Chapter 3

After sitting Hal and Brandon down with some rose and berry tea, Blair started his story.

“Now, long ago, long before the humans were sent out of Magi-Land, long before Tonalderr was s-...” Blair paused to stroke his long, greyish white beard. “I’ll… I’ll start from the beginning. So, at the dawn of this universe -not your universe- a mass was created-Tolander.” Blair took another pause. “Why is this so hard to explain? It-it-it w-was like a planet to you, but… there was only one in the whole universe. The rest were pointless balls of gas and dust. Our planet-mass-thingy was different from the others.”

Brandon was intrigued. “How?”

“Well, first of all, it was solid. But, it was also… flat.”

“Flat?” Brandon asked.

“Oh?” Hal sounded like all this information was new to him too. “But how do we dig down?”

“It’s not exactly flat like that,” Blair said as if brushing off the simple question. “I thought you would be one to understand this sort of thing. It only looks flat from very very far out in space. In reality, on our ‘planet,’ you can dig deeper than the radius of your Earth. It’s like a sheet but twisted. Oh, I wish I could explain better.”

Brandon and Hal tried very hard to picture what Blair was trying to explain.

“Anyways, all life that was to be created had to be created on this planet. I’m going to start calling it a planet even though it’s not really a planet for your sake.”

Brandon nodded. “That’s cool and all, but what does it have to do with me coming to Magi-Land?”

“Oh, yes. As I was saying, in the beginning, Tonalderr -the planet we are on- was one big community. There were humans, wizards… oh, I wouldn’t go on to name them all.”

“Wait,” Brandon said quickly. “Aren’t humans wizards?” Blair took a second to look at himself and then at Brandon before he answered. “No, they’re a completely different species. You humans couldn’t possibly harness that much power or you might go crazy and turn into something else. But I see why you might think…” Blair took another moment to compare himself to a human.

As Blair talked, Brandon shivered. Turn into something else? What did he mean?

“So, these creatures called Anges also lived on Tonalderr with the rest of us. But, they were different,” Blair said the last sentence quietly. He sighed before continuing. “They had incredible levels of intelligence. Not in everything… only in things that are academic. Is that a good way to explain it? What I mean to say is that they were kind of like perfectly designed and programmed computers made by God… or whoever or whatever.”

“After a very long time of adapting/evolving, (The Anges didn’t really evolve, they only grew smarter as time went by) the Anges had enough of us other species. They could not stand or understand the way we thought. One of the few subjects that they did not excel in was phycology. They did not even care about the survival of other species.”

“Without empathy, the anges told the other dominant species (Lourdwarfs, Humans, Creatures, and Wizards along with a couple other minor ones) that they would be leaving, but were still able to study and spectate everyone else.”

“How?” Brandon burst out. He was trying not ask questions, but sometimes it was too tempting.

“Well, they found a way to… fold Tonalderr,” Blair said almost shakily. “It was i-in a way that they kind of layered themselves on top of everyone else using science and the energy or power of gentoridges. That way no one could see the anges, only the atmosphere above them, but the anges could see them. Sadly, at that time, the lourdwarfs tendended to be quite stubborn. Now that I think of it, the anges were also a bit…”

“Lourdwarfs?” Hal asked. Brandon sat back smugly. For some reason, he felt good that Hal was asking questions too.

“Yes,” Blair said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Was he hinting at Hal to stop asking questions, or was it the topic of lourdwarfs that set him off? “They’re kind of like really big dwarfs. They’re bigger than humans, but very squat. They’re not giants if you were wondering.”

“Well, the lourdwarfs were frustrated that the Anges had a ‘secret hiding place in the sky’ and they didn’t. So, after lots of… let’s say complaining, they finally convinced the anges to create another invisible lair for them. I don’t know if it was because they had begged for so long, or if it was because the anges thought it would be a good idea to separate the lourdwarfs from us.”

“So, now, Tonalderr was more like a bookshelf, except you can’t see the shelf that’s above you. The top shelf held the anges, looking down upon the lourdwarfs and all magical or non-magical creatures. The second shelf held the lourdwarfs who could only look down upon us. In fact, the ‘shelf’ that the lourdwarfs lived on held most of the animals and most of the other non-dominant beasts/animals. They probably brought them because you can’t argue with things that don’t talk.” Blair started to laugh lightly. So, Blair’s not a big fan of lourdwarfs. Note taken.

“This is all really cool,” Brandon said, starting to get on the edge of his patience. “But, I really need to know what this has to do with me being here.”

“Of course, I was… obviously getting to that,” Blair said quickly. He stood up, motioning for Brandon and Hal to follow. He led them through a small portion of a shrubbery-full forest. They stopped at a tree.

“A G-g-gentotree?” Brandon stuttered. “I thought I got rid of all of those…”

“Well, they still do exist on the other two shelves of Toalderr. Plus, it turns out, there were a few left,” Blair quickly added a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry though, all the gentoridge masses are gone and no one has any intention of cutting one of these down. Though, that’s not the reason we’re here.”

Before Blair could tell Brandon what to do, the boy heard a sound. It was a high-pitched squeak. Coming around to the other side of the tree, he spotted something deathly chilling along with a memory he wished he would never see again.