INTERLUDE 8C: THE TEST
“I am the lie that must be voiced again and again. I am the thing whose breath pulls the tides. I am the twisted ankle and the rusty nail. I am Lady Misfortune.”
– from the Wyrdic Creed
“Fifteen gold!” Danaphrim let the glass orb fall from his fingers, clunking back down on the velvet-covered table. “I could get ten of these in Oldtown for that price.”
“Well, that’s why you came to my establishment, is it not?” The shopkeeper smiled, her mouth filled with gloating white teeth. “You clearly want a seeing-ball that works for longer than it takes you to walk out of the store. In this case, my young seer, I can only commend your choice. Did you scan the future before deciding? Our seeing-balls are sourced directly from the Wizard’s Hat, don’t you know.”
I’m not a seer, Danaphrim thought coldly. I’m a mage. I’m a master of magic.
He grumbled a bit, but he ended up paying almost the full asking-price for the seeing-orb. After all, the shopkeeper was at least half-right. He did want one that lasted more than five scryings, and he had briefly entered the trance to ascertain the most trustworthy vendors for his supplies.
It was the test, in three days’ time. He had to be ready, and applicants were obviously going to get ahead of the pack by demonstrating their wherewithal; bringing their own components would just be a part of that.
Danaphrim headed back along the Hill Road to Oldtown, munching on a hot beef sandwich as he went (and tossing the onions to the rats whenever he came across the horrid stringy things in his otherwise quite-perfect snack). When he reached his apartment, the run-down one-room hell-hole he’d been calling home for the past eight years, he kicked his way through the detritus to his night-stand and lit the candles, then emptied the contents of his satchel onto the bed.
The Tears of the Beast: a compound of extracts taken from over a dozen animals, perfectly preserved; the greatest shapechanging philtre money could buy. (Well, Danaphrim’s money at least.) The feathers of a phoenix, ideal for works of pyromancy. The shard of a child-killing sword, essential for the swiftest summoning of a particular demon he had in mind. The bottled last breath of a dying artist, an illusion facilitator like no other.
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And, of course, the seeing-orb, for the clearest visions known to mankind… the clearest visions affordable on his budget. The final purchase had almost drained his savings dry, but Danaphrim didn’t care. This was his chance. This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for all his life.
Grandmaster Nelesto was taking on a new apprentice for the spring season, an appointment that might be extended into a permanent position, if the candidate was right. Dan intended on being that candidate.
Imagine. To be the one standing behind him when he gives his lectures. To be the one who helps him with his experiments, handling only the rarest, most fragile spell-components.
To be the one who inherits his secrets, his name and reputation…
Yune willing.
The old gnome had a number of apprentices already, but Dan had little doubt he could rise to the top. So few had received the training he had, exposure to the five mageries. Sure, he’d dropped out of Enchantment in the first term, and the two terms of Druidry he’d followed it up with had been an almost-total waste of time – but he’d completed a whole year of Divination, and the vision he’d had during his finals exams led him into taking the combined Wizardry-Sorcery course for extra credit after hours. Now, five years in the industry later, he still hadn’t moved out of his terrible student accommodation – wages in manufacturing were low, rents in Oldtown were high, and the mage knew it was time to make his mark on Mund, on the world… He needed a career, something he could write home to his uncle about. A job that was a profession… A job that paid enough for him to get a property loan…
While he ate his crude dinner he brushed up on his druidic spells – along with illusions they were his weak-spot, a shortcoming he hoped to offset with the Tears of the Beast – and then settled down with his crystal ball on his bed.
The trance was unclear, as usual. He’d hoped that using the orb as a focus would let him see a more-complete vision but all he perceived were fragments, a general impression of the room, its occupants… Grandmaster Nelesto would’ve scried the test, and his influence would interfere with his would-be apprentices’ attempts to pierce the veil of the future, discover their fates.
He sighed, and let the trance carry him off to sleep, a deep slumber in which his dreams were bright, dreams of spell-components kissed by power, glowing orange in the shadows of the evening sky.
No, not spell-components. Mund. It was Mund that burned. Mund that died to fuel the magic.
When Dan awoke he remembered, but it was too raw for him to dwell upon, too real for him to begin to recall details, connect the dots; and, mercifully, by breakfast the dream had vanished into the mists, going wherever it was dreams went, when they too died.
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