All were now safely returned to Blaenoraid, the Master was incarcerated in a cold iron lined cell deep beneath the castle and the wounded were all doing well in the castle’s hospital wing with daily visits from both Glynda and Tom to help wherever they could.
In fact, the two of them were rarely out of each other’s sight, they seemed to go everywhere together, do everything together and just always be in each other’s company. Unfortunately, Jon was left out to the point he wondered if he still existed!
Muenda Mwita Osei remained in the castle dungeons, eventually, he would have to be put on trial by the Elders, but for the time being, his incarceration continued. He had been severely weakened by Dragon Slayer and now looked quite a pathetic old man. But with the excellent food and wine which was served to the prisoners in Blaenoraid, his strength was returning. He was receiving daily visits from his brother Faraji, who despite their differences over many years, now seemed to be getting on very well, too well in fact, considering all that Faraji had been through and suffered over the years. Muenda, despite being the younger twin by seventeen minutes had always been the greater wizard, something that Faraji had never understood or gotten over. As the eldest, in the world of wizarding twins, he should be the more powerful. They were completely identical twins at birth, so it is always possible that the two had become muddled at some point and that he was really Muenda, and his brother was really Faraji. But they would never know whether that was true or not. Anyway, it didn’t matter now, his brother and twin had no inner aura left, no power, no magic. He was now just a phobl, as non-magic people were called.
Everything seemed peaceful in the land of Trymyll. Glynda was to be made a full wizard, not that she had ever been an acolyte, but after her remarkable demonstration of power against Muenda, it would be churlish not to bestow upon her the title she deserved. The autumn equinox was only a week away. The equinox is one of the two days traditionally set apart for wizard robing, it was decided that Glynda would receive her robes then along with several other young wizards who had served the normal apprenticeship of seven years, seven months, and seven days. She would be the youngest at the ceremony by far, all the others would be late teens to mid-twenties, Glynda was just fourteen.
“You ready for the robing ceremony then Glynda?” Tom asked over breakfast, “It’s only two days away, what are you going to do? I summoned a fire dragon and had it fly around the castle.”
“Oh, I’m not sure yet, I might work up a white hot ball of energy with my hands and blow the castle out of the ground, or I might take Dragon Slayer and carve a great hole in the bailey wall just where the moat is and flood the lower town.”
Tom was speechless and went white in horror.
“I’m only joking, of course I wouldn't.”
“Whew, well what are you going to do?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out about when it happens,” she said laughing.
“Come on, I won’t tell anyone.”
“No, wait and see like everyone else,” Glynda said, ending the conversation.
Jon and Tom were in their room.
“Well?” Jon asked, “did you find out?”
“Not really, it was a choice between working up one of her power balls and blowing the castle out of the ground or using Dragon Slayer to cut a hole in the moat wall and flooding the city.”
They both laughed at these ideas.
“She’s not serious, is she?” Jon added as an afterthought.
“No, don’t be silly.”
Two days later and all were eagerly anticipating the grand reveal.
The stage was set, three chairs on either side of the Elders chair for the high Elders, all seven chairs, adorned with the colours of each High Elder. Raised, and slightly behind the High Elders for their own seven elders and forty-nine chairs on a rising slope behind them for their senior wizards. The stage was hung with the banners and colours of each High Elder and of course, centrally with the banners and colours of Blaenoraid. Next to the Elder of Elder’s chair, they had placed an extra unadorned carver chair for Flintock, he had no colours, as he was the High Elder without a portfolio.
All seemed to be in a joyous mood, most of them were chatting and joking with each other and enjoying being on the main stage for all the folks of the land to see. Except of course the elders and senior wizards of Asmodeus, they sat silent, miserable, and unsmiling as usual. Asmodeus, it seems, does not approve of happiness.
There were seven acolytes at today’s ceremony waiting to receive their wizard’s robes. Five boys and two girls including Glynda. Each had to show their best trick to the assembled dignitaries and the crowds of wizards, mystics, elves, fairies, a few friendly dwarfs, phobls and some other magical creatures I could not name. They were saving Glynda until last. If she was too early in the ceremony, with her amazing power and magic, she might demoralise any who followed and it was important that everyone enjoyed the event, even if their best trick wasn’t a particularly good spell.
Some of the performances were a little lack-lustre. One of the boys turned himself into a donkey, then much to everyone’s amusement, couldn’t turn himself back. In the end, his father had to come on stage and return him back to normal. His robe, when placed on his shoulders turned a lighter shade of grey with a black line down the centre, just like a donkey. Another apparated all over the stage, it was quite funny to see, as he did it while pulling faces and awkward poses. He got the laughs he wanted and of course, his wizard’s robes, which turned from the normal dull grey into a multi-coloured harlequin pattern, the colours of a jester, and so it went on. Eventually, it was Glynda’s turn, she walked to the centre of the stage and looked around in the crowd. She spotted several people and asked them to come up on stage with her. This was most unusual, most irregular, Llewellyn almost expected High Elder Govannon Staley to raise a point of order!
A few minutes later, she had six people up on the stage with her, close examination showed that all had something wrong with them. There was a blind man, a guy with one leg noticeably shorter than the other, and walked with a crutch, one who had lost an ear in a battle, an old blacksmith with badly scarred forearms from the heat of his forge, a lady whose neck was almost bent double with cervical myelopathy, and another lady who had a continual cough. Glynda produced her wand and went from person to person, as she touched the coughing woman, she was enveloped in a blue haze, then she stopped coughing, as she passed the lady with the neck problem, she laid her hand on her neck and again, the blue haze, she straightened up immediately, and so she went down the line, healing, mending, and restoring as she went. As she had said so many times before, she wanted to be a healer, not a fighter.
At the end of her demonstration, the crowd just stood silent and in awe. When she was presented with her robe, the clerk laid on her shoulders the drab grey cloak, it flickered once and then turned the brightest and whitest white you could ever imagine. It hurt your eyes to look at it, it was so white. It was trimmed with white fur along the bottom hem and around the collar, it was stunningly beautiful and matched the other pure white garments she wore, and her aura shone all around her.
Once the ceremony was over, the new wizards and the assembled dignitaries went into the castle to celebrate, the townsfolk and visitors had their own entertainment outside in the bailey with hog roasts in every corner of the square, sweets, pudding and pies, ale and mead, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, mummers, and everything that was fun in the land of Trymyll.
Inside the castle, it was a much more sedate affair, fine food, excellent wine and cordials, a string quartet and a couple of fine madrigal singers. Well, it was for about half an hour, then Llewellyn went up onto a dais prepared for the speeches, to speak to the assembled luminaries and bigwigs.
“High Elders of Trymyll, elders, senior wizards, my esteemed friends and family, much as I am sure you are all enjoying this sumptuous feast,” they were not, “may I suggest we open up the doors and join the townsfolk who are having much more fun than we are.”
There was such a cheer that went up all around the room and everyone stampeded to the doors to get out of the stuffy formal banquet laid on for them all and out into the town square where the people knew how to celebrate properly. The food tables were then carried out into the square so that the townsfolk could sample the buffet laid on for the dignitaries. Let’s face it, no one really wants to listen to speeches.
After the hasty exit, there was just Jon, Tom and Glynda left in the Great Hall.
Jon spoke, “Well, I suppose I’d better get out and enjoy myself with the rest and leave you two together.”
“Err, no,” Tom said, “we’ll all go out together and have fun, we’re sorry if we’ve left you out a bit lately, we didn’t mean to, I hadn’t even realised until Glynda mentioned it just now. It’s not an excuse, but we have been busy in the hospital wing doing our healing bit, we were so busy that we never thought. Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jon replied, “there’s nothing to stop me coming along as well, I have willow in my wand, I could heal as well if I put my mind to it, I seem to think too much about the excitement of battle, I should think more about others as well. Máthair did tell me to work on my compassion at our own robing ceremony after all, perhaps it’s time to start.”
Glynda then announced, “We were just going to the hospital now, and then onto the celebrations, care to join us?”
“Yes please, I’ll see if my willow actually works or not,” Jon replied enthusiastically.
So, the three of them all trooped off to see the wounded; probably against the rules, but they grabbed half a dozen wine bottles each to take to the wards, cheer them up a bit they thought.
After their ‘ward rounds,’ which only took about ten minutes, they returned to the market square. There they were met with the sight of Samuel, a tankard of ale in each hand, merrily drinking with a group of dwarfs who happened to be passing through, not the grumpy, bad tempered variety, but an altogether friendly bunch, who loved to party. It was so funny to see, Glynda had never known Samuel to drink alcohol before, although he was not the grumpy type, he was always very serious-minded, and took his responsibilities as her guardian and protector very seriously indeed. But there he was, singing dwarf folk songs, in his native tongue, and having such a good time. (We should note here that it was probably for the best that they sang in dwarfish, as their folk songs and tales are not for delicate ears, especially after a few pints of strong ale).
And so, the party went on, well into the evening and continued long after the Jones family retired back to their apartment beneath the castle. It was good they were completely soundproofed where they lived, as the noise of celebration did not get any quieter as the wine and ale took hold of the party goers.
Meanwhile, back in the depths of the castle, the Master remained incarcerated. He had really had the wind knocked out of him in the last battle, but what hurt more than his wounds, was his pride. Slowly he was regaining his strength, and as his strength returned, his magic was starting to return also. In the dark of his dungeon, he held in his hands a spinning orb of blue light, power was returning, he moved his hands together and re-absorbed the magic, he did not want to waste it, he would bide his time, for he knew his time would come. Meanwhile, he must hide his inner aura, lest his brother should sense his returning power.
“Vengeance will be mine,” he thought.