Freder entered the large refectory hall with Stannous and Catherine flanking him and goggled at the sight before him. The entire hall had been draped in decorations from the highest of the high hammer beams to the bases of the pillars that supported them. Balls of the blue light blazed in special sconces of intricate metalwork all around casting their luminous shifting light into every corner of the hall. Two long lines of tables stretched up each side of the hall to a single long high table at the far end. Up the central aisle they walked with masters and novices standing facing them; to Freder  the walk seemed to go on for ever. Then to his surprise they were standing before the high table and looking into the intense blue eyes of Miranda Bluesky.
“It is always a joyous day when we welcome the new novices into the Brotherhood.” She said to the assembled throng. “Normally we only have one such induction but in view of the exceptional circumstances and talent that Freder Adams brings to the Brotherhood we are holding this extra induction. Let our feast begin.”
There was an almighty banging of utensils upon the tables behind them that made Freder jump, the traditional start of any festivity in the hall.
“Stannous, Catherine and not least you, Freder. Come, join us here.” Miranda welcomed them to places beside her at the table.
Going around they took their places and food was quickly finding its way onto his plate. He didn’t know what half of it was but it smelled so good that he cast aside any suspicions and took helpings of whatever passed in front of him. Stannous placed a large golden goblet before him full of something spicy smelling.
“What’s that ?” Freder enquired eyeing the goblet.
“Spiced apple juice.” Stannous said and took a large swallow from his own goblet.
“And that ?” Freder asked again pointing to Stannous’ drink.
“Fermented spiced apple juice.” Stannous laughed.
Freder tried his own drink and found it very much to his liking.
“Do all the novices sit at this table then ?” He asked of Catherine as Stannous began to chat to another master.
“When they are accepted into the Brotherhood, yes. It gives everyone the chance to see them.”
Freder looked down the two lines of tables and saw that he was indeed the focus of a good many interested looks.
“Who’s that ?” He pointed to a particularly grizzled looking figure who seemed to be taking a great interest in him.
“Ragnar Longseeing. He was the seer at our house in Avebury until we had to abandon it thirteen years ago. I didn’t know he was here, he must have just arrived.”
“He was like you ?”
“Yes. It was very hard on him when the decision was taken, but the Hand were effectively blockading the house and it made no sense to try to maintain it. I was just a novice then. The Avebury masters were very bitter and they agitated to have a change of leadership. The Master Supreme…” Catherine hesitated as she felt Miranda’s presence stir beside her.
“I was not Master Supreme then Freder.” Miranda said in the pause. “That was my predecessor, Victor Strangethought. I succeeded him five years ago.”

Freder looked out over the many faces.
“He did not remain with us after the change. We don’t know what became of him. He wasn’t in the Stone.”
“What about the stone Miranda ?” Stannous joined the conversation.
“Victor.”
“Oh, no he definitely wasn’t there, never had been. He was far too strong and wily, the Hand would never have gotten him. I think he would have rather died than be captured by them.”
“Why do the Hand hate us so much ?” Freder asked them all, why had he been so persecuted by them ?
There was an exchange of looks and Miranda nodded slightly.
“It is a story that we do not have all the pieces of Freder.” She began. “We think the Righteous Hand has been in existence almost as long as the Brotherhood, there are cryptic references to a shadowy group in our archives. I think the first record dates back four hundred years when Britannia was still very feudal and the lords and barons held considerable power. We were not numerous in those days and we lived under the patronage of the baron Defort here in the House. The tale goes that our founder took these lands ‘by right of conquest’ from the local knight, Andrew de Mouronne, something of a thug by reputation. Adam Stormrider made an alliance with the baron Defort who held de Mouronne’s allegiance and secured our possession of the land but at the cost of making a lifelong enemy. It was a feud handed down from father to son and it peaked when the second dark aura, Johannes Stormrider, entered the Brotherhood. It seems that one Baldeau de Mouronne took an instant dislike to Johannes, a woman is rumoured to have been involved.” Miranda said with a wry smile. “Baldeau picked a fight with Johannes and as you can imagine came off the worst of it, humiliated before his peers. We think it was Baldeau that established this secret society that later emerged as the Hand. There was a long period when the Brotherhood prospered and we established houses in many counties in Britannia but nearly two hundred years ago the first conflicts with the Hand erupted. The de Mouronne’s had been agitating to have their lands restored and by that time the Defort family had fallen into disfavour at the royal court over some shady attempts to influence the succession to the throne. Then our people were attacked by a well organised gang who knew our strengths and our weaknesses. We had to close some of our houses because of their predatory tactics. That was a dark time Freder, but into it stepped the third dark aura, Wolfgang Stormrider; the Wolf as he became known amongst friend and foe alike. He was young they say, not yet in his majority but had a fearsome ability. Wherever the Hand reared their heads he would go and defend his brothers and sisters. Then he would track down those responsible for harbouring and encouraging the Hand.”

“What did he do to them ?” Freder questioned her.
“The Wolf lived by the tenets of Adam Stormrider, he never killed, and he avoided injury when he could, but their property he destroyed completely. He punished them so that they would never be able to support the Hand again. There is even an unsubstantiated story that he learned that the King had been a secret supporter of the Hand and he had entered the palace and confronted the King in his bed. There was no destruction of royal property reported so maybe that was just an apocryphal tale but the Hand went underground for many a year. Perhaps eighty years ago they resurfaced and began an insidious whispering campaign against us in the cities that were growing with the new industries. We found ourselves not welcome by cityfolk who had been fed lies about what we stood for and as we lost favour so they grew and established themselves as self appointed ‘protectors of the people’.” She concluded with distaste.
“The Hand have waged their war of words against us ever since and when they discovered ways to incarcerate us that we could not escape, they began to actively pursue us.” Stannous growled. “You know the rest.”
There was a heavy unhappy pause as the story ended and Freder mulled over what had been revealed and how the previous dark aura’s had been the champions of the Brotherhood.
“I, er.” He began to ask for some more drink.
“Yes Freder, you are here now. A new dark aura to take up our cause.” Stannous said loudly and got to his feet. “My brother, my sisters.” He declaimed to the hall. “To Freder, may he exceed those illustrious brothers, Adam, Johannes and Wolfgang Stormrider !”
He raised his goblet and around the hall many others stood up and raised theirs too.
“Freder !”
His name echoing around the hall Freder felt both exhilarated and scared by the faith these men and women placed in him.
Stannous drained his goblet and sat back down with a satisfied grin on his face, it was not shared by Catherine or Miranda.
Freder felt her aura sweep outwards to touch a master and within moments several of the revellers had abandoned their places at table and a lectern was placed in the middle of the central space.
“What’s happening ?” Freder asked of Catherine who was now wearing a broad smile.
“Entertainment Freder, watch.”

Master Brookwyrd stepped into the arena with an extremely large leather bound book under his right arm and gave an exaggerated swaggering bow to the good natured heckling and applause he received before placing the book upon the lectern. He took a key from his pocket and held it up for all to see.
“Words, my brothers, my sisters, are sometimes so dangerous that they must be kept under lock and key.”
“Keep all of them locked up !” Came a cry.
“But words have a habit of escaping.” Simon said in reply and the book burst open and sent a shower of dark shapes flying in all directions.
There was a sharp intake of breath and the odd crash as people fell off their benches at the surprise as the shapes had surged towards them only to break off and circle everyone like a flock of malevolent birds.
“That’s new.” Catherine muttered.
“Words can tell a story.” Simon said in a lighter tone and many of the flying letters joined together to form two lines of text.
‘In the beginning we had no sight other than our eyes, no strength other than our limbs.
In the beginning we were like seeds before the spring rains.’
“That’s from the Book of Beginnings.” Stannous said softly to Freder. “It’s the first volume of the History of the Brotherhood.”
“Words can tell a truth, words can tell a lie. The words are innocent of any crime but they can perpetrate one just as easily, and so condemn and execute the innocent as well as the guilty. Be very careful how you use words my friends.” Simon told them in baleful tones. “Words are weapons.”
The whirling letters flashed into new words, sword, spear, gun, bow, arrow, cannon, each one forming the shape of the object as many of the same came together.
“Words are deadly.”
The swords came flashing down out of the air and their tips embedded solidly in the table tops, the spears flew across the hall and startled even more masters as they quivered in the wood before them. The bows bent and their arrows flew in a volley to smack down before the astonished members of the high table then the guns flashed and the cannons boomed and just about everybody dived under the tables.

But Freder had been watching what was happening very closely and he had slipped into othersight so that he saw Simons aura whilst everyone else was focussed on the manifestations. He was certain that master Brookwyrd was having a lot of fun at their expense, his aura had no threat in it but it was doing some amazing manipulations of the energy streams and he was being assisted by several senior novices. He stayed upright in his seat and began to chuckle in the silence. Simon grinned at him and began to laugh out loud.
“Words, my friends, can tell jokes.” He announced as he and Freder shared the joke with his helpers and cautious heads re-appeared from under the tables.
When they were all upright and beginning to break into nervous laughter Simon held up a hand for quiet and it was as though a curtain had dropped.
“And you all thought that words were just dry, dusty, old ink on crumbling parchment.” He said mockingly and let all the letters fall in a black rain onto the tables.
“Yeah !” Freder shouted out and pounded the table with his hands. “Way to go !”
Simon bowed appreciatively to him and all around him applause began now that everyone saw what a show he had just performed. He took another bow and waved in his assistants for them too to take a bow and then left the central arena to the next act.
Musical instruments now struck up a tune both delicate and haunting. Into the central space a new figure stepped, dressed in flowing silken robes of fiery red, Elena Brightwater held aloft a brightly shining squirl and Freder realised that he had seen her practising for this moment when Stannous and Catherine had taken him to the amphitheatre. Her performance was no less perfect than on that first occasion but the flowing silks added a new dimension to it as they floated and swirled around her as she spun, stretched, arched, leapt and mesmerised her audience. Her final spin to a halt was met with thunderous applause and she curtsied deeply to each side of the hall before looking at the high table and with a mischievous smile on her lips floated the squirl towards Stannous.
“Oh ho !” He boomed as it stopped before him and got to his feet. Placing his hands on either side of the shining ball he took it from Elena and it began to spin, slowly at first but then gathering speed and Freder felt a sudden surge in his mentors aura, just like back in Fletley. He guessed what was coming and sure enough the ball began to glow dully even as it spun faster casting heat out into the hall and still it grew brighter, faster. Now reaching an intense white heat, so that Stannous was obliged to raise it high overhead to stop himself or anyone else get burned, it flattened out into a disc and then curved up into a bowl nearly three feet across. Still Stannous held it spinning above them and the master at then end of the high table stood up, Jake Lightning Arm. He took over the task of reforming this once game ball into something far more beautiful. He sent it out into the central space, slowed its spin and tilted it so that it faced him, then he summoned up a huge energy surge and cast it at the disc carving a spiral into its face and then punching four holes equi-spaced around the rim. Finally he summoned it to the high table and set it down with a hot sizzle and waft of singed timber in front of where Freder sat.

Freder felt everyone’s attention upon him, what did they expect him to do ? He tentatively reached his arm out over the still hot metal.
“Freder, careful.” Catherine hissed.
He smiled at the warning but he had never intended to touch the metal, he did the one thing he felt certain would do justice to the show thus far, he luminated. But not a small ball of light as the masters normally produced, he luminated a monster easily filling the bowl. Actually this was easier than making a small ball of light as the intersection ‘point’ was so large that it was a much simpler task to bend the energy streams sufficiently accurately, it just needed prodigious amounts of energy and he was good at summoning that.
There was a collective oooohhh as those present saw just how potent Freders talent was.
He felt a little nudge from Catherine and when he looked across at her she mouthed ‘enough’, he nodded and shut off his energy flow so that the bright blue white light died away.
“What a show !” Stannous boomed. “Fortune has smiled on us indeed.”
There were similar sentiments buzzing around the room, but not everyone seemed so ecstatic about Freder’s demonstration, Miranda’s brow was furrowed with frown lines as she saw how the boy basked in Stannous’ praise.
“Music.” Stannous called. “I feel in need of some exercise, Cat ?”
She rose and took his proffered hand and allowed him to lead her into the central arena where they danced a stately pavane before the musicians stepped up the tempo and more people began to join them on the dance floor ready for the next dance.
“Come on Freder.” Ariadne said suddenly from behind him and grabbed his hand. “This is fun.”
“But I…I don’t know…” He spluttered as he was dragged to the dance floor.
“Nobody cares how well you dance, just follow everyone else.”
Freder had never been interested in dancing of any form but when a pretty girl, and Ariadne was pretty he realised, wanted to dance with him, well suddenly it was a whole lot more desirable. It was energetic, chaotic, far from perfect but enormous fun as he capered around the floor and when it came to the reels he found himself partnering Elena, Catherine, Stella, two senior novices who he didn’t know the names of and lots of masters who were similarly new to him.

It was very late when the junior novices were finally extracted from the happy melee by master Elena, still dressed in her flaming finery, and escorted to their dormitories.
“What will happen to the dish that Stannous and Jake made from your squirl ?” Freder asked sleepily as they entered the boys dorm.
“It will be displayed with the other objects of our craft, in the annexe to the library.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“Ask master Brookwyrde.” She told him with a certain finality in her tone that told him he should be in bed.
“Thank you master.” He smiled, and received a covert smile in return before she left the room.
The others pretty much fell in to their beds and were asleep in moments, but despite the hour Freder wanted to try something after his success with levitating the squirl. He squatted on the floor in front of the frame of weights and tried to raise one of them very gently. There was a sharp spang in the silent room and he heard footsteps pad over to him and looked up into Lewis’ face.
“Still practicing ? Master Marcus will be pleased.” He chuckled.
“I don’t understand Lewis. Today I got a squirl to hover over my hand, it went up and down as smooth as silk. But I still can’t control these stupid weights.” He complained softly.
“Yeah, it’s tricky that one. I still have trouble with the small weights because it needs very little flux to raise them. If you take my advice you’ll start with the heaviest weight and then go downwards, oh , and tie a cloth to the top of your chosen column to deaden the noise.” He said giving Freder a friendly pat on the shoulder. “’Night Fred.”
“’Night Lewis.”
He wondered if he wasn’t too tired for this but he was also determined to push it and within a short time he had tied a sock in place at the top of the rod guiding the heaviest weight and was summoning flux from the cold dead stone walls. The weight shot up into the sock but rather than stop the flux Freder tried to squeeze off the flow as he had done before. The weight bobbled, dropped, bobbled again, rose swiftly but slowed and stopped just before it hit the sock. It was hard, the necessary change of flow of the flux was very small, but after half an hour he was at least gaining some form of control over the weight and the sock had become largely superfluous. He brought the weight down and caught it before it could make a sound on the frame and then carefully untied the belt and took off the blue robe. Normally he just cast his clothes into a corner of his trunk but tonight he carefully folded the robe and laid the belt of shining copper links on top of it. They had become the symbols of his rebirth, from Freder Adams the limping weak schoolboy to Freder Stormrider, the powerful master of the Brotherhood of the Good Arm, well he would be and soon.
With that happy thought he pulled the covers over himself and fell asleep.