Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) (43 page)

“Mind if I take a look at you?”

At Justan’s nod, Master Coal put his hands to either side of Justan’s head. His magic probed for a moment before he released Justan and stood back. He grabbed the chair by the small desk and swiveled it to face Justan before sitting down. He watched Justan eat for a moment before speaking again.

“Headache gone?”

“Yeah, but,” Justan said, then took another bite. “Everything else feels strange.”

“What do you mean?” Master Coal asked, his gaze intense.

Between swallows Justan explained the changes to his senses.

“I expected something like this. Headaches aren’t all that uncommon among bonding wizards. Some days there can be a great deal of mental stress communicating with all of your bonded and keeping to your own tasks at the same time,” Master Coal explained. “When the bond is first triggered, the pain can be excruciating. I figured that to be the source of the pain you were undergoing last night, but once I got a better look at you, I knew that this was different.”

“In what way?”

“The bond was changing you,” Master Coal said.

“But isn’t that what it always does?” Justan asked. “When I bonded with Gwyrtha, I had more stamina and better control over my body. With Fist, I became stronger and started developing muscle in ways I was never able to before.”

“You are right. As we have discussed before: when we bond, the magic changes us physically as well as mentally. However, last night I looked into your body and saw changes different than I have seen before. Your bonding with this beast-.”

“Deathclaw,” Justan corrected.

The master nodded apologetically. “Right, Deathclaw. Your bonding with him . . . What I saw was a concentration of spirit magic shifting the very tissues of your brain.”

Justan blanched. “B-but the changes that come from bonding are always good, right? That’s what you told me. The bond wouldn’t change me in a negative way, would it?” The thought of his brain being altered was terrifying. He had always relied on his wits as his main weapon. What if he had lost intelligence from bonding with the wild creature? Would he even be able to tell?

“I don’t think so, Edge. All my past experiences show only positive changes or improvements from the bond. Physically, at least. But bonding doesn’t always go well.”

“Master, Deathclaw is still in pain, he has a headache as bad as the one I went through but his hasn’t stopped.” Justan winced. “He is still suffering as we speak.”

“Did you try to heal him?” Coal asked.

“Well, I wanted to heal him,” Justan said, but seeing the look concern on Master Coal’s face added, “but I asked for permission first.”

“And how did he respond?”

“He . . . did not like that I was speaking to him from within his mind, he doesn’t understand. So I let him be.”

“He did not like it, hmm? Did he attack you?” Coal asked.

“Well . . . he-. Wait,” Justan said. “You think my bond with him is dangerous.”

The master slouched in the small chair and sighed. “Perhaps. I mean, it could end well and you could end up with an invaluable member of your bonded family, or . . . it could end very, very badly I’m afraid. That is what I want to talk to you about today.”

“But how could it end up badly?” Justan said slowly. He sat back with his arms folded. “You just taught me that our mental connections with our bonded keep us from misunderstanding each other.”

“Even if they understand you, Edge, they are still individuals. They have minds of their own and their own agendas. They may not want to be bonded to you. They may not like you. There have even been bonded that killed their bonding wizard.”

“You are saying that Deathclaw could try to hurt me?” Though Justan didn’t want to believe that was possible, the ferocity of Deathclaw’s mental attack was still fresh in his mind. “He is wild and all, but he isn’t malicious.”

“I do not presume to know his intentions. I just want you to be aware of the dangers. You must be cautious with him. He is a wild creature. There are two quite uncomfortable ways this bonding could go.” The master thought for a moment. “I think that for our lesson today I will give you two specific examples of situations very similar to yours with Deathclaw. Perhaps then you will understand what I mean.”

“Okay.”

“But first, why don’t you get some clothes on?” The master smiled.

“Oh. Right, I’m not exactly dressed for company, am I?” His face turned red.

Master Coal stood. “I will tell Becca that you enjoyed the meal. Meet me in the study and we will continue this discussion.”

Justan looked down at the plate with disappointment. He hadn’t realized it was empty.

Master Coal settled into the high-backed chair in his study and peered at the student in the chair across from him over steepled fingers. The look the wizard gave Justan was both piercing and thoughtful. A few moments passed before he spoke.

“I will start by telling you about my first bonded, Honstule.”

Justan leaned forward, his interest piqued. There had been so much talk of Honstule, but he still knew little about him.

Master Coal smiled slightly as he continued. “I know that you have heard many wonderful things about Old Honstule, but it was not always that way. We had quite a rough start. Like Deathclaw, Honstule was a wild beast when we bonded.”

Justan was taken aback. He had always pictured Honstule as some wizened old man. “What was he?”

“Honstule was a goblin.”

 “A goblin?” Justan suppressed an internal shiver. The idea of being bonded to such a foul little beast was frightening.

Master Coal ignored the look on Justan’s face and continued, “I was brought to the
Mage
School
when I was twelve, but I didn’t know about my bonding magic until a few years later. I had just become an apprentice at the time. My master was a healing specialist and had taken me with him to the
Battle
Academy
for testing week. It was quite an exciting trip, actually. Then on the way back, we were beset by goblins.”

“The same thing happened to me along that road,” Justan said.

“Yes, well there were a dozen or so of them. The guards and the mages made short work of the nasty little things and my master took me with him to . . . dispatch any that were in agony. He called it a mercy.

“We came across one with a severed spine. It was squealing and feebly trying to pull its way through the grass. My master told me to take my dagger and end its suffering. I did so. It was the first time I had killed a creature. I felt quite horrible about it.”

Master Coal’s face twisted at the memory and Justan thought back to the first creature he had killed. It was at the beginning of the goblin attack on his own caravan to the
Mage
School
. Justan hadn’t felt bad at all, just exhilarated and worried about the rest of the attacking creatures. He hadn’t even given it much thought. Now the first man he had killed, Rudfen Groaz, Justan would never forget how sick he had felt after that.

“Then we came upon another one,” Master Coal continued. “It was Honstule. He hadn’t been hurt during the battle, but while trying to run away he stepped in a gopher hole and had broken his leg. He was scampering backwards through the grass, his eyes glazed with fear. When I stood over him with my knife, he stared at me, keening loudly, pleading for his life in the goblin tongue. My eyes locked upon his eyes and . . . it happened. The bond came and Honstule’s wild terror filled my mind.

“My master commanded me to kill the creature, but I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how I kept my composure with Honstule’s scared and primitive thoughts attacking me, but I pled with my master to let me heal it and send it on its way. I argued that a single human kindness could change this creature. Perhaps it would change its attitude towards humans in the future. He laughed at my naiveté, but finally relented. He said I placed too much trust in such a nasty little thing.

“He seemed to be right too. I healed Honstule’s leg and tried to show him kindness, telling him that it would be okay. The moment I finished, the mean little thing swiped at me and ran off through the grass. I could hear his thoughts as he ran. Honstule was laughing at my stupidity. If he ever came upon me again, he fully intended to kill me.”

“So what did you do?” Justan asked.

“Nothing. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what the bond was or how to use it. Honstule’s thought were vicious and foreign and I was too unsettled by the experience to speak with my master about it. Besides, he was a hard man, not the sort one confided in. We traveled on to the
Mage
School
and the further away we were from Honstule, the quieter his thoughts were until all that was left was the vague impression that he was still alive and to the northeast of the school.

“It was a year before I saw him again. He hid outside of the school and called to me from the bond. I stood atop the wall and stared down at him.”

“Had he changed?”

“Oh, he was as mean spirited as ever, but the bond had changed him in other ways. He was larger, stronger, and much much smarter than before. He wanted to know more about the bond. He was tired of my constant presence in the corner of his mind and wanted me gone. I could tell from his thoughts that there were other goblins hiding in the trees around him. He intended to ambush me when I came out to meet him. So I declined.

“I told him that I didn’t like him in my mind either. I didn’t know anything about the bond at the time. I had searched through the library and could not find a single book about the phenomenon.”

“Why?” Justan asked. He still didn’t understand why the
Mage
School
would willfully ignore such an important facet of magic. “Why are there no books about it? You keep suggesting that bonding magic has a long history in the world, yet so few know about it.”

“I know it’s frustrating, Edge, but once again we are going to have to leave that story for another lesson. Suffice it to say that I was just as stumped as Honstule about the whole situation. I had to threaten to call the guards before he finally left and went back to his hills. I began keeping track of him after that.

“Sometimes at night I would lay in bed and reach out to him through the bond. Sometimes I just monitored his thoughts. Sometimes I spoke with him. He was always mean and bitter about it, but after a while I knew that he began to look forward to those times.

“You see, he used the intelligence and strength he had gained through his bond with me to wrest control over the goblin tribes in his area. He had become chief over hundreds of the creatures and had all the power a goblin could have, but it wasn’t enough. He grew weary of the company of his own kind. Their stupidity irritated and angered him. I was the only one he could speak to that understood his thoughts.

“For me it was different. I had this connection with him that I couldn’t explain or get rid of and his existence was so very different from mine that I grew fascinated with him. I started to write a detailed paper on goblinoids, using his experiences as research.

“Well, a few years passed. Then I bonded again. His name was Neal.” The master’s face lightened up as he spoke. “He was an academy graduate sent to join the guards at the
Mage
School
. He was a good man, strong, kind, though a bit dimwitted when we first bonded. He also had a facial deformity that others often found quite disconcerting. He was lonely, but we became fast friends.

“It was at this time that the one other bonding wizard at the school discovered my powers. He took me under his wing and became my new master.”

“Who?” Justan asked.

“Unfortunately, Edge, I cannot tell you. His existence is kept quite secret. Very few know about it and the reasons why are, again, part of a lesson for another day.”

“I see,” Justan grumped. He had come to accept that this was the way Master Coal worked, but waiting for knowledge didn’t make much sense as far as he was concerned.

“At any rate, that was a great time for me. Not so much for Honstule. As I spent more time through the bond with Neal I had less inclination to communicate with the goblin. Why talk to a creature that had evil thoughts and spent most of the conversation ridiculing you when you had a dear friend you could chat with?”