The Apprentice to Zdrell

by David K Bennett

  “No, you have no idea how contemptible demon magic is to me. I still have the scars on my back from the tine knife used on me when I was an apprentice. As old as I am, I still remember the pain I felt. I feel it still.”

  “Why use it at all, Master?”

  “Because I don’t know any other way to find out if a boy can do magic, Jonny. I have tried many other ways over the years, none shows talent like a summoning does. You have no idea how rare you are. In all my life I have only known one other boy who could do magic untaught, and he became a truly powerful wizard. Only two now out of thousands and thousands of boys through the years. Jonny, you truly are an exception, and that is why I wanted to shield you from the horrible rite of initiation the rest of the boys must endure.”

  The Master leaned back in his chair. “Now you know the secret. Now you know why Roald screamed. He was a very sensitive boy, he suffered greatly and the older boys used him frequently until he relived his torments in his sleep. When you came, he was taken out of the rotation, so just by being his friend you did him the biggest favor you could have imagined, though you never knew it. He never told you because of the secret.”

  “How do they do it, Master? Why don’t they run away? How do they keep on staying here, doing their chores when they know that soon they’ll be tortured?”

  “That is a good question, Jonny. I cannot answer for all the boys, I can just tell you why I put up with it. I did because I hoped that someday it would be me on the other side. Not so I could hurt another boy, but so I could perform a summoning and have it work. After I saw my first summoning, I wanted so desperately to do magic that I was willing to do whatever it took, and I did. You see, I was a boy like Roald. I hurt easily, and that made me a favorite of the apprentices and journeymen. I had to endure more than two years of nearly nightly torture before I got my first chance to perform a summoning, and I had the good luck to have it work the first time.

  “So now you know the secret. I will tell Feldor, and I am sure everyone will be relieved that they will not have to hide things from you anymore. I guess I will have to make sure you understand the theory of demon magic, even if you do not actually practice it. You do need to understand how it works. In truth, there is not too much to learn. You’ll see.” The Master stood up, as did Jonny. They walked out into the courtyard. “Goodnight, Jonny,” the Master said and turned back inside to his quarters.

  Jonny went up to his room, where for a change everyone but him was already in bed. Jonny lay there for a long time pondering what he had been told, and wondering whether he was happier now that he knew the secret or sadder because he knew the truth.

  Chapter 28

  Now since they did not have to keep him in the dark, he found he was welcomed into a completely new world of relationships with the other apprentices and even, to a lesser degree, the journeymen. He soon found out that one of the apprentices’ major pastimes was gossiping about who was giving and getting the most pain; who had the ugliest scars, and who took the longest to heal.

  Even though the boys were still somewhat wary around Jonny, they did not have to maintain the façade that had always been invisibly around him in the past. Jonny had had no idea how much effort had been devoted to keeping him in the dark. As he talked with the other boys, he was astounded the secret had been kept so well, for so long.

  Virtually every time apprentices gathered, they talked about sessions, both those on the giving and receiving end of the pain. Generally, a boy had to endure at least six months, but sometimes as long as two years, before he was given a chance to perform a summoning. This was not just out of malice, but because even a boy who was “under the knife” as the saying went, was to observe and learn from the summoning he participated in. In addition, there were exercises a boy could use when under the knife which would help determine if he had any aptitude himself for performing magic.

  All the boys were anxious to share their stories with Jonny and he soon came to see why they stayed and put up with the pain. They all desperately wanted to be wizards, many of them just so they would be the one on the giving end. The more he heard from them, the more he admired them, but at the same time was repulsed as they recounted some of the more grisly details of a bad summoning. The only one who didn’t want to talk about any of his experiences was Roald. Knowing what he now knew, Jonny wasn’t surprised.

  Master Silurian also had him divert his studies so he could read more on demon magic. He found that the journeymen had had a whole bookshelf of volumes on demon magic that they had moved into another room before Jonny had been admitted to The Master’s workshop. The Master explained that most people learned much about demon magic by experience long before they learned any of the theory. The Master said learning that way limited them, so Jonny would not learn that way, he would learn first from the books and only last by experience.

  Jonny now knew why he had never been allowed into the castle dungeons. This was where the summonings were performed. Jonny was both attracted and repulsed at the thought of witnessing a summoning. He was in no hurry to see one, especially as he read more about them.

  Demon magic involved only one small part of true magic on the part of the wizard, the summoning itself. A summoning involved opening a portal between our plane of existence and another plane, called the demon world. The wizard then essentially advertised to demons passing the portal what sacrifice he was offering and what the demon would be expected to do to receive it. If a demon agreed to his terms, he crossed over to this world, received the sacrifice, performed the act and then left. Aside from the magic of opening the initial portal, the magician had to attract and then contract with a demon. This was not easy, but it was not genuine magic either.

  Apprentices were taught very elaborate forms for contracting with a demon. This was done for their own protection. If a demon passed through the portal without a contract, there was nothing to stop it from doing whatever it wanted and taking whatever sacrifices it pleased.

  One of the greatest hazards to a novice practitioner of demon magic was in not clearly stating his offer or securing the contract. If a wizard attracted a powerful demon with an offer that he could not back up, the demon would usually turn on the wizard and consume him. If an offer was improperly worded, a demon would always take the offered sacrifice without giving back what the wizard wanted. Properly binding a demon was an art and was why certain wizards could perform better than others.

  Jonny learned that demons were beings of magic. They had immense powers and could do nearly anything in the material world they wanted, but without pain or souls to feed them, they had no reason to leave their world. Pain was like candy to them, wonderful, but it did not satisfy for long. An important part of binding a demon was keeping it from doing things the wizard did not want it to do, and the demon would always look for some way to maximize its return on time spent in the material world. Demons could only enter the material world when summoned and could only stay for a limited time. The hazards of demon magic were great for there were so many ways for a demon to get out of control and most often, it was the summoner of the demon who suffered.

  Chapter 29

  After over a month of study, Jonny was ready to watch his first summoning. The Master told him it was time; in fact, he said Jonny now knew more about demon magic than some of the journeymen who had trained with him in the past.

  Summoning could be done at any time, but it was most easily accomplished near midnight. The lesser demons found sunlight unpleasant and would not appear when there was any chance of being caught in the sun. Jonny was set to watch a journeyman who had just recently arrived perform a medium level summoning. The journeyman’s name was Jemeril.

  Since this was more than a minor summoning, there would be two apprentices put “under the knife” so neither had to suffer too much. One of the boys, Earlil, roomed with Jonny. The preparations were long and elaborate, but Jonny watched with rapt attention to detail. This was the first summoning Jemeril had done at
the castle so Master Silurian was also on hand to watch. Jonny could tell The Master approved of Jemeril’s thorough preparations.

  Once all the other items were in readiness, the two apprentices were prepared. They both had removed their upper clothing and lay face down on special tables where they were strapped in place by Jemeril. Both of the boys had been through this many times before and were not especially concerned, though neither werehappy about it. The both had many scars on their backs from previous trips “under the knife.”

  The object of putting an apprentice under the knife was to cause a maximum amount of pain for as long as possible while causing as little actual permanent damage as possible. Much had been written in the books Jonny read about techniques to do this. The slow torture had become an art form. A master demon wizard could keep his subject in intense pain for hours at a time. The Master did not allow any to become that proficient at his castle.

  The summoning began with the one true bit of magic. Jemeril spoke the words and performed the prescribed motions that opened an initial portal to the demon world. Once the portal was open, Jemeril shouted the initial terms of his offer. He had to speak the demon tongue to make his initial offer, but the binding would be done in Herglish.

  Jemeril had secured a fairly large stone, about the size of a man’s head and he wanted a demon to transform it into gold. This was one of the more common things done in demon magic and only the quantity of gold being produced made it more than a minor summoning. Jonny had come to understand in his studies that any successful practitioner of demon magic would never lack for money for long.

  After a few moments of waiting, a voice answered from the portal. This was Jonny’s first time hearing a demon voice. It was pretty much what he had expected, but not entirely. The voice was low and powerful. It was not loud or terrifying, as he had thought it would be. The voice did have an edge of discordance to it that marked it as being not of this world.

  Again, Jemeril made his offer of sacrifice in the demon tongue with the task desired. The demon responded, apparently in the affirmative for Jemeril began speaking the words of the binding. His voice had an almost hypnotic quality. Jonny could tell he had done this many times before because he did not hesitate or look down at his written notes. It took him nearly five minutes to speak the terms of the binding. Now it was the demon’s turn to act. He could either accept or reject the terms or attempt to modify them.

  Much had been written about the situation where the demon attempted to bargain or alter the terms of the binding. The general consensus was that allowing the demon to do this was very dangerous and to be avoided. Even the most skillful demon wizards had come to ruin by being tricked by a demon. Many powerful demon wizards felt they could work with demons who insisted on modifying the terms, because they could get a more powerful demon that way, in spite of the danger.

  This demon did not attempt to modify the binding, but accepted the terms and came through the portal. Though the portal was only a circle of light not much bigger than a man’s fist, the demon had no problem passing through. When he appeared on the other side he appeared to be large enough that had he had legs, he would have stood over eight feet tall. His upper body appeared to be that of a large muscular man, except his skin was tinted dark blue and he had no discernable lower body, only a grey shapeless fog.

  Once his form solidified, the demon glanced around the room then ignored everyone except the two apprentices strapped to the tables. He glided over the tables and hovered there. He looked at Jemeril and spoke only one word, “Begin.”

  Jemeril went first to Earlil and took his tine knife and began the torture to feed the demon. The tine knife was a strange instrument that had been refined over many years. It did not resemble a normal knife; it was more a metal blade with many long tiny spikes. It was pressed on a tangent to the skin so it was like having many metal splinters simultaneously pressed into the it. It was very painful and because only the very top layer of skin was penetrated, not much permanent damage was given. Jonny’s knuckles were white as he saw the tines begin to penetrate Earlil’s skin and heard his scream, and he did scream.

  The one thing all the apprentices agreed on was that it never really got any easier to be tortured. Even though they knew exactly what would happen, it did not decrease the pain or make it any easier to bear. In fact, if a boy started to show more tolerance for pain, he usually stopped being used. This happened with most boys around puberty but with some it came earlier. With most boys at the castle they had either started doing magic themselves or been apprenticed out before their tolerance for pain increased.

  Jemeril had promised the demon thirty full minutes of pain. So that neither had to suffer too much, this meant each boy was put to the knife for ten minutes, then five minutes in alternating fashion. The demon appreciated this as well because even though a boy was not actively under the knife he was still in pain so the demon was getting pain from both of the boys at the same time. Jemeril worked carefully, but by the end of the thirty minutes he was sweating profusely, and so was Jonny just from watching the suffering. The demon meanwhile had glowed brighter and brighter as he drank in the pain. He seemed to be very much enjoying the experience.

  When the hourglass that Jemeril had been using to time the shifts dropped the last grain of sand, he stepped back from the boys and said, “Fulfill your task.”

  The demon nodded his immense glowing head and picked up the stone. The stone began to glow and seemed to become somehow out of focus. As the stone glowed brighter the demon’s light began to wane. Eventually the stone began to dim and become more solid looking again. As it glowed less brightly, it became evident that it was gold colored, and also smaller.

  Finally, the stone looked completely golden and the demon set it back on the table where it had been previously. He turned to Jemeril and said, “I have completed our bargain. I go now.”

  With that, the demon turned and vanished as suddenly as he had previously appeared. The portal still glowed in the air but Jemeril spoke a word and it too vanished. He visibly wilted once the portal was closed, but he did not rest.

  He immediately went to a large jar located on the sideboard and started smearing large amounts of white greasy paste on both of the boy’s backs. They both sighed with relief from his ministrations.

  “That salve you see him applying,” The Master said to Jonny, “is another one of our secrets. It kills pain instantly and greatly speeds healing. Without it, it would take days or weeks for apprentices to heal from a session under the knife. As it is, it only takes a day or two.”

  “Why don’t you share it with the outsiders, Master?”

  “There are many reasons, Jonny. There are things mundanes would do with it that would not be good, but the most important reason is it is difficult to prepare. The ingredients are not easily obtained, and it takes time and effort to combine them properly. In time, you will learn how to prepare it yourself. Then you will understand.”

  § § §

  After watching his first summoning, Jonny felt even worse about demon magic. He felt the pain of the apprentices easily offset the gains from practicing this type of magic. He now understood why Master Silurian was so loathe to encourage its use. He continued his demon studies for two more weeks and attended two more summonings, but then decided he had all he could take of it and asked The Master if he could return to his previous studies.

  The Master seemed pleased. He told Jonny that he now knew more than enough to perform a summoning, but that The Master did not see the need for Jonny to do it at this point.

  Chapter 30

  Returning to his study of zdrell, Master Silurian decided it was time to again have Jonny focus on moving objects. He now wanted Jonny to move large objects. Up to this point, Jonny had never moved anything over ten pounds in weight, and that had quickly tired him. Now The Master wanted him to move much larger and heavier objects.

  At first Jonny had very little luck at it, but once again The Master mad
e a seemingly small suggestion that changed everything. He took Jonny out to a dry streambed and blindfolded him. Jonny had been in this area working on developing his zdrell sight before, so this did not surprise him. The Master then had him lift a rock that he indicated, without Jonny ever seeing it with his eyes.

  To Jonny, the rock did not seem much bigger or heavier than ones he lifted routinely so he had no problem lifting it off the ground. The Master then had him lift another, then another, and still another. Jonny, using only his zdrell sight, could tell each rock was larger than the last. When seeing things this way, he did not see size the same as with his normal eyes. He could only see how he needed to bend the force lines that held the rock to the ground in order to lift it.