Chapter Two
Balthazar calmly watched the younger man lose his mind. Dave started babbling incomprehensively, his fingers prying at the metal gripping his arm as he stumbled drunkenly around the stone room.
The Locking Ring had been given to him by a Viking warlord as thanks for raising his sinking ship. Balthazar had never found it particularly useful—it was intended to keep unwilling brides from running away—but he had kept it out of respect for the Norseman. He was glad he had; he knew life with Dave was going to be an uphill battle—it would take more time than he was strictly willing to give to convince the younger man to begin his training—and he knew he would need as many advantages over the situation as he could get.
"Of all the times not to have bolt cutters in the lab," Dave groaned in frustration. He quickly turned to face Balthazar and threateningly raised the screwdriver he'd been trying to wedge under the Ring. "I don't know what's going on, Mr. Blake, but I suggest you leave before I call the police."
"Ten years ago, you walked into my store," Balthazar said, ignoring the younger man's attempt at intimidation. "It was not a coincidence that we crossed paths; I was meant to find you."
"Could you dial back the creepiness just a little?" Dave snapped, clearly uncomfortable.
And why wouldn't he be? When Balthazar thought about it objectively, he knew that the untrained sorcerer had no idea what was going on. He didn't want to take the time to explain everything, but for Dave's peace of mind it would appear that they would have to have some kind of talk. "What happened in that store, Dave? What do you remember?"
The boy paled a little and his pupils dilated. "Memory is a tricky thing," he replied, his tone evasive. "The further removed you are from the event, the more likely your brain is to make up random details to fill in the gaps in you memory."
"You knocked over an urn," Balthazar supplied.
Dave began fiddling with the Locking Ring again. "Completely by accident—I remember that part, it's what happened afterward that I'm not too clear on."
Balthazar shook his head, already knowing that Dave would do anything to avoid admitting he'd seen something out of the ordinary. "I was trapped in that urn for ten years, boy, and you saw it happen."
"That's not possible," the younger man denied immediately.
"But you saw it, nonetheless," the sorcerer pushed. "How would I know what you witnessed if it hadn't actually happened?"
Dave rubbed at his eyes wearily. "Who are you?" he asked again. "What is all this about?"
"My name is Balthazar Blake; I'm one of three former apprentices to the sorcerer known as Merlin, and it was his dying wish that I find and train the person who would be destined to inherit his power." He took a slow breath as he tried to compress the complex details and expansive timeline that had brought him to where he was. "That person is you, Dave Stutler; I've spent a thousand years searching for you. And I intend to honor Merlin's request—whether you believe in magic or not, whether you are willing or not, you are my apprentice."
"Assuming I believe any of this, which I don't, then what is this?" Dave asked, plucking uselessly at the length of metal spiraled around his forearm.
"That," Balthazar replied, moving close enough to run a finger up the polished band, "is the Locking Ring; it's meant to keep you from getting too far away." He smiled darkly. "Reluctant bride or reluctant apprentice—what's really the difference?"
"They both end in a restraining order, so far as I can tell—so, none, really," the younger man replied sarcastically. "Look, you are either a deeply disturbed man, or I am having a mental breakdown; either way, I don't intend to humor you so, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave now." He backed away slowly until he had reached the stairs, then finally turned his back on the other man. "Show yourself out, and don't follow me."
Balthazar let the younger man leave—it wasn't like Dave could get very far without him knowing—and wondered what his next step should be. How was he supposed to proceed with the younger man? It was one thing to know what he was supposed to do, but it was quite another to figure out how to do it. After a few minutes Balthazar left the lab, making sure it was locked securely behind him. Wandering the dark streets, he let his mind drift back in time, to a conversation he'd once had with Merlin.
"Guidance will only get you halfway, Balthazar," Merlin had said levelly. "You must command your apprentice—gain their respect and loyalty by any means necessary." He had looked so much older in that moment than Balthazar had ever seen him—world-weary and ready for peace. "The Prime Merlinian must bow to you completely before they can hope to inherit my powers."
The advice did little for Balthazar at the moment—he knew he had to be Dave's Master, but short of kidnap and mild mind-control, there was no way to get the younger man to begin practicing magic without the boy's consent. And he didn't want to proceed without Dave's consent; the situation was dire and it was imperative that Dave come into his own as a sorcerer, but it had to be at least somewhat willingly.
Dave burst into his apartment like he'd been shot from a cannon, immediately turned around to snap shut all the locks on the door, and stared out the peephole in the single most intense moment of paranoia he had ever experienced.
"Hounds of hell chasing you?" Bennett asked from behind him.
Dave jumped at his roommate's voice, and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart as he turned to face his friend. "Bennett, I have two questions for you, possibly three depending on your answers." He held out his arm, held out the strange metal that was clinging to him so unforgivably. "Do you see this?" He hated asking the question, but at the moment he wasn't too trusting of his own mental state—if he was imagining the thing on his arm, then he had probably imagined the man, too.
Bennett gave him a considering look. "That's a radical new take on the idea of arm-candy, although I think you missed the point entirely. Where did you get that?"
Dave ignored his question. "Did someone come here about an hour ago, looking for me?"
"Yeah," Bennett nodded. "Did he give you that?"
"Unfortunately." Dave sank to the floor.
"What was the third question, then?" his roommate asked after an uncomfortable silence.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dave replied, looking up. "Some guy you've never met comes to the apartment and you send him right to me?"
Bennett frowned. "You mean you didn't know him? He had your name and everything. He already knew where your lab was, he just wanted to know if you were there—he had all the information—"
"That you could find if you hacked into one of the student databanks at NYU," Dave interrupted with realization.
"Do you think he's stalking you?" his friend asked with a concerned frown.
Dave shook his head—the illogic of everything that had happened that night was overwhelming. "I don't know who he is, or how he even found me." Bennett's words had struck a disturbing chord though, and he had a feeling that he definitely hadn't seen the last of Balthazar Blake. "But those are problems I can contemplate later, for now just help me get this thing off my arm."
Bennett stepped back and looked at the object for a moment. "Your man-jewelry is on top of your shirt and your hoodie—if you can get both of those off, you might be able to slide this contraption over your wrist. Failing that, we can always just grease you up and yank on it."
"That couldn't have sounded worse if you'd tried," Dave grumbled, already working on how to get his hoodie and shirt off.
In the end, they resorted to tugging, scissors, butter, and cooking oil, but the Locking Ring refused to budge. It was the eeriest thing because, just as Bennett had said, getting Dave's clothes out of the way had given him enough clearance to get the armband off, but the moment he had tried to, it had seemed to shrink slightly—just enough to make removing it impossible. By two in the morning, they were both tired and frustrated enough to call it quits.
Going to bed didn't bring Dave any peace of mind though. For ten years he had denied and tried to forget an event that hadn't seemed possible, and now it was coming back to haunt him. He didn't know what was going on, but it brought forth a word he didn't want to acknowledge: magic. The scientist in him scoffed at the idea, but it made some amount of sense. How else could a man be trapped in an urn for ten years? How else could the thing on his arm be explained? He didn't know or trust Balthazar Blake, but he had a feeling that the strange man was the only one who could give Dave the answers to his questions.
As he fell asleep that night, the young physicist was left with the feeling that his life was about to change more than he had ever imagined possible—and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with that thought.
He was at the Arcana Cabana again, and ten years hadn't changed it in the least. At twenty years old, he found it even more difficult to navigate, now that he was bigger. The clutter of centuries seemed to choke the store, filling it from wall to wall with more antiques than could be found at a flea market.
And there, among the chaos, Balthazar stood out like a lone island, sitting behind the showcase counter as he read a newspaper. "What are you doing here, Dave?" he asked, never looking up from his paper.
"That's what I'd like to know," Dave replied, cautiously approaching the counter.
Balthazar laughed as he turned the page of his paper. "It's you're dream, Mr. Stutler, not mine. Although," he finally looked up from his reading, glancing over the younger man for a moment before turning back to the news, "'dream' probably isn't the right word for it. It would appear that you're having an out of body experience."
Dave winced. Theoretically, it was possible—but anything was possible, theoretically. There was so much about the vast reaches of the human mind and the world that surrounded it that simply was not understood yet. It seemed that he had started treading a fine line between magic and science before he'd fallen asleep, and his dream had decided to continue the voyage. "You say that like it's an everyday occurrence," he finally replied.
"For some people, it is," Balthazar shrugged.
Dave focused on breathing in the uncomfortable silence that followed—an admittedly strange task for someone who was dreaming—but it did nothing to calm him. "You have been in my life for less than eight hours," he exploded, "and you're already driving me insane! I just want things to go back to normal."
Balthazar lowered the paper and fixed the younger man with a steely gaze. "And what is normal, Dave?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Great, now even my dreams are trying to psychoanalyze me," the boy muttered to himself. "Normal," he said, slightly louder, "is not being bombarded by so many impossible things; normal is when I don't have to question my sanity."
"Genius and lunacy often look very much the same," the older man replied. "If you're not questioning your sanity, then you aren't pushing your own limits, you aren't testing yourself or changing the world. You know, to most people," he added pointedly, "what you do with your Tesla coils is insane—but for you, that's normal. Why?"
"Is there a point in here somewhere?" Dave asked in exasperation. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he didn't like it.
"Normal is a state of mind, not a state of being," Balthazar answered. "And that state of mind should constantly be adapting to expand your views of the universe. You don't believe a single thing I say, and yet you're handling the reality of an out of body experience fairly well—because you've adapted."
"Because I know I'm dreaming," Dave corrected.
"Are you?" Balthazar countered. "There's only one way to know for sure—meet me at Central Park, tomorrow at noon."
Dave hesitated, though he wasn't sure why. What did it matter if he set up a meeting within a dream? It wasn't like he had to keep any promises to his own imagination.
The older man saw his wariness. "You're a scientist, Dave," he reminded. "You can't dismiss anything without reasonable proof to the contrary. If you go to that park, and I'm not there, then you were obviously dreaming, but if I am there…" he trailed off, leaving the possibilities unexplored. "What do you have to lose? I should think your curiosity would eat you alive if you let this opportunity pass you by."
Dave didn't mean to go—he certainly hadn't intended to—but he still found himself in Central Park around noon. Never mind that he knew it was foolish, that he had other obligations like classes to see to; some part of him knew he'd regret it if he never went to confirm that he'd just had an extraordinarily active REM cycle.
"I knew your curiosity would win you over."
He slowly turned to face whoever had spoken, but he recognized that voice and his heart was already sinking because of it.
Balthazar was sitting on a bench just behind him, reading a newspaper, as he had in the 'dream'. He was leaning forward, his hair obscuring his expression a little, but the smile on his face was clear.
"I had a dream, and a memory from ten years ago that I can't explain—that's not solid evidence for magic," Dave began to argue, hating the smug look on the other man's face. All right, so he couldn't explain how last night's dream had actually happened, or what he had seen as a child, and he certainly couldn't explain the armband that was still clinging to him, but did that honestly make magic the only reasonable explanation? It was a radical step to take, and not one he was prepared to do lightly. For crying out loud, they had talked of Merlin yesterday; surely that warranted extra amounts of skepticism!
"Not if you were presenting this to someone else, no." Balthazar put his newspaper down. "But for yourself, Dave? It's more than enough, because it's personal. You know what I'm saying is true—it makes sense and it feels right." He held up a hand before the younger man could interrupt. "It's natural to resist change, and I know I'm asking for a lot of faith on your part, but I can prove that every word I'm saying is true beyond any doubt."
"How?" Dave asked before he could stop himself. He didn't want to play into the older man's delusions, but they were hard to resist.
"Come with me, and I'll show you," Balthazar coaxed, standing.
Warning flags raised themselves in Dave's mind—it was never wise to go anywhere with someone he didn't truly know or trust, but… What if he missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime because he'd been too cautious to take a chance? If there was one thing science had taught him, it was that every now and then he just had to take a leap of faith; sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't. There was a possibility that the man standing in front of him was horrifically insane, but there was also a possibility that he was the single most unique person that Dave could ever meet.
"If I still don't believe you, even after I've seen this proof of yours, will you leave me alone?" Dave asked, fiddling with the armband hidden under his sleeve.
Balthazar smiled like a man with a secret. "If you still don't believe me," he nodded.
A/N: I would just like to mention that though I enjoyed the movie more than any other film I've seen in a long while, I've only seen it once. Typically speaking, I don't get all my facts straight until I've seen a movie two or three times (I tend to mishear characters a lot, and I miss a lot of details). Please keep that in mind while you read—I do my best for accuracy but, until I can see it again, things might be a little off. Obviously, it's not going to be quite as important, since this is an AU, but don't hesitate to correct me if something is glaringly wrong—like if Balthazar starts acting too much like Ben Gates or Cameron Poe.
You know what's really eerie? Wanting to watch Con Air and The Rock, but not being able to find either of them, only to discover that they're both playing on TV all weekend. It's like the cosmos is conspiring to feed my sudden Nicholas Cage mood.
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Disclaimer: All characters and situations from The Sorcerer's Apprentice belong to Disney.