Journeyman (A Wizard's Life) (6 page)

He used the Cleaver, the magic he was most proficient with, and clipped the bird-creature’s wings. It plummeted from the sky. But as it did, he saw it change forms, becoming a snake-like creature and grasping a nearby branch to stop its fall.

It’s a shape shifter!? No . . .
Benen realized what it was then: a wizard.
That’s why my spells are weaker; we’re splitting the available magic.

“Stop! We don’t have to fight!” he yelled at the snake creature. It did not heed him. Slithering down the tree, it moved into position to attack Benen again. He bought himself some time by using magic tied to the Cleaver to bring down two trees between them. The snake climbed over these new obstacles with little difficulty, but it gave Benen enough time to cast the detection spell he needed.

This spell, like his healing magic, was tied to the moon. It allowed him to see the flows of magic. It was a visual representation and it was very confusing and complicated. He had worked hard during his apprenticeship to learn the art of reading the knots and whorls of spells and had a passing proficiency at this now. What he saw when he looked at the snake creature was a mess.

Its enchantments were sloppy, showing up as wavy lines instead of straight ones. These would have been extremely painful to cast and highly inefficient. All the spells he saw were shape-shifting effects.

Good. No wards against the Cleaver,
he thought.

The monstrous snake had nearly reached Benen by then, it was moving to grab him, no doubt to constrict the life out of him. He did not know why this wizard was doing this, but he was about to be stopped in his tracks.

Using the Cleaver again, Benen cut the magical workings he had seen operating on the creature, severing every line and knot. The moment he had begun cutting, the snake creature had howled a very human sounding scream of agony. It bulged in many places, spasms running through its length. Soon, human traits emerged from the snake. Human hands burst from one side of the creature, tearing the scaly hide apart to enlarge the hole. A human head emerged from this hole and the rest of the human shape followed it out of the snake. The remains of the snake body liquefied, leaving behind only a pool of ill-smelling ooze.

The human was still screaming.

Benen got a good look at the naked boy.

He can’t be much older than nine.

He walked over to the boy, approaching him carefully. When he looked into his eyes, they had a glassy, unfocused look to them. The boy was lost to the agony within him.

The moment Benen was within reach, the boy moved toward him, reaching out with his hands to claw at him and seeking to bite him.

This startled Benen and he recoiled, almost stumbling.
What is wrong with this kid?

He decided he could worry about that later and got out his knife.

When the boy next moved to come at him, Benen hit him over the head with the butt of his weapon. He had to do this three times before the boy lost consciousness.

Benen used Pinnacle magic again. He used a variant of telekinesis to make the boy nearly weightless and put him over his shoulder to carry him back to the village.

#

The villagers had been surprised and then happy that he had returned seemingly victorious, and had wanted to fete him to celebrate. But Benen had insisted the boy needed to be put into a cell and that he had to be present when the prisoner woke up. He feared the boy would change into something that could fit through the bars or bend them. The villagers relented and delayed the celebration to accommodate him; they were quite pleased and had become very friendly. Some were even calling him Lord Wizard and showing him more respect than they did to the Headman. The wives and young women of the village brought him meals while he watched over the boy; some surprised and embarrassed Benen by flirting with him. He was their hero and they wanted him to know how appreciated he was.

Benen, for his part, did not feel like a hero, not really. He didn’t know why this boy had been acting as he had and the mystery bothered him. Was he really responsible for all those deaths?

This question became important when the Headman visited the jail the night the boy was captured.

“He should be executed,” Pol told Benen. “The people will want his blood for what he has done.”

“But I’m not sure he was in control of himself.”

“Does it matter?”

“I think he’s a wizard. There’s something wrong with him.”

“You don’t want to be saying that, Benen, if you want to improve the reputation of wizards.”

“So what do we tell the people of the village he was then?”

“They’ve already decided he’s some sort of changeling from faerie.”

“Faeries don’t exist.”

“
They
don’t know that.”

“We can’t just kill him if it wasn’t his fault.”

“It might not be just, but to my fellow villagers it will be justice, and they need that.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking you, Benen.” Pol held the wizard’s eyes as he spoke. Benen knew he could save the boy’s life if he fought for him, here and now, but wasn’t sure if that was really the right thing to do. What if the boy woke up and was still a savage? He would have wasted all the good will of the village for nothing.

“Can you give me a chance to speak to the boy? If you must execute him, can you do it tomorrow?”

“Of course. We will execute him tomorrow. Will you be staying here overnight?”

“I must. I have to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone if he wakes.”

“I have not forgotten our wager, Benen.” The Headman handed Benen back his purse. “My daughters are anxious to have a chance to impress you.”

Benen was suddenly nervous about returning to the Headman’s house once this was all over. He had made the wager on impulse because he had thought the eldest daughter beautiful. Now he was not sure if he wanted to get married. He would worry about this later, he decided; at the moment he could could not think past this current crisis.

“After this mess is dealt with, it will be my pleasure to get properly acquainted with your daughters, sir.”

Pol departed and left Benen to his vigil.

He did not have to wait long for the captured boy to wake up. The moment he did, Benen saw him begin a new shape-shifting spell. He did it without any of the appropriate casting gestures or incantations, guaranteeing he would be severely harmed by his own spell. Worse, Benen could see that he was also not knowledgeable of the constellations involved; his magic was imprecise.

Using the same spell as he had in the forest, Benen cut the weaves apart. The boy showed no sign of noticing this, he was looking around his cell, confused.

“Where am I?” His voice was hoarse, his words hesitant.

“Stop casting spells,” Benen instructed him. He was still cutting apart continuous attempts at shape-shifting from the boy.

“Pardon?”

“You’re casting spells. Stop.”

The boy stared at him, uncomprehending.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” Benen asked him.

“No. Can I see my momma? I’ve had a bad nightmare.”

“Where do you live?”

“In the yellow house, beside the church.”

“I mean, what village or town?”

“Oh. That’s easy. Hewn.”

Benen knew of it. The boy had not strayed very far from home; Hewn was a day’s ride through the forest from this village.

“You’re not in Hewn anymore, boy. Can you tell me your nightmare?”

“Um, okay. I was sleeping, in the nightmare, and then there was all this pain and then I was a monster and then I was a different monster and I tried running from the pain, but the monster-me just wanted to break everything. I made the monster run away from where there were people. The monster still killed some people though. I couldn’t stop it.”

“I see,” Benen was still cutting the spells the boy was casting. It seemed he was completely unaware of both his own casting and Benen’s countering of it. “Do you know any wizards, boy?”

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “I do! How did you know?”

“That’s not important. Tell me about the wizard or wizards you know.”

“Well, a bad wizard came to our village and said he was taking an apprentice. He wanted to see all the kids. But while he was distracted, uncle Wert shot him with a bow! The wizard died just like anyone else and no kids were et.”

“Oh, no . . .” Benen knew then what was happening to the boy. He had the gift but had never received the training to control his power. His magic was expressing itself wildly, following his subconscious whims.

The pain of casting like that must have driven the kid mad for a time
, thought Benen.
The people from his village thought they were doing a good thing in killing the wizard and protecting their kids, but they doomed this boy.

Benen wished he knew a way to burn out the ability to do magic in this kid, then it might be safe to let him loose. As it was, Benen was constantly having to cancel the boy’s spells. If he stopped, the boy would shape-shift, escape, and most likely kill again.

“What’s your name, boy?” Benen asked.

“Kit,” the boy said.

“I’m sorry, Kit.”

Benen approached the cell bars and reached through them to hug the boy. Kit hugged him back, crying against him. Benen used his knife behind the boy’s back to end Kit’s life as quickly and painlessly as he could.

When the Headman came to get the boy in the morning, he saw what Benen had done.

“So that’s that, then,” he said to the wizard, who looked haggard, sitting on the ground and leaning against the bars.

“Do what you want to the boy now, Headman. All that’s left here is a shell.”

Benen could not watch the Headman and his men take away the body.

If my own village had resisted Oster, I would have suffered a fate very much like Kit’s.
It was a sobering thought.

He stayed inside while the people of the village celebrated the defeat of the threat that had taken so many of their own. Benen could not blame them, they had lost family and friends to the
monster,
but he could not join them
.
The villagers could not feel sympathy for Kit, but Benen could. He could see both sides and wept.

When he heard the celebrations winding down, Benen pulled himself together and left the building. The few celebrants still in the village square cheered for him and took up a chant: “Wizard! Wizard! Wizard!”

He was a hero to them; Benen tried to take comfort in the fact that Kit had not died for nothing.

CHAPTER 3: HUSBAND

The day after the celebrations, Benen made arrangements with the headman to meet his three daughters again, this time individually.

The first to be presented to him was the eldest daughter, the one that had so caught his eye with her beauty that first time he had met the sisters. She was as beautiful as he remembered, and now that she was not afraid of the strange wizard, she displayed poise and grace. Watching her move as she entered the room was mesmerizing.

The sitting room the headman lent Benen had been re-arranged so as to have two armchairs facing one another, to facilitate the discussion. Benen motioned for the eldest daughter to take the seat opposite him.

“Brenia, correct?” he asked.

“Yes, my Lord Wizard.” She had a rich smooth voice.

“Benen is fine. Tell me, Brenia, do you
want
to be my wife? Is that something that would please you?”

“Yes, Benen, it would please me very much.” She looked him in the eye when she spoke and her full lips smiled at him. Benen had never held the interest of a woman before; her attention made him feel nervous and giddy at the same time.

“How do you see our life together? What is it like?”

“I imagine we would move to a city, or the capital, and join the elite. There would be balls and dancing. I would manage your household and make sure the servants know not to bother you while you work.” She paused and then reached across the distance between them to place her hand on Benen’s knee. “I would make sure all your needs are met.”

Benen blushed. If he had not committed to meeting the other two sisters before making his decision, he would have made his choice then and there. He wanted this woman to be his. But that would not be fair to her sisters, so he smiled back at her and composed himself.

“Thank you, Brenia. I, uh, should meet your other sisters before making my decision. But I can tell you now that you have made a very favourable impression.”

Brenia leaned forward and gave Benen a kiss on his cheek before departing. Benen took a few moments by himself to regain his composure before calling for the next sister.

Pol’s middle daughter came in and took the seat Brenia had previously occupied. She was plainer than her elder sister, but still quite pretty. She smiled at Benen, but her smile did not have her sister’s intensity.

“Hello Dania.”