The Wizard From Vahan

Chapter 6

"This is the day you get to meet those girls, Jasper," Lonnie said at breakfast the next morning. "There's a dance. I won't really make you wait till we've found Jodi."

Jasper looked up from his meal, which was something like bacon and tomato only not from a pig and not from a tomato plant. "Oh? Where's that being held?"

"It's in a hall at the edge of Busheen," (which was the name of the village). "Young people will be coming from three other villages: Arfield and Glinno and Brackell. We arrange the dances as often as we can, though sometimes I have to miss them if I'm away on a work trip. I always take Jodi- she loves dancing. The regulars know she's missing, and I expect one of them will dance with me to try and cheer me up."

"I wish she was here", said Jasper. "I'm on it, believe me."

"I can see how seriously you're taking this," said Lonnie. "Don't beat yourself up. Come with me tonight and have a good time."

When Jasper got to work the farm labourers too were talking about the dance. They all came from the local area and were very familiar with the social events. They were sowing a crop which would first grow up tall and dark green and later would become packed with bunches of fat grain, and as they worked they made lustful comments about the girls who were going to be at the dance. Jasper didn't say much: he was still learning their ways and manners.

About half an hour before the lunch break, when food was provided in a yard next to the farmhouse, a man came running across the fields towards them. He was wearing the garments of another area which were rather like green jeans with a sacking tunic at the top. As he got closer they could see his face was very white.

"The dance is off!" he yelled. "More girls have gone missing. Six are gone from these parts, then there's the one you're looking for already, and another five from the settlements beyond. We're to keep our womenfolk indoors, and send out a search party tonight."

At once the men were in fighting mode, raising curiously-shaped farm implements in the air and also others more familiar to Jasper because they resembled pitchforks, although they were called pids. A chorus of shouts went up on the general theme of 'let me get at them and I'll kill them.'

One burly man, his eyes bright with the infectious mood, shoved Jasper and asked pointedly, "can YOU fight?"

"I know a kind of hand-to-hand combat." Seeing the look on the peasant's face Jasper added quickly, "and I'll happily use a pid too, beside you."

"There! Good!" he exclaimed, slapped Jasper on the shoulder and turned back to shouting with the others.

After some words from the owner of the farmhouse the riot subsided, but the men were restless, stopped work early and afterwards marched into the countryside with weapons and torches to search all the evening. But they found nothing.

Lonnie and his father joined in the search as well. Although they belonged to a merchant class that was different from the farm workers in many ways, they echoed exactly the same cries for revenge and they too were armed, with their fire sticks. It was the first time Jasper had seen a fire stick since he had used one in his magical ceremony.

As Jasper lay down that night on the cushioned mound that was a Vahan bed, he thought about the group of girls who had appeared behind Jodi in his dream of the previous night. Had there been twelve of them? He wished he had counted. He decided to try astral projection to gather information, although he couldn't do it as precisely as Emin and he would have to start from a lucid dream.

He lay still and watched the hypnagogic visions begin: the little pictures that appear before the eyes and then gradually turn into dreams. The trick is to stay alert, watching them, and feel the intent to enter into a dream without losing awareness. After some minutes it happened: he found himself dreaming he was standing in a street next to a shop which was getting smaller and moving away from him, and he knew it was a dream.