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Chapter 039 |  |
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Joachus had left at the end of Summer 1222, and walked across France to the south-east, to Septem Montes, to the Covenant of his Parens. That first season he spent helping in his Parens' laboratory, while his parens in turn poked and prodded Joach's person, and consulted his Astrological charts, and studied the humours of his filius: in short, brewed his Longevity Potion for him. This potion, brewed by a Verditius mage of middle years, so far exceeded any that Joach might make for himself, and would last without risk of failure for many decades to come, that almost any fee might be worth the price.
Dergorus asked only that the Vis be repaid, and the Vis he might himself have distilled had he so spent the Season, and that Joachus fulfil a requested favour at some later date.
In between the long hours of work brewing the potion, they had many more hours to catch up on the years since Joachus left, and the work in progress at Septem Montes. Dergorus showed his young filius how his new work progressed: a marvellous Stone Lion, which will animate and become his faithful servant.
Joachus recalled his masters interest in Automata, and how he himself had always been drawn to those marvels of Hermetic Magic, and asked that he be allowed to discharge some part of his debt by serving in his master's laboratory to help work on the Lion. Dergorus contemplated this, and expounded further upon the sacred mysteries lying behind the Craft of Automata, and agreed that his filius might perform a Rite of Subservience on this work: this would help to unify the mind of the young magus with the spiritual side of the Craft, that he might learn more of it later on.
And so, from Midwinter until a ten-day before the Equinox, Joachus stayed on to slave for his master. The Covenant could wait: before him lay the Automaton, its first pulsations growing before his eyes!
Eventually this Equinox drew near, and Joachus must force himself away, and lurch back across France to the Covenant he calls home. First there was the small matter of locating the grogs he brought with him: Abel and Norbert, who seemed to have blended in to Septem Montes, neither part (with duties) nor no part (lacking requisites) of that Covenant. They left reluctantly, and accompanied their Magus.
As they were about to leave, Dergorus approached his pupil, and presented him with a small parting gift, a spell:
The Unseen Apprentice
In Latin, on parchment rolled into a scroll, devised and transcribed by Dergorus Verditii, filius Restitii.
ReTe 20, Near, Sun, Group
Focus: an apprentice's belt (+2)
[Based on The Unseen Porter, boosted to Sun and Group.]The spell can lift a single heavy item (like The Unseen Porter), or up to a dozen small items. The spell is specifically designed so that you may concentrate on and move any one of the items leaving the others fixed in place (even suspended in the air); typically it may be used to position items in a cluster so that you may work more easily on them in the Laboratory. While concentrating on an item, you may "drop" it instead of moving it, removing it from the group. If you remove all items, the spell ends.
Casting requisites of an appropriate Form for the target are required.
They crossed the hills and valleys of central France, coming down to the marshes of La Brenne and Petrusca, where they stopped briefly, to "pay respects" and claim a comfortable bed. On then to Tours, Angers and Rennes - great Cathedrals. Joachus had to restrain himself from stopping to examine those great works in more detail, recalling his own youth working on the carving of Cathedral stonework.
When he returned, a ten-day late for the Equinox, he must be satisfied with a paltry Token for the Aegis, and to acquiesce in the decisions made in his absence. Still, the worst they could think up for this Season was for him to take the Season as his own "free time" (lest he waste any of the Covenant's precious time!); and that next Season he was to repeat the Enchantment of the Plough, and but this time to create a Wooden Ploughshare. This, all hoped, would not annoy the Faeries like the Iron Ploughshare, and would permit Grogs to plough the Covenant's fields rather than Magi marching up and down creating furrows with spells.
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