Apprentice (9 page)

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” Benen said simply. “You know Oster isn’t likely to help anyone. He’s as likely to watch and clap afterwards.”

The rat shrugged and translated.

“They offer to escort us back to our master,” Orafin said.

“Tell them we’ll be fine on our own from here. Tell them it isn’t far,” Benen said. Orafin did.

“They would like to meet our master,” the rat translated their response.

“Um, tell them he’s busy,” Benen supplied. The rat spoke with the foreigners and they nodded understanding then and smiled. They bowed to both the rat and the boy and took their leaves. Benen wished his own master was half as genial as these foreigners seemed to be.

“I tried to warn you, about the boys. You were flashing around your money too much,” the rat told Benen.

“So they robbed me?”

“You made it easy, really. It was almost your fault,” the rat asserted.

“Get back in the bag,” Benen said, angry partly because he thought the rat might be right. Orafin humphed but kept his tongue. They walked back to the tree-line where the tower was resting on the ground. Benen was relieved to see it still there. He had a brief fantasy that it might remain here for another day or two and he could get to know the bar wench Glenda better, but he knew they wouldn’t stay here that long and he had already risked too much for this one night.

They ran to the tower and snuck back in. Once safely back in his quarters, Benen lay on his bed, feeling his many bruises and bumps. Nothing seemed broken. He sighed. It had been a good night, despite the beating and robbery at the end.

The boys had been good company while they drank and he had very much enjoyed the drinking and the numb silliness it induced. Above all, he had enjoyed meeting Glenda, even just looking at her. She was a plain girl, by most standards, but to him she had been the most wonderful, most feminine creature in the universe that night and he would have given much just to have had a chance to get to know her better, to hear what her hopes and dreams were. He was pleased that she had tried to warn him of his danger, for he had finally deciphered the note she had given him, thanks to hindsight.

Exhausted and happy, if beaten, Benen went to sleep. The next morning there was a spring in his step and a renewed desire to learn so that he could leave this bondage sooner rather than later.

CHAPTER 5: ACOLYTE

It was shortly after his escapade in the small village that the wizard began to step up Benen’s education. Some of the lessons had already been covered by Orafin and Benen showed himself quite quick to learn those. The wizard seemed impressed. Unfortunately, this meant he thought Benen quicker to learn than he really was, which resulted in him teaching new concepts at a faster pace.

“On the fourteenth of Spring, in Northern Osteria, at what time does the moon rise and set?” he quizzed Benen.

Benen had a a set of notes filled with astronomical information he could consult. Unfortunately, this required the use of a formula and he was not very good at math. He struggled through it and was only a bit wrong. The wizard was disappointed but not angry.

That night, Benen got Orafin to tutor him in mathematics, an area he knew less about than even magic. The rat and he were hard at work on this when the wizard was heard approaching by Orafin’s keen ears. He scuttled to a hiding place.

“Studying hard. I approve,” said the wizard when he arrived. Benen could only nod to his master, he had not been given permission to speak.

“Come boy, we’re going to do some practical work.”

Benen did not know what this meant. The wizard normally did not give lessons after supper. This was highly irregular.

Benen followed the wizard up to the highest of the towers and into the room at the very top. It turned out to be a large domed room with a roof that had a long narrow opening in it. It was designed so that the opening could be closed, like a clam closing its shell. In the centre of the room there was a large tubular device sitting on a platform connected through machinery to the contraptions controlling the roof.

The wizard directed Benen to a crank and instructed him to turn it until told otherwise. This, Benen did. As the crank turned — easier than Benen would have guessed — the roof and the tubular device turned in synchrony, pointing at different parts of the sky. When instructed by the wizard, Benen stopped cranking and flipped the lever indicated. Then he cranked again, as directed, and saw the tubular device angle upward. Eventually, the wizard was satisfied and told Benen to step away from the crank and come with him to the device at the centre of the room.

“This is a
telescope
, it allows you to see far away, boy,” the wizard told him. “It is a clever device built by the clever minds of the Southren; as is all this
machinery
— as they call it.” The foreign word sounded funny to Benen’s ears.

The wizard did some fine adjustments using dials and levers on the telescope until he was satisfied. Benen paid close attention to the use of the different parts the wizard tweaked. Then the wizard told Benen to look into what he called the eyepiece. Benen did so and saw: the moon!

He saw it like he’d never seen it before; it was so close! Close enough that he could not see it as a disk, the one area he was looking at took up the entirety of his view. And it was full of craters and holes. The moon was a black and white landscape of devastation; like a desert in the sky.

“Awful, isn’t it?” the wizard commented. Benen knew it was a rhetorical question, but he chose to interpret it as a proper question so that he could speak.

“It’s beautiful, not awful!” he told the wizard, who laughed.

“You misunderstand. Awful, as in full of awe. It is a usage of the word lost to those of your low birth,” the wizard clarified.

“Oh,” Benen said.

After the moon, the wizard showed Benen many of the stars from the most major constellations. This included the brightest star in the Parallels, which, when looked at with the telescope, was revealed to be two stars!

Benen pulled back from the telescope in surprise. The wizard laughed again, amused by Benen’s naivety.

“Yes, boy, there are two stars there,” the wizard said and nodded, indicating Benen could speak.

“But it’s one star in the constellation!” Benen objected.

“It is a binary star system,” corrected the wizard. “Two stars orbiting one another. You need to know this when you use the Parallels or you will not be holding the correct knowledge in your head while casting your spells. Such a discrepancy will harm you immensely.”

Benen would make sure to remember. He was enamoured of the telescope and was both surprised and pleased when the wizard gave him permission to use it whenever he had the free time.

“You need to get to know the heavens above if you are to be a wizard someday, boy,” the wizard provided by way of explanation. Along with the permission came the threat that should Benen break the telescope or its accompanying machinery, he would not live to regret it.

The wizard then provided the boy with a manual, written in Southren, on how to use the machinery and the telescope properly. He added to that an Estren-Southren dictionary.

“It will do you well to learn a new language. Starting tomorrow we speak Southren here,” pronounced the wizard.

Benen did not sleep that night. He went back to his rooms when the sun rose and spoke with Orafin, letting the rat know what had developed. Orafin started helping him with his Southren immediately.

“You’re in luck, Southren is related to our own Estren. Imagine if he’s said you needed to start learning Ikarish,” commented the rat.

Benen had never heard of that.

“What’s Ikarish?” he asked the rat.

“The language of the people of Ikara,” Orafin provided unhelpfully.

“Where is that? I’ve only ever heard of the four kingdoms. I thought the rest of the world was all ocean,” he said.

“Oh no,” said the rat. “The four kingdoms are just the fragments of one older kingdom and not even that big of a kingdom at that. The world is much bigger than you think, my young friend.”

The next lesson from the wizard was a blur of incomprehensible words to Benen. He had not grasped enough, in his few hours of learning Southren, to understand what was being said. He had learnt the phrase for “I do not understand” and used it extensively that day. To minimize the damage to his education, Benen wrote down as much as he could of what the wizard said, using phonetics when needed.

That night, using the dictionary, he pieced together what the wizard had been saying. He had noticed that many of the words were repeated while the wizard had talked and when he looked up the words he found that the wizard was playing with him. What the wizard had said the most was:

“Maybe tomorrow you’ll understand and it will be worth telling you something of interest.”

Benen was mostly just relieved that he hadn’t really missed a day of lessons from the wizard. Orafin and Benen worked hard that night to drive as much Southren into Benen’s brain as they could so that the next day would go better. They concentrated on the words most important to a magician, such as the words for constellations, stars, magic, spells, concentration, and the like.

The next day did go better. When the wizard asked him in Southren if he was ready for his lesson, Benen was able to answer in the affirmative in that tongue. The lesson wasn’t totally clear to Benen, but again, he wrote down problem words phonetically and looked them up that night. He also had a proper magic lesson from Orafin, in Southren as well, that night. He needed all the practise he could get.

After two weeks, Benen had mastered Southren and could operate the telescope apparatus adequately. He felt quite proud of himself and his progress. He was becoming a rather educated man, he thought.

The next day, the wizard commended him on his progress in Southren.

“You have a passable command of the tongue, boy,” the wizard said. Since this was a time where speech was allowed, Benen thanked his master.

“Seems to me you’re ready for Westren,” the wizard noted as he handed Benen a Westren-Southren dictionary. “This should help you learn both of the tongues. Tomorrow we speak Westren exclusively.”

Benen wanted to cry, but he held firm. He wouldn’t give the wizard the satisfaction of seeing the effect this was having on him. He went back to his rooms and complained — in Southren — to Orafin.

“It’s unfair!”

“That’s how he is,” said Orafin. “He’ll push you this way, distract you from learning magic and then crush you when he’s had all the pleasure and labour he needed from you.”

Benen resolved not to be crushed. He learnt Westren even faster than he had learnt Southren.

When his mastery was evident, the wizard commented on it.

“Your Westren is quite good, boy,” he said.

“Thank you, Master. Is it time for me to learn Northren then?” Benen anticipated the next logical step in the wizard’s designs.

The wizard smiled, not put off in the least.

“You already know Northren, boy, don’t be silly,” the wizard said.

“I do?” Benen was surprised. He knew he didn’t know any languages other than Estren, Southren and Westren.

“No, what’s next for you is the star encyclopedia,” said the wizard, ignoring Benen’s question and indicating one section of books in his study. He withdrew the first volume and handed it to Benen. “Memorize every datum on every star.”

That night, back with Orafin, Benen asked about Northren.

“The Northren speak Southren,” clarified Orafin.

“They do? Why? I mean, if we all used to be the same kingdom, why don’t we all speak the same language?”

“We’ve always had different dialects. When the kingdom fell apart, the dialects evolved into different languages. Northren used to exist, until the Southren conquered the Northren and forced them to use their language.”

“Oh. So Northren is Southren now?”

“Not exactly,” said the rat. “The conquest was generations ago and the Northren have regained independence since then. They still speak Southren though.”

“And this is just a small part of the world?” Benen asked.

“Oh yes. I’m not even from here,” Orafin confirmed.

“You’re not from Estren?”

“I’m not from Estren, Westren, Southren, or Northren,” clarified the rat.

“Where are you from then?”

“You’ll not have heard of it,” said the rat. “Let’s get on with your lessons.”

They focused then on Benen memorizing the stars in the first volume. Benen noticed that the rat knew them all by heart himself. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, given that Orafin had been the wizard’s apprentice before him, but still he was impressed he still remembered every bit of information in the first volume. The rat was a relentless quizzer and within a few weeks Benen had it by heart as well.

The wizard spent an entire lesson quizzing Benen to confirm his knowledge. Satisfied that the boy knew the information, the wizard gave him the next book of the encyclopedia of stars.

Benen and Orafin worked on that one for a few weeks. After that time, Benen thought himself ready and went before the wizard to be tested. He was quickly disabused of that notion: the wizard did not quiz solely from the newest volume, but also from the first. Although Benen remembered most of the first still, the information was not as fresh and he missed a few questions. The wizard was disappointed.