Chapter 9 - A detour and a trap.
After breakfast, Tryg dispatched the shack back into the phial and handed it to Flintock, Tom opened the thicket and allowed them all out to continue the journey. He closed the exit and left the small, wooded area intact, but spell free so that if the others, whoever they are, returned that way, they would not suspect their hiding place.
Howel had left at daybreak, trainers in his claw to dispatch them somewhere, far away to lead whoever was following them on a nice little detour.
Howel flew high in the sky heading for the Dragonlands.
About noon, Howel returned, "Where did you drop them then my scaly friend?” asked Flintock.
“In a dragon’s cave on the very edge of our land, amongst a pile of bones so they will now think you have all been eaten by a dragon and be very scared of the magic and years the dragon has inherited.”
For once, even Llewel laughed with them, well smiled anyway.
“Lessons, lessons,” exclaimed Llewel, "you must have more lessons, we have to teach you so much, and yet you and we have so little time, so little time. You must have more lessons, so little time.”
Tom had noticed that sometimes if Llewel had no one else’s words to repeat, he would say everything several times over himself.
They had walked for a couple of hours now across farmland full of crops and livestock and were approaching a wooded area when they noticed there was smoke curling up from within. They entered the woods cautiously, not knowing what to expect. Birds were singing, leaves were falling, all seemed peaceful and in order. They came upon a clearing and a farmhouse; the thatch roof was ablaze and there were a couple of gravely injured men lying outside the house.
“Stop! This might be a trap,” Llewel said, stating the obvious, “tread carefully and silently. Wands out and ready.”
As they approached the burning house, they could hear a woman weeping inside. They moved quickly to investigate, there was indeed an unbelievably beautiful young lady inside, tied hands and feet, sobbing. Trig started dealing with the fire, drawing it away from the house and into himself. Flintock went into the house to tend to the girl, Tom rushed to the injured men to see if he could help them, Llewel just stood there looking as if he were doing nothing, which he was. His eyes darting left and right looking for danger.
Tom started to heal the men as quickly as his young and inexperienced power could cope.
“Who did this to you,” he asked.
“She did,” they replied, nodding towards the girl in the house.
Flintock started to untie the girl, “Who did this to you?” he asked.
“They did,” she answered, nodding towards the two injured men.
“Very interesting,” said Llewel, “two badly injured men tied up a girl and left her in a burning house and at the same time a young woman bound hand and foot kicked the what-sits out of two fit and strong young men in their prime? Very interesting indeed!”
Tom suddenly found fear, dread, and despair creeping into him again.
“This must be a trap of some kind," said Tom “we need time to think this through.”
As he spoke there was a rush of wind, then silence. Tom looked around, everything was still, nothing moved, the leaves that had been gently fluttering down from the trees, stopped in mid-air as if frozen, suspended and still, a sparrow flying from tree to tree stopped in a wing beat, unmoving. His companions stood like waxworks in a museum, unblinking, stony-faced. Flintock was kneeling tending the bound girl, Llewel was just standing there keeping his distance, his head twisted and his eyes peering into the distance as if he were looking for an escape route and Tryg motionless sorting out the last of the fire, licks of flame suspended mid-air, unmoving.
Rubbish, Tom thought, now what have I done? He sat down sharply,
“Wand away,” he said and hoped for some inspiration.
Tom was alone and yet surrounded by people. He needed to do something, but he didn’t know what, he needed some help and advice but didn’t know who to trust. He knew his dad would know what to do but, as usual, he wasn’t there. But that had been his life up to now. Flintock was his best bet, he was sure he could trust him and equally sure he would not trust Llewel.
“Wand," he said. He went over to where Flintock was kneeling and motionless, pointed his wand and envisioned him moving again. Tom nearly jumped out of his skin when Flintock stood up again as if nothing had happened and looked around.
“How did you get here? You were outside a second ago.”
Then he saw the others, all frozen in time, saw the leaves suspended in mid-air, saw the look of fear on Tom’s face, looking at Tom he stuttered.
“How? How did that happen?”
“I don’t know, it just did,” Tom replied.
“Has it happened before?”
“I don’t know, it might have done, I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell the others,” they said in unison.
“We need to work out what and how this happened, keep it to ourselves, Llewel is already both jealous and suspicious about you and your power,” continued Flintock.
“Why would he be jealous?”
“Because you are already doing things that some elders could not do. I think you have an amazing and inherent gift, you are your father’s son, your father is a very great and powerful wizard who has chosen a different path to many, he could and should be a High Elder, if not the Elder, but has chosen not to be. Llewel thinks, and it’s important you don’t let on I’ve told you this, he thinks you are not who you claim but another powerful wizard appearing as a boy, also, he neither likes nor trusts your father.”
Tom didn’t know now what to say, he really didn’t understand, so he just said nothing. He didn’t know his father, but the last bit did not help his ongoing relationship with Llewel the stupid Elder!
“But I assure you, you can trust me, I have in these few days been both amazed by you and grown fond of you, I have always counted your father as a true friend, I will make sure that we get through this without anyone, especially you, coming to any harm, we will deliver the ring and then we’ll find your father.”
Tom nodded in appreciation at his candidness. He was still scared though, even more scared as he knew that he no longer had the ring to protect him.
“But what about this, it looks like a trap to me, what do we do now?”
Not very reassuringly, Flintock said, “Actually, I haven’t a clue.”
Flintock didn’t need long to consider the next move. Out of the air stepped Asmodeus, wand pointed directly at Flintock and Tom.
“One move Flintock and your dead," Asmodeus snarled.
“Well, greetings to you Dark Elder Asmodeus.”
“My title is High Elder Asmodeus you pathetic excuse for a wizard.”
“I suppose this little charade is your doing?” said Flintock.
“Yes, clever little ruse just to slow you down long enough that I could pinpoint where you were and arrive before you left. Of course,” he moved his head slightly in the direction of the two men, "they didn’t tie the girl up and she didn’t beat them up, stupid peasants are so easy to manipulate into believing what you want them to believe. I’m keeping you at the end of my wand because I know I can’t hurt the boy while he has the ring. You boy give me the ring.”
Tom stepped forward gingerly, took the ring off and gave it to Asmodeus.
“Well, that was much easier than I thought, it seems that I am in pathetic company, the boy is no better than his father.”
A flash of light emitted from his wand which knocked Flintock off his feet and about ten feet backwards, landing heavily on the ground with a violent crack.
“That was for your insolence. Oh, forgetting my manners, thank you Thomas son of Llewellyn.”
Asmodeus did a mock bow and then stepped backwards and disappeared to wherever he had come from.
Tom rushed to where Flintock had landed. He had landed badly and had a compound fracture of a bone in his forearm. Flintock moaned, so Tom and his wand started to work. He envisioned the bone back under the skin, then slowly imagined the bones knitting together and the skin healing. Flintock was mended within about ten minutes and sat up.
“Well thank you, your healing powers are amazing. But why did you give over the ring so quickly without even an argument, you know he couldn’t hurt you all the time you had the ring. I take it the ring is back on your finger as usual?”
“No,” said Tom, “it's not. He has the ring.”
“NO! This is a disaster, quick, release the others from your time freeze, we must tell Llewel all that has happened and warn them at the Castell y Blaenoraid.”
“No,” said Tom, it’s alright the ring is in safe hands. Just don’t tell Llewel.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Just don’t worry, it’ll be okay, I promise, just keep this as a secret between us.”
“Don’t worry!” he said, voice rising to a falsetto, “Asmodeus has the ring, and you say it will be okay!”
“He hasn’t, he just thinks he has the ring. The ring is safe, believe me, please trust me on this, the ring is safe, it’s just that I don’t have it now and neither does whoever you said that was, have it either.”
“What do you mean you haven’t got it and he hasn’t got it? Where is it?”
“I can’t tell you, it’s just safe. Believe me.”
Tom then took one of his spare curtain rings out of his pocket and again, re-imagined it to look exactly like the ring of the elders.
“There, no one need ever know.”
“You're smarter than you look,” he said smiling at Tom, “now, what do we do about this lot?”
“I’m not sure, if this is what happened last time, then it just sorts itself out.”
“What do you mean, last time?”
“Another secret for you to keep, I think. This morning at breakfast I went to my room and then came back to breakfast, how long was I gone?”
“Only about a minute, why?”
“I was gone twenty minutes at least.”
“What? How? What were you doing in there?”
“Can’t tell you, I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“You’ve got to trust me.”
“And you’ve got to trust me,” said Tom, “I can’t tell you yet...... but I will when I can.”
The leaves began to flutter down, the sparrow continued in its travels, first the girl, then the two lads and finally, but only a split second later, Llewel and Tryg re-animated again.
“Right,” Llewel said as if nothing had happened “where are we, what are we doing, what’s going on?” He seemed a little confused, but once the girl and the two lads started shouting at each other, Llewel tried to take command again.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted, “stop at once, all of you," he paused, he continued, "right, what’s been going on?”
The three started shouting and pointing at each other, each accusing the others of doing something.
Flintock intervened.
“Quieten down, all of you and listen. Whatever you think happened probably didn’t happen, someone may have, and we don’t know who, but probably a mischievous imp,” he fibbed, “has befuddled you and left the scene. It’s a good job we came along when we did, as we probably scared him off, or you all might have died or at least been robbed. So, stop shouting and let’s sort this all out,"
“Staff," said Tom.
He held his staff aloft, a blue hazy light emitting from his gemstone and the house began to put itself in order. The thatch was restored, the broken furniture rebuilt, all the spilt and knocked over broken pots and crocks came together again, the plates and cooking utensils returned to where they should be, and an aura of peace descended over the whole place.
“There,” he said, “sorted.”
“I was just about to do that,” lied Llewel, “I do wish you would stop interfering, and stop doing magic you don’t understand. You could be putting yourself and all those around you in danger. I neither know nor understand how you know so much, it is most unnatural, so you should stop now and don’t do any more until you have been taught how to properly control it.”
“Anyway,” he said loudly, trying to take control again, pretending to all that he had both sorted out everything and that it was all under his control, “everything seems to be in order now, so we had best be getting on our way. Good day to you all, good day.”
“But,” Tom started, “the two lads are still not healed, and we haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“Well, we really haven’t the time to linger here, healing peasants and eating the few scraps of food they may have. No, we must move on, now!” his voice raised at the end to make the point.
“You go if you want to,” said Tom, “I’m staying until these people are properly sorted out and well enough to fend for themselves again.”
“You will do as you are told, young man. I am in charge here, not you; I say when we move on, and that is right now!”
“Well,” retorted Tom, again in his best Welsh accent again, “you are not the boss of me, I don’t belong in this world anyway, so I don’t have to do anything you say anyway.”
....and with that, Tom disappeared!