The Sorcerer's Apprentice

By Deirdre O'Dare

Driz aspires to be a great mage but he’s done poorly the last few years of his schooling and cannot enter the mage university. Instead he seeks a mentor in the remnants of the once-great magical race of Melcovia, now mostly driven into hiding by the brutal government of dictator Congerson.

Cory has hidden out in a remote estate in the foothills of the great mountains and sorely misses contact with others of his kind. When he hears a telepathic call from a youth seeking a mentor and master, it seems a dream come true. But will the young man find him? Can he buckle down enough to learn the discipline and control he needs? And can he ever become the true partner and soul-mate Cory has never found?

When Congerson’s minions and a rogue mage strike the last empowered folk in Melcovia, Driz’s family is in dire peril. He must choose between staying to work with Cory or breaking his indenture to try to save his mother and siblings. Which will it be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Mar 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781634869379

Deirdre O'Dare

Deirdre writes gay romance channeling a prior life’s gay male twin she calls Danny. Fascinated by love’s diverse shades and guises, she explores and experiences a range of attachments. She still believes in happily ever after, that Love is the One True Thing and genuine Love is never wrong. For more information, visit deirdredares.blogspot.com.

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice

By Deirdre O’Dare

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2019 Deirdre O’Dare

ISBN 9781634869379

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission from the publisher, with the exception of excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

NOTE: This book was previously published by Amber Quill Press.

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This one is dedicated to millennia of fairy tales and their authors or recorders since most were oral tradition first. And most were really quite adult and carried powerful lessons and morals. It's also a tribute to many modern fantasy and make-believe stories where magic plays a key role and good triumphs over evil. I've read so many of both that they are indelibly etched into my subconscious to emerge with my own telling. No tale is new but each teller puts his or her own stamp on them. I feel blessed to have the storyteller's gift, handed down from long- gone Celtic ancestors. May I do it justice!

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice

By Deirdre O’Dare

Chapter 1

Driz knew he’d received all the formal schooling he could expect. He was, after all, eldest of the three children of a hedge-witch single mother in the ancient realm of Melcovia. After he had completed the mandatory four years of public school, deemed adequate for the average working class child of the realm, Mum had struggled to get him through the Mystik Magick Academy Charter School—ten long and costly years. Now her strength and determination were both exhausted. She also had to consider the two younger children next. Although nothing had actually been said, she clearly expected Driz to do well enough to assist his siblings. Right now, however, he had little to offer.

Graduation behind him, he cursed the excesses of his last two years in school, an error that had seen his previously stellar marks plummet far below the scholarship level. He’d discovered sex, alcohol, and recreational drugs, which played hell with his studies. It began to look like his remaining choices were down to two. He either had to find a normal, mundane job—the word sat on his tongue like an obscenity—or locate a freelance practitioner of magick who would take him on as an apprentice. The school, he’d found, didn’t teach nearly enough to make him the top-flight mage he aspired to become.

So far, his search for a master had not been fruitful. Was there no wizard, sorcerer or magician left who could take Driscoll Darnell under a protective wing and help him develop the talents he felt sure would prove exceptional?

Life was no longer good in Melcovia, especially for the magick community. The latest incarnation of the government seemed to have lost traditional respect for the magickal arts. What few mages were left either found employment at one of the remaining schools of wizardry, which retained a bit of the old cachet, or went into hiding to escape hassling by the personal police force of Premier-for-Life, Monsante Congerson.

His Excellence had no use for magick. Everyone said he called it an anachronistic folly beneath his notice, although a minor nuisance at times. Thus the police hazing of any stray gifted citizen was clearly condoned, if not encouraged. Every minor blip on the smooth road of the ruler’s life he attributed to bad magick and sent his enforcers out to discipline any likely candidate. Such discipline could be harsh. Anyone with a whiff of magick soon learned to keep a low profile or seek protection within the ancient and sacred strongholds far from the capital city of Melcorth.

Driz and his family resided in a suburb of that city, where Mum could work legitimately as a midwife and a nurse practitioner. Those professions were still acceptable if one kept the magickal aspects beneath the notice of the officials. Someone had to deliver babies and deal with the cuts, bruises and breaks of juvenile escapades and the routine complaints of the elderly. Mistress Darnell did this very well.

To get Driz through school, she had also moonlighted as a waitress in a local pub and beer garden, although she was getting a bit too old for that now. Customers favored the youthful, buxom, and flirtatious with their tips and gifts, not a middle-aged mother showing the signs of her struggles. When her gratuities dropped below the pitiful wages the tavern owner doled out, she quit. Even that small bit of added income was missed. The family had not a penny to spare these days.

Out of school now for three