Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (34 page)

    Charlie’s knees buckled and he fell into the guard’s arms who hauled him forcefully towards the exit.

    Only something major could save him now. It would have to be magic.

    All of a sudden a bright white light filled the room as the doors burst open and a number of figures in pointy hats entered in a blaze of swirls and stars. A group of the guards rushed forward to apprehend the intruders but words of ‘nonsense’ and ‘babble’ and ‘baloney’ were shouted from the newcomers, followed by large flashes from their staffs. The guards suddenly found themselves naked and terribly embarrassed.

    “
What is the meaning of this outrage?
” shouted the Overseer standing angrily.

    “Keep your pants on,” said the man in the lead. “My name is High Immaculate Enchanter, Rufious Astailler Maininder Casthoozer, and no you may not call me Rufi.”

    “
And what the hell can we do for you?
”

    “You must call an urgent meeting at once,” continued the Wizard stroking his goatee beard and pointing his metal staff around the room. “We have important information about the strange events that have happened of late… information that affects us all!”

    “
Couldn’t this have waited until after
his
trial was completed?
” bellowed the Overseer, pointing at Charlie who seemed to have lost the will to live.

    “I’m afraid not. It would seem that the Human is important... to us all.” 

Chapter 56

A long, half-moon shaped table sat in the middle of a room that was far too large for its own good. The Overseer entered the room from a sliding door and strode forwards. The room was so large that it seemed to take forever for him to reach his chair and sit. He was followed by the Lampan and the May’orn, who had been sitting next to him in the courtroom.

    The Overseer looked at the odd bunch of characters invited to this meeting. He took a sip of his water (which was of course through a straw that had extended from his mask. It was one of those straws with a bendy neck).

    “
I think you ought to begin,
” he said, turning to the High Immaculate Enchanter. At least it was presumed he was looking at him. When one wears a mask with no eye holes it is really quite hard to tell.

    The Wizard, all clad in black from his pointy shoes up to his even pointier hat, rose slowly and tapped the table with his fingertips. It should be pointed out that Rufi's black outfit was in no way as black at the Overseer's. A fact that clearly irritated the Wizard.

    “We have all felt different these last few days,” he began. “We all know that there is something wrong. I ask any of you to tell me what it is.”

    Charlie Pinwright, who sat close to the Overseer, chained heavily to the chair, so much in fact that he could not move a single muscle in his body, opened his mouth to speak.

    “Not
you
,” the Wizard snapped.

    Charlie closed his mouth. No one else seemed able to answer the question. 

    Rufi grinned in his goatee. “I didn’t think so. We, the Wizards, have discovered the awful truth of what has happened. Few of us sitting around this table know one another personally but we all know each other’s species. My question is… should we? Please, let us now introduce ourselves. As I have already said, I am the leader of the Wizards. Sitting to my left and right are Lord Shagbag of the Dwarves and High Delta Officer Lemor’all of the Elves.”

    Shagbag and Lemor’all nodded to everyone around the table and then glared at each other.

    “Our three species
should
know one another,” Rufi continued. “We
should not
know the rest of you. If you would introduce yourselves?”

    “Mayor Rajar,” said the Intelimal, “of Intelligeous Prime.” The man with the elephant’s head sneezed, scattering Rufi’s papers. The Wizard glanced him a dark look. “Sorry,” Rajar muttered reluctantly, whilst blowing his trunk on a tissue.

    To his left a man stood, terribly pale with greasy black hair that met in a point on his forehead. “Count Pracular,” he said coldly, licking his pointed fanged teeth, “and I am a vampire.” He flicked out his cloak for effect.

    A lady next to him, sitting in a tank of water on wheels, rose to the surface, her long blonde hair flowing over the edge. “My name is Naroula-Iyana, from the Mer-People.” The top of the surface rippled as she splashed it happily with her fin.

    A square jawed, muscular man wearing a bright spandex costume with his pants over the top of tights stood and struck a very heroic pose. “I am SuperSquire,” his proud gallant voice boomed, “and I am from the race of Superheroes!”

    “Charlie Pinwright,” said Charlie glumly, “and I am a loser.”

    “
The Overseer,
” said the masked man at the head of the table, “
and I don’t see what the point to any of this is.
”

    “It is coming, it is coming,” said Rufi. “I just wanted to establish who everyone was. We haven’t forgotten anyone have we?”

    There was a sudden crackle above them as clouds began to swirl around the room. Lightning flashed from within and a million stars swirled outwards. A hand, gigantic in size, reached down from the clouds and pointed its bus-sized finger down at the people around the table.

    “
You started without me?
” roared a voice louder than any other and with an echo of a thousand other voices within. “
How dare you!
”

    Rufi gibbered somewhat. “Erm… and you are?”

    The hand began to shrink in size as its owner emerged from the clouds, descending as if on an invisible rope to the floor. It was a male, with perfectly groomed hair, spotless skin and perfect crystal blue eyes. He wore a whiter-than-white toga and a crown of golden leaves sat atop of his head. He also wore sandals. Luckily with no socks.

    “
I am Zeos,
” he said proudly, “
Father of all things. Creator of the planets and of the stars. Giver of lives.
”

    The vampire raised a pointy nailed finger into the air. “What exactly does that mean?” he asked.

    “
Is it not obvious?
” Zeos continued, “
I am god!
”

  
 
Stunned silence ensued.

    “God?” asked Mayor Rajar eventually.

    Zeos huffed and took a seat. “
Well not
God
per say… but
a
god. One of many this is true but I am a very important one.
”

    “You would have us believe that you are a g
od
?” Lemor’all scoffed.

    “
I am,
” Zeos responded quickly and stubbornly, “
and I’d take that grin off your face or I’ll strike your village down with a plague of locust.
”

    “
Enough!
” shouted the Overseer, bored of all this foolish malarkey. “
Can we get on with this please?
”

    “Indeed,” said Rufi, “now that everyone is here.” He ushered towards the door as another Wizard entered. “May I introduce to you our head of the science of magic, Fungust.”

    Fungust rushed over to the table, his hat falling slightly over his eyes. He tripped and banged his knee on the table’s corner, then proceeded to hop around the room holding on to it howling in pain.

    Rufi sat down, shaking his head slowly.

    “Thank you for coming,” said Fungust after he eventually calmed himself down. He was nervous and sweating drips of star dust from his brow. “None of us are meant to be together,” he continued, rolling out a large parchment with badly scrawled diagrams and equations etched onto it. “None of us were ever meant to meet. We are all from different dimensions. Yet something has forced us together… made our dimensions -”

    “Collide,” said Professor Amirous finishing off the Wizard's sentence as he too entered the room. He took a seat near the Overseer and smiled. His ageing face resembling a road map. “Amirous. Official professor to the Overseer.”

    “Indeed,” Fungust continued, a little exasperated that someone would butt into his speech that he had spent hours practising. “As I was saying, we don’t know what has caused it but -”

    “It was the golden glow,” Charlie muttered. When all eyes turned to him, he felt he had to carry on. He also felt like a fool as he didn’t really know what he was talking about. “The golden glow. It was a strange…
thing
… that spread through space. Anything that got trapped within it… well… changed.”

    “Thank you for that
scientific
explanation of events,” Fungust continued sarcastically. Charlie stuck two fingers up at him, or at least would have done if he could have moved his arm.

    Fungust flicked his wand and the scribbled image of the golden glow began to move on the parchment. “The ‘golden glow’ as our Human friend so elegantly put it is a phenomenon we have called the Enveloping Effect.”

    “And what has caused this… effect?” asked the Mermaid, combing her hair with a crab.

    “Erm…” Fungust looked to Rufi for support who turned away sharply. “We’re not quite sure about that yet. We don’t actually know what the Enveloping Effect is… just what it does.”

    “I’m sure our godly friend here can tell us,” said the Vampire mockingly, “being a g
od
and all.”

    Zeos shrugged. “
I know. I just don’t want to tell you.
”

    “You don’t know do you?” asked Lemor’all.

    Zeos lowered his head. “
No
,” he admitted. “
This effect seems to exist beyond our plain of control. It is very confusing. We Gods created everything. The light, the dark, the suns, the moons… yet this… it has not come from us. Very disturbing.
” He sat back and ate a grape.

    Most around the table seemed to find Zeos very worrisome. Believing in a god was one thing. Coming face to face with someone telling you they are God is another thing altogether.

    “I have used an ancient magical stone called the Mystophogus Crystal,” Fungust continued, “It shows us things as they are meant to be! The Enveloping Effect has changed everything, pulling parts of our dimensions together, merging them if you will, creating an entirely new dimension. It’s not only space and the stars that have changed however… we have as well!”

    He paused for effect. It didn’t seem to have any.

    “Us Wizards,” he continued, “the Elves and the Dwarves for example. None of us are meant to be flying in space faring vessels. That technology should be beyond our capabilities. Yet here we are. And we are meant to live together on one planet, yet in this new Dimension we live on separate ones!”

    Some around the table began to nod their heads slowly, as if they too had felt that things were wrong.

    “Other things have changed also,” the Wizard carried on. “All of our currency has changed to knobs as if that is what we have always been using. The temperature within a star has increased. The population of jumping fleas have doubled. Parking fines have gone up five percent!”

    “Everyone seems to be speaking in English,” added Charlie, finally understanding.

    Fungust, not really knowing what ‘English’ meant, ignored the statement and continued. “The only question is -”

    “How do we change it back?” said Amirous, rising from his chair, albeit slowly due to the arthritis in his spine, his brain in motion.

    “Yes,” Fungust snapped, “that is what I was going to say. And I have the answer! It is -”

    “Charlie Pinwright!” Amirous continued, turning to the Human who pulled a shocked expression a little like a trout caught in a net.

    “No,” he gibbered. “No not me! You’re wrong. It has
nothing
to do with me!”

    “I’m afraid it does Charlie,” the professor continued, walking around the table and patting him on the back. “When we first met, you told me that you had entered this
Enveloping Effect
as opposed to it covering you. We scanned space and there was no sign of your world… no sign of anything from your dimension.”

    Fungust sprang forward, his flamboyant gown flapping, and pushed the Lampan out of the way, nearly knocking him off his feet. “This is
my
discovery!” he wailed, throwing a tantrum. “
Mine
! Not
yours
you blue faced know-it-all!”

    He repositioned the hat on his head, smoothed out his beard and coughed slightly.

    “You, Charlie Pinwright,” he continued, “are not meant to be here.”

    “I could have told you that,” Charlie grumbled.

    “You are not meant to be here at all,” the Wizard continued. “You are a single in a dimension of constants. Your dimension was never meant to leak into this new one… but somehow it has! You must have broken through the edge of the dimension to enter.”

    “I assure you I didn’t mean to,” said Charlie.

    Fungust grinned through his beard. “It is a good job you did!”

    “
Explain
,” said the Overseer, not fully comprehending anything that was being said.

    “There will be a hole at the edge of this new dimension,” said Amirous, sitting back down and jotting notes on paper. “It will still be there, but it will be closing, healing itself. Technically, and I believe this is what Mr Fungust is trying to explain, if Charlie goes back through it, back to his own dimension, he will force the hole to tear open once again.”

    “Thrusting him back wherever the devil it is he comes from,” continued Fungust, “will cause a rippling effect throughout the edge of this new dimension. It will, in essence, crack like a dropped egg.”

     “
And this will?
”

     Fungust smiled. “This will return all of our dimensions back to where they came from,” he said proudly. “Everything will return to what it once was.”

    There was silence as the various species took in what they had just heard. The Overseer leaned back in his chair and stretched his hands over his head. He looked to Charlie and stared intently at him. Charlie glanced to the Overseer.

     “I’m sorry are you looking at me?” he asked. “It’s just with the mask and all it is quite hard to tell. Perhaps you should cut out some eye holes or something.”