“I see,” Aahz murmured softly. “Getting pretty big for your britches, aren’t you, kid?”
“Not really. I’m very much aware of how little I know, thank you. But this is my assignment, or at least it was accepted in my name, and I mean to give it my best shot . . . however inadequate that might be. Now for that assignment, I need your help, Aahz . . . heck, I’ll always probably need your help. You’re my teacher and I’ve got a lot to learn. But, I’m not going to roll over and die without it. If getting your help means turning my assignment and my apprentice over to you, then forget it. I’ll just have to try to handle things without you.”
“You’ll get your brains beat out.”
“Maybe. I didn’t say I’d win, just that I’d try my best. You bring out my best, Aahz. You push me into things that scare me, but so far I’ve muddled through somehow. I need your help, but I don’t have to have it. Even if you don’t want to admit it to me, I think you should admit it to yourself.”
With that, we both lapsed into silence.
Me, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Up unti! now, I had been carried along by my anger and Aahz’s responses. All of a sudden, my mentor wasn’t responding. Instead, he stared at me with expressionless yellow eyes, not saying a thing.
It was more than a little unnerving. If there is one characteristic of Aahz’s I could always count on, it was that he was expressive. Whether with facial expression, gestures, grunts, or verbal explosions, my mentor usually let everyone in the near vicinity know what he felt or thought about any event or opinion expressed. Right now, though, I didn’t know if he was about to explode or just walk away.