From alt.sex.stories.tg Tue Jun 25 23:47:28 1996
Path: mordred.cc.jyu.fi!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!EU.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!arclight.uoregon.edu!netnews.worldnet.att.net!ix.netcom.com!news
From: madrabit@ix.netcom.com(M. McGonigle)
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.tg
Subject: sorcapp.txt
Date: 23 Jun 1996 06:32:07 GMT
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X-NETCOM-Date: Sun Jun 23  1:32:07 AM CDT 1996


   This is my first time posting to a USENET group; hopefully, it will
work out.  If you like it, great!  If not, please don't tell me by
flames; I won't respond.  If you have constructive criticism or praise,
I'll respond to that happily.  Enjoy!


                     The New Sorcerer's Apprentice
                            By Mellissa Lynn
             
     As the door closed behind him, Alexander looked around him
fearfully.  He'd been terribly excited when the Sorcerer chose
him as a new apprentice, but now that he was here in the castle,
he was a bit nervous.  The stories that had floated about the
town after the last one had been dismissed in disgrace were only
too true to believe now!
     "Come!" the Sorcerer said in his deep voice, peering at
Alexander from under his bushy brow.  "The daylight grows weak,
and there is much to do."
     "Yes, sir," Alexander answered automatically.  He picked up
his pitifully small bag of belongings and followed his new
master.
     "You'll sleep here.  Your lessons will start in the morning,
and your chores in the afternoon.  Most of the time the nights
will be your own, unless I say otherwise.  Is that acceptable?"
the Sorcerer asked.
     Alexander was astonished.  To listen to the town talk, this
man was an unfeeling, inhuman monster, yet here he was, asking
Alexander if his arrangements were satisfactory as if he were a
welcome guest.  "Y-yes, sir," he stammered out.
     "Good, then it's settled.  Now, let's settle something right
now.  I can see in your eyes that you've heard the idiot
villagers' stories about me.  Take them all with a grain of salt. 
I encourage that stuff to keep them away."
     Alexander's curiosity overcame his fear.  "But what about
your last apprentice?  Didn't you kill him because he made a
mistake?"
     The Sorcerer grinned.  "No, but I certainly felt like it!  I
was wringing water out of things for WEEKS!  Look, what have you
heard about that?"
     "That he raised some kind of demon in here and the only way
that you could stop it was to sacrifice him to it," Alexander
said.
     The Sorcerer laughed loud and long at this.  "Oh, my, how
the stories have grown!" he chuckled at last.  "Here's the true
story.  He learned a spell he wasn't ready to use and performed
it.  He was a good lad, much like you appear to be, but just a
touch lazy.  Well, he performed a spell of animation - on a
broom.  He had it fetching water from the well to fill the
reservoir inside."
     "Well, he forgot to learn the last part of the spell...the
part that stops the animation.  The reservoir was filled to
overflowing before he realized that.  He got desperate and hacked
the poor broom to bits with an axe, but he got the shock of his
young life when the pieces all formed into new brooms and
continued."
     "By the time I got involved, the water was up to my room and
he was swimming about, trying to stay afloat.  I quickly stopped
the spell, but we were quite awhile getting all of the water out
and the place dry.  I had a LOT of brooms, though!"
     "But...what DID happen to him, then?"
     "He decided that the magic life wasn't for him, but he
didn't want to let his folks know that.  I started a much tamer
version of the story you just told me, and he left for parts
unknown.  The last I heard, he'd started a new line of work,
something about giant-killing.  Why anyone would go after giants
is beyond me, but whatever gives your story a happy ending, I
guess."
     Alexander was quite relieved to find these things out, and
suddenly realized he was quite tired.  The Sorcerer led him to
his bed and left him.
     Alexander grew quite fond of the Sorcerer, and his home, in
the next several months.  He was friends with all of the animals,
especially Jakob, the Sorcerer's familiar, and had free reign
over the entire house...except one room.
     He was only allowed in this room under the Sorcerer's direct
supervision, for his own good.  "There are many magical artifacts
in here, my boy, and they all have a mind of their own, and a
will to match.  They try to tempt you into using them, so they
can catch you for their own amusement.  I guard these items for
the safety of the land."
     Alexander understood what the Sorcerer was saying after his
first time in the room.  The items all seemed to call out to him,
whispering, "Try me, try me!"  One in particular, a gold ring,
seemed especially to call him.
     He seemed to hear its call often after the first time he was
in that room, even when he was no longer near it.  Several times
he found himself unconsciously standing in front of the door to
the room with his hand on the handle.  He fought its call, but at
last it was to no avail.
     It was the dead of night on a moonless evening when he
finally decided to enter the room and get the ring.  He could
resist its siren call no longer.  He tiptoed from his room
through the kitchen, past the great hall and down into the
cellar, beyond the arch of the workroom and at last to the door
where the items were stored.
     He opened the door and a faint light appeared in the room. 
It was emanating from the ring, guiding him to it.  He passed the
magic swords, twelve of them all in a pile; he passed the magic
lamp that, if one listened to it closely, he or she could hear a
voice screaming "Let me out!"; he passed all sorts of magic
trinkets until he got to the one that he knew was right.
     A slight noise in the passageway caused him to glance about
in fright, but he could see no cause, and his obsession caused
him to dismiss it.  He stood in front of the ring for a moment,
looking at it.  At last, he could wait no more.  He leaned
forward, lifted the glass case from around the ring, and took it
from its resting place.  He waited fearfully for some kind of
alarm, but nothing happened.  
     He held the ring for a while, looking at it.  It gave no
hint as to its powers or capabilities, looking for all the world
like an ordinary gold band.  The only marks at all were two
symbols, very worn and almost unnoticable, on the inside of the
band.
     "Well, are you just going to look at the thing or are you
going to try it?" he asked himself at last.  And with that, he
put the ring on.
     Immediately he was frozen in place, unable to move.  He felt
tinglings from all over his body, but couldn't do so much as move
his eyes to look for the cause.  He was like a statue, completely
rigid and unmoving.
     He felt movement all over his body, as if someone was inside
trying to break free through his skin.  His leggings began to
feel tight in the buttocks area, but loose in the legs.  His
tunic was quite tight on the chest, but loose on the stomach. 
His crotch felt loose as well.  His sandal straps suddenly felt
like they were on his toes, and he had the sensation of a weight
hanging from his head.  Then a sharp pain hit him on both cheeks
at once, feeling like he'd been caught between two punches.  A
second hit his nose, and he winced.  
     As he stood there, it felt as if the room was growing larger
around him.  He would swear he saw the doorway move up about five
inches.  The whole thing was scaring him.
      Suddenly, he was able to move again.  Immediately, he
looked down and screamed as he saw the two perfectly-formed
teenage breasts on his chest, pushing his tunic out.  He raised a
hand in disbelief and saw a small, dainty thing instead of his
own work-worn limb.  He reached down between his legs to try to
disprove the nightmare and found out that he was wide awake.  He
screamed again and fainted dead away.

     Alexander woke up the next morning in his own bed.  When he
first awoke, he thought, "What a strange dream!  The Master will
get a laugh out of it, I'm sure!"  He started to sit up and felt
a weight shift on his chest.  He looked down and realized that it
was no dream.
     "You've done it this time, boy!" the sorcerer exclaimed as
he entered the room, Jakob hot on his heels.  "Or should I say
girl?  You managed to find the one item I couldn't break the
spell on, and now it's very likely you'll be this way
permanently.  What am I going to tell your family?"
     "Master, I'm not even sure what happened.  I can just barely
remember going to the magical storeroom, but after that it's all
like a dream.  What exactly have I done to myself?"
     "You found the Revenge of the Cuckolded Wife, and are now
stuck with it.  That's the name of the ring you're going to
probably be wearing for the rest of your life, by the way.  It
was created by Zendella the White Witch of the Southwest, one of
the most powerful of the Direction Witches. You may have heard of
some of her sisters.  One of them died horribly when a large
structure landed on her out of nowhere, and another just boiled
away one day when given a bath."
     "Anyway, Zendella had married a man by the name of Canon, a
barbarian from the land of Senarria.  He was just exactly that, a
barbarian.  He was fond of wine, women, and song, and had no
problem finding all of the above in quantity.  Senarria boasts
that he left behind more than a hundred scions, but you know how
barbarians boast."
     "Well, he was in a dire strait one time and Zendella was
there to help him out of it.  In return, she asked for his hand
in matrimony.  He'd never considered the thought, but she had
saved him from a fate worse than death, so he felt honor-bound to
agree."
     "Of course, over time, his old ways drove him to the arms of
other women, even though Zendella was a faithful wife, a great
cook, and quite skilled in the bedroom arts,  She caught him with
a comely wench, in the throes of passion, and decided that he
should be punished.  She went home and performed the spell that
created the ring."
     "Canon hadn't realized he'd been found out when he came
home.  Zendella was quite pleasant to him, just as always, had
fixed him his favorite meal, and later nearly wore him out i the
bedroom."
     "After Canon had finished and was nearly asleep, Zendella
reached over and took his hand tenderly.  Canon thought nothing
of this, and was nearly asleep in any case.  He hardly noticed
the ring going on his finger...at least not for a few seconds."
     The sorcerer paused for breath, then went on, "The physical
effects he felt are, I'm sure, known to you now.  However, he was
almost double your age, and therefore the full effect of the ring
hit him."
     "Zendella had created a spell whereby the wearer of the ring
would assume the appearance of the wench that Canon had been with
that fateful day.  She also stuck it with a curse that, once on,
it would never come off...unless the appendage it was on came off
as well.  However, she still loved Canon, and thought that one
day she might relent.  So she put a spell of slow aging on the
ring.  Canon would have lived easily two, maybe even three
hundred years, had he left the ring on.  Instead, he died last
year in a battle over, of all things, which side the two peoples
buttered their bread on.  
     "Anyway, that was how Canon eventually was rid of the ring;
he came to me and I magically removed his hand.  That was the one
loophole that Zendella had left without realizing it."
     "The ring became possessed of a siren call after Canon had
removed it.  I think it was calling to Canon, trying to get him
to put it back on.  Did it tell you to come to it?"
     "Why, yes," Alexander said still not letting himself realize
what he'd done.  "It called me several times, over these last few
days.  I thought I was imagining it."
     "I wish you'd told me that!" the sorcerer snapped.  "It
might have made both of our lives easier.  I could've blocked the
call and you'd still be male."  The sorcerer sighed.  "Ah, well,"
he concluded.  "At least I can make sure you have a steady job. 
I can train you as easily female as male.  Besies, I'll have to
keep you around to try to break the spell.  Unless you're tired
of that hand?"
     Alexander finally let the realization sink in.  "You mean
I'm a girl for life?  There's no way to break this spell?"
     "Other than removing your hand, the only other possibility
is finding Zendella.  She may still be alive; it's only been
about fifteen years since I received the ring.  I would assume,
since she was able to put the slow aging spell on the ring, that
she put it on herself as well."
     Alexander was aghast at what he'd done to himself (herself?
he wondered).  He now, instead of chasing wenches, had a body
that would be the envy of any of them.  He did a quick bit of
arithmetic in his head, and realized that he could be this way
for up to four centuries!  "Oh Master, what am I going to do?" he
asked, almost weeping.
     "As I've said, there are only three choices for you.  One,
you become Alexander the One-handed.  However, that would
effectively end your apprenticeship here; Almost all spells
require the use of two hands.  Two, you search for Zendella.  I'd
advise you to wait until I've taught you all I can before you do
that; time's not currently your enemy.  Three, you live with it,
at least until I figure out a way to break the spell.  I've only
been trying fifteen years; that's nothing for a good spell.  I'm
one of the better spell-decoders, and it still took me ninety-
nine and a half years to crack the spell around that sleeping
princess' castle.  You remember the story I told you, about the
castle covered with thorns, with an enchanted princess inside? 
That's the one I'm talking about."
     "But-but how do I live with this?" Alexander asked, looking
in the mirror.  "I don't know the first thing about being a
girl."
     "There's only one way I can help you with that," the
sorcerer replied, glowering.  "I'm going to have to summon a
demon and have it speed-teach you everything you need.  Just so
you know this, I'm not fond of demons!"

<End Of Part Two>