Tag Archives: The Necromancer's Apprentice

Wayward Butterfly Children

Anneliese’s favorite Gingerbread Boy, Johan of Dusseldorf, found us as we were passing Tornhilda’s Towering Townhouse in the lower part of the castle.

“The Butterfly Child you had me watching is up near the wasp nest asking questions about the Wasprider Cavalry and Captain Bobkin.”

Anneliese frowned at that news.

“Why would she be doing that?” Bob asked me.

I shrugged.  “Was she asking about where to find us?”

“Not unless she was intending to look into the iron spikes that the cavalry uses to make the wasp stingers more deadly to the Unseely Court in order to find you.”  Johan’s peppermint candy eyes were expressionless, so I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being suspicious.  I know I didn’t like the sound of that, and Dolly was my friend.

“Lead us to where you left her,” Anneliese ordered Johan.  Over time, the Gingerbread Boy had developed a more Sylph-like shape to make him faster and more agile than the standard waddling cookie-shaped boy.

We found ourselves quickly climbing upward on the castle’s winding central staircase.  We passed many Pixies with various animal and bug-like shapes.   There were large numbers of Sylphs and Elves and Brownies and Butterfly Children also.  I wondered if anybody had ever counted how many lived in this tree-castle.  Bob had told me that it had an extensive underground city in the roots of the willow tree too.  Could Dolly have been counting them for some reason?

I heard Dolly giggling in that girlish way she did as we reached the topmost landing of the central stair.  She was hanging over the shoulder of an older Sylph grown fat and round with age.  He wore a captain’s uniform that was tight on him because of his generous belly.  He was laughing too, apparently at whatever the two of them had been talking about.

“Ah!  Derfie!  I’ve found you at last!  Have you met Captain Bobkin?  He’s in charge of the military defenses of Cair Tellos.”  Dolly was smiling at me, but I’m not sure I was very quick to smile back.

“Well, well, I know Anneliese and young Bob quite well.  I am even acquainted with Johan the Gingerbread Boy.  But who is this charming Sylph who is the friend of the lovely Dollinglammer?”

“This is Derfentwinkle.  She’s potentially going to be Master Eli Tragedy’s third apprentice,” said Bob, pulling me forward by the hand and placing my hand om the fat fairy captain’s gloved hand.

“Well, aren’t you sweet.”  He kissed me on the cheek.  His handlebar moustache was apparently waxed and felt slightly sticky on my cheek.

“We have all been looking for you, Miss Dollinglammer, since the Wizard Pippen arrested and nearly executed Miss Derfentwinkle, and Bob the Apprentice,” said Anneliese with what I took to be a guarded smile.

“Oh, my!  Are you both okay?  I thought surely the crows would rescue you both!” she said, seemingly surprised.

I wasn’t sure if Dolly was being straight with me, or just pretending.  As far as I knew, she had never lied to me before.  But Kronomarke can make a girl do horrible things whether she wanted to or not… Though I wondered what memories of evil the Magic Hat had removed from my head that made me think that in spite of not remembering.

And when Dolly mentioned Homer and Bert, I finally realized that I could no longer hear their continued presence in my mind or see what they were seeing through my eyes when I attempted to see through theirs.

I whispered in Bob’s ear, “I can’t feel my crow familiars in my mind anymore.”

Bob whispered back, “That was a special instruction that Master Eli gave to Bibby Joon.  No mind can touch yours when you are wearing that cape.”

“Oh.”

I honestly didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  Did they not trust me yet?  Of course, I didn’t trust me either, not knowing how the necromancer had screwed up my mind before I got the cape.

“Well, Dollinglammer, now that we have found you, we need to get you back to Master Eli’s tower where you will be safe.”

“Oh, yeah… okay.” Dolly turned to go into the stairwell leading into Captain Bobkin’s command center. “It’s the other way, Miss,” said Johan politely.  And so we headed down the stair taking us back to the castle.

The Bat-winged Cape

As we walked out of Master Tragedy’s Sorcerer’s tower toward the crafting district of Cair Tellos, I was carrying the huge jar of midnight shadows that Master Eli had given us to have a cape made from for Derfentwinkle.  She was carrying the bottle imp, Kackenfurchtbar, in case I needed to test the truthfulness of what Derfie was telling us.  But once on the stair to the Stitch-Witches’ Fabric and Sewing Shoppe, I turned to Derfie and set the jar down on a wooden step for a moment.

“Um, ah… Derfentwinkle?”

“Yes, Bob?”

“Can I… um… give you… ahem… I mean… would it be okay if I… gave you a…”  I opened my arms before I said the actual words’

“A hug, Bob?”

I nodded silently, and she grabbed me with both arms and pressed my face against her bare bosom.  I felt awkward, but I didn’t pull back.  I put both of my arms around her and squeezed her just as hard.

“Because the Erlking’s Wizard nearly cut our heads off before we ever got a chance to…”

“Hug each other like this?” she finished my sentence.  She used her empty hand to stroke the back of my head.

“Yeah…”

We held each other tightly for a few long minutes.  Then, suddenly, Anneliese was there.

“Ah, Derfentwinkle, I see you’ve discovered how huggable the nicest Sylvan boy in all of Cair Tellos really is.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Of the hug, maybe.  But I can surely share my best boy.”

“Best boy?  Not, boyfriend?” Derfie asked.

“Anne is a Storybook and much older than me,” I said, reluctantly releasing my hold on the necromancer’s apprentice.

“Oh, right.  Old enough to be your mother, I suppose?”

“Or his grandmother,” said Anneliese with a wrinkling of her nose above a puckish grin.  “If you like my almost grandson, then that pleases me.””

“Did you come seeking us?” I asked her.

“Yes, I did.  Master Eli told me where to find you two.  A pretty little Butterfly Child named Dollinglammer has been asking about you in the residential towers.  She seems intent on finding you.  Especially you, Bob,”

“We have to go to the stitch-witches to get a cape made for Derfie.  But if you come with us, you can take us to her afterwards,” I suggested.

“That would be lovely,” Anne said.  “I have been interested to get to know this new Sylph friend of yours, Bob.”

Anneliese, nude as always, was absolutely beautiful.  She had longish blond hair which curled wildly, and she never combed it.  She was shaped like the fourteen-year-old  human girl she was when the Nazis put her to death at Auschwitz.  She was now an immortal Storybook thanks to a story her mother told about her, so her beauty would never fade or change.

She put an arm around my neck as I picked up the jar of shadows, and she put her other arm around Derfie, drawing us both close to her.

“Derfentwinkle, my powers as a Storybook are openness and honesty.  If you ever need to talk to about the shadows that are inside of you, I’m your friend.  I will talk about it with you as honestly as anyone can.  And I say this as a guarantee, I can help you.”

Derfie looked down at the ground as we continued into the shop of the stitch-witches.

Bibby-Joon, the elder stitch-witch met us there.  She was a Pixie with the upper torso of a youthful woman and the abdomen and spider legs of a large spider.

“We will have the cape done for you in a matter of minutes,” Bibby said.  “It will be a very special Batwing Cape just as Master Eli ordered.  It will not only protect you from mind control and influence spells, but it will turn into bat wings on command so you can fly.  And if you wrap it all the way around you while standing in shadow, you will disappear and remain invisible as long as you do not move.”

We came out of the shop with Derfentwinkle wearing her new protective magic cape.

“It looks very becoming on you,” Anneliese told her.

“Kack?  Is the necromancer’s mind control working on Derfie in any way?” I asked the bottle imp just as Master Eli had instructed me.

“No, Bob.  Any evil she does now will be entirely her own doing.”

I think that answer made me frown or something.  Anneliese put a comforting hand on the back of my neck and said, “Don’t worry, Bob.  Everything is as it should be.” Derfie was smiling at the ground.  And I couldn’t help feeling how beautiful she was… to me, at least.  And worrying about how much control that gave her over me.

Derfentwinkle’s Headache

Once Master Eli placed the Magic Hat on my head, I immediately felt something probing deeply into my brain.  It wasn’t some passive little look-see either.  It was a painfully grinding drilling sensation that caused a massive pain between my eyes.

“Ah, you have been abused, child,” said a voice from within the hat.  “You must forgive me, but I will have to remove the life-draining sex spells and take away your memories of Kronomarke’s insidious abuse.”

“Help yourself,” I silently told the voice in my head with my own voice in my head.

The memories of the naked necromancer hitting me and harming me began to dry up, shrivel, and disappear from my conscious memory.  I was not unhappy to see them float away into darkness.

But I was no longer seeing the room in the Sorcerer’s Tower where I knew I physically still was.  Instead, around me there was little beyond darkness.

Then the darkness parted and a glowing white stag, a white male deer with an eighteen-point rack of horns and an extremely regal bearing walked up to me.  Towered over me, in fact.

“Child, speak your name.”  He spoke directly into my head without any lips moving or obvious speech forming in his deer mouth.

“But that will give you power over me.”

“I already have that.  I am here to help you, not do you further harm.”

“I am Derfentwinkle the lowly necromancer’s fifth apprentice.  But who are you?”

“I am what you might call a demigod.  I was the master and teacher of the wizard Dezmodotto.  And I am the friend of Eli Tragedy.  If you must name me, I am called Father of Many Erlkings.”

“That’s impressive.”

“I have no need to impress you.  I am only here to help you.”

“How will you do that?”

“I have already cleansed your memory of most of the badness that Kronomarke has taught you.  He is an evil man.  You must not return to him.  I will make certain that you continue to belong to Master Eli.”

“Like a slave?”

“Like a daughter.  And I will give him to you as a father.”

I was stunned.  No one had ever been so kind before.  And his voice filled me with warmth and confidence.  It would be right because Father… of Many Erlkings, made it so.

“Is Eli Tragedy really magical?”

“You ask because your magic intuitions tell you most of his magical effects are really Slow-One science and technology disguised as sorcery.  You are a true wizard, and Eli is a very clever manipulator of many things.”

“Um, yes, I… guess so…”

“You must listen to him well and learn his ways.  They will make you stronger.”

“Yes, okay…”

“And I sent the crows Homer and Bert to be your familiar… one of the two, at any rate.”

“Why full-sized crows?”

“You will need to ride them as steeds in the air.  And they can be quite entertaining, those two.”

“And what is it that I feel you have put into my head?”

“Spells, beloved.  Spells to keep you and yours safe.  And help along the quest I must give you.”

“What are these spells you speak of?”

“You will need to discuss them with the apprentice Bob.  He is known to me as a very wise and capable young man.  He will transcribe them on parchment for you so that you may learn them in the way of non-necromantic wizards.”

“Can you tell me now what the spells are?  By name?”

“The ones I am allowing you to keep from your necromantic training are the Ghost-Light Spell, The Turning Spell of the Undead, and the reverse of the Harming Spell, which in your hands will instead be a Healing Spell.”

“And the ones I don’t already know?”

“The Spell of Gingerbread Summoning, The Fairy-Resizing Spell, the Spell of Water-Breathing, the Alter Shape Spell, The Spell of Slow-One Summoning, The Witch-Armor Spell of Zam the Leaf-Witch, and the Spell of Storybook Summoning.  These will go into your spell-book as Bob helps you translate and write it.”

“Why am I worthy to be treated in this way by a demigod?  I came here to kill the fairies of Cair Tellos.”

“That is why you were sent here, but it is not why you came here and fell into the care of Eli Tragedy.”

“Thank you, Father…”

I felt faint.  Everything changed around me.

“Um, I am not feeling well,” I said.  “Can I lie down and sleep a little?”

I fell into someone’s arms and I was lost in the softness of deep sleep.

Several Moments of Truth

I could tell when Master Eli handed me the bottle imp that used to be my friend Kack, that Kack was no longer trapped in a severed head.  He was now a free-floating intelligent smoke trapped in a bottle made of some Slow-One’s special substance.  It was not real magic because it did not make my magic-sense tingle.  It was some kind of trick with Slow-One chemicals.

“So, Miss Derfentwinkle, tell us about yourself.  And keep in mind your “Horrible Poop” friend will now tell us instantly if you are telling a lie.”  Master Eli was looking at me with one eye opened wider than the other.

“Yeah, um…  I am Derfentwinkle.  I am the servant of an evil necromancer.”

“Do you like working for a necromancer?” Bob, the quiet boy, said.

“I hate it.  I hate Kronomarke.  He’s cruel, and he sent me on a suicide mission to get me killed intentionally.”

I swirled Kack around in his bottle.

“That is perfectly true… every word,” said Kack.

“Do you like me?” asked the weird mouse-boy.

“I find you mildly disgusting, but it was entertaining when Bob knocked you out.”

The quiet boy chuckled softly when I said that.  I am not sure, but I think Master Eli did too.

“Would you be willing to betray your former master?” Master Eli asked.

“I would do so quickly and efficiently and deeply enjoy it.”

Master Eli grinned at me at that answer.

“So, is that true too, Kackenfurchtbar?” asked Bob.

“Derfie almost never tells a lie, but, sadly… this is not entirely honest.”

“What?  You won’t really betray him?”

“She can’t.  People she loves have their lives in his evil hands.  But her heart is set against the necromancer, and she would betray him happily if she could.”

“Ah, I expected as much from old Bluebottom,” said Master Eli.

“So, are you going to kill me, then?” I asked, feeling doomed.

“Oh, no.  Of course not.  But I am not going to let you go either.  You belong to me now.  I expect I will hang onto you for a few years now.”

“As a sex slave?” asked the mouse-boy with an ugly smirk on his mouse-face.

“No.  She’s free to fall in love with you, Mickey.  But she’s also allowed to hate you if that’s how she really feels.”

The mouse-boy hung his stupid mouse head in shame at that reproach.

“Tell me, young lady, do know any of the spells used by your former master?”

“I don’t think I have any magical skills, and I know I don’t know any spells.”

“Not completely true,” blurted Kack.

I gave the bottle a violent shake.  His floating eyeballs bounced off each other in the smoke.

“You probably know a lot more than you realize,” said Master Eli.  “I heard those two crows claim to be your familiars.  Not fairy-sized birds, but normal-sized crows.  That takes a lot more real magic than you should be capable of.”  He was grinning at me even more now.

“Does your evil master know about the crow familiars?” asked quiet Bob.

“I just found out myself.  I don’t think he knows.  But I’m sure Kack will tell you I’m lying about that too.”

“She is not lying about any of that,” Kack said.  So, I gave him another violent shake.

“Wait a minute,” said the mouse-boy.  “Why does she get a familiar when you, me, and Bob don’t, Master Eli?”

“Well, Mickey, a wizard is different than a sorcerer.”

I immediately thought a lecture was coming on.  Something about wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers makes them want to explain every little detail in one long-winded speech.

“Wizards, you see, are different than we are.  They get their magic from books and scrolls and head-knowledge.  They have to study to get their magic working.  They have evolved the ability to have so much head-knowledge that they eventually need another head to put it in.  Thus, their minds invade and meld with an animal familiar, usually a fairy cat, fairy bird, spider, or some other fsairy-sized creature.  I have never known a fairy wizard to have a full-sized animal familiar that was bigger than they were.”

I totally nailed it about the lecture thing.  This guy was just as boring as old Kronomarke.  Except he wore bright red smart-guy robes which were much more interesting than Kronomarke’s usual black robes.

“So, why don’t sorcerers have familiars?” genius mouse-boy just had to ask.

“Because our magic is different.  Our magic is not head-knowledge.  It is more from the gut.  Intuition over intelligence.  We pull magic out of our passions, our feelings, our natural insights…”

“Our sexual abilities?” mouse-boy attempted to add.

“No, Mickey.  And that kind of thinking can get you killed around a necromancer.  Derfentwinkle’s magic comes from a wizarding-way that draws on life and death.  She may know Succubus spells that can drain the lifeforce out of you and leave you a withered husk.”

Dang!  There went any chance to use that trick!  Mouse-boy might not get it, but Bob just learned what to look out for, and he didn’t seem to miss anything that was said.

“So, you still haven’t said why we don’t have no familiars?”

“Ah, Mickey.  Such a stupid child.  At least you were bright enough to put on pants this morning.”

“He is right, though, Master.  You still haven’t explained why…” Bob said.

“Ah, yes.  Although you would be smarter with pants on, Bob, you are right.  Sorcerers don’t need familiars.  They draw spell energy directly from the ether, and don’t pass it through the brain of any creature.  Not even their own brain.  They apply it directly to the target.  That’s why we use wands and staves and such rather than saying a lot of spell words and wiggling our fingers.”

“Oh.  Thank you master.  That was a very useful lesson,” Bob said with a cute little smile.

“So, Derfentwinkle, has your master shown you any spells, or made you read any books?” Master Eli asked me.

“No.  Of course not.  All the magic he gave me was inside Kack’s stupid little demon head.”

“She’s not telling you the whole truth.  She has seen the Evil Master cast spells and heard the words he used to do them.  And she read some of the books over the Evil Master’s shoulder.”

“Thank you, Kack.  I wanted them to know that, but I couldn’t tell them because of one of Kronomarke’s spells.”

“She is telling the truth about that.”

Master Eli’s face split with a huge grin.  “Very good, then.  I think it is about time I employed the Magic Hat.”

I had no idea what that meant.  But I knew it might be dreadful.

Mickey’s Little Gambit

We had to walk for a considerable distance in the leafy, greenish-blue shade of the soybean field until we located the errant skull.  We were not alone of course.  Master Eli recruited a half-dozen Gingerbreads as scouts to help us locate the thing and make sure the bone-walker’s pilot didn’t escape alive.

Gingerbreads, as I’m sure you probably already know, are actually fairy golems.  Their bodies are gingerbread-boy-and-gingerbread-girl cookies baked by the cook-witch Gretel, Anneliese’s mother.  The souls that inhabit the cookie-bodies are the spirits of children murdered in Nazi death camps during a slow-one event apparently known as Were-Wore Two over in what the fairies call the Continent of Cernunnos the Horned One and Wotan the Wise.  They were gingerbread-cookie fairies that, if any animal or slow one bit a bite out of them, could immediately grow it back from the stores of magical gingerbread dough stored in Cair Tellos.

It was a gingerbread boy named Johan that located the skull and took us straight to it.

It was Master Eli Tragedy, Mickey the Wererat, and me that moved to surround the skull and its occupants with the six gingerbreads.

But I caught my breath when I saw her.  It wasn’t a little green wartole, or one-eyed Cyclopes that had been piloting the bone-walker, but a nude, young Sylph girl, holding what looked like a demon skull and talking to a pair of full-sized crows.

“So, what’s going on here?” roared Master Eli.  “You are not a Gobbulun!”

“Call me later, Derfy!  I can hear your thoughts.  Gotta fly now!” said one of the two crows as they both turned and flapped away.

The girl turned to look at us.  Her eyes were cold and gray, but they were also streaming with tears.

Eli pointed his magic wand at her with his finger tightly on the trigger.  “Confess, child.  How did the necromancer come to send the likes of you?”

“You are going to kill me anyway.  So, why should I tell you anything?”

“How is it that you were able to make a non-magical crow talk?  Your demon-head doesn’t normally have a power like that.  Tell me, or I use the dragonfyre in this wand upon you.”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t know.”

Eli lifted the wand higher as if he was going to incinerate her.  But, of course, he wasn’t.  There was only one charge left in the wand, and he wanted to save it.  It was unclear to me if he even had any reloadable charges for it.

“Tell me the name of your little demon head, and I will let you live for a little while longer.”

“No.  I won’t tell you that so you can control the master’s demon head.”

“My name is Kackenfurchtbar.  Please don’t kill my Derfentwinkle.  I love her,” said the demon skull with the broken horn.

I looked at Mickey and he looked at me.  Both of us had our mouths hanging open and our eyes nearly bugged out.

“Kack, why did you…?”

“Kackenfurchtbar, you will now only take commands from me, the great and powerful Sorcerer, Eli Tragedy!”

“Dammit, Kack!”

“Yes, oh, great and powerful Sorcerer, Eli Tragedy.”

“So, now you are finally gonna kill me?” she said softly to Master Eli.

“No, probably not,” said Master Eli.

“Oh, good!  Does that mean we can use her to learn necromantic sexual practices and try them out on her?”

“Don’t be gross, Mickey,” I scolded.

“Mickey, whatever you and Bob decide to do with her on your spare time is between the three of you.  You will not abuse a captive, no matter what else you do.  And you know I give you two very little spare time.”

“Yes, Master,” Mickey said glumly.

“Kackenfurchtbar, what is the name of the necromancer?”

“Kronomarke, Necromancer to the Kingdom of the Valley-Eaters, and servant of the mighty King Stoor.”

“Oh, of course it is.  Old Blue-bottom from Mistress Schulelehrer’s school for cursed youngsters.  I knew the principal should’ve put him to death in the second grade for eating a classmate.”

“You know the necromancer?” I asked.

“Personally?” asked Mickey.

“I had Basic Runes classes with him about six hundred years ago.  Ugliest damned kid in whole cursed school.”

“If you went to school with Kronomarke, why does he hate you so much?” asked the girl.

“Oh, told you about me, did he?  By name?”

“No.”

“Ah, that’s a lie.  My truth spell tells me you know about his oath of vengeance.”

“You don’t have a truth spell.  At least, not active.”

“And how would you know that?”

“My magic tingle wasn’t tingling at any time during this whole encounter.  And the electrical tingle I get is always accurate.”

“So, how could you possibly know that Bluebottom hates me more than any other boy from the whole cursed school?  Are you a mind-reader?”

“Yes.  Pretty much.”

“Kackenfurchtbar?  How did Miss Doofy-Twinkle make that crow talk?”

“The crow claims to be her natural familiar.”

“I see.  She has magical potential herself.  Does Bluebottom know about that?”

“Not that he ever told me.  I was only his fifteenth-best demon-slave when I was alive. And he sent us both on a suicide mission.”

“Ooh!  Can we keep her?  I will feed her and take care of her, and… um, she can even sleep in my bed,” shouted Mickey.

“We will keep her for a while anyway.  I can put her in the iron cage we use for monsters and keep her there for a while.”

“Ooh!  Good, good, good!” crowed Mickey.

“Bob, you, of course, will be in charge of the keys to the cage.  You and Mickey will find out what magic she knows instinctively and write it all down in scrolls.”

“Yes, Master Eli, sir.”

“There you go again with the sir stuff.”  Master Eli smiled at me. 

I took charge of the prisoner, and we headed back to Cair Tellos. The gingerbreads surrounded us to protect us with their peppermint swords.