Aurelius and I (23 page)

And so I told him everything. From meeting Aurelius and discovering I was a protector, to discovering the fernator I had thought to be my friend was working with Blackheart and being chased by trolls. I knew it was a risk, but I had heard nothing bad about this creature from anyone (with the exception of Aurelius who had called him a liar, though it now seemed that it was in fact Aurelius himself who was the liar, which somewhat discredited his value as a character witness) and we had only hours to save the forest from some of the most evil beings in the world; if ever there was a time for taking risks, it was now. The genie remained silent and expressionless throughout as he listened to my unlikely tale, and continued to do so for several minutes after I had finished telling it. I was just trying to think of a question to ask as a way of filling the silence and checking that my host had not fallen into a trance, when his expression finally began to change, a sly smile spreading slowly across his face.

“Firstly,” he began, “whatever you are, you’re not a Protector.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Despite the wild and unbelievable nature of the story I had just told, I had been completely unprepared for the genie’s response.

“Just what I say, you are not a Protector,” he repeated slowly as if I had simply misheard or misunderstood the first time.

“But, how could you possibly know such a thing?”

“Well, for a start, you’re aura is too strong.
Much
too strong. As I’m sure you are aware, all alundri have a magical aura that emanates from every part of their being. Certain particularly intuitive creatures, myself included, are able to sense and even see these auras. These auras change according to the status and power of the alundri that holds them – so while a wizard or a necromancer will have a very strong, clear aura, that of your insignificant fairy friend is barely detectable.’

“Hey!” Ophelia began to protest, but Raymondo silenced her with a simple wave of his hand before moving swiftly on.

“Protectors, of course, have the weakest aura of all – for they do not really belong among the alundri, and are merely an unwanted but necessary perversion in order that we might hide ourselves from the savageness of humanity. Your aura though, is one of the most powerful I have ever come across, far too strong to arise from any human.”

“
What!?!
” I exclaimed, quickly losing faith in Raymondo’s supposedly superior intellect. “Of course I’m a human.”

“Well, in one way, yes, but in another, absolutely not. Whilst you may very likely be largely human in biological terms, there simply must be some alundri blood running through your veins – most likely from your mother’s side I would say – or else your body would have simply imploded under the pressure of the immense power that is held within it.”

“But couldn’t that power be there because I’m a Protector?”

The genie just laughed.

“My dear boy, Protectors are given their powers so that they might exert influence over the human community in order to protect the secret of magic. They are a token gift aimed at breeding commonality with those they are supposed to protect. They are no match for the powers of true alundri. And you, Charlie, are quite clearly a true alundri.”

“But why would Aurelius lie?” Even as the words left my mouth I knew that they were foolish. Aurelius was a liar and liars lied. No-one really knew why. They just did.

“Who knows?” replied the supposedly all-knowing Raymondo. “Perhaps he was trying to convince you he was on the good side. Perhaps he wanted to create a sense of duty within you so that you would be committed to his own terrible cause. Perhaps it is all some other part of the dastardly plan about which we know so little.”

“But, how do I know you’re not the one who’s lying?”

“My dear boy, you truly are naïve as to the ways of the alundri are you not? Genies are not physically able to knowingly tell a lie, I thought everybody knew that?”

I looked to my two companions who both nodded their agreement in a manner that suggested this bizarre genetic defect was in some way common knowledge among the alundri. And if that was the case, it would seem hard to believe that Aurelius had not also known about it when he had tried to convince me that Raymondo had falsified claims of Blackheart’s presence in the forest.

I sighed. Not only was I now certain that my supposed friend had been working against me in order to unleash his terrible plan upon the forest – but I was also no nearer to discovering what such a plan may be.

“I just wish...”

“NOOOOOOO!” screamed the genie, leaping up from his cushion and covering his ears. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! Don’t use the W word. NEVER use the W word!”

“Okay! Okay! I’m sorry,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be easier if I did just... you-know-what to know what Blackheart’s plan was?”

“No it would not!” Raymondo yelled. ‘Let me tell you something, young man; wishes
always
turn out wrong. Even the simple ones. And
especially
the ones that are made with personal gain in mind.”

“But this wouldn’t be personal gain,” I insisted. “I’m just trying to help save the forest.”

“No, you’re just trying to help
yourself
to save the forest, and that is
guaranteed
to end in disaster. And besides, we don’t need to use magic to find out Blackheart’s plan, my trusty powers of reasoning will do the trick just as well.”

“You mean you’ve worked it out?” asked Ophelia.

“Well don’t sound so surprised, young lady, have I not already mentioned my superior intellect?”

We all sat waiting in quiet anticipation as Raymondo slowly retook his seat, relishing the undivided attention he was receiving, attention that he not-so-privately believed he deserved.

“None of you, I suppose, have ever heard of
The Ruins of Kenzoor
?” he asked, putting great emphasis on his last words as if he were trying to create some sort promotional trailer for a movie. Three of us shook our heads in unison. “Why am I not surprised?

“The Ruins of Kenzoor are one of the oldest, most important, surviving relics of ancient magic in the world today. It is believed that, many centuries ago, Kenzoor was a great temple and an important centre of power within the magical world, to which magical beings flocked from miles around in search of help or guidance from the elders who dwelled there. Its power was infamous for millennia until, at some point, probably around a thousand years or so ago, the temple was destroyed.

“Stories of how this destruction came about vary greatly depending on the source; Some say it was burned to the ground by humans, afraid of any belief system but their own, as they sort to conquer new lands for their cities and their agriculture; Others claim that the Alundri themselves destroyed the temple, relocating their power base to a more remote location so that the advancing humans would not discover it; Others still say that the fire was started by members of an early predecessor to the Tundrala, in an attempted coup against the powers that be. Nobody knows for certain which, if any, of these tales is true. The only thing we do know is that the temple was destroyed.

“Except that, that’s not quite the case. You see, whilst it is true that the temple itself was destroyed, the source of its power remained unbroken.”

“What do you mean by ‘source of its power’?” I asked.

“A good question, young man, and one I would have answered more quickly had you not bee so eager to interrupt my tale,” Raymondo replied in a self-important tone. “As you may or may not know, there are present in the world certain objects which are almost entirely magical in their existence, objects which often hold only the smallest amount of corporeal form, but which are imbued with such indescribable levels of magical energy that they simply radiate it – rainbows would be a good example of this. These items are what provide the world with magic. Without them, magic would die, and every single Alundri would simply be reduced to being an ordinary (if slightly odd-looking) creature of the earth.

“The power of such items varies greatly, as does the power of magical beings depending on their proximity to such items. Some of the less powerful items are able to be moved to where they are needed, whilst other, still less powerful ones actually fade in and out of existence. The really important sources of power, however, are strictly permanent fixtures. Their own power is in tune with and dependant upon the inherent spiritual force which certain earthly locations hold. At the centre of the Temple of Kenzoor there stood such an item – an item known as
The Stone of Soolarondoo.

“Unable to move the stone, and fearing it would be destroyed or misused by either the Tundrala or the humans, the temple’s elders used their powers to disguise the stone’s location, and bound what they could of its mystic force, carving into it instructions on how to release its powers when they were most needed. This message was written in an ancient, and long-forgotten magical language of which the elders were the sole scholars so that it could not be understood by anybody except the one their prophecy described as ‘the creature of unusual power’, who, it is written, will use power of the stone to save the Earth from great conflict.”

“But what has all this got to do with Blackheart?” Ophelia demanded.

“Well, my impatient yet remarkably unperceptive guest, if any of you three were able to listen to somebody speak for more than forty-seven seconds without interrupting then you would all discover the relevance of our tale a little quicker, would you not?”

Ophelia did not speak an answer, but instead stared the genie directly in the eye with a look of barely restrained hatred. She looked to me as though she may have quite literally have been biting her tongue.

“I haven’t interrupted,” Grahndel pointed out smugly, inadvertently easing the tension.

“You have now,” replied Raymondo.

“
Beetle bogeys
!’

“Anyway,
as I was saying
, the elders needed to hide the stone, and yet could not permit themselves to move it. They therefore took the only course of action available to them – they raised the landscape around it!”

At this point the genie paused as if waiting for questions, or merely awe-struck exclamations. Having been so impatient with interruptions thus far however, his revelation was met only by silence. Something he pretended not to notice, quickly moving on with his tale.

“The terrain around the stone was completely transformed by the powerful elders before they fled, burying the stone and what remained of the temple in a labyrinth-like network of underground caves. Caves that still stand, untouched to this day –
right here in Hanselwood Forest!
”

This time the genie did get a reaction from his audience.

“You mean to say that this ‘Stone of Sue-in-the-poo’ is actually here, in this very forest?” I asked.

“Stone of Soolarondoo,” he corrected, “And yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you!”

“But why would such a powerful object be here?” asked Ophelia.

“My dear girl, you’re looking at this whole thing the wrong way round. What you should be asking is why would
you
be here? Why are there such vast numbers of Alundri living together in a relatively tiny forest, when other more remote, and therefore more suitable locations remain entirely devoid of magic of any sort? The answer is the Stone of Soolarondoo.”

“So, you’re saying that if the stone wasn’t here, none of us would have any magical powers at all?” I asked.

“Oh you’d have them alright, you just wouldn’t be able to use them. Or at least much less effectively. Think of the stone as a giant battery. You were born with the potential to do great and wonderful things, but your powers rely on the magical energy if they are to work. Now, small amounts of this energy can be found in all sorts of places – rainbows emit it, as I said before, as do dragonflies. But in order for an Alundri to reach his or her full magical potential, they require a vast and constant source of energy. The Stone of Soolarondoo represents such a power source.”

“And that’s why Blackheart is here!” I said, suddenly cottoning on to the relevance of the genie’s tale. “The Professor wants the tablet destroyed so that the Alundri here are forced to move to Roobatzi.”

“That will be his hope, yes, but by no means the only advantage of his plan. Even those who refuse to sign themselves over to The Professor will represent a greatly weakened threat to his empire when they are so formidably disempowered. Without the energy of the stone, Hanselwood Forest will cease to be a safe haven for Alundri. They will be forced to live disparate, lonely existences, where their main focuses will be simply to avoid human contact and to survive. They will have neither the time, the power, nor the inclination to begin an uprising against him. But of course, this is not the true nature of The Professor’s plan, it is merely a back-up.”

“So what is the real plan, then?” I asked.

“I would surmise, that The Professor is hoping that he himself, is the creature of great power that the prophecy speaks of, and that he will be able to use this power to open
the gateway
.”

“What’s the gateway?”

“
The Gateway
, is a myth. A legend passed down among alundri solely by word of mouth. There exists no written proof of its existence, and yet it is possibly the most feared and dangerous concepts in magical history. It is said that certain, extremely powerful items, when called upon by certain, extremely powerful creatures, can be used to open gateways across time and space, enabling transportation across hundreds of millions of light years, or even across dimensions, in the blink of an eye.”