Tales of the Blood Moon - Prologue: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The morning was young. The whole town was still sleeping, when a young redhead girl wearing a long black robe and a pointed hat went into an abandoned house on the outskirts. Her name was Kajira, she was a town's sorcerer's apprentice. And this day she decided - the day has finally come! She will be no more just an apprentice, but a true powerful witch! She learned hard for years, but her teacher, old grumpy Shmendrik never was satisfied with her strides. He always said, that she is too impatient and never allowed her to practise anything, but simplest spells. So Kajira started learning the true magic herself. And this morning, with all her knowledge, and with her fluency of Ancient Elven, the Sacred Language of the Moon Goddess Isaiah and the Dark divinities, Kajira decided to test her magic skill; she wanted to tap the Dark Side on her unconscious so she could master Black Magic, thence the Bohemian princess, and with magic and sword overcome the princes and kings of human, dwarfish and elven kingdoms, becoming Empress, or Kaiaerina, expanding her rule to the Ocean.

She had read that many witches wore a black, long pointed black hat and black robes to practice their magic, but she had also read - and heard that some witches, especially younger ones, practised their craft completely in the nude, believing magical power accompanied nudity in casting spells, uttering incantations, and invoking the Powers of Darkness. This belief may have descended from ancient Orcish lore which held that the naked bodies of Orcish warriors of the past, as long as they wore their sacred, leather belts around their waists, were surrounded by magic, and though individual warriors in Orcish armies of conquest and marauding might die, the armies of this warrior people would not fail, and, naked as they were, they conquered so much territory. Kajira knew all about this and adhered to the belief of the magic that surrounded a nude body, as long as the person wore some sort of token of magic power: Kajira chose the traditional black hat of the witches.

Kajira knew about the nude dark witches who danced around a fire, doubtlessly representing the fires of abyss, invoking the Evil One to appear and ravish them body and spirit - or soul, as they called it, and in return he would grant them fabulous powers. These witches, even they did not see the Darkness, would ravish their souls and, maybe invisibly ravish their bodies, and they would sacrifice goats and eat the creature raw, and to show their disdain for Heoth. But Kajira accounted all this Dark stuff as nonsense, and totally rejected. But she knew that some of the priestesses of Isaiah officiated naked, and here she felt very much at home. She did not discern an established reason for this; she assumed that Isaiah did not want her priestesses to wear anything profane or created by mortals, that she demanded instead the nakedness of a young priestess, whom she considered sacred and pure, untouched, during the ceremonies, by the profane garb of mortals. But this was just an educated guess on the part of young Kajira.

Yet there was another - possible - reason for the nudity of young witches, and to Kajira, naughty girl that she was, this was perhaps her favourite reason. The practice of Black Magic was bad, and in human culture nudity was considered bad, or would lead to - at least - mischief. This came from an old idea that Heoth insisted His priests to wear breeches, covering their private parts, while they officiated; at times they would have to climb ladders to reach a certain part of the Sanctuary, maybe to ascend to a platform to preform a Holy Service or Sacrifice to Heoth, usually a cow. The first few Books of the Old Testament said that if Heoth or the people saw the nakedness of the priest under his robe, it was a great abomination to Heoth and he would shame himself and the people; Heoth was said to have told that if the priests did not wear breeches while officiating they would be struck down dead by the Lightning. Anyway, since Kajira was "bad" by practising Black Magic, in her aspiration to be a witch, she wanted to be "bad" in her attire, in her wearing of the black witch's hat, and in her nudity. Then too there was a certain thrill for the youthful apprentice, in being totally naughty - Black Magic, witchcraft, nakedness, and all - in being totally naughty, but still in danger of getting caught.

So Kajira disrobed and put her clothe outside the room. The she put on her black hat, and got on her knees. She greeted and hailed, in perfect Ancient Elven, Isaiah, the Moon-Goddess and all her attributes. Then she was ready to switch to her usual tongue. She implored the goddess, Queen of Life and death, to give her power to move the natural world, objects that have been manufactured by mortals, and the nature and power of the minds (spirits) and bodies of mortals to do her personal will - through her power. Well, so far, so good. She knew some witches were said to ride brooms in the sky; Kajira had her doubts about this. But she knew her dream to be Kaiaerina was also, or would be in the eyes of others, even among witches and other practitioners of Black Magic, would likewise be doubtful. So, in order to demonstrate her power - at least to herself - she chose the broom she used so often in household chores, to fly, to be used by her for not for the unpleasantness of work, but for the fun of riding it naked, to show her witchly powers to other.

Having completed her prayer and her gift of allegiance to Isaiah, the witchly candidate brought wood for a fire and a small cauldron. It was unnecessary for her to go to the well to obtain water, since she had already drawn a large amount of drinking and bathwater, which she - with difficulty since it was full of water and the pan was heavy, but with success, filling the cauldron up 3 quarters. She left the cauldron for a moment and ten arranged the wood to make a small fire, but enough for the cauldron to boil after a little while. She lighted the fire rather easily, using kindling from a lit torch. Then she put the cauldron on the fire, after which she brought the each herbs, roots, plants, berries - all unfit for human consumption but the fumes of which only affected the object of the witch's attention. Since her object of her spell was only an inanimate object, she did not take all-important mushroom (it was unnecessary, and was not an error). Then, while uttering a spell for the efficacy of her potion, Kajira took the ingredients, cut them in the middle so their power would come or sooner, threw them slowly in the cauldron praying for success as she did so. Then the girl stood in a corner of her room, waiting for the cauldron to boil.

Kajira had to wait patiently for this, saying spells the whole time. She had put the top on the cauldron to make it heat up faster and, most importantly, to preserve the aroma and the chemicals created in the concoction; but she was, in spite of her prayers and invocations, listening closely for the unmistakable sound of bubbling in the cauldron, all so familiar to her as the assistant to the sorcerer when he was making his own, but unselfish, concoctions. Her heart was beating fast, her breathing was abnormal: never had she been so excited in her life.

Then the youthful with opened the cauldron and waved the aroma and invisible chemicals in the direction of the broom, which she had stood up against a wall nearby. She enchanted the broom, but her wording was terribly, horribly wrong: she had made a schoolgirl mistake, but she did not know this for a while. Instead of command to bend nature to her own will, Kajira asked that power be instilled in the broom: she would pay for this mistake, sorely. Incidently the broom was not made of the usual straw, but of birch.

After about 10 minutes of hexing, till sadly erroneously, and fanning the chemicals toward the broom, Kajira at last felt some sort of power in the room, i the room, not in her, as she expected. Instead she noticed some movement in the room, and she experienced a wild, galloping heart. She was fantastically excited, but at the same time frightened: the broom was moving! She clutched her heart a little. She thought to herself: "Am I really going to be able to fly on the broom?"

Soon the broom rose from the floor. She believed that, in a matter of seconds, she would have her answer, and so she did. But soon her great excitement was replaced by fear. As the broom rose, Kajira retreated to the farthest distance she could make between the broom and herself in the room. It then occurred to her that magic, even if it was favourable to her, was a scary thing, so she had to show courage in totally manipulating it, in mastering it. So she began to take a step toward the enchanted broom - even though SHE was the one who was to be enchanted! She moved as gingerly, as prayerfully, and as humbly as possible. As she approached it, the broom likewise began to move slowly toward her, and she decided that it must be offering its services for her to ride it; part of her hexing to enchant the broom was to cause nature to bend. In whose direction? She simply didn't specify, and allow her to ride the broom to through the skies.

But a couple of other matters were erroneous in her hexing, which should be accounted to nervousness on her part, as well as inexperience in actually practising magic: she did not ask for control of the broom; she didn't know that the broom was given the power, altogether inadvertently by her, so that the broom could take her, no matter how hard she tried to control it, could take her anywhere it wanted on a whim, even far, far away, even to the moon if it wished. Secondly, and oh-so-significantly, a genuine witch as Kajira had aspired to be, would never have failed to as the magic to grant her the owe to morph nature on her own behalf; instead, poor Kajira had hexed to give the BROOM power to bend its own nature and in effect come alive; but again Kajira did not even specify that the broom come alive for her own benefit. Kajira was afraid, but she still believed she had power: maybe she would have if she had said her incantation aright. Instead, the only power Kajira had was her knowledge and intelligence; her extensive knowledge of alchemy, which exceeded that she had of Black Magic to a significant degree and her "crash course" in the sacred language of the Ancient Elven. Incidently, as Kajira made this hex, she felt again the thrill of naughtiness, of doing something very bad, that is, practising Black Magic, in spite of the fact that she might be caught and punished for it; and the thought that she would become a witch, flying stark naked on a broom in broad daylight, daring punishment but somehow "getting away" with this naughtiness, gave her a tremendous thrill.

So she continued to slowly approach the broom, which was now off the ground and beginning to turn the side of its birch sweeping side to the girl simultaneously. Then Kajira stopped. It was clear to her that she was unable to study enough just how a witch rides her broom according to tradition, a with rode her broom with the handle part in front and the straw portion in back. But poor Kajira was confused: was the birch portion in back of her or in front? She asked the goddess for assistance in finding the answer, but Isaiah, but actually the unknown, Dark Power she had prayed to had left this to the broom itself, but Kajira still did not realize the great error she had made in her incantation. In her studies and note-taking she had made under her master Shmendrik, basically on aspects of alchemy she did not know and corrections he had made for her when she had misapprehended about it, and those that she had taken under her tutor Eugene of Ancient Elven language, religion and mythology, almost all of it based on Isaiah, and the essays she had written in phonetically - written in the old, hidden priestly heretics, were all made very precisely and correctly by the girl. She knew that even only one misplaced or omitted phrase, word, even syllable of the Ancient writing could change the entire meaning of everything she had written. Kajira was the most precise apprentice that either Shmendrik or Eugene had ever encountered, and bot of them were quite pleased, indeed proud of her, more than satisfied with her progress. Shmendrik intended to begin her training in alchemic, White, magic upon his return home, and in the meantime Kajira continued her weekday, 2 hour meetings with Eugene, who conversed informally, as much as Ancient Elven would allow them since so many things existed in Kajira's time for which there was no concept of in the Old Language, and things existed in Ancient Elven that had no relevance at all to things that were prevalent nowadays.

But when Kajira practised magic finally, for the first time, a beautiful, almost perfectly figured lass of 21, she "blew it, big time." She had stopped approaching the broom but the broom had not stopped approaching her. She commanded it in the Ancient language, incarnating in the name of Isaiah, to stop, but it continued: and now she was desperately afraid. Then a deep, burning sensation blew up in Kajira's stomach, and simultaneously it hit her mind, and she - almost - swooned: she now realized she had uttered her incantation totally wrong; instead of hexing that the power devolve on the girl, she had mistakenly hexing for Dark power to be conferred on the broom itself, and there was no telling what it would do! The broom was enchanted, and she was in its power!

Realizing that her only chance of escape from her enchanted broom was to escape through a back door in the room that led to the street. She was so desperate to escape from this Power-instilled broom that she didn't give a thought to her nudity, and that she would have exposed herself to the public's view, with laughter and looks and words of shame and disgust greeting her; but she was now afraid of the Dark Power; it had turned on her!

Well, to her terror and desperation, she found her backdoor locked. She turned the nob over and over; she pulled on the doornob with all of her strength. But it was all to no effect. As she tried desperately to open the backdoor, she was bending over, and her bare, pretty white bottom was sticking out. If she had momentarily lost thought of her - deliberately naughty - naked condition, the girl was soon reminded of it. The broom, made up of a few tough birch branches, came close to Kajira, without the youthful witch's knowledge, swooped up high in the air, and SWOOSH. . . . WHOP!. . . . The birch broom had suddenly become a birch rod, as if she were being thrashed on her bare, naughty schoolgirl bottom by an irate tutor!

"AHHHHHH!" Kajira screamed, in pain and in shock, "What th. . . . ?!? HELP! Is anybody out there? Help me! Something is terribly, horribly wrong!" But there was no help coming. Poor Kajira! Desperate as she was, and blushing violently at the thought that her Patroness Isaiah was displease with her because of her foolish, obviously unthought-out incantation, continued to work on the door, and as she did so she thoughtlessly continued to thrust out her bottom. Twice more the enchanted broom struck her hard on the bottom, this time leaving marks. Kajira stopped suddenly and stood up for a moment. She thought to herself, "Could I be enchanted - bewitched, too? Could it be that I am constrained to take the tanning the birch is giving me, as when I thoughtlessly bent over to try to open the door, and the broom thrashed me three times?"

She turned around to face her now-magical adversary, but she couldn't see it. She looked from side to side, forward and backward, but there was no flying broom inside. The door to the room was closed, and the backdoor was locked. "Where could it have gone?" Kajira asked herself; then since she knew the broom was magic, it could possibly fly through walls, or could have turned invisible. But neath was the case. The broom had been right behind her the whole time, she had just not been able to position herself to see it. But it was there! There was enough room for the make-shift "birch rod" to swoop down and smack her bottom stingingly; she screamed and ran to the front door of her room, which she had closed so that the aroma of the incantations and chemicals in her boiling cauldron would not waft through the vestibule outside her door and permeate the rest of the house.

But behold a wonder! The door to the room was locked - somehow - or stuck! Again she bent over, unconsciously, as she tried to open the door, and the instrument of her punishment whapped her on the butt ONE!. . . . TWO!. . . . THREE!. . . . FOUR!. . . . times in supra-rapid succession. Again she screamed. "AHHHHHHHH!" then in tears of pain she said, in anger yo herself, "Ouch! So stupid! How could I have bent over again so the birch could smack me FOUR times!" She started running around the room in panic, screaming, and praying to Isaiah to end the punishment.

"O Isaiah! The Moon-Goddess! Greater than all other Deities and Potentates! I beg you! I plead with you! I implore you! End this most painful and humiliating punishment! I know I have offended you. I beg your forgiveness! I have done wrong in my spell. I am so very, very sorry! I've learned my lesson! If it be your will, I will stop practising Black Magic forever!"

Well, the Dark Power would not help her. As she was running her arms were extended, and her bottom was unprotected. Naturally a tempting target for the broom, which gave her whack after whack, too fast to cover her rear with her hands. The broom was chasing her mercilessly swatting her, leaving red welts on her backside, while that part of her was rosy-red. Her dire situation was compounded terribly by her collapse over a misplaced cushion, and her bottom was easily accessible to the birch for six more lashings. "OUCH!!!" she cried "No more! I entreat you!" The girl could not yet rise - besides, she knew she would be bending over to do so - she turned on her back, her butt hurting more because of its brush with the cushion, and put her hand over her face.

"Mighty Power!" she addressed the broom, "In the name of Isaiah! Please let me rise and go." Her voice became more resigned gradually as she addressed the broom. The birch was still, suspended over her, and, somehow allowed her to rise; she had to bend over with her butt exposed for just a moment to manoeuvrer herself to rise - she was, after all in considerable pain, and had to rise slowly. Then the girl ran as fast as she could, once again with hands thoughtlessly extended, her but helplessly exposed to the several swats of the birch broom, stinging as ever, once again happening too fast for her to cover. The girl and her pitifully sore bottom reached the back door, and yet once more Kajira had to stick out her hind-quarters to jerk open the door, long enough for the birch to thrash her twice, this time dead-on target of her "bottom line," the crease between her bottom and the very top of her back legs. She screeched in pain, stopped what she was doing and bent over backwards, screaming at the ceiling, her hands rubbing the afflicted area to try as much as possible to ease her pain. Then, suddenly, she pulled open the door and ran naked outside. She didn't notice at the time, since the birch was giving her three or four more lashes as she fled through the front door, giving her a swat or two more outside the door, but no one was around, and she began running to the more private, back part of the house. Meantime the broom started sweeping her effectively on the ground, then her legs and feet, and she ran even faster; then suddenly the broom dropped, lifeless and inanimate, no longer enchanted, but it has chastised this very, very naughty girl well. Kajira noticed there was no more sweeping at her feet. She turned around and saw the broom supine, motionless on the ground. She rubbed her bottom in bitter tears.

As she stared at the instrument of her punishment, Kajira, faced a more immediate situation. Was the "flame" of the broom truly extinguished? Dare she again go into the house. She had access to the back door, but having checked it before found it was locked or otherwise jammed unopenable. Kajira had to proceed with caution. First she tried to open the back door, but that indeed was locked. She looked at the windows to the back of the house and then she tried each one, but egress for the girl into the house was not possible for her. First they were locked, second, if she threw a rock at one of them she faced laceration on her naked body from the remaining glass in place in the broken window, as well as shards entering or otherwise injuring her bare feet, and 3rd, and perhaps most insurmountable, Kajira, even though she was on the slender size, was simply too thick to fit through the openings. Sighing, Kajira realized that she had only one other choice: she had to enter, somehow, through the front door. However, there were two matters that stood in her way. First, she asked herself, "Is the broom dead? or will it attack me again as soon as I pass by it?" She peeked out from the safety of the backyard of the house to look at the condition of the broom. It was just lying there, appearing not to move, lifeless, just a mortal-made tool. "Well," Kajira said to herself "It doesn't look like the birch is going to give me more trouble I hope!" But another difficulty faced the young girl. She heard a few voices; the house was located on a major avenue, and people walked down it all day long. She finally realized that some how no one had been around earlier in the morning, when the birch broom had literally thrashed and swept her out of the house; now a number of people were going up and down the street, some of whom were walking their dogs. The animals scented her presence and barked, seeming to alert their owners that she was there. The presence of dogs worried the girl. Some of the animals were so well trained that people didn't even take them out on a leash, and even though they were basically tame, they may come toward her as she was going to or trying to enter the house through the front door. She was desperate! Uncertainty about the broom, people and their dogs - what could she do? Her bottom was red, welted and burning. It demanded some kind of relief. She was also tired. She had been up for a long time preparing for her ill-fated adventure; but the event had led to a good result. Kajira, now, took the only sensible option that was available to her: she would get on the grass, lie on her stomach, and try to go to sleep.When she woke up, she hoped, traffic on the street will have slowed; and, even if it hadn't she hoped that night will have fallen and, hidden in relative darkness she could quickly go and slip inside the house, no one having seen her in her nakedness, which she knew would evoke laughter. So Kajira trudged onto the grass. With her feet she could feel there was no moisture on it, and it was only slightly cooler than the dust upon which she had been standing before, she could also feel there were no stickers to prevent comfortable rest. Fortunately, there also happened to be no insects around, such as ants or, worse, bees - but she did not think about this at the time. Gingerly she lay on her stomach on the grass, thinking about what had happened to her earlier, her failed incantations and alliance with the Powers of Darkness. It was now about 12 noon. The sun was high in the sky, but the temperature was comfortable. The girl had had a busy, stressful morning, and it occurred to her that she was exhausted, and she found the blades of grass comfortable; she was as comfortable in spite of the fact that it had been as if a hundred bees had stung her rear one at a time, and left their needles there. But, only about 30 minutes since she had decided to lie on the grass and sleep, and then wait until darkness fell--and it fell hard, since the ligting of the street was less than satisfactory - she fell asleep.

Kajira slept for a hours, and when she woke up it was pitch dark. During her rest she had temporarily forgotten about the birching her snow-white bottom had received from the broom. Her bottom again hurt and burned from the punishment she had received.

She had to get in the house, somehow. She rose from her place on the green grass to peek over the side of the hose to see if anyone was coming, and she didn't see anyone. Besides, it was so dark now, the lighting was so dark, that she didn't think anyone would see her - unless of course she was cornered by a dog. People often walked their animals at night, it being a tad cooler then and the dogs would enjoy the climate better. But Kajira saw no sign of dogs. Either. So saying to herself, "Let's go - and fast!" giving no thought to the fallen birch broom, Kajira ran as fast as she could to the front door, and, finding the door unlocked went inside the house and, now remembering the broom, which was still lying harmless on the ground, she locked and bolted the door behind her.

"I've got to find some relief from the pain I got this morning!" Kajira said to herself, then suddenly she remembered, saying to herself gratefully, "Oh!" She ran to the room where she kept a large pan of water that she had drawn from the well; the pan was easily large enough for her to sit in. She had used almost half of the water for her ill-fated incantation in the morning, but there was still enough water, which Kajira stuck her hand in and found cool, for her purposes.

The girl pulled the pan into the centre of the room and slowly she began to lower her rear into the water, careful not to sit in the pan since she knew the pin of sitting on the hard floor, where the pan was, would be too painful for her. So she put her hand behind her and her feet braced in font of her, and rested her poor, sore bottom in the cool water. The relief she felt was tremendous. "AHHHHHHH!" She said once she had positioned her rear in the pan. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, and she opened her mouth in relief.