The Apprentice's Shorts

By Kevin Williams

Another collection of shorts stories, all based on a wizard getting an apprentice and the problems that result.
Sometimes its the wizard. Sometimes its the apprentice. Sometimes i's the problems!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Williams
• Release date: May 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310155147

Kevin Williams

ANNOUNCEMENT.For my ten year anniversary here? New covers+ upgrades for everything!At a million words a week, I should be done by the end of feb.(Man! Had everything proofed before posting. Shoulda been after.)Oh, the AI rev? Bring it.Stealing market share, capturing a demographic, developing a fan-base?That's the game. Always has been.Unfortunately, so are goons, thieves and legislation. Luckers, people.Latest novels:The Finest Evil in the System : AI Woes Jan 2024FANTASY Aaron+Henna: The Elfin Princess's Kiss may 2023SF: Teddyhunter Rogue planets June 2023BOTH The Finest Evil in the System : AI Woes Jan 2024Shorts : The Finest Evil in the System; Loons, goons + booms.Novels are usually 100,000 words: freebies vary. (And might be ANYTHING!)If you don't fall over laughing at least once while reading, the book is a failure.Other than that, SF is the lit/philosophy of western urbanization.Problem-solvingthe effect of techon peoplevia new mythology.Beware, you MAY learn something. Or think a bit here and there, even in the comics..Cartooning? Does-is-ought. Take a does, show what it is, (is is?) discuss the ought. (ie: table= work-server= that gossips)SF? what if, then what, so what?Fantasy? Any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. (Characters in conflict over issues)***Readers are welcome to proof-read; if I think it's a good correction, it goes in. (just send an e-mail, book-name + quoted line) Thanks. (One long-suffering reader got a few books dedicated to him.)On a personal note; I've got nearly 2 million words published at smashwords.com now. SF + fantasy novels, cartoons + short-stories.Jeez, lemme see; This whole mess got started in grade school; shorts in HS; novels after. (first one done in pencil.)Dozen or so 80,000 word novelettes (mostly type-writer.); first computer stuff, 80's; novels+shorts.Years of zines, quarterlies, novels, cartoons; (apple-clones, compacts, pcs) '86: BBSing a shorts echo (rogue-bone), blogs and cartooning. I THINK I can add another million words there. Maybe. Most of them are lost unless some old CD backups turn up.2021: Dead tree? If you don't make the best-seller list with your first novel today, you don't get a second. An 8-million web-wonder hit is entry-level stuff. (for movies. An ebook best seller is 10,000 or so) I think my count is 43 currently published over 8 years; and another dozen or so early works lost.******************* WARNING! * Live and live, (long i vs short) tho and thou. I use thou as tho sometimes. It's the most common complaint. Mostly edited out, but I still do.******************Writing has been a hobby of mine since the third grade, and was an ambition even earlier. Cartooning, music + philosophy are other bad habits I keep up. (Plus a few secret ones I'm NOT telling you about, so there!)Zining SF cons with shorts for years (on the freebie table) was a hobby. Well, till charging for intros,(lessons) freebie-table placements and contests became common. It was fun; quarterly editions, mostly. Fantasy, horror (Halloween), children's (Christmas), romantic comedy, (Valentines, st pats) hard SF, on july 1st or world con.Most are in the short-story collections, tho I'm still writing the occasional one today.Enjoy, thanks, pass it on! (Have a day of it, eh?)

Book preview

The Apprentice’s Shorts Copyright 2015 By Kevin Williams

Smashwords License Statement Smashwords Edition. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art:police belt uncomplicated

Canadian ISBN:978-0-9940155-4-9

ISBN:9781310155147

Author’s Note: Fan-mail, biz, complaints and suggestions to [e-mail]

Kevin Williams is on

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/packrat2

https://kevinwillpkgd.tumblr.com

He authors an SF series, Teddyhunter: (about runaway teddybear robots), a few books of short stories, comics and the Aaron+Henna fantasy series. The first in every series is usually a free ebook.

Note: This is a collection of fantasy stories on wizardly apprenticeships. When I get a good idea, I sometimes do five or six versions of it. For instance, aliens landing on earth.

Teddyhunter

• Teddyhunter: The Underground

• Teddyhunter: The New World Order

• Teddyhunter: The Nano-zombie War

• Teddyhunter: I Can Get Better In The Parking-lot!

• Teddyhunter: The Neanderthal Gene

• Teddyhunter: New Genes

• Teddyhunter: Baby-Blues

• Teddyhunter: The Underground Railway

• Teddyhunter: Blob2

• Teddyhunter: Rogue Worlds

• Teddyhunter: Right in the Shorts

• Teddyhunter: 2022 shorts

Aaron+Henna

• The Gateway Project

• Girl-Ghost

• Aaron+Henna: The Witch-Wizard War

• Aaron+Henna: The Singing Sword

• Aaron+Henna: The Way of The Rat

• Aaron+Henna: The Terrible Twos

• Aaron+Henna: Summer Rain

• Aaron+Henna: Broken Magics

• Aaron+Henna: Dirty Float

• Aaron+Henna: Dragon-Witch

• Aaron+Henna: Teen Learns

• Aaron+Henna: The Elfin Princess’s Kiss

• Aaron+Henna: Short Stories

UFO Observer (comic)

• UFO Observer Book 1

• UFO Observer Pt Two Book 2

• UFO Observer Part Three Book 3

Shorts!

• Shorts From All Over

• Christmas Shorts

• The Apprentice’s Shorts

• The NWO: The Orderlie’s Silent Spring V2.

• Bogus Shorts

• SF Shorts

• By The Shorts

• 2021 Shorts

• 2022 Shorts: Odds and Ends

• Shorts 2023

comics

• Friday The 13th Sex-cult Problems

• Stalking Millionaires

• The Pour Witches of Fenwick

Canada

• The Cold Grows, The Roads Shrink P2

• The Maple Dyraid Life

sf • JoyToy:Singularity

FEITS

• The Finest Evil In the System: Omnibus

• The Finest Evil in the System: Goons, Loons and Boons

• The Finest Evil In the System: AI Woes.

***

chapter 1 Apprentice Sonata

Herman sat anxiously at the table and, holding his breath, made a few mystic passes over the teapot, hopefully waiting for it change colors. Unhappily, it crumbled to dust before his eyes instead.

It also dropped about a quart of boiling water on the table-top, most of which, in accordance with Murphy’s laws, found its way directly to his robe, making a valiant effort to cook whatever was inside.

Herman wasn’t inside the robe very long. Herman also had to explain to the rector of the library why he’d been caught naked in the tearoom, grabbing his privates and screaming.

It wasn’t a good day for Herman. Not only did he flunk his midterms on pyromania, he got tossed from the university for accidentally sogging one of the two remaining copies of an old and particularly valuable missive on talking to animals.

Most student found it invaluable when trying to deal with the university administration. They were glad to see him go.

On the other hand, Herman was now one of the exotic dangers of a largish port city. He was a half-trained wizard in a world where no disposable skills meant a lingering death by starvation.

Like most other menaces to society, Herman had more uses than threats to stability, so he was tolerated. Only because it wasn’t worth the effort to shoo him from the alley he was currently sleeping in and sell him for a galley slave. Yet. So he was tolerated.

The moral of this story?

NEVER get tea off at university, the sails that you get lined up aren’t what you expect them to be.

end

chapter 2 Apprentice Leech

The successful student has to be a master thief!

Bar noise almost buried Manise’s usual boring snivels. Looking over the gathered bodies for my special type of girl, I tried to appear as if I was paying rapt attention to him.

So are most wizards. I mumbled. That’s most of our training around here, actually.

The collection of students come to learn magic at the university indulged in low gossip in the dingy student bar as I looked the population over. The gossip was more interesting than the bodies so far tonight, and that wasn’t what I was looking for.

The university pub was a great place for Manise to gripe in, but I was more interested in the witches that were littering the place. Especially the ones who liked doing research on their backs with apprentice wizards.

Oho! You get caught trying to get into the library again? I smirked at him. Sneaking unauthorized research was a necessary student activity here. No professor would be caught dead teaching anything that might threaten him to a mere student. Or have anything to do with the brain-dead low-life that made up most the student body, really.

Wincing, Manise showed me a new scar on the back of his hand. Getting in was easy. Picking out a book was easy. Getting the spell-lock off was easy.

And? I smiled. The curve of a sweetly ripened calf caught my eye as one of the witches a few tables away flashed her legs. Checking around, I found a reflection of her to play with.

A demon trap that ate three layers off my defenses before I could get away. The book was booby-trapped, too.

Poof! There goes three hours work. The reflection smiled as I tickled it. She was already watching,