The Pearl Fox

The Black Garden

Thistle counted the number of jars containing green fluid. Then she counted those with orange substances. She was told not to touch any of them, and to leave them on the shelves where they are. Glass vials full of multi coloured  liquids, were kept in cupboards. She had to make a note of the sums. Using a quill, she dipped it in ink and wrote in the small accounts book laid open.

"51 red in jars. 55 green in jars. " She wrote in her school trained scrawl. Her writing was state taught in block lettering and not like the elegant cursive writing script by her master, Crow Thorn. Thistle gathered up empty glasses and carefully placed them in a box laid with soft fleece to protect them. She was aware of the sturdy thick glasses but they were not needed.

Thistle was an apprentice of Crow Thorn, the arch wizard originally from Moondome. She was paid quite well and had a nice apartment in the Black Castle of Ebony Heights in Moondome. She had to wear trousers for her work. Today she wore a velvet green pair of leggings  and a long white tunic with lilac embroidered patterns, buttoned boots and a suede burgandy sleeveless jacket. Her thick yellow hair was bundled up with pins. As a wizards' apprentice she had to dress like a tomboy, but it earned her a good income.

"Wake up!" Crow Thorn commanded to her as she nodded off in the lab. He rarely appeared like this during daytime hours because he was meant to be nocturnal. There was something said about people like him, that, humans with black coloured blood.

"Sorry sir!" She felt startled and wiped dribble from her mouth. "It won't happen again."

Crow Thorn was very tall and in his early sixties. He had long jet black hair with grey streaks. His enormous beard was so long that it reached the centre of his waist and sometimes got caught into his belt. He always groomed his big beard using oil, wax or scented water. Now Crow Thorn had dyed his beard purple. He wore long swishing satin robes and fine big spreaing velvet cloaks. On his hat was a folded white hat, and in the past he had a tendancy to wear a metal head band with a single quartz. He was the only person Thistle knew with tattooed black lines around his silver eyes.  He had incredible eyesight, even without using binoculars or a microscope. He gave her that icy stare, then cast his look at the accounts page.

"You didn't count all of the specimens in jars or give a total sum added to all of the green bottles from last week," he said.

Thistle had tried so hard to be valued as a dedicated apprentice but she missed those small details. She wondered how could she even have forgot to count those important items.

Crow Thorn set her a task of doing cleaning in the lab. After she'd done, she resumed to her apartment. As soon as she layed on the bed and drifted off to sleep, a voice interrupted her dreams.

"Wake up!"

She lifted her head, and saw Crow Thorn standing in the door of her apartment.

"Are you aware?" he asked.

"Aware of what master?"

"That gypsum cannot be readied for the test tubes yet?" replied the stern voiced wizard, whose question rung like a loud bell inside her head.

"No, no, er.. sorry."

"You also failed to count the red marked containers inside all of the cupboards. Did I get myself a dolt as well as a lazy apprentice?"

Thistle heard him well and clear. She was suddenly wide awake again and she sighed, feeling so tired, but had to finish off this other job left undone.

"Thistle, after you've done with that, I want you to go into the Black Garden and collect one hundred leaves," he gave her a wicker basket and a key to the private garden of the wizard. Later, Crow Thorn appeared in the lab to check that she'd done everything. Then she followed him from his lab, and into the corridor but continued on to an area that Thistle had not used before. They went down a flight of narrow steps until they reached a door, that Crow Thorn opened, and then they both emerged outside. There were steps beneath an awning with green columns either side of the entrance. There was a strange and unpleasant smell to this garden.