Worm woke early as usual and checked out his surroundings. A barn, with a roof this time and no animals licking his face. As per normal his first thoughts were for the wizard. Utter panic consumed him as he checked out his surroundings and there was no sign of his master, where could he be? Right don’t panic, approach the problem from a sensible and methodical direction. At 01:30 the wizard had been sitting at the table proclaiming his ability to tackle any problem and not having to use deep magic for the majority of the issues brought to him for solving.
How had they become separated? Where had the wizard gone, he had an uncanny ability to just disappear into thin air and then reappear as if from nowhere, certainly a staple of any wizard’s repertoire. But worm was worried, very worried, God alone knew what had happened, he was always so careful to keep close to his master, to protect him and ensure that no harm came to him. So the first stop would have to be the pub then. That’s the last place he saw him so was a logical place to start.
It was the usual sort of place they frequented. A small village with a shop, a pub and a church. The barn was about half a mile from the high street and he made it in less than ten minutes. The moon was still up and the cock hadn’t crowed yet but he knew these places, the landlord would answer eventually. Just as he rapped on the door the church bell whirred into life and the big bell rang five times then stopped. The ensuing silence was broken by a sudden screech and loud wailing from behind the cemetery wall which echoed off the surrounding buildings and only dying out with a whimper when the landlord opened the pubs’ massive front door. The smell which greeted him was no less disgusting from its familiarity. The stench of stale beer and old cigarette smoke mixes the distinctive aroma of urine pervading everything.
“Yes?” said the burly, red faced man in a night shirt, “what d’yer want?”.
Worm looked up at the stern looking beer bellied man. How many times had he been in this situation before? It seemed that any question involving the word wizard, put to a landlord at least, in the early hours of the morning usually resulted in him getting hit. He sighed, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and was about to speak when from the churchyard came another scream.
“Ricardo Montalban!”
Both turned simultaneously to be greeted by the sight of a large, wide brimmed, black, very black hat appearing above the cemetery wall. Beneath the brim was a pale bearded face contorted in concentration as he repeated “Ricardo Montalban” time and time again, each time getting louder but less coherent until it sounded more like “Rick you’re banned”. The body beneath the pale face also rose slowly from the wall revealing a tall but rotund figure dressed in long flowing black robes which had sleeves like, well like a wizards sleeves, sleeves of such size that you could have hidden a border collie in each with room to spare. This strange but less than impressive apparition then staggered to the left, then staggered to the right, then sank from view behind the wall. The sound of retching echoed across the square.
Worm’s shoulders sagged. Relieved to have found him but also realisation that once again the ‘great one’ will need to be carried back to the barn, and his underwear changed, before the sun was up. He looked up at the landlord. It was the first time he noticed that he was carrying a baseball bat. If he had asked him about the wizard, he may have been hit with the thing. Was it a coincidence that the wizard appeared just before he got into harm’s way?
“Oi” said the Landlord, “Does he belong to you?”
Worm, ever faithful, swelled and stared him straight in the eye, “He is a great man, I am honoured to serve him, and you are honoured to have met him, sir”.
The landlord scratched his chin and looked down at the short man in lederhosen. It was either too early, or too late for this kind of shenanigans. “That’s as maybe, but yer great man there owes me £50 for the condom machine he broke tonight”.
“Sir, £50 is a small price to pay to experience greatness. It is something that few are privileged to witness in an entire lifetime and the day will come when you will thank us for this very moment” The landlord looked at him askew, not believing what he was hearing. What feckin’ greatness? Had there been any greatness? Well the pub had done more business last night than the previous 3 months put together. All the locals had turned up for once and despite the dire economic situation had spent freely for the first time since God knows when. And why had they came? He had asked himself that question all night. Could it be…..? no that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? No way could it have been his replying to that stupid advert in the local free paper? No! “For a magic solution to all your problems, call the wizard now!” He had phoned the number, left a message, but no, no bloody way. He raised the bat to belt the wee fella but he was gone, just disappeared into thin air. He looked around, not a soul in sight, maybe just maybe. Any question of the occult or fantastic was soon gone when he heard “How many times do I ask you? Don’t be sick in the hat! It’s a bugger to clean, then I have to starch…” grow quieter until silence once again shrouded the village.
The Landlord slid the bolts across, put the bat behind the bar, and poured himself a whiskey. A strange end to a strange, but thankfully busy, night. He hadn’t bothered clearing up before going to bed. He hadn’t even bothered to empty the till. That was a sloppy habit he didn’t want to start getting into. He walked to the till and pressed the ‘no-sale’ button. The drawer was empty. Did he cash up after all? He lifted the tray out, underneath was a gold glittered card. In bright red letters “You Are Welcome…. W”
“What the fuck!” That cheeky bastard has taken the lot. Right first stop the police, and with that thought he ran out the door heading straight for the police station. Half way down the main street he caught a glimpse of black robes disappearing around a corner and the sound of wretching hanging on the breeze. Well he could take the old bastard on his own, no need to wake the cops for this one and with that he was away. On rounding the corner he stopped instantly and took in the view before him; the wee lad in lederhosen was tugging at the robes of the mad git in black who had pulled himself up to his less than impressive height of 5 ft 9” with his hands outstretched before him, a small twig in his left paw and those self-same words emanating from deep within, “Ricardo Montalban!, that has stopped him for a moment worm now let’s be off from this god forsaken hole”. With that he collapsed in fit of coughing and vomit only to be scooped up by the one he called worm and fled off into the countryside.
As the sun rose above the horizon, worm removed the boiling pan of water, scooped out the sausages onto the bread and poured the water into the teapot. He took the steaming cup of tea, no milk but six sugars, over to the slumbering wizard.
“Master, I have prepared your breakfast” He handed over the cup and sandwich to the wakening wizard.
“A successful business?” he asked.
“Yes, O great one, though you disappeared at one point. I had to return to the village and collect you. You were sick in your hat again”
“Ah, unfortunate” the wizard looked at his hat drying over the fire, “but you see whenever I need to transport myself through the ether, like I must have done last night, amnesia and travel sickness always is a price I must pay for such powerful magic. Did anything else occur?”
Worm sipped his tea, “Well, er. The landlord said you broke the condom machine. Then when we were walking back he came out the pub and started to chase us. But you shouted something and we got away”.
The wizard frowned, pausing before biting his sandwich, “I must have used gripplethrongers ‘stop the aggressor’ spell. Do you know why he may have chased us?”
“He did say the condom machine cost £50 master”
“Tell me worm, how many gold coins are to be found in my treasure chest on this golden morn?”
Worm reached into his sack and removed a battered looking tin. He removed the lid, “£2.50 O great one”
The wizard looked at the three coins, “Hmmm, that will never do.” He put down his cup of tea, raised his arms and said, “Ricardo Montalban!” After a moment, he reached into his wizardly robes and produced a handful of notes in £20, £10 and £5 denominations.
Worm looked at the pile of money, awestruck. “Oh Master!”
A smile, almost smug, spread across the wizards face, he looked at the beaming smile on worm’s face. “Before we leave, you can deliver the £50 to the Landlord with my blessing”.
“Like fuck I will thought worm. That £50 will get me some decent trousers at last.” “Yes o great one, your wish is my command”. With that he took the proffered money and poured a very large Brandy for his master. Once the Wizard had drifted into a sleep he made his preparations. First the carpet had to be layed out on the platform and then the wizard layed gently upon it. When he was sure that the wizard was comfortable he gently raised the forks on the forklift to their maximum height. On checking that snores were still emanating from the platform he decided to make a start to their next destination. Taking the masters phone he checked for messages of which there were 4. Three had came the previous evening and early hours telling the master to leave whoever had sent the messages alone. All 3 were women and highly strung, he knew what this was, obviously the master had been chasing witches again last night, one of them going so far as to scream down the phone that if she ever had to go through an ordeal like that again she would kill herself, that she felt dirty and violated. A job well done thought worm, the master never rests.
By noon the forklift was slowly making its way down the country lane. There was a queue of cars behind it honking their horns and shouting expletives to worm. The wizard by now had woken up and was adopting, what worm had come to know as, his flying carpet pose. His hat strap down and world war two goggles in place. The wizard adopted a pose like a surfer, albeit a surfer on a carpet, a carpet on a raised forklift, a carpet on a raised forklift going at 15 mph down a country road causing a two mile tailback.
The wizard feeling the wind in his face glanced back at the traffic. “ Aha Worm, now you see the wonder and majesty of magic. A mere mortal would be caught for hours in this jam, but lo, see how we fly over at break neck speed!”
Worm looked over his shoulder, he was sure the elderly lady in the car behind couldn’t know such words, yet he gazed at his master looking so magnificent. Yes, he thought, this was a great way to travel. And travel they did for another 7 hours 15 minutes to be precise. Another middle sized village in another boring county. But this one had promise, there was excitement in the air but first things first, the master had to be prepared and for that he needed a steep downwards slope.
As luck would have it 5 minutes later he came to just such a slope and half way down having gained considerable speed worm slammed on the brakes. The result of this manoeuvre never ceased to amaze him. His master left the platform with great grace and silence. The silence was soon replaced with shouted expletives as the wizard fought with the demons of the air before landing, never softly in a nearby field. By the time he had recovered his composure Worm had hidden the forklift and laid their belongings out on the road. First to find shelter then to brief his master on the mission.
