Elkan frowned as he picked his way to the open door and peered inside. “I wonder why this place was abandoned? It can’t have been empty for long or the forest would have encroached more. I doubt it’s been a full year since this grass was cut.”
Josiah pushed past him. The only light in the room came from the open door and the gap left by the broken shutter. “Does it matter? It looks like the walls and roof are sound, so we’ll have a dry place to spend the night, at least.”
“Wait. You don’t know what—”
A musky scent hit Josiah’s nose just as a low growl sounded from the farthest, darkest corner. He froze. Two pale dots gleamed at him, a frighteningly long way above the ground.
“Elkan,” Josiah whispered, his mouth dry. “I think—”
With a roar a huge dark shape hurtled towards him. Josiah yelled and stumbled backward.
A spear of golden light shot past his shoulder and swelled to engulf his attacker, freezing it in place. Josiah swallowed hard. A black bear, almost as tall as he was and twice as broad, stood caught in mid-spring, mouth gaping, yellow teeth gleaming in the sparkling glow. Josiah backed toward the door, heart pounding so hard he could barely breathe.
Elkan’s voice was strained. “Move out of the way so we can guide it out.”
Josiah’s voice came out a strangled squeak. “Aren’t you going to kill it?”
“It was sleeping peacefully until you blundered into its home. Look.” The blob of light expanded to show two much smaller black shapes huddled against the wall. “She was defending herself and her cubs.”
“Fine!” Josiah edged past Elkan where he stood in the doorway, one hand on Sar, the other extended toward the bear. He was extremely careful not to jostle wizard or familiar. If Elkan’s hand lost contact with the donkey’s back, they were all in big trouble. “Get them out of there!”
Elkan hesitated. “It might be better for us to leave.”
“She’ll chase us as soon as you let her go!”
Elkan glanced across the yard. “You may be right. We’re barely keeping her from breaking free this close. I don’t think we can hold her until we get far enough away to be safe.” He drew several deep breaths, his outstretched hand quivering with effort. “It’s spring, so she’ll be leaving her den soon anyway. Josiah, get out of the way, over there.” He gestured with a jerk of his head.
Josiah scrambled to obey. Elkan and Sar took a few steps backward, pressing close together. The doorway glowed as the Mother’s power drew the bear forward. She emerged one slow step at a time, struggling against the light constraining her motions.
The golden light dragged the two cubs after her. They whimpered and fought to bolt back to safety. Grimacing with effort, Elkan twisted his hand, and the light shoved the cubs across the yard toward the edge of the forest. The mother bear roared and lunged after them. Elkan and Sar released her but kept pushing the cubs away. She lumbered in their wake, snarling and biting at the light that surrounded them.
At the edge of the forest, the light released the cubs. They squalled and dashed to their mother. She hustled them before her and disappeared between the trunks of the trees. For several minutes Josiah could hear them crashing through the underbrush.
Elkan grabbed his arm and dragged him inside the house. “Bar the door,” he ordered. “She might come back.” He went to join Sar by the window. Both of them stared intently in the direction the bear had gone.
Josiah slammed the door shut. A bar lay on the floor not far away; he snatched it up and dropped it into brackets that seemed reassuringly solid. Panting, he leaned against the wall. His legs felt weak, as if they might give way at any moment. His pulse thundered in his ears.
“What were you thinking?” Elkan’s voice was low and controlled, but so furious Josiah shrank away. “Smash it, we’re in the middle of a forest. Did it never occur to you that animals might find this just as attractive a shelter as we did?” His voice rose. “You nearly got us all killed, charging in here without even pausing to look around!”
“I didn’t know!” Josiah yelled. “How was I supposed to guess wild animals would be in a house?”
“It should have been obvious—”
“Not to me! I’ve never been out of Korisan before!” He wrapped his arms around himself. He wanted to be back in Korisan now, safe in his own home. Or even in the fulling mill, counting the strokes of the stocks. At least he didn’t have to worry about bears attacking him there.
Elkan ran a hand through his hair. “I’m starting to think bringing you with me was a bad idea.”
The wizard’s words jolted Josiah out of his fear. “You can’t send me back!” He would never live down the humiliation of being discarded by the wizard a mere two days into their journey. “You promised.”
“And you promised I could depend on you!”
“It was a mistake! I’m sorry. Please, give me another chance.”
Elkan stared at him for a long moment, then huffed out his breath and turned to Sar. He stroked the donkey’s neck for several minutes. Josiah watched him, his breath and heartbeat gradually returning to a more normal rhythm.
Finally the wizard turned back. “Sar thinks it was an easy mistake for someone who’s lived in a town all their life to make.” He shook his head. “Help me unload him, and then we can see about putting together the evening meal.”
Josiah willingly joined Elkan as he unbuckled the straps of Sar’s harness. The wizard and familiar floated several dead branches from the forest through the window, and Josiah used them to build a fire in the hearth. Smoke backed into the room until Elkan and Sar cleared the bird’s nests from the chimney.
Josiah located the large cooking pot among their gear. “We need water.”
Elkan frowned out the window. “There’s probably a well. I don’t think the bears will come back. Sar and I will go out and fetch some. You keep the door barred until we’re ready to come inside.”
Josiah cut up vegetables and dried meat. When Elkan returned with a pail of water, Sar remained outside to keep watch and graze. Josiah added water to the pot and set it over the fire. While the soup cooked, they worked silently side by side to set up their bedrolls in the far corner of the room, away from the smelly pile of brush and fur where the bears had made their nest. Josiah found a couple of rickety but unbroken chairs and dragged them close to the fire. Elkan dished the soup into tin bowls, and the two of them sat and ate.
After a while, Elkan sighed. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
Josiah stared into his soup. “You were right, though. It was stupid of me to rush in here like that.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have yelled at you. If a bear staring you in the face doesn’t teach you to be more careful, nothing I can say will.” Elkan gave a brief laugh. “I was terrified, and I took it out on you.”
“I was terrified, too,” Josiah admitted. “And I yelled right back.”
“I suggest we both thank the Mother we survived and try to do better from now on.”
Josiah was relieved to get off so easily. “Agreed.” He looked at Elkan, curious. “Could you have killed the bear, if you’d needed to? With the Mother’s power, I mean?”
“To save our lives, yes. But only as a last resort.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
Josiah looked around. “I wonder if the bears killed the people who used to live here?”
“I doubt it. Wild creatures usually leave people alone. Anyone who lived this far out in the forest would have had a bow and arrows, for hunting and to defend themselves. The bears probably moved in after they were gone.”
“So what happened to them, do you think?”
“I have my suspicions.” He went to the door and unbarred it. Sar was waiting just outside. The donkey came in and accompanied Elkan back to the fire. He stationed himself next to Elkan’s chair, and the wizard sat down, dropping his hand onto the donkey’s back.
Josiah leaned in close as a golden sphere formed over Elkan’s open palm. It cl
eared to show the same fireplace they sat in front of. A merry fire danced within. A woman and man sat before it, in what looked like the same chairs Josiah and Elkan were using. A toddler played on the floor between them.
“This is a year ago,” Elkan said. “As far back as we can see. Whatever happened was more recent.” The image in the window blurred and flickered. Every now and then Elkan paused it briefly and examined the scene it revealed. After only a few minutes, he said, “Ah.”
Josiah peered into the window. It was dark, lit only by a dull red glow from banked coals in the fireplace and a little moonlight from the window. Quiet shapes snuck in through the door. Josiah’s stomach lurched. They looked like faceless shadows. Only when one stopped to take a pair of brass candlesticks from the mantle and slide them into a sack did Josiah realize that the thief wore a dark knitted mask that covered his whole face, with only two small eyeholes to let him see. Josiah was fairly sure that one was a man, although as he continued to watch, the moonlight showed that a few of the bandits had feminine shapes.
They ransacked the house, taking everything they could carry. Elkan shifted the window to show more bandits outside, leading a pair of horses from the outbuilding and loading them down with sacks of loot. A rack of stretched furs was stripped. A smokehouse full of meat was emptied. When everything was taken, the bandits assembled in the yard and slunk away through the woods, only the sound of the horses hooves marking their passage. Elkan followed them, but they were still retreating when the window shimmered and dissolved into sparkles.
“That’s as far as we can see them from here.” Elkan frowned at the spot where the window had been. “We could follow them further if we traced their path, but they went deeper into the forest, far from the road we need to take.” A quick check with the window showed that the bandits had come from the same direction, already masked and silent when they first moved into range.
“They knew a wizard might someday investigate and took precautions,” Elkan said. “I won’t be able to recognize their faces if I see them again.”
Josiah frowned. “They didn’t kill the people, though. Why aren’t they here?”
“How could they stay, when everything they needed to survive was taken?” But Elkan put out his palm again anyway. This time the window opened to a grey dawn. The man came down a narrow set of stairs from the upper floor. He gasped when he saw the state of his home. “Dena,” he called. “Come see this!”
His wife joined him and together they searched their homestead. Their initial exclamations of shock and horror faded to dull resignation by the time they finished. Eventually they returned to the hearth and stood for a long time, holding each other.
“It’s no good,” the woman said. “If it was just the supplies gone—but they took the tools as well. We’ll never lay in what we need by winter.”
The man nodded. “My sister will help us. Or your cousin. Or your brother, if we’ve got no other choice.”
The woman opened her mouth as if she was going to argue, then shut it again, her shoulders sagging. “I’ll get Nayah. See if you can forage something for us to eat. At least they didn’t come upstairs and take our clothes.”
The man embraced her. “We’re alive. That’s what matters.”
The woman nodded into his shoulder, wiped her eyes, and headed for the stairs. Elkan let the window fade.
Josiah scowled at the last spark as it shrank to nothing. “I guess those are the bandits you’re supposed to investigate.”
“I doubt there’s more than one such band.” Elkan grimaced. “I can see why the Guildmaster thinks they might be a threat. There must have been at least thirty of them. Still, as long as they confine their activities to isolated places like this, she won’t send wizards after them. We’re needed too badly in Elathir to spare the number it would take to deal with them.”
Josiah didn’t like that. It seemed to him that no amount of effort would be too great to stop the ruthless thieves. But he wasn’t going to start an argument.
The soft patter of rain sounded from outside. Elkan smiled wryly. “You were right, Sar.” He went over to the window, looked out for a few minutes, then wrestled the broken shutter into place and wedged it shut with a scrap of cloth. “We’d better get to bed.” He moved to the fireplace and started to scatter the half-burnt pieces of wood.
“Um, Elkan?” Josiah hated to admit it, but he was still feeling jumpy. He didn’t like the thought of lying awake in the darkness. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to sleep.”
Elkan looked at him thoughtfully. “We can use the Mother’s power to help you, but you’d probably just wake up again. Is there anything else that you think might help?”
Josiah felt ridiculously childish, but he knew there was no other way he was going to relax enough to sleep. “My mother used to tell us stories at bedtime.”
Elkan grinned. “My grandmother would do the same thing. When I came to Elathir as an apprentice, I missed Grammi terribly, so my master would tell me stories from the Histories when I couldn’t sleep. Lie down. As soon as I get the fire banked I’ll tell you my favorite.”
Josiah crawled into his bedroll and pulled the warm wool blankets around him. Outside the rain strengthened. It made a steady rushing sound, occasionally punctuated by a distant rumble of thunder.
Elkan sat cross-legged on his pallet next to Josiah’s. Sar folded his legs and lay down next to him. The wizard stroked his neck and scratched his ears. “Ready?”
Josiah nodded and closed his eyes.
Elkan’s voice came from the darkness, soft and reflective. “This is the tale of Gurion Thricebound. It’s the first story, from the beginning of the First History. It tells how people first came to Tevenar and how the Wizards’ Guild was founded.
“At the beginning of time the Mother brought the world into being. She crafted it out of the raw materials of the universe, shaping it with her hands, weaving and knitting and sewing the earth, sculpting and carving the rocks, brewing and distilling the seas, sowing and watering the plants, breeding and tending the animals. She took great joy in all she created, and wished to share her delight, so she formed humans after her own nature and instilled in us the desire to carry on her work of making and building and inventing. For many ages we did so under her direct control. But she came to love us more than all her other creations, and grieved that we had no choice but to serve her, for our will was not our own, but hers. So alone among all her works, she granted humans the gift of free will, the ability to choose to walk in her path or to go our own way. Many chose to leave her way, and turned to evil deeds. But those few who remained, or strayed and returned, loved her freely, and she was glad.
“But she grieved that the evil choices of those who had left her brought sorrow into the world. Death became a horror to be feared, instead of a peaceful return to the Mother. Suffering and injustice spread throughout her creation. The Mother wished to alleviate these ills, so she touched a few chosen humans with her power. At first they used it as she intended, to heal and to help and to show truth. Yet in time they became corrupt and used her power against her will. Those who wielded her power ruled over those who did not. Healing was granted only to those the wizards favored. Windows were opened to spy on any who opposed the wizards’ will. The power of motion was used to oppress and kill. They built a great empire and imposed their tyranny over all humanity.
“The Mother saw the evil that was done in her name and repented ever granting such power. She removed her gifts from the world. But by that time the wizards had gained such status and strength that even without her gifts they were able to stay in power. Their grip became tighter and their yoke upon the people more bitter.
“Among the wizards was a man named Gurion. He had participated with the other wizards in subjugating the people, but had often been troubled by doubts. Now, stripped of the Mother’s power, he despaired, for he alone understood that the Mother had taken away her gifts as a judgment against the wizards. He abandoned
his post as a high official in the wizards’ government and went to live among the poorest craftspeople. There, in the work of his hands, he rediscovered his love for the Mother. He began to use what he knew of healing to serve those around him, and sought out a few others among the former wizards who shared his doubts. Some of them joined him, and together they strove to help the people as best they could, always keeping their work secret from those with whom they used to share power.
“More and more, Gurion saw how the Mother’s power was needed. People sickened and died who could have been healed. Folk were accused unjustly of crimes and punished who could have been cleared of suspicion. He came to understand in the depths of his being, as he never had before, that the Mother’s gifts were meant for service, and he grieved bitterly that her chosen people had abused them so badly she had been forced to take them away.
“Finally he could bear it no longer. He and the others who labored with him gathered in an abandoned barn, far on the outskirts of the capital city. They fasted and prayed, pleading with the Mother for the return of her power.
“After three days, the Mother answered their call and appeared before them. They knelt in awe and reverence. She spoke to Gurion. ‘Greatly do I desire to grant your request, and return my power to the world. I always intended it to be used in the service of those in need. But how can I trust that you would use it for good, and not evil? When you bore my power, you betrayed me.’
“Gurion bowed his head in silence, for he knew her words to be true, and he was ashamed. She sighed, and turned as if to depart.
“At that moment a rat scurried across the floor in front of her. She paused and knelt, and the rat came into her hand with perfect trust. She turned back to Gurion, and asked him, ‘Would you be willing, in order to gain what you seek, to humble yourself beneath this rat? Would you be willing to bind yourself to him, and access my power only through him? I have not given animals free will. If ever you should seek to misuse my power again, I would cause this rat to break his bond with you, and you would again be powerless.’
The Fuller's Apprentice (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 1) Page 7