“Hello, Imrah,” he said with a grim smile.
Author Notes - Aaron Schneider
September 25, 2020
Dear Reader,
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this book and I hope that you feel the time was not wasted. I know that nowadays your options for entertainment and distraction are immense, and I’m humbled and appreciative that you thought what I had to offer was worth your time. If you didn’t find it worthwhile then I appreciate you at least giving it a shot.
However, if you did enjoy it I’ve got good news for you because the next book is going to be right around the corner. Book 02 is coming out shortly. You’ll get to ride right along with Milo, Ambrose, and Rihyani as they head to Georgia, the beautiful country not the lovely state, and face new challenges, dangers, and wonders.
I hope you’ll keep reading not just to state my fragile feelings, but also because Milo’s story has so much further to go. The monstrous and marvelous world of the First Wizard is a deep and wide place I’d love to explore with you, if you’ll have me of course.
Now before I leave you for a little while I’d like to say something to all of us facing the weird world of 2020 and all its different shades of madness. With all the tragedies, problems, and terrors some would say that there are more important things to do than read some silly story, much less write one.
Clearly, I think those people are wrong.
For writers like me and readers like you it comes down to one word: escapism.
This word is often treated like a dirty word, a word suggesting dereliction or even cowardice and weakness, of not facing up to the “real world” and trying to hide from it. I’m afraid people touting that sort of nonsense have quite missed the point and not just of novels but of art in general.
We read, we write, we sing, we dance, we paint, we become art all so that we can escape and to escape means to strive to be free. Free to dream, to hope, and to be, and that is the opposite of cowardice and hiding. I would say in a time like 2020 that is exactly the sort of business we need to be about.
So keep escaping dear hearts, and remember that most poignant of conversations between Tolkien and Lewis:
“What sort of men would be most opposed to escape, Jack?”
“Jailers, obviously.”
Regards,
Aaron D. Schneider
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
September 26, 2020
First, THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes in the back.
Working with Aaron has been a massive pleasure for me. When he and I were introduced, the first thing I noticed was I felt like he was a kindred spirit, a person who would prefer to just help those out in the world and not hurt a soul.
But you don’t push him. He is a kind guy, but he has a backbone of rigid steel if pushed. He just doesn’t like being in that position.
Now, this is just my opinion. Aaron lives pretty far from me, and we only ever speak over Zoom (video) or the phone.
The second thing I noticed was his writing.
It’s beautiful.
He prose takes me away, even in situations I would NOT wish to read about. Somehow, his spirit is entwined within the words he shares. I can’t explain how it makes me feel, except to say I this isn’t normally a story I would enjoy.
But somehow, here we are.
I hope you join us for books two and three. They are already being wrapped up to present to you as a gift. This wild alternate history where World War I never stopped.
All so we could explain how in a dark time, we reach down into the Earth to uncover a power that perhaps we shouldn’t touch.
But extreme times require extreme actions. Milo is our hope, and we trust that he has a heart that has every right to be as black as those reared in the orphanage and streets where he comes from.
But the heart, once uncovered, starts to show its real color: a bright one.
At least, we hope it is since Milo must choose to accomplish great things while wielding energies that might better be used by those who have ethics a bit more…
Malleable.
Join us as we push into book two. The story is just getting started!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Sorcerybound
World’s First Wizard Book 2
I want to put my hands to work 'til the work's done
I want to open my heart like the ocean
— Lit Me Up, Brand New
It is a great evil to look upon mankind with too clear vision. You seem to be living among wild beasts, and you become a wild beast yourself.
— Vathek, William Beckford
Monsters I’ve Met
I met a ghost, but he didn't want my head,
He only wanted to know the way to Denver.
I met a devil, but he didn't want my soul,
He only wanted to borrow my bike awhile.
I met a vampire, but he didn't want my blood,
He only wanted two nickels for a dime.
I keep meeting all the right people—
At all the wrong times.
— A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein
I dedicate this book to my father, a man who does what is right, not what is easy. Thank you for being an example to strive for. Love you, Dad.
— Aaron
Prologue: Ne Loquitor
message intercepted
Percival Reinhart felt his fingers tingle as he tapped out the message on the telegram in the subversive little nest he’d built in the underbelly of Newcastle. Besides the thrill of victory at an operation successfully accomplished, Reinhart felt a certain degree of smugness.
The strange suit had worked, and when he was debriefed, he could tell them how all those warnings were for nothing. It had all gone swimmingly.
As a vital hub for not only the shipbuilding but also the coal trade of Great Britain, as well as a city closer to continental Europe than any port that didn’t open to the much-patrolled English channel, Newcastle had become the perfect place for short-term espionage. With the help of some well-compensated and willfully ignorant locals, it had been relatively simple to set up the operational center all short-term operatives could use. Reinhart knew that no less than half a dozen other agents of the German Empire had used this location. Buried under the crumbling terraced housing area of Byker in Newcastle, the subterranean lair had everything an enterprising spy needed to prepare, carry out, and report on operations before slipping back to the continent with no one the wiser.
The operation he was tasked with was not going to be easy, and he’d expected that once he had the information, it would take some back and forth communication and supplies before things were even possible. When he’d first come, Reinhart had appreciated the setup, thankful to have a secret telegram line and a secure and concealed dead drop location nearby. The fact that a trapdoor set in the floor led to a tunnel that opened to a nearby canal let him sleep on the little cot more easily, too.
As he’d gathered information on the asset, Reinhart had become more and more comfortable in his little hidey-hole, appreciating the quiet security it offered him. After stressful days spent loafing about the shipyards pretending to work as he assessed things, it was nice to have somewhere to let his guard down. Despite multiple uses, none of those who’d come before had seen fit to furnish the place beyond the spartan facilities it had come with, but an appreciative Reinhart had begun to adorn his little abode. Bringing in small mementos from his rambles through the yard, he placed them on a small shelf here or hung them from a wall there. Nails and a hammer were easy enough to acquire for the latter purpose, and he’d also found a few rough but serviceable pieces of decorative furniture, as well as more knick-knacks and bits of local color.
Sometimes lying on the cot next to the new nightstand he’d found with a fetching print of the yards in the early 1700s, Reinhart felt almost like a local. A sense of peace suffus
ed him even though he was a man living a lie among people who would string him up if they knew who he was or what his intentions were. He felt absorbed by the rough industrial spirit of the city, and thus, in some ways, forgiven for what he had to do.
This sense of harmony disappeared the day the suit came, which was nearly a week after he’d stated he needed supplies for a disguise.
Like a child receiving a gift from a relative, he’d torn into the parcel before even reading the missive it came with. From the feel of the package, he’d been expecting clothing, which he would have to take care of on his own, but instead, he drew out a small rectangular box and a large expanse of what seemed to be crudely stitched vellum. The box contained a bronze knife that was so sharp he nicked his finger handling it. At first, he couldn’t tell what any of this could be used for by an agent like him. That, combined with the creeping sensation of dread he felt when his finger touched the hide, left Reinhart quite put out.
Confused and assuming there was some bungling involved, he’d opened the missive and read the terse lines with great bemusement.
It was a suit, somewhat akin to full body tights that also went over his face, and according to the directions, he was to slip the whole thing on to act as his disguise. The note explained that the suit was self-sealing and that once he put it on, he would need the knife to remove it. What followed was a series of rather peculiar instructions concerning the suit, describing how it was to be stored until use, the proper frame of mind to be in while wearing it, and how to remove the suit in the most careful of terms. Warnings that came with the instructions gave the sense that failure to comply would lead to catastrophic injury. It all seemed like nonsense, and as he stared at the grisly-looking thing hanging from a coat hook, Reinhart felt that the instructions implied the suit might have a will of its own.
For three days, he avoided the suit and his cozy hideaway, using the meager money they'd given him to lose himself in alcohol and partners of negotiable affection. It couldn’t last, though. On the evening of the third day, looking out of the dingy window as his recent expenditure snored softly, Reinhart knew he had to go back and finish the job. If he waited much longer, the opportunity would be gone, and then Berlin would start wanting answers. Long-term plants could get away with letting operations fail, but a rapid insertion operative like him was expected to produce results. If he let this operation lapse, he might as well not return.
So he’d gone back to the nest and found to his dismay that things were not as he’d left them. The furnishings and mementos he’d procured had been…not so much rearranged as left askew. It was as if someone had picked them up or turned them about to examine them and had not had the presence of mind to put them back as they were. None of the equipment had been so handled, but everything he’d brought in to adorn his little sanctuary had. The suit of skin still hung where he’d left it, vacant eye slits in a deflated face watching him.
Reinhart had cursed and muttered to himself, turning twice to leave and face whatever Berlin’s wrath was, but each time, he stopped short of the door. The suit watched him through all of this, mocking in its hollow silence. Finally, spitting invectives like a rabid tomcat, he’d yanked his clothes off, stormed over to the suit, and put it on.
The queasy feeling he’d felt handling the thing was worse by a hundredfold as he slipped into the hide, and when he felt the self-sealing action occur, he cried out in fright. The suit felt as though it were alive as it seemed to adhere to his entire body, the change occurring so rapidly and completely he wasn’t sure where he ended and the suit began. As he stood naked, he shivered and felt goosebumps rise across his arms, and looking down, he saw impossibly that the suit sported goosebumps across its surface. That wasn’t the only change, because instead of the stitched vellum, he was looking down at an arm that was not his own, thicker and hairier. Gaping, he’d looked down and seen his toes concealed by a paunch that was not his, and a tactile inspection told him that farther down, there were modifications to his manhood that he’d never received.
Stumbling on legs that were thicker and shorter than his own, he’d lurched to the mirror over the washbasin and found that he was not himself. Reflected in the mirror was the nude form of Douglas Murdoch, supervisory foreman for the Maritime Brush, a ship-painting company. The thickset and hirsute man was the director of several teams that painted the nautical camouflage for every British vessel that emerged from Newcastle’s shipyards for military service. Reinhart’s plan had been to pose as one of the man’s assistants and then falsify instructions so the teams of painters would use a different shade of paint in their camouflage, a shade that German naval spotters could be trained to expect.
It seemed Reinhart would be going as the man himself, and with the deed now done, he knew it could not have gone better. The idea of posing as an assistant to Murdoch had been risky at best, dependent on proving himself in so many nuanced ways that even his considerable skills would have been put to the test. With the suit, though, all he’d needed to do was show up and growl a bit like he’d observed Murdoch do during surveillance, and the job was quickly done. He’d sent runners from the painting company to go inform the other teams of the changes, saving him time and the risk of discovery.
Practically dancing as he rushed back to his hidey-hole, the job done, Reinhart had slapped the large belly hanging from his body. Though he knew it was not his, he marveled at how he felt every wobble, as though it were his own flesh. It was amazing what the development workshops could come up with, though half the time, the stuff was less than reliable. Reinhart decided that he could appreciate something like this. A few times as he moved about the yards, he’d almost forgotten he wasn’t Murdoch.
He’d forgotten he was still wearing the suit until the telegram beeped to life. He jumped, and his newly top-heavy frame made him topple to one side, catching himself on the wall with Murdoch’s long arms. Reinhart felt the uncanny realization of how impossible this all was gnawing like a rodent on the back of his mind. He shoved the thoughts aside, though, as he righted himself and moved over to listen to the message coming over the secret line.
e-x-t-r-a-c-t-i-m-m-e-d-i-a-t-e (Stop) u-s-e-t-u-n-n-e-l (Stop) b-r-i-n-g-s-u-i-t (Stop)
Reinhart was more than a little surprised by the message: why so soon? Had he been compromised?
As he cast a glance around the room, the warm sense of belonging vanished. Reinhart remembered that he was a German spy in a city of military significance belonging to a sworn enemy of his country. If he was compromised, and every instinct told him that must be why they were in such a rush, death would be the best he could hope for if he was caught. He might have minutes before black-booted brutes came storming down the stairwell that was supposed to be a secret in the tenement building he was lurking under.
His mind racing, he snatched up what few effects he’d brought with him, shoved them into a bag, and turned a wide circle in the small room to see if he’d missed anything. As he did so, his protuberant stomach knocked over the print of the old yards, sending it clattering to the floor.
It was then that he remembered he was still wearing the suit and looked like Murdoch. If he darted down the trapdoor and squeezed his way through the tunnel to the canal, there was a good chance his boatman out of Newcastle would shoot him. They were expecting Percival Reinhart after all, short, svelte, and he flattered himself to think shockingly handsome. When a heavyset, hairy-armed man with a weak chin and a patchy mustache plopped down, they’d probably toss him into the drink on principle.
Reinhart looked about for the box containing the knife, and, spotting it on the nightstand, lunged for it. Extricating himself from this second skin might take time he didn’t have, but leaving it on was not an option.
He made it four steps before his foot turned on the floor, and he fell just out of reach of the box, fingers scraping wood.
Reinhart glared at the treacherous floor, wondering what had happened. The spy knew he was a graceful man, the finest dan
cer he knew, and tripping on the floor like this was singularly uncharacteristic. Looking down, he saw nothing for him to trip on, but he remembered losing his balance from the telegram and assumed it had something to do with the suit. Moving as quickly as he had must have set off the bigger man’s more precarious balance. That was it.
Muttering curses under his breath, he grabbed the edge of the cot to lever himself up onto his knees and reached for the box.
Coming on like a sudden muscle spasm, his left leg shot back behind him, and his right knee twisted inward. Reinhart pitched forward, one hand slapping the edge of the nightstand. He managed a cry of surprise that was cut short by his face bouncing off the stone floor. Eyes bursting with a kaleidoscope of rainbow light, the spy lay upon the floor, legs uncomfortably askew, trying to figure out what was happening.
The blow to his head didn’t make that endeavor any easier, but he didn’t have long to wait until further evidence appeared. Reinhart, face still pressed to the floor, felt a prickle of fear race up his back and burrow into his brain, as with agonizing slowness, he felt his body inching away from the nightstand.
He wasn’t moving a muscle, but of its own volition, it seemed, his body was slithering backward across the floor.
He remembered then that the instructions had told him to keep the knife on his person at all times while wearing the suit. He remembered those odd warnings that had talked about the suit almost like a living thing. He remembered that everything seemed to have been moved around in the apartment.
As though sensing his rising panic, the skin that was not his compelled his limbs to scuttle backward faster. Feeling a scream form in his chest, Reinhart fought the movement, compelling his muscles to oppose the constricting pressure that manipulated them like a puppet.
World's First Wizard Complete Series Boxed Set Page 33
