Sofosys : Part 1

This is place is not what I had expected it to be.

For once, the forest was nothing different from any other that I had seen and it had no magical quality to it. I must say, that I am thoroughly disappointed by this enchanted forest or whatever it is. I had expected something magnanimous, something that would blow my mind upon seeing, but this…..this is too mundane.

But, the ancestors had insisted that this forest is special, even hinted that it might be a bit dangerous. Even though I fail to see it, I should be on my guards because we really can\'t trust anyone or anything.

I looked around me, searching for the others who had opened this portal with me. There were none to be found, and it seemed that I was the only one loitering around here at the break of day.

Or is it, the break of day? I couldn\'t tell, because the canopy of trees obscured the sun magnificently, and the little light that got through, almost formed a ripple on the wet puddle at the middle of the forest.

Great, I thought! I am stranded nowhere with no idea how to return. Maybe, the magic had somehow backfired and had transported us all to different places. I tried to open another portal back Mafhaelore, but the portal magic refused to work. It was as if some strong force was adhering me to this place, not letting me go back to where I belonged.

So, basically I am lost in a forest with absolutely no means of returning. Great!

I should never have agreed to the plan in the first place. I regretted my decision now, but what can be done? The damage has already been made. I couldn\'t believe that they convinced me to this stupid task, and how could I lose my senses completely and agree to their idea of opening a portal to a foreign, and potentially dangerous place!

Afterall, I am the magi, I am supposed to give ideas and refute the bad ones. I am supposed to be the monarch\'s advisor, and this time I have failed not just one, but two monarchs.

Even though the Queen is dead now, her voice echoed through my ears.

"You have failed to protect my daughter, Sofosys." She said in a grave voice,"I had trusted you with one thing and you have failed to do that too. Shame!"

I covered my ears against her imaginary scolding, and sat down near the tree shed, trying to clear my mind, and think of an way out of this place. First, I have to figure out what this place is. It looks like a normal forest, so it can be anywhere. It may be in the Goblin realm, or the Human realm but the latter seemed unlikely.

There\'s some magic going on in this place, something I can\'t put my hands on but I am sure that even though it appears so, this forest is not an ordinary one.

I took a few deep breaths, and tried to calm my mind. The portal magic isn\'t working here, for sure... but I know other sorts of magic that helps in transportation. Surely, one of them will work. I got up, and tried a few more spells, but every time there was this strange resistance, something that was prevention my magic from working.

Ultimately, I gave up and sat down again, defeated and tired….but panicked all the same. So, this is it, I thought….this is how my life is going to end. In a place out of nowhere, starved to death while I regretted all the stupid decisions in my life. I had a handful of them, for sure and I knew exactly where to begin with.

Suddenly, a short illuminated patch of light appered before me, and it seemed to be coming through the thickets of trees. It looked like….some kind of portal! I rushed towards it, hoping to find anyone who could transport me back to Mafhaelore, and thus I stepped into the luminosity and was immediately shoved hard on the ground, except this time it wasn\'t a forest..

I was standing in the middle of a library.

The teracotta markings on the wall, the red window panes that casted a ghoulish glow to the already eerie atmosphere of the library…. I knew it all by heart. I Iet myself have a moment to wonder, to clear my brains and rub my eyes so that I was absolutely sure that this isn\'t a dream. But, no it wasn\'t... I was back to this place where it had all began. I was back where I had met Helly for the first time.

I was Twenty five back then, in the prime of my youth and I had just passed out of the Magi University. My father was a Magi himself, and probably he had passed on his good genes to me, because right from the beginning it was evident that I was particularly gifted. The Principal of the University had taken a special interest in me, and he wished to write a paper with me. He had lofty ideals, he wanted to research the history of Mafhaelore\'s development in full depth, and especially focus on the relationship between it\'s true founder members.

I, however, had to decline his offer politely. I had lofty ideas of my own, but none of them surrounded the reasearch of Mafhaelore\'s glorious history. It was a dead topic to me, a lot of people worked on it and I felt that it requires no further studies than what was already going on.

I wanted to do something different, something that would set me apart from the other Magis. I was already a celebrated scholar by then, I had offers pouring in from different influential families all over the land, requesting me to be their private magi but I had to decline them all. I had my mind set, my research was going to be something that no one had ever attempted before.

So, when I finally proposed it to the principal, his jaws remained open for a very long time and finally, when he answered...his voice was bereft of any cordiality that it had before.

"You understand what this means, I hope." He said drily, "You will be giving up your life, your gift, your chance to serve some of the most influential families of all ages….you would be giving up your life of comfort, and for what! So that you can be among non-magical people and study them!"

I nodded.

"I am sorry but that is exactly what I wish for." I replied gravely.

My principal looked exasperated.

"I don\'t understand you Sofosys." He said, shaking his head, "You are such a brilliant scholar and you are destined to do great things! Why do you want to waste your time studying the non-magical people, who will have no contribution in your life! You want to go to Earth, fine! Go...but I must warn you that you will be bored to death within a month. I expect to see you coming back to your better senses soon, because I would be really sorry to decline the offer of these great families. You can\'t even imagine how much they are willing to pay for you!"

"I beg your pardon sir." I said in a stony voice, "but it was never about the money. I hope you know this much about me. It\'s about knowledge, and I feel that mine would remain incomplete if I don\'t study the non-magical folks. I am really sorry, but you should decline all the offers because I have made up my mind, and I am not going to return anytime soon."

And thus, I had arrived on Earth... disappointing all my teachers and my colleagues who had unanimously agreed that I had lost my mind. But, I had my goal set, and there was nothing that could have stopped me then.

Earth always had a secret appeal to me. I never said it in front of other people, because I knew that they would scorn me if I showed interest in the non-magical folks. Goblins had always looked down upon the humans, always considered themselves as being superior to the mortal beings because of their magic, and thus for time immemorial, Goblins had ignored the Humans because they were considered to be harmless enough to not pay attention to.

But I knew that humans were special in their own right. I had read about their inventions, how they had used their understanding of the cosmic world to invent things that made their living easier. Even though they had no magic, they had the wits to manage themselves without it. How many Goblins would have been able to do that? If magic was taken away from us, we would be reduced to nothing….we would turn to cave men who had no means of making their life comfortable!

It was why I had always found humans fascinating, because they managed to thrive and prosper, even though they had no magic! I wanted to learn more about their inventions, I wanted to study their books and learn what they had to say about the universe. One sided knowledge was always dangerous, and I wanted to experience their side too.

Thus, I finally landed up in the Human world...eager to learn and little did I know that it was going to transform my life. I enrolled myself in a College, and started my journey. And, as I started learning about the humans, my beliefs were reinforced that there was nothing harmless about them.