Have Broom, Will Travel

By James Conder

When Susan Crone Takes up the post of village witch, she gets a bit more than she bargained for. She ends up with a klutzy apprentice, and goes up against Damian, the man-witch. Soon Susan finds herself on a journey to stop Damian's power-mad father from destroying all the magic in the world.
Along the way she confronts an army of mermen, a city stomping monster, a shape-shifting demon, flying monkeys, natives looking for a sacrifice for their volcano god, and some munchkins dealing "Magic Herb". Of course she also has to deal with Damian, and his rather loose definition of "celibacy".

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Conder
• Release date: Jan 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465737038

James Conder

James Conder has led a life so incredibly boring, that in order to preserve the image of sanity, he spends a lot of time in the worlds he creates in his head. For better or worse, he invites you to share in these worlds.

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Have Broom Will Travel

James Conder

Published by James Conder at Smashwords

All Contents copyright © James Conder

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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, Ma-maw Cutacre, who had been training up both Susan as well as Lisa Gripes, sent Susan out for the job.

Grante Galderians should consider themselves lucky, Susan thought. Ma-maw 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. Ma-maw Cutacre had only given Susan one warning.

You have an overdeveloped sense of pride, girl, Ma-maw Cutacre had said.It’s going to get you into trouble someday.

That’s ridiculous,Susan replied,My modesty is second to none.

You just be careful, Ma-maw 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. Ma-maw 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. Grammy 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 Grammy 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 nonexistent, although she did have a smattering of freckles.

Then she realized it; she’d just had a genuine psychic .. . whatchamacallit. 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 Gorman 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 phish 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