The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Abstract

There was a time, long ago, when many sorcerers lived in South Carolina, men not long from slavery who remembered the white magic of the Ekpe Cults and Cameroons, and by far the greatest of these wizards was a blacksmith named Rubin Bailey. Believing he was old and would soon die, the Sorcerer decided to pass his learning on to an apprentice. From a family near Abbeyville he selected a boy, Allan, whose father, Richard Jackson, Rubin once healed after an accident, and for this Allan loved the Sorcerer, especially the effects of his craft, which comforted the sick, held back evil, and blighted the enemies of newly-freed slaves with locusts and bad health. "My house," Richard told the wizard, "has been honored." His son swore to serve faithfully his teacher, then those who looked to the Sorcerer, in all ways. With his father's blessing, the boy moved his belongings into the Sorcerer's home, a houseboat covered with strips of scrap-metal, on the river.