The archipelago of Nome was famous for the skill of its fishermen and its wizards. There were plenty of fishing folk who practiced hedge magic and plenty of wizards that fished, but few were equally competent at both. Unless you counted Bad Bart. He was his own equal in fishing and wizardry, which unfortunately meant he was terrible at both.

Which was the subject of the Council of Elders’ discussion. Each wise adult at the table knew that the Bad affixed to the Bart’s name had nothing to do with malfeasance of the hapless Bart, but the damage he did was still real. The sat in their stone chamber, dank with the smell of the sea, and discussed this.

Spotted and gray with age Harleg, impatient since the day he was born, let his frustrations show. “When Bart tried to call forth a northern wind to help my trawlers return to harbor faster, he sank half the fleet.”

Imogen, red of hair and kind of spirit, held her latest babe on her hip and said with an almost hidden smile, “Twasn’t long ago he thought he had found a new and secluded fishing spot.” She waggled a finger at her infant as if playing a game. “But it was a breeding ground for the codfolk, who promptly punched a hole in his boat.”

With his peaked hat and starry-robes, Theodore of the Rain (or of the Vain as he was called behind his back), spoke. “And while he rode others’ boats so he could feed his family, I had to quell three storms!”

“Did he try to bring forth the storms?” asked Gerald, lifting his voice as his legs could no longer raise him. 

“No. It was just bad luck. The man is cursed!”

The Council of Elders muttered in agreement. They thought of Bart, absent from the chamber, brave but hesitant, intelligent but short-sighted, personable but a handful of bad luck for anyone around him. Each council member ruminated on what to do with a man who had committed no crime, but was a danger to everyone.

Gerald stroked his long red beard for a time until he proposed, “We know the Norsemen, those plunderers, are coming. Bart has volunteered to travel north and brave the icy waters to spy on them. Some say they have constructed an armada as never before, and may destroy us all. Best to know if that’s true.”

Each member of the council fell back to muttering, knowing that sending Bart alone would surely be as dangerous for him as the most competent among them. Then it was said, unknown by whom as it was stricken from the record, that if they let Bart go, at least they wouldn’t need worry about him while preparing for the piratical horde.

There was no ceremony, no sendoff, but Bart departed in the dead of night, as was appropriate for spying. In the weeks that followed, though, while Nome set about readying its boats and building fortifications in preparation for the invasion, no one heard nor saw of Nome’s spy.

Eventually, to everyone’s surprise and relief, the only thing they saw was Bad Bart returning alone. He floated home towards Nome in a slowly sinking Norsemen longboat, sail full of holes, a horned helmet on his head. 

See the author’s published work here.

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