Free Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

he pretended Elda was not there, towering and golden at the back of the North Lab, Corkoran would have no grounds for firing him. He stalked up to the front of the class in quite his usual manner, planted his hourglass, and swung around, stroking his beard.
    â€œThis afternoon,” he announced, “we were supposed to be doing conjuring flame. But someone seems to have taken all the candles. Anyone have a confession to make?” His eyes traveled over the class so accusingly that half the students cowered and appeared to be searching their souls. Olga’s lovely face remained frigidly innocent.
    â€œRight,” said Wermacht, after nearly five minutes’ worth of sand had poured into the lower bulb of the hourglass. “It seems we have a hardened criminal in our midst. So we are going to do something far more difficult. All of you write down ‘Raising Magefire.’ Underline it. Keep your notebooks open, and all of you stand up.” Seats scraped on stone as everyone rose to his or her feet. “Now hold out both hands cupped in front of you.” When Elda hastily rose to her haunches, sending her desk scraping, too, in order to do this, Wermacht stroked his beard and ignored her. “Now sit down again, and write a description of the precise position you were in.” Seats scraped again. Everyone scribbled. “That’s it. Now stand up and adopt the position again.” Wermacht stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his robe and stalked back and forth as everyone once more stood up. “Good. Higher, you with the secondhand jacket. Nearer your chin. Better. Now concentrate and find your center. You’ll find that under the tenth big heading in your notes from last week. Sit down and turn back to the place. You’ll find you have written—even you with the voice, look at your notes—that your center—you with the secondhand jacket, I said consult your notes—your center is a small multidimensional sunlike body, situated just below the breastbone in men and around the navel in women. Now stand up and locate it in yourself.”
    Everyone rather wearily stood up again, cupping hands and talons. But this was only the third time. Wermacht, smugly marching back and forth, had them up and down like yo-yos, until even Elda had lost count.
    Finally, he said, “That’s better. Now, keeping the position and concentrating on your center, smoothly transfer some of the energy from your center to between your hands.”
    There was a long, straining silence, while everyone tried to do this.
    â€œThink,” Wermacht said, with contemptuous patience. “Think of flame between your hands.”
    â€œThen why didn’t you say so?” Ruskin rumbled.
    â€œDid you say something, you with the voice?” Wermacht asked nastily.
    Ruskin said nothing. He simply stood there with his face lit from beneath by the pile of purple flame cupped in his large hands. Wermacht scowled.
    At that moment several students near the front gave cries of pleasure and held out little blue blobs of flame.
    â€œ Very good,” Wermacht said patronizingly.
    After that, as if it were catching, blue flames burst out all over the North Lab.
    â€œLike wildfire,” Olga said, grinding her teeth, and summoned suddenly a tall, green, twirling fire that forked at the top. The forks twisted together almost to the ceiling.
    â€œOh, dear!” said Lukin. He had managed to do it, too, but his blue fire was, for some reason, dancing in a little pit in the middle of his desk.
    Wermacht exclaimed angrily and came striding up the lab. “Trust you lot to make a mess of it! You with the secondhand jacket, pick that flame up. Cherish it. Go on, it won’t burn you. And you, girl with the long nose, pull your flame in. Think of it as smaller at once, before you make a mess of the ceiling.”
    Olga shot a furious look at Wermacht and managed to reduce her forked green flame to