Inside of the cabin that Fido had trotted up to, the small wood paneled room was a sight to behold. Sofya’s father was preparing something in a large black cauldron, as steam poured out and surrounded the room in a sort of mist. Unlike with the house that he and Sofya were staying in for the week, the wizard hadn’t purchased this cabin in advance before occupying it. When Sofya’s father was walking around the neighborhood earlier in the week, he had spotted the cabin and noticed it had a for sale sign on the front of it. Sofya’s father figured he could just come in when he needed to, perform the ritual and leave without a trace.
When he had taken Michael and Sofya out of the door of the house and locked it behind him earlier in the day, he figured it would keep the dog in there long enough to either die or be held captive until he returned. Soaring through the neighborhood, Sofya’s father muffled the sounds of the teens in his armpit screaming, as he made his way to the abandoned cabin. He had acted a bit reckless, as he caught the attention of at least two neighbors, one of whom had called the police. Soaring through the woods, the wizard had to fend off a grizzly bear and two mountain lions to make his way to the lake area where the cabins were built.
When they finally arrived at the abandoned cabin, Sofya’s father didn’t even bother to gracefully enter it. He kicked down the front door, found two chairs and tied up the teenagers who were unable to resist him. Realigning the door with his magic, Sofya’s father sealed it tight to prevent any unwanted visitors from entering. As the day passed by, the wizard began to gather ingredients he needed to perform the ritual.
“As much as I’d like to perform it now” Sofya’s father thought to himself “this ritual works best at night. I know that time is of the essence, but this has to work and I don't want to take any chances.”
When he had gathered all of the ingredients together, Sofya's father passed the time by looking out the window, as he waited for the sun to set, which seemed to take forever. As he gazed out onto the wooded area in front of the cabin, Michael and Sofya began to twist and turn, trying, in vain, to break themselves free of the ropes that bound them to their respective chairs.
“I wouldn’t bother attempting that if I were you” Sofya’s father said aloud, not looking in their direction as he spoke. “Those ropes are tied so tightly, nothing could possibly penetrate them. You are captive here until I have completed the ritual."
Michael looked up at Sofya’s father with an angry expression on his face, as Sofya’s eyes gazed at him with a sense of pleading. Sofya’s father ignored this when he turned to look at them. Staring for at them for a moment, he began to speak at length.
“Since you're not going to remember this anyway, Sofya, and since you won’t be alive for very much longer, Michael….”
A muffled sound of screaming could be heard through the scarf tied around Michael’s mouth, but Sofya’s father ignored this.
“….I figured I’d fill you in on what is happening tonight….and why.”
Sofya’s father pulled up a chair and sat in front of them, starting at two teenagers who would rather be anywhere else in this moment.
“You see, Michael, Sofya, I am one of the most powerful wizards in the magical universe. I have the power that I have not because of some genetic blessing, but because I have trained for hundreds, even thousands of years.”
A muffled “huh?” could be heard from Michael and Sofya’s scarfs that covered their mouths.
“I was born many centuries ago, almost a millennium ago, actually, sometime during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, in a province of Kievan Rus’, or what is known today as Ukraine.”
“That’s impossible” Michael thought to himself, as he angrily glared at the wizard. “There’s no way that any man, even a magical being, could have been alive for almost a thousand years.”
“I grew up poor and penniless. My mother was a beggar and we were often persecuted by the authorities. I felt it was so unfair for a system like the one I grew up in to leave people like myself and my mother poor and penniless. One day, she pissed off the wrong nobleman, who was appalled by her haggard appearance, and she was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death. That left me as an orphan with no family to look after me.”
Sofya looked at her father with a mix of sympathy and confusion. Michael continued to angrily glare at him.
“It was around this time that I started to learn of my powers. Unlike most wizards, I was not born into a magical family, at least as far as I know. I never knew my father, so he may have been a wizard and I just never knew him. I have no idea where he might be if he were still alive, but I have tried for centuries to find him, with no such luck.”
The room fell silent, as Sofya’s father continued on with his story.
“At first, I could tell something was wrong with me when I was able to make farmers give me their livestock for free and I was able to send vikings to kill anyone who pissed me off.”
“Oh my God” Sofya said with a gasp, the sound muffled by the scarf.
“But my powers began to attract the wrong kind of attention. One day, I was targeted by some soldiers who demanded I pay tribute to the king. I refused, so I killed them all. I knew that made me a wanted man, so in a panic, I fled to the Crimean mountains, where I was holed up for nearly four hundred years. Quietly, I began to learn of how to control my powers and they grew stronger as time went on. Wanting to join civilization again, I attempted to manipulate neighboring armies to invade the territory where I had grown up in and take it over. None of them, despite their superior strength and prowess, were able to topple the king, though it did wear down the territory significantly. Finally. after what seemed like ages, which it was, in actuality, I was able to disintegrate the system that was responsible for killing my mother and leaving me an outlaw.”
Sofya’s father paused, before he continued his story.
“When I returned back to where I had come from, all of the people I knew were long dead. The towns people were probably the distant descendants of the people I once knew, but I had no personal connection to them. I figured if I ever wanted to adapt into society, I would have to manipulate the minds of the residents to believe that I had always lived there and that they had always known me. Doing so on a wide scale basis takes a lot of you physically, so that’s why I don’t like moving to large cities unless I absolutely have to. The less people I need to manipulate, the better.”
“That explains how Sofya was able to brainwash the whole school into liking her” Michael thought to himself, as he looked at an increasingly confused Sofya.
"I also had to alter my appearance, so I cast a spell on myself to keep me looking forever in my forties. I wanted to have a look of seniority, without being feeble. I felt that one's forties were the ideal time to stay physically and I have ever since.
This statement confused both Michael and Sofya, unable to process how such a feat was humanly possible.
“I managed to reintegrate into the town just fine, at first, but within a short period of time, I started to attract the attention of Ivan the Terrible. He was wary of me and accused me of performing witchcraft. I was able to manipulate his advisors to have him stand down on his demands to target me, which I had gotten increasingly better at as time went on, but he was increasingly persistent. Knowing that time was not on my side, I began to perform spells on him which drove him into a fit of rage and would weaken his mental faculties. His rule became increasingly erratic and his advisors were already plotting ways to remove him from office, which I encouraged them to do with my magic. Despite these efforts, though, I was unsuccessful. He died of natural causes and his son, Feodor, was an even worse ruler, but I never got to see that time period play out. I knew I couldn’t stay for much longer when my attempts at upheaval were continuously unsuccessful. Town residents were beginning to wise up to my lack of aging and my inability to keep my story straight on who I was or where I had come from.”
Looking at a dumbfounded Sofya, her father continued on.
“So I fled my hometown once again, this time to France. It is there where I met Queen Catherine de' Medici. She ruled during a tumultuous time in the nation’s history and I became one of her many suitors. Henry II, her husband, was wary of me, but I was able to fend him off, in spite of her marriage to him. The one who I had the most trouble dealing with is Cosimo Ruggeri.”
“The man who made the Ruggeri rings” Michael thought, as he let out a muffled gasp.
“That name sounds familiar, huh Michael?”
Michael nodded, as he couldn’t believe how bizarre this tale was becoming, not that it wasn't already.
“That’s because he was my sworn arch nemesis. I didn’t know it at first, but it became increasingly clear to me that Ruggeri was also a wizard and that he was trying to persuade the Queen to sentence me to death. She resisted strongly, but he said he would prove to her that I was a disloyal subject. The item he would conjure up would reveal the true intentions of the people who looked into it. She could use it on her knights and protectors, to make sure she had no traitors in her midst. That magical item was the magic mirror you saw up on the wall in my dining room.”
“Oh” Sofya thought to herself. “That explains why Michael was so obsessed with it. This is starting to make more sense to me now, as bizarre and unbelievable as it may sound.”
“As he was forging it, I spied on him in secret and peeked at the ingredient list he was using. I determined that, with my superior magical ability, I could manipulate the mirror to hide my true intentions from the Queen. When he finally called me to her palace one afternoon, I arrived and she showed me to the mirror. I manipulated my image to that of an innocent boy, the one who was a poor street orphan several centuries before. She gasped, trusting that I was honest from what she saw, even as Ruggeri was not as convinced. I held off this threat for now, but it didn’t last for long.”
Sofya’s father paused again, before continuing his story.
“My exertion of magical energy was causing all sorts of problems in France. Civil wars were being waged during the reign of her husband and her son. She became increasingly anxious, as her loved ones became increasingly preoccupied with restoring order to the land. In a moment of weakness, one night, I made love to the Queen in her bedroom.”
Sofya gasped, as Michael looked at him with disgust on his face.
“She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever been with and it was intense. We were afraid of being caught, but fortunately, nobody spotted us. It would have been a scandal for the Queen of France to be seen having an affair with another man. She could have been executed, but fortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, a few days later, she called for me again and I saw the early signs of a pregnancy.”
Sofya became increasingly nervous, suspecting in her mind where this sordid tale was leading to. Michael hadn’t put the pieces together quite yet.
“In desperation, I told the Queen that I could either remove the baby from her womb or I could bring it into the world at a rapid speed. She was against the idea of ending human life, so she trusted me to help her give birth prematurely. I cast a spell and sped her body up nine months to just at the time of conception. I kept her servants away and worked to help her give birth to her illegitimate child. When the contractions were over, there, in my hands, was a beautiful little girl.”
“Oh God” Sofya thought to herself.
“That girl, was you Sofya.”
Michael gasped, as Sofya pretended to vomit.
“You were so beautiful and I was determined to raise you all by myself. I had waited over 500 years for a child and now I finally had one. Telling the Queen not to worry about anything, I took you away and kept you safe. I raised you by myself, in a small house that the Queen was secretly paying for. As time went on, you kept asking me too many questions about who you were and where your mother was. It became harder for me to keep my answers straight. I also learned through word of mouth amongst the other wizards in the kingdom that offspring could gain their independence of magical parents at the age of 18. By the time you reached 17 years old, I had a difficult decision to make. I could let you go and be off on your own, but I didn’t know what your aging would be like or how you’d handle the cruel world that had killed my mother centuries before. Instead, I decided to place a powerful spell on you that would permanently freeze your age. Most wizards had never been able to successfully do it before, though my appearance change was similar, but not quite the same thing. By magic, I was able to keep you 17 forever.”
“Daddy” Sofya said angrily, in a muffled tone. “How could you?”
“Oh my God” Michael thought to himself.
“Sofya” her father replied “I made the decision I thought was best for you. The world is a cruel place. You were never going to be happy with anyone else. They would only betray you, like they had to me many times before. I did what I thought was right and I stand by that decision to this day, even centuries after the fact.”
Sofya felt a sense of betrayal that her father had taken away her right to age. She knew that she always seemed wiser than her years and this confirmed that her suspicion was correct. She didn’t know how she could ever trust her father again. She wanted to get out of this creepy cabin as soon as possible.
“It’s not like it matters that I’ve told you this again anyway” her father continued. “It's not the first time I've had this conversation with you and, I suspect, it won't be the last."
Sofya was confused by this statement.
"Soon you’re going to forget that I ever mentioned any of this to you, as you have forgotten hundred of times before. This is because of what I learned to do during that period of time.”
Sofya continued to look at her father with a mix of confusion and disgust, as Michael processed this bizarre information. Never, in his wildest dreams, did Michael believe that the wizard could be an ancient man born nearly a millennium ago, nor was Sofya, the slutty foreign student, really the direct descendent of European royalty. This was too hard to believe. Michael almost thought that he was dreaming, but confirmed the reality of his predicament by tugging at the ropes that bound him to the chair he sat in.
“You see, Sofya, after performing that spell, there were some unintended consequences. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, I believe, was caused by the energy that was emitted from the spell I cast. The reign of her son, Charles IX, was becoming extremely tenuous and Ruggeri used this chaos as an opportunity to blame me for the anarchy in the streets. Despite not having any proof, she blamed me for the disorder and vowed to get revenge. Ruggeri had forged some magic rings for her.”
Sofya’s father held the three rings on his fingers to Michael’s face.
“These rings. The ones you stole from me, you little brat."
Michael growled at Sofya's father, before he put his hand back down.
"Ruggeri had developed them for the Queen to force unwilling subjects into conscription in her army via magical coercion rather than facing a punishment of death for committing treason. She was about to cast a spell on me, before I conjured up a projection spell to block it and then managed to escape from her palace. I took Sofya and fled by boat to Tunisia. We hid there for a while in the desert, safe by Ottoman rule. From there, I conjured up magic against Ruggeri who had, as I later learned, been accused of witchcraft multiple times and almost sent to death due to my interference. He managed to fend these spells off, but it led to his total downfall. The dark energy I had summoned continued to plague France for centuries and lead to further violence, which I fortunately avoided.”
Sofya couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“How is it that I can’t remember any of this?” she thought to herself. “You’d think something this important would still be lodged into my brain somewhere.”
“I didn’t return to Europe for almost three hundred years after that” her father continued. “During that time, you were beginning to ask me a lot of questions that I once again couldn’t answer. Knowing I needed a way of dealing with you on a more permanent basis, I had found an old magic book from a magi who lived a poor town called Ajim. It allowed me to wipe out any memories that I wanted from a person's brain, but it required a ritual sacrifice.”
Sofya looked at her father with disgust, as the reality of why she and Michael were tied up began to dawn on her. Michael felt a sense of dread wash over him when he began to realize what was happening as well.
“So one night, I kidnapped a local peasant boy, who was no more than 8 or 9, and brought him to the cave where Sofya and I were holed up. I got the ingredients together, which were much harder to come by there than it is here, and performed the spell. It had to be performed at night, which is why I haven’t started the ritual yet.”
Sofya’s father looked out the window, as the sun slowly began to fade off into the distance.
“Almost time. I've gotten so good at performing this ritual, that I could perform it with me eyes closed" he continued, as he turned his head back to look at them. "I can remember the first time I performed the spell I will be doing tonight like it was yesterday. After boiling a pot of water and putting in all the ingredients, I slit the boy’s throat…”
Sofya let out a muffled gasp as she heard this, while Michael gulped nervously.
“….and poured out just a small cup full of his blood into the bowl. I knew it worked because the ingredients were acting up the way the book said they would. When it was done, I took a vial, scooped up some of the potion into it and force fed it to you, Sofya. I then got a complete picture of your memories and wiped out any and all information that was inconvenient for you to know.”
Sofya began to tear up upon hearing her father revealing this to her. She felt betrayed that her father would do this to her and that he had hid so much of her past from her. She wouldn’t let him get away with this. She attempted to struggle free of the rope, but found that it was tied too tight to slip out of.
“Don’t bother” her father said dismissively. “You’re not getting out of the rope until I’m ready to let you out.”
Sofya continued to struggle, despite her efforts being futile. Michael began to survey the room, wondering if there was some sort of way to escape. He noticed a back door in addition to a front one. He wondered if he could shimmy his way out, but estimated that, even if he managed to escape, he wouldn’t get far.
“I found that the spell worked when I prodded you about certain information, like about France and your former life. You remembered none of it.”
Sofya felt disgusted hearing her father confessing this to her.
“So I would do this again, hundreds of times, whenever I needed to. It may have been thousands, I can’t keep track anymore. Anyways, we stayed in Tunisia for a few hundred years, until the French came and invaded. Knowing that my safety was no longer assured, I fled again and we made our way back to Europe. It was there that I learned how to enhance my magical powers even more. I learned that we didn’t need to travel by foot anymore. I could teleport and float to places, which saved us a lot of time and effort. It’s really hard to believe now, in hindsight, that it took over eight hundred years for me to discover this, but there wasn’t a large connection of magical people back then. It’s also where I discovered how to get to the magical realm, which I’m entitled to enter as it is my rightful province.”
As much as Michael wanted Sofya’s father to elaborate on this further, he would not. Instead, he finished his story.
“We went to Italy sometime around the late 1800’s and stayed in the quiet beach town of Positano.”
“That’s why I remember that house in the Italian countryside” Sofya thought to herself.
“But it’s not the only time we’ve had business there” he continued.
“Oh” she thought to herself. "Maybe not."
“During that visit to Italy is when my senses picked up the presence of the rings and the magic mirror. Even though I hadn’t laid eyes on them in centuries, I could feel their presence calling to me. Leaving you with a local nonna for a few days, I made my way to the then recently opened National Museum in Rome and found that they were keeping the rings and the mirror there underground. Seeing this as an opportunity to take possession of Ruggeri’s old items, I made my way in, overpowered the guards and proceeded to the basement archives where they were being kept. I managed to grab the rings and the magic mirror, before a power greater than any normal security guard came charging at me. They had to have magical origins, because they almost kept me down. Stress the word almost. By sheer luck, I broke free of their powerful grasp and fled back to Positano to get you out of there and moved to a new location as quickly as possible.”
Sofya couldn’t believe what she was hearing, suspecting that this is why they hadn’t kept a stable address for so long.
“We began a journey of hopping from town to town in Italy, keeping up shop for a short period of time before I kidnapped a local boy and used his blood to wipe your memories clean. We did this for a while, but soon, money was running low. That’s when I met the man who employs me to this day.”
Sofya had no idea where this story was turning, but Michael anxiously wanted to find out.
“I’ve never met him before, but we communicate telepathically. I know he is real because I’ve met his henchmen before, who he always seems to change out. The man had known about my thievery and being able to overpower the guards at the museum. I never really worked up until this point, as I never had to. I could conjure up food and supplies to keep me alive without having to be employed. But now that I was a fugitive, I couldn’t stay put in one place for very long, before I had to get up and leave again. I also needed to fend off your attempts, Sofya, to probe into why we always kept moving, so I had to buy vacant, abandoned homes and used my magic to renovate them to a habitable enough state. Though old, decaying houses are usually a bargain, they still cost money, which the boss was willing to pay me if I would be willing to work for him.”
Michael listened to this intensely, as Sofya was beginning to fade out a bit.
“So that’s when I began my current line of work. Sofya and I would go to a place wherever the boss said we needed to go, get what I came there for and then moved on. We carry so much stuff around because not everything I’ve stolen has been able to be sold on the black magic market yet. And some items are ones that I plan on keeping permanently, particularly the mirror and the rings.”
Sofya’s father looked at the three rings on his hand, before he turned his attention again to the tied up teenagers.
“I bet you want to know why I don’t have all of the rings in my possession, besides the one your foolish boyfriend gave to me, huh Michael?”
Michael growled in a muffled tone, as Sofya stirred awake and began to panic.
“Well, we made the foolish mistake of being in Italy during World War II. I hadn’t left the continent in about sixty years at that point, though we had roamed it far and wide.”
Sofya’s father paused for a moment.
“Actually" he corrected himself "we left the continent once to come to America before the civil war, but that was a very short trip. We had really bad timing because we always stumbled upon places right before or during a war. It traumatized Sofya heavily, but fortunately the memory wipes have helped ease her emotional anguish, though there have been some lasting side effects.”
Confused by this statement, Sofya tried to press her father through a muffled sound, but he ignored her.
“I hadn’t really thought it would get as bad as it did during the war. Even when we managed to escape Germany in World War I, it never got as bad as it did during the second one. Mussolini gave us a lot of problems. Not only did we have to worry about the magical authorities riding on our tail, but we also had to worry about his fascist thugs going after us as well. They were easier to fend off, but it weakened me and left me vulnerable to an ambush. Sometime during the war of Sicily, the magical authorities found me in a vulnerable state and attempted to arrest me. I fought them off as hard as I could, and I managed to allude them with you, Sofya, but in a haste to escape, I dropped three of the rings. I tried to go back for them, but it was too dangerous, so I had to leave them behind. I managed to reunite with one of them today, thanks to Freddy.”
Sofya’s father grinned, as he looked at the rings on his hand again and Michael glared at him angrily.
“But the other two are still in the museum. They must have been returned there some time after the war. I have wanted to go back ever since I found out they were back in there, but post war Europe was incredibly unstable and I haven’t really had a chance to do set up shop on the continent seventy years. I fled to America after the war, where we have been roaming around ever since, with few exceptions. During this time on the run, I took a more careful look at the power structure of the rings that I still had in my possession. I found that they have some interesting little back doors.”
Michael became confused at this statement, as Sofya had grown tired and drifted off into a nap.
“I discovered, with some tinkering around, that the five rings together could be used to turn the whole world into my personal slaves. I could turn all of humanity into animals and reign supreme over the entirety of Earth as their collective master. I only wish I had discovered this backdoor a lot sooner. I would have done what I’m about to do now a long time ago.”
Sofya’s father stood up and noticed that the sun had set over the horizon.
“Perfect. Now I can begin the ritual.”
Sofya’s father conjured up a large black cauldron and filled it with water. He cast a flame underneath it and the water began to bubble.
“Once I’ve rid myself of you and your stupid boyfriend, Michael, I’m going back to Rome for the first time since the war to reclaim the other two rings that were stolen from me seventy five years ago. The ring I reclaimed today has increased my power ten fold. It should be easier to go in there and retake the rings now, even with magical security guards. When I finally get back what was stolen from me, I plan to cast a spell over the whole world with the rings and turn everyone into animals. All of humanity will be dogs, cats, horses, donkeys or bears. I will be ruler over a new animal kingdom and no one will be able to stop me.”
As Sofya’s father began to concoct the potion, Michael tried desperately to rouse Sofya awake. With a few nudges of his feet, she began to wake up. Though she tried, she could not communicate with Michael verbally. Feeling a sense of hopelessness sweep over him, Michael began to give up trying to talk to her, before he had a thought.
“Wasn’t Freddy about to communicate telepathically with Sofya yesterday? Maybe I can do the same.”
Closing his eyes, Michael began to picture the scene before him in his mind and began to think of Freddy as Fido. After a few minutes of trying, it seemed like his efforts were futile, before a chill began to wash over him. He could feel someone mentally watching him, even if he couldn’t see who it was. After a moment, Michael could hear a chuckle and a voice call to him.
“Heh” Sofya’s father said, as he turned to look at Michael. “Taking one final nap, I see. Well, enjoy it while you can. I guarantee you, it’ll be your last.”
Michael gulped, as his nerves began to increase.
“I don’t know if that ended up doing anything" Michael thought to himself "but I hope it worked.”
An hour or so passed as the brew was being concocted. The wizard got closer to completion, as he carefully added the ingredients into the cauldron one by one. Michael and Sofya didn’t know if Fido would be able to rescue them in time, but they wouldn’t have to wait long to find out what happened next.
Outside the door of the cabin……