The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 2, Part 4)

Our Story So Far:

     Nicholas Rasputin is a low-level history professor at Oxford University.  He's also the son of Andre Rasputin, Britain's last great wizard/spy and one-time leader of MI-6's Special Section, and he's the great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, perhaps the most powerful and infamous evil wizard in all history.  However, none of that explains why two American Army officers have come to Nick's classroom to try to strong-arm him into giving them Durandel, the legendary Sword of Kings.

      Now, having agreed to accompany the Americans back to their training camp, Nick is lost in memories of his father.  Without thinking about it, his steps have led him to the flat of his ex-girlfriend, Amy.

***

“Why?”

“Dad’s crap, same as always.  Rupert stopped by--with some Americans this time.”  

“Alright, well...  so?  Does it have to be as bad as all that?  I mean, they’re paying you, right?”

I shook my head.  Amy never saw this the way I did.  In a sense, when she looked at me, even she saw what eveyone else did--the son of Andre Rasputin, the great-grandson of the Man himself.

“I have a job, Amy.  A career.  I’m just supposed to drop that every time Rupe comes knocking on the door?”

Amy sat up and grabbed her sweater.  “Dammit Nick!  Then why didn’t you just say no?!  If that’s how you feel--if that’s really what you want--then why didn’t you just tell Rupert to go screw himself and get over it.  Tell him you’re done, end of story.  And for God’s sake, why do you keep coming over here and dragging me into it?”

“Oh come on, Amy!”  I said.  “You know that’s not fair.  My father’s dead.  Who else are they gonna turn to?”

Amy stood up, looked away from me.  “You’re not the only wizard in Great Britain, Nick.  Rupert has a whole department working for him.  The whole goddamned Special Section, and they’ve been in business without you for quite a while now.”

“And yet, I’m still the one they call every time something happens.  Like it or not, I’m still the best they have.”

Amy whirled on me.  “Then what the Hell is your problem?  If you’re the best, then be the best!  Go get the Sword of Kings, tell Rupert to get the Hell out of your chair, and do what apparently even you think you were born to do!”  Amy turned back around, looked out her window at the street below.  “God, I’m such an idiot.  I can’t believe I let you in here tonight just so we could have this same old argument all over again.”

I stood and started to put my hand on her shoulder, but she recoiled as though she’d been burnt.  

“Amy…”

“Don’t ‘Amy’ me!  Dammit Nick, I love you.  But I can’t be with someone who doesn’t even know what he wants to do with his life.”

“Come on.  Don’t be like that...”

“No.  You’re not being fair, Nick.  To me.  I can’t keep going through this with you.  I can’t do it, Nick.  I won’t.  Not again.”

“I just came over to talk.”

“Yeah?”  Amy turned around and looked at me.  “Well now it’s time for you to listen.  Grow up, Nick.  Make a decision and stick to it.  No more waffling, no more games.  No more sitting on the fence.”

“But--”

“No, Nick!  Dammit, we’re all sitting here waiting for you to make up your mind about what you want to do.  Waiting for the great Nicholas Rasputin to decide what he wants to be when he grows up.  Enough is enough!  Decide and let us all know.”

“You think it’s that easy?”

“It could be.”

“But what about me?  What about what I want?”

“What about you, Nick?  Do you even know what you want?”

“Yes!  Goddammit, yes!  I know exactly what I want.  And it sure as Hell isn’t working for Rupert.”  I sighed.  “I was a soldier, Amy.  But I’m not one anymore.  I don’t want to be one ever again.  I just don’t love it the way you all seem to want me to.”

“Then say, ‘no.’  Tell Rupert to go screw himself, and let that be the end of it.  He won’t ask again if you’re firm with him.  Even you must realize that.”

“I do.”  I shook my head.  “But what if there really are Russian ultra-nationalists looking for the Sword of Kings?  God-in-heaven, what if they actually find it?  What if they come looking for it here?”

A dark cloud crossed Amy’s face, and suddenly she looked scared.  “They’re Russians?”

“I have to confront this, Amy.  There’s just no other way.”

A beat passed, and Amy seemed to come to some kind of decision.  “Go get the sword, Nick.  Take up your birthrite.  It’s the only way.”

“What?  But I thought you just said--”

Amy put her hands on my shoulders.  “Forget what I said.  It’s too late for that  now.  Go get the sword and confront this thing.”

“Wow.  Really?”  I pulled way.  “It’s a shame that my father’s gone.  He’d have found a daughter today.”

“Nick, please!  This is serious.”

“I know, Amy.  I know.”

I waited a beat to see if she would say anything else, but she just stood there staring at me.  Finally, I pulled my keyring from my pocket and removed Amy’s key.  I left it on the counter next to the bourbon and walked out.

***

If you came by looking for this on Tuesday, I totally forgot about it.  I only realized last night that I'd forgotten that this was ready to go up.

Anyway, to read the story from the beginning, use the Sorcerer's Story keyword below.

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 2, Part 3)

Our Story So Far:

     Nicholas Rasputin is a low-level history professor at Oxford University.  He's also the son of Andre Rasputin, Britain's last great wizard/spy and one-time leader of MI-6's Special Section, and he's the great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, perhaps the most powerful and infamous evil wizard in all history.  However, none of that explains why two American Army officers have come to Nick's classroom to try to strong-arm him into giving them Durandel, the legendary Sword of Kings.

      Now, having agreed to accompany the Americans back to their training camp, Nick is lost in memories of his father.  Without thinking about it, his steps have led him to the flat of his ex-girlfriend, Amy.

***

I started to turn away but couldn’t quite make myself.  The Hell with it. I didn’t think she’d like me to use my key, but maybe she wouldn’t mind seeing me, and in truth, I needed to talk to someone. Day like that, it was obvious enough.  I didn’t want to be alone.  And then, too, I’d been meaning to bring her key back for weeks, anyhow.  

I closed my eyes and pressed the buzzer, hoping it wouldn’t be a fight.  But if it was, well, I’d be going to America soon enough.  The States’ new Extraordinary Defense Initiative (USEDI) had seen to that.  The rest of that stuff--the part about the Russian ultranationalists, the Chechens, and the Sword of Kings--looked, in retrospect, like little more than details in comparison to the idea of America developing some kind of rogue program for Army War Wizards.  In any event, even if Amy and I wound up fighting like old times, fact was she and I could both rest easy.  One way or another, I wouldn’t be around to bother her for a while.

The building’s intercom sounded.  “Hello?”

I gathered my courage.  “It’s me, Amy.  Can I come up?”

A beat passed before she answered, her voice tinny over the tiny apartment loudspeaker.  “What do you want, Nick?”

“I’ve got your key.”  I shrugged as though she could see it.  “I just want to talk.”

I could almost hear her thinking about it.  At last she said, “Fine.”  The intercom went off with a pop, and then her door buzzer sounded.

I passed through her vestibule and onto the stairs before it occurred to me that I oughtn’t show up empty handed.  I looked around in a panic and began to gather power to myself, almost on instinct, but I didn’t immediately see anything promising.  The stairwell had been swept clean, and each landing I passed was empty save for a set of closed doors and a single window through which the pale light of evening streamed.  I began to fear that I’d have to Conjure something—a truly gratuitous use of magic for the task of returning one’s ex-girlfriend’s house key—until at last I spotted an old newspaper page on Amy’s neighbor’s stoop.  I snatched it and realized my heart was racing.  A few twists around the bottom turned it into a sort of paper funnel.  I then pulled on the upper edges, spreading them out into the nearest facsimile of beauty that I could manage.  By the time I had my wand out, the air around me fairly crackled with power.  Despite myself, I smiled.  I’d not realized how nervous I was, but somehow knowing it helped—as did doing something about it.  

I held the newspaper flower at arm’s length with my left hand and pointed my wand with my right, forcing the energy around me to focus at the tip of my wand.  The newspaper melted.  I gathered the matter with my mind and pushed, infusing it with as much youth and beauty and joy as I dared.  The object in my hand surged and grew, becoming first one rose and then two.  I stopped when I had a half-dozen and then pulled back just a touch.  Roses that had been red faded to the color of pale pink champagne.  

I let myself fall against Amy’s doorframe, tired but triumphant, and waited a moment to catch my breath.  It hadn’t been a difficult piece of magic, but it was one that not many could do using an old plastic chopstick for a wand, and the roses themselves looked pretty good.  But then, I’d always been good with Transmogrifications, and using a weak locus meant that the back blast--the effect of the Law of Unintended Consequences--would be localized and almost certainly harmless.  My old chopstick-wand wasn’t capable of doing more; that was why I used it.

I raised my fist to knock, but Amy’s door opened before I got the chance.  She smiled when she saw the flowers.

“I felt you making these,” she said, reaching for them.  Her smile brightened.  “Hello Nick.  It’s good to see you.”

“Hi Amy.”  I followed her into her apartment.  “I brought your key.”

Inside, her apartment was as neat as ever.  A bottle of bourbon was out along with two glasses, both filled with ice.  “You want a drink?”  She poured a finger of bourbon into one of the glasses and topped it with a like amount of water.  “It’s Very Old Barton—aged one thousand years.”

I took the glass.  “It’s... what?”

Her smile turned impish.  “Like I said, I felt you coming.  And, well, it wasn’t hard to guess what you were going to do with all that power.”  She raised her own wand and twirled it.  It was a slender thing made of sterling silver, and it flashed in the apartment’s electric lights.  “I used your back blast to mellow the bourbon.  We don’t want holes in the carpets, you know.”

I took a pull off the bourbon to hide my surprise.  Of course Amy knew me very well, but no magician likes to have his tricks guessed before he even does them.  Fortunately, my chagrin was fleeting.  The bourbon was good—it was very mellow—and it felt good to be back in Amy’s apartment.  It felt natural.  It was good to know how well she knew me.

Amy poured a drink for herself and raised it.  Our glasses clinked.  She smiled again.  

“You look good," I said.

It was true.  Blue eyes, broad smile, white teeth, all framed by a great heaping pile of brown hair that was all pulled back, with only a few strands free to frame her face. She hadn’t known I was coming, so she hadn’t made herself up, but that was almost better.  I could tell that she was honestly happy to see me.  She bopped around her apartment looking for a vase for the flowers I’d brought, an athletic girl at home on a weeknight in an old sweater and jeans.  I was seized by a strong sense of déjà vu.  We hadn’t been a couple for more than a fortnight, and yet it was as if nothing had changed.  We were still the same happy, semi-domestic mated pairing that we’d been not three weeks before.

She stood at her sink for a moment cutting the ends from the roses.  Then she turned her head and looked at me.  “I don’t think I trust you,” she said.  But her voice held a hint of mischief in it.  “What do you want?”

“I told you.  I just want to talk.  Honestly.”

“Uh huh.  A likely story.”  She turned around.  The flowers were cut to one length and standing safely in a tall glass vase.  She held them up for inspection.  “What do you think?”

I shook my head, stared down at my glass.  “Beautiful.”

Suddenly I felt like I was there under false pretenses.

“Are you all right?”  I think she’d just then really looked at me for the first time.  “What’s going on?”  

“You know, I go up and down.  Today was...”  I shook my head, unable to meet her eyes.  “Eh.  Let’s skip it, okay?”

Her arms came around me, pulling me to her.  “It’s okay.  I’m here.”

I let her hold me, let my head sink down to her shoulder, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. But her body was soft, and her hair smelled like honey.  I felt her heart beating against my chest, and I looked at her.  I tried to read her face, hesitated a minute, decided I didn’t care what happened later.

Our lips met.

She kissed me back hard, holding tight.  My hands ran across her shoulders and into her hair.  We staggered together, tripped on her couch, and tumbled in a heap onto the floor.  It might have been funny, but it wasn’t.  I was on my back, Amy on top, feeling things that were at once old and new, routine and joyously unexpected.  I held her, kissed her, and was afraid to open my eyes.  My fingers found the tail of her shirt, pulled it free from her jeans, raised sweater and shirt over her head.  That left just Amy—pale skin and a bit of lacy bra—laying on my chest.  I kissed her again, and she smiled.  I started to undo the buttons on my shirt.

She laid a hand on mine.  “Nick, wait.  I...  

“Can we take this just a little slower?”  She laid her head on my chest and ran a finger through my hair.  “I love you, but I’m scared.  You understand that, right?  I can’t go through this again.”

I sighed but held her and let the moment pass.  Sanity returned.  I said, “Yeah.  I understand.”  I was aware of the fact that Amy was my ex-girlfriend.  We lay holding each other, and despite everything, I was glad of her.  Glad to not have to be by myself.  I kissed the top of her head.  “Thanks for letting me in.”

“You really don’t want to tell me about it?”

“Not really.”  I shook my head.  A beat passed.  “I have to go to America.  You know, it’s always the same old shit.”

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 2, Part 2)

Our Story So Far:

     Nicholas Rasputin is a low-level history professor at Oxford University.  He's also the son of Andre Rasputin, Britain's last great wizard/spy and one-time leader of MI-6's Special Section, and he's the great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, perhaps the most powerful and infamous evil wizard in all history.  However, none of that explains why two American Army officers have come to Nick's classroom to try to strong-arm him into giving them Durandel, the legendary Sword of Kings.

***

I’d finally reached the train station and was on the escalator to the platform when a memory hit me so hard that it nearly knocked me over.  I was on the football pitch and had gotten into it with another boy.  I was twelve, the son of an aggressive man, and not naturally inclined to give ground when challenged.  The other boy and I had tussled several times already, though nothing serious, until I’d finally put my shoulder into his chest and knocked him down.  And then it had been on, all fists and elbows and bony knees.  When they’d finally pulled us apart, the other boy had a yellow-card, and I somehow had a free kick.  It wasn’t justice; it was football.

So there I sat, ball on the ground, just outside the Penalty Box, a solid wall of the opposing team’s green jerseys lined up in front of the goal.  Sure, I could have tried to pass, but what self-respecting twelve-year-old boy is going to do that?  Besides, I’d always had a bit of a leg.  So I stepped back, ran at the ball, planted my foot, and drilled it.  It was the kick I wanted, too—a high, lobbing shot that floated over the opposing defenders, hit the top of its arc and dropped at speed towards the goal, too high for the keeper.  It looked like it was going to go... until it didn’t.  The referee’s whistle blew.  My ball had sailed three inches high of the upper post.  Goal kick.

Play resumed.  I don’t remember who won, and it didn’t matter.  What mattered was that after the game, my father found me and pulled me aside.  I thought that maybe he was going to warn me against fighting, but I should have known better.  Old Dad didn’t mind a fight when you won.

So we stood there, and he looked me in the eyes.  He said, “Son, that was a good kick today, even though you missed.  And today, it’s okay that you missed.  You’re only twelve, after all.  But you need to keep practicing!  Someday, you’re going to be a Platoon Leader in the Regiments, and when that day comes, you can’t afford to miss.  You can’t miss!  Lives will depend on you.  

“So keep practicing, son.  Keep practicing.”

The warm reverie of memory carried me unthinking across the Outbound Platform, onto a car, and then out the other side.  A few minutes later, I was out on the street, headed towards a familiar apartment building.  I’d been standing in front of it, fumbling with my keys for nearly a minute before I realized that it was the wrong building.  

I’d come to Amy’s place out of sheer force of habit.  

And maybe, I admitted to myself, for a few other reasons, too.  

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 2, Part 1)

Our Story So Far:

     Nicholas Rasputin is a low-level history professor at Oxford University.  He's also the son of Andre Rasputin, Britain's last great wizard/spy and one-time leader of MI-6's Special Section, and he's the great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, perhaps the most powerful and infamous evil wizard in all history.  However, none of that explains why two American Army officers have come to Nick's classroom to try to strong-arm him into giving them Durandel, the legendary Sword of Kings.

***

Chapter 2: Amy

It’s a five minute walk to the nearest train station from the Golden Dragon.  In those five minutes, my emotions cycled through the complete gamut, from resignation to resentment, from a general sense of ill-use through simple acceptance and into my all-purpose standby—anger.  My father was gone, and he’d left me with a lot more than just my grief over the loss.  He’d also, apparently, left me with some rather unfinished business.

I sighed.  

With him gone a year now, I’d thought all those fights were over.  That whole, “What are you going to do with your life?” thing seemed a long time ago.  The arguments about how I’ve been ignoring who I am, about how I have an inherent responsibility...  

It’s been bad enough that we never got over it, that we were arguing about it until literally the day he died.  That the echoes of those arguments still ring in my ears because, bottom line, you think you’re going to eventually be able to come to an understanding with someone, that someday they’re finally going to learn to live with and accept the person that you really are, the person that you want to be.  But in real life, that doesn’t happen.  

In real life, they get cancer, and they die.  

And all that time when you ought to be making up after all and everything?  When you ought to be saying what you always thought you’d have time to say?  That’s when your dad has a breathing tube stuck down his throat and tubes coming out of his nose and arms.  And his neck and his chest.  And he’s barely conscious.

My dad was awake for most of that last day.  He couldn’t talk, of course, but he’d somehow managed to get hold of a pen and a piece of paper, and he’d started writing notes.  Through it all, he’d never let them take his athame--though the Lord only knows what he thought he was going to do with it--and when I came in that morning, he’d written me something and wrapped it around the blade’s sheathe.  When he came in, he pressed it on me--note and knife, both--with great vigorousness.

The note read: “I needed your help.  I’m sorry.”

I looked at him and smiled.  “It’s okay, Dad.  But it means a lot to me that you’d take the time to say that.”

But that upset Dad, and he grabbed the note back, as best he could.  His hand shook, but he took the pen and he underlined “your help.”  

“I needed your help.”

I looked at note and then I looked back at my dad.  This was not an apology.  This was a last reminder.  A parting shot about my so-called sacred calling.  This was what he wanted me to remember once he was gone.

A year on, and his athame’s weight still sat heavy in my inner coat pocket.  

“It’s always the same argument, right Dad?  You just can’t let it go, even now.”

I shook my head.  

I’ve always felt like, if Dad chose to spend his life in service, then fine.  But he could at least have done me the courtesy of calling it what it was—a choice.  I mean, yeah, he probably did think that we owed some kind of debt, because of who we are.  And for a time, maybe that was even true given our family’s history.  But Dad’s service went far beyond the depth of obligation.  

The truth is that he loved the life he chose.  He loved his work.  The military, the SIS, the idea of Service; those things were his life’s blood.  The manly life, lived in the company of other men, was as necessary to Dad as the air he breathed.  His first thought in the morning was that he would, through his actions, make Great Britain a better, safer nation.  And his last thought before he went to bed at night was the simple satisfaction of a job well done.  The Realm was saved; War Wizard Andre Rasputin had seen to it.

But the choices of the father do not unalterably devolve to the son.  Yes, I served.  I did my part.  But it had never excited me the way it had excited Dad.  My father was very smart in his own way, make no mistake.  He was a canny tactician, a subtle and intelligent wizard, capable of well-conceived misdirection coupled with stunning violence when such was called for.  Not for nothing had he triumphed at Goose Green.  To his enemies, he was little more than quick death, an unseen end given in the name of Queen and Country.  

And yet, though he was all of that and more, he wasn’t what you’d call brilliant.  He wasn’t smart.  He lacked that indefinable edge of brainpower, the innate intellectual curiosity that sets apart truly learned men.  It didn’t make him less of a man—quite the opposite really—but it limited him.  What he accomplished, he accomplished through guts and strength and sheer determination.  He coupled his strength of will to the firepower of the British Army, and the results were spectacular.  That was enough to make him the Chief of the Special Section.  But it could never have made him the Head of the MI-6.  Nor could he, for example, have ever hoped to have served in Parliament or, as I do, as a professor at a top university.  My father was very good at doing what he did, as far as it went, and that as enough for him.  But it was not enough for me, though he’d never understood that--even on that last bloody day.

It’s bittersweet, remembering those times.  My father, still tall and proud, in full possession of his powers and prowess, years away from the wasting time, the tubes, the oxygen tent, and all the rest of it.  

It’s been like that since his funeral, my emotions swinging back and forth like a pendulum.  Up and back.  Good times and bad.  

I missed feeling reliably like myself.  At times, I could barely remember what being me felt like.

***

To read this story from the beginning, click on The Sorcerers Story keyword down below.

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 1, Part 3)

Our Story So Far:
     Nicholas Rasputin is a low-level history professor at Oxford University.  He's also the son of Andre Rasputin, Britain's last great wizard/spy and one-time leader of MI-6's Special Section, and he's the great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, perhaps the most powerful and infamous evil wizard in all history.  However, none of that explains why two American Army officers have come to Nick's classroom to try to strong-arm him into giving them Durandel, the legendary Sword of Kings.

***

My father and I had both loved Chinese food, and The Golden Dragon had been one of our favorite places.  We headed over there on foot, and as we walked, Rupert and I caught up.  I was pleased to learn that he’d been made the new Chief of the Special Section.  That was as it should be, I thought.  He’d been my father’s protege and partner for more than two decades over there, and giving him the section made sense.  Anyway, it wasn’t like I was going to do it.  

I shook my head, not wanting to recount the old arguments, even to myself.  At least with Rupert in charge, I could assure myself that the Section was in good hands.  

Rupert seemed to sense my mood shifting and changed the subject.  “So how’s Amy?”

I groaned.  I’d almost rather have kept talking about my father.  “Don’t ask.”

“Really?”  Rupert seemed surprised.  “I thought you two were going to make it.”

I shrugged.  “So did I.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s really lousy of her to drop you like that.  Right after your dad…  I mean, what’s wrong with her?”

“That’s not really fair, Rupe.  It’s been more than a year.  And anyway, you can hardly blame the girl for wanting to get on with her life.  I mean, it’s not like it was her father who died.  And besides, she didn’t drop me.”

“You dropped her?”

I shrugged again.  “It hadn’t been right for a while, y'know?  And there’s no use hanging on when it’s over.  I had a good cry, but I still think that it was for the best.”

Rupe touched my shoulder.  “I’m sorry to hear that, Nick.  I really am.  You’ve had a lot of it lately.”

“Yeah, well…  I’ll live.”

“You will.”  Rupe agreed.  He smiled.  “Maybe I should have Jessica invite one of her friends over for dinner.  You could stop by, and you know—“

“Ahh...”  I shook my head.  “I don’t think I’m ready to be set-up just yet.  Besides, I don’t know that I want to date any of your daughter’s friends.  It’d feel weird, and anyway, they’re mostly Normals, aren’t they?  I don't think I could date a Mark.”  I realized what I’d said and tried to play it off with a little half-smile.  “That didn’t come out quite right, did it?  Besides, aren’t we going to America?”

“We?” asked Rupe.  “You don’t even know what this is about yet.”

“You wouldn’t have followed these guys all the way to Cambridge if it wasn’t important.”

“Maybe.  Or maybe I just wanted to see you.”  Rupe leaned forward and cocked an eyebrow.  “Or maybe I’m just trying to keep an eye on you.  I am the Chief of Special Section now.”

I laughed.  “You see Colonel?  A real magician never reveals his secrets—or his reasons for doing something, apparently.”

The Colonel brightened a little.  I realized that he’d probably been feeling a neglected while I’d been catching up with Rupe.  But so what?  He’d had it coming, hadn’t he?  He’d let his bully boy try to hex me after all.

He asked, “How’d you know I was a colonel?”

I looked at him meaningfully and tapped my forehead.  “I’m a magician.  You don’t have any secrets from me, sir.”

Rupert laughed.  “Don’t let him pull your leg, Colonel.  It was a lucky guess.  Remember, even though Nick is just a teacher now, he spent a good bit of time in the Regiments back when he was just out of University.  And his father used to bring home the occasional American spook back in the day.  With your haircut and your accent, I’d guess that Nick knew right off that you were an American officer.  From there, well, you’re too old to be a major, and they’d never send a general to handle a matter like this, would they?  I mean, it is still the official position of the American government that there's no such thing as magic, isn't it?”

I glared at Rupe.  “Well.  I can see that my secrets are safe with you.”  I turned back to the Colonel.  “Since turnabout’s fair play, Colonel, let me tell you one on old Rupert here.  Maybe you're wondering why he didn't just bring you to me himself instead of sending you along and then following?  It would made things a lot easier if you'd all walked in together, no?  But he didn't do it that way precisely because it would have made things easier.  He’d already seen that depleted uranium pig-sticker that Chris carries, and old Rupe here wanted to see what your boy could do with  it.  He figured that if he let events take their course, things would most likely get dodgy, and he'd get a free shot at seeing the new American war-wizard program in action.”  I looked back at Rupe.  “Plus, I'm pretty sure that he didn’t want to take a chance on getting caught in the back blast.”

“But how did he—?”

“This one’s for free, Colonel, because we already talked about it,” I said.  “I’m the great-great-grandson of Grigori Rasputin, the famed ‘Mad Monk’ of Russia.  The original bad-ass evil wizard.  The one dark mage in all history who actually succeeded in taking over one of the world’s Great Empires and making it stick.  I’m also the son of Sir Andre Rasputin, the greatest war-wizard in my country's recent memory.”  I tried to play it casual, but you can't say something like that without an edge of pride in your voice.  “With a family reputation like that, I have to be prepared to take on all comers, all the time.  Practically every new mage I’ve ever met wants to try their hand at the legend, and sadly, I’m the closest thing to it that’s left anymore.”

Chris had the decency to look abashed at this.  “I'm sorry, professor.  I didn’t mean to be rude.  Besides, you have a bit of a reputation yourself.”

At that point, we arrived at the Golden Dragon.  I spoke briefly with the hostess, and soon enough we were seated in a quiet back corner.  By that time, it was getting on late afternoon, and the Dragon was perfectly empty.  Even the wait-staff left us alone while they prepared for the evening rush.

Once we were seated, the Colonel relaxed visibly.  “We really do appreciate your time, professor.  As I told you back in your classroom, it’s a delicate kind of a situation we’re in, and we weren’t sure who to turn to with it.  We've established a new program out at Camp McCall, and though I’d like to say it’s running well…  Well, you’ve seen the results.  Chris… uh, that is, Major Forsythe… is the best we’ve got right now, and though he’s a good enough officer, he’s not quite the bad-ass sorcerer—to use your phrase—that the U.S. government feels it needs at the head of its new special security program.  We’d like for somebody outside the organization to come in and take a look at it.  You know, to tell us what we’re doing wrong, beef up the training, that sort of thing.”

“And you had to come all the way to England for that?” I asked.  “Why didn’t you just call me on the telephone?”

“Well, to be honest, that's not why we've come to see you.  What I'm about to tell you is strictly classified.  Truth is, my government would prefer not to share this, but without a working program of our own...”  The Colonel leaned in close.  “We've come to see you, Nick, because of some of the electronic chatter that the NSA has been monitoring.  There's been a lot of talk lately about your father's sword.  The Sword of Kings.  We think somebody's after it, and we think that it's in the best interests of the United States that they not get it.”

I interrupted.  “The Sword of Kings is a myth, Colonel.  Truly.”  Rupert started to say something, but I cut him off with a glare.  “I'm telling you both right now.  Durandel, Excalibur, or whatever you want to call it... it’s not real.  There is no such thing as the Sword of Kings.  There's nothing for anyone to come after.  This is not something that you need to worry about.”

“But it is, Nick,” the Colonel responded.  “Because real or not, if someone thinks that you have the sword, they will come after you.”

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 1, Part 2)

My hand out of my pocket before I knew it, wand rising, gathering power.  “Don’t you bring my father into this, you two-bit bastard!”

But Chris’s rod was already out, and he’d already gathered power.  He flicked his wrist before I could even get my wand level.  Black lightning sparked hideously.  I couldn’t help blinking from the flash, but the glyphs on my desk and chair held—easily—forcing Chris’s spell back on him.  By the time I could see again, Chris was helpless.  Eldritch bonds of black fire—magefire from his own spell—held him suspended by the wrists and ankles about four feet off the ground.  The bonds crackled and spit as he struggled, and I watched while he grimaced in pain.  Below him, his golden rod lay forgotten on the ground.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.  “Hurts, doesn’t it?”  I said.  I shook my head.  “Every tenderfoot fool I’ve ever met thinks he’s the Second Coming of the Dark Prince.  You all want to prove you’re the Master of Disaster.  What is it with you guys?  Didn’t they teach you anything in America?”

The Colonel looked annoyed.  “Okay professor.  You’ve made your point.  Put him down.”

“Why should I?”  I pointed my wand at Chris.  “He meant for that to be me up there.”  I walked around and picked up his rod.  It was made of a material that I didn’t immediately recognize.  I’d initially thought that it was gold, but it was harder and, if anything, even heavier than a rod made out of gold would have been.  I held it up.  “Do you have any idea how dangerous something like this is?  Hell, I don’t even know this thing is made of!”

Chris grunted.  “Depleted uranium.”

“Of course,” I said.  “Depleted uranium.”  My frustration bubbled up again, suddenly, frustration at the intrusion into my life and at a host of other things that nothing to do with novice wizards, American or no.  

I gestured with Chris’s rod, and his bonds disappeared.  He fell like a stone and stumbled, and I tossed his rod back to the Colonel.  

“It’s time for you to leave, Colonel.  Today’s lesson is over.”  

A new voice spoke from the back of the room.  “They really do need your help, Nick.”

We turned, and there was Rupert Montgomery—my father's old partner from the Special Section.  Despite everything, I smiled.  I'd not seen Rupe since my father's funeral.

“Rupe!  Well, this is a welcome surprise.”  I pulled my wand from my jacket pocket and waved it to indicate my visitors.  My everyday, working wand is an old plastic chopstick with a line of silver painted down its spine and an aluminum foil cap rubber-banded onto the tip.  On seeing it, Chris's eyes got as wide as saucers.  “I take it that the Special Section can't spare a man, so you sent these guys to me?”

Rupert didn't smile.  “They're after the Sword of Kings, Nick.  I thought you'd want to know.”

“Commander please--” the Colonel said.  He looked around a little frantically.

“I told them that I couldn't help them,” Rupert continued, “but yes, I think you might ought to hear what they have to say.”

“What the Hell is that?” the larger man, Chris, finally asked.  He was still looking at my wand.

“Great God!”  I shook my head.  “Rupert, the Sword of Kings is a myth.  You know that.  Why you insist that I--”

“Save it for the Marks, Nick,” Rupe replied.  “You and I both know--”

“Gentlemen!  Security!” the Colonel said.  His eyes blazed with something like holy passion.  “Now I will be happy to tell you everything, but this is a public classroom in a public university.  I will not discuss it here, and that is final.”

“Fine,” I said, feeling resignation set in.  I turned to grab my coat.  “I still think you're being a little melodramatic, Colonel, but now that Rupert is here, and I am no longer out numbered, I will at least allow you to take me to lunch.  There is a very nice Chinese restaurant a few blocks from here, and I'm sure that if we ask, the owners will be more than happy to oblige us with a dimly lit back corner booth.  Will that suffice for your clandestine needs?

The Sorcerer's Tale (Chapter 1, Part 1)

Chapter 1: Unexpected Visitors

“Professor?”

Something in the questioner’s voice raised the hairs on the back of my neck.  And then, too, there was something else.  A feeling.  A whisper.  Before I’d even registered the conscious need to react, my hand had fallen into my coat pocket, fingers closed around my wand.  

You might think that sounds paranoid, but then, you didn’t know my father.  You don’t know what it’s like to be a Rasputin.

I turned slowly.  Around me, my students were leaving in a tidal wave, ebbing from the learned shores of “Continental History: 1633 to 1815.”  It took me a moment to pick my questioner out from amongst the sea of bodies.  But then I saw him—them, I realized—standing like a rock against the flow of free-spirited adolescence.  The one in front—he must have been the speaker—was tall, proud, and in retrospect, given the voice, distinctly American.  He had broad shoulders, a blue Brooks Brothers suit, and black hair cropped so close that he could have been a 1960s-era astronaut.  His power-tie—red-burgundy, of course—and starched white shirt served to accentuate what was already an immensely strong aura of solidity and confidence.  The lines in his face proclaimed him to be in his late-forties at least, but as I looked at him, I knew that his body would be chiseled granite beneath his clothes.

So, the United States Army.  Or maybe he was a U.S. Marine.  Obviously an officer, at least Field grade.

Nothing good could come of this.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” I replied.

The man behind the speaker was similar but younger, bigger, and strikingly blond.  In fact, he was enormous.  He looked like he should be wrestling bulls on some Texas ranch wearing only a pair of leather gloves and a cowboy hat, not standing in a suit in my lecture hall in a pose vaguely reminiscent of Parade-Rest.  And it was his power that I was feeling.  I shuddered.  He was not the kind of man that any sane magician wants to fight.   

Fortunately, he wasn’t in charge.  Probably, he was an aide-de-camp or something.  A senior captain, at least, or more probably a major.  Not exactly the kind of man that you’d normally think of as “muscle,” but then the American Army has taken that whole shock-and-awe thing to heart.

The dark-haired man waited as the last of my students left and then looked briefly around to make sure that the coast was clear.  When he was satisfied that we were alone, he took another step forward.  His voice dropped so that I had to lean forward to hear him.  

“You are Professor Nicholas Rasputin, I presume?”

I caught myself leaning forward and almost shook my head with frustration.  Clever.  With an effort, I straightened and took what I hoped was an innocuous-looking step back.  I needed some space and a chance to get control of the conversation, or thing might not go well.  And more to the point, my desk was behind me.  I turned to it and picked up some papers, glanced at them briefly, and then stepping around in front of my chair.  

I suppressed the urge to activate my wards.  

“Is there something I can help you with, Colonel?”

The effect of my words was instantaneous.  “But how could you--?”  

Behind him, the blonde man reached inside his coat, to the place where most people would keep a pistol in a shoulder rig.  “I told you this was a mistake, sir.”

 “Easy, Chris,” the Colonel said, laying a hand on his companion’s arm.  He looked up at me.  “Is there someplace we can talk, professor?  I mean, privately?”  He took a deep breath and looked very much like a man about to confess to murder.  “I’m sure you can guess what this is about.”

“As it happens,” I replied, “I can think of several things.  So which is it?  Basque Separatists?  Or maybe the CIA is looking for an expert on Russo-German relations as it formulates policy in relation to Gazprom?”  I shrugged and drew out the moment.  “This is Oxford, and my nation is your staunch ally.  Whatever it is, I assure you…  I am at your service.”

The Colonel frowned.  “It’s a little more delicate than that, I’m afraid.  But we’ve got a car downstairs if—“

“We’re talking, Colonel.  And there’s no one here.  Just tell me what you want, and if I can, I’ll be happy to help.  But if you think I’m just going to get in the car with you and—“

The blonde one—Chris—cut me off.  “This is ridiculous, sir.  He’s toying with us.”  As he said it, I felt him gather a bit more power to himself.  “But I can Compel him, if you’ll authorize it.”

Could he?  I was presumably safe behind my wards, but this man, Chris, he was the worst kind of opponent.  Young and strong, athletic and dedicated.  Confident.  Probably gifted, too.  There was no telling what he was capable of.  In that, he reminded me forcibly of some of my father’s old friends, especially back when Dad was young—back before they transferred him over to the SIS and Special Section.  But then, that fact raised more questions than it answered.  For starters, when did the American Army start using magic, and who in Hell could possibly have thought that it would be a good idea to teach Army Rangers to be war-wizards?

Unfortunately, I already had a pretty good idea how this was going to end.  

So too, apparently, did the Colonel.  He put a restraining hand on his companion’s shoulder.  “No Chris.  I’m sure that if we’re polite, Professor Rasputin will see reason.  Or at least that’s how his father always was.  Isn’t that right, professor?”

“I’m not my father, Colonel.  Either ask me what you came here to ask me, or get the Hell out of my classroom.  I don’t like being bullied in my own lecture hall.”

Chris reached back into his coat and pulled out a long metal rod.  It wasn’t a wand exactly.  It was too big and heavy—and definitely dangerous.   “No one’s bullying you, professor,” he said.  “Not yet, anyway.”

“Colonel, your friend is about to hurt himself.”  I kept my voice calm, but I made sure to keep my eyes focused on Chris’s weapon.

“The Colonel already asked you nicely—“

“The Colonel didn’t ask me anything.  And if this is your idea of nice, I’d hate to see ‘persuasive.’”

“I can be very persuasive, professor.”

“Boys,” the Colonel said.  But by then it was too late.

“Can you?” I snarled.  “You learned a trick or two, and now you think you’re some kind of bad-ass sorcerer?  Now you’re ready to draw-down on me, Chris?  Come on, then.  What’re they teaching in America these days?”

“I’m not scared of you,” Chris said, though it was obvious that he was. “Your father’s dead and buried, and from what I hear, you’re not half the man he was.  Where’s Durandel?  Tell us where the Sword of Kings is, or I swear to God, I’ll—“