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you’ve done right that I’ve seen, boy,” he said. Benen almost said Thank you, Master but stopped himself. He would have suffered from the magic’s retribution if he had and he didn’t want to feel its power again.
    The wizard nodded, as though he had seen these thoughts writ on Benen’s face.
    “You have many questions, I am sure,” the wizard said. “Until we go to bed tonight, you can consider yourself to have the right to speak freely. I warn you though, do not waste my time with frivolous questions. This is your opportunity to prove to me you are smarter than my current appraisal of you says you are.”
    Afraid to ask a stupid question, Benen didn’t know what to ask at all and simply said nothing for a time. The wizard sighed, rolling his eyes in what Benen was starting to understand was a signature sign of impatience in him.
    “All right, you can ask even stupid questions, but after three of those I’ll stop this experiment in information exchange and don’t expect another opportunity like this again,” the wizard said.
    This loosened the boy’s tongue.
    “Why did you take me?” he asked.
    “I needed an apprentice, not a stupid question, I guess, but a bit obvious,” the wizard replied.
    “I mean, why me?”
    “Oh, well that’s better,” the wizard allowed. “You saw the stars, is why.”
    “But only because you were touching me, that wasn’t my doing . . . .”
    “It was you who saw. None of the other urchins saw anything up there. You have the gift, boy, that’s all there is to it. If there had been two of you with the gift, I’d have flipped a coin and you might still be heading to a life of cow farming.” Benen didn’t think that would have been so bad a thing. He had looked forward to working on the farm with his family. The magic scared him. In is head he equated it with fire. He’d been told off by his sister for poking sticks into the bonfire last time they had burned brush in the far field. She’d warned him that he might collapse the pile and the fire could hurt him. Magic looked even more dangerous than that.
    “Do I have a choice? Can I go back to my family?”
    “No. You’re mine now. They will consider you dead if they have any sense.”
    Benen’s heart was a battleground then between anger at the wizard and self-pity at the loss of his family. Anger won.
    “Why? What right do you have?!” he demanded of the wizard, forgetting his fear.
    The Wizard smiled indulgently.
    “I own this land. Your village and the others within two day’s ride are all on my land. I am your landlord and your settlement agreement specifies I get to pick an apprentice from the young once every two decades. You villagers should be thankful I’ve not claimed an apprentice before.”
    “That can’t be. The village is older than you!”
    The wizard shook his head.
    “Think again, boy. I am over eight hundred years old.”
    “Lies! You’re fifty at most.”
    The wizard backhanded Benen soundly and he found himself on the ground seeing stars before he knew what had happened.
    “You go too far, boy,” the wizard said mildly. “If I can promise you one thing, it is that I will never lie to you. I have no interest in doing so, and gain nothing from deceiving you.”
    Picking himself up from the ground, Benen used his shirt to staunch the bleeding from his nose. It didn’t make the already blood-stained garment any dirtier.
    He opened his mouth to ask another question but the wizard raised his hand and spoke first.
    “No. We are done, boy. Eat and go to bed and bother me no more tonight. We leave at first light.”
    True to his word, the wizard made sure they were on their way again at first light. After waking Benen, he ordered him to pack up the cooking items back into the chest. While he did as ordered, Benen kept an eye on the wizard. He saw the old man look above the western horizon and nod to himself. Once Benen left the cottage, the wizard got him to close the door and step away