by Al K. Line
"Since I first learned true magic. In fact, it wasn't always my hat. The tale of my hat actually ties in nicely with how I became a wizard. It's the same story."
"Whose was it?"
"Hell, can I tell this or not?"
"Sure, go ahead." Vicky took a sip and I did likewise, then I told my story.
"Some people believe in magic, but most don't. Most won't accept it as a reality even when confronted with it. They'll make up excuses, convince themselves they didn't see what they saw, all that stuff. I was different. I always believed, I think, even when young, but it wasn't until I was older, when I left home, and boy did I get out of there as fast as I could, that I truly began to see the world for what it is."
"What's that?"
"Dangerous. Anyway, I believed, felt this something inside that convinced me it was true. Okay, this bit is a long story in itself, so I'll skip it, but I searched for someone who could teach me. Not a charlatan, the real thing. I traveled, like a lot. Everywhere. Bumming about, doing whatever to earn enough to follow the next lead, all kinds of crap a young man gets up to. And then I found him."
"Found who?"
"My teacher of course. My master."
"You never told me this." Vicky was leaning so far forward now she was almost sitting on the table.
"So? I'm not a bloody entertainment console. This is my life, my private life. But you asked." I folded my arms, annoyed, and leaned back.
"Sorry, please continue." Vicky smiled, I glared, patronizing sod that she was.
"I found a teacher, in Africa. The Sahara to be exact."
"Shut up! You didn't!"
"I did. He was crazy, obsessed, tall, skin and bone, burned black by the sun although he was dark-skinned anyway. What's the PC word for it now? Negro?"
"Arthur, you can't say that!"
"What? Hell, he was a black man, I don't know what else to say. I can say that, can't I? I'm a white dude, he was a black dude."
Vicky opened her mouth like a fish out of water but as the gears whirled she remained quiet.
"I found him, living in a cave in the bloody desert. It wasn't what you'd think, all sand dunes and mirages, nothing to be seen for miles, just sand. It was in a small village, but a nice, clean place, and many of the houses were built into the rock face. Not to be wacky, but because they were comfortable and cool. There was running water, proper plumbing, bathrooms, just like a normal house. He lived there alone, shunned most of the villagers, and they avoided him. Then I turned up. Kid in jeans and a stupid straw hat, full of himself, itching to learn how to wield magic."
"I can just imagine. Bet you had the same swagger too."
"What can I tell you? I am what I am. I knocked on his door and he opened it. When I began to speak he punched me in the face. It went on like that for about a week, which is why my features are, um, a little wonky."
"And you let him?"
"Yeah," I mumbled, rubbing at my cheek, the memories flooding back. "The way I saw it, it was like a movie. I get rebuffed by the wise elder, he gradually grows to like me, then once I've passed the test, he takes me under his wing and teaches me the wonders of the universe. Guess I had Karate Kid or something in mind, the usual story. But it didn't work out like that, not at all."
"What happened?"
"He kept punching me, and I got pissed off. I was black and blue, my nose was broken, I could hardly see, my eye was so swollen, and to be honest it just really, really hurt. So one day when I knocked and he answered and slammed out his fist, I, well, I stopped him."
"Grabbed his arm, or his hand?"
"No, his fist just paused, maybe a millimeter from my nose. I thought he was fucking with me, but then he began to strain, like really strain, and he shit his trousers and fell in a heap covered in sweat."
"Arthur!"
"What?"
"If you're just going to make things up at least make them believable. Come on, I'm not an idiot."
"That's debatable, my nosy little munchkin, but I'm telling the truth. He shouted and he moaned and then took himself off to clean up. I stood there in his tiny hallway, not knowing what to do, so I wandered into his living room. It was empty, nothing in there, just a rug and everything else bare. His Quiet Room, to access the Quiet Place. I found that out later, mind you. At the time I assumed he was either really poor or a nut-job, probably both."
"Hmm."
"Okay, fine, you don't believe me. End of story." I got up and drained my coffee then took my mug to the sink and rinsed it.
"Arthur, I'm sorry. Please carry on."
"Nope, you blew it, kiddo. No more secrets for you."
With my back to her, I smiled. Vicky would be a nightmare if I didn't finish this story, nag me incessantly, but she could stew for a few minutes. Served her right for doubting the honesty of The Hat.
The Tale Continues
"Arthur?" asked Vicky in her cutest, best-behaved voice.
"Hmm?" I kept my back to her, gave the sink another wipe, not that it needed it.
"Will you please finish the story? Sorry I didn't believe you, it's just you never share your past. It's only this last year you've told me anything at all about your life."
I turned, serious. "Because most of it is hard to talk about. It hurts. There's a lot of bad stuff buried there and I don't like to bring it up. Fine, I'll finish. But listen, there are some things I joke about, wind you up over, but I'd never lie to you about anything important, you know that, right?"
"I know. Love you." Vicky smiled, her delicate features morphing into that smile that always sparkled, and always brought a little light into my day. Pulled me from the cloud of depression I found a struggle to beat down some days. I was so goddamn tired as usual, wanted to sleep for a year. Scrap that, just a night. Have one bloody night where I just slept and didn't have to constantly try to stop my mind whirling, going over and over the past, worrying about the present, stressing about the future.
"Arthur!"
"What? Sorry, I was miles away."
"The story? Hurry up, I have to leave soon. I need to know the rest."
I made yet more coffee then sat back down and continued.
"So, his living room was empty. I didn't find out it was his Quiet Place for many weeks. After he got cleaned up, Zewedu, this was the wizard's name, came in to the room, ranting and raving, shouting and scowling, but smiling at the same time. For a young kid it was utterly bewildering and overwhelming, but I knew I was on the right path."
"Because of the punch you stopped?"
"Right. With his dreadlocks unwound they were down to the ground, and he was dripping from the shower, but he came right up close to me, and I'll never forget his bloodshot eyes, the whites all sickly yellow like gone-off milk, as he stared at me for the longest time. Then he grinned, said something in Arabic, and slapped me on the shoulder. My backpack fell to the ground and that was that, I'd moved in."
"Just like that?"
I nodded. "Just like that. It had only taken a week and repeated punches in the face. He took me on as his pupil, his only pupil, and he taught me. This isn't for everyone, Vicky, this magic, it's the strangest thing. It changes you, corrupts you, makes you confront the dark side of life, and death, always death, and once you can access the Quiet Place, feel the enormity of the universe, the power it contains, well, it's a lot to take. Most people who search and find a way to access magic, they lose control, can't handle it. The suicide rate is astronomical for young wizards, witches, anyone who gets even a glimpse of what's possible."
"I assumed it would be awesome, all that power."
"It is, and that's the problem. We all know we're kind of insignificant, a speck of dirt on the planet, and our whole planet means nothing to the universe at large. But there's a difference between knowing, and knowing, if that makes sense?" I wanted her to understand, to really understand, to imagine just a little about how I saw the world, how I wasn't like other people, never could be.
"I think so."
"Good. Zew
edu pulled no punches, and within a week he'd shown me the Quiet Place, gave me a hint of its awesomeness. I was terrified, I mean truly terrified like I've never been since. It's vast and cold and empty and uncaring, and I was opened up to it like I was stripped of my flesh and my soul laid bare, and my soul was meaningless. Pointless. Nothing. It was bleak and beautiful and full and empty and power and nothing. I learned that life is precious and so important and that it means nothing and every single one of us will be dead one day and forgotten and what we do means nothing in the long run and yet every action, every single thing we do has enormous consequence that can affect the entire history of the human race for the rest of its pointless existence."
"Wow, that's heavy stuff. You're like a philosopher. Never knew you were so deep."
"Why'd you think I can't sleep. It's a lot to accept, it's a lot to fathom, and I don't understand any of it, never will. But he showed me, and I dived right in heedless, and then I tried to slit my wrists."
"What? You didn't? Not you."
"I was insane for maybe a month as he took me deeper and deeper into places humans can't even begin to understand, just us in that room of his, filthy and hungry and emaciated and cackling like madmen as he took me further into this terrifying, humbling, utterly wondrous world of magic. He taught me how to still my mind to access magic, how to let it flow through me, how to build it up and store it in simple pieces of wood, what I eventually understood was a wand, the favored tool of those like him. But it could just as easily have been a staff, or a rock, or anything. It's about making a connection, but mostly it's all in the mind. You have to believe in magic, you have to accept that you are nothing, that anything is possible and that the things you do mean nothing, but carry a heavy responsibility too. Mostly you have to believe, really believe."
"But I believe. Why can't I do magic then?"
"Because you don't really, truly, to your very core, believe."
Vicky frowned, struggling with what I was saying, which was understandable as I found it impossible to put into words what magic really was. "I don't get it. I know you can do magic, I know there are shifters, I know what I can do every month now. I do believe."
"But you also believe in your family, your kids, going to parents' evening, school sports day, making the girls their dinner, all that stuff."
"Of course I do."
"And that's the way the world works. That's normal. Magic isn't normal. It's... hell, it's magic. And you, and everyone else, can't accept that it's nothing special, that it's just another part of life, something that isn't beyond the everyday, but is the everyday. Everything, and I mean the whole lot from us to the planet, to the universe, to how cells divide and make living, sentient creatures, to gravity and physics and maths and thought and death and souls and demons and angels and fae and elves and portals and potatoes, it's all fucking magic. You can't accept that, you think magic is something esoteric, weird, special. It isn't. It's the most normal thing of all, the only thing."
"Wow, guess I'd never looked at it like that."
"And that's fine, as it should be, and don't ever change. I need more coffee. You?"
Vicky stared down at her untouched cup then said, "A fresh one would be good."
I got up, depressed but also finding that it was good to discuss this stuff. It was lonely never being able to talk about any of this, and even if she didn't understand, actually recounting my past, explaining a little of what made me tick, it was sharing the burden and it took some weight off. Maybe I'd sleep tonight. Haha, like the evening would go well and I'd be done with all this crap.
Mind elsewhere, I suddenly found myself walking to the table with two fresh coffees, unable to recall making them.
I sat, feeling heavy, and then screamed as the face of Zewedu came hurtling toward me, eyes bloodshot and sickly yellow, a manic grin on his face. His crooked white teeth shone the purest white, whiter than they'd ever been in life, and I toppled backward off my chair and smacked my head on the tiles in this second home of mine that housed more magic than I'd ever dreamed of back when I was searching for answers. A lifetime away from a cave in a remote village in Africa where I'd lived for a year as a young man and learned just how cold and uncaring the universe really is.
As I lay there, with Zed's face hovering above me, I smiled at my old teacher.
Bump
"Arthur, are you all right?" Vicky dashed over, spilling coffee on the table, something I'd managed to avoid, and helped me off the floor.
"Fine, just had a blast from the past. Damn Zewedu will never let me forget what I did." I stood and nodded to Vicky and then righted my chair and sat. She did the same. I gulped my coffee, took my hat from the table and put it on, hoping she hadn't noticed how sweaty I was.
"What did you do?"
"All in good time, grasshopper. Now, where was I?"
"Being depressed and saying how normal magic is, which is kind of a contradiction."
"Yeah, that's the point," I mumbled. "Anyway, he taught me, in his own, always angry, always losing his temper, and continually trying to batter me, way. He was a terrible teacher, had zero patience, but I learned anyway. He showed me how to make a real wand, how to find the sigils that resonated with me, to make them personal and give them power, and how to uncover my own style. I learned what I was good at, what I was bad at, and came to understand that at the end of the day whoever you learned from, whatever way you went about it, the end result was the same for all practitioners."
"Which is?"
"That it's all down to the strength of your will. More. You have to go beyond belief, beyond doubts and questions, and you merely have to accept. Once you do that, once you stop thinking of it as something esoteric and strange, that it's like accepting gravity or that you can breathe, then you can become a practitioner."
"That's it?"
"Yep, that's it. It's the single hardest thing in the world to master, and it's also the easiest. So, I stayed for a year, he taught me all he could, and then, when there was nothing left to be learned, I killed him."
"You what!? You killed your teacher? Why?"
"Because he wanted me to. He didn't ask me, didn't even hint at it, but the day I was to leave, as I stood there in his empty living room and he stared at me with his rheumy eyes, I knew. He nodded once, a subtle sign, and I understood immediately. Without hesitation, with no goodbyes, as he'd have hated that, I raised my wand, tapped his forehead with it, mustered my will, and the sigils I'd carved as I sat outside his front door watching the sky darken over the desert, they activated and then he dropped down dead. It was the first, and only, time he'd ever smiled. Isn't that right, my old teacher, Zewedu?"
Vicky's head shot up as I spoke and her eyes widened with fear as she took in the sight of my teacher standing beside the table wearing nothing but a dirty pair of white cotton trousers, his dark skin covered in tribal tattoos, his unruly dreadlocks hanging to the floor, his red eyes, his lips split wide in a smile.
"Make that twice. I've seen him smile twice." I nodded at the memory ghost of my teacher. He nodded back, then turned to Vicky and licked his fat lips. Then he was gone.
Vicky blanched, stared from the empty space to me in shock and wonder.
"Like I said, that's magic for you."
"Arthur, you are, without doubt, the strangest man I have ever known."
"And you, my annoying sidekick, are the most complicated person I have ever met."
"And the hat?" asked Vicky.
"Oh, right. Well, as Zewedu hit the ground his hat flew off his head. And landed on mine. And it's been there ever since. It's a mantle, a source of power, but mostly, it's a reminder."
"Of what?"
"That you don't own shit, that all is impermanence. But, most importantly of all, and this is the main reason why I have continued to wear it all these years..."
"Yes," said Vicky, holding her breath.
"Is because it's a damn fine hat."
"It does look nice," she said,
and then, sitting in the kitchen next to a Gate of Bakaudif, with an angel in a box, a lonely, tired wizard hyped on caffeine and in serious need of a wee, and a tiny woman with murder buried deep in her heart and love more plentiful than any other person I have ever known, they laughed at the madness of the world and of their own actions.
What else can you do?
Some days are like this, a bit stranger than the rest. Not much, but a little.
Meeting Gangsters
I felt odd driving through the city as it wound down just as I was ramping up yet again. Unburdening myself to Vicky had been more cathartic than I'd expected. A problem shared and all that. But it had also stirred up memories I'd kept buried for a very long time, and seeing my old master again, even if it was just his ghost or an echo of his magic, had reminded me of my youth and of all that had come since.
It brought a stifled chuckle from my coffee-stained lips that made Vicky glance at me funny when I thought about how I worried about George and what she might be up to when the fact was at her age I was off in the desert shacking up with mad red-eyed men learning the secrets of the universe. Guess she was a chip off the old block.
I dropped Vicky off and she was actually early, but she didn't argue about wanting to come see Ivan. I think she was pissed at him once she thought about what this job had entailed. It wasn't that I was glad to see her go and be alone—although I was—it was mainly that I knew she was safe now. The box was playing up, and I had to keep focusing on the wards and topping them up as the angel was constantly weakening them.
So it was with much speed I drove through the city out to the wastelands of abandoned enterprise and the old factory grounds where Ivan had decided to set up his place of business. When I pulled up outside the building, I got out and spotted the usual goons dotted about, some in plain sight, others high up peering out of windows smashed long ago, and more on platforms next to rusting conveyor belts removed from the factory floor decades ago.
There were goons and several vampire goons, and I knew there would be more vampires as the true night encroached. I was getting better at keeping the vamps in my memory, even though the buggers had if not a veil, then an air of such normality that it was hard for most people to keep them in focus. There were also several vehicles that weren't to Ivan's taste. Large Hummer type things, oversized and screaming, "Look at me, I've got a big pair of bollocks and I'm a gangster." Not Ivan's style at all. He liked discreet but expensive, nothing flash or showy about his operation or the vampires' way of doing things at all. Guess this was the business he'd hinted at on the phone.