Chapter 16 - Back to the Training Room.
The next morning, the family Jones and their house guests, Flintock, and his great uncle Faraji were up early, and much to the disappointment of Jon, it was back to the training room.
“Oh, come on,” whined Jon, “I thought I’d seen the last of this place.”
“No,” said his dad, “you never stop learning, you never stop training, and you never stop honing your skills. The training room is as good a place as any to learn astral thread tracking. It’s safe, and no one can get lost.”
“Okay,” Jon said reluctantly.
“Well, I’m up for it!” exclaimed Tom excitedly.
“Little creep!” muttered Jon teasing.
In the room, it looked just like they were all outside the city walls, there was the gate, a couple of guards, who greeted them all enthusiastically, and people milling around doing whatever people do, like extras on a vast film set.
“You sure we’re in the training room?” Jon asked, “or have you apparated us all outside for dramatic effect?”
Llewellyn flicked his wand, they were now in the desert under the familiar scorching sun, next, on a frozen landscape with horizontal snow, fighting against the wind, then all at sea in a small boat being tossed by the waves while a giant squid rose from the ocean and then back where they started, the city gates. The guards greeted them again, as if for the first time that day and the people, all back to their starting positions, continued to mill. Each scene lasted less than a second, no time to react, enjoy or be scared, and then, back in the training room. This time it was different, there were chairs for each of them and a blackboard and easel, just like a mid-twentieth-century British schoolroom.
Faraji was the teacher of the day, Llewellyn, Flintock, Jon and Tom, his pupils. Faraji explained the principles behind the astral thread, and how to find it. First, there were exercises. Each of them was to feel for the inner aura of the others around them and position them, where they were.
Next, it was back to the city gates. Again, the guards greeted them as if for the first time that day, again, the extras on the set milled around.
This time, one of them had a black hood placed over his head so he could not see, the others then moved around into a circle about ten feet across. The hooded person then had to name someone and go to them, touching them on the shoulder. They all had a go with varying success but kept at it until they were all mildly proficient. By which time, it was time for supper. Yes, it had taken a whole day just to get that far.
Back around the supper table, they all talked of their exhausting day, it was not physically draining, but mentally, it really took its toll.
“Mum,” Tom piped up, “mum, why aren’t you joining in? Don’t you want to learn something new?” as soon as he had said it, he knew the answer.
“Your mother,” Faraji said, “could trace an ant halfway around the globe if she wanted to, that’s why.”
“Oh,” Tom said.
Day two, as usual, they were greeted by the usual two guards with the same people milling around, it was like a groundhog day. This time it was a larger circle, about thirty to forty feet across. It took all day again, but they made progress.
Day three was different. This time there was no hoods, but they would play a sort of hide-and-seek in the woods, each would take it in turn to find a named person.
Faraji explained, “When following an astral thread, you cannot visualise your arrival point, as you do not know where you are heading, you just concentrate on the thread and where it leads.
First Llewellyn had to find one of the others, but unlike normal hide-and-seek, the seeker stood still in the middle of the wood while the others walked away, then once they were all hidden, the chaser had to apparate straight to where their target was. Then it was Flintock’s turn, then Jon and lastly Tom. They carried this on all day, the circle getting bigger and bigger until it was well over a mile in diameter with the targets apparating away to where they would hide.
In the last part of this exercise, all went to hide, leaving the seeker and Faraji by the gate. This time the chaser had to name his target and then apparate to them. This was hard, they had all managed to find the others when there were three fresh threads to chase, but three, going in different directions, and knowing to whom the thread belonged was not easy. Tom went first.
“Dad,” he exclaimed and disappeared. “Oh, hello Flintock, wrong thread.”
“Jon, oh, it’s you again Flintock,” and so it went on, and on, and on. For three or four days until at last, they were finding the correct target at least two out of three times. At the same time, Llewellyn had to make quick visits to the council chamber to see if any developments had taken place, but no, the Master was being quiet, too quiet in fact. Llewellyn wondered what he was up to. He shared his thoughts with Faraji and Gwen each evening, but they also had no clues.
At last, the ‘basic’ training was over, most were doing moderately well, we shall not name those who were not.
“Now,” said Faraji a week and a half into his teaching on astral thread tracing, “this has been the easy part. In the training room, there are only five of us. The other people you see are not there; they are just illusory. Tomorrow we go to the real city gates, there you will find a myriad of auras, sparks, and corresponding threads, the tricky bit is deciphering whose is whose. Wizards exit the city and apparate off ten or twenty every hour throughout the day. Threads become tangled and difficult to decipher. So first we will just go and observe, just so you see what I mean.
The next morning, they all appeared at the city gate and began to concentrate on the threads, it was amazing, this was a phenomenon which had always been there, but they had never experienced before because they didn’t know how to look for it. Now they could see threads heading off in every direction, a criss-cross tangle of threads in every direction. It looked like the wiring of a mid-twentieth century telephone exchange.
“Look also at the density of the threads. There are hundreds of threads before you, some are several days old, you must appreciate the density of such a fine and invisible force. The stronger the thread; the more recent the departure. Others, which look quite decayed and even broken in places, are several days old. Three days is about as long as they last, after that, they cannot be followed.”
“Now,” Faraji continued. “Pick a thread, follow it, but do not stay, just see where it leads and then return all within a second. Tom, you go first,”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the youngest and we are all bigger than you,” Jon said with a laugh.
Pop, he disappeared, pop, he was back. But looking very pale and shocked.
“What’s the matter?” asked his dad, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“There was a girl, locked in an iron cage with a fearsome looking dwarf guarding her, I wanted to stop and help, but thought it would be better to come back and get you lot.”
Within a few seconds, they all were standing in the room with the iron cage. It was empty.
“You must have been seen, the girl has gone and so has her captor,” his dad said.
“Now what do we do?” asked Jon.
“We follow of course,” answered Faraji.
They all disappeared again and arrived in a thick wood near a small and broken-down cottage.
“Very quiet and wands out,” Llewellyn said, he didn’t need to, they all had their wands in their hands. They spread out and silently approached the cottage from all sides. Llewellyn looked inside through a crack in the wood. There was a dwarf, axe in hand, standing behind the door waiting to pounce.
“Tom, do your stuff,” Llewellyn whispered.
Tom looked through the crack, time stood still. He released the other four and they walked into the cottage unchallenged.”
There stood the dwarf, solid as a statue, axe raised ready. Tom touched the girl with his wand, and she was free as well. “Shh,” he said, “we’ll explain later.”
“Handy bit of magic young Tom,” said Faraji, “did your dad teach you that?”
“No, it was something I discovered on my own, I can make time stand still, but release those I wish from the spell. I haven’t used it in a while, I'm glad it still works.”