Journeyman (A Wizard's Life) (11 page)

Next, the other woman spoke up. “I killed my husband.”

Benen was surprised. “Just like that?”

“He beat me. I did what I had to.”

Benen nodded. The next person to speak was the man, Gar.

“Well, I killed someone too. It was a bar brawl and the guy was an asshole. I’d do it again.”

The last man was uncomfortable. He obviously didn’t want to say what he had done.

“You can return to the wasteland if you prefer,” Benen told the man.

This motivated the man to speak. “I, er, I assaulted a, uh, a priest.”

Benen almost laughed. “Why did you do it?”

“The church was seizing my land for non-payment. They were my landlord, you see. You’d think a church would have more sympathy for victims of a drought. I got angry, I guess.”

Benen decided he could tolerate these people. He didn’t even think their crimes worthy of the death penalty they had been handed — except maybe Gar’s.

“I can’t send you out there to die,” he told them and Benen felt a tension go out of the five upon hearing the words. “But I do not want anything to do with you either. You can live on the land and farm it. I’ll expand the fertile areas for you. The animals are yours, too. I will move my home up and into the sky. I will leave a place for you to leave your dues to me where my home currently is. It is your obligation to me to give me a share of the meat you butcher, the goods you make, the coins you earn, and the grain you grow. If this is not acceptable to you, you can go back to the wasteland.”

Benen knew what he was doing. He was setting up exactly what Tawn had set up with the village of Gronin. He was making himself the lord of these people and collecting taxes from them. It was what he needed to do in this case, he felt he had no choice. Only this way could he tolerate these people being in the oasis. This also freed him from more mundane concerns; he would now be able to do research all the time. He hoped he would not regret this arrangement.

The desperate group was more than happy to accept the terms, and Benen set to work immediately on establishing more fertile land for them to farm and creating for himself a floating tower high above his current home. That house, he turned into a storage place where his share was to be left. That night, Timmon told Benen that he had given a bit of a fright to an intruder the night before. Benen knew the ghost must have encountered Gar. He decided this might have been for the best. A man like Gar needed to be scared or he’d be aggressive.

For a time, this worked well, but more people wandered into the oasis from the desolation; other criminals who had managed to survive long enough to find Benen’s domain. Soon there were nine living under his tower, then, the year after, fourteen. This grew over the years until, when Benen checked on the area below, he found it inhabited by some sixty souls.

He formalized then the agreement between him and the now village. He drafted a document outlining their obligations toward Benen and his toward them and had their leaders sign it. He made a copy for them to keep and instructed them to show it to their descendants, lest they forget why the wizard is owed his due. It was then he found out the village had named itself Benen’s Oasis. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

To accommodate the added population, Benen expanded yet again the fertile area. He had to do so again, five years later.

All this population and expansion led to trade with Estren proper, and some prosperity for the villagers of Benen’s Oasis, which translated to wealth for the wizard himself; he was finally able to afford a complete full-sized golden body for Timmon.

He had the smith in the village order the gold and insure it, inflating the cost, and then melt it down so that Benen could add his blood to it. Once this was accomplished, he had the smith make the hollow statue he needed for Timmon. When it came to the face there were many revisions and adjustments the smith had to do since each night Benen showed it to Timmon and got feedback from him. Eventually the face was right and the body fully constructed.

Benen spent two weeks enchanting Timmon’s new body so that it could serve as his vessel. It was tiring and difficult work, but when it was completed, Benen felt as though a weight that had been on his shoulders for decades had been lifted.

He laughed with joy when he saw the golden man move for the first time.

“Are you in there Timmon?” he asked.

The statue waved and smiled. Timmon’s voice came from the man-form but not from its mouth. “It’s me!”

Timmon made a commotion when he went to the village below to run around to stretch his legs. He was a sensational and strange sight.

Despite his newfound freedom, Timmon decided to remain with the wizard.

“I’m not sure where I’d go, really,” he said. “Besides, I’d be stolen by the first bandits I would run into.”

Benen had to concede the point. He was glad his friend was staying; he found Timmon easy company, demanding very little.

When Benen reached his forty-fifth year, he realized he had best look into how to go about extending his life. He knew wizards did this, but the secret had never been shared with him. He wanted to go to a moot and meet other wizards so that he could discuss this and perhaps brag about his work with Timmon, but he did not know when or where one would be taking place next.

Benen decided he would seek out a wizard when he was fifty, if one did not happen to visit him. He knew he was easy to find, having a stable home far above a thriving village in the desolation.

As it turned out, a wizard did come to Benen’s Oasis, but she was not looking for Benen; she had come to demand a child from the villagers.

CHAPTER 5: WIZARD

Benen flew down from his tower in the sky and landed behind the woman. He had dropped down fast, slowing down only at the last minute. The other wizard knew of his arrival; there was no hiding the loss of power she would feel as he drew near and the two of them shared the local pool of magical energy, so he did not bother to land quietly.

She spun about and Benen saw her clearly. He was surprised to see that she was beautiful . . . and young. But then he took a second look and saw through her false appearance. Beneath the illusion she was a hag, an ancient woman with sparse stringy white hair and faded, wrinkled skin. Her eyes, when they met his, were a shocking contrast; they were a brilliant green and their gaze pierced him. It made him hesitate for a second.

She smiled and he saw her crooked teeth.

“Who in damnation are you?” she demanded.

“Go away, you have no business here,” he told the wizard.

“I do, and you had best not get in my way, you insignificant piece of offal.”

Benen was surprised by the aggression the wizard directed at him, but he was not about to back down.

“I am the wizard Benen and this is Benen’s Oasis, it is under my care and protection. You will leave this place now.”

“Not without the apprentice I came to fetch, I’m not.” She spat on the ground.

“I will take the apprentice myself and train them,” Benen declared.

“You’re no master!”

“Then I’ll find a master for the apprentice, but not you.”

Benen did not know why he felt so strongly that this woman should not be allowed to train the gifted child from Benen’s Oasis. Perhaps she seemed too much like Oster, and he would not wish his own apprenticeship on anyone.

“Go away, you gnat.” She turned back toward the village and started walking away from Benen. He knew he had to show this wizard that he could not be dismissed so easily.

If he was willing to fight to protect these people, now was the time do so.

Benen knew the wizard would have warded herself against magic she expected might be used against her, but he did not think that she would be ready for what he had in mind.

Calling upon the power of the Pinnacle, Benen cast a spell similar in purpose to telekinesis, but instead of targeting one single object, he picked up with his mind an entire dune’s worth of sand and gravel. He moved it at high speed so that the whole formed a whirlwind around the wizard, pelting her with the stones, scratching her with the grit, and blinding her with the sand.

She exclaimed in surprise, but regained her composure quickly. Ignoring the sandstorm around her, the wizard turned back to face Benen and incanted. He braced himself but nothing bad happened to him. Except that suddenly his spell had ended.

How did she do that?!
He was shocked. It was as if she had used the Cleaver against his spell and cut it apart, but he knew she could not have done that, he had specifically shielded himself and his magic against such attacks.

He tried to cast again, this time he used a fire spell to put a wall of flames around the interloper, but no matter what he did, he did not feel the power course through him and into the spell.

“Try as you might, little journeyman, you are done opposing me today.” She had an arrogant smirk on her face as she said this.

“What did you do?”

“A lady must keep her secrets.”

Left with nothing but his fists with which to oppose her, Benen leaped at the woman. She was so surprised by this physical assault that he managed to bloody her nose with his punches before she plucked him off her and into the air with her own telekinetic effect.

“I ought to kill you for that, you insufferable little prick!”

“Go ahead, I’ll haunt you, you witch, until you’ll regret having ever set foot in my domain!” Benen needed to keep her attention. He had seen a golden form approaching behind the wizard.

She laughed at the threat. It was a horrible high-pitched cackling.

“You really know nothing,” the wizard said when she finished laughing. “ If I choose to kill you with magic, you can be sure I’ll bind you and rend your soul until
you’ll
wish you were never born!”

Benen had never known such a thing was possible. He really needed to do more research, read more books — should he survive this. Timmon was now only a few metres behind the wizard. Benen saw him raise his arms high above his head, readying to hit her from behind. He
needed
to keep her attention.

“I don’t believe you, you’re a liar!” He put as much mocking and derision as he could into the statement.

The wizard’s face became a mask of rage. She started incanting, her arms moving in motions Benen recognized as Sun magic. As she cast the spell, she moved one of her arms so that it went above and behind her head where it hit the cold golden body of Timmon who had been about to bring down his own arms to hopefully stop the wizard’s casting.

“What the —!” she exclaimed and whirled around.

Timmon did bring down his arms then, smashing his fists into the wizard’s head, caving it in. The spell holding Benen up in the air ended abruptly and he fell to the ground.

“You killed her!” Benen got up and went to look to make sure, but there could be no doubt; the head was a crushed mess of brains and bone fragments.

“I didn’t mean to. She turned around at the last minute. Is it really bad?” Timmon’s golden face looked worried.

“I don’t know. I’m glad you stopped her from killing
me
, but I don’t know if other wizards will come looking for her now and, when they find out she was killed, if they’ll seek to avenge her.”

“But she won’t be a ghost like I was, right?”

“Oh. No. Well, I don’t think so. Although your body is a product of magic, I think her death at your hands is too indirect to be called death by magic . . . I hope.” Benen truly wasn’t sure at all and he dreaded the possibility of this hag haunting him. He had been lucky that Timmon had been so understanding, but he was sure the wizard would do all that was in her ghostly power to make his life a living torment should she come back as a ghost.

As he pondered this, the leader of the village came forward, stopping a few metres from Benen.

“Wizard?” he asked. “I would like to thank you and your . . . creature, for protecting us.”

Benen went up to the man. “I’m sorry, but this is just a small reprieve. If this wizard came here to take a child, it is because that child has the gift to do magic that all wizards possess. That child, if left untrained, will be a danger to itself and everyone around it. A master
will
have to come and find the gifted boy or girl and take them away to be trained. The best I can do is make sure the wizard who does this is one that is kind, one who will not torment his charge.”

“Is there no way
you
can train the child?”

“I am a mere journeyman, an apprentice needs a master. I would be doing the child a disservice if I tried to teach them.”

Benen reassured the man he would do his best for the child before returning to his tower in the sky; taking Timmon back with him.

He needed to contact a master wizard, someone who could tell him if there would be repercussions for the death of the hag. He had met a wizard in his first year as a journeyman who had told him of moots, the meetings where wizards gathered. He had missed that moot when events in his life had taken priority and, not knowing where or when the next ones were held, had given them no further thought. But now, this was exactly what he needed. He had to meet more wizards, learn more about their society, share their knowledge. At a moot he could do all this and more.