Wizards (2 page)

It took me a little while to figure out that he had come out of the egg and quite a bit longer to discover that he was a dragon. My memories of his mother were vague and she could well have been a bird for all I remembered. When Fluffy's feathers fell out I got my first clue and the first time he started a fire by breathing too hard, I got my second.

He was easy to keep hidden for the first year or two, but then he started to grow too big to hide and I was having problems explaining all the fires in the house to my skeptical parents. They became convinced I was turning into a pyromaniac and I had to suffer the embarrassment of visiting a child psychologist for over a year as a result.

At fourteen years old, I realized that I needed a special place for Fluffy and also somewhere remote where I could practice my magic in peace. That was the first time I directed my hopscotch travelling to a find a specific new place. I had long since learnt to send the stone to wherever I had been before, but this time I sought out a cave big enough for my purposes and with easy access to the outside for Fluffy. Fluffy had been flying from his second year and there were many unexplained scuff marks and broken bricks around the bungalow to testify to his lack of braking ability.

I have to thank Fluffy for the Bat Cave. Without the need to find somewhere safe for him I would never have looked for it, nor spent the considerable time and effort it needed to make it inhabitable. The funny thing is that it is not even on another world. It turned out to be in a mountainside less than twenty miles from my home.

I live in North Wales, not far from Mount Snowdon and my Bat-Cave is halfway up a sheer cliff. There were signs that rock climbers had found it in the past, but I have removed their graffiti from the walls.

I placed a glamor over the entrance that makes it impossible to see unless you are looking at it straight on. To do that you would have to be in a hang-glider or on the back of a one ton dragon. I have looked at it using both methods, so I am pretty sure about that.

Fluffy nuzzled me with his graceful lizard-like head and meeped at me.

"Okay, let’s go for a fly then," I told him, as though it was me that was doing him a favor.

I have watched the Harry Potter films and decided that broomsticks are far too uncomfortable for flying. I was limping from bruises between the legs for a week after I gave it a try. A warm scaled dragon's back, on the other hand, is the nicest way to fly I can imagine. Fluffy's flesh is like sitting on a pillow with central heating and he can fly like the wind.

If you are a wizard like me, you should definitely give it a try.

Chapter Two: Wizard's Options

I
t can be a real pain being a wizard, let no one tell you otherwise. For one thing, we have no one to talk to. We avoid our own kind like the plague and discover how to use our powers by a combination of blind chance and the occasional meeting with a wise-man.

Why do we avoid each other? Because we don't trust each other is why. Many wizards use their powers to control a village, a town or a country. There are an infinity of worlds and as far as I can tell, very few of us. The result is that wizards tend to assume another wizard is after their setup as soon as they see them. They attack first and ask questions later. I learnt by the age of twelve that the first thing to do on encountering another wizard was to hopscotch my way home on the double and cower under the bed.

Wise-men are a different kettle of fish. They look exactly like the conventional images you lot have of wizards. They tend to come in long robes with white beards and I've yet to meet one who doesn't have a staff. They call themselves 'wise man' but there is no truth-in-labeling law out there.

I've met good wise-men and a number of bad ones. They all want to make friends with a wizard, of course. Why? Well, wise-men get paid for solving problems and a wizard can be a mightily handy problem solver, if he can be persuaded to lend a hand. There are worlds I don't visit any more, simply because of the wise-men on them that think I ought to put myself out for them. Why should I?

Even back on Earth, being a wizard can be a pain. Nobody believes in your powers, except for young children who throw stones at you or run away in terror when you go for a walk in the park. But even non-believers clutch at any available straws when their family is in peril. So when little Katie goes missing, or when a hiker disappears and the police helicopter can't find a trace, my mobile buzzes or there's a hesitant knock at the door and some half-crazed relative is demanding I should drop everything and help out.

It's my own fault, I'll admit. If I had told the very first ones to go away or to get stuffed perhaps they'd leave me in peace. But when you help out at fourteen, out of a civic duty you haven't grown out of, they come back for more and nothing satisfies them.

I've located bodies in sink holes that would have lain there for centuries and all I get from the relatives is their spit on my shoes, or my face. As if it's somehow my fault. I can't raise the dead. At least, I don't think I can raise the dead and I've seen too many zombie movies to want to give it a try.

I left school at sixteen with not a single GCSE to my name. If you were me and could walk between the worlds, would you want to spend your time cooped up in a classroom or in your bedroom doing homework? Well, neither did I.

I keep my powers secret from my parents and they think I've led people to bodies or the occasional live one by random chance. Dad thinks I shouldn't pander to these people and should tell them to go away, while mum thinks it’s okay to give the relatives of the lost a sense of hope provided I don't hinder real rescue operations. It's lucky my parents are as bad at mathematics as I am or they would have twigged to the truth long ago.

Earth is a lousy place to be a wizard. I'm only eighteen and I'll admit to being a little frightened of leaving the place. I don't want to rule anywhere, but the wise-men have all the money for wizardry jobs sewn up in the multiverse and I don't look like a wise-man. I'm just over six feet tall, gangly is how my parents describe me, and I have mousey fair hair. With my lack of qualifications, I have trouble getting any kind of job in Wales and I usually end up working in some warehouse, moving boxes with a forklift. I'm between jobs at the moment.

Let me give you an example of my life. This happened to me a couple of months ago.

The knock at the cottage door filled me with a sense of dread. My parents were out for the evening, listening to a male voice choir sing 'Men of Harlech' or some such rubbish. I opened the door cautiously. If I hadn't got the lights of the cottage on, I would've pretended nobody was in.

My heart fell at the sight of Sergeant Jones standing just beyond the porch.

"Hello Jake. Sorry to trouble you at this time of night."

He didn't sound sorry at all. What he sounded like was extremely irritated.

"Mam and Dad are out, Sergeant. I really shouldn't let anybody into the cottage."

"I think they won't mind if it’s the local constabulary, Jake."

"You're on your own then?" I enquired hopefully.

The Sergeant stood aside and an anxious looking woman in her forties stepped into view. Behind her and looking reluctant was a man of similar age. I sighed. You don't need to be a wizard to put two and two together.

"You see!" the woman said excitedly. "He knows we've come about our Jenny."

"That doesn't require psychic abilities, dear," the man said. "I expect Mister Morrissey gets visitors like us all too often."

My heart warmed to this man who had some understanding of what it must be like to be me and I stood aside to let them into the house. Introductions were made, and I discovered Mr. and Mrs. Owens had put pressure on the police to bring them to me.

"It's our daughter, Jenny," Mrs. Owens explained before they had removed their coats. "She's seventeen years old and she got off a bus last night and hasn't been seen since."

Mrs. Owens pressed a picture of her daughter into my hand and a pretty face smiled back. That did make a difference I'm embarrassed to say. Rescuing the beautiful is always a better proposition. Okay, I'll admit to being more than a little shallow.

"I don't usually get called until several weeks have passed."

"By which time, the people missing are usually dead," Mr. Owens said intelligently. I was growing to like this quiet somber man who obviously believed this whole thing was a wild goose chase.

I didn't ask any of the stupid questions the police ask, has she gone missing before, does she have a boyfriend, has she been unhappy, and so on. My powers don't work that way.

"Did you bring something of hers with you?"

Her mother handed me a wireless computer mouse from her copious bag.

"It's from her laptop; she uses it for hours every day."

"I need you to leave now," I informed them.

Sergeant Jones was the only one not surprised by my request. Of course, he had been through all this many times before.

"Mr. Morrissey says he needs to meditate to locate your daughter," he said with perfectly schooled scepticism.

"The longer you stay, the later it will be before I can start," I said opening my hands in apology.

"Bless you for trying," Mrs. Owens said and planted an unexpected kiss on my cheek.

Mr. Owens hung back as the sergeant and his wife left the room.

"I'll give you anything you ask if you get Jenny back safe and sound," he said taking my hand in his and squeezing it. "I'm a good judge of people and I know you can do this, even if I don't know how. I also know you'd rather not bother. Make the effort. My daughter's worth it."

"I will find her," I said simply and I meant it. It was a pleasure to come across someone who understood me.

An experienced wizard may have a million ways to find a missing person. In the movies, wizards use magic mirrors and mystic bowls filled with arcane liquids. I have only one way and it comes with a certain amount of danger to yours truly. I needed to prepare.

I keep a dry-suit in my wardrobe for such occasions. It's the lightest one I could find and is not really suited for the Welsh winter. However, if I found myself underwater it would offer some protection. I strapped a knife to my side once I put my jeans on over the wetsuit.

When I was as fully prepared as I was going to get I unhooked the rug, removed it and revealed the hopscotch court painted onto the floorboards. The rug has special hooks at the corners that were impossible to remove by accident. So far, neither my mum nor dad had looked underneath it. At least I hoped they hadn't.

I took the mouse and threw it lightly at the farthest square. It vanished. On some occasions, I've not managed to retrieve the possession as it disappeared into a pothole or down the side of a cliff. I've been accused of theft by the bereaved many times.

I took a deep breath and hopped my way to wherever the mouse went.

Jenny was gagged and naked not to mention tied spread-eagled to a large wooden table. I appeared by her feet. The mouse sat inches from her ear. It's funny what you notice first, because I was still contemplating her lovely body when the man with the knife attacked me from behind.

Instinctively, I turned and threw a ball of light into his face. My light balls have no substance but they are blinding close up. He waved his blade in my direction as he covered his eyes with his arm. I moved sideways away from the table. Blood from the tip of the knife splattered across my tee shirt and that was the moment I realized he'd already cut Jenny.

"Stuff this!" I said rather meaninglessly but very aggressively and waved my arm at the man. He was flung backwards by a power I didn't even know I had and hit the wall behind him with enough force to make the concrete floor shiver. He landed vertically in a position almost identical to the way Jenny was tied up. I waited for him to attack again but he didn't move.

A hundred- watt bare bulb dangled above the table. It had started to sway after the man impacted the wall. Still seeing him as the immediate problem, I walked forwards slowly, ignoring Jenny's grunts and muffled screams. The man wore a hooded jacket and a ski mask. I couldn't figure out why he felt he needed the mask, as it was obvious he had been going to kill the girl. Maybe he was shy.

As I got closer, I noticed a dark pool spreading out across the floor from the man's feet. Then I saw he was spread out more than a person should be. He was also embedded two inches into the concrete wall.

I returned to Jenny, trying hard not to be sick. There were two cuts on Jenny's inner thighs. I unpacked my medical kit and fastened some suture plasters over them. This was a first for me. I'd never used that kit on anybody but myself before.

"Jenny, your parents sent me to find you," I said as I cut the ropes holding her feet. "This is going to be a bit of a problem for me, because I'll never be able to explain how I got here, or even how fast. I don't suppose I could ask a favor?"

Once I cut Jenny's arms free, she pulled off her gag and put her arms around me.

"I don't know who you are," she said between sobs, "But I'm absolutely sure I owe you my life."