Have Wroom Will Travel Read online

  Have Broom Will Travel

  By Jim Conder

  Published by IndependentBook.com, March 2003

  Contents

  Chapter 1 The New witch

  Chapter 2 The First Dual

  Chapter 3 The Proposal of the Journey

  Chapter 4 The Second Dual and the beginning of the Journey

  Chapter 5 Attack of the Mermen

  Chapter 6 Up from the Depths

  Chapter 7 Maleventia

  Chapter 8 The Parting

  Chapter 9 The Medallion

  Chapter 10 Unidentified Reptiles

  Chapter 11 Pudding Wrestling and Death

  Chapter 12 The End of the Journey

  Chapter 1

  The New witch

  Once upon a time in the World of Morogrovinia…

  Nobody in the city of Lander said it aloud, but instead whispered it at every fence post, around every water jug. The Noble House of Draco had returned to the castle in the middle of town. The Draco’s had ruled Lander off and on for the past three hundred years, though never for very long at a time. For the Draco’s were one of the premier families of Dark Wizardry on Morogrovinia, and as such spent quite a lot of time failing to rule the world. Many a young barbarian hero had made his name defeating a Draconian wizard’s bid for power. Of course many a young barbarian hero had died in the attempt as well.

  The last Lord Draco had been Lord Vlad, believed to have been killed fifteen years ago, along with his only son. No one in Lander believed it however. The Dracos never won, but they also never died on the first try.

  Some thought the castle’s new resident could only be Vlad’s son, coming to regain the family heritage. Others thought that it must be Vlad himself, coming back from the presumed dead. Everyone agreed it could only lead to trouble.

  Then again he might get rid of all those damn munchkins that had moved in. Everyone in Lander knew they did not want that kind around .

  Silhouetted against the setting sun Susan Crone looked very much like the average witch.Tall and thin, with a body you could use as a straight edge, the black hat and dress, plus the flying broomstick were dead giveaways. Granted, she lacked the traditional black cat, but allergies were allergies.

  Up close however, it quickly became apparent that she missed some other traditional features. Warts for starters. Susan did have a mole, but not anyplace visible, and certainly not any place she’d ever discuss. She also lacked the age, black hair, even though bound tightly on a severe bun, and wrinkle free skin would cause the casual observer to correctly guess her to be around twenty, about forty years to young to really be taken seriously as a witch. Both of these, she felt, were serious drawbacks for a witch just starting out. The age would take care of itself, given enough time, but the lack of warts vexed her.

  On the plus side she did have a rather large nose. It tended to put people in mind of an arctic seabird, perhaps a puffin. Still she worried that it might not be enough.

  Flying into the village of Galder, she gripped her broomstick a little tighter. The people of Galder held tightly to traditional beliefs, especially when it came to witches. In a village witch they wanted a cackling old hag with one decent tooth and chin warts so large that they could house a family of four. Large black hairs growing out of the warts were preferred but still optional, no one ever accused the people of Galder of being inflexible.

  Normally a witch trained her own successor, but adepts had been scarce here and Nanny Butang never found a proper girl. So after her untimely death in that lemming stampede, Galder had been left without a village witch, and the word had gone out that a replacement would be needed. Back in Rahtsbut, Mamaw Cutacre, who had been training up both Susan as well as Lisa Gripes, sent Susan out for the job.

  Granted Galderians should consider themselves lucky, Susan thought. Mamaw Cutacre had been very impressed, even at a very young age Susan had developed an amazing grasp of witchcraft. At 8 years old she’d been learning spells at a sixteen year old witch’s level. At twenty she had been the youngest woman ever to become a fully trained witch. She’d heard that the village of Ghast had an even younger witch, but that had been due to an accidental death and the girl was no where near fully trained. Mamaw Cutacre had only given Susan one warning.

  “You have an overdeveloped sense of pride, girl,” Mamaw Cutacre had said.”It’s going to get you into trouble someday.”

  “That’s ridiculas,”Susan replied,”My modesty is second to none.”

  “You just be careful,” Mamaw Cutacre said with a sigh. “And stay away from Gorman. That witch Granny Taft trained up is bad news.”

  “Who did she train?”

  “Never you mind that! Just stay away from it.” Mamaw Cutacre said,”I know there’s a shortage of witches down there, but there’s no excuse in training that! You stay away from there, it’ll eat you alive.”

  So Susan had flown off to Galder, fully intending to get to Gorman as soon as she had the chance. Susan had never backed down from a challenge in her life, and she had no intention of starting now. The village witch of Gorman would soon find out who the most powerful witch in these parts was.

  Susan’s stomach knotted as she saw her cottage. She had tried every wart causer she could think of, including the old dead cat in the cemetery at midnight trick, but failed to raise even a freckle. She did however find that dead cats affected her allergies just as badly as their live counterparts.

  She touched down just as the sun finished setting. She glanced up at the sky and sighed. A full moon would have been best, followed by a moonless night. A thin sliver would have been acceptable, but she arrived on a bulgy half moon sort of night. She carried her broom and bag up the overgrown pathway to the cottage door.

  The porch creaked loudly as she stepped on it, followed by the even louder creak as she opened the door. The cottage looked right at least. She had gotten a good look at the place just before the sunset, but even with out that she had known what it looked like. Isolated out in the forest, a ramshackle old place with a rusted tin roof and a chimney twisted like a cork screw, an overgrown yard and shutters that seemed about to fall off.

  She fumbled in the darkness till she found an old lantern and some matches. She lit it and looked around. Just as she’s suspected. cobwebs everywhere, threadbare furniture, an old bookcase with a few beaten up tomes and a human skull with a candle on top. In the center of the room sat a table with two chairs and a crystal ball. All the standard props of the profession. She felt comforted and relieved by the familiarity of the place. The thought had crossed her mind that the place might turn out to be made of gingerbread, which gave her hives.

  She crossed the room to a dusty mirror and looked at her reflection. The shadows of the lamplight made her nose look nicely bigger than normal, but still…

  She stopped, she might not look the part yet but a witch she was, and she felt something. Her damn thumbs were pricking like crazy, never a good sign. Then the feeling washed over her like a bucket of cold water. The feeling that a thousand voices had cried out in terror, then suddenly soiled themselves.

  Or maybe it was just nerves.

  Ten miles down the road in the tiny village of Ghast, Maggie Lyn also felt her thumbs prick then the same feeling engulfed her, causing her to drop a large book on her foot. Her own pain temporarily eliminated any thoughts of anything else as she hobbled over to her own threadbare couch. banging her other foot on the table leg as she walked. She made it to the couch and tried to think of any painkiller spells she knew. She thought of two but both involved walking to the pantry for the ingredients, an activity she didn’t feel up to. She remembered a bottle of willow bark pills in the end table drawer, but she didn’t have anything to take them with and
they tasted nasty if they had a chance to dissolve in your mouth.

  She pulled her feet up on the couch and looked over her wounded toes for signs of broken bones. No breaks but a nasty bruise right under the red burn mark where she’d spilled hot candle wax on herself yesterday. She caught sight of the bruise left when she’d banged her shin on the cauldron the other day, and the scar on her thigh where she’d stepped on the cat. Her eyes briefly dropped to the bandage on her thumb where she’d cut herself carving mystic runes into a candle this morning. At least the bump on her head had gone down, it would be a while before she tried levitation spells again.

  Unlike Susan, Maggie had inherited her post as village witch. Unfortunately at thirteen she’d inherited it a little sooner than would have been preferable. Gramma Hadrass had only been training Maggie for a year, when she’d died, leaving the village in Maggie’s well intentioned, if less than agile hands.

  Even in silhouette Maggie didn’t look like a witch. She couldn’t sew so she wore some a Gramma Hadrass’s old dresses, which managed to be to big and too short all at once. She had enough room for an extra person in the bosom, but the hemline exposed a pair of bony knees. Her mousy brown hair hung straight, and like Susan, warts were nonexsistant, although she did have a smattering of freckles.

  Then she realized it; she’d just had a genuine psychic… whatchamajigger. she couldn’t remember the name right now, but she’d had just had one! Her first ever! Her thumbs had even pricked! Excited but not knowing what else to do, she jumped up and ran to look outside.

  She tripped over the doorway, stumbled forward banged her head on the porch railing, and fell off the porch face first in a mud puddle.

  Fifteen miles south, thumb pricking and the subsequent feeling had almost made the village witch of Gormen drop a perfectly good pint of beer.

  Almost.

  And in the City of Lander, a thousand people needed a good change of undergarments. A group of men approached the steaming crater just outside city walls. It stretched roughly twice the width of the city it had almost destroyed and the bottom of it bubbled and glowed an odd green.

  Later residents would be a bit hazy on the details of the night. Most could remember a blinding light coming out of the sky accompanied by a screaming whine. For a moment it seemed about to collide with the city, but instead missed by a matter of feet. The strangest thing they would recall was the noise it made when it hit. Rather than a a large explosion, the impact had instead made only a small phipsh as it opened the crater.

  Some of the city’ residents now looked at the crater somberly. The wondered if it would bring down property values, and if so why couldn’t it have hit on the other side of town. On the plus side they were now in a lower tax bracket. One of the men, the mayor Lord Duncan looked around as an aide approached.

  “There were a group of shepherds tending their flock, sir” the aide, named Reginald, informed him. “ all wiped out”

  “They weren’t munchkins were they?”

  “No, munchkins don’t raise sheep, they …grow things.”

  “Damn the luck. Oh well, this means the The price of wool will go up then, I suspect,” Said Lord Duncan. At least something had gone right,he thought, nice to have a family fortune founded in the yarn industry. Still an election approached, and a giant green steaming crater of bubbling goo, could affect voter decisions. He needed to form a committee to study the situation.

  Someone screamed as a giant tentacle burst forth from the bubbling mass,snatched a group of people and pulled them into the pit.

  “Hmmm,”said Lord Duncan, “better form a giant tentacle committee as well”

  After all, he couldn’t have his opponents accusing him of not doing anything. He looked at castle Draco, right in the dead center of the city and avoided saying anything obvious and dangerous.

  Outside the city vines began to grow.

  As the sun rose the next morning, Susan emerged from her cottage to see a group of people coming up the path towards her home. The village of Galder was smaller than it’s name, and news travelled fast. She had been spotted flying in, and the light had been seen in the old cottage. A new witch had come to town and these people would be the first to check her out.

  Most of the group were women, because women tended to deal with the village witch much more often. There were a few men, because men were naturally nosy. They stopped at the gate, and Susan could feel their appraising gazes. One the women, an older horse-faced woman spoke:

  “Are you the new witch?”

  “Who’s asking?” Susan said, giving Horse-face the same look a strict schoolteacher might give a misbehaving pupil. The first lesson every witch learns: Never let them see you sweat.

  Horse face gave her the same look one might give while inspecting a second hand carriage. Their eyes locked. Horse face had a good stare, it impressed even Susan , who had trained to stare down snakes. Ultimately however, nobody out stares a witch.

  “I am Mrs.Whitlow, are you the witch?”, said horse face trying to pretend she hadn’t been competing in the first place.

  “I am Mistress Crone,” Susan said, knowing she could never have gotten away with Mother, Nanny, or any of the other more traditional tittles. But she had the sort of bearing that royalty strived for and failed to achieve. Despite her age and obvious lack of warts, the villagers were impressed.

  “Do you deal with Horny Goat Weed?” Mrs. Whitlow asked, then pointed at the man beside her, who’s face began to changer to a purple red that would have put most beets to shame.

  “Yes I do.” Susan said, hoping that the twinge of pink creeping into her own normally pale features wouldn’t be to noticeable. She knew Horny Goat weed, and dozen other herbs that had the same effect, but some subjects she had never felt comfortable discussing.

  Horse face gave her another appraising glance then said,”Very well.’

  With that the group turned and left. Susan watched until they disappeared, then permitted herself a small smile. The first contact , made or broke you, and Susan knew she’d done well. The smile vanished as on old feeling crept upon her.

  She rubbed her hands and turned to look into the distance. By the pricking of her thumbs, Susan knew that something not very pleasant would be headed this way.

  Walking by Old Man Johnson’s store a few days later, Maggie Lyn paused as she heard the other villagers discussing the new witch over in Galder.

  “A bit young I heard.”

  “Still they say she’s rather good, Old man Johnson was down there last week, picked up something for his diaharea, says it worked like a charm, doesn’t even get gas now.”

  “She’s a miracle worker then?”

  “Well she can’t possibly worse than ours,’

  “Yeah remember when Scotty Thompson went to Maggie about his gout?”

  “Turned him into a frog”

  “Well, be fair, he no longer has the gout.”

  “How about old Johnny Taylor?”

  “Oh yeah, did he ever find his nose?

  “Well folks look on the bright side we could have what they got over in Gormen,”

  A hush fell over the crowd, as they gave a collective shiver. Every one knew about the witch of Gormen, although what everyone knew differed. All Grandma Hadrass simply told Maggie that Granny Taft trained up something horrible as her replacement. Most villagers had the same thing, only differently.

  “Heard she has three heads, one like a woman, one like a goat, and one like a cabbage,”

  “Yeah, well I heard she was one of them giant trolls, you know the ones with the big hair and the bad breath”

  “Your both wrong, she’s a demon, one of them whaddyacallem’s, incubators.’

  Maggie could feel the tears welling up as she walked home. She was a lousy witch, she knew.She had tried to teach herself after Grandma Hadrass passed on, but she could never remember the names of herbs. The closest thing she’d had to success had been giving Mr. Pander that goat grass stuff. It really h
adn’t helped his stomach, but it had left Mrs Pander smiling for days. Her other spells were even worse, and best not to even think about her broom riding abilities.

  And her doggone thumbs kept pricking. They’d been doing it for three days now, and it made it hard to concentrate. She’d cleaned homes before Grandma Hadrass picked her out, and now Maggie wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t go back to doing that. But deep in her heart she knew that she’d never be able to look at another broom the same again.

  She reached her cottage and looked at her broom leaning against a wall on the porch. a deathtrap with a bundle of twigs at the bottom.She hadn’t tried riding it since the concussion, and every time she looked at it she could feel it laughing at her in the cruel, silent, immobile way of inanimate objects everywhere.

  Her tears evaporated in red hot rage as she strode across the porch, snatched it up, took it to her front yard, mounted it, and pushed off.

  Moments later she picked herself off the ground and looked over to where the broom had gotten stuck in the tree. She could only hope that it had hurt itself. She looked in the direction of Galder.

  Maybe she should try and ask for help.

  In a true witches cottage the front parlor is dusty and covered in cobwebs. This because certain things are expected of a witch and a large part of any job is selling yourself to any client. However, like most witches Susan kept the private parts of her home immaculate, and had been scouring the floor when a knock came to the back door.

  She glanced out at what appeared to be an ill built scarecrow standing on her back stoop. A tall thin female scarecrow wearing a dress made for someone shorter and fatter, a witches cap a size to big, and carrying a broom. Susan pushed an errant strand of hair behind an ear and opened the door.

  “Um, uh Hi, I’m, unh uh, I just y’know, I “ Maggie too a deep breath, “ I’m Maggie Lyn the village witch from Ghast and I just stopped by to say hi and meet you and y’know and and stuff.”

  The words came out in a rush and left Maggie visibly deflated. Susan looked at her, and nodded. She had heard there were a shortage of adepts, but this seemed a bit much. No wonder she’d seen so many people down from Ghast.