions habitually. Far better to learn healing spells so you may guide the body as you see fit.”
Nikolai relaxed and went back to brewing. He added ox blood until his cauldron was disgustingly thick with the stuff. Medea was back with more corrections. The flame was too high—he was going to coagulate the blood. It needed more vinegar. No, that was too much, and he had to keep stirring. Her constant interference was suffocating.
An hour and a half later, he was nearly done, and her criticisms ceased. He removed the healing brew from the heat and divvied it into bottles to cool. While the mana brew gently simmered, he rose to stretch his legs and explore the rest of the lab.
Unlike the meticulously labeled ingredient jars, most of the cabinets housed an unorganized assortment of equipment. In one cabinet, tongs were shoved unceremoniously into a beaker, which balanced on top of a set of scales, wedged between a crucible and a telescope. He hastily closed the door before anything could fall and break. Another cabinet was home to wadded balls of fabric. He shook one of them out to reveal dated clothing, which he thrust back into the cabinet.
Medea paid no mind to his casual search of her possessions, until he came to a door stained black. A blue rune glowed on its surface.
“That’s the dark room,” she said, “for potions and ingredients that wither in light. There are two doors, and one must be closed for the other to open. There’s a red crystal on the wall. Touch it when you enter, and it will light the room. I’ll unlock it for you now.” She didn’t look up from her plants, but the rune faded.
One door left, also runed. “And here?”
“That goes to the dungeon.”
The dungeon! He watched the blue rune for a moment, but nothing happened. Medea was busy stripping brown leaves off a stem. She must’ve forgotten. He cleared his throat and tried to keep the excitement from his voice. “Would you mind unlocking the door?”
“Why? Do you have a particular spell that requires testing?”
“No, but I’d still like to see it.”
“You would,” she mumbled.
The lab was silent, save for the plucking of leaves. He stared at the mocking blue glow, willing it to fade.
“Medea?”
She released an exasperated sigh. “What?”
“Are you going to unlock the door?”
The careful dismemberment of flora ceased, and she looked up, scrutiny in her gaze. Involuntarily, he straightened his shoulders. Her eye contact slid from his, back to her plants.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He clenched his fists and returned to the potions on the counter. When he was finished, she examined his work, holding up a sample of each to the light and tasting it. He stared past her, refusing to be goaded by the unjustified scrutiny. At last she seemed satisfied, and he packed his potions away into his pouch.
“Now,” she said with a smile, “we will see how well you defend yourself.”
They emerged from the hovel into bright sunlight. The flowers in the garden swayed in the gentle breeze, and he thought he recognized a few of the ingredients from down in the lab. Sure enough, Medea stopped to point out plants he should be collecting daily to replace those he’d used for potions. The grass covering most of the open land was apparently harp root, a key component in her mana potions. When he asked where he was supposed to find gallons of ox blood, she waved his question away.
“You don’t know how to collect it properly. I will supply it for now. I tried keeping beasts here once, but they ate all the plants.”
When they reached the area of flattened grass, Medea spun to face him, eyes twinkling. “Now we test your defenses. You may use your wand.”
It sprang from his wrist holster into his hand, and she gave him a look.
“What? You said I couldn’t use a wand without permission, not that I couldn’t have one.”
“You might be tempted to use it.”
“Or I might need it to save my life.”
“Fine. This time you block me.”
He centered himself and conjured the most powerful shield he could, strong enough to block physical spells and at least stall things like lightning and fire.
Medea shook her head. “You make this too easy.”
Something punched him in the back. He sprawled into the grass, shield winking out. He rolled in time to see a giant boulder falling straight at him. Shield back up without a second to spare. His ears rang as the boulder struck the shield, sending a jolt through his body.
The boulder had him pinned to the grass. He ignored an itch on his cheek, trying to figure out how to get the boulder off his shield without collapsing it in on himself. Levitation proved fruitless. Medea was actively forcing the boulder downward. It twisted and scraped against the shield like a nail on glass.
Twist, grind. A crack appeared in the shield. He pushed mana into it, sealing the fissure. Sweat beaded his brow. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. The itch became more insistent, and he absently rubbed his cheek against his shoulder. Maybe he could tilt it off and roll away. He pushed against one side of the shield, but the boulder was too heavy.
Now his legs were itching. He chanced a look and almost lost his concentration on the shield. The grass was alive and winding around his legs. One blade rose in front of his eyes and waved at him in a taunting manner before diving up his nostril. More followed until his sinuses were so packed he could scarcely breathe.
He opened his mouth to speak the slash incantation and grass rushed down his throat. With ever-increasing pressure, the blades wound around and through his head. Darkness loomed. He wasn’t good enough. He’d never be good enough. Medea was going to kill him, a just ending to his pathetic life. The shield wavered.
Let go. Death was freedom. Just let go.
An immense weight cracked his chest, and all was black.
13
POWER OVERWHELMING
A slap rang across his face. Nikolai jerked upright and pedaled backward, gasping and coughing. Something tickled his throat. He felt around inside his mouth and tugged out a stalk of grass nearly two feet in length. The remainder of his breakfast came up with it. When the heaving ceased, he fell back on his haunches and blinked. Medea crouched next to the boulder a short distance away, watching him benignly.
“What did we learn?” she asked.
Nikolai got to his feet and spat. The foul taste still polluted his mouth. How he longed for a bit of vodka to cleanse his palate. With trembling fingers, he removed a mana potion from his pouch, took several swigs and spat again.
“Don’t waste that,” she said. “Here.” She pulled a waterskin from her pouch and offered it to him.
He shook his head mutely and finished off his mana potion. The trembling subsided and he turned a darkened face toward Medea.
“You tried to kill me!” Back and forth he paced, hands balled into fists.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She stuffed the waterskin back in her pouch. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”
It was all he could do to keep his temper in check. What happened? The boulder had been challenging and the grass menacing, but that wasn’t what troubled him. His thoughts had been clouded, he was sure of it. He prided himself on being able to think critically under pressure, on pushing past challenges long after others had given up, yet something within had insisted he drop the shield. Had he acquiesced? He could still feel the weight of the boulder on his chest, the dry scratchiness of the grass as it entered unbidden . . .
“What did you learn?”
Medea’s calm arrogance was infuriating. He didn’t trust himself to answer.
“I understand this is difficult for you. It is never pleasant being at the mercy of another.”
He flinched as if struck.
“Do you recall what I said when I offered to take you on? My lessons will be harsh. You agreed to it.”
Harsh was fine. Danger broke the monotony and quenched his thirst for adrenaline, but something was amiss. Thrice now he’d been tormented by thoughts entirely unlike him. Two times might have been coincidence, but three? Was it Medea? Was she doing something to him?
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I promise you’re alright. I understand the limitations of the human body far better than you could imagine. Do you detect anything amiss?”
Her words were a little too close to his line of thinking. Was she a telepath too? If so, she’d entered his mind without his knowledge, something he’d yet to accomplish with other Magi. He attempted to set his suspicions aside in case she was listening to his thoughts.
He stopped pacing and tentatively unbuttoned his shirt, now caked with dirt and blood. His chest was pink and tender where the rock had crushed him, but otherwise there was no sign of what happened.
“I take care of my students, but adversity is the best teacher. Life is brutal. You can either lay down and die, or rise up and say ‘never again.’ Here, you have a unique opportunity to fail with minimal repercussions. Now, tell me what you could have done better.”
