Magical Experience

The Wizards and Witches that remained needed a new sovereign. Thoucil was next in line, but she refused and took the position of Grand Wizard instead. Dragdani, as her son and heir, accepted the throne and his coronation happened almost immediately.

When the Wizards had rebuilt their order, Dragdani then helped the withes do the same, and in their turn, also helped the Dragons find a new home. It is said that he went to the cleft of Lavoul and raised an island from the very sea itself, that he moved it away from the coast and further out to sea to make sure that the Dragons would be left to live in peace.

"I see that it's happened already," said Delsani.

"What's happened?" asked Helen.

John turned around to look at her. "My eyes have changed."

"Not just your eyes John," she said, aghast. "Your ears have changed too."

"It's all right," said Delsani. "All Wizard-Elves go through this."

"Why didn't you tell us that before?" asked John with a note of distress, now that the novelty of his new eyes had worn off.

"It must've slipped my mind," said Delsani.

John walked over to a display case. He could see his reflection again and looked at his ears repeatedly from one to the other. They were exactly the same height and width. They were pointed, and both had one small notch near the top of the lobe. John had not seen this before when he noticed the change in his eyes, though now he could see all of it easily. Then his eyes returned to normal, though his ears did not.

"Why haven't my ears turned back?" he asked distraughtly.

"Well, that's because they're permanent," replied Delsani.

"Permanent!," repeated John loudly; he was even more distressed with this. "You said Wizard-Elves can do things ordinary Wizard's and Witches can't," he said almost desperately. "So does that mean that I could find a way to change my ears back?" he asked optimistically.

"Perhaps," said Delsani.

"Why do Wizard-Elves have those strange eyes?" asked Helen, making her self-known once more.

"I'll explain on the way up to the Council Chambers. The Council will be waiting for us," replied Delsani.

They began to walk toward the far doors at the end of the hall to their left. But just before they had reached it, John saw the display case that held Dragdani's wand. The one the King had used before he got his Wizard-Elf abilities. It also held a set of his robes from the days when he attended the old Wizard College, Jaldgiler, along with his flying broomstick that he used to win the B.A.R (Broomstick Amateur Races) twice in a row.

The once-great broom was a little worse for wear. Not too far from the top of the broomstick shaft was a grip, a long thick piece of material which was tightly wrapped around that part of the shaft. It was torn. Half way down. The shaft was badly cracked, which was the result of the unfortunate accident that almost had taken the life of the young Wizard. The accident happened at the race during Dragdani's fourth year at college. It was the second year he had raced, as young Wizards and Witches were only allowed to enter the broomstick races in their third year.

All broomsticks were fitted with safety bars. These were metal strips strengthened with magic to ensure the safety of the rider. In the event of a crash, the safety bar would detect it and a large bubble would surround the rider and give them a softer landing. However, the safety bar could not protect the rider if they were to fall off. The bars ran down the shafts of the brooms then split into finer pieces which were mixed amongst the twig bristles.

Those were not Dragdani's only possessions on display. There were many of his things, even the necklace piece which they had seen his double wearing only minutes before. His spell book was probably the most famous of all of his possessions, for written somewhere in its pages was the spell that defeated the Dark Wizard, Salith, though none knew what it was. The Wizard-Elf had put protection spells on the book to prevent it ever being opened by anyone but him.

They walked on, and when they got to the end of the hall there were three doors. They took the one to the left. The runes on it moved and changed into two separate words that both said WELCOME. The top one was the Wizard language, and the bottom one was in English:

Hiwol

Welcome

Then the door opened by itself.

They walked through the doorway. At first the room was black, though suddenly there was a bright light. There were no torches or candles or anything that would usually emit such a strong illumination. And although the light was strong, Helen could still see no walls, which intrigued her more than anything else. At first, all that could be seen were wooden doors. The doors were numbered and floating around the room on small pieces of what looked like thick mist or cloud. Most of the doors were brown, but not all, for there were red, grey, blue, and even green doors as well. To their right there were two bright stone staircases. They were twisting and coiling around each other, going up as far as the eye could see. Well, as far as Delsani and Helen's could see. Up the steps went, around and around like two giant snakes. At the bottom of both staircases, on either side, were posts bearing the image of Dragdani's Dragon carved into white stone.

"What is this place?" asked Helen.

"This is one of the three vault rooms," replied Delsani. "The vault door moves about each of the rooms, floating around with the dimensional doors, and the only ones who know which vault room it is in are the Grand Wizard and the other members of the Council."

"And what are dimensional doors?" asked Helen, now totally baffled.

"Remember when I said that dimensional windows show us worlds that are very like our own? Well. These are dimensional doors that allow access to other worlds that in almost every case are so alien that it can take years to learn how to talk to the people who live there. But be careful not to open a door that leads to a demon dimension."

"How do you know the difference between them?" asked Helen.

"Usually you can hear screaming coming from the demon doors," replied John mordantly. 

"Why didn't you tell me about this John?" asked Helen, who sounded excited with the idea but also disappointed that she had not known about it before.

"If you remember, you didn't want to know too much about Dorminya. You wanted to use your imagination for your books or I would have told you everything," replied John defensively.

"Well, now I want to know everything," said Helen, very intrigued by all she was learning.

When they got to the foot of the staircase facing them, they stopped. Helen looked up. It was so high that she grew dizzy. "That looks like a long climb," she said.

"What climb?," asked John. He stepped forward onto the staircase and stood there for less than a second with both of his feet on the first step, and then suddenly vanished.

"What happened?" cried Helen. John had not told her of the staircases either.

"The staircases are just for show," said Delsani. "When you step onto the first tread on either one, you'll instantly be teleported to whatever floor you wish. You should go next, fifth floor, by the way.'

Helen said nothing. If her facial expression was anything to go by, she was not at all excited about this. Her morbid fear battled with her fascination, and with this weighing on her mind, she stepped forward onto the step, shut her eyes tight. Then, like John, she too disappeared.

When she reappeared, John was there waiting. "Congratulations," he said.

"For what?" Helen asked as she opened her eyes again.

"For your second magical experience," replied John. "I forgot to congratulate you the first time round."

"No," said Helen, putting up her right index finger and waving it slowly from side to side. "That was my fourth magical experience. First I came here," and she started counting with her fingers, "Then the dimensional window, and then there were the floating doors. Then the teleporting staircases." She finished, sounding clever and looking quite pleased with herself.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" John asked.

Helen laughed. "Smarter then you, anyway," she said.

"You know, now that I'm a King, you shouldn't talk to me like that," said the Wizard-Elf, "or I might end up taking a leaf out of Henry the Eighth's book, and you know what happened to his wives."

"Don't even think about it," said his wife with a smile.

"If the two of you don't mind, I would like to get to the Council before they send out a search party to look for us, or before I die of old age whichever comes first," said Delsani, appearing just behind Helen.

"Somehow I think the latter might come before the former," joked the King.

This made his wife snigger.

Delsani on the other hand said nothing; he merely smiled.