Hidden Depths

Chapter 18 - The Al Farabi Rooms

Rich's last lesson of the day was his first with the Farabis.  Harrow normally only took on two Farabi scholars a year, but, as Rich had been allowed to join at short notice, he was one of three new boys to nervously walk through the Old Armoury to enter the Farabi Rooms.

Situated on the ground floor of the iconic Old Schools building, the armoury was directly underneath the famous Old Fourth Form room, whose ancient wooden panels bore the mark of centuries of sanctioned graffiti.  Beneath the room that contained hand carved names of Old Harrovians, such as Byron, Sheridan and Churchill, the armoury stored the weapons and ammunition used by the school's combined cadet force.  All Farabi Scholars were given a key to the armoury door, but the internal doors and cages that secured the weapons remained firmly out of bounds.

The new boys were keen to impress so walked through the armoury ten minutes early to find a small but ornately-carved wooden door firmly closed in front of them.  The door was beautifully maintained but the richly-varnished oak looked hundreds of years old.  It was covered in raised geometric patterns and in the middle was a circle, the size of a dinner plate, which surrounded some very precisely-engraved Arabic writing. 

Rich's Arabic reading had never been the best, but although his limited skills had thoroughly rusted over the last few years, even he could recognise - 'There is only one God, and Muhammad is his prophet' - when he saw it.

The boys with him were both from overseas and, as if out of habit, one of them read the Arabic words aloud.  The door started to click and tick in response to his voice and the circle that surrounded the writing began to slowly rotate.  As the speed of rotation increased, a strip of the patterned wood along the right hand edge of the door raised towards them with a clunk.  The circle surrounding the writing slowed then stopped before gradually speeding up as it spun back in the opposite direction.  Another loud click came from within the door and the circle began to slow before finally easing to its rest.

Despite the display, the door remained closed and after a moment the boys exchanged puzzled looks.  Having recently encountered his fair share of unusual doors in the Catacombs of Paris, Rich was unperturbed and, without stopping to think, stepped forward to give it a firm shove.  

It was far more force than was required and the door flung open and clattered against the wall it was hanging from.  Inside, Mr Abdullah was standing, surrounded by eight boys of differing age and height.  All except the teacher looked shocked rather than welcoming, so it was unsurprising that Mr Abdullah was the first to speak.

'Welcome, welcome, my brothers,' he said, opening his arms and gesturing with both hands for them to enter.   The room, which was shaped like a figure of eight, was in the oldest part of the school, so it was quite a lot smaller than most of Harrow's classrooms.  The walls, covered with leather-bound books and wooden panels, surrounded two distinct areas.  One had twelve prayer mats laid out in it, while the other housed a large pentagon-shaped table. 

Unlike most things in the room, the table was not made of wood or leather.  It seemed to be carved from an enormous single piece of black rock and was topped off with a perfectly smooth sheet of dark blue slate that must have been as thick as Rich's hand.  Each of the five sides had three wooden chairs drawn up to them. 

The workspace in front of the middle chairs contained very small and neat, chalk-drawn, Arabic writing, whereas the slate in front of the outside chairs showed signs of repeated rubbings out.  This was the case for all but one of the table's five sides.  The fifth was completely clean, with just three pieces of brand new chalk, indicating that it was not to remain that way for long.  

'That marvellous door was carved by our founding scholar, the great Abu Al Farabi,' said Mr Abdullah, pointing at the door that was now gently swinging a fraction as it recovered from Rich's shove.