Journeyman (A Wizard's Life) (15 page)

It occurred to Benen that Estren had been growing into the desolation through the centuries as a result of wizards creating domains for themselves. This positive aspect of the meddling of wizards in the affairs of the common folk was something Benen could take pride in; he was part of that with his oasis. He planned on expanding his domain, once he was a master. Esren had liked that he was taking care of people. He could do more.

First though, he needed to become a master.

Until he did so, other masters would take and train as their own apprentices any gifted children that arose from the people he nurtured. He would be
just
a journeyman at the moots. This would not do. He had promised Esren he would do great things with his power and he would keep this promise; the beginning of that path lay with Oster.

Benen did not employ any magic to find his former master; he was impatient to get started on his master piece and did not want to waste any time devising a means to locate Oster. Instead, he decided to find the tower through mundane reconnaissance. Benen knew Oster took his tower on a tour of Osteria. He figured that as an eagle he could cover most of that region in two or three days. His vision in that form was incredibly acute, he did not think he would miss seeing the tower.

He could possibly have asked each village when their tithes to the wizard were due, but that would have taken too long. Also, Benen did not want to have to lie in explaining why he was asking. No, this was simpler.

As it turned out, the tower was not far from Oster’s Gift — the village of his youth. It was flying westward, away from the village, when he saw it.

Sparing no effort, Benen accelerated and caught up to the tower, landing on the platform at its base.

He was now within the veil Oster had placed over the tower and could not be seen from below anymore. To anyone other than a wizard, it would have looked like the eagle had simply vanished. Wizards were not fooled by such magic; to him the tower was quite visible.

Benen shifted back to his human form and put on the clothes he had brought with him. These were his best: he wanted to present himself before his former master as an accomplished man of the world with his own impressive resources.

Once dressed, he walked to the door leading into the tower. Benen was not sure if Oster’s wards would still recognize him as someone they should not harm, so it was with trepidation that he reached out to touch the door knob.

Nothing.

Benen breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded into the tower. Oster must have wanted him to have access to it; it was not like the old wizard to overlook whom his wards would allow through. Benen took this as permission to enter without being announced or invited.

He searched the tower floor by floor, looking for any sign of Oster. By the time he had reached the stairs leading up to the old wizard’s study, Benen had still not found him. This did not surprise him, the study was where he had expected to find the wizard all along.

He was right.

When he opened the door and strode into Oster’s study, he found the wizard was sitting at his desk writing in a book. Oster looked up and nodded, exactly as if he had sent for Benen and was satisfied the younger wizards had finally arrived.

“Well? What is it, boy?” Oster asked. This question, said in the same tone the wizard had used addressing him for his decade of apprenticeship, made Benen feel ten years old again. He had a deep fear of his former master, the strength of which had not faded over the intervening years.

Benen took a deep breath to calm himself.

Oster sighed, rolled his eyes, and returned to writing in his book.

“I have come, Oster, to inform you of my desire to attempt my master piece.” Benen managed to get it all out without stumbling over his words, despite the fear gripping his heart.

“Have you, now?”

“Yes.”

“And what will your master piece be?” The old wizard had stopped writing. His full attention was now on Benen. This unsettled the younger wizard even more. Oster’s effect on him made Benen angry and his anger made him act rashly.

“My master piece is going to be whatever it is that you’ve never been able to do,” he declared impulsively.

The old wizard’s eyebrows went up at this. When they came back down, a smile appeared on his face.

“You think you will solve what I’ve spent — on and off — two centuries researching, boy? You’d best change your mind or you’ll never be a master. Do something along the lines of that body you made for your ghost. That was good work.”

“Worthy of a master piece?”

“It would have been, if you’d spoken to me about it
before
you made it.”

“Well, I have a different perspective from you on things. Maybe I
can
solve what you can’t. Would you have thought of making a body for a ghost?” Benen was growing bolder.

Oster almost laughed. As it was he chuckled. “No, boy, I would not have thought of that, but not because it was beyond me, but because it was
beneath
me. Who cares about a ghost?”

“
I
do.” Benen was less afraid now, Oster was not so frightening when he saw him as a bitter, mean, old man. “I have decided, Oster. My master piece will be whatever it is you have been failing to solve.”

The old wizard shook his head slowly in disapproval then he locked eyes with Benen. They stared each other down like this for a time. In the end it was Oster who blinked first. He shrugged.

“You are a fool, boy,” he told Benen.

Oster stood and spoke more formally: “Very well, it will be as you wish: your master piece is teleportation.”

#

Benen had left Oster’s tower in a daze. Most of his attention had been spent on not seeming shocked in front of his former master. Once outside he had flown away, his thoughts a jumble.

I’ll never be a master,
he despaired.
Teleportation . . .
the word kept running through his head as he made his way home.

Teleportation was in good company with the likes of resurrection, as something that was conventionally thought impossible to achieve with magic. How could Benen have known this fool’s errand was what his former master had been working on? Why did Oster waste so much time in pursuit of something that was impossible?

By the time Benen arrived back at his own tower, he had decided that Oster must have found something out that lead him to think teleportation might be possible. This gave him hope: Oster was no fool, he wouldn’t have wasted all this time on it without such a hint.

Timmon was pleased to see Benen had returned, but Benen had no time for the incarnate ghost, he had a master piece to produce. Still, the golden form followed him up the steps of the tower to Benen’s observatory.

Unfortunately, Benen had never managed to acquire a telescope or to make one for himself from the lenses he had been collecting over the years. Although he did ponder making a trip to Southren to seek out some of their tinkerers to remedy the situation, Benen was self-aware enough to realize he was just making excuses to delay having to come to grips with the problem he really needed to work on: teleportation.

Most wizards did not have telescopes at all, he had found out at the moot that this was an eccentricity of Oster’s; wizards have other means to magnify their eyesight.

On the nights the moon was in the sky, Benen was able to use its magic to greatly amplify his vision, allowing him to see the stars as well, if not better, than he had using Oster’s telescope contraption. This was how he did his observations that night and many nights thereafter.

Timmon spent all those nights with him. Benen mostly ignored the ghost, but he wanted to be of use. He made meals for him and brought refreshments as needed; acting as an assistant of sorts. Benen liked having him around and would sometimes bounce ideas off him.

“I already know all the stars and constellations! What does seeing them better get me?” This after a particularly long night doing observations.

“I don’t know, Benen. Why
do
you do it?” the ghost asked.

Benen had just been venting but he answered the question anyway. “The more I know the stars involved in a spell, the easier that spell is to cast; it hurts less to channel. Seeing the star with my eyes and looking at it as clearly as I can is key to knowing the star better.”

“What does that have to do with your master piece though?”

“I’m going to try constellations in combinations that likely won’t work, this will cause me a lot of pain; knowing the stars better mitigates that.”

Whenever Benen finished observing all the stars in two of his candidate constellations, he tried to cast a spell combining them both. In his head, he would picture himself disappearing from his observatory and appearing in the village below. What actually happened was that Benen had seizures and fell unconscious. It was a painful and long process, made worse by the fact that Benen knew Oster had likely already tried this approach.

I can’t assume anything,
he told himself and persevered.

He tried the most likely constellations first: the Great Sky River, the Parallels, the Mask of Heaven.

Benen combined them together, trying different combinations. All he got for his efforts were pain and unconsciousness.

Months passed as he tried combining the likely constellations with the Builder and each other. The results were even worse: Benen took ill for long periods of time after each failed attempt. This slowed his progress considerably, but he was not to be outdone by his former master, so he persevered.

Next he tried adding less likely constellations to the mix. The more of these Benen had in his pool of possible candidates, the more combinations and permutations there were. This process took Benen agonizing years.

He took a break from his experiments to go to the next moot. Benen felt he needed contact with someone other than Timmon. He also had hopes — small though they may be — of finding out something useful to his research at the event.

The moot was once again held at Castle Estermont and Benen was pleased that he was received as a minor celebrity by the wizards present.

“You have to tell me why you chose something impossible as your master piece attempt, Benen!” one of them declared.

Everyone knew Oster had been looking into teleportation and many thought the old wizard had forced Benen to choose his topic of interest for his master piece. These wizards were sympathetic to poor Benen:

“Tell me if there’s anything you need in your research,” they offered.

Mellen even took Benen aside to a small private room to talk.

“Is it true? Did Oster force his will upon you? If he did, he can be censured for such an offence.” Mellen was so evidently ready to fight for him that Benen was sorry to have to disabuse him.

“No, this is a mess of my own making,” Benen admitted.

Mellen frowned. “Why would you choose teleportation?”

Benen sank into a chair and sighed. “Because I’m a fool.”

“Evidently. Did you not know teleportation is impossible?”

“Maybe it simply hasn’t been discovered yet,” Benen argued.

“Poppycock! Next you’ll tell me you intend to discover resurrection of the dead as your second trick.”

“Teleportation is far more likely to exist than the ability to raise the dead,” Benen said. “There already exists spells to move objects through telekinesis, to banish and summon otherworldly creatures, to see things at a distance . . .”

Mellen countered, “You could say the same thing about raising the dead. Astral projection exists, as do animated corpses and spells to talk to the newly departed. You even made a spell to incarnate a ghost into a body, Benen!”

“Look, I’m committed to this course now; either I discover teleportation or I stay a journeyman for the rest of my days.”

“There are ways to change your master piece attempt,” Mellen pointed out.

“No. I’m committed.”

They parted and Benen had the impression he had lost some of the respect the old wizard held for him.

Benen spent the rest of the moot listening to the lecturers. One master in particular gave a lecture on animal perception. Benen was as bored as the rest of the audience until the wizard spoke of snakes and their ability to perceive heat.

“The snake has the most uncanny sense organ in the front of its snout,” the old man expounded. “With it, the python I examined could sense the presence of heat at a relatively short distance.”

After the wizard had finished his presentation, Benen approached him to ask for clarifications.

“If the snake can see heat, can other animals see other things that we cannot?” Benen asked him.

“Well, the bat
sees
with sound . . .” the wizard had replied. This was so absurd to Benen that he decided the man was cracked and bothered him no further.

Still, an idea had taken root in Benen’s thoughts and, as he flew home from the moot, he began drafting concepts for spells to alter his own perceptions.