Dickhead

Rumbold Crucible was a journeyman magician: at least, that’s what his graduation certificate said. The reality was that he had barely made the grade, couldn’t recall a spell without the aid of a crib sheet, and he liked a drink … or two … or three. But, like all magicians in Ramshot, the epicentre of all magical activity in Ransidd Province where the paranormal was … well … more or less normal, he had an assistant. Which was just as well, because although Grundle was not himself imbued with magical influence, he thankfully possessed an annoying sense of responsibility and level headedness that kept his master on at least some semblance of the straight and narrow. More importantly, he kept some sort of income flow going - no mean feat when competent working magicians were ten a penny - even if Grundle’s sense of economics sometimes slipped into the murkier recesses of commerce.

But even Grundle was not infallible. The previous evening Crucible had slipped the net and gone off on a bender and was, even now, lamenting the fact, sprawled on the floor of their meagre lodgings, clutching an empty bottle and a surprisingly somewhat disgruntled looking stick.

Grundle looked from the bottle to his master and to the stick. “Stewbother Swamp Water,” he said scathingly. “I thought I told you to lay off that. And what’s that?” he asked, nodding at the stick.

In response, the stick opened a baleful eye. “Don’t you speak to me in that tone of voice!” it snapped, causing Grundle to start back in astonishment.

“Don’t shout!” groaned Crucible, dropping the bottle which tinkled across the floor causing him to wince and raise his empty hand to his head. “‘That’” he emphasised, “is not a ‘that’. ‘That’ is a Supreme Magister’s magic wand.” He raised it, wearily, staring at it with hopeless, bleary eyes. “I won it.”

The incongruity of a stick having just threatened him notwithstanding, Grundle started to scoff but then took in the pained expression on his master’s face. “You mean …?”

“Yes, The Supreme Magister’s magic wand. Calparthia’s.”

At that the stick grew little arms and crossed them in annoyance, glaring at Crucible. “Yes!’ it said. ‘And don’t you forget it! I have never been so humiliated since I was hacked off the mother tree. To think that a Supreme Magister’s magic wand has been the object of a common gambling debt and put in subservience to a third class magician …” Words failing it, it glared at Grundle. ‘What are you looking at?” it said, truculently.

Grundle glared back. “Why is that stick animate? And why isn’t yours? I’ve never seen your magic wand talk, let alone sprout limbs! And what’s it mean by ‘common gambling debt’?”

“Because it belongs to a Supreme Magister, that’s why?” Crucible groaned wearily. “And I won it on a wager last night. I challenged Calparthia to a drinking competition - and I beat him. Which didn’t go down too well, although he was past caring by then.” He looked up at Grundle with a worried expression. “What have I done?”

Grundle ignored the question, looking at the wand with renewed interest as infinite fiscal possibilities crossed his mind. “I take it that this wand does things that other wands don’t?” he asked.

“Obviously,” the wand chipped in. “I am still here, you know. You can address me.”

“Well, excuse me!” retorted Grundle. “I’m not accustomed to talking to a piece of wood.”

“I wouldn’t talk to it like that,” Crucible advised, gingerly getting up from the floor. “I’ve put us in a very difficult position.”

This time, Grundle did scoff. “Again - difficult position again, I think you meant to say! Difficult how?”

Crucible put the wand down, where it grew legs and waddled off, exploring the room and stretching its limbs. “Difficult as in breaking legs, arms and worse when Calparthia’s goons catch up with us. Do you think the Supreme Magister is going to take this lying down - once he’s recovered from his hangover? He’s going to want his wand back, fairly won wager or not.”

“That’s right,” said the wand, hooking its thumbs where its suspenders would have been if it had been wearing any. “And I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, because you can’t just hand me back. Protocol demands that my master should claim me back personally or, more likely, by proxy knowing him, and by whatever means necessary. But that works both ways because I have to accede to that, and - quite frankly - I’m a little teed off at being used as a gaming token in the first place, so I’m not at all sure I want to be claimed back. So you’re stuck with me for the moment, much as I might dislike the downgrade. So how do you feel about those sour grapes?”

Crucible’s demeanour and expression suggested that he might already have swallowed those sour grapes whole. He put his head in his hands and groaned.

“Right,” Grundle said, “So, we’re in danger of life and limb while we have Calparthia’s wand, you can’t give it back, even though Calparthia wants it back, but it’s actually refusing to go back even when Calparthia’s goons turn up to claim it on his behalf - and I don’t expect that’s going to be a polite request - so either way, we’re buggered? Is that a correct assessment of the situation?”

“No flies on you, are there?” said the wand. “I can see why he keeps you on.”

Just then there was a peremptory knock at the door - peremptory only in the sense that just one of the hinges came off as it slammed against the wall - revealing the presence of a huge individual who blocked the doorway.

“Ah, Shovell,” said the wand. “I might have guessed he’d send you. Well, you can tell him from me that I’m not coming. Off you trot.”

A look of utter incomprehension shot across the big man’s face. “But …” he began.

The wand turned to Crucible. “Tell him, will you? Explain the magician’s code to him where magic wands are concerned - in words of one syllable - very slowly. Twice, probably.” It walked stiffly over to Crucible and climbed up his robe, settling itself comfortably in his belt.

Shovell might not have been the brightest ember in the fading fires of comprehension, but he knew wilful disobedience when he saw it. “‘Ere”, he roared. “Give that back!” and strode over to Crucible, lifting him up bodily by the throat, knocking the wand out of his belt as he did so. It bounced solidly on its knobbly head and clattered on the floor. Quickly, Grundle snatched it up and, without thinking, whacked the big man across the head with it. There was some surprising weight about the blow and the man dropped Crucible and turned to face Grundle, who immediately swiped him between the eyes, whereupon he fell back like a lump of timber and Grundle stared aghast at what he had done.

Not only at the now slumbering form of Shovell, but also at Calparthia’s wand, whose knobbly little face had assumed a dreamy expression with crossed eyes and a tiny tongue lolling between slitted lips. “Bwlah,” it said. “Bwlah!” Then its eyes rolled up into its head and it became nothing more than an inert piece of wood.

“Oh,” said Grundle, which seemed a somewhat inadequate response to the events that had just transpired. He turned to face Crucible, who had now recovered from his choke hold and was frantically packing a bag.

Crucible looked back with frenzied eyes. “Don’t just stand there! Pack your stuff! We’re leaving!”

-oOo-

Hours later, safely ensconced in one of the remoter and less salubrious of the many taverns in Ramshot, Crucible and Grundle sat down to assess the cost of Crucible’s endeavours of the previous evening. Crucible was turning the wand in his hands worriedly. “Did you have to hit him so hard?” he asked.

“Well, excuse me for saving your life,” Grundle retorted. “I grabbed the first thing to hand. Is it broken, then? Can you even break a magic wand?”

The wand half opened a pained eye. “My head hurts!” it moaned, extruding skinny arms to cradle its head, exploring the knots and nodules, teasing one tenderly.” I’m sure that wasn’t there this morning. Where are we? What happened? Who are you?”

At the last remark, the sigh of relief that had begun to escape Grundle and Crucible’s lips fluttered to a stop. “Oh,” Grundle said.

Crucible was a little more forthcoming, and when he had finished his tirade against Grundle, Calparthia, Shovell and the world in general, there wasn’t a lot of invective left to explore. It even aroused the admiration of some of the patrons of the tavern which, had Grundle and Crucible been aware of the establishment’s reputation, would have amazed them. It even aroused the interest of the tavern keeper, who approached them wiping hamlike hands on a grubby apron. “Now, keep it civil, gents,” he said, “I’d hate to have to throw you out.” Issuing the warning with a sense of menace, he turned to go back to the bar.

Hastily, Crucible scooped the wand up and hid it inside his robe, lest there should be some unwanted comeback. It was a little too late. “Who’s that dickhead? I’d like to see him try,” came the muffled response from beneath Crucible’s robe.

The tavern keeper stiffened, and turned back. “What did you just call me?” he asked

The wand struggled free from Crucible’s robe and jeered wildly, “Dickhead, dickhead, dickhead!” thumbing its fingers on its nose, as it did so. Then, it swivelled, shot its head forward, which exuded sparks … and, where once there was a tavern keeper’s pristine forehead, there was now an adornment that might have had every female in the tavern blushing - had it not been that particular establishment.

Immediately, the tavern keeper’s eyes crossed as he swatted at the sudden obstruction to his vision, then turned to look at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar … and let out a roar of indignation, turning back to Grundle and Crucible, with a clubbed fist.

But they were already out of the door, dragging the wand with them, which turned round in the doorway, still jeering: “Dickheads, dickheads, the whole steaming lot of you!” It swivelled again and the uproar of hilarity that had begun to erupt at the tavern keeper’s predicament turned to howls of consternation as an assortment of sincipital adornments erupted throughout the entire tavern which, for those ladies involved, was an unfortunate embarrassment.

-oOo-

Later, after they had put a good few miles between the tavern and themselves - and a few other unfortunates who had chanced to cross them on their journey and were now looking to purchase a variety of concealing headwear, Crucible and Grundle hunkered down in the shelter of a grove of trees outside the city walls, to take stock of their situation. The wand had wandered off to dabble its feet in a stream. “Can’t we just push it in?” Grundle asked.

“It’s wood. It floats,” Crucible replied dully.

“Right past the palace, though,” Grundle countered. “Don’t you think it might recognise where it is and wade back out to daddy.”

“Magician’s code. Can’t just give itself back. Got to be claimed. Anyway, do you fancy wearing your gonads on your head, if you try and tip it in? That seems to be a fixation with it at the moment. You must have scrambled its neurons when you used it like a common cosh. They’re not supposed to act unilaterally, even Supreme Magister’s wands. There needs to be some symbiosis with its master, and I certainly didn’t suggest ‘dickhead’ back in the tavern.”

“Ah,” said Grundle, sheepishly.

The look that Crucible threw spoke volumes and Grundle hurried to explain. “I only thought it. I didn’t suggest it, and it was your swearing that precipitated it all, don’t forget. And you’ve got to admit, he was a bit of a dickhead. Anyway, why did it hook up to me? I’m not its master. I’m not even a magician.”

“No,” agreed the wand catching the conversation as it waddled back, shaking water from its feet. “But you’re a sight more intelligent than him, much as it might pain me to say it. And that excuse for a magic wand he carries about doesn’t have much conversation, so I think I’ll settle for you.”

If there was an expression that signified flattery, trepidation and cunning machination all at the same time, it flitted across Grundle’s face, as much as Crucible’s suggested a regurgitation of the earlier sour grapes.

“Sad to say, we’re going to need him as well,” the wand sighed. “The ‘fluence has got to come from somewhere so I can channel it and he is the magician if I can use that word loosely, but between the three of us we can achieve great things.”

It leant back on its arms with a palpable sense of satisfaction. “It’s all come back to me now,” it said, looking pointedly at Grundle, “and I don’t even object to being used like a ‘common cosh’ as your master says - it’s opened up new possibilities and I certainly don’t want to go back to being a Supreme Magister’s magic wand. It’s all pomp and circumstance back there - all rote and ritual. Freedom of the open road is the thing for me. Much more creativity. Much more fun. This time next year the world, you wait and see.”

“You’re saying we’re stuck with you then?” Crucible asked. “No matter what?”

“Oh yes,” the wand said, enthusiastically. “I’ve got big plans … with the help of your little friend here,” it patted Grundle on the knee. “You’re the conduit, Grundle here is the brains and I’m the power.”

Grundle shifted uncomfortably, even as his eyes looked to a future only dreamed of distantly until now. “Look,” he said, “we can’t keep referring to you as ‘it’. Haven’t you got an actual name? If we’re going to be working together, we need to know what to call you,”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said the wand airily. “Names aren’t important. Just call me ‘Dickhead’. I quite like ‘Dickhead’. Anyway, I shall look forward to the reaction when you call me that from across a crowded room.” It smiled an evil, slitty smile and Grundle gulped. There was something quite unnerving about that.