Chapter 18

10th Day of Late Winter 768 n.c

Malkarov closed the door behind me as I just stood there in the cozy room, looking around at everything in a new light. This was my new home, for at least four years. The wizard cleared his throat after a few moments, causing me to look up at him. He smiled down at me.

"Come along," he said kindly, "first things first. I'll give you a tour of your new home."

I nodded and started following him up the stairs.

"The room down here," he said as we proceeded, gesturing towards the ground floor, "is the living room. It's where I often spend a good part of the evenings curled up on one of the chairs reading."

As we walked up the stairs, the roof of the living room turned in brief wall before opening up on a landing to a hallway, the stairs continued farther up. The corridor was lit up with crystals just like the living room, hanging from the ceiling and set into little alcoves into the walls. At the end of the corridor was a window, natural light streamed in from it. Underneath the window rested a small table with drawers and resting on top of the table was the skull of a strange creature. It almost looked like a horse' skull, but the single horn protruding from the top of it showed exactly what it was.

"Unicorn," he said, noticing me staring at it, "it's a sad story for another time."

There were two doors opposite each other in the middle of the hallway.

"This one," he said, gesturing to his right, "is my bedchamber. Your's is on the left here. A little smaller; due to the stairs, but we can't have an apprentice with better quarters than her master now, can we?"

He opened the door in to a semi-circular room. It was huge! Our bedroom at the farm had enough room for two beds (one for me and one for the younger girls), and enough room to walk between them. A large rug covered up most of the floor, threaded into a pattern of a forest; with shining light coming down through the canopy to light up the lefty forest floor. It was magnificent! Crystals lit up the room but there was also one window, on the same wall as the window at the end of the corridor, set into an alcove. My bed was set underneath it. A large wooden chest rested on the floor at the foot of the bed and against the curved wall was a mirrored table and chair. Next to that was a bookcase, with four of the six shelves filled with books! At the other end of the room was a bath and… an outhouse? An inside outhouse? I stood there amazed. The wizard quietly chuckled next to me. It was a polished wooden seat, with an oval hole cut into it. I looked into the hole and saw instead of a large pit (where would the pit have gone?) an inverted dome. The edges of the dome were inscribed with white runes all over it.

"It's the first thing I did when I designed the tower. There was no way I was going to walk down and outside to use an outhouse," he said to me, "anything non-living that touches the bottom is transported into a pit. Apparently the first version of it just vanished anything until they realised what a huge mistake that was."

We walked over to the bath. It was a large oblong metal tub with a hole in the base at the end closest to the wall. Out of the wall stretched a metal pipe, bent at right angles to point down into the bath. On either side of the pipe were two runes carved into the wall. They stood out, being a bright white colour.

"This," Malkarov said, "was the second thing. There's a cork plug here next to the bath. You put that into the hole to prevent the water from draining. The rune on the left lets out cold water and the rune on the right lets out hot water. All you have to do is touch it to activate and touch it again to turn it off."

He puffed up with pride at my look of shock, "I'm actually quite a bit proud of it. It was my Masterwork at the Mages Guild, as soon as I presented it the judging wizard's clamoured around me wanting one for their own. The Grand-Master Wizard actually came in to find out what all the fuss was about and he demanded to have the first one! Every wizard I made one for, assisted me in the building of my tower. It was well worth the work. The Grand-Master was the one who made the in-houses for me."

He looked around the room, "If there's anything else you'd like in here just let me know and I'll get it for you."

I was shocked. What else could I want? I shook my head and started to stammer out a reassurance that it wasn't necessary, but he just smiled and said, "Just keep it in mind, you have to be comfortable in here to be able to study and learn. The better you learn, the better wizard you will become and the better it reflects upon me in the Guild."

I nodded at that, it made sense. But I couldn't think of any single thing else that I could possibly want. Malkarov told me to leave my pack in my bedroom as we left to continue with the rest of the tour, so I placed it down next to the chest where I would unpack it once I had a chance.

We continued up the curving steps onto the third level. This level was all open, just like the ground floor. Directly opposite the steps landing was a long bench with cupboards underneath it and in the centre of the room sat a long table and chairs. A fireplace sat burning at one end. Paintings lined the walls around the table, all of them were scenes of forests or hills.

"This is the kitchen and dining room," Malkarov said, gesturing around, "We will eat here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most days it shall just be us but I shall also teach you Carnian etiquette and Elvish. I have recipes for many, many dishes but my skills at preparing them are not exactly polished. When it comes time for us to practice some of these I shall invite someone here to cook for us. Do you cook?"

The question was unexpected, but I managed to nod enthusiastically, "Yes, I quite like to cook."

A smile lit up his face and he spread his arms wide, "Excellent! Then as my apprentice, it shall be up to you to prepare meals when I am not of a mind to, or when we have guests in to cook," he paused for a moment and his voice dropped down to a lower conspiratorial tone, "or when we do not have the Pig and Wheelbarrow bring us food… which is what I have been surviving on, to date."

The fourth level was for work and learning. Against the wall rested a large bench with strange glass jars on stands, with small fires boiling under large metal pots. The glass jars were filled with different coloured liquids, and a pink smoke broiled out of one of the pots.

"This," Malkarov gestured to the table, "will be where you will learn alchemy. The art of making potions, poisons and other liquids."

Another table contained boxes with stones, brushes and smaller pots containing some sort of thicker liquids. One shelf above the table just held a huge stack of parchment.

"And here is where you shall be learning enchanting, rune-writing and scroll making," Malkarov explained.

Next to the enchanting table was a huge cupboard with drawers, and shelves. Each of the shelves were filled with large glass jars containing all manner of items. One jar had the label 'Butterfly wings', another 'Beetle mandibles.".

"Casting a spell, enchanting an item, alchemy and scroll writing all require components. A lot of our time will be spent travelling out and about the countryside looking for these things. The rest of this room is for practicing spells and working magic. Lastly there is the roof," Malkarov explained, finally leading me up the last of the steps to a trapdoor in the roof.

The trapdoor opened sideways and the roof allowed such an amazing view of the Easthaven valley. I had once climbed Easthill and we were just about as high as that. Seeing all of the houses down below with smoke rising from their chimneys was eye opening, the position of the Wizard's Tower allowed a fantastic view straight into the town square and the common paddock. It was mostly empty; Mother, Father and my siblings had already left for home.

"And that," Malkarov said, "ends the tour. Please stay out of the fourth level unless I'm with you, or I give you permission. You are not to practice magic that I have not instructed you on. Dinner tonight will be brought up by Missus Rose of the Pig and Wheelbarrow, listen for the three bells to indicate time for dinner. Actually for that matter, One bell will indicate someone at the door. Two bells will indicate time to wake up or time to go to sleep. Three bells indicates meal time. Four bells indicates time for magical learning or to end a lesson or study. Now, why don't you go and unpack your bag and have a bath before dinner?"

I gave him a nod, "Yes Master Malkarov," and headed downstairs.

"Sharein!" he called out, and I froze, before slowly turning around to look at him.

"No need to run," he said with a smile, "there's plenty of time. And don't call me Master Malkarov, just Malkarov is fine."

I walked slowly down to my room on the second level. Once inside, and the door closed, I opened up my pack to transfer the contents to different places around the room. I stopped in surprise. I hadn't packed that. There was something made from white linen on top. I pulled it out to reveal a white linen long sleeved shirt. It had narrower cuffs than the sleeves, and a vee cut neck with holes and a tie to make it tighter. I wondered how it could have gotten there. Underneath that was a bigger surprise! Light brown leather, that when pulled out revealed itself to be a pair of trousers! She didn't, did she? Mother was the only one near my bag, she must have made me the pair of trousers she had suggested she would make for next winter! The leather was so soft and supple, the stitching so fine. They appeared to have been made in a similar style to Jocam's, but taking into account the differences in our measurements. I folded both up and packed them away into the chest. As much as I wanted to try them on, to wear them, I felt that somehow my very first night here would not be the appropriate time. I didn't know how Malkarov would react, I reasoned that I would see how much store he put into tradition first. I unpacked the rest of my things, without any more surprises, and got undressed before heading over to the bath to press the hot rune. Hot water immediately came pouring out of the metal pipe and I scrambled to put the cork plug in the bottom before I wasted any. Scalding hot water raised a red mark on the back of my hand before I was able to get the cork firmly inserted. I could tell that I'd have to experiment between the hot and cold to determine the proper ratio for a nice warm comfortable bath. I filled the bath up with hot water about a quarter of the way before pressing the hot rune again to stop the water. I pressed the cold one and cold water started pouring out, cooling off my bathwater slowly. I put my red hand underneath the cold water, which made it immediately feel numb. Brrrrrr! That water was cold, almost like it was coming straight from the North River! I dipped a finger into the bath to test the water and found that, now almost half full it was cool. At home it would have made for a satisfactory bath, but with the ease of adding more hot water, why would I accept simply satisfactory? I turned off the cold water through the cold rune and touched the hot rune again. Hot, steaming water poured out and I continued to dip my hand in to test the bath. Once it reached a nice, warm, temperature I turned off the hot water and slowly eased myself into the bath. I made sure that my hair went over the rim of the bath so as not to get wet, and slowly collapsed into a warm puddle of contentment. The warmth of the water enveloped me and quickly became my new favourite thing. I lay there, in the realisation that I could potentially stay semi-submerged in warm water forever without the need to get out to put a new pot over a fire or empty water out of the tub. All I had to do was push the rune for hot water as soon as the temperature started to lower, and pull the plug out temporarily when the bath threatened to overflow. Magic was wonderful!

I couldn't stay in the bath forever though, more's the pity, so eventually I pulled the plug and got out. I stood there, wondering what to do. I had no fireplace to dry off in front of, which is what we would usually do after a bath or after washing myself with a bucket. At least my hair wasn't wet, so I wouldn't take too long to dry. I shook a little, realising that even though there was no fireplace in my room, it wasn't actually very cold. It was quite comfortable inside my room, and once I determined that I wasn't still dripping too much I got myself dressed again. Wondering how much time I would have before dinner arrived, I perused the bookshelf. Very quickly I selected a book titled 'The History of the Elves of Kaz Sarion. Volume I.' I was so engrossed in the book that when the bell chimed once, I almost missed it.