The Apprentice to Zdrell

by David K Bennett

  Jonny was confused. He asked, “What do you mean, Master?”

  “Jonny, I just watched you take a rock Roald threw to the right, you curved it to the left, then send it higher, and then dropped it straight down into that basket. If you can do that, you do not need to have Roald throw the rock at all.”

  Could it be true? He had been playing lately at making a rock go up and down and then up again before he let it drop into a basket, but it had always been with a rock that was already in the air. “Do you mean I should throw the rock myself,” he asked, deliberately avoiding what he thought The Master meant. He had tried to get rocks to fly by themselves, but they had stubbornly stayed on the ground.

  “No I most certainly do not mean that, and you know it, Jonny. I want you to take a stone that is sitting on this table,” he said pointing, “and make it go into that basket. If you can make a stone spin around like you have in the air, you can make it take off too!”

  This was just what Jonny had feared, and he started to stutter how he couldn’t, but The Master cut him off roughly.

  “No excuses, Jonny. I know you are just a child, but you simply must stop pretending you can’t do it. Here,” he said, placing a stone on the table, “let’s see you make this stone leave the table. I don’t care where it goes, just get it up in the air, even for a second, and I will leave you alone.”

  Jonny knew he had no choice when Master Silurian looked at him like that, but he just did not think he could do it. He had tried just yesterday, but had gotten nowhere. He stared at the rock but he could not even get a feel for it, though he could feel The Master’s gaze burning through him.

  After waiting for several moments while Jonny stared impotently at the rock on the table, The Master must have decided drastic action was required. He grabbed Roald roughly and twisted his arm up behind his back. Roald cried out in pain.

  “Sorry, Roald,” The Master said in a tight voice, “but Jonny needs a little help here, and you are going to give it.” He turned towards Jonny. “I did not want to do it this way, Jonny, but we do not have all the time in the world. You need to get past this NOW!”

  He took the little finger of Roald’s trapped hand and started to slowly twist it. Roald screamed in pain.

  “Now, Jonny,” he said staring intently at him. “I am going see that stone lift off the table, or I am going to twist Roald’s finger here until it breaks. Roald is extremely sensitive to pain, as you can see, and it will hurt him a lot. So either you get that rock off the table, or your friend is going to suffer quite a bit for your fear.”

  Jonny wanted to scream. The Master was asking him to do the impossible. He could not make the rock move, and if he did not, Roald would be hurt. The Master had hardly done anything to him, and Roald was already crying and screaming. Jonny knew that scream; it was the one Roald made at night. Seeing Roald in pain made Jonny want to lash out, but he was just a little kid. What could he do? If only that stupid rock would move he could save his friend, but he could not do it.

  The Master glared at Jonny. He started to twist Roald’s finger. Roald screamed louder. Jonny was sure any moment he would hear the sound of snapping bone.

  Jonny started to get mad, madder than he had been since his parents had died and he lost everything. This was not fair. Roald should not have to suffer, just because Jonny could not move some stupid rock. As Master Silurian continued to twist Roald’s finger, causing him to scream even louder, something broke inside Jonny. His anger for this and all the injustices in his life was directed at The Master.

  So, he wanted the rock to move did he? He would make it move all right!

  Jonny looked down at the rock now with the fierce focus of his hate. The rock glowed in his mind. He looked up and stared at The Master, and without any conscious effort on his part, the rock flew off the table and right at him. Master Silurian had been watching Jonny and not the rock so he did not see it until too late. It was only a small stone, the size of an acorn, but it struck The Master’s shoulder with great force, knocking him to the ground. As he fell, he released Roald, who jumped away and then looked to The Master, who was on the floor on all fours moaning.

  “Jonny,” Roald said, awe and fear in his voice. “What did you do?”

  “I had to make him stop hurting you, Roald,” Jonny said, now feeling more than a little unsure about what had just happened. “I couldn’t let him keep hurting you like that, and well, he said he wanted the rock to fly, so I made it happen. He deserved it,” he said with a petulant tone. “It’s his fault it happened.”

  “I do believe you are right,” The Master said, slowly getting to his feet. He was rubbing his shoulder where the stone had struck. “It was my fault, and I do not blame you. I half expected you to do something like that, but I never thought you would hit me so hard.”

  Master Silurian’s reaction was just the opposite of what Jonny had expected. He thought The Master would be upset at him for attacking him, but amazingly, Master Silurian was grinning as he rubbed his shoulder. As soon as The Master had gone down Jonny had felt remorseful for having attacked him, but the Master’s reaction first puzzled him, and then slowly rekindled the rage that had caused him to attack in the first place.

  The Master saw the look change on Jonny’s face, and spread his hands to placate him, wincing as he moved the injured arm. “Jonny, Jonny, don’t be angry.”

  But Jonny was mad, and the more he thought about the whole thing, the madder he got. The Master had been right that Jonny could do as he said, but he had no right to hurt his friend just to get what he wanted. He was no better than a slaver when he treated Jonny and Roald like that. No, he was worse because he pretended to be their friend. The whole time these thoughts were going through Jonny’s head he had said nothing, but The Master could see the building rage.

  The Master changed his tactics. He had been trying to jolly Jonny out of his mood, but when that did not appear to work. His voice became hard and his look harder.

  “So you’re mad at me are you, Jonny, when it is I who should be mad at you? You have been holding out on me boy, and that makes me not at all happy. I have been trying to accommodate you since you are so young. You have been making progress, but not fast enough. You have no idea what is at stake here, or who or what you are, but I do! Do you think I took any pleasure in hurting Roald? Do you?”

  “I, uh, don’t know,” Jonny stammered.

  This was not what The Master wanted to hear. Jonny could see his face turning red and he looked like he was about to yell something, but then thought better of it. With great effort, he calmed himself.

  “No, Jonny. I take no pleasure from hurting Roald, or anyone else. I am sure that is why I have never been able to stomach demon magic. However, you had all of the technique, yet you refused to use it. I had to act. You forced this on yourself.”

  Jonny wondered if The Master was right, but he refused to believe it. He was still very mad. “No, Master, I did not!” he said, surprising himself both with the strength of his tone and that he would dare contradict The Master. Even so, he pushed on. “You didn’t have to hurt Roald. I didn’t make you hurt him. You just hurt him because you knew it would make me mad. You didn’t care about his feelings. You still don’t.”

  The silence that graced Jonny’s outburst was a palpable thing. No one seemed to even breathe to break the tableau.

  Once again, The Master surprised Jonny. Instead of getting madder with him, he just looked at Jonny as if he had never seen him before. The silence held for several seconds, with Jonny and The Master just staring at each other.

  Finally, The Master looked down at the floor for a moment, and then he looked up again at Jonny with something like wonder in his expression.

  “You are right, Jonny. I was wrong. What I did to Roald was wrong. I am sorry.” The Master looked at Jonny carefully to gauge his reaction.

  Jonny did not know how to respond. He did not know what he had expected The Master to do when he said what he did, but h
e certainly had not expected him to apologize. That was beyond amazing. Then The Master threw another twist at Jonny.

  “From now on, Jonny, if someone needs to suffer for your fear, it will be you.” The expression on The Master’s face was grim. “You have just shown me how you have more courage and moral strength than most men three times your age. I will not treat you like a child again, nor will I allow you to hold out on me again either. You cannot have it both ways, and you have chosen. So be it.” The Master turned and walked out of the workshop.

  Jonny was stunned, but Roald was frantic. “Jonny, you can’t talk to The Master like that!”

  “Roald, what I said was true. It wasn’t fair what he did to you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Jonny, but so what? He’s The Master. He could have killed you right there. No one, and I mean no one, talks to him like that.”

  “Well, maybe they should.”

  Eleander came over to them. He had watched the whole confrontation from the other side of the workshop. No other journeymen were present. He looked at Jonny and shook his head. “Jonny, that was either the bravest or the stupidest thing I have ever seen, maybe both. Roald is right. The Master has killed men for lesser insults before. Somehow, you pulled it off. You really are something,” he said, still shaking his head.

  “But I was right,” Jonny protested.

  “It doesn’t matter if you were right, Jonny,” Eleander said. “The Master could have killed you anyway, but I’m sure the only reason you are still in one piece is that The Master agreed with you. But I wouldn’t try that again, ever, if I were you. You heard what he said about you suffering for your own fear from now on; I think you should be more than a little worried about that.”

  Jonny was worried about that statement. Eleander’s and Roald’s reactions did not make him feel any happier either. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess it was kind of stupid. It’s just . . . he made me so mad, the way he used Roald and didn’t even care how he hurt him.”

  Roald and Eleander exchanged looks that showed they were both thinking about something Jonny could not understand.

  “Look Jonny, it wasn’t all that bad,” Roald said. “My hand doesn’t even hurt now.”

  “It’s still not right, Roald,” Jonny insisted. “The way you guys are reacting you’d think I did something wrong. See if I ever stick up for you again.”

  “It sounds to me like you won’t have to,” Eleander said. “From now on The Master will go right after you if you don’t perform when you should. Think about that.”

  “You’re not helping, Eleander,” Jonny said.

  “Look I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Eleander said lowering his voice. “But you don’t understand, Jonny, just how special you are. The Master told me that in all his years he has never seen anyone with talent like you have. He also said it was a good thing because of what is coming. I don’t know what he is talking about there, but I do know he wants for you to be ready, for what I don’t know, but it must be big from the way he talks about it. He is also worried at how young you are, even though I get the impression this ‘thing’ is still a long ways off. I think he is really worried about whether you will be ready. Everything he is doing is because he wants you to be ready.”

  This was all news to Jonny. Coming as it did after all the emotional shocks, he had experienced over the last half hour it left him stunned. No one said anything for several minutes.

  “Okay, Eleander. I will try to remember that. I want to make The Master proud of me, and I want to be ready for whatever’s coming.”

  “All right then, let’s see you lift a rock off the table without Roald screaming like a stuck pig,” Eleander said grinning.

  “I did not scream like a stuck pig,” Roald said indignantly.

  “No, more like ten pigs,” Jonny said with a smile. Roald just harrumphed.

  “One more thing, Jonny,” Eleander said taking a rock from one of the baskets and putting it on the table. “Try not to hit anyone with it this time, okay?”

  Now it was Jonny’s turn to be indignant. “The rock will go just where I want it to go. So you better not make me mad.” His tone showed he was only kidding.

  Strangely, for Jonny, now he had made his breakthrough with the first rock, this one was easy. He looked at the rock and saw it in his mind’s eye easily. He picked it up and flew it flawlessly back into the basket Eleander had taken it out of.

  “Good,” Eleander said, clearly impressed. “So can you make it just hang there in the air?”

  Again, Jonny had never thought of doing that before. He looked at the rock in the basket and made it fly up in front of Eleander’s face and stop there. He held it, but after several seconds, it started to waver around in the air. The longer he held it the more slippery it seemed. After a few more seconds, he gave up and let it drop to the floor.

  “That was a really good start, Jonny,” Eleander said with a twisted smile. “But of course you know The Master will keep wanting more, but it is a good start.”

  § § §

  “Alira, I’m going to need a bruise poultice,” Master Silurian said as he walked into his private quarters.

  “Did some of the boys get into another tussle?” Alira said, getting up from her chair.

  “No. It’s for me. Jonny finally made his breakthrough and got a rock to fly, rather dramatically, I might add. The rock hit me in the shoulder.”

  “What aren’t you telling me, old man? Why did the rock hit you?”

  So, Silurian was forced to explain the entire encounter, while his wife got the poultice and applied it to his already purple shoulder. After he had finished, she sat back and thought for a moment.

  “Well, I suppose you had it coming. You’re pushing him so hard. He’s only just turned eleven and you are working him like a fourth year journeyman.”

  “I know, I know, but there is just so little time. I doubt I have three, maybe four years at most before he will have to be fully trained and able to stand up to wizards with decades, if not centuries of experience. Once the demon wizards accept that he is what he is, no place will be safe for him. As it is, there are a couple of journeymen I’m going to have to send on their way this week. They are too partial to demon magic to have around here observing Jonny.”

  “Won’t that raise more questions?”

  “No. They all think I’m capricious. As it is, those two should have gone weeks ago, they aren’t learning anything more from me, too dense.”

  “Who? Trudil and Maxtor?” she said as she finished putting away her herb supplies.

  “See, even you knew who they were. I am going to have to be a bit more careful about which journeymen I accept from now on, this gets more complicated every day. With care, I can hope Jonny will live to realize his potential.”

  “Do you really think he could be a zdrell master like Mlandress? The stories of him were always so incredible.”

  “Yes, I do. He could even be greater, if only he can live long enough to understand and master his gift.”

  “Well,” Alira said, sitting down on the bed beside Silurian, “let’s hope you can survive him as well.” She chuckled softly, as did Silurian.

  Chapter 22

  Eleander was right. The Master did want more each day. First, he had Jonny work on keeping things in the air for longer periods. As everything with Jonny’s talent, the first time he would try something it would be hard, but became easier and easier with practice. The new practice was work, but Jonny found it easier than the other sessions he still attended in history, writing and figuring.

  After a month of work, Jonny was able to keep a stone in the air for over five minutes. The Master then shifted the focus to the weight of objects. He kept having Jonny lift bigger and bigger stones until after three nine-day weeks Jonny was lifting stones bigger than a boy’s head. Jonny thought that with more practice, he could have lifted even bigger stones, but The Master again shifted tactics.

  Now he wanted Jonny to lift more than o
ne stone at a time. As with spinning multiple coins, it was very hard to divide his attention at first, but he kept working at it for weeks, until, as spring became summer, he could easily keep three stones up, and could keep five in the air with effort.