The Apprentice, Chapter 7

Making friends

Our protagonist is not, perhaps, the most gregarious of characters. He is bookish and strange and somewhat obsessive. But we all need a friend sometimes, don’t we? In today’s chapter, Maryk attempts to cement a new friendship with a little light alchemy. Should go fine.

Chapter 7: The Happiest Time of My Life

The two years I was apprenticed to Master Gedholdt were the happiest of my life. I treasured, still, the memories of my self-teaching on the farm but they were soon eclipsed when the true nature of my studies in the house of the sage became clear to me. I had had no inkling the real potential of magic. But I learned; I absorbed it like a soft white bread absorbs the honey spread over it. I had mastered the twenty four basic runes used in the writing of magic spells and the two hundred and eighty eight compound runes derived from each of them within the first six months, purely through my own studies. These continued night and day unless I was occupied in cleaning up after my master, eating or socialising with friends (left to my own devices, I would have forgone human contact in favour of books but Master Gedholdt insisted, “Magic can make you powerful and knowledge can make you wise but if you have no-one with whom to share these gifts, what is the purpose? Learning for the sake of knowledge, alone, is worse than pointless; it is a waste of a fine mind.” I did not understand this point of view. I thought that knowledge would allow me to help people whether they were aware of it or not. All I needed was to trust my own judgement, and certainly I did that, more so than anybody else’s.) By the end of the first year I could read and even write basic spells. Master Gedholdt would not allow me to cast even the most elementary of cantrips, however (I was sure I was more than capable and only the esteem in which I held my Master stayed my hand.) Six months after that the written Fomorin language gave up the last of its secrets to me. Though Master Gedholdt forbade me from studying the great tome which had brought the two of us together, the title of which, “Dansh no Tikka, Ekktu Nakkori,” I was now capable of translating as “The Emperor’s Libram, Royal Magic.”

In the six months that followed, I finally realised my ambition to cast real magical spells. I watched my Master cast a simple illumination spell one day after I had finished the chores he had set for me. He did it, he said, because the oil lamps were too dim for reading in the evenings, but he looked at me pointedly when he did it. I watched the choreography of hands and feet and listened carefully to the exact tone and inflection of each syllable as he spun the spell a second time. “Now, Apprentice, perhaps if you could master this trifle, it would save me the bother of having to do it for myself in the future,” he said as if setting me yet another chore. With that, he turned away and walked into the kitchen, claiming to have left his spectacles there (even though I had clearly seen them resting on top of his head.) It disappointed me a little when I realised that he had left, not to save me embarrassment if it did not work but to save his own eyesight if it worked too well. I duplicated my Master’s spell exactly and produced in the air above my head a sphere, perhaps two inches in diameter, glowing with a soft, creamy light, the like of which could never be produced by a flame. When Master Gedholdt realised it was safe, he re-entered the room and said, “Good. Not a bad little light. Perhaps next time you can make one that doesn’t follow you around, eh?”

After the Light spell I perfected the casting of many relatively risk free, minor spells: Simple Levitation; Munch’s Floating Hand; Warm; Animate Minor Object; Read; Throw Voice; Clean; Minor Umbrella and too many others to list here without your gracious patience being tested to its limits. I was a Magician. The type of magic I learned could often have been reproduced by a talented illusionist or charlatan. Still, I felt a suffusion of wonder at my own achievements. My Master informed me that, as a rule, practitioners spent the first six years of study simply amassing the knowledge required to sufficiently control the power that was to be theirs. “It seems that you came to me almost prepared for it, however. You knew instinctively the balance between delicacy and power and will be required to channel the thaumaturgical currents responsible for the acts of which we are capable. It is a rare gift. That is why I have allowed you to progress to the more practical level of study that you are now mastering.” He kept a much closer eye on my activities, after that, though, and he expressly forbade me to perform any magic outside the confines of his house. “Folk would not understand if they witnessed it. We keep our more arcane abilities an open secret so that people can ignore it if they choose and make use of our services if they wish. Be discreet.” I obeyed this order almost always. Occasionally, when I sat, exiled from the Land of Nod in my tiny laboratory I would conjure a Light to replace the smelly, flickering oil lamp but I never demonstrated my new found abilities in the presence of anyone else.

Meanwhile, my friendships developed with some of the other local children. To be honest, when I first attempted to cultivate relationships with them, it seemed like a waste of time. And yet, I soon discovered that it was good to have friends and confidantes. I told them nothing of my real studies of course but I revealed just enough of the exotic truth to whet their appetites for more of my company. One lad, in particular, sought me out as often as he could. His name was Hindryk Scheimatzi. He was the shoemaker’s son so he lived next door, right above his father’s shop. He had obviously earned the nickname, “Cobbles,” by virtue of his father’s noble profession. He enjoyed being called by this alias. Apparently it denoted some degree of intimacy between acquaintances. Cobbles was not a person of any special intelligence nor was he a dullard; in fact he was very funny. He loved to entertain me with his japes and acrobatics. His particular favourite trick was to run directly at a wall and then backflip off of it. It was impressive but difficult and dangerous so he saved that one until he was sure he was in full view of a gaggle of school girls or sometimes even young mothers. He was not fussy, as long as they were of the opposite sex and paying him attention. I was still quite young when he started this, just eleven years of age, and I had yet to develop an interest in the female of the species. Cobbles, though, was several years older (in fact, he was the same age as my sister) he even sported a wispy moustache, of which I liked to make fun but was secretly jealous.

Cobbles worshipped me, he came looking for me before I went to Master Gedholdt’s house every morning and met me outside his front door. Why? You might well ask. I was a diminutive, bookish young lad, who was developing a pallor comparable only to that of his Master. Cobbles, in contrast, was five years older than me, tall, athletic and moustachioed. The answer, of course, is that he befriended me to get closer to my sister. Still, there was mutual advantage in our friendship. For me, Cobbles kept the rest of the town’s youths off my back when I was clearly a prime target for them. For him, I provided a very good reason to spend time around Pretty Primula and to garner a great deal of advice on the likes and dislikes of my sister.

A budding relationship between the two of them, I felt, was of use to me. If it worked out, it would be handy to have someone like Cobbles around me in the future. I had once been robust and even strong but my muscle was wasting away, I assumed because of my constant studies and lack of healthy exercise. I was wrong about the reason for it of course but nevertheless, I knew that I would be requiring the services of a strapping lad as my physical powers waned.

There was a problem, of course; my stubborn sister. Her refusals of Cobbles’ affections became embarrassing even to me and his clumsy, slipshod advances made me cringe. For example, one evening Primmy was returning from her day’s work where she had clearly been beaten again. Her cheeks were plum with blood and bruise and she was wearing her hair as a veil in an attempt to disguise it. She encountered us in Saint Frackas’ Square where Cobbles was doing handstands on the edge of the old fountain while I watched from our front doorway in an attempt to stave of the encroaching cold. At the very scent of Primula (she had the constant, if not exactly unpleasant odour of soap about her) he launched himself off his perch and performed a backflip to come to a landing directly in her path. Primula had not noticed his acrobatic feats but was startled to find Cobbles blocking her way. She looked up and spoiled the curtain effect of her locks. She was smiling her big, dumb smile as usual but she reached up to cover her cheeks with her hands. This is what Cobbles said:
“Oh no! You don’t need to cover you face, that colour in your cheeks makes you look pretty.”
The perpetual smile dropped to a momentary scowl before she pushed past him, saying, “Hindryk, You don’t know how to talk to a girl!” I could not have uttered the sentence any more succinctly myself. She was upset with him from that point on. His pathetic, crushed expression was spelling disaster for my plans to keep him around. I had to do something more direct to help this potential relationship to flourish for it could most certainly not be left in the hands of the erstwhile Prince Charming.

Now, Master Gedholdt had forbidden me from using magical spells anywhere outside his house and I did not want to jeopardise the days of contentment and learning which I so treasured by committing that most cardinal of sins. You have already guessed it, no doubt: I would have no choice but to write some lines for Cobbles to use to win the heart of my sister and perhaps some simple verses of love poetry for him to recite outside her window of an evening to woo her and show her how much he cared…Absurd! I was no poet, though I could write a pleasant enough passage of prose, I do not think it is the sort of thing one’s lover would appreciate read aloud to them to fill them with desire, no. I decided instead to return to the teachings of my old Mistress, one of her stocks in trade, The Love Potion. My current Master knew nothing of my former alchemies so could not forbid it. Even if he had known, I do not feel that he would have had the right to prevent me from practicing this particular art.

My plan presented several difficulties. Firstly, the ingredients for a real Love Potion were expensive and difficult to track down. The potion Burnt Aggie used to pawn off on her unfortunate customers was not merely inferior quality. In fact, it produced an effect which no-one particularly wants in a lover (or at least I assume so, I am not what one might term experienced in these matters,) uncontrollable flatulence. Saint Valentzi’s Day in Pitch Springs was rivalled only by market day in the intensity of the odour infusing the town (although things had changed considerably in the years since the murderous harridan had burnt to the ground with her hut.) I was certain that my new recipe would achieve the desired results without any appreciable side effects. I would have to recruit Cobbles into my plan to procure the ingredients. I was reluctant to do this as Master Gedholdt had told me never to make my abilities known to others if it was avoidable but I felt I could trust Cobbles and I wanted him to trust me completely too. Of course, when I told him my intentions, he leapt at the opportunity and offered to use his own money to pay for the herbs, booze and gold needed for it. This was the greatest risk I had taken since I first went to spy on that contemptible sow, Aggie, when I thought there was a very good chance she might like me for dinner and possibly dessert too. I considered it very carefully. I compared both of those situations and decided that the Old Aggie business had gone about as well as it could have despite having ended up with her resembling an overcooked lamb joint. Of course, I was only interested in how things had turned out for me, not for her, and for me the results of my association with her had been overwhelmingly positive. I weighed the risks and came to the decision that it would be riskier for me in the long run if I were not to bring Cobbles into my confidence.

One Friday evening when I had finished some magical cleaning chores for the day in Master Gedholdt’s house. As I was leaving I spotted Cobbles climbing a tree in the Lord Belintzi Memorial Gardens. I walked over to the tree and looked up at him as he hung upside-down from a sturdy branch and told him, “I am an alchemist and I am going to make you a Love Potion so you can woo Primula.” He tumbled from the bough and broke the middle finger of his left hand.

Here is a list of the ingredients required to craft Maryk’s Love Potion:

• The roasted heart of a rabbit
• A leaf of gold
• Essence of lover’s tears
• The egg of a storm gannett (yolk only required)
• A ring of silver
• A sprig of honeyleaf
• Four gooseberries
• A single hair from the would-be lover’s head
• A quart of Pitch Springs water

You can, perhaps, see why I needed the help of one somewhat more able-bodied than myself to obtain some of these items. I had made one of these potions only once before and that was when I had access to the well-stocked and arcane larder of Abominable Aggie. I had never had to think about where one would have to go to find the egg of a storm gannett, what one would have to do to retrieve the lover’s tears from which I could derive an essence. The most unattainable of all, of course, was the leaf of gold. I did not have money, Cobbles did not have money and I knew no-one to borrow it from who would not ask uncomfortable questions as to its necessity. I was going to bring up all of these issues with Cobbles before handing him the list. We were sitting on the fountain steps in our square where I had told him I would give him the list. He was looking at me with an hint of wonder, a hint of fear and a hint of anxious expectation. “Just give me the list, Maryk, don’t you worry about what’s on it. Whatever it is, I’ll get it, just you see. For Primmy, I’ll get it.” So, I handed it to him, saying simply, “Get me the lovers’ tears and I’ll distill them.” He nodded then asked hesitantly, “Which one’s honeyleaf, again?” I smiled and watched him cringe (I had become gaunt as a scarecrow and my teeth were beginning to yellow noticeably. I was starting to think my growing list of physical abnormalities had more to do with Aggie and her curse than my propensity to study indoors.) “I’ll show you the right herb. By the way, if you have to do…anything…anything to get some of those ingredients…don’t tell me about it, eh?” And he didn’t.

He brought each item to me as he came into them. Surprisingly, he brought me the tears first. I asked him how he obtained them so quickly.
“Kitten,” he said with a shrug as if the explanation were somehow obvious and I was to wave my hand at him and say, “Oh, Kitten! Of course. Why did I even ask?” Instead, I peered at him for a brief moment before finally asking, “Kitten..?”
“You don’t know her? She’s one of the whores that work over in front of the garrison most nights, you might have seen her there.” In truth, Cobbles often forgot about our age difference. “She was in school with me till a few years ago. Kitten’s not her real name, you know. She’s really called Hochti. You can see why she doesn’t go by that, rea-“
“I don’t need a whore’s entire biography, Cobbles,” I interrupted.
“‘Course you don’t. Anyway, she said she had this regular fella who always cries after they do the thing.” I laughed as I knew Cobbles would expect that.
“Let me guess. Was it because he loved her so dearly and could not have her to himself?”
“How did you…you really are clever, Maryk, you really are.” I said nothing, simply basked in his lightly won admiration. “Anyway, I gave her a couple of coins to purloin some of these tears and there we go. Nothing untoward or even unlawful really. He paid her for her time and so did I in a way.”

I told him he’d done well and then dismissed him. It was very late and I had to get the tears to my attic laboratory before too many of them evaporated. I thought about the man Cobbles told me of. He was so in love with a whore that he tortured himself by going to visit her regularly. He probably spent all his earnings on his visits, for which she cared nothing at all. He wept like a rejected schoolgirl because he knew he could have her as often as he could afford but she would never want to have him. Why would someone subject themselves to such base indignities in the name of an indefinable emotion that has only served to cause strife and mental anguish, wars and bar brawls and murder and tears? Songs compare the feeling to magic. Well, I had never experienced love but the feeling of magic, that was unlike all others. The stomach plunging of fear, the volcano of hate, the sweet nothing of happiness, all dull and distant compared to the emotion of magic. That was molten gold running in your veins and clouds lifted from your eyes and a light of such intensity and vitality that you are sure it could never go out of your mind until it does and you are reduced again to the status of animal and base human.

I completed the extraction of the essence of emotion from the tears and went to bed to lie down for an hour before dawn.
The next day I spoke to Master Gedholdt of the love my friend, Hindryk bore for my sister and how she did not reciprocate.
“It may surprise you to learn, Maryk my lad, that I myself, have never been much of a ladies’ man (is that the term?)” I feigned shock, he saw through my inept play-acting. “It’s alright, really. I expect that the time is now past for me, though I do still think of, well, of, uhm, of taking a wife, shall we say. Yes, I still think of it often. As you have seen, however, I do not often have the opportunity to meet other folk. My studies and my work occupy my time most exclusively. I have my regrets, Maryk. You do not have to have the same sort. You are still a little young, I know but you should never neglect that side of life. My father once told me that the love of a good woman is what truly makes a man. Of course this was before he was tried and imprisoned for attempting to actually make a man from the parts of others. Hopelessly insane, of course, Old Papa.” He continued talking about his family and the various insanities, obsessions and mental misbalancings which defined them for some time. Continuing to consider his words of advice about women, I did my chores, half listening to his stories, all of which I had heard many times before. Do not think this disrespectful; on the contrary, I had nothing but the utmost respect for my Master and his opinions and advice but I felt the advice was more like a library: there to be picked and chosen from rather than read from A to Z.

That evening Cobbles and I met again. He brought most of the rest of the ingredients I needed for the potion: the roasted rabbit heart, the leaf of gold (borrowed from the gilded cover of a book in the Master’s Library in the school), the silver ring (I did not ask), the honeyleaf sprig (he was able to find some of the potent herb in the mouth of an old mine shaft near the quarry) and the four gooseberries which were actually quite difficult to find as they were out of season (I would make do with dried ones, I told him.) The last item he revealed was a thing of real beauty, the egg of a storm gannett. It’s shell glistened in the light of the oil lamps on the square. It had a lustre like mother of pearl and the colour of an oil spill on the surface of a deep pool of still water and wherever the light struck it, it seemed to leave a lightning strike.
“I’m going to crack this open and use only the yolk!” I said.
“Tomorrow, I’ll fetch you the quart of Pitch Springs water and you will make me my Love Potion. Maryk, I’ll never be able to repay you for this,” said Cobbles.
“Don’t you worry about the payment, Cobb, just leave that to me,” I answered.