The first night, after their hurried escape from the burning mansion, they found a dry cave with a sandy floor. Exhausted, aching to the bone, hearts still pounding from the flight, they didn't speak.
Stebia pulled up her apron as a makeshift pillow and he leaned back against the cool wall, crossing his arms. He heard her breath echoing around the cavern, eventually evening out, although how she could sleep with rocks digging into her side was beyond him. He was used to sleeping on cushioned library chairs, or else a linen-stuffed bed. He was certain that he would get no sleep this night.
When he awoke, her back was against his. She was curled up in a ball, her apron draped over both of them. It wasn't doing much. He sat up, stirring her awake. She blinked and yawned as he stood up, letting her apron fall in the dirt. "Get up," he said. "We should go back now." The girl groaned. "Why? What good'll it do us?" She looked up at him reproachfully, dusting off her skirt. "There ain't nothin' there now. Them knights musta burned it all." Stebia stretched and stood, only coming up to just below his shoulder. "'Sides. What if they're still around? Could want to find you. Just 'cause yer milord's youngest son don't mean yer not important."
He scoffed. "Please. It's not as if anyone paid attention to me in that place. I doubt Father remembered me half the time."
She bent over to tie her apron back on. "I minded you."
Isaard looked at her contemplatively. "That you did."
The trudge back to the mansion seemed longer in the daylight. Without adrenaline to carry their feet over roots and fallen branches, and without a clear direction, they stumbled through the forest for a long time. Stebia seemed to know the way. She would occasionally stop Isaard, tilt her head as if trying to remember something, and adjust their direction ever so slightly. In this way they came across Isaard's home.
The blackened ruin stopped them in their tracks. Few of the walls still stood, and most of what had once been a grand hall now lay in rubble and ash. The immense front doorway, a stone arch, still stood, blackened by soot. Splintered remains of great oaken doors hung from their hinges. A few walls still showed the outline of the mansion. Stebia put a hand over her mouth, and Isaard stifled a curse. He felt a tug at his tunic, and looked down to see her staring up at him. "D'you still want t' see 't?" He swallowed, then nodded. They moved forward cautiously.
Isaard entered the ruin first, stepping over what was once the longest wall in the South Wing. His wing. The part of the manse that nobody much minded. The part with the library filled with books nobody read but him. The dustiest wing, where he'd moved his things once he realized nobody would reprimand him and where he'd seldom left. Now gone. Isaard kicked at a timber, sending up a puff of ash. He heard a squeak behind him and turned to see Stebia, hands covering face once more, peeking wide eyes through fingers at a round object in the soot. He walked over, picked it up, and did not drop it when it turned out to be a skull. Isaard turned and tilted it, wondering if it was anyone he knew. Stebia turned away.
After hours of picking over the ruin, they had salvaged little. One cloak, long enough for Isaard. A few gems and jewelries, mostly melted to slag by the fire but still maybe worth something in a town. Stebia had found them in a most uncanny manner, pointing unerringly to their location. When asked, she simply said 'I can just feel 'em!" They found a couple of books bound in oilcloth, protected by a lucky fall of rubble. A storybook, a bestiary, a Bible, and a guide to herbs. Stebia insisted on the storybook and the herb guide, claiming they would be useful. They kept the oilcloth as well. In Isaard's former study he recovered his knife. Long, curved, and sharp enough to carve wood and not dull. He hadn't had to sharpen it for as long as he'd had it, and he was grateful to have it back. Most everything else had been burned or melted beyond use. There was no food. They found too many bones.
They trekked back to their sandy cave, their stomachs growling. Stebia found some mint leaves on the way and brought back a handful for them to munch on, just so their mouths had something to do. Her olive skin was smeared with ash. His probably was too. She left him in the cavern, telling him she'd look for a stream or something to eat. He nodded and stared unblinking at the cave wall. He hadn't talked since they had left the mansion. He didn't talk after sundown when she returned, more dirty plants in hand, and when she offered him some uncooked root vegetable he took it without thanking her. She settled in beside him, gnawing on some wizened apple. She didn't try to talk to him, just at him, going on about the creek she'd found and the tubers growing in the bank. When they had finished, devouring all she had brought in silence, she shifted as if to lean against him. He stood up abruptly, grabbing the cloak they had salvaged and wrapping it around himself as he sat against the opposite wall of the cave. He heard her sigh, and saw her eyes close as she pulled her thin apron over her body. Their breathing echoed again, and he fell asleep to the dripping sound of rain outside.
Flame. Screams. A flaming comet descending towards him, a yell that might have been his own, running and running and faceless knights all in black.
He was standing. He was screaming a language he did not know, and she was yelling for him to wake up, please, please wake up Isaard, and his arm was raised and his hand was grasping her around the wrist and he could feel her shaking. He blinked. She was crying. There was a red mark rising on her face. He stilled. His hand loosened. She moved her arm out of his grasp, pushed down on his shoulders, shushing him and leaning him against the wall. His tunic was soaked with sweat. She was smoothing the hair back from his forehead and he was trying to speak but she shushed him, put a hand over his eyes and told him to sleep, to be quiet, that there would be a brighter morning when he awoke. He tried to recall her name. He fell asleep before he could.
In the morning, he found her by the creek, washing the cloak they'd found. He tried to ask her about the bruise on her face, but she seemed not to hear him, and chattered on about how lucky it was that it had rained last night, if anyone was still looking for them they'd be harder to find now, and besides the water in the stream is fresher now. He didn't ask further. Her clothes were damp, and she told him to wash up before they moved on. "Why must we move?" he asked, unused to being commanded.
"There still might be people after us. Rain or no, we're too close to th' manse. B'sides, not much food 'round here. We'll need to find somewhere better, maybe a town." She wrung out her apron with a gesture of finality and stood up from her crouch. "Yer turn. Wash up, an' then we move." She left. She hadn't looked at him.
He returned to the cave, shaking water out of his hair. She had wrapped up the books, placed the recovered valuables in a pocket, and put it all in a sling made of her apron. She handed him the cloak. "Put it on and save me another thing to carry, if you please." No-nonsense, she tied the sling neatly and handed him his knife. "Don't forget this!" He took it, trying to catch her eye, but she was busying herself with the knot on her sling. She turned away and started walking out of the cave before he could say anything.
They trudged along in silence for a while. Finally, he could not take it. "Last night." Her shoulders twitched. "I hurt you, didn't I."
She stopped, turning to face him. He looked down at her as she searched his face, looking for something, and apparently not finding it. Finally she sighed. "No," she said. "I don't think you did." She started walking again, not waiting for him. He followed. The rustle of leaves punctuated the silence.
"I am sorry."
She turned to face him. "Nothin' to apologize for!" she said, more cheerfully than he'd heard her be since the flight. "Just a nightmare. Wasn't nothing."
He was going to have to have a talk with her about her grammar.
They walked for days. Stebia suggested they follow the stream. After all, she said, something was bound to be at the end of it. Isaard, having no better ideas, followed. They came across one or two towns, and traded their findings for coin, and that for food, but eventually they had run out of half-melted valuables to haggle over. Isaard, half-remembering something from a book, began setting what were meant to be snares. They started out useless, but as the weeks wore on and their bellies got emptier they improved. Stebia began stumbling across nuggets of gold in streams and on the ground, seemingly knowing to check under a leaf to find them. Isaard was fairly sure that gold nuggets didn't just appear above ground like that, but she didn't seem to question it. They pocketed these.
At night, Isaard often woke up with his hair plastered to his forehead by a cold sweat, sitting bolt upright as Stebia tried to calm him. Half-remembered fragments of nightmare chased themselves around his mind until he fell back asleep. Soon Stebia began curling herself around him in sleep, saving her the trip of going over to him when he woke. After the third week of nightmares, the twenty-first night of waking up in terror shouting strange words, he gave up. Just awoken from a dream worse than most, he wrapped his arms around Stebia, holding her tight and trying to control his panicked breathing. Surprised, she held him in return, stroking his head and whispering nonsense syllables to him. She crooned gently into his ear until his frantic heart stopped pounding, laying him down on the pile of soft grass they had found to sleep on for the night and holding him until he drifted off.
In the morning, he did not remember his dreams.
The days began to run together. They would find food, bathe if there was a clean river, store some water in a bladder they’d cleaned, and get moving. They were farther from the mansion than Isaard had ever been. Stebia would talk to him, asking him about his family, his brothers and sisters and father, all the questions that would have been impertinent for a servant to ask of their master. Now, however, it didn’t seem odd. There was still the occasional slip into propriety, when Stebia would make some comment and he would snap at her, but she had a way of looking at him in silent reproach that would seem to dry up any indignation. In return, he began inquiring about her life. He realized just how little he knew of her life, of her likes and dislikes. She had always been a force of nature to him, not someone with her own thoughts. Just a servant who had taken an uncommon interest in him, who brought his food and chattered at him, to whom he paid little more mind than a magpie outside his window. Now that he could do little but listen to that chatter, he began to find that he enjoyed her company. This came as a surprise to him, as he prided himself on not enjoying anyone’s company but his own and that of dead philosophers in dusty books. Despite himself. he began irrationally warming to the girl.
After they were forced to leave Grenady Wood behind, they entered the nearby town of Elbridge. Some of the elves had recommended that they rejoin human company, and although Isaard had no care for the companionship of other people, he could see that Stebia was wanting for it. So he packed his things under the scornful eye of the elves as Stebia chattered away about how good it would be to see new people, and to be in a town again, not that the forest isn't lovely but it has been so long since they had a roof over their heads that was in a town, wouldn't it be fun? Isaard nodded, conscious of the reason they were being forced to leave. It wasn't because they wanted a change in scenery. He knew Stebia would have been just as happy to stay here. It was because of him. They had to keep moving because of him. Because of his nightmares, and his uncontrolled power that not even the elven elders really understood. It was his fault.
They got into Elbridge a little past noon. Isaard had been quietly grumbling as they floated downriver in the canoe the elves had lent them, and it was a relief to him to step onto solid ground again. They tied the canoe to the bank a little before the village, and set out for the town on foot from there.
The town seemed cramped and filthy after the natural quiet of the forest. Stebia did not appear to mind. She walked up to the first kind-looking woman she saw and asked her if there was anywhere they could get work.
"We're quite diligent, ma'am," she said, pouring on the charm. "D'ye know where we could find food 'n lodging in exchange for labor?" The woman's face softened at the young girl, although she looked questioningly at Isaard.
"He yer brother?" she asked, shifting the bundle on her back. Stebia nodded without pause. The woman smiled. "Well, I know where ye can get lodging and food. There's an orphanage not too far from here. Ye won't even have tae work. Ye are orphans, aren't ye?"
Stebia looked down. "There was a fire," she said. The woman wrung her hands together.
"Oh, you poor dears," she said, her voice quavering. "Th' orphanage is right down this street. Take a left at the Boar and Hen, it's right next to the tailor's." Stebia beamed up at her and thanked her effusively. Faintly bemused, Isaard followed her down the dirt road.
"Why did you lie to that woman?" Isaard asked after they were far enough away that she wouldn't hear. Stebia just smiled.
"I didn't! Not really. Jus' said there was a fire. Di'nt say it got my ma n' pa too." She walked ahead of him, swinging her bundle of worn and dirty clothes. He decided not to ask about the brother bit.
Iscariot was accustomed to having afternoons to himself. Stelarea generally spent them in the kitchen and cleaning the lower floors, and so he could spend the hours before nightfall in relative solitude. Although he had grown to value his servant’s company, he was glad to have a few hours to be alone with his thoughts.
Naturally, his apprentice ruined that.
The impudent boy burst into his study just as Iscariot was settling in with some light reading (Malleus Maleficarum, a humorous text if there ever was one). Haggard-looking as the day Iscariot had plucked him from the jail, the boy clearly hadn’t slept in days. Iscariot looked coldly at the boy, who had obviously just run up the many stairs from his room. He sent out feelers of thought towards the boy’s aura, which was distinctly depleted. The boy must have been running on sheer willpower.
Iscariot allowed him a second to catch his breath, then closed the book and rested his arms on his desk. “Yes?” he inquired, his tone frigid. His apprentice leaned on the doorway, barely holding himself up.
“I finished. I read the whole damn thing a hundred times and I know it inside and out.” The boy walked forward to Iscariot’s desk, looking him in the eye. “I’m going to sign it now.”
Iscariot blinked, then pulled a long sheet of paper seemingly from nowhere. “Sit.” He pulled a chair to his apprentice with a crook of his finger, but the boy did not seem to notice. Perhaps he was even more exhausted than he’d thought.
“I have some terms.” Iscariot raised a single eyebrow, but allowed his apprentice to continue. “First. Stebia.”
The elder mage sneered. “The girl? You want me to take her in as well?” Isaard nodded, his head nearly drooping. “And what makes you think she wants that?” The boy jerked his head up, his eyes ablaze and his mouth open for a retort, but Iscariot continued. “You’ve been gone for quite a while now. From what I’ve heard, you were rather the burden on her.” He steepled his fingers. “She lost her home because of you, dragged you around the wilderness, suffered your mage’s awakening, lost every shelter and friend she had...” Iscariot stared into the boy’s eyes. “Are you sure she even wants to see your face again?”
The boy’s shoulders twitched, although whether from exhaustion or anger Iscariot could not discern. He leaned forward and planted his hands on Iscariot’s desk, his eyes leaking a blue fire. “Never,” the boy spat, “say that again. You don’t understand.” He stared into the sorcerer’s eyes, holding his gaze furiously. “You couldn’t.”
Iscariot looked coldly down his nose at him. "Don’t be so sure of yourself. And know your place.” He sent an effort of will through his gaze, and Isaard jerked backwards, falling into the chair. Iscariot folded his hands on the desk. The boy sat and stared at him, silently furious. Iscariot sighed.
“What was the other term, then?” He might as well hear the boy out. It wasn’t as if he was going to leave his study if he didn’t.
Isaard took a deep breath. “I will be allowed some freedoms. I will be allowed to leave the tower, and her with me. I will not be a slave to you.” He held Iscariot’s gaze, though his eyelids were drooping heavily. The mage looked at the boy, whose hands were shaking from fatigue, but whose face remained obstinate. He was suddenly reminded of himself at that age, but pushed that thought away. He had certainly been far more collected, hadn’t he?
Isaard blinked, and the moment was over. Iscariot sighed and tapped a finger impatiently. “Very well. You will be allowed a few freedoms. And the girl may join you. If she so wishes.” Isaard’s shoulders slumped as the tension drained out of him. He let out a long, low breath and closed his eyes. Iscariot pushed the contract and a thin athame towards him. The boy took them, signed his name with a quill, and pricked his thumbs with the athame. He smeared the blood on the paper, which flared briefly blue. Iscariot followed suit, and the paper burned again before he popped it into a pocket of otherspace. As he did so, a band began to materialize around his apprentice’s head. The band glowed two strangely similar shades of ice-blue, runes scrolling in a circle at eye level. The boy gasped slightly, but swallowed his shock, grasping the arms of the chair until the band faded into invisibility.
Isaard gulped. “So that’s it, then.” Iscariot dipped his head in agreement, putting the implements back into otherspace. “So we can get her now?”
The mage raised an eyebrow. “Now?” Isaard nodded, fighting to keep his head up. Iscariot sneered. “Are you really that desperate?” He assessed his apprentice. The boy had not slept, and he looked it. His clothes were rumpled and stained with sweat. The shadows under his eyes were pronounced against his sallow skin. His cheekbones were jutting out from his unshaven face, but his gaze held steady. Iscariot sighed. “I suppose you are.” He stood, and his apprentice followed suit. Iscariot walked around the desk and grasped Isaard by the arm. “We will go, then.” He closed his eyes, and willed the ether to swirl around them.
They materialized outside of town, in a stand of elm trees that Iscariot had used often as an endpoint. When he released the boy, Isaard stumbled, unsure on his feet. Iscariot snorted derisively and started walking.
They approached the orphanage just as the sun began to set. The sun splashed red over the houses, making the thatch look as if it was on fire. Isaard trailed a few steps behind Iscariot, who strode through the dirt streets purposefully. Villagers ducked into their homes, avoiding the mage’s glance. Isaard pointed down a street. “It’s that way,” he mumbled, his energy nearly spent. Iscariot nodded curtly. As they approached the orphanage, Iscariot noted a girl playing out front with several smaller children. The children were all smiling and laughing, a sight that had been foreign to him for many years. He remembered why he had isolated himself in the first place. The laughter grated on his ears, and the smiles seemed naive and vacuous. Behind him, he heard Isaard cry out, and the girl’s head snapped up. The boy stumbled past him, his eyes fixed on the girl, as she rose to her feet and started running. A few steps and they were in each others’ arms, the boy burying his face in the girl’s hair. Iscariot sneered and walked into the orphanage to pay for the girl’s release.
Isaard shuffled along behind his new master, staring at his feet. It rankled him that he had had to submit to such an arrogant man, that he had had to submit at all, but it was his only option. Were it not for the sorcerer, he would be rotting in jail, his only hope that the blue creatures of his nightmares would break his cell and he could escape, preferably with minimal casualties. It was a flawed plan. It would have left many dead, and like as not he would never have been able to see Stebia again. That was not something he wanted to contemplate. The girl could be insufferably cheerful and naive at times, but there was no question of his needing her. And though it annoyed him to be so dependent on another person, and to have to bargain for her sake, his nightmares were getting markedly worse. Although the binding that the mage had placed on him prevented the constructs from materializing, it did nothing for his nightly torment. Besides, he had grown fond of her company, much as he despised himself for it. Iscariot paused, and Isaard directed him towards the orphanage. He was tired, so tired, but he had to keep his feet moving. He had to find her. Iscariot’s earlier words, about her not wanting to see him, had not even sunk in. How could they? They were nonsense.
Ahead, he heard the laughter of children, and raised his head. His eyes swept up, taking in the road, the shabby buildings, the snot-nosed children, and her. She was smiling, playing with the young ones. A cry escaped his throat, and her head jerked up. He saw shock pass over her face, and she stood up. He felt himself break into a stumbling run, passing the mage. He tripped over a loose rock in the road and began to fall, but she was there, holding him up, and he wrapped his arms around her and let himself shake. She was stroking his hair and murmuring in his ear, and he was apologizing, apologizing over and over, and his knees were close to buckling but she was there to support him. They stood like that for a while, blind to anyone outside them, until Stebia pulled her head back. “I thought ye gone,” she whispered, holding his face like a lifeline. “Where were ye?”
He smiled. “It is a very long story. I’ll explain when we get back to the tower.” At her frown of confusion, he continued. “Also a long story. Suffice it to say that I’m going to be apprenticing, and you can come as well.” He hesitated. “That is, if you want to.”
Her face broke out in a smile. “Oh, Isaard. Could ye be any thicker. O’ course I will come!” She hugged him tightly, and he felt something pop in his back. “Can’t get rid o’ me that easily.” He laughed, relieved, and rested his head on hers.
“I missed you.”
“And I you.”
The boy was insufferable.
Iscariot had told him time and time again to ward himself correctly when he attempted even the most minor summoning, but had he listened? Of course he hadn't. Arrogant little brat. Never listened to anyone a day in his life, Iscariot was sure. So now he was storming into his apprentice's room, slamming open the door in a thundering rage. The demon had gotten loose and he had had to find the thing himself after banishing Isaard to his room. It had taken entirely too long. Isaard stood as he entered the room, hands balled into fists at his sides, preparing for confrontation. Iscariot began his tirade, informing Isaard of just where he went wrong and of just how much time and effort it had taken him to find this minor demon. He listed every possible thing that could have gone even more wrong for his apprentice, as Isaard started to raise his voice against him, and began enumerating every reason that Isaard was a failure as a mage.
A stool clattered to the floor. Iscariot looked over, startled to notice Isaard's companion in the room, now standing and crossing to stand between them. She folded her arms and looked up at him. The girl barely came up to his chest, but she still managed to look down at him. "Don' say that about him."
"Excuse me?" Iscariot sneered, wrinkling his nose at her. She stared steadily back.
"Don' say that. Isaard may be thicker 'n a barrel of stones, but he's not stupid." Iscariot began a biting reply, but the girl cut him off. "An' don't yell at him so much either! He wouldn' a failed that ward if you'd a told him right 'stead of makin' him study out a those dusty old books. 'Cept every time ya two are in a room together ya do nothin' but bicker and fight and it's not gettin either o' ya anywhere!" She stomped her foot. Iscariot thought he heard a crack. "Yer gonna have to stop it. Or yer both gonna just get worse. An' tha's not why we're here! You-" she actually jabbed Iscariot in his chest, eye level for her- "are s'posed to be helpin' him. And he's supposed to be helpin' you with yer magics! But he can't if you don't teach him. So quit it!"
Iscariot looked at the girl. She had the same slate-gray eyes as his servant, and the same look of determination in them. They were harder than flint or granite. Few people would look a mage of his status in the eye, yet here was this uneducated girl, shoulders squared, feet apart, daring him to back down first. The look in her face did not shift as Iscariot felt himself slipping into a soulgaze. The mage blinked before he could see further into her soul, further than the implacable resolve like a mountain in her heart. He hadn't seen much of her, but he had the feeling that if she was asked to set herself ablaze for Isaard, the only question would be how hot the fire needed to be.
Iscariot exhaled slowly. "Very well. But he must be obedient." The boy's eyes began leaking magic. "Obedient nothing," he said angrily, "I-" The girl whipped her head around, and he silenced. She turned back to Iscariot.
"Thankee, milord." The girl bowed her head, an action that didn't suggest deference so much as thanks, and walked back to her seat, righting her stool and resuming her darning of a sock. Iscariot looked at his apprentice, who glared back, and the elder sorcerer left the room, shaking his head at the sheer audacity of that girl.
Author's Notes:
I wrote this way back on 1/31/2013, when I was DEEP in my fantroll era. This was an AU where Isaard was the son of a great house, but he had a magical awakening, and his house got burned down by bad guys, so he and his servant/only friend (Stebia) escaped. They lived in the woods with Kyanas and the elves for a while, then got kicked out because Isaard couldn't control his magical power, so they had to go back to Society. Isaard found a wizard (Iscariot) to apprentice to and learn about magic from, and then Stebia gets to move in with them. Yay!