Chapter Six
No one could say he hadn't tried up until now—they could definitely point out that his attempts had been laughably misguided and ineffective, but they had to agree that the effort had been there. And it wasn't as though it was easy to carry on after being so thoroughly abandoned; he still woke up in a cold sweat some nights, feeling the lonely ache that had curled itself around his psyche. He hadn't allowed it to immobilize him though, and that was the important thing. True, for a few soul-crushing years, he had waited for something, anything to help him out of the chaos he'd been thrust into, but when it had become apparent that no one was going to save him, he'd decided to save himself. It wasn't that hard, really—all he'd had to do was dust off a few tricks, rub his own ego a little, and laugh in the face of everyone and everything.
It wasn't enough though—not the fame, or the success, or even the adoring fans—nothing could sooth the bewildered hurt and rage that had built up inside of him. So he had come up with a plan. Instead of his childhood fantasies of being sappily reunited with his Master, his dreams now were about revenge. He would do something so radical, so unbelievable, that the Morganians of the world would be forced to sit up and take notice of him, including his Master. He'd show the sorry bastard what a prize he'd really thrown away!
Nothing less than perfection would do for Drake Stone.
Balthazar detachedly watched Dave sink to the floor, trapped in a freezing vortex created by the Locking Ring. Under normal circumstances, he would have been concerned for his apprentice—he hadn't wanted to use the Locking Ring so soon, seeing as it had more or less been his last resort—but he was too busy trying to control himself. Over a thousand years of emotional mastery had flown straight out the window when he'd realized that Dave had gone running straight to the girl. What was it about her that was so special? Why was she his haven?
Balthazar prided himself on being calm and rational, but this… this was intolerable, this was cruel. Everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by reminders that nothing in this world belonged to him, that outside of the Arcana Cabana he had neither friend nor ally. And then he'd seen Dave, who should have been his, sitting in the middle of that world, and his control had simply snapped.
"It was never supposed to be this complicated," Balthazar sighed to the unconscious Dave, shaking his head. "You were supposed to be younger—quick to believe in magic, accepting of your destiny, and trusting of other people. If it hadn't been for the Urn, we wouldn't be having so many problems now." He levitated the boy off the floor, pausing to study his slack features. How could someone so peaceful now be so defiant, and how was Balthazar going to overcome that stubborn streak? "What am I supposed to do with you, Dave?" he asked, running his fingers over the boy's face. "Merlin help us, but I don't know how to make you obey me without making you hate me first."
Drake still remembered the whole ordeal in perfect detail. He'd woken up early that morning to practice levitation and he'd become so engrossed in getting the skill right, in making it look perfect that he hadn't noticed his Master was late. It wasn't unusual—Morganians weren't exactly known for being punctual—but by the time late afternoon rolled around, he'd become worried. It wasn't like his Master to simply not show up at all; Monastario could be a little selfish, and he was definitely overly critical of his apprentice, but he'd never let Drake down before. Drake had let it slide, but something heavy had started to grip his heart that day. When the next day ended and Monastario still hadn't contacted him, Drake had begun to worry; perhaps a Merlinian had found his Master and done any number of their terrible tricks to keep the man from 'being a threat'. The thought was horrible, but Drake had held onto it, because the alternative was unthinkable: if Monastario wasn't being kept from him by force, then he was doing it by choice.
Drake had clung to his sick hope for two hellish weeks before he'd finally caught sight of his Master. Time had slowed down for that one moment, and the scene had burned itself into his brain. It was a late autumn day and the fallen leaves were swirling in the wind, catching whatever light could pierce the gray clouds that covered the sky. Drake was on the left side of the street, wandering the shops aimlessly, and Monastario was on the opposite side of the street, coming out of an occult store. Two steps behind him was a small child, wearing a ring and carrying an Incantus.
Drake's hope had died amid hurt and confusion. As he watched Monastario and the child walk away, he'd finally understood that his Master had left him—he'd been abandoned. There had been no warning, no explanations; it was as if Monastario had just woken up one day and decided he wanted a different apprentice.
Of course, it wasn't all sour grapes—if his Master hadn't left, Drake never would have become the premier stage magician he was today. On the other hand, he also wouldn't be a half-trained, neurotic Morganian who had to perform stage tricks as a matter of survival. It was sort of a 'Catch 22': things had ended up wonderful and horrible, and the sheer dichotomy of it made him so angry he couldn't see straight.
The pain and rage had been particularly close to the surface these days, always bubbling within him, always looking for an outlet. His performances didn't relieve him like they once had, and he'd taken to throwing plasma-balls in the alleys behind the theatres. It was as he'd watched a stack of broken crate-palettes explode in a shower of sizzling electricity that he'd been hit with a plan. In the years since his abandonment he'd been soothing his own hurts by outdoing reasonably talented con artists when he should have been outdoing other Morganians. And, being Drake Stone, it had to be bigger and better than anything that had ever been achieved—it had to be loud and in everyone's faces, something that not even Monastario could miss.
Morgana hadn't been his first thought—involving other people would not only steal his thunder, it would make things complicated—but the more angles he looked at it from, the more it had seemed like the perfect solution. No one had ever freed Morgana from wherever she'd been hidden, and he'd be performing a first if he managed it. Not only that, but Morgana's main prerogative was The Rising—getting her out would be a two-for-one deal.
The problem was, no one knew where Morgana had ended up. Rumor was that Merlin's last apprentices had had a hand in whatever had made the great Morgana pull a Houdini, but there was nothing concrete. Some Morganians said she'd been sealed in an object, others said her soul had been ripped from her body, and still others said she'd been thrust between dimensions. The only thing anyone knew for sure was that Balthazar Blake was the best candidate for knowing the full story.
Dave awoke to a coldness so paralyzing that he wondered if he'd been stuffed into a meat locker—like a mafia version of the indignity he'd suffered in high school. Slowly his other senses filtered through the cold: he could hear quiet noises, like the general clicks and drones of machinery; the smell of polished wood, dust and oil stung his nose and the back of his throat; blearily, he cracked his eyes and was rewarded with some kind of cluttered study room; and his shoulders were aching. That last one gripped his attention completely, forcing his eyes entirely open so that he could take stock of the situation.
The room wasn't small, probably about the size of his lab's main floor. It was lined with bookshelves, desks, chairs, strange gizmos that were releasing steam into the already humid air, and there were even two large fireplaces along the walls, but the center of the room had been kept clear. There were no windows or decorations on the walls, not even a carpet to cover the worn floorboards—in fact, aside from the furniture, the only decoration the room sported was series of circles and complex symbols burnt into the floor. That is, if you didn't count Dave as a decoration. His shoulders were aching because he was hanging from some kind of support beam in the ceiling, his hands tied together and strung up over his head, raising him far enough that only the very tips of his sneakers still touched the ground. He'd lost feeling in his wrists and hands for the most part—they wouldn't move but he could still tell that they felt hollow and swollen—probably from cut off circulation.
He felt his heart speed up uncomfortably, forcing him to pant lightly just to supply all the oxygen his confused brain needed. Before passing out, he'd been in Becky's apartment, hadn't he? What had happened, why had he passed out? Then, slowly, the memory came back to him: the unnatural storm, the preternatural darkness, the whispers, and then a coldness so absolute it had robbed him of his faculties. There had been someone there, though; he'd heard someone speak before he'd lost consciousness, but who?
His mind stuttered at that thought. Who? More like 'who else'? He only knew one person that would know how to do any of that, or would even want to in the first place. "Balthazar," he muttered the name like a curse.
"That's really no way to address your Master," the infuriatingly calm voice of the man in question rang out.
"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Dave disparaged. With a little effort, he craned his head to the side, noticing Balthazar where he had not been previously. The corner was bare, aside from the man, and there was no door there. In fact, now that he was looking for exits, he noticed that there was no door anywhere, unless one was hiding under a piece of furniture. "Where am I? Why am I here? What is going on?" he snapped the questions, rapid fire, at the other man.
Balthazar moved from his corner, an enigmatic smile on his lips as he came closer. "With me, which is all that matters. To begin your training or break your stubborn streak, whichever needs to happen first. And I got tired of waiting for you to come around, Dave," he answered, stopping just a hand's span from the captured student. "Sometimes, we must make sacrifices for the greater good. If you won't make the sacrifice needed to take your rightful place in magical history, then I will—by suppressing everything I am, everything about morals Merlin taught me; I'll drag my code of honor through hell and back if that's what it takes to make you submit." He reached out, running the backs of his fingers over Dave's face. "This isn't a passing offer; it's not an offer at all. You will be trained, and if I have to become the most crooked, intolerable man to see it done, then that's what I'll do. It's not fair to either of us, it's not what we would have chosen for ourselves, but we must see it done."
Dave tried to shrink away from Balthazar's touch, but his shoulders were hurting so badly now that it was hard to pivot backward or to the sides. More disturbing still, the older man's touch wasn't unpleasant; it was soft and comforting, not at all like the words that were accompanying the caress. "This is kidnapping," Dave finally managed to stutter out. "People will start to look for me unless you let me go."
"Unless there's a sorcerer in the police force, no one will be able to find you," Balthazar countered, moving away. "This place doesn't exist for people of a non-magical inclination."
Dave squelched the urge to lean back toward the man. Not for the first time, he found that he had enjoyed Balthazar's casual, easy touches and he keenly felt their absence when they were taken away. Dave had never been much of a physical person—probably because his intelligence and social awkwardness made him off-putting to others—but as he'd gotten older he'd found that he was beginning to crave the warm touch of those around him. Something about Balthazar's touch was addictive, perhaps because it was contact from one—dare he admit it?—sorcerer to another. The thought didn't sit with him well; in what universe was it considered okay to crave caress of his stalker/kidnapper? None; it was simply wrong. Never mind the fact that they were both men, adding an extra shade of taboo to the situation; it was just wrong to find himself attracted to any aspect of Balthazar after what the older man had already put him through. And whatever the sorcerer was planning to do next sounded ominous, at best—Stockholm Syndrome had no room in this situation.
"Why are you doing this?" Dave asked quietly. "I like my life the way it is—I'm happy with my Tesla coils, my handful of friends, and my tiny little apartment."
"I know," Balthazar returned, just as quiet. There was true regret in his blue eyes, but the emotion didn't seem to sway him. "But Morgana must be stopped, and you're the only one who can. You are all that stands between the world and it's utter destruction at the hands of mad men, Dave. Who knows when the next Prime Merlinian will come along? It's too dangerous to wait—Morgana has allies everywhere; if I don't train you now, Merlinians will lose this war, and everyone will be forced to suffer the consequences." He shook his head. "We don't have a choice, so your training begins today."
The circles beneath Dave erupted in green flames, licking heatlessly around his suspended body. Desperately, he tried to edge away, but the toes of his sneakers kept slipping, bringing him to hang right back at the center of the flames.
Outside the flaming circles, Balthazar began to pace, walking around the perimeter like a deadly predator. "Lesson number one," he said, ignoring Dave's futile attempts to distance himself from the fires, "I am your Master. Do you acknowledge this?"
"No," Dave panted, now trying to use his shoulders and elbows to lift himself off the ground. His shoulders were much too stiff and tired though, and he found himself constantly jerking back downward.
"I possess both age and wisdom beyond your comprehension, and I have been tasked by Merlin himself to train you," Balthazar carried on, swiftly moving through the first ring of fire that separated them. "Therefore, by seniority, logic, and destiny, I am your Master. Do you acknowledge this?"
"No," Dave repeated emphatically, finally too tired to move, "I don't."
Balthazar drew through the green flames until he was standing just in front of the younger man. "I am a sorcerer of the seven-hundred-and-seventy-seventh degree," he replied seriously, his eyes unreadable. "This is your last chance to willingly acknowledge me as your Master before I force the words past your lips."
"It's not going to happen," Dave said stubbornly.
"So be it," Balthazar drawled, his fingers slashing through the air in a series of complex sigils.
A/N: I'm almost positive that I can't do Drake Stone any justice in this story, but I'm going to write him anyway—I need at least some semblance of a plot. Yes, I'm probably taking a lot of liberties with his character, but this is an AU.
Also, Fall Semester has just kicked off, so either one of two things will happen: 1) I will start writing like crazy, or 2) I will start to go missing again, until I can get used to my new schedule.
Disclaimer: Did anyone else watch Disney's Zorro, back when they still used to do Vault Disney in the wee hours of the morning? Monastario was the name of the crooked Comandante that prompted Don Diego to become Zorro. I wouldn't read too much into his appearance here—I needed a name, and I happened to be watching Zorro at the time. Also, Sorcerer's Apprentice is Disney's as well.