The Artful Apprentice Page 5

  Not so hostile to the idea of having servants now, are you? Her thoughts mocked her. They can come in handy...

  “Oh, shut up,” she muttered.

  She turned off the shower and dried herself with a spell, then walked back into the bedroom and picked a new robe out of the wardrobe. She’d have to get new underwear from somewhere. She disliked the idea of wearing nothing under the robe, even if she cast a whole string of protective charms to keep someone from casting a spell to flip it up. She made a mental note to ask Silent — she would be too embarrassed to ask Void — and walked into the living room. The maid was already there, pouring Kava into a mug. Emily could have kissed her.

  “My Lady,” Silent said. She still sounded quiet, but oddly firm. “His Lordship commands me to tell you to eat everything.”

  Emily blinked as she uncovered the food. There was more bacon and eggs — and what looked like farmer’s bread — on the plate than she could eat in a single sitting. She wasn’t sure she could eat half of the food, even if it had been coated with appetite-enhancing potions. A quick check told her the food was untainted. She’d have to eat it all without help.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said, as she sat down. Void would be working her hard, but there were limits. Her stomach wasn’t that big. “Will you dispose of the remainder?”

  “Yes, My Lady,” Silent said.

  Emily made a face, then canceled the preservation spells and started to eat. The food tasted plain and simple, without much in the way of elegance. She remembered the stew from the previous evening, then shrugged. Void might be sending her a message, or he might be more interested in building up her energy reserves than anything else. She supposed that made sense. If she ate giant breakfasts and yet found herself painfully hungry at lunch after a morning spent doing magic, it had to be worse for him.

  “If My Lady pleases, I can change the bedding for you,” Silent said.

  “Do it every week,” Emily said. She didn’t want to work the maid to death. There was no need to change and wash the bedding every day. “And there are some things I’d like you to get.”

  “Of course, My Lady,” Silent said. “What would you like?”

  You to start calling me Emily, Emily thought. She told herself it didn’t matter. But she’d be in real trouble if she called someone else by her first name.

  She put the thought aside and listed a handful of things she needed, then smiled. “Let me know when they’re ready,” she added. She didn’t want someone else pawing through her stuff, even if they were trying to help. “I’ll want to sort them out myself.”

  “Of course, My Lady.” Silent bobbed her head. “I’ll see to it personally.”

  Emily nodded and pushed her plate aside. She hadn’t managed to finish everything, but she’d tried. The remainder of the food would be eaten by the servants, she was sure. They wouldn’t let it go to waste. She stood, brushing down her robe. She felt a thrill of anticipation, despite everything. She was finally going to start her apprenticeship.

  She wondered, suddenly, if she had time to visit the library first. She’d love to go there. But it was already far too close to nine. She hurried into the bathroom, splashed water on her face and wiped her lips, then headed for the door. Silent was already clearing the table. The maid looked up quickly, then glanced down almost as soon as her eyes met Emily’s. She looked embarrassed to have made even a second’s eye contact...

  “Thank you,” Emily said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Silent looked surprised. “Thank you, My Lady,” she said. “Good luck.”

  Chapter Five

  “GOOD MORNING,” VOID SAID, AS EMILY entered the chamber. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Well enough,” Emily said. “And yourself?”

  She looked around the room with interest. The chamber was bare, save for a single wooden table and a pair of wooden chairs. They looked cheap and unstable, the sort of furniture that one would use if one expected it to get broken. A single lightglobe hung in the air, casting an eerie radiance. Void sat on the far side of the table, his pale fingers resting on sheets of parchment. He looked well-rested. Emily smiled and sat down after he motioned for her to take the other seat. She couldn’t help feeling eager. She hadn’t felt like this since the first time she’d walked into Whitehall.

  “I seem to have forgotten a pencil,” Void said, archly. “Goodness. Whatever will I do?”

  Emily felt her smile widen. “Go upstairs and get one?”

  “Far too practical.” Void grinned back at her. “Watch.”

  He lifted his fingers. A faint light started to flicker in the empty spaces. Emily leaned forward, watching avidly as powerful magic — forces she wouldn’t have dared touch outside a spellchamber — gathered, centering on his hands. The light grew brighter, magic channeling into a single tiny space. Emily stared as the light — the magic — coalesced into a pencil. It hung in the air for a long second as the light faded, then dropped to the table below. It hit the wood with an audible clunk.

  Emily swallowed, and her heart began to race. It looked simple; achingly simple. And yet... she knew it was a demonstration of power. Real power. It was easy to turn a pen into a pencil, but... creating a pencil out of raw magic and making it stick was hard. There were experienced sorcerers who couldn’t conjure something from nothing. She couldn’t even begin to make it work without a nexus point and a lot of planning. Conjuring was no joke. It was the hardest magical discipline in the world. And Void didn’t even look winded.

  He looked back at her, evenly, as she raised her eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of strain on his face. Emily was impressed, more impressed than she could say. There weren’t many sorcerers who would conjure something just to show off. And, she realized dimly, to prove there was a reason to learn. If she mastered such power...

  “Impressive,” she managed, finally.

  Void nodded, as if he’d expected as much. “A small trick,” he said. “But one you’ll master before your apprenticeship is done.”

  Emily nodded, willing herself to believe it. She knew there was much to learn, but... she hadn’t really understood. Not until now. She was good — brilliant, even — for a sorceress of her age, yet compared to Void she was still a child. There were layers upon layers of magic she barely knew existed. She couldn’t use them. Yet.

  “Casting a spell requires three things,” Void continued. “First, you must have the power to make the spell work. Second, you must have the will. And third, you must have the knowledge. Without those three... well, you’ll be lucky if nothing happens. The worst-case scenarios are pretty bad.”

  He picked up the pencil and held it out to her. Emily took it, silently admiring his feat. The pencil was no illusion. It felt solid. The raw matter certainly didn’t feel as if it was on the verge of coming apart. She was tempted to try to write with it, just to see if it worked. A pencil was relatively simple, but still quite complex. Void would have had to craft the magic into lead as well as wood. And he’d done it...

  Void straightened. “Tell me, what was the first spell you learned to cast?”

  Emily had to think about it. “I... I think it was the magic-detection spell,” she said. “Or the basic cancellation spell.”

  “The spells that are taught to all new students,” Void agreed. “Very basic. Very hard to get wrong. Also... quite easy to forget, once you master the higher arts.”

  He smiled. “Cast the detection spell for me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Emily had to think about that too. “If I remember rightly...”

  The spell felt oddly slippery as she tried to cast it from scratch. She had to fight to build it up piece by piece, instead of just casting it as a single unified whole. It had been easier, perversely, six years ago. She hadn’t known what she’d been doing. And Mistress Irene had been very patient. The spell lit up the room. She glanced from side to side. The lightglobe had grown brighter, the walls pulsed with a faint light, the ring on Void’s finger and the bracelet ar
ound her wrist were glowing... the spell had worked. She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized how she’d grown used to relying on her own senses, rather than the spell, until she’d tried to cast it again.

  “Very good,” Void said. He pushed a piece of parchment at her. “Write down the spell.”

  Emily lifted the pencil — she frowned as she realized it hadn’t glowed — and went to work. It felt odd to be sketching out a spell she hadn’t used for years, but she’d had plenty of practice with spell notation. If anything, the detection spell was almost too simple. There was little room for improvement. Whoever had crafted the original version had pared the spell down until complete novices could cast it. And the pencil worked perfectly.

  “There’s no room for improvement,” she said, regretfully.

  “No,” Void agreed. “Pick another spell, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said.

  Void was, she discovered over the next hour, a demanding taskmaster. He made her dig up spells from memory, spells she’d stopped using years ago, and insisted she cast and recast them until they were absolutely perfect. Emily's head started to pound and her stomach rumbled angrily, even though she’d stuffed herself at breakfast. She’d grown so used to casting the basic spells — when she hadn’t discarded them — that it wasn’t easy to break them down into their component pieces. She thought she understood, now, the dangers Void had mentioned. If she didn’t know what she was doing, she didn’t have a hope of modifying the spell to suit herself.

  “I feel like a firstie again,” she complained, after Void made her practice a basic cleaning spell. “Is that normal?”

  “You have to learn to read before you can write,” Void said. He favored her with a serene smile. “And walk before you can run.”

  Emily nodded, tersely. “I think I understand.”

  “Cast a fireball,” Void ordered. “Blow a hole in the wall.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me,” Void said. “I want a nice big hole in the wall.”

  Emily threw him a doubtful look, then cast a fireball and threw it at the wall. There was a flash of light, a wave of heat... but the wall remained undamaged. She hadn’t even managed to scorch it. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the wards. They didn’t look strong enough to snuff out a fireball before it exploded... it had exploded. It just hadn’t done any damage. She glanced at Void, who seemed amused. She wondered what he found so amusing.

  “Tell me,” Void said. “What went wrong?”

  Emily frowned. The wards still didn’t look that powerful. And yet... was the wall itself strong? Or made of magic, rather than stone? She wasn’t sure she could have damaged a structure made of raw magic. It would require one hell of a lot of magic to create an entire tower of magic... she glanced at Void, wondering if he really was that powerful. He’d have to be practically a god.

  And then she saw it. “The wards pulled the fireball apart,” she said. “And it wasn’t concentrated enough to do any real damage.”

  “Very good,” Void said. “Try again. Put a hole in the wall.”

  Emily nodded, carefully reshaping the fireball. Sergeant Miles had called it boring but practical, pointing out that it was easier to cast a fireball to make the target duck rather than wasting time casting a more dangerous spell that could easily be short-circuited by enemy action. Fancy duelists tended to lose to practical duelists because the former wanted to show off while the latter wanted to win. But the basic spell clearly wasn’t enough to damage the walls. She altered the spell, drawing in elements from the other spells he’d made her practice, then recast it. This time, the fireball left a nasty-looking scorch mark on the wall.

  “Better,” Void said. “We’re going to work more on that later.”

  “Got it.” Emily had to smile. “Do I get dismissed if I accidentally blow up the tower?”

  “I’d be very impressed if you did,” Void said. “This tower is heavily protected.”

  Emily glanced at him. “Did you build it?”

  “No.” Void shrugged. “It belonged to my former master. He inherited it from his master in a master-apprentice chain that goes back hundreds of years. Or so I was told.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  Void smiled. “You know as well as I do that there are gaps in the historical record. And that there are people who claim their families are thousands of years old or descended from the gods themselves. It’s hard to be sure.”

  Emily nodded. She’d read the history books. She’d also seen Old Whitehall. There were so many misconceptions and outright lies in the official records that the truth had long since been lost. Real history, as far as she could tell, dated back five hundred years at best. Too much had been lost during the endless wars, by accident or design. There was no way to know if Void’s master had told him the truth.

  “We’ll try something a little different,” Void said. He quirked his eyebrows. “I assume you know how to turn someone into a frog?”

  “I know,” Emily said. “I mastered that during first year.”

  “Most magic-born students learn those spells before they go to school,” Void commented, dryly. “It gives them a slight edge.”

  The wards quivered, lightly. Emily looked up as the door opened. A serving girl — a little older than Emily, if she was any judge — stepped into the chamber. She was surprisingly tall, with long red hair and freckled face. Her figure was barely hidden by her outfit. She looked back at Emily openly, unlike Silent. Emily had the feeling that the girl was very happy in her role. It wasn’t something she’d come to expect from servants.

  Although working for a powerful sorcerer has to have its advantages, she reminded herself, dryly. They’ll be set up for life when they leave.

  “This is Barley,” Void said. “Turn her into a frog.”

  Emily blinked. “What?”

  “Turn her into a frog,” Void repeated. “Please.”

  “I...” Emily hesitated, torn between the desire to please her master and reluctance to hurt an innocent. She’d been transfigured enough to know it was never pleasant, even when it was painless. “I don’t want to hurt her...”

  “You won’t,” Void said. “I have faith in you.”

  Barley met Emily’s eyes. “I’m ready.”

  Emily hesitated, again. She wasn’t sure what to do. But... she shaped the spell carefully, ensuring it wouldn’t last longer than a couple of minutes. Barley watched her, her face uncannily calm as Emily cast the spell. There was the faintest hint of resistance, enough to suggest the maid had some magical talent, before her body melted into a tiny green frog. She wasn’t panicking. Emily was impressed. She hadn’t reacted so calmly the first time she’d been hexed.

  “Good,” Void said. “Cancel the spell.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said. A moment later, Barley stood in front of them. “What now?”

  “Change the spell,” Void said. “Turn her into a red frog.”

  Emily nodded, then carefully rewrote the spell. It wasn’t easy. Each component of the spell interfaced with the other components. Changing one might set off a chain reaction that compromised the rest. Barley watched, expressionless, as Emily readied the spell and cast it. Her form shrank into a red frog. Emily felt a pang of guilt, mingled with pleasure that she’d managed to rewrite the spell. It wasn’t the first time she’d rewritten a spell on the fly, but it was the first time she’d managed to get such precise results.

  “Good.” Void snapped his fingers. The spell broke. “Now, rewrite the spell again. Turn her into a dog.”

  “There are dog transformation spells,” Emily pointed out. “Do you want me to use one of them or rewrite this one?”

  “Rewrite this spell,” Void ordered. “The key is to modify the spell to suit yourself.”

  Emily shot Barley an apologetic look. The maid seemed unconcerned. Emily guessed Void had promised her he could fix any accidents, although that might not be true. They might be messing around with very basic
prank spells, but there was a reason first-year students were discouraged from trying to reconfigure them. A tiny mistake could lead to disaster. Emily had heard enough horror stories to know it could be very dangerous.

  She rewrote the spell carefully, resisting the urge to reshape it into one of the other spells she knew. Void would know and... she wasn’t sure what he’d do, but she doubted it would be pleasant. And yet, it was harder than she thought to avoid simply duplicating the other spells. It was like trying to figure a complex sum — complete with working — when one already knew the answer. She gritted her teeth as she finally put the spell together and cast it. Barley barked as she became a small red dog.

  “Good,” Void said. “If a little cumbersome...”

  “I was trying to avoid casting one of the other spells,” Emily said. She had to admit Void was right. Her spell was a little more complex than strictly necessary. “But it worked.”

  “I can tell Miles was one of your tutors,” Void said. “That’s his attitude.”

  “He’s right,” Emily said. “If it works, it works.”

  Void shrugged. “Depends what you’re doing,” he said. He canceled the spell again. “Now, turn her into a rabbit.”

  Emily promised herself — as the morning wore on — that she’d make damned sure Barley got some kind of reward. The maid didn’t complain — she didn’t even show a hint of fear — but being transfigured time and time again had to be wearying. Void didn’t seem concerned. He merely directed Emily to twist the spell time and time again, insisting that she learn to alter one of the variables without changing the others. The spell went through a dozen versions, each slightly more cumbersome than the last. But they worked. Emily knew they worked.

  “Very good,” Void said, after Emily cast yet another version of the spell. “Have you learned something useful?”

  “I think so,” Emily said. She stared down at the sheets of parchment. She’d written down each version of the spell, rather than relying on memory. “The modified spells are more flexible, but more cumbersome.”