Guild Mage: Apprentice

"They are better," the chirurgeon said, helping her to unlace the attached sleeve of her bodice, so that they could get her linen shift out of the way. "Your bones are healthier than they were when you were a child. That’s why I’ve allowed you to go out on these hunting expeditions, and all the rest. But your bones still aren’t as strong as those of a normal, healthy person, and you cannot forget that."

"But when will they be?" Liv pressed him.

"Never," Master Cushing told her, with a sigh. In that moment, he looked very old, and withered, like dry summer grass. He had little more than a few wisps of white hair remaining, and the scalp beneath was spotted and thin, like paper. "It never will, Liv. You missed a dozen years when your body should have been growing strong. You’ll never get that back. I’m sorry, but you are never going to be as tall or as strong as you should have been. It is a hard thing to hear, but you need to face it. You’re old enough to understand."

Liv looked away, biting back tears, as he wrapped her arm. "So I can’t ever learn to use a sword," she asked him. It shouldn’t have hurt so much; she hadn’t even wanted to, in the first place. My aunt was Livara of the Five Blades, she thought bitterly. And I’ll be Livara of No Blades.

"The break didn’t happen until the two of you went at full speed?" Cushing asked her. Plaster dripped into the bowl every time he soaked a strip of linen, then lifted it out.

"That’s right," Liv said.

"You can learn at half speed, if you truly want to," the chirurgeon said. "But you need to wait at least twenty days. Don’t put any weight on your arm until I take the cast off."

"I write with my right hand," Liv objected.

"Writing is fine, but lift the book with your left. Carry your staff with your left hand. I’m going to give you a sling, once this dries. When you write, you rest your arm on the desk. No weight, you understand?"

"Yes." Liv nodded. It was just like when she was a little girl all over again. And it was never going to get better. She just had to accept it.

There was something of a crowd waiting in the hallway, when she finally emerged. Mama was there, of course, with Emma; Lady Julianne was standing behind Matthew, who looked like he’d been crying. The boy was growing so fast it was easy to forget he was only seven years old.

"I’m sorry, Liv," Matthew said, and rushed forward to wrap his arms around her. Liv tried not to be resentful that it was her arm broken, but he was the one who was crying. Instead, she put her left hand on his back, and moved it in the slow circles that had calmed him when he was an infant.

"I’m going to be alright," she told everyone. "I just can’t use my arm for a few weeks. And Matthew, next time, only half speed. You understand?"

The boy nodded his head, and allowed his mother to pry him away. "Take the afternoon to rest," Lady Julianne suggested. "Come along, Emma, Matthew. Let’s give Liv a chance to lie down."

"I’ll come visit you again tomorrow," Emma said, waving as she left. When it was only Liv and her mother alone in the hallway, they turned and walked to her room in silence.

"He said my bones are as strong as they’ll ever be," Liv said, after they’d closed the door behind them. She sat down on her bed, where Charlie was sleeping in a patch of sunlight, and laid her cheek upon the black cat’s warm fur.

"I’m sorry," Mama said. "If I’d known, I would have gotten you the right food."

"It isn’t your fault," Liv said. "It isn’t anyone’s fault. It just is."

"What do you want?" her mother asked.

"My books," Liv decided, after a moment. "Over there." She let the cat be, and maneuvered herself under a blanket, with two pillows at her back. Now the snow had melted, her furs had been packed away until next winter. Her mother brought over all four books that had been stacked on her desk, and Liv used her left hand to pull out the newest.

"What is that one?" Mama asked, sitting on the bed next to her.

"In the old baron’s collection is a copy of Semhis Thorn-Killer’s diary," Liv said. "Baron Henry gave me permission to read it years ago, but the entire thing is written in Vædic, and at the time, I didn’t know the language well enough to read it. So, instead, I bought a blank book from Master Gaunt, and copied it."

"By hand? The entire thing? When you couldn’t even read what it said?" Mama asked. Liv held the book so that they could both see, and flipped to the first page with writing on it.

"It took a while," Liv said. "I worked on it when I had the spare time. To be completely honest, it’s still too difficult for me. There’s so many words we’ve forgotten the meaning of, to say nothing of idiomatic language that’s been lost. But I don’t need to know the story." She found the page she was looking for, and tapped her finger against a short phrase.

"What’s that, then?" Her mother leaned forward to get a closer look.

"That is a spell," Liv said. "I already knew that I couldn’t fight with a sword. It would have been nice to be able to practice with Matthew, but that isn’t what I’m good at. This is."

"Alright, then," Mama said. The older woman stood up from the bed and kissed Liv on the forehead. "I’ll have one of the girls bring you a meal up here, if you like. But you should go down for dinner."

Liv nodded and made a noise, but she was already focused on the words she’d copied years ago. In truth, she didn’t even hear the door close when her mother left the room. With her left hand, she reached for the stack of volumes her mother had brought over, and opened her spellbook to the back, where Master Jurian had first left her pages of notes on spell construction. More and more, she was finding the limits of what he’d seen fit to include.

"Desiccation Ward," Liv mumbled, translating the name of the spell. She’d been using her spare time in the evenings to mine Thorn-Killer’s spells for words that she didn’t already know, things that might be useful in constructing her own incantations. But there was something very odd about this one.

The common element among all of the author’s spells was a single word of power: Ters, the same word that the Summersets used to this very day. Long ago, Liv had thought that just knowing the meaning of a word was enough to master it, but years of experience had taught her otherwise. A word of power had to be attuned before it could be used, a process of using mental images and associations to resonate with the core concept of the magic. Without Baron Henry to guide her, trying to use Ters as the base of a spell was a lot like punching the castle wall. She knew that he’d begun teaching Matthew, but it was slow going.

However, in theory, Liv understood how to conjugate Ters, just like she could conjugate her own word, Cel. Which meant that she should recognize the form of Ters being used in this spell. But she didn’t. She looked back over to the chart drawn by Master Jurian’s hand, at the back of her spellbook.

"Tersēvant," Liv murmured. There was no matching entry in the table she’d been given. Ters could have been irregular; Master Grenfell had told her that some words of power used slightly different conjugation from the norm. Except it wasn’t. She flipped through the book, double checking the other spells she’d marked. Every one of them matched a form present in her notes, except for this one. It was frustrating.

Liv threw the blanket back, gathered up both books under her left arm, and went off to find Master Grenfell.

☙

She finally found him in the north tower of the castle, in the old baron’s observatory. Liv slipped into the dusty room, closed the door behind her, and settled herself in one of the two cushioned chairs. Her teacher had the telescope completely disassembled, and was cleaning the new lenses he’d bought from Coral Bay the year before.

"Ah, Liv," Grenfell muttered, not even looking up from his work. "How did Lord Matthew’s practice in the yard go today?"

"Well enough for him," Liv remarked. "Not so good for me."

At that, Master Grenfell finally looked up, blinked twice, and finally recognized the cast on her arm. "I’d thought we were past that," the older mage remarked, setting aside his lens.

"Master Cushing says I won’t ever be past it entirely," Liv told him. "The price of a dozen years eating the wrong food."

"For what it is worth, I’m sorry," Grenfell told her. "But if it serves to keep you focused on where your true talents lie, perhaps it is not such a bad thing. You have the time and inclination to master your word of power in a way that few of us ever could, Liv. Six years of study here, and you’re not even near the time to leave for college. Concentrate on what you’re good at, rather than trying to do things you aren’t suited for."

"That’s what brings me up here, actually," Liv told him. "I found something odd in Thorn-Killer’s diary. At first I thought I’d just made a mistake, but I’ve double and triple checked. One of these conjugations is wrong." She held her copied book in her lap, turning it to face Master Grenfell, and put the tip of her left index finger right on the spell. "Tersēvant," she said. "I’ve never seen that form before. What does it mean?"

Grenfell took his time answering, leaning forward over the book to get a close look. "Ah, yes," he said. "I don’t want you playing with that, yet. It’s dangerous."

"If I understand the name of the spell correctly," Liv pressed, "it’s called Desiccation Ward. What does that mean?"

"If I answer this question," Grenfell said, leaning back in his own chair, "I want your promise that you will not go experimenting without my guidance."

"I haven’t pushed you about enchanting," Liv pointed out.

"You have not," her teacher agreed. "And I take your point. You have been quite responsible. Tersēvant," he explained, "is in the active future tense, rather than in the present."

"Future?" Liv closed the book, taking a moment to process. "Meaning the spell doesn’t actually take place at the time it’s cast?"

"Correct," Grenfell said. "This is advanced spellcraft, Liv. Working with the future tense means that you can cast a spell to trigger on a certain condition. And that is what makes it so dangerous. Can you think of any ways such a thing would go wrong?"

"I can think of a few reasons it would be incredible," Liv said, smiling. "It takes too long for me to cast an Icewall. If I tried to use it to save myself from a crossbow bolt, I’d be a pincushion by the time I finished talking. But if I could cast it ahead of time, and trigger the magic when someone loosed a bolt at me.."

"You see the potential," Grenfell said. "As everyone does, when first introduced to the concept. But not the danger. Let’s take Thorn-killer’s spell, there. Desiccation Ward. A nasty bit of magic, and one I had the distinct privilege to watch Baron Henry use, during the last eruption. He would set it down around our campsite every night. A ring of powdered Aluthet’Staia to hold the magic - don’t even ask me how much each casting cost him. And what do you think happened to anything that crossed that circle?"

"Ters sucks all the moisture out of a target," Liv said. While the Summersets would only teach the word to members of the family, they didn’t make any real effort to hide its destructive capabilities. She supposed it helped to discourage their enemies. "So any mana-beast that crossed the circle of powder would instantly dry out and shrivel up."

"A painful way to die," Master Grenfell said, nodding his head.

"I could adapt this to freeze anyone who crossed," Liv realized.

"You could." Grenfell nodded. "But here is the problem, my dear. Let us say you do that. You’re camping on one of your hunting trips, and you lay out your ward, and go to sleep secure in the knowledge that no enemy can approach you. All well and good, yes? A wolf tries to cross the circle, and it dies. That’s fine, you’ll find it in the morning and skin it, or whatever Master Forester’s been teaching you to do."

"I don’t see the problem yet," Liv said.

"What if it isn’t a wolf that crosses the ward?" Grenfell asked. "What if it’s a wandering hunter who sees your fire? What happens to him? What if it’s a lost child? The magic doesn’t draw a distinction, Liv. It had no judgement. We provide the judgement. A mage chooses when to use force, and when not to. When you leave it to the magic to decide, it will simply do what it’s been instructed to do. Even if the results are not what you want."

"You’re saying it shouldn’t ever be used," Liv said.

"No. I’m saying it must be used in the correct circumstances, and with exceptional care and forethought," Grenfell told her. "Your idea about the Icewall. Why not just walk around with a stored spell all the time? Contingent on the event of someone attacking you with a weapon? Use your mind, like I have taught you. What could go wrong?"

"The wall forms, regardless of what else might be in the way," Liv said, after considering for a moment. "Or where you are. It could break something, if you’re inside a building. If it was big enough, it could knock down a wall or a roof."

"What if someone was standing right where the wall appears?" Grenfell asked.

"At best, they’re knocked aside," Liv said. "At worst, frozen into the wall. It could kill someone, just like the ward."

"Using the future tense of a word of power relinquishes your control of it," her master explained. "We will perform one experiment, tomorrow. Out in the woods, with half a dozen guards to secure the area. Your idea about a ward using Cel is a good one, and one day it might save your life. I can’t let your first time making the attempt be unsupervised. When you have it right, you can record it in your book. But no further experimentation with the future tense until you’re at Coral Bay, or until I give you permission. Agreed?"

Liv nodded. "Thank you," she said.

☙

They took the carriage, and the guards came with them on foot. Master Grenfell had expressly forbidden Emma and Matthew from accompanying them: "The fewer people there, the less risk," the mage had grumbled before they’d set out. He’d also brought along half a dozen bags, which Liv presumed contained the powdered mana-stone.

"I thought you said those were expensive," she said, when he handed her one. They’d walked a good distance off into the woods, at the foot of Summit Mountain, leaving the carriage behind. The guards had fanned out in a wide circle, to turn away anyone who might happen to approach.

"Baron Henry was saving these for the next eruption," Grenfell explained. "I convinced him that it was better you got practice now, before you have to do this in an emergency."

It was awkward, with one arm in a sling, but Master Grenfell held Liv’s staff for her while she surrounded the two of them in a ring of powder. It only used a quarter of the bag, because she’d made it no more than a few paces across. After passing the rest of the bag back, Liv reclaimed her staff. Then, she tucked her skirts under her and sat on the ground, opening her spellbook in front of her. Then, Liv touched the top of her staff to the powder.

"Celēvant Cwo Ferent Sceria," she said. Thorn-Killer’s spell in all respects, save one: the word of power used. Light flared down her staff, leapt to the powder, and set it aglow. It was a soft, dull radiance, like starlight, and would be hardly noticeable during the day.

"What now?" Liv asked.

"Now we wait," Master Grenfell said, sitting down.

It was a squirrel, finally. Liv guessed that it must have taken a bell of sitting quietly before a creature felt brave enough to scamper past them. The moment the squirrel touched the circle, a flash of light erupted, and ice cracked across its fur. Even the poor thing’s bushy tail was frozen, curved upright just as it had been held in the moment.

Liv swallowed, then used her staff to break the circle, wiping away a portion of the dust. "That’s a horrible way to die," she said.

"And now you understand," Grenfell told her. Together, they got to their feet, gathered the guards, and set off back to Whitehill.

When Liv stepped out of the carriage in the courtyard, Matthew was waiting for her with a bouquet of flowers.