 
# **Contents**

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1: Villager

Chapter 2: Scullion

Chapter 3: Neophyte

Chapter 4: Adolescent

Chapter 5: Acolyte

Chapter 6: Upstart

Epilogue: Journeyman-At-Large

Keep Reading

Connect with the Author

About the Author

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APPRENTICE

BOOK 1: A WIZARD'S LIFE

ERIC GUINDON

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Text copyright ©2013 Eric Guindon  
All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

**Chapter 1: Villager**

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Benen knew something was wrong when he heard the hard edge in his sister's voice. She was ordering all the little ones back to their own houses.

"Run home now," she urged them. She tried to sound calm, but he knew her too well; her voice was tense and high-pitched from the near-panic she was holding back.

Benen and the other young children were in his sister's charge during the day while their parents worked. They knew and trusted Esren and responded to her orders as swiftly as children under ten could, but each of them needed to find their things before leaving. Esren had to help them to get this done as quickly as possible. When the last of the other kids was gone, she turned to Benen. His worry must have shown on his face because she paused and knelt down in front of him.

"It's all right, little Benny," she said as she hugged him, "you just have to go hide for a bit, like hide and seek."

It was obvious to Benen that things weren't all right at all, but he could also tell Esren was trying to seem calm for his benefit. He smiled and nodded for _her_ benefit and took her hand when she offered it. She led him to the room past the kitchen where the family stored their food. Once there, she let go of his hand and applied her slight frame to the task of pushing the barrel of water kept there. She managed, with no small amount of grunting, to shift it enough to expose a wooden trap door set in the floor below it. Benen had never known the thing was there. The house's floor was built directly onto the ground with no foundation; he hadn't known it possessed a cellar. Esren opened the trap and motioned for him to go into the hole beneath it. He peered dubiously at the unlit darkness the trap's opening had revealed and took a step back.

"You have to go in, Benny," Esren insisted. She took two strides toward him and grabbed Benen by the hand. She pulled to get him to come with her back to the hole in the floor. Benen didn't want to go into the hole and resisted, but she was bigger and stronger than he was and won the contest. Having no other recourse left to him, Benen started crying. Esren shushed him and hugged him again until he quieted a bit. He relaxed in her embrace. He felt maybe she had changed her mind, but then she suddenly put him bodily into the hole. He reached out to grab hold of Esren, but all he managed to grab was a rung of the ladder in front of him in the hole. She had let go of him and Benen tried to scramble back up the ladder, afraid of the darkness below him. But then he felt Esren's hand pushing down on his head.

"Stop it!" he yelled at her.

She shoved one more time and her strength overcame his white-knuckled grip on the rung. As he fell, he saw the square of light above disappear; Esren had closed the trap.

Benen landed on his back, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Next, his head hit the ground, causing his vision to fill with stars for a few moments. He struggled to get his breath back, sobbing uncontrollably. He knew he was panicking and needed to get himself under control. He focused on his anger at Esren for shoving him down in this cellar and managed to stop crying.

He took a few very deep breaths and found that although his back hurt, it didn't seem like anything was broken. If something had been, he'd have expected agony in his back. He tried to move his various parts and everything seemed to respond. He tried sitting up, but his back was stiff and painful. Instead, he rolled onto his belly and from that position onto all fours. This stretched his back out and helped to dispel some of the pain there. He finally managed to get to his feet.

Benen decided he mustn't have fallen far. The fall didn't seem to have lasted long. His lack of injuries also confirmed this assumption. He looked around and saw that the cellar was not in total darkness; some light came through cracks between the planks that made up the kitchen floor above. It wasn't much illumination, but with his eyes now accustomed to the dark, he could make out some of the room's features; not that there was much to see. The entire place was one large room, perhaps ten meters on its longest side, four meters on its shortest. Its main feature was the ladder up to the trap door in the ceiling. Benen had heard his sister put the water barrel back over the trap, so he didn't bother climbing the ladder to check it. Instead he moved to the far end of the room and examined a patch of extra-deep darkness he had noticed there.

Upon closer inspection, he found the cause of this deeper darkness was a hole. It looked to have been deliberately dug as a sort of tunnel. It wasn't very big but neither was Benen. An adult could probably have fit into it if they crawled on their belly. Benen was able to walk in it so long as he bent nearly double. He had no certainty the tunnel led anywhere interesting and he hesitated to leave the supposed safety of the cellar. Esren had seemed very concerned for him and desperate to get him to hide there. If he followed the tunnel and got outside, would he be in danger? He didn't know. He did know that staying in the cellar was boring though.

His hesitation only lasted a few minutes as Benen was quickly bored of the cellar room and the allure of the unknown tunnel grew to overcome what doubts he had about leaving the cellar.

_If the tunnel leads outside, I'll just make sure to hide out there,_ he told himself as he bent down and entered the tunnel.

The tunnel, it turned out, was longer than Benen had expected. This was unfortunate, for the darkness combined with the closeness of the tunnel walls and the earthy smell that pervaded the whole made him feel like he was buried alive. He'd never suffered from claustrophobia before, but he had never been trapped in a small underground space before either. He took deep breaths to keep himself from panicking, but found that this accentuated the smell of earth and made him even more panicked. He instead hustled along the corridor faster, taking less and less care with what lay ahead, moving recklessly down the passage. He found the end of the tunnel quite suddenly when he ran into the wooden barrier that lay at its end. He hadn't been moving terribly fast in the dark, but fast enough that when he hit the wall, his nose bled. He cursed with words his sister would have spanked his bottom raw for if she had heard him and fumbled for a handkerchief he knew should be in his back pocket; it wasn't. He remembered that it was dirty and he'd put it into the laundry. He used his shirt to sop up the flow from his nose. He knew his father would beat him for ruining it, but that was a concern for later. His nose taken care of, he reached out and touched the barrier that had stopped him. It felt like a wooden plank wall wedged into the dirt of the tunnel on all sides. No light came through it.

Benen tried pushing with all his measly might, but the wall didn't budge. He wondered if this was simply the end of the tunnel, leading nowhere at all. He beat his fists against the wall in frustration to no avail other than to perhaps vent some of his frustration. He didn't want to just go back to the cellar and wait to be let out. He'd have ruined his shirt for nothing!

He worked at removing dirt from around one edge of the wooden barrier and found that it wasn't in the wall of the tunnel very much further than two or three centimetres. He cleared the dirt from the right side of the barrier and then from the top and bottom. This done, he grabbed at the right edge and pulled the barrier. It moved!

Not a lot, but it moved. He could see some light now, coming through the gap he had created. He cleared some of the dirt the movement had piled up along the bottom edge and then pulled again. Again, the barrier moved. Benen felt a mad grin form on his face. The light and fresh air coming through the gap were intoxicating. By this point he was able to position himself with his feet against the tunnel wall and pull with all his strength to widen the gap enough to make his exit. He moved past the barrier and found himself on the side of a gentle slope. He knew this place; it was not far behind the family home. He looked back at the tunnel and saw the barrier was buried under dirt on this side. No wonder he hadn't been able to push it out!

Benen guessed the cellar and tunnel were precautions taken years ago by his great-grand-father, who had built the house. The cellar could be used as a place to hide and the tunnel prevented the hiding place from becoming a trap. The exit was probably deliberately buried by the builder. His sister had likely not expected him to find the tunnel and use it, or possibly did not even know of it. Still, he knew there must be some danger if she had sent all the kids home and hidden him in the cellar, so he resolved to be careful in his investigation. He had no intention of just hiding; his curiosity was just too great.

The small village of Oster's Gift was rarely preyed upon by raiders or bandits, so this disturbance was very unusual. Nothing like it had ever happened in Benen's admittedly short life. He started to make his way back toward the village, being sure to hide himself from view as he went.

_It won't be bandits_ , he thought to himself, _there wouldn't have been any warning if it had been bandits. There would be noise too if we were under attack. Screams of panic at least!_

He crept along, moving from hiding space to hiding space as stealthily as he could, finally making his way to the back of the grain storage building. Benen knew it lay near the village square and that standing on top of it he could see and hear what happened in the square below. Even better, it commanded a view like no other building so centrally located. He had been to the roof of the building before, while playing hide and seek with other kids from the village. No one had found him. He had been rather proud of himself for finding such a good hiding place until he had come down and been scolded for using such a dangerous place to reach. His mother yelled at him not to climb buildings, ever. His father told Benen to mind his mother and took Benen over his knee. His father dealt him the five slaps commonly doled out to the boys who misbehaved in a minor way. This memory did cause Benen a tiny bit of hesitation as he stood ready to climb.

_How will Dada punish me for this,_ he wondered, _if I get caught?_

Benen decided he'd best not get caught. When Benen was caught having eaten a whole pie his mother made and left to cool while she went to the neighbour's to visit, he had received ten blows from his father's belt. He had scars from the deep cuts in his bum cheeks he received. He pushed thoughts of getting caught out of his mind and started his climb.

The building had a sturdy drainage pipe that made the climb quite easy for someone his age and size, and in minutes he found himself standing on the roof of the grain storage building. He went onto his belly and crawled to the edge of the roof overlooking the square.

From this vantage point, he could see a large crowd of the grown and nearly-grown men standing in a group together. Each of them held some sort of implement that could be used as a weapon. They were facing off against a single figure. The person was unfamiliar to Benen but he immediately recognized what he was; the village was being visited by a Wizard!

The stranger had many of the traits Benen had learnt about wizards from the stories Mama and Esren told him before bedtime. In the stories, the wizards were always bad people who schemed endlessly to get what they wanted from the poor hard-working folk. The wizards were parasites who would come and steal virgins when they came of age and take them back to their towers, never to be seen again. They were larger-than-life figures, with long white beards, large bulbous noses, tall pointed hats, and elaborate robes decorated with arcane symbols. Although the man below had some of those recognizable traits, he did not live up to the image of a storybook wizard Benen had in his mind.

For one thing, his robes were a drab olive colour, devoid of ornamentation and covered in what looked to Benen to be old food and grease stains. Further, he was hatless, leaving his bald head exposed to the sun. His beard, although long and white, was ratty and matted, and also seemed to contain traces of previous meals. He was almost a pathetic figure; almost, but not quite. There was an aura of confidence around this elderly man that radiated from him and implied a surety in his power. Also, the way the crowd of armed men from the village kept their distance from him and treated him with fear and distrustful respect spoke of the man's dangerous potential; or at least, of the men's belief in the stranger's power.

Benen strained to listen to their discussion.

"You will give me what is mine without further delay," the wizard said, his voice filled with menace. Benen found his accent strange. He spoke with harsh intonations foreign to his ear. He'd heard strange accents before from travelling peddlers, but nothing like what the wizard sounded like.

"Wizard, you own nothing here and are due nothing. Depart and visit us no more," this bravado from the village's leader, Alden Smith. Smith was the only man in the village to own a real weapon, a sword, and he held it before him, pointing it at the wizard across the ten feet separating them.

Old Urgest, the village's oldest man, moved to put his hand on Smith's arm. "Now, Alden, don't be saying anything rash," he counselled.

"This leech lives off our labour and has the nerve to come here and demand to see our children?" Smith retorted.

"I ask for what is mine to take! If you think me a leech, perhaps I should see to it you experience what being an actual leech is like," the wizard spoke the words with anger.

"Apologize," Old Urgest implored Smith. Smith's face was stubborn, but his out-held sword-arm wavered and lowered.

"Now, stop this foolishness and bring out your children aged six to nine summers old," the wizard demanded.

"No!" it was almost a chorus; the men said it automatically and spontaneously.

Benen saw the wizard's fingers move and from his mouth came sounds almost inhuman. The crowd of men noticed this also and recoiled in fear. Benen saw on his father's face a look of terror so naked it chilled him like nothing ever had before. For the first time, he understood there was real danger in this situation.

The tension built as the wizard continued to intone the strange syllables. The men were rooted where they stood by their fear, not moving, as though this might spare them from whatever the wizard intended. The wizard's incantation built to a crescendo and then suddenly stopped with a harshly intoned word that sounded like _Gildrum_ to Benen's ear. The men had cringed at the completion of the spell and remained this way for moments afterwards.

Nothing happened.

Benen heard a horrible cackling laughter coming from the wizard. The men below Benen resumed more normal stances, their anger at being made fools of overcoming their fear. Some of them made warding signs against evil. Benen knew such signs were useless; he had tried them repeatedly against the annoying Smith girl, who insisted on holding his hand and kissing his cheek, without effect.

"Now, fools, before I truly lose patience with you, bring the children I demanded," the wizard said with menace.

There was still hesitation and murmured discussion among the gathered men. As this dragged on, the wizard spoke again:

"If you do not disperse to bring me the children immediately, the next spell I cast will be real and will rob each of you of your manhood. Now move!"

This threat sunk into even the slowest of the men and the crowd dispersed in different directions, each heading toward one of the village's households. They all seemed resigned to bend before this interloping greater power, like one bends before the power of a tornado or earthquake.

It took a few moments for Benen to realize that he was part of the group of children the wizard demanded. Benen had completed his seventh summer two weeks ago. He was his father's only child within the requested age range. He wondered where his father had gone. Would he be mad when he found out Benen had left the cellar? He resolved to show himself and take his lumps when his father returned. Benen moved away from the building's edge and made his way back to the ground. Careful to be quiet, he snuck around the building and looked out to the square from his new location. It was less hidden, but it allowed him to reveal himself more easily.

Soon the men returned with children in tow. It took some time for all of them to return, but they eventually all did so. Those who did not have children of the appropriate age had helped those that did. The moment the children saw the wizard they reacted badly. Many of them screamed in fear and most cried. Some tried to run away, but were held fast by their fathers or other men of the village.

"Please don't feed me to the wizard, Dada!" screamed the Smith girl. Immediately, the other children began to echo her pleas to their own parents. The square was filled with shrill cacophony.

Benen saw the wizard move his hands subtly and precisely. He could hear nothing other than the screaming, but he saw the wizard's lips were moving. No one else seemed to notice his actions until they bore fruit. Within moments, the first of the children suffered the effects of his wizardry.

Before the eyes of their parents, the children's lips melded together, their mouths disappearing behind featureless smooth flesh. Benen decided he wouldn't reveal himself after all; no matter what, he would stay hidden. This wizard was an awful creature! A terrible fear now gripped Benen's heart.

"That's better," said the wizard into the new silence.

The gathered adults turned from their children to face the wizard again, anger writ plain on their faces. Some of them brandished their weapons aggressively once more. Seeing this, the wizard held out his hands theatrically at his sides, fingers crooked for spell-casting. His expression changed from that of mild amusement it had been wearing to one filled with menace.

"You saw what I just did. Don't let your stupidity drive you to do something I'll make you regret," he said coldly.

They set their weapons aside, but the eyes of the men held simmering anger that only waited for a viable avenue through which to express itself. For the moment, the men turned their attentions to their distressed children, comforting their crying and confused charges. The wizard lowered his arms and visibly relaxed.

"Bring the children to me one at a time," he commanded. No one moved to bring their child forward.

"Now!" the wizard said with such force many of the men startled. Benen watched as Joreg, a farmer who had helped Benen's family at harvest time in particularly good years, brought forward his son Firil. Firil resisted his father, but the bigger man had no trouble hauling him to stand before the wizard. The wizard looked Firil up and down, as though appraising a horse offered at discount.

"He is the right age," the wizard said. He moved to grasp the child's hand, but Firil flinched away. The wizard looked him in the eyes and held out his hand, keeping it there in front of the boy. The wizard's glare held his eyes and, after some moments, the boy, trembling, reached out to grasp the wizard's out-held hand. The wizard made a dismissive gesture with his other hand and Firil's lips reformed in their usual place. He let out a small scream of surprise until his father shook him slightly.

"Now, boy, look up to the sky above. What do you see? Anything unusual?" the wizard asked of Firil.

"N-n-n-no. Na-na-nothing unusual," Firil said after a moment of looking at the cloudy sky. "Please don't eat me." Firil shrank from the wizard as much as he could without reclaiming his hand.

"No points of light?" the wizard prompted further.

"N-no, y-your wizardness, nothing but clouds and sky." The wizard let go the boy's hand and motioned for the father and son to move to the side.

"See?" he addressed the crowd of distressed children and parents. "This is all I ask to do. Now, bring them forth swiftly and we can get this over with." The process went more smoothly thereafter. The parents and children, comforted that no harm was coming to anyone, complied with the wizard's directions.

Benen watched as the wizard repeated the same steps with each child. Each time, the child reported seeing nothing extraordinary in the sky and each time the wizard motioned the father and child aside.

The last child brought forward was the Smith's girl. With her, the wizard persisted in asking over and over if she saw anything above. He grew more intense with each denial. After a time, his patience exhausted, the wizard motioned her aside like the others.

"Useless!" he screamed at them. "Why do you waste my time?" he demanded of the crowd.

The men and children were confused. Smith stepped forward.

"We've done what you asked, Wizard. Now go!"

The wizard's face darkened with even more anger.

"Do not forget your place, simpleton!"

"Have we not done everything you asked?" the smith retorted.

The wizard stared into the smith's eyes for a moment and then a smile appeared on his lips.

"Have you?" the wizard asked, speaking to himself. "Let's see . . . ."

He began casting again.

The wizard's chanting echoed oddly to Benen's ears. The incantations had thus far been incomprehensible to him but this time, the echoes made sounds that were intelligible; they said _come to me._ The moment the words made sense to him, he needed to obey them. The need was not overpowering at first, but the longer he resisted the call, the stronger his need became until, inevitably, his legs started walking him away from the building he had been hiding behind and out into the open. He tried to stop himself with all his will, but the magic was stronger than he was. His face reddened from his efforts. Eventually, he found himself standing in front of the wizard and still the call to _come to me_ echoed in his head. The wizard was still chanting.

Benen was now able to control his own body again, so long as he did not try to move away from the wizard. He turned and looked around. His father, the other adults, and even the other children watched him with sympathy. He saw some turn to look toward the southern part of the village. Benen followed their gaze and saw little Edvir Cooper coming toward the wizard from that direction. Edvir moved like a puppet from the shows the travelling folk put on when they come to the village. His entire posture was at odds with the movements he was making. The effect was repellent.

_I must have looked like that too_ , thought Benen uncomfortably.

Soon, Edvir stood beside him in front of the wizard. The chanting stopped suddenly and the wizard snatched a hand from each of the boys, holding them there before him.

"You thought you could hide from me?" the wizard asked. He seemed to be asking the crowd as much as the two boys themselves. "If you like tricks, you'll love my reward for you."

"Please don't hurt my boy," pleaded Adgur the cooper, Edvir's father.

"We'll see if I hurt your boy, the other boy, or both boys soon enough," the wizard said ominously. "Boys, look to the sky above and tell me what you see."

The two looked up. Benen was surprised that he could see the stars. Well, not quite the stars. What he saw were points of light in the same arrangements as the nighttime constellations.

_Wait, that's not right either_ , he thought. _Those are the wrong constellations for this time of year._ It was daytime though, and he did not know what constellations _should_ be present in the sky.

Benen focused on the point of light that served to show north. It was always in the sky.

"Well, what did you see?" demanded the wizard.

Edvir looked puzzled. "I saw the usual m'lord: sky and clouds."

"Useless," spat the wizard. "You?" he looked to Benen.

Benen didn't know what he should say. Should he lie? He didn't want to anger the wizard further, but perhaps the wizard had been looking for a child to see exactly what Benen had seen. Maybe he only liked to eat the children who saw stars. Benen didn't remember anything like that from the stories, but who knew the true motives of wizards?

"I see, er, stars, I guess . . ." he said at last. He'd resolved to tell the truth. He feared that if he lied, the wizard would know and take it out on the village folk.

"Oh?" the wizard looked at him with excitement dancing in his eyes. "Do you see constellations? Which ones?"

"Umm, well, a lot of them. I'm looking at Feldin's Cock right now," this was the name given to the constellation that was tipped by the north-pointing star.

"What?!" the wizard's face contorted in confusion. "That's not a constellation, stop playing games, boy."

"Is too!" Benen retorted. "It's the one with the north star at its tip!"

Realization dawned on the wizard's face.

"Do you see the one that is eight stars in a circle?" he asked Benen.

"The whore's girdle? No," Benen spoke before thinking. He was suddenly afraid that the wizard would be angry that he didn't see the expected constellation. He needn't have worried though, the wizard smiled the broadest smile Benen had ever seen; it showed the his rotten and crooked teeth quite plainly.

"Perfect. It's not in the sky at all right now," said the wizard. He turned to the others gathered in the square. "I have found what I was looking for. I'm taking this boy, he will be my apprentice."

"No!" screamed Benen's father. He was restrained from rushing to grab his son, or worse, hitting the wizard, by his fellow villagers.

"This is an honour for the boy," said the wizard.

"He's my son! You can't just take him."

"In fact, I can," corrected the wizard. "It is my right."

"It's your right because we can't stop you," muttered Smith, just low enough the wizard might not have heard.

If he did hear, he let it pass. Benen didn't know what to do or say. He didn't want to be apprentice to this wizard, but he feared if he tried to refuse, others would be hurt. Worse, he himself might be hurt.

"It is settled then," said the wizard as though an agreement had been reached. "I will take the boy with me now. He will not need to take any of his previous possessions. I am so pleased to have found a suitable candidate that you can be assured I will not seek further retribution against your village for having defied me today."

The wizard smiled magnanimously at the crowd of angry men. He kept the smile on his face for a second or two then let it fall when he saw the stony looks on the faces of his audience. After letting go of the squirming Cooper's boy, the wizard turned about, still holding Benen's hand, and started walking out of the village.

Behind him, Benen could hear the whispered conference between the men of the village as they discussed what to do about his abduction. He felt the wizard tense through his grasp on his hand, when Benen's father demanded the others let him go run the wizard through and get his son back. Unfortunately, Benen then heard the other villagers argue that it was no use. The wizard would not be harmed so easily and his anger would surely doom the village.

"Better to consider the boy dead, Vellen," counselled Urgest. "He died in service to the village."

Benen sobbed when he heard his father grudgingly agree.

When this decision had been made, the wizard increased the pace of his walking.

"You were listening to them, weren't you?" Benen asked the wizard. The bearded face turned toward him.

"Master," the wizard said to him.

"I'm sorry?"

"You will address me as Master and you shall not talk to me unless I have first spoken to you. This is your first lesson."

"Is that really the first thing you teach about wizardry?"

The wizard's brows came together and a wicked smile came upon his face. By this time, they had walked far enough to be out of any villager's line of sight. The wizard stopped walking and turned upon Benen, looming over him menacingly.

"No. You're right. _This_ will be the true beginning of your education in wizardry, boy."

Using only one hand to make arcane gestures, the wizard intoned more of the syllables Benen was beginning to recognize as parts of magical incantations. The wizard's other hand was holding onto Benen's arm, preventing him from running away. Benen could feel a strange sort of tingling through this contact; it made his hair stand on end.

When the wizard had done with his casting, he smiled again, quite broadly.

"Lesson one, my apprentice, is that a wizard can use a single hand to perform magic if there is need. It is more difficult, but manageable to experienced wizards. Even more difficult is casting with no hands, but it is still possible to do."

"What was the spell you cast?" Benen asked. Immediately after the words were out of his mouth, Benen started hearing them echo again and again, rising in pitch and intensity until he felt his ears would burst and his head explode. He screamed involuntarily at the pain. When it reached its peak, a minute later, it began to recede. Benen was left panting, his head aching.

"I think that answered your question," said the wizard smugly. "Remember: address me as Master and no talking unless I have given you leave."

Benen almost said _Yes, Master_ but stopped himself in time. The wizard smiled again.

"Maybe you _can_ learn. Come along now, my home is some distance away." The wizard let go of Benen's hand then and instructed him to follow until told otherwise. Benen did as the wizard asked. He suspected the spell did more than just punish him when he spoke out of turn. He feared what it would do to him if he disobeyed a direct order like this one.

**Chapter 2: Scullion**

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The walk to the wizard's abode was long enough they had to camp overnight. When it came time to stop, the wizard looked up to the sky and stared at it for a few seconds before nodding with satisfaction.

"Boy, find some wood and bring it back here. Enough for a fire to last the night. Do not stray and come back here without delay. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," Benen replied, as he must. He left the meadow and searched for dead fall in the brush and light forest nearby. He gathered his findings in a big pile central to his search area. As he was carrying his latest armful back to his pile, he heard a howl in the distance. It startled him so that he dropped the load and stood frozen in place.

_I have no weapon to protect myself_ , he thought. Then he realized that even with a weapon, he wasn't trained to fight and he was a small seven year old; what could he do against a wolf or worse?

Having worked this logic out in his head, Benen decided he needed to get back to the wizard. He loaded his arms with wood from his pile and made his way back to the meadow as fast as he could.

Looking back to make sure nothing was following him proved to be a mistake: there _was_ something behind him!

From the darkness in the near distance he saw the faint glimmer of moonlight reflecting on animal eyes — eyes looking at him.

He hurried and his rushing made him lose, bit by bit, his load of kindling and branches. He didn't care though, he didn't want to be eaten. As the last of his load fell from his arms and he broke into a full out run, he heard a deep growl much closer behind him than he cared to think about. His panic made him reckless and he tripped on a root, falling face first into the soft carpet of dead leaves on the ground.

Benen stayed down, putting his hands over his head and hoping whatever it was that was coming for him would overlook him there if he kept quiet and still. He heard soft padding footfalls nearby, barely causing the leaves to crinkle. The sounds came closer until they were coming from directly beside Benen. He heard breathing, like the panting of an animal having exerted itself.

_O Mysterious Creator, I wish I'd paid more attention at church so I could pray to you properly,_ Benen prayed in his head. _I meant to, I swear! I was just always distracted and church is so boring . . . ._

He might have continued praying in this vein, heading deeper into blasphemy, if a voice hadn't spoken from directly beside and above him.

"Boy? Would you please explain to me what you're doing?"

It was the wizard! Benen looked up and saw no sign of the beast. What he did see was the wizard. More of the wizard than he could possibly have ever wanted to see. The wizard was naked!

The old man's naked body was not a pleasant sight. The skin that was usually hidden under robes was slug-white, except in the many places where the wizard had red blemishes and pimples. His penis was a tiny shrunken thing, all wrinkles and dirt, sitting in the middle of his large unruly mat of pubic hair. Benen averted his eyes after that, feeling he'd overstepped by even gazing upon the wizard's naked form.

"You think I look poorly don't you, Boy? That I look old and withered and unwell. See if you look half so good when you're over eight centuries old."

_More than 800 years old?!_ Benen's first thought was that the wizard was lying, but having seen what wizards can do, he was uncertain where the truth lay.

"Get up Boy!" the wizard said. "Go and get the wood where you dropped it in your foolishness and let's return to the camp. I'm famished."

"But, the . . . ." Benen wasn't sure what to call the beast. What he had seen was most like a wolf, but over-sized. He settled for pointing back the way he had come.

"What?!" The wizard demanded.

"There's a wolf, Master, but not a normal wolf," the spell over Benen brought out the words.

The wizard rolled his eyes. He muttered an incantation he had evidently practised many times; he said it much faster and more fluently than any of the other spells Benen had seen him perform. The wizard finished the incantation and then stood as if expecting an attack, tense and ready to react to anything.

Benen jumped back from the wizard suddenly, when he saw, moving under the skin of the wizard's belly, what he thought was the shape of large wolf's head. The shape moved within the soft skin of the belly and made its way up the wizard's body, deforming it as it went, bending it out of shape. When the head moved past ribs, the ribs broke and the wizard screamed in agony. He fell to the ground and began convulsing. The wolf's head made it to his neck and came out beside his real head. The howl of the wizard's pain mingled with that of the released wolf's head.

Benen scrambled to find a branch he could use to defend himself, all the while keeping an eye on his master's death-throes.

_Did he try to summon it? Did the spell backfire?_ Benen wondered. He thought he'd probably never find out.

As he watched, the wolf head crushed the wizard's in its jaws and began ripping and tearing at the wizard's remaining human form. Where flesh was removed, wolf was revealed until only wolf remained. There was gore everywhere around the wolfish shape.

It looked like a wolf, only too large. It stood three feet at the shoulders. The head had grown once freed from the constraints of the wizard's body, and the wolf that came out of the wizard similarly also became much larger as it shed its human prison. It looked at Benen, standing over him. He felt silly with his little branch held before him menacingly.

The wolf did not attack him though; the next thing Benen saw it do was something he'd never imagined a wolf could do: it laughed at him. It was half-way between whining and spastic barking, but Benen was sure it was laughter. He did not understand what was going on.

The wolf continued laughing for a few more seconds, then used one of its paws to write characters on the ground. They were human characters!

Unfortunately Benen didn't know how to read. He'd seen writing and recognized this as exactly that, but he didn't know what the wolf was writing. When he looked at the writing uncomprehendingly, the wolf rolled its eyes. Just like his master had. The body language was the same.

"Master?" Benen asked uncertainly.

The wolf nodded.

Benen stared at the wolf who was his master. His jaw dropped.

_I might be a wizard like him someday. This could be me,_ he thought. Then he shuddered as he thought of the transformation he had just seen.

The wolf tossed its head toward Benen's abandoned firewood pile and growled impatiently at him. Benen hurried to gather the pieces of wood and run back to the meadow they had chosen as their camp site. The wolf hounded his steps, discouraging him from any dallying.

When Benen reached the campsite, he was surprised by the presence of a small wooden cottage, complete with thatched roof, filling the meadow. It had glass in its windows — more than many of the poor back in Oster's Gift could say — and a front door painted bright red. He stopped dead and dropped the wood when he saw it, causing the wolf behind him to bowl him over. When Benen got back up, the wizard was standing near him, the wolf gone once more.

"Damn you, Boy," the wizard said. "Can't you be amazed _and_ continue doing things at the same time? Useless!" The wizard walked away from Benen without waiting for a response and entered the cottage. Benen followed a minute later, firewood in hand.

The inside of the cottage contained a small wood stove — doing double duty as heating and cooking stove — a bed, a chest, and a desk. The floor was wooden planks, largely covered with a rug made from the pelt of some sort of giant white bear, or so Benen assumed. At a motion from the wizard, Benen put the firewood beside the stove and began to build a fire. He was rather inept at this and the wizard lost patience with him quickly.

"Step aside, Boy," he commanded. The wizard piled some wood into the stove willy-nilly, then muttered a very short incantation, punctuating it with a flick of his index finger toward the stove. The wood burst into flames instantly. "There," he said with satisfaction. Noticing that Benen was still disturbed by his nakedness, the wizard went to the chest and retrieved his clothing. He also brought out some jerky and a jar of water. "Make a soup of this, will you?" he said to the boy as he handed the items to him. He handed Benen a pot and kettle next, "boil some of the water for my tea too."

Benen was dying to ask the wizard where the cottage had come from. How could magic create all this from nothing? He was beginning to think it might not be so bad to be an apprentice to someone so powerful, but stopped when he realized that he would never be able to understand all this, he was too simple.

_The wizard should have gone looking for his apprentice in a city,_ he thought. _City folk go to school and know how to read._ _This will all be wasted on me._

At length, Benen managed to prepare the food and tea as best he could and they sat on the bed to eat, each at his own end of the bed, facing the other. After having had a few swallows of his tea, the wizard's mood changed, becoming more mellow than Benen had yet seen.

"This tea is the first thing you've done right that I've seen, boy," he said. Benen almost said _Thank you, Master_ but stopped himself. He would have suffered from the magic's retribution if he had and he didn't want to feel its power again.

The wizard nodded, as though he had seen these thoughts writ on Benen's face.

"You have many questions, I am sure," the wizard said. "Until we go to bed tonight, you can consider yourself to have the right to speak freely. I warn you though, do not waste my time with frivolous questions. This is your opportunity to prove to me you are smarter than my current appraisal of you says you are."

Afraid to ask a stupid question, Benen didn't know what to ask at all and simply said nothing for a time. The wizard sighed, rolling his eyes in what Benen was starting to understand was a signature sign of impatience in him.

"All right, you can ask even stupid questions, but after three of those I'll stop this experiment in information exchange and don't expect another opportunity like this again," the wizard said.

This loosened the boy's tongue.

"Why did you take me?" he asked.

"I needed an apprentice, not a stupid question, I guess, but a bit obvious," the wizard replied.

"I mean, why me?"

"Oh, well that's better," the wizard allowed. "You saw the stars, is why."

"But only because you were touching me, that wasn't my doing . . . ."

"It was _you_ who saw. None of the other urchins saw anything up there. You have the gift, boy, that's all there is to it. If there had been two of you with the gift, I'd have flipped a coin and you might still be heading to a life of cow farming." Benen didn't think that would have been so bad a thing. He had looked forward to working on the farm with his family. The magic scared him. In is head he equated it with fire. He'd been told off by his sister for poking sticks into the bonfire last time they had burned brush in the far field. She'd warned him that he might collapse the pile and the fire could hurt him. Magic looked even more dangerous than that.

"Do I have a choice? Can I go back to my family?"

"No. You're mine now. They will consider you dead if they have any sense."

Benen's heart was a battleground then between anger at the wizard and self-pity at the loss of his family. Anger won.

"Why? What right do you have?!" he demanded of the wizard, forgetting his fear.

The Wizard smiled indulgently.

"I own this land. Your village and the others within two day's ride are all on my land. I am your landlord and your settlement agreement specifies I get to pick an apprentice from the young once every two decades. You villagers should be thankful I've not claimed an apprentice before."

"That can't be. The village is older than you!"

The wizard shook his head.

"Think again, boy. I am over eight hundred years old."

"Lies! You're fifty at most."

The wizard backhanded Benen soundly and he found himself on the ground seeing stars before he knew what had happened.

"You go too far, boy," the wizard said mildly. "If I can promise you one thing, it is that I will never lie to you. I have no interest in doing so, and gain nothing from deceiving you."

Picking himself up from the ground, Benen used his shirt to staunch the bleeding from his nose. It didn't make the already blood-stained garment any dirtier.

He opened his mouth to ask another question but the wizard raised his hand and spoke first.

"No. We are done, boy. Eat and go to bed and bother me no more tonight. We leave at first light."

True to his word, the wizard made sure they were on their way again at first light. After waking Benen, he ordered him to pack up the cooking items back into the chest. While he did as ordered, Benen kept an eye on the wizard. He saw the old man look above the western horizon and nod to himself. Once Benen left the cottage, the wizard got him to close the door and step away from the building. This accomplished, he began casting a spell.

As the wizard chanted, Benen began to see a mist rise from the ground near the cottage and eventually from its roof and surfaces as well. This mist had an eerie green light dancing within it, making the whole a sickly green. Soon, all Benen could see was the mist and the light; the cottage had been swallowed up entirely. The moment the building was no longer visible, the wizard reached the end of his incantation and made a dismissing gesture with his right hand, moving it in a broad arc from his far left toward the right in one swift movement. The mist obeyed the motion and dissipated, revealing the empty meadow once more: the cottage was gone. Benen was dying to ask how it was done and where the building had gone, but knew he couldn't.

_Will I, one day, be able to do all these things?_ he wondered.

The walk to their final destination did not take the whole of the day. Saying they were close to his tower, the wizard kept them walking through lunch. They arrived a few hours after noon. Of course, Benen could not tell they had arrived. The wizard stopped walking and straightened, a smile playing on his lips.

"Your new home, boy," he said, motioning to the empty grasslands before the two of them. Benen looked around for a residence of some sort. "Can you not see it?"

"No, master, I'm sorry," Benen looked for an entrance hidden in the grass, thinking perhaps the place was below ground.

The wizard reached out one of his hands and touched Benen lightly on the shoulder. With his other hand he pointed upward. Benen looked up and, where before there had been only empty air there was a translucent structure hovering thirty metres above the ground. The wizard removed his hand and the flying tower vanished from Benen's sight.

"You have the gift all right," the wizard said. "I heard your gasp of surprise when you saw my home. Only one with the gift can pierce the veil I placed over it." Benen's face contorted as he held back his questions. The wizard, seeing this, smiled indulgently, "What do you want to ask? One question only, mind."

"Why do I only see it when you touch me?" Benen asked. "It's like the constellations back at the village. I only see these things when you're touching me."

"You have no power of your own, boy. You have the gift but no fuel for it. When I touch you, I push some of mine into you, a very small amount, but it is enough to grant you the sight." The wizard motioned toward the place that would be directly under the flying building. Once in position under it, he said, "Shrovnark!"

A second later, Benen felt a thump through the ground nearby, like a giant's footfall. The wizard walked toward the origin of the noise and soon disappeared from Benen's sight.

Carefully, the boy walked to where the wizard had last been and ran into something hard and unyielding. The moment he made contact with it, the entire structure became visible, along with the wizard himself.

From the bottom of the tower, a spiral staircase of marble reached the ground. Benen had walked into the side of its railing. The wizard stood on the first step.

"We are within the veil now. You can see my home once you have crossed into its protective envelope; you and I are hidden too, while within." Benen was too impressed to speak, not that he would, given the repercussions.

"Come," the wizard commanded as he began to ascend the steps to the tower proper.

Ascending thirty meters using a spiral staircase was not for the weak of heart.

For the seven year old Benen. the climb was exhausting. Surprisingly, the wizard did not even sweat or breathe hard from the exertion.

_For an old man, he's remarkably fit. He probably cheats with magic,_ Benen thought.

"I do. You will find that few play by the rules unless they are fools, boy," the wizard replied to his thoughts.

Benen stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the wizard with wide round eyes, fear filling his heart.

_What else has the wizard heard from my mind?_ he wondered as he frantically tried to remember if he had formed any insults in his thoughts in the past two days. He couldn't find any, but he didn't trust his memory.

"I only listen when I care to, boy. Trust me when I say, your thoughts hold very little interest to me. Now keep moving."

Resuming his climb, Benen carefully thought of nothing. He soon found this too hard and instead thought of elephants. Of course, he had never seen an elephant, he'd only heard of them from stories and travelling peddlers, but he had a mental image of what one looked like. The wizard burst into laughter in front of him and could not stop chuckling for some minutes. So much so, that Benen caught up to him again on the stairway.

"When your studies begin, boy, I will make sure you see what an elephant really looks like," the wizard said with a mocking smile.

_I guess I really know nothing,_ Benen thought, sadly disillusioned.

"That's a very good lesson for you to take to heart," commented the wizard as he continued moving smoothly up the staircase.

After having climbed the staircase, all seventy steps, the pair reached the landing at the bottom of the tower. Benen noticed the landing was open to the air, as if to make it accessible to flying visitors. He guessed the wizard could just as easily become a bird as a wolf. Not that his transformation to wolf had looked easy.

There was a heavy, metal-reinforced, oak door leading into the building here and the wizard stepped up to it. He placed a hand on the door.

"I am home," he said and a flash of light rippled from his hand over the entirety of the parts of the building Benen could see, including the staircase. As he looked, the staircase's steps began merging one into the other, starting from the bottom and moving upward. Within seconds, the staircase was no more. Benen had a moment of panic that the tower would no longer have sufficient support, but then realized this was silly. The staircase could never have supported this structure.

"Wards, recognize Benen, my apprentice," continued the wizard.

_He knows my name,_ Benen hadn't thought he did.

The wizard pushed open the door and walked into the base of the building.

"Come, boy," he called to Benen.

_Not that he ever uses it._

The inside of the tower was just as wondrous as the outside had been. Many of the outer walls of the building were translucent, offering majestic views of the lands over which the tower hovered. As he watched, Benen saw something disturbing. He reached out and grabbed hold of a wall in panic. The tower was drifting! Would they fall?

The wizard looked at Benen levelly until he felt silly and got over his feeling that the tower was somehow out of control and possibly headed for a crash. The wizard must have willed it to move.

_The tower flies!_ he thought in wonder. _It doesn't simply hover._

"Yes, yes, but it also needs cleaning," said the wizard, dismissal in his voice. "Follow this ball of light and do the work it directs you to do. It will prioritize tasks and report to me if there are any problems with your work. Now go."

The wizard cast a very short spell and a small hovering blue light sprang into existence before him. It moved to Benen and spoke, pulsing with each word.

"This. Way. Ben. En. Ap. Pren. Tice," it paused with each word and each syllable was like an individual word to it.

It hovered before Benen impatiently, moving up and down rapidly while waiting for him. Benen turned back to where the master had been standing to say an obligatory _Yes, Master_ to him but the master had already gone and was nowhere to be seen. Shaking his head, Benen resigned himself to getting used to such things. He walked toward the blue light and it began to move ahead of him, leading the way.

"Are you intelligent? Can you talk?" he asked it. He felt lonely and hoped the light would be more friendly than the wizard had been. He missed his friends from the village.

"I. Can. Speak," it replied. "I. Will. Speak. To. Give. You. Di. Rec. Tions. And. Cor. Rec. Tion. On. Your. Work. For. Our. Mas. Ter."

_So, it can talk but it won't be my friend,_ Benen concluded.

For the rest of his first day in the wizard's tower, Benen was directed by the blue light to clean various areas. The light was merciless and prompted him to return to work if he took any time to rest.

For supper, it brought him to the kitchen and directed him on how to prepare the dead chicken he found there. He made roast chicken for the first time in his life. He salivated as the smells from its cooking filled the kitchen. The light also directed him to boil some oats for oatmeal and to cook some root vegetables.

When all was ready, Benen was told to place a cut of the chicken on one of the metal plates along with some of the vegetables.

"What about the oatmeal?" he asked the light.

"That. Is. Your. Sup. Per. Ben. En." it said in its stilted manner. Benen wanted to cry, or at least to strangle the light.

Doing his best to control himself, he served the master his plate and poured his wine when directed. Finally, he was dismissed and he was able to return to the kitchen and eat his oatmeal. It was bland and tasteless, but by then he was so hungry he was just happy to be eating. He eyed the chicken, not far from where he sat eating and wondered if he could sneak some of it for himself. The blue light still hovered nearby and he decided not to risk it.

Once he had finished, the light prompted him to put the remaining chicken and cooked vegetables in a cold room adjacent to the kitchen.

_This room must be cooled by magic_ , Benen thought; it was unnaturally cold.

After supper, which was finished long after sunset, Benen was told by the light that he was free until sunrise but was not permitted to leave the apprentice's floor. He was shown this floor and saw how limited his evening options were.

The apprentice's floor was in one of the upper tower levels and was a rather small floor. It had two bedrooms — did the wizard once have two apprentices at the same time? — and a study. A small closet turned out to be a loo. The study had a table and three uncomfortable chairs, its walls lined with bookcases. Unfortunately, the bookcases were rather sparsely populated. There was a cupboard with candles and matches he could use to light his evenings at least. The light also showed him that some of the few books present on the bookcase were blank, for his use in taking notes; there was also an inkwell and quill.

Too tired to do anything else that night, Benen went to bed and slept the sleep of the overworked. When morning came, he did not want to wake, but the light insisted. It shocked him with what looked like a miniature bolt of lightning when he refused to get up for the third time. It hurt and burnt where the bolt had hit him, but worse, it had made him jerk and twitch. This sudden jerking had made him bite his tongue. He wanted to curl up and stay there in his bed, but he knew he would just get jolted again if he did. He got up and faced his second day as the wizard's scullion.

His days followed the pattern of the first day for his first year with the wizard, without much variance. The food changed; the wizard's did, anyway. Other than that, the cleaning persisted. There was always a new place to clean and when those ran out, Overseer — Benen began calling it that, for that was what it was — got him to clean anew the first places he had worked on. All told, a cycle of cleaning took Benen two and a half weeks. Near the end of the cycle was one of the wizard's laboratories and on the floor of that room there was a blackened stain.

No matter how hard he scrubbed at the stain, it would not come out. It seemed the spot was ingrained into the stone of the floor. Benen told Overseer this and went to move on to clean the rest of the room, but Overseer insisted he clean the spot. Benen tried again, scrubbing as hard as he could, but it did not affect the spot at all. Overseer did not accept that this was a stain. It jolted Benen with its lightning three separate times to motivate him to greater effort. He did all he could, but could not get the spot cleaned. The third time he was struck by the lightning, he lost consciousness. He woke the next morning in his bed, feeling wretched. Overseer was telling him to get up. He did not wait to be shocked, he got up promptly.

The Overseer did not bring him back to that laboratory the next day but they did return to it on the next cycle and the same experience was repeated. This happened every cleaning cycle and Benen learnt to dread the coming of that day each time.

He had tried to speak to the wizard about it while serving him a meal, but the wizard did not speak to him and the spell he was under forbade him to address the wizard without being first called upon.

Benen was miserable for these months and he grew to despise Overseer and, by association, the wizard.

Things changed, if only marginally, on the anniversary of his first year at the tower. Overseer brought him to the wizard's study near the top of the highest tower.

**Chapter 3: Neophyte**

****

The wizard was sitting behind a large slab of marble used as a workspace when he arrived. The apprentice delivered, Overseer withdrew, Benen knew not where it went.

He stood where Overseer had left him, unsure if he should approach closer or speak. He decided to wait for the wizard to direct him. The wizard, for his part, looked back at Benen and made no move to speak or give him any direction. The boy was determined to wait as long as needed and worked hard to seem impassive as he stayed still and silent.

Eventually, the wizard smiled, seemingly pleased at Benen's performance.

"Step closer, boy," he told him.

Without hesitation, Benen stepped forward, approaching his side of the marble slab. From this new vantage, he could see there were three items laid out on the slab, positioned within his easy reach, now that he was closer to it.

"You have endured one year of scullion duty well, boy," the wizard said. "You have earned the beginning of your tuition. Your time here will not get easier, but it will get more rewarding as the years of your apprenticeship continue. Expect things to be harder, in fact. I aim to either break you or make of you a wizard I will be worthy to claim was once my apprentice. Do you understand?"

Benen nodded and said, "Yes, Master." He did not say anything more, knowing better than to speak excessively.

"Good. Then, let us begin," the wizard said, all business now. "You will see before you three instruments. Choose one of them to be your own."

Benen looked at the items on the slab. The first, he saw, was a metal spike of some sort, it had one end flattened, like a nail, the other was very sharp. The whole had the look of fine steel. The second item looked like a wood-carver's chisel. Benen had seen tools very similar to it in his home village, used by the men for carving details into wood. The final item looked like a simple knife. Not trusting anything, Benen made motions to pick up one of the items, looking at the wizard while miming the action. The wizard nodded and the boy picked up each item to examine it more closely. This scrutiny revealed nothing he had not noted with sight alone. He wasn't sure what criteria he should apply in picking one of these tools. He wanted to ask the wizard if there was any more information he should be given before making his choice, but could not ask questions without permission.

"You can ask questions related to this choice at this time, if you wish," the wizard granted, evidently still reading his mind.

"What criteria am I choosing by, Master? What am I to use these tools for?" he asked.

"I will not answer those particular questions. I will say that the order of the tools is not incidental. They are laid out from hardest to use to easiest. Furthermore, they are laid out from least costly to most costly," the wizard said this while motioning from the metal spike to the knife each time.

"But Master, they are all tools to work different mediums. The spike would likely be used on stone, the chisel on wood, and the knife on meat."

"Exactly," the wizard responded laconically.

"If I make the choice and do not like the outcome, is there any recourse to change my mind?"

"Because you asked, I will grant you the right to change your mind about the tool you choose one year from now," the wizard said with a smile. This was better than Benen had really expected, but not what he had hoped for.

"Can I think on this choice overnight, Master?" he asked, trying to buy himself more time.

"No. I don't believe that more thought will yield you better results given how little information has been given to you. Choose before I lose patience with this process or I will choose your instrument for you." Benen did not like the sound of that.

He looked over the items again. He knew this choice had great significance, but the information he had with which to make it was so scant. Perhaps, this was exactly what the wizard wanted. He was asking Benen to make a decision based on very limited information and judging him on his reasoning. It seemed to Benen that the best choice would be the chisel, being the middle ground of the three options, no matter if he ranked them by difficulty or cost. He made his choice.

"Master, I choose the chisel," he told the wizard with confidence. The wizard smiled.

"The middle of the road then?" the wizard correctly assessed his thoughts. "You are hedging your bets, my boy. That was well chosen. Unfortunately, that isn't the tool I'd rather you use. Instead you will use the knife."

Benen wanted to object that this was not fair, that the knife was not his choice, but he knew that he had been taught another lesson by the wizard: there are no choices for an apprentice. He reached for the knife and grasped it when the wizard nodded his accord. He held it, weighing it and checking its balance. It was a good eating knife, if a bit too long for the purpose. It had a sharp point and a keen edge.

"Now that you have your instrument, we can begin your first lesson," the wizard said. Benen corrected him mentally:

_My second, if not third of the day so far._ If the wizard heard his thought, he did not care to comment or react to it, he simply continued the lesson, coming around the stone table to stand beside Benen. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Look up, boy," he told him, "and see the constellations." Benen did as he was bid and, as expected, saw the points of light above him, seemingly through the ceiling of the room. "Do you see this collection of stars?" the wizard pointed out the constellation Benen knew as _The Furrow_ in polite company, and as _The Maiden's Fold_ among the men. He nodded.

"That constellation you will learn to call _The Parallels_ ," the wizard said. "Now, carve the star pattern into your flesh."

Benen was not sure if the wizard was serious.

"Do it, boy. The stars and their patterns must become a part of your very being. Carve them into your flesh and make them yours."

Benen couldn't do it. It wasn't that he feared the pain, although he did fear it. It wasn't that he feared the scars the cuts would make; those he could live with. It was the callousness of the wizard. It was the confirmation of something he had long thought over the past year: the wizard doesn't care about him or about teaching him. To the wizard, he was just a toy to torment and use. He was something the wizard could feel powerful over.

The past year of Benen's apprenticeship had not been easy. He had been lonely from the start, missing his family and friends. He had been disappointed that all he was doing was cleaning the wizard's house and cooking his dinners, getting no further along in any magical studies for so long. The only thing keeping Benen from breaking down altogether had been his expectation of an eventual magical education. This last thing was just the most recent of many things breaking the boy down, wearing away at what remained of his will to continue through these difficulties. He saw the wizard for what he really was: a cruel and evil man. So cruel that even his lessons were meant to hurt Benen.

_He never intends to teach me, not really,_ he thought. _Was he forced to take on an apprentice? He obviously doesn't want one. He doesn't want me . . ._

Benen dropped the knife. He couldn't do any of this anymore. He so desperately wanted to go home, but that wasn't an option; they had given him up for dead. All he had was the wizard and the wizard didn't want him. The wizard just wanted someone to be cruel to, someone to break.

"You win," he said, having not been first spoken to by the wizard, he heard his own words over and over at increasing volume. It was maddeningly loud and, despite this, Benen kept repeating the words, making it worse and worse. He lost his balance and fell, not caring what happened to him. He heard himself screaming, but it was like someone else was doing it. He knew tears were running down his face, but he also knew he wasn't sad. He didn't feel emotion just then, just a desire for numbness. Soon, he got what he wanted: oblivion.

He woke in his bed, what seemed to be the next day, alive and unharmed other than a very bad headache. But inside, in his mind, he was still not well. He did not want to do anything and did not care what the consequence were. He thought of death as a relief from this past year's nightmare.

It was Overseer that had woken him, and it had no regard for his wishes. It strobed angrily above him. He turned over and tried to go back to sleep, ignoring it. The light shocked him, but he refused to get up. It kept shocking him until he lost consciousness.

He came back to himself, he knew not how long later, and found he was alone in his room. He was thirsty and needed to use the loo. He decided to commit himself enough to living to fulfil both of those needs, but he resisted the need to eat. For that, he would have to go to the kitchens and he did not want to encounter Overseer, or worse: the wizard.

Having taken care of his needs as much as he intended, Benen returned to his bed and lay down again. He pulled the covers over his head and cried, feeling worthless and sorry for his lot. He expected the blue light would be back to shock him to unconsciousness soon. If this happened with enough repetition, Benen believed it would kill him, which was what he wanted.

He was disturbed out of his thoughts and self-pity by a feeling creeping up his foot and then his leg. It felt like a small creature, walking up his body. A primal sort of fear of the unknown drove Benen to shake himself and get up. As he got out of bed, he took the covers and shook them. A small brown shape was thrown by his efforts, to roll along the floor until it came to a rest. It was a rat. A large, brown rat. Something was not quite right with it. It had many patches of fur missing, as well as the eye and ear on its right side. It looked like a rat that had gone through a war and barely survived.

"What did you do that for!?" squeaked out the rat.

Benen was startled to hear it speak.

_Am I losing my mind? I've not been on my hunger strike long enough to be hallucinating, have I?_

The rat righted itself and looked accusingly at Benen with its one good eye.

"I come here to help you and that's how you treat me?" it accused him.

"Uh, what?" was all Benen managed to say back.

The rat padded closer and stood before Benen, within easier speaking range. It stood up onto its two back legs and stayed that way, becoming a biped and making it seem the most natural thing in the world.

_Definitely hallucinating,_ thought Benen.

"Oh, you're not hallucinating, my fine young friend," the rat contradicted Benen's thought. "I am here to help you."

"You read my mind!" Benen accused it.

"Yes, that's an easy trick for someone who knows magic, you know," it said back.

"But you're a rat!"

"I wasn't always a rat, that's for sure."

"Really?"

"Really." Benen was still not convinced of the rat's reality, but he was so lonely that anyone who wanted to be friendly was all right with him. He sat on the bed to calm himself, then remembered what the rat had said.

"You came to help me? How?"

"I'll teach you magic. And later, I'll help you kill the wizard."

"Kill the wizard?" Benen thought this impossible.

"Yes, but not for a long time. You have to be trained first. We'll do it together. You'll see, my little friend."

"Wait. You said you weren't always a rat. If that's true, what were you before?" Benen asked.

"I was the wizard's apprentice before you." it told him.

_Is this my fate too?_ Benen thought with horror.

"No," the rat answered his thought, "you, he'll kill. That's what he tried to do to me. I barely survived."

"By becoming a rat?" Benen said, confused.

"Yes. He had summoned a horde of rats to eat me alive, near the end of the duel. That's how I lost my eye and ear. I thought fast and transformed into a rat and lost myself in the rat horde."

"That's quick thinking for someone being eaten by rats," commented Benen.

"I'm quick on my feet. Doubly so now that I have four of them."

The rat's success was evident by his being still alive in front of Benen, but he found it difficult to believe that anyone could think while being eaten alive.

"That's exactly the sort of thing you have to learn, my friend. And exactly what I can teach you," the rat continued to surprise Benen by responding to his thoughts.

"But the wizard is killing me now!" Benen protested.

"No. You're killing yourself by refusing to play his sick games," the rat insisted.

"I can't do what he asked," Benen thought of the knife and cutting himself with it. Worse, he knew he would have to learn each constellation the same way.

"The wizard doesn't brook disobedience, but he does admire initiative. If you don't like the option he's chosen for you, show some spunk and initiative instead of letting him kill you."

"But how?" Benen had no idea what he could do that would garner any respect from the wizard.

"Well, the wizard offered you two other choices. Go and do one of them the hard way. Maybe he'll respect you for it."

Benen thought back to the three items on the marble slab back in the wizard's study. He had chosen the wood chisel, but the wizard had told him his choice didn't matter and given him the knife.

"Do you know what I would have had to do if I was allowed to use the wood chisel? Would I carve the star patterns on wooden planks?" he asked the rat.

"Yes, exactly."

"But it's hopeless, I don't have the chisel or any wood," Benen complained. He slumped and his face fell.

"I can teach you a charm to solve this problem," the rat told him. "You'll find that with me as your ally, problems are just opportunities for a new lesson in magic."

Benen began to feel hope again. He got up and went to his knees before the rat, bending down to put his face near it.

"What's your name? I'm Benen," he said to the rat from this more intimate distance.

"Hello Benen, I'm Orafin," the rat replied. Benen and the rat shook paw and hand as best they could.

"Partners?" asked Benen.

"Partners. I'll get you through this, teach you the magic the wizard would be too stingy to teach you and, when the time is right, we'll kill the old bastard," there was much venom in the tone used by the rat.

_He really hates the wizard,_ Benen thought.

"Indeed I do," replied the rat. "There is nothing I want more than to see him killed, preferably in as slow and painful a way as possible."

It was understandable. Benen reasoned he'd also want to kill someone who had tried to kill him.

Their agreement settled, the two worked at getting Benen ready to face the Overseer and then the wizard.

The rat, Orafin, taught Benen his first true lesson on magic and the use of it.

"The first thing you should know is that magic is governed by the celestial bodies. They shine down their power upon the field of magic down here, below them. The field, without their light, has no use of its own. Flavoured, so to speak, by the celestial light, the field can be used for the specific magic governed by the different constellations and other bodies. This means that only magic of the right type for the currently shining stars, sun, moon and planets, can be used. We're in luck that the constellation governing the magic we need tonight is in the sky."

Benen had to agree with Orafin. He shuddered at the thought that it might well have been otherwise.

"The constellation wizards call the Trickster is the one we'll be using."

With the rat touching him, Benen was able to see the stars above, right through the intervening materials. When Orafin pointed out which stars formed the Trickster, Benen saw that it was composed from parts of two constellations he knew separately: the Stool and the Weather-vane. He could see the man's form the constellation was supposed to describe.

"The Trickster is used for a lot of changing magic. Shape-shifting is what it's used for the most, but it can also be used to mold and shape other things, which is what we'll be using it for. If you were more powerful, you could change something to wood and change its form directly as you wished. But right now you don't even have any capacity to take in or store power on your own."

"How do I get that though?" Benen interrupted before the rat could continue.

"You get capacity by doing more and more magic. The less capacity you have, the easier it is to built it up. Each magical effect you cast will bring up your capacity by a tiny bit. There is a very simple spell to light a candle that can be performed with the tiny sliver of potential you currently have. It would be extremely difficult for you to successfully do it and would take months of practise and work to manage, but you would eventually be able to hold enough magic for our purposes tonight."

"But we don't have that sort of time!" cried Benen in alarm.

"Exactly, so we'll use a short cut," said the rat with a very human-seeming smile on its ratty face.

"What sort of short cut?" asked Benen, unsure what this could mean.

"I'll provide the power and you will do the magic. This way, you'll grow your reservoir faster and more reliably," Orafin told him.

"Oh, that sounds okay."

The rat said nothing further on the subject, instead it started looking about the room for something.

"We need a piece of wood, one that is large enough to hold the pattern of the stars and is not attached to anything you can't pry it off of," the rat said.

Benen immediately knew what he could use, "There are cutting boards in the kitchen, I could use one of those, right?"

"That should work, but the wizard will likely be angry you used one of his cutting boards. Is there anything here, something the wizard has placed here for your own use that you could use?"

Benen thought for a few minutes then worked at the back of the chair that went with his work desk. The planks there were too securely attached. He kept looking around, casting about for anything that might do the trick. He'd almost given up until a trip to make water revealed the solution to him. The loo had a wooden plank that served as cover for the hole. He came back proudly displaying his find.

"But what will cover the loo? Won't it get smelly in here for you?" asked Orafin.

"I'll find something else to cover it," said Benen vaguely.

"It's your problem, I guess. That is a good piece of wood for our purposes, though."

"Okay, what do we do with it?"

"You will begin by putting it down and sitting on the ground cross-legged in front of it."

Benen did as asked and the rat came to stand in front of him. The boy leaned in closer to the rat, the better to hear it.

"You will need to learn the pattern of the stars for the Trickster first."

"But I already know it, you showed it to me earlier," Benen protested.

"You _saw_ it earlier and you _remember_ the pattern, but you don't _know_ it."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, tell me, how far apart are each of the stars? Which is the brightest of the stars? Are any of them binary stars?"

"Bi-what?"

"I think my point is now evident."

Benen spent the next few hours learning and memorizing the properties and disposition of all the stars in the Trickster constellation. He was surprised to find out that the Trickster's belt, which had two stars, really consisted of a star and a nebula. Of course, Orafin had to teach him what a nebula was first.

"This is a lot of information to keep straight," Benen complained.

"Oh, this is just scratching the surface, my young friend," the rat explained. "You will want to know much more about the Trickster constellation and its components before you ever attempt more magic using it. Only desperation drives us to use it now, without proper knowledge in your head first."

"Why is this so important?" Benen asked.

"Without proper knowledge of the celestial bodies used in your spell, you'll kill yourself in the casting," the rat told him. "As it is, you will likely be quite hurt from doing this. This is appropriate though, given that you are supposed to have managed this on your own out of desperation to avoid the knife."

"I'm afraid," Benen admitted. His hands were shaking and he felt faint.

"Don't worry, it won't be so bad," the rat reassured him. "It will burn in your head and nerves, you will probably have a bit of a seizure and vomit. After that you'll be all right."

Benen did not feel reassured, but he _was_ desperate.

_It probably won't be worse than being shocked into unconsciousness by Overseer,_ he told himself.

"Okay, I guess I know what I can for now about the Trickster, what about the rest of the spell?"

"That's almost all of it; the rest is will, intention and mitigation," said the rat.

"Miti-what?" asked Benen.

"Reducing the damages. When you see a wizard speak an incantation or make movements with his hands, he's trying to reduce the pain and damage to himself from the spell. The movements that work for different constellations are very specific and you won't be able to learn that now. I'll give you an incantation for the spell, but you will almost certainly mispronounce it, so it will be of only minor value. Feel free to flail about with your arms and fingers when you do cast, there's no harm in trying for luck a bit."

Wizardry seemed awfully complicated, now that Benen was actually learning some. He wished the wizard was a better teacher so he didn't have to do this spell now, so unprepared.

Next, Orafin taught Benen the short incantation and had him commit it to memory by repeating it over and over. This accomplished, they were ready to try the spell.

"Remember your intention too," the rat cautioned. "you only want your fingers to be able to mold the wood and that only for a short time." Benen nodded. Asking for too much would kill him, so the rat had told him.

Benen put out his hand for the rat. Orafin climbed into it and Benen deposited the rat onto his shoulder. They needed to be in contact for Orafin to provide the power Benen would be using for the spell.

Finally ready, Benen hesitated. He was afraid of the pain that would surely come and, worse, afraid he would fail somehow and the magic would kill him. He trembled where he stood, unable to continue.

"The first time will be the worst, but remember, this is all to one day be great and to strike down the wizard who took your family and life away from you," the rat whispered in his ear.

Determination filled Benen at the thought of one day being as powerful as the wizard and making him pay for what he had done to him — and to Orafin too. He brought to mind the Trickster stars and the facts he had memorized about them while remembering his intention for the spell _and_ saying the incantation Orafin had taught him. This alone was quite a bit of mental gymnastics and hurt his brain, but the real hurt began when Orafin started letting his power flow into Benen, to fuel the spell. Only then did Benen burn.

It felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. He screamed and flailed. His breath scorched his lungs, throat, and mouth on its way out of him. Inhaling felt worse. He collapsed and lay there, feeling himself reduced to cinders over the course of minutes. Gratefully, he relinquished consciousness.

He was woken, only seconds later, by a new, sharp, pain on his arm. Opening his eyes immediately felt like a mistake. Light stabbed at him through these new openings and pierced his brain. He screamed anew. The pain in his arm was repeated; Benen flailed that arm and felt it connect with something.

"Wake up!" it was Orafin.

Some part of Benen remembered life before the pain and tried to assert itself over the being he had become, a being totally consumed by the need to cope with an existence consisting only of pain.

_Orafin didn't warn me it would be like this,_ Benen thought. _So much pain!_

Forcing his eyes open again, Benen kept them open through the pain and tried to see. His head wanted to burst with the new agonizing sensations coming through his eyes.

_Everything is pain! _

He moved to the piece of wood from the loo, crawling every painful inch. Extending his arm, he tried to mold the wood, to mark it with the star pattern of the Parallels, but he couldn't think. He couldn't remember what it looked like through the agony he was feeling.

Orafin helped.

The rat guided his fingers to the right places and Benen hollowed out the spots he was directed to. The wood acted like soft clay under his fingers, some part of Benen was amazed by this, but it was drowned out by the animal part of him that was wanting the pain to stop, wanting to just sleep and hide from this agony.

Eventually, the rat nodded and stopped giving Benen new places to mark on the piece of wood and the boy simply let go of consciousness then.

The last thing he heard before oblivion claimed him was the rat saying, "Well done, boy."

He awoke, still on the floor, but no longer in burning agony, when Overseer came for him in the morning. Although the fire in his nerves was gone, Benen still felt like he had been beaten black and blue. He managed to stand.

"I want to talk to the wizard," he told Overseer. It pulsed brightly and zapped him. He took this to mean he should go with it. He brought the piece of wood with him to show the wizard. But Overseer did not bring Benen to the wizard. It took him on his usual cleaning rounds. Resigned, Benen did what he had to, he cleaned the places that needed cleaning as directed, thankful that the impossible stain was not on today's schedule. Late in the day, he prepared the food for the wizard's supper and his own — he was famished, he found — and resolved to accost the wizard during his meal.

He brought out the roast chicken to the wizard, carrying the plate on his engraved loo plank. Benen served the plate, revealing the Parallels when he removed the plate from the plank. The wizard either did not notice or did not care. He ignored Benen altogether.

Undeterred, Benen held out the plank for the wizard, but he did not look at him or the plank, pointedly ignoring Benen.

Overseer pulsed threateningly.

_Orafin said the wizard might respect spunk. Now is the time to see if that's true,_ he thought.

Extending his arms, Benen interposed the plank between the wizard and his plate of food. The wizard could not ignore this and turned to look at Benen, their eyes meeting. Benen wondered what the wizard saw; he knew he must look a mess from the previous night's hardships.

"If you want to chisel wood so badly, so be it," the wizard said mildly. "Leave this piece of wood with me." Benen put the wood down where indicated. "Hold out your right arm." Benen did. The wizard took his hand and held Benen's arm out steady. With his other hand, using his index finger, the wizard traced the Parallels onto Benen's forearm. "There," he said. "Never forget that, although I might choose to have my will defied in small amounts, there is always a price to pay for disobedience."

The pattern of the Parallels burned later that night, etching Benen's skin where it had been traced. He had difficulty sleeping, despite his exhaustion, and in the morning, found that his arm bore a brand, as though burned by a branding iron into his skin, in the shape of the Parallels.

It had been painful, but worth it. Now he would be able to continue his studies with the wizard without having to carve future star patterns into his skin.

Benen's life from that time took on a new character as he spent his days cleaning and the time after supper being tutored by the wizard. The wizard had Benen use the wood chisel on a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wooden plates, requiring him to carve out the patterns of constellation after constellation. Some nights, he would carve many copies of a new pattern, other nights, he would learn new patterns all night. Later, once he had learnt all the constellations, the wizard demanded he carve each one again in one night. He succeeded in this and the wizard, for the first time, seemed pleased with him.

Orafin had not been absent during this time. After the sessions with the wizard, Benen returned to his room and learnt from Orafin details of the stars he had been carving. Things like their visual magnitude and what that meant. His magical education was proceeding, slowly, it seemed, but proceeding. It was obvious to Benen and confirmed by Orafin, that it would take up to a decade for him to become a proper wizard; but Benen was encouraged by his progress and persevered.

**Chapter 4: Adolescent**

****

Everything was going well enough for a few years, with Benen losing himself in his studies instead of dwelling on the things he missed from his village and his previous life. Unfortunately, this could not last. When Benen turned thirteen, the loneliness that had plagued him, but which he had managed to suppress became too much for him. He wanted contact with others, with people other than the vengeful rodent Orafin or the unfriendly uncaring wizard.

One night, while Orafin was trying to teach Benen about the planets, explaining how some were made of gas more than solid matter, Benen found his mind wandering to a different subject.

". . . and what's more, they are highly flammable, these gas planets. Do not throw a torch up into the air in their direction while they are in the sky lest you cause a catastrophe . . . you really are not listening, are you Benen?" the rat said.

"I heard. No torch tossing on gas nights, or something . . . okay, you're right, my mind wandered," he admitted. "I'm sorry, Orafin."

"What's the matter? Is it something the wizard has done?"

"No. I'm just . . . bored with this. I want to go somewhere other than here," Benen waved his arms about indicating the tower. "I want to meet people, do normal things. I'm tired of planets and stars and the moon and the sun and all their relative masses and luminosity."

"You're restless?" asked the rat.

"I guess so."

"It will just be a few more years, maybe three at the most, before we can take on the wizard together. Can't you just focus for that much longer? After that you will be free!"

"Okay, let's just get through this," Benen said with new determination.

But it was for nought, he could not concentrate on his work. It was bad enough when he couldn't follow Orafin's teachings, but it became dire when he had trouble paying attention to the wizard's.

"These are basic star patterns! How can you get them wrong, boy?" the wizard threw the wooden plank at Benen, hitting him on the shoulder. Where it hit, his arm went numb with pain. He cried out. "Cease your whining at once! Make such an error again and it will be back to the knife for you," the wizard threatened.

That night, when Benen recounted this to Orafin, the rat paced the room, thinking.

"You have to get your focus back or you will not live long enough for us to rise up against the wizard together; he will kill you if you fail to learn."

"I know, I am trying," Benen assured the rat.

"I believe you and I understand, but the wizard won't and wouldn't care even if he did."

"Then I'm doomed," the boy said tragically and threw himself down onto his bed.

"Maybe there is a way for you to leave this place and come back. If you're lucky you might even meet some people," the rat suggested this with some hesitation. "It might be dangerous and if the wizard discovers you missing, it will go badly for you."

"If I don't leave here, it will definitely go badly for me!" complained Benen.

"Then we'll have to take the risk. Have you noticed a pattern to the landing and taking off of the tower, my young friend?"

"Not particularly," Benen said.

"The spell the wizard uses to levitate the tower relies on The Pinnacle constellation," said the rat. He was interrupted by Benen's giggles. The Pinnacle was the constellation common folk from Benen's village called Feldin's Cock. This was the constellation Benen had identified for the wizard back in the village so long ago.

"Sorry. Old memory," he apologized to Orafin.

"The point is, that constellation never sets, so the magic supporting the tower in the air can be maintained without cease — in theory."

"But not in practise?" asked Benen.

"No. The moon or the sun sometimes obscures one or more of the stars as seen from here and at those times the flight spell becomes potentially erratic. The wizard knows full well when those times occur and lands the tower for the duration. Sometimes he will even keep it on the ground for an extended period in order to gather more power to himself and do something he hadn't been able to do while maintaining the flight spell. This might allow you more time."

"Why not just teach me how to fly? Then I can come and go without bothering with any timing other than my off-times," asked Benen. His two instructors had not taught him much in the way of spells so far. As far as Benen could tell, magic was all astronomy.

"Do you remember when you and I did that spell to inscribe the star pattern into wood that time, years ago? It will be like that," the rat told him.

"Really? Haven't I learnt enough by now to be able to cast a spell like flying without any trouble?"

"No. I think you underestimate how difficult of a spell flight is, and overestimate your ability to hold constellation information in your mind."

Chastised, Benen dropped that subject. The two instead worked out when the tower would land next. This information allowed them to plan and make sure Benen was ready to leave when the time came. Orafin insisted that he be taken along in order to keep Benen out of trouble.

"What trouble would I possibly get in?" asked Benen.

"Knowing you, any sort of trouble," replied Orafin. "You're a boy who's been very sheltered for the past few years. You need to be escorted."

"Well, you've been a rat for at least that long and living here for longer than me, what do _you_ know of the outside world?" countered Benen.

"I left here for a time after my defeat at the hands of the wizard. I know plenty about the world that is out there Benen, believe me."

Benen did believe him then, the rat spoke with such intensity, it was difficult to doubt him.

Benen put on his best clothes, which weren't very good considering they were made by Benen himself. The wizard had let him have some cloth over the years and the means to stitch clothing together for himself, but Benen had never gotten very good at it and his efforts weren't stellar. Still, the clothing was functional. What he considered his best clothes were really the cleanest, newest pair of pants and tunic he had made for himself. His shoes were made of the same cloth and shaped as a sort of bag. For a belt he wore a rope. In this case, the nicest bit of rope he could find. Orafin disappeared for a time while Benen was getting ready. When the rat returned, he was laboriously carrying a silver coin.

"It's more than it looks. It's worth sixteen of the copper coins and one of those will buy you a meal and ale to go with it."

"Where did you get it?" Benen asked.

"The wizard is sometimes careless with his purse," Orafin replied.

"His loss is my gain, I guess," Benen said with a smile.

"He owes you at least that much in back pay, I'd say," the rat said agreeably.

"I've never even held money before," Benen was examining the coin closely. He could read now and tried to understand what was written on it; it didn't make any sense.

"It's a Westren coin, they speak and write differently there," Orafin told him when he saw Benen's close scrutiny of the writing. Benen put the coin in his right shoe-bag and tied that one extra-tight. They were ready, all that remained was waiting for the wizard to land the tower. Their hope was that he would land it somewhere near some village or town.

It was a little bit after sunset, after all tasks were taken care of, when the wizard started landing the tower. It became more and more obvious to the rat and boy, as they looked out the windows and saw the landscape gradually come up toward them. The movement downward itself was imperceptible and there was no jar upon landing.

Orafin went to see where the wizard was to be found, to make sure they wouldn't run into him as they were leaving. He came back in an agitated state.

"The wizard is outside, he's taking some things left near where we landed!" Orafin said, panting.

The two made their way to a place in the tower where they could look out and see what was happening on the ground at the base. There were bundles of what looked like supplies in piles on the ground, the whole tidily stacked.

"That's where all the stuff we eat comes from!" Benen realized, answering a question he had yet to have asked himself.

"Tribute, I guess," said Orafin. "From the villages in his domain."

"Why would they give him tribute? Does he hurt them if they don't?" asked an outraged Benen. He could sympathize with bullied villagers.

"I think they have an agreement with him. He's sort of the owner of this land."

"Really?"

The rat nodded, "It's named after him."

"What? Are we still near my home village of Oster's Gift?" asked Benen.

"In the same region. This area is Osteria, after Oster, the wizard."

"No! Really? But, is he really eight hundred years old then?"

"I think so," Orafin said. "Wizards extend their own lives with magic, that much I know."

Benen was speechless. This could be him someday. Eight hundred years seemed an eternity!

"It's like living forever," he said, his voice full of awe.

"I guess," the rat said, less impressed. "You know the world is much older than you probably think. Millions of years old, some say."

Benen laughed out loud at this claim. They spoke no more of such things for the moment. They could see the wizard had finished levitating the various supplies into the tower and had returned inside. Orafin left to see what the wizard was doing, returning a few minutes later with news that he was hard at work in his laboratory.

"We probably have a few hours. It takes him so long to do these sorts of things," the rat commented. "He's very fussy about all the details."

Benen didn't think it was strange to be fussy when it came to magic; his one experience with casting a spell had nearly killed him because he didn't know enough and couldn't be fussy about the details.

Reassured the wizard was preoccupied, the pair left the tower as stealthily as they could manage. Benen ran while still within line of sight of the tower, but slowed to a walk once he had reached the cover of a stand of trees. Orafin, sitting on Benen's shoulder, pointed out some smoke rising into the sky in the distance and Benen headed in that direction.

It had felt great to run from the tower. Benen missed his time as a child when he had run everywhere, playing tag and other silly games with his friends. There had been chores then, but nothing like the unrelieved work, toil, and learning of his time since coming to the tower.

_Why don't I just run away tonight?_ he thought. _I could keep walking, leaving this wizard's land behind._

It was no good to fantasize like this though; he knew the wizard would track him down and find him, maybe only so that he could kill him. He couldn't risk it.

_These hours of freedom will have to do_ , he told himself.

The village, once they arrived, looked very much like his own. Some exceptions were obvious though. Where Oster's Gift had a windmill, this village had a watermill, taking advantage of the river running through it. The river was another big difference, of course. Also, this village had a building that looked like a proper tavern and inn. This was where Benen headed.

The entrance to the inn led directly into a tap room filled with some of the folks from the village. Mostly it looked to be men having a drink together, all seated at one long table. There seemed to be a separate clique of younger men, really older boys, seated at their own table. Finally, there were two foreigners seated together. The foreigners looked to be a peddler and his guard.

Benen froze in the door. It was strange seeing people he didn't know after so long. He found he was oddly afraid of what they might say or do. He considered leaving again, but not seriously so. As much as he might be afraid of the people, he was even more fascinated by them, especially the foreigners.

With hesitant steps, Benen made his way to an empty table and took a seat. He could feel everyone looking at him; no one was talking anymore. The only noises were kitchen noises. One of the younger men called to Benen.

"Don't drink alone, come and join us."

His fellows echoed the request. Benen reddened, but went to their table. The stranger having been welcomed and settled in with some of the locals, talk resumed around the room.

"Hey Glenda, we need some ale here!" yelled another of the youths once Benen was seated.

"What's your story then, boy?" asked one of the boys who looked at most two years older than Benen.

"Story?" said Benen, overwhelmed by the attention he was getting. He'd hoped to blend in, but should have known it would be like this. He imagined all small places were like this; everyone knew each other, and strangers were valued for their novelty. "I'm travelling with my master. We're camped outside of the village. He's given me the night to myself."

"Camped outside of the village?" said a youth, "That's not safe, not with the wizard having just come for his bounty."

Glenda came to their table with a pitcher of ale then, disrupting the conversation, for which Benen was grateful. The bar wench was a girl about his own age and when Benen saw her, he was smitten. She was slight and had long brown hair that defied any attempt at being tied together. Her eyes were large and brown and when he looked at them, they looked back with a brief smile as she poured ale for him and the other young men. She disappeared again as quickly as she had come and Benen was sorry to see her go.

"You like our Glenda, eh?" the other boys teased Benen. He decided he needed to get a handle on who his company were.

"I'm Benen, my master is a travelling scribe and I hope to one day be the same," he and Orafin had worked out the cover story together, deciding it fit well.

Introductions followed from the others. The tall blonde man of twenty was Eggan; the short boy with the big ears was Tunney; the one missing the fingers was Fillen; last but not least was the outgoing boy who had originally called Benen over, his name was Ward.

The boys encouraged Benen to flirt with Glenda, telling him to grope at her when she came near to refill their glasses, but Benen couldn't possibly be so forward and scowled when the other boys demonstrated for him how to do it. This chilled things for a while and Benen regretted it. To make things up, he offered to pay for the rounds, producing his silver coin. The boys all looked at it in awe.

"It pays well then to be an apprentice scribe," Ward commented.

"Not so well, this is a lot of my savings," Benen said, trying to deflect attention from the money. Glenda brought him back his change for the piece, it was more change than he had expected; it seemed ale was inexpensive in this small village.

In an attempt to change the subject Benen asked after the peddler.

"No one really knows. I don't think he tried to sell any wares here; he doesn't speak Estren," Tunney said.

Benen paid for two more rounds, barely denting the change he had gotten back from the silver coin and then it was time for the inn to close to the public. By then the older men had already retired and only Benen, the younger men, and the peddler's party remained in the tap room. The younger men ordered one more round to go and invited Benen to come with them, to have a drink in Eggan's father's barn. When Glenda refilled Benen's mug for this final round, she slipped him a note discreetly. He unfolded it under the table and snuck a glance at it when he found a moment where no one was looking at him. It had four round circles on it. The circles were covered by a big X. Benen didn't know what to make of it, he put it away. He was disappointed it wasn't a note asking him to meet Glenda somewhere in the village for a tryst and the strange pictures just confused him.

He left the inn with his new friends and walked into the night trying to sing along to the song the other four evidently knew by heart. He was a little bit drunk and was overall happy with his evening. Orafin, in the bag slung across Benen's middle was restive and Benen took this to mean that maybe it was time to be leaving and returning to the tower before the wizard took off again or missed him. But he was having such fun he didn't want to go just yet. He figured a little while longer wouldn't hurt.

The group walked a little way out of the village proper, singing the while. Once out of sight from anyone in the village, Ward pushed Benen over, making him fall to the ground. Confused, Benen didn't have a chance to figure out what had happened before feet started pounding into his side. He covered his head with his arms and tried to curl up into a ball with Orafin in the middle.

The beating didn't last long, for which Benen was thankful. The kicks stopped soon after they began, with Tunney saying that should be enough. Someone, Ward, Benen thought, reached down and grabbed his purse of coins.

"We'll drink to you for a week or two, Benen, thanks," said Ward with a laugh. Then he turned to go and Benen saw him stop cold. Standing in the way of their route back to the village was the foreigner and his guard.

The foreigner said something incomprehensible, in Westren, Benen presumed.

"Stay out of this, you cow-lover!" Ward said, the other kids laughed along. There was a nervous quality to their bravado now. The foreigners didn't understand the insult, neither did Benen really, and the guard drew his long curved blade from its sheath.

At this, Ward and the others held out their hands in a pose unmistakable even to a foreigner.

"Don't you hurt us, my father and his brothers will make you eat that sword," said Ward, although he kept his tone such that without knowing what the words meant, you might think he was begging for his life.

The guard motioned to the pouch with his sword and pointed at Benen's fallen form.

"Come on," Ward said. "This isn't your business."

The guard repeated the motion, impatiently.

"You'll regret this in the morning, when my father hears of it," Ward threw the pouch to Benen; it _thunked_ against his arm and fell near him on the ground.

Using the sword again, the guard indicated the thugs should leave and this was exactly what they did, with all haste. The guard said soothing things to Benen in his language as he helped him back to his feet, handing him the pouch he retrieved from the ground as well.

"Swoldon do speak you not tongue," said the other foreigner, the presumed peddler.

"Oh, I didn't think either of you spoke Estren," Benen said.

"Tongue no good speak but okay do understand." Benen couldn't argue with that. The man's speech was hard to follow, but he had little accent and seemed to understand fine.

"Thank you for rescuing me," said Benen and after a pause, "and my purse."

"Brother Brother always help." Benen wasn't sure what to make of that and must have looked puzzled because the foreigner tried again.

"Brothers help Brothers always?"

"But I don't know you," Benen said.

"Both Benders," the man said. "Brother Benders."

Benen looked at him uncomprehending. Orafin, in his satchel bag came out and said, "He means you're both magicians."

Both foreigners jumped on seeing Orafin, speaking in their own tongue what Benen assumed to be hexes against evil. Orafin said some words to them in Westren and they calmed down and came closer. Orafin served as interpreter thereafter.

"The older man, his name is Blon, he's a magician, what he calls a Bender of the World. The big guy is his brother Swoldon. They're travelling, seeking a constellation that only rises in the south from here."

"Why did they need to come east to go south?" Benen asked Orafin.

"Political reasons. I guess the direct southern route is not friendly to wizards or perhaps to anyone. Not sure. Blon recognized you as having talent. Figured you were an apprentice. He says that he would have lost much standing if he had let someone's apprentice be so mistreated. He hopes you and your master would do the same for his own apprentice should he ever take one."

"Tell him I thank him deeply and will endeavour to help my own 'brothers' as he has helped me," Benen told Orafin.

The rat looked at him for a moment, "No mention of your master doing the same?"

"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 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.

"When you fail to remember a star properly, the spells you attempt to cast will punish you worse than the punishment I will inflict upon you now. Reflect upon that."

The wizard cast a spell on Benen and for two days, all physical touch brought pain: a jangling feeling down his nerves. It was a lot like the excruciating pain Benen had felt the only time he had cast a spell. From then on, he and Orafin studied and quizzed from all the previous volumes. Benen was surprised his head could hold all the information he was feeding it; he was only the son of a farmer, not a scholar. He developed pride in his newfound capability to learn and remember things. Orafin told him not to let it get to his head.

"There's a lot more you'll need to learn before we can take on the wizard."

After all volumes on the stars were exhausted, the wizard began teaching Benen about actual spell casting.

"It has little to do with the mumbling of words or the movements of your arms, it's all up here in your head," the wizard said. As this was an interactive session, Benen was allowed to speak.

"But I've seen you incant and make arcane gestures," he said to the wizard. He clearly remembered the wizard doing so on a few occasions; specifically, back in the village.

"Oh, I do use them when casting a spell I'm not as familiar with, but these are optional. If you know a spell well enough, you can simply focus on the stars you need, will what you want to happen, and channel power into the spell. The movements and the incantations are crutches to help you channel the power properly. Once you're used to a spell, you can gradually let those become more and more minimal until eventually you forgo them altogether.

Spell casting requires a reservoir of power within the wizard; you do not have that yet. You will have to do the most simple spell possible over and over to acquire a small capacity for power. From there, growing your reservoir will not be so tedious."

The wizard taught Benen a spell for making a tiny point of light on the tip of his finger. It used the sun so it was easy to visualize the stars involved and could be practised all day. Along with the specifics of the spell, the wizard taught Benen some incantation words that would help with sun casting. Similarly, he also taught him gestures for the same. This accomplished, the wizard moved to depart.

"You will practise this every moment the sun is up until you have mastered it. You will have no other duties but this. Take less than a month to do this and you will be rewarded."

Benen practised the spell as directed, hiding in his rooms to do it. He felt silly making pompous wizardly gestures and speaking strange nonsense words and preferred to do it where the wizard was unlikely to run into him. Unfortunately for Benen, Orafin could not be so easily avoided. The rat laughed at his imprecise movements and incorrect pronunciation.

"Help me!" Benen told it, "don't just laugh at me, you stupid useless rat!"

Orafin was more serious after this rebuke and tried to help Benen with his posture and movements. He helped with the pronunciation too, but his help there was less appreciated by Benen.

"No! No! No!" the rat would say. "It's not Astifer like Az-tifer, it's like ass; think Ass-tifer."

If there was a way to make a pronunciation dirty, the rat would. He'd rhyme the sounds to female body parts, some Benen had never even heard of. In the end, it did help. After only one week, Benen could reliably create a point of light at the end of his finger. Better, he could do it without it being followed by exhaustion and excruciating pain.

"From this, you can easily make a light beam, Benen," remarked Orafin, "or light a candle. The principles are mostly the same, as are the gestures. You will see that from small simple effects, you can extrapolate bigger spells. The wizard has finally begun to put you on the path to his own doom."

Benen was feeling ambivalent about hurting the wizard since he had started getting proper lessons from him. He didn't seem as bad now that he was actually teaching him. This changed when he proudly showed the wizard that he could reliably cast the point of light spell.

The wizard stood and watched Benen cast the spell over and over again, through an entire hour.

"It is a good start," the wizard remarked. "Are you asserting that you have mastered the spell then?"

"Yes, Master," Benen said, his chest swelling with pride.

The wizard asked to see Benen's hand. The boy extended it and the wizard took it in his own. There followed intense pain in two of his fingers. He screamed and withdrew his hand from the wizard's. He saw that two of his fingers were charred black husks, burned to the bone. As he lost consciousness from shock and pain he heard the wizard say:

"Now, cast the spell."

He woke later to find his hand had been bandaged, presumably by Orafin. He could not feel the two fingers.

"They're gone," said the rat.

"Gone? Forever?" asked the boy with alarm.

"I'm afraid so. Unless you or another wizard learns enough of the right magic to regrow them. Don't expect the wizard to do it for you though; this is his idea of a lesson."

"How can I do magic without those fingers? They're part of the spell I just learnt!"

"You will have to do without that part of the physical motion. You can do it, Benen."

He had to work another week to get the spell working without the fingers. He waited another week beyond that, practising the spell even further, expecting the wizard to somehow prove to him he was not ready.

When he demonstrated for the wizard, Benen was forced to cast the spell over and over again for three hours without pause. Once this was completed, Benen thought he had finally succeeded, but then the wizard hit him in the face, hard.

"Cast the spell," the wizard insisted as he hit again and again.

Benen could not do it. He returned to practising.

He had Orafin interfere with him in all possible ways they could think of together, the rat biting him on occasions, other times clawing at his face and eyes. It was only on the day before the deadline that Benen was ready. He could cast the spell silently, without motions, effortlessly. He could do so while being bitten or clawed. To further test him, Orafin even tried leaping straight at Benen's crotch while he was casting; the boy was unfazed.

He proved all this to the wizard and, finally, the wizard had to concede that Benen had achieved mastery of the spell.

"As your reward, starting tomorrow, you will assist me in the laboratory," pronounced the wizard.

Work in the laboratory, of course, was hardly a reward: it was more work on Benen's plate. Worse, once Benen started being able to cast spells, the wizard reinstated his task of cleaning the tower. This meant that he would get up with the sun, clean and cook for twelve hours, then take lessons and work in the laboratory with the wizard for another six. He was exhausted by the time he returned to his quarters, but still found the energy most nights to take extra lessons from Orafin for two or three hours. This routine ran Benen ragged but he still persevered; he was motivated.

The more Benen worked in the laboratory, the more he felt used by the wizard. Every session started with instructions on how Benen was to assist, but they were always incomplete; missing a step or two. The missing parts always resulted in some discomfort or injury to Benen. It did motivate him to learn how the experiments worked, so that he could figure out the missing instruction. This was, he knew, the point. The wizard was teaching him, grudgingly, the basics of laboratory technique; he just wasn't doing it in a nice way. Benen hardened his heart against the wizard, readying himself bit by bit for the day to come when he would be powerful enough to rise up against him.

But that day was still far away and for the moment he was becoming more of a wizard by the day. One morning, when Overseer came to take him on his rounds for the cleaning of the tower, Benen decided he had had enough of the cursed blue light. He looked up and verified the Cleaver had risen. This constellation, called the Scythe by the common folk, emanated energies wizards used to destroy things; including dispelling magical effects. Benen wasn't sure he was powerful enough to dispel an effect the wizard had protected, but he doubted the Overseer was something the wizard had worked very hard upon; it was probably created with the least effort needed.

The blue light pulsed its impatience when he failed to rise immediately when called awake. He did rise then and looked at it.

"Are you conscious?" he asked it. "Are you a person?"

It did not seem to understand this line of enquiry and pulsed more quickly. Benen knew this as a sign that the construct was getting ready to shock him for not following orders. He concentrated on the nine stars of the Cleaver then, picturing them clearly in his mind. He knew all their masses, their visible magnitude, their distance from his own world as well as their distances from each other; he even knew their ages. Keeping this in mind, he drew upon his now slightly larger reservoir of magical energy and molded it into the spell he desired in his mind. Simultaneously, he began a circular motion with his right arm and moved his left hand up above his head, two fingers curled and two fully extended. Finally, he gave voice to incantation words that suited his magical intent: "Marbellus Inuut Kartan Vourt!"

The energies burned through him as he finished the spell; he was pushing his capabilities with this effect. A torrent of red energies flowed from him to the blue light. It emitted a piercingly high-pitched shriek for a brief second and then it was all over.

When Benen looked, the blue light was still there. His spell had failed!

The light pulsed quicker than usual, as though it were getting ready to deliver an exceptionally strong shock, but its pulsing suddenly ended. For a second, the light simply hung there, flickering intermittently, then it became blue glitter hanging in the air before falling to the ground.

_I did it!_ Benen thought. Then he truly felt his body's pain at channelling the magical energies and he collapsed back into his bed. He slept again and did not get up until an hour before midday.

_The wizard will kill me if I do not serve up lunch,_ he thought immediately. He made his way to the kitchens and made the wizard's meal. Having fulfilled this obligation, Benen then had to clean the tower with only half the time he normally had. The thought occurred to him then that perhaps he'd been doing this the wrong way.

He was a wizard's apprentice; why was he cleaning with a brush, bucket, and broom?

Benen knew the Cleaver would still be in the sky and that he could call upon its energies to create his own equivalent of the blue light Overseer. His creation would be a scourge, travelling the entire tower, disintegrating dust, spills, and vermin, but he feared such a thing would be beyond his current capacity to cast without severely harming himself; the simple dispel from that morning had wiped him out for half the day.

_What I need is something that makes the going easier and faster,_ he thought.

He settled on an idea and took out a rag as the target for his spell. He called once more upon the Cleaver and its energies. For this he needed different movements and incantation words, but he knew them. The spell he was casting should be even easier than the previous one from the morning. This was a good thing because he did not have the time to waste recuperating from this spell.

He concentrated on the spell, made the movements, said the words and enchanted the rag.

The surge of pain through Benen was less than one tenth that of the dispelling magic's aftershock. He felt all right; not perfect, but functional. He also felt pride in his growing abilities.

_I am becoming a wizard!_ he exulted.

Picking up the rag, he was surprised by a tingling sensation where he touched it. He could see the magic's effect on his hand; it was cleaner than ever before. Using the rag, one wipe was all it took to clean a surface perfectly. Benen quickly wiped down floors and surfaces and was finished cleaning the day's rooms in half the time he had left. With the rag, he could do his cleaning in a quarter of the time it would normally require. His heart swelled with happiness that he would have this extra time to work on his magic. Seeing such obvious benefits to his new powers motivated Benen to learn most of all.

The trick with the rag meant more to Benen than simply shortening his cleaning time, giving him more time to learn; it brought a realization that magic was something he could use for all tasks, if he had the right knowledge.

He applied this new attitude to his work in the kitchen.

When the time came to cook the wizard's lunch, Benen thought of how magic could be used to help with the chore. The most obvious assistance it could provide was as a replacement for the hearth. He could use fire magic to heat the food and cook it in a mere fraction of the time it would normally take, but he wanted to do more with magic. Benen felt sure the wizard did everything with his magic and that this attitude was key to becoming a great magician.

Using the Pinnacle constellation, Benen knew he should be able to cast a spell to manipulate objects at a distance with his mind. He knew he didn't need a powerful spell for this; the wizard used the Pinnacle's magic to make the tower fly, but the heaviest object Benen needed to lift with this spell was a chicken. He had learnt all he needed about the constellation itself and knew some of the proper words and motions for spells of this sort, so he decided he would give it a try.

He cast the spell, taking his time to get it right, and felt the magic flow through him. It hurt, but he relished the pain; it meant the spell was drawing power from him. This being the first time he had cast a spell using the Pinnacle, his casting was far from perfect: the magic left him drained. He fell to his knees and stayed there while he recuperated.

_Did it work?_ he asked himself when he felt better.

Looking at the basket of potatoes in the corner of the pantry, Benen selected one of them and willed it to move up into the air. It shot straight up and hit the ceiling with such force that it became a flat wet mess on the ceiling.

Despite this setback, Benen whooped with delight at the thing. It had moved so fast!

He concentrated on his rag and willed it in the direction of the mess on the ceiling. This time he tried to moderate the speed and maintain control over the object. It didn't work. The rag moved with lightning speed to the spot and flopped against the ceiling.

Undeterred, Benen continued working with the rag, moving it around the kitchen with his mind. He found that it took intense concentration for him to exercise fine control over the rag. He thought this might be something to do with the spell he had envisioned. He might very well have overestimated the force he needed for lifting, having had no reference point. Still, he worked with what he had created and soon enough, managed to manipulate the rag and clean the mess on the ceiling.

Using this newfound control, he picked up a new potato and held it before him in the air. He found he was grinning like an idiot and tried to calm himself for the next part. This part might be more dangerous and a mistake there could cause much greater damage than what had happened with the Pinnacle-based spell and the potato.

For his next spell Benen chose to call upon the Cleaver constellation. He had already verified it was in the sky and shining and thankfully this was a constellation he had worked with before. The effect he wanted was one that would destroy the peel but leave the potato unharmed. Control and precision were called for.

He cast the spell and this time, his problem was not one where the effect was overly powerful. This time the effect of the spell was far too subtle. Benen's fear of creating too great an effect had reduced the spell's power to the point that all it had done was clean the exterior of the potato, and not even very well at that. He sighed. He was already feeling drained and he'd not even prepared one potato yet.

Taking a deep breath, he refocused and cast a greater version of the same spell he had just tried. This time he annihilated the potato! Nothing at all was left of it.

Determined to get this right, Benen took up another potato with his mind. He pictured the exact effect he desired, concentrating on that above all. This time the spell burned and hurt him beyond any of the spells he had cast so far that day. Benen fell to the ground and lost consciousness for a few seconds. Everything hurt. When he was recovered enough he looked to where the potato had fallen: it was perfectly de-peeled.

_Worth it,_ he told himself, forcing belief that it was into his head.

He picked himself back up from the ground, used his magic rag to clean the potato, moving both with his strained mind and placed the potato in the pot of water he had prepared for cooking the vegetables.

The problem, he knew, was that he had concentrated too much on the effect and lost his proper focus on the constellation, the motions, and the incantation.

_I can do better,_ he thought.

He worked at it and managed to peel enough potatoes for the wizard's meal. By this time he felt truly retched and wanted to lie down and sleep for an eternity while his body recovered, but he still needed to prepare a chicken and cook the vegetables. He abandoned the magic-only approach and prepared the rest of the meal using mundane means. He napped while the whole cooked, waking periodically to stir, baste, and check on things.

In the end, lunch was a success, but Benen felt he needed to practise the spells more. As it was, it had taken greater effort by far to do the steps using magic than to do them by mundane means. This was not as it should be. He was convinced practise was key and tried again at supper time.

Next he tackled the stain that had defied cleaning by mundane means. He ran into it as part of the normal rotation and confidently applied his magic rag to it. It surprised him that the stain resisted the power of the rag. No matter how much he rubbed it with his enchanted cloth, the stain didn't change.

_Is this even a stain?_ he wondered.

The Overseer had insisted he clean this, so it was definitely something the wizard wanted gone, but it didn't get removed by the cleaning effect on his rag.

_What could it be?_

Benen knew there were means to try to identify something through a variety of sensory enhancements, but this all seemed like a lot of work to him just so he could clean a stain up. Instead of trying those out he decided to stick with what he knew best: The Cleaver.

The constellation wasn't up in the sky yet, so he continued his rotation and came back to the stain some time later. When he did return, he tried the rag once more, just in case. It had no more effect than before. Determined to make this work with the Cleaver, he brought that constellation to mind and wrought a spell of destruction to clear the stain from the stone.

He reasoned this would be a more powerful, more directed effect than that on the rag and therefore stood a better chance of working. He was careful not to direct any of the effect onto the stone itself; he didn't want to break the floor.

When he was done, and the spell completed, the stain still remained.

He did not give up on The Cleaver yet. Undeterred, Benen created a more powerful effect than the one he had just tried; as powerful of an effect as he could. He knew this would leave him drained and tired for the rest of the day, but he didn't want to just leave this stain here.

_I can do this. I am a wizard in training and no simple stain is going to defy me._

He unleashed his spell upon the stain and was gratified when he saw it vanish. He fell to his knees, exhausted.

_I got it!_

But then, before his eyes, the stain reappeared!

Benen beat at it with his fists in sheer frustration. "No! No! No!"

He slunk back to his quarters to study up on sensory improvements. It seemed the wizard had planned this to be more of a challenge than Benen had expected. This was a challenge the wizard had placed there for him to overcome. He decided he wouldn't fail.

He spent the rest of his free time that day and the next reading about the constellations that governed magic of the sensory type. It seemed to Benen that too many different sorts of enchantments existed for this sort of thing. He preferred the simplicity of The Cleaver's effects.

In the end, he decided that the stain was likely the result of a magical effect on the part of the wizard. In that case, what he needed was an enhancement that allowed him to tell what had been done so that he would know what to undo. The undoing would be performed using his old friend, The Cleaver.

Detection magic was not actually governed by a constellation, but by the moon itself. The moon was always tricky to use because there were so many features to the body that were observable and they all needed to be kept in mind. Benen refreshed himself on the subject by going to the telescope array and using it to peer at the surface of the moon and study the topography. With it firmly in mind, he returned to the stain.

Closing his eyes and concentrating on what he had just seen of the moon, Benen called to mind the other facts he knew about it: the phase it was in, its weight, its apparent size and magnitude; all this and more. Then he used the not-yet familiar motions associated with moon magic and spoke the incantation words so foreign to his tongue. The spell, minor though it was, nearly knocked him out and left him writhing with pain on the ground.

When he finally felt better, about an hour later, Benen's spell had elapsed and he had to cast it again.

_Tomorrow,_ he decided. _I'll do it tomorrow._

This had proven to Benen that he needed to practise more of the different sorts of magic. He had gotten quite confident in his use of The Cleaver and forgotten how punishing even minor magic was when it was unfamiliar.

When he came back the next day, he tried the same effect once more and was slightly less devastated by it. This spell was meant to reveal the weaves of magic, so he looked around to see what he could now detect.

Unfortunately, the entire tower seemed to be enchanted, in some places with a multitude of effects. The magic revealed lines of force laid down in patterns to create effects and there were lines and whorls everywhere. Worse, he didn't understand them. He saw the patterns relating to the stain, but they had lines going from it to elsewhere. He followed those and they led to another clump of patterns near the base of the tower, many yards away.

Benen despaired.

He couldn't just dispel any of these patterns, too many were interconnected. He feared some of the patterns were integral to the flying effect keeping the tower in the skies. If he cut any of these lines, would the whole unravel?

He decided he couldn't just use brute force on this problem and would need to learn more about what it was he was seeing. He sought out Orafin and asked him about the patterns.

"Identifying magic is an entire education, my young friend," the rat told him. "Different magicians will often cause a unique pattern for the same effect. There are rules, certainly, but there are many variables involved; enough to make casual learning of this impossible."

"Point me to the book," Benen said and sighed. The stain would wait for a while, it seemed.

Learning to decipher the traces of magic left behind by spells and magical effects in general was long and hard. While learning this so that he could erase the stain, Benen continued in his attempts to use magic for all things he possibly could. The exception to this was when he was in the presence of the wizard.

When with the wizard he used no magic at all. He had not been forbidden from using it, he simply was unsure if it was allowed and since the wizard had never mentioned he should use magic for any of his tasks, he did not. This ended one day in the laboratory.

The wizard had been working on a new effect and kept using animals as the targets for the spell. Unfortunately, the work had not been going well and the animals kept dying. This was not actually the intent of the wizard's magic. He meant to combine a growth effect, which comes from the Sun, and endurance and strength, which came from the fourth planet, Mithran. The wizard could apply one effect and then the other, but he was trying to apply both at the same time, as one spell. What was happening was that the two would combine to result in an extra-strong growth spell, causing the creature to grow out of all proportions and die from heart failure. When the last of the animals was used up — there had not been very many — the wizard decided he would use his apprentice as the target of the spell.

"You will be perfectly safe, boy," said the wizard. "You'll first cast your own strength and endurance spell to make sure you can withstand the growth even if my own effect goes awry. It's about time you started using magic more, by your age I was doing everything with magic."

Benen reddened but did not correct the wizard. He was too busy fearing he would soon die from a growth spell gone wrong. He had never called upon the fourth planet and was afraid he would fail his spell, or succeed it insufficiently to survive the growth.

He tried to call facts about Mithran to mind, but he couldn't remember enough. He knew that it appeared red in the telescope and that it was named after an ancient god of war that no one worshipped anymore. All the planets were named after old gods, some from different pantheons. Wizards, of course, did not believe in gods. They were certain the universe was the result of magical processes perfectly explainable, if one understands magic theory deeply enough.

Still, knowing the history of a constellation, or other celestial body, helped with the casting so Benen latched onto what he knew of Mithran and about the physical look of the planet and hoped it would carry him through the spell casting intact.

It wasn't enough.

He cast the spell and it worked, but it floored him. Benen found himself face first on the ground, twitching from the magic's flow through him, barely conscious. All of this in front of the wizard. The man harrumphed his disappointment.

"Do not ever shame me with such a display again," the wizard said. "No apprentice of mine should ever be so poor at casting simple magic. From now on you will not use your hands at all for tasks. You will do _everything_ with magic. That will ensure this never happens again."

The wizard approached Benen and helped him up, grabbing him by both hands. He did not let go of Benen's hands once he was up, instead he cast a spell. From the incantation words the wizard used, Benen was able to tell that the spell called upon The Fool. This constellation was used for curses, among other things. Benen braced himself for the worst.

The worst didn't materialize.

The wizard let go of his hands and asked Benen if he was ready to be grown. Benen was waiting for some effect from the wizard's spell to make itself manifest, but nothing did. He nodded and hoped that he would survive the growth. He should — probably. He did have enhanced strength and endurance, so his heart should hold out. _Should_. He didn't like the sound of that at all.

His master cast his combined spell and it again did not work as intended. Instead of moderate growth and increased strength and endurance, the growth was stronger in effect. Benen saw the room shrink around him alarmingly and bent himself over to avoid knocking his head into the ceiling. Soon, he was fourteen feet tall and sitting curled up in the room. The wizard was shaking his head in disappointment.

"We'll try again tomorrow," he said. "Do shrink yourself back down, boy." The wizard left.

Benen had to shrink himself, using an unfamiliar constellation, while unable to move. This resulted in a costly spell. This being the second such botched spell in short succession for Benen, he fell unconscious at its completion. He awoke a bit before dinner feeling absolutely wretched. Worse, he was still larger than he should be. He was almost ten feet tall!

_Never mind that for now_ , he told himself and hurried to the kitchens. He had to make supper.

Not having the time or fortitude to waste on casting spells to get his work in the kitchens done, Benen decided to do things manually this once. Unfortunately, this was when he found out what the wizard had done to him. When he tried to do things with his hands, they fumbled everything. He cut himself trying to peel potatoes before giving up on the manual way of doing things.

_Have to hurry!_ he thought. He needed to get everything ready for the wizard in time for supper.

Using his strength sparingly, he did all the steps with magic and managed it just in time. He served supper as a ten foot tall youth and drew only a mildly raised eyebrow from the wizard. After supper was served, Benen barely made it back to his room. Once there, he vomited in the loo and curled up right there to sleep. He could not have moved over to his bed even if it had occurred to him. He slept till mid morning the next day and woke up to find himself still ten feet tall.

He sighed and got on with the new day.

It turned out the wizard really was doing Benen a favour with the curse. Given no other choice but to use magic for everything his hands would normally do, Benen got more practise than ever before. Of course, before the curse, Benen had been trying to use magic for everything already. The problem was that he would let himself use his hands or other mundane means when he didn't feel like going through the effort of casting a spell. With the curse, he had no choice, and so wound up using magic for almost everything. His progress accelerated.

Soon he was able to concentrate on other problems. First he took care of his size, returning himself to his usual height. Next he came back to the stain and his need to understand the weaves of magic. Without this knowledge, he realized, he couldn't remove an effect from something with multiple enchantments without potentially removing the wrong effect; worse, he might remove more than just the one he wanted.

To supplement the book learning he was doing on the subject at night, Benen cast the spell that revealed the traces of magic and left it operating on him at all times. He was surprised the first time he cast a spell while his magical sight was active. He could see the strands forming before him. It was so distracting that Benen failed to continue the spell and paid heavily in pain and suffering for the lapse.

Still, this gave him the idea that he could try to create a stain and look at the resulting whorls and pattern. Comparing his stain to the other magically created one might not reveal the same exact layout of lines, but it should give a hint as to which parts of what he was seeing belonged to the effect creating the stain and which belonged to others.

Benen was therefore puzzled when he put this plan into effect and the resulting magical pattern bore no resemblance to what he was seeing when he looked at the area where the stain was. He went back to reading his book.

In the laboratory, Benen would let himself be distracted by the beautiful patterns of lines the wizard created during his experiments. The sight was so distracting that he failed to do his part in one particular experiment and the wizard punished him with a spell inflicting excruciating pain, like fire in his nerves.

"Get out of here, useless boy," the wizard said. "You're just leeching my power and returning nothing of worth!"

Benen retreated from the laboratory and resolved to pay better attention in the future. He was haunted by the wizard's mention of his leeching power from him. He didn't know what that meant. At the nearest opportunity he asked Orafin.

"Did he really say that?" the rat was alarmed.

"Yes, why?" asked Benen. "What does he mean?"

"You've been growing your reservoir of magical power a lot since you started casting spells all the time," the rat answered.

"But that's _my_ reservoir," Benen objected. "I'm not taking anything from him."

"That's where you're wrong," Orafin said. "You _are_ taking power from him."

"But I'm not!"

"Think of magical power as water, flowing over the surface of the world."

"Ooookay."

"Now, accept that the layer of water — magic — is rather shallow and the surface of the world is mostly smooth."

"Okay."

"Wizards, with their capacity to use magic, act as a depression in the surface. The resulting pool is their reservoir." Benen narrowed his eyes at this. He didn't like where this was leading. "As your reservoir grows, you become a bigger and deeper depression in the surface, acquiring a bigger pool of the water. Put two such depressions close to one another and they start splitting the available water between them, with neither pool being filled to its capacity."

"So, now that I have a bigger reservoir, I'm hindering the wizard's ability to fill his magical reservoir of power?"

"Yes," the rat agreed. Benen was confused as to why the rat saw this as bad news.

"But this means that he'll have less power when I go to fight him!" Benen was excited, this seemed like a good thing to him.

"The wizard can do more with less than you can," Orafin pointed out. This dampened Benen's excitement somewhat, but he still saw it as a point in his favour.

"But I can wait a while yet, and learn more before confronting him."

"Perhaps," the rat appeared dubious of this possibility, "but you will have difficulty matching his eight hundred years of experience. Worse, Benen, now that you are actively draining from his reservoir, he might think your usefulness has come to an end sooner rather than later."

Benen gulped. He wasn't ready for a confrontation with the wizard yet. Certainly, he had learnt more in the past year of his apprenticeship than all previous years combined, but he was still far from the power level of the wizard. Even with Orafin helping out, he didn't think his odds of winning were good.

"I need to learn more and fast," Benen declared. Orafin agreed and did what he could to tutor Benen.

From that point on, the boy barely slept; using magic to restore wakefulness when he spent more than twenty-four hours awake. When he did sleep, he used magic to make it more productive, reducing how many hours of sleep he needed to recuperate.

He worked himself hard for eight months, a time during which the wizard grew more and more distant and hostile. He ceased wanting Benen in the lab and didn't give him lessons in person; he sent him books to read and study. The distance suited Benen, it allowed him to set his own pace and to make his own decisions as to what he needed to learn. This also allowed him to spend more time under Orafin's tutelage: the rat was a far kinder and better teacher than the wizard. Of course, the rat's uprising depended on Benen being well-trained, so he was an interested party and it showed in his teaching.

**Chapter 6: Upstart**

****

At the end of eight months of intensive training by Orafin, both the rat and Benen thought the day of their reckoning with the wizard was not far. Benen had not seen the wizard except at meals, which Benen still served. For their part, Benen and Orafin thought they had used the time to good effect and that Benen was as ready as he was likely to become, given the constraints. The wizard would make a move against the boy soon, Orafin was convinced and said so.

This began a tense period in Benen's life, when he was awaiting death or liberation. Every morning, he was pleased to discover he was still alive and had the hope of another day of preparation before the dreaded moment. Orafin, based on experience, thought the wizard was likely to challenge Benen to a duel instead of striking at Benen while he slept or through some other underhanded way. They could not take that for granted though, and Benen found that the few times he slept, he slept lightly, ready to spring up and fight if needed.

These days of preparation were mostly filled with Benen casting spells on himself or his environment to help him in the coming confrontation. He had begun with spells tied to the Pinnacle and the other constellations near it that never rose or set as seen from their location. Those spells would not need to be renewed daily. He then started casting spells that were tied to the stars and celestial bodies that rose and set daily. Those he had to re-cast every day. It gave him great practise in casting these particular spells, and spells from those constellations in general.

The linchpin enchantment Benen and Orafin were counting on was a _sink_. This spell, provided by the Parallels, caused magical energy in an area to pool on one spot. This deprived other nearby areas of magic and would prevent a wizard from filling their reservoir, making them operate at a reduced capacity. It was a long spell to cast and took quite a bit out of a wizard, so was rarely used in conflicts between two magicians, but given that Benen had a reasonable expectation of where the fight was going to happen, he could try to rely on the sink to provide him with an edge. If he could manage to stand on it, the effect would mitigate his lack of reservoir strength in relation to the wizard.

After the sink, their next best weapon was confusion. Every day, when the constellation known as the Mask of Heaven rose, Benen would cast a spell that created a phantasmal duplicate of him. He would move the duplicate into a wall, being insubstantial, and leave it there. Then he would repeat the process, seeding duplicates into the walls around his quarters and other potential confrontation spots. Creating twenty duplicates every day was tiring, but he knew this effect would save his life if the wizard attacked him while the Mask of Heaven was in the sky.

The next bit of confusion Benen and Orafin had planned for the wizard was a spell using the Pinnacle. Since it stayed in the sky perpetually, they did not need to recast the spells over and over. The spell Benen was using allowed him to telekinetically move the enchanted object with his mind. He cast it on almost all the loose objects in his room and worked his way out from there into the rest of the tower, concentrating on the kitchens next; this being the next most likely place where the wizard would attack him.

Finally, Benen cast the spell allowing him to see the lines and patterns created by magical effects in the world around him. He had made definite strides in understanding what he saw and Orafin insisted that he have the spell on any time he possibly could, since the effect would give Benen a chance to know what the wizard was casting as he cast it, thereby gaining a chance to counter the wizard's spells. Of course, this assumed Benen understood what he saw. He kept practising, watching the product of his own casting to learn the patterns they created.

In the spirit of perfecting his deciphering of magical patterns, Benen returned to his study of the stain that had eluded his previous attempts at eradication. He knew he could not simply destroy the stain, he had tried that; it had come back. This told Benen that some effect had to be recreating the stain whenever it was purged. He looked around and saw a pattern of magical lines he believed were the results of magic associated with the planet Oros. This seemed promising to Benen, since magic from Oros was associated with filth and decay. Using his magic dispelling effect from The Cleaver constellation, Benen broke that particular effect.

It unravelled and disappeared. The stain was still present, so Benen used a different, cleaning, effect from the Cleaver on it. The stain disappeared as well. But as he watched, it returned. Looking around, Benen saw that the effect tied to Oros had also returned.

Undeterred, Benen dispelled the Oros effect once more and waited, watching it. The effect did get properly dispelled, he saw, but was recreated a few short seconds later. With his sight, he could even see a whorl of lines twitch when the effect reappeared. He looked at the suspect lines of magic and couldn't make heads or tails of it. He sighed and decided to take a chance.

He dispelled the Oros effect and then, quickly, before it had a chance to act, he also dispelled the unknown whorl of lines. A flash of bright red light washed over him from that spot. For a time, everything he saw was coloured red. He didn't know why the red light had happened, but he was unharmed. Looking for the Oros effect, he was pleased to see that it had not come back. He cleaned the stain then and this time the area stayed clean.

Satisfied, Benen returned to his room. It wasn't until his eyes stopped seeing red everywhere that he noticed his clothes and his skin had become red; bright red.

Orafin took one look at him and burst out laughing.

"The wizard must have laid a trap for you that you failed to spot, my young friend," the rat said.

"Shut up and help me get rid of this," said Benen. He wasn't just irritated by the colouring, he was scared. The wizard had laid an elaborate set of enchantments just as a test for his apprentice. Benen feared that despite all their preparations, the fight with the wizard would end poorly for them.

The next day, Benen, still red — he couldn't find a way to return to his proper colouring — and Orafin discussed what the rat would do during the fight. Their progress was hindered by Orafin's outbursts of laughter whenever he gazed upon Benen; the rat did his best to avoid looking at him as he spoke.

"Mostly, my part is done once the fight starts. Most of what I can contribute is my knowledge, Benen. As a rat, I can't cast magic," Orafin said.

"What about the telepathy? You've done that."

"It was a spell I had cast before my change. I can still maintain it, but not cast it anew."

"Okay, but couldn't I change you back into a human being?" Benen asked.

"I'm not sure that's something you can do well, yet, Benen. No offence, but better a rat than a puddle of goo . . ." answered the rat.

"I see what you mean," Benen said, "but this might be important. Two apprentice wizards have a much better chance than one."

"I just think shape-shifting someone else is beyond your current abilities, and I don't want to have to die to prove it to you," Orafin was getting defencive.

"How about I try to change a small part of you and only that part. At worst you'll lose a hand," Benen said.

"That's a pretty bad 'at worst', Benen!" Orafin objected. "You're talking about my hand!"

"Okay, how about a tail?" Benen countered.

Orafin twitched his tail, looked at it as if evaluating its worth and looked back to Benen.

"All right," he answered reluctantly and turned around to present his tail. Benen could see the rat was nervous, he shook perceptibly.

Shape-shifting, he knew, was governed by multiple constellations. Such effects were some of the hardest to correctly perform. One of the two constellations he would need would be the one that is constant for all such magic: Great Sky River, governed magic involving change. The other constellation was chosen based on the change being attempted. In this case, Benen was getting rid of the tail, so he could have used The Cleaver, since he was removing a part, but he felt this would not demonstrate his ability to shape-shift the rat back to a human form. Instead, he chose The Builder as the second constellation.

The Builder was the constellation associated with humanity and their works. Using The Builder in concert with Great Sky River, Benen could change an animal to a human being. In this case, he would change the tail to its equivalent on a human: no tail. The theory was sound and he began calling to mind the details on all the different stars of both constellations, keeping straight which stars belonged to which constellation.

Eventually, he was ready. By then, the rat was quite nervous and growing impatient. Benen got on with the spell. He cast it carefully, keeping in mind the desired result. The moment he finished the incantation and movements, he felt the magic flow through him — painful as always — and the rat's tail began shifting and changing.

It acquired strange lumps in some places, bulging oddly. It pulsed as though containing a new heart.

"It doesn't feel right!" Orafin proclaimed, his voice filled with panic.

Benen saw the tail gaining in size and bulk and decided Orafin was probably right. He didn't know what to do. Should he cast The Cleaver on it?

Orafin had twisted around and was staring at the pulsating mass that used to be his tail with new horror and fainted.

As he watched, filled with indecision, Benen saw the mass become more defined. Some of the bulk extended into two pseudopods; one on each side of the tail. The tail's tip became bulbous and soon it became clear to Benen that the tail was becoming man-shaped, with one of its legs still connected to the rat's bottom. The tail's head grew a mouth and began screaming a high-pitched scream that sounded like metal grinding against metal. Panicking, Benen ran for one of the knives he had taken from the kitchens for use in fighting against the wizard and picked it up. He stabbed at the 'heart' of the man-thing and the screams changed, but did not cease. Benen kept hacking at the thing until it quieted and stilled.

The mess was disgusting and much too man-like for Benen's comfort. He cut the ragged tail nub cleanly off at Orafin's bum and picked up the rest of the mess, disposing of it in the loo. Then he added to the lot his own sick. Returning to the room where the rat was bleeding, Benen bandaged the poor creature.

An hour later, the rat woke up.

"Tell me it was a nightmare," Orafin said, his voice weak.

"I wish I could," Benen said. The rat hesitantly curled to look at where its tail used to be. It saw the bandaged stump and sighed.

"I told you you weren't ready," it said and sighed, lying down again. "But I guess you had to try."

"I'm sorry, Orafin," Benen said, he didn't know how to apologize enough. "I'll drop shape-shifting you for now. After the wizard is defeated, I'll make changing you back a priority. You shouldn't have to be a rat . . ."

"You get used to it, after a few years . . ." Orafin said sleepily. The rat was falling asleep again. Benen left it alone, giving it as much quiet as he could so the rat could rest and recuperated. He read books on the subject of shape-shifting, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The more he looked, the more confused he became. It looked like he had done everything correctly.

He resolved to ask Orafin about it when the rat felt better. Benen felt he must be misunderstanding something fundamental about shape-shifting magic, something the books assumed you understood and did not bother explaining; he could think of no other reason for the spell to have gone so wrong.

When the rat did wake up, later that night, it was feverish and in no shape to answer questions. Benen tended to it and helped as best he could. He thought of trying to use healing magic on Orafin but decided to save that as a last resort measure; his faith in his ability to safely perform magic to help or change someone else was not strong. He nursed the rat through the night and by morning it felt better, if still weak.

Benen could not stop apologizing to the rat, once he had recovered enough to hear.

"Oh stop," Orafin said. "It was worth a try, I don't begrudge you that."

"Still, I feel really bad about what happened."

"You learnt the lesson that shape-shifting isn't easy and shouldn't be tried by the inexpert magician, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Then it was worth it."

The matter was dropped when Benen left to go serve lunch to the wizard. Being still coloured red from head to toe, Benen worked to change that in-between tasks in the kitchen; examining what had been done to him using the lunar detection magic he had learnt. He was hoping to be Benen-coloured by the time he had to see the wizard. Unfortunately, what he discovered was that he had been shape-shifted to a red-coloured version of himself. The change was permanent and not a sustained magical effect, so he could not simply dispel it. To get back to his proper colouring he would have to shape-shift, changing his colour as part of that spell. Unfortunately, he had just seen what could happen as a result of poorly executed shape-shifting. He decided to bear being red until he could do the change safely.

He served the wizard his dinner, still red. Thankfully, the embarrassment could not make him any redder.

When the wizard was finished, he addressed Benen.

"Come up to my study at sundown, boy. We need to talk," the wizard said.

Benen returned to his quarters at a run after that. He found Orafin was still there, resting. The rat came awake immediately at the sounds of Benen's rapid footfalls and laboured breathing.

"Is the wizard coming?" Orafin asked.

"No, not yet. But he asked me to meet him in his study after sundown."

"You think this is it?"

"Seems like it might be."

"We haven't prepared for fighting him in his study," the rat pointed out.

"I know!" Benen was panicking. "What do we do?"

Orafin held up both front paws.

"Calm down, you can salvage this."

"How? All our preparations were for the kitchens or here."

"Then you have to bring the fight to those places," Orafin said.

Benen stopped for a moment, giving this some thought.

"I could try . . . I guess."

"It's going to be do or die, Benen," Orafin said very seriously.

What was left of the day, the two spent discussing tactics for the coming fight. Benen did not feel ready at all, but it wasn't his choice to have this showdown; it was the wizard's. He didn't know if he was going to survive the night, but if he was going to die, he was going to die fighting.

Before going up to the wizard's study, Orafin had a last minute question.

"Do you still have the curse on you from the wizard?"

"The fumbling hands?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I've not bothered dispelling it so far. I've found it motivates me to do things with magic instead of my hands."

"That's not why he did it to you," the rat said, his tone ominous.

"What do you mean?"

"Did the wizard ever teach you never to kill with magic?"

"No. Why?"

"Because you should never do it. It's bad. The consequences will haunt you for the rest of your days. Just don't do it tonight. Make sure you kill him in a mundane way. Make sure to get a knife from the kitchens."

"Can I use the knife with my telekinesis?"

"No magic, direct or indirect. You can hurt and disable with your magic but the kill has to be mundane. Got it?"

"Got it, I guess."

"Make sure you do. Also, make sure you get rid of the fumble curse."

"Yeah, okay."

He did get rid of the curse before going up then, it was not a difficult spell to identify and The Cleaver worked fine on it.

When Benen got to the study, he found that the desk had been cleared and the majority of the wizard's things were gone from the room. The wizard was nowhere to be seen. He stepped into the room and looked around.

"Master?" he called.

He had one of the knives from the kitchens hidden in his pants; in a special holster he had sewn for it on the inside of the waist. He kept one hand near it, ready to draw it if needed. He took another step into the room.

"Mast—" he was interrupted by being grasped from behind. The wizard had been invisible!

Benen felt a blade at his throat and an arm across his body, trapping his own arms. The wizard was in his natural form, not shape-shifted, Benen noticed. He guessed, he had to be natural shaped to avoid killing Benen with magic indirectly. The blade at his throat kept Benen from struggling. He needed time.

"Master?" he said as pitifully as he could manage.

"Am I your master, boy?" the wizard said from near Benen's ear. "I know about your rat! Isn't it your true master?"

"I - I don't know what—" Benen started to say.

"Don't lie to me, boy!" the blade bit into Benen's neck slightly. "I know about your lessons with my former apprentice. Do you think anything that happens in this tower escapes me?"

Benen used telekinesis to draw his own knife from his pants, doing so slowly, making sure the wizard felt and heard nothing. He was glad the knife he had grabbed was one he had enchanted previously.

"It served my purposes to let the rat teach you, it spared me from having to do it. But now, your usefulness, such as it was, has come to an end," the wizard said. Benen felt the blade withdraw from his throat for a second as the wizard prepared to deal the deathblow with it and knew he had to act immediately.

He moved the kitchen knife through the air as quickly as he could, launching it at the wizard. The knife bit deep into his master's thigh. The wizard howled in pain and, in his surprise, his grasp was easy for Benen to escape. The boy ran for all he was worth.

Benen went through the kitchens, using the telekinetic enchantments he had laid on the pots, pans, and knives to throw them blindly behind him in case the wizard was following him closely. He did not pause even for a second to look over his shoulder; he didn't think he could afford the time and distraction. He needed to make it to his _sink._

He made it to his quarters, and the sink, without seeing any sign of the wizard. He worried about what the wizard was doing, what he was planning.

"The wizard!" he yelled as he arrived. He went to stand on the sink and spun around to face the door.

"Where is he?" answered Orafin, coming out from under the bed.

"I don't know!" Benen responded. He felt a rising panic and tried to breathe in and out deeply to slow down his heart. Orafin coached him from the corner of the room.

"You can do this, Benen. We've prepared, he won't expect that," he said. As the rat spoke, Benen saw the shadow of an over-large wolf.

"He's changed to a wolf!" Benen reported as he saw his master pad into the hallway outside his quarters. The wolf licked its chops hungrily. "Our plan doesn't matter, he doesn't need magic to kill me as a wolf; the sink is useless!"

"He's killable as a wolf as much as he is as a man," Orafin said.

Benen knew he had to calm down and fight for his survival. He needed to buy himself some time to think how he could fight his former master. He used the telekinetic enchantments on the objects in his room to buffet and delay the wolf from coming at him; using the items sparingly to conserve them.

What could he do against a wolf? It was a killing machine, built of muscle and claws. He tried to use the magic of The Cleaver to break the creature's bones, but his spell had no effect. He looked at the wolf with his magical sight and saw the lines and whorls of magical spells woven into the wolf's form. Benen made out protections against magic from constellations known for their damaging effects.

_The wizard is better prepared than I am!_ he thought with desperation.

The wolf advanced on him and he had run out of objects to throw at it. He saw his death coming for him. He wished he had learnt shape-shifting so that he could fight the creature on its own terms and possibly have a chance at winning. As it was, a boy of seventeen could not fight off a giant wolf.

His thoughts lingered on shape-shifting; a thought about that sort of magic was forming in his mind. He remembered his catastrophic attempt at shape-shifting Orafin and imagined doing that to the wolf. He didn't need to know how to shape-shift properly if he intended to use it as a weapon!

The wizard had not been able to shield himself from shape-shifting, he had needed to shift himself to the wolf form. Benen started the change on the wolf as it crouched, ready to pounce on him.

Immediately, the creature was wracked with pain and started seizing. A strangled cry rose from its throat as its shape changed out of control and with no design.

Benen retrieved one of the knives he had previously thrown at the creature and walked up to the now pathetic mass of shifting flesh, bones and fur. He summoned up all his rage at the way the wizard had treated him and stabbed at the lump.

"This is for taking me away from my family!" he said as he stabbed it.

"This is for the mind games!" he stabbed again.

"This is for your cruelty!" Another stab.

"This is for Orafin!" More stabbing. The mass had stopped writhing and was now inert. Orafin cleared his throat from off to the side and Benen stopped stabbing, the knife falling out of his now limp hands.

"You've done it!" Orafin said. "You've killed the wizard. You can rest now Benen, calm down. You're safe."

Benen could hardly believe it: he had done it and lived. He had killed his master: the cruel bastard was dead. He felt weak and tired; the spell he had improvised to shape-shift the wizard had taken a lot out of him. Trusting to Orafin to watch over him, Benen moved to his bed and collapsed into a deep slumber.

When he awoke, he thought the fight might have been a dream. His room was tidied, all things back in their proper places. He stood and saw that even the body of the wizard was no longer there, no trace was left at all of their battle.

Confused, he called for Orafin, but the rat did not answer.

He made his way through the tower, seeing that even the kitchen was back in order, he began to truly doubt the night before had really happened. Dreading what he would find, he went to the wizard's study directly.

The wizard was sitting at his desk. Benen froze completely and shook with terror. The wizard looked up, saw him, and for the first time Benen could remember, the wizard smiled a genuine smile of pleasure.

"Benen, I see that you're up. Please calm down, all is well," the wizard said.

" _Is_ all well?" Benen said slowly, still shaking.

"Yes, you did very well," said the wizard.

"But I killed you . . ." Benen said.

"No, you did not. You killed a creature I had conjured for your lesson, nothing more."

"You must be angry with me."

"Not at all. I too would have done as you did, confronted with a master such as I was."

"I don't understand."

"Sit down, Benen," the wizard said and motioned to a chair. Benen reluctantly sat.

"When I chose you and made you my apprentice, I began teaching you and treating you with the harshness my master had used on me. In my case, this hardened me and made me into a powerful wizard. In your case, it caused you to shut down and retreat into despair. I needed to teach you, but my methods were not working. That is when I devised Orafin to teach you and set myself up as something for you to overcome. It worked out in the end, as you see. You learnt the magic and passed your apprentice's gauntlet. You are now a journeyman wizard in your own right Benen."

This was all too much for Benen.

"But that means Orafin wasn't real! My friend was just a puppet you used to befriend me and trick me!?"

The wizard held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Orafin was genuinely me, both the wizard you hated and Orafin, whom you liked, were just parts of me that I sometimes express. Orafin may not have truly been a former apprentice of mine who was plotting rebellion with you, but he was the part of me that resented my own master's cruelty toward me during my apprenticeship. In time, I hope you will understand."

Benen did not think that he would.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"Now I deposit you somewhere convenient and you begin your life as a wizard."

"But I don't know what to do, where to start," Benen objected.

"You will find your way," the wizard said, unconcerned. "Our time together is ended. I will see you when you are ready to attempt your masterpiece."

"What?"

"When you are ready to try for the rank of master, find me, and I will judge if you are worthy."

"How will I find you?"

"You are a wizard, Benen, start thinking like one," the wizard said, his tone chiding.

**Epilogue: Journeyman-At-Large**

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Benen stood in the middle of a field watching the flying tower disappear into the sky.

He did not know where he was, did not know where he was going, but he did know that his life going forward would bear no resemblance to the life he was now leaving behind.

For years he had been a captive of the wizard, his only companion a talking rat. He had spent so much of that time learning magic, obsessively, afraid for his life, that even leaving that behind was difficult.

Orafin had made his life with the wizard bearable; had been his only friend. Now he knew the rat for a fraud — even the wizard's menace had been a fraud. Benen felt his whole life he had been surrounded by falsehood.

How could he go forward from here? Where would he go?

He knew he could try to find his family's village and reunite with them, but feared they would not know him. He feared he would be reopening wounds long closed for them. Seeing them was what _he_ wanted; it was a selfish desire. He let it go.

He had other options. The wizard had not left him devoid of resources; he had left Benen with a purse of gold coins: one for each year he had been apprenticed to the wizard. This was wealth beyond the imagination of most peasants. He had to face the reality that he was no longer the same as everyday folk; he was a wizard now and his life did not have to consist of sowing and reaping, living simply by the rhythm of the seasons. He could do great things with his power, he could see all the wonders the world offered.

Benen decided to let go of the past. He would travel far and wide and continue learning. He would find the big cities of the world he had heard stories about from travelling peddlers and see if a wizard would be received by kings.

He had a lifetime to see everything; a very, very long lifetime at that.

Benen picked a direction and began walking, pondering shape-shifting as he walked; it would not do for him to scare everyone with his red-coloured self . . . .
**KEEP READING**

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**Discover More Books by Eric Guindon**

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**Newest Releases!**

The Girl from the Rune Yard

Confessions of a Monster Hunter

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_The Prophecies Triptych:_

The Reluctant Messiah

An Unexpected Apocalypse

False Messiah

_A Wizard's Life:_

Apprentice

Journeyman

Master

_Seven Tribes:_

The Spear's Point

The Orc's Warning (coming soon)

_Short Story Collections:_

Peripheral Visions
**CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR**

You can connect with Eric in a variety of ways:

  * Facebook: <http://facebook.com/reluctantmessiahbook>
  * Twitter: <http://twitter.com/mercurial73>
  * Website/Blog: <http://chimericwhimsey.com>
  * Email: eric.guindon@gmail.com

If you enjoyed the book, please post a review. Your opinion is always appreciated.
**ABOUT THE AUTHOR**

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Eric is an IT professional who has always loved reading fiction, especially science-fiction and fantasy. His love of reading is only exceeded by his desire to write fiction as good as he has read.

Born in Sudbury, Ontario, he spent most of his childhood in Quebec before returning to Ontario in his teens. Now living in Ottawa, Eric shares his life with his wife Kathryn and daughter Zoé -- not to mention a host of pets, including his dog, Thor, and three cats.

**Favourite literary quotations:**

"Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."

— Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
