When life-long friends Hanson and Graber learn there may be a great wizard on the far side of the woods behind their village, they decide to seek him out. The source of the information may be suspect, but the lure proves too strong. In hopes of learning magic to rise above their current status as Hanson the Pigs and Graber the Firewood, they set out on this quest.
When they meet wizard Holzy, they’re both intrigued and intimidated. He makes them labor and suffer, but eventually begins to teach them the practice he calls “the feat of the wand,” which turns out to impart much energy and knowledge as well as unsuspected pleasures to both men.
A submerged attraction between them comes to the fore as Holzy awakens urges and desires they hardly even dreamed existed. But he keeps them entranced and bound to him. When Holzy makes a mistake, can Hanson and Graber apply their new powers to gain freedom from his spell and be acknowledged as his equals? Will they go home in triumph or be consigned to the salt mines?
Chapter 1One might begin a tale such as this with the classic Once upon a time, but such high-flown clichés are not right for the humble village of Wolmerk-on-the-Wald and two of its denizens. So, let us just begin at the beginning. One evening in the village pub, pig farmer Hanson sat with hunched shoulders, work-worn hands wrapped around a heavy earthenware stein. Their mass almost dwarfed the pint-capacity vessel. “If I was a wizard, they’d not be calling me Hanson the Pigs,” he grumbled, addressing no one in particular. At his side, his lifelong friend Graber turned his attention from his own pint to slant a glance Hanson’s way. “And had I a sorcerer’s skills, I’d not be known as Graber the Firewood.” From a few seats away, close enough in the narrow stone cottage that housed the pu