Impossible to Love (Book 1 of The Starlite Heart)

The Pupil & His Master

Ever since he was a little boy, Enand Sengar had known what he wanted. It was money and fame. From the very beginning, this aim had made him work harder on his studies. It had made him a stubborn pupil who never heard no from his teacher.

It was the purpose of his existence. It was the sole reason that he had left his home and his country. He had travelled far and wide in search of new teachers, new diseases and new methods to cure those diseases.

All those years of hard work had been finally paid off on his appointment as the head of the royal medical team. The work was not much. Most of the task was done by the team. He was only called when the empress, the prince or someone important became sick. His salary was comfortable and the occasional gifts kept coming his way.

With his aim to achieve success fulfilled, he was content for some time. But as is human nature, he soon grew dissatisfied with what he had, and started wanting more.

His prayers were answered when one day he met a man who promised to fulfil all his desires. His age was hard to guess with his strange gold coloured skin. He dressed in clothes like Enand had never seen in his life. And Enand had travelled to some faraway lands. The man was thin and bald with only slits for eyes.

Enand had befriended the stranger because he knew him to be special. He was born with a knack to know who could prove beneficial to him.

The stranger was indeed a specialist, an expert on poisons. And he agreed to become Enand’s next master. His only condition was that nobody could know about him. The master and the pupil carried out their classes in secret for months.

“If I were you, I would write it down,” the master said one day as he taught Enand a new potion. It was their last class.

The pupil complied. He watched with mesmerised curiosity as his master carefully plucked the leaves of the flower and dropped the stem into the little cauldron already filled with what looked like plain water.

“Now we have to stir it four times and add the herb.” He kept verbally repeating his actions so as to enable his pupil to write down everything.

“The heat must not be too high or the whole thing burns,” the master said, “too low and it turns poisonous.”

After several hours of hard work the potion was complete.

“And this will cure any poison?” the student asked. His eyes gleamed as he rubbed his palms.

“Almost any,” the master corrected. “I’ll demonstrate its effects to you.”

He pulled out a red vial from his robe. “This poison can kill anyone in about an hour. Do you want to drink it or should I?”

Enand wasn’t a brave man by nature. He suggested that they try it on an animal and provided his dog for the demonstration.

“Very well,” the master said and emptied the vial into the dog’s mouth.

They waited for the dog to show symptoms of the poison intake. In half an hour the dog was vomiting all over the place. The pupil restrained his dog while the teacher dipped a spoon into the liquid he had just made and made the dog drink it. The dog began to recover within an hour.

“In an hour or two more, it’ll be as good as new.” The master smiled.

The pupil poured the remaining content of the cauldron into a vial. “This one dose of liquid will make my life.”

“I fail to see how.”

“I’ll be able to cure any poison now,” the pupil responded.

“The ingredients of this potion are not only expensive and rare, but also have an expiry date. You cannot go about town giving this to every case of poison. Nor can you wait a month praying for a case of poison. You only have one dose, make it count.”