The Congruent Apprentice (The Congruent Mage Series Book 1)

by Dave Schroeder

  Merry steered the boat as requested and Eynon dipped his new staff in the water. He was glad he hadn’t removed the crossbow bolt, because it helped him rescue his waterlogged cap from the back of a moderate-sized chunk of limestone worn smooth by the current. The holly his sister had pinned to the cap was still in place and looked even greener after its immersion. Eynon held the cap up and to one side so it could drip into the river.

  “Did you learn Doethan’s clothes-drying spell too?”

  “If I had, don’t you think I would have used it earlier, when both of us were soaked?”

  More answering questions with questions, thought Eynon.

  He put his wet cap on a thwart in front of the closest cider barrel, where it wouldn’t blow away. When he returned to the bow, Eynon stretched his shoulders and felt a sore spot in his upper back. He turned around to catch Merry’s eye.

  “You might have been hiding the true extent of your powers.”

  “I wish,” said Merry. “I did learn how to make fertility choice charms, though. They’re easy.”

  “Good to know,” said Eynon. “Did Doethan have a chance to teach you any healing spells? My back feels like I was punched by a giant.”

  “Sorry, no,” said Merry. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want you to come on this trip. When I’m on my own I get wizardry lessons.”

  “I didn’t mean to interfere with your education,” said Eynon.

  “Don’t worry,” said Merry. “I’m sure I’ll learn a lot this trip—just in different subjects.”

  “I’ve learned more in a day on the river than I would have in a year in the Coombe.”

  Eynon tried to move an arm around to rub the painful part of his upper back, but couldn’t reach.

  “I’ll get some liniment at Flying Frog Farms and rub it on your back tonight,” said Merry. “I’m glad to do it, since I’m the one who gave you the bruise.”

  “What?” asked Eynon. “When?”

  “When you were underwater, held down by tree branches,” replied Merry. “I had to hit you in the back with my steering oar to push you free.”

  “In that case, a bruised back is a small price to pay for my life.”

  “I’ll still rub in liniment.”

  “That would be nice,” said Eynon. “When do we get to Flying Frog Farms?”

  Ahead, the Rhuthro was making a sharp bend to the left. Merry waited until they’d rounded it before replying.

  “How about now?”

  Eynon could see a much larger dock than the previous toll stations ahead on the left. It was twice as wide as the Mastlands dock and the back third of it included rows of stalls covered by a shake-shingled roof. A long yellow banner with a green flying frog in mid-leap hung from a tall pole at the front upstream end of the dock. A smaller dock was on the other side of the river, but there was no sign of a chain.

  People must stop here because they want to, thought Eynon.

  A tall woman in a yellow dress with a green apron was standing near the banner, waving enthusiastically. A taller man in a green tunic and enormous boots had his arm around her.

  “Oh drat,” said Merry.

  “That must be Madollyn,” said Eynon. He covered his mouth with a palm to hold in a laugh and looked forward to a good dinner.

  “And Llyffan,” said Merry. “I don’t see how they knew we were coming. Sometimes I think the real wizardry in the valley is how fast news travels.”

  “The same thing’s true in the Coombe and we don’t even have a river to speed word along,” said Eynon. “What’s your plan? Do we stay the night here or try to make a quick escape?”

  “A quick escape,” said Merry. “Talk less. Smile more.”

  “Good advice under the circumstances,” said Eynon. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Thank you,” said Merry.

  “One question,” said Eynon.

  “Ask.”

  “Do you think we could talk Madollyn into giving us some honey cakes?”

  * * * * *

  Eynon was impressed that Merry had kept their stop at Flying Frog Farms to a few minutes over an hour. She told Llyffan and Madollyn what had happened at the Mastlands toll station and they agreed to send word to the earl and call out their own levies to take action.

  That agreement didn’t happen, however, until Madollyn was assured Eynon and Merry were unharmed. The mistress of Flying Frog Farms had hugged them both a dozen times with arms that were extra-strong from years at the churn.

  Maddy even pinched Merry’s cheeks, making them turn red.

  “You’re as beautiful as the old king and queen’s daughter, Princess Seren, when she was a girl, before we lost her,” Madollyn fussed.

  “Ummm… Thank you,” said Merry, her face blushing an even brighter shade of red.

  Eynon turned away so Merry wouldn’t see his grin. He wasn’t able to escape Madollyn’s attentions himself. The older woman pinched his cheek and pulled him down to plant a motherly kiss in the middle of his forehead.

  “You two look out for each other the rest of the way downriver,” she said. “Promise me you’ll be extra cautious. The young king doesn’t have a tenth the sense of his great-grandfather and I don’t like it. We’re in for bad times, I can feel it in my bones.”

  “I’ll send a crew upriver to see what can be done about that tree trunk blocking the main channel,” said Llyffan, heading off more of his wife’s uncomplimentary comments on Dâron’s current ruler.

  Eynon almost offered to give them one of the larger shards, to help make cutting up the fallen trunk easier, but Merry’s eyes warned him not to say anything. Madollyn still kept mothering them, but Merry’s insistence that they needed to get to Tyford in three days, not four, kept delays to a minimum.

  Merry gave Llyffan and Madollyn four jugs of cider—one as a traditional toll and the three that weren’t used for toll or trade at Mastlands. Eynon wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but he also ended up with a thick bundle of clothes, including a new-to-him white linen shirt, since Merry let it slip that Eynon’s had been slashed and rendered unwearable.

  As they pulled away from the dock, Eynon thought it a good omen that a flying frog chasing a dragonfly soared across the boat’s prow. He was also pleased to have two new baskets of food resting next to his hat on the midship thwart.

  “Nicely done,” said Eynon when they’d turned a bend and were out of sight of the Flying Frog Farm’s dock.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You, too.”

  She held up a pottery bottle about a quarter the size of a cider jug.

  “Llyffan found me some liniment.”

  “I thank you, and my back thanks you—in advance,” said Eynon. He removed a canvas sack big enough to hold a copy of Ealdamon’s Epigrams from under his seat and waved it back and forth to ensure Merry saw it. “Madollyn gave me a bag of freshly baked honey cakes and they smell wonderful. I hope they’re as good as my aunt’s.”

  “If they’re not, your idea to carry Coombe honey to the Rhuthro valley might be a good one.”

  “We’ll find out after dinner tonight, I expect,” said Eynon.

  “Go ahead, try one,” said Merry.

  “I can wait.”

  Merry smiled and Eynon turned back to watch the river. The barrels stowed amidships made it very difficult for anyone in the bow to get to the stern or vice versa, so it wasn’t a simple matter for Eynon to share the honey cakes while they were aboard.

  “It’s only a couple of hours before sunset,” said Eynon. “Where do you plan to stop for the night?”

  “We’ll lose our light sooner than that,” said Merry. “We’re in the shadow of the mountains.”

  Eynon shook his head slowly from side to side, displeased with the gap in his under
standing.

  “I should have figured that out on my own.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Merry. “I’m glad to be part of your education.” She made a slight course correction with her steering oar, avoiding a snag Eynon hadn’t noticed. “There’s a stony beach on the east bank a few miles downriver,” Merry continued. “It’s one of the few places on that side with woodlands, not marsh. I’ve camped there before.”

  “Sounds good,” said Eynon.

  He rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head where he’d hit the rock and was pleased it hadn’t turned into a goose egg. Eynon hoped tomorrow wouldn’t be more exciting than today. He’d wanted adventures, but not so many so close together. He took several deep breaths and closed his eyes for a moment to block out the late afternoon glare.

  “Wake up!” shouted Merry from the stern. “We’re almost there!”

  Eynon opened his eyes and lifted his chin from his chest. Ahead on the right was a beach of sorts, made of thousands of pebbles. A huge rock the size of Doethan’s tower was upstream and the obvious source of the small stones. Two white birch trees incongruously grew amid the pebbles—they’d make good posts for tying off. Behind the beach was a broad clearing, sloping up to a wood of mixed pines and trees with new green leaves.

  “Sorry for nodding off,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Merry. “I knew this stretch of river didn’t have many rocks and I’m glad you got some rest. I’m going to bring the boat in by the downstream tree, so tie off the prow there and get ashore. I’ll toss you the stern line to tie to the upstream tree.”

  “Yes, dear lady,” said Eynon. He turned back in time to see Merry stick her tongue out at him. Eynon was laughing when he tied up the prow, but stopped by the time he caught the stern line and made it fast. The boat secured, Merry began to pull items from the protected storage area under the raised stern deck. She threw a canvas-wrapped bundle almost as big as a man down to Eynon.

  “Oof,” he said when he caught it. “What’s in here? A dead body?”

  “Of course not,” teased Merry. “I told you we throw those in the river. It’s our tent.”

  Eynon thought about the words our tent for a moment, then put the rolled canvas on the ground and caught two packs, two bedrolls, and one of the food baskets Madollyn had given them. Merry extended her hand to Eynon and he helped her down to shore. He noticed she’d tied the bottle of liniment to her belt.

  “Please get whatever you need for the night,” she said, indicating the boat’s bow with her hand. “When you’re done, I’ll set the wards.”

  Eynon nodded and promptly retrieved his pack, his staff, and the bag of honey cakes. He put them on the ground near the rolled-up tent and the other essentials.

  “Can you teach me how to set wards?” he asked.

  “I can try,” said Merry. “I only know the one for baying dogs and cocking crossbows. and that’s just a minor warding spell. I’m still trying to convince Doethan to teach me one of the major wards, like the physical aversion spell that makes your body buzz like a nest of wolfhornets. Like I said, I’d hoped he might show me how to work it on this trip, but...”

  “Sorry to get in the way of your lessons,” said Eynon. “I’ll do my best to learn. Even minor wards would be helpful. Barking dogs frighten off animals, and clanking crossbows make would-be robbers think twice.”

  “And both wake us up,” said Merry.

  “And that,” said Eynon.

  Then Merry surprised him. She pulled a small silver pendant on a fine chain from inside her shirt. In its center was a rounded, highly polished blue gem the size of Eynon’s thumbnail.

  “Well,” said Eynon. “That’s something new.”

  “It’s my training artifact,” said Merry. “Doethan gave it to me to use while I’m learning the basics. He said I’ll get to make my true artifact soon. The wizard makes the artifact, the artifact doesn’t make the wizard.”

  “That’s one of Ealdamon’s epigrams.”

  “I know,” said Merry. “Watch and listen.”

  Eynon focused his eyes and ears on Merry. He recognized her hand motions and intonation—they were what she’d used on the Mastlands dock, only now her actions were more obvious. Standing closer this time, he could make out a woof from the back of her throat and a click with her tongue. The bright blue magestone in her pendant flashed and the fine silver-work around it shimmered. When she lowered her hand and stopped talking, Eynon nodded appreciatively.

  “Is that it? They’re set?”

  “They are,” said Merry. “Want to test them?”

  Eynon knew this was a test—for him.

  “No,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll work. And I’ve heard enough baying hounds today. Shall we see what Madollyn and her cooks made us for dinner?”

  “We have to raise the tent first,” she said, smiling. Merry tucked the pendant back into her shirt.

  They unrolled the canvas bundle and set the thick rectangular canvas ground cloth on a flat patch of thick grass. Then they spread out the fabric of the tent. Merry positioned stakes and guy ropes around the perimeter, then instructed Eynon to hold the tall pole at the front entrance so she could anchor it properly with ropes and stakes from inside the bundle. She drove in stakes with a heavy ironwood mallet that had also been rolled up in the canvas.

  “How did you ever set this up on your own?” asked Eynon.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Merry. “I didn’t. I used a one-person tent then, with one center pole and ten stakes around the edges. It went up easily.”

  “Why not give us two tents like that?” said Eynon.

  “I told you why earlier,” said Merry. “My parents wanted to see what developed on this trip.”

  “Oh,” said Eynon. He was very thoughtful as they set the rear pole and the four corner poles.

  “That’s done,” said Merry.

  “Now can we see what’s for dinner?”

  “After we lay out the bedrolls.”

  “I hear and obey,” said Eynon.

  Eynon and Merry sat close together on a blanket a few minutes later, looking out at the river. Madollyn’s dinner basket turned out to contain a pair of thick round, whole-wheat trenchers, a baked chicken stuffed with spring onions, pickled root vegetables, a loaf of freshly-baked dark bread with seeds on top, a jug of water, and a small crock of bright-yellow butter. Eynon laughed when he opened the crock to confirm its contents. The image of a flying frog in mid-leap, like the one on the Flying Frog Farm’s banner, was pressed into the butter’s golden surface. Merry dug deeper into the basket, then she laughed too. She held up two perfectly round red apples.

  “These are ours,” she said. “From Applegarth. They’re the best eating apples in the Kingdom of Dâron—in all of Orluin, for that matter.”

  “How many apples from other kingdoms have you tasted?” asked Eynon.

  He was grinning and Merry stuck her tongue out.

  “Don’t try to minimize my bragging with facts,” she said. “Wait until you try one before causing trouble.”

  “Yes, dear lady,” he said, cutting her a chicken leg and putting it on her trencher. “Have some fowl first.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I will.”

  The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly. Eynon told Merry about hurrying through his rounds of the seven inns in Caercadel last year so he’d have time to visit the castle’s library. Merry told Eynon about wandering off on a family trip to Tyford when she was nine. She’d been found hours later on the floor in the back of one of the shops on the street of booksellers with dozens of open volumes around her. Eynon noted it was hard to get lost in the Coombe. Everyone knew everybody and parents kept a watchful eye on each other’s children.

  “Does that explain why you’re so po
lite?” asked Merry. “Word will always get back to your mother and father?”

  “Perhaps,” said Eynon, “though they’re not likely to hear about today’s adventures.”

  “Until you get home and tell them,” said Merry. The corners of her mouth went up, then her expression turned mock-serious. “Take off your jacket and shirt,” she said.

  “What?” asked Eynon. “Why?”

  Merry untied the bottle of liniment from her belt and held it aloft.

  “Oh,” said Eynon.

  He stood, took off his quilted jacket, folded it, and positioned it neatly on the blanket next to the basket. He did the same with his linen shirt. Then he shifted to his knees beside Merry and removed the amulet by its cord. Without touching the silver oval or its blue stone, he placed the magical artifact on his shirt as carefully as he’d return a baby bird’s egg to its nest.

  “Thank you for being considerate,” said Merry. “I didn’t want my boat to burn to the waterline if it shot out another fireball.”

  “I am nothing if not considerate, dear lady.”

  Merry’s mock-serious expression returned.

  “Turn around so I can rub this in.”

  Eynon adjusted his position and moved from kneeling to sitting, giving Merry good access to his back. The liniment—and Merry’s strong hands—soothed the large bruise between his shoulder blades. Eynon could smell wintergreen and sensed something in the liniment warming his skin and muscles.

  “You may not know any healing spells—yet,” he said, “but this is the next best thing.”

  “I’m glad it’s helping.”

  Merry continued to rub Eynon’s back for several minutes before she squeezed his shoulders and stopped.

  “That’s all for now,” she said.