Time

I don’t have any this week. Had to cancel D&D this evening and all! So, here is the next chapter of the Apprentice. Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Gedholdt the Sage

A year passed. I continued to attend the classes of Mr Schpugelmann, irregularly at least. I assisted Mrs Blanintzi in the running of our small household and I did not sleep. For this last I discovered a solution, at least. Not a sleeping draft as you might imagine (such potions are unreliable, at best, and highly addictive at worst) but an infusion which allowed me to resist the ill effects of sleeping little or not at all. No-one suspected that I spent most of the nighttime hours experimenting in my attic laboratory or writing in my journals.

One winter’s day, while out wandering the town, avoiding school, I spied a man I had never seen before. His appearance was striking. His hair was brown and red but turning grey in streaks and he sported a beard which had never experienced the pleasure of being introduced to a comb. His spectacles were so thick that the precise colour of his eyes was not perceptible. He wore a long brown coat punctuated with burn marks and curiously coloured stains and a pair of boots, the soles of which stayed in place, presumably, through the power of wishful thinking alone. Most notably, however, he bore a book; an enormous tome at least two feet long and five inches thick. In fact, he was having some trouble with it, it was so large. The book was flattened against his scrawny chest and he was supporting it with two hands by its spine underneath. I did not know his destination but I would have been surprised to see him make it. This, I took to be an opportunity. Even though, as I indicated previously, my stature was not great, I had spent most of my life to that point as an unpaid farmhand so my arms and back were strong. I jinked across the muddy street, avoiding dung and carriages and hoisted up the left hand side of the great book, smiling up at the scraggly man.

“What do you think you are doing, you little urchin? What do you want with a libram like this? Let go, you diminutive beast!” He cried. There were folks watching and laughing. I laughed too, and answered with, “You misunderstand, Master. I wish only to assist you with the burden of knowledge you bear! Please, Wise Master, allow me the pleasure of helping you.” “Oh, well, perhaps you’re not the scallywag I took you for. Very well, you may continue to hold your side of the “burden of knowledge,” ha! Very droll!” He laughed and so did I.

Arriving at his home he bid me enter. I considered this a formality since he would not have managed the three steps up to his front door on his own with the titanic tome but I said nothing except, “How gracious, Master. I would be honoured.” We shuffled up the steps with some difficulty and two breaks for him to rest and one for him to unlock the Iron bound, thick oak front door. The house was a large, two storey affair, made solidly of granite bricks and long wooden beams. It stood on the edge of the town’s only park, a postage stamp of greenery (mostly weeds) grandly called the Lord Belintzi Memorial Garden and in between the town’s garrison and a blacksmith by the unlikely name of Smitzi. It was a handsome place in a respectable part of town. Inside was a different matter.
Likening the inside of this man’s home to a cave was to be ungenerous to caves and accurate only in the aspect of light and the lack thereof. Comparing it to a library would, perhaps have been more useful but libraries, I was led to believe, had a great deal of order to them whereas the books, papers and leaflets which occupied the lion’s share of space in the house’s interior appeared to do so in a manner that was totally random and inconsiderate of household appropriateness.

“Bring the book over here to the desk,” I followed him, though I could not find the desk he spoke of amongst the general disarray. He momentarily released one hand from its duty holding the book and used it to sweep away a pair of long unrolled scrolls which had contrived to hide the aforementioned desk beneath themselves. A space finally prepared for it, we slid the tome, spine first, up onto the desk and both sighed a long relieved breath. “You must have a cup of tea to revive you after your efforts and by way of thanks. I’m certain I would not have been capable of hefting this monstrous thing all the way home alone.” He exited through a door in the north wall and presently began clattering in the other room. Finally alone with the book I peered through the gloom at the title, written delicately in gold along the spine, and found I could not read it. “Master,” I called. “What is this book? I cannot read its title.” Poking his head back through the doorway he asked, “You can read?” “Of course, Master,” I answered. He shook his head and walked off, muttering into the kitchen again.

He returned momentarily after a kettle’s whistle and the rattle of cups and tray being readied. He served me tea at a table wholly covered in tiny notes which were, in turn, covered in words in a language I did not know. This was the second time in five minutes that I had encountered writing in a foreign tongue and the second time in my life. It was a revelation to me. There was so much to know just in the language I had been born to, but considering all the many languages of the world, there must be just as much to learn from books written in their scripts too. I was fascinated and I asked him about it. “How many languages do you know, Master…?” “You may call me Master Gedholdt. They call me Gedholdt the Sage in this town though so few of the townsfolk ever come seeking my “sage advice” that you would wonder why. I know ten different languages and perhaps thirty different dialects within those. Most of the work I perform in the town is translation; mercantile contracts; letters from abroad; diplomatic missives, that sort of thing. Not my only work, though, no, no, no.” I held my tongue. I could already see that this reclusive, intelligent man would need no prodding to let me in on the secret of his “other” work. Frankly, he could not wait to tell and had been waiting for just such an opportunity to talk to a like-minded individual about it, even if he was a short-arsed eleven-year-old boy. “I work most often for the garrison. They often need my assistance in matters martial and strategic. Though, they have asked me to keep my involvement with them secret I feel that I have no reason to mistrust you, my young scallywag, eh?” “Of course, Master. And it’s Maryk by the way.” “Young Maryk, of course. Well, Maryk, I can see things at a great distance in my mind’s eye through the application of magical spells…” with this he paused and peered at me as though challenging me to refute his preposterous claims. I did no such thing of course. “…and I have the ability to direct troops on the field of battle with no more than a thought. Such powers and more have I gleaned from the ancient writings of the lost Fomorin people whose empire once spanned the continent and was based entirely on the mastery of the magical arts. Theirs is not an easy language to master, not least because it is a dead one but also because of its arcane writing system which requires of the reader an understanding of the magical arts. It is like trying to read sheet music without the benefit of knowledge of musical notation. Impossible.” He sipped his steaming black tea and scrutinised me over his glasses for a moment. “Could you…I mean, excuse the impertinence, Master Gedholdt, but would you teach someone this Fomoron tongue?” I dipped my toe in the water with this question. “You have the look of knowledge-hunger in your eyes, alright. I knew it. I am not surprised by your question. I could be persuaded to impart my years of experience and wisdom to you, young Maryk, but there would be a price…” He arose from his seat, still grasping his teacup, and walked into the centre of the room. I turned in my chair to follow his movements. What might he demand of me? I tried not to think of the possibilities. “I need a… perhaps valet would be the best way to describe the position I have in mind.” He indicated with his teacup, the whole room and inferred the apocalyptic mess. I was to be his cleaner, of course. Valet, ha! “In return, I would be willing to apprentice you. But only…only with the express written consent of your parents.”

Damn. “My parents, Master Gedholdt…are no longer with us.” A technical white lie, at worst. “Indeed? An orphan are you? Well, then, who is your guardian? It is important to me that your presence here is sanctioned by the appropriate adult. You do have one? You certainly don’t have the air of one of those beastly street urchins who congregate in the market square.” “No, Master, not a street urchin. I have a governess. Perhaps she can provide the permission you require,” said I. “Indeed, there we have it. Return tomorrow with a note of permission. I will know if it is a forgery,” he pointed at me. I looked left and right and finally just nodded. “Off you go, then. I have work to do and you must leave. Goodbye.” With that, I was dismissed. I thought about protesting and telling him that as long as I was already there, I might as well make a start on the tidying but he had already been swallowed by an archway in the west wall, his mind made up.

It seemed there was no way around this. If he could, as he insisted, tell a forgery from the genuine article and I did try it anyway Gedholdt would never take me on as an apprentice and apprenticing to him was the only possible way I could advance my knowledge of the magical arts and escape the drudgery of Pitch Springs Elementary School for Boys. There was no way that Mrs Blanintzi would allow it, however. She wanted for me nothing more adventurous than a solid career in the bank or possibly the town hall. A life in leadership held some appeal to me, even at that early age and I thought that perhaps I could make a difference in the lives of everyday people in the town and the countryside if provided the opportunity, but I was driven to learn all I could about the magical arts. In comparison, taxes, town-planning, budgets felt too mundane and unfulfilling. I knew where my potential lay and I did not want anyone to endanger that. No, Mrs Blanintzi could not be allowed to spoil my chance at real knowledge, the knowledge of the Great Fomori Empire. However, my father would support me in this, I was sure of it. By the time I had reached our slender house I had figured out what to do. I sat down to write a letter.

I had to wait longer than the single day Master Gedholdt had envisioned but eventually my permission came. My father’s reply came a week later. He was waist deep in infidels, it seemed, commanding a garrison in a hellish little border town known as Three Towers. I read his news with impatience, never once stopping to think that this letter might very well be the last time I ever heard from him (It was not, but the possibility certainly existed. My father was invincible in my eyes. I never worried that he might come home dead.) Finally he got to his response to my request, an affirmative one! I showed Mrs Blanintzi the letter and told her briefly of its contents before rushing out the door and running all the way to the house by the Lord Belintzi Memorial Garden. When I arrived, I did not stop to knock, I swung the door open and, waving my father’s letter in the air about my head shouted, “I have it! I have it! My father’s permission, Master, it came!” Master Gedholdt turned to me and, puzzled, replied, “Didn’t you say you were an orphan?”
Damn. “Not exactly, Master Gedholdt, you said that. I simply neglected to correct you as I thought it might seem impertinent.” His eyebrows shot up, “Indeed! Impertinent! Well, perhaps it would have been but it would have been not half so impertinent as bursting into a gentleman’s home uninvited and unannounced, eh?” He clicked his finger and waved towards the letter. “Your father is a military man, is he? Well, I’m surprised he didn’t teach you more discipline, then.” “Yes, Master, you’re correct, of course, Master Gedholdt,” I mumbled, head hung low inspecting my brogues. “I am not a school master, lad, and I am not a slave driver either. You will learn a thing or two here, you may count on that but you must watch me closely when I tell you too and note everything. Nothing is unimportant. We shall start with the basics…tomorrow. First, tidy up this dreadful mess, I can’t find a blasted thing.”

Link

I realise I should have been sharing a link to all the previous chapters of the Apprentice at the start of each new one. So, I will start doing that today, Here it is:

The Apprentice Chapters

I won’t go on in the introduction this time as it is a long instalment. Let’s get into it:

Chapter 5: Mistress Aggie

Even before we left my world behind at the farm I knew I wanted to know things. At first, almost anything would do: wildlife lore; plant lore; astronomy; languages; money; weather; medicine; gambling; food and cooking; anything, as I said.

My father taught me what he could but his lack of education was an obvious stumbling block. He taught himself to read and write, though his handwriting was abominable and barely legible and he had no feel for spelling. Still, what he knew in this regard, he helped me to learn. I had surpassed his reading and writing abilities by the time I was seven years old although there was precious little to practice on. Most of the time, when I wanted to write something I would choose a dried up patch of mud out in the farmyard and make my marks with a sharpened stick or the end of a farming implement of some kind. The next rain would wash it away but the mere act of writing would always help me to illustrate a problem for myself and to solve it or simply to memorise a thing. As I scraped a verse or a formula or a passage of prose into the ground, it was scraped also into my memory forever. The memorisation of more private things would take me up to the mud in the western field where I would use my stick or pitchfork to scribble. Once I had written my private meanderings or recorded my feelings in the glutinous mess of earth and water and sheep-shit I would just walk through it in my bare feet and erase it for good now that it was etched on my mind.

Eventually, father noticed my dirt scribbles and perhaps thought that that was no proper use for a farmyard. As a result he fashioned me a chalkboard by fixing some old pieces of rubbish wood to the edges of a roof slate. To write on it, I was told, I would have to venture down to the quarry on the eastern edge of the farm and wrest some chalk from it. I dutifully did as I was bid and brought back from the quarry a basket full of crumbling chalk blocks. It had been lying around on the floor of the old quarry and was yellow and brown in patches and had scraggles of dirt and grass attached to it in many places. It was the best present my father had ever given me, even though he had made me fetch half of it myself and the chalk broke so quickly and produced a choking cloud of dust once dried and used. I went to the quarry after that to scavenge hunks of chalk whenever I needed them, which was often. I could finally jot and scribble and work at my leisure in and out of the house. My sister made fun of my writing and complained of the chalk-dust constantly but it made no difference to me, I already knew she hated me at that point and I realised she was but jealous of my intelligence and knowledge.

I had learned a lot and memorised a lot in this way, I had even taught myself many of the natural laws that I would later read of in old tomes and new treatises, though, perhaps, I did not have quite the vocabulary necessary to record them as the sages did. I made up for that later in life. I wrote volumes later in my life on all subjects from the most efficacious practices in agriculture to the most terrible spells of the occult. Had I led a different sort of life I would have been a famous sage, advisor to kings or provost of a university perhaps. My fame was not to be derived in such mean and mundane pursuits though…I am getting too far ahead of myself now. I must rein in my errant thoughts and focus on the tale and task at hand.

There was, of course, a whole world outside my world of which I knew absolutely nothing. While back on the farm I could progress no further. I had not books nor teachers nor knowledgeable company of any kind. I often wondered if the most well educated being in my life other than myself was the owl, which I often heard hoo-hooing outside my window at night as it hunted around the barn and the great oak which gnarled its way around the east and north sides of our farmhouse. I discovered this was not the case when one night I saw the owl caught in a net after it was fooled by a fake mouse on the ground in the Markinson’s yard. I remember weeping that the evil and thick-headed young Markinson boys should trap and keep the owl as a pet. Soon, I realised that if the bird was stupid enough to be snared by a Markinson then it deserved to be caged.

Not long after this incident we were forced to move from the farm, Greysteel was made bird-feed, father left and Primula and I were lumped on old Mrs Blanintzi. All of these things seemed terrible to me but soon I determined that it was not such a heinous fate after all. For I was in a town. I had not dreamt that there could be advantages to this. I had never considered that wise people made their homes in towns because there were other, not so wise people in towns who always seemed to need advice or mechanisms or tinctures or money or even, in the most extreme circumstances, magic. Real magic was not what most of these idiots wanted but the kind that fooled them into believing in wishes and good fairies and healing touches and love. I could see that most of the folks who claimed to be purveyors of such powerful magicks were nothing more than charlatans. Still, I admired them for the way they took advantage of those who were easily parted from their silver crowns. I had little interest in learning their ways, though. There were two people only in the town from whom I desired knowledge but they had no notion of imparting their hard-won secrets to the likes of me, I am sure, even had they known I existed.

Old Aggie, as you will, no doubt, recall was called Old Aggie even on the fateful day of my birth, now almost nine years previous. She was, as you might also recall, a “mad, old biddy,” as my sister so eloquently put it. But I had seen things that you would not believe, feats performed by Old Aggie that would have been described as unnatural and blasphemous by the stupid and pious of the town.

Once, I crept out my bedroom window at extreme personal risk. My room was on the second floor and its window accessed the ground only by a poorly maintained and rusting drainpipe. I did this foolish thing and survived it in order to go and spy on the “Wise-woman” (this was the euphemism applied to Aggie in her presence. Everyone obviously just called her “The Witch” when she wasn’t within earshot.) This was more difficult an adventure than I had anticipated. Old Aggie resided in a dilapidated pig-shit and wattle hovel on the edge of town and the edge of a tanner’s pit. The stench was close to unbearable, I remember. I came close to fainting away on two occasions as I attempted to hold my breath (I find this quite amusing now considering the olfactory calumnies I would be subjected to in my later life.) Her windows were tiny portholes placed high on the wall even though the place was, of necessity, a one floor affair. I was short. Even for a boy of almost nine, I was considered improperly short (is there no end to the ignominies of my existence?) so I was forced to find something to stand upon to see through her window into the torch lit space beyond. It was pitch dark outside the house so I felt about me and connected with something more or less solid that seemed about the right height for me to stand upon. It felt, I recall, as though it were perhaps a lichen-covered wooden frame of some kind. It was solid but slippery to the touch. I dragged it just below the window and climbed atop it to spy on the Witch.

A museum of the grotesque I always felt was a good title for Old Aggie’s house. Every inch of spare floor and wall was occupied by a basket, jar, phial, bottle, amphora, tank, sack or pouch of something. I would never discover what most of them contained but I could see clearly enough what the glass vessels had in them. There were homunculi; deformed, two-headed, horned, broken creatures (of course, now, I know that they were the formaldehyde pickled aborted foetuses from ashamed or deceased mothers. At the time, though, they seemed to me to be goblin children or perhaps deformed fairies. The uses she found for them would one day repel me and force me to abandon her as a mistress.) One contained black liquid with a hint of crimson when the torchlight played on it. I assumed this to be blood, though, it’s provenance, I could not have guessed at. Another trapped a clear liquid which I immediately took to be the tears of my father (in this assumption I was correct. How she had managed to prevent them from evaporating, I am not certain. It is a magic I was never made privy to or else the magical properties of the fresh tears of a widowed father preserved them. It is not important now, anyway.) There was dung, fangberries, elephant’s tail seaweed, a quart of an unidentified white fluid, live wasps, a grass-snake, fermented beans, half a brain (possibly human,) no fewer than twelve pairs of disembodied testicles and a number of other internal organs which, at the time, I possessed not the education to allow me to identify. Some of the more opaque containers moved of their own accord and one of them was animated all about its rim with the popping bubbles of some black liquid I took to be tar but might just as well have been demon’s blood. The smoke-blackened ceiling with its chimney-hole in the centre was festooned all about with skins of mammal and reptile, ruined nets, sticks of varying length and girth, giant black and grey feathers, bloodied rags and seemingly ancient cobwebs.
Old Aggie herself must have taken her rest on furs and blankets on the minuscule patch of clear floor space in the centre of the one-roomed hut.

Right now, however, she was not sleeping. Her eyes were shut in a dreamy, heavy-lidded, trance-like way and she swayed side to side, forwards and backwards to no particular rhythm but as if she were standing, chest deep, in the water of a gently lapping lake. Even her filth-matted hair seemed to drift weightlessly in the stinking air of her home. As odd as these facts may seem they were not what instantly caught my attention in this scene: she was bare from pate to sole. The sight, I will not deny it, came close to making me retch, what with the sensory hurricane to which I was already being subjected. I controlled myself, however, and my rebellious digestive system, so as to avoid the attention of my erstwhile subject. Although she was unclothed, she was covered by something: something which resembled a mixture of horse-shit and blue paint. My nose was so assaulted by the tanner’s pit that it was of no use in identifying the concoction she was wearing. Aggie was moaning, a low monotonous tone. She did this without moving her lips in the slightest. In the benighted back of the hut a bird squawked, the noise of it becoming louder and, to my ears, more insistent as the moaning continued.

As I watched I could see something happening to the air above the great clay jar over which Old Aggie stood; it became illuminated, gently at first but brighter and brighter as, gradually, the witch’s moaning rose in pitch and speed and volume. The bird’s squawking was now quite fevered and desperate too. And then it was finished. Aggie fell silent, the unidentified bird ceased carking, and the illumination from the jar’s mouth disappeared. Then, I watched in astonishment as the jar rocked a little, scraping its bottom on the dirty clay floor, before it expectorated from its belly a monkey. A monkey emerged from the jar. An orange furred, pug-nosed, eighteen inch tall monkey was now sitting on the edge of the clay jar which had just given birth to it. It looked up, adoringly, at the gnarled and naked witch. She simply said, “You’re here to help me, Monkey, eh? You’ll help Old Aggie with whatever she needs, won’t you?” The monkey did not reply (I had fully expected it to also have been blessed with the power of speech given, normally, only to us lucky humans. I could not have been any more surprised than I already was.) but he did wave his hands and waggle his fingers at the old woman. “No, I don’t think so. I go naming you and before you know it, you’ll have gone and freed yourself and made all sorts of trouble for me, no doubt. I know all your little tricks, and don’t you forget it.” Mercifully, Aggie dressed as she spoke, throwing an old robe over the blue shit on her skin. “Now, fetch me my slippers, they’re over yonder there, under the box with the thing in it.” The newly conjured monkey scampered off to the far corner of the hut and I heard a rattle and squawk from the bird but could see nothing. I tried peering around the window frame but still could make nothing out. “No, no, not that thing the other th-” Then, I crashed with a crack and a slip through my impromptu step and found myself, very quickly, in a fleshy, stinking, rotting nightmare. When I opened my eyes after the fall, I found myself, like a common lung or heart, trapped in a cow’s ribcage and, of course, I screamed. I remember that scream as having been shrill and piercing, like that of a small girl. Aggie came hobbling out, Monkey in tow. “What are you up to there, hiding in that there cow’s chest? What?” So, that’s how I met the first of my teachers.

Aggie, as a teacher, left one wanting. Her ways were her ways and she was desperately set in them. She would always do a full circle of her house before she ever entered it, even in the most inclement of weather. She always woke before dawn and prepared herself a single fried egg and ate it on a piece of dry, white toast. As far as I could tell she never then ate another thing until well after the sun had gone down. She was incredibly messy but always knew where she had put everything and she flat out refused to learn to read and write. She actually said to me once when I offered to show her how to write, “Why are you trying to steal my spirit? Your spirit leaks out of your writing hand and into the those damned squiggles you draw.”

For the first couple of years my illicit visits to the Wise Woman’s home led to me being just as much the helper monkey as the helper monkey was. It was, “Maryk, fetch me water from the well, I need it to make some grub soup (which was exactly what it sounded like,) “Maryk, I need a sparrow’s egg. Didn’t I see some nesting in the eaves of your house?” (I broke my arm that time,) “Maryk, I spotted a pair of pig’s trotters in the tanner’s pit. I need them. Fetch them out of there, will you? Good lad.” (I puked all the way down the side of the pit and all the way back up it again.) I had my own chores to do in my own house. Why would I want to go to her house to do more? I said as much to her one day so she told me to leave. I was back the next morning with my sleeves rolled up and she took me back. “Why?” you ask. Well, even, you see, if I only saw the witch perform a minor cantrip or she taught me one of the basic building blocks of the natural magic that she practised or told me of one of the world’s magical beasts, it was worth every hour of chores. I was learning magic. I was able to perform a couple of insignificant but impressive tricks. I was becoming a magician.

As I mentioned, these visits were unsanctioned. Mrs Blanintzi saw me conversing with Aggie on our square one evening before dark. Later, she said to me at the dinner table, “You know, don’t you, what that Aggie is? You know what she is and you know what she does, eh? I heard that she once destroyed the mayor’s dog and that she used a spell to make young Lena Hedtzi run off on her husband. She is evil, boy and is not fit company for a lad from a respectable family.” It was the first I had heard that we were known as a respectable family but it was not the first time I had heard of these accusations thrown at the feet of my magic mistress. Aggie had explained both of these incidents to me. First, the mayor destroyed his own dog one night when he had drunk so much wine that he fell unconscious in the middle of a dance step, fell and flattened poor Lucky (a misnomer if ever I heard one.) Second, Lena had been beaten so badly and so often by her abusive and ignorant spouse that she had been left with no choice but to take her baby daughter and move somewhere far away. Aggie had had nothing to do with either incident but the majority of human failings are more palatable for folks when they can attribute them to witches. “Its an important public service that we provide!” Aggie used to often say (I later discovered that she was not totally blameless, though.)

So, I was left with no choice but to sneak off to see her whenever I was able. This was difficult because our governess had her eye planted firmly on me at almost all times. I had to escape very often from the town’s school. I hated the school, I had few friends there and the teachers were generally more ignorant than the students. Fortunately the teacher for my class was Mr Schpugelmann, a moustachioed foreigner with a gambling addiction so pronounced that it generally led to him missing more days of school than I did.

I picked it up quickly, magic. Old Aggie said so. She said that I picked it up much quicker than she had and she had been even younger than me when she started to learn at the foot of her mother. Aggie’s mother was still remembered in the Pitch Springs area for having poisoned the water on the Raventzi Farm, stopped the heart in the chest of the high priest in the temple and murdered a whole classroom of children in a terrible explosion. Aggie had loved her mother dearly and still spoke about her whenever I would listen. Sometimes I even enjoyed her stories. Mostly, when I went to the hut, I was impatient to learn something new and never really listened to the rambling of the mad old biddy until I heard the sound of precious knowledge rasping through her puckered and hairy lips.

She might not have agreed with writing but at least she didn’t try to prevent me from doing it. I filled volumes as I followed her every movement, wrote down everything and sometimes made crude diagrams or drawings. We started with potions. At first, all I was permitted to do was fetch ingredients and occasionally stir the cauldron. Soon, however, I started to anticipate my mistress’ needs, bringing the reagents she required before she had asked for them, preparing them to the correct proportions and even suggesting subtle alterations in order to achieve a stronger or lengthier effect. Before long, she had left the preparation of potions, lotions, ointments and unguents, entirely in my hands, leaving her, she said, to worry about the more important work of curses, summonings and healings.

I was proud of the swiftness of my progress under Old Aggie’s unorthodox tutelage. I had mastered the creation of more than a dozen different potions in less time than it took my sister to master the art of eating with her mouth closed. But at the same time, I was unhappy that she seemed content to let me stagnate like a batch of unwanted hair-growth ointment slowly developing a crust in her cauldron.

“Show me how you summoned Monkey,” I demanded one day. “Not today, Maryk, not today. I am drained and you still have a quart of that eyesight potion to whip up. Perhaps if you come tomorrow, eh?” But tomorrow came and she was still too tired and besides she would always find another task to occupy me. I was still young by now, ten years old, but I was beginning to be able to sense things, perhaps in a similar way to father’s “feelings.” I was getting the feeling that Old Aggie feared me. She knew that, if she allowed it, she would quickly be surpassed by me and she was desperately afraid of that. If I wanted to learn any more from Aggie, I would have to do it by stealth.

So, stealing a few reagents from her macabre larder I decided to use Old Aggie’s knowledge against her. I had set up a tiny kitchen for the creation of my own potions in the attic space of our house on Saint Frackas Square. I knew that my sister would have no interest in invading this space and that Mrs Blanintzi was too frail to consider climbing the short but ill constructed ladder which connected it to the first floor. So, sneaking up to my cramped laboratory one autumn night long after everyone else was sound asleep, I brewed up a potion of invisibility. This was one of the recipes which I had learned from Aggie but which I had perfected through the accurate measurement of the ingredients and the obtaining of higher quality reagents than Aggie had ever used (I had estimated that Aggie was actually quite wealthy due to obsessive thriftiness and a general fear among the citizens of Pitch Springs that cheating a witch could have dire consequences.) Due to my improvements its effects lasted twice as long as Aggie’s recipe so I knew I would have at least thirty minutes, possibly up to forty, of total invisibility. It bothered me that there was such a margin for error and it gave me one of those feelings of my father’s when I thought about it.

I knew that this night she was planning on performing a summoning, much like last time when she she made a Monkey come out of her jar. She had asked me to prepare a few items she would need for the spell and to clear a space on the floor for her. Normally, she would not have allowed my presence at such a casting but on that night, she was not going to have the option to exclude me. Having brewed up my potion I tipped it into a little vial which I stored safely away in my satchel, wrapped in a rag. Then I wrapped myself up warm and set off to the edge of town and the Witch’s house. I arrived and waited outside until I heard the squawking of her bird. This usually meant she was beginning a spell. That’s when I necked the potion. I felt it tingle from my scalp to my big toes. It was as though I had grown a halo of super-fine hairs which extended out straight from my body in all directions, hiding me. It seemed also to heighten my senses of touch and vision. Once I was sure I was completely invisible I crept slowly, sure-footed, beneath the curtain which acted as Aggie’s front door, careful not to disturb it at all and then hunkered down in the corner by the doorway, holding my breath and watching the shit-daubed witch go about her witching business. I was not prepared for what I was about to be witness too.

Aggie stood there in the same blue excrement, over her large cauldron. I listened to her begin her low moan, slowly adding all the reagents I had set out earlier to the mixture. The fire was roaring below and every addition was met with a hiss. I made a mental note of the order in which she added all the items and then she picked up an item which I had not prepared for her earlier. It was one of the jar-bound homunculi, the tiniest of them which had a horn growing from its misshapen head and a tail as long as my little finger. She removed this thing from its confinement and held it two-handed above the cauldron. She ceased her moaning and spoke,
“On the body of this baby,
unborn and unloved,
I curse Jana’s child-bearing,
in the name of her husband,
and in your name Great Lord Shuggotz.”
and then dropped the body into the cauldron, the last ingredient. There was a plop and a hiss and gurgle and then a burst of sickeningly black and oily smoke from an enormous bubble which burst at the top of the mixture. the smoke dispersed about the hut and languidly circled until it escaped through the chimney hole.

I was shocked and disgusted. I was appalled that the woman with whom I had been spending so much time, the woman who was a teacher to me and who had encouraged me at the start, was a murderer, an assassin. I knew the couple she mentioned in her spell. Jana was heavily pregnant and infectiously happy with it but her husband was a layabout and a ne’erdowell. He would not want another mouth to feed. I had underestimated the depth of the man’s depravity, it seems. I wondered what he must have paid or promised Aggie for this service. It didn’t matter, I realised. I couldn’t kneel there on the hut’s dirt floor and allow this to continue any further. I had to act before Aggie finished her ritual and the curse was complete. I crept, still invisible, but more conscious than ever of the tracks I would be leaving on the dusty floor. I stayed low and moved directly towards the cauldron. Praying to Saint Volga, patron saint of alchemists that my potion would last long enough for me to perform my sabotage and escape, I took the rag I had wrapped my vial in and tied my right hand in it. Then I pushed on the underside of the cauldron. The rag was thin and did not cover my hand completely, I scalded myself quite badly and lost my fingerprints on that hand but it was as nothing compared to the injuries I inflicted on my mistress. The contents of the cauldron poured over the floor and Old Aggie’s feet, she screamed in agony as the boiling liquid blistered her skin and worse, I suspect. But soon, the pain of her cooked feet would become lost in the searing agony as her hut burned down around her. It might be truer to say it exploded around her. I watched as a few drops of the, as it turns out, highly flammable liquid splattered into the fire. It suddenly grew to twice its previous size and began to spread through the witch’s dangerously overfilled home, blowing up jars of volatile substances as it did so. I ran, and just as I did, my potion wore off. “Maryk! You killed me! I curse you! I curse you! I curse you!” cried Old Aggie as I slid under the burning curtain and ran home, never looking back.

So, there you have it, accursed twice by the age of ten. Not to mention the fact that I had murdered yet again. Greysteel did not count as murder perhaps, except to my father. Still, I imagined I had done a good thing by disrupting the witch’s spell. Perhaps one day, Jana’s child would do some great good in the world and my actions would be vindicated. Such were the arguments corkscrewing my mind in the nighttime for months afterwards. I have never slept soundly since that night, though the thoughts which occupied my consciousness naturally changed, their effects did not. These days I don’t sleep at all, not really.

A break from out regular programming

I know I said that I would get into some detail on each of the projects I’m backing right now and I will! I promise! For now, if you are interested in that, go check out this post here.

But can I tempt you to hang around here and enjoy a tale of the macabre? This is chapter 2 of the Apprentice. If you want to get caught up, this is the post you’re looking for. But, honestly, you could probably read this one as a short story and never know it was part of a wider story.

It’s quite a bit longer than most of my posts so go get yourself a nice cuppa and take it easy for a little while, why don’t you. So, here it is,

Chapter 2: The Tale of the Dead Count

An old count once lived in a far away land. People called this land “the Land of Gold” it was so rich. Count Ravetzi had an enormous castle on the top of a steep hill overlooking the town of Hopefield. The commoners all loved the Count, the Countess and their two brave and handsome sons, Bors and Lors (I always thought these were the worst made-up names I had ever heard in any of my father’s stories. He always just winked at me and said, “That’s how you know it’s true! Who would make up such ridiculous names?”) The noble family often gave to the poor of the village, the two sons brought glory to the town and the province in tourneys from Arabella to Zoarfrost, the Countess sponsored the education of many of the town’s second-born sons in the Great University of Spirehall, and the Count; Count Ravetzi was the most extraordinary of all; it is said he had healing hands. Stories abounded; Count Ravetzi had cured Old Nan Mercer of the pox, the warts fell off the hands of Fat Harolt when he touched them, he made Grandpa Gorenson see again, and a leper that lived in the ravine had his curse lifted after the Count paid him a visit. Hopefielders called him The Marvellous Count Ravetzi.

Now, as I’ve explained, this land was incredibly rich. Even the beggars on the streets used bowls of gold, it was rumoured. It had been able to remain rich because it was in a fertile valley bordered on three sides by steep mountains of great stature stretching all the way to the sea, a sea of such renowned ferocity and danger that not even the finest navigators of the age would dare to attempt a landing at the small harbour there with anything larger than a row-boat. In other words they were secure against invaders, sheltered from extreme weather and just generally safe from harm.

One day the brothers, Bors and Lors (laughable monikers!) went to the southern end of the valley near the mouth of the great River Arga which had carved it. There was an ancient forest there, famous for the size of its wild boar. The birthday of their father approached and it was always celebrated with the finest boar of the season roasted on a spit in the courtyard of the Count’s great castle. They would once again prove their skills as the greatest hunters in the Land of Gold and bag the boar for the spit.

Stalking their prey for three days and nights was not too much for them and they were rewarded finally with the sight of the most enormous boar either of them had ever encountered. The beast’s tusks were as long as Bors’ arm from wrist to shoulder and its bristles could have been used as daggers. They circled the beast as it drank from the shallows of the river and they were about to spear it when a volley of shafts streaked from the trees hanging over the riverbank, felling the beast and dashing the hopes of the brothers. When a shout came from the leader of the bowmen in the trees to drop their weapons and surrender, Lors and Bors, brave and mighty warriors though they were, had no choice but to comply.

Back in the castle, the Count and Countess knew nothing of the events in the forest and when the Count’s birthday arrived they had no doubt that their two sons would make it back in time with a prize beast for the feast. All preparations were made by the castle’s servants and the Countess herself oversaw them. Bunting was hung, banners were flown, helmets and trumpets were polished and a magnificent cake, seven tiers high was brought up from Hopefield’s proud master baker’s shop.

Everything was in readiness when Lors led his retinue through the gates and entered the courtyard. He was scarlet-faced and he did not cheer as he entered and he did not perform a lap of victory around the courtyard as was he was wont to do after a successful hunt. Most importantly, however, he was not accompanied by his brother.

“Where is Bors, where is your brother?” called the Countess. “He will be along shortly, Mother. You will see him soon.” Seemingly, the Count and Countess accepted this vague explanation and left the remaining preparations, those of the spit-roast, to Lors and his retinue.

Now, when my father told me the Tale of the Dead Count I was only seven years old and even I knew the fate that lay in store for poor old Bors. Must I actually relate it to you? I suppose I must.

That evening, all of the land’s worthies were gathered at the castle and many of the not-so-worthies as well. The Count’s generosity was well known and he displayed it particularly on the feast of his birthday. He would grant a boon to all who came to his feast. As a result, many folk who had not even received an invitation turned up at the castle or, if they did not manage to gain entry by bluff or stealth, waited outside the gates on the off-chance the Count or Countess would take pity on them and invite them in.

The boons granted by Count Ravetzi ranged from prize livestock to tales of wonder but, although there were no formal rules surrounding the requesting of boons it was simply not done to request money. No-one ever had, of course, so it was not certain that he would not grant it. The unspoken rule existed all the same and it never had to be tested as everyone in the Land of Gold was, as has been made abundantly clear, perfectly well off.

The final touches had been made to the courtyard and gardens where the party was to take place. All of the guests mingled freely in the courtyard, dressed in their very finest finery. They enjoyed the valley’s cherriest red wine, which had been perfected over centuries by the growers of the northern slopes; they nibbled on the fruit of the southern forests and cheese of the lowlands where they bred the most fertile and productive cattle in the known world. And everything was served on glittering gilt platters and from gem-studded goblets delicately crafted by the Land’s most famous artisans, whose skills were sought after from the frozen wastes of the North to the sizzling deserts in the South. The Land of Gold and all its riches were on display in that courtyard and dinner had not even been served.

The Count and his lady wife greeted their guests at the summit of the steps leading into the keep, he dressed in a specially tailored suit of azure silk and gold trim, and she in a shimmering golden gown and a stole of mountaintop-mink.

When they had greeted everyone and surveyed the party, again they asked Lors, “Where is your brother? Where is Bors?” Lors, eyes downcast and feet shifting answered, “You will see him at dinner.” Once again the noble couple simply accepted the answer and called for the feast to move to the garden for dinner.

The entire three hundred strong party followed their hosts around the keep to the torch-lit gardens and were seated at the feast-tables which were already groaning under the strain.

They had all followed the Count and Countess but they might as easily have followed their noses. The spit-roast had obviously been glazed in honey and spiced and the aroma hooked the hungry guests like prize-trout on the end of a line. The roasting pit itself was hidden behind a painted caravan, awaiting the serving-time when it would be revealed in all its glory. Once all guests had settled and all goblets were refilled the Count tapped his glass and rose to give his speech:

“Tradition has made this land the richest and happiest in all of Mittern. Tradition has led us here today to celebrate as we do each year. You have asked your boons when we met earlier, as tradition dictates, and they shall be granted, from century-old tokay to impossible riddle, when our evening’s feasting comes to an end. I have been asked one boon this year, however, that I cannot grant as it is not wholly for me to do so. My loyal and learned peer, the Duke of Minia Prima, has proposed a joining of our two proud houses through the marriage of his enchanting and radiant daughter, Suskia, to my first-born son and heir, Bors.”

The party-goers grew giddy with excitement and wine and a round of raucous applause had to be settled by the Count, still standing, speech unfinished.

“I, personally, would not even afford the answer a second thought. If it were my decision alone I would reply wholeheartedly, ‘yes!’”

More applause was once again settled by the Count who continued, “My son, Bors, is his own man and I have always trusted his instincts and his decisions. Someday he will make a fine Count and I would have him choose his own Countess. What say you Bors?” he raised his voice now to the crowd, as his eyes roamed over it, in a vain attempt to pick out his son. “Lors! You said your brother would be here for dinner! Where is he now? He has an important decision to make.” The Count still suspected nothing, Lors replied, “I believe he is ready, Lord Father.” With that, the caravan driver whipped the horses into action revealing the spit roast behind it.

Of course it was no great boar, it was the Great Bors. Now, as I explained earlier, I had guessed at the fate of poor Bors as soon as I heard that young Lors had returned alone. By the time my father reached this moment in the story, I think the impact of the mental image of the young man, crackling and spinning and popping and browning, his own body-fat hissing into the flames below and his face caught in a dripping-candle rictus had been lessened somewhat. Nonetheless, I never felt quite the same about the smoky rich smell of roasting meat after hearing the tale for the first time.

The Count’s face turned immediately ashen and then, quickly, began to redden. The Countess collapsed into a dead faint when, eventually, she realised the true nature of the spit-roast. Guests stood and shed napkins and goblets as they stared in horrified fascination at the roasted young man spinning, slowly spinning as he was turned by a man of Lors’ retinue.

“What are you playing at, man! Don’t you realise what you’re doing?” cried one of the stupider young nobles to the cook.
“Of course I knows what I’m doin’ Your Graciousness. If I don’t keep turnin’ this ‘ere spit, ol’ Bors ‘ere, ‘e won’t get done even-like on all sides,” a wretched human being, to be sure, but a dedicated cook I think you’ll agree. The stupid nobleman flung his goblet onto the lawn and grasped his sabre’s jewelled hilt. In a moment he sprouted four arrows, back, throat, belly and eye before collapsing to the lawn.

Panic gripped the assembled dignitaries and commoners alike. The ladies screamed and the gentlemen roared their indignation. The retinue emerged from behind hedge and wall and outhouse and took aim at the feasters with bows and crossbows. Of course, the retinue was made up of none other than the forest-ambushers, as you may have guessed.

“Great Count Ravetzi, Thank you for your hospitality on this, your birthday.” A crone emerged from behind Lors where, it seems, she had been lurking, unnoticed, the entire time. She was a shrunken, balding, ancient creature who was short one eyeball and all her teeth. She gripped a stick of willow in one hand, pointed at Lors. “Your youngest son, here, has been most accommodating. We came a long, long way from our homeland over the mountains and we were lost in the southern forest of your beautiful valley when we came across your two sons hunting. As I said, we had journeyed far and they welcomed us as kin. We camped together and supped together and I explained to them how we had heard of the fabulous wealth of the Land of Gold and the Count Ravetzi, it’s master. We had heard the stories so we decided to come and see it for ourselves.”
“We discovered a long forgotten mine which connects our barren, war-ravished land to your sun-blessed and lucky one. It was a difficult trek through the roots of the mountains and many of our number were lost to rockfalls and pale, saucer-eyed beasts but the sight of your verdant valley made all of our hardships seem worthwhile.”
“When we met your boys, why, they offered the hospitality of your own good house. They also explained that we could each ask a boon of you since we have arrived here on your birthday. Such generosity has been absent in the people on the other side of these mountains for generations, so we felt we had to come and witness it first hand. So! Here we are! Let me introduce myself, I am Valenna Gretzi and I am the mother of these boys…and their sorceress.” With that she tweaked her stick in the direction of the count’s remaining son who collapsed in a mess on the grass.

“What have you done to him?!” screamed Ravetzi, “My son! My son!”

“Your son! Your son! He yet lives but only as long as I decide to prolong his miserable, envious existence. I had to nudge him, but only ever such a little, to have him agree to our plans for Bors. He may have played the devoted brother and son very well but he was a jealous little bastard really. He wanted nothing more than to be the Count when you finally dropped dead but he also could never have done what his ambition required of him without my help. He did a fine job on Bors here, don’t you think? When I release him from my hold, he will, no doubt, suffer great remorse for his actions. It would not surprise me if he took his own life…”

“No!” The Count had dropped to his knees on the lawn in front of the witch. “Please do not take another son from me. Why? Why are you doing this? What have we done to you?”
This was, of course, typical of a blue-blood. They never really understand what drives the peasants and the commoners. Admittedly, the average tenant farmer does not go around cooking people and casting spells, but the principle is the same. This is neither here nor there, of course. What is important is her answer.

“What did you do? Well you woke up this morning in a magnificent castle beside your beautiful wife, threw back your satin sheets and pulled back your heavy curtains to reveal these well manicured gardens, My Lord. You sat down for a breakfast of quail’s eggs and pastries with fruit juice all prepared by your servants. You wore that ridiculous outfit because you can. You do all of these despicable things because you can, because you’re rich, because you have more gold under this castle than anyone could count in a lifetime. I hate you for that, my boys hate you for that just as much as I do and we want it. We want to take it away from you and leave you as broken and miserable as our lives are beyond those black mountains to the east. And we want to show all of these good people that we can do it whenever we want because we are willing to do what our ambitions require of us. That is why we are here. So, it is time to request my boon.”

“Boon…?” Ha!” Impossibly, the Count laughed, his voice cracked and his eyes bulged but he definitely laughed. “You want a boon from me after you forced my youngest son to murder and cook his own brother? You are mad?”

“What of your tradition?”

“Damn you.”

“You will be cursed. If you do not uphold the tradition of your family, you will fall under a curse so foul, you will wish you had granted me whatever I asked. You will live a life of death.”

“You have made me a life of death. How could it be worse? You are the curse upon my life, you foetid crone. I will grant you no boon. If you wish to take anything from me, you must take it by violence!”

With that the Count shouted for his guards and drew his sword. He leapt at the old witch and swung his gold-plated ceremonial sword in the direction of her wisp-haired head. It passed through a thick smoke pall instead. He lurched about, swinging wildly and roaring with wordless ferocity like a beast. His guests sat and stood where they had been, still surrounded by the Crone’s Boys.

And the Boys themselves? They laughed to see the great man torn down. Their laughter seemed to push Ravetzi over the edge of madness and he ran at the nearest bowman. He charged through a gaggle of jewel-laden ladies and flung them to the ground in his attempt to reach the guffawing intruder. He did not make it ten paces before the man’s colleagues made a quiver of him. Shafts emerging from his chest and stomach snapped with a terrible cracking as he fell, the only audible noise, it seemed to the assembled guests. He lay face down on the lawn for a moment, still but for his flowing blood. One last thing came to his ears before his heart stopped. “Your life of death, it didn’t last very long, eh, dearie? Never mind. You’ll have no more cares now. I’ve won and you have lost but I’ll take care of your beautiful home for you now you’re gone.”

Was this all for Count Ravetzi, do you think? Of course not, don’t be stupid. The tale, in case you are memory-deficient, is entitled “The Tale of the Dead Count.” We are approaching the end of the story but we have not seen the end of the Count. So I will continue and speed us to the finish lest you become weary of this.

The Count’s eyes cleared. It was as if a film had been lifted from them. It was not like awakening from sleep for he had not fallen asleep; he had died. He knew that. His heart no longer beat, his chest did not rise and it did not fall; it was still. His arms and legs felt as though they had fallen asleep, but once again, this was not the case; they were dead. He determined all of this in the few seconds since the clearing of his eyes but decided to try rising, despite having come to the conclusion that he was no longer amongst the living. It seemed to work though not as he remembered from his many days spent alive. He knew he was moving but he did not feel it. Looking about him he did feel something, however, and it was anger.

He surveyed the destruction that Valenna Gretzi and her Boys had wrought in the wake of his demise. His first-born son, Bors, spinning, spinning, like a pig on a spit; his younger son a broken heap lying on the ground, alive but dead to the world; all his guests were running now from the Boys who were using them for target practice; the ancient witch stood by the head table with the silken hair of the Countess grasped tightly in one gnarled talon and a shining steel dagger clutched in the other. He reached out his dead fingers towards his beloved wife and wheezed in a breath that he would need to make a shout. It was not loud when it came but it sounded like nails scraping on the inside of a coffin and the whispers of temple-mourners.

Everyone looked to him. A woman screamed, another arrow struck him, a dog howled and even Valenna Gretzi stared at the Late Count Ravetzi in horror. She struck anyway. A fountain bloomed from the throat of his love and before he could blink he was beside her. The Crone began to speak, “You were accursed. This is my-” She was cut short, however, by the lightest of touches from the Count’s hand on her face. She dropped dead, not before time, it might be argued. However, he had no time to celebrate the defeat of his enemy, the Countess lay dying at his feet. He was still a healer, was he not? He tried to heal her as he had Fat Harolt, Old Nan Mercer and Grandpa Gorenson, by laying on his hands.

The bleeding did stop almost immediately but when he took his hands away from the wound and examined his wife he could see that all else had stopped too, sight, breath, feeling, all gone. Grief gripped him and he screamed a coffin-nail scream clutching lamely at the stars. All those who heard it took to their heels. All those except his last remaining family, Lors, who had seen what his dead father had wrought on his mother and desired the same treatment. Lors was just shy of seventeen but the guilt he felt for the spit-roasting of his brother was enough for a lifetime. The young man threw himself into his father’s arms as the count knelt on the grass by his dead mother. When the Count looked down at his son, only a grey-faced corpse remained. As he looked into his son’s lifeless eyes. The Dead Count dropped the body beside his wife’s and walked to the castle, the screams of party guests and Mother’s Boys still filling the air around him, he closed the door of his home behind him and no-one has entered that place since that night.

So that was the Tale of the Dead Count. I related it for a reason. It was not that it was one of my favourite childhood stories, in fact I found it too predictable and full of holes. It was certainly not because my father claimed it was the story which turned his hair flour-white, I knew for a fact that that had occurred on the day of my birth and the day of my mother’s death. It was because I grew to know how the Dead Count fell at the end of the tale. I knew what it was like to be the death of people and want to hide away from the world. I will explain this eventually but first you will have to read of my years in the town of Pitch Springs.