Season I, Episode III: The Master Search

The first sound each morning in Lowstone was much more metallic than birdsong.

Somewhere beyond Iskander’s attic room, copper pnerethi clinked across wooden counters as bakers bought bread and merchants counted earnings. He knew, one day soon. His landlord would remind him of rent still owed.

He emptied his purse onto the little table beneath the window. Two silver and twenty-three coppers rolled out. He sorted them into careful piles before opening his travel ledger. He read the items already listed: rent, food, pigments, vellum.

He hesitated to add one line beneath them: application fee.

The numbers did not compute. Even spending sparingly, he would exhaust his savings long before he earned the right to stand before the First Appraisal, let alone the Scholarship panel. He studied the page, then closed the ledger with a nod.

“Today,” he told the empty room, “I find work.”

He slid his manuscript into the satchel, gathered his remaining coin, and stepped out toward Mercantile Rise.

Gallery Street shimmered beneath the morning sun. Gold leaf caught the light in workshop windows and painters carried fresh canvases to their day’s work areas. Where Iskander had admired beauty yesterday, now he climbed the avenue with his portfolio in-hand searching not for inspiration but for a master.

Within an hour he arrived within the higher streets of Mercantile Rise. The cobblestone streets were lined with marble storefronts, most with enchanted scripts announcing their wares. He passed a premium teahouse, a whiskey shoppe, and an elegant gown store called Thalosier Thread before finding a window display of illuminated charters. Each looked worthy of a Concord chamber.

Straightening his vest, he stepped inside.

“Good morning,” he said to the assistance arranging pigments behind the counter. “My name is Iskander Halevar of Sunvale. I hoped to ask if the store’s master might be accepting an apprentice.”

The assistant did not look up. “He is not.”

“Might he, in the future?”

“No,” the assistant finally turned toward him. “The master chose his next apprentice nearly a year ago. Once his current qualifies for the Halls, I will step forward.”

The second shop managed an apologetic smile. The third sent him to an apprentice who listened patiently.

“I wish we could help. The master has a vetted list of future apprentices, but she may be amiable to interviewing you to be added to that list.”

By the seventh, Iskander realized the fine workshops of Sentra were vastly different than those in Sunvale. Here, no one asked for apprentices. They simply waited for students to come to them. There were no notices or advertisements announcing apprenticeships anywhere.

The farther downhill he wandered, the more marble facades surrendered to warm brick and more modest storefronts. He stopped beside an independent craftsman’s shop that had its doors propped against the summer air.

At last, he found a wooden slate: APPRENTICESHIP AVAILABLE.

His pace quickened. He stepped forward, but noticed a smaller, turned slate beneath the first: FILLED.

The next three bore the same message. Another carried half a dozen names scratched into its frame, each crossed out in turn. His heart leapt again when he came to a slate that said: VACANT.

Iskander walked inside to find an elderly Earth Elite illuminating a map of the Sentra isle. He waited as the man softly brushed the dark lines of the map with bright white. Immediately, the map appeared to glow as aether imbued into the parchment.

The man welcomed him and listened politely to his pitch.

Then he asked, “What is your Raphar specialty?”

Iskander nodded to the man’s map. “Illumination.”

The man perked up. “Cartography?”

“No,” Iskander admitted. “I prefer literary mediums.”

The master’s expression softened. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

By midday, Iskander no longer knew whether he searched for work or simply wandered.

“You look lost.” An older woman was seated outside a printmaker’s shop, her clothes respectable enough and he smile easy. “Do you seek a master?”

Iskander nodded.

“I know three who seek an apprentice.” The woman’s smile widened. “For a copper, I’ll show you their workshops.”

Hope returned so quickly it was almost embarrassing. Without thinking, he reached for his coins. He produced a copper and outstretched his hand toward the woman.

“Don’t.”

A freckled pale hand wrapped around his reaching wrist.

He turned to find a woman standing beside him in the charcoal uniform of Skythread. Her bright red hair was gathered behind her shoulders, gaze fixed on the other woman. They scowled at one another as Iskander’s gaze swiveled from one to the other. After a long moment, the older woman muttered something and vanished into the crowd.

The redhead looked at Iskander. “Some would meet a copper at the point of a blade.”

Heat climbed into his face as he swallowed.

“She had offered references for an apprenticeship.”

The woman nodded, expression softening. Her eyes settled on the satchel under his arm. “What is your arcane?”

“Raphar.”

“Not in a print medium, by chance?” She quirked a brow.

“No,” Iskander shook his head. “I prefer literary illumination.”

Something almost akin to disappointment crossed her face. She glanced toward the upper reaches of Mercantile Rise, where he had obviously come from, and tilted her head. “The Illuminator’s Guild would be your best contact.” She pointed downhill toward Lowstone. “They have headquarters near the Silver Spoon. Do you know it?”

Iskander vaguely recalled seeing the tavern a few blocks from his room.

Before he could thank her, she was already walking away. He watched the Skythread insignia disappear, swallowed by the current of merchants and townspeople.

Some time later, he found a modest stone building with a painted sign reading: ILLUMINATORS’ GUILD. He opened the door to the smell of paper, ink, and drying oils. They were comfortingly familiar.

One man occupied the guild’s workshop, alone at a board table burnishing gold leaf across a tome cover. His hair had long surrendered to silver, those his hands remained steady.

He looked up. “May I help you?”

“I hope so. My name is Iskander Halevar. I was told this might be the best place to find a master illuminator.”

A gray eyebrow lifted. “Did you bring along your work?”

Iskander unwrapped the manuscript and laid it gently on the table. Without hurry, the man opened its cover and flipped page by page until the only sounds were turning parchment and the distant clatter of the city.

The man stopped on a page where the mother and her eight children sat in a circle within the woods. “Who commissioned this?”

“No one. It was a story from my childhood.”

Silence returned as the man turned to the final page. He closed the cover and rested both hands upon it. “It is lovely.”

“Thank you,” said Iskander. “I finished it nearly a year ago upon my Rite.”

The master furrowed his brows, turning his attention back to the manuscript. “A year, you say?” He rubbed a thumb across one gilded border. “There is no lifting nor cracking nor fading.” He looked up with curiosity. “I’ve handled manuscripts half this age that weathered worse.”

Iskander blinked. “My previous master always complimented my care.”

“Hmm,” hummed the man, though his expression remained not entirely convinced. “Were you hoping to sell this?”

Panic seared through his senses abruptly. “No, I do not wish to part from it.”

The manuscript, though probably worth at least a silver coin or two, was far more valuable. It was his only reminder of home, and of the trust and confidence his family placed on his shoulders. The master seemed to understand and handed the children’s book back without another word of coin.

“Let me spare you some walking. Literary illumination is a fine craft. It is simply not one Sentra pays for, unfortunately. The capital wants ceremonial work. Concord charters, guild seals, doctrinal commissions, and the like. The provinces may be kinder to your art. A market town might treasure illuminated tales.” He looked out the window, where the rounded domes of the Halls’ peaks could be barely seen. “If it is the Halls you’re after, learn to gild a charter. Prove you can do the work the capital wants, then no one will care what you make on your own time.”

Iskander caressed the manuscript to his chest. “I understand.”

He only half meant it.