He is considering taking me as an apprentice? This may be precisely the break I need to strike out on my god-given path in earnest, once again. My mind alights with imaginings of his great library and I envision myself bursting with knowledge and power.
If this conversation is to be my interview, then it behooves me to set some precedent to our relationship. Though he is my superior in age and arcane knowledge, he is not my master. I won’t tolerate being treated as a lackey or looked down upon. He thinks my technique is unsophisticated? Well, I did not have it handed to me on a platter. I made countless sacrifices. I had to fight for each step. So I say, “Then you should know that I have had no formal training. What I have acquired I claimed for my own.”
This catches him off guard and he just stands there, appearing slightly bewildered, for a long moment. “Huh. That makes sense. When I saw you mixing that antitoxin I was fairly positive you were a saboteur intent on killing off the wounded soldiers. Why else would you use three of the most deadly plants in the region as a cure?” He shrugs bemusedly and continues. “But then I watched you channel entropic attunements to break down the compound, removing the toxin but keeping its substance such that a man would become inoculated. It was marvelous. Took me these two days to replicate it!”
If what he is saying is true, it had not been intentional. While apothecaries the world over tend to have some manner of minor magic working, it is more akin to a prescribed ritual than it is to shaping the arcanum to one’s will. That I am unintentionally using magic in this way legitimately surprises me. Though, as the information settles with me, the reason for it becomes obvious.
A side effect of Ner Ngal’s favor: a withering touch. Any living thing I contact is diminished while I am sustained. Its life becomes mine. It takes more than an instant, yet I still was a danger to others when I first acquired it. In time I learned to control it but it seems that it worked its way into other aspects of my being without my knowledge.
Usually there is a visible, black-green aura when I drain life so I had no reason to suspect. Which other of my potions and balms were anathema in this way? I would need to review my entire catalogue.
I gaze expressionlessly at Val Maxis who is beaming at me for his accomplishment with my potion.
“With Nodkis reclaimed, I have business tomorrow in Ark Aegion. If you’re interested to move beyond simple herbalism and hedge magic, I will pick you up on my way back. Here. Two days hence. Is this agreeable?”
I nod.
“Then I expect I shall see you the day after tomorrow. Good night.” He turns and meanders back to the festivities.
Ulsh looks at me, “Never took you for a wizard.”
“Quite the compliment.”
“I just mean that you are a difficult man to know.”
I knew what he had meant—he’d seen what I wanted him to see—but I already thanked him for the compliment so I leave it at that.
Val Maxis is certainly confident that I will leap at the chance to apprentice to him. I am not so sure. My peers will be pre-pubescent adepts of dubious ability. My instructors will, no doubt, be idealists sheltered from reality through the protection of the wizard’s tower. My mentor will be a doddering old man who will undoubtedly want to throw out my self-taught and hard-earned proficiency for his own style and proclivity. I can think of better ways to spend my time than being bossed around, scrutinized, and watched. I value my privacy.
When dawn breaks, I walk into the city through the damaged doors of the south gate. The wrought-iron hinges and the stonework it attached to had eventually given up the ghost. The stacked, wooden beams that form the doors themselves are dented and singed but seem to have sustained no structural damage.
Bodies litter the entrance, a putrid carpet of blood and bone; leather and maille; human, orc, goblin, elf, and a few others. I step through the mess and down the main street toward the middle of town, to just before where the good side of town begins.
The shacks and shanties that litter the lower commons are largely intact and appear to have been used as the orcs’ main camp. Further up the road, toward the flea market, the sturdier buildings, such as taverns and inns, are burned-out husks. As I am rounding what would have been considered a corner when a building stood on it, I see that the rest of the structures between here and the canal are nothing but ashes. I do not need to walk the rest of the way in mystery about the fate of my shop—it is gone.
I keep going though. The valuables I hid might have survived and I will need them to start anew on the path destiny has put before me—and kindly reminded me of. There isn’t anything keeping me here now, not even complacency.
Guessing where the hidden tin might be had the shop still been standing, I rummage through the ashes. Ten minutes later, I am holding flecks of tin and an irregular lump of gold that was once in the shape of coins. Everything else is gone: the rare herbs, the scrolls of arcane writing I had yet to decipher, a tome of magic theory, and all my various ritual supplies. The gold is worth its weight no matter the shape; there is about thirty gold worth here. Hardly a fortune. Still, it will purchase a donkey and tack and some traveling supplies. That is, if anyone is selling.
The Wordbearer Chronicles is a dark fantasy web series with new passages on Tuesdays.
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