The Magician's Apprentice

The trip to Ar was far far longer than I remembered it being. I supposed it was because I was too busy looking back, rather than forward. When Circé Veneficus invited me to Ar on the last En'kara, I had been rather elated. I thought and dreamt of nothing else until I arrived at last. Yet now in my present circumstance, I felt no such joy in my heart. I do not know what will become of me, nor whether I will ever see Marius again in my lifetime.

There is both an element of entertainment and of mystery enshrouding Xarika. She is a Magician, and I sense that most folks regard her with a hint of loathing. And yet at the same time, they are drawn by curiousity to see whether she is truly able to make a person vanish into thin air. Or to saw a person completely in half and put him or her back together again. I have incidentally been reduced to this most humiliating position of being the Lady's apprentice while we sail across Thassa and continue our voyage along the Vosk.

People stare at me as if I am some freak riddled with the Dar-kosis, as if I am an unnatural anomoly when I return from the void I had vanished to.. or when I rise and walk as a whole man, only moments after being sawed in half inside the Magician's truck. They used to look upon me much differently when I was known as Musician. I have become a pariah in their midst, and I fear I shall die of lonliness before the end of Se'var.