Delver Magic: Book 06 - Pure Choice (23 page)

"To kill you would be to
break my duty, my oath. That would be beyond my last resort."

"I do not believe it will be
necessary, but I must insist you follow my directive. If you do not, then I
hold no true authority. If you are an elf guard and desire to hold to your
oath, you must respect my authority. "

"Very well," Birk
agreed, but then turned quickly from the topic in hopes the situation would
never arise. He revealed his concern as well as his curiosity over the elder's
well-being. "How do you feel? I must admit, I have not seen you move with
such youthful energy in many seasons."

"Youthful?" Shantree
responded with obvious opposition. "No, far from youthful. I feel powerful
but not rejuvenated. I know I am stronger, but if anything, I feel older. Just
as the energy seems to fuel my physical abilities, it strangles my inner
vitality. No, I do not feel young. I may not look it, but I am weary... on the
inside."

"Is there anything that can
be done?"

"I do not believe so. I tried
to resist the flood of power. I could not. I can relinquish the energy by
casting it for the camp's needs, but beyond that, I cannot dispel it any further."

"Perhaps some of the others
might be able to remove it from you. If you allow them to probe the energy,
they might be able to siphon..."

"No," Shantree
interrupted. "I will not put others at risk. I also have no idea how much
magic may be necessary to keep us alive. If we can use it for our own good,
even if it matches the will of our captor, we must do so. To disperse it for
selfish reasons would be beyond foolish. I will survive this."

Birk nodded in acceptance. He then
looked over to the well and the water it produced just as he reviewed the
invigorated plants yielding fruits and nuts. "At least, you have solved
our temporary concerns. Despite the loss of magic on the ill-fated assault, we
now have plenty of food and water, for a while at least."

"There is enough of his magic
within me to ensure we do not starve. Of that, I'm sure. He wanted it that
way."

Birk understood the deeper meaning
behind the action. It was not out of simple kindness that the sorcerer offered
his magic.

"So he is not done with us."

"No."

And while the elf guard captain
held no doubts regarding Ansas' ill will, he was surprised at the elder's tone
in her simple response.

"You seem sure."

"I am. It goes beyond what he
said to me. Again, the desire is within the magic itself. It is available for
me to utilize in order to keep the camp alive, but it goes even beyond that. As
he said, if he wanted us dead, the task would already be done. I think we both
would agree on that point."

Birk considered the sheer force of
will and magic displayed by the human sorcerer. He could not argue the
assertion.

"Do you have any idea of what
he ultimately wants with us?"

Shantree frowned again. She also
wanted to know Ansas' plans for the camp, to discover his intentions. She
believed there might be some clue in the energy he bestowed within her, but if
there was some hint hidden in the folds of magic, it repulsed any attempt to
discover any such deeper meaning.

"The magic has
intention," Shantree admitted, "but I am shielded from gaining any
greater insight. It will not let me probe beyond its most apparent essence. I
can use the magic to the benefit of the camp, but I think it would resist me if
I tried to use it against the sorcerer, or even if I tried to direct it against
the wall."

"Unfortunate, for that was
going to be my next request." Birk shook his head in disgust as he looked
to the translucent field of energy. "We accomplished so little. The
barrier holds and we have lost our most proficient spell casters."

He thought of those that were
taken, and he exclaimed what he believed was an obvious assumption.

"He spoke of two reasons for
bringing us here. He has now taken fifteen of our elves, all of them adept in
the ways of utilizing magic. We can no longer deny that fact. One of the
reasons must relate to the abduction of those elves."

"He did not take them
all," Shantree noted.

"No, he did not," Birk
agreed as he looked upon the elves that waited for further direction.
"Flower remains with us, and she is powerful with crimson magic. He did
take Haven and Scheff, two of the more gifted elves, but he also took elves
that were talented in transferring their energy to others. Why take some and
not others?"

"I wish I could say."

Birk then revealed one conclusion
that seemed obvious.

"The sorcerer also spoke of
an elf with which he had previous contact. At the time, I could not be certain,
but it can only be one."

"Holli Brances,"
Shantree announced before Birk could reveal the name.

"It is obvious, is it
not?" Birk agreed. "Who else could it be? Every elf of our camp has
been brought to this place, even scouts and guards that were quite a distance
away at the instant of our abduction. There is no one missing, yet none could
identify the sorcerer. He spoke of an elf that was once a member of this camp.
There are only a meager few possibilities. The previous camp leaders before
your ascension are still alive. One was turned over to the dwarves of Dunop and
the other accepted self-imposed banishment. They, however, are both males, and
the sorcerer proclaimed the elf was a 'she.' Since Holli left our camp, she has
been in the service of Enin and faced battles with other wizards. It seems the
likely answer."

"Which only brings us to the
question of why the sorcerer would want to gain the attention of an elf guard
that serves the most powerful wizard in all of Uton?"

Before considering the question,
Birk noticed the fading spirits of the elves around them. Nearly every elf
stood confused and downhearted, uncertain of what to do next. The monitors at
the barrier made no call to resume the assault. They had lost their most gifted
spell casters. If another attempt was to be made, the command would have to
come from Birk or Shantree, and they would have to restructure the spell
casting as well as the pool of casters.

The growing level of indecision
and lack of direction worried the elf captain and he decided the issue needed
to be addressed before they speculated further about the sorcerer's ultimate
intentions.

"We can discuss that in short
time and in private. For now, I would like to tend to our most immediate needs.
With your consent, I will redeploy the guards and set the monitors back to
studying the barrier. We will attempt no further spells, for a while at least,
and I will have the remaining spell casters recharge with what energy they can
coax from this realm."

Shantree offered a weary smile.

"It is really all we can
do," she agreed. "That and hope that someone of necessary power might
yet still find us."

Scheff Rutlan stood beside his
fellow elf magic casters in the modest study of a seemingly small house. He had
been transported to that spot against his will, as had the others. A cloud of
ebony magic fell upon them, dissolved their presence from under the barrier in
the dark realm. There was no pain, no sensation of being broken apart. They saw
blackness for but a moment, and then found themselves in new surroundings.
Reality reformed around them in the contour of an ordinary room with no windows
and one door that remained mostly open.

As they peered through the
doorway, they noted a common hall. The passage was simple and without
decoration. They saw three other doors similar in nature to the one that marked
the entrance to the study where they stood. These were all closed, as was a
fourth larger door, the apparent main entrance that waited at the far end of
the hallway.

Both the study and the hall were
of simple construction. The walls and floors appeared to be formed out of
sturdy wood slats with no elaborate designs or exotic architecture. An ordinary
desk with a plain and empty chair stood as the only welcoming elements, but
everything around them lacked warmth or character. There were several shelves
along the walls, but they held only a few books. Numerous stacks of paper with
lines and lines of handwritten notes filled most of the open spaces.

Scheff, feeling no ill effects
himself, looked to the other elves.

"Is everyone alright?"

They all nodded, but their
confusion was obvious.

Only one aspect of their dilemma
seemed apparent, and possibly advantageous. They had been removed from under
the barrier that held them hostage in the dark realm, taken from the other
elves of their camp. In essence, they had achieved their goal, but not by their
own doing. Still, if obtaining freedom from the barrier was the initial stage
of their escape, perhaps their current condition offered them the opportunity
to complete their plans.

Scheff almost called to the magic
within him, actually began forming the spell in his mind to create a path back
home. While constructing the spell, however, he was immediately forced to
cancel it. Opening a portal or creating a path for teleportation required two
points of focus; a destination was obvious, but he also needed a point of
departure. How could he open a portal back to Dark
Spruce Forest
if he couldn't be sure of his location?

As far as the magic was concerned,
no path could be traced. He didn't have to know his exact position, but he
needed at least some tangible point of origin. Without even knowing what realm
he occupied, the path could collapse upon itself due to the instability, like
trying to dig a tunnel through water. Opening a portal under such circumstances
would be risky at best, but more likely devastatingly foolish. Bridging
dimensions with a guess might send a magic caster hurling through an endless
void.

While Scheff considered their
plight, Haven Wellseed, the elf gifted in casting yellow magic, found the dim
light of the room much too gloomy for her liking. With a casual thought, her
own body began to glow, casting a much needed radiance on the space around
them.

"What happened to us?"
Haven asked of Scheff.

"I am not sure," Scheff
admitted. "The spell was unique. I could not tell if it was complete
teleportation or if some type of abstract portal was infused into the
incantation. We might still be in the dark realm, or we might be in between
dimensions."

"This room seems real
enough," one of the other elves offered.

Scheff agreed as he placed his
hands on the surface of the desk and felt the hard wood. He then asked the
question that was on all of their lips.

"Can anyone tell exactly
where we are?" Scheff asked.

There were nine of them all
together, but none of the elves could place their position in any absolute
point of existence.

"Should we check the other
doors?" another elf asked.

"Not until we have a better
idea of where we are," Scheff warned.

"But what could it
hurt?" Haven asked.

Scheff wondered that himself.

"We seem to be alone
here," Haven continued. "This may be our chance to escape."

Her words echoed Scheff's previous
sentiments, but just as he chose to cancel his spell, another consideration
raised his resistance against any optimism.

"That is exactly why I would
be reluctant to try. Think of how we got here, who sent us. You saw what the
sorcerer could do. Do you really think he would send us to a place where we
could escape so easily?"

That consideration shattered any
hope of returning to Dark Spruce
Forest like a hammer falling on
glass.

"No," Haven confessed.

Scheff exposed another fact.

"Without windows, we have no
idea what is beyond these walls. If we open a door not knowing what is on the
outside, we risk letting anything inside."

"Do we just stand here and
wait?" another elf questioned.

Scheff looked about the room. The
desk had no drawers, nothing to search, but the papers about the room seemed
available for their attention, almost as an open invitation.

"Perhaps we may still learn
something of importance. Let us see what these papers reveal."

Scheff walked over to the nearest
wall and took hold of one of the piles. He began to read through the writings
as he flipped through one page after another.

The other elves followed suit.
They were all engrossed in their reading when the sorcerer walked through the
half open door. They were never sure exactly how he entered the small house.

"I hope you find my personal
musings interesting," Ansas announced as he moved past the elves and took
a seat in the chair before his desk. His muscular frame barely fit into the
confines of the seat. It appeared made to fit him exactly, with little room to
spare.

The elves looked up in surprise,
but said nothing. Most returned the stacks of paper to their previous spots on
the shelves. A few, however, continued to hold on to what they had taken.

Scheff, with papers still in hand,
finally broke the silence.

"Will you tell us where we
are?"

"You're still in the dark
realm, I assure you."

"And what is this
place?"

"It is my home," Ansas
replied freely as he looked deeper into the elf and noticed obvious surprise.

"What did you expect?"
the sorcerer questioned with a bit of an amused tone. "Some dark,
foreboding castle with grand spires rising up into the shadows? Or maybe some
palace of pure marble shining so brightly it rivals the stars that do not even
exist in this realm? Totally unnecessary. I simply need a space of my own where
I can rest and study without interruptions. This fills my needs, but that
surprises you. Why?"