Tak

The Wizard's Apprentice - Part 4

      He crossed the room to stand before the window. He was near the top of one of the observation towers, two hundred feet above the courtyard below,. The only place that was higher was the lookout platform above him where, in centuries past, sentries wrapped up against the howling wind had blown into their freezing hands as they looked out over the snow covered landscape for any sign of an approaching enemy.

     The climate had warmed since then. The great ice sheets had retreated north, but the view was largely the same, merely a little greener, and Tak liked to imagine hordes of armour clad kelns marching towards them down the valley on their way to raid the scattered human townships beyond, with only this single castle to stop them. What would an army look like, marching down the valley? he wondered. Hundreds of the almost human soldiers in gleaming armour, their scimitars gleaming in the sunlight, in formation six or eight abreast... Molos had described such battles to him as he recounted what he knew of the castle's history, but Tak had trouble imagining such large numbers of people. The crowd in the market town of Jalla was still the largest number of people he'd ever seen in one place.

     The door opened behind him and Trobo entered. Solemn and expressionless and still wearing his uniform. The only clothes he owned as far as Tak could tell, but showing no sign of dirt or wear. Tak had never seen the houseman wearing anything else, and nor would he in all the years he was destined to live there.

     It was as Philip had said the first time he'd met him. He never seemed to be off duty. Several times Molos Gomm had called for him in the middle of the night to perform some minor errand, and the houseman had always appeared moments later. Fully dressed, ready and alert, as if he'd been just down the corridor waiting for the command. Never any sign of sleepiness, as if he'd been called from his bed. Never a crease or undone button as if he'd dressed in a hurry. And never the slightest trace of any emotion, no matter what demands were made of him. Such perfection simply wasn't human, and it scared Tak in a way that a whole troop of shologs wouldn't have.

     The worse thing was how the houseman would never meet his gaze. Never look him in the eyes. He had the scary idea that, if he ever did, he would see that there was nothing behind those eyes. No intelligence, no humanity. Nothing. Just an empty head, like the pumpkin lanterns he and Laira had liked to make at harvest time. A mere shell pretending to be a human being.

     "The master is ready for you now," Trobo said. He stood aside to clear the doorway.

     Tak nodded and preceded him down the tightly wound spiral staircase, his shoulders bumping the damp stone walls on either side. The houseman only followed him as far as ground level, though, then turned back towards the keep to continue with his seemingly endless duties. Tak went the rest of the way to the courtyard alone.

     Both wizards were there, waiting for him, and Tak made an effort to cross the open space slowly and deliberately like Trobo, to conceal the nervousness he felt. This was it. If he got this right, in just a few minutes there would be a third wizard in the castle. If he got it wrong, though...

     Molos Gomm had warned him again and again how dangerous a misfire could be, even for this, the simplest and easiest spell of all. Magic was inherently unpredictable, he'd been told. If it escapes from your control there's no telling what form it might take. That was why he would be casting the spell out in the open air, where a misfire would harm nothing and no-one except himself.

     The two wizards were standing close together, talking in low voices, and Tak waited with growing impatience and unease for them to end their conversation while the cold wind blew through his thin gown and raised goosepimples on his skin. He wrapped his arms around is body and tried not to shiver.