An Unexpected Apprentice

by Jody Lynn Nye

  Her wall of runes was just as she had pictured it, as if it was made out of silvery glass. Just beyond it was a wall of a deeper silver hue. Against this double protection the Madcloud bumped and pushed as if it was a ram attempting to push open a gate with its head.

  “It’s no match for us,” Olen said, patting her on the head. “It cannot pass. Now, to send it elsewhere to cause its mischief.”

  He spread out his arms, the staff held on high. The silver-gray walls stretched out like taffy until they were wrapped all the way around the gigantic storm. The Madcloud rumbled menacingly and spewed multicolored lightnings out of the top, but to no avail. It began to roll away to the southeast.

  “I think we’ll send it all the way to the sea, don’t you?” Olen said.

  Tildi watched with awe as the silver curtain receded swiftly across the mist. “Whatever you say, master.”

  “Oh, you may make a suggestion, since you were of such great help. That was very good work! You will be a fine wizard. I think I will drop a note to Volek when we return home. I will see if he has an opening in the next few years to teach you weather magic.”

  “Not too soon,” Tildi pleaded, proud in spite of herself. If this was true magic, she wanted to learn everything possible. How exhilarating it had been. She had been so frightened, but together they had cowed … a thunderstorm! What would they say back in the Quarters?

  Tildi sat before Olen in the great saddle as the horse bore them down again to Silvertree’s front gate. She wasn’t sure she prefered being able to see. Sihine galloped down through the air as easily as if he was trotting down a hillside, but Tildi always felt as if she was about to tumble over the saddle bow and fall to her death.

  “Where do you find a flying horse?” she shouted over the wind whistling in her face.

  “Sihine doesn’t fly,” Olen shouted back. “I make the air solid under his feet. He has gotten very good at running on terrain he cannot see. Much more convenient than trying to stable a pegasus, oh, yes!”

  Tildi felt a little thrill of excitement even as she clutched the saddle horn in a tight grip between her small hands. Pegasi, the fabled winged horses, did exist! They weren’t just legends, as the storytelling grannies had insisted. Tildi could hardly absorb such a notion, on top of the ideas that clouds could move where they willed, and she, Tildi Summerbee, could wrap up a storm like a parcel. With help, that was.

  Chapter Twelve

  When they arrived at the gate, a mud-spattered messenger was waiting for Olen, with an equally bedaubed horse breathing heavily through flared nostrils. Olen swung off the gray horse’s back, and put the reins into the hands of a groom. The messenger all but stumbled forward and handed the wizard a tightly bound scroll.

  “You look exhausted,” Olen declared. “Get inside and let Liana take care of you. Tildi, take him down to her.”

  “Yes, master,” Tildi said automatically, her question about Pegasi forgotten. The wizard took the steps up toward his study two and three at a time, breaking open the seals on the scroll as he went. He did not look happy.

  Tildi took the man down to the kitchens, where Liana fluttered and clucked around him, bringing him cold drinks and a big platter of food. Once he had emptied a huge mug of ale and wolfed down a chunk of cheese the size of his fist he gave Tildi a curious look.

  “Where do you come from?” the messenger asked. He was a pleasant-looking fellow with very dark skin like the sailors she had met at the Groaning Table. “Sit with me while I eat, little lass. I’m sorry I can’t return the favor. I may not say anything about my mission, so don’t ask me.”

  “I won’t,” Tildi promised. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell him about storm-warding,” Liana suggested. “This is a smallfolk, you know. She is the wizard’s apprentice. They’ve just saved the city, the two of them.”

  The man beheld her with such respect that Tildi felt herself blush. “Well, there’s a storm called the Madcloud, you see …” she began.

  Tildi found that she was content in Olen’s household … not happy, but content. She missed her own kind, having a natter. She found she was able to think about her brothers with a tiny bit of detachment now. She was more at peace with their loss. She would never stop missing them, but she had come to a safe place now, and was going to live a life that they would have approved of. Master Olen’s servants understood her need to make herself useful, she could tell they had been spoken to. She was given more respect, and a little distance.

  “You’ll be pleased later that we did,” Liana always told her. “When you take the master’s place, you’ll have to give us orders, and it’s better if we’re not friends.”

  Tildi shook her head furiously. “Oh, that will never happen! I have many years of study ahead of me, and he’s got other, much more advanced apprentices in the world.”

  “Journeymen and journeywomen now, and a few master magicians,” Liana acknowledged. “But it could happen. You’re conscientious, and that doesn’t happen that often. Not in this house, anyhow. That’s why I say, maybe you.”

  That conscientiousness was why she was so surprised when a thread of power took her by the ear and pulled. Tildi turned her head to see who was tweaking her, but there was no one there. The others in the servants’ hall regarded her with puzzled expressions. She felt around the spot that was being pinched, and tried to make it stop. The invisible force pulled hard, and the spoon she was polishing fell to the floor with a clatter. She gave an apologetic shrug to Liana as the invisible force pulled her out of the door and up the many flights of stairs to Olen’s study.

  “Why are you not working on the runes I set you?” Olen scolded her.

  “I was!” Tildi protested. “Well, I was, before lunch. Then I got to talking with the others downstairs, and they had so much silver to polish. I didn’t realize it had gotten to be so late!”

  “Housework?” the wizard exclaimed, his big brows drawing down fiercely.

  Olen paced up and back, his hands clasped behind his back. The crystals under his window seemed to pick up his agitation, bubbling in bright, intense colors.

  Tildi sat with her hands folded, inwardly terrified. Would he send her away? For polishing spoons? Her heart sank.

  The others had warned her, and she had not listened.

  At last the wizard stopped before her. He knelt at her feet and stared into her eyes. She sat transfixed, feeling as if the green orbs were boring deep into her brain. At last, Olen spoke.

  “Tildi, did you ever think before you came here what it would mean to be a scholar? It means that study is your job. You can’t go and turn out closets or stay the day gossiping when you are supposed to be concentrating on the subject on which I will test you later on. Oh, I understand the value of taking a break, if only to let your mind digest the large plateful of knowledge I fed it, but that ought to be an intermission, not a substitute for the day. You have a great urge to help others. Do not try to be so pleasing to other people’s wants and needs. You must learn to put your own needs first and foremost. Do it for yourself, and let others do that which they can do. I tell you that what you are doing now can be of more service to others than any number of potatoes you can peel. It is not selfishness when I tell you how little time there is in life, no matter how long it is—even one like mine—to learn the secrets of the world’s beginning and ending. You would be greedy for every minute if you understood. One day you will, and by that time you will no longer need me to teach you. You’ll grasp for every wisp of knowledge you can hold.”

  Tildi felt overwhelmed by his words. He was right about her feelings, and right, too, about her neglecting her studies to do favors for the people in the house with whom she felt the most comfortable. It wasn’t why she had come, not any of the reasons why.

  “I am sorry, master,” she said sincerely.

  He patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t be. Just turn that astonishing energy of yours back to where it ought to be aimed. Heavens, if I had the
perseverance you do, I’d have my own continent.”

  Tildi felt ashamed. “I just thought that I could be of some use. I studied the lessons you set me until I didn’t think I could figure out anything new about them—”

  Olen spun on her, and his dark brows drew down. “That is never true. There is always something you can learn from study, even if it is only to memorize a sign so that you can draw it from memory. Please leave housework to my servants. You may not understand how important it is that you use what time you have here. Life is uncertain, never more so than when you are comfortable.”

  Tildi wrinkled her forehead. He did set such conundrums for her to contemplate. “I apologize, master. It won’t happen again.”

  Olen put his hands on his knees and straightened up with a sigh. “I know you mean well. Good heavens, the house has never been cleaner! But have a care for your own future, won’t you? Some day the world may turn upon what you do or do not know, and there will be no one left to ask.”

  Tildi came down before dawn the next day, her resolve in place to obey Olen’s strictures more closely. She set her book down upon the big table, and took down her bowl and spoon from the low shelf. When she climbed up on the padded end of the bench she smiled at Liana, who was sitting at the table with her forehead propped up on her hands. The housekeeper didn’t glance at her. Her usually neat hair looked frayed.

  “How are you this morning?” Tildi asked her. Liana’s head snapped up.

  “Oh, there you are, Tildi. My apologies. I am working out strategy in my head, as if I was a general in the king’s army! The master was up all night long, and he met me at the bottom of the stairs two hours ago with an incredible list of tasks I must undertake. He has called a great conference here, to take place in two weeks’ time, and we must have everything ready.”

  “May I help?” Tildi asked, looking with alarm at the closely written roll of parchment under the housekeeper’s hands. “I’m good at organizing feasts. I always helped at Year’s End parties in the Quarters, and whenever someone in the village got married.”

  Liana covered it up with both hands. “No, you can’t help. The master specifically told me to keep you at your lessons. Please be out from underfoot today. We have many guests coming in the next two weeks, and I have to muster the entire household to have the place ready before they come.”

  “How many?” Tildi asked.

  Liana glanced at a handful of notes, then stuffed them into her apron pocket. “The master says thirty-seven will be staying, but a hundred and forty will dine here, for at least three days.”

  “A hundred and forty!”

  “Yes. He is sending out two hundred summonses, but that is how many he says will get here on time. One good thing about working for a man who can see the future. Ah, well, we have the room for it all. He likes to have company, which is why this place has so many guest chambers, and the kitchens can serve double that number. I will say that he always knows how many, so one is never turned out of one’s bed to make way for a guest, unlike other places I’ve worked before this. Though I’ve never seen him this concerned before. He did not confide in me what the conference is about. Perhaps he will tell you. Anyhow, go be at your lessons, will you? I need room to make plans.”

  Tildi bolted her breakfast and ran up the stairs to Olen’s study. The wizard sat before the table of crystals, staring into them. Within them the images were still a confused mass to her inexperienced eye, but they worried her master, and that worried her. She waited for a moment for him to notice her, then cleared her throat.

  “Master, Liana said that the household is preparing for a conference. What may I do to help?”

  Olen turned to her. He looked weary. “Nothing at the moment. There may be nothing any of us can do, but we will try.”

  “What is the problem? May I help? Will you tell me?”

  “Not now.” Olen waved a hand in sharp dismissal. Tildi must have shown her disappointment. “Forgive me, Tildi, but your expertise is too limited to be of service, and it would take too long to explain at the moment. Will you be patient? I have to explain all to a great many people, and I would rather do it one time and all at once.”

  To wait two weeks! This time Tildi hid her disappointment, but her curiosity was thoroughly aroused.

  “I understand. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?” she asked.

  Olen smiled, the corners of his mouth quirking his mustache. “No, no. Thank you for your courtesy. I will need you later, I promise you. If you don’t mind taking lessons at odd times, when I can spare an hour from my watching, your education will go on, even in this dark time.”

  “Thank you, master!”

  He waved away her thanks. “In the meanwhile, here is a text I would like you to study. Later we will discuss it. I hope.” He thrust a roll of parchment at her. She unrolled the edge to find a page of the most complicated runes she had seen yet. She opened her mouth to protest that she couldn’t make sense of them without help. Olen anticipated her outburst and forestalled it with an upraised finger.

  “If you can’t make progress with it, then work on your fire. I did a study on the spell you have been using, and your pronunciation of the rune.” Olen started to chuckle to himself. “Imagine, using demon-fire to boil tea. Mmm-mmm-mmm. Do you know, that almost cheers me up.” He turned back to the bank of crystals, and clucked over the mustard-colored mass that arose in the third one from the left.

  Tildi escaped with the old book clutched to her chest.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Confined as she was to study, the two weeks crawled by for Tildi.

  The housekeeping staff was under strict orders to keep her from helping, and plucked dust rags, brooms, and brushes out of her hands whenever they found her at any work other than her own. Plenty of activity was going on around her, and she itched to be part of it. Every corner of the kitchen was full of gigantic pots and stacks of trenchers and dishes. The twin footmen polished mountains of silver cutlery. The housemaids carried piles of linens up the stairs and made up dozens of beds in the guest rooms. Some of the guests would be staying in suites, the likes of which she had never dreamed existed outside of a fairy-tale castle. The rich, red brocade bed curtains alone in one grand room would have bought the entire contents of Clearbeck!

  And every time she tried to help, she was shooed out of the room like an errant cat. She had never felt more useless in her life.

  Despite his promise, Olen was too busy to spend more than a few minutes a day checking her work. Forced to apply herself, she learned to distinguish a hundred general runes, and manipulate a few simple specific ones, like that for a stone and a piece of wood that she found in the garden. She attempted to dissect the impenetrable, difficult runes in the page he had assigned her, and practiced warding. Despairing of ever being able to push thunderstorms around like Olen, Tildi sat despondently looking out over the gardens as Olen’s grooms put up temporary stables for dozens of horses to supplement those hidden among the small trees at the perimeter of the estate. She wondered why the housemaids were carrying candlesticks and toilet mirrors into the nearest bank of stalls, but no one had time to answer her questions.

  With her book in front of her, Tildi ate her lunch at the table in the servants’ hall. Liana, beside her, sat poring over notes while the staff ran around them with heaps of linens and baskets of candlesticks.

  “Mistress,” one of the footmen said, dashing up, “we can’t find the extra washbasins!”

  Before Liana could put her finger on her notes to keep her place, Tildi piped up. “Second storeroom in the fifth attic.”

  Liana and the footmen both stared at her. “Master Olen had me fetch one for studying water runes,” she said sheepishly.

  “She’s right,” the housekeeper said, her smile lightening the look of concentration she wore. The footman ran off. “Well, you’re not supposed to be helping, but I can’t say I’m ungrateful that his current apprentice isn’t as snooty as the previous
apprentice but one. Lord of this land or that, that boy was. Ended up joining the Knights of the Book and leaving Olen in the lurch, wretched boy. As if he was worth a damn anywhere but washing retorts and scribing down spells.”

  One of the bells on the wall over their heads began to jangle. They both glanced up. “Front door,” Liana observed. She went back to her lists, but the bell overhead went on and on. She smacked her palm down on the tabletop. “Where is that Samek?”

  “I’ll go and get the door, Liana,” Tildi offered, jumping down from the pad perched on the bench.

  Liana eyed her. “You’re Olen’s apprentice. Properly you should not.” The bell rang again and again. She sighed. “I suppose you had better. I think Samek’s gone off to get drunk, curse him. Crowds worry him. He prefers it when it’s just the usual household ménage, but that’s not his choice, is it? Go. Thank you.”

  Loud hammering from without alarmed Tildi as she flew toward the tall entry doors. Whoever sought entry was trying to hammer his way through the wood. She could almost see the timbers of the frame thicken as Silvertree protected itself from damage. Tildi reached for the round door handle, but whomever was on the other side had decided to resort to magic. Tildi jumped back just in time to avoid having the doors fly open in her face.

  A woman peered down at Tildi. Her long white hair was braided and tied with glinting ruby and emerald pins. Her skin was a warm golden hue, set off by the pale green of her fine gown. Over that floated a white silk cloak tied at the neck with a ribbon. At first Tildi thought she was an elf like Irithe, but her ears were of the human shape.

  “Hello, child,” the human said kindly. Her large black eyes, as timeless as Irithe’s with only the faintest hint of a wrinkle at the outer corners, widened a trifle. “Ah, but I see you are not a child. Are you new here?”