The Fuller's Apprentice (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 1) (54 page)

On the third day, the constant demands died down a bit. He and Sar went to Elkan’s room in the middle of the afternoon and found Dabiel there, sitting at Elkan’s bedside. Buttons lay by the fire with Tobi.

Josiah was glad to see Dabiel. She’d been so busy he’d had few chances to speak with her. He’d told her the whole story of the flood, and how Sar had come to break his bond with Elkan and bond with Josiah. But she’d been called away before Josiah had the chance to ask her anything.

She motioned to a chair at her side. “Elkan should wake soon. I want to be here when he does. You and I can talk while we wait, if you’d like.”

“Yes, please.” Though now that he had the opportunity, it was difficult to put his questions into words.

He studied Elkan’s face, where he lay propped on a pillow. It was pale and drawn. They’d managed to get a little water and soup into his mouth, though Josiah wasn’t sure he’d actually swallowed any.

Josiah pointed to the stubble that blackened Elkan’s chin and cheeks. “He’s going to hate that.” He laughed shakily. “He hates shaving. He told me he and Sar took care of it with the Mother’s power.”

Master Dabiel laughed. “Really? He never let on to me. Although it sounds like something he’d do.”

Josiah glanced at Sar, struck by a new thought. “Sar, should we get rid of it for him before he wakes up?”

Let him deal with it himself. It won’t hurt him to do things the hard way for a while.

Josiah swallowed and looked at Master Dabiel. “What’s going to happen to Elkan now? Will he bond to a new familiar?”

“Eventually. His bond wasn’t broken due to a violation of the Law, so he’s still a member of the Wizards’ Guild. At the moment, all the unbonded familiars are paired with apprentices who’ll be making their first bonds at Springtide, but sooner or later more will show up. The Mother always provides.”

Josiah nodded. He’d suspected as much. Now he was more sure than ever that the decision he’d been pondering was the right one.

They sat in silence. Josiah studied his hands, twisting them together in his lap, not sure how to broach the subject. Dabiel waited patiently. Finally Josiah stammered, “I asked Elkan, and he said you could explain better than he could. And the Mother said to talk to you, that you understand her as well as anyone ever has.”

“She said that?” Dabiel’s eyes widened. “I’m flattered. Go on.”

Josiah couldn’t look at her. “I want to know why the Mother makes wizards able to do so much, but not everything. There were times on our journey when Elkan—Sar and Elkan—couldn’t heal something, no matter how badly they wanted to. Elkan explained about people having free will, and I understand that, but it doesn’t explain everything. There’s so much in the world that just isn’t made right.” He flushed, afraid she’d reprimand him for criticizing the Mother’s creation, but she only tilted her head thoughtfully and nodded for him to continue.

“I mean, look at the flood.” Josiah’s voice grew more impassioned. “No person did anything to cause that. It was the Mother. She made the snow melt, and the rain fall, more than the river could handle, or the dam. And all the power she’d given wizards wasn’t enough to stop it. Just rescue a few people, not even everyone. It seems like it would be a lot easier for her not to make bad things happen in the first place!”

Dabiel regarded him, a funny quirked smile on her lips. She glanced appraisingly at Elkan, then turned back to Josiah. “I’d like to show you something. I think we have time. Sar, would you keep an eye on Elkan and let Josiah know if he starts to stir?”

Sar snorted his acknowledgement. Baffled, Josiah followed Dabiel from the room.

She led him into her office and over to the seating area, but she didn’t sit down. She stood by the delicate sculpture that hung from the ceiling, turning gently in the quiet air.

“There’s a sculptor with a shop down by the market who makes these. I happened across his display not long after I became Guildmaster. They enchanted me, for they gave physical form to an idea I’d been pondering. I commissioned this one and had it hung here to always remind me.”

She looked at it for a long time, silent. Josiah looked at it too, but he had no idea what she was talking about. It was very pretty, but any deeper meaning eluded him.

Dabiel sighed. “I speak to the Mother once each year, when she reveals the names of the new apprentices to me. Sometimes she’ll answer a question or two, although often her words are so cryptic they leave me more puzzled than before. One year had been particularly bad. There was a hurricane, and we lost a great many pairs, even though they succeeded in minimizing the damage. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it; that would have been before you were born.”

Josiah nodded, his mouth dry. “Elkan told me.”

She studied the slowly revolving rods and balls. “I asked the Mother pretty much what you just asked me, though I used fancier words. She looked at me, and there was such sorrow in her eyes. She said, “I wanted mountains, so I had to accept earthquakes.’”

Dabiel fell silent again, gazing at the sculpture. Josiah looked at her blankly. She turned back to him and laughed. “I’m sure I had the same expression on my face as you do now. She wouldn’t say more. But I’ve meditated on her words many times since, and asked her other questions, and I think I understand a little, now, what she meant.

“Watch.” She reached out and gave one of the dangling rods a quick tap. It spun wildly, and the whole structure trembled, set into dancing motion by her touch. Josiah watched, fascinated, as the suspended ornaments caught and reflected the light in shifting, sparkling patterns. “What did you see?”

Josiah still didn’t understand what she was getting at. “Um… it moved. The whole thing. It spun around, and shook, and it looked really pretty.”

“Was any part unaffected, even though I only touched one small piece?”

“No, it moved all over.” Josiah looked more closely at the sculpture, starting to see her point.

“Now you touch it. Anywhere, just a light push.”

He obeyed, nudging a polished stone ball. The sculpture swayed and spun.

“Now make it still again.”

He tried, but it was impossible. Every time he touched a rod to stop it spinning, a dozen others were set trembling. Eventually he spread his hands, admitting failure.

“You see? It’s all interconnected. Everything you touch affects something else, and even though you were the one to set it in motion, you can’t stop the results of your action. They have to run their course.” She fell silent again, contemplating.

So this was where Elkan learned to give deep rambling answers to simple questions. He hoped he was never in a room with the two of them when they both got going. “So… the world is like that?”

“Exactly. As I understand it, the Mother never planned to make people, or to love us. She made the world for the joy of creation, nothing more. She threw all her passion into it. She wanted mountains, and if earthquakes were the result of the forces needed to build them, what did that matter? She wanted rivers, and oceans, and gentle breezes, and the wild glory of storms. She wanted life to fill every nook and cranny of the world, so she made life that could grow and change and adapt to any conditions. And so we came along, an unexpected and delightful result of her wanton, exuberant burst of creativity. She loved us, instantly and completely. And so she was trapped. She could no longer wipe away what she’d done and start afresh, for we were dependent on the world she’d created. Even though much of it could harm us, could cause pain and sorrow to us. And thus to her, who had never felt pain or sorrow before.”

Josiah listened, spellbound. Her words made a sort of sense, though he still wasn’t sure he fully understood.

“She gave us what she could to help us. She put her power into the world. At first she worked it into the natural scheme of things, passed from parent to child. But that failed, as the First History records. So now she touches the world here and there, and implants her power in it.” Dabiel touched the sculpture once again, setting it trembling. “But each time she does, the world trembles, and forces are set out of balance that must redistribute themselves until they reach equilibrium.

“Oh.” Josiah cocked his head. “So she can’t make too many Mother-touched animals?”

“That’s right. It would do more harm than good. It’s a delicate matter, finding the right point, neither too much nor too little—”

Josiah.
Sar’s call broke into his mind.
Elkan is starting to stir. Tell Master Dabiel.

We’re coming,
Josiah thought back. “Sar says Elkan is waking up.”

“Let us be there for him when he does.” She led the way out of her office, back to Elkan’s room.

Elkan’s head was turning from side to side and his hands were twitching, but he hadn’t opened his eyes. Dabiel sat by his side and took his hand in hers. Josiah hovered, moving back and forth from his chair to Elkan’s bed, unable to stay still.

Finally Elkan’s lashes fluttered, and his eyes cracked open. He put a hand up and raked it through his hair, his eyes searching the room. First he saw Dabiel. He blinked and continued seeking. When he spotted Josiah the tension went out of his body. Then his gaze fell on Sar and an expression of mingled pain and relief ran across his face. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

“You’re safe,” he whispered hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “All those people… Did they make it?”

“They’re fine, Elkan.” Josiah forced words through the tightness in his throat. “Sar bonded with me after he broke your bond. He dammed up the water, and everyone got out. I had enough energy. That’s why he did it. So you didn’t have to—you know.”

“Oh.” Elkan rubbed his eyes. He looked back and forth from Sar to Josiah. “Oh. That’s… a relief.” He bit his lip and looked at Dabiel, pleading. “I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I thought Sar must have judged I’d broken the Law, somehow. But it permits us to sacrifice ourselves when enough lives are at stake.”

“It does,” she assured him, only a slight tremble in her voice. “Sar just found a better way. You won’t get away from us that easily, journeyman.”

Sar’s voice echoed in Josiah’s head.
Tell him what the Mother said.

“What? Oh, yeah. Sar says—” It felt horribly awkward for him to relay Sar’s words to Elkan, instead of the other way around. “—that I should tell you what the Mother told me. She said you’re dear to her, and she’d be glad to welcome you home, but the world still needs you, a lot. She said you’re one of her best servants.”

Elkan put his hands over his face and turned away. Dabiel’s eyes were streaming; she did nothing to hide it. Josiah turned to Sar and stroked him fiercely.

After a few minutes Elkan struggled to sit up. Josiah and Dabiel fussed with propping pillows to make him comfortable.

“So—” Elkan’s voice broke. He accepted a cup of water from Dabiel, took a sip, and tried again. “So, Josiah, the Mother chose you as a wizard after all. Is it what you’d thought it would be?”

“No,” Josiah answered honestly. He gave a little laugh. “All this time, I thought it was you doing the work, when really it was Sar all along.”

Elkan laughed, then sobered. “Not that it’s easy. As you’ll have found.” He turned to Master Dabiel. “Has a master taken him on as apprentice, yet?”

“I thought you’d want to be given the opportunity. Springtide and your mastery ceremony are only a few days away. That is, if you’ve decided what you’re going to do. You hadn’t yet, last time we spoke. And you haven’t had much chance for contemplation since.”

“No.” For the first time Elkan gave Sar a long look. “I’m free now, aren’t I?” He turned back to Dabiel. “If I want to leave the Wizards’ Guild, there’s nothing holding me to it any more.”

“No.” She regarded him gravely. “You’re free to decide your path. If you’ve found you can no longer serve as a wizard, the Mother will release you. You could take up another craft, return to your family, go to Shalinthan and marry that miner you told me about. Whatever you choose.”

Elkan closed his eyes, pain written on his face. When he finally opened his them, he focused his gaze on his hands twisting together in his lap. “When I realized the only way to save those people was for Sar to burn me out… It’s not that I wanted to die, but it seemed so…perfect, like the answer to all my questions, the solution to all my problems. No more choices, no more pain, no more uncertainty, only the Mother’s glory. It was as if all my life I’d been asking where, and when, and how, and she finally answered. Right here, right now, like this.”

For a moment his eyes looked beyond the room, and an echo of the wonder Josiah had felt when he stood before the Mother lit his face. Then it vanished, leaving only anguish. “But now that’s gone, and I’m back to having to decide. Having to choose, when there is no choice that can give me everything I want.”

He turned to Dabiel. “I want to remain in the Wizards’ Guild. I want to take up my mastery and serve the Mother as I’ve always believed I would do. But it’s hard. Much harder than I ever thought it could be. It costs so much. I never knew that before, not really. Not before I had to face it alone.”

“That’s why we require journeymen to make a circuit before they become masters. So you can have that experience.”

Elkan nodded. His face grew hard. “And I want—a part of me wants—to just say smash it all, and leave. The Farmers’ Guild would accept me. Meira said her father would take me as a journeyman. I always enjoyed working in the fields, growing up; I never really considered any other craft. My mother would be overjoyed. My father could let go of his anger.” He took a deep breath. “I love Meira, master. I could ask nothing better than to marry her. We could be happy together if I wasn’t a wizard.”

He glared at Dabiel, defiant. But if he expected her to be upset by his words, he was disappointed. She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s what you should do, then. Maybe that’s the right choice for you.”

“But it’s not!” Elkan flung aside the covers and rose. He strode to the window and looked out over the city. “I wish it could be, but it’s not. How could I buy my own happiness at the cost of deserting the people who need me? Every time I saw someone sick, or injured, or in need of anything the Mother’s power could provide, I’d know I’d betrayed her trust. It would eat at me, thinking of the people who suffered for want of what I could give. It would destroy whatever joy we found, poison the love we shared. I can’t go through that. I can’t put Meira through it.”