The Mindwalk Pavilion

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Iliaster was largely disappointed with the books he'd read. Most of them promised more than they delivered, but, amongst the dross, there were the odd crumbs of useful information. There were descriptions of astral realms, and the entities that he might encounter there, though many were clearly fantasies.

Despite Bruno's cautions, Iliaster felt confident that he could experiment with attaining this mysterious realm. Since to the observer, all he would be doing was sitting with his eyes closed, there was more likelihood of them thinking him asleep than practising witchcraft.

To begin with he felt that he was getting nowhere, he saw nothing, sometimes he really did fall asleep, he found his thoughts drifting. He remembered the incident that had brought him to Bruno's attention, trying to recall anything about it that could help him. The flames had responded to him, but he hadn't been consciously trying to do anything to influence them.

Iliaster analysed his recollections, trying to remember the exact state of mind he'd been in. There was the matter of the voice. He had been dreaming, and a voice had woken him by saying his name very loudly. Had it been a spirit, an angel, a demon? He had heard it speak before, and since, for it had warned him to speak the truth to Bernardo Bruno at their first meeting. His natural inclination would have been to conceal any details that might be construed as witchcraft. Instead he had trusted the voice and confessed that the flames had responded to him.

The thought occurred to Iliaster that perhaps the voice was from his Holy Guardian Angel, which Abramelin had talked about at such length. This led to further experiments as Iliaster sought to make contact with his voice. Each idea he had was tested carefully.

Some three weeks after they had been established in the Palace, Iliaster and his fellow Mithraides were taken to the coast, and put on board a boat to the island of Ponza. Here they found Bruno waiting for them.

"Do you have all that you need?"

"For now Master Bruno, yes we do. Now we are away from the city we can work openly on your requirements?"

"You may."

"Thank you Master Bruno."

"There should be all you need here. Food stuffs will be brought to you periodically. You will have to prepare your own meals from now on. Niccolo will come across regularly, make your needs known to him. If you require to revisit the library, this can be arranged. Did you find the books useful?"

"For the most part no Master Bruno, regrettably the majority of occult works were dross. I have copied those works that I believe may be useful, and brought them with me."

"Very well. I shall return here myself in four months time, I hope that you will have made some progress in that time."

"We shall do our best Master Bruno."

When Bruno had departed, the small group explored their new abode. It was considerably plainer than the palace rooms they had been until recently occupying. Iliaster found this agreeable, preferring the hermitage's stark simplicity.

They chose rooms. Here there were enough rooms for each one of them to have one to themselves to sleep in. Catalina's was next door to Iliaster's. The others knew that the two of them were intimate, but wisely made no comment.

Iliaster devised a rota for the food preparation, with two of them being responsible each day for that day's meals. He took his turn at the work the same as everyone else.

Whilst they'd been in Rome, he had largely limited them to learning to communicate with their minds. All of them could now do this, either one to one, or as part of a group. Now he assigned them to study the elements. Whilst in Rome he had not dared to try, but here Iliaster planned to see if he could directly interact with fires.

He asked Saskia to see if she could find some tree spirits. If she managed this he wanted her to engage them in conversation, and to learn whether anyone else could learn to see them.

Iliaster spent time with each of his group. Rafael's strange dreams were very intriguing. Iliaster had the idea that Rafael might be entering the astral plane. He suggested that the young man try to revisit the rooms that they had used in Rome. To his delight, Rafael succeeded on his first attempt. Iliaster tasked him to explore. He asked Rafael to see if he could move beyond the rooms. This would be interesting, as a test of whether Rafael was actually present in some way, or just had a clear recollection, and could dream of the location at will. Rafael was delighted to expand, and eagerly experimented.

Iacapo surprised him. One morning when Iliaster had been sitting focused on fire, he opened his eyes to find Iacapo watching him.

"Master Iliaster, I was a little concerned."

"Why is that Iacapo?"

"You were surrounded by flames Master."










NOTE: WORK IN THAT HELENE EXPERIENCES POLTERGEIST ACTIVITY - INITIALLY SHE WAS SHARING WITH CATALINA - BUT SHE USUALLY SLEPT WITH ILIASTER.

Word Count: 862