There are few things more useless than a mage who cannot use magic.  

Zephirum was fully aware of his limitations, from the time when he had been found by his master several years ago until this very moment.  He shoved the worn book away and cursed under his breath at the world.  His master had a library with dozens of tomes, filled with the wisdom of magekind, but even this grimoire with the simplest of spells had eluded Zep’s grasp from the first time he had been permitted to open it.

He had no excuses any more.  Every line had been explained, every conundrum traced out by his master until the only thing left was for Zep to master the simple spells and move on to more advanced theories.  The master was patient, even kind in the way that he had implied was unusual for the practitioners of magic.  There were far too many mages who abused their pupils, crippling their abilities to learn or even draining their weak powers to feed their own.  The master had been almost fatherly in the way he treated the young orphan, giving him a name and a place in his small but tidy home outside of the village of Vatche.  The only other alternative Zep had was to beg for a living or be thrown out of any other employment as his ‘gift’ manifested in broken crockery or unexplained accidents.  

It was become a mage or starve.

That was not completely true.  He could have always gone the Church, devoted his life to the study of his gift under their benevolent thumb, and be killed when he opened his mouth to criticize one who he disagreed with.  Unable to control his magic [i]or[/i] his temper, a lifetime in the Church’s service would be short indeed.

Zep closed the book and moved it away from the table, just in case a spark from his casting would catch a page on fire.  Then he let his power flow in small increments through the spell he had just reviewed for the thousandth time.  A bucket of snowmelt sat to one side of the plain desk, a reasonable precaution in consideration of his spellcraft history.  The threads and sparks of the spell formed in his mind and across the table, making a weak yellow glow that threatened to exceed that of the oil lamp, held still and constant for one anticipatory second that perhaps [i]this[/i] time it would work, then dissipated with a series of sharp snaps and pops when Zep became distracted by a noise.

Fighting back a curse, Zep stood and stretched, making sure that no leftover sparks of spellfire were hiding to set the house on fire when he turned his back.  It was no mansion of a powerful court mage, more of a cottage out in the woods with all the amenities that the master’s comfortable wealth and his spellcraft could provide.  There were other houses and apartments far away, which he had only informed his lowly apprentice about in passing.  After all, fame was fickle, and a violent mob was not appreciative of one’s fame [i]yesterday[/i], just whatever slight they imagined today.  Still, this was Zep’s only home, and he kept it just as neat and tidy as he could with only his hands and no magic.  Each of the two tiny bedchambers were kept aired and the beds turned, even if Zep preferred to spend winter’s nights before the ceramic stove’s dying embers in the middle of the cottage.  Not all of the master’s books were related to spellcraft after all, and he spent many pleasant evenings studying the histories and mysteries of the limited library in order to assuage his infinite curiosity, even if he could not cast a spell worth spit.

It only took five steps to open the front door, a thick timber structure much like the walls that would discourage even the most curious bear, then poke his nose out the outer door and check the weather.  It did not take a spell to see the way clouds were stacking up on the horizon, a vicious storm which only looked to be more bitter than last week which had taken forever for Zep to shovel paths through.  The wood pile was still nearly as large as before, the product of many hours of frustration taken out on defenseless dry windfalls in the forest, even if last week’s snowfall had left a portion of it frozen solid with meltwater.

And somewhere behind that immobile lump of cut firewood came the plaintive noise that had distracted Zep in the middle of his spell.

“A cat,” he muttered.  “Probably crawled back there to have her kittens and eat all the mice.  Good riddance, pest.  And shut up so I can study.”

The cat responded by making another tiny ‘mew’ of fear and loneliness before the closing door cut off its voice and Zep returned to his studies.  After throwing another stick into the stove, Zep bit down on his bottom lip and opened the book again.  This time he brought out the candle, embossed with helpful sigils and runes.  

There was far too much fire in him already, so lighting a candle with a simple spell should have been as trivial as when his master would give a casual wave and light a dozen beeswax tapers at one time.  All it took was concentration, as the master had said many, many times.  A mage’s power was limited by their will, and the master had reassured Zep far too often about the power he could sense in the young man.  A power which refused to reveal itself, even when Zep had raged in incoherent fury against the impassive candle or held himself in a meditative trance for days.  

This afternoon, all of the will in the world would not have helped Zep, because every time he focused what little concentration he could muster, he could hear the stupid cat.  After enough sputtering pops had burned new pits into the wooden desk, Zep used a damp sponge to mop it down and returned to the cottage’s front door to check on the storm.

Even more clouds were climbing into the sky, heralding a blizzard that was going to be more powerful than any Zep had seen since moving here.  The intensity of the upcoming storm explained why the master was late returning, or at least that was what Zep was hoping.  Even the sun was dimming behind the cloud cover, making him turn up the dim light of the oil lamp when he returned to his book.  Several more attempts of the other simple spells went even worse than before without even sparks to put out by the time he slammed the book shut and surrendered to the events of the day.

“Can’t blame the cat for this,” he muttered while doing just that.  “Well, I can.  Just won’t do any good.”

It would not be a pleasant task to bring snow-covered firewood inside during the storm, so he used a broom to vigorously clean off the nearest end of the cord and began to lug the pieces inside.  The activity helped keep his mind off his failure, and if he brought in more firewood than needed, so be it.  To make space, the furniture in the main room had to be moved into the bedrooms, an activity that made him sweat with exertion by the time the main room was sufficiently full enough of wood to keep him warm even if the storm were to rage for days.  With every trip outside to pick up an armload of wood, the cat in the wood pile took the opportunity to give out a tiny plaintive cry and increased his frustration.

“Shut up, cat!” he snapped in the middle of one trip to the wood pile.  “I’m doing the [i]one[/i] thing I can do well, and you’re complaining!  Go… eat a mouse or something.”

It did seem to quiet the cat for a time, giving Zeb the hope that its mother had returned to drag the noisemaker somewhere else more sheltered from the cold.  It took some pounding to free the last pile of wood from the frozen snowmelt, and it would probably just freeze up again by the time he needed any more, so he left the cat’s hiding place alone while continuing to prepare for the storm.  

The stove used an outside vent by the door, which Zeb checked and made sure it was clear of any birds’ nests or debris so the stove would not choke up in the middle of the weather.  All that was left was some vigorous sweeping to clean up after the wood restacking and Zeb pulled his sleeping mat in next to the warm stove, where it would most probably remain for the next week.

One last trip outside to look at the sky and check to see if the master was returning was all that Zeb was planning on.  A plaintive wail in the wood pile made him get down on his knees—dampening his trousers in the process—and peer into the stygian darkness where the cat was hiding.  It had to still be in there, because he could hear it, even if there was no sign of the little pest.  He spent some time calling for the cat despite himself, feeling the fire of frustrated rage in his chest grow as the pest continued to refuse the refuge of the cottage, instead preferring the most probable frozen death of the harvested firewood.

He went back inside.  Alone.

Out of spite, Zeb picked up the next book of spells on the shelf, the one he was supposed to open only after mastering their lesser forms.  There was a familiar tantalizing sense of threshold about all the spells in it also, more complicated formulae and processes that much like their younger siblings he could learn and cast, but with most likely much the same miserable result.

He tried anyway, forcing the magic through new pathways and stopping only when the candle he was trying to light melted down [i]into[/i] the desk, leaving a hissing hole.  He grabbed the desk to throw it outside into the snow, but the burning oil lantern stopped him as it tilted and he was forced to grab it before the inevitable crash.

“Sonofa—”  Zeb darted outside and stuck his hand into a snowdrift until the minor burn quit hurting.  The noise must have disturbed the cat again, because it began to mew from the depths of the frozen firewood pile, which only fanned the flames of his anger.

“Worthless, weak creature!” he shouted.  “Mewing for help instead of helping yourself!  There’s a perfectly good house right here, safe from the snow.  My master will take you in no matter how worthless you are, feed you, care for you!  All you have to do is come out!”  He stalked back into the house and returned with a handful of dried beef, throwing it into the holes in the firewood piles like it was a weapon.

“There, you stupid cat!” he snarled.  “Now you can freeze to death with a full belly!  Are you happy!”

The snow was packing into the soles of his woolen socks, melting around his toes, and not improving his mood in the least.  He flung himself forward at the wood pile, peering into every snow-rimmed hole until he spotted a pair of glittering yellow eyes.  A frantic grab left him holding nothing more than a few bits of bark and the sound of the kitten vanishing further into concealment.  He grabbed a piece of firewood and beat the top of the wood pile, making ice and snow fly with every blow as his fury raged until at long last, the wood fell from his hands and Zeb sat down on the packed snow of the pathway, feeling the dirt turn to mud beneath his rear. 

“Stupid cat.”  As hard as he tried, he could not stop the hot tears that began to trickle down his face.  Above him, the dance of darkness continued as the storm clouds rose with all their fury.  Before long, the temperature would plunge until even the inside of the cottage’s windows would be thick with horfrost.  Any creature who could not find a fire would die, much like Zeb had nearly done before his master had rescued him from the driving snow.

He stumbled into the cottage and got more shreds of dried meat, leaving a trail from the ice-covered firewood to the door before returning inside and adding wood to the fire.  The shivering that wracked his body was only partially due to the cold, the tender edges to his ears that had never fully recovered from years ago, the memories that refused to leave. It was an agony that he had sealed away, a scab ripped from a wound to bleed again and again.

There was no sincerity to his attempts at study now, only an open book and the low glow of a lantern while the failed mage in front of them did nothing but cry like a baby.  It would be dark soon, with the wind howling around the cottage so fiercely that the door would need to remain shut and latched.

And the cat would die.

Sometime in the spring, he would unpack the firewood enough to find the tiny body, dry and lifeless with maggots wriggling over the corpse.  Dead because of him.  Just dead.  Mages could crack open the sky, bring fire down upon their enemies, curse them into oblivion.  He could not even make a simple light spell.

The tears would not stop falling.  He was all alone again, with the storm and the snow outside, and the tears would not stop, even when he found himself on his knees again, praying to a God he had almost forgotten.

“God, help him.  I can’t.  I’m too weak.  Give me… no, I don’t deserve anything.  I’m worthless.  Just help the cat.  Please.  It does not know where to go to be saved because it does not have another cat to lead it.”

The howling of the wind rose over the cries of the lost kitten, but the inside of the cottage was silent until Zeb began to move with deliberate intent.  Pressing the right knotholes on the floor opened the concealed trapdoor to the master’s secure library, and he plunged down the ladder at nearly a dead drop, only to emerge a few moments later with a thick tome tucked under one arm.

He slammed it down on the table, paging through it until he came to the spell that he was dreading.  The consequences of casting something so far beyond his skills could be easily lethal for an experienced mage.  For him…  It was the only thing he could do.  Everything he was and could be placed on one number of the roulette wheel.  He took one last look at the spell while the storm built to a demonic howl outside.  

Then he drew all the power he could and began to cast. 

[hr]

The mage had no name that he would claim for more than a week or more, no home that he would stay at for long, or any real friends other than a young orphan he had found a few years ago.  The wind beneath his wings and a fat hare in his talons were his happiness right now, particularly since the blasted storm had finally cleared, allowing him to return to his mountain cottage.  He swooped lower, taking in the thin trail of smoke coming from the snow-covered cottage with as much of a smile as his present form would allow.  

There was a cleared space next to the door, allowing the mage to land and shift back to his human form while dropping the dead hare.  Zephirum was a wonderful cook, and with a few hours of work, cleaning, and dried vegetables, the hare would provide them both a good meal while catching up on the events that had passed while they had been separated.  He might never make a mage, but the boy could cook, and for that he could stay as long as he wanted.  Never underestimate the value of a reliable person who could keep you with a full belly and watch the house while you were called away.

It took less than a step inside the door for the mage to realize what had happened while he was gone.  The boy sat at the desk with the soft glow of a perfect light spell illuminating his book and a small sleeping kitten cradled in the crook of his elbow.  

Words were not needed. 

The mage walked over to his apprentice, who looked up with a smile, took in the sight of the dead hare, and passed the sleeping kitten over so that he could get to work in the kitchen.  The process of cooking took several hours, with the kitten being fed tiny bits of hare in the process, before the two of them settled down at the table to eat.

Before they began, the mage could not resist saying, “I told you.”

“Many times.”  Zephirum nodded while dishing out the thick stew.  “I’m sorry I did not listen to you.”

“I’m just pleased that you listened to [i]something[/i].”  The mage allowed a tiny bit of stewed hare to fall to the floor, where it was immediately pounced upon.

“As am I.”  The boy lowered his head and said grace, but stopped before dipping his spoon into his bowel.  “Things will be different now, master.”

“Fewer mice in the kitchen, for one.  And an apprentice who is good for more than just boiling potatoes.  I will adapt to the occasional cat hair in the wrong place.  How about you, Zephirum?”

“No.”  The boy looked thoughtful while a playful breeze rattled the windows.  “I think that name has served its purpose.”

“Agreed.”  The mage considered while they ate, and only spoke again after the meal had been completed and the dishes cleaned.  “What would you think of Zephyr?”

The newly named Zephyr settled down at the table with his master and picked up the kitten.  “I would like that very much, master.”