I was sleeping comfortably in my bed, trying to get an extra heaping of rest because the night before I’d spent practicing magic. It was supposed to be the quintessential lazy day of a seven year old. Maybe I would go to the library, maybe not. Hestiana was making me a lentil and egg breakfast and the smell of the spices was drifting into my dreams. But my eyes shot open when there was suddenly a loud banging on our door.

Hestiana opened the little viewport on the door and exchanged words with the rude visitor. I held on to my sleepiness like a breath in my throat, hoping to go back to sleep. The force at the door stormed in, walked up to my bed and a frigid splash of water landed on top of me.

“HEYYY!” I yelled, looking around at what was happening.

I stared up at a six foot tall… monkey! A monkey was staring back at me, whiskers stretching out past it’s face, gray all over his fur and resting on his nose were a pair of small spectacles. Before I could say something else, I got a bonk on the head from the cane he was holding.

“What the heck!?” I screamed.

“Get up. We’re late for training.”

“Late for training?!” I yelled, he got me with the cane again, “AH!”

“Yes. Well, I’m late. I overslept. Was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

“You’re my trainer? You’re Ictar?!”Hestaina rushed to my side, “Hestiana this monkey came in and ruined my sleep!”

“I’m sorry, little master. He said this was the best way to start!”

“Thank you for the warning, Hesti,” I said, a little bitter.

“Come on! We’re already behind! I didn't just wake up late, I stopped by my favorite coffee spot and there was a line.”

“Then I'm not late!” I screamed, “You’re late!”

“You have a point,” He grumbled, “Come on.”

He went to bonk me a third time, cranking his hand back and really giving his muscles a wake up. I closed my eyes and yelled in Sylvan. Before the cane could hit me, I turned it’s property to rubber. It whacked me, barely skidding off my face and hurting me a lot less than hardwood would have.

Ictar put on a small grin, “They told me you were a natural.”

I couldn’t help but beam. Nothing natural about it. I trained on so many scarecrows and spent the better part of the last few months working hard at the Sylvan language.

“But my magic works a little differently,” He exerted some energy deep inside of him and my spell broke. He lifted his cane again and knocked me so hard I grabbed my head from the pain.

We spent the day doing drills. Purely physical exercises that eventually wore on my boundless childhood energy. He would whack me with that stupid cane every time I started to tire. Eventually, I collapsed on the ground, my legs unable to move. He hit me one more time to see if I was faking but my legs were jello.

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

I looked up at him, shocked.

“But… Master Ictar… we didn’t do any magic!”

“Right.” He said, “Maybe tomorrow.” He said and walked away, “Oh, one more thing. I’ll be ready by nine o’clock in the morning. It turns out I was looking at my calendar upside down. So I wasn’t actually late! I was one hour early. Can you imagine that?” he let out a wicked laugh. I wheezed in anger, staring up at the sky.

I hated this old monkey’s guts. He was going at the top of my list in terms of people I’d kill when I was pharaoh. I stuck up my middle finger at him as he walked away still laughing. Even if he had turned around, he wouldn’t have known what it meant. They didn’t have that symbol here. Now, if I had flashed him an ‘okay’ symbol? Well I would have gotten kicked out of Skorwind.

The next day I woke up early so that this creep couldn’t pour cold water on my head. I was still pretty tired from the night before, having found the old copy of Goblinology I had rented from the library and engrossing myself in it. Fascinating stuff. Anyway, I was operating off of about four hours of sleep but ready for the day. Nine o'clock came and went. I waited until half past before I determined he wasn’t coming. I decided now would be a good time to get some of my sleep back. I closed my eyes for a second, feeling myself drift off to sleep. My eyes blinked, I felt consciousness melt away. I opened my eyes and watched as Ictar walked in and his non-cane hand threw the bucket of water on me.

“What the HELL!?” I screamed.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You were stopping for coffee again?” I griped.

“No. I got here and realized I forgot my bucket of water. Come on, more training.

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“Any magic today? I asked as Hestiana came and offered me a towel.

“Not yet. First we got to run you ragged.”

We spent the next month doing nothing but drills. He would come in every day and dump a pale of water on me. Eventually I was up before he got there. I proudly opened the door to assure him he did not need to wake me, and when he saw me standing at the door, he took his stupid fucking pail and tossed it on me anyway. The day after, I woke up in the middle of the night and took a walk. When he came outside, he felt the icy sting of water plunge on his head from the roof, where I was standing. I was so ready for me to show this little fucker the whatfore but when he looked up and saw what happened, we locked eyes. Was he mad?? He started laughing incessantly. I too started laughing. I was standing outside in the morning, ready to receive him. He did not have a pail of cold water in his hands.

It was at the end of class that day, the drills felt oddly easy after my month of endurance. I turned to Ictar and said, “When the heck are we going to learn magic?!”

He laughed in my face, “Do you think you’re ready for all that? You’re barely seven! Most people don’t start training until they’ve passed their eighth year.”

“Let’s say I’m advanced for my age. Your whole plan was to string me along with training exercises for the rest of the year?!” That would not do at all. It already felt to me like I was behind. The sooner I could start any skill, the sooner I could get better at it.

Ictar looked at me through his snout and said, “You really want to start learning magic, huh, boy?”

“Please!”

“Your maid says you’re already good. Show me.”

“I have shown you.”

“Humor an old monkey. Try to stop this cane from bonking you on the head again. We’ll use that bucket pail you dumped water on me with as the base.” He thumbed behind him at the pail in front of the communal well.

He was standing on the other end of the courtyard, holding his cane but other than that there was nothing between us. It was easy money if I could hold him with elven magic.

“Deymon da Bil fipaxes” Or, translated, I said, “The monkey’s feet are fixed in space.”

Ictar smirked, flexed his ankles and I could feel the hold I had on him diminish, he started walking toward me. This was what he did before, he was able to evade my spells somehow. If I could not affect him, I could affect the environment around him. I looked at a spot on the ground, I slammed my hands down on the ground and a dirt wall emerged slowly between us. My magic created the wall all around me, encasing me in a three by three by three cube of pact earth. It was taking a lot of conjugations and sylvan words I had only briefly glanced over. The wall appeared slower than I would have liked. The monkey smirked as he walked closer to me, then said, “Divine wind,” A strong gust of wind blew my hair in my eyes and when it settled, he had disappeared.

“Where are you?!” I looked around.

“Up here,” I turned and saw that he was hanging from the pergola that provided the courtyard with shade. He was gripping to the slats with his monkey feet and tail. He dropped down. I was trapped in the cage of dirt I was forming. I whispered in Sylvan. He dropped on my rock wall and extended his arm down, but his tool did not reach me. He wiggled it around and pulled the cane up and looked in the hole.

Ictar laughed, “So you couldn’t build the rock fast enough so you sank below?”

I bragged, “I just used the holes in the dirt created by my moving them to the surface. The space was already there. I just had to rework it.”

Ictar gave a phlegmy chuckle, then pulled back and swiped the entire fortress I had made with one arm and a cane. It crumbled and he suddenly had more reach. He lifted his cane up, that gave me enough of an opening. I hopped through his legs and tried to make a run for it, but something had snatched my ankle. How? He had not turned fast enough… unless…

I saw the tail had wrapped around my tiny ankle.

“Forgot I had a tail?”

I uttered more Sylvan, realizing that I would have to use a bit of science to make this work. Because he and I were touching each other, I merely had to increase the static inside my own body. One thing Elvish magic was good for was amplification. I rubbed my hands and knees while mumbling a sentence that would increase the static energy I was producing, while holding on to the spell, I touched the tail again. I could see the sparks. The tail retracted and Ictar let out a simian scream as he leapt away. This was my chance, I had not used sylvan on my own body yet. I thought about the careless spell I’d asked Hestiana to make, I could still feel the numbness on my fingers. If I was not careful, it could be deadly.

“My legs have the quickness of a horse,” I said the words and tried to release them, but it caused a large blast of my mana. A ringing shot through my head and I screamed in pain. My legs were also on fire. I looked down and saw them turning furry and brown while my legs congealed into hooves. Fuck. There went my first attempt at casting a spell on myself… the other thing was, horses were quadrupeds. I tripped to the ground and released the spell.

Ictar didn’t let me gain any distance, he barked, “Divine Wind,” Again and was right in front of me. He attempted to poke me with the stick but I rolled out of the way. I was dangerously low on mana. I had not tried teleportation yet, but I had seen two people do it. It was possible. I looked at the spot behind Ictar. Could I? It might cause potentially dangerous results if I conjugated wrong, I might end up in a wall. If I wasn't clear enough, my soul could disappear but my body would stay behind. It was not worth the risk. I’d need to go with a destruction spell. I pointed my hand and mumbled the same incantation I had done on the scarecrow, the wind circulating in such a path that pointed right toward Ictar.

“That’s hilarious! Were you hoping you had enough magic to push me away with wind?” Ictar laughed.

Then with a single phrase, I lit my hand. The fire erupted from my palm and spooked Ictar. He let out another shriek and fell back. I ran toward the bucket he had called base. Combined with the tireless month of work I’d put into it and my boundless childhood energy, I created a gap of distance as Ictar stamped out the fire in his gray beard.

I looked back at Ictar, his teleportation spell had not carried him this distance. There was a chance, maybe, that he couldn’t do it. I turned and saw the bucket was within my grasp. I leapt, launching my body toward it. The monkey chanted “Aim True!” and tossed his cane at me. It was like a missile. It sailed directly in the air without losing any lift bonked at the head. I collided with the bucket. I’d lost.

“What was that?!” I asked, panting. Humiliated. “How did you do that?”

Ictar laughed as he got up and limped toward me, “Elvish magic doesn’t do as well in battle, young squirrel. It can be great but that’s not what I’m going to teach you. I wield a different type of magic.”

“What kind of a magician are you?” I asked.

He suddenly stood up strong, The sun beaming on his angular face, “I’m a paladin of Aeolus. The wind god.”

I was going to be a Paladin?!