Tak

The Master of Castle Nagra - Part 2

     He had no clear destination in mind as he wandered the castle. He just wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and his distressed master before it drove him equally crazy. He wasn't really surprised when he found himself outside the door of Molos Gomm's first laboratory, however. The old wizard had three laboratories, plus the conjuration room at the top of the south tower, and it had been the two smaller ones that Tak had used for his education and the work his master had given him to do.

     The Alteratory, Molos Gomm's second laboratory, was the one where Tak had hidden his former master's spellbooks, in a cupboard under a worktable behind a row of encrusted green bottles where the accumulated dust showed the old man hadn't looked for years. That room was used for Alteration, the changing of something into something else, and that was the area in which Molos Gomm had told him to concentrate, although the spells he'd been taught so far dealt mainly with turning living people into dead people. He was being trained to be a warrior wizard, after all. Fighting the enemies of his real master, Khalkedon.

     Laboratory number one was the Divinatory, used for learning things, for discovering the unknown. It was the one Molos Gomm had used the least. Tak suspected it had been used more by Molos Gomm's master, or perhaps by his master before him. The third laboratory was the Necromantory, the most important room in the castle, or at least it had been under Molos Gomm's mastership, but Tak had only been allowed in there on two occasions and had been so shocked at what he'd seen that he wouldn't care if he never went there again.

     No, this was where his heart lay, in the first laboratory. The divinatory. Every spare moment he'd had since Molos Gomm's condition had begun to deteriorate had been spent here. Lovingly tidying and dusting, poring through old books and polishing the silver tools and equipment. Only one small corner of the room gave any impression of having been used at all in recent years, and that was the brass pedestal on which the crystal ball stood. The crystal ball in which the old wizard had watched him as a small boy before taking him away and bringing him here.

     Tak found himself standing before it and knew he was going to make another attempt to use it. Molos Gomm would, presumably, have shown him how one day, but now it was too late for that and he had to figure it out for himself. He wanted to see his old farmhouse, the place where he'd been born and lived his first few years. He needed to see it like a starving man needs to eat. Even if it was just an overgrown ruin, he needed to look at it again, to remind himself that he'd had another life before coming here. That he'd once been loved.

     He knew roughly what to do, having seen Molos Gomm using it several times, but he also knew that a certain mental state was needed. Just touching it and saying the words wasn't enough. He performed the ritual anyway, and as the globe of perfect crystal lit up from within he tried emptying his mind of all thought, becoming a blank canvas for whatever the ball wanted to paint there. The glow brightened, but nothing else happened, just like every other time, and he cursed under his breath.

     Then he tried envisioning what he wanted to see, something else he'd tried before with no success, and then he tried to command the ball in his mind, mentally shouting at it to do what he wanted it to do. Maybe this time, he thought. Maybe this time it'll work, but it didn't. The crystal ball remained stubbornly empty and he snapped out the command to deactivate it. As it went dark, though, an new idea came to him and he ran from the room, suddenly excited. Eager to try it straight away and cursing himself for not having thought of it before.

     Molos Gomm was still sitting where he'd left him, but a cup of steaming tea was standing on the table beside him, untouched by the wizard. Trobo must have brought it while Tak had been away. Now if only the old wizard still thought that Tak was his former teacher...

     "Gomm!" he snapped, and the old man jumped in his chair, looking terrified. "Who am I, Gomm?" Tak demanded.

      "My master," replied the old wizard, his eyes wide with fear.

     Tak breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes his delusions changed with frightening rapidity, but this one seemed likely to last a little longer at least. "How do you use the crystal ball, Gomm?" he demanded, trying to make his voice as powerful and authoritative as he could. Surprisingly, he felt not a trace of shame and guilt at how he was taking advantage of the old man's dementia. He had this coming, and a lot more besides. "How do you use the crystal ball?" he repeated. "Come on! I've told you often enough!"

     Molos Gomm quivered with terror and a thin dribble of drool ran down his chin. "The formula!" he cried with desperate terror. "Vormulatin par..."

     "Not the formula, you fool!" snapped Tak. "After that! What do you do in your mind?"

     "The spirit of the crystal!" gibbered the old man, shaking with fear. "You summon the spirit of the crystal!"

     Tak stared in amazement. Spirit of the crystal? What was that? He questioned the old man further until he had it all, and then ran from the room in triumph.

     Arriving back in the divinatory, he finally began to feel the shame he'd known was coming. He'd left the senile old man in terror, and he was probably still quivering now, waiting in fear for his dreadful master to return and punish him for something.

     He cured himself by remembering his parents and his sister. He remembered his father lying slumped against the tree, his life's blood running away through a dozen wounds. He remembered Molos Gomm striding up to take him away, leaving his father to the wolves and the crows, and he felt the pain and the fury welling up again as he'd known it would. "Scared, are you?" he cried aloud as if the old man could hear him at the other end of the castle. "Good! You'll be a lot more scared before I'm through with you! You just wait! You just wait!"

      Going to the crystal ball, he activated it again and stepped closer to stare into its fiery depths. Summon the spirit of the crystal, he thought. It hadn't occurred to him that there might be something living in there, something trapped and imprisoned by one of Molos Gomm's antecedents, and for a moment he felt anger and outrage at this treatment of a sapient being, but then he remembered the puck. The creature the old wizard had summoned to test his readiness to take part in a conjuration. He began to feel fear instead. Was he in danger? Could the spirit hurt him if it somehow broke loose?

     That was unlikely, though, he knew. This crystal ball had been used by generations of wizards without any of them suffering any mishap (so far as he knew. How had Molos Gomm's master died?). Probably, if it did escape, it would simply flee back to its own dimension. He cursed. There was so much he just didn't know! Molos Gomm was supposed to have been his teacher, but in all the years he'd been here he'd taught him practically nothing! Well, that would change. Now that Tak knew how to, he intended to spend the rest of the old man's life milking him of everything he knew.