Free Journeyman (A Wizard's Life) by Eric Guindon Page A

go ahead and try to cut the baby out of Sania. He hoped he would not regret the decision.
    Everyone other than Benen and the doctor was sent out of the room before the operation. Benen was to assist the man; he would have refused to leave anyway, so he may as well be of use.
    The doctor began cutting into Sania with an expert hand; he had done this before.
    “How many times have you performed this procedure?” Benen asked him.
    “Thirty-six,” said the man.
    “How many of the babies survived the operation?”
    “Six.”
    “And the mothers?” Benen was afraid of the answer.
    “One.”
    Benen told himself that those mothers and their children had not had a wizard on hand to heal them like Sania did. He hoped it would be enough.
    As the doctor’s cut exposed more of the inner womb, a sour smell began to leak out, along with fluids which did not look at all like those normally found in any human body.
    The doctor’s next incision showed the baby; both he and Benen recoiled at what they saw. The thing was not human in any way and the moment air touched it, it began to unravel before their eyes. Benen could see that the baby itself was the knot of magical lines he had seen. Soon, the baby was a mass of unrecognizable ooze. When Benen looked to his wife, he saw she had not survived even this far. Benen’s grief overwhelmed him then and he withdrew into himself, unable to face the world. He became catatonic for a time.
    He later found out that his father-in-law had protected him from villagers who blamed him for the monstrous baby he had put in poor Sania’s belly. The doctor had spread the tale far and wide and made it clear the wizard had killed Sania, if indirectly. The people of the village screamed for his blood.
    Pol had a cooler head. He did not blame Benen for the death of his daughter, and had sheltered him.
    The morning after the dreadful operation, Benen came to himself again, much as he might have preferred not to. Pol was sitting nearby, watching him.
    “They blame you for what happened with Sania and the baby,” he told Benen.
    “They are right to do so.” Benen wanted to let the villagers do to him whatever they pleased. “The baby was not right. It was a thing of magic.” He couldn’t continue.
    “Did you know it would happen like that?”
    “No.”
    “Then it is not your fault, Benen. I have known you for over ten years now and I know you loved Sania as much as I did. This is not something you would have chosen to have happen. We all share the pain of Sania’s passing.”
    “No! It’s my fault. I should have known. Wizard don’t have families, this is the reason. I never asked and no one told me, but this is it. We cannot have children. All those miscarriages. I should have known something was wrong!”
    Benen cried and raged like this for a time and Pol let him. Sometimes Pol argued with him, other times he cried along with him.
    There were visits from Dania as well. Cool, unemotional Dania had cracked a little at the death of her sister. She offered her sympathies to Benen and they shared a hug for a long time, she holding him while he cried.
    Brenia never came. She blamed him for her sister’s death, Pol told him. Benen was not surprised and did not hold it against her in the least. He too blamed himself.
    After a week of hiding in the headman’s house and grieving, Benen worked through his emotions until he was left numb. He hated himself. There was no doubt in his mind that he should never have tried to make wizards accepted by the common people. It was obvious to him now that they were never meant to mingle with anyone, not even each other. Wizards were solitary creatures and it was for the best.
    He left in the middle of the night, sneaking out of the headman’s house and then out of the village. He took with him from his own house mementos of his time with Sania; a book and a knitted scarf. He also took some of his laboratory journals and the lenses he had been using to try to