I thought bitterly, she just wanted someone to deliver candles a few more years. And then I thought, no. I thought about all the food she kept trying to stuff in me and how she worried that I stayed a runt. And I thought about . . . about Dag saying that I needed to believe that I’d done Sippy’s leg wrong. Mum was like that too. Nothing she did was ever really right; everything she did she thought she should have done better. She’d’ve seen me doing the same thing.
She was trying to let me grow up a little more. Apprenticeship was serious. You didn’t apprentice twelve-year-olds because it was too difficult for twelve-year-olds. Even a twelve-year-old who already knew what he wanted to do. Especially a twelve-year-old who passionately knew what he wanted to do and equally passionately believed he’d be hopeless at it.
If I’d been being fair I’d’ve admitted three years ago that someone like me probably wouldn’t be apprenticed till they were sixteen—it wasn’t really true that everyone went at fourteen. It depended on the kid. But even if I’d been taller than Dag and brighter than Kel and didn’t worry about everything all the time (just like her) my mother probably still wouldn’t have let me be apprenticed early. My dad might’ve. He didn’t think about things like maturity. He would’ve just thought, the boy wants to be a wizard, here’s a wizard wants to apprentice him, great. I remembered now that Mum’d had a funny spell of going around the house muttering, ʺTwelve is much too young to be apprenticed,ʺ when I was twelve, which I’d thought pretty strange. I wasn’t worrying about being apprenticed then—and at twelve I looked about eight—but I was already worrying about it for when I was fourteen.
But my parents knew that I spent every spare minute with Ralas and by letting Ralas apprentice me they were also doing their best for my future. And—this was even harder to admit—my mum was right about making me wait. If she’d let me go even at fourteen I’d’ve believed that I had to learn everything in the first six months—I had too much to prove because I was the youngest and the least of the three of us brothers. And I realised with something like amazement that it was the last three years of giving people stuff that would help them feel better—of learning more stuff and learning to read people better—that was teaching me patience.
Even my parents didn’t know that I didn’t just want to be a wizard, I wanted to be . . .
Ralas had turned back to the others. I missed what she’d begun saying but I heard: . . . ʺthe strongest gift for healing of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s one of the things that’s kept me there, in Birchhome, because as we all know healing is not a popular form of wizardry and while I’m not the best teacher he could have I’ll do to start with—and there are not many who will teach it at all.ʺ
ʺBirchhome,ʺ said one of the old guys who hadn’t spoken before. ʺWe did wonder.ʺ
ʺWhy shouldn’t I want a bit of peace and quiet for a change?ʺ Ralas said briskly and I stopped thinking about myself long enough to want to know what she was talking about. Nearly everybody who had ever met her wondered what she was doing in Birchhome. Now that I was her apprentice maybe I could ask her what she’d done before. ʺI suspect one of the reasons his parents wanted a secret apprenticeship is because they know healing is the area of wizardry Ern is drawn to, and a three-year head start would help ground him in the difficult field he’s chosen—or that has chosen him. Fortunately Ern’s healing gift is nearly matched by his stubbornness.ʺ She turned her head and smiled at me, and there was no wryness in it at all.
Apprentice. I’d been Ralas’ real honest-to-wizardry apprentice for three years. The rest of what she’d said still pretty much went past me. Gift? Me? Keeping her in Birchhome? But if I was going to have a gift, it would be for the wrong thing. Except that I wanted to be a healer. Badly wanted it. And she was right about this much: I was stubborn.
I could feel a huge stupid smile breaking over my face. I turned to look at Dag and a great grin spread over his face too, and suddenly he looked about twenty years younger. I hadn’t realised how old he’d been looking, from the day he’d showed up at our parents’ house and told us about Hereyta and his First Flight—the smile looked like what had happened on that First Flight was finally sinking in. And maybe a little bit that he could stop worrying about me. He was our mum’s son too, after all.
ʺI don’t have any idea how Ern did what he did for your dragon,ʺ Ralas went on. ʺAnd I doubt that Ern does either. I don’t think it’s only his well-known aversion to being the centre of attention that’s making him uncooperative today. But I will tell you also that when he turned up at my house with Sippy as a broken-legged pup and I’d seen what he’d done I realised that my suspicion that he was a healer was truer than I’d guessed . . . and I was also very interested in why he’d been given a foogit as his familiar. Foogits used to be quite popular as familiars hundreds of years ago, but I know of no wizard who uses one now. And a wizard who specialises in healing and furthermore uses a foogit . . . Ern will need all the grounding he can achieve, and all the stubbornness he is capable of.
ʺMost of us do without familiars altogether, which I think is rather a pity. And I thought of the tale of Erzaglia and Sorabulyar the moment I heard about Hereyta. I had no sign to send Ern and Sippy back with Dag to the Academy but it seemed the obvious thing to do. It seemed too obvious to need or ask for a sign.ʺ
I muttered to myself, or to Sippy, as you might mutter an old familiar charm when recent events were too wild and strange for you, ʺI didn’t do much of a job for you, really. I messed up your leg.ʺ
Ralas said out loud, so everyone could hear, ʺYou did not mess up Sippy’s leg. Sippy’s leg wasn’t just broken, it was shattered. He should have been dead of fever before you got him back to me. He should at least have lost the leg. He’s not even lame on it any more. It’s a little scarred . . . but I’m a little scarred, and I don’t feel the healers who saved my life messed me up. And you were eleven. It was after that I went and asked your parents to apprentice you to me—and of course I had to explain why I was so interested, although I tried not to emphasize healing too much. I won’t have you long—I’m still only an all-sorts wizard—ʺ
A muffled grunt from the old guy who’d commented on Birchhome. ʺ‘All-sorts’ in your case covers a bit more than usual.ʺ
ʺAs you like,ʺ said Ralas, unperturbed. ʺWhatever my skills are, they will serve to get Ern started. Which they have done.ʺ
The original old guy said carefully, ʺWe—the Academy—are quite interested in Ern’s future ourselves.ʺ
ʺLet me have him three more years,ʺ said Ralas, as if what the old guy had said was only what she was expecting him to say. ʺTill he’s eighteen. I can cram quite a lot in in the next three years,ʺ and she smiled a conspiratorial smile at me before turning back to the old guys. ʺWe might—I would hope to—begin to find out why or how Ern’s gift could shape itself to Hereyta’s need. It was not an ordinary sort of healing—which makes me wonder—hope—if perhaps it might be the beginning of a new discipline of healing—one which might even make that crucial branch of wizardry respectable at last.
ʺWhen your messenger came of course his parents heard something of what had happened during First Flight, but it was clear to all of us that as his master I should come to the Academy and contribute what I could to the discussion. I can, if you wish it, begin to prepare them for the future. But they will hardly turn down a place at the Academy for him once he turns eighteen.ʺ