The Wizard's Apprentice

Note: This is my 3rd or 4th draft of this. I will be posting chapters one at a time as to not overwhelm.

Chapter 1
The Wizard and His Apprentice

"Slarora!” Fire burst out of his golden staff. The wizard rules like a king although he’s a wizard.

Then it was my turn to cast the same spell.

"Zlarhora!” I waved my crude wand and a window shattered in to a million pieces. I’ve been the wizards apprentice since I was nine years and now I’m seventeen. I’ve lived with the wizard since I was a baby, so I’ve been told, you would have thought I would pick magic just like that, well you were very wrong. In the time I was his apprentice I have broken windows, shuddered vases and almost destroyed the whole castle. It’s just hard for me to learn magic.

“Very good, Francis, you just need a little practice and you just might master it,” the wizard said cheerfully.

“A little practice!” I yelled, “Why am I the one to get this great magic passed down?” I just stood there and stared at him, waiting for him to answer.

“Francis, maybe magic is not your thing,” the wizard paused for a long moment and started again, “but that is way you must practice long and hard and maybe someday you too will read from The Book of Knowledge.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then the entire world’s magic will be lost forever. That is why you must learn, and maybe someday you will be as great as I.”

“I don’t want to!” I yelled in his face.

“You are dismissed!” The wizard pointed his finger at the door and I left, but I did not go to my chamber, like I should have, instead I went to the valley to see the mysterious dragons.

In the valley the dragons where up and about feeding their young ones.

I whistled, in I high pitch, for one of them named Sappy. The young dragon came bounding across the vast valley, toward me. She is one on my favorite dragons and seeing her today made me joyful.

Her wet leathery body rubbed up against mine.

“I see you have been swimming in the lake.” Sappy gave a light, little growl indicating that she was saying ‘yes’.

Her red tinted purple body was as shiny as new coin and smelt like one too. In greeting, she licked my face with her warm wet tongue.

Then a roar of terror and rage ring about the valley. One of the giant beasts’ came bounding pass me. Angry human cries rang as well.

I spotted two men trying to slaughter a dragon.

I took out my crude wand and ran toward the men and shouted a spell. A spell that I didn’t know as well as some I have learned but it helped in frightening the intruders.

“Lamanlana!” A bright spark shot out of the tip of my wand and headed toward the strange men, then…crack! The men flew about 50 feet into the air and fell back down to earth with a thump!

“The wizard run!” the strange men ran to the village over the side of the valley.

I was wondering what these two strange men wanted with the dragons, so I put an invisibly spell on myself and a silencing charm on my boots and ran after them.

The strange men took so any rounding turns that it felt as if we were going in endless circles.

Finally the men started to slow down when I started to hear near voices, and not just voices, a whole crowd of voices. Some were calling out, “Apples, apples, buy four for a pence,” I heard one of them call.

The men took one more turn and we came to a gate that was heavily guarded. I’ve never been to a village before, and I was never allowed, but this could be exception to the rule, and, I need to protect the dragons.

The men ran in the gate and it shut fast behind them.

I hurried over to a wall and tired to climb up it, but I was too weak to pull myself up.

I gave up after the hundredth try and went back to the valley. There I found the wizard waiting for me.

“Where have you been,” I stared at him blankly for a moment, trembling, I spoke.

“To the village,” I was trembling even more now.

“To your chambers, now!” The ground shook with the wizard’s rage. “And no supper for you tonight.”

I dragged myself up to the castle and then to my chambers and sat down on my warm, cozy bed.

}My window faces east and in the morning the shining, brilliant sun wakes me up. But now the sunlight was on the other side of the castle by now and only the faint streaks of the dieing sun remained.

I picked up my magic book beside my bed and looked inside. There was nothing. The wizard had taken that away.

I threw the heavy book against the hard stonewall.

I could smell the juicy beef that was cooking down stairs and I could almost taste it too. My mouth was watering.

I checked my pocket for my wand. All I could fell was a slimy awful thing. Pulling out the thing from my pocket I saw that my wand had turned into a slimy worm.

‘Rats!’ I thought to myself, ‘If the wizard went this far maybe…’
I went over to the door and pulled in the icy, cold handle. It was locked. ‘Now where’s the key?’ I looked around my small room. All I could see there where piles and piles of junk on the floor. ‘Might as well clean.’ I went over to a pile and started cleaning it up.

As I was cleaning, two rats, four mice, and about one hundred cockroaches scattered from underneath.

By the time I was done the sun was down and I had found two sets of one hundred keys. Then I set to work on finding the right key. Thankfully it took only five minutes to find it. I put the key in the keyhole and turned it. The lock clicked and I pulled open the door and stepped into the dim hallway and walked silently down the hall and got to the winding, twisting stairs. I quietly creped down the stairs.

As I came to the bottom of the stairs, it sounded like someone was talking to the wizard in a voice that I would never have used, unless I wanted to have no lessons and such for a month.

“No! The boy will stay here. I don’t care who his blood parents are. He might be dangerous,” the wizard yelled at the man standing in front of him.

The strange man looked over the wizards shoulder and saw me, “I think the boy might want to have a say in things, too,” inquired the strange man. The wizard turned around and looked at me standing on the steps, staring at both of them.

“Francis, get back up there. Stay out of this!” I stayed put, “I said…”

“He needs to take the place of my squire that he injured,” I stared wide-eyed at the stranger, “He’s a good for nothing apprentice. I don’t know why you would keep him when there’re more eligible boys out in the village or take in another orphan from the streets,” then he turned to me, “I assume you are probably wondering who I am, well, I’m Sir Edmund, Francis, your father’s best friend’s son. And since you attacked my squire and I in the valley and fractured his arm, you will need to take his place until he is well.”

“He will not”

“It is in the book,” Sir Edmund took a small leather bound book out his pocket, “Chapter 5 Section 111; ‘If someone has harmed a squire in anyway; broke a bone in his body, killed him or even sprained something; than that person (or persons) will take that squire’s place beside that knight until he is healed,’ ect, ect. There you have it in black and white.”

"Well, he’s not going with you.”

“Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not”

The argument went on for a few more minutes when I came in.

“I will go!” I yelled for the argument was echoing though the castle and it would seem as if we were having a party. “I will go. Even though I don’t know how to use a sword, but hopefully you can teach me.”

“I disapprove! You will not…”

“Lasleepyana!” The wizard tumbled over and fell fast asleep. “It’s way past your bedtime, Wizy,” Sir Edmund said with a crude wand pointed at the wizard.

“How did you do that?” I said amazed at what had just happened.

“No time for questions now, just get your stuff now. He will not be asleep for long.”

Chapter 2
A Lady in the Forest

I went up the stairs and gathered my things. Thankfully, I had few belongings, so it took no time at all to pack.

I ran downstairs where I found that Sir Edmund had already got everything we need together. We went out the castle doors and I saw his horse. It was snow white and had brown star on its forehead.

“Sir, your horse is beautiful. The mark is beautiful as well.”
“Why thank you. The star is a mark of magic. So it means that this horse is some source of magic.”

We started walking out of the valley. Sir Edmund and I were talking about our life and our goals until a subject came up.

“Sir, how do you know the wizard?” Edmund walked like a ghost for a while then began to speak.

“To tell you the truth, I also was once the wizards apprentice too. That is until a king came and saw me fighting off intruders in the valley. That was a couple of years ago, before I even knew you.”

“You lived there. I never knew that. When did you start to live there?”

“When I was a babe.”

“And you are…?”

“I’m twenty now. I was so glad to get out of there. Practicing day after day. I was too hard on me. If you think that the wizard and I were quarrelling a lot you should had saw King Edward and him. And that’s when you came in. The king traded you for me. Of course the wizard didn’t agree to it at first, but at the mention that I was not fit to be a wizard, he gave me up.”

“Oh, now I remember, the king picked me off the streets.” We had moved out of the valley and into a large, near by forest.

“You’re right. At first the king wanted to trade one of his manservant’s for me but he was too old to learn.”

“But when you first came to the wizard, how?”

“My mom was a guest at his castle and when she gave birth to me she died.”

“So did you master any spells?” We were in the middle of the woods.

“The only spell I mastered was the sleeping spell that I always put on the wizard to sneak out, but he always managed to break through it. And…”

“Who goes there?” A rough voice called through the forest, “I said, who goes there?” The wind started to lift up and the trees started to quiver.

“It is I, Sir Edmund.” He was trembling from head to foot. You would think, after he stood up to the wizard he would be fearless every time something like that comes up, not on your life.

“Ahh! Sir Edmund I was expecting you.” The voice calmed down and the wind blew into a pleasurable breeze.

“You have?” Sir Edmund looked stunned.

“I’ve always wanted to meet the amazing Sir Edmund.” Eyes followed the voice then a body.

The body was of a woman, not that you would have not guessed. She was not what you would call beautiful or attractive. Lets put it this way, she was a hag.

“Uh? Who are you?”

“Well, I’m Hara the hag. And I’ve come to tell you of your three tasks.”

“Three what?”

“Three tasks.” Sir Edmund gave her a confused look. “You know a quest?”

“Oh that. Yes, and they are?”

“Rescuing a damsel in distress, taking down the purple knight and dancing with the two dancing skeletons.”

“Dancing with what?” Sir Edmund asked, perplexed.

“Dancing with the two dancing skeletons…Oh, you will find out when you met them.”
Then the hag disappeared in to the forest without a signal word of hope or help.

“Where are we supposed to go?”

A sudden scream rang through the forest.

“Come Francis, we’re going to saving someone.”

“Oh come on. Whoever it is can save themselves.”

“You’re right, but a knight must save or help people.”

We rode through the forest near the cry.

When we had reached the cry, we saw a ‘lady’ fighting off ten raiders dressed in gray.

“Back evil things!” She fought with great style.

As far as we could see, she had already taken down a fully-grown man twice the size for her.

“Fair maiden.” Edmund started and changed his mind of the approach. “Uh? Do you need any help?”

“Yes, help would be nice.” Her voiced was as lovely as her sword strokes.

In a couple of seconds Sir Edmund and I were helping her fight of the raiders and in the end he and I backed out and let the ‘lady’ do the work.

The battle was not as gruesome as some knights have been in, but it was gruesome enough for Edmund to heave be hide a bush. And soon after I followed him, as a good squire should.

As the ‘gruesome’ battle came to and end and the ‘lady’ had fought off the last foe, she turned to us and said…

“Greetings friends. Thank you for helping me fight off those foes. May I introduce myself? I’m Ella.” The fair voice ‘maiden’ said, “And you are?”

“I’m Sir Edmund, my lady, and this is my squirrel… I mean squire, Francis.”

“A pleasure to meet you both. I’m sure. No need to call me ‘lady’, as you saw I’m no lady at all. Now tell me of your travels”

“No time now. We need to rescue a damsel in distress.”

“And what do you call helping me?”

“Uh, just helping.”

“Wrong. You basically saved me. Ten to one is not fair at all.”

“You were doing just well by yourself.”

The conversation was going nowhere so I tried to changed the subject until…

“You have done well Sir Edmund,” the hags face showed up in the sky, “You have saved Lady Ella from the raiders.”

“Its just Ella,” Ella corrected.

“Whatever,” the hag murmured, “but your quest to defeat the purple knight will be long and grueling. Save your strength.” Then the hags face disappeared from the dark indigo, blue night sky.

“We should camp here for the night.” Sir Edmund decided.

“I will stay with you just in case,” added Ella before anyone had a say.

“Fine with me.”

We were all sound a sleep in a minute or two after our supper of hare, that Ella shot, with my bow and arrows, and potatoes, that Ella found. Our stomachs were full and we gained our strength for the coming day.