Tak

Childhood's End - Part 2

     "It was the grey wizard, of course," said Thomas. "Looking at me, him I mean, through his crystal ball. Now that I think back on it, the feeling of being watched was always strongest when he had no clothes on. In the bath, getting into bed, that sort of thing. If it had occurred to him them, he might have had some inkling of the horrors that were to come. The abuse he was to suffer at the hands of that evil monster."

     Lirenna was pale with shock and put her hands to her face. "It didn't happen to you," she said, as if reassuring herself of the fact. "It happened to a boy who died thousands of years ago. It's hard to imagine that such things actually happened."

     "Still does, among the externums," said Thomas. "Training an apprentice is a long and difficult business. Most wizards wouldn't do it if it didn't have its... compensations. It's funny to think that wizardry might have died out thousands of years ago if not for child abuse."

     "Thank the Gods for the University," breathed Lirenna. "Thank the Gods for Lexandros, for limiting all that to the externums. Yet another reason to govern the teaching of magic all over the world."

     Thomas nodded thoughtfully. "And yet the grey wizard, I still can't remember his name. His drooling lusts saved Tak's life one day. It was late spring the following year, and he was back at the lake. He'd been swimming and was drying himself on the grass again. The feeling of being watched was back and stronger than ever but he was trying to ignore it. He thought that it was just his reaction to being naked out under the open sky, although that had never bothered him in the past, nor any of his family.

     "Unknown to him, though, a river reacher had been washed down from the highlands during the rains that had stopped just a few days before. It had made a new home for itself in the lake, feeding on the fish, and the boy had woken it up with all his splashing around. It wasn't a big one. Tentacles no more than four or five feet long.

     Normally it would never have attacked anything as large as a human boy. It must have eaten all the fish and been driven to desperation by hunger. That's the only explanation I can think of, anyway. Tak certainly didn't catch any fish that day. If Tak had been awake he could probably have tied it up in knots, but he'd dozed off in the warm sunshine and it was able to slither right up to him before he smelled it; the smell of dead fish that clung to its rubbery flesh. The grey wizard must have been staring so hard at the boy that he also failed to see it, and it was only the boy's reaction, sitting bolt upright and gasping in horror, that alerted him to the threat.

     "The boy's sudden movement startled the reacher and it almost fled back to the water, but instead it leapt at the boy's chest, pinning his arms to his sides with tentacles that felt like bands of iron. He cried out, but there was no-one within miles to hear him."

     He shuddered at the memory and rubbed his arms as if he could still feel it.

     "So what happened next?" prompted Lirenna.

     Thomas frowned as he relived the memory, as vivid as if it had happened just the day before, as if it had happened to him. "Being wrapped up by that thing is the most horrible thing I can remember. The smell of it. The feel of it against his bare chest, sticky and slimy. He struggled like mad but it just squeezed tighter. Then it began dragging him down towards the water. He was much bigger than its usual prey and it took all its strength to move him, but it just barely managed it, one inch at a time. Tak was in full blown panic by then, all rational thought gone as he struggled madly, but he was totally helpless to slow his progress."

     Thomas looked up at his wife. "It's the feeling of helplessness I remember best. His arms strapped to his sides so tightly it was painful. Desperately trying to dig his fingers into the muddy soil but succeeding only in digging small furrows as he was dragged along. Head first, inch by inch.