Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

“Dude,” Jim exclaimed, “how can you be so calm right now?”

Tim shrugged. “I just don’t see why everyone’s making such a big fuss about it.”

“This guy is a legend. He’s literally mentioned in ancient myths. He was in hiding for a thousand years, and he suddenly shows up and announces that he’s choosing an apprentice. He’s the greatest wizard the world has ever known. That is why everyone is making a big fuss about it.”

“I don’t know Jim, it doesn’t sound very…”

“What? You don’t believe in magic? Did you not watch the broadcast of his announcement?” Jim was losing his mind over this. How could Tim be so indifferent? This was the news of a lifetime!

“It’s not that,” Tim said. “I just don’t think it sounds all that great. I’m happy just the way things are.”

“You wouldn’t want to have that kind of power? You wouldn’t want to study magic under the greatest magician who ever lived?”

“Not really,” Tim said. “I mean, I guess it could be cool, but I don’t need it.”

“Well I hope you’ll at least come watch me get selected as his apprentice at the event this evening. Everyone will be there.”

“Oh, I know,” he smiled. “I’ll be there helping my mom sell snacks and drinks to the crowd.”

---

Tim and his mother showed up long before anyone else. They established a little base of operations with their stock of supplies and divided the area into zones they would rotate through. Tim was preparing to enter an apprenticeship with a family friend who would teach him to be a blacksmith, but he couldn’t start until he was of age in another few months.

Jim hitched a ride with them wanting to be early, even though there wasn’t any advantage to showing up before everyone else.

Before long people began trickling into the massive town square. People brought things to sit on and faced toward the grand hall, a building that sat at the north end of the square and towered over any other building in the city. All major events were held here, and the officials always made announcements from a third floor balcony overlooking the square.

Tim and his mother got to work selling their goods. There was a busy, jittery energy in the square and people were quick to part with their money. After all, they wouldn’t need their money if they were selected as the wizard’s new apprentice.

Just as the last rays of the sun streaked across the sky a cheer rose from the crowd as the great wizard walked out onto the balcony. No theatrics this time. The whole crowd turned their attention to the balcony. It was useless trying to sell anything now, so Tim found a place to stand out of the way and watched with everyone else.

The grand wizard’s voice carried through the air like thunder, washing over the crowd with power and majesty. “Tonight I will choose my apprentice.” He held up a pendant. It was a plain looking gold puck with an emerald gemstone hanging from a dark blue ribbon. He released it and it hung in the air, the ribbon slowly rippling and waving like a lazy serpent. It drifted out over the crowd, slowly, dramatically tumbling and twisting in the air.

The wizard scanned the crowd, his eyes burning a wandering path around the square. He froze a couple times, peering intensely through squinted eyes as his floating pendant began drifting toward the one being examined. But each time he would eventually break his gaze and the pendant would float to a halt, waiting.

This went on for some time. Each targeted individual’s hopes would swell as the pendant drifted closer and closer, and their countenance would fall when they lost the wizard’s focus. Many faces lit up and sank into shadow as the pendant meandered high above their heads.

Tim decided to try selling more snacks. It was getting boring. But as he wandered through the crowd he couldn’t find anyone who would allow their eyes to stray from the balcony. They all looked on with hope and determination. Tim rolled his eyes and made his way back to the little headquarters he and his mom had set up. Maybe he could stock up and prepare for after the apprentice had been chosen. Surely a lot of disappointed people would want to snack away their sadness.

As he walked toward the back of the square Tim suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. A warm burning sensation assaulted him from behind, as though a great bonfire had just been lit behind him. He turned and felt his heart leap when he saw that the wizard was peering at him and pointing. He hadn’t pointed at anyone before. He had a fierce smirk on his face and his eyes were twinkling. The pendant’s ribbon passed around Tim’s head and settled on his shoulders, the heavy gold resting gently on his chest.

“What?” he whispered to himself. “No…” He looked at the wizard, confused, maybe even a little angry. No, he was furious. He didn’t want this.

The crowd cheered and the wizard turned and walked back into the building silently.

A city official pushed her way through the crowd and approached Tim. “Congratulations,” she said. “Come with me so we can make the arrangements for you to…”

Tim cut her off. “There’s been a mistake,” he said. “I wasn’t here hoping to be selected, I was just selling snacks. I probably should have stayed home.”

“You… don’t want to be the wizard’s apprentice?” She asked, dumbfounded.

“No!” Tim exclaimed.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, come with me.”

She led him to a side door near the balcony where the wizard had stood moments before and led him to a neat little space with comfortable chairs.

“Have a seat. I’ll be back in a moment,” she said.

She disappeared around a corner, her shoes clacking on the hard marble, sending hollow echoes through the cold, cavernous building.

A long time passed. Tim was growing tired. He’d need to be up early in the morning to help his mother with chores before going to school. Eventually the woman returned, but Tim’s heart jumped when he saw that the wizard was with her. He shot to his feet with empty lungs and clammy hands.

“Tim,” the wizard began. “I am excited to begin our apprenticeship, but Mary tells me you don’t want to be my apprentice.”

“That’s right,” Tim said.

“Tim, you were the only one in the entire crowd who didn’t want to be my apprentice.”

Tim froze. How could he know that? He chuckled, “surely that can’t be true.”

The wizard looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I mean, I guess… I don’t know. I just don’t really care. I’m fine with the life I already have laid out for me.”

“You don’t want all the power that I can give you?”

“Not really,” Tim said.

The wizard hunched over, his face close to Tim’s, put a bony hand on the boy’s shoulder, and lowered his voice. “That is why I chose you Tim.”

Tim stood there silently looking at his feet while his heart thumped loudly. After a long while he looked up at the wizard, speachless.

“We begin tomorrow,” the wizard said. He patted Tim on the head and turned to leave. “Meet me in the town square at dawn.”

As the wizard and Mary rounded the corner Tim heard Mary whisper, “I don’t understand.” Her breathy voice bounced around the corners and landed directly in Tim’s ears. “There were crowds of people who wanted to be your apprentice, but you chose the one person who didn’t care.”

The wizard’s deep, gentle voice also reverberated through the great hall and landed directly on Tim’s heart. “Well, he doesn’t care for power, so he won’t abuse it.”

The next day Tim found himself wandering toward the town square a little before dawn. All night he had considered simply not showing up, but he didn’t want to offend the most powerful wizard the world had ever known. Plus, the pendant was cool. He wondered if it had any magical significance, or if it was just a symbol of the apprenticeship. He wore it just in case, occasionally lifting it to gaze into the gemstone and feel the weight of the gold in his hands.

On the way to the square he passed several townsfolk. These were people he’d grown up with and around, people who knew him and his family, who helped raise him. They were friendly and warm, always smiling at him and waving. But not this morning. They acted like they didn’t see him. They looked away quickly if he caught them looking at him, and they were looking. He could feel their eyes tearing and clawing at him, their envious stares tugging at the pendant around his neck.

He wanted to walk down the street yelling, “I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS!” He wished he could show them just how indifferent he felt toward the whole apprenticeship. Perhaps he would attempt to decline again this morning. He had been back and forth on the issue all morning while doing his chores. But a little voice inside him quietly urged him to keep taking steps toward some unseen, unwanted future.

Tim’s heart was pounding heavily when he reached the town square. The wizard was nowhere to be seen, but neither was the morning sun. He decided to sit in the grass outside of the great hall and wait. Questions, doubts, and fears swirled in his head. It was hard to sort them all out. He wasn’t even technically of age yet to begin an apprenticeship, but who was going to challenge the grand wizard? If he said Tim begins his apprenticeship today, then it is so.

He didn’t have to wait long. In the exact moment that the first beams of sunlight broke over the eastern mountains, a misty fog rolled into the square and washed over the cobblestone, great swirling rolls of gray bellowed across the open space so quickly that Tim covered his face with his arms instinctively.

“Tim,” came the wizard’s rich, warm tones. “Stand up Tim.”

Peeking out from behind his sleeves he couldn’t see anything. The fog churned and swirled around him, tossing his hair and lapping at his clothing. He stood, slowly, still shielding his face and squinting.

“Today we begin your training.” The voice echoed through the tendrils of mist, tickling the internal organs deep in Tim’s chest. “Your first task,” said the wizard, “is to relax.”

“Relax?” Tim asked, timidly. “Now?” He tried to look around. If anything, the fog was thickening. His chest felt heavy and dense air trickled in through his nostrils. Wind whipped past his face sucking the oxygen from his lungs leaving him gasping.

The wizard’s voice didn’t respond. Tim stood slightly hunched over, waiting for a loose tree branch to fly into the side of his head. His muscles were tense, his mind was racing. Relax? he thought to himself. No way!

After nearly getting knocked over by a gust of wind, Tim cried out, “I can’t relax in this storm!”

“It will only subside when you are relaxed,” came the booming reply.

Tim tried to clear his head. He clenched his jaw and relaxed it the way his mother had taught him to do when he got angry. He closed his eyes gently rather than squinting them tightly. He took deep, long breaths, holding the air inside for as long as he could before slowly releasing it into the chaos around him.

Slowly, gradually, he checked in with his major muscle groups, starting with his face, moving down through his shoulders, back and legs. He flexed and relaxed them in turn, straightening his spine and moving his shoulders back over his center of gravity. As he did, light began to cut through the fog. He closed his eyes again, calmly taking one final, deep breath, and as he released it he opened his eyes just in time to see the wizard standing before him, a final flurry of wind swirling at his feet before blowing away to the south.

“Very good,” the wizard said, smiling. “I knew you were the right choice.” He took a few steps toward Tim. “What you just did, clearing your mind and calming your body, we call that ‘stillness,’ and it is an essential part of spellcasting and magic.” He smiled. “We will continue to practice stillness in increasingly difficult and challenging circumstances, but for today, we will move on to other things.”

They went to the library where the wizard took Tim up to a secret room filled to the brim with old, dusty books. There was a simple wooden table and two chairs, completely covered in thick dust. They spent the entire morning there, reviewing the various tomes and volumes that they would be studying, talking about their contents, the purpose behind reading each one, and the men and women who wrote them.

At noon they stopped for lunch. They talked about what a wild departure this was from Tim’s plans and laughed about the envy of his classmates, and indeed, the entire region. Then they began learning some simple spells in the afternoon, beginning with minor transformations and “nudges,” where the spell exerts a small physical force on something.

That evening Tim walked home feeling amazing. He didn’t notice the envious glares. He didn’t care that nobody waved at him. He just went home, ate dinner, and went to sleep dreaming about all the magnificent things he would be learning.

Time became a blur. Since he wasn’t going to school Tim rarely saw his friends anymore. His whole life revolved around his apprenticeship with the grand wizard. The old magician was good company, but Tim’s heart yearned to be with his peers again. As he walked home one evening, he decided he’d talk to the wizard about taking a day off so he could see his friends once a week.

As he neared his home he saw a group of kids up ahead. He smiled, wondering if Jim or Pete or Sam might be there. The dim moonlight was barely enough light to see their shapes from a distance, but once he was close he could see very clearly that his best friend Jim was there, but he didn’t recognize the other boys.

“Hey,” Tim said cheerfully as he approached. The other boys were quiet. Jim said nothing. When he was finally close enough to see their faces clearly he was surprised to see Jim scowling. “Good evening,” Tim said tentatively.

One of the boys Tim didn’t know, the biggest of the lot, took a step closer to Tim and reached for the pendant that hung around his neck. “Hey,” he said, his voice much deeper than Tim expected. “That’s nice. What does it do?”

Tim turned away, blocking the boy’s fat fingers from grabbing the gold pendant. “I don’t think it does anything,” Tim replied, annoyed.

“Let us see,” said another boy, reaching for it as well.

Tim took a few halting steps back. “Guys,” he started. “What’s the big idea?” He looked to his friend, who just looked down at his feet. “Jim,” he called out. “What’s going on?”

The other boys around Jim all began walking toward Tim. Why wasn’t his friend helping him?

“Come on, we just want to take a look. We’ll give it right back,” sneered one of the boys. Several of the other boys laughed menacingly.

Tim sized up the situation. There were about seven boys, not including Jim. He continued to walk backward but the other boys were picking up their pace. He’d either have to turn and run, or stand his ground, and the moment to make that choice was quickly passing.

The wizard had warned Tim not to use magic for anything outside of their training yet, but he wondered if there might be exceptions for extenuating circumstances. He was getting scared. These boys wanted to hurt him, he was sure of it.

He stopped backing up and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in through his nose and concentrating. Time outside him slowed down, nearly to a halt, as his focus sharpened. He wanted to send a message without doing any real harm. He could knock them all over, but they’d just get angry and get back up ready for a fight. He could turn one of them into something hideous, but surely the wizard would take issue with that, and so would the boy’s parents.

No, he needed to do something that could stand as a permanent but harmless warning. He had an idea. He opened his eyes glaring out from beneath an aggressive brow, a slight grin on his lips. He was getting better at spellcasting, but this would still be his first time doing it without the wizard there to make sure everything went well.

His attention zeroed in on his targets, the incantations crystalizing in his mind. He aligned his powers and mouthed the powerful words of a simple transformation spell, targeting all seven of his aggressors. A magical pulse flew out from his body as he released his grip on time and delivered the final utterance of the spell. He smiled as the other boys all halted in their tracks, doubling over in pain and grabbing their crotches. On moaned and threw up, a look of panic grew in all of their faces.

One boy reach into his pants and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull as he screamed. Horror gripped the others. They stared at Tim in terror as he slipped past them to talk to Jim.

“What is going on Jim?”

Jim couldn’t look at him. He just looked at the dirt path and shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“Look,” Tim began. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in a while. I’ve been busy.”

Jim looked up at the other boys. One of them had peeked into his pants and was crying. A couple of the others were walking away awkwardly with their legs spread as far apart as possible.

“I can see that,” Jim said in a low voice. He exhaled sharply through his nose. “What did you do to them?”

“Jim, what’s going on?”

Jim looked at him, sadness filling his whole face. “No, Tim, what’s going on with you? My best friend becomes the wizard’s apprentice and disappears. I was so excited for you. But then you just tossed me aside. Were we ever even friends?”

“Jim,” he began. “I’m sorry, I really wanted to talk to you, I missed you, I just…”

“You just what? Why couldn’t you take a few extra minutes to come visit Tim? We’re neighbors. You could have knocked on my door any time, day or night, and I would have been thrilled to see you.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Tim started.

“Me too,” Jim said, and he turned to leave. Tim heard him mumble something as he went.

“Jim…” he said softly. “I didn’t hear you.” His heart was breaking. He missed his friend and wanted to make it better, but he couldn’t figure out how.

“I said that stupid apprenticeship is wasted on you, OK?” And with that, he took off running.

Tim stood, unable to move, for several minutes before finally walking home and crying himself to sleep.

The next day the wizard arrived with a solemn, disappointed look on his face.

Crap. Tim knew he has screwed up.

“Tim,” the wizard began. “I chose you for this apprenticeship because I didn’t think you’d abuse this power.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim began.

“What happened?” The wizard asked sternly.

“There were so many boys, and they were bigger than me. I had to do something.”

“Did you…” the wizard hesitated. “Did you turn their reproductive organs upside down?”

Tim’s stomach felt sick. “Yes,” he said apologetically.

The wizard was quiet. Tim looked up and saw the old man smiling. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me.”

They sat down on the cool grass in silence for a moment.

“When I was your age,” the wizard began. “I was bullied a lot. They went after me for being smart, for being quiet, and for being small. Boys, and men, will always attack what they fear most. They lash out in anger, fear, jealousy… they let their emotions control them and they act without thinking of the consequences.”

Tim nodded.

“I had been practicing magic in secret. I didn’t have a teacher, just those old books we’ve been studying. I had tried a few spells on woodland critters, but never on humans. Well, one day a group of boys ganged up on me. I was sure I was going to die. Then I had a similar thought to what you must have been thinking: ‘either I run, or I push back.’ So, I did what you did. Except I just made all of their…” the wizard trailed off. “Mine was a shrinking spell.” He smiled sheepishly.

Tim snickered. “That’s good,” he said.

“Tim, when it comes to power, there is a very large and ugly gray area between abusing power and using it to do good. Defending yourself is in that gray area. What matters most is what is in your heart. Were you lashing out in anger and fear, or were you cool and collected, teaching them a valuable lesson about picking on people?”

Tim opened his mouth to answer, but the wizard cut him off.

“It’s a rhetorical question Tim. I don’t make mistakes. You are my apprentice for reasons that neither of us can fully understand today.” He stood up. “Come,” he said. “Let us continue our training.”

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