A Templar's Apprentice by Kat Black

lessons resumed.”
    I squinted up at him. He seemed pensive, as if his mind were still far off in calculation. “Aye,” I said.
    â€œGeordie, can ye do without the lad? I’d like him to sleep a bit.”
    â€œAye, Captain. ’Tis not as if the boards are goin’ anywhere. Prevention, this is. Get ye gone, ye bilge rat.” I smiled at Geordie’s good-natured chafing. His names for me changed by the day.
    â€œYe need me an’ ye know it, old man.” I tossed a floppy straw hat to him. “Cover yer head before ye burn out what little mind ye’ve got.”
    The Templar cuffed me as I passed. “Respect for all, Tormod. A knight can be funny but not disrespectful o’ an elder.”
    I ducked my head guiltily but caught Geordie’s wink as I stowed my bucket. The Templar walked away.
    â€œBilge rat,” Geordie said beneath his breath.

    The night sky was black and the stars winked like fireflies. Not a cloud marred the view, not a wind crossed the bow. I stood at the wheel as I had for the last several candle marks. Tonight’s lesson was how to shoot the moon. I looked forward to it. The astrolabe, our charts, quills, and ink lay on a plank set across two casks. We were to take our headings from the height of the moon from the horizon as it related to the position of several stars.
    The door to the forecastle creaked behind me, and in the still blackness I saw the silhouette of the Templar silently cross the deck.
    â€œHave the others gone below?” His question was nearly lost in the wash of the sea, and suddenly, for no reason I could fathom, the skin on the nape of my neck prickled.
    â€œAye. None have been about for more than a candle mark.” I matched my tone to his, not knowing why, but sure that it was something I should do. He stepped into the moon’s shimmer of light and I saw that he carried a small bundle in his hands. He glanced quickly about and laid his burden on the plank beside our equipment.
    Recognizing the wrappings, I stepped back, uncertain and no little bit frightened.
    â€œProp the wheel an’ come to me. Be quick about it, the moon is even now reaching its apex.”
    I looked up. The moon seemed full, but I had no experience to judge the absolute peak of the cycle. “What must we do?” I asked.
    He unwrapped the carving. This close I could see what I was not able to before. It was made of hardwood, stained dark with age. It was a woman. She was on her knees, but sitting back on her heels. Her hands were lifted above her head, palms up, as if reaching, waiting.
    The Templar moved behind the cask and crouched, looking at the carving. He shifted it several times, and it took me a moment to realize he was arranging the figure according to his sight of the moon. When the form was where he wanted it, he said, “Hand me the astrolabe.”
    â€œWhat are we doing?” I whispered, giving it to him.
    â€œFollowing a vision,” he said mysteriously.
    I watched as he turned the astrolabe’s back to us and then placed the instrument into the hands of the carving. “God’s toes,” I gasped. It was a perfect fit, as if one had been made for the other.
    The warm rush of air and the tingling of a million pinpricks that I had felt before in the carving’s presence flowed across my skin as the carving began to glow. Its brilliance lit the ebony of the night with a cascade of shimmering stars. And as I looked on these, lights began to lessen and spread out, their tiny reflections winking on the dark wooden planks at my feet.
    â€œHere, Tormod. Hurry. Crouch an’ tell me what ye see.”
    I moved to his side and took a sighting through the center of the astrolabe. My breath caught tight in my throat. The brilliant sparkles of light that radiated from the carving were exactly in position with the myriad of stars surrounding the moon. As I stared and the moon reached its fullest, the lights