I stared at Shelley not understanding her question. I guessed that talking hats were now used to teach people in some instances, I thought it strange I had not seen one during the numerous courses I had taken.
“Do we really need one?” I asked.
Shelley gave me an odd look, “no... I guess not.”
We were in a large covered amphitheater in the Magic city. I had used it originally years ago to brief my servants on the numerous magical projects that I had needed their assistance on.
It was probably too big for lecturing just one person but the room had many built in spells that would make my instruction of Shelley much easier.
I had a long wooden pointer in my hand and used it to point to the large blank limestone wall behind me.
“This is perhaps the greatest sleight of hand artist I have ever seen,” the wall changed to show the projection of a man slowly moving his hands causing a white ball disappear.
“Look how he uses one hand to cover the other while he hides the ball,” I said.
“Hey I know that guy, I seen him and his partner perform in Las Vegas, how’d you get him to show you all their tricks,” Shelley asked.
I had to stifle a smile, “there are no secrets when it comes to sorcerers. Now this will be your first lesson, you must learn to do this trick.”
I used my own sleight of hand trick to pluck a ball out of the air, I then tossed it to Shelley only to watch it bounce off her hands and fall to the floor.
I walked over to Shelley as she picked up the ball and sharply rapped her knuckles with my stick. I had practised my knuckle rapping prior to our first lesson just to make sure I had good accuracy.
“Oww!!! What was that for!” Shelley pressed her sore knuckles to her lips.
“Sorcerers need tough knuckles, sorry but it must be done,” I said.
I had prepared carefully for my lessons to Shelley and had tried to anticipate all her protestations to my teaching methods. From my recent schooling I knew that rapping knuckles had for some bizarre reason disappeared from a teacher’s repertoire a few decades ago.
I could not comprehend why or think of another equally suitable method to motivate a lazy unprepared student.
“Why do sorcerers need tough knuckles?” Shelley asked suspiciously.
“The magic must be molded with the fingers like clay,” I said, lying to her.
The first lesson proceeded well from that point on, Shelley worked diligently trying to master her first sleight of hand. It would take her a few days of practise before it would fool most people.
“Why do sorcerer’s need to learn sleight of hand?” Shelley asked me.
“It’s not just sleight of hand, it’s stage magic in general, it showed me that a lot of what happens in the world is just smoke and mirrors. It really helped me write spells,” I replied.
I was also conducting the lessons in ancient Egyptian, I had asked Shelley if she was able to comprehend it well enough, she had said yes.
“Why ancient Egyptian?” she had asked
“It is how I create magic, when you have learned enough you will create your own style of magic in your own language.”
“All magic isn’t the same?”
“It can be as varied as the people who use it.”
I had allotted ten weeks for Shelley to learn the basics of sleight of hand and stage magic. As the weeks progressed I could see she was very diligent and it was clear to me she was practising on her own. I also noticed her hands had become much quicker, I had had to resort to smacking her on the nose on a few occasions after missing her knuckles.
The ten weeks passed by quickly and I thought Shelley was ready to perform a small magic show in the amphitheater so I could evaluate her.
“Why do I have to do a show?” She asked me with a perturbed expression.
“It’s a good way to learn how to deal with the stress of real magic?” I said.