The Artful Apprentice Read online

  The Artful Apprentice

  (Schooled in Magic XIX)

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Twilight Times Books

  Kingsport Tennessee

  The Artful Apprentice

  This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Christopher G. Nuttall

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Twilight Times Books

  P O Box 3340

  Kingsport TN 37664

  http://twilighttimesbooks.com/

  First Edition, April 2020

  Cover art by Brad Fraunfelter

  Published in the United States of America.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Appendix: Master-Apprentice Relationships

  Prologue

  “I DON’T LIKE IT.”

  Sergeant Miles resisted the urge to say something cutting as Lady Barb paced his office, her footsteps wearing a groove in the carpeted floor. Lady Barb had always been the one to take action, the one who’d been prepared to do anything — no matter how dangerous — to accomplish her goals. It was something they had in common. Neither of them was the type of person who sat back and did nothing even if it was the smartest thing to do. They had to be doing something...

  But now, there was nothing they could do.

  He watched as Lady Barb paced, finding himself — for once — at a loss for words. He knew Lady Barb disliked — hated — Void. She’d been his apprentice, once upon a time. Miles wasn’t sure of the details, or why she’d left so abruptly, but no one would leave such an apprenticeship unless they had no other choice. Lady Barb wasn't incompetent or stupid or lazy. She couldn’t have been dismissed for any of the usual reasons. He didn’t think he wanted to know the truth. It had to have been something bad.

  “Emily shouldn’t be going to him,” Lady Barb insisted. She turned to face him, long blonde hair fanning out as she moved. “There are others...”

  “Like whom?” Miles met her eyes, evenly. “There are few other teachers who can prepare her for mastery.”

  “You could,” Lady Barb snapped. “Or I could. Or Irene or...”

  Miles shook his head, curtly. “I could make a combat sorcerer out of her,” he said. “So could you. But she wants to be more than just a combat sorcerer. She hasn’t peaked yet.”

  “There are others,” Lady Barb insisted. “Hasdrubal is dead, but there are others.”

  “Maybe,” Miles said. “Hasdrubal would have been ideal.”

  “And safer,” Lady Barb said. “For everyone.”

  Miles rubbed his forehead. “Do you have the power to stop her from going to him?”

  Lady Barb shot him a sharp look. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours. Emily’s.” Miles looked back at her, calmly. He loved her. He really did. But training and inclination forced him to state the facts as he saw them. “The blunt truth is that there are few others who can prepare her for the future. You can’t do it. I can’t.”

  “You took her to war,” Lady Barb reminded him.

  “I know.” Miles shook his head. “The fact remains...”

  “It isn’t safe,” Lady Barb insisted, cutting him off. “And you know it as well as I do.”

  Miles knew, without false modesty, he was a patient man. He’d schooled teenagers who thought they knew everything through the long and painful process of discovering they didn’t. He’d handled aristocrats with egos the size of Whitehall itself; he’d dealt with commoners who barely had the self-confidence to raise their voices when confronted with their social betters. He knew when to be stern and when to be encouraging. It was more an art than a science and he knew he was good at it. But there were limits.

  “Emily doesn’t have any parents here,” he pointed out, calmly. He was upset too — he didn’t trust Void either — but there was no point in beating a dead horse. “Your... authority... over her vanished the moment you stepped back from teaching. Her formal — legal — guardian is Void himself.”

  “She’s more than old enough to put that aside,” Lady Barb snapped. “It was a legal fiction from the start.”

  “And one that’s proven damned convenient over the last six years,” Miles pointed out. “How many people left her alone because they thought she was Void’s daughter?”

  He pressed on before Lady Barb could try to answer. “There’s no one, not even Void himself, who can tell her not to take the apprenticeship and make it stick. And... who would?”

  “Me,” Lady Barb said, stubbornly.

  “You’d be advising her not to take an apprenticeship that could turn her into one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world,” Miles said. “This is an apprenticeship she wants. She could have had her pick of masters, if she wished. There isn’t a sorcerer who’d refuse her. She’s chosen to study under Void and we need to respect that choice.”

  “It could get her killed,” Lady Barb insisted. She rested her hands on her hips. “Or changed. The person who emerges at the far end may not be the person we know and love.”

  Miles cocked his head. “Do you have so little faith in her?”

  “You know as well as I do that he’ll put her in danger, just to see how she copes,” Lady Barb snapped. “Void cannot be trusted.”

  “There are people who say the same of you,” Miles said. “And me.”

  Lady Barb snorted. “Absurd.”

  “But true.” Miles stood and tried to hug her. “I understand your concerns. I’m sure you’ll ensure that she knows about your concerns. But there’s nothing we can do. She wants to study under him.”

  “Ha,” Lady Barb said, brushing away his hug.

  Miles nodded, trying not to be offended. He’d known Emily for six years. She’d been an odd student, even by Whitehall’s standards. Miles hadn’t understood Emily until he’d learned the truth about her origins. No wonder she was a little strange. And yet... there was no doubting her bravery, her skill at magic and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of simple human decency. Miles had met many magicians he’d thought would e
ventually go mad, getting themselves and others killed as they pushed the limits until they snapped. Emily wasn’t one of them.

  “We can’t stop Emily from going,” Miles said. “And if you push too hard, you may drive her away from you. She’s old enough to rebel against her parental figures. He’s not going to have an easy time with her either.”

  Lady Barb gave him a sour look. “Do you have sisters?”

  “I’ve taught students for over a decade,” Miles reminded her. He’d never had many girls in his classes. The ones who had studied under him had been so driven that they’d often outshone the boys. “I am not entirely deprived of powers of observation.”

  He smiled. “Didn’t you rebel against your parents?”

  “No.” Lady Barb shook her head, a hint of pain in her eyes. “My father never said...”

  She grimaced. “So... what do we do?”

  “Be there for her,” Miles said. He hugged her, tightly. This time, she returned the hug. “That’s all we can do.”

  “Yes.” Lady Barb pulled back. “And I’ll warn her to watch her back.”

  “She can’t distrust her master,” Miles said.

  “She must.” Lady Barb reached for her cloak and pulled it on. “You mark my words. Void isn’t tutoring her out of the goodness of his heart. He has an agenda.”

  “You don’t know that,” Miles said.

  “I do,” Lady Barb said. “He’s up to something. And Emily may find herself in serious trouble.”

  And she turned and walked away.

  Chapter One

  “WELCOME TO ZUGZWANG,” LADY BARB SAID, as the teleport field faded. “We’re only a short walk from the tower.”

  Emily glanced at her, sharply. The older woman had been unusually short-tempered as they’d traveled from Zangaria to Zugzwang, barely saying anything beyond commands and vague descriptions. Emily could tell that something was bothering Lady Barb, but what? She wasn’t sure she wanted to pry. Lady Barb was not the sort of person to get wound up over nothing.

  She looked around with interest as Lady Barb led her through the town. It was the sort of place she’d have loved if she had time to explore. A cluster of shops — bookshops, apothecaries, general stores — dominated the center, surrounded by a number of smaller houses and a single, giant inn. The people on the streets looked prosperous and happy, unlike many other places she’d visited. She smiled as she saw the schoolchildren heading to school, looking surprisingly enthusiastic. The schoolmaster, standing by the door, nodded to them. He looked more competent — and decent — than any teacher she’d known on Earth.

  And the New Learning has made it here, she thought, as she spotted the letters and numbers carved into the wall. Who knows how far the children will go?

  She said nothing as they kept walking, passing a single pub and a stagecoach center. Lady Barb hadn’t been entirely clear on how Zugzwang related to the local aristocracy, or even if there was a local aristocracy, but Emily could tell the townsfolk enjoyed a hearty degree of independence. They wouldn’t have worked so hard if they thought there was a risk of being taxed into destitution at an aristocrat’s whim. She looked towards the distant mountains, noting the absence of any large castles. Here, so far from civilization, commoners could assert themselves. She wondered if that would change over the next few years. A dozen kingdoms were already building railways to link their towns and cities together.

  Lady Barb pointed towards a handful of houses slightly larger than the rest. “There’s a small number of magicians here,” she said. “You’ll probably meet some of them.”

  Emily nodded. Zugzwang wasn’t their final destination, but she’d been told it was traditional — Lady Barb had said it with a pronounced sneer — for apprentices to approach their master’s home on foot. Emily suspected Void didn’t care about tradition any more than she did, but... she wondered, suddenly, if Lady Barb was deliberately wasting time. They could have teleported a lot closer to the tower without ignoring tradition. It was unlikely anyone would have noticed, let alone cared.

  She said nothing as they left the town and headed up a stony path. The landscape changed rapidly, becoming a valley heading further towards the mountains. She could feel wisps of wild magic in the air, brushing against her senses. The path didn’t look particularly well-trodden. The more she looked at it, the more she thought it was a water-cut gully that could turn nasty if the rain started to fall. She glanced at the clear blue sky, wondering just how often it rained. She’d been caught in enough rainstorms, in the Cairngorms or along the Craggy Mountains, to know not to take them lightly. It was very easy to get lost — or worse — in the gloom.

  “The locals never come up here,” Lady Barb said, as if she were answering a question someone had asked. “The mountains” — she jabbed a finger towards the distant peaks — “are forbidden.”

  Emily took a breath. “Forbidden?”

  “There’s a lot of wild magic there,” Lady Barb said. Her voice was curt, hard. “Anyone who walks into the region doesn’t come out again.”

  “I can imagine.” Emily ran a hand through her long brown hair. “Why does he live here?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “A person like him could live anywhere.”

  Lady Barb kept going, forcing Emily to hurry. It grew warmer as sunlight poured into the valley. Sweat beaded on Emily's back, turning her dress into a sticky nightmare. She cursed the lack of warning under her breath, wishing she’d had time to wear something a little more practical. Void wouldn’t care if she turned up in trousers and a shirt instead of a thoroughly impractical dress. But he had made it clear he wanted her now. She was mildly surprised he’d let her take the time to establish Heart’s Eye before summoning her.

  And I had to leave it behind, Emily thought. She trusted her friends to handle the university as it started to grow into something real, but she wanted to be part of it. Will I be able to go back for a visit anytime soon?

  She sighed, inwardly, as she mentally reviewed the notes on apprenticeships. There were few hard and fast rules. A master was supposed to give his apprentice a through grounding in his subject, but little else. There were apprentices who were treated as children, she’d read, and apprentices who were treated as slaves. There were masters who were kind and caring and masters who had no qualms about beating their apprentices bloody. And there were no guidelines on just how long an apprenticeship should take. Jade had completed his apprenticeship in a year. Others... had taken five to ten years to graduate.

  A prickle ran down her spine as the background magic field grew stronger. It felt oddly like the tainted sandstorms around Heart’s Eye, but far — far — kinder. She felt almost as if she’d come home. And yet, something was missing. She looked around, trying to work out what wasn’t there. It took her longer than it should have to realize there were no animals shifting though the undergrowth, no birds flying through the sky, no insects buzzing from flower to flower. There was no animal life at all.

  “Nearly there,” Lady Barb grunted. “Are you ready?”

  Emily caught her breath. “Yeah,” she managed. She’d gotten a little out of shape over the past month. Sergeant Harkin would have laughed — and then insisted on forced marches until she regained her muscle tone. She promised herself, silently, that she’d exercise more over the coming months. “I think so.”

  “Good.” Lady Barb stopped as they reached the top of the gully. “Can you see the tower?”

  She stepped aside to allow Emily to peer into the valley below. It was immense, a green sea surrounded and concealed by towering mountains. The sight took her breath away. It was a whole secret valley, hidden from prying eyes. A single tower stood in the exact center of the valley, surrounded by rings of green. Emily stared, trying to understand what she saw. The tower was surrounded by grass, then a ring of trees, then more grass, then... her eyes narrowed as she saw the runes. Void — or whoever had designed and built the tower — had landscaped the surroundin
g environment to create a web of subtle magic. The tower might be completely invisible to anyone who hadn’t been invited. She understood, now, why the locals had never discovered the valley. It had been carefully hidden from them.

  The tower itself looked... odd. Emily couldn’t help thinking of a rook. It seemed to vary in size, being both large enough to hold a small army and small enough to let her pick it up with her bare hand. She’d seen the towers within the forests of Zangaria, the tiny fortresses designed to give the gamekeepers somewhere to rest their heads when they weren’t harassing poachers, but this... she frowned, trying to see though the haze. The tower was impossible to properly see. It looked as if part of the building existed in another dimension, somewhere the eye couldn’t see.

  Which isn’t impossible, she reminded herself. She’d been in plenty of buildings that were bigger on the inside. He could build himself an entire TARDIS if he had the power and time.

  Lady Barb stepped back, leaning against the stone. “I can’t come any further,” she said, pointing towards a path leading down into the valley. “You have to proceed alone.”

  She sounded so curt that Emily knew something was wrong. “Lady Barb...”

  “You can call me Barb now, if you wish.” Lady Barb smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “I’m no longer your tutor.”

  Emily met the older woman’s eyes. She’d never been the most sensitive to people's emotions, but... she knew Lady Barb well enough to know she rarely shied away from anything. There wasn’t much that could bother her, let alone stop her. She practically defined ‘stiff upper lip.’

  “Barb,” she said, carefully. “What’s bothering you?”

  Lady Barb said nothing for a long moment. That was worrying. Lady Barb had given Emily — and a number of other students — the sex talk without hesitation. She’d had no trouble talking about subjects that would — and did — make Emily blush. And she’d rushed into battle without hesitation. No one became a combat sorceress unless they were brave. Emily felt her heart sink. Anything that could bother Lady Barb to the point she started to act like a surly teenager had to be bad.