The Wizard

Once, there was a professor from a distant, foreign land, who moved to the west to settle down with his new family. He took a position as a schoolmaster in a small, country village, where he was welcomed into the community, all of whom assumed he was a good man, and that he would be a good teacher for their children. And he was, for most of them. He had brought with him, from his distant, foreign land, however, one piece of dark magic that he intended to use to deprive the world of one child’s light. Why? Because he was an evil man.

On his first day in the classroom, he picked out the boy with the biggest, brightest smile, and walked over to the boy’s desk, and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and introduced himself. The professor sat next to the boy for the entire duration of the opening class, and the boy thought it was so nice that his new teacher had come to sit with him, and was being so friendly. But that was the only time the professor ever smiled at that boy.

Later that night, when the professor had tucked his two beautiful daughters into their beds, and read them a bedtime story, just like a good man would, he retired to his study, where he brought out a single scroll of aged parchment. The scroll contained a star, with a circle around it that ran through all five of the points. The professor burnt incense, and lit some candles, which he had arranged in a ritualistic pattern, and when he spoke in his foreign tongue a magical incantation, a little, black, bat-winged imp appeared. In the hand of the imp was a contract, which unfurled before the professor. The professor carried the contract to his desk to examine the terms. Finding them agreeable, he produced a vial of his own blood that he had prepared for the purpose, emptied it into an inkwell, took up his quill, and signed his name. He then gave the imp some special instructions, and spoke aloud in his foreign tongue another magical incantation. The imp vanished before his eyes, and was invisible from that point on. It flew off into the night to find the boy the professor had picked out and marked. When the imp found the boy, it climbed in the window and up onto the bed, and latched onto the boy’s shoulder with one of its claws, and that grip was held until the magic was broken. Then the imp waited for the boy to awaken, so it could begin its work. Certainly the boy wondered why his back and shoulders were always so sore, but he really didn’t have time to think about it. Any time he was looking forward to doing something fun, or thinking of a pleasant memory, or trying to read a book and enter a world of fantasy or adventure,—which was his favourite thing to do—or trying to learn something new,—which is the best thing for a young mind!—the imp was right there on his shoulder, stabbing him in the brain with an invisible, intangible claw, and injecting his mind with hopeless, negative, and despairing thoughts. Any time the boy smiled, the imp was there to take it away.

Over the years, whenever the professor was standing at the front of the class, overseeing the children as they worked on their exercises, he always kept a close eye on that one boy, and whenever he saw the boy smile, he watched, and he waited, and very soon the smile would disappear, replaced by a look of hopelessness and despair, and every time the professor saw this, it filled him with glee. It filled the professor with glee to know that it was he who had deprived the world of that boy’s light. He knew that boy would never succeed at anything, and that he would never find happiness, and that he would never live up to his potential, and it filled the professor with glee. Why? Because he was an evil man.

Sometimes, when the imp decided to stab the boy’s brain with multiple claws, the boy would fall to tears, overwhelmed with emotion. When this happened, the professor would tap his desk with a ruler, and point the boy out to the entire class. “Look at that boy! How rude it is that he is disrupting the class in such a way! He should be ashamed!” And when all of the children would turn to look at the hopeless boy, and they would all point at him and laugh, and join the professor in berating him, that was that part the professor enjoyed the most. Why? Because he was an evil man.

The boy was sometimes so traumatized that he would run off into the woods to hide, and to cry, and it was always the professor who would come and find him, and bring him back to the classroom to be punished and shamed for playing hookey.

After barely graduating at the bottom of his class, the boy had great difficulty finding or holding any job, so he ended up wandering the streets, mumbling to himself and bumping into things. He was a frequent target for robbers and thieves. One day, as he was wandering, he passed by a very rich lady who happened to be a sorceress. She could see, by some means of magic, the bat-winged imp on the boy’s shoulder. Later on she sent some of her goons to ambush the boy and to drag him back to her castle, which wasn’t difficult. They chained him to a wall and hooked him up to some kind of magical machine. It was a monstrous device that frequently sent bursts of electric current coursing through every inch of his body. The sorceress had no interest whatsoever in the boy, but only wanted the imp, and was intent on dislodging it by any torturous means necessary.

As often happens among the criminal and the nefarious, especially when drink is involved, a fight broke out. When a few of the goons had gotten tired of fighting one another, they decided to fight the sorceress, which was very fortunate for the unfortunate boy, and when a band of talented rogues engage in a melee with a sorceress, it makes a bit of a mess. When the boy came to, he was free of his chains, and when he looked around, he found, unconscious among the broken glass and furniture that littered the place, a little, black, bat-winged imp. He had never seen such a thing before, and out of caution, he picked up one of the loose manacles, clamped it around the imp’s neck, and chained it to the wall. Then he waited for the imp to wake up, and when it did, it was frightened and defenseless, and it told the boy everything.

As for the professor, he lived a prosperous life in peace among the community, and all those around him, including his two beautiful daughters, believed he was a good teacher, a good father, and a good man; until one dark and stormy night, as he lay in his bed, tended by his two beautiful daughters, one on each side, he was visited by a mysterious, hooded stranger, who thrust before him, on a chain, a bruised and limping bat-winged imp.

“You were my teacher,” said the stranger. “You were entrusted to nourish my light, and to make it grow. But you tried to snuff it out instead. I’ll not let the darkness of your magic deprive the world of my light any longer. The world needs more light.”

The stranger left the imp there, chained to the bedpost, and the professor went to his grave knowing that his secret had been exposed, and that in death, he would not be remembered as the good man he was believed to be in life. Why? Because he was an evil man.