Wandmaker's Apprentice

by Ed Masessa

  Malachai had grown quite content with his life. He could leave the village for short periods of time—just long enough to stir up trouble and check on his Scorax brethren. It was during one of his more recent sojourns that he’d run across Henry Leach Sr. It had been several centuries since Malachai had encountered someone with a thirst for power that matched Malachai’s own youthful ambitions. It took little effort to befriend the elder Henry Leach and gain his trust.

  But Leach hadn’t any idea he was dealing with the great Wand Master Malachai. The world thought he was long dead, and that was just the way he liked it. Conducting business from the shadows was so much more rewarding. And getting valuable information from Leach was easy. Each time they met, Malachai would present him with some rare item from his own well-stocked Kunstkammer. In this way, Malachai kept Leach on the hook … and through him discovered what his own son, Dai She, was up to.

  He hadn’t heard anything about the little toad in such a long time that he had begun to think he’d crawled into a hole and died. That outcome would have made him perfectly happy. Dai She was an unfortunate stain on his reputation, one that he’d just as soon be rid of.

  Little by little, Dai She’s plan came into focus, until Malachai felt he could no longer ignore it. Bringing the world to its knees by disrupting massive tectonic plates was actually genius—but for a fatal flaw. The resulting earthquakes would have released enormous pockets of methane gas trapped below the surface, killing every life-form on the planet.

  That was unacceptable.

  The only way to stop his son without revealing himself had been to take possession of Leach’s life-force—his aura. Once he’d accomplished that, it was a simple matter to replace Leach entirely. The Wand Master wannabe had been locked away in a wand-proof prison in this very village while Malachai went out into the real world to have some fun. And when he discovered Coralis had also been drawn out of hiding by Dai She, well, then Malachai knew it was time to stir things up.

  Unfortunately, Leach—now known as Markhor—had seen too much and had to be disposed of. Also unfortunately, Malachai couldn’t kill him. They had been linked for too long and now shared an unbreakable metaphysical bond. Eventually, the passage of time would erode the link. Until then, Markhor must remain under lock and key.

  Malachai smiled, thinking about his clever solution to the problem of Markhor.

  Another shriek, this one much closer. Malachai gave a sharp whistle. Seconds later, a flash of red streaked toward the balcony. The Strix perched lightly on the railing. Its owl-like head swiveled to look at the desperate woman in the street. She could sense her own eyes looking down upon her. A dizziness washed over her. She staggered sideways before falling heavily onto the rough-edged cobblestones.

  “Please,” she begged. “My eyes.”

  “Oh, stop your groveling, you old fool.” Malachai swiped a hand over the head of the Strix as if catching a fly, then flung his hand toward the woman.

  Her head snapped back as if she had been struck. Her empty eye sockets bulged once more. Her sight returned. But something was wrong. “He-help me!” She tried standing but kept losing her balance. When she looked up, Malachai could see that her eyes were deeply crossed, pupils pointing straight down at her nose.

  “Oops.” He laughed. “Oh well. I’ll get it right next time.” He extended an arm for the Strix and carried it inside, where he placed it in a dome-shaped iron cage. He released a bag of mice, marveling at the efficiency of four claws and an exceptionally sharp beak. “You have done well,” he murmured. “Now I know what that old man is up to. Not that it makes a difference.”

  He returned to the balcony. The woman had moved on. The sun was setting over the western peaks, casting a reddish glow. He took a deep breath, enjoying the serenity of the moment and looking forward to the excitement that was to come … until an all-too-familiar smell assaulted his nostrils.

  “May I get you anything, master?” A man of medium build with a rodentlike snout entered the room. Once he’d been a formidable athlete; now he was just another experiment gone awry.

  “Puteo, what have I told you about interrupting me?” Malachai scowled as he wrinkled his nose in disgust. “And when was the last time you bathed?”

  “I am only to speak when spoken to, and three hours ago.” Puteo tried slinking back into the shadows.

  Any other time, Malachai would have enjoyed a good round of torture with his favorite slave. But the old woman had satisfied his sadistic craving for the time being. He would save Puteo for another day. “You may go now.”

  “Oh, thank you, master.” Puteo groveled to make it seem as if he was happy to be spared the wrath of the Wand Master. In truth, he actually looked forward to the valuable lessons he learned through his punishment.

  Malachai waited until Puteo had one hand on the doorknob. “On second thought, why don’t you stay for a while.”

  Puteo gasped in horror—but inwardly, he cheered.

  “Bahtzen bizzle!”

  “Wow. We haven’t heard that line in, oh, almost ten minutes.” Henry nudged Katelyn in the ribs as he chuckled. They had paired off to practice some rudimentary wand skills and were taking a break in the kitchen when they heard the outburst.

  “I wish Luis would at least pretend he’s paying attention.” Katelyn hummed happily as she smeared a hunk of Gretchen-made peanut butter on a slice of fresh-from-the-oven bread.

  “I think he has WDD—wand deficit disorder. Ouch!” Henry’s hand had slipped while he was slicing more bread. Blood quickly pooled on the tip of his thumb, spreading as the full extent of the gash opened up. “Whoa.” He thumped into a chair before the sight of his own blood made him faint.

  “Let me try something,” Katelyn said eagerly. She held her wand at arm’s length, whispered in an unfamiliar language, and watched proudly as the wand’s tip began to glow.

  Henry gulped. “What … what are you doing?”

  “Just a wee bit of healing I picked up from my lessons. Oops! I almost forgot.” She raced to the pantry and emerged with camphor leaves. “Now wipe off the blood and wrap your thumb with these.”

  “Why don’t we just get a Band-Aid? It’s not deep.”

  “Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, Henry. I’m just going to cauterize the wound.”

  He knew that word. “You mean burn. You’re going to burn me over a little scratch?” Panic began to seep in.

  “It’s not so little. You nearly fainted. And besides, it won’t hurt a bit. That’s what the leaves are for. They cool the skin as I apply the heat.”

  “Have you tried this before?” Henry nervously rubbed his other hand through his hair. His former buzz cut had long since grown out. His hair now stood on end, a rumpled mess.

  “Just hold still and do as I say,” Katelyn said sternly.

  Henry did his best to keep from fidgeting as her wand glowed from red to white.

  “Hmmm … too much.” She turned the intensity back to red and touched the wand to the leaves above the wound.

  First Henry’s thumb, then his entire hand tingled with tiny pinpricks of pain.

  Katelyn pulled back. “How does it feel?”

  “Like my hand fell asleep. It’s in the pins-and-needles stage of waking up.” He shook his hand and the leaves, now brittle, fell away. “It’s gone! The cut’s gone!”

  As Henry laughed and Katelyn clapped, reveling in their small victory, a shadowed figure retreated from the doorway. Serena hadn’t meant to spy. She had been looking for Gretchen when she heard Henry’s voice. She was about to join him, but when she heard Katelyn she stopped short. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught the two of them together.

  Jealousy was new to Serena. She tried to convince herself that Henry was simply interacting with another apprentice, but she’d seen the way he looked at the Irish girl. Much different from the way he acted toward Bryndis.

  “Have you no ability to concentrate?” Coralis erupted again.

  Poor Luis, Serena mu
sed. She wanted him to succeed. He could be difficult around the others, but he was always friendly with her—sometimes almost flirty. At first it had been cute watching Henry’s jealous reactions to that. But she also found that she rather enjoyed the attention from Luis. She wondered if there was more to it than simply trying to get on Henry’s nerves.

  She rounded a corner and nearly tripped on a vine that thrashed vigorously on the floor.

  “I swear, I’m not doing anything!” Luis yelled back.

  Serena sidestepped the vine, backtracking to approach them from the door on the opposite side of the room, when the slightest movement caught her eye. She pressed her lips tightly and frowned. There was only one person capable of controlling vines like that. Gliding down the hall without making a sound, she peeked around a corner and confirmed her suspicions.

  Bryndis had her eyes closed in concentration. She never saw Serena coming, and when she finally opened her eyes, her mischievous smile evaporated under the steaming gaze of the angry apprentice. “Uh-oh.”

  “What are you doing?” Serena said loud enough for Coralis to hear. Tattling wasn’t in her nature, but Luis didn’t deserve this.

  “Who’s there?” Coralis shouted. “This is not the time for an interruption.”

  Bryndis slunk into the room, shoulders slumped. She could feel the heat of anger rolling off Serena behind her.

  “What’s this?” Coralis’s eyebrows arched quizzically.

  “Aha! Look there! I did it!” Luis announced in triumph as the vines retreated at his wand command.

  Coralis nodded knowingly. “Yes, you did. Didn’t he, young lady?”

  “He is getting better.” Bryndis spoke so softly she could barely be heard.

  “Perhaps he is getting so much better that others might be jealous,” Coralis prodded.

  “What?” Her head snapped up. “No! Never!”

  “Then there must be another explanation,” Serena said.

  “Wait a minute.” Luis was finally catching on. “You were doing that? What is it with you and vines and tree roots?”

  “I believe, Bryndis, you owe someone an apology.” Coralis rose to his full height, hands locked behind his back.

  Bryndis bowed her head for a few seconds and was about to do as Coralis asked when she looked up at the smirk on Luis’s face. “No,” she said defiantly. “I will not apologize to him.” She spat the final word with hateful venom.

  “I don’t get you,” Luis said. “What did I ever do to you? You’ve been after me since the day you arrived.”

  Bryndis’s stare shifted toward a wall. The blaze in her eyes slowly diminished, her hardened features softening. “It’s not you.” She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “It was someone like you. Someone from my village.”

  “Like a boyfriend?” Luis asked clumsily. “Did he break up with you?”

  “Don’t be an idiot!” she yelled. “I would never date a boy like you. But he hurt me in another way.” She stopped, struggling for the right words. She looked to Coralis and Serena for some kind of support, but they had silently exited the room. For some reason, this relaxed her.

  Finally she made a decision. “I will tell you, but if you laugh, I will strangle you with these vines. And if you ever tell the others, I will create many ways to torture and humiliate you.”

  “Jeez.” Luis gulped. “Don’t worry. I can keep a secret.”

  “Fine.” Her face twitched with conflicting emotions. “There is a competition in my country. A singing competition.”

  Luis started to ask a question. She held up a hand. “Please, just let me talk. It is not singing as you know it. It is something the Inuit people—my people—have done as far back as anyone can remember. It is called throat singing.”

  She stopped abruptly and closed her eyes. Luis moved uncomfortably, until he heard a sound. It began as a hum, then deepened into a cross between a hum and a growl. Bryndis kept her eyes closed in concentration. The hum increased in intensity and rapidly evolved into a series of animal-like grunts and growls. At first, it sounded like noises animals would make to call one another—a secret language only they would understand. But there was something much more precise to it.

  Her controlled breathing allowed her to make sounds Luis knew he could never hope to imitate, and soon he was mesmerized by the beauty of it—and in awe of the amount of practice it must have taken to master it.

  The sounds rose to a feverish pitch. Small beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. The song reached a peak and she began to unwind it, bringing it back to the hum she had started with.

  “That was amazing.”

  Bryndis gave Luis a long, hard look, ready to strike in anger, but she saw the sincerity in his eyes. “Thank you.”

  “I’m guessing the other boy didn’t share my opinion.”

  “No. He did not.” Her forehead pinched tightly at the memory. “Throat singing is not easy to master, especially for someone like me who does not have the natural talent. I practiced many long hours, always in private. I was determined to win the competition. Then one day I was careless, and he caught me. And mocked me,” she said bitterly.

  “I had thought this boy was cute, but he was suddenly very ugly. He would tease me at every opportunity, making disgusting animal noises behind my back, yet always within range of my ears. He urged his friends to join him. It was a terrible time. I stopped singing and gave up my dream.”

  “But that’s horrible!”

  “Yes,” she said gravely. “But it gets worse. You see, my talent went beyond singing. I can mimic animal sounds. I can call to them as if I were one of their own. Sometimes, when meat was scarce, I would sing to the polar bears, even an occasional walrus. Lure them in for the kill.”

  “You cheated?”

  She smiled mischievously. “Only when I had to.”

  He smiled back. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “That’s because I did it for the right reasons. But then one day, I saw him alone on a kayak in the bay. The water was calm. I was not.” She grimaced. “I called to the whales.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” Luis reached for her arm but she pulled away.

  “I know, but if I don’t finish now … never mind. I thank you for your concern. I had the whales do my dirty work for me. It was a time of broken ice. As the Earth warms more rapidly, the broken ice appears more often. Small icebergs are a daily hazard. I had the whales push the ice into the bay toward that horrible boy. Soon, the kayak was surrounded by ice. I saw the panic in his movements, nearly capsizing him, and yet I wasn’t satisfied.

  “I wanted to crush him like he crushed my dreams. The whales understood. They moved the ice closer and closer.” Bryndis stopped as tears welled in her eyes.

  “Did you … ” Luis could not bring himself to finish.

  “Kill him? No. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my father was nearby and heard the boy screaming for help. He saw what I was doing and pushed me roughly to the ground. The call was broken, the whales stopped, and the ice retreated. Suddenly, I was a danger to my village—and to myself. They sent me here.”

  Luis stepped back. Slowly a grin appeared. “So what you’re saying is, we have something in common.”

  A path opened to their left. “Amazing!” Luis exclaimed in awe.

  Henry and Serena smiled at each other knowingly. Rather than resume their studies in the Kunstkammer, Molly had decided to take them on a field trip into the forest. It was the first time Katelyn, Luis, and Bryndis had ventured out from the security of the castle walls. They walked in single file—Molly in the lead, Henry and Serena in the rear—as the forest directed them.

  “How do we know we are not being led into a trap?” Bryndis asked warily.

  In response, a long branch from a shrub whipped out, snakelike, and snapped her across the bottom.

  “I’d say that’s your answer,” Brianna laughed.

  Katelyn giggled and Bryndis glared at her. Luis gave Bryndis a pat on the back
, which had an immediate calming effect on her.

  Henry felt Serena stiffen and watched her eyes narrow as if she didn’t like what she was seeing. He hadn’t felt her usual warmth toward him recently and now wondered if he might be losing her affection because of Luis.

  He reached for her hand just as Brianna pointed to a nearby tree and yelled, “Beech!”

  “Spruce!” Katelyn countered.

  “Honeysuckle!” Serena shouted, and plucked a small white flower from its shrub as she joined in.

  They continued along the path for several kilometers, playing their impromptu game of botanical I Spy until, abruptly, the path ended. “Now what?” Luis asked.

  The forest answered again, this time in dramatic fashion. The undergrowth of rhododendron and thorny raspberry slowly pulled back to reveal an open field that was filled with a dazzling display of wildflowers, much more concentrated than the one Henry and Serena had encountered weeks before. Majestic mountain peaks loomed far in the distance.

  “Incredible,” Molly exclaimed. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, I realize I haven’t even come close.”

  The path behind them closed, urging them forward. Luis grabbed Bryndis by the hand. “Come on!” he shouted as he sprinted into the field, pulling her in tow. The others looked at one another for only a second before sprinting after them. They laughed and whooped, jumping with infectious happiness. Henry caught up to Luis and slapped him on the arm—hard. “Tag, you’re it!”

  Luis brushed off Henry’s slap with a condescending sneer, then raced after Serena.

  Molly watched them play from a distance, smiling with delight, knowing this was just the release they needed.

  But then the breeze shifted. The twinkle of mirth in her eyes gave way to concern. The breeze brought with it a scent. The scent of trouble. The scent of death.

  “Stop!” The force of her voice carried across the field and echoed off the mountains.

  The apprentices stopped in their tracks. One by one they noticed the smell and rapidly returned to Molly’s side. “I know that smell.” Bryndis lifted her head, sniffing the breeze. “This way.”