The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

The Sorcerer's Gift Denied

Months prior to his death, the great sorcerer, Valsillon, gathered together his closest associates so that he could pass on to them the great secrets of his power. He had used up the last of his regenerations and decided not to invoke the powers at his command to add more. The two-thousand-year-old Time Lord had grown weary of living and simply wanted to move on.

Included in the gathering was Valsillon's dear friend and confidant, Godric Gryffindor, upon whom he bestowed the Rod and Sash, which would grant the legendary wizard mastery over the Eye of Chaos—the source of all magic in the world.

It was there that Valsillon, at long last, revealed the tale of the three brothers, of which he was one, and gave them a solemn warning: The oldest brother, Kelvald, might one day come to this world and attempt to claim the Eye for himself. It was for this reason that Valsillon gave Gryffindor stewardship over they Eye; so that on the day that his brother should come, the power of the Eye could be used to fight against him.

Valsillon also explained that he had given the Eye of Chaos three directives which it would enforce without exception. First, the power of the Eye could only be used by those of a specific bloodline. Centuries ago, Valsillon had placed a genetic marker into the of a small group of people which the Eye could recognize. Those at the gathering were among the descendants of the original few and had thus carried on the marker. Second, magical beings were forbidden from drawing too much power from the Eye at once, and that a blood-red moon would be a signal to all wizards that someone was in violation of that law.

The third, and most important of all the directives given by Valsillon, was that the Eye must never allow itself to fall into the hands of his evil brother Kelvald, should he one day come to this world. To this end, the Eye of Chaos remained ever watchful for the day a Time Lord would appear, obtain possession of the Rod and Sash, and attempt to use its powers beyond that which was permitted.

The Doctor never knew of this gathering of wizards, nor was he aware of the three directives. He did suspect, however, that the Eye had been programmed with certain protections. These suspicions were based not only on the parts of the Tale of Three Brothers that he remembered, but also on the visions he had recently received.

After forcing the Beast to draw power beyond the limits of the failsafe, as he had referred to it, the Doctor bombarded the Beast's cellular structure with temporal radiation on the level which the Time Lords had experienced over eons of exposure to the Time Vortex. Once he had made the Beast's DNA look like that of a Time Lord, the Doctor used the TARDIS's own Eye of Harmony to send a direct message to the Eye of Chaos buried deep within the Moon's molten core.

Although the message itself was a lie, the Doctor hoped it would trigger the response he needed, and it did. That message consisted of just three words:

Kelvald has come.

The sudden loss of gravitational pull from eighty-one thousand, billion, billion tons of lunar mass struck the Earth almost immediately. The ground shook, though only moderately, as a sizeable portion of the planet's surface dropped nearly two feet in a fraction of a second. The roar of the Beast could be heard echoing for miles in every direction, only this time it was not laughing.

"What have you done, Doctor?" the Beast cried out through Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Beast then departed the wizard's mind, no longer able to sustain control over him following the loss of the Eye's power. Shacklebolt looked somewhat dazed but was otherwise unharmed.

"Doctor, what happened to the Moon?" came a voice in the Doctor's ear. It was Jack.

"I would guess that the Eye of Chaos has left the solar system," the Doctor replied. "And it seems to have taken your moon with it."