Guild Mage: Apprentice

"A whole flock of them got to us here," Liv said, perched at her usual chair. It was much more comfortable in the room without the presence of Mirabel and Griselda.

"I suspected as much, from how charged with mana your body is," Grenfell commented. He’d already thrown his cloak aside, and now he eased his boots off. From the smell, Liv guessed he’d been wearing them the entire time he was gone. "You had to fight, then?"

"They got in through one of the windows on the second floor," Liv explained, "while Lady Julianne was giving birth. I froze both doors shut, but two of them got through into her sitting room anyway."

"Given that you are still alive, it seems Master Jurian made the correct choice in what he taught you." Grenfell leaned back in his chair, raised his hand to his bandaged head, and closed his eyes. She thought that he looked very tired, and it wouldn’t have surprised Liv to see him fall asleep right then in the chair.

"I think I owe you an apology, Liv," Grenfell said, finally sitting up and meeting her eyes. "I have been training you in the same manner I’ve trained those two girls - which is to say, hardly at all. I think that if you had not survived, I would have been to blame. That changes now. You will be taught every discipline offered at the College, as best we can arrange here. It would be naïve of me to assume that you can make it through the years between now and when you leave without being placed in danger again."

"What’s going to happen now?" Liv asked. "Not just with me, but with Baron Henry. If there’s another eruption, he can’t go, can he?"

"No, he cannot," Grenfell said. "Not unless Aldo Cushing can work a miracle, but I don’t have much hope of that. It’s doubtful he’ll ever be able to walk again. And to be honest, he is most of the reason the rest of us survived. His word of power is formidable."

"What is it?" Liv asked. "Can I know?"

With a wince, the mage levered himself up from his chair, went over to his bookshelf, and removed a leather journal of the same general type that Liv used to write her spells in. "Ters," Grenfell told her, after finding the correct page. He carried the book over, put it before her, and pointed with his finger at a set of sigils. "It can be roughly translated as, ’to thirst,’ or perhaps ’to dehydrate.’ In the hands of a skilled and merciless wielder, it can shrivel the very flesh into a desiccated husk. There are very few defenses against; in fact, it’s rather horrifying to witness. I imagine he will be teaching it to his heir, in due time; it’s been passed down by the Summerset’s for centuries."

"Am I going to get in trouble for knowing this?" Liv asked, recalling the day she’d been questioned by not only the baron, but the sheriff and mayor as well.

Grenfell shook his head. "The guild maintains records on all the noble families, and their magic. Most of them send their children to us to learn to use their words better. What you cannot do is attempt to learn it yourself, or use it. Not that it would be an easy task, without a teacher."

"I couldn’t just conjugate it and make a spell?" Liv asked, frowning.

"You’re underestimating how long it takes to imprint a word of power," Grenfell chided her. "Your own experience with Cel was extraordinary. Do you think that I could use it?" He picked up the book, closed it, and carried it back over to the bookshelf, where he returned the volume to its proper place.

"You can’t?" Liv asked.

Grenfell shook his head. "It can take days, even months to imprint a word onto your mind. Without a guide to tell you about the proper visualizations, to steer you in matching your resonance to the word, it is a process of excruciating trial and error. You will learn for yourself if you choose to stay with the guild permanently; all who join us are taught Aluth, the word of raw magical force and direct manipulation of mana. Which brings me to the next thing we need to do."

Grenfell opened his travelling pack, and reached inside, and pulled out the enormous mana stone she’d seen him use on multiple occasions before. "Both you and I have used a great deal of magic over the course of this eruption," he said. "We are both risking mana-sickness. I say risk, but I suppose it is nearly certain. Still, it is best if we empty our bodies of all mana, to prevent further damage. Keep an eye out for any blemishes on your skin over the rest of flood season; I’m sure Aldo will be examining both of us regularly."

"I don’t understand how the same thing that powers our spells can also hurt us so much," Liv grumbled, pulling her chair over to sit with the stone between Master Grenfell and herself. It was awkward, with the crutch, but she managed.

"It is because, for all the guild has rediscovered, we are still woefully ignorant," the mage admitted. "We are like children at play, wearing the clothes of our parents as a costume, no matter how ill-fitting. The language of the Vædim, the very nature of mana and the Gift… we’ve lost more knowledge than we retained. A thousand years of shortsightedness and belligerence has seen to that. Jurian thinks the Eld know more than we do; I suppose he may be right, but they aren’t sharing."

"The plain truth," Grenfell said, "is that uncontrolled mana twists and corrupts anything it permeates. And that includes our bodies. The more control you have, the less danger you will be in from mana sickness. But at your level of skill, you are wasting as much mana as you actually channel into your spells, and it is spilling out of you in a mess of energy, hurting your own body as it leaves. One of the reasons we use wands and staves is to aid us in directing that flow, and I think that once the snow has melted it will be high time for us to get you one. Now hush with your questions, and let me do this."

It was exhausting, to be drained of mana yet again, but it was also beautiful to watch the blue and gold wisps rise from her body. It was also starting to become familiar, almost soothing. Liv noticed that the massive piece of stone was utterly gray and dead, until their mingled mana began to flow into it at Master Grenfell’s direction, and she found it slightly terrifying just how much power he must have used up fighting at the rift.

In the days that followed, Liv’s previous routine was entirely upended. "You’re no longer a scullery maid," Lady Julianne told her. With her husband severely wounded and confined to bed for the moment, she was the one running the affairs of the barony. "It was somewhat ridiculous to keep you in that position before, given your potential, but after what you did during the eruption, it would be downright ungrateful of us not to make adjustments. We cannot take you on as a Court Mage, as you have not completed two years at the college, nor finished your time as a journeyman. Instead, I am naming you a maid of honor."

It was an unseasonably warm day, and Liv suspected the last of the snow in the courtyard and grounds would be gone by the time the sun set. A table, rocking crib, and chairs had been fetched out to the gardens, where Sophie served tea. None of the peach or apple trees had begun to bud yet, which meant there were no leaves to shield them from the sun. Instead, a cloth had been stretched above the table to provide shade.

"What is that, m’lady?" Liv asked.

"Only the queen and an official princess are permitted ladies-in-waiting," Julianne explained. Mathew had just finished a feeding, and promptly fallen asleep in the crib. "As the wife of a baron, I may employ a small number of maids of honor, however, supervised by a mistress of the robes. Most families don’t have the funds to support so many court ladies, so the custom is not often used, but it seems the most fitting thing for our situation. You will be paid a salary of forty golden crowns annually, but I won’t actually give you most of that. Instead, I will see it deposited in your name with the Most Noble Bankers Guild. Ah, that reminds me." She handed Liv a scroll sealed in wax.

"What is this?" Liv asked.

"Your reward for saving my life," Julianne said. "I wrote to my father, and he has awarded you a pension of ten golden crowns annually, for life. You can read the whole thing later, it is in overblown court language, but it conveys his thanks. Don’t take it for more than it is; this is the sort of reward for service to the crown that he hands out on a regular basis. Don’t expect him to remember your name."

Liv grinned. The king had sent her a reward! "Do I thank him, m’lady?" she asked.

"If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never meet my father," Julianne told her. "Or at least not until you’ve finished your time in Coral Bay. Now, your duties will be to attend me when required, but most of the time you are going to spend learning. You’re done taking lessons with those two spoiled girls. Instead, you’ll see Master Cushing in the morning for lessons in medicine and anatomy."

"I thought the college taught magic?" Liv said.

"Healing magic requires a basic understanding of medicine and the human body," the baron’s wife explained. "You begin learning that now. In the afternoon, you will have direct instruction with Master Grenfell in spellcasting. When you are not with them, you will attend me, and I may pull you from your lessons when I have need. You can expect that we will spend much of our time discussing law, particularly as it relates to magic, with an emphasis on the rights of the nobility, the responsibility of the mages’ guild, and the particulars of how the other guilds license magic from the aristocratic families."

Liv nodded. "Can I still help out in the kitchen, from time to time?"

"You may go and visit with your mother whenever you are free from your duties," Lady Julianne said. "I expect that you will have plenty of time until you are healed up, at which point we are adding additional training."

"There’s more?" Liv exclaimed.

"Indeed. Master Forester will teach you to butcher mana-beasts," Julianne said. "You will need that knowledge when you go into a rift. As punishment for allowing that girl into the castle, guardsman James will be responsible for your physical conditioning, once Master Cushing judges you healed. Too many mages have died not because of a lack of magical power, but due to a weakness in physical stamina and endurance. I will correct that deficit in you before it has time to set in."

Liv took a sip of her tea. "It all sounds like quite a lot," she said. In truth, the very thought of so much work was overwhelming. It would have been simpler, and more familiar, to go back to scrubbing out chamber pots.

"You saved not only my life, but the life of my son," Julianne said. "I will see you sent to Coral Bay as the most prepared student of your year. You’ve worked hard all your life, Liv. This is merely a different kind of work. Do not disappoint me."

The new lessons began the very next day, which meant that she was able to avoid any nastiness from Mirabel and Griselda. Instead of heading to Master Grenfell’s chambers, Liv attended Master Cushing, who sat her on his table and began by examining her ankle, ribs, and beneath the linen wraps on her arm.

"The skin we took away has healed up well," he said. "I do not think you need a fresh set of bandages there. I don’t yet see any signs of mana sickness from your most recent exertions, but it often takes weeks to manifest, and we shall be cautious. Your ankle and ribs are healing up nicely. All in all, I could not expect a better recovery, and I see no signs of complication. I wonder whether it has anything to do with your Elden blood."

Liv shrugged. "I don’t know. All of that is good, though, isn’t it?"

"So it is," Cushing said. He walked over to his bookshelf, and pulled out an old book as cumbersome as the volumes that Master Grenfell referenced during his lessons. "We begin with anatomy. Given that you have a habit of breaking them, you will learn the names of each and every one of the two-hundred and six bones in the human body."

The open pages of the book were filled by a lengthwise drawing of a skeleton, with cramped writing next to the largest bones. Liv bent over it, reading a few, and then looked up. "They each have a name? All of them?" He couldn’t be serious. Master Cushing gave her such an evil grin that she knew he was going to enjoy her suffering a great deal. "Wait," Liv said. "You said that humans have two-hundred and sixteen bones-"

"Two hundred and six," Cushing corrected her.

"Is that how many the Eld have, as well?" Liv asked.

"An interesting question," the chirurgeon said. "I have never had the opportunity of examining a complete Elden skeleton. I do have a femur, somewhere in here," he said, rising and going over to his desk. After much shuffling, he pulled something long and dark out of a lower drawer and brought it over.

"Is it supposed to be that color?" Liv asked. On the one hand, it was revolting that the bone in front of her had once been inside a living, breathing person who was now dead. On the other hand, there was something fascinating about it. It had come from the Eld, from one of her father’s people. It may well have been the closest she had gotten to them in her entire life. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and touched the bone with a finger.

"Much darker than a human’s," Cushing agreed. "You’ve been in the Room of Curiosities. Does it remind you of anything you have seen before?"

Liv furrowed her brow. The only bones in the old baron’s collection had been animal bones. This didn’t even look like the wyrm skull. Rather, it reminded her of-

"A casque?" she said.

"Good." Cushing nodded. "Yes, this bone has many of the same properties as the kind of casques we see on mana-beasts that have been transformed by a rift. It raises a number of questions, does it not? Are the Eld born with bones like this? If so, they would have a much greater capacity for storing mana than any human. Or is this a transformation that occurred due to extended proximity to mana from a rift? I don’t have an answer for you, Liv," he admitted. "If you ever learn the truth, perhaps you will let me know, so that I can add it to my records."

Liv thought back to when Master Grenfell had tested her with her ring and the stone. She’d been able to hold even more mana than he had, and he’d been a mage for decades, while Liv had only just begun learning to use magic. She wondered what color her bones would be, if they cut her open and looked. Light, like a human’s, or dark, like one of the Eld? Or perhaps somewhere in between?

"Enough distractions," Cushing said. "You are not going to learn these things by dawdling. Repeat after me…"

By the time Liv left the chirurgeon’s chambers, her head was splitting. If she’d thought that memorizing cases, tenses and pronouns was tedious, this was worse. At least learning those things had a direct impact on the kinds of spells that she could create. This was a great deal of work, all for the thought that someday she might need to learn healing magic. She couldn’t help stewing on it, which meant she didn’t notice the First Footman until he called her name.

"Miss Brodbeck," Archibald said, breaking into her thoughts. He must have been waiting for her outside of Master Cushing’s door. "Baron Henry wishes to speak to you. Please follow me."