THE NEXT morning the Master asked where Krabat had been on Sunday, and how he had enjoyed his day out.
“Oh, pretty well!” said Krabat, shrugging his shoulders. Then he told the Master about his visit to Maukendorf, the dancing there and the fight with the village lads. It was good fun, he said, but it would have been far more amusing if he’d had a companion—Stashko, maybe, or Andrush, or indeed any of the others.
“Lyshko, say?”
“No, not Lyshko,” said Krabat, risking the Master’s displeasure.
“Why not?”
“I can’t stand him,” said Krabat.
“You too?” The Master laughed. “Then we feel the same about Lyshko. Are you surprised to hear that?”
“Yes,” said Krabat. “Yes, I am surprised.”
The Master looked him up and down. His glance seemed friendly, though there was some mockery in it.
“That’s what I like about you, Krabat—you’re an honest fellow, you always tell me what you think straight out!”
Krabat avoided meeting the Master’s eye. He did not know if he meant what he said; it could equally well be a veiled threat. At all events, he was glad when the miller changed the subject.
“As for what you were saying just now about taking a companion—remember this, Krabat! From now on you can go out on Sundays when you like, or you can stay at home if you prefer. But I am granting this privilege only to you, as my best pupil, and that’s my last word.”
Krabat was impatient for a private talk with Juro; Juro, on the other hand, had been avoiding him since their meeting behind the woodshed on Sunday. Krabat would dearly have liked at least to communicate with him in thought, but that particular spell did not work within the Secret Brotherhood.
When at last they did meet, in the kitchen, Juro informed Krabat that he must wait a few days “for that knife you gave me to sharpen. I’ll let you have it when it’s ready. I haven’t forgotten.”
“Very well,” said Krabat. He understood Juro’s true meaning.
Half a week went by, and then the Master had to go away again. Before he set off he told his men he would be away for two or three days.
The following night Krabat was wakened by Juro.
“Come into the kitchen; we can talk there.”
“What about them?” Krabat pointed to their companions.
“They’re so fast asleep a thunderstorm wouldn’t wake them,” Juro assured him. “I’ve taken care of that.”
In the kitchen, Juro drew the magic circle with its pentagram and crosses around the table and chairs, and lit a candle, which he placed between himself and Krabat.
“I’ve been keeping you waiting on purpose,” he began. “No one must guess that we are meeting in secret. I told you certain things last Sunday, and I dare say you’ve been thinking them over.”
“Yes,” said Krabat. “You were going to show me a way to escape the Master; and if I understood you correctly, it’s a way I can avenge Tonda and Michal too.”
“It is,” Juro told him. “If you have a girl who loves you, she can come to the Master on the last night of the year and ask him to let you go free. If she passes the test he will put her to, then he himself must die on New Year’s Eve.”
“Is the test hard?” asked Krabat.
“The girl must prove that she knows you,” said Juro. “She must pick you out from your companions and say, ‘This is the man.’ ”
“And then?”
“That’s all that is laid down in the Book of Necromancy, and to read it or hear it, you’d think it was child’s play.”
Krabat agreed—unless there was a catch in it. He reserved judgment. Was there a secret phrase in the Book, for example? The directions might contain a hidden double meaning . . . if he only knew just how the words ran . . .
“The words are clear and plain,” Juro assured him, “but the Master interprets them in his own way.”
He reached for the candle snuffers and trimmed the smoking wick.
“Years ago, when I was still quite new here, there was a journeyman among us, one Janko, who tried to do it. His girl turned up on time, on the last evening of the year, and asked the miller for his freedom. ‘Very well,’ said the Master, ‘if you can pick out Janko, he is free and you can take him with you, as it is written.’ Then he led her into the Black Room, where the twelve of us were sitting on the perch in the shape of ravens. He made us all put our beaks under our left wings. So there we perched, and the girl was quite unable to tell which was Janko. ‘Well?’ the Master asked her, ‘is it this one, on the extreme right, or that one there in the middle, or one of the others? Take your time, think it over; you know what depends on it.’ Yes, the girl said, she knew. And so, after hesitating for some time, she pointed to one of us at random—and it turned out to be Kito.”
“And then?” asked Krabat.
“Neither Janko nor the girl lived to see New Year’s Day,” said Juro.
“And since then?”
“Tonda was the only one who once meant to try the test, with Vorshula’s help—but you know about that.”
The candle was smoking again, and once more Juro trimmed the wick.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” said Krabat, after a long silence. “Why has no one else ever tried to escape this way?”
“Most of the others don’t know about it,” Juro replied, “and the few who do hope from year to year that they will not be harmed. There are twelve of us, and death comes to only one every New Year’s Eve. And there’s something more at stake, which I ought to tell you about. Suppose a girl passes the test, and the Master’s power is overthrown. At the moment of his death all he ever taught us will be gone. At a blow we’ll be ordinary journeyman millers again, and the magic-making will all be over.”
“Wouldn’t that happen if the Master were to die some other way?”
“No,” said Juro, “and that’s another reason why the few who know it put up with the death of one of their companions every year.”
“But you!” said Krabat. “Haven’t you done anything about it yourself?”
“I did not dare,” said Juro. “And I have no girl to come and ask for my freedom.”
He was playing with the candlestick, holding it in both hands, pushing it back and forth on the table slowly, looking at it as if by so doing he were trying to find out something important.
“Let’s understand each other,” said he at last. “You needn’t make any decision yet, Krabat, or not a final one. But now, at once, we ought to begin to do everything in our power to see that you can make the test easier for the girl, if need be!”
“I can!” said Krabat. “I’ll tell her what she needs to know in her thoughts—that will work, we’ve just learned to do it!”
“No, it won’t work then,” Juro told him.
“Why not?”
“The Master has the power to stop it. He did so with Janko, and he’ll do so again, no doubt about that.”
“What, then?” asked Krabat.
“During these next months,” said Juro, “you must try to reach a point where you can oppose the Master’s will. When we are on our perch in the shape of ravens, and he orders us to put our beaks under our left wings, you must be the only one who can put your beak under your right wing. If you can act differently from us during the test, you’ll show who you are, the girl will know which raven to point to, and then you’ll have won.”
“What can we do, then?” asked Krabat.
“Train your will.”
“Is that all?”
“More than enough, as you’ll find out. Would you like to begin now?”
Krabat said he would.
“Let’s suppose that I am the Master,” said Juro. “When I give you an order, you try to do the opposite of what I say. Suppose I ask you to move something from right to left, you move it from left to right. When you’re told to stand up, you sit where you are. If I order you to look me in the face, you look away. Is that clear?”
“Quite clear,” said Krabat.
“Good—then let’s begin.” Juro pointed to the candle-stick on the table between them. “Take hold of that,” he said, “and move it closer to you.”
Krabat put out his hand to the candlestick, with the firm intention of pushing it away from him and toward Juro—but he met with sudden opposition. A strong power reached out to him, working against the power of his own will, and for a moment he was quite paralyzed by it. Then a silent duel broke out between them. On one side was Juro’s will, and on the other Krabat’s, trying to oppose it, to bend and break its power.
He was still determined to push the candlestick away. “Away from me!” he thought. “Away . . . away.”
But he felt Juro’s will gradually taking over and extinguishing his own.
“As . . . as you wish,” Krabat heard himself say at last.
And he drew the candlestick obediently toward him. He felt utterly empty and drained. If anyone had told him at that moment that he was now dead, he would have believed it.
“Don’t give up hope!”
He heard Juro’s voice from very far away. Then he felt his friend place a hand on his shoulder, and again, quite close this time, he heard Juro speak.
“That was only your first attempt, remember, Krabat!”
After that they spent every night the Master was out of the house in the kitchen. Taught by Juro, Krabat was training himself to set his own will against his friend’s. It was a hard task for both of them, and often Krabat was near despair. “I’ll never do it,” he cried, “And if I’m to die anyway, at least I don’t want her death on my conscience too! Can’t you see that?”
“Yes, I see that, Krabat,” said Juro. “But she is not involved yet. You needn’t worry which way you’ll decide yet. It’s more important for us to make progress. If you don’t lose heart and give up, you’ll see how well we’ll be doing by the end of the year, believe me!”
Once again—how many times was it now?—they set grimly to work. And gradually, late in the summer, Krabat began to succeed now and then.