Chapter 38 – China

As soon as we returned to the Hogwarts pyramid, I messaged Harry that we needed to meet with him, Ron, Percy, and Callista. "We have to meet right now as our schedule is very crowded."

Seated in Harry's office, Hermione and I elaborated all that we had observed and questioned in seid space. "The big unknown is why Frijjo was so determinedly pushing history along on its current path. I guess all we know for certain is that for some reason she needed you to defeat Voldemort. She went out of her way to defeat the attempts of an unknown person who wanted you dead or completely sidelined. I could almost believe that Callista was working on our side, but that goes against so much that we think we know about her. Perhaps she did want to help us but was too proud in her status as an almost-major God that she could never be a friend and got too angry and lashed out when she felt we weren't showing her sufficient respect or worshipping her. Perhaps, since we are females, Frijjo felt that we should ally with her, rathe than Odin.

"We need to learn all that we can about Frijjo and Vili. Part of that knowledge is on Vanaheimer. I prefer to know a bit more before we return to seid-space. I want to learn more about the state of politics on Vanaheimer, before I feel safe to lead the Questers back there. I was hoping that Percy and Callista could determine how things are going on Vanaheimer. After a few days of down time, I could make China the next Quest stop. I hope that we can knock out a circle for them fairly quickly."

"We can do that… with Harry's permission of course," my brother assured me.

"I absolutely want you to do that," Harry replied. "Those are two very important questions. I have another: I don't want you to put yourselves at risk, but I'd really like to learn more about the Village Vana. I guess I'd also like to know more about the royals – what do they want; who is their leader; are they going to resort to more violence; will they try to stop the Questers from building the circle at Government House."

"Here's the big thing," I braced Harry, "I think that many of the answers we seek lie on Venera. It is probably very dangerous, but I think the Quest needs to travel there soon. I strongly suspect that the seid-master who kept trying to write you out of history is a Veneran. That would fit with Aagog's description of something else but related to Vanir."

"I will need a lot more information before I can support that. I can agree that it is prudent for you and your team to do whatever conditioning activities are required to survive on a heavy world, with reasonable comfort. It would be way too dangerous for you to travel to a world where you would quickly tire yourselves out building a circle and be too exhausted to defend yourselves. This sound like an issue we can take up later, after you've learned more. Someone suggested that you investigate Venera in seid space, before traveling there. I know you want to investigate the God-ribbon between worlds. That should be ahead of Venera on your to-do list."

I messaged the Questers that we would be traveling to China in three days. I messaged the Greengrass sisters that we needed to talk - their decision but it was becoming apparent that they were needed here and perhaps should take at least a brief respite from questing. Hermione, Tendra, and I then headed to Gringotts. We were late for the official birthday celebration at the bank, but just in time for the family celebration at the Gobbledygook home. The bank staff were happy to pile us into the chairman's private rail car. We whisked down the rails and were soon at the door of Tendra's home. Since she had us with her, she felt that she should pull the bell.

Her parents were welcoming, but very surprised to see us. They thought we would be gone for at least two more weeks, as had I. "We brought a great birthday present for you," Tendra enthused. "I know you love Goblin history. We bring you history from the very first circle in the Cavern of the Goblins. I don't know how long ago, but Hermione is going to try to figure that out. We left a device in the cavern, which we hope to recover tomorrow. We brought scrolls. That's your present."

Tendra pulled out the scrolls and laid them upon the table in the living room. "Ginny did really well. She made copies of the scrolls we found. I don't think the ancient Goblins would have noticed the substitution. What I have here are the originals. I think they're at least a millennia old. We also have an experiment that Hermione is doing. She cut a corner off each scroll and will take them to her professor to find the age. This could be very important to the family treasures."

If King Gobbledygook had been very pleased before Tendra voiced that final thought, he was now totally beside himself. He was also very quick on the uptake.

"I think I understand what you're saying. You're saying that the test done on the family scrolls could give too young an age if someone magically took them from the past into the present."

"That's the possibility that I'm investigating," Hermione confirmed. "Even if the little pieces of these scrolls which I'm testing come back as young, that just shows that it's possible, not that the same thing happened to your family scrolls."

"But it is possible. Is it possible that Goblins traveled through time as you did? Honestly, I've heard no stories suggesting this happened, but both history and myth give a very incomplete picture of history." The king was still very excited. "You must have the tests run as quickly as possible. Now I must examine what you brought me. I was just a sprite the last time I felt this much excitement on my birthday."

The king unrolled the first scroll. "Ah the engineering plans for the cavern. It's smaller than the cavern we have today. This must be VERY old."

The next scroll contained the plans for the primitive Entry Hall. "This is so very interesting. This is so much smaller than what we have today... and just a monorail. I never knew that the rail system ever existed in this form. This adds to Goblin history. It even has a signature of the head engineer. There seems to be a date, but it is on a long-ago calendar system. I must do research to be able to interpret it, but then I can compare this date to the professor's date."

"And hopefully to the date given by the device Ginny hid, " Hermione expanded upon that thought.

The third scroll showed the design of the entire rail system. It was an attempt at a flat representation of a three-dimensional rail design. The fourth scroll showed the design of the circle itself. "It has tuning instructions written right on the scroll," the king was ecstatic. "It is new history - very important."

The final scroll was all writing. The King said he would work to translate it. I knew enough modern Goblinspeak to be able to tell that it was mainly names and numbers.

"Please join my family for dinner. You have made this my best birthday, ever. I am so full of hope."

We stayed and messaged Harry and Ron that we were eating with the Gobbledygook's. It was an excellent meal, befitting a Goblin king. There was a spicy pumpkin and turnip soup, with all my favorite spices. Plenty of the Goblin crab cakes, just the way I like them best. Roasted carrots and Brussels Sprouts, plus a dark Goblin bread rounded out the meal. There was plenty of old port and pumpkin juice to keep our throats wetted. Before dessert, the king displayed the scrolls to his family, telling them all the testing and translation that we and he would perform. I noticed that he said nothing about the family treasures. I think he wanted to spare Torva the anxiety that he would be crushingly disappointed once again. He could share any anticipation and anxiety with Tendra and spare the rest of his family. Over dessert, which was a most excellent crème brûlée, he asked if I thought the Quest had been worthwhile.

"I swing back and forth on that," I admitted. "We've learned that the prize to be earned by Questing is knowledge. We've all learned a lot. We've all matured a lot. I think it good to see the world as it is and to begin to understand how it works. I hope that the Quest turns out to be a plus for our communities. As an individual, it has been a plus for me and worth all the danger, hardship, and aggravation. I learned that I am more explorer than fighter and that I enjoy learning and meeting new people a lot more than any benefit I get from fighting. I'm trying to make myself into a proper Mother."

Hermione and Tendra agreed with my assessment, with Tendra adding "I thought you were correct in saying I must strive to be more than an ordinary Goblin female. Now I know for certain that you knew me better than I knew myself, or at least you had more confidence that I could become what I wanted to be. I am so much stronger than I was. Standing in the Sacred Cavern and working to perfect the magic of circles makes me feel so proud and so honored to have been given this opportunity. If I die on the next Quest stop, I would still count this adventure a plus. I could not be a normal Goblin female."

The king beamed at his daughter. We thanked the family and headed home."

I had two days with harry. I spent them well. Harry even contrived to get a full day away from the ministry, although Shacklebolt did interrupt us for an hour with a series of questions which had to be answered at once. While Harry was at the Ministry on the second afternoon, Hermione and I apparated to the ICW headquarters. Tony had secured British passports for us. They had borrowed the passports of a dozen government employees who had visited Israel during the past two weeks. Hermione forged entry stamps. This wasn't an easy task. The stamps had special ink. There were changes day-to-day. Hermione was kind enough to tear herself away from Ron for a couple hours to visit her professor friend for an analysis of the ink and to prepare a virtually identical substitute, which Witch painting put onto our passports in just the right way. We didn't need to do all of this just to visit the ICW. Hermione wanted to show me Jerusalem for a few hours. She had been once, when she was nine, and said that it was not to be missed.

We Apparated to the ICW headquarters. The place was practically vacant. We explored for ten minutes, before a guard pointed a wand at us and demanded to know who we were. We identified ourselves, saying we needed to speak to whoever was in charge. "Staff meeting," was the answer. I don't know what we would have done, had the guard not spoken Greek. We learned that there were only five persons in the building, including the guard. The guard escorted us to a small conference room.

"Ah, very good to see you again," Secretary Afshar greeted us. You should have contacted us, I could have arranged for others to talk to you. I spoke of agents when last we met. Here they are. Ginny Potter and Hermione Weasley, I am proud to present Nicole Brunt, Hadi Kumar, and Leonard Jones. They are very experienced agents who probably can help you in your endeavours. How may we help you?"

We shook hands with Secretary Afshar and his agents. I told them that we had an unexpected opening in our Quest schedule and wanted to consider whether it was possible to build the circle in China, which we had spoken to Mr. Tsieh about. "There are a few problems: how do we get to the site of the circle and what materials does Mr. Tsieh have available for us to use in building the circle. It will be difficult for us to transport much from Britain to China, especially the heavy items, like the lodestone and the basalts."

"Any of these agents can Apparate you to Mr. Tsieh, or to the cavern, for that matter. Mr. Tsieh will be able to explain what he has available and what you must bring. I know that he was hoping that you would build one of the modern, purple-diamond circles, which won't require the basalts."

Damn, he knew a lot more than I expected. "Okay, but even a modern circle requires a large lodestone. We couldn't possibly move one from Britain."

"That is a problem you must speak to Mr. Tsieh about. It will take me several hours to make all of the necessary arrangements, then Nicole can take you to him."

"That's fine. I wanted to show Jerusalem to Ginny. A few hours will suit my plan. How do we get to the surface from here? I was only nine when I visited with my parents and don't trust my ability to Apparate."

"We discourage our visitors from exploring the city. It can be dangerous. Security is an issue and that can lead to your being arrested and efforts to identify you. You might lead the police or army to us. Do you even have papers - you didn't last time."?

We gave him our passports.

"These look genuine, but I doubt this entry stamp was acquired by passing through the border controls. You know they change the stamps daily - totally random."

"We matched the stamp of a British citizen who entered the same day as our stamp. That's four days ago."

"Then, where have you stayed the past three nights? Surely the police can check for a hotel registration. It takes only a minute to check. Another minute to check the computerised border entry records and know your stamps are faked. Then they assume that you are spies or worse. You see how difficult this is? I tell you this now, because to explore the surface in China will be much worse. You don't like spending a lot of time underground. I understand. Mr. Tsieh will try to work something out for those of your party who are the most squeamish. For today's visit, we do have a local Witch who has a top position in the local intelligence service. She will escort you. Both to protect you from arrest and to protect me from being accused of allowing you to do something very stupid. Yes, you have a reputation. To that end, Nicole will also go with you."

Alright then. I was not talking to a big fan.

The secretary picked up a cell phone, selected a name, waited ten seconds and spoke in a language I couldn't understand.

It's Hebrew. I guess the Light Guardian loaded me up with it. A Ms. Goldstein has been told that her lunch order is ready. I expect we'll see her here almost immediately.

Hermione was correct, it took only two minutes until the Witch was standing across the table from us.

"Tourists. Very important tourists from Britain," the Secretary told Ms. Goldstein. He handed our passports to her. She studied them and was about to place them in her jacket pocket. "My name is Yael."

"Ahem", I held out my hand. She returned our passports to us.

We were ordered to hold her hands. It was a short Apparate and we arrived in an uninhabited storeroom. We walked a short distance to her car. We saw most of Jerusalem from the Gandhi lookout on the Mount of Olives. It was dramatic, in a different way than London or Edinburgh is dramatic. I longed for the chance to over-fly the city on my broom in daylight, but knew that was too dangerous. Yael showed us the Gihon Spring, telling us it was the source of water for ancient Jerusalem, channeled beneath the city walls, when a siege was anticipated. When we were back in her car, she let us know that the tour was over and that she had other plans.

"My government wants to talk to you. They want you to build a magical circle for us. For the size of our nation, we have a robust magical community. There are close to a thousand of us and we have become more magical since you improved Little Ba'al's circle. A few nonmagical in the south of Israel have become magical - several who are over thirty years old. I know your community has a lot of experience with that. With your permission, I will take you to meet with my boss. He is a leader of my government's security services."

"I think that will be alright, although we are to meet Mr. Tsieh in less than two hours. We have off-world obligations and Mr. Tsieh has first dibs on our circle-building efforts."

While Hermione spoke with Yael, I contacted Harry, letting him know about the change of plans and telling him that I didn't sense danger.

Yael parked the car on a side street, and we walked toward the city wall. We entered Jerusalem proper by the Dung Gate and soon entered a shop. We went to a storeroom at the rear of the shop and linked hands. I felt a familiar ripple pass through my body.

We were in an empty office. I mean completely empty, with no furniture, whatsoever, just an extremely thick carpet.

"It's the safest way to avoid a splinch. My boss is just down the hall, please follow me."

I saw that she locked the door after us. Perhaps Tony needed that protocol. A male receptionist with a gun motioned us into an office. Two men were present.

"Please, sit. I'm Ami Ayalon, Yael's boss. My associate is Danny Yatom. We're with the security services. It is good to finally meet the leader of the British magical community."

"I'm not the leader. My husband is. I'm the Mother of the Future, more religious than political."

"You lead the Quest. Cotto said that the Mother is more important than the Minister. In any event, we wanted to talk to you. We know about magic. There is a long history of magic and mysticism among our people. Yael is magical, we are not. If I was magical, I would have given you the tour myself. I know that you've been repairing circles. Magic here has been stronger since you repaired the circle in Jordan. I've met Little Ba'al. I like him. We want our own circle. We want it here in Jerusalem. We've identified several potential sites. When I say we, I mean a few select individuals in the services. Most of our politicians aren't aware that magic is real. I will continue your tour and you can tell me if you can build a circle in any of the locations which I will show you."

"I'm willing to continue our tour, but... that doesn't mean we'll build a circle. That's not a 'no', but it certainly isn't a 'yes'. Even if it were technically possible to build a circle here, we might not be able to build one for you. We do not make that decision on our own. The Quest schedule is also determined by Odin, Yggdrasil, and my husband. We've built and repaired circles for magical communities, not for their nonmagical governments. I wouldn't feel comfortable taking an assignment from a foreign nonmagical government, without Tony's approval. I don't understand nonmagical politics or the interactions between nations. Is your nation a friend of Britain?"

"Basically yes," Hermione answered before he could.

I felt to see if it was possible to Apparate from this office. It was clear that anti-Apparation protection was in place, but I thought I might be able to push through them.

"Okay, let's continue the tour, but I need to message Secretary Afshar and my husband that we are going to be late."

I was motioned to a telephone. I picked it up and asked for the Secretary's mobile number. Yael gave me a card with the number written on it. I contacted Harry through the Durmstrang circle and White Column. While I was explaining everything to Harry, the Secretary answered his phone. I explained the situation, concluding with "but you know all of that, don't you."

Harry's flash Stone message said Barb and Shacklebolt on their way and I guarantee you I will demand an explanation from Cotto.

We left the office and were immediately confronted by four armed soldiers, who apparently were intended to be our escort.

Hermione and I exchanged a wary glance.

"Please, don't be upset. The guards are to protect us. I mean you no harm. This meeting is important to both of us." Danny quickly told the army captain that perhaps two escorts would be appropriate.

The only other tourist attraction we were taken to was Hezekiah's Tunnel. It had already closed for the day, but of course we were granted entry. Yael explained that this was part of the water supply of ancient Jerusalem, the route by which the water from the Spring of Gideon flowed into the city. I'd seen enough very old underground construction that this was of interest to me. It was of greater interest to Hermione, who understood some of its historical significance. We both became a lot more interested when a small section of one side of the tunnel was pushed inward to reveal a small stone chamber. We had arrived at the first possible site for a circle. Lights had come on inside the chamber as soon as the concealed entrance was opened. The chamber was smaller than the sites of any of the underground circles we had worked on. It was even smaller than Little Ba'al's cave and the natural chamber under Stonehenge.

"Do you think a circle can even be built underground in a chamber this small?" I asked Hermione. "I know Odin's circle would fit in here, but doesn't that much magical energy require more space?"

Hermione spread her hands in a silent 'I don't know'.

"Do you have a large lodestone, preferably without cracks," I queried our hosts.

"We think we found a good one. We left it in a warehouse clost to where we found it, thinking it would be easier for you to Apparate it that for us to try to get it through the tunnel. We thought Odin's circle didn't have a central lodestone."

"First, yes it does. The whole forge is built around a very large lodestone flush with the floor. It is the floor for half of the forge. Second, you are assuming we would build an Odin-style circle. We are very sparing in building those. Building one for a nonmagical government would be a very big question. Do you have another possible site that is bigger than this one - quite a bit bigger?"

"We don't have a site which meets that requirement," Danny admitted. "We'd prefer that the circle be in Jerusalem. There is only one other site we've discovered, and the chamber is smaller, and I believe tougher to keep hidden."

"Alright. Then the only other thing we need to see in person is your lodestone."'

We again grabbed Yael's hands. This time we found ourselves standing in an unlit warehouse. Hermione and I both made a very bright 'Lumos'. I could see the stone and walked to it. It came up to my shoulders and was squarish, about four feet across. It was on the smallish side, but it could work, if it had no cracks. It was only about half a foot smaller than Little Ba'al's in each dimension.

Hermione pulled out the lights we had used to explore seid-space. We split the surface and each carefully examined every inch of our part of the stone. This required well over an hour of very painstaking and, by the end of our examination, grueling work, which had us moving along the top of the stone on our stomachs. It was a somewhat rough surface and not at all comfortable to move around on. We discovered no cracks significant enough to make the lodestone unusable."

"Assuming the bottom of the stone isn't hiding a problem, this lodestone is acceptable," Hermione declared. "Now, we should return to ICW headquarters for further discussion."

Our hosts seemed unhappy with this declaration. "Too many strange men with guns," Hermione insisted.

I reached to test for an Apparation landing zone and discovered that it wasn't possible to safely Apparate from this spot. Why"

Hermione must have discovered this at the same time, because I received a Stone message. This place is magicked to prevent us from Apparating. 'Off!' in three. I have the two soldiers. One, two, three, Off!"

They all collapsed. I didn't think we could move all of them from the warehouse. I snuck a peek out the second person door. I didn't see anyone, so we quickly levitated Yael and her boss out the door and then Apparated back to the ICW.

We were met by the Secretary, Barb, and Shacklebolt.

"What happened, this doesn't look good," the Secretary complained, before Barb or Shacklebolt could speak.

"We found ourselves in a place from which we couldn't Apparate and decided to view it as a threat and act. Yael had just Apparated all of us to that spot, but we couldn't feel enough of a path to Apparate singly. They must have activated some device when they turned on the warehouse lights."

I searched Yael and found her wand in her right boot and a spare taped to her torso. I explained our entire journey and the serious ask made of us. We propped the two captives up against a wall and I reversed my curses.

"I feel much safer talking to you now," I announced. "Now, I demand an explanation. First, Mister Secretary, did you even intend for us to meet with Mr. Tsieh, or was this just a plot to kidnap us from the start?"

"Of course, I scheduled a meeting. Mr. Tsieh will be here in two hours. It is very important that you build a modern circle in China. That is a top priority for Mr. Tsieh and a very high priority for me. Britain needs to share some of its secrets and the products of those secrets."

"But you arranged to have us kidnapped. You and Cotto conspired against us."

"We all sometimes work with and help the nonmagical governments of the countries we live in. I live here. I've worked with Yael many times before. She's one of us. She promised me that nothing bad would happen to you. It was just a meeting. Her government needed to talk to you. You and they can help each other. They rotate onto the Council of Delegates next year. They have nearly a thousand magicals in their country. Their magicals need help. I don't think you were ever in danger. You are a very stubborn person. If I asked you to meet with these two, you wouldn't have done so, even though, as Secretary, I should be able to expect such help. You are upset about... Nothing. I arranged for you to meet some of my friends. I met your Tony and Mrs. Toms. That was highly irregular. This is supposed to be a secret headquarters for all magical people."

"Not just two - a second security leader and two armed soldiers. The warehouse did not seem safe. We were in danger. We acted in self-defence. I have no desire to kidnap these two. I have reversed my curse. They are free to leave, as far as I'm concerned. You may return Yael's wands tomorrow."

"No!" Danny objected. "You were in no danger. We took it as our obligation to keep you safe. The Apparation barriers were for your protection as well as ours. We added them last week after we caught an unknown magical person who Apparated into the warehouse. That is after we failed to catch two magical persons who Apparated into our headquarters. We asked Secretary Afshar to explain. He said he knew nothing of these events but helped us to set up the barriers. The warehouse barrier was briefly dropped to allow us to transport you there. If you come with us, I will introduce you to the intruder we caught."

It was my turn to say no. "I'd feel safer if you went to your headquarters and brought your prisoner here. We take being trapped within anti-Apparation barriers as a very serious threat.

"I need Yael to transport me."

I wanted to question them first, but I had invited Yael to leave and didn't wish to start an incident. I ramped up my defences as far as I could in my current environment and returned Yael's wands to her. She and Danny weren't gone for long. When they returned, they had with them a guy whom I instantly recognised as one of Miomor's guards. My identification of the prisoner surprised Shacklebolt, who demanded that the prisoner be questioned "at once."

Danny had a problem which he felt took precedence: his people were unhappy that three of their own had been left more than half dead by us. I assured him that it was merely a curse which induced unconsciousness and that they would wake up within twelve hours. It was the exact same curse used on Yael and himself. Could we go to the warehouse and reverse the curse? Could, but wouldn't. "It just seems as though we would be walking back into a trap, although having identified this guy I'm leaning toward believing you've been acting in good faith. Still, far better to bring them here."

"Barb will travel with Yael to retrieve them," Shacklebolt volunteered.

The prisoner said little, but what he said seemed very important. I'm certain we extracted everything he knew. He was just a soldier sent to learn what he could about us. Captain Donyik had sent him. The Captain seemed to effectively be Miomor's successor as leader of that Vanir faction. He had travelled to our world with another soldier, who outranked him and knew the particulars of their mission and how they got here. Apparently, they had 'walked the ribbon'. At the appropriate spot, his leader had ordered that he jump off the ribbon and he had done so. After that they had traveled by walking.

His superior knew the building they were supposed to enter and what they were supposed to take. All he could tell us about that is that they didn't find anything which met his superior's sense of what they were to retrieve. There was a reference to a circle component, which sent them to the warehouse. Our guy was captured; his superior escaped. Scary news!

Not only had they surprised us by ribbon-walking to our world, but they came with a good idea of what they sought, and knew to leave the ribbon in a spot I wouldn't have expected the ribbon to go. To me, it had been obvious that the ribbon exit was either our Black Stone or one of the White Columns. Jerusalem made no sense. Did they know about the ICW. Had they already visited it, or did they actually come all the way from Vanahemer to steal knowledge or some thing from the nonmagical government of Israel, which by right, they shouldn't even know about. How much had our world been spied upon.

I shivered. Nobody else looked at all pleased by what they heard.

Barb and Yael returned, and Hermione and I reversed our curses. Ami stayed with us, while Barb and Yael left to transport the soldiers back to the empty office at the security headquarters. I had no idea where that was. I hadn't been able to see outside. Still, with the wonders of magic, I was certain I could Apparate there, if the need arose.

We needed to meet with Mr. Tsieh. Shacklebolt said he would continue discussions with Danny and Ami. I hated to leave the three of them to discuss matters of such great importance to Hermione, me, and our Questers.

Mr. Tsieh was eager to show us the marvelous natural cavern where his community wanted their circle to be built. I told him that we needed to wait for Barb to return. He teased us way too hard about our being scaredy cats afraid of being trapped by anti-Apparation barriers. He said that he carried considerable weight in his community and that since we would be travelling under his protection, nothing bad would happen to us.

I was still angry enough to tell him "We'll wait for Barb. This isn't a day on which any of your remarks seem witty or even funny. I don't know how many battles you've had to fight or how often you've been ambushed, but we've had to fight way too much. Perhaps we should do this another day. I'm going to go and consult with Director Shacklebolt and my husband. I know we had a lot of trouble about that with the Vanir. We had to kill way more people and Gods than I am comfortable with. It's probably best to just build circles where Odin or our Black Stone or our own intuition tells us to build them. Barb arrived then. We allowed Mr. Tsieh to Apparate us. It was a long distance, but he seemed not to be that good at Apparating. We dropped two feet onto an uneven stone floor. Fortunately, the cavern had bright magical lighting. That, plus mutually leaning on our companions allowed us to maintain our balance well enough not to fall. Despite catching my balance, I twisted my right ankle.

"It is a very good-sized cavern," I complimented Mr. Tsieh on his choice of project site.

"Yes, as I said, there was once a very fine circle here. Come, I'll show you the lodestone. All of the gems and the crystals of the inner circle were taken long ago, along with the silver, all that remains is the lodestone and half of the basalts from the outer ring."

I was sorry that we had given in to Mr. Tsieh's entreaties and not postponed our trip: we had the second muscle-cramping, stomach-scratching lodestone examination of the day. We started on the top, anxious to determine how much damage was done when the vandals removed the crystals or gems atop the lodestone. It wasn't a pretty site. The stones had been gouged out, with some extra battering, just because. The person who removed the gems or crystals was at least as angry as he was greedy. A civil war among Wizards? A nonmagical with a reason to hate Wizards? I did as bright a 'Lumos' as I could and Apparated toward the ceiling, which was at least a dozen feet over my head - this was a very big cavern. I saw the same carnage where the quartz or calcite cylinder had been embedded in the ceiling. Hermione popped up for a quick look, as I was falling back to the top of the lodestone.

We took a quick look at the remaining basalts. They were the largest I had seen in a circle, bigger than the largest of the Stonehenge ring. They were also smoother, although someone had taken several good hacks at the second basalt I examined. The chips still lay on the floor beside that truly impressive monolith.

"We've seen all we can judge today," I told Mr. Tsieh. "We need to do a more detailed of the lodestone to determine if there are any cracks bad enough to make it unusable. You are going to have to wash it, before we can do that. Any possible cracks are filled with dirt. Somebody felt a need to trash your circle, in addition to looting it. Are you sure this location remains secret?"

"I think so. I assume the damage is very old." "We'll talk back at the ICW," Hermione prodded him.