Eighth Circle

'There you are, Professor.'

The chancellor flicked his baton and the troll stopped gouging and jumped into the hole he had made. Tom watched on his monitor as the huge creature bent over and noticed that he had a tail. The next image was of a clawed hand grasping a tiny sheet of yellow metal. The incised markings were exactly as he had described.

The guardians erupted in a frenzy of excitement.

'The realms exist. We are vindicated ...'

They kept up a babble saying how clever they were and how the other guardians had got it hopelessly wrong. It struck Tom that only a bunch of mindless idiots would take that sort of excavation as proof. He had planned a controlled dig in which successive strata would be exposed to show that the site was pristine and his claim was not a hoax.

'We shall leave for the Sixth Realm!'

He recalled his remark about conquering another realm and figured that was spurring them on. They had wrecked their own realm and wanted to take over another.

'We shall make you king, Professor.'

Their imaginations were running away with them. Tom wondered what their next step would be. His was to stop them discovering that he knew little about inter-realm travel and his last trip had been made entirely by accident.

***

Crispin could scarcely believe his eyes. The Lord of Light had been returned to them. The pod had docked at the main terminal. He had expected it to come back without him. But, the good lord was on board and the guardians were treating him with great respect.

They had taken him to an ancient stone circle and it was reasonable to suppose that he was part of the evening's entertainment. Tradition said it was a place where their ancestors performed human sacrifices. The guardians didn't take much interest in history but they did like to revive ancient ceremonies that involved blood-letting. Sacrificing the Lord of Light on the high altar of a pagan temple was just the sort of thing that would appeal to them.

But, it hadn't happened. He had somehow convinced them that he really was from the Sixth Realm. And it went much further than that. They intended to make him a guardian. The chancellor had joked that he would be the youngest member of their order by at least a hundred years.

Peter stood beside Crispin at the spy holes. They had climbed up inside the hollow shell of the big dome that housed the high table and were peering down at the scene below. The Lord of Light was sitting at the high table with the chancellor. They seemed to be getting along marvellously.