Interview with a Wizard
Copyright 2011 Timothy Craig Everhart
ISBN: 978-1-4658-0954-4
Cover art by: Jennifer Tipton Cappoen
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Even in the dim flickering candle light, it was obvious that the room was some kind of study or library. Three of the walls were nothing more than large book cases, lined from floor to ceiling with ancient leather bound volumes. It was the fourth wall that was the oddity. The door, shut as it was right now, had vanished completely leaving a seamless vista of deep space. It looked so realistic that if you didn't know that the room was firmly rooted to the surface, you'd swear that if someone took a step forward they'd find themselves in the cold vacuum of outer space.
In the center of the room was a small round table covered with a silky black table cloth that seemed to absorb what little light the single candle sitting on it was producing. There were only two straight-backed wooden chairs, both of them occupied at the moment. One of them held a man dressed in what might be described as normal attire, loose fitting khaki pants with a white knit shirt. The other wore a long flowing robe that looked as if it were made of the same light absorbing material as the tablecloth and a weathered leather hat that was patched and frayed. Tall and relaxed, it was topped with a point that had long since flopped over and was surrounded by a huge brim that sagged way down nearly hiding the man's incredibly dark eyes. Although he had a full beard, it was thin and wiry except for the patch under his chin where it seemed to thicken into a long pointed affair.
The fellow that was dressed in the ordinary looking attire placed a small recorder down next to the candle and flipped a small switch on the side. A little red light blazed in the darkness of the room showing that the device was now ready.
After assuring himself that the recorder was indeed activated, he sat back and smiled. "Just for the record, what do you refer to yourself as?" The reporter asked in a clear precise voice.
"Me…?" The other man looked around as if he were looking for someone else, and then grinned. "Ahhhh…You’re not laughing…That was a joke you know. Oh well, I assume you mean whether I call myself a Witch or Wizard?"
"Or Warlock."
The man in the robe was clearly upset. "If you offend me like that again this is going to be a very short interview."
"I…I...I... didn’t mean to offend…" The reporter stuttered. "How…I mean what...?"
Realizing that his interviewer had no idea of the offense he'd unwittingly committed, the wizard visibly relaxed then carefully explained. "The definition of the term Warlock is Oath Breaker, it is used only when referring to a witch or wizard that has went over to the dark arts."
"Then do you consider yourself a witch or a wizard?"
"Although there’s really no difference between a male witch and a wizard, I confess that I do think of myself as a wizard." He admitted as he laid the strange looking wand on the table he had drawn when it sounded as if he were being accused of being a Warlock.
"When did you decide to become a wizard?"
The wizard smiled as he began to realize just how little this reporter actually knew about the wizarding world. " No one decides…you either are…or are not. If you are, then the first trick is actually realizing it.
"You mean that some don’t?" The reporter was obviously surprised by this revelation.
The wizard chuckled as he remembered the incident that introduced him to his own magical inclination. "Absolutely. There are actually many of us, witches and wizards, who manage to live their entire lives without really having a clue about what they are."
"But how…?" The look of consternation on the reporter's face completed his unfinished question.
"Wellll..." The wizard stretched the word out as he tried to decide how to explain how someone can not know that they have magical powers. "It really depends on exactly what powers are manifesting themselves. You see...some things are actually a lot easier to explain logically than others." Seeing the reporter's apparent look of confusion, the wizard decided to try again. "If it's not blatantly obvious that something magical just happened...then nearly anything can be explained away."
With a nod the reporter seemed to accept the explanation. "When did you realize that you were a wizard?"
"I was eight."
"What happened? I mean how did you find out?"
"When I was younger…I was kinda short...actually, I was very short. At the time I was in the library at school trying to get a book off of a shelf that was just beyond my reach. I was stretching, higher and higher, trying to just get a couple fingers on it and inch it out. Suddenly it was as if my arm grew longer, it wasn't until I had the book in my arms that I thought to look down." This time instead of a chuckle the wizard laughed outright. "It really shook me up when I saw that I was floating a few inches above the floor."
"What’d you do?"
"Well naturally, this being the first time and all, I didn't know the proper way to come down. Plus...I was so startled, I came down really hard...and crooked. I actually twisted my ankle and ended up in the hospital emergency room. I’m glad nobody saw what really happened to me, I told them that I had stepped up on the lower shelf and my foot just slipped off."
"So that’s when you discovered that you were a wizard?"
"Well yes…it was the beginning. Only I didn’t know just then exactly what I was, but that was the moment when I began to realize I wasn’t...shall we say...exactly normal.
"Did you begin to experience other things as well, things...not exactly normal...shall we say?" The reporter grinned as he turned his subject's phrase around.
Shifting positions in the uncomfortable chair as he recalled that interesting period of his youth, the wizard tried to explain what it was like as his powers had began to manifest themselves. "All witches and wizards start out in a similar phase, it is commonly known as Wishcraft. If you want something bad enough, sometimes you get it. I remember another time at home, we were eating dinner. I took a drink of my tea using a straw and thought how good it would be to have a chocolate milk shake. The very next sip through the straw turned out to be the shake I had just wished for. Luckily they couldn’t see through the plastic tumbler so my family couldn’t tell what had happened."
"Why did you have to hide it from your family? Weren’t they like you…ahh…magically inclined?"
“At the time…I didn’t even know exactly what I was…and…I’d never saw any of them do the things that were happening to me.” He explained with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
“Well, did you manage to hide your budding abilities from them?”
The way the reporter had phrased the question brought a smile to the wizard. “I…I really thought I had…but somewhere along the line my father had noticed and realized just exactly what was happening to me. That was when Dad pulled me aside and explained about magic and the uncontrollable wishcraft that was plaguing my life.”
“So your father was a wizard too?”
“Oh yes.” He confirmed. “Later on…in my teenage years I found out that I actually had several more witches and wizards in my family but they were all on my dad’s side. My mother’s side was totally non-magical, or as most of us call them now, Nomags.”
“Did you ever go to a school for magic, with others…like yourself I mean?”
“You mean like Hogwarts…or the Salem Academy for Witchcraft?”
The reporter nodded. “Yes, a school for witches and wizards.”
“I wish there were school
s like that, or if they do exist, that I would have gotten to go to one, they sound like they’d be a blast. But no…at least if there is such a thing, I’ve never heard of one. Most of the things I can do…I learned on my own.”
The reporter looked bemused. “Didn’t your dad teach you?”
Even in the dim candle light the wizard’s knowing smile was understanding. “I can see that you’ve got a basic misunderstanding about wizards and witches, or rather magic in general.”
The confusion that the reporter felt could be heard in his voice as well as read off of his face. “What is it that I don’t understand?”
The wizard leaned back in his chair, one hand toyed with the point of his graying beard. “Well there, you seem to be under the same misconception about magic as most of the Nomags are.”
The reporter leaned forward, propped his elbows on the table as he rested his hairless chin on folded hands. “…and that is?”
“That all of us magical folk can do every form of magic, that we somehow choose what type of powers we command. While there are a few wizards and witches that can do many different types of magic, most are extremely limited…specialized might be a better way to describe it. In other words, most of us are able to do several different types of magic, but only one or two really well. On the other