The master, Hand (pronounced with a Hrun�rian d, as if it were a t, for no real reason other than, perhaps, to make him sound interesting), sighed slowly. He had seemed to have infinite patience at the start, but some days it seemed to wear thin after so long with his unlearning charge.
�Perhaps you could show me how to do it again, Master?� asked Leimar, half wincing as he said it.
Hand did so, almost carelessly, forming the weaves into an intricate basket that created a small green orb in the real world, which glowed briefly, then shrank into nothingness as the magic wore thin. Leimar started to try again, but Hand stopped him with a wave of his hand.
�Tell me again, boy, why did you become my apprentice?� asked Hand, his piercing eyes for now relaxed, staring at the ceiling, seemingly tracking down loose squirrel-frog webs.
�Because you have such a great reputation as a Mage, master Hand, and I wished to learn from one of the greatest, and become great myself one day� Is that not right master?� was Leimar�s apprehensive reply.
�Maybe that�s your side, but why did I take you on?�
�Because of my skill in healing, master��
�I wasn�t asking you, boy� was Hand�s curt reply; �It was rhetorical, for myself. You might become good one day, but great? Not unless you progress faster than you are. You cannot even yet create Orgial�s Ball, after months of trying.�
�I am close though master, please, give me a chance,� Leimar was almost pleading.
�Never beg, boy. A Mage never rises on his knees.� Hand winced as he shifted position; his knee was hurting. Almost unthinkingly Leimar formed a hugely elaborate ball of magic threads which he centred on Hand�s knee. A few strands extended either way along Hand�s leg, melting into the flesh and almost instantly soothing the pain.
�Thanks boy.� Hand smiled slightly, a little fondness in his eyes. �If only you could make it permanent.� All magic dissolved within a little while. Some creations lasted days, some seconds, but none indefinitely. The threads shrank and became too thin to hold each other, slipping out of their weaves as their energy was used up. The salve on Hand�s leg would last perhaps an hour or two, quite a while for a healing. Leimar was a talented boy in that, but found this unthinking brilliance hard to apply to other fields of magic.
Hand stood up quickly and dismissed Leimar with a brief word. As Leimar left Hand stretched his leg and found it good, not painful at all. He then contemplated hard, trying to decide which pair of shoes to wear. This was a particularly hard choice as the shoetrees needed to be equally used; there could not be uneven wear on them. He tried to remember which one he had worn the shoes from least recently, and discovered it was his curled boots. A bit showy for dinner, perhaps, but the shoetrees had to be balanced. They couldn�t be left imperfect.
*
Leimar slammed himself onto his bunk, immediately cursing himself, for he had caught the back of his head on Slober, his familiar. It looked to be part lizard, a lot teeth and part canteen scrapings. Slober was very loyal, but a little too fond of nipping, which is a pest when he is mainly made out of mouth. Slober was useful for carrying stuff and holding weaves which had been part made (it was a magical beast after all), but Leimar mainly had him for show.
The beast he had found in a Perilous Dump whilst searching for magical ingredients for Hand. The Perilous Dumps were given capital letters as they were not traditional waste dumps, they were pits for magical rubbish, and as such were much more bizarre and, therefore, interesting places to go. Leimar had found Slober fighting a small pot plant over an interesting puddle of violet liquid. The small puddle greeted Leimar with a despondent shrug, as if to say it had seen it all before and was resigned to its fate. Slober eventually won, conjuring up an image of pruning shears, which drove the whining pot plant off. Leimar took a liking to the thing, and, once it had finished with the puddle, he adopted it as his own. Slober took to Leimar as well, though this took a few rather odd false starts.
Leimar patted Slober on his head, soothing the by now agitated beast, whilst rubbing his head with the other hand. Leimar then sat behind his desk, rather flustered, and Slober continued chewing on its girder. Leimar attempted to weave a thread then, the weave he had been attempting earlier with Hand. It just didn�t work; his mind couldn�t consciously alter the threads like that. He was fine doing it unthinkingly, when healing was required, but seemed incapable of intentionally forming a magical weave. He opened a magic book, and picked a random weave from the first few pages he found. The spell was a simple one and he sat, forming it, for the rest of the evening, and much of the night.
A few hours after he started a smile grew on Leimar�s face, and he sat back to sleep, a small rose in his palm, silently fading in the soft moonlight through his unshuttered window.
*...