First Apprentice

Chapter 21 Part 1

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait. I thought I should let the meds wear off before I posted. With the way yesterday went, I was more likely to delete my entire story by accident than I was to hit the right button. Part 2 will go up bright and early tomorrow morning.

Wind whispered through the aspens, showering the world with golden leaves. Another month and snow would shroud the mountains. Within a month after that, the trails became impassable.

Or so Endellion said.

She lost three armies to these mountains. Uncle Manfred said that was more a testament to Endellion's bull-headed determination than any Marstow strategy.

When the temperature drops so low that snot freezes on the end of your nose, it doesn't matter what clan you are or what magics you've mastered. All that matters is your ability to find food, water, and shelter and hunker down until spring comes.

I drilled the stylus into the wax tablet as I reread Grandfather's message for the dozenth time since I noticed the message rune glowing this morning.

Manfred arrived last night more exhausted than I've ever seen him. If Master Guardian Evans hadn't helped him to the house, we wouldn't have found him for days. He's still sleeping.

Are you well? What happened?

I flipped the tablet over and stared at the blank wax. Other than a mild headache, I was fine. Whole, awake, no lasting poison – there were hundreds worse off than me.

I'm fine.

I pressed my magic into the upper-right rune. The tablet warmed under my hands. A modified self-repair seal like the clans used on fine pottery sent the message to its mate. I leaned against the tree and waited.

Barely a minute passed before the tablet warmed once again. I glanced down. The message rune once again pulsed an angry red.

With shaking hands, I turned it over.

What happened? it read in letters deeper than normal as if Grandfather stabbed it with the stylus before he wrote a single word.

With a palsied hand, I gripped the stylus between my fingers and wrote, I summoned the Central Keystone, and people died.

My thumb caressed the rune for a bare second before I sent the message on. Would Grandfather hate me because of Uncle Manfred's condition? Or would he consider that debacle a job well done? I did exactly what they raised me to do.

Voices echoed up the path. I raised my head. Two figures: male and female. Joel's distinctive aura nearly overshadowed the woman's brown. Glittering emeralds and red constellations marked her as a Marstow dae. My vision flickered as they neared and then settled on human.

I swallowed a whine. I just got my usual vision back and he returned.

Wonderful. Another hour meditating for me.

"Problems?" Joel called as they neared.

I shot him a mock glare. "What do you think?"

With her brown hair braided out of her face, a thick woolen tunic, and a walking stick, Helen looked more like a mountain guide than Terry's receptionist. Odd that he sent her instead of a low ranked sealer or an actual guide.

Helen laughed and touched his elbow. Jealously lanced through me, white hot and painful. "I'll leave you two alone," she said. "Shout when you're ready to leave, Alannah-dae." She turned and walked back into the forest.

Several minutes passed before Joel cleared his throat. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm locked in a ten-year contract with a mentor who barely acknowledges I exist. He won't even call me by name. It's always apprentice or you. Said mentor's sending me into the mountains for the next month with his old uniforms and only a week's rations. What do you think?"

"I know," he whispered. "Your teams aren't much better either."

"Let me guess," I said. "Terry gave me the rejects."

"Not exactly," he said with a grimace. "Diane and Amit's apprentices don't lead teams. Victor works with Diane as a research assistant. Priya," he shrugged. "Amit claims she's a senior investigator."

"Is she?"

Lips pressed into a thin line, Joel stared into the distance before sighing. "Priya doesn't know the difference between her head and a hole in the ground. Perhaps, that's her appeal. Historically, we let the apprentices choose four to five teams each with the leftovers assigned to Terry."

"Leftovers doesn't sound much better."

"The other apprentices were chosen as political favors or for skills best left to other corps like teaching or healing. Your team leaders rightly terrify them."

Dozens of passing comments Grandfather made about the Border Guard's Sealer Corps fell into the place. On paper, the Seven ruled by committee. In practice, the Sealer Corps' legions answered to Joel while Terry and his cadre of guardian administrators handled the Gates. During peacetime, the other Seven served in support roles. The current Seven were politically powerful. But as Endellion often reminded me after my lessons with Grandfather, politicians don't fight wars. They start them.