Fragment

[Jirelle's basic training is almost completed. Tomorrow she will have to face Mir’tuen and inform her of her decision to stay. Now she is spending the evening in a relaxed way with her trainer, who has promised her a bonus.]

"But I am perfectly content now," she argued. "Right now I am wanting for nothing, except perhaps the enchantment of an evening walk. But somehow I don’t think you can offer me that."
Ir’yn shook his head. "I can’t. You are not allowed to leave this room until you leave for Mir’tuen tomorrow morning. But you should not decline this bonus until you know what it is, you might regret it."
"You are making me curious," she muttered. "I think I can safely assume you are not going to offer me a wildly erotic night, so what is left?"
He almost choked on his drink from laughter. "Cute little thing you are. No, to be honest I had no indecent proposals in mind. I thought you might want to make a start with learning to fly."
She looked at him dumbfounded now. Only after a while she realised her mouth was open. She shut it audibly, took a deep breath and stammered: "To fl... fl... fly?"
"Right. After all flying is an application of Mindpower and not even such a hard one at that. Would you like to give it a start?"
"Would I like to? Good heavens, I would really love to! But I can’t believe I can do this, I really can’t."
"Well, in that case you might be proved right," he teased. "Mindpower and belief are rather related concepts, after all... So we are not going to try?"
For the second time that evening she kicked him from the opposite side of the table. "We are most certainly going to try. If it were only to make you lose that arrogant tone of yours for once," she snapped back. But right after that she jumped up enthusiastically and pulled him from his chair. "We are done eating," she announced. "Start your flying lessons!"
"Easy does it, kiddo. Anyone ever told you you are a tiny bit on the aggressive side?"
"No, nobody has guts enough for that. Now, come on!"
"Okay: you are a tiny bit on the aggressive side."
She chuckled. "That of course was not what I meant, laddie, which you knew already. Sorry that I kicked you, so can we please start now?"
"We can, if you let me clear the table first. I would not want you to land in the middle of the leftovers now, would I?" He suited the action to the word. Then he seated himself near the black pool and beckoned her to come and sit next to him. "We might as well use one of these things once, so you’ll know their purpose. You find these in almost every living or working room, they are called noch’tranai, which could be translated into trance-pools. This may appear to be a deep hole filled with water, but it is not. The liquid on the floor is about a hair thick, no more. Still you should be careful not to fall into one when you are in a deep trance, for in that state you might disappear into it. It would take too much time to explain it all to you, I am afraid, but you will hear all about it in the advanced training. If seven aer’hûmli who know the technique work together, they can generate this energy fabric. You could say it captures the essence of time and space in a structure. I just told you the danger of it; the pleasant part of it is it helps you effortlessly enter a deep state of trance if you look into it for a while. Shall we first try the pool and then stop?"
"That’s fine. But let me ask a question first: why didn’t you use this pool for my training? Wouldn’t that have been easier?"
"For the training it probably would have been easier, yes. But I am not particularly fond of the noch’tranai because they tend to make you dependent on them. If you can’t reach a deep trance without one and you want to use your Powers somewhere where there is no trace of them, you are in trouble. You can work perfectly well without extra help, so my advice is to limit its use as much as possible.
Good, if you are comfortable, it actually is very easy: stare into the pool and let your energy sink into it."
Jirelle tried and felt herself go down instantly. At the same time it was indeed very easy to keep in touch with her Powers. She found the feeling somewhat eerie; it was as if she had lost her body. After a while Ir’yn signalled her to come back. For a moment she did not know how to break the spell. The next moment she was looking at her room.
"All you have to do is think that you want to stop," Ir’yn confirmed. "Noch’tranai are tangible pieces of Mindpower and as such are very sensitive to thought. Okay, you noticed how deep a state of trance you can reach in this way, didn’t you? Next step is to connect the force field of your Mind-energy to the ground."
"Sounds very illogical to me," Jirelle interjected. "I’d say we would do anything not to connect to the ground."
Again Ir’yn granted her that ironic smile of his. "It may sound illogical, but it is not. What you want to do is to create an opposing force to the gravity. The earth pulls you down. But at the same time the earth offers you solidity enough not to sink down into it. That is the force you want to reinforce with the potential of your Mindpower. Remember, the potential, not the power itself, for you wouldn’t fly far if you did. Mindpower has a tremendous potential that basically can be used in any way you can imagine. Connect it to the ground, imagine your body being pushed away by the earth and you fly."
"Yeah, sure," she muttered incredulously. "I’ll believe that when I see it. And isn’t this an application of Earthpower in stead of Mindpower?"
"No, it isn’t. Your question proves you have not thought it over: all aer’hûmli can fly, also the ones who possess little or no Earthpower. It is true you can move objects or have them fly with your Earthpower, but not yourself. For motions you always require three things: that which you want to move, a point where the power comes from and the power itself. With our way of flying, those first two things coincide and that won’t do the trick. Therefore you use the earth. You enforce her supporting power and turn her into the spot where the power can anchor. Clear?"
"Theoretically, yes. And now you probably expect me to try this."
"Of course not, I just expect you to do it." He laughed at her indignant reaction and pointed at the noch’trana. "Trance down, go deep enough so you feel you have your Mindpower at your disposal without any difficulty, then charge up the center of your Mindpower as high as you can and realize its force field. At that point I’ll join you to help you make the connection, this first time. I only need to show you once; you will be able to imitate the effort right away. After that it is just a matter of directing your Mindpower: imagine the earth pushing you away just enough to keep you hovering a little bit above the ground. Then come down again gently. Ready?"
She smiled nervously. He made it sound so simple. Then she consciously relaxed and again let herself sink into the pitch-black surface of the pool. Step by step she carried out his instructions. The moment she created a perfectly clear image of the force field of her Mindpower, she felt Ir’yn's presence. He formed her force field into some kind of inverted funnel, the broad opening on the ground, the nozzle towards her. Then he let her go again. It was indeed quite simple now that she knew how it had to look. Hoping for the best she imagined an earthly explosion that would conquer the gravity for her, in order to lift her momentarily off the ground.
There was a blast. She opened her eyes and cried out from shock. She was more than twenty feet above the ground, almost against the ceiling of her room, and below she noticed that the floor was damaged. Her growing panic made her scream again. Then she realised Ir’yn was floating next to her, as relaxed as ever.
"Calm down, there is nothing wrong," his deep voice said reassuringly. "Not bad for a first time. It would have gone even better if you had listened to me, but that has never been your habit... Good, can you lower yourself now?"
She was too bewildered to tell him where to get off. As controlled as she could manage she reduced the terrafugal power of the earth. Jerkily she descended, feeling quite clumsy compared to Ir’yn's supple glide-down.
"Practice," he prevented her self-criticism. "No need to do it perfect yet, my first time out wasn’t too great either. All right, do it again, but this time please leave out the explosion. It’s much easier than you think."
This time she did better. It still was creepy, hovering that high above the ground, but now she felt how well she could control and balance this power. To enforce that feeling, Ir’yn made her go up and down a couple of times. As she felt her control grow, she became more self-confident.
"Very well, and now without the pool," he suggested. She found she could do that without much effort.
"I am flying!" she shouted with pride. She was high in the air, next to Ir’yn. Out of pure enthusiasm she wrapped her arms around him and almost crushed him. "I am flying!"
"You are floating," he corrected and for a moment held her close in turn. "Flying is the next step; then you must decide where to go and how fast. You will learn that later, but for now you truly have managed to get the basics!"