Then it was over. I looked down at my hands, then back up. It didn’t seem possible. The languid smoke rose from where they had stood a few yards in front of me. One boot remained upright and smoking as the one next to it crumbled into a pile of thick black ash. The rest was a scorch mark.
I looked down at my hand, my finger still pointed at where they now weren’t, but it shook and trembled. I made sure it stayed pointing away from me.
‘See?’ a voice said from behind me.
I did not want to turn and see the old man with the long white beard. He looked too much like a wizard, a sorcerer, especially now I knew all he’d told me was true.
I stared at the finger that had just killed the three…. They weren’t human, I knew that.
‘What…?’ My voice was uncertain, unsure of what I wanted it to say. For a moment, I almost pointed… then I remembered what that finger had just done. I shuddered, wishing I had a holster to put my finger in, or at least a safety catch on it.
‘What what?’ I heard him shuffling closer behind me, the tap of his staff on the stony ground. I wondered if I would need the beard and the staff, too… was it compulsory?
‘What were they? What did I do? What is going on?’ I turned to him, making sure my finger pointed at the ground between us. ‘|Just… basically…. What the fu…?’
The old man opened his arms. ‘Welcome to the club,’ he said.
‘Wha…?’
‘You are now – officially – a wizard,’ he said. ‘Well done.’
‘Oh, shit.’
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