“And why does smoke-based dispersion of alchemical aromas have a less potent, but more lasting effect than steam, resin, or alcohol based dispersion?” Merel stared out at the small classroom, standing at the front podium, holding up the incense burner. Thirty pairs of eyes stared at her, teenage girls whose retinas had glazed over about ten minutes prior. “Come now, this is going to be on your end-of-term, which you must pass if you wish to become a legitimate wizard at Lodgrey.”
“Burning aromatics can reduce their efficacy or change it all together, like with true eastern styrax.” Aine, who was the lone enthusiastic member of Merel’s earliest morning class held up her hand only after speaking. Her long dark braids gave her a rather matronly look, but she was possibly one of the least mature of her year, and Merel wouldn’t be surprised if she was retained another year before the official rites to become a wizard.“Yes. Siobhan in the front,” she said, pointing to another student, “what is the difference in use between burnt eastern styrax, and its raw form?”
“The raw form is used in medicines, isn’t it? For…” Siobhan trailed off. “Anesthetic and maybe…anti-contamination?”
“And the burnt form?” Merel was eager for student participation, but was met with silence as the girl hung her head. “Anyone?”
“The burnt form is an effective ward,” said Aine, the single excited student.
“Very good.” Merel set down the incense burner, its brass exterior still releasing its cascade of smoke. “But why would they last longer?”
“It’s smoke,” said one girl with a disgruntled groan. “It sticks to everything.”
The entire class half groaned in boredom. Merel was personally not fond of the smoke unit, but what was she to do for it? Many of the more reputed wizards in the field dealt nearly exclusively in smoke dispersion due to its morphology of ingredients, its cross-section of magical rite and ritual, and the way that it contributed to many other fields, particularly its use and its intersection with seals. It needed taught, she reasoned, even if Merel was more interested in oil and resin aromatic alchemy.
“There! Simple explanation, thank you.” Merel leaned on her cane a bit more easily, and sighed. “Our coming unit is going to be on how to calculate the efficacy and duration of smoke based aromatic alchemistry, and you will have a self-demonstration at the end of the two weeks. I expect something beyond simple incense, I know that you covered that in introductory alchemy. We will also be reviewing how ingredients may change upon burning, how to predict that based upon concentration, hydration, oxidation, and volume, and which ingredients do change. The list of known ingredients whose utility changes when burnt is going to be in the textbook, and surely in your own practice you will be able to cross-reference literature, but it is good to be aware and have material memorized independently, so understand that this is an expectation. Lastly, our closing mark for today– I want you to write on your slate what desired effect would come from lighting what is in this incense burner, based on the scent and your observations and knowledge of it. It is not all botanical, so do not assume that you can use that alone. You may consult your previous notes to answer this.”
In the doorframe, Merel could see her mentor, the school’s headmistress, leaning against the high, vaulted arch. She was observing bemusedly and with a fond smile, and Merel stiffly stood a bit straighter. Mebd was a kind woman, but rather eccentric and something of a rigorous and tight-laced academic who held her students and staff to similar standards. Merel’s favor with her was something that came from a recognition that at least in rigidity, they were similar. Mebd approached, walking as if she floated over the stone floor, her grey crown of hair high above Merel.
“I admit, Mage Pedler, I do not remember my own aromatic alchemistry class particularly fondly,” she said in a dry low whisper, standing beside the podium. “But I respect your commitment to keeping the class challenging.”
“I don’t think this should be challenging, with all due respect, Headmistress Colum.” Merel smiled with a dry twist of sarcasm. “Perhaps you have been operating in energy-transfer for far too long, and us lowly alchemists have slipped through your mental grasp, as sand through a clenched fist?”
“You are far too eager, my girl, to best your superiors.” Mebd tilted her head. “That is why I like you. Nobody else around here is a suitable challenge for me. Now, to business–”
Aine stood to set her slate in the bin very loudly, and Merel waved. “You’re dismissed once you’re complete, girls,” she added hastily to the class, and she could hear the scrawls on the shale speed up.
“Business.” Mebd repeated herself, voice notably softer. “Do you remember what I told you a few months ago of a potential apprenticeship with the court mage of King Fraech?”
“Yes, and I told you I had met him when I was still attending classes not six years past, perhaps a bit more– and that I had not been particularly enamored with the man.”
“He is and remains one of my best respected colleagues, and he does require an apprentice. He requested you quite specifically by name.”
“Nobody requires an apprentice,” whispered Merel firmly. “I will not lower myself from a tenured academic position, at one of the best reputed wizard schools on the earth, to be someone’s apprentice. And I do not wish to leave Lodgrey.”
“Think more charitably of it,” Mebd insisted. “He’s an old man, Merel. He’s going blind. He has asked for you, and if you are any good at it at all, which I know you will be, you will likely serve as the next court mage. Consider the honor that would be for you. And given your position–”
“I understand,” said Merel with a little twist of a scowl. “I haven’t got a leg to stand on with an ordinary atelier, I am aware–”
“Your jokes are much appreciated.”
“But I think accepting an apprenticeship is moving backwards for me. My career cannot take such a hit, and I don’t think my finances can either.”
Another slate thunked into the bin, and a happy redheaded girl nearly skipped out. Merel waved to her.
“We can talk of this when your students finish their classwork,” said Mebd.
Merel sighed, and sat down at the seat at the front of the class beside the podium, watching her girls scrawl busily. It reminded her of her mother’s chickens, she thought, clucking in their hutches, scratching at the wood. The slate pencils scraped against her ears; in all her nine years here at Lodgrey she had not grown accustomed to the sound of slates. But as an instructor, it had gone from grating alone, to a bit of a reward, a sign that they were at least working. A few more clunked into the bin, and one of the hour bells sounded. Usually that signaled that class was over, but her students knew better; until their work was completed they were to remain.
It took another ten minutes of silence before at last, Fiadh, a shy little blond mouse who Merel could not be convinced actually wanted to become a wizard, at last put her slate in the bin, leaving Merel and the headmistress in the large empty stone halls of the classroom. The vaulted dark ceilings above were illuminated only by the silvery light of the early-autumn mists in the mountain valley, and visible were their violet peaks a few miles away. The place was frigid, and Merel pulled her shawl close as she stood with the help of her cane and walked to one of the huge windows, looking out over the snow. It had begun a week past, and was still only a fine dusting, not yet the treacherous embankments of impassable winter.
“Try and give it sincere consideration,” said Mebd, walking beside Merel and looking out at the window. “I know that you have a certain hesitance about this–”
“I thought I was very clear about the fact that I sought tenureship so that I could continue my research here undisturbed and pay off my debts to my benefactors. Headmistress, I fear that you have gone above me for some reason which I do not understand.”
“Think.” Mebd scolded her, folding her narrow, bony arms. “Merel, if I am to be candid with you, there will not be any offers for you outside of Lodgrey. There will be no atelier that will take you, there will be no laboratory or monasteries that will take you. You know this.”
“I will pay the Currans off and will have no need of Tadg, it is a paperwork engagement only, and I will stay here–”
“And you have not told him that, have you?” Mebd stared her down, steely brown eyes not softening in pity, but condolence. “It is very unconventional for a wizard to even consider marriage, let alone be engaged to be wed or arranged to be wed. Before your tenure, you were declined from how many ateliers?”
“At least two dozen,” said Merel softly. “And many of them cited my arrangement or doubts of my ability.”
“And that is because they are shallow fools. But someone of your intellect shouldn’t be rotting away up here as a schoolteacher.”
“I research,” said Merel defensively.
“And you also waste your own time. You should considering opportunities beyond the confines of these walls. You have far more potential than waiting for students to hand in slates on magical incense. And you and I both hate to admit it, but this might be the only offer you get.”
“Tadg wouldn’t want me to go so far from home, my benefactors and my family would suffer for it, too.” She averted her eyes from Mebd. “Bluestone is another week’s journey from Carrafrag. It’s unreasonable, honestly.”
“Do you not understand that I wish for you to have a way to be parted from Tadg?” Mebd scowled at her, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. Her crinkled face was beginning to show her age.
“I know what I’ve said, but I would not do such a thing to him. Not in such an unfair way, I shall repay my debt as was agreed years ago.” Merel glanced up at Mebd, then back down at the floor. “I may not care as much for him, but he loves me very dearly, and while he should not be satisfied with me being here at all times but holidays, I also know that he would be even less satisfied with any other bride. Tadg knows to whom he is engaged. He knows that my studies and obligation thereof are first in my heart. And deep down he knows that my ambition is to be parted from him on the terms set previously. If I’m breaking his heart, I want to do it fairly.”
“I worry for you, Merel. You and the heart that I helped part and place with you. Your capacity to perform magic is a gift, and you are a great prodigy, I would hate to see you wasted here. I would hate to see you become an ashen, stern thing that has known nothing but the must and stone up here in the mountains, still bound by debt and poverty.”
“I already am an ashen stern thing,” said Merel dismissively.
“The girl whose heart I placed into that pendant,” said Mebd, her slender, bony hand grasping the amber pendant around Merel’s neck, “would not have said that.”
“Mebd, I am not the same wounded child I was then. I have grown into someone more aware of her place in the world, and I know what I am to be, and to remain.” Merel felt the warmth of her mentor’s hand around her heart, and flinched a bit; Mebd was the only person who knew what she had bound her heart to, but it was still an unfamiliar feeling.
“I think you have still got plenty of room to grow.” Mebd delicately tucked the pendant beneath Merel’s shawl. “There is great potential within you yet, if you would but cultivate it. Here.” Mebd grabbed one of the desk chairs and pulled it over for Merel to sit. “I thought that once, you wished to be the finest wizard our world would ever see.”
“Of course.” Merel sighed. “You grow out of these things, Mebd, and realize that you shall always stand on the foundation of your betters. Suddenly your concern, then, is not being the very greatest, but making sure the stone you place is steady for whoever builds atop you.”
“You need not tell me that.” Mebd softened. “At only twenty five winters, my Merel Pedler is as wise as her elders and as embittered and tired too. So many mentors would be proud. I cannot be, Merel. I miss the light that was in your eyes before you had resigned to this.”
“I’ve been teaching for three years, Mebd, I know it is my place.”
“You have barely seen how many places there are in the world. If you will not do this for yourself, Merel, would you do it for me?”
Merel sighed, a thin breath in the chill air. Her memories went to her home, now. It was not Carrafrag, she realized, when she thought of the comfort of home. Instead, she thought of Lodgrey. Cold stone, the warm dense air of the library, the scent of parchment, her study and laboratory, and the faculty and students she had grown to care very much about. “If I go, can you promise me I will have a place here always?” Her stomach twisted slightly
“Oh, Merel.” Mebd hugged her tightly, and Merel jumped a bit, gently pushing Mebd away.
“You’re stifling me, please,” breathed Merel, who was beginning to feel her throat close, and Mebd nodded and pulled away.
“You are, to me, as dear as family, that I always wished to raise up and teach, with whom I have happily shared all that I may. You will always have a place here at Lodgrey. So long as I am its headmistress.”
“I appreciate it, Mebd.” Merel sighed and rubbed her shoulder. “You mean it? Sincerely?”
“Sincerely.” Mebd tousled her hair as she had when Merel was still her student. “Miss Pedler, my dear, will you take the position?”
“I think it would do me some good. Though, I love Lodgrey, and here I feel safe and comfortable.” Merel paused. “The world is not a kind place, Mebd.”
“Think about it.” Mebd drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Merel could not blame her. The chilly air sunk into every dark, ancient, stained and weathered stone that Lodgrey was built upon. “Come. Let’s get some fresh air.”
Comments (0)
See all