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The Year BeforeOn the Night of the Apprentice Supper
It is night on the Marram Marshes; a full httis in the air, broken occasionally by the glugs and gurgles of the Quake Ooze as the creatures that live beneath it e ship with a full cos are hungrybut they will have to fight the Quake Ooze Brownies for the leftovers Every now and then a bubble of gas throws soreat planks and spars covered in a thick black tar float across the top of the Ooze
Nightti to be abroad, but in the distance, paddling steadily toward the ship, is a figure in a ss lireen eyes stare angrily into the night as heover and over a fierce argu But what does he care anymore? he asks himself He is on his way to a new life, one where his talents will be recognized and not passed over in favor of an upstart nobody
As he nears all that can be seen of the shipa single ed red flag with a line of three black stars he steers the canoe into a narrow channel that will take him to the very foot of theof fear that hangs in the air, and the thought that beneath him lies the ship&039;s carcass, picked clean by the Quake Ooze Brownies Now the debris is slowing him down He propels the canoe forward until he is suddenly forced to a haltthere is so his path He peers into the brackish sludge and can see nothing at first, but thenthen he sees soh the water, and suddenly a skeleton, picked clean and bright by the Brownies, breaks the surface, sending a plume of black sli with a mixture of fear and excitement, the canoeist allows the skeleton to cli its sharp kneecaps into his back For he knows by the rings still on the bony fingers, that this is what he has been hoping to findthe skeleton of DomDaniel himself, Necromancer, twice ExtraOrdinary Wizard and, in the canoeist&039;s opinion, a far superior Wizard to any he has met so far And particularly superior to the one he has just been forced to share an Apprentice Supper with
The canoeist makes a deal with the skeleton He will do all that he can to Restore hihtful place in the Wizard Tower, if only the skeleton will accept him as his Apprentice
With a nod of his bony skull, the skeleton agrees to the deal
The canoe resumes its journey, directed by the so the canoeist in the back At last they reach the edge of the Marsh, whereupon the skeleton clih a desolate landscape, the thought of what he has left behind briefly crosses his mind But only briefly, for this is his new life now and he will show them alland then they&039;ll be sorry
Especially when he becomes the ExtraOrdinary Wizard