Tales of the Apprentice 01

Tales of the Apprentice - Book 1

Chapter 3

"Is it always like that?" Galen asked, later that evening.

They were sitting in the kitchen, the remains of dinner still on the table. Serana smiled, the light of the flames dancing in the fireplace flickering across her face. She shook her head.

"No, not always," she said. "Don't get me wrong; sex can be absolutely incredible. As you now know. But more often than not it isn't, because most people aren't very good at it, and because they're not really in touch with their inner sexual selves, let alone with someone else. And for us, sex will be part of our workings with the Energies most of the time, which means we can't afford to simply surrender to the pleasure."

"But sometimes we can?"

"Yes. Sometimes it's special."

He gazed into the fire.

"This was special," he said softly.

She nodded.

"Yes, this was very special. But this is also the most difficult part of it, Galen. Because right now it is far too easy for you to fall in love with me. You must not let that happen."

The look he gave her was... pensive, she supposed the word was.

"I understand that," he said, slowly. "And you're right; I might end up there if I let it happen. But..."

"But nothing. You

must

not. It would cause all kinds of problems right now. So don't let it happen."

"Are you saying that sex mages can't love? Or that they can't have sex out of love, or simply because they want to enjoy it together?"

"No, Galen. That's not what I said. What I mean is that at this point in your life, this early in your training, love will get in the way. And so will lust. What we did this afternoon was a rare treat. We both allowed ourselves to let go. And that's fine. Once. But we must not do it again. Trust me, it will be better and easier for you if we don't."

But she felt a pang of guilt as she said it, because deep down she knew it had been more than that, somehow. Much more. There had been a connection between them, a closeness, a melding, that she had not felt since she... Suddenly she realized that her words had not been just intended for him. She'd been speaking to herself as much as she'd been speaking to him. Great Mother, what was this young man doing to her?

"I never knew it could be like this," he said softly.

With some effort Serana got her thoughts back under control, and she smiled to hide it.

"I'll be honest: you did surprise me a little, Galen. You are either a quick learner, or you have far more experience than you told me you did. Are you sure you have had sex only twice before?"

He nodded.

"Tell me about it," she said.

He looked up, shrugged.

"Not a lot to tell," he said. "It was much like you said when we first met: I had no idea what I was doing and it was over before I knew it. The first time was a few years after I'd left Lower Dareth. It was in a small village. I don't think it even had a name. If it did, I never heard it. I was doing all sorts of odd jobs at the time while I moved from one village to another, and there I ended up rebuilding a collapsed wall behind an inn. It wasn't much of an inn, but the innkeeper gave me room and board while I was working on his wall. It was hot and I'd taken off my tunic as I worked. After a while I looked up and I saw this girl looking at me from one of the windows on the first floor. She was pretty. She smiled at me. I smiled back."

He stared into the fire for a moment.

"Maybe she liked me," he continued after a while. "Or maybe she was just interested in seeing a new face. I don't know. But that evening while I was cleaning myself up at the back of the stables, she came to me. Before I knew it she took my hand and led me inside. There was a large hay loft above the stables. She told me to go up the stairs, and I did. And then we were out of sight and there was all this hay right there..."

Serana smiled and nodded.

"I think I get the picture," she said.

"Yeah. Anyway, it was over far too quickly, and when she left me there she hadn't even told me her name. What I remember most of her..."

Suddenly he fell silent, looking slightly embarrassed. Serana looked at him and smiled.

"Go on, Galen. After what we shared this afternoon it can't be that bad. And you won't upset me, if that's what you're concerned about. I'm quite a few centuries past that kind of thing."

"Well, she had these wonderful, magnificent..."

She chuckled.

"I think the word you're looking for is 'enormous'. Yes, country girls can be rather busty sometimes. So I take it that you were on your back, she was on top of you, and there they were, bouncing right before your eyes, and all you had to do was reach out and..."

"Alright, alright, you've made your point," he protested, laughing. "Yes, that was pretty much it. And that was my first time."

Then he stopped laughing, his face suddenly serious and a little sad.

"The second time was a lot different..." he said slowly.

Serana kept quiet, waiting for him to gather his thoughts.

"The second time was a few months later," he finally went on. "Her name was Rhinda. I'd gone a few villages further south, and I was working at the local bakery, building a new oven. The brickwork at the old one had started to crumble because they hadn't use the right clay when they originally built it, and... Anyway, that's not important. She came there every morning to buy bread. First we just exchanged a few glances, and a few days later she walked past me while I was having a drink of water at the well in the afternoon. She wasn't especially pretty, I suppose. But she had the softest brown hair and lovely eyes, and she was the sweetest person I'd met in a very long time."

He smiled, remembering, but his smile was sad.

"What happened?" Serana asked.

"We, ehm, somehow kept running into each other more often from then on, and one evening we took a walk together. It was a beautiful evening. We kissed, and one thing sort of led to another. I was nervous and clumsy, but she was patient and sweet. It was quite late by the time we came back. I saw her off to her home, and then I went to sleep in the shed behind the bakery where I was working. The baker would let me sleep there while I was working for him."

He sighed, his face suddenly grim.

"I woke up a few hours later. Rhinda was banging on the door of the shed. She was a mess. Her father had beaten her half to death. But what she was most upset about was that he'd beaten my name out of her. There she stood: bleeding, bruised, black eyes, missing teeth and what not, but all she was really worried about was me. She told me to run, because her old man was on his way to kill me. There was something in her voice that told me she wasn't exaggerating. She was terrified. I didn't want to leave her like that, but she got more and more agitated by the minute and she begged me to go, so finally I grabbed my stuff and left. I was going to hide somewhere and come back the next morning to see if I couldn't get things sorted out, but I had barely made it out of the village before Rhinda's father caught up with me. He had a knife in one hand and in the other he had a sword, if you can believe that. It was old and pretty rusty, but it still looked like it could make a nasty hole in someone. So I ran. If he hadn't been half drunk I'd never have made it. Also, the moon had set by then and I managed to lose him in the dark. I never went back there."

He sighed again and stared into the fire.

"I feel bad about that," he said slowly. "I feel I should have done more for her. But..."

"You might have been dead now if you had tried," Serana said.

Galen shrugged.

"I suppose I'll never know. But... There was something about that guy... I've seen men angry, I've seen men drunk, I've seen men fighting. But this one... There was something not quite human about him. I can't really describe it. He looked like... death, somehow. Like he gave it off in a cloud."

He shivered.

"Now that I think of it... What I saw this afternoon, that castle... It had the same feel to it. Cold, dark, evil... Death. It felt exactly the same as he did. Does that mean anything?"

Serana thought for a moment.

"I'm not sure, Galen," she said finally. "Time will tell, I suppose."

But deep inside she knew better. Something was going on here. She had no idea what it was, not yet, but that it was significant in some way she didn't doubt.

Galen yawned. Serana smiled and nodded.

"Perhaps it's time to call it a day," she agreed. "And after the afternoon we've had I'll understand if you want to skip masturbating tonight."

He chuckled.

"Yes, I'm not sure I've got it in me right now. The mind is willing..."

"But the flesh is tired," she finished his sentence. "That's quite alright, Galen. Tomorrow's another day."

Serana put the dishes in a tub of water to be dealt with the next morning while Galen banked the fire. He lit a long sliver of wood from the glowing coals and touched its flame to the wicks of a pair of candles. After covering the last of the coals with ashes, he rose and took one of the candles.

"Will you need me for anything else tonight?" he asked.

"No, Galen. Get some rest. We'll see about everything else tomorrow."

"Good night then, Serana."

"Good night, Galen." She smiled. "I think you will sleep well tonight."

He answered his smile with a grin of his own as he took one of the candles.

"If I don't after today, I suppose nothing will do it."

"Oh, trust me, you will. Sweet dreams."

"You too."

He left the kitchen and she heard the sound of the door of his room close behind him. Serana sat back down at the kitchen table, staring into the embers of the banked fire. Today had been quite a day. She felt younger, somehow, and more alive, than she had for many, many centuries. She hadn't felt this good even after the first infusion of Galen's Energy had revived the spell that restored her youthful appearance and vigor. She had so much Energy right now, after he had poured himself out into her that afternoon. She felt almost bubbly, as if something inside her danced with joy. When had she last felt that way?

She laughed softly at herself. Who was she fooling? There was no denying it: she felt this good for the first time in centuries because this was the first time in centuries she'd been fucked this well. She rarely used that word because she didn't really like it, but there was a time and a place for everything, and this was it. She'd wanted this. She'd needed it. It felt strange to admit it, but she was honest enough with herself to realize it was the truth: she'd given in to her desire because she'd really needed a good

fuck

. And Great Mother, had he given her one!

She also realized that such a rare treat would have to remain just that: rare. The Great Mother had sent this lad to her for a reason, which meant she had a job to do. And feelings, wants and needs like this would only get in the way. Yet there had been a closeness between them this afternoon, a joining on a whole different level than just the physical and the Energetic, and that was something she simply couldn't deny. She could only hope the Great Mother would give her the strength to deal with it in the proper fashion.

There was no doubt in her mind that she would need all her strength and skills before her work with Galen was done. What he'd told her that afternoon was more than sufficient proof of that. For his spirit to leave his body and encounter the Great Mother as it had, that was rare enough, but the Vision that had followed confirmed that the whole thing had not been a coincidence. The Great Mother had a way of making things happen when She needed them to happen.

A gust of wind moved the leaves on the tree behind the house, and the slowly flickering shadows on the walls of the kitchen danced and swayed as some of the wind made its way through the cracks and stirred the air inside. Suddenly one of those shadows caught her eye. It grew still, while the other shadows continued to move. Then it deepened, until it was darker than a normal shadow had any right to be. Slowly it grew, and then, somehow, it seemed to come nearer, or maybe it was just her attention that was being drawn closer to it. It began to solidify, and suddenly the shadows and the kitchen wall were gone, and with her inner Vision she beheld a bleak landscape with dark mountains and deep crevasses. Stunted, blackened and dead-looking trees stood here and there, and the rocks were covered with an unwholesome looking sort of lichen that made them appear almost diseased. A clammy, cold sensation permeated her as her Vision moved forward, and the land grew darker and darker as she went. But it was not a normal darkness, this darkness; it was not just the absence of light. It was as if the very rocks themselves exuded a miasma of blackness that clung to the ground like an unnatural, poisonous fog.

Then, at the heart of that darkness, rose up before her the dark citadel she had seen in her Vision, on the day Galen had first come to her. Dark was the ground upon which it stood; dark were the stones in its walls; dark were its towers. But at the same time it had a strange radiance about it, an unwholesome glow as if the very walls themselves were rotting somehow. She recoiled from that glow.

As her Vision retreated from the dark towers and her awareness rose higher, she noticed something else: a dark road led to the fortress, and on that road, in single file, people were slowly making their way to it. They shuffled rather than walked, and there was something dead in their eyes; their faces devoid of any expression, as they moved almost mechanically, each slow step taking them inevitably closer to that dark, dark building, as if the darkness drew them, like a magnet attracts filings of iron...

With a shock she found herself back in her kitchen, and she shuddered. Great Mother! Her initial feeling of inner joy had evaporated and was now replaced by a cold feeling of dread. Some of the Energy she had had inside her since that afternoon had gone as well, used as it had been to power her Vision.

Whatever it was that she had seen matched Galen's description far too well for comfort, not to mention her initial Vision. This time she had seen more than he had told her, more than she had seen in that first glimpse. And there was no doubt in her mind that even this was only a tiny glimpse of something very serious, something very big and very bad.

And it would be up to them to do something about it. She had no idea what, but the Great Mother would not have sent Galen to her and revealed these Visions to them for no reason. Which meant she had a responsibility. And if these Visions were anything to go by, she'd better get on with it.

She sat for a few moments longer, but nothing else was revealed to her in the shadows on the kitchen walls. Finally she rose, took the candle and carried it into her bedroom. It was a long time before sleep took her.

* * *

And so Galen's training began in earnest, to say nothing of his indenture. His days were filled with mundane work, while in the evening his efforts, and Serana's, were focused on matters of a higher nature. The season progressed inexorably toward the time of harvest, and when the days began to grow cooler, an abundant crop filled the shed at the back of the cottage, along with a goodly supply of dried fish that Galen had caught in the river, using woven reed baskets that he planted in the stream overnight. Their food supply should prove amply sufficient to see them through the winter.

But the end of the season didn't mean the end of Galen's labors. There was a store of firewood to be laid in, and while the former store room where he slept would do for the moment, extending the small cottage a little would go a long way toward making it more comfortable. Stones had to be brought up from the nearby river bank, and before the first cold of winter made itself felt, Galen had made a start with the foundation for a modest but sufficient extension. His skills as a builder stood him in good stead, and Serana soon became convinced that he needed neither supervision nor help from her with any of it.

Their routine was well-established by now: Galen would spend most of his time working outside, while Serana busied herself indoors. As she had told him before, discipline and neatness are good traits for a mage, and she exercised her own by keeping every last part of the cottage scrupulously clean. They would conclude the day's work at sundown, which came earlier as the days grew shorter. Then they would bathe, have dinner, and then attend to the various aspects of Galen's continued training. He spent more and more time on the training bench as the instructed him in the arcane art of manipulating his inner Energies.

"The idea is to optimize the flow of the Energies through your body," she explained as she adjusted the position of the various parts of the bench. "We want them to run freely, but not engulf you. At this point in your training it is important that your head be raised above the rest of your body. The Energies don't exactly flow like water, but there are certain similarities, and keeping your head sufficiently raised helps to retain control while you develop your skills."

"Keep my head raised? Which one?" he asked, looking down with a smile.

"Both of them, young man, as you very well know," she admonished him, but the tone of her voice took the sting out of her words. "Now focus and turn your awareness inward."

As the weeks went by and the days continued to grow shorter and colder, she taught him more about the inner Powers that sexual desire and arousal can liberate. He became more and more aware of the forces within him, and gradually he began to achieve a rudimentary form of control over them. Night after night she used her hands and her mouth to bring him to the very brink of orgasm and then expertly held him right there, right at the edge of release, for the longest time until his rock-hard, weeping cock strained with the pressure of his blood within it and he groaned, sweated and shook with the effort of keeping his pent-up pleasure from erupting.

His first magical working came one frosty winter evening. His room did not have a fireplace, but the shed behind the cottage had held an ancient charcoal brazier which, after Galen had scraped off the rust and scoured it with sand, had proved sufficient to warm up the room to a point where it would do for the moment. A proper fireplace would of course have been so much better, but that would have to wait until spring at the very least.

That evening, as usual, Galen was positioned on the training bench, his arms and legs held in place securely but comfortably; his body reclining at a slight angle. Serana was kneeling before him between his spread legs, her mouth on his steely cock as her head gently bobbed up and down, her lips sliding back and forth across the most sensitive spots on the head, while her fingertips traced intricate patterns across his balls to send sparks of pure pleasure into his groin. He managed not to groan with the effort it took him to maintain control. Vocalizing, she had told him repeatedly, would cause some of his Energies to leak away and be wasted.

But tonight he found it difficult to concentrate. The previous night had been cold, and his bedroll on the floor on which he slept was not that thick, so the cold from the stone underneath managed to seep through it. It had been an uncomfortable night, and today had been a day of many yawns and more than a little fatigue. This evening the cold was even more severe, and although the charcoal brazier glowed merrily in the corner, he was acutely aware of the deepening chill that slowly crept into his naked body.