Phony Potions

Chapter 27.5

"I'm your Assistant?" I asked, fighting a smile. Winsor scowled at me from beneath the locks of black hair. I got the job, and he didn't even find out if I was a butt or leg man.

"It was the easiest way to extract myself from that unpleasant company. I dare not be openly defiant. She's the highest ranking sorceress in attendance." Winsor slumped away from the door. He sat down on the edge of his bed, nudging a second small black dog out of the way with his hip. It stretched its long limbs lazily. The one that had been watching me from the door was still guarding the door, its ears twitching as it listened to the noise in the hallway. I thought they'd been the same dog, but they were just litter mates, nearly identical.

"Mother says I should mingle more with ungifted." A smirk crossed Winsor's face. "Since you're already here, we'll see then how solidly your story of being a sorcerer's Assistant holds up depending on your skill in assisting a sorcerer."

Winsor moved to the cauldron in the corner beneath a giant hearth. He stirred something with a large handle.

"I have herbs over there, Kratswinner." He pointed to a slab of polished stone. Off to the left side of it were a series of small wooden boxes with various ingredients. On the counter was a sappy branch covered in pine-like needles, and near that, a magically sharpened knife. It was enchanted by the faint sparkles bouncing off it in the dim room. He had the windows mostly curtained. Must be how he maintained that pallid glow.

I walked over and picked up the knife. I took the plant into my hands and diced. My eyes skimmed the room, searching for any covered cages like I had seen in Bernard's cellar. The walls had lots of ingredients on them. The common herbs I knew from the poultices and remedies I'd crafted in my youth to aid the recovery of ailing animals and ward off the common cold. Others I only recognized from diagrams in Mediceum texts. I tried to match some with ingredients I had heard about and frequently claimed were components in my phony potions, like Ghost Ash and Bicorn horn.

On a desk by the window, I noticed a bin full of gems, like Bernard had. Unlike Bernard, there was a wooden box full of dark metal daggers on the other side of table, half of them embedded with gems and twisted into dysfunction. I thought of the fork from the dinner and wondered why anyone would bother lining a dagger with jewels only to allow it to become pockmarked and destroyed.

"Enchanted One, what is the purpose of the daggers?" I asked as I absently chopped the Kratswinner. My voice came out nasal, the pungent aroma of the sappy plant hit my nostrils.

"Don't presume to question me," Winsor said. I glanced over my shoulder at him. He stopped stirring. The tool in the cauldron below continued to rotate, albeit slower. "They are of no importance. They're ruined."

"If they trouble you, I would gladly remove them from your domain, Enchanted One."

"Why bother? The enchantments failed. I can't get them to work together without exploding when I try to combine the spells. I know the text says it's impossible for anyone below a Divinis skill level, but nothing's impossible and single enchantment weapons are so old, it's time for improvement." Winsor walked over to the counter and leaned on it, his palms biting in the edge as he pointed with his chin over at the desk. "That one there on the top of the pile, with the shaft left..." He was musing more to himself than to me. "When I tried to put the cloud chicken next to the thunder sparrow quill in amber, the blade shattered." He touched his face gingerly. I glanced over. The pale skin was unmarred besides the dark circles. "I was so damaged father had to come in and heal me." He stuck his tongue out in a grimace. "And I was forced to drink a double dose of my medicine for the week following, ugh."

"Why are you trying to make a double enchanted weapon, Enchanted One?"

"Because I want Azeria to have every advantage on her Proving. I need to figure it out soon; she doesn't have much time left until she goes." Winsor's knuckles whitened as his hands curled in frustration. "If she had weapons with dual effects, she'd only be burdened by half the equipment. If I made it enchanted with something that rends the flesh and a spell that makes it nearly weightless, I would be satisfied, but the item is stubborn. Overlapping magic is historically tricky. A Divinis level sorcerer often cannot manage it unless he specializes in dagger craft. Those that have already been made are kept in the families of successful Provers or lost in the Barren Lands by less fortunate Provers who fail. But if anyone can overcome lack of experience to craft one, it should be I, for who has a greater motivation than saving the one that they love?"