The Magician’s Apprentice

turned away. “No need to escort me to my room. I remember the way.” He swayed slightly. “At least, I think I remember. Good night, Lord Dakon, as you strange Kyralians say.”

“Good night, Ashaki Takado,” Dakon replied.

He watched the Sachakan stroll down the corridor, and listened to the man’s footsteps receding. Then he followed as silently as he could manage. Not to make sure that his guest went where he intended, but because he wanted to check on Veran’s progress. The slave’s room was, naturally, not far from his master’s and Dakon did not want the Sachakan noticing where he was going, and deciding to accompany him.

A few corridors and a stairway later Dakon watched as Takado walked past the door to his slave’s room without glancing at it, and disappeared into his own chamber. Muffled sounds came from within the slave’s room. The light spilling under the door flickered. Dakon paused, reconsidering whether he should interrupt.

The slave will either live or he won’t, he told himself; it won’t make any difference whether you visit or not. But he could not find the cold practicality with which Takado regarded all but the most powerful of humans. Memories of the slave pinned to a wall, recoiling from relentless invisible blows dealt by the Sachakan magician, made Dakon shudder. He could still hear the crunch of breaking bones, the slap of impacts upon vulnerable flesh.

Turning away, he headed towards his own apartments, trying not to hope that Veran would fail.

Because what in the name of higher magic was he going to do with a freed Sachakan slave?

Early morning light illuminated the village when Tessia and her father emerged from Lord Dakon’s house. It was a thin, cold glow, but when she turned to look at her father she knew the greyness of his face was not just a trick of the light. He was exhausted.

Their home was across the road and along it for hundred steps or so, yet the distance seemed enormous. It would have been ridiculous to ask the stable workers to hitch a horse to the cart for such a short journey, but she was so tired she wished someone had. Her father’s shoe clipped a stone and she tucked an arm round his to steady him, her other hand gripping the handle of his bag. It felt heavier than it ever had before, even though most of the bandages and a substantial amount of the medicines usually contained within it were now wrapped around or applied to various parts of the Sachakan slave’s body.

That poor man. Her father had cut him open in order to remove the broken piece of rib from his lung and sew up the hole. Such drastic surgery should have killed the fellow, but somehow he had continued to breathe and live. Her father had said it was pure luck the incision he’d made hadn’t severed a major pulse path.

He’d made the cut as small as possible, and worked mostly by feel, his fingers deep within the man’s body. It had been incredible to watch.

Coming to the door of their house, Tessia stepped forward to open it. But as she reached out for the handle, the door swung inward. Her mother drew them inside, her face lined with worry.

“Cannia said you were treating a Sachakan. I thought at first she meant him. I thought, “How could a magician be that badly injured?” but she told me it was the slave. Is he alive?”

“Yes,” Tessia’s father said.

“Will he stay so?”

“It’s unlikely. He’s a tough one, though.”

“Didn’t hardly yell at all,” Tessia agreed. “Though I suspect that’s because he was afraid of attracting his master’s attention.”

Her mother turned to regard her. She opened her mouth, then closed it again and shook her head.

“Did they feed you?” she asked.

Her father looked thoughtful.

“Keron brought some food,” Tessia answered for him, “but we didn’t have time to eat it.”

“I’ll heat up some soup.” The woman ushered them into the kitchen. Tessia and her father dropped into two chairs by the cooking table. Stirring up the coals in the fire, her mother persuaded some fresh wood to catch then hitched a small pan over the flames.

“We’ll have to check on him regularly,” Tessia’s father murmured, more to himself than to Tessia or her mother. “Change his bandages. Watch for signs of fever.”

“Did Cannia say why he was beaten?” Tessia asked her mother. The woman shook her head. “What reason do those Sachakan brutes need? Most likely he did it for fun, but put a bit more force into it than he intended.”

“Lord Yerven always said that not all Sachakans are cruel,” her father said.

“Just most of them,” Tessia finished. She smiled. Lord Dakon’s father had died when she was a child. Her memories of him were of a kindly, vague old man who always carried sweetdrops to give to the village children.

“Well, this is clearly one of the cruel ones.” Tessia’s mother looked at her husband and her frown returned. “I wish you didn’t have to go back there.”

He smiled grimly. “Lord Dakon will not allow anything to happen to us.”

The woman looked from him to Tessia and back. Her frown deepened and her expression changed from concern to annoyance. Turning back to the fire, she tested the soup with the tip of a finger, and nodded to herself. She brought out the pan and poured its contents into two mugs. Tessia took both and handed one to her father. The broth was warm and delicious, and she felt herself growing rapidly sleepier as she drank it. Her father’s eyelids drooped.

“Off to bed now, the both of you,” her mother said as soon as they had finished. Neither of them argued as she ordered them upstairs to their rooms. Intense weariness washed over Tessia as she changed into nightclothes. Climbing under the covers, she sighed contentedly.

Just as she began to drift into sleep the sound of voices roused her again.

The sound was coming from across the corridor. From her parents’ bedroom. Remembering her conversation with her father the previous day, she felt a twinge of anxiety. She pushed herself into a sitting position, then swung her feet down to the floor.

Her door made only a thin, quiet squeak as she opened it. The last time she had listened in on a late night conversation between her parents had been many years before, when she was only a child. Padding slowly and silently to their door, she pressed her ear to the wood.

“You want them too,” her mother said. “Of course. But I would never expect that of Tessia if she didn’t want them,” her father replied.

“You’d be disappointed, though.”

“And relieved. It is always a risk. I’ve seen too many healthy women die.”

“It is a risk we must all take. To not have children out of fear is wrong. Yes, it is a risk, but the rewards are so great. She could deny herself great joy. And who will look after her when she is old?”

Silence followed.

“If she had a son, you could train the boy,” her mother added.

“It is too late for that. When I have grown too old to work the boy would still be too young and inexperienced to take on the responsibility.”

“So you train Tessia instead? She can’t replace you. You know that.”

“She might, if she shared the task with another healer. She could be...I don’t know what to call it... something between a healer and a birthmother. A...a ‘carer’, perhaps. Or at least an assistant.”

Tessia wanted to interrupt, to tell them that she could be more than half a healer, but she kept silent and still. Bursting into the room, after having obviously eavesdropped, would hardly do anything to change her mother’s mind.

“You have to take on a village boy,” her mother said firmly.

“And you must stop training her. It has filled her head with impossible ideas. She will not even consider marriage or raising a family until she stops trying to be a healer.”

“If I am to employ a new apprentice he will take time to train. I will need Tessia’s assistance in the meantime. The village is growing larger, and will keep growing. By the time I have trained this boy we may need two healers here. Tessia could continue her work – perhaps marry as well.”

“Her husband would not allow it.”

“He might, if she chose the right man. An intelligent man...”