Chapter 16 - Jon & Tom partner up.
Tom continued his training for many weeks, but now it was different. He was now accompanied by Jon into the training room each day. Jon was not much good at the magic bit, but now he had an added enthusiasm which helped the little magic he had become better each day. Jon was also, for a fifteen-year-old, a good strategist. So, for the different situations that their dad placed them in, Jon worked out what needed to be done and then they both executed the plan. Working as a team was great, and it helped Llewellyn’s problem which he had inadvertently caused by excluding Jon from his life, making him resent him, and his little brother Tom.
Tom was becoming more accomplished as a wizard and Jon was becoming quite the strategist. Llewellyn set out the various scenarios for them to practice. One of their first joint adventures was on the battlements of a castle, surrounded by a marauding horde of bandits.
Tom’s first approach was to feed positive and calming energy across the attackers and then have a talk with their leader about a peaceful outcome. Jon thought it was not the best plan, but if he wanted to try it, they could not come to any harm, so give it a go.
Tom stood upon the battlements, staff in hand. He calmed the mob and stopped all the jostling and jibbing, he then called down.
“I want to talk about a truce with your leader.”
Much to Jon's surprise, the leader stepped forward and agreed to talk. They went down to open the gate for a chat. Two minutes later they were hanging by their ankles in the castle dungeon.
“Not such a good idea after all,” said Jon.
Their dad reset the scene. They were back on the battlements. This time Jon took control, briefed some of the men of arms who were in their crow’s nests and lookout towers and called Tom to try again. Tom didn’t quite understand, but he again held his staff aloft and radiated peaceful and calming waves down onto the mob. Again, they all quietened down. This time their leader stepped out to the front and called up to Tom to ask if he wanted to discuss the terms of his surrender. But as he stepped forward, there was the swoosh of an arrow, and their leader was dead. The mob then fled. Tom was mortified. Jon had arranged for the leader to be assassinated in cold blood.
The scene dissolved into the classroom. Llewellyn was there waiting.
“Dad, how could he do that, he shot him in cold blood just as we were about to talk!”
“Well first, you must remember that in these scenarios, no one dies, no one gets hurt because they are not really there at all. Secondly, if Jon had not arranged for that little show of strength, you and he would have been back in the dungeon hanging up by your ankles again. Had the horde taken the castle, many would have died, but by taking out one man, all survived," he turned to address his other son, “Jon, although what you did may have saved many lives, there are other strategies which you both could have used to frighten off the attackers. Now, they are just men, not wizards, they have no magic and do not understand magic. Go again and go back with a better and different strategy in which no one gets hurt, or I may just leave you hanging by your ankles until breakfast tomorrow!”
With that, he disappeared, and the boys were back on the battlements.
“Now what?” said Tom, “what can we do that will frighten them off?”
“I dunno," was Jon’s reply, "what frightens people most apart from Mrs Glyn?” they both laughed at that suggestion. Although Jon had not met Mrs Glyn, he knew all about her from Tom, "Ghosts? The walking dead?” he continued.
“Well ghosts don’t exist, and we can’t empty the graveyard of corpses because that takes some very dark magic which no one is allowed to do.”
“Why not?”
“I dunno, I suppose, because raising the dead means there would be a lot of dead people walking around who would be hard to kill because they’re already dead, and because they wouldn’t know whose side they were on so they might come after us.”
“Is that true?” Jon asked.
“No idea, just made it up, but it sounds reasonable to me.”
“Okay, no walking dead, so what do we do Tom?”
“I’m thinking, what about you? Any thoughts?”
Jon was thinking out loud, “If only we had a Dragon, that would scare the what-sits out of them.”
“Mmmm," said Tom, “we could always get one.”
“Where from?”
“The fires in the castle!” said Tom clutching the stone of his staff, he concentrated on the ruby element. He envisioned a dragon made of fire, breathing fire. Through the power of the ruby in his staff, all the fires in the castle suddenly flared up and he drew up the flames to form the dragon, weaving the blazes to form a body about forty feet long, golden in colour like burnished bronze with fire spraying from his mouth with every breath. The dragon launched off the battlements and flew around the castle, flames whooshing out of its mouth over the heads of the marauding horde. They turned on their heels and fled to a man. The dragon circled around and dived among them until they were over the hill and out of sight. Then the dragon vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Jon and Tom looked at each other, smiled and high fived. The scene dissolved and they were back in the room.
“Well done you two, another successful quest, even if it did take three attempts. Right, Tom, you’re on supper duty, Jon is going for flying lessons in the gym. Tom exited the classroom just as it was transforming into the massive padded flying hall.
To start with Jon was no better than Tom. It took him a full first evening just to get off the ground, his flying training was taking place late afternoon and early evening after a day’s training with Tom, so he was tired already. He was bouncing off the ceiling, walls, and floor. Eventually, he managed to fly without crashing, stopping when required, turning, climbing, diving and general manoeuvres, but all at a slower rate than his thirteen-year-old brother. He was just too tired to concentrate fully on his flying.
Several days later, it was into the woods, he had a full day in the woods on his own while Tom had lessons with his dad on incantations and dweomers. Just like his brother, it hurt. Jon bounced off trees, stumps, rocks and just about anything and everything else in his path. By the end of the day, he was blooded and sore.
He tried again the next day but was not much better, but after four days he was getting the hang of it.
Day five he met with the Cadwaladers, Lynessa and Traveon, Traveon took him to the cottage for tea and cakes and the normal pattern unfolded. Well nearly.
Mrs Cadwalader again produced her amazing wand, fashioned from the pencil thin fourth finger bone of a Golden Dragon’s wing with the pearlescent stone of the blind wizard’s false eye. Up she roared, looping, diving, whooping out loud, as she dodged around the trees at breakneck speed. Jon was transfixed, he was in awe of the fat old lady wizard’s flying skills.
“Wow Mrs Cadwalader, I wish I could fly like that, that was awesome!”
“Oh, I’m sure you could if you tried. Here take my staff and have a go.”
“But how?”
“Just believe that you can do it and the staff will do the rest.”
Jon mounted the staff, well stick really, he was afraid he might break it even though he weighed less than a quarter of what Mrs Cadwalader must.
Up he shot at what to him was an unbelievable speed, as soon as he cleared the treetops, he lost his nerve, stalled, and plummeted to the ground.
Traveon whipped out his wand, pointed at the ground where Jon would hit and it instantly turned to a sponge-like texture, but without any change in appearance. So, when Jon hit it, he was expecting to die or something, but instead, he sunk into what felt like a huge soft, comfortable bed of feathers.
Mrs Cadwalader pretended to snatch her staff out of the air as it returned to her, in fact, of course, it had never left her.
“There, there my deary, that wasn’t quite what we were wanting, but at least you’re not hurt. So, let’s try again my dear. Don’t forget, the staff is not what makes you fly, it’s you who does it. You don’t need a staff to fly, it just feels better and gives better directional control. So next time you fall off, don’t plummet; float.”
Again, without Jon knowing she called out his staff transforming it, so it looked like hers, "Off you go again sweetheart. Don’t worry, that happens all the time. Nearly everyone falls off the first try.”
As soon as Jon was up and flying, she turned to her husband and said, “Well, that’s never happened before!”
Traveon just shook his head in disbelief.
Jon was better this time, not so fast, but he was steady, he weaved in and out of the trees, around stumps, through the brick arches of the orchard wall and away into the distance, all without hitting a thing. A few minutes later, he arrived back at the Cadwaladers.
“There, my dear that wasn’t too bad, was it?”
“But next time I won’t have the magic of your staff.”
“You didn’t that time, here’s my staff, look, you’re sitting on your own stick!” She laughed. Jon looked down, there was his staff, he had been tricked.
“But!” he exclaimed, but before he could say more, Mrs Cadwalader said.
“I don’t lend my wand to no one,” and laughed again.
“Go on. Off you go, you can do it, you just needs to practice till you gets a bit faster. Go on, off with you.”
“Thanks to both of you. I promise I’ll practice, and thanks for the tea and cake!” and off he shot, well, maybe not exactly shot, but off he went anyway. He flew around all the trees and other obstacles for about half an hour. As soon as he landed and his feet touched the ground, he was back in the training room. His dad was waiting.
“Well. How’d it go then?” his dad asked.
“It was alright I suppose. I met this weird old wizard lady and her husband, Mr and Mrs Cadwalader.”
Llewellyn interrupted, "They’re not weird, just different.”
“Well, she speaks weird, anyway she showed me a few tricks and then I could fly around all the time without hitting things or anything!” Jon exclaimed with excitement, “it’s just,” he hesitated, “I’m not that fast, but she said that would come with practice.”
“Excellent news, then we must make sure you practice two or three times a week in the woods until you are like greased lightning!”
“It was fun, so I will don’t worry.”
“I won’t," his dad said with a wink.
The scene changed; it was raining hard and drops of water ran off their heads and down over their faces. “Thanks dad,” they both thought. They found themselves hiding in a cold damp camp full of hostile dark wizards. In the distance Tom could see Asmodeus the Dark Elder, ranting, as usual, tiny flashes of lightning emitting from him as he became angrier and angrier. First thought, how had he known that that was Asmodeus? He was distant and dressed very differently from the Asmodeus he had met briefly earlier. The wand he decided, was feeding him wisdom.
He looked at Jon, "That’s Asmodeus over there, the flashy one.”
They both giggled quietly.
“Find the boy!” he shouted, “he is here, I can feel it. The boy has tricked me once with his false ring, but he won’t fool me again or he won’t live long enough to regret it!”
Fear struck at his heart. Tom was sweating despite the cold. Sweating so much he wondered if they could smell him. No, silly thought, he couldn’t even smell himself, so they couldn’t either.
They needed to make a break for it, they needed to run away, but there was too much light with all the fires and burning torches. Even if they ran, which way was safe? He could use magic to put all the torches and fires out, but then they would not be able to see either so they might run straight towards the enemy.
Another thought, he could use his power to send soothing waves of magic and then negotiate their way out. No, the last time he tried that, they both ended up in a dungeon, hanging by their ankles.
What about his bow? He could take out Asmodeus with a single arrow and escape in the confusion which would follow. Although he knew that Asmodeus was not a reality, it still went against his principles. He didn’t want to kill anyone, even if they were not truly real. Had he thought it through, he could, by concentrating on all the wizards, take them all out with a single arrow that would split to match the number of targets.
What about a fight to the death? Break cover, face them, fight them, and defeat them? No worst idea ever. There were too many of them and they hadn’t even had a proper ‘magic’ fight yet, so didn’t even know how to do battle. He couldn’t use the fire dragon trick again; they would know it was magic and counter it, or even turn it against them. He could use the old freeze time trick, but his dad would not be impressed with that. He couldn’t use that every time he was in trouble. He wished he were invisible, then he could just walk out of here.
Tom and Jon both knew that these were not real events, they knew they could come to no harm, but it was not just magic and imagery which formed these illusions, their father had woven into it real emotions, real fear, palpable consternation, and foreboding. In fact, terror and despair featured highly on their emotional scale.
Tom focused on his dad, and they dropped out of the enemy camp and back into the training room.
“What are you two doing back here? You can’t just pop home for a chat every time you’re stuck. You must go figure things out for yourselves. So, what’s wrong?”
“Dad, can we make ourselves invisible?” Tom asked.
“Yes, of course you can, but that’s for another lesson, it’s difficult to perform and even more difficult to hold it. So back!”
With that, they were indeed back. Asmodeus was still doing his flashy bit as he got angry, and they were still stuck in the enemy camp.
“Find the boy!” he shouted, “He is here, I can feel it. The boy has tricked me once with his false ring, but he won’t fool me again or he won’t live long enough to regret it!”
Oh, Tom thought, ‘we’re right back at the beginning again. Groundhog Day!’
“Well Jonathan Jones, now what do we do?” Tom asked. He now had a theory that his fifteen-year-old brother, being older and therefore wiser would instantly have some strategic advice.
“Not a clue, but I’m working on it. We are on slightly higher ground here and there’s a stream that runs through the camp. Using your emerald, you could stop the water further upstream and then release it suddenly, washing them all away.”
“How long would that take? It’s only a little stream we’d be here for hours before we had enough water to do anything. Anyway, they would notice if the stream suddenly stopped running by. I know I would,” replied Tom.
They really didn’t know the power of their stones. They could have, if they wished, conjure up an Olympic sized swimming pool of water or two and just dumped it on the camp. But they were acolytes, they were still learning.
“Right Tom, plan ‘B,’ we mount our staffs and skedaddle at high speed in different directions and outrun them?” his voice rising at the end to make it a question knowing that he wasn’t even convincing himself.
“No, they might have better flying skills, let’s face it, we only learnt ourselves within the last few days, they would have been flying for years.”
“Alright, Plan B revision 1,” Jon said with a little more conviction, “they will be looking behind things, in things and concentrating at ground level. If we fly straight up vertically into the sky until we are out of sight, then we just fly away. It’s dark, there’s no moonlight because of the rain, so we won’t need to go too high. What do you think?”
“Sounds like a plan bro," said Tom, “let’s give it a go. But before we do, we need camouflage, I’ll change our clothing and cloaks to black, pull your hood up and cover your shiny white face and don’t smile, your teeth will give us both away.”
Tom quickly envisioned and wove a spell making and remodelling their clothes and boots to a light-absorbing black. He pulled up his own hood right over his head so that it hid his face. Neither could see each other. Time to go. They stepped over their staffs and pushed off, but as they did, they were back in the training room.
“What!” exclaimed Jon, “what have we done wrong now?”
“Nothing, perfectly sound strategy, more than a ninety-five per cent chance of success, maybe even as high as ninety-nine.”
“Then why bring us back?”
“Simple, it’s supper time. You solved the problem, so why let supper spoil? And we need to talk about tomorrow.”
They sat down for supper, both the boys were hungry, they had worked hard today, they worked hard every day.
“So,” said Tom, “what’s happening tomorrow then?”
“You’re going to meet some real dragons tomorrow, and they might or might not be friendly. Tomorrow, as you walk through into the training room, you will actually apparate away and step straight into the Dragonlands of Trymyll.”
“What on our own? Up to now, it’s been sort of virtual reality, you mean this time we’ll actually be there?” Jon questioned warily.
“Oh yes, this time it’s for real, but don’t worry, I will be there with you, well, virtually anyway.”
“What do you mean by virtually dad?” asked Jon.
“I will be able to see everything that is happening from here and can be with you in the instant it takes me to apparate from here to there.”
“Well,” said Tom, now was his chance to ask a question which had been bothering him since his arrival, “well now we know where there is, but where is here?”
“We are deep, deep, underneath Blaenoraid, the capital of Trymyll.”
Tom had suspected as such, but now he knew.
“We are in a set of rooms which no one knows of which are inaccessible to all except us. There are only two ways in, there is a small door which is hidden by spells and enchantments deep in the bowels of the castle, or we apparate in, which is how I brought you here in the first place.”
“So, where’s the entrance then, the one we can’t see?” asked Tom.
“That, at the moment is privileged information.”
Tom dropped the subject and they carried on eating and talking.
The two boys chatted long into the evening, they decided to keep their dark black light-absorbing clothes and hoodies, they quite liked the look, a bit of a uniform. Unknown to their dad, they then started to recolour all their clothing to this shade. Llewellyn hadn’t noticed or said anything when they reappeared back in the training room before supper, so to them, that was his approval. While they worked, they chatted.
“So, Tom, what’s life like in Wales then? What do you miss most?”
“I miss my mates from school and rugby and all that, and of course I miss mum, but there’s not much else I miss.”
“Come on, there must be something you miss.”
“Chips,” was Tom’s reply, “I miss chips, burgers, and chocolate.”
“What are they then? Your mate's names?
“What!” exclaimed Tom, “Oh, I don’t suppose you’ve ever had any of them. No, they’re foods. I’ll try to explain, you won’t understand, but I’ll try.”
“I’m listening,” said Jon expectantly.
“Well, chips are potatoes which are cut into strips about as big as your finger and fried in hot fat until brown and crispy, you then put salt and vinegar on them and dip them in tomato sauce as you eat them.”
“Oh, so what’s so good about that then? Don’t sound that special to me,” Jon said.
“I said you wouldn’t understand. It’s not just food, it’s an experience. You buy them down the chippy and then walk to the park with your mates eating chips on a Saturday evening.”
“So?” Jon replied.
“What do you mean by ‘so.’ It’s great, it’s an event, a ritual, it’s life itself. It was our Saturday evening thing!”
“Well, it doesn’t sound that exciting to me. So, what’s chocolate?”
“Now chocolate cannot be explained. It’s an experience and a taste like no other. If chips are life itself, chocolate is better than life.”
“Don’t be daft, how can chocolate be better than life?”
“It can’t be explained. You must try it. If we ever get back home, no, when we get home, I’ll take you to the chippy, buy you a burger and chips, and then we’ll eat chocolate together. Only then will you know.”
Jon didn’t bother to enquire about a burger, if that was the best about home, he was better off here.
By the time they had finished their talking, they had a pile of black, light-absorbing clothes each. With a satisfied grin on their faces, they vowed to each other, in the way that kids of their age did, that they would, from this day forth, be known as the Boys in Black, or Boys of the Black, or The Wizards Black. They laughed as they came up with increasingly ridiculous names, the final one being Mighty Wizards of the Black Cloak. In the end, they decided to be Boys of the Black Hood. They thought it had street cred. Important when you’re thirteen and fifteen.