Sorcerer’s Apprentice Page 5

  When he approached the carriage and the grazing mare he’d set free from the harness, Brynn noticed a silver transport disc floating nearby. On it were two large, silver boxes. Draco proceeded to toss their clothing onto the back of the carriage and open one of the boxes on the disc. From this first box, he brought out cushioned mattresses that inflated the moment they hit the ground. On top of these he piled enough blankets to keep a small regiment of men warm. Then, he picked up the second of the two boxes and placed it next to the mattresses. All the while, she watched his strong, muscular body with covetous, if suspicious, interest. He wasn’t one of those sedentary wizards who bided their time in their dungeons or their metaphysical shops.

  As she’d noted when they were in the water together, Draco’s frame was powerfully built. From his massive pectorals, she followed the line of fine, golden-colored hair down to the thick gilded pelt between his thighs. Then she gazed at the cock hanging between his muscular legs. Indeed, his balls did hang like a bull’s—they swung freely and made her want to kneel before him and taste them again. She grew wet with need, shifted her weight and looked another direction. Frost would form at the outermost regions of Hades before she’d let him touch her again. She quickly turned her gaze away when he almost caught her staring.

  “I suggest you make up our bedding for the night while I get the food ready,” he told her. “It looks like Bodie sent everything we need, including a change of clothing. I hope you don’t mind that one of my household staff unpacked your luggage. You’ll have fresh clothing tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine,” she uttered and hurried to the warm mattresses and the blankets piled on them. And as she straightened the bedding for the night, she wondered about the wonderful smell emanating from the second of the two silver boxes. How could she have any appetite at all after the confrontation in the pond? But one must eat. Surely, his words had been another form of trying her patience. If she hadn’t at least met the test, she was sure her Master would have sent her packing already.

  With the bedding in place, Brynn considered the close proximity of the beds. Without caring what he’d think, she dragged hers a good ten feet away from his. Though her pussy was still wet with need, the man could do without until he’d admitted that he’d never opened his black book and used its powers to seduce her! What kind of wizard even came up with such an insidious story?

  Draco pretended he hadn’t seen her pull one bed away from the other. The woman was seething—it didn’t take a wizard to sense her anger. But if he’d nudged her into making a mistake, if she couldn’t contain her temper long enough and said something she shouldn’t or if she should actually break the seals on her black book to see if she could best its magic the way he’d already suggested that he had, then the way was clear for him to fail her. Something about his plan suddenly seemed wrong. After what happened the last time he’d let a woman come to him for training, he could be putting undue pressure on Brynn. His objectivity might not be what it once was. But if she thought him harsh, how much worse would it be if she faltered? No, he’d made the right decision and wouldn’t change his mind. He couldn’t.

  After inspecting their supplies and seeing the amount of food Bodie had packed in the warming box, Draco shook his head, picked up the entire thing and placed it at the foot of the makeshift bed. Brynn was already shivering under her blankets when he sat on his own bed. Seeing the look of absolute resolution on her face, he decided to at least make enough peace between them to converse civilly if she’d let him.

  ”I don’t suppose that old freighter you booked passage on had anything like this?” he asked her as he dragged the box between the two beds.

  Brynn craned her neck to see what he was pulling from the box. Her mouth was watering from the delectable smell. She almost grabbed the food from him when he brought forth fresh-baked bread, wine, farmyard cheese and fruit. To this he added sliced roast beef, drenched in brown sauce and steaming within its container. Whoever had packed their meal had outdone themselves. She pretended Draco’s words had no effect. The man wanted to see her squirm—she wasn’t going to let the doubt he’d planted show on her face or in her demeanor.

  Draco turned to her. “Hungry?”

  Brynn stared at the food and couldn’t respond.

  He resisted the urge to smile. Though the situation between them was strained because of his lie, he couldn’t help but react to the look of absolute food-lust on her face. “Here, you dig in. Scoot back against me and I’ll dry your hair while you eat.”

  Brynn was reaching for the food but stopped with her hand in mid air. “My hair will be just fine, thanks,” she replied adamantly. Then she continued to dish out a plate of food from the choices provided.

  “Don’t be troublesome, Brynn. You can’t sleep in this cool environment with your hair wet, you’ll catch your death. Now, sit here.” He patted the area between his spread thighs. “Or is it your intention to disobey a very simple command?”

  “Your hair is as long as mine, it’s wet and you don’t seem concerned…sir.”

  “Was that anger I heard in your voice? Are you losing control of your emotions before we even reach the castle, on your very first day? What kind of wizard will you make if you can’t govern your passions, even in situations you might despise? Really, my girl…childishness doesn’t become you.”

  She resisted the urge to smack him, hard, and simply turned her back to him as she ate. If he wanted to dry her frickin’ hair, he could move closer to her. She pretended to remain unmoved when he did just that.

  “Peel me an orange and feed it to me while I work on your hair, will you?” he blithely asked.

  Brynn grit her teeth but did as he asked. He was gentle while detangling her hair and drying it, almost to the point of being sensual. But what he’d said in the pond was still in her head and always would be. What kind of crackpot wizard said something like that? She must either be on her way to sure failure or he must think her worthy of such testing. But which was it?

  “You know…if you fume any longer, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer,” he commented. “Even a grub worm could sense your anger.”

  Brynn put her plate down and immediately turned to face him. “Fume? After what you said in the pond? Don’t you think I deserve to be a tad upset?”

  “I’m sorry…are you confronting me? Am I hearing a novice apprentice chastising one of the greatest wizards alive?” He put his hand to one ear. “Could you repeat what you just said? I think I’m hearing your transport off this planet warming up!”

  Brynn controlled her anger, but not her words. He had this coming and she wasn’t leaving Illusia when he knew damn well he deserved what he was about to hear. “I don’t for a moment believe you ever opened your black book. But open it or not, if you used any kind of magic to make me have sex with you, it was rape.”

  “And?” he lifted his chin and waited for her next words, words that would probably give him the excuse he needed to send her packing, words that were true with every syllable she uttered.

  “If you raped me,” she said, softly enunciating each and every word quite clearly, “I don’t give a flying unicorn’s ass who you are…I’ll find a way to take you down!” With that she got up, wrapped her blankets around her body and stared into the woods with her back to him.

  The woman couldn’t have given him a better reason to fail her. She’d just threatened him. But how could he fault her when her reason was so compelling? She’d trumped him again. Any wizard who’d really engage in the actions he’d suggested needed to be dead. He got up, pulled his own blankets around his body to ward off the chill and approached her from behind. The first test was passed.

  “Brynn, if you gather some wood, I’ll watch you use your powers to light it,” he offered quietly. “That’ll give me a chance to see you do your stuff.”

  She slowly turned to face him. “Y-you’re not going to throw me off Illusia and take my books away? But…I just threatened you.”

&nbs
p; He simply shook his head.

  She stared at him for a very long moment. “All that crap was a test wasn’t it?”

  “You’ll have to decide. That’s part of a wizard’s job, to separate the truth from the lies.” He squarely faced her to explain. “Many people will show up at your door needing help, Brynn. Some will try to deceive you. But just so you know…what we shared in that pool has no bearing on whether you’ll pass or fail. I might be many things, but I don’t use power or rank to take advantage of another.”

  She sighed in relief. “You’re saying the sex wasn’t a test, but luring me into that kind of sexual fantasy could have been a deception.” She considered the situation, then begrudgingly stated, “I understand.”

  “Be very sure you do. You’re ultimately responsible for how you use your powers, no matter what kind of coercion might be applied. Situations presented to you could be tempting. As I pretended to be using spells on you from the black book—as I lied and said I could control the spells within it and therefore control you sexually—I might eventually have put temptation in your heart. You might have opened your book to see if you could reproduce what I’d implied.” He softened his tone and told her, “Rest assured, Brynn…there was no duress tonight. None except what your imagination conjured. Obviously, that was distressing enough.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. “I never really thought that you…well, you did rattle me. This is exactly what you meant to achieve.” She sighed. “I won’t forget the lesson.”

  He nodded in recognition of her intelligence and perceptiveness. “I’ll help you get the wood and some stones to contain the fire,” he told her, then turned to walk away.

  Chapter Four

  Brynn watched him wrap his blanket around his large frame, then stoop to pick up nearby wood. Soon, he had a tidy pile and had surrounded it with stones for safe burning.

  He stood back and nodded. “Show me what you’ve got, Brynn.”

  She stood straight, held the warm blankets against her chest with her right hand to ward off the chill, then raised her left. Concentrating, she felt the palm of her left hand begin to warm. From it, a small red flame appeared. This, she directed toward the dried pile of wood by simply imagining the fuel burning. She not only produced the small flame, but controlled its size and direction through sheer force of will. This was a feat even a minor wizard could perform, but the twenty feet she actually threw the flame was phenomenal. Simultaneously, she’d caused the fire to rise to a height of about thirty feet. That would definitely make an impression. When she saw him staring at her with a look of wariness, she lowered her hand and gazed back at him. “I-I have powers that are unusual.”

  “I can see that,” he conceded. “I think that’s enough experimenting for the time being. You might set the whole woods ablaze,” he quipped, then changed subjects. “Let’s take the opportunity to get some food and rest before the night gets much colder.” He walked toward his bed, sat down, loaded a plate with food and began to eat. He watched her slide under her covers and considered the brilliant fire for a moment. Then he put his attention back on the beautiful woman whose bed was so close to his. “Brynn, how long have you had this kind of talent?”

  She swallowed some food from her plate before responding. “Since I was little.”

  “And your father didn’t see fit to send you to a Master Sorcerer sooner?”

  She lowered her gaze when his became even more intense. “I told you. I had to know when I was ready. Besides, my father was afraid.”

  “Why?” he prompted.

  “I shouldn’t have had that kind of power at so young an age. My mother wasn’t a wizard at all. We don’t know where I inherited this depth of magic from to begin with. As you probably know, my father was only a minor wizard. For a child to have such a gift…well, my father didn’t want me using it the wrong way. He wanted to make very sure I understood that I had to control it. You can imagine what a little girl might do on a playground to show off, or what a she might have done if she lost her temper for some juvenile reason. I was taught to only use it when my father was present and never to let anyone know I had anything other than a minor wizard’s gifts. Not until I was old enough to apprentice.”

  “You should have studied with a Master sooner,” he reprimanded.

  “You don’t understand.” She turned away from him and stared into the darkness, away from the fire.

  He put his plate down, got up and then sat near her. He then placed his hands on her shoulders and gently forced her to turn to him again. “Tell me.”

  “Soon after we found out that my powers were greater than they should be, my mother was killed in a transport accident. She was going to the market one evening and never came home. My father was devastated. From that day on I was his whole world. I couldn’t just leave him. Most of the great Masters like you live off-world. I’d have had to leave my father behind for years.”

  “And you couldn’t do it,” he acknowledged.

  “Can you understand?”

  For a moment, he was silent. “According to what I heard, your father died at home.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed, “he was in our herb garden and just passed away. The doctors said it was a massive heart attack.”

  “But that was over a year ago, wasn’t it?”

  She took a deep breath. “If you know my father’s reputation, you also know that he usually practiced magic to benefit less wealthy people. They paid what they could, often in trade. Sometimes he’d take fresh vegetables or bread. Sometimes it was clothing or herbs. There wasn’t a lot of money. It took me a while to save enough to get here. I had to know the time was right.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “But he trained you as best he could. That’s why you know how to use the magic of fire so proficiently, isn’t it? And you didn’t let others know about your powers even later because you were afraid of what they’d ask?”

  “Yes. My father said I had to be expertly trained before exhibiting them. He taught me that along with greater power comes the proclivity to use it unwisely and that I had to constantly guard against what people might ask of me. That suggestion you made in the pool and how I reacted to it is a perfect example of what he meant. Sometimes, this gift scares the hell out of me.”

  Her honesty touched and humbled him. He admired both the father and the daughter. Azamus Nightflyer had taught his daughter control and healthy fear of the power she had. And the daughter had shown a willingness to put aside her own needs, forsaking her destiny, in lieu of her father’s. Her choices showed great character and patience. He was heartened by this news. He couldn’t remember any pupil being so in touch with their own weaknesses.

  “Where are your books right now?” he asked.

  She nodded toward the carriage. “The tote containing them is there—I stuffed it under the seat and put a cushion over it.”

  Draco quickly exited her makeshift bed and went in search of her tote. His own books were at the castle, under lock and key. Normally, a wizard didn’t need to take them everywhere to benefit from their powers. It was enough to simply own them. But Brynn had been very careful during her journey. He could guess that she’d never left them alone while on her long voyage from Earth.

  When he found the tote, he brought it to the bed, sad down again and pulled the covers around himself. He handed the dark green bag to her. “Show them to me.”

  She reached inside the large bag and drew out the brown book first, then the black one. As all books in existence were identical and had the same celestial markings of stars and moons engraved into the leather covers, she knew he’d see that hers were no different. He would want to check how they’d been kept, especially the silver latch on the black book.

  Holding the heavy, ornate books on each palm, she sat straight, as tradition demanded, and handed the large volumes to Draco.

  Before taking them, he let his gaze slide over the outer covers and noted how they’d been kept polished and immaculately clean. E
ach of them should weigh about five pounds and were one foot in width by eleven inches in height. Then he checked the depth. The standard was six inches. Pages were never to be removed, though some wizards did this in violation of Guild law.

  Seeing that they hadn’t been altered in any discernable way and that they exhibited no harsh treatment, he took the books from her. The weight, he guessed, was correct. The latches were both exceptionally clean, except that the latch on the black book still had its original seal, which was the same black star insignia placed there by the aliens who’d initially issued the volumes. This came as no surprise to him, given the reputation of the volume’s previous user and the dignity he’d seen so far in the woman beside him.

  Draco set the black book aside and opened the brown volume. The pages were crisp and clean. Great care had been taken with the spells, incantations and instructional pages within. As all those practicing magic of the light, the powers any wizard wielded was dependent upon two things. First, the practitioner had to have been given the ability to practice the arts in the first place. Second, the practitioner had to have memorized many of the spells within the brown book, though not all. He or she could then practice the magic incantations without having the book present for every single occasion and could even mix the spells according to necessity. There were other magic uses that required reading on demand as the length of these reading spells or instructions were too complicated to commit to memory. But always, the books and the practitioners were connected. No magic existed without them for long and the books were useless to those who hadn’t been given the magical ability to read them in the first place.

  It was Draco’s job to not only test Brynn’s abilities as far as her memorization of certain spells was concerned, but it was his job to train her to use her greater natural abilities to do more than what an ordinary, minor wizard could. And her father was right in his assumption that, as her powers were honed, her responsibility and temptation to use them unwisely might also grow. But Draco had a very good feeling about Brynn. She had the books all to herself—for over a year since her father’s death—and hadn’t been tempted once to use more of her ability than that which was comfortable. This imbedded self-censorship impressed him even more than her dedication to her father and his work.