A Sorcerer's Secret

Chapter Six

“Good morning Linda,” I greeted, waiting for a response. She stared at me. I continued waiting for her to say something. She continued staring at me as if I was a wombat climbing out of a pan of pumpernickel dip. Well, think I can safely cross her off of my list of character references on my resume. Maybe I’ll put her as an emergency contact... that way if I die she’ll be told and she’d smile for the first time since the Dark Ages.

“Good morning Bob,” I greeted, hoping this one would go better than my greeting to Linda.

“Good morning Cameron! Are you ready to get started?” He asked, smiling that huge smile of his.

“Well, you sure don’t waste any time,” I mumbled, “Sure let’s do this.

“Oh, good! Let us walk to the ellyvader, the training grounds are downstairs.” Ellyvader? This dude is definitely on something. We got into the elevator and he pressed the button to go down, then he entered some weird code into the keypad, all while speaking in some weird language that I’m pretty sure originated in some other galaxy. About 2 or 3 minutes into our elevator ride I looked questioningly at him

“Hey, I think we just broke the speed of turtle!” Bob laughed,

“We are going much further down than the 13 floors we were up Cameron. You think I’m risking you throwing spells in an office building?” Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I guess the dude has a point.

A few minutes later the elevator finally came to a shuddering stop. We stepped out and I looked around in amazement. We were in a humongous cavern with walls lined with every kind of weapon you can think of, at least 20 doors leading in different directions, wall upon wall of books, wands (who knew wizards actually used wands… interesting), pictures of scary looking men and women, scrolls, plaques, posters, and anything else that bore the least resemblance to anything that ever existed regarding magic.

“Wow.” Bob smiled,

“Quite a sight isn’t it? Welcome to your new home for the next two weeks.”

I think I could like this quite a bit. Now I am excited.” I said, rubbing my hands together with glee.

“Let’s go meet your first instructor. This is by far your most important lesson as it involves choosing your wand, a very big step in a wizard’s learning. Your instructor for today is James. He has been with us for about 5 years and has taught many young wizards to be great. I don’t think I need to tell you to respect him. He rather commands respect.” I followed Bob’s gaze and saw a huge hulk of a man, who couldn’t have been any less than 7 feet, 300 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on his entire enormous body. I walked over and started timidly,

“Uh, hi, I’m-“

“I know exactly who you are. And I suspect that by now, you know who I am. Let’s get to work.”

“Err… yes sir!”

“I’m sure by your age you’re aware of how this will work, no?” He asked.

“Yeah… not exactly. I really don’t know squat about this.” He sighed,

“Looks like I have to start from the beginning. Listen closely because I’m not saying it twice. Every wizard needs some sort of wand to channel his powers. At the age of 12 wizards are taken to the wand room to get their wands. Except for in your case you seem to be arriving here like 20 years late. Here’s how it will work. You will be taken to a table containing over 100 different wands. You will not choose your wand, the wand will choose you. It will just feel right. Don’t be expecting a little stick that humans think of as a wand, wands come in every shape, size, and material. Let’s go look for one now.” Well this didn’t seem too hard. Let a wand choose me; don’t expect a stick, blah blah blah. He led me to a table containing – just like he said – literally over 100 assorted things, most of which I never would have thought of as being a wand.