A Touch of Magic (3 page)

Randall jerked his head up. His nausea was suddenly gone.

“Magic?” he squeaked, eyes going wide.

“Hsst! Keep your voice down, boy.” Earl hissed. He continued in a low tone. “You know as well as I do what’d happen if these fine folks thought either of us Mages.” Earl pronounced the words ‘fine folks’ with obvious condescension. “You know it wouldn’t be long before they were blaming you for their cattle’s milk going sour in the udder, stillbirths, or any other manner of tragedy. I’m not too keen on having them on my heels for suchlike myself.”

“You…you’re a…a…” Randall stammered, growing pale. He was too frightened to note that his headache had vanished completely, too.

“Yeah, boy. I’m one of those. Now shut up and calm down,” Earl commanded.

“But,” Randall started, eyes darting back and forth, looking for some kind of escape. Earl was seated between him and the door.
If I scream for help, he’ll probably call lightning down on me! Or turn me into stone. Or…

Earl breathed a word, in a language Randall had never heard. The fear drained out of him, as if someone had pulled a plug. In fact, it seemed like all of the emotions had been sucked out of him, leaving him feeling hollow.

“I said
calm down!
” Earl commanded again, in a harsh whisper. “That Word won’t last very long, so shut up and listen while you still have your wits about you. Simply put, you’ve got the Talent, and I happened to be looking for someone with it. I’ll be coming by your house after dusk to talk with your parents about taking you in as my apprentice. Best prepare yourself, as you’ll likely be leaving with me thereafter.”

Randall felt numb. “Oh,” was the only reply he could come up with. Deep down inside, he could feel the rumblings of panic scurrying back and forth like a trapped mouse, but the feeling was very far away. It was as if someone taken his emotions and wrapped them in gauze.

“Now, boy, if you’ll give my property back, I’ll be on my way.” He held out his hand, and looked meaningfully at Randall’s fist.

Randall noticed that he wasn’t even holding a mug at all. He was holding a thick cylinder of silvery black metal, with dozens of symbols etched all over its surface. They almost seemed to make an odd sort of sense. Randall squinted at them and cocked his head sideways, face screwed up in concentration. If he looked just right, they seemed to all be related somehow…

“Ahem,” Earl coughed, and snapped his fingers.

Randall started and dropped the object into Earl’s waiting palm. His head immediately started pounding, though not nearly as badly as before.

Earl noticed his wince of pain. “You’d have to keep it a good couple hours yet for it to fully heal you, boy. But I think you’re in no danger of dying now. Best if you took it easy the rest of the day.” He abruptly stood up to leave just as Bobby came rushing back into the pub, hugging an armload of willow bark.

“I got the bark sir! Now what?” he panted.

“Hell, I don’t know, boy. Give it to the bar wench. Do I look like I know anything about making tea?” Earl chuckled, as he turned and quickly left the pub.

Bobby glanced back and forth between Randall and Earl’s retreating backside. “What’s going on?” he asked, confused.

Randall’s emotions were slowly starting to trickle back to the surface, though the panic he had felt was quickly being replaced by a growing sense of dread.

“My life is over,” he groaned, sinking his aching head into his palms.

* * *

Randall decided that willow bark tea had to be the most awfully bitter medicine he had ever drunk. Even adding milk and honey to it didn’t help at all. It took a long time for him to drink it all down, but by the time he did, he had developed the beginnings of a plan. If he could get himself apprenticed out right away, then he wouldn’t have to worry about Earl at all! After all, the apprenticeship oath was like an oath of fealty. No one could be expected to break that oath…to even ask would be an insult of the gravest sort. So that was that; Randall would get himself apprenticed to the first man that would take him, and he didn’t care how low the job. He’d even settle for being a tanner’s apprentice, with all of the vile smells and stained fingers that went with the job!

He had tried to tell Bobby about Earl, but Bobby had just laughed him off.

“He was just funning you, Randall,” Bobby said. “He was a trader or something for sure. Did you see his little pot belly, or how he was going bald? You think some great and mighty magicker would look like that? Or even worse, have a name like
Earl
? He was just having some fun at your expense.”

“But, he had this…this…thing! And it made my head feel better!” Randall protested.

“Pshaw,” snorted Bobby. “Getting out of the sunlight helped your head. And besides, before you woke up all the way, you thought I was your momma. I wouldn’t be surprised if things were still a little scrambled up there!” Bobby laughed at his own joke. “Besides, didn’t Frank agree that willow bark tea was good medicine for a headache?”

Randall let it drop after that. He really wanted someone to believe him, but he didn’t want to convince Bobby too strongly. After all, if Earl was a magicker, and had come for him, that would mean that Randall himself was touched. ‘Devil touched’, Grandma called it. In her last days, Grandma couldn’t care for herself and wasn’t quite right in the head any longer, and so she came to live with Randall’s family. Sometimes when she was having one of her spells, she’d rant and scream, and call Momma “that devil touched bitch”. It always scared Randall to see Grandma when she was like that. But it was only the madness; Pa explained that sometimes when you’re really old, you see things that aren’t really there, and say thing you don’t mean.

But she couldn’t have been right, could she? After all, his momma always did seem to know when one of the boys was getting into trouble. But if Randall was touched, shouldn’t he be able to just whistle up whatever he wanted? If he had magical powers, how come things never seemed to go his way? He wasn’t particularly good at anything, though he wasn’t particularly bad, either. Average, that’s what he was.

 The one time he’d been in a real fight, no monsters came from the shadows to fight at his side, and there was no lightning from his fingertips. He had given the other boy a couple of lumps, but had gone home himself with a bloody nose and had sported a black eye for nearly a week after. And Melinda seemed bound and determined to dislike him, no matter how hard he tried to be nice to her. He definitely didn’t have any special power over
her
, that was for sure!

Besides, Bobby was right. Earl was just too plain to be a powerful magicker. He wasn’t impressive at all. Anything else Randall saw or felt might have been because of the head-rattling Bobby had given him. Still, there was that
thing
all covered with weird writing. Randall had held it in his hand, and had a hard time believing it was just a hallucination. No matter how much Randall tried to convince himself that Earl had been teasing him, the image of that object burned brightly in his memory. That thing had been
real
. And if it was real, well, then that meant that Earl was no simple trader. Yes, it’d be best if he got himself apprenticed out to someone else, this very day!

It was the first day of job fair, so not too many craftsmen were set up yet. But that didn’t matter to Randall. He visited every one that he could. It was clear that he just wasn’t qualified for many of the jobs. For instance, the luthier had played several notes for him on a violin while reciting part of the alphabet. Then, he played one back, and asked which letter it was. Randall had no idea what he was even talking about. After a couple of tries, the luthier told him he just didn’t have the ear for instrument making and sent him on his way.

A woodworker had told Randall that he was only casually talking to boys on the first day, and that he wouldn’t be making any decisions for a day or two yet. At that, Randall had gone so far as to beg for a position: he offered to carry heavy wood to save on pack animal feed, sleep on the ground, and eat as little as possible. He mentioned how he was used to hard work at his parents mill.

“Please sir,” he concluded. “I really need a job today.”

“You got good ambition, kid,” the woodworker said. “But there’s gonna be lotsa boys out here looking for work. It’d be a mighty bad business decision if I didn’t look at a few of them before I made my mind up, don’tcha think? But I like your spirit. Come back in a couple days, and we’ll see how you handle a wood planer. Expect to get blisters.”

“But, you don’t understand,” Randall started.

“Listen kid, don’t push your luck and don’t get me riled,” the woodworker interrupted, his expression darkening. “I can’t use a boy that sasses back when he’s been told to do something. You mind what I told you, and come back in a couple of days.”

Bobby wasn’t any help. The entire time they were walking around the market, Bobby kept going on and on about how the militiamen liked him, and how he was sure to be a big soldier and earn his fame in battle.

“But you didn’t even want to be a soldier!” Randall protested. “That’s what
I
wanted to do!”

“Yeah, ain’t it funny,” Bobby mused idly, grinning. “But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. It’s got to be a lot more exciting the staying home to work on the farm!”

Randall seethed inside, but he kept it bottled in and didn’t lash out at his friend. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault that they liked him more. He always was a natural athlete. Things just came easily for him. On the other hand, Randall had grown accustomed to coming in second.
Nothing
came easily to
him
. That realization didn’t make it any easier on his pride, however.

“I still don’t understand why you’re so fired up to get work today anyway,” Bobby said. “Folks’ll be coming in for at least a week, maybe two on the outside. You act like getting something today is more important than getting what you really want.”

What I really wanted was to be a soldier—fat chance of that
, Randall thought bitterly. Instead, he said “I’m just tired of always being second at home, Bobby. I figure if I make a good enough impression before they see any other kids, they’re bound to pick me.”

Next, they saw a baker. “So, you say your father’s a miller, son?” the baker asked.

“Yes sir,” Randall replied. “Milling’s been in my family three generations since my grandfather first settled here to make his fortune.”

The baker nodded. “So, why aren’t you going into the family business, then?”

“I could, sir. But I’m second-born. The mill will go to Eric when Pa passes on. There’ll always be work to do, but if I want to make my own name, I’ll have to do it on my own. After I apprentice out, I want to start my own business, and have my own assistants!”

The baker thought on that a bit. “Makes sense, and shows that you’re thinking about your future. I like that. But just so you know, being a baker isn’t as easy as you might think. You’ll only wish you were a miller’s assistant after you spend an entire day kneading dough! Speaking of dough, how much is a fifty-pound sack of flour these parts?”

“We usually sell them for seven ringets, sir.” Randall answered. “More if we have to deliver it a long distance.” A ringet was Tallia’s cheapest monetary unit, a copper coin about a half-inch in diameter. Randall had quoted the man two ringets more than the cheapest price his father would agree to. “Always let them talk you down,” his father said.

“Seven ringets! I knew that bastard was cheating…” the baker cried before getting a hold of himself. “Lad, the miller in my town’s been charging me nearly twice that. If you don’t mind piping in next time we’re negotiating price, I think you’ve got yourself a place in my shop. Give me a day or two to see the sights and sell my bread before I square everything with your folks and head home.”

“Yes sir,” Randall said, heart sinking. A day or two would be too late.

After that, Bobby got tired of running to every craftsperson in town. “You’ve already got a job in the bag! And on first day of job fair! I don’t understand why you want to keep looking for another one.” he said. “I want to go watch the militia do some more maneuvers and visit the peddlers before they pack up for the day! They always have such interesting things from the big continent!”

“You go on ahead, Bobby”. Randall said. “I’m gonna talk to a couple more people and then I’ll try to catch up with you.”

Bobby just shook his head, and took off in the direction of a vendor selling meat pies from a wooden pushcart. Undeterred, Randall kept on alone, and spoke to nearly every craftsperson that would see him. It soon became clear that most of the people in town were here to shop, socialize, and have a good time as much as look for hired help. Nobody was in a hurry to get their business concluded and be back on the road before the first day was even over.

Those he did manage to speak to about apprenticeship didn’t seem as interested in him as the baker or even the woodworker had been. It was late afternoon by the time he had seen most of the craftspeople that had set up shop. More would come over the next day or two, but by then, it would be too late.

Dejected, Randall started the long walk home. It was going to be early evening before he got there. An hour’s ride by horse was about three on foot, and knowing that Earl would be there waiting for him made Randall drag his feet even more.