Enemyless

The wizard may or may not have been in a bad mood today. It was so hard to tell until the door was opened and, whether there was the crashing of tables in the two men's direction, then they could guess. Hopefully today was not one of those days.

The old man handed the younger the cup of tea.

The younger already regretted ever taking this job, but he was in hiding after stealing a sheep and was safe enough here. No one wanted even a little sniff at the wizard.

The older man, though not older by much, was quite ready to leave the cottage in the woods and never see it again. He had put up with the wizard for long enough.

"Good luck."

The young firmly gripped the cup and walked boldly to the door.

"Don't show that you're ready to scream."

He grimaced, grasped the doorknob, attempted to shield his head, and opened the door.

The wizard was lying in bed, his long beard acting like a blanket.

The young man sighed gratefully and entered the room. Softly he placed the tea cup on the bedside table.

"What's that?" The wizard's eyes snapped open and stared up at him.

"Tea sir," the man tried to say confidently.

"Tea?" The wizard sat up, causing his beard to move and showing a bit more than the young man wanted to see. Apparently the beard acted as clothes too.

"It's for your health."

"My health? My bloody health is what's gotten me here so far. I don't want tea, where's the whiskey?"

The young man took his cue and dashed out of the room, just managing to get the door closed behind him before he heard the well-known crash of the tea cup against the door.

"You did well." The older man patted his back. "At least he didn't turn the tea into a dragon."

They both remembered the dragon experience.

"Can't he just stop complaining for a while?"

The older man laughed.

"Good one, pigs can fly as well."

They both sighed and got back to waiting for the wizard to shout at them again.

“Stewart!” The older frowned. His real name was actually Casula, but apparently the wizard had had a newt named by that name when he was young and so he always called him Stewart.

The younger man, whose name was incidentally Stuart, had lied and said his name was Fleming.

Casula cautiously opened the door with a practiced poise. The wizard was standing fully dressed in his green robes. They had once been bright and emerald but neither of them knew much about washing things and either the robe had faded or was caked in dirt. 

“We’re going into town.”

“Town?” Questioned Casula. “You haven’t been to town for eleven years. Not since…” He didn’t say the name.

Eleven years ago the wizard had lost his last enemy in a great fight, which had seen the enemy trampled by a cow. In actuality the cow had escaped from the local butcher’s knife but the wizard claimed it was he who set it on his enemy.

Ever since then the wizard had enjoyed peaceful days in a quaint cottage in the tranquil woods.

And he was bored.

“There’s no point in going to town, you have everything here.”

“I need an emery and unless you can suggest one we’re going to town.”

He thought to the new kid, it would be easy to make him an enemy for at least a minute but then he would probably run off and they’d be back round to the beginning.

“There’s that rabbi that likes to come by and stare at you.”

The wizard put his stern face on, which if he wasn’t covered in wrinkles and dents, could have resembled a pout.

“Get the other one, we’re going to town.”

The main regretted not leaving the week earlier. He left the wizard to finish whatever he needed to do to get ready to leave the house; probably have half the bottled of whiskey he kept under the beard.

“Looks like we’re making a trip to town,” he told the younger man.

Stuart meanwhile had heard the whole conversation and gone into a panic. He was in hiding. He had stolen a sheep form his neighbour, after destroying the fence which let all the other sheep out. Now they wanted him in gaol and he wanted none of it. Whilst the town in question was far enough from his old town for no one to recognise him there could still be someone there who realised the truth.

“Maybe I could stay here and mind the house?” He suggested.

“Oh don’t worry man, no one’s going to come near here at all, everyone thinks it’s cursed.”

“It may as well be,” he muttered.

The door slammed open.

“Come on hurry up you saggyops or I’ll turn you into toads.” The wizard marched out of his room with his staff in hand. The staff had unfortunately once been used to knock the horn of a rhinoceros which instead of resulting in a hornless rhinoceros resulted in a topless staff. It the wizard were a little taller it would have made a good walking stick, but now it remained as a staff without a top.

“How about we go find you an enemy tomorrow?” Casula asked hopefully.

“Nope, you can’t spend time mulling over finding an enemy, you just need to find it.” With a small hobble, which may have been attributed to the staff, he walked across the room and out the door.

The two men looked at each other despairingly and followed with no other choice.

As they walked through the woods they all realised they had no idea how long it would take to walk to town.

The wizard thought it would take ten minutes, though within two minutes which felt like an hour he realised he must be wrong.

The older man, who had only been to town twice since the incident thought it would take an hour but once he saw the wizards hobble he realised it would take much longer.

The younger man kept changing his mind in anxiety and after deciding it would take 55 minutes thought it would take three years and then hoped that if it took that long he would have grown a beard to disguise himself.

“Let’s speed things up,” the wizard announced.

Casula tensed. The wizard did now and the do spells but it had been awhile since he had done anything bigger than warming up his porridge.

“We don’t mind walking, do we Fleming?” The older man nudged the younger.

“No no of course not.”

“Well I do mind, stop I’m going to do a spell.”

It’s in moments of fear that grown men lose all sense of masculine dignity and will clutch each other in desperation. It was one of these moments that the two men found themselves in as the wizard muttered incoherently and waved his staff around their heads.

Stewart considered admitting the truth, at least then he’d die in honesty. Eyes closed he felt his feet lift from the ground and then a sharp sudden poke in the chest which must be the poke of death.

He opened his eyes. The wizard was poking him with his staff, staring at him rather amusedly.

“Come on you two wimps.”

The two men let go of each other, grunted at each other and straightened their shirts.

They had appeared at the edge of the woods, with the town just on the rim of their sight.

Stewart leaned into Casula.

“We are walking back right?”

“Of course.”

The three of them begun walking towards the town. As they got closer Stewart found his hands getting sweaty. He didn’t want to end up in gaol, it had only been one sheep after all and the sheep had been returned. It may have been dead but it was still returned.

The wizard was waltzing confidently in front of the two men, his eager step due to the promise of a new enemy. He wasn’t sure if that old innkeeper was still around but they had once had a huff about the state of the tables and maybe he could bring that up again.

The first buildings of the town began to loom and Casula felt frightened. The wizard was after all an old man with a crooked mind and could get carried away. He wouldn’t be surprised if the town was burnt down by nightfall. All he could do was make sure to keep an eye on him and to stop him from doing any spells.

They crossed the threshold that signalled the beginning of the town and continued deep into its center. It was a small town, with small homes that wouldn’t have more than a few rooms and a marketplace every day in the middle. It was here that all the people would come through at some point in the day; to buy fruit and bread but namely to gossip.

It was here that the wizard lead his two followers (though they considered themselves keepers), and it was here that gasps of horror first came to their ears.

Whispers filled the marketplace. Stewart, who hadn’t had a chance to do anything but quickly pass through the town found it was quite a lively place. There were tables set up with food, and the occasional one with a bit of cloth and in the corner there was a pen with pigs. It was somewhere he could see himself settling down one day.

If he had realised though the reaction of the people, he would have thought otherwise. People scrambled for shelter in horror, reaching over people as they all searched for the best hiding spot: far far away.

Only a few people remained by the time the rush had vanished.

“Look there’s no on here, let’s go back,” Casula tried.

“Those womps, they’re all too cowardly to face someone as big as me.”

Stewart thought to the glimpses he saw between the wizards beard.

The wizard had been marching up to the closet lady who hadn’t run away. She was shaking, trying to find a way to hind behind her apples.

“You there,” the wizard demanded. “I’m looking for someone annoying.”

The lady nodded, though she didn’t seem to know why.

“Do you know anyone?”

She stopped nodding, paused then shook her head.

“Come on, there must be some peskering man around here whose fool enough to fit me.”
The lady looked like she wanted to run, but she had missed her chance.

“No… no one.”

The wizard grunted then walked away without another word. It wasn’t the answer he wanted.

By now everyone who had the bravery to stay and left, and the lady too had vanished.

“Why don’t we just take a few potatoes and leave?” Suggested Stewart uncertainly.

“We’re not here for potatoes,” the wizard snapped. “We’re here so I can get a new enemy. But those peaches do look tantalising, take a few of those.”

As the wizard moved further into the marketplace Casula wondered what would happen if he just ran off with the rest of the villagers. He’d offer for Fleming to come to and they could both leave the wizard up to his own devices. With no one by him he’d hopefully feel helpless and toddle on back home.
“Hey,” he whispered to Fleming. “What if we just leave him here?”

“And what’d we do?”

He shrugged. “I’ve accrued a few things from the oldie over the years, I wouldn’t mind settling down in the next town over. You haven’t been paid at all yet so there’s something for you too.”

Stewart considered it. With a bit of money this could be his chance to get away and really get things sorted inside of hiding out with a grumpy wizard. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.

“I’m in.”

Casula patted him on the back.

“Let’s go then.” They turned around and begun to softly walk in the other direction.

“Stuart!” Both men turned instantly.

The wizard was looking at them and even though he was far away they could tell he was stern.
“What are you doing?”

“I saw some better peaches over here, I’m just getting some for you.”

“Well come over here the both of you.”

They two men looked at each other despairingly.

“We’ll make our escape later,” Casula said.

Both with a deflated thump in their step they returned to the wizard.

He was peering down at something on the ground rather curiously, and prodding it with his stick.

“It’s a dead parrot,” Casula told him upon getting closer.

“It would make an excellent pet.”

“A live one would be better.” Casula put his hand on the wizard’s arm to pull him away. In the corner of his eye he could see some people poking around a corner and he hoped they would return to their hiding. If there was no people around then hopefully the wizard would get bored and decide to return home.

It wasn’t so much that people were afraid of the wizard hurting them, they were afraid the wizard would take an interest in them. They all knew the track record of the wizard’s enemies, and how they had all started as friends, then become good friends and eventually either getting flattened by assorted animals or leaving the town in the dead of night. No one wanted to be friends with the wizard. What none of them knew was that this time the wizard was looking to get an enemy straight from the get go. If they had known this they may have come out and gone about their daily business, because the wizard was not just going to gain an enemy from an everyday joe.

The wizard was poking the dead parrot once again.

“How long will you be here for?” He suddenly turned and prodded the chest of Stewart.

“Excuse me?”

“Well will I see you tomorrow morning and the next and the next, or will you soon decide that I’m a cranky oldie and chuff off?”

Stewart glanced at Casula.

“I hope to stay for a long time,” he said with hesitant looks around.

“Good then we won’t need the parrot.” The wizard moved on without a second look.

How a parrot was going to compare to a full-grown man was incomprehensible to the both men. But they had learnt to just let some of the wizard’s comments slide and so he could go on believing that a dead parrot would be of some use.

They made their way through the other side of the marketplace. On the way Stewart realised he hadn’t had breakfast and picked up a lose pear that had fallen from one of the tables.

“Where’s he going to get an enemy from?” He whispered to Casula as he took a big bite from the pear.

“I don’t know but that’s a potato you’re eating.”

Stewart spat the stuff out immediately, splattering it onto the ground. He could taste the tanginess of the raw potato in his mouth. He held it in is hand, it was green, it looked enough like a pear to be one.

“Years ago he put a spell on all the potatoes, they look like pears now.”

“Oh.” He dropped it onto the ground and looked around for something he could eat to get rid of the horrid taste. There were some nice berries on one table, but he rather worried that they were also disguised and instead were something that came from a rat. Raw potato wasn’t that bad he decided.

The wizard was contemplating the edge of the marketplace, he appeared to have a habit of doing that.

“The best place to find an enemy is in a marketplace, it’s bad luck to do it elsewhere.”

“Well there’s no one here, we should come back another day,” Casula one again suggested. He had in part forgotten about running off. If the wizard would just go back home he would be content.

“No, we need to wait here until someone comes.”

Both the men were happy to wait, the wizard did tend to just doze off sometimes. They sat down by a wall and a few crates.

None of them knew how long they waited. The wizard kept dozing off for a few moments every now and then and he’d spark awake asking if it was a new day yet and where his whiskey was.

Casula took the chances to murmur to Stewart.

“We can probably take him home when it starts to get dark.”

Stewart didn’t fancy walking around in the dark either. He could get away another day.

“We should try that.”

“Where’s the whiskey?”

They both looked at the wizard.

“There’s whiskey back at home, why don’t we go get some there.”
The wizard looked like he’d almost sway for a moment then something clicked in his mind.

“I’m waiting for an enemy.” And he leant back and closed his eyes.

The two men settled back on their crates. The day was beginning to get colder by now, though maybe it was only because they wanted it to, but they wished very much that the wizard would give it all up. Even if he did get an enemy it was too likely that they would run away or end up dead very quickly and the wizard would once again be left without an enemy.

If either had a good idea they would of done something, but neither had a clue of what to do except wait. They settled down more comfortably.

The town was a curious one and it wasn’t long before people began peeking their heads around buildings. A daring child ran into the marketplace, grabbed what may have been a pear or a potato and ran back.

Eventually a man who looked very uncomfortable entered the marketplace and walked towards them. He kept pausing and looking around, then continued on his way.

Casula glanced at the wizard who was asleep and stood to meet the man.

“Greetings,” he said to the man, trying to appear nice and not like the nuisance he knew they were being.

“Greetings.” His voice was just as uncomfortable as his walk had been. “Is there, uh, something you’re here for?”

“Unfortunately yes.” He nodded his head towards the wizard. “He’s decided he needs a new enemy. You don’t have an old man who’s about to die do you?”

He shook his head.

“Shame. Got any annoying people you want to see dead?”

He shook his head again.

“Nagging wives then, you must have one of them.”

The man paused, went to say something, then shut his mouth tight and shook his head.

“Don’t mind us then.”

The man pulled up his trousers as if it showed he held some authority.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.

Casula and Stewart were more than happy to take him up on that, but the problem was getting the wizard to comply.

Casula was becoming increasingly afraid that the wizard would wake and decide that the man before them would make a good enemy.

Stewart leaned into Casula.

“Can we just carry him off, what’s he going to do?” He whispered.

“He’ll scream.”

Their minds went back to the dragon incident.

“Would he take a basket of our finest fruit instead?”

“Definitely not.”

“I’ll blow you all down!” The wizard shouted suddenly in his sleep, thrashing his head to let his beard sway against the new man’s leg.

He took one look at the wizard, then  glanced back to Casula.

“Do what you want.” And he sprinted off in an instant.

“We need to get the wizard home, let’s just wake him up and pull him along.”

Casula poked the wizard in the arm until he sniffed and blinked in the light.

“What?”

“We’re going home. I’ll tell you where I hid the whiskey.” Casula dragged him up and Stewart took his other arm. Together they pulled the wizard along, finding it easy to drag his light frame.

“There’s no enemies for you here.”

“They’re just all scared of me,” the wizard said stubbornly.

“Yes, yes,” Casula pushed. “You’re too great.”

The wizard let himself get pulled along.

“You’re right. I’m too good for them, let’s go home to a nice glass of whiskey.”

Inwardly Stewart cheered and Casula did a very small jig. Homewards they were finally bound and the town was only relatively destroyed.

They traipsed over loose grapes cabbages, reaching the edge of the marketplace with shoes that would smell rotten in the morning.

“Wait!”

The two men looked at the wizard. He stared perplexedly at them.

“Wasn’t me.”

Casula groaned, the loudest groan of the day, and looked over his shoulder.

An old man stood in the middle of the square. He had a long purple clock that shone like someone knew how to wash it and a black beard that looked like it would hide things underneath. He was essentially a much neater, more refined, spitting image of the wizard.

Stewart wondered if the wizard had cast a spell that brought an opposite to life. Casula meanwhile knew who it was; the wizard’s brother, the man who the wizard had always had a grudge against. Dread greater than when the wizard had declared he was going to town sank into his heart. This would undoubtedly end in disaster, and they had just been about to leave too.

“What are you doing here brother? This is my town.” The wizard had turned and was staring with spite at the other old man..

“This isn’t your town, it’s always been mine. But thank you for minding it.” His voice was, though a bit stronger, undoubtedly the same as the wizard’s.

“You better leave now,” the wizard threatened, gripping his staff.

The brother thumped his tall, unbroken staff on the ground tauntingly.

“It’s time you were going, and take your next and mouse.”

Casula scratched his head, where was this newt and mouse, they didn’t even have the dead parrot with them.

“What next?” He asked the wizard, hoping he hadn’t put anything in his pockets. The dragon incident haunted them all.

He must have said it rather loud for it was the wizard’s brother that replied.

“You’re the newt, didn’t you know that.”

“I’m no newt!” He called, offended that he would be considered such a slimy creature. He’d rather be the mouse.

“Yes you are, you were turned into a human from a newt.”

Casula wasn’t going to have any of these lies.

“Ask my brother yourself if you don’t believe me,” the wizard’s brother said loudly across the marketplace.

“I’m not a newt am I?” He asked as he hesitantly wrung his hands.

The wizard seemed to forget his existence. He was twiddling with a splinter on his staff, a humming noise coming from wizard.

“Tell me I’m not a newt,” he repeated.

“Oh what?” He looked up. “Tell you that you used to be my pet newt, okay.”

In that moment Casula felt his whole world turned upside down (maybe he was remembering being held by the tail). His life couldn’t be a lie, all the childhood memories, all those fun days swimming around in the river, weren’t they real?

“I got the idea from a book for people who liked cannibalism but didn’t want to kill people. Quite a fascinating read. All your memories I just made up.” The wizard continued playing with the splinter.

“You really did have a pet newt named Casula after all,” he muttered despondently. No wonder no girls liked him, who wanted to date a newt. Some even real people but mere animals that were turned into humans through a spell meant for eating them.

“You two can go cry in a corner, I’ve got some business with my brother,” the wizard told them, and he marched forward, leaving them to their moping.

“We’re animals, great,” Stewart said. “At least we didn’t end up on the dinner table.”

Neither knew anymore that they could do so they turned their attention to the brothers. They had reached each other and were standing in the middle of the marketplace trying to look strong and fierce.

“I thought he had no enemies,” Stewart noticed.

“He’s not an enemy. It’d turn their mother in her grave if she knew they were enemies. He’s more of a bother really.”

They were exchanging heated words, speaking too fast for anyone watching toe figure out who was saying what.

“I’ll turn this orange into a dragon,” one them said.

Sure enough in another second there was an orange dragon was roaring down at them. It was definitely an orange dragon, with taut wrinkly skin and the fresh scent of pulp emitting rom its backside.

“I’ll turn this plum into a yet.”

And a purple yeti screeched down on the square.

The dragon and the yet, whilst appearing formidable, were not a worry. They looked at each other, roared and screeched respectively, and lashed out; the dragon with its fire and the yeti with its club-like hand.

In a moment the yeti was incinerated the dragon had been given a heavy enough blow to the head to crush its skull. All that remained was a few seeds and a pip.

Perhaps it couldn’t be considered much of a fight but this is how it went for a while; one creating a tyrannosaurus and the other a mammoth. Elephant, rat; a strong man, wife.

Pips became like stones on the ground and seeds like sprinkles of pebbles.

The two old men stood panting in a sea of fruit leftovers.

“Do you more brother?” The wizard asked through breaths.

The wizard’s brother shook his head. “I think we’re even now.”

“We can’t beat each other and we can’t lose.”

They shook hands and that was the end of the years of fighting. It was also the end of the wizard’s search for an enemy. In his anger towards his brother he had entirely forgotten had had wanted an enemy. Whilst before he was despairing that all his enemies were dead, he was quite happy he hasn’t died before his brother yet. All he wanted now was a tall glass of whiskey.

“I have a good bottled back home,” he told his brother.

“What are we waiting for then.”

The scrawny wizard and his neat brother put their arms around each other’s shoulders in a friendly grip and walked from the square.

The two men who had been watching the whole time were wondering now what to do with themselves.

“Will he let us have some whiskey?” Stewart asked.

“No,” Casula smiled. “But he doesn’t know where the bottle is.”

They chuckled and followed the brothers from the marketplace. Where else could a newt and mouse go but back to the person who needed them.

So with that the day began to draw to a close and the wizard, his brother and the two once-animals now humans were all quite content. It had been an odd day for all of them, but all were now happy with how it had turned out. It would remain that way for a while, until the discarded seeds and pips began to grow into trees with teeth, but that story is for a day when the wizard drinks his tea.