The Apprentice
by Byron Bailey
part 1 of 2
The sour, yellow pus oozing under the bandage almost made me forget the fever. Gangrene. The wound was barely even an inch deep and a mere hand’s span across my thigh, the result of just another successful defense of my mother’s honor. A few stitches and a week or two should have had me standing as easily as ever. Instead, in a week, I might be missing a leg.
Why couldn’t it be my arm? I could almost look forward to an arm amputation. Arm prosthetics had potential. Who would dare say lies about my mother with me waving an enormous, iron hook in their face? Even better, I could have a sword attached to where my arm used to be. Get a limb amputated at the thigh, though, and what did I have to look forward to? A peg leg. The only bright side to having a peg leg was that at least I’d have a ready supply of toothpicks. There had to be another way. I hobbled to the corner.
My hair stood on end as I watched the crowd swarm up and down Sacrifice Avenue. Master Laogar was right. Most people were nothing more than rats scrounging for the stray barley kernel. The only difference between me and the swarm was that at least I knew I was a rat, a rat with gangrene.
I sniffed for danger like the good rat that I was. Burnt pork marinated in garlic sauce. Fermenting sewage wafting up from the city’s bowels. I sniffed deeper. Nectar perfume on the foreheads of those who thought they were women. I sniffed my deepest. Blade oil on the swords of those who thought they were men. I don’t know where my training went wrong but I didn’t catch even a hint of sorcerer’s apprentice.
I staggered out onto the avenue. Arms merchants slid their thumbs along their knives until blood oozed onto the cobbles — an ancient transaction between merchant and gods: blood for gold. To the chagrin of many anemic peddlers, only the gods seemed to know the current rate of exchange.
Before I had taken more than ten steps, an elbow pounded my face. I caught my balance and then glared for a moment. A foot careened off of my calf. I gritted my teeth and tried to hobble forward. Merging with the crowd was the first rule of the avenue. With my wounded thigh, though, I wasn’t fast enough to merge. Instead I clashed.
Suddenly, a walking staff slammed into my thigh. I howled and fell to the cobbles. Scuffed boots and sandals descended upon me, made me gasp. I growled with rage and growing panic. Baznich Rutoff wasn’t one to die beneath the swarm!
A heel pounded my nose. The crowd grew frenzied, sensing blood. Shopping on the avenue could be murderous upon one’s purse. After all, what customer had a chance against the barrels of blood sacrificed by the merchants? Only a sacrifice of their own could even the odds. Pity the victim but hey, Armor Emporium was having a closeout sale!
There was not going to be any closeout sales on my account. I drew my sword and slashed in an overhead circle. The crowd parted. I thanked the gods for the second rule of the avenue. Always get out of the way of a waving weapon.
I slashed my way to a crimson tent. Polov glared at me. With ham-sized biceps riddled with veins, no one could call Polov anemic. His vast reservoir of blood was undoubtedly what made him such a great merchant. His rivals could never eat enough heart to compete with him. If anyone knew of another way, he would.
“Polov,” I dared to say.
“What?” He scowled, twitching like a ten pound pit rat on the verge of ripping into a cat. If I lived past the week, one of my life’s goals was to learn to twitch just like him.
“Can I ask a question?” Polov had ripped the liver out of the last man to ask him a question. I just hoped that I didn’t ask the same question.
“Yes you may. And I’ll tell you the answer. My conscience is clear! Got it? When my blood hardens and Shentiak drinks of my soul, he won’t be able to tell the difference between me and a fine decanter of ogre brandy. Smooth and fine, nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Uh... my conscience is clear, too.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Actually, I was going to ask you a different question.”
His scowl deepened. “Oh, very well.”
I removed the bandage. Polov winced as the pus oozed down my leg and smeared the cobbles. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the gods would be pleased or angered at my unintended sacrifice. I held my breath. After a few heart beats of the ground not swallowing me up, I breathed again. The gods were undoubtedly pleased. They preferred wine over grapes. What was pus if not fermented blood?
“And your question is?” Polov’s voice softened.
“Is there another way?”
He looked at the wound and then bent down and sniffed it. Water flooded his eye. His lips quivered. I must smell really bad. “Kid,” he said, “I don’t know if there is a way at all. If I chop it off now, you still will most likely die.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll go get the axe anyway. At least you’ll have a chance, then.” He turned to go into his crimson tent, stained with the blood of his enemies.
I should just chew hemlock. Nothing impressed a woman as much as a man with a tent stained with the blood of his enemies. What use was my life if I, too, couldn’t eventually have my own tent stained with the blood of my enemies? “Wait.”
“What?” he said.
“Another way. There has got to be one.”
“There isn’t.” He spat on the ground. “At least not one that’s better than the axe.”
“But there is another way,” I said.
“Maybe,” he said grudgingly.
“What is it?”
“You don’t look up to eating heart sausage right now. Heart don’t taste good. It’s what they call an acquired taste. Better to just take the axe. The gods will be happy with the new blood, I’ll be happy that the gods are happy, and you will be happy that you may still live. With so much happiness in a solution, are you sure that you want heart sausage?”
“I want the whole sausage.” Maybe I could keep my leg.
“The Society of Magic-Using Entities that Better the World. There’s your answer in a pigeon’s skull.”
My arms dropped listlessly to my side. Nothing good ever came from SMUEBW. All I needed to do was remember the unicorns.
“You look like you’ve had your fill of heart sausage.”
I nodded glumly.
“I’ll go get the axe.”
“Wait!” I said frantically. “Any work?”
He stared at me like the cat that had done more than hiss and run at the pit rat. “Ain’t it enough that I’ll get rid of the damn thing for nothing but some blood you’d be losing anyway? Instead, you want the privilege of working up a sweat and taking my coin, too?”
“For old time’s sake,” I said.
“Well, I suppose. But only for old time’s sake. I got a crate of cheapies in back. An adder for each one you can turn into a one-hide.”
“Deal.” I’ve never met the sword I couldn’t get at least one hide out of.
I stepped to the back of the tent. The comforting smell of hard-cured leather greeted me. In spite of myself, I grinned at the rack, its metal arms biting into the edges of the hide like an enormous spider clutching a moth. Could any sight be more inviting for a sword tester? I reached into the crate, pulled out a flimsy sword.
Under better times, one false strike on my part officially turned a potential five-hide sword into a peasant’s zero-hide sword. Now apparently, Polov only trusted me with work that wouldn’t cost him much if I failed. But I wouldn’t fail. A good sword tester always got more out of the blade than the steel itself and I was still a good sword tester while I still had both legs.
I raised the sword, my elbows bent at the correct angle. The crowd gave me a wide berth. Everyone respected a sword tester at work or at least nearly everyone. I glared at the single person hovering over my shoulder, his head in danger of being lopped off if I chose to use a vertical slash. Taizo Kules, a fool if there ever was one.
“Well, if it isn’t Baznich Rutoff.” Taizo Kules said my name the way I hated it. My birth name is pronounced baz nik, not baz nitch. And my ancestral name is not rut off. It is roo toff!
“Well, if it isn’t Too Slow Kules.”
“Very funny. Too Slow Kules. Got to remember that one.”
“Well, do that and let me get to work.”
His lips were purple from kissing too many flowers. I never understood the nature movement. Give me ogre brandy straight and keep the flowers, mushrooms, and bat dung in the forest. Any other attitude toward altered states of consciousness was simply uncivilized.
I tried to get to work, sliding my thumb across the edge of the sword. Pathetic! Some smiths had no business making anything more complicated than nails — pity the thief that had to be hammered.
“What are you doing?”
Taizo knew all about sword testing. Before he disappeared and started kissing flowers, he had been a sword tester himself. I gave him my best executioner’s glare, the product of many long hours of staring at my reflection in rain puddles. I always dreamed of being an executioner — all of the glory of the arena without some gladiator three times my size trying to slice my thorax in half.
“That sword looks like a sharp one, maybe nine-hide,” Taizo said.
Some statements are inane to such a degree that trying to dispute them is in itself an insult to intelligence. The world is round. The government serves the people. Learning magic is an exhilarating and enlightening experience. Taizo Kules knew full well that the weapon in my hand barely deserved to be called sword, let alone a nine-hide.
“Yeah, if you say so.” Too much flower kissing. The poor flowers. I’m not sure if they ever got the tongue. It was hard to tell considering the way Taizo spoke, his mouth a mere slit showing only the faintest glint of teeth, never a glimpse of tongue. Whether purple or pink, everyone knew without having to see it that his tongue was forked, though. I raised the blade over my head.
“You only have one hide on the rack. Shouldn’t you have another ten or twelve for such a fine blade?”
If there was one thing I hated, it was empty-handed hide slicers. “Here.” I held the hilt out to him. “If you think you know better, then do it.”
“I can’t.”
“I insist.”
“I said I can’t.”
Then I saw the club hanging from his belt. The poor barkback. If I were him, I’d probably be kissing flowers too. “What happened to your sword?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Why do you ask?”
I stared at the club dangling from his belt. His purple lips twitched. “No reason. No reason at all.” At least I only had to worry about losing leg and life. I turned back to the strip of hide.
“You see, I got made into a sorcerer’s apprentice.”
“Good for you.”
“It’s horrible,” he cried. “My master, he broke my sword right in front of my eyes. My sword! Then he gave me this club and said that I needed to learn to fight with a more humane weapon.”
“The club looks good on you,” I said. “Makes you look more... ah... dignified.”
“Do you really think so?”
I lowered my head in shame. Usually, I was a good liar. The secret to lying was to think of a hypothetical situation where the lie would be true: Yes, I love you more than anything else in the world if only your breasts were larger, your mouth was quieter, and your snore was softer. Merely a matter of imagination. To get the lie, start out saying the hypothetical truth, imagining it fully in the mind, but stop right before the clarification: Yes, I love you more than anything in the world. The problem with Taizo Kules was that I couldn’t think of a hypothetical situation where the club was dignified. Easy to understand, difficult to master.
“Do you want to know how I became an apprentice?” he suddenly asked.
“Not particularly.” I had my own problems to worry about. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Polov’s hands twitching towards the axe in his tent.
“I’m afraid that you’re going to learn whether you want to or not.”
I shrugged. Without a leg, I would undoubtedly have a lot more time to waste listening to rumors.
“I slept with your mother last night,” he said. “She was real cheap. Only two asps for the entire night.”
My bile froze. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” he sighed. “I slept with your mother last night. She was real cheap. Only two asps for the entire night. Is that clear enough for you?”
All good sons, even ones with gangrene, had the right, even the obligation to defend the honor of their mothers. The cheap sword dropped from my hand. As I drew my own personal sword, certified six-hide, the crowd stopped and gawked at the prospect of nonmerchant blood being spilled. Perhaps a few bargains might just slip through the cobbles after all.
Taizo drew his club. The smell of burnt rat on a stick drifted on the wind, made my mouth water. The throng hooted and then quieted in anticipation. We stood facing each other. I advanced, filled with righteous indignation. No one called my mother a whore. Merely because she worked at the Burrowing Bird Brothel and Catering Service didn’t make her a whore. She was a caterer, well-known for her upside-down cakes.
Taizo gave a half-hearted swing to my skull. I deflected the blow and then chopped his club into pieces. Most men would have turned and ran but not Taizo. I searched for any sign of fear on his face. Nothing, not even a twitch as he stood against me, a six-inch section of club his only armament.
He was up to something. How many spells had he learned? It would be just like that fork-tongued bastard to lure me into a duel — give him an excuse to turn me into a daffodil. No way he was going to kiss me!
But then I looked again. His pupils were large and sallow and seemed to be staring past me. His chest slumped. Not at all a vision of triumph. I smelled some kind of trap but couldn’t quite taste what it was. I lowered my sword. “I’ll let you live. All I need is a public apology to appease my mother’s honor.”
“Your mother is a cheap whore and you are a bastard,” he said.
“What did you call me!” I didn’t say it as a question but screamed it as a battle cry, my blade slipping into his intestines. With another blow, I chopped off his head and I didn’t stop chopping until I was very sure he was dead. No one called Baznich Rutoff a bastard. No one! In spite of rumors to the contrary, I knew exactly who my father was. Furthermore, at the time of my conception, my father and mother were very much married.
I am not a bastard!
I realized then and there that I couldn’t live without my leg. Because my body lacked the size to stand toe-to-toe to most opponents, my dueling style required at least as much footwork as it did blade work. Reality was harsh. A peg leg would destroy my footwork. I would die the first time someone said lies about my mother. Or even worse, I might live, afraid to draw my sword, having to stomach every ignorant barkback who couldn’t understand that a caterer and a whore were very different occupations. One catered to a man’s every whim and the other baked cakes. And I was not a bastard!
“Are you ready now?” Polov asked.
“No.” I looked up at him, the axe slumping in his hands. “I just can’t do it.”
He sighed, tossing the axe back into the tent. “For some reason, I just couldn’t see you with a peg leg.”
“I couldn’t, either.”
“I hope the ultimate heart sausage don’t taste too bad,” he said as I hobbled away.
Once I emerged out of Sacrifice Avenue onto Brute Boulevard, the crowd grew a lot less bloodthirsty. I sheathed my sword. Get as drunk as I can and stay that way for as long as I can. That was the plan. I stopped in front of a plain building with a sign of a grinning rat in front of it. The proprietor said the sign wasn’t really a rat. Squirrel was the term he used. Still, no one born on the streets could look at that bristling tail and mistake it for anything but a rabid rat with buck teeth.
Copyright © 2005 by Byron Bailey
