THE WIZARD'S APPRENTICE

id turn to my own cup and let my sight wash over it. The warm fire of the wine's blessing flowed smoothly around it, but I sensed something else. Just the slightest hint of something. I probed a

th a salty tongue. He kept the others well entertained, but my ears and senses were trained towards my master behind me, and the king. The conversation was much more formal and thus much less interesting than the private one I'd been witness to earlier. The dinner was suckling pig and potato and corn pudding. I wished later that I'd paid a little more attention to it, as once it was in me, it occurred to me it was far finer a meal than any I'd ever eaten. Between dinner and bed I did my nightly exercises, study and meditation. It was the routine born of a life of habit and reinforcement. Ethric firmly believed that exercise aided in the digestion and was one of the keys to good general health. Who was I to argue with a wizard who had seen several hundred summers? The study and meditation were also a part of his mandated routine, but these were due to my status as apprentice more than they were to his overall philosophy. Sleep seems to come easily when it follows meditation. I dreamt of Ciene, Coln the Tanner's daughter, and what she looked like surrounded by sunlight and splashing in the waters of Kenarin, the river that flowed past Ethric's tower. Warmuth Bridge sits astride the river it is named for, with the city spilling out on both the Montcross and Ormand sides. The delicate balance of power required to keep the two kingdoms coexisting there peacefully had recently ended for the second time in the last ten years, with the Ormandian decision to once again claim the city 'and environs' for itself. Just how much of the silver bearing mountains to the east of the city would be included in 'the environs' depended on how well Montcross' defensed her territory. The city was not named for a bridge, but rather was the bridge, a series of them, really. As the city had grown, new bridges kept getting built beside the old until the closely-built bridges were eventually connected and built over. Now the city itself bridged the river and the river flowed beneath it for a quarter mile. At the moment, the cities gates has been shuttered on the Ormand side and Montcross controlled the city within the walls. The sprawl outside the gates on the western side of the city were quickly filling with Ormandian foot and horse units. Siege machinery could be seen being built on the low hills behind them. The hills were too low and too far away to offer the high ground as advantage for the army, or for their machinery, but it did offer a good view of the entire river valley and the city sitting in the middle of it. The Montcross side of the river was where we found our ring of sand the next morning, in the middle of the tents and troops that made up the king's army. We had an audience, but not a large one. King Tynis of course, along with Jager and my master Ethric. A half dozen other men were there as well, but none I recognized except for Major Langdom and Lieutenant Thomalt. The match lasted a little more than fifteen minutes, and half that was either me looking for an advantage while Captain Davus retreated, or him seeking the same while I moved back. To be honest, there was far more of the latter than there was the former. Still, while the captain displayed a strength I couldn't match, I was just the slightest bit quicker. Not quick enough to even things up, of course, or to make up for his vastly greater experience,