Charles Johnson - Sorcerer's Apprentice

“I am only that, a student,” said Allan, “the one who studies beauty, who wishes to give it back, but who cannot serve what he loves.”

“You are wretched, indeed,” said Bazazath, and he glanced back at the others. “Isn’t he wretched?”

They said, as one, “Worse.”

Allan did not understand. He felt Richard’s presence hard by, heard him call from the mystic circle’s edge, which no man or devil could break. “How am I worse?”

“Because,” said the demon of the West, “to love the good, the beautiful is right, but to labor on and will the work when you are obviously beneath this service is to parody them, twist them beyond recognition, to lay hold of what was once beautiful and make it a monstrosity. It becomes black magic. Sorcery is relative, student — dialectical, if you like expensive speech. And this, exactly, is what you have done with the teachings of Rubin Bailey.”

“No,” blurted Allan.

The demon of the West smiled. “Yes.”

“Then,” Allan asked, “you must destroy me?” It was less a question than a request.

“That is why we are here.” Bazazath opened his arms. “You must step closer.”

He had not known before the real criminality of his deeds. How dreadful that love could disfigure the thing loved. Allan’s eyes bent up toward Richard. It was too late for apologies. Too late for promises to improve. He had failed everyone, particularly his father, whose face now collapsed into tears, then hoarse weeping like some great animal with a broken spine. In a moment he would drop to both knees. Don’t want me, thought Allan. Don’t love me as I am. Could he do nothing right? His work caused irreparable harm — and his death, trivial as it was in his own eyes, that, too, would cause suffering. Why must his choices be so hard? If he returned home, his days would be a dreary marking time for magic, which might never come again, living to one side of what he had loved, and loved still, for fear of creating evil — this was surely the worst curse of all, waiting for grace, but in suicide he would drag his father’s last treasure, dirtied as it was, into hell behind him.

“It grows late,” said Bazazath. “Have you decided?”

The apprentice nodded, yes.

He scrubbed away part of the chalk circle with the ball of his foot, then stepped toward his father. The demons waited — two might still be had this night for the price of one. But Allan felt within his chest the first spring of resignation, a giving way of both the hunger to heal and the anxiety to avoid evil. Was this surrender the one thing the Sorcerer could not teach? His pupil did not know. Nor did he truly know, now that he was no longer a Sorcerer’s apprentice with a bright future, how to comfort his father. Awkwardly, Allan lifted Richard’s wrist with his right hand, for he was right-handed, then squeezed, tightly, the old man’s thick, ruined fingers. For a second his father twitched back in an old slave reflex, the safety catch still on, then fell heavily toward his son. The demons looked on indifferently, then glanced at each other. After a moment they left, seeking better game.

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Naturally, I wish to thank the sympathetic editors who first published these stories. Credit for the poem in “Alēthia” belongs to filmmaker Olivia Tappan (WGBH, Boston), who tells me she heard it long ago in a philosophy class, and I am deeply indebted to the late John Gardner for microscopically analyzing three of these stories and generally scolding me for my mistakes. Credit is also due to my wife, Joan, for just about everything I can think of, to Seattle martial-arts teacher Gray Cassidy for critiquing “China,” and to Dr. Richard Hart of Long Island University for his many years of friendship and philosophical support.