The old mage shouldered aside the inn door and paused a moment to survey the room. It was common caution, no more. Wizards weren’t reviled in Turalee as they were in some other places in the world, but they were feared nonetheless, and the common folk didn’t exactly welcome them into their midst with open arms.
A few townsmen, temporarily wealthy with the proceeds of their winter wheat crop were enjoying themselves quietly at one of the plank trestles on the left. They glanced up, but he was, by this time, a common sight in Clairbourne and so they went about their business with only a minimum of the warding signs such folk used to keep evil away. He didn’t even bother with being insulted.
Nearer the hearth a pair of scruffy travelers slumped over a smaller table half asleep. They neither looked up nor moved. He assigned them as harmless, or as near so as didn’t matter.
And then the figure back in the darkness away from the fire caught his eye. Or rather his eye tried to be caught by it. It seemed to waver in and out of focus, never quite letting one get a solid picture of what it might be. Like a section of shadow tumbled untidily from the corner where it belonged. It seemed to speed the eye past itself without eliciting the slightest hint that it held any importance. Most eyes that looked upon the figure would pass over it without registering it at all. Most eyes.
He made his way to the bar and laid his bowl on its rough surface. He didn’t bother to order; he’d get beef and barley stew whether he asked for it or not. Still, it was better than what he could get at the soldier’s mess — particularly with all of the soldiers out either patrolling or searching the verge of the faerie wood looking for boogies. The tu’penny it would cost he could easily spare, along with the tu’penny for the ale to go with it. He kept the mysterious blur in the corner of his eye as he waited.
The innkeeper plunked the bowl back on the bar and set a leathern mug of ale beside it. The old mage laid a coin on the bar and gathered up his meal, tucking his staff under an arm. There was another table against the wall near the dark figure and he moved to it, wary and ready for trouble.
It wasn’t like he was a warrior or anything and he really would like to enjoy his meal in peace. But neither was he helpless, or worse, a coward. And being the king’s man held certain responsibilities. He set his ale mug and stew carefully upon the table, taking a firm grip on his staff before sliding onto the bench.
He heard a dry chuckle from the darkness. “Am I so frightening as that then, young sprout?”
He froze. The voice was one he knew, though he’d never expected to hear it again in this life.
A blurry arm waved slowly and the spell faded, allowing the figure to swim out into focus. The old mage stared hard and beheld a wizened figure swathed in rough grey robes, dusty and worn. A gnarled staff set with jewels and nearly white with age leaned against the wall within easy reach.
The man looked a hundred. The mage knew him to be at least five times that, if even half the rumors were true. He looked to be frail. That too was a lie. “Master,” he bowed as best he was able sitting upon the bench. “How fare thee?”
“Well, Belius. And you?” A clawlike hand beckoned and the old mage —Belius— gathered up his meal and joined the ancient wizard, feeling awkward as a first year apprentice.
Taking his seat under the piercing eyes he nearly spilled his bowl, then fumbled in his belt pouch for his spoon, nearly dropping it. This was ridiculous! He closed his eyes and reached inward, calming himself, slowing his breathing, finding his center. When he opened them, he was a journeyman mage again. The older man nodded approvingly.
“I see you are prospering,” the ancient wizard intoned, voice low.
Belius froze for an instant, a spoonful of steaming stew halfway to his mouth, then continued, chewing slowly and swallowing before he answered. “Well enough.”
He stirred the stew as he contemplated his response. “Though it may be difficult to ascertain that with only a glance. I’m in the employ of the king now—”
The dry chuckle again. “So I’d gathered from the robes.” The ancient sipped from his mug while he observed the younger man over its rim. “And yet I find you in a mud inn half a turn’s hard ride from the capitol.”
Belius snorted around his own mug. “As I said, I am in the employ of the king, and so go where I’m sent. Things in Elion are... complicated of late, and so I am here.”
“Ah, yes,” the ancient nodded. “The mad boy king. Seledeer is his name?”
Was he serious? Belius looked into the twinkling old eyes searching for the jest. They were as impossible to read as ever they’d been when he was five and the old man had spun him stories of ancient dragons and the warrior-wizards who rode them. “Shelador,” he corrected, “and mad or no, he’s the king of Turalee and my liege.”
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Another sip of ale. “The two of you not getting on then?”
Belius snorted ale out his nose, coughing and struggling for breath. He regarded the ancient from beneath his brows as he wiped ale from his beard with a sleeve. “Getting on? It is my sincere and ardent hope that Shelador has not the least idea of my existence.”
Then he sighed, knowing better than to hope he could keep secrets from this of all men. “I was incautious. My superiors caught wind of the incaution and determined to teach me a lesson concerning what one says and does, and more importantly, what one does not say nor do whilst in the employ of such as our esteemed and benevolent monarch.” He shrugged as he dipped up another spoonful of stew. “They also appear to have shared my wish for Shelador to not know of my existence.
“You see,” he grumbled. “You taught me up well before delivering me to the academy, and I’ve learned much since then. Enough that they value my skill and would seem not to wish me flayed alive and fed to the king’s loathsome pets, nor be entombed within a layer of marble to no real end.” He shrugged again. “I tend to share that wish.” He spooned another mouthful of stew and chewed slowly.
Then, “and what brings you to our fair village after so many years being a mere legend bandied about in taverns where the long-winded gather?”
It was the ancient’s turn to shrug. “It happened to be between where I was and where I was going and I was hungry.”
Belius finished his stew and set the bowl aside, thinking. He fished around in his robes and produced a small pipe while he thought. Further search turned up a small cloth bag of pipe weed, some of which he stuffed into the pipe. A glance at the room in general to be certain no one was looking and he muttered a soft cantrip before snapping a spark from his fingertip, drawing the tiny flame down through the weed.
Once he had the pipe going satisfactorily, he leaned back and regarded the ancient wizard beside him.
The man had no name Belius had ever heard spoken. In many circles he was considered a myth. In others, a poor jest. Only a few knew for certain that he was a real person. None knew how many of the myths surrounding him were true and actual fact and how many were the sheerest fantasy . He would appear, wander about the world for a bit, shock the mighty with some astounding discovery, and then vanish into the shadows for fifteen or fifty years. Most who addressed him called him Master. Those who spoke of him were somewhat more colorful.
Personally, there was nothing that Belius was willing to disbelieve about him. Well, perhaps that he’d simply stopped at this inn because it was between where he’d been and where he was going.
“Still a journeyman?” the Master interrupted his thoughts. “I’d have thought master journeyman by now, at least. Nearly ready for the transition to true master.”
Belius stiffened slightly at the barb. “Yes, well....” he muttered softly. “Certainly after your excellent tutelage I should be ruling the council by now.”
Rather than be offended, the old man laughed out loud. “And there’s the Sprout I remember!” He puffed merrily on his pipe for a moment or two before using it as a pointer, bobbing the stem at his target with each word. “Did you ever wonder why I left you at the academy, Sprout?”
Belius regarded him solemnly. “Night and day for nearly ten years.”
The old man nodded. “And then you managed to gather in the reason?
“And then I stopped wondering.”
The old man shook his head slowly, sadly. “Magic, Sprout, is only part of what it is to be a mage. To be truly great, one must master not only the arcane, but the mundane.” He regarded his erstwhile apprentice with tilted head, trying to judge whether he was getting through that thick head finally.
“Has it been as you expected?” he changed tacks.
“Hmm?” Belius grunted, ale mug to his lips. He wiped his mustaches and looked the old man fully in the face, a thing not a handful on the second world would assay. “The academy? Or wizardry?”
A smile. “Either. Both.”
Belius grunted again. “Rather more fraught with politics than I’d expected.” he admitted. “Won’t leave a man alone to think let alone study.”
“Not much like it was when you traveled with me, eh?”
“Not at—” Belius narrowed his eyes. “Is that it?” he was incredulous. “You abandoned me that I might learn social skills?”
The old man shrugged. “Obviously I was not as successful as I’d hoped.”
“And why should it be so important that I learn to tolerate—”
“Not tolerate, Sprout!” the old man leaned forward abruptly, eyes going stern. “Live with. Learn from.”
Belius harrumphed into his mug. “Learn from?” he scoffed. “The majority of them are little more than dolts who mistake parlor tricks for power!”
“But not all,” the old man reminded. “And even the smallest observation might yield new insight — I know I taught you that! Let not arrogance blind you to learning the lessons offered.”
Belius nodded contritely. “Yes, Master, you did and it may.” He scrubbed a hand through his beard, running it up to rub at his eyes.
Forty years and more it had been since he’d turned to look for his master only to find him gone. Forty years and more of study and practice surrounded by the club-fingered and dense. Forced to obey those granted positions beyond their ability by virtue of family or politics, reviled as a bumpkin and worse for his lack of heritage, wealth, or what they considered proper manners. Tolerated because of who it had been who’d sponsored him, and that only.
He’d grown surly in those years. Contemptuous. Arrogant. It was why he found himself here in this backwater at the edge of the faerie wood, exiled from the lands and amenities of civilized society.
For forty years and more had they striven and failed to humble him. And now here he was the apprentice once again in a matter of moments, all his pride brought low with only a handful of words by a wizened little man in tattered robes. He knocked out his pipe against the edge of the table and sighed again, a wholly different sound than his earlier exhalations. “What would you of me master?”
The ancient held a hand up to his own chest, “what would I—?” He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m only even here—”
Belius held up a forestalling hand. “Humility I will strive for, Master,” he said, “but humility and stupidity are not the same thing.”
The ancient smiled fondly at his former apprentice. “I will so concede.”
After a bit, Belius shook his head ruefully, pressing into his old mentor’s silence, “and so you were going to tell me why you were actually here...?”