Under the spell of the magical demimonde (EXO-TERRESTRIAL-FORCES 3) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

• Herausgeber: S. Verlag JG
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 365

Beschreibung

The years between 2257 and 2268 are determined by the magical construct. The tyrannical magician Sol'altoo has removed the artifact city from the super Earth in 2268, thus undoing the possibility of time travel in the solar system, which the construct made possible in the first place and which does not exist in the normal space-time continuum due to the laws of nature. 2279, the tyrant Sol'altoo becomes active for the last time. He has recreated the artifact city on one of the super-Earths in the Sol system and wants to forcefully ensure that Earth's planetary system becomes part of the Zetschn'cha universe. The Solar Fleet under General Pronder and Queen Yiilyix of the Xxiin people, who have settled on Venus, stand together against the enemy. While Sigurd invades the energetic half-world with his ship PAURUSHEYA, the battle for the artifact city breaks out in the Earth system.

Leseprobe

EXO-TERRESTRIAL-FORCES

Legacy of OUTER-SPACE Nanites

Volume 3

Under the spell of the magical demimonde

© 2024 Jens F. Simon

Illustration: S. Verlag JG

Publisher: S. Verlag JG, 35767 Breitscheid,

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-3-96674-759-2

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. Any exploitation without the consent of the publisher and the author is prohibited and will be prosecuted under criminal and civil law. This applies to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution and making available to the public.

Table of content

Pure magic

On the trail of the Zetschn'cha

The hemisphere

The power of magic

The world behind the worlds

Multiplicity

Magic vs. Parapsychology

The magic way of time

MAITRI

The manipulated time energy

Stranded

The lonely Japetus Station

Confrontation in 2080

The new MBF organization

Time stasis

Attack of the Mernchen

The rescue of MAITRI

The search for MAITRI

The time tranquilizer

Back in 2019

Beware of time paradoxes

Amanda's choice

The penultimate battle

Back to now

Star space of the magic ring

Deployment at the 'Ring of Srem’

131 years of MAITRI, the children of MBF

Sol'altoo's last battle

The last mission

The end of the artifacts city

The end of the magic construct

Amanda's rescue

Sigurd's dream

Time is your greatest enemy. You are on a narrow path in between. What exactly this means, you can only guess, but never know. Should you ever arrive at your destination, your mind will no longer understand where you are and what you wanted. The certainty that your life so far has not been meaningless will be displaced by the satisfaction of doing it all over again, should you get the chance. 

Pure magic

It was as it had to come. The city of the monkey god had swallowed them. The appropriate energy signature had a familiar shape.

It strongly resembled the emissions that had been appropriate in the artifact city on Super Earth.

Calgulla looked over at Doctor Isaiah Ravel, who still could not tear himself away from the tracking device.

They were in a large tent at the edge of the entrance to an underground labyrinth of incredible proportions.

The tent stood amidst the ruins of the legendary "White City." It was from here that Alethea and Sigurd had set out to solve the mystery of sorcery and magic that still haunted the Solar System. As the massive machinery in the Artifact City shut down, an almost identical form of radiation was simultaneously located here in the Honduran rainforest.

Isaiah Ravel, scientist, and physicist, together with Calgulla, the head of the new MBF and ten other specialists, had flown directly from the artifact city to the Honduran rain forest.

Here, more than 30 years ago, research work had had to be stopped for lack of financial support. Now, however, the support came from the earth government.

The costs had suddenly become insignificant.

Several hundred teams of the military, especially of the Solar Fleet, were already in action. Most of them were on level 15, which was at a depth of 130 meters.

Sigurd and Alethea also had to be down there. They had the status of advisors to the MBF organization and were thus subsequently legitimized.

The area, the size of a medium-sized town, had been completely sealed off when it was determined that the measured radiation bore a striking resemblance to the radiation in the artifact city.

Calgulla had arrived with Doctor Isaiah Ravel and the rest of the scientists exactly two hours ago.

MFG headquarters on Venus had received the very brief information that Sigurd had already made his way to the La Mosquitia region. She had immediately relayed this to Calgulla.

Now Calgulla stood among the hastily erected research tents, looking down at the hole in the ground where an old wooden staircase had led down not long ago.

Dozens of soldiers had lowered themselves down with a makeshift winch and began to comb the tunnel. However, there was no trace of Sigurd and Alethea.

"The legend of the "White City" says that it was a place of no return. It is said to have been a magical place."

Sigurd stood directly in front of the statue of the monkey god. It towered about five meters in the air and stood right next to the passage to the underworld.

"Kind of looks like a Sremsen, don't you think?"

"I can't answer that question for you, since I don't know that race!"

Alethea had only recently awakened from a mystical sleep in which she had lain for nearly 250 years.

Of course she knew only very vaguely the present political and economic situation within the Sol-system, as the solar system of the earth was called now within the planet union.

They had arrived at the lowest level when their way back had been cut off.

A very large portal-like passageway was directly in front of them.

"We will not be able to return the way we came. In fact, I fear the entire gallery above us has collapsed."

Sigurd had by now adjusted to the infrared vision. Where his altered eyes took the residual light from, he didn't know.

"Mid-infrared picks up the range of thermal radiation, and it's not exactly cold down here!"

His subconscious had once again not been able to let it go and had taught him.

Alethea glanced at a small bracelet she had taken from the ship.

"The GPS signals are dead. However, I can retrieve the data previously located by PAURUSHEYA and compare it to our current location. The original appropriate source of radiation is at a depth of about 150 meters. At this moment, we should be at a depth of about 140 meters. That means it had to go even further down."

"Let's see where that passage over there leads."

Sigurd led the way. They came to a relatively large rock vault, the end of which they could not see.

In some places, stalactites hung down from the ceiling, which was about ten meters high. The temperature had dropped several degrees Celsius. Carefully, Alethea and Sigurd moved between the stalactites, some of which reached the floor.

The floor was slowly falling away, suggesting that they were on the right path.

Suddenly, Sigurd stopped. He had heard a loud noise.

It sounded at first like a groan and then changed to a muffled rattle.

"Is there anyone there? Hello!"

At first it seemed as if the sounds were coming from the front. Then they sounded from the passage from which they had just come themselves. Sigurd turned in a circle several times until Alethea held him. Immediately the sounds also stopped.

It had become quiet as a mouse, but only for a short moment.

A rumbling and roaring started abruptly. Dust and fine grains of sand trickled down from the ceiling.

It was pure coincidence that Sigurd looked up because the noises were now coming from behind.

Half the ceiling seemed to have come loose and was coming toward them both. Sigurd didn't have time to think much. He reached out telekinetically and used his paranormal power against it, at the same time grabbing Alethea's arm and pulling her towards him.

With a veritable roar, large boulders crashed to the ground to their left and right, and a huge cloud of dust reached for them from all sides but could not reach them.

Sigurd's telekinetic defense field not only held back the one boulder directly above them, but also prevented them from suffocating in the cloud.

They were trapped. There was nowhere to go, and he couldn't just let go of the boulder that had been dislodged from the ceiling while trying to use his strength to create a passage between the rocks now lying on the ground.

Alethea looked at him faithfully with her large, blue-black iridescent eyes.

She had pressed herself very close to Sigurd and embraced him with her arms.

He was still fixated on the boulder above their heads when, after a few minutes, the swirling dust had slowly dissipated.

Alethea remained silent and thoughts raced in Sigurd's head.

He tried to find a way out but realized rather quickly that his thoughts had gotten caught in an endless loop.

"I see it in your eyes, Paurusa, we are trapped! There is only one option left, we must try to decentralize our bodies or better yet, we dive right into the ground!"

Sigurd listened to her wordlessly. He knew that the new Alethea, like Queen Yiilyix before her, could simply dissolve her physical solidity and thus seep into the ground. But what about him?

His body nanites had triggered a similar process once before, namely when he had gone in search of PAURUSHEYA. At that time, however, it had happened due to an attack with magic and, what's more, without his conscious intervention.

The question was, could he even bring about a conscious decentralization of his body.

Alethea guessed his concerns.

"You've done it before, so it works. You just have to really want it!"

They both looked into each other's eyes, and Sigurd realized there was no other option left.

He imagined the feeling of falling, just as he had done when he was searching for the ship, and in addition gave the appropriate mental command to his body.

Alethea had joined his thoughts before and reacted immediately. The Xxiin of her body changed her energetic structure and she began to sink faster and faster into the rocky ground.

Sigurd followed her, while his mind still telekinetically held the falling ceiling.

Their two bodies, standing close together, sank further and further into the ground.

It must have looked spooky bizarre to an outsider, the way the bodies literally melted into the ground. Sigurd held his breath when only his head was visible, and as his eyes approached the surface of the floor, he telekinetically released the blanket and closed his eyes. He already did not hear the tremendous impact of the remaining ceiling.

The small, medieval city was half bordered by a river. There was also the defensive wall, built entirely of hewn basalt stone blocks, over twenty meters high and almost three meters wide.

The other half of the town was bordered by a massive rock wall. Its center was the marketplace.

This was surrounded by the residential buildings of the merchants' guild, as well as warehouses and the stately stone buildings, which were reserved for the wealthy patricians.

Near the marketplace were residential and workplaces, such as bakers and butchers, and a monumental square building that almost reached the height of the defensive wall.

Several farms had settled outside the city walls. Typical for the town was the dense development with winding and narrow streets and the fountain in the center on the market square.

The town hall, granaries, salt warehouses, department stores, taverns and bathhouses were spread over an area of about 8.55 square kilometers.

Sorcerer's apprentice Sähren Morgester was just leaving the town and marched with an upright posture through the wooden, two-winged town gate.

He wore his official third-year magisterial apprentice hat. As he approached the tenth and thus the final year of his education, the hat would also become larger, taller, and more pointed.

It was still relatively small and flat, but Sähren still wore it with a certain pride, alongside the caftan-like robe held together by a very wide leather belt decorated with flashing stones.

After all, there were only two other sorcerer's apprentices here in Moorlagenau, besides him. Magister Wohlhorendoff, their teacher, was one of the most respected wizards of all five cities of the Monkey God.

The sorcerer's apprentice, Sähren Morgester, gazed pensively up at the sun that had just risen, or rather at the device of a sun. It seemed to him to shine especially brightly today.

Of course, all the inhabitants of the so-called White City, as the huge catacombs and hollows were called in which the five Samadhi cities were located, knew that their habitat was below the surface of the earth.

The artificial lighting suggested to every inhabitant of this subterranean vault complex, which stretched over 1000 square kilometers, that it was on the planet's surface, so vast were its dimensions.

The two halves of the gate were each flanked by a statue of a monkey god over ten meters high.

The two guards in their metallic armor lay lazily leaning against the basalt wall, casually holding a halberd covered with rust from flying.

Sähren looked at them only briefly. They seemed to be drunk already in the early morning, at least the two broken wine amphorae lying on the ground in front of them spoke a clear language.

Sähren Morgester looked over to the small hill. There stood the grove in which he had already frolicked as a child.

To the left, the farms of Hörmsdorf and Kamerlands could be seen.

Between their homesteads lay tilled land, and its dark color stood out clearly from the meadows and trees of the rest of the surroundings.

It was a peaceful world in which the Samadhi towns were situated. This idyll was disturbed only by many a foreign visitor from the outside world.

The outside world was a taboo, it existed but was never addressed by the inhabitants of the five cities.

Whoever had once come from there would never return there. The way back was barred to him once and for all. The only way out was the 'Ring of Srem'.

Sähren's thoughts recapitulated all the information and basics of life that each of the inhabitants of the Samadhi cities had been inculcated with as a child.

He was on his way to the small grove.

There was a magical place there, at least the place where the three boulders lay had always had something magical about it for him. The three very large stones lay one next to the other and formed a magic triangle.

They had a height of over five meters and bordered an area of fifteen square meters.

When the artificial sun was at its highest, the inner surface was brightly lit, and the boulders glittered supernaturally, as if there were thousands of tiny diamonds inside them.

Sähren had something very specific planned for that morning, which his master was not allowed to know about. In his third year of apprenticeship, he already knew many a spell and incantation.

In recent years, however, a certain confidence had grown in him that there must be something like a personal guardian spirit.

The more he learned about magic, the more confident he became in his belief in it.

Today, he had resolved to use the powers of the indwelling Mages to gain influence on the guardian spirit through invocation, to assure himself of his support and protection.

Possibly, he could also positively influence the goodwill of his master.

In the second place, there was the possibility that part of this power could be transferred to him and that he could reach the status of a magister more quickly. Sähren finally came to the place where the boulders were located.

The sun had not yet reached its highest level and the three boulders cast mystical shadows on all sides.

He began to make upward and downward movements with both hands, muttering repetitive words as he did so.

There was no doubt that the stones served him as fetishes.

In them he saw independently acting forces, which were supposed to be gracious to his guardian spirit to fulfill his wish.

He moved in a circle from one boulder to another, muttering magic words. Now, when at last the sunlight brightly illuminated the area within the boulders, the time had come.

Without haste he went to the exact center, where it was brightest and warmest.

Sähren sat down cross-legged in the grass, placed both hands flat on the ground in front of him and closed his eyes.

He already felt the power that was literally emanating from the ground, and he felt the three rocks that surrounded him. He saw their true nature with his inner, mind's eye.

Very slowly, after only a few minutes, he thought he felt something. It had to be a tremendous force, because normally the other rituals and invocations did not give such quick feedback.

It was like a flood rushing towards him. Sährens eyes opened fearfully, had he dared too much? There was no turning back, he knew that with an absolute certainty that frightened him even more.

His body began to tremble, his head jerked up.

What was that? The power, the tremendous power, was not coming out of the ground from below. He felt it clearly, it was coming from above.

The samadhi fell away from him and with widened eyes he looked at the place in the sky where a dense, gray cloud had formed in the otherwise always light blue firmament.

It moved with rapid speed directly toward him.

When the cloud was only a few meters above his head, it parted. Sähren quickly muttered some incantations, then he thought he couldn't believe his eyes.

Directly in front of him, a man and a woman emerged almost simultaneously from the two parts of the original cloud.

It was fascinating to see how the gray clouds condensed, how initially tiny blobs of color developed into human contours in no time at all, and then instantly manifested and stabilized into human forms.

"Where have we gotten to?"

Sigurd not only wondered, but he was also exceedingly amazed at the possibility of locomotion that had just occurred.

Although his body had already dissolved once, namely when he had been in search of PAURUSHEYA, it had nevertheless now been a new and unfamiliar sensation.

He looked at Alethea, who was standing to his right, and smiled.

"You can ask this young man here. I'm sure he can help you out!"

She lowered her gaze, looking past Sigurd on the left. There, a young man crouched on the ground, facing them with wide eyes. On his head, Sigurd could make out a strangely dented and slightly pointed hat, which made the young man's appearance seem a bit tacky. Sigurd had to grin involuntarily. 

"Why are there two of you? I had no idea I had two guardian spirits, but it makes sense. You embody the opposites in life, right? You always appear as a man and a woman, right?"

Sähren Morgester, the third-year magisterial apprentice tried to pull his legs apart and stand up but failed at first because they had fallen asleep, and he could no longer feel them.

"Wait, I'll help you!"

Sähren cried out, startled, as his body slowly floated up into the air and his legs unknotted and stretched from their cross-legged position as if on their own.

He had expected the guardian spirit to reach out and help him up that way.

"Watch out, I'm letting go now!"

Sähren still didn't seem to have understood as Sigurd released him from his telekinetic grip and he came to stand on his two legs alone again.

He still swayed a bit and Sähren thought that a thousand ants lived in his legs, but that would be over in a moment.

More importantly, he had just experienced the true power of his guardian spirit firsthand.

Sigurd looked up at the sky and only now seemed to notice that they were surrounded by three rocks.

"Where are we?"

He repeated his question, looking at Sähren Morgester.

"This is Moorlagenau, I mean our town is called Moorlagenau."

Sähren pointed between the boulders out into the clearing. There, on the near horizon, could be seen the city wall and, behind it, a few buildings large enough to tower over it.

"The radiation source seems to be right in the center of the city!"

Alethea's telepathic communication made Sigurd startle briefly. He turned to the young man.

"What is your name?"

"They call me Sähren Morgester, I am an apprentice sorcerer in the third year of the Magisterium, but you must know that, for you are my guardian spirits!"

Sigurd had left the inner circle of the three rocks and Alethea had followed him. Sähren jumped after them and shouted, "I have a wish for you, and you simply must fulfill it!"

Sigurd stopped abruptly and turned to him.

"What makes you think we are your guardian spirits? You call yourself a sorcerer's apprentice. What do you even mean by that?"

Now it was up to Sähren to look astonished.

"I called you and you appeared, what else! I myself am a student of the honorable wizard Wohlhorendoff."

"I think you're really wrong about one thing. We are not your guardian spirits."

Sigurd cleared his throat. He suddenly had a very dry throat.

"I don't think so!"

Sähren sparkled angrily at Sigurd and quietly muttered an incantation.

"You must simply help me and positively influence my master's goodwill. Perhaps you can even transfer some of your magical power to me!"

"As for this magic and sorcery, I am still unsure of what basic category to place it in."

Alethea's mental communication made Sigurd act.

"Sähren, we must first get closer to Magister Wohlhorendoff to help you."

He had already come up with a plan. To do this, it was necessary to strengthen the sorcerer's apprentice in his belief that they were his guardian spirits. Besides, they could no longer dissuade him anyway, Sähren was too convinced.

"I will take you to the city and near him, but you must be careful. Magister Wohlhorendoff is a powerful sorcerer. He must not suspect anything, or he will not only cast me out, but turn me into a stone statue and end my human life with it."

Alethea and Sigurd followed Sähren Morgester toward the city. How big is Moorlagenau?" Sigurd looked across the cultivated fields to the horizon, where the city wall already presented itself as a mighty monument.

"Moorlagenau has almost a thousand inhabitants. In addition, there are the wizards. There are, I believe, seven sub-wizards of the same kind besides Magister Wohlhorendoff." Sähren had stopped short.

"What can I actually call you guys? I mean, what name is yours?"

"You can call us Paurusa!"

Sigurd couldn't think of anything better to say at that moment, and something prevented him from revealing their true names.

"A name for both of you?"

"That's right!" Sähren seemed to think for a moment and then continued briskly on his way. They reached the city gates after about ten minutes. They were still standing wide open, looking like a personal invitation to each newcomer to enter.

When Sähren, Alethea, and Sigurd were already under the round stone arch of the gateway, gazing at the ancient buildings and winding alleys that spread out before them, two crossed halberds suddenly blocked their progress.

"Halt! You two are strangers, dressed as you are. Where are you going and what do you want in Moorlagenau anyway?"

One of the two gate guards addressed Sigurd and Alethea. Before Sigurd could answer, however, he heard a piercing singsong of words that seemed to come from Sähren's mouth.

"The two are citizens of Moorlagenau, wearing simple robes. They can pass!"

Sähren repeated these two phrases several times, looking the guards directly in the eye. The two guards began muttering the phrases, then lowered their rusted halberds and walked with dull looks back to the city wall, where Sigurd saw several clay jars lying on the ground.

"That was one of my easiest exercises!" Sähren grinned and adjusted his magic hat. "How did he do that?" Alethea thoughtful question answered Sigurd with one word: "Magic!"

On the trail of the Zetschn'cha

I had not misheard.  Artificial suns illuminated the relatively flat terrain.

"The term Samadhi sounds familiar. It's Sanskrit and means immersion or focusing one's attention on something."

Alethea looked at Sähren for approval.

The latter seemed to be still far away with his thoughts, at any rate his gaze was directed into a far distance while he said, "Samadhi refers to the state of consciousness we strive for to free ourselves from unimportant thoughts and get in touch with the supernatural!"

We sat in the small taproom and drank a tankard of beer. The taproom looked like a vaulted cellar.

The semicircular ceiling was built of unevenly worked sandstone bricks and supported by wooden support columns. Just opposite the entrance stood the taproom counter. It too, with its canopy, was made of solid oak and left me with a quaint impression.

Besides the three of us, I could make out five other guests. They were all sitting at one table and every now and then a glance from their direction met us.

"Sähren, you called yourself a sorcerer's apprentice. How long is your apprenticeship anyway?"

Sähren Morgester seemed to be just coming around now, as I could see a beginning interest in his gaze again.

"I am in the third year of the Magister's Decennium, and there are still seven long years ahead of me."

"Which you want to shorten a bit with our help, right?"

He merely nodded and took a sip from the tankard of beer.

"After that, you'll be a full-fledged wizard as well, a magister like Wohlhorendoff!"

"No, of course not like Wohlhorendoff, he is after all a Zetschn'cha and is thus far superior to a human wizard. We, the human sorcerer apprentices become sorcerer druids at the end of our training."

I reflexively looked at Alethea when the term Zetschn'cha was mentioned. "Where do we find him, this Magister Wohlhorendoff, and what does he look like?" Sähren looked at me in disbelief.

"As my guardian spirits, you should know, though."

He belched persistently and loudly ordered another tankard. Magister Wohlhorendoff inhabits the lower chambers in the 'Ring of Srem'.

Like any Zetschn'cha, he possesses many servants from the Srem people. They constantly flit about him, reading his every wish from his lips."

A thought occurred to me. I had already had to deal with two Zetschn’cha. Once they had tried to kill me aboard a liner, and the second assassination attempt had been made just off Venus Station TRISHARANA.

"Tell me, Mr. Morgester, aren't Magister Wohlhorendoff's clothes made of different colored cloth, on which the whole variety of colors of a rainbow can be found?"

"Are you all right, Paurusa? Your grammar seems a little bumpy to me!"

I laughed briefly as I heard Alethea's mental communication.

"I'm fine. I was merely trying to recreate an ancient form of speech that once existed!"

"Wonderful, I see you are full guardian spirits after all, as you are well aware of the wizards. Magister Wohlhorendoff prefers a tinge of beige in his choice of color for his clothing. It's hard to tell unless you know, so colorful are the fabrics he wears!"

With a thunderous roar, the massive wooden door of the tavern suddenly burst open, and a bunch of soldiers rushed into the taproom with a loud roar.

They rushed right past us at first and stopped in the middle of the room, four of them waving their swords wildly in the air.

They were followed by another two men and a youth who bore some resemblance to Sähren, at least he had similar headgear on.

"There they are, the scoundrels," the halberd carried by one of the last soldiers to rush in lowered its tip in our direction.

I recognized one of the gate guards we had snuck past with the help of Sähren's magic trick.

"Mehlte Fergester, that freeloader," I heard Sähren whisper just as all attention turned to us.

The young man pushed his way between them and stopped in front of Sähren.

"I thought so. The spell could only be yours!"

Sähren's facial features reflected a change of emotions. You could really see it, from startled to gloating too angry.

With a loud cry, he jumped up and looked at his fellow student Mehlte Fergester with his face red with anger.

The soldiers seemed to have some respect for the sorcerer's apprentices, for they took several steps back and at first only observed.

Alethea and I were also left to do the same.

She looked at me questioningly and I heard her telepathic voice, "Should we intervene?"

"No. We don't know what the actual capabilities of the two sorcerer's apprentices are, and I want to avoid becoming a victim of their magic. The soldiers seem to think similarly. They even lowered their halberds!"

Sähren Morgester was sitting on his chair one moment and the next moment was already standing a bit sideways next to Mehlte Fergester.

But I had not noticed at all that he had moved in any way.

He stretched out both arms and pressed his palms upwards, as if he wanted to stop his opponent.

I heard Sähren muttering something, and then it started to get uncomfortable in the taproom.

A whirlwind appeared out of nowhere and immediately began to rage inside the tavern. I already knew this kind of magic.

The soldiers literally flew through the taproom and with them chairs and tables. They were screaming like mad. The five other guests had still tried to reach the exit, but a few meters before they were also caught up in the hurricane, which was getting stronger and stronger, and were also thrown against the walls of the room.

Flourished Fergester's body glowed a dark red and he was still standing in the same place, just as Alethea and I were still sitting in our seats. The hurricane didn't seem to affect him.

He muttered something to himself and looked briefly in our direction.

I thought I saw a very thoughtful expression on his face.

Of course, as soon as the storm began, I had built a telekinetic defense field around Alethea and me.

It surrounded us and protected us as well from the now flying parts of the slowly disintegrating taproom equipment.

Sun-bright lightning twitched from his hands, interwove, and shot toward us with increased force. It was not Sähren who was the target of the lightning, but Alethea and me.

Wild cascades of energy broke into my telekinetic defensive shield. The lightning bolts emitted high-pitched sounds, as if from a neon tube, as they were deflected by the telekinetic force and whirred through the taproom.

Where they hit objects, these exploded literally and left a steaming something behind.

In the meantime, all the people had left the room except for us and the two sorcerer's apprentices. Mehlte Fergester was bitterly serious.

If one of his lightning bolts had hit us, we would probably no longer exist.

"Multax Erare hum," I heard Sähren shout, and out of the hurricane, sharp ice crystals formed into long stalagmites and not only rose from the ground in front of Mehlte Fergester, his opponent, but even tried to impale him. With the blizzard now raging in the room, I had almost no clear view to watch them.

"Alethea, let's get out of here!"

I took her hand, continued to focus on the protective field around us, and headed for the exit I could just make out.

The door had been ripped out and was lying on the ground in several pieces. Loud voices could be heard from outside.

Suddenly we were standing amid the soldiers. They were pushed aside by my protective field as we passed through them. The innkeeper had stopped lamenting and was looking at us with wide-open eyes when, with an inhospitably loud roar, his taproom collapsed behind us as if in slow motion.

A loud gong sounded across the open space in front of it and I saw a Zetschn'cha in his typical colorful clothing emerge from behind a house directly across from where we were staying.

He held a very long staff in his left hand, which was even larger than himself.

When now also the soldiers and the meanwhile grown number of onlookers noticed him as well, it became abruptly quiet around us.

"Magister Wohlhorendoff," I heard someone next to me whisper reverently, then Alethea and I had already disappeared into a side street. I could well imagine that the two sorcerer's apprentices would now have a very bad standing.

"Should we just leave Sähren Morgester to his fate? After all, we are his guardian spirits!"

Alethea's telepathically posed question gave me pause.

"Are you really serious?"

"Yes, of course. Think about it, he is familiar with us by now, besides, he really thinks that we are his guardian spirits and accordingly he is open and honest with us. I'm sure we won't find anyone better to provide us with information we absolutely need."

We were standing in a small, medieval alley that squeezed between tightly built half-timbered houses.

Small bay windows and balustrades jutted into the alley at head height, making it difficult to move forward. Several times we were almost jostled by other passers-by.

"If we intervene, we immediately find ourselves the center of attention again. I wanted to avoid that. But on the other hand, you're right. Let's go back and observe first!"

The square in front of the collapsed tavern was still full of people talking excitedly. I could not recognize any more soldiers at first.

Again and again the name Magister Wohlhorendoff was mentioned. There, where half an hour ago the entrance of the tavern had been, the magician stood on the top step of the small wooden staircase with his arms spread out theatrically.

He looked at the field of rubble that lay directly in front of him and at the two sorcerer's apprentices standing unharmed amid the ruined house, antagonizing each other. The hurricane, blizzard, and lightning were gone.

With a domineering movement of his arm, he drew them to him like a magnet.

Sähren Morgester and Mehlte Fergester were dragged through the rubble as if by an invisible hand, colliding several times with the remains of walls and wooden beams.

With loud cries of pain, the two came to a halt directly in front of the wizard.

Incapacitated with fright, they did not dare to say another word.

We pushed through the crowd to get a little closer.

Magister Wohlhorendoff's voice came over the square loud and clear, with a hissing undertone: "Unworthy is still too weak an expression for the behavior you have shown. You will be punished and in the same way. Follow me!"

The crowd dispersed and formed a wide alley. Magister Wohlhorendoff strode ahead without paying any further attention to the two sorcerer's apprentices.

They still stood rigid and stiff in the same place, not moving.

But now they began to float a few inches above the ground behind him, as if they were hanging from an invisible rope.

A murmur went through the crowd, and they readily made way for the wizard. He came straight at Alethea and me. We also dodged to the side, and I waited until Morgester, who was floating motionless in the air, had caught up.

Then I reached out telekinetically, grabbed his body with my paranormal power, and yanked him forcefully in the opposite direction.

The onlookers were already closing the circle around the wizard and Mehlte Fergester again when I grabbed Morgester by the shoulders and tried to shake him awake; he was still in a kind of rigor mortis.

Alethea pulled him along with us while I telekinetically pushed aside the people who stood in our way.

Wohlhorendoff had apparently still not noticed that one of his two charges was missing. Sähren was still silent as we turned into a narrow alley and were thus out of sight of the people for the time being.

"Where can we hide as soon as possible?"

"He'll find me anyway! There's no place in all of Moorlagenau where he won't find me." Sähren sounded very meek.

"Who was the other sorcerer's apprentice? Why did he expose you and attack us?"

"Mehlte Fergester is a buffoon. He's out to be the first person to succeed Wohlhorendoff. He'll do anything for that. He was also one of the reasons I summoned you as guardian spirits!"

So the whole thing was starting to get a little complicated.

"Sähren, even if you don't believe it, we are not your guardian spirits!"

We continued walking down the narrow alley now, and when he tried to stop again, I pulled him along by the arm. Behind us, I could make out several townsfolk who had just been standing in front of the ruined tavern.

"Maybe it will be best if we leave town!"

The initial fright on Sähren's face was followed by a thoughtful expression.

"The wizards of the other Samadhi cities are in constant contact with each other. Going there would do no good at all!"

He had stopped again and I, along with Alethea, pulled him into an even narrower side passage that was between two half-timbered houses.

Here it was relatively dark, and we could not be seen so easily. Sähren cleared his throat briefly when I let go of him.

"I see only one way left to escape a highly embarrassing punishment. I must leave this world. Before I end up a lesser bonded servant, I prefer this path!"

He stretched his body, and I could see a sparkle in his eyes. His returning will to live was really flowing through him.

Alethea and I looked at him questioningly. "In the energetic half-world, in the universe of the Zetschn'cha, there are many worlds. I am safe there!"

I didn't really know what he meant at first.

He probably noticed my irritated expression.

"The 'Ring of Srem'! It leads into the actual universe of the people from whom the wizards originate. Why don't you know about it? As my guardian spirits, you should. You will accompany me, of course. In the very center of Moorlagenau is the Tabernacle. It is a monumental, almost square building."

His expression became somber.

"Unfortunately, the refuge of Magister Wohlhorendoff is also located there. But that shouldn't bother us too much. After all, you are my guardian spirits, aren't you?" He looked at Alethea, then at me, lurking. It almost seemed to me as if he had changed his preconceived notion regarding our status, or at least thoroughly reconsidered it. "This is our chance, and we should take it!"

Alethea had taken to communicating with me telepathically, so Sähren didn't notice.

By now, it was already clear to me that we were not really getting anywhere here underground at 150 meters.

I nodded to her and said to Sähren, "All right, we'll follow you!"

That Sähren Morgester had really meant it, with what he said before, he still proved, before we went off.

He took off his magic hat and got rid of his magic cloak. He hid both in a wide crack in the wall of a half-timbered house.

Now he wore only a leather laced shirt and tight-fitting leg warmers. Over this was still a very tight, sleeveless overskirt in an unadorned brown. Without the signs of his status, he could have been mistaken for an ordinary citizen of the city.

We reached the tabernacle without difficulty. In answer to my question, Sähren could not tell me from what material the monumental ashlar had been built.

In any case, it bore some resemblance to the Kaba, the Islamic shrine in Mecca, but was more than twice as large.

"The 'Ring of Srem' is right in its center!"

Sähren became nervous all at once.

"How do we get in there?"

"Can't you conjure us inside? I saw you fall out of the ceiling sky above us. Guardian spirits can do that!"

"Sähren, for the very last time, we are not your guardian spirits!"

"You have magic powers, you can't deny it, after all, I saw it exactly when Mehlte attacked you with the interwoven lightning."

I gave up arguing with him any further. He wouldn't have understood the truth anyway, certainly not if I told him about parapsychology.

"No, we can't get in there with magic powers. There must be another way!"

Around the tabernacle was a circular ground area of about twenty meters, paved.

We were standing at the corner of a frame house that directly abutted the otherwise empty area. The space around the cuboid seemed to be deserted. Not a human soul far and wide.

Sähren thought about it for a very long time. Finally, he mumbled something to himself and cleared his throat.

"There is a kind of secondary exit or you can also say emergency exit. This ends in the basement of one of the front houses. Wohlhorendoff showed it to me at the very beginning of my training. From there we should be able to get into the tabernacle. Follow me!"

The cellar entrance was on the wall of an old half-timbered house, covered with a wooden plank door. The door was not locked and could be opened without complications. Several steps led down. There was a strong smell of earth.

The ceiling, roughly made of bricks, was very low and we had to pull our heads in to avoid bumping into each other.

Sähren led the way, and we followed him into a narrow corridor whose walls were made of wooden planks and straw. It was very dark, and one could almost not see one's hand in front of one's eyes.

Immediately, Alethea and I began to have infrared vision. I noticed that Sähren was moving forward purposefully. He also seemed to have no problem with the darkness.

We reached a massive wooden door. It was locked.

"Damn, I didn't think of that!"

"Step aside!"

I pushed myself in front of Sähren and reached out telekinetically. All that could be heard was a soft creak that ended with a bang as the door swung open as well. The door's wrought iron hinges hung loose in the brick wall.

"Please, you know the way!"

I stepped aside, giving way to the puzzled-looking Sähren.

"Show-off!" Alethea's thought reached me as we were already walking up the stone stairs that were just beyond the door.

There was a faint smell of ozone. It was the first thing I noticed when we arrived thirty steps up.

There was a light blue glow in the air in the room ahead of us. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Sähren seemed to know it, for he paid no attention to it, but marched on purposefully.

"We have to go that way, it's not far!"

He pointed through an arched passageway that was directly in front of us. Somehow the whole thing seemed very unreal.

It was all going far too smoothly. Only briefly did the thought occur to me that in my books such situations had also been described. The hero of these books thought something like what I was thinking now and then it happened, the trap he had stepped into snapped shut.

I had to laugh briefly and loudly. It sounded almost like a dog barking in the empty room.

Sähren flinched noticeably and looked at me in irritation.

"I can only agree with you," I heard Alethea's thoughts. She had sensed my mental tension and caught my train of thought.

"Is this really the right way?"

My question was still in the room when several hidden doors opened almost simultaneously and about a dozen servants of the wizard came out and encircled us.

Magister Wohlhorendoff stepped out of the archway, accompanied by other servants. Sähren immediately froze into a pillar of ice.

But Magister Wohlhorendoff ignored him completely and walked past him. As he did so, he gave instructions to his servants by hand signals.

Four of them immediately took Sähren into their midst and led him away. He let it pass without resistance but looked again briefly imploringly in our direction.

Wohlhorendoff's full attention was now on us. This could not go well.

I still had too little experience in dealing with a wizard and his powers to be able to properly assess the danger that was coming our way.

"Think of our first hopeless situation down here!"

I heard Alethea's thought and immediately knew what she meant.

"I just hope there are other rooms below us. Alright, let's get out of here!"

I still saw Magister Wohlhorendoff extend his arms in our direction, then my body sank into the ground. My nanites had carried out the order immediately.

Alethea had sunk simultaneously with me, and when I opened my eyes again, which I had spontaneously closed, we were standing in front of a white shining round column, a real vertical beacon, which took up half the room.

"The 'Ring of Srem'! It is a part of the magical construct of the magical city. It leads to the energetic half-world, the universe of the Zetschn'cha. You must decide quickly. The magician will know where you are now!" 

I heard the thoughts of my subconscious as I slowly turned around.

In fact, I could see technology behind me like what I once saw on Super Earth in the Artifact City.

The consoles glowed a ghostly red. Only briefly did doubt arise in me as to whether we could really entrust ourselves to this energy column.

But when I felt Alethea's hand, which had placed itself in mine, there was no turning back for me.

Together we stepped courageously into the light channel. 

The hemisphere

The 'Ring of Srem' was extinguished. We were standing on a round square, with a diameter of at least 100 meters. It was enclosed by a horseshoe-shaped rampart with a moat.

There was a large exit to the northeast and a smaller one to the south. The ditch was surrounded by a megalithic structure formed by a concentric stone circle.

Two huge monkey sculptures flanked the exit. I estimated their height at about twenty meters.

The small, reddish sun disk stood between the megalithic stones, giving the whole appearance of the area before us a mystical, archaic atmosphere.

"You're sure you know what you're doing!"

Alethea was also still standing motionless beside me, gazing at the sky. Next to the dimly glowing disk of the sun, one could just make out the huge crescent of another planet or moon disappearing behind the horizon.

"It was the only logical conclusion. We could not go back the old way. Besides, having already come this far, I firmly resolved to get a basic answer."

"To what question?"

"The question of why. Who or what is behind all of this and what is the purpose of it in the first place!"

"That's quite a few questions!"

I had to grin. Alethea always took everything so literally.

"Yes and no. I think somewhere it boils down to a common denominator and that's what I want to find."

"So it's a mathematical question, but then who is the numerator?"

Now I really had to laugh out loud.

"No, it was more of a figure of speech and means something like 'having a common origin'."

"You humans give me the creeps. How can you understand and communicate with each other when the meaningfulness of your words keeps changing?"

I preferred not to say anything about that now. Calgulla, the Mellran, had already complained about this, too. Instead, I took her hand and pulled her with me.

We walked together through the exit and suddenly found ourselves in a completely different world, or so it seemed.

Only the small sun disk had remained the same, everything else had changed.

In front of us was a vast plain stretching to the horizon. The ground shone in a golden-yellow hue. There was almost no vegetation at all, and in the far distance a city wall reflected in the warm air, much like the wall of the city of Moorlagenau from which we had just come.

"What are we going to do now? Should we head toward the city?"

I couldn't answer Alethea's question myself at first. It all seemed very inhospitable here, like in one of the old computer games, the world around us seemed somehow artificial.

Bright white lightning flashed from the firmament and struck the ground around the protective stone wall of the city. Again and again they came from a different direction, forking and crossing themselves. There was a very strong smell of ozone. Explosive blasts pounded across the very flat terrain.