“A raconette,” said Merry. “Eynon made friends with the little beast when we stopped for lunch two days ago.”
“Hmmm,” said Fercha. “Raconettes are uncommon familiars, but there are old stories about wizards adopted by them.”
“That fits Eynon,” said Merry. “He’s simultaneously common and uncommon himself, if you know what I mean.”
“Is Eynon your lover?” Fercha asked.
“Y-yes,” said Merry hesitantly. “And my friend.”
Fercha smiled at Merry and seemed to be remembering her own youth and romantic challenges.
“Where is this Eynon person from?”
“From Haywall, in the Coombe, good wizard.”
“I told you, call me Fercha,” said the imposing woman. “You’re a wizard in training, so let’s keep things less formal.”
Fercha rubbed her chin with her fingers. Merry could barely hear what she was saying.
“From the Coombe to Applegarth… could it be?” Fercha whispered to herself. Then she spoke louder.
“Did Eynon find something on the road?” she asked Merry. “He must have—it’s the only answer.”
Merry debated not replying, but decided to share what she knew without thinking too hard about it. Fercha was impressive and powerful, but she didn’t seem malicious.
“He found an artifact at a crossroads just east of the mountains around the Coombe, Fercha,” she said.
“Describe it, please,” Fercha commanded.
“It was fine silver work, with a large oval blue stone,” said Merry. “It glowed when it came near your tower.”
“That was mine!” said Fercha. Her shoulders slumped. “I was so close…”
“Can’t you go through the gate to retrieve it?” asked Merry.
“I could, but I’m not going back through that gate if the legions of the Eagle People and the royal army of Tamloch are on my doorstep,” said Fercha with a quiet intensity.
“What’s on the…” began Merry. Then she stopped. She’d seen the anger and pain in the short-haired wizard’s eyes. Merry changed course. “Right,” she said. “What do we do now?”
Fercha stood immobile, but seemed to gain strength and stature from her own focused will. She looked up the winding stairway, then at Merry.
“First, I have to rest,” said the short-haired wizard. “I need a hot meal and a good night’s sleep, in that order. Then I need to craft a new artifact.”
She stepped close to Merry and lifted the girl’s small silver and blue pendant up by its chain until it was visible outside Merry’s shirt.
“While we’re at it, it’s high time you replaced this trinket with something more powerful.”
“Yes, good wizard,” said Merry.
“I told you to call me Fercha,” said the wizard. She began to climb the spiral stairs and glanced over her shoulder.
Merry’s body felt charged with potential. With the right teacher, she was sure she could do anything.
“Gather your things and come along,” said Fercha. “Until Doethan comes to reclaim you, you’re my apprentice now. If I read things right, he will be far too busy to instruct you.”
Doethan was clearly caught up in the affairs of the kingdom when he’d told them to go to the Blue Spiral Tower, thought Merry. She knew he was more than a hedge wizard!
“When he reaches out to apologize for having you and your friend trespass in my tower, you can confirm his agreement with the arrangement.”
Merry pressed her lips together tightly. If Doethan couldn’t train her, having Fercha as a mentor would be wonderful.
“Dark times are upon us and the kingdom needs more wizards,” said Fercha. “I hope you’re willing to work harder and learn faster than you ever have in your life.”
“Yes, Fercha,” said Merry, her voice reflecting her inner joy.
Eynon was on the other side of the gate, but at least he was where Doethan had wanted him to go. She hoped it wouldn’t be too dangerous there. As soon as she mastered more magic, she’d find a way to contact him.
Merry was more than ready to master the art of wizardry as fast as Fercha could teach her. She slipped on her pack and began to climb, following her new mentor with her feet barely touching the stairs.
Chapter 15
“The wizard makes the artifact,
but the magestone makes the mage.”
— Ealdamon’s Epigrams
The library had high ceilings. Overstuffed bookshelves half-again as tall as Eynon lined nearly every wall. Narrow windows between the shelves let in plenty of light to read by during the day. The ceiling was dark with soot from thousands of hours of oil lamps to prove it saw plenty of use at night as well. There was a fireplace on the inner wall and wood was carefully set, ready to light, inside it. The room smelled of leather and old paper. Eynon was entranced and extremely distracted. He struggled to focus, like a small child who had to attend to lessons on a festival day.
The books will still be here tomorrow, thought Eynon. He took a chair next to Damon at a table made of thick polished wood. Chee climbed down from his shoulder and curled up in a tight ring near Eynon’s left hand.
The older man noticed Eynon scanning the shelves and smiled.
“The books will still be here tomorrow, lad,” said Damon.
Eynon knew Damon didn’t have to read his mind to repeat his thoughts. They were written on his face in large letters.
“You’re welcome to read anything in the library,” said Damon, “after you’ve worked on your lessons—and cooked our meals.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m glad you want to learn from books, but the first lessons of wizardry are best learned through practice, not reading.”
Eynon couldn’t hide his disappointment. For him, books were magical.
“That’s not to say you can’t find helpful spells and techniques in books,” the older man added, “but most elementary wizardry is decidedly hands-on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please,” said Damon. “Stop calling me sir. It makes me feel old.”
“But you are old, sir,” said Eynon with a grin.
“I can see this will be entertaining for both of us,” said Damon, returning Eynon’s expression. “May you have apprentices just like you someday.” The older man shook his head slowly from side to side, regarding Eynon. “That could be good or bad, depending on your attitude.”
“I’ll try to make you proud—Damon.”
“Excellent. First, tell me what you know about wizardry.”
“That won’t take long,” said Eynon. “I don’t know very much.”
He took a slow deep breath, then spoke rapidly.
“Free wizards and crown wizards are very powerful. They command fireballs and lightning and shields—and weapons—made of sound. They can fly and travel from one place to another in the blink of an eye. They can levitate objects and cast wards to protect places or things. They can augment their senses to hear, see, and smell far better than ordinary people. They can also generate illusions—and I’m sure they can do a lot more, as well.”
Damon nodded.
“Concise, and accurate, as far as it goes,” said the older man. “What about hedge wizards?”
“Hedge wizards work small magics compared to free and crown wizards’ big magics,” said Eynon. “They make fertility charms, heal injuries, help women with childbirth, and do what they can to make the lives of people and animals in their care easier.”
Damon nodded again. “Well said. Those are excellent summaries—but do you have any idea how wizards work magic?”
“No, sir,” said Eynon. “I mean, no, Damon. Does it involve artifacts?”
“It does, but artifacts only serve to channel magic. True mag
ical power comes from the magestones at the heart of every artifact.”
“Magestones?”
“Gems formed deep under the earth through heat and pressure that work their way to the surface in various spots,” said Damon. “There are many places in Melyncárreg where magestones created by the cuddio tân have been washed from rock faces into streams and rivers, or lie about like pebbles on the ground, ready to be selected by a worthy wizard or apprentice.”
“When do I start looking for one?” asked Eynon.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, lad,” said Damon. “That depends on how well you do with your first lessons. You have to master the basics before you’ll be ready to find your magestone and craft your artifact. The ground is covered with snow and the smaller streams are iced over anyway, so you’d be severely limited in where you can look until it warms up around here.”
“Oh,” said Eynon. He could wait, but he didn’t want to.
“Have you ever seen a magestone?” asked Damon.
“Uh huh,” said Eynon. “I saw a blue one, once.”
He tried not to think of the back of the large blue oval gem in a silver setting pressing against the skin of his chest under his shirt.
Damon looked at Eynon and tilted his head for a moment, staring intently.
“My friend Merry had a small one in her pendant,” Eynon explained. “She’s learning wizardry from Doethan, a hedge wizard in the Rhuthro valley. Do you know him?”
“I’m acquainted with a wizard by that name,” said Damon. He furrowed his brow, then went on. “You should know that most wizards in Dâron have an affinity for blue stones, while those in Tamloch prefer green magestones and the Eagle People’s wizards opt for imperial purple.”
“Do the stones’ colors affect their powers?”
“No,” said Damon. “You’ll understand why in a few minutes.”
“Great,” Eynon responded. He thought for a moment, remembering illustrations in Peregrinations and Doethan’s sky blue cloak.
“Do the colors of wizards’ robes tend to match the color of their magestones?” asked Eynon. He included Damon’s dark blue tunic in his mental catalog of examples.
“Most do, but not all,” said Damon. “It’s a custom, not a law.”
“I understand,” said Eynon. That’s how most things worked in the Coombe, after all.
“From the time of the first wars between Dâron and Tamloch, most people wore the colors of their respective kingdoms,” explained Damon. “Crown wizards, in particular, wore their kings’ livery, and free wizards did the same to show they were as powerful as wizards working for nobles.”
“That makes sense,” said Eynon. “I expect that blue cloth was less expensive, too, because there was so much of it made for uniforms.”
“An insightful observation, and one borne out by the facts, at least here in Dâron,” said Damon. “When the Eagle People arrived, they had their own customary colors for uniforms. We’re just lucky they favored shades of purple, rather than blue or green. Imagine how confusing it would have been otherwise.”
Eynon nodded. “I’ve never seen one of the Eagle People,” he said. “Grandmothers make them out to be monsters eager to steal cattle and children.”
“You’re more likely to have that sort of trouble from Clan Lands raiders than the Eagle People, Eynon,” said Damon. “The Eagle legions are disciplined, and their leaders are wise and subtle. They played Tamloch and Dâron against each other like a harp and took the lands of the Abbenoth valley from us after we’d exhausted our armies fighting each other.”
“Divide and conquer?” asked Eynon.
“That’s their motto,” Damon confirmed. “And they do it well.”
The older man stood up.
Chee lifted his head when he heard Damon’s chair scrape back. The raconette decided nothing important was happening and returned to his nap.
“Nûd!” Damon shouted.
The large young man appeared in the door to the library closest to the kitchen and waited for Damon to say more.
“Has the Master left us any wine in the cellars worth drinking?”
“If he had,” said Nûd, “don’t you think we’d be drinking it? There are a couple of jugs of Applegarth hard cider I’ve been saving for special occasions, though.”
“Fetch one,” said Damon. “I’ve been doing more talking than I’m used to and the lad looks like he’d appreciate something with a kick to it.”
“Yes, Damon. Of course, Damon. Nûd is but a servant and you’ve been a student here as long as I’ve been alive.”
“Some of us need a lot of time to get it right,” said Damon.
“Words more true were never spoken,” teased Nûd.
Eynon didn’t feel particularly in need of a drink, but he wouldn’t turn one down.
Nûd disappeared and returned in short order with a familiar-shaped jug, three pewter goblets, and a small clay cup. He removed a wax seal with his belt knife, pulled the cork, and poured generous portions of cider into the metal vessels and a smaller amount into the cup for Chee.
The popping cork and the smell of hard cider were enough to convince the raconette that it was worth sitting up. The little beast took the clay cup in both hands and tilted it toward his mouth.
Damon imitated Chee, using both hands on his goblet.
“Ah,” said the older man. “This is worth drinking—it’s far better than that bitter stuff you press from local apples.”
“Whenever you want to build a gate to Brendinas to get supplies, I’ll be glad to serve something better,” said Nûd.
“Never mind, then,” said Damon. “Unfortunately, gates work in both directions.”
“So you’ve said,” Nûd noted.
Eynon had a sip of cider, then put his hand over his mouth to hide a smile. Nûd gave the two of them a comic bow and retreated out of sight toward the kitchen.
Chee tried to insert his head into the clay cup to lick the bottom. Damon and Eynon were amused and left the raconette to his efforts.
The older man returned to his seat and put his goblet on the table with a solid thunk. Some of the liquid within sloshed out and down the vessel’s pewter sides.
It’s a shame to waste even a drop of Applegarth’s amazing hard cider, thought Eynon.
“Time for serious talk, lad,” said Damon. “Where were we?”
“The Eagle People?” suggested Eynon.
“Before that.”
“Why wizards wear colored robes?”
“Before that, too.”
“Magestones?” suggested Eynon, tentatively.
“That’s it,” said Damon. “Magestones. People think they’re the source of wizards’ power…”
“But they’re wrong?” asked Eynon.
“They are. It’s not the magestones—it’s what’s inside them that’s at the heart of wizardry.”
Eynon forgot about his goblet and the cider it held. He leaned forward, intent on Damon’s words. Could he really be learning the secret at the heart of wizardry in the first hour of his first day of magic lessons?
Damon paused. Eynon looked at him expectantly and the older man laughed.
“I can’t fault your eagerness to learn, lad,” he said. “The secret at the heart of wizardry is congruency.”
Eynon’s face fell.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Few do,” said Damon. “And that’s the beginning of wisdom. Do you at least know the word?”
Eynon thought for a few seconds and retrieved a memory of three-sided figures on a slate.
“It’s from Euclid’s Elements,” said Eynon. “I remember my geometry teacher making me repeat side-angle-side, side-side-side, and side-angle-angle until the words invaded my d
reams.”
“You’re full of surprises,” said Damon. “I wouldn’t have expected a farm boy from the Coombe to have studied geometry.”
“One of the men in Haywall served in the king’s army and was promoted to engineer,” explained Eynon. “He had a copy of Euclid’s book and taught most of us. You’d be amazed how useful geometry is in dealing with farmers’ disputes over field shapes and boundaries.”
Damon smiled. “Perhaps I would be. But no matter—you understand the concept and that’s a head start. Do you remember the gate that got you here?”
“How could I forget?” asked Eynon. “One second I was beneath the Blue Spiral Tower and the next I was landing in the snow not far from here.”
“Exactly,” said Damon. “Congruencies take two places that are separate and bring them together—like that gate.”
Eynon considered the concept for a few seconds.
“I can see how that would help you get from one place to another quickly,” he said. “But how do you use a gate to make a fireball?”
Damon waved his hand at one of the tall windows facing west.
“Look out there,” he said. “What do you see?”
“Mountains,” Eynon replied.
“Above the mountains.”
“Sky,” said Eynon. “And clouds?”
“What else is in the sky?”
“The sun.”
“Correct,” said Damon. “And what is the sun?”
“A big ball of fire.”
“What would you get if you opened a congruency to the sun?”
“A big fireball!” Eynon exclaimed. “And opening a gate to a thunderstorm would get you lightning and thunder for weapons and defenses made of sound.”
“Very good,” said Damon, beaming. “You can see the possibilities.”
The Congruent Apprentice (The Congruent Mage Series Book 1) Page 19