She came as always with a clap of thunder and a burst of wind that tore across the main square of D`eshkar. By now the women knew that the Sorceress Queen visited the Forbidden Library on exactly the same day at the same time each year. Although none knew the reason for this it was enough for them to be forewarned, and the last few years they'd kept their husbands away from the Square when the day came.

So there were no men to fall beneath her spell as she strode towards the steps of the Library, no women to mutter curses as they picked up laundry hurled into the dirt by her arrival on the wind, and no one to watch as she smiled.

No one except for the boy sitting at the foot of the steps, a thin red thread dangling from his hand as he watched her draw closer. Too young, she thought, to fall under the spell that made men worship her, but too old to be at home clinging to his mother's skirts. She smiled.

"Good morrow, child."

"Good morrow, Mistress." He met her eyes unafraid, and then pulled his hand up. A circle of red string emerged from the sand beneath her feet, and she was standing squarely in its center.

The Sorceress Queen nodded her head in salute. "Nicely done. But now that you have your sorceress in a cage, what will you do with her? "

He was not distracted from his purpose. "By the Circle of my Will I have bound you. and by my Will you must heed my Requests." His voice was firm, his hand was steady.

"Rather young, aren't you, to take such a risk? How old are you, boy? Do your parents know what you are doing?"

"I am twelve winters old, and my parents are dead. My Requests…"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Very well, but do it quickly. It grows hot and I do not care to be sunburned."

"First, your word that you will not harm me when I release you, either by your hand or by any other means."

"I rather thought you would ask that. Get on with it." She tapped one sandaled foot impatiently in the sand as she watched him. "What else? Gold? Power?"

"Secondly, that you teach me all you know about the ways of magic."

She stopped tapping her foot, and leaned forward slightly to study his face. "Why?"

"Because I want to know."

The Sorceress Queen straightened, and then the square echoed with her laughter. "At last! Yes, boy, I will teach you. You may be my apprentice."

"Do you swear by your Word?"

He'd finished the bargain properly. He had promise. She nodded solemnly. "By my Word, I so swear."

"Then I release you from my Will." He bent down and gripped the red string and broke it. "Shall I wait here for you until you are finished with your business inside?"

She stepped forward and held out her hand, "My business was never truly within the Library. What is your name, boy?"

He gave her the answer that an apprentice must to shed their past. "I have none." He set his hand in hers unflinchingly.

"Well done." She smiled and summoned the wind.

When it died away, there was no sign of them or of the red string.


03/2004