Apprentice's Luck

Chapter 1In a beer-stained tavern, on a darkening winter afternoon, apprentice magician Talisman Morning stared into his pewter mug, and hid in shadows and from his fellow mages. He was good at hiding; that was the problem. Part of it, anyway. A bumble of large bodies jolted past, laughing, slapping each other’s shoulders: off-duty king’s guard, made of leather and muscle and the comfort of a lack of any serious war in Averene in the last few decades. Talis smiled a little, leaned further into his corner, sipped terrible but strong ale. The School wasn’t precisely part of the kingdom—the magicians remained uneasily independent, in the sense of everyone else’s unease—but it did sit on the hill just up Sorcerer’s Road from the sprawling expanding central Isle of the kingdom of Averene, and it sat there in gleaming white-marble splendor, reflecting sun. It announced in no uncertain terms that invasions, conflicts, disruptions to its serenity, could and would be dealt with. Disruptions. Yes. Talis turned his mug around, in his hands. The table was sticky, though he’d avoided putting his sleeve in the worst spots. Lucky, that. Luck. Oh yes. He finished half the ale. And winced, because it’d been his third. He should go back. He knew he should. He should let the Second Sorceress and the other magicians tell him about what he could do, why he was useful, how to hone his gifts. He should be grateful for the home. He’d not had one before. He should learn how to help others: fellow mages, kings, farmers, the land. He should walk away and hide in the forests for good, because he could not help anyone, no one other than himself, and he was very sure at the moment that he’d never be able to. He finished the rest of the ale. If he walked out of the city and into the woods, he’d be fine. He definitely wouldn’t starve or freeze. But the land around him, the foxes and birds, the trees and berries…or anyone out for a pleasure hunt, or anyone who came looking for him… And they would. Because he was dangerous. Because he could not be left alone. The tavern wasn’t large. It was an older one, and Talis had chosen it deliberately, nestled back near the king’s guard barracks and training grounds: unassuming and solid, full of people who could likely handle themselves if something went wrong. It was growing more noisy, as a few more guards and palace staff arrived and met friends and bought rounds of ale. A tall man with tied-back sun-blond hair, wearing dusty riding leathers and a serious expression, came in; someone else called over, “Jer, you’re late, did the King make you sing for him again?” and waved him over to their group. The man laughed—it lit up his face—and retorted, “Yes, the entire Night Queen opera cycle, if you’re good I’ll do it again for you…” and joined them. Friends, Talis thought. It must be nice, to have someone to laugh with, to share jokes. He wondered briefly what the tall attractive guardsman had been doing for the King, with those impressive shoulders and those smoky grey eyes and that face that moved from somber to dazzling when he laughed. King Ametrine de Berri had a reputation for enjoying myriad pleasures, but they generally were pleasurable for all involved; the present ruler of Averene might be self-indulgent and fond of jeweled robes and candied snowdrops, but he was also affable and cheerful and generous, which was immensely better than some previous monarchs, and therefore the general feeling among his people was on the whole one of approval. The tall pretty-but-serious guardsman—Jer—had come in wearing traveling clothes, though, with sleeves rolled up and the king’s badge on his shoulder and scuffs on his boots. More like someone who’d been out riding cross-country, not lounging in a dissolute king’s bed. Not that it mattered. Talis did not know him. Because Talis, at least in theory, was escaping to a doomed and lonely existence by himself in the woods, where he’d live on unseasonal fruit and probably accidentally maim at least two unsuspecting people. He really should get back up the hill. If nothing else, the Second Sorceress would be able to put up some new shields around him; she was strong enough for that. He set his empty mug down, pewter over rough wood. He considered the door, on the other side of the tavern, and sighed. By the time he’d made it halfway across the room, he’d avoided two spilled drinks and one incredibly inebriated person stumbling into his path. Because he’d moved exactly at the right time, the drinks splashed onto various bodies behind him, and to his left. The extremely tipsy body careened right past him and into the young woman holding a meat pie, which flew out of her hand and into the knot of off-duty guards acquiring more ale. Commotion commenced. Talis sighed again—at least nobody’d been holding a knife or any sharp cutlery—and gingerly picked his way between low tables, chairs, hazards he did not want to provoke. He ducked behind an upturned bench at just the right time, and got out the door while nobody was looking his way. He managed not to cause any more chaos, at least none directly his fault. As far as he could tell. When he stepped outside the sun had mostly gone down, over the clustered buildings and golden shop windows and narrow streets and crenellated palace walls. Setting light streaked color like a painter’s fantasy of the sky: pumpkin orange, cinnamon rose, vivid fuchsia, deep-sea blue. The city, on the verge of tiptoeing out of winter, might’ve been a fairy-story, a swirl of wild magic, layers upon layers of history and stories. Behind it, the arches and walls on the backdrop hill stood up like a beacon of white light, tuned to reflect sunset fire. Eighty years ago the Magicians’ School had been brand-new, and the Grand Sorcerer had challenged the old king, or maybe they’d only had an argument; and then the youngest prince of Averene had become a magician himself and had married the Second Sorcerer of the Middle Lands and they’d gone on to have so many adventures, to settle that peace with the barony of Valpres, to map the deadly ice-and-fire ravines of the Far South even beyond Penth, to explore the Mountain Marches to the north… That was the legend. There were so many legends. Talis had always liked both city streets and stories. He’d grown up on them. Old Twist, who had not been his father, had liked to talk, when it’d been a good day, when Talis had brought them luck, a dropped wallet or a wealthy passerby feeling charitable and tipping coins into the guitar’s case. Talis had listened wide-eyed to tales about Jack Scamper and the magic lantern, and about wood sprites in the trees, and about the Grand Sorcerer Lorre, who could turn mountains to glass and walk on water. No one had seen Lorre for over thirty years, of course. And even that’d been a glimpse. A dropping-by, to see how the School might be flourishing, and to borrow a scroll with a map of the Perfumed Isles. He had not, as of yet, returned either scroll or self to the School. No forest-spirits, no old wild powers, still existed. Stories were just stories, and magic lived in neatly polished marble workshops up on the hill. And luck might be good or bad. Depending on how the universe moved, and for whom. Talis turned, only a fraction unsteady from the third mug of ale, to look in the direction of the School. It’d be a walk. But he could manage. He took a step toward the small street, to cross it. And then he stepped back, an impulse, the universe’s hand on his shoulder. A cart stopped suddenly, startled on its way to a delivery. A very heavy and very large barrel of beer jolted from the back. Hurtled right past the spot where Talis, not large, would’ve been. He collided with something, behind him. Something tall, and person-shaped. Talis, genuinely surprised—he did not as a rule run into things, or people—spun around. Discovered himself looking at, and being looked at by, the attractive guardsman. That storm-grey gaze evaluated him, up and down, as if memorizing details: shortness, autumn-brown eyes, unruly auburn hair, loose silky shirt and comfortable trousers that did fit but had been secondhand, from the random assortment of odds and ends the School had collected over the years. Talis had arrived with nothing, at least nothing legitimately his. Jer said, “You’re a magician.” He said it without critique, though someone else might have; the Church remained on uneasy terms with the existence of magical ability and undeniable power. He said it without greed, not like someone about to inquire whether an apprentice might produce a love-spell or minor ill-wishing for money. He also said it without doubt: a deep chocolate-hued certainty. He did have a lovely voice, Talis noticed irrelevantly. Probably could have sung for the King, if requested. Lovely voice or not, the man had snuck up on him, had disrupted his normal magical avoidance-of-encounters somehow, and clearly wanted something. Talis snapped, “I’m an apprentice, and not a very good one, and no I won’t charm your sweetheart into not being angry with you, or enchant your spear so you win the next pointless throwing contest, or whatever it is. I don’t even know how to do that.” Jer’s eyebrows went up, pale blond curious wings. He was younger than Talis had originally thought, maybe late twenties, which would make him a few years older than Talis’s question-mark twenty-one. “Could you, if you did know how? I didn’t think magicians did.” “No. Yes. We’re not supposed to. Not disturbing the harmony of the world. In theory. If that’s all, I should be getting back, it’s late—” “I need your help,” Jer said. “I already said no.” “I think I’ve started this off wrong.” Jer ran a hand through his hair; at some point he’d taken out the confining tie, and sun-kissed gilt tumbled loose in waves. He might’ve been a storybook illustration, an earnest champion, a walking inducement to join the ranks of the guard and get closer to those shoulders. “My name’s Jeryn de Machaut. One of the scouts, of the royal guard.” “Yes,” Talis agreed, “that would be why you’re wearing the insignia.” Jer blinked, glanced at his shoulder as if he’d forgotten, returned his attention to Talis. Forcefully, like the impact of grey silk and thunderheads. “The King’s going boating on the river in three days.” “How nice for him.” “Are all magicians this unhelpful? I’ve never met one before.” “No. I told you I’m not a very good one.” “I think you are,” Jeryn said. “I saw you, in there. And just now. Was it some kind of…mischief spell? Seeing what you could do, spilling beer, getting Teague to trip just then? Sneaking out to play around?” “No, no, and absolutely not. Who’s Teague?” “You made him fall into Jade’s venison pie.” “I didn’t.” Jeryn opened his mouth, paused. The ebbing sundown, and the emerging lamplit gold from windows, outlined his cheekbone, his jawline, faint blond stubble where he hadn’t shaved. His expression changed, softened. “You mean that. You didn’t do it. On purpose.” “I—” Talis started to answer, to argue; the sincerity behind Jer’s statement, in that brocade voice, caught up and knocked his words away. “You believe me.” “Shouldn’t I?” Jeryn paused, and, half under his breath, muttered, “and I can win a throwing contest without magical help, just so you know,” in the tone of someone embarrassed about it but wanting to be clear that he did not need any assistance at all, which Talis shouldn’t’ve found adorable. He said, “It’s not something I can control,” and then wondered why he’d admitted that, his private heartbreak and the stab-wound in his gut, to a man he’d met two minutes ago, who’d evidently thought that Talis would sneak out of the School to play practical jokes on innocent guardsmen in a tavern. But Jer had listened to him. And believed him, that he hadn’t meant to do it. “But it’s something.” Jeryn moved a hand as if wanting to reach out, thinking better of it, not touching a spiky apprentice magician. “You can do magic. And I do need your help. Even if everyone else thinks I’m being ridiculous.” “Do they? I can’t imagine why. It’s not as if you, oh, go round pouncing on apprentice magicians outside crowded taverns.” He threw in, because he couldn’t help it, “Not that I’m averse to being pounced on by attractive guardsmen, but normally we’d talk about it first.” “I wasn’t—!” Jer had gone pink. Right across his cheeks. He even blushed heroically. A stained-glass portrait. An old-fashioned honorable knight come to life. Wearing the monarch’s badge. “I mean I—not that you’re not—that’s not how I would ask you if—oh Goddess. That’s not what I meant. I thought you’d seen me. Or heard me. I thought you could…I don’t know. Sense me. Behind you. Oh no, no, come on, stop laughing.” “Sorry, no…” “Please listen. It’s important. If I’m right.” Talis looked up at his face, saw the expression there, took it in. Made a decision, not exactly a conscious one, a feeling. The evening air felt cool and sharp along his skin. And Jer’s eyes held vast worry, hope, a need for Talis to be an answer. Talis, despite knowing he wasn’t anyone’s answer, found that he wanted to be. At this moment. For this man. For all that pink-cheeked straightforward honesty. “If you’re right about what?” “I think,” Jeryn said, “three days from now, on the royal barge, someone’s going to try to kill the King.”