Free Dragonborn by Toby Forward Page B

But once you have given a thing a new word it becomes a new thing.
    If you keep hens, for eggs and for the stew pot, never give a hen
a name, because it is harder to kill and eat Clucker or Doofy than it is to pull the neck of just another hen in the yard when you want your holiday dinner.
    When an apprentice comes to serve a wizard, he has a name, the one his parents gave him. This is the name he will always be known by. It is what he writes when he signs a letter or buys a piece of land. But one name is not enough for a wizard. Just as a pig may be a wild boar or a bacon pig or a family pet, so there is more than one thing to being a wizard, and so a wizard needs more than one name.
    It takes many years for a wizard to discover the name of the apprentice, but it is the most important thing he will ever teach him.
    There have been stories of wizards who have lost their way, turned to magic for their own gain, and tried to be greater than the magic itself. One wizard, Slowin, whose magic name was Ember, stole the name of his apprentice. Slowin had misused magic over long years. He started looking over his shoulder when he walked in the streets. At night, he heard creaks and groans like floorboards and hinges. When storm clouds gathered and ordinary people took in their washing, Slowin took himself down into his cellar and bolted the doors and sealed them with a spell. But his magic was growing weaker and weaker because he had not used it well, and the spells would not have kept a rat from getting in. Morning by morning, the magic he had wasted and had gained profit from was coming together. All the tiny spells were joining up, and all the great acts of wizardry he had performed were
gathering together, until they formed a mighty army of magic, ready for revenge on the weak and frightened Slowin. He blamed his name. He saw Ember as a sign of dying and weakness, the glowing coals of a fire that has once blazed away and is now still and sullen in the grate, waiting for more coal or wood.
    He had an apprentice, a poor girl called Beatrice, who had come to him as a small child. Slowin knew he had less and less to give, less to teach, so Beatrice, instead of learning, was little more than a slave, cleaning and running errands and taking care of the house. She was a girl who deserved the finest master. She had a gift that few apprentices bring with them. Her powers could have been greater than Slowin ever dreamed of. He had been a strong wizard, once, but even then nothing to what Beatrice could have been. He saw the possibilities in her and was full of envy and spite, which made his laziness and his weakness even greater, so he kept from her even the little he could have given.
    The day came for her to sign her indenture and become his apprentice, for him to tell her what her name was. Her name was Flame. Slowin saw his opportunity to cheat the magic that was hunting him.
    â€œYou write Beatrice here,” he said, “and there”—he put his finger on the page—“is your name in magic: Ember”
    Beatrice looked straight into his eyes, and he knew that she did not believe him.
    â€œHurry,” he said. “Or you will never be a wizard.”
    So she signed Ember, and he signed Flame.
    When it was done, it could not be undone. Slowin had a new name, and new strength. And Beatrice, who had come to him with such promise, was now weak and spent, and the revenge magic was turned on her.
    That night, Slowin’s house burned down, and with it all his books and equipment and ingredients, and the indenture that bound master and apprentice together, destroyed by fire. Slowin escaped, changed beyond change, and was never seen again in that country. Beatrice was dragged from the fire. Her hair was burned off, her hands black from trying to beat off the flames; her face, which had promised beauty, would always tell the story of the fire. She was half-dead, hardly breathing. The magic had mistaken her for Slowin.