Dark apprentice, p.4
Dark Apprentice, page 4
And now magic was dying out. Soon there’d be no more Magi, let alone peers, and she’d be but one woman alone with the knowledge of what used to be.
Medea turned down a narrow street and knocked on the first door. An elderly woman answered. “You must be the healer! Thank goodness you’re here.”
“Where’s the patient?” Medea entered the small apartment, looking around for someone on a bed. She didn’t normally do cases this small, but she had been intercepted by the town council as soon as she had arrived in Haven. At first she feared attack—she was long overdue—but they were only concerned over a recent rash of illness that wasn’t responding to magic. She didn’t think anyone remembered she knew healing, but apparently someone did, for they’d approached her despite their reservations.
The home smelled overwhelmingly of potpourri. Medea had dropped the aroma-repelling portion of her shield in anticipation of the appointment—some diseases had a distinct odor—but if she stayed here too long, she’d get a headache. What on earth possessed people to scent their homes?
“He’s, uh, in the bathroom. Has been for a while now.”
“And where is that?”
“Just down the hall. I can let him know you’re here, and he can finish up—”
“That’s not necessary,” Medea said as she walked down the hall.
“Wait!”
“What?” Medea paused. Why did people always have to interrupt?
“He’ll be done in a minute.”
“Okay.” Medea started walking again, the woman huffing behind her. What was her problem? Before Medea reached the door, the woman lurched in front to block it.
“Just give him a minute.”
Medea’s head swam. Adding aroma-repelling back to her shield would do no good now. Her head was already surrounded with the particles. By the time the shield had pumped out stray scents, it would likely be time to leave. Better make this quick.
She leaned against the wall and expanded her senses into the bathroom, scanning the body within. The woman was saying something, the noises plinking against her brain like tiny stones. Medea tweaked her shield to mute all incoming sound and focused on the body on the other side of the door. Adult male. Arthritis, heart disease, the usual signs of aging, benign tumor clinging to the left lung—ah, there it was.
“He’s ingested a laxative. Tell him to drink lots of fluids. He’ll be fine.” Medea moved to leave. Two stops in one day was one too many. Something touched her arm, and she turned to see the woman mouthing wordlessly. Oops. Better let the sound back in.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, please don’t go, he’ll just be a minute.” The woman banged on the door. “Hurry up, hon! The healer is here!”
“I told you, it’s a laxative. I couldn’t see any left in his stomach, so it should resolve in a few hours. By the way, the tumor on his lung is nothing to worry about, but I can remove it if you want. I must step outside, though. I can’t work with this smell.”
After Medea left the shop, Nikolai reported briefly to Petrov. The old man was feeling better, though disappointed to hear the current batch of wares only contained a handful of decent items. Nikolai didn’t know how to feel about the dagger. He wanted it badly, and yet Medea’s words left him unsettled. He contemplated listing it with the items to be reenchanted, but in the end told Petrov she thought he should have it. Petrov replied that he wasn’t running a charity and if Medea wanted him to have the dagger, she could damn well pay for it herself. Nikolai left in a dark mood.
Medea’s abilities brought his current master’s inadequacies into sharp relief. When he first sought apprenticeship, Petrov seemed the ideal choice. The man spent years lining his pockets by performing forbidden spells until he was discovered and forced to flee Russia. There was talk of wrongful death and even necromancy, and as a fellow countryman, Petrov would be predisposed to favor his new apprentice.
Nikolai had arrived in Haven, hopes high, expecting a talented dark wizard. Instead, he found an old man content to run a shop. Petrov knew many minor curses, but if he had more powerful spells in his arsenal, he’d yet to divulge them. Perhaps exile made him wary of the Collective and their rules.
Don’t let the Mundane see your magic, or at least keep it to a level that could be explained away by the skeptical. Don’t sell magical items, potions, or spells to the Mundane. And never cast spells that could bring the law to your door—no curses, hexes, or black magic. Dueling, a longstanding tradition for settling disputes, was relegated to a recreational activity with harmless spells.
To hell with that.
What was the point of having magic if you had to strangle your powers? You’d think the war would have made the Collective see sense. Survival was all that mattered, and Nikolai hadn’t survived the Nazi invasion by holding back. His Mundane siblings hadn’t been so fortunate. Only he had emerged from that hell unscathed.
At age twelve he left Russia and traveled alone, chasing rumors until he reached the fabled Academy, esteemed school and seat of all magical knowledge. Surely there he’d find others who valued survival and tenacity as much as he.
It was not to be.
The cowards at school were as bad as the Collective. Even his classmates shied away from combat spells. How could they? Didn’t they understand how vital it was to protect themselves? The war, rather than hardening people and awakening them to the Mundane threat, had done the opposite.
Most students wanted nothing more than to rejoin Mundane society. Sure, there were benefits to technology—planes got you to places faster, telephones were unbeatable for communication, and who didn’t enjoy movies? But what was the cost? The loss of their magic, their heritage? The loss of the one thing that allowed them to survive while Mundanes killed each other?
Catering to the next generation of cravens, the Academy focused on assimilation within Mundane communities. Instead of training warriors, they churned out Magi who could hide in plain sight. Stage magicians, soothsayers, and spiritualists—casters who used illusions to dazzle their audience but whose abilities could be chalked up to nonmagical methods and quackery.
Useless, all of them.
Nikolai stayed until graduation, mainly for access to the library. There he searched every available source for stories of black magic practitioners who might take him under their wing, leading him to Petrov, the man who was supposed to be his salvation but who’d taught him nothing of value.
Life was too short to train with someone subpar. If Nikolai wanted to reach his goal of being the most powerful Magi in the world, who better to train him than the person who currently held the title?
Unfortunately, he had made a poor impression on Medea. He would not make the same mistake again. If he was to secure an apprenticeship, he needed to know everything about her.
The rest of the day was spent carefully teasing information out of people. There was a book dealer, from whom Medea regularly procured rare or ancient texts. “I don’t even put the real finds on the market anymore, just send her a letter asking if she’s interested, along with the price. She doesn’t like to haggle.” The potion ingredient supplier turned out to be a dead end, as Medea preferred to collect and process all ingredients herself. The woman was affronted Medea didn’t seem to think anyone’s supplies were good enough.
But the most Useful information came from a veteran Enforcer at the Spotted Sow. Light had not yet faded from the sky, but the pub was already bustling with activity. Chandeliers bathed the wide room in a honey glow. Warm oak benches encouraged patrons to mingle at long tables, while an open space invited couples to dance. On weekends, a local band played. Today, a woman strummed dulcet tunes on a harp. Mary and Kate, the owner’s daughters, weaved through the crowd distributing drinks.
Nikolai’s mark, a grizzled man in his seventies, nursed a pint of ale on one of the benches. If Medea was as dangerous as Petrov said, an Enforcer would have something to say about her. Thankfully, the man appeared to be in Kate’s section. Mary was a bit of a flirt, and while Nikolai enjoyed her company, he didn’t need the distraction today.
Nikolai took a seat next to the Enforcer, intentionally bumping the man’s arm and spilling his drink. He apologized profusely and insisted on ordering two more rounds for the gentleman. The next fifteen minutes were spent building trust before he casually dropped that he had helped a very odd customer earlier in the day, a Magi known as Medea.
The Enforcer, in the process of bringing his mug to his mouth, set it down forcefully, taking no notice as ale slopped over the sides. “That bitch in town?”
“Yes. My master warned me to be careful around her.”
“Careful. Ha! Yes, everyone is careful. She should’ve been locked up ages ago.”
“Why wasn’t she?”
The Enforcer took a long draught of ale and peered at Nikolai. “Yer young. You know yer history? ’Bout how the Collective was formed?”
Nikolai nodded. “After the witch trials, wasn’t it?”
Magi hadn’t always hidden from view. In the old days, magic was a profession like any other. Most towns had a few open practitioners—a healer here, a midwife there, a witch, and occasionally someone who could solve your problems discreetly without worrying about little things like legality or ethics. Though regarded by some Mundanes with suspicion, Magi were generally left alone.
With Christianity came loathing. More and more Magi hid their true powers, until a rash of witch trials in the sixteenth century changed everything. Fearing accusation by their Mundane neighbors, Magi fled their homes to form new communities consisting of their own kind. Haven was one such place, born of Scottish Magi settled in Ireland, where the Mundane were more likely to blame calamities on mischievous fae rather than witchcraft. It was the new communities that cracked down on the practice of magic in order to avoid detection. The Collective was formed with a representative from each Magi town, and their rules were backed by Enforcers.
“Yeah, after the witch trials.” The Enforcer wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. “Medea was in the Americas during the worst of it, though I hear the colonies had their own trouble. When she started coming ’round again, she didn’t want to follow the rules. Didn’t think we should be hiding.”
Neither did Nikolai, but he kept the thought to himself. There was nothing to be gained by disagreeing. “Easy for her to say. What does an immortal have to fear from the Mundane?”
“You get to the meat of it, boy. The Collective sent a delegation to treat with ’er. If she didn’t agree to our rules, they were to deal with ’er, one way or another. We can’t have rogue Magi, you understand. It endangers us all.”
A man sitting further down the table slid close enough to join the conversation. He said nothing but watched the Enforcer over his mug.
“So what happened?” Nikolai asked.
The Enforcer drank again, his face dark. “They didn’t want to get ’er back up. Send in a team of Enforcers, and she might kill them all straightaway. That was the thinking anyway. So they only sent one Enforcer. The rest of the delegation were experts in dueling. Only one made it back alive. Dunno if he yielded or she let him go to deliver ’er message.”
“What message?”
“Leave ’er alone and she won’t kill us.”
The man across the table shook his head but offered no comment.
“How many delegates did they send?”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty!” The idea was unfathomable. Nikolai was the best dueler in Haven, and his limit was three, maybe four. The top dueler of the century had a record of six. Twenty had to be an exaggeration. More likely the real number was ten, and it had grown with each retelling. “How did she manage to defeat that many?”
“Who knows? It was well over a century ago, and the reports from the survivor make no sense. He raved about exploding heads and the ground swallowing people whole and spells hitting them from every direction. He said she agreed to be discreet, but only when it suited ’er.”
“So never. Did they ever try again?”
The Enforcer shook his head. “Nobody wanted to risk it. Today, our orders are not to engage, no matter what she’s doing.” He gave an apologetic look to the man across the table, one that spoke volumes.
For the first time, Nikolai directed his attention to the silent man. “What did she do to you?”
In response, the man opened his mouth. He had no tongue.
“But why?”
The mute man shrugged, but the Enforcer answered. “He had a mind to flirt with ’er.” The Enforcer shook his head. “You sorry sot. I did warn you.”
“Do you think she’ll come in here?” Nikolai put alarm in his voice and peered around worriedly.
“Nah, she likes the Hanged Man. Prolly the only one who does.”
The tongueless man chuckled appreciatively.
The Enforcer continued to rail against Medea for some time, his face reddening with drink and righteousness, until he was boldly asserting that if they’d sent proper Enforcers instead of duelists, things would have turned out differently. “Give me five good Enforcers and I’ll have ’er in chains for yeh,” he slurred. Nikolai hardly saw a difference between the two—both were trained in combat, although Enforcers had Collective backing—but he commiserated with the man and begged off as the topic had run dry.
Nikolai stepped into the moonlight, donned his hat, and considered what he’d learned. The woman was secretive. Among the townsfolk, she seemed to have no friends. Those who only knew Medea peripherally regarded her with dislike or fear. The few with which she did regular business respected her but also treated her as they would a serpent who could turn on them at the slightest wrong move.
If he’d had any doubts about her prowess in combat, the Enforcer had laid them to rest. Nineteen duelists killed! Exaggeration or not, the idea of that much power made him heady. To be able to cast whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, free of the Collective’s yoke . . . Like him, she understood the necessity of acting without unnecessary restraints, of striking down enemies before they became a true threat. Survival was the only thing that mattered. Petrov didn’t understand that. The man took no chances. The future belonged to the bold, and Nikolai planned to have a bright future indeed.
The following day, Nikolai forwent his usual lunch inside the shop and headed for the seedy inn known as the Hanged Man. Most locals preferred the Spotted Sow for their refreshment and merriment; it could get quite loud and boisterous in the evenings. The Hanged Man was dreary by comparison, but as Medea preferred it, that was where he went.
Haven looked like any other small Irish town. There were the same shops for food and household items (though nothing electric). Citizens dressed in the same tweed suits and linen dresses as the rest of the country. Men donned hats, women scarves—though younger women were beginning to forgo this trend. Nikolai wore only the latest Dublin fashions.
On closer inspection, the subtle differences in Haven became apparent. If you needed to make a phone call, you had to travel to the next town over, for there were no telephones in Haven. Cars were frowned upon. Signs at the edge of Haven prompted visitors to park and make their way on foot. The town was small enough that most people walked wherever they needed to go. For those who needed assistance or were traveling farther, there were horse-drawn carriages. At night, darkness reigned. The town had its streetlamps, but they were gas, not electric, as were all the household lights. Electricity was strictly forbidden, as Mundane technology interfered with magic.
While the population skewed heavily Irish and Scottish, immigrants like Nikolai were not uncommon. Magi were welcome no matter their nationality. Mundanes were not. There was a taboo against renting or selling property to Mundanes, but it happened on occasion. Those who moved to Haven found nothing but bad luck. Their crops died and their homes were fraught with ill omens and supernatural disturbances. They were pushed out of town one way or another. Better to have a Magi neighbor who didn’t speak the same language than a Mundane neighbor who did.
Nikolai smiled and greeted people as he passed, mentally sorting them into categories. This one owed him a favor, that one knew all the latest gossip. He carefully avoided anyone who would trap him in conversation. At last, he arrived at the Hanged Man.
The rickety inn stood near the center of town, age evident in every beam, looking as though a stiff breeze would cause the whole place to topple. Medea was indeed brave to board here. The scent of stale beer greeted him upon opening the door. Light from the large front window illuminated dust motes in the air but did little to quench the darkness. Gas lamps situated around the room threw as many shadows as they destroyed.
A rowdy group of men laughing over their drinks took up several tables. On the other side of the room, two women conferred in whispers. An old man in tattered clothes passed him, coughing up something foul. Nikolai wrinkled his nose and moved to the side. It was then he saw Medea at a table in the far corner of the room. She faced the door, her nose in a book and a mug in her hand. Her long blonde hair was tucked behind her ears.
When he got close to her table, the noise of the inn abruptly ceased. He glanced around to see what could have caused it, expecting stares in his direction, but the patrons were still engrossed in conversation as if nothing was amiss. It must be a localized spell. In any event, he appreciated the calm. He hadn’t fancied trying to yell over the raucous men. Before he could open his mouth, Medea spoke without looking up.
“No.”
He didn’t let her reaction throw him. “No, what?”
“No, I won’t train you.”
He slid into the seat across from her and smiled. “You must be an amazing telepath. I didn’t feel you enter my mind.”
“It doesn’t take telepathy to know what you want.” She continued to stare at her book. “You want the same thing they always want. I’m tired of wasting years training apprentices only to watch them die.”
