Warlock Apprentice, Black Lake Novel 4

Chapter Nine

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The door leadin’ to the dinin’ room edged inward and the ogre warlock’s voice filtered in. “Ya done with yar family reunion, lad? Got a decision to be made.” The door swung back in place.

“Go on with ya,” Ruth said. “We’ll talk later.” She rose on her toes again and pulled me down to give me a kiss on the cheek.

We’d never been a family that demonstrated affection. What had come over my sister? Heat brushed my cheeks. She pushed away with a wink, and hustled away, climbin’ atop her wood box to whatever effort had her attention earlier.

I sighed. She seemed happy, as though perfectly fittin’ into a niche designed for her. I wish I had that sense of well bein’.

I jerked, rememberin’ the impatient ogre waited for me somewhere. I spun around and exited the kitchen. There were no guests in the dinin’ room any longer. Five of the staff refreshed the tablecloths and flatware. I headed for the lobby.

A man stood behind a counter to the left. An elf stood on a raised platform next to him. They seemed to mull over some kind of ledger together. The man glanced up, the edge of his lips on the right side of his face twitchin’ up. The tiny elf bull stood erect and crossed his arms.

“Stay out of trouble for a while,” the elf said.

The man chuckled, but clamped down his humor quickly and looked back down at their paperwork.

Louisa stood talkin’ to another ogre, the bull who had been playin’ checkers, at the far end of the lobby next to a hearth as big as my former cabin home. The lobby hearth could accommodate a good-size bonfire, though at the present only the center andiron held a pair of lit six-foot-long logs. Louisa gave me a momentary smirk. She no doubt heard about my insultin’ remark. But she raised a hand waist-high and wobbled a faint wave.

I stumbled. When I recovered, Louisa shared a grin with me.

I scanned the room again. So where’d the ogre warlock go?

As though Louisa read my mind, she pointed at the front door.

I rushed over and pulled the fourteen-foot-tall door open, but froze. Morgan stood among a passel of others, includin’ the two trolls I’d met, a dwarf, the ogre Ike, and the human woman, Gladys, as well as another young man I’d met durin’ the—when Mama—before Papa left us.

“If he doesn’t care for the lair,” the dwarf was sayin’, “ya should just send the ingrate back to his papa’s stake and let him try to make a livin’ up there on his own.”

The human woman, Gladys, swatted at the dwarf, but she wasn’t serious. Her gesture was more a wave, and her grimace quickly turned into a grin.

“I hold no grudge,” Ike said. “He’s comin’ into his own, and has to follow where his oats lead him.”

I studied the broad back of the ogre and sucked in a breath. Dried blood encircled a slice in Ike’s shirt just to the left of his right shoulder blade, trailed down his back and soaked the waist of his pants.

Everyone turned to me. That spike flashed up my spine again, and I heard a crowded murmur, though it appeared no one outwardly spoke. My cheeks flashed hot again and sweat beaded my forehead.

“Ya’re hurt!” I heard myself blurt.

“Wasn’t nothin’,” Ike mumbled. “One of those idjits took a chance at persuadin’ me they weren’t worth followin’.” He pointed over the side of the veranda banister. Evidently the two men waited for Ike below.

The white-dreadlocked troll hen, Eina, smiled. “Be cleanin’ him up in a moment. Not the first arrow point to clip him. His papa, inside, is more troubled than the ogreling. He takes slights on his youngest most seriously.”

An instantaneous image of Ike howlin’ angrily as he was struck with an arrow, followed by a familiar-lookin’ ogre bull holdin’ back tears, clouded my vision with a jolt.

Am I losin’ my mind?

I thought of the ogre who Louisa spoke to inside. The bull did seem a bit put out. My mind turned back to Ike’s wound. That wasn’t somethin’ most would dismiss as nothin’—the average man wouldn’t, anyway. The average man would be unconscious on a cot.

“Close yar mouth lad, before ya catch a horsefly,” Morgan said. “And join us while we decide what to do with ya.”

Nice to be included in that conversation. I crossed the threshold and the heavy door clipped me in the heel as it closed. I jerked. Gladys, the human matriarch, gave me a wink. The others didn’t appear to notice, thankfully. I jolted again, glancin’ to the right, and seein’ two of the biggest creatures I’d ever seen in my life.

No doubt what they were. By process of elimination, they couldn’t be trolls or ogres. One had to be a goblin, the other—a daemon. I swallowed hard. The massive creature was—massive. He perched on his troll-sized chair as though it was a too-small stool, hunkered over the checker board between him and the goblin.

“Ya know how to work an axe?” the dwarf barked.

I dizzied as I jerked my attention back to the crowd standin’ near the banister.

“I told ya—”

The dwarf stopped Morgan with an angry wave.

“Ya of course remember Lucas,” Gladys said, noddin’ toward the fair-haired and stinkin’ too-attractive young man next to her.

I shook the man’s hand. He grasped my hand firmly, and held on longer than most men, as though he had all season for the greetin’ alone. His pale-blue eyes bore into mine. A near-smirk creased both sides of his mouth, as though he knew somethin’ I didn’t. Otherwise, the man’s easy looks made him a character to spend time with, without havin’ any reason to. He was the rider of the golden queen, Iza’loch, Taiz’lin’s mate. Though Iza spent a great deal of time at the mountain lair, Lucas, though he had his own room, was rarely there. Odd.

“And Master Coedwig.” Gladys motioned to the dwarf.

The dwarf made no move to either shake hands, or even return my gaze. He hoisted the axe he held in his left hand as though to gesture, “Let’s get on with it.”

“We erred,” Gladys said, “not placin’ yar wishes in the forefront of our decisions before.” She gave Morgan a quick glance. “So before we do that again, time to ask what ya wish to do.”

Ike might as well have clubbed me in the chest with his paw.

What did I want? What do I want?

“Are ya aware ya can reach the ethereal?” Morgan asked. The ogre glanced down suddenly, as though uncomfortable.

Reach the ethereal. What did that mean? The tic raced down my back.

No one spoke for several long seconds.

Gladys cleared her throat. “Morgan tells us he recognized ya were, uh, blessed, the day he met ya. Sensed the—energy within ya. He’s willin’ to apprentice ya, help ya discover yar power.”

“Apprentice?” I tried to swallow past a throat desert-dry. Was Gladys sayin’ I’m a warlock, had the blood of a warlock in me?

Apprenticin’ is a big deal.

“No trivial responsibility,” Gladys continued, “for either party, master or apprentice. Dedication is required. Ya must wish to follow Morgan. Follow where he leads.”

“Yes.” Morgan took his turn clearin’ his throat. “No need to decide immediately. It would be best if we spent some time together, ensure both of us are, uh, sure we want to do this.”

“Just what the Hamlet needs,” Coedwig the dwarf muttered. “Another warlock.”

“Hush,” Gladys said.

Lucas finally spoke. “Ya should go with him to his cabin. Spend some time there, get to know each other. Form the trust required. Then decide.”

“By practice, I’m an herbalist—of sorts,” Morgan said. “Not a traditionally masculine pastime, but it serves me with my gift.”

The troll hen, Eina, spoke. “Ya know he and Lucas’ sweetheart, Delia, saved us all durin’ the recent plague. Both use their gift to heal. Delia and Morgan, that is, not Lucas.”

A healer? An herbalist? A warlock? The blood rushed from my head. I moved my feet farther apart, just in case. “I, I don’t know a weed from a bush—”

Power? The ethereal? The stinkin’ tic danced.

“Ya’ll start the learnin’ of a craft a little later than most of us,” Morgan said softly. “But every bull crawls before he walks.”

“And every hen,” the troll Eina added.

“No farmin’ up here, more than fodder really,” her mate, Yoso, said. “Short growin’ season. Not much topsoil. But the daily summer rains give us a bumper garden here on the Lake’s bank, fattens the rye. If ya’d prefer to work the ground, the Hamlet accepts all willin’ to put their back into any effort.”

“I’m not takin’ on any apprentices,” the dwarf barked.

“For the best.” Gladys snorted. “He’d position an axe through yar forehead ’fore the week is out.”

The dwarf’s face wrinkled like a sunned apricot. “Very funny.”

“I wasn’t makin’ a joke,” she snapped.

“Again, no life-long decisions required this minute, but think quickly if ya wish to follow me to my stake to visit. I leave within the hour, soon as I finish with Ike’s back.”

An hour? To decide to be a warlock? What is the ethereal?

The others spoke, but the words didn’t cross the fog that cloaked me. One by one they stepped away, leavin’ me on the veranda alone.

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