Apprentice

Apprentice by Eric Guindon

Book: Apprentice by Eric Guindon Read Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Guindon
Tags: Fiction
Benen continued working with the rag, moving it around the kitchen with his mind. He found that it took intense concentration for him to exercise fine control over the rag. He thought this might be something to do with the spell he had envisioned. He might very well have overestimated the force he needed for lifting, having had no reference point. Still, he worked with what he had created and soon enough, managed to manipulate the rag and clean the mess on the ceiling.
    Using this newfound control, he picked up a new potato and held it before him in the air. He found he was grinning like an idiot and tried to calm himself for the next part. This part might be more dangerous and a mistake there could cause much greater damage than what had happened with the Pinnacle-based spell and the potato.
    For his next spell Benen chose to call upon the Cleaver constellation. He had already verified it was in the sky and shining and thankfully this was a constellation he had worked with before. The effect he wanted was one that would destroy the peel but leave the potato unharmed. Control and precision were called for.
    He cast the spell and this time, his problem was not one where the effect was overly powerful. This time the effect of the spell was far too subtle. Benen’s fear of creating too great an effect had reduced the spell’s power to the point that all it had done was clean the exterior of the potato, and not even very well at that. He sighed. He was already feeling drained and he’d not even prepared one potato yet.
    Taking a deep breath, he refocused and cast a greater version of the same spell he had just tried. This time he annihilated the potato! Nothing at all was left of it.
    Determined to get this right, Benen took up another potato with his mind. He pictured the exact effect he desired, concentrating on that above all. This time the spell burned and hurt him beyond any of the spells he had cast so far that day. Benen fell to the ground and lost consciousness for a few seconds. Everything hurt. When he was recovered enough he looked to where the potato had fallen: it was perfectly de-peeled.
    Worth it, he told himself, forcing belief that it was into his head.
    He picked himself back up from the ground, used his magic rag to clean the potato, moving both with his strained mind and placed the potato in the pot of water he had prepared for cooking the vegetables.
    The problem, he knew, was that he had concentrated too much on the effect and lost his proper focus on the constellation, the motions, and the incantation.
    I can do better, he thought.
    He worked at it and managed to peel enough potatoes for the wizard’s meal. By this time he felt truly retched and wanted to lie down and sleep for an eternity while his body recovered, but he still needed to prepare a chicken and cook the vegetables. He abandoned the magic-only approach and prepared the rest of the meal using mundane means. He napped while the whole cooked, waking periodically to stir, baste, and check on things.
    In the end, lunch was a success, but Benen felt he needed to practise the spells more. As it was, it had taken greater effort by far to do the steps using magic than to do them by mundane means. This was not as it should be. He was convinced practise was key and tried again at supper time.
    Next he tackled the stain that had defied cleaning by mundane means. He ran into it as part of the normal rotation and confidently applied his magic rag to it. It surprised him that the stain resisted the power of the rag. No matter how much he rubbed it with his enchanted cloth, the stain didn’t change.
    Is this even a stain? he wondered.
    The Overseer had insisted he clean this, so it was definitely something the wizard wanted gone, but it didn’t get removed by the cleaning effect on his rag.
    What could it be?
    Benen knew there were means to try to identify something through a variety of sensory enhancements, but this all seemed like a lot of work to him

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