Standing outside the huge doors to the inner chamber made Freder very nervous, even the solid presence of his mentor Stannous ahead of him was of little comfort. He was remembering Stannous’ tutorial on how to conduct himself in the presence of the ruling council , ‘everyone present is a master so always address them as such, all except Miranda Bluesky, she is the Master Supreme. You’ll know her, don’t worry, you’ll know her.’
Now his mentor placed his left hand on the ornate plate on the lefthand door and closed his eyes, concentrated, then laughed.
“Cunning old dogs, they’ve added a non metal rod that has to be actuated via a third party. That’ll play havoc with some of the young whippersnappers access rights. If you aren’t good enough to get past the door then you aren’t good enough to speak before the council, that’s their mindset.” He added with a darker expression on his face. “But this is child’s play.”
The lock clicked and buzzed as Stannous caused its intricate workings to obey him and the door gave under his gentle push. He marched forward into the gloomy space, lit only by a single brazier in the centre of the room where they came to a halt, Freder on the right side of it, Stannous on the left. Freder could dimly make out faces all around them and made an effort not to look but to ‘see’ by closing his eyes and letting his aura react to those around him. It was as if the room were brightly lit, for every single person present had a rich pulsing aura of a bluish colour. Some had fringes of red and orange, a small number purple streaks, but most were blue fringed with green. Someone gave his aura a prod and he was tempted to swing round to identify the culprit but Stannous had drilled him into standing quite still and quiet.
“In the beginning man saw only by the light of the fire.” A woman’s voice intoned.
“Then came the man with the good arm and the strong sight and he lit our way forward.” Stannous answered her formally and held out his left hand where a coruscating ball of blue light sprang into life.
All around the chamber the same thing happened and the gloom was dispelled to reveal the richness of their surroundings. Tier upon tier of seats clad in the richest of gold and silver decoration rose from the central arena where they stood. Beside each seat a pedestal carried the balls of cold fire as long as the master kept his or her hand upon the chair armrest. Freder wanted to crane his head back and look up to the great chandelier that was also illuminated by the efforts of the students who remained outside the hall, but he kept his eyes upon the woman in the front rank ahead of him.
Her fiery red hair spilled down over her slender shoulders, held back from her face by a silver diadem that looked like a snake curling about itself with a large topaz set within its gaping jaws. Her face was narrow, cheekbones prominent, lips narrow and set in a disapproving line. But what captivated Freder most about her was her eyes, almost green in colour, they bored a hole right through him and out beyond where his aura lay naked to her gaze. Miranda Bluesky, Master Supreme.
“I bring you Freder.” Stannous announced to the assembled masters. “Freder Stormrider.” He added dramatically and then as the room exploded with shouts and loud protest, took his own seat in the front row.

To Freder, who was literally at the centre of this storm, it was a terrifying moment. Stannous had left him in the middle of a shouting mob but he could not, indeed must not move. The man to the left of the brooding Master Supreme leapt to his feet.
“This is an outrage ! None but a master may take a name in the brotherhood and that name, by the Lords, that name in particular.”
Freder cringed within but kept himself from flinching, he kept rolling the chant that Stannous had taught him over and over in his head. Deep inside himself there was a place of calm, detached from the howling physical world about him, there he retreated and waited. Within this cocoon of his aura he could ‘see’ the excited babble around him as flashes of emotional colour in the pale auras of all these masters. There to his left were the calming blues of Stannous, the first aura that he had learned to recognise, and ahead of him the red tinged green blue of the speaker. But all of them were just pale wraiths before the aura of Miranda. The intense blue flickered and pulsed as she ‘tasted’ the argument that boiled around her, then licked out in a silent shout that stilled all the voices.
“Do you name yourself Stormrider ?” She asked Freder directly, her voice low and husky.
“I…I…I.” He stammered.
“Speak.” She commanded quietly, but undeniably.
Her authority cut through his stuttering indecision.
“My name is Freder Adams Master Supreme.”
“Then you did not summon the storm that broke the Stone ?”
“They say I did Master Supreme.”
“Indeed.” Her musing comment was directed at Stannous.
As her gaze fell back onto Freder so did her encircling aura, probing, seeking, overpowering. It was as though he was in the heart of a raging cold fire that burned his mind and soul. He began to panic, nowhere to run, no way to hide. In his anxious state he failed to notice the small itch that began to grow between his shoulder blades. To the assembled masters it was as though the brilliant eldritch glow that encased Freder became blotched with a palsy of black spots that rapidly pulsed and grew to allow angry violet edged shafts of black to blast outwards. Within moments the shafts had all merged and they faced an explosion of the darkness that pierced everyone present as the dark aura shredded the fire of Miranda’s own.
“Freder, Freder.” A gentle hand gripped his left arm. “Easy lad, there was no harm meant to you.”
His eyes focussed upon Stannous’ face close to his own as the master crouched down before him.
“We need no storm here, you are among friends I assure you. That’s it, calm, calm.” He spoke quietly and the storm of Freders emotions quietened as he drew in regular breaths and his racing pulse slowed, his panic receding.
“Good lad. Feeling better now ?”
Freder nodded and Stannous grinned back at him then winked.

“Good show Freder, bloody good show.” Stannous murmured then stood and turned around to face Miranda, her face a mixture of shock and ire, but before she could vent that outrage he spoke.
“I believe the old rhyme goes ‘tread lightly ‘round a dark ones head lest you see the land o’ the dead’.” He said lightly, but then adopted a serious tone. “Freder has an especially powerful talent, he has a true dark aura and, as yet, it is not his to control. I would urge you all to respect Freder and do not do anything that will provoke a strong emotional response as this seems to activate a self defence.”
“You might have enlightened us of this earlier.” Miranda told him stonily.
“I might have.” He agreed with a nod. “But I was observing protocol.” He concluded putting all his distaste for the overformal nature of meetings in that one word. “Perhaps we would be better served by a more free flowing agenda, could I suggest that Freder describes to you how he came to ‘enter’ our world and how his own differs so markedly from our own.”
The grumbling dissent that started at his words was quickly stilled by Miranda’s response.
“Agreed.” She assented coldly and looked back to Freder. “Begin.”
The story of how the lightning had seemed to chase Freder and his brother across the park before a near strike precipitated them into this world was listened to in absolute silence. However when he began to describe all the normal paraphernalia of his world, cars, planes, TV, phones, shouts of disbelief and derision erupted anew causing him to falter into silence.
A lone figure stood up in one of the higher tiers and silently made his way through the unruly turmoil to enter the arena unbidden, a young man of slight build and diffident manner. He faced Miranda and bowed.
“Master Supreme.”
“Yes master Brookwyrde.”
“Bookwyrme.” Someone catcalled and caught a scowl from Miranda.
“Freder is not the first dark aura to be known to the brotherhood.” He addressed them in a lecturing tone. “There have been three before now and all bore the name Stormrider.”
Stannous nodded approvingly at the revelation.
“The boy’s no master.” Came a shout.
“The founder of our brotherhood was the first dark aura.” Simon the Brookwyrde continued unphased by the heckler. “It is written of him that he came from another world, a world where he could speak to anyone though they were thousands of miles distant and he could cross continents in a day in a flying machine.”
“Myths and exaggeration.” The voice retorted.
“Really ?” Simon said in a knowing way. “And what of the galvanist’s latest invention, the galvanic semaphore ? Doesn’t it allow communication between two persons at a distance ?”
The revelation quietened many a potential protest.
“Moreover there is the enigma of Johannes Stormrider.” Simon said looking slowly around the assembled masters. “He declared himself a master elect, but not one master had ever set eyes upon him before and there was but one House in existence. There are tales from that time that seem wild beyond belief but he too possessed a dark aura and his vanquishing of the nemesis known as the dark one without breaking his oath is still without resolution.”
He paused to hear any dissent, there was none, he had expected none.

“In one aspect all the dark auras have been similar, they came at a time of great upheaval for the Brotherhood.”
Stannous bowed slightly to the other master for his contribution and took up the lead again.
“Thank you Simon.” He said politely and then pointed a sharp finger up towards those who had decried loudest against Freder’s description of his own world. “Did you not sight our young friend as he spoke ? He uttered no lie. I do not comprehend the world he describes but I do not deny it.” He paused to turn back towards Miranda.
“Perhaps we should discuss this and, ahhh, other pressing matters while our young friend Freder is properly assessed as a prelude to his formal application to join our brotherhood.” He suggested.
Miranda gave a gesture of assent, in this at least she agreed with Stannous, it was essential that they have an accurate assessment of the boy’s power, his potential, before they made any decision about his future. The other matter that Stannous tactfully stepped around in the boy’s presence, what to do about his twin brother, was indeed not a matter for his young ears. She sent a questing tendril around the hall and found the master she sought. Stannous sensed the movement as the master got to her feet and descended into the brightly lit arena, Catherine Deepsight, the finest of their seers. He approved and turned to greet her with a polite bow.
“Freder.” He said as the boy watched the woman. “This is master Catherine Deepsight. She will assess your talent more fully than I have. Don’t be afraid, it won’t be like the Master Supreme’s probing.” He added when a frightened look crossed Freders face. “I’ll see you later after the meeting is over. Okay ?”
Freder nodded, at least this new master didn’t look threatening or awesome, she was scarcely a head taller than himself and rather rotund. Her straight brown hair was gathered into a simple ponytail and her round face and full lips were smiling at him warmly. But what set him at ease were her eyes of blue that did not look through him and beyond, they looked at him and they twinkled.
“Freder.” She addressed him in a high clear voice. “Shall we leave them to their discussions and discover the real you ?”
She held out her lefthand to him, not as a greeting but clearly for him to take. With a shy smile he nodded and took her warm hand and together they left the silent but agitated chamber of masters. Almost as soon as they crossed the threshold of the hall and the doors closed behind them Freder felt the tension of all those powerful auras ease and fade. Catherine hummed quietly as she led him through the serpentine maze of near deserted corridors of the complex past many ornate doors of wood and bright metals. No harsh static buzz filled the ether here, no manmade electrical noise that there had been at home, he felt more comfortable in this totally strange place than he had done there. Occasionally a part open door would allow him to register the presence of another’s aura but it was like passing through a waft of scent, pleasant and non-threatening.

Though he did not know it Catherine was already assessing him, her aura in gentle contact with his, shadowing it and how it reacted to their surroundings. She had witnessed how his aura had shrunk as he left the chamber, dwindling to insignificance now he was relaxed. Little wonder the first sighting of Freder had led to the suspicion that he was a plant of the Hand, it was almost undetectable in this dormant state and almost entirely dark. Yet that seeming lack of an aura should have alerted the master for even the most righthanded individual had a colourful aura of reds and yellows that was clearly visible to anyone with even a hint of the sight.
“Here we are.” She announced stopping outside a simple wooden door that bore only two ornaments, a lock panel of gold and silver and a carved wooden cat with large luminous eyes.
“The wags in this madhouse gave me that along with my nickname of Catseyes.” She told him pointing to the cat. “Now a little test for you Freder, open the door.” She added with a little twinkle in her eyes.
Freder looked at the ornate panel and the simple latch beside it, he hadn’t a clue how to operate the lock and something in Catherine’s manner told him he didn’t need to. He reached for the latch and gingerly lifted it. The door swung open before him.
“Bravo.” Catherine clapped her hands. “My door is never locked Freder, remember that if you need someone to talk to.”
Freder smiled back shyly, it was good to have someone he felt comfortable with.
Catherine walked into her room with Freder at her heels gawping around the Aladdins cave revealed all about him. Little pieces of gold and silver hung on hair thin wires or inside glass tubes of iridescent hues. Minute vanes stood motionless inside crystal globes beside massive brass balls on ruby red poles. Every surface was covered by a glittering, glistening mass of implements in a wonderful chaos. Remarkably the two chairs in this room were free of any of the encroaching apparatus and the little table standing between them held just one item. It was a glass case perhaps 20cms tall and 10cms on a side, a silver disc protruding from its top and within the case a curving scale with strange markings upon it. Peering through the bluish glass Freder could see a thin wafer of gold pointing to the lowest symbol on the scale.
“What is this ?” He asked her, carefully not touching it.
“Shall we find out ?” Catherine asked rhetorically with a smile. “Please sit down Freder.”
Although her manner was not dominating Freder began to feel uneasy, he wasn’t good at tests and this situation looked like a test. Catherine sat down opposite him.

“You know that you possess a talent don’t you ?”
He nodded.
“What I would like to do is to explore that talent with you Freder; discover it’s limits but most of all reveal to you just what you are capable of.” She began. “It’s not a test, I won’t be marking you, try to relax.”
“Okay.” He said still nervous but attempting not to get worked up.
“I would imagine that your talent is still very new to you, perhaps it even frightens you that you can do things but not really control them.”
“Yes, it’s really spooky to be told you can see invisible auras and the energy thing is…is.” He faltered into silence remembering the enthralling power of the energy stream flowing through him, but the chill of what he had done with it.
Catherine watched as his aura flared and subsided as he spoke and fell silent, it was responding to his emotional state and that was a very dangerous condition.
“Assessment is the first step towards understanding your talent Freder, with understanding comes the ability to control. With control comes responsibility. You are young but you know right from wrong, your talent could do great harm if misused Freder. We in the Brotherhood of the Good Arm will help you to use your talent for the good of all, even those who would do you harm.” She told him solemnly.
As she spoke Freder sensed her aura as it pulsed and flickered through the ether, an indigo blue sensation shot through with almost black rays, or so his mind interpreted the strange new information.
“Everyone has an aura Freder.” She said almost as though reading his mind. “My particular talent is to ‘see’ another’s aura in greater depth and detail than other masters can. It is how I can tell what you will be able to achieve. Can you see my aura ?” She asked him her blue eyes staring deeply into his but seeing through him and beyond.
“If I close my eyes I can do it.”
“You can see an aura with your minds eye Freder, you can see mine.” She said in a low voice as she saw his aura shift and flicker.
“Did Stannous teach you the chant ?”
“Yes.”
“Use the chant. Look at me, see beyond me, look at my aura.” She bade him.
Freder silently rolled the chant through his mind, the chant that took him out of the physical world and into the calm centre that unlocked his inner eye. Before his gaze the room seemed to fade into a gauzy insubstantial background and he looked through Catherine to her aura. It was a magnificent dark blue as large as the twilight sky with fierce purples rippling through it and dark, dark rays blazing out of it, it was terrifyingly beautiful, his mind quailed and ‘looked’ aside. That was when he noticed that although the physical presence of the room had faded, many of the cluttered objects had not; they glowed with pale blues, greens, mauves and purples, like little auras.

“Why do they glow ?” He asked as his sight roved freely over them, receiving little tingles, silver and mercurial.
Catherine was sighting him alone and had effectively ignored all these signals from the doodads all about her but his question brought them into sharp focus, the boy could ‘see’ the lingering presence of the last holder. What incredible sensitivity !
“Echoes Freder. Echoes of the aura of the last person to touch them, what do you see ?”
“Most are bluish, there’s some with flashes of green and purple and, oh ! That one has violet.” He said, his voice dropping to a pained whisper
Catherine knew just which implement Freder had ‘seen’. It had been the very one that Miranda Bluesky had toyed with as they had discussed the latest potential novices just a week before. Freder had her powerful aura fresh in his mind from her rash probing of him.
“I know her.” He said darkly. “That’s the Master Supreme.”
Catherine saw him wrap his arms around himself and cringe as he remembered the ill considered probe by Miranda.
“She was hurting me.” He whispered his eyes beginning to fill with tears.
“Freder.” Catherine called to him softly through his distress and he looked up from his misery. “It was not meant to hurt you, but you are so sensitive.”
“She never even said sorry.” He said sullenly, refusing to forgive the assault on his spirit.
“No, I’m afraid adults sometimes don’t, even when they should.” She replied, but didn’t tell him that his spontaneous response had almost certainly hurt Miranda as much, not to mention what it had done to her position.
“Freder it is not good to dwell on such things and you should know about your aura, that is why you are here.”
He looked back with renewed interest and rubbed the tears away.
“You are a natural seer, like me, many would have missed those faint echoes on my little toys, even fewer would have had the sensitivity to recognise the subtle flavours of the last subjects aura upon them.”
“That’s good then ?” He enquired.
“Oh yes, very good. The Brotherhood always has need of those who can sight a potential novice.”
“Oh.” Freder said with a smile, he had never been told he was better than anyone before.
“I’d like to see how well you can sight a live aura, look at mine.”
He was once again painfully aware of her aura all too clear to his minds eye, he was frightened by it and Catherine could see the agitation on his face and sense it in the palpitations of his own aura.

“Don’t be afraid, just look and tell me what you see.” She told him softly.
His eyes looked and then looked beyond her as his aura touched hers for a fleeting instant and shied away.
“Dark.” He said quietly. “Dark blue, purples, sharp purples and black rays so dark.”
“Yes Freder, you have seen me now. Do I frighten you ?”
“No.”
“But my aura does ?”
“Yes.”
“My aura and I are one and the same Freder, is there anything to fear ?”
His eyes refocused upon the small chubby woman opposite him, so friendly, and yet.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Let’s move on. Touch the Aumeter.” She prompted him pointing at the instrument on the table between them.
This at least was not a threatening presence and he reached over to touch the silver disc on top, but the indicator remained quite still.
“That’s odd.” She frowned as he removed his fingers and touched the disc herself, immediately the gold leaf sprang upwards on its pivot. “Nothing wrong there, try again.”
Nothing, not even a quiver. Catherine scratched her head in bemusement then thought of another more sensitive device and went over to her cluttered workbench to rummage through the delicate constructs.
“Ahh here we are.” She said lifting a rosy coloured glass globe on a pedestal that held a cross of little gold and silver flags upon a pivoted rod. The flags began to slowly rotate as she carried back to the table in both hands and set it down before him.
“Let’s try this Freder. Everyone with a good arm generates a cross flow from left to right.” She said cheerily. “Just wrap your hands around it.”
The little flags that had been steadily turning in Catherine’s grip now slowed and halted within his.
“How very odd.” She commented with a puzzled frown, then looked up from the globe. “This is most strange. You have a very powerful aura, we all saw it and felt it in the chamber and yet these instruments can’t detect your good arm at all. It doesn’t make sense.”
Sitting back in her chair she pushed a hand through her hair and pursed her lips while she thought about what to do next. Then she opened her mouth as if to speak but bounced up and was back at her bench pawing through the delicate devices, hunting for one very specific item.
“Ah-hah.” She announced happily and lifted a long milky coloured tube with a tripod stand at one end and a golden ball at the other. “I haven’t used this in ages.” She confided setting it on the floor next to him. “We get so few candidates who can spark it into life but it may be that you are one of the rare ones Freder, a lightning thrower.”
That sounded very interesting to an insecure young boy who had suffered at the hands of bullies and tormentors.

“To get this to light you need to tap into a deep vatenloeker for energy, I think you’ve done that before haven’t you ?”
“The punishment parade in the stone, there was something underground, like a river of moving silver. Like that ?”
“Yes.”
“Bu..bu..but I don’t know how I did it.” He stammered when faced with the challenge.
“Don’t try to think how Freder. First use the chant to calm yourself, then look down below us there are many vatenloeker there.”
Freder closed his eyes and began the chant and almost immediately felt calmer and more confident.
“Look for the vatenloeker, do you see them ?” Catherine’s voice drifted to him as though over some vast distance.
There they were, so bright and alive he wondered how he hadn’t seen them before when he had seen the faint aural echoes all around him on the myriad instruments. All he had to do was to reach out to them…. His aura bloomed massively and plunged downwards, inadvertently disturbing three other auras in the process, it drove through the dark rock which sparkled a little to his etheric sense as it passed through and immersed itself in the first stream. He laughed in delight at the wonderful tingles that permeated him as he ‘drank’ the abundant energies and he wondered what the others felt like and reached for them too. Each had its own unique flavour, its own tinkling song of electrons and he was deeply submerged in so many that his being sang their song of power.
In the cluttered room the Aumeter indicator had banged into its endstop then bent around it and finally been ripped off its delicate spindle. The little flags in the glass globe were a blur of motion before they too flew off and welded themselves to the inside of the ball. The arrays of brass balls were bobbing up and down insanely on their ruby rods casting off streamers of electric fire that flashed and hummed across the room.
“Oh !” Catherine gave a little squeal of surprise as her hair broke free from her hairband and formed a frizzy pompom around her head.
“Cat ?” A voice enquired from outside the door. “Cat are you alright in there ?”
The door latch clicked and a head poked around it just as Freder grabbed the golden ball and flooded the room with intense blue white light.
“Oww !” The head complained and ducked behind the heavy wood.

The shout broke Freders entranced detatchment and he lost contact with the vatenloeker. The brass balls came clattering down on top of each other and he opened his eyes in time to see Catherine’s wayward frizz of hair subside back down around her astonished face.
“Sorry.” He murmured as she ran a hand through her hair to smooth it back into place.
The head re-appeared with watering eyes.
“This the dark one then ?” The newcomer asked rhetorically.
“Oh, hi Jake. Yes this is Freder. Freder I’d like you to meet Jake Lightning Arm.”
The tall figure entered the room fully and towered over Freder, offering him his left arm. Rather shyly Freder took it as the stranger looked him up and down.
“You’re tall lad, how old are you ?”
“Eleven master.”
The bushy eyebrows over the deep blue eyes lifted, wrinkling the large forehead and pushing back the receding grey hair even further.
“Eleven, I’d have put you at fourteen or fifteen at least. Big for your age then ?”
“Not really, at home most of my class are as tall as me or taller.”
Jake looked at him with a dubious expression.
“You weren’t at the meeting.” Catherine said.
“Waste of time meetings.” He snorted derisively. “Egos being massaged while we’re being hunted down in near every shire in Britannia. We need less talk and more action Cat.” He fumed.
“You might have found this meeting was one you should have attended.” Catherine interjected before Jake could get seriously started on his hobby horse. “Freder told us of his arrival in Britannia and also what his homeland was like.”
“And where is that ?” Jake asked, only mildly interested.
“A place where they fly at great speed and can talk beyond continents, a place not of our world.” Catherine told him seriously.
“Other worlds ? That old nonsense ! He’s a boy with a strong talent, no need to turn to the old myths to explain him Cat.”
“A unique talent and aura Jake, look at his aura.”
Jake paused a moment to look through Freder to the beyond and frowned.
“I can barely sight him, just a darkness.”
“A true dark aura and he generates no cross current.” She said pointing to the Aumeter. “It doesn’t even twitch when he touches it.”
“Not surprised.” Jake chuckled. “This won’t ever twitch again.” He said holding up the ruins of the Aumeter and handing it to Catherine who looked at it in dismay.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to break it.” Freder said quietly.

Placing the Aumeter back on the table she reached over to him and stroked his arm.
“You aren’t to blame Freder, your talent is untrained, you can’t control it yet. I should not have asked you to seek the deep sources. Don’t worry this can be fixed.”
Jake opened his mouth to disagree but a sharp look from Catherine made him hold his peace; Freder didn’t need any further guilt piled onto him even if the Aumeter was an irreparable wreck. If anyone was going to be blamed it was herself for not being careful enough in his assessment.
“I asked Freder to try lighting the spire here.”
“Oh he did that alright.” Jake avowed.
“I should have selected a source for him and not let him touch a powerful one.”
“More than one I would think Cat, there were streamers crawling over the walls of the corridor, it’s what brought me here.”
“Oh, I was concentrating on Freder.”
“So what’s your verdict ?”
“He must be offered a place in the Brotherhood, and not an ordinary novices position either. His talent is too powerful to be left untutored. He must be taught by our best masters in all the disciplines.”
“All ?”
“All Jake. I don’t think there is a single one that he will not excel in.”
“Miranda’s not going to accept that, she is a strict adherent to precedent.”
“Damn precedent.” Catherine said with unexpected heat. “She’ll accept my assessment or find another for the job.”
Jake grinned down at her and turned to Freder.
“No pussycat our Cat, I look forward to teaching you to harness the power of the heavens Freder.” He said with a broad smile. “And maybe I should catch the rest of this meeting, we might just be about to do something.”
As his rangy figure left the room Catherine looked around the room wondering how many other delicate instruments had suffered the same fate as the Aumeter, but that was for later.
“Are you hungry ?”
“A bit.”
“Let’s go to the refectory and then we must find you a bed.”
“Okay.” Freder answered but looked around at the bent and burnt out instruments, their aural echoes seared away now.
“Forget them Freder. I needed to assess you. If this is the price, so be it, it was worth the paying. You’ll be master-elect by years end or I’ll give up my name.” She said with smile and laid a friendly arm around him. “Come on.”
The refectory was run by a jolly woman who took one look at Freder and set out a mouthwatering selection of dishes, just right for a growing boy. As they ate at one end of the two long tables that ran the length of the lofty hall Catherine gently coaxed more information from Freder, had he shown any signs of the good arm in his own world ? When was the first occasion that he experienced it since his precipitous arrival ? But of all his answers the one that most surprised and intrigued her was his admission that he was not naturally left handed, it was a consequence of a childhood injury that had impaired the fine control of his right hand. He pulled back his hair to show her the scar left by the metal spike.
“They said something about my brain being damaged so I had to relearn everything, even how to walk.” He told her. “I don’t really remember much I was too young.”
Catherine pondered this deeply. Perhaps this was at the root of Freder’s unique condition. The masters had long debated why it was that only lefthanded people ever showed signs of the good arm, had Freders accident made it possible for him to show such power ? Was his dark aura due to the loss of his righthand control ? She would need to speak to many other masters in the coming days to gain any answers.