“A long time ago, I made a certain thing. It was round and everyone wanted to have it, so I made more.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Atlantis***

***Sely***

We enter the coliseum. For once, the whole leading gang of our little community is visiting the gathering together. Even Annia joined us, though we left Kath with Leila and Tom. Magnus didn't want to leave the others alone in the reality marble. But there are the spirit guardians and Lindwurm. On top, they swore a blood oath to us, so even if they are up to no good I doubt that they can pull off something dangerous.

Hatlix surveys the area as we walk to our pulpit. He doesn't look pleased. “Look at it. Over a hundred years and everything is the same. This is ridiculous. They could've at least changed the chair cushions.”

Magnus tries to calm Hatlix down. “Grandpa, I think they did. Otherwise the cushions would've already rotted away.”

“I know that! What I meant is the colour. It's simply not acceptable. They are always using purple! Why purple!? I hate the colour.”

Cecilia clears her throat. “Since ancient times, purple is the most vibrant natural colour. The purple dye, which was harvested from rock snails, was expensive to create. Being able to afford large amounts of purple was a symbol of status, power and wealth.”

“Come on! We are late and the elders are already down there. Everyone is looking at us.” Tina shoos us forward and we enter our pulpit. We are indeed the last ones who show up, mainly because Hatlix didn't see the need to hurry.

Hatlix points down at the elders and waves at them. “There they are! Hey, guys! Long time no see. I was hoping to see some familiar faces!” Hatlix points at a red haired guy on the left side of the group. “Larry! Larn? What was your name? Doesn't matter. I never forget a face. You still owe me, dude! Never forget that.”

Several heads turn and all the attention lands on the indicated elder. The man's eyes widen when he recognizes Hatlix. Then the elder visibly pales. The elders who are next to him step back as a yellowish puddle starts forming under the man’s feet. It takes a few seconds, but finally the man overcomes his shock and waddles out of the arena with a strange, duck-like gait.

“If I were him, I would crawl under a rock and stay there for the next thousand years,” Magnus comments with awe in his voice.

I turn to Hatlix who looks very pleased with himself. “Just what do you have on that man to warrant such a reaction? He'll never live that down.” Well, maybe he will. But it'll take at least a hundred years until people stop talking about it.

“I am sorry, but that's a secret between the two of us. Let's just say that I created some very valuable artefacts for him. He probably thought that I am dead and that he would never have to pay me.” Hatlix sits down, choosing a chair at random. Cecilia takes the seat next to him.

They are sitting with Tina in the second row, so I take the front seats with Magnus and Fiacre. Annia also sits down, watching everything with interest. I understand her. The first time I visited Atlantis I was also fascinated. But after a few visits I realized how gloomy and hopeless the place truly is. It's just a monument which resisted the flow of time. A relic from the ancient past.

The elders start the gathering and we wait patiently for our chance to disclose our information about the fae. In the meantime, various clans make proposals on how to attack fairy. The ideas are multifarious and range from stuff like using nukes, to very unorthodox approaches. My personal favourite is the plan to capture a fairytree and using it to find Fairy's anchor point to the real world. Then we would simply disconnect Fairy from Earth. Problem solved.

Sadly, Magnus and Hatlix give us various reasons why this plan isn't just stupid, but outright dangerous. Fairy might not affect Earth directly, but affecting space and time on such a huge scale might have unexpected effects. Not to mention that Fairy's anchor must be hidden somewhere under the sea. While not impossible, it would surely pose a huge problem to locate the anchor. An anchor is a fixed point in space and time. This anchor point is the same in the real world as in the marble. A permanent doorway. It ensures that a reality marble stays connected to reality and doesn't turn into its own miniature universe.

To explain it, Hatlix produces a large sausage balloon from his pocket. I have no idea why he has one.

He balloons it up and puts a knot on the open end. “Look at this. This is our universe. Or in this case, Earth. The human world. And now we play with the space-time continuum.” He twists the balloon's end until he has a small bubble at the end of the sausage. “And this cute little thing is now a reality marble. The twisted connection between the two parts is the anchor point.”

Taking the twisted section between his thumb and forefinger, he rips off the smaller bubble. “Do you see a problem?”

I shake my head. “No? Fairy is gone, is it not? And we still have the rest of earth.”

Hatlix sighs and lets go of the section which he held with his fingers. The balloon farts and flabs until it's completely deflated. “And that's how you create a black hole. The universe at large wouldn't be affected, but it would certainly spell goodbye for planet earth before the space-time continuum repairs itself. Back in the days when we started playing with reality marbles, we popped a small one. My own dad was a pioneer in that field of research. He mentioned that the dinosaurs didn't take it that well.”

Magnus raises an eyebrow. “I like the part where Fairy goes 'pop'!”

I elbow him. “We'll definitely vote against that idea.”

The day continues until we get our chance. Magnus gets to his feet and addresses the elders, apologizing that he doesn't have a final solution for the fae. “But I went to Fairy and took a little walk! You know... Just looking around in hope of finding something useful. I even made a video!”

The whole coliseum is as silent as a theatre before the grand finale.

The elder in the arena coughs. He is the same one who always oversees the gathering. “Could we see it?”

“Of course.” Annia hands Magnus a USB keychain and he throws it down to the elder. The elder studies it. Then he turns around, gesturing for someone who I didn't notice before. He was at the edge of the arena, using a broom to swipe the ground.

Tetrach drops his broom and runs over to the elder. With a happy expression on his face, he takes the keychain and receives a few whispered instructions. Following his commands, Tetrach runs over to a computer system at the edge of the arena and fiddles with the controls.

“I knew that we forgot him. Again!” Magnus mumbles.

Fiacre leans over to me and whispers. “How is that possible? Shouldn't he be back to normal? Are the elders using him as their servant?”

I shake my head. “I don't know. Someone must've switched his batteries.”

“How would they figure that out?” Tina asks.

Magnus spreads his hands. “It's a normal nine volt cell and hard to overlook if you open the lid in his box. So switching it isn't an ingenious task.”

Annia voices her own concerns. “Should we complain about it? He is our half brother after all.”

“Maybe we should just take him with us when the gathering is over?” I ask, rhetorically.

Magnus crosses his arms in front of his chest. He doesn't look convinced. “You mean if we don't forget about him. Again!”

“Psst!” Hatlix gestures at the screen. “The video is starting!”

We watch the video with everyone else. The reactions range from disinterest and surprise when Magnus passes through to Fairy. Then the audience turns gravely silent during the part with the 'farm'. At the end there are some cries of outrage, which the elders have to silence. Winter's fate satisfies some of those who started calling for blood and murder.

Old Ones aren’t exactly known for benevolent solutions if we have issues with someone.

We have to answer a few further questions, but nothing we didn't expect. Of course they wish to know how we passed through to Fairy without being noticed. So we have to explain about the amulet. There is no way around it.

The orb poses another problem, but that's when Hatlix jumps in. He spins a story in which the fae got hold of an old, forgotten prototype to distract our listeners from the fact that the fae attacked us and stole the orb from under our noses.

That's an embarrassing little piece of information which we don't want anyone to know about.

Afterwards, we present our theory of how numerous the fae must be, pointing out that a full force campaign against them is the right thing to do.

Some of the elders are against it, exactly as Tina predicted. They vote among themselves, which turns out to be a very close affair. By giving the issue a thumbs up, or a thumbs down, they show their approval or disapproval of war. With a vote of less than thirty or more than seventy percent, the vote would become a public one. As it stands, a little less than seven out of ten elders are for all out war.

It means that the clan-heads get to vote. That could be a good, or even a bad thing. We've no idea how the various clan-heads think about the issue. This whole affair is very touchy. We have no guarantee that everyone will follow their respective elders.

That's when a certain elder returns into the arena. He put on a fresh robe and his face regained a little colour. It's clear that he has no idea what's going on, but he realizes that everyone expects him to give his vote.

He raises his hand, the thumb sideways to show his indecision. His eyes roam the coliseum, emphasizing the fact that he has no clue what he is voting for. He looks a lot like one of those kids from the movies. Those who where caught sleeping by their teachers.

Hatlix shakes his head and waves his arms at the elder, not caring that he is doing it in plain sight of everyone. The elder furrows his forehead, not understanding.

Hatlix holds out his hand, thumbs up.

The elder gulps and tilts his thumb upwards, deciding the vote in favour of war.