"What was that?" you ask. "It was as if..." You struggle for words. "As if you made a bubble to keep the hot air in."
"Not quite, but you have good senses. It's a trick you'll learn later once you get the hang of basic channelling. I don't strictly need the bubble ,as you put it, for the spell, but it lets me store up a bit of, let's call it magic, to keep the spell going without me running it manually. If I've calibrated it correctly, we should have about an hour and a half of heat before I need to refresh it. There are actually some books in the tower that you might be interested in reading on the matter."
There is a slight pause.
"I can't read," you say.
"Ah, right. Country boy, I forgot. I suppose that will be another of my tasks then. You're not a lot of use if you can't read, you need to do a lot of study if you want to be a magician."
"I can read," says Frederick. Bastard.
"Ah, useful. Who taught you?"
"My mother. She was a scribe's apprentice before she met Father."
"Excellent. And can you sense the spell I was working? The bubble and so on."
"Nnnnot quite," says Frederick. "It's as if I can tell there's something there, and maybe I can distinguish different parts, but I can't say anything detailed about them."
"One natural and one educated, then. You're both half of an ideal apprentice." Pip rolls his eyes. "Well, I'll teach you to read, and we'll work on Fred's sensitivity."
"Your wand," you say. "It looks a little different now that you've used it."
"Hm? Oh yes. You are sharp, aren't you? That's contamination, happens to any implement. Not a true wand, of course, but then this isn't one. Implements are a very useful focus, but if you use them to work magic they pick up a bit of the magic with them. Aethelwine swears by them, and he keeps one on him at all times because it makes it easier to work the same magic with them again. I prefer to cut new ones and replace them often, as otherwise you might get magic mixed together and that mostly just causes your spells not to work well or at all.
"Anyhow, that's enough talking about work for now. Get some rest whilst it's still warm, you'll regret it if you don't."
You bed down on the uncomfortable coach seat and eventually doze off.
Morning comes, and with it snow. You wake to dawn's light, your every joint aching from cold. You are surprised to see Fred already awake, then remember his parentage as a baker. He seems lost in thought, and you have little energy for conversation in any case, so you huddle beneath your blanket and rub your arms to fend off some of the cold. The Master has his breakfast in the tavern, but Pip is able to bring the pair of you some leftovers, mostly bread crusts and a bit of saved jam. Hungry as you are, it tastes delicious. Not long after you set on the road again, and you are grateful that you are allowed to take the blankets on top of the coach during the journey. Even with the extra cover it is freezing, and Pip informs you that he cannot reliably maintain a heating spell in the open air, whilst travelling and driving the coach - any heat would dissipate away immediately.
Three long days the journey goes, with the snow worsening each day. Master Harold and his favoured apprentices in the coach below cope by wrapping themselves in furs and reading (if apprentice) or drinking constantly (if Master Harold). At the end of each day, Pip manages to smuggle Frederick one of the books, who reads all the way through each one with a furious, silent focus that somewhat intimidates, holding one of a handful of candles smuggled from one tavern or another. Bereft of conversation with your fellow apprentice, you try to engage Pip in talks about magic, but he grows terse and irritable with the cold and exhaustion of the journey. At the end of the first night he leaves the carriage in frustration and returns an hour later. He thrusts a handful of stones of varying shapes and sizes into your hand.
"There. If you can't find anything else to do, sharpen your witchsight. When you can figure out the trick to seeing them in more detail, then come back to me and we'll talk about your first spell. More of a notion than a spell, really, but still. That should keep you occupied until we get back at least."
It does indeed keep you occupied, and you find yourself studying the otherwise entirely normal pebbles until your eyes and your head hurt. It does at least get you to sleep. Aside from some ordinary pebbles mixed in amongst them, you can detect several 'flavours' of something amongst them. You can define what if any experiments you conduct with the pebbles at your leisure.
In the late afternoon of the third day, the carriage finally arrives at Master Harold's demesne, a tower with an attached village and a large amount of tenant farmland. Part of you is slightly disappointed by the tower, feeling that it should spiral into the air like in stories and possibly have some sort of decorative pointed roof. This looks very much like a tower build to withstand a siege, down to the squat shape, reinforced buttresses and heavily fortified crenellated battlements. As the carriage pulls into the tower's courtyard, you notice several murder holes at the side of and above the entrance, as well as positions from which to drop boiling oil.
The carriage stops and Master Harold emerges. He gestures to you and Frederick.
"Baker boy, get into the kitchens and get started on dinner. You, sort out the horses. Once you're done with that, stay out of my way, Pip will find you rooms."
Master Harold gives a dismissive flick of his fingers and strides into the tower's keep. All three of his elder apprentices follow, but Pip mouths to meet him back here in the courtyard. As for you and Frederick, the pair of you extricate yourself from the carriage roof, moving with awkward, stiff limbs. Fortunately, you have cared for your fair share of horses in Duncan's service, and after an hour you have parked the carriage, unhitched the horses, led them to the tower's stable (no groom, but fresh hay has been laid in) and had them fed, watered and cleaned. You return to find Pip waiting for you in the courtyard.
"Well, you've in luck. Master seems to have forgotten about your existence, so you won't be required for the rest of the evening. You have a night off, and believe me those are rare enough. You could join us after table for a drink in the study, I'll save you some food, you could take a look at the village, I daresay you could take some time to study those stones when you aren't freezing, or whatever else you might like. I wish you the best of it either way, as I shall be returning to the warm."
Pip gives you a grin and a mock salute and returns to the tower. A fair question then. How shall you occupy your evening?
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Topic: Apprentice [TSG] (Read 10709 times)