Delver Magic: Book 06 - Pure Choice (15 page)

It was Jure that replied first.

"That's a good way to put
it," the wizard announced. "Any captain of a ship will tell you that
too many hands on the wheel will only lead to disaster. A course has to be set
and everyone has to keep that course in mind. Look, I know Ryson, I like him,
but he has to respect your decisions."

"I'm not sure if it's
disrespect."

"Don't get tied up over
words. What I mean to say is that he has to appreciate your position. There has
to be order, discipline."

"Delvers are not very good with
order and discipline," Sy allowed. "Maybe it's my fault for not
utilizing him properly."

"Or maybe it's his fault for
not recognizing the situation. It's not an insult to Ryson. We all make
mistakes. I've made them myself. There were times I thought I knew better and
went off on my own. I thought my magic was enough to handle almost any
situation, but that was an error in judgment on my part. I should have realized
that I was part of something bigger, another soldier in the army. I forgot my
place. In the larger picture, it was a mistake. I can offer suggestions, but I
also have to follow orders."

Sy chuckled to himself.

"I have to admit, I like the
way you think."

"And you did what you had to
do. If Ryson thinks about it, he'll realize that as well. If he can't follow
your direction, he shouldn't expect to be in your service."

The captain had to admit, the old
wizard's words made him feel better, but he also looked to Holli, wondered what
a disciplined elf guard thought.

"What about you, Holli? Do
you think I made the right decision?"

"As an elf guard, I would
focus on the good of my camp. If what you did was in the best interest of
Burbon, then you have indeed done your duty."

"There's more to it than
that."

"Is there?"

"I think so. Maybe I didn't
handle Ryson the right way, maybe I didn't work hard enough to make him
understand. Maybe I was just being lazy."

"You are many things, but
lazy is not one of them."

"Then maybe I was just too
bullheaded to find a better solution. My point is that I cut Ryson loose. I
keep thinking that's a mistake."

"Are you arguing with
yourself or me?"

"I'm trying not to argue with
anyone."

"Then let me say this. I was
approached by my camp elder. He told me that the direction of the camp was in
jeopardy. He felt the elves needed one leader, the proper leader, but there
were two legends in the camp that the elves looked upon with high regard,
perhaps too high. I was one of those so-called legends. Despite my talents and
my strengths, I was asked to leave. The elder understood all the implications.
Without wishing to sound arrogant, he gave up a skilled and knowledgeable elf
guard, but he did so for the greater good of the camp. That was all there was
to it."

"And you didn't feel
betrayed?"

"No."

The answer was a bit too short, slightly
too firm, but Sy didn't push for more.

"Well, that's the
situation," Sy said. "Ryson's already out there."

"He knows the position of the
camp," Holli acknowledged. "If there is something of significance out
there, he has probably already found it. We should teleport there
immediately."

Jure nodded and revealed he had
the energy to cast the spell without difficulty.

Holli then addressed Burbon's
captain.

"I thank you for alerting me to
this."

"Hey, thank you for coming
out here. You're helping me."

"I will inform you of what we
find."

Ryson had visited the elf camp on
previous occasions, and he knew exactly how to locate it again. He had set a
direct path and initially intended on reaching the area before the sun rose.
With his delver speed and senses, he could have avoided any dangers and reached
his destination easily, but his considerations of the situation persuaded him
to reduce his speed.

The rain had ceased and the clouds
passed to the east. Stars sparkled overhead, enough so that there was more than
sufficient light for his delver eyes to penetrate the shadowed forest floor.

While traveling through Dark
Spruce, he wondered about the elves disposition, considered what might
influence them to relocate their camp, for that was the explanation he believed
most sound. If the elves were gone, as Okyiq claimed, there had to be an
appropriate reason. Though it would delay him from reaching his ultimate goal,
he slowed his pace as he examined the woods for clues.

He looked for indications of
natural disasters—floods, storms, fires—but found no signs of any such perils.
He noticed an abundance of food throughout his travels, and discovered no
imminent threat of dark creatures in the vicinity. If the elves did evacuate
their settlement, he found no obvious explanation for such a move, but after
reaching the borders of the camp, he soon feared for their very existence.

It was well past dawn, when he
finally approached the very edge of his objective. Before he entered the
central encampment, he noticed the lack of sentries at the perimeter. The light
of the rising sun was behind him, and he could see deep through the trees. He
listened carefully for any signs of movements and sniffed the winds for traces
of the elves. All of his senses revealed an empty forest.

There were no elf guards stalking
within the heavy branches overhead or patrolling the lower paths on the grounds
leading to the elves' home. At the very outskirts of the elf settlement, Ryson
took to the trees, climbed high into the branches, as would the elves, and
circled the camp from a safe distance. He knew he should be spotted by
sentries, but no guards were stationed to intercept him.

The delver moved unimpeded from
branch to branch without observing a single elf, even without detecting some
curious distraction used by elf guards to lure delvers away. Ryson knew that
elf guards would have either approached him directly to question his purpose—if
they recognized him—or tried to entice him in another direction with some
suspicious activity. They would have used his delver curiosity to protect their
home and to avoid conflict, but he sensed nothing out of the ordinary, nothing
that would draw his attention to another part of the forest. When he completed
his initial scout, he knew without a doubt the region was unguarded.

Staying within the trees, Ryson
moved carefully toward the inner borders of the camp. The forest was still and
quiet, and other than the insects, birds, and squirrels, empty of activity. He
pulled out the spyscope from his pouch and surveyed the lands from the security
of a large white pine.

He began to suspect there was
something more to Okyiq's claim. He understood the reason for the lack of
patrols and sentries. There were no guards in the trees because there were no elves
to protect. They were indeed absent, but traces of their existence lingered.
The camp had not been moved, at least not in any manner that would make sense.
Clear signs of the elves' inhabitance remained scattered about the forest
floor.

The elves did not live like
humans. They did not build sturdy shelters or large storage facilities. They
lived within the forest, taking full advantage of the natural shelter offered
by the trees. Still, they utilized certain cover to protect their more delicate
items, and these signs of the elf settlement were very conspicuous.

Small tents and storage huts for
food showed no signs of disturbance, other than goblin raiding. Woodpiles and
the remnants of campfires littered the ground, even a few weapon stocks
remained clearly in view, though most had also been picked through by thieving
goblins. If the elves had abandoned the area, they certainly didn't take the
time to pack their belongings or to erase the traces of their camp. Even the
most novice human scout would have easily discovered the obvious remains.

Knowing that elf guards would
never allow for such carelessness unless it was unavoidable, Ryson leapt to the
ground and stepped carefully forward for a closer inspection. He imagined that
only a severe emergency would cause the elves to flee in such blatant
disregard. But to add to the delver's confusion, the signs of reckless flight
didn't exist, either.

There was no indication of a
violent attack, no blood on the ground, or spent arrows in the trees. While the
campfires appeared abandoned, left to simply burn out over time, Ryson could
find no other sign of panicked retreat. There were no broken branches or signs
of a hasty escape into the brush. Goblins had scavenged much of the stocks, but
nothing was in great disarray. The camp remained eerily intact. There simply
were no elves in the area.

Believing he faced no immediate
danger himself, he turned a more deliberate eye to the signs he could discover.
He found the recent tracks of the elves, both on the ground and in the trees,
but these markings only created more questions. There were no signs of a
struggle, but footprints simply disappeared. Nearly every recent path he could
follow eventually just ended, stopped as if the elf that had made the tracks
had been plucked from existence.

Wondering if some elf might remain
in hiding, he called out, but no one responded. The camp was silent, even the
birds and crickets refused to reply. The hush that engulfed the immediate area
brought an even greater sense of concern to the delver's spirit. He felt as if
he was walking through a graveyard and the ghosts of long dead elves were
watching him but unwilling to allow anyone, or anything, to answer. The silence
was overwhelming.

Closing his eyes, he tried to
latch upon any sound at all. The only thing he could hear was the slight
gurgling of a stream well off in the distance, but even that sounded... wrong.
It sounded to him as if the slowly rushing waters were not really moving, but
only bubbling in place. He listened for the birds and squirrels he heard before
entering the camp, but even those chirps and whistles failed to reach him.

It was when he took in a deep
breath to check for any and all scents, both strange and ordinary, that he
realized something was interfering with his senses. He caught the fragrance of
the forest in his nostrils, but it smelled... manufactured. The tree bark, the
leaves, the plants and ivy; everything that surrounded him should have offered
its own unique scent. In one way, it was all there for him to recognize, but in
another way, it was masked, covered by something that would conceal any scents
out of the ordinary.

Even more troubling, he could not
detect the aging scent trail of a single goblin. He saw signs of their recent
pilfering, but he could not find a meager trace of their scent. With that, he
knew something was amiss.

Realizing there was more going on
around him than what he could see, hear and smell, Ryson grew even more
cautious. Either there was something affecting his senses, or there was
something very wrong with his surroundings. In either case, he realized that
danger could be near, and one potent word came to his mind.

Magic.

It was the only possible
explanation, but one that usually brought the delver great uncertainty. The
energy always seemed to be just beyond his touch. As a delver, he journeyed
through life based on what his keen senses could uncover. The magic, however,
played by a strange set of rules.

To make matters more complex, he
came to understand that magic was a part of him, it made him a delver, enriched
his abilities. At the same time, its essence eluded him. He did not actively
engage the magic. It heightened his senses and augmented his physical talents
naturally, without conscious decision. It became a part of him at birth, an
energy constantly passed on from one generation of delvers to the next. He
could not separate himself from the energy anymore than he could discard his
skin.

In the past, he had been
uncertain, even afraid, of the power within him. It was a mystery he could not
unravel, and for a delver, that was indeed a heavy burden. Just as a delver was
born with magic, a delver's inherent mission was to seek out answers. To his
discomfort, the magic was something he had to accept without exploration and discovery,
without pulling aside the curtain and revealing the clear truth to a discerning
eye, nose and ear.

Alone in a deserted elf camp and
facing a strange sensation of some forceful energy distorting his senses, Ryson
realized his desire to unravel the mystery had led him into possible danger.
His options of understanding the elf disappearance dwindled. He was not
well-suited to battle magical spells, especially when he could not identify the
source of deception. Unwilling to leave himself vulnerable, he raced back up a
tree trunk and took a position high in the branches of a mighty oak.

He bent low in the tree, keeping
himself covered. He tried to reach beyond the screen of false sensations and
take hold of something that might offer an explanation. Believing he might be
blinded to the actual threats by some powerful spell, he hoped to elude the
magic and grab onto just a shred of reality.

To his growing dismay, he could
not break through the magical cover that became more and more apparent to him.
The enigmatic shadow that blocked his senses was like an extremely dense fog
that hung just out of reach, a thick mist that could not be cleared by a wave
of the hand. It blanketed the region with an unyielding heaviness. It provided
a wall of concealment for the truth, and in that, Ryson grew apprehensive.

Instinctively, he reached for the
handle of the Sword of Decree. Before he pulled the blade from its sheath
across his back, magic of a different source rushed into his consciousness.

When the very elves he was
searching for placed the blade into his possession, the enchantment of the
sword expanded. In his hands, it began to offer opportune enlightenment to its
holder, revealed what was necessary to be known at a specific moment in time.
The sword didn't spell out the truth, didn't unravel every mystery, but it
often gave direction, allowed its holder to understand the foundation of a
mystery or a threat. It had saved Ryson's life, and it helped him save the
land. On that day, it offered just enough knowledge for the delver to realize
he was in no real danger.