Frightening a Thaumaturge and being put into a seizure is not a combination of experiences I would recommend, but at the very least I got a few interesting…benefits.

  For one thing, the Thaumaturge was quite quick in sealing off the room to leave only the two of us within it. I thought, at first, that he was about to rape me, instead he sat down and met my eye.

  “You have the Knack,” he told me.

  I scraped my brain for any hint of that term and found none.

  “What?” I asked, intelligently. He rolled his eyes and muttered something about illiterate goat-fuckers.

  “The Knack, for magic, you idiot,” the Thaumaturge growled, “congratulations. You have more of it than any other apprentice I’ve ever met, seen or heard about.”

  I sat down too. Or, rather, my legs stopped working suddenly and I was fortunate enough to fall into a chair. “How is that possible?” I wheezed.

  “Fuck if I know,” he snapped, “we’re all born with it or we’re not. You were born with it.” The Thaumaturge was pacing now, grunting. “You don’t know Thaumaturgy, then? Never been trained?”

  “N…No?” I was still trying to wrap my head around the revelation.

  “Figures.” The Thaumaturge got to his feet and started pacing. “Have you felt odd lately?”

  The question caught me off guard, and this whole conversation was starting to feel…disorienting. I did my best to stick with it, galvanizing my thoughts into something more useful than mindless discombobulation.

  “Odd how?” I asked. “I was recently hauled into a Thaumaturge’s office.”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, and, not wanting to be turned into a newt, I shut up. “I mean strangely high in energy, maybe even faster or stronger than normal. How’s your healing?”

  That set a bell ringing in my head, of course.

  “Fine. Faster than usual I…Yes, yes to all that. I feel strong, fast and I’ve been healing quick.”

  The penny dropped, at last. It had only taken me a week. Well, in my defence I’d hardly known these signs were even something I ought to be watching out for. Now that I did, though, it was undeniable. Helped me make sense of the situation.

  “I’m really magic?” I frowned.

  “Don’t say it like that,” the Thaumaturge spat. “We’re not magic, nobody’s magic—not unless you’re a bloody Aelf. We use magic. Influence it, manipulate it. We don’t control it, let alone embody it.”

  That started a new and interesting part of the discussion, wherein I was placed in the rather unusual position of hearing about magic as more than just abstract theory. And repeatedly, angrily, told not to refer to it as magic.

  Many of my mistaken beliefs about the delicate science of Thaumaturgy were thus dispelled.

  No, Thaumaturges did not incant ancient languages to alter the stuff of creation itself.

  No, Thaumaturges did not call on ancient spirits to do their bidding…most of the time.

  No, Thaumaturges did not make pacts with darkthings and daemons…unless they were going against the order’s rules.

  What Thaumaturges did, I found out, was induce sympathy in the world’s objects. Take one thing to affect another.

  It sounded simpler than it actually was, because in practice there were a thousand subtleties that affected how it could be done and what it could manage. The basic rundown I was given did not, either, explain the actual practices I’d seen carried out using Thaumaturgy.

  “How the fuck do you shoot fireballs at things using that then?”

  “You draw heat out of the surrounding air,” the Thaumaturge sighed as if he were dealing with a particularly ignorant child, “probably by exhaling into your hand and cooling the warm breath.”

  I thought about that, but could make no sense of it. “How does that work?” I snapped. “The air was cool when I saw a Thaumaturge do that, there was no warmth in it—only coldness.”

  The Thaumaturge burst out laughing at that. And he didn’t stop laughing, not until a good thirty seconds had passed and his lungs started making horrid wheezing noises as the air scraped its way forcibly into them.

  “I…I forget, sometimes, how stupid the rest of you are.”

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  I just sat there and tolerated his outburst, waiting for my answer.

  “Cold isn’t a real substance, it’s just the absence of heat,” he chuckled out at last, “think of the relationship between shadow and light.”

  He could have said that without the laughter of course, but he was a prick. A magical prick, and magical pricks, I was already learning, tend to enjoy the sound of their own voices.

  I was treated to that same sound too for a good while, though I did actually make myself listen to it. I still hadn’t gotten over the surprise of being told…all I’d been told, and as far as I knew my best shot of making sense of it was by taking in whatever this bastard had to say about it.

  That didn’t mean I had to treat it all as true either, I fully intended to investigate later on. I knew well enough that people of knowledge could take advantage of others’ ignorance and make the truth whatever they wished, I’d done that enough myself, even, with actually illiterate villagers, and I had no intention of falling prey to it now.

  “So what do I do now?” I asked after a while, once the Thaumaturge had finally finished pissing his supposed wisdom out over me. I saw his beady eyes grow beadier still, as I might have expected. Thaumaturges were no different from any other man—they didn’t spend an hour talking to someone they didn’t think they stood to gain from.

  “Now?” The Thaumaturge shrugged, “up to you. You can try and study Thaumaturgy if you want, but it’ll cost you. Twenty grains a year.”

  He could’ve just stabbed me in the gut and not thrown me off so much and so quickly. Twenty grains a year was more than some merchants made from all their trade combined, it was the wages for a score of farmers. And it was more than double my remaining savings from Rogrid. If I asked Gruin to borrow all he had I might muster enough for it, but that was a fat chance if I’d ever seen one.

  “Ha! No, I didn’t think you had the cash. Let me know how this tournament goes then,” the Thaumaturge grinned, “now get out of my laboratory.”

  I was out soon after that, sooner, really, than I could even track, stumbling into the street and half-delirious with all I’d been told.

  With not much else to do, I just headed back to my set of rooms with Gruin. The Grynkori was awake by the time I ended, and glowered at me as I strode in.

  “What took you so long?!” he grunted, eating what looked like an entire leg of lamb as he spoke. I was on the brink of answering when something very, very important occurred to me. Several somethings, really, pieced together from little bits and pieces I’d heard over our months together. It gave me pause the way only a brick wall normally could.

  “What…Is your problem with magic, exactly?” I frowned.

  Gruin spat, sending a big gobbet of meat flying past his teeth.

  “It’s bloody weird, evil shit done by nutters who’ll get themselves and everyone else killed. The darkthings are magic, and magic comes from the darkthings. My people have known that since yours were still playing with your own shit in open fields.”

  That actually mirrored a lot of the sentiments I’d heard regarding Thaumaturgy from my own people, which took the edge partly off my fears that Gruin might simply kill me outright if he found I had a knack for it. Still, though, I didn’t think it was possible to be too cautious when dealing with him.

  “And Thaumaturges?”

  Gruin spat again. “That bastard Morlo is one too many, as far as I’m concerned. They can all go and hang.”

  It was actually one of the less violent things I’d heard him say about…really anything he disliked, which I took as a sign of reassurance…just not a strong enough one to risk telling the truth.

  “I’m just asking ‘cause I had to meet with a Thaumaturge before taking part in the tournament, something about a physical test. I think they want to make sure I’m not cheating with magic or something.”

  “Pah,” Gruin muttered, “don’t have that problem in the caves, let me tell you.”

  I decided, rather diplomatically, not to point out that it was because the entire Grynkori race had the combined magical prowess of a decomposing rat turd.

  Another day passed, and this one I spent doing rather less drinking and eating, and rather more training and working. I’d not exactly gotten out of practice in a mere few days, the opposite if anything. It had been so long since I’d let myself just lounge around and do nothing that, I now realised, my body had never quite allowed itself to reach perfect condition.

  I enjoyed that feeling as I lightly pushed myself to stay sharp and ready, feeling the absence of all those muscular knots and aching joints I’d grown used to. By the time I was ready for the tournament, I actually found myself eager to take part in it just for the joy of fighting.

  Funny that. But then, what did I have to fear? I wouldn’t be killed, that much was for sure.

  The tournament was taking place in a bigger stadium than any I’d yet fought in, but I was long past being intimidated by little things like that. I stretched and readied myself as I watched the first few bouts, keeping an eye open to gauge the strength of the competition.

  I had to say, it was more than a little impressive. Clearly everyone involved in this little event had gone through similar testing to me, because I didn’t see a single amateur among the group. For that matter, I suspected that every one of the people I watched could have won most of the tourneys I’d fought in before—and this was still the first round.

  There was skill at play, yes, but a great deal of physical superiority too. So much of that in fact that I found myself cursing my own stupidity for not taking the chance to ask more about it when I’d spoken with the Thaumaturge. How had he known I’d felt stronger than normal? And what could I do with that? Would it last?

  I bloody hoped so, or else these men would kill me.

  Soon enough it was my turn to come up, and I was called out to a rather lukewarm reception from the crowd. I flashed them a smile anyway, testing the weight of my practice blade—the tournament didn’t allow edged steel—and loosening all my joints for the thousandth time.

  My opponent wasn’t bothering with any such efforts as that, apparently suited just fine by his body’s current condition and practically strolling his way into the stadium. His practice sword seemed a shade longer than mine, though perhaps it just felt like that from having it pointed my way.

  The match’s beginning was called, and we both moved at once…Then promptly stiffened up and started pacing once we came to within just a few inches of one another’s range. It was a pattern I’d seen before, and it wouldn’t hold out for long. The two of us circled cautiously.

  I was the one who moved first. Impulsive, that was, maybe stupid. But I felt so overflowing with energy that I simply had to give it vent, and I did so with a feint for the other boy’s face and a sudden, sharp twist down at his wrist. He barely evaded it, and with how he stumbled back after my opponent seemed ten years younger than before.

  My age, he was. But not nearly my skill.

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