Apprentice Wizards of Hope

Apprentice Wizards of Hope

By

Gary J. Davies

Published by Gary J. Davies at Smashwords

Apprentice Wizards of Hope

Copyright 2017 Gary J. Davies

Smashwords Edition License Notes

Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the only exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy.

This e-book is a work of fiction created by the author and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are a production of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Thank you for downloading this e-book!

Contents

Foreword

Apprentice Wizards of Hope

Prologue: Eight Years Earlier

CHAPTER 1 - Homecoming

CHAPTER 2 - Desolation Glen

CHAPTER 3 - Dinner

CHAPTER 4 - Trailer Trouble

CHAPTER 5 - The Hortegas

CHAPTER 6 - Evaluations and School

CHAPTER 7 - Scheming Demons

CHAPTER 8 - Busy School Day

CHAPTER 9 - Jailed!

CHAPTER 10 - Premonition

CHAPTER 11 - Demons Attack!

CHAPTER 12 - Breakout!

CHAPTER 13 - Battle at Desolation Glen

CHAPTER 14 - Norm Invasion

CHAPTER 15 - Death at Grim Mansion

CHAPTER 16 - Breakthrough!

CHAPTER 17 - Taken!

CHAPTER 18 - Inside Grim Mansion

CHAPTER 19 - The Void

CHAPTER 20 - Peace and Promise

Story Notes

About Other Publications by this Author

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Foreword

Even if there is no such thing as real magic, the universe we live in is still truly miraculous, especially (from our perhaps limited human/Earth-centric viewpoint) its biological life. Scientific study has revealed much of how life persists and evolves, and how it likely arose as a result of self-organizing tendencies of matter in certain accommodating 'Goldilocks' environments. It increasingly appears that self-organization, life, and its evolution are all natural consequences of the physically realized system of mathematics that is our universe.

Yet science has still not adequately explained some of life's greatest mysteries. For example what is consciousness and 'free will'? And what is life itself? Is it all purely matter and energy following the incredibly complex system relationships (especially quantum mechanical interactions) increasingly sought by science? Is the reach of objective measurement exceeded such that in principle some knowledge is unobtainable or at least unverifiable? Or is there something transcendentally spiritual/magical to life that is somehow by its very essence beyond the grasp of science?

And if there are some sorts of elemental spiritual/magical forces in play with regard to life, are there in turn elemental anti-life 'evil' forces that oppose them? And if there are beings of life that embody such life forces, could there perhaps also be beings of anti-life? Beings that because they are themselves a perverse, elementally evil form of life, are compelled to oppose and destroy all other forms of life as a matter of primal instinct locked into their very structure?

The current consensus science view is that in reality there is no solid objective evidence for any of that. As layer by layer the onion is pealed back by science, it all appears to be in the math. Natural (i.e. mathematical) tendencies for order vie with natural tendencies for randomness/disorder in proportions and ways that nicely result in us and everything else without recourse to anything spiritual/paranormal. No matter how deep we dig, it’s the math turtle all the way down.

Nifty, but purely the stuff of science without a need for resorting to compellingly mysterious paranormal forces or beings, unless the need for an ultimate turtle/prime mover upon which it all rests is insisted upon to reach some sort of perhaps psychologically driven need for comprehensive philosophical or theological closure. However, one can at least imagine such things as 'magical' life and anti-life forces and write stories such as this one, though there is some work involved in creating the necessary self-consistent science-fantasy setting/conceptual framework.

Towards the end of this volume Story Notes are provided that identify some of the concepts and characters created to provide the conceptual framework for this story which may be of interest to readers, though there is certainly no necessity to read them prior to reading the story text itself. This actually represents far less notes than often required for a novel, but that reflects an advantage with fiction and in particular with fantasy-fiction: though everything has to 'fit together' plausibly, much stuff can simply be made up! Reality can be tweaked as the story proceeds! How handy!

No map is included, as the town of Hope is a gated community very near your own home, and you are no doubt at least familiar with its location already, although the name may be disguised and before reading this story you were probably not aware that it is inhabited by Wizards and other beings of power such as vampires and werewolves. Similarly, no map of the elven planet Alure is offered, nor is a roadmap to the all-encompassing Void attempted. The text of the story itself is the only path provided to those places.

Also note that there is an 'About' section at the end of this book which describes the other published eBooks of this author. All fourteen published products of this author's writing hobby - mostly fantasy/sci-fi novels, novellas, and short stories - are available where this story was obtained.

I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

****

Apprentice Wizards of Hope

Prologue:

Eight Years Earlier

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, shrieked Sky the sprite joyfully, as she winged her way through cold thick swirling gases. There were always exciting storms occurring on Jupiter, one of her favorite gas-giant planets in this universe!

It was while looping high in Jupiter's cold atmosphere that her sharp senses noticed unusual storm activity on distant Earth. She detected a Northern Hemisphere thunderstorm of truly outrageous proportions, though it was somewhat early in the year for Earth hurricanes. Curiosity aroused, she immediately teleported herself to Earth, though it cost her much of her stored energy reserves to do so.

The trip to Earth was well worth the trouble, for soon she was soaring through swelling, swirling black thunderstorm clouds! Many phenomena in the universe were more powerful or visually spectacular, but few featured such delightful contrasts. Countless tingling high voltage amps of burning lightening repeatedly flashed through her, while cold rain and stinging hail pummeled her sensitive blue skin, though not so violently that they threatened to tear the relatively delicate webbing of her wings, which would have been an annoying inconvenience. It was such intoxicating sensations that drove her to ecstasy, as well as the thrill of chaotic flight through gusting, buffeting winds. Such experiences reminded her of her birthplace the Great Void, though this universe was a much more ordered and safe place.

She didn’t often visit Earth, not because in recent millennia it was absolutely teeming with annoyingly ignorant yet pretentious humans, or because the elves of Alure had declared Earth to be out of bounds, but because there were usually much more spectacular energy-rich events to enjoin with elsewhere, even in the comparatively bland dimensional realm that included Earth. Sprites could traverse the Void to travel among the infinity of relatively stable and hence persistent universes but this universe was by far her favorite. It was a universe of delightful contrasts: of light and darkness as well as heat and cold, and of delicate yet stubbornly persistent complex life-forms as well as spectacularly huge cataclysmic destructive events.

Hidden within the storm she sensed a touch of magic energy that was slightly unsettling to her: Wild Magic that had escaped from the Void between universes. Normally, she would revel in the discovery of such magic, and drink it freely into herself, body and soul, for such magic sustained her, defined her: she was herself a child of the Void and the chaotic Wild Magic that often surged through it between universes. But she also sensed that this particular storm was tainted: poisoned with elemental Evil that corroded native life forms and energies, and she cautiously shut off Wild Magic absorption, lest she herself be corrupted. Even robust sprites were not totally immune to the deadly corrosive effects of Evil.

It wasn’t unheard of for Wild Magic to burst between universes and trigger disturbances such as this storm, but then it should have been a pure raw Wild Magic that she sensed. The flow of these energies didn’t feel quite right to her. It felt as if the magic was being worked by some alien force, that instead of being simply chaotic, something was subtly shaping it towards some unknown purpose. However, she concluded that the puzzling circumstance of oddly shaped Wild Magic wasn’t enough to offset the pleasurable physical aspects of the storm.

Part of the storm’s electrical and kinetic energy she absorbed, but most of it she simply allowed to sweep her further into the central swirling cluster of towering dark thunderclouds. Abruptly however, there was a sharp reduction in storm power levels, as if an impossible amount of energy had suddenly been withdrawn from the center of the storm. Rain droplets around her instantly froze into gritty bits of ice, some as large as her small fisted hand, though it was early summer on this part of Earth, and she was too low in altitude for such cold. Flight through the increasingly large and irregular shaped hail was rapidly becoming less than pleasurable. As a precaution she thickened and toughened her wings and body skin.

She considered immediately returning to Jupiter, which despite its perpetual chill had truly vast and wonderful storms, but decided not to. Something was subtly controlling this storm, and that roused her curiosity. In her experience only an extraordinarily powerful Demon born of the Void could influence Wild Magic and absorb energy in a manner such as she had witnessed here, and as far as she knew there were no Demons at all on Earth.

She didn’t often think of elfin matters, but realized that such a Demon could possibly destroy the Balance that the elves worked so hard to maintain. Though she wasn’t particularly interested in elf notions such as the Balance concept by which among other things the Demons were kept at bay in this universe, she loved elf cookies and had several elf friends, and knew that any information useful to the elves could be parleyed into sweet rewards by a clever sprite. In sum, news of a Demon on Earth could mean yummy cookies for herself!

She decided to first verify the presence of a Demon. Despite the increasingly unpleasant flying conditions she spiraled further downward, approaching ever closer to whatever was shaping and absorbing the energy.

A curious sight greeted her at ground level in the very center of the storm. Three humans, two adults and a small child, huddled together within a forest clearing as they struggled to shield themselves against the onslaught of a powerful Demon. The general location itself was strong in magic, she noticed: a natural nexus for Earth-generated Life Energy due to unusual geological features in the area.

The Demon itself stood on two legs and was roughly humanoid in shape, and was of course dominantly black in color, though there were bright red cracks and spots where rampant energy glowed from deep inside it, as though at any moment it might be blown to bits by the unearthly Evil energies that powered it from within. Though details of its irregular features were masked by intermittent cascades of rain, hail, and sleet, and by a barrage of lightning bolts that lanced out from its two huge clawed hands to strike at the humans, between flashes Sky could see that the Demon also presented a pair of horns, red glowing eyes and open, maniacally grinning mouth. Where it stood the surrounding smoldering ground was blackened and covered with hot, red-glowing, Evil-saturated grey ash.

Sky didn’t much care for Demons; probably in large measure because she had never yet met a Demon that hadn’t immediately tried to kill her. In this case she had enjoyed for a time the storm which the Demon had evidently instigated, but she didn’t like senseless destruction and carnage, which was pretty much what Demons were all about. Evil-welding Demons generally hated and killed all non-Demon life-forms that they encountered, and this Demon was apparently no exception.

She sensed that the Evil tainted desolate area surrounding the cowering humans was completely devoid of life, where minutes earlier there had doubtlessly been trees and other normal Earthly life-forms. The Demon was attracting huge quantities of Evil from the Void and pelting the forest and humans with it. Even the soil itself, which normally would be teeming with countless billions of tiny living creatures, had already been completely sterilized and corrupted with Evil.

Astonishingly, the powerful attack was somehow being thwarted by the humans. The Demon couldn’t even force its ponderous body closer than a body length from his intended victims, and the Demon blasts of glowing plasma energy were completely stopped by some sort of invisible shielding that surrounded the humans. That was very interesting! Humans were, Sky recalled, quite fragile physically and usually not capable of consciously controlling any magic at all, let along magic that could oppose an exceptionally powerful Demon from the Void!

It was at that point she realized that the battle was taking place on the outskirts of a town named Hope that was said to be inhabited by humans that showed signs of fledgling magic ability. These humans under attack must be strongly gifted with magic; that was obviously how they were protecting themselves! They were using the Life Energy of this place, drawing to themselves the strong flow of life-produced magic that flowed through the Earth in the Hope area.

She also recalled that the town of Hope was redundantly on the elves’ list of specific forbidden places to visit, in addition to Earth itself being altogether forbidden. Those were of course elf rules to be ignored by free spirited sprites.

The Demon absorbed another huge amount of energy from the storm; so much energy that Sky tumbled towards Earth as winds abruptly paused and much remaining moisture froze into fine gritty bits of sleet. As Sky flapped her wings and adjusted her weight to compensate, the protective shield of the humans was at last overcome by a massive blast of raw energy from the Demon, and the humans were instantly destroyed.

No, not quite, Sky noticed. The two poor adults had been reduced to smoldering cinders that collapsed into powdery gray ash under their own weight, but the child still appeared to be intact, though it had slumped down onto the smoking, glowing, ashen Evil ground and lay still and apparently unconscious.

The Demon’s glowing red eyes widened in surprise, and it advanced closer to the child; such that the human was almost physically within its reach. Abruptly its massive hands erupted in burning lightening that quickly surrounded the child; a blast much reduced compared to the previous one that had broken through the protective shield and incinerated the adults, but still quite deadly to any living creature. The Demon’s eyes widened again when it saw the powerful blast deflected such that it had no apparent effect on the child!

In response the Demon roared in anger, and then lifted its immense arms to absorb yet more energy from the storm. The storm may have been triggered and shaped by Wild Magic, but the creature was using simple storm energy in addition to Evil to attack the humans. This time so much energy was absorbed that Sky had to expend some of her own reserves to stay aloft. Annoyed, she watched as the Demon pushed ever closer to the child. If the small, delicate appearing child wasn’t soon reduced to ashes by energy blasts it would surely be pulverized physically by the massive black monster!

On a whim, which is what most frequently motivated any sprite, Sky shunted in and snatched the child from the reaching claws of the Demon, then flew away so quickly that the Demon could only gawk in surprise at the empty stretch of ground where the human had lain only moments earlier!

It was Sky’s taunting laughter that drew the monster’s attention to her as she struggled to gain altitude while hindered by the added weight of the child. Her momentum had been enough to sweep her and the human away from the Demon’s immediate grasp, but not enough to carry them out of sight of the monster.

Screaming with rage, the Demon let loose its blast of gathered raw energy at the escaping pair, a towering column of lightning plasma that would have destroyed elf or even Demon, but not an energy loving sprite, not when the sprite was far enough away to sufficiently reduce the effect of the blast. Instead, the sprite gratefully absorbed much of the energy that managed to strike her.

Riding the crest of the remaining blast and applying what she had absorbed from it allowed Sky to burst away from the scene, indeed it allowed her to transit straight to Alure itself! The only awkward part of the trick was to simultaneously protect the child from the Demon’s blast and bring the unconscious waif along with her. The child, though no larger than herself, was for mysterious reasons extraordinarily challenging to hold onto and transport, but with great difficulty she managed.

****

Old Soone labored in his garden, savoring the feel of rich dark soil in his wrinkled old gray elfin hands as he carefully packed it around the Tunish plant’s delicate roots. He could immediately sense vibrant life in every tiny bit of soil, as well as in the plant itself.

Life was a form and source of magic that could be subtly shaped by elves, and doing so was the essence of being an elf. And so gardening to enhance life in the world was the normal vocation of most of the elves of Alure, and helping life flourish despite the chaos that ruled much of the multiverse was every elf's true calling.

At last he sat back on the soft ground, wrapped his thin green cloak more firmly about his shoulders to combat the lingering chill of morning, rested his tired old arms, and looked about critically at this small unspectacular corner of his gardens, which included several patches of critical life from far away worlds. This was by far his favorite garden section, though it was the least successful in terms of amount of growth and was by far the most work for him to maintain. Every individual patch of ground was strongly warded to maintain environments specific to each different world being emulated.

He critically regarded the results of his most recent labors. The tiny plant was called a Parat on the distant planet of Tunic, and had no known commercial value for the Tunic people, yet it was priceless to them. They hadn’t yet acknowledged the Parat’s vital role in the life cycle of Mordat fungus, or the vital role of Mordat fungus in maintaining the soil’s ability to support Tunic food crops, not even after he had patiently explained it all to them on several occasions.

They were a science oriented people, but hadn't gotten around to finding out yet what Soone could directly sense: Mordat fungus and Parat plants were keystone species for the ecology of the planet of Tunic. As the Parat moved steadily towards extinction on Tunic, the Tunic people would soon face extinction themselves as a result of their stubborn environmental ignorance and carelessness, and in addition to dooming themselves would doom much of the life of their world.

Theirs was unfortunately a recurring theme in the universe: an ecosystem that eventually developed intelligent life forms became subject to their arrogance and ignorance: a panicle species could and often did make foolish choices that drove big changes in their ecosystem that resulted in ecological catastrophe.

The soil in this small recent addition to his garden, which Soone had patiently nurtured for an Earth century, was as close as he could come to that of the planet Tunic, and included as much fungal and bacterial life as had been possible to gather through several dangerous trips to Tunic by Soone and his friends over many years. The Tunic were not a friendly people, but Soone still hoped for their eventual enlightenment and deliverance from extinction.

Perhaps he could yet help save the Tunic species from themselves, if his six tiny Parat plants and the underground growth of Mordat fungus they supported survived long enough. Among the dozens of planets known by the elves to harbor abundant life the Tunic people were of course unique. Soone rather liked how they were constructed: four powerful legs, two delicate arms ending in something like hands, and a head that resembled that of an earthly spider, all protruding from a bulky shelled body the size of an Earth rhinoceros covered with colorful poisonous spines. What a beautiful creature! It would be a shame and crime against the Maker if such a nifty appearing species went extinct!

His latest garden additions had firm, healthy looking green leaves, including new growth, and his probes of their life-force showed them to be very much alive. He judged that they would likely continue to live, at least for now. At the proper time he would re-introduce them and the fungus to Tunic. With his help, perhaps life on Tunic had a chance after all!

Would Soone himself survive long enough to help save sentient Tunic life? That was impossible to know. Elves were very long lived, but Soone had already lived much longer than most. It greatly troubled Soone that the survival of the entire Tunic race apparently hinged on his own personal longevity. That was an absurd situation, and it worried the elf greatly. Billions of sentient lives and countless non-sentient lives depended on this small patch of life-forms that were alien to the elf home world Alure, and on one very old elf’s own tenuous grasp on life. That situation didn't seem to be at all sensible.

As much as elves strove for everlasting structure and sensibility, ultimately it seemed to elude them, as it generally did for all known peoples. Sensibility seemed to always be tantalizingly just out of reach, always only a generation or two away but never quite currently reachable, even for elves.

Much as on Tunic, the status of life on Alure seemed to be increasingly threatened by its panicle species the elves. The current Elf High Council was unusually isolationist and increasingly devoid of sensibility, it seemed to Soone. They did not agree at all with Soone’s concepts of engagement with others and with the ultimate necessity for interdependence between the sentient races of the universe. Of late the Council even seemed to be abandoning long-held elven knowledge and beliefs that for many millennia had formed the center of elf culture!

Soone's response was to work alone even harder in his beloved gardens. As long as life on Alure remained strong, he was confident that elves would endure and that in time the Council and elf culture would return to traditional wisdom. What immutably made sense in centuries past still made sense today, it had merely been forgotten for a while.

The old elf’s eyes wondered to the towering kaleidoscope of magic-enhanced life beyond this hand-worked patch, to wondrous growth unmatched anywhere else on Alure or any other known world. Not even the gardens of the nearby Grand Hall, supported by a dozen senior Wizards, matched what his own magic had helped to achieve here. Life begat magic that Soone subtly shaped here to encourage yet more life and more magic. Gigantic tree-like plants towered miles into the sky, buoyed by enormous hydrogen filled gourds. Millions of flowers bigger than elves and more colorful than any rainbow grew everywhere! Alure creatures of every shape, size, and color imaginable climbed and flew among the plant growth, exchanging nutrients and other life-essential commodities. Even shy rare creatures like dragons and pixies lived within Soone's gardens!

As the elf watched, an entire section of forest changed from green to dark red, maximizing solar power absorption from the setting sun. These fantastic results achieved through magic and unending physical toil allowed him to live apart from most of elf society and discretely pursue a variety of activities unsanctioned but unopposed by the Elf High Council.

His activities having to do with helping other races, such as his Tunic project, required consorting with beings that were not elves and who did not necessarily support The Balance. For some reason he could not understand, lately that disturbed many elves. Somehow dealing with non-elves had become politically incorrect, an attitude now reflected in the High Council that Soone could not accept.

However, among the several million elves on Alure, Soone was one of only a hundred or so elves declared to have reached the status of Gaou, or Master Wizard. As such he was traditionally provided much latitude, though as of late the Council had been meddling and threatening more and more. Why they did so was incomprehensible to Soone. Why would any elves oppose him? He was dedicated to the long-term pursuit of life! Soone persisted by mostly ignoring the trivia of elf politics and the fleeting cultural variations that came and went over the decades and centuries. Regardless of what the Council thought or did, life was good here in his gardens.

As he did every morning he sat quietly for a time and focused on his wondrous gardens, drawing on some of its Life Energies to renew the wards that maintained the Great Balance by protecting Alure and all elf-protected worlds from the Demons and Evil of the Void. This time he was once again shocked to find the ancient protective galactic Balance Wards even further weakened!

He hated to admit it but the weakening was part of a very disturbing trend. In recent years increasing numbers of elves denied tradition and refused to contribute to the renewal of the Balance Wards! Some members of the Alure Council were even questioning the very existence of Demons and Evil! Soone personally did what he could to defend elf traditions and the Balance, but he was only one elf, and by necessity he dedicated most of his efforts to his own garden rather than to Alure politics.

As he finished with his daily spells, Soone sensed that a visitor was approaching from far above; a creature of great power but not an elf. He quickly recognized that it was Sky the sprite that approached, a fact that did not displease him. He had outlived his mate and most of his friends, and welcomed occasional visitors. He very much enjoyed the exuberance of the young sprite, and tolerated free-spirited Sky far better than did most other elves.

Besides, as a naturalist Soone was fascinated by sprites. Sprites were living contradictions: a non-biologic life form that reveled in and consumed rampant energies and even Wild Magic instead of being destroyed by it. Sprites were exceedingly powerful creatures. Too bad a sense of responsibility had evaded them almost completely; they would have made powerful allies in the unending struggle against Demons and Evil.

Looking skyward with large elf eyes, he soon sighted the sprite visually, dropping below the clouds, but also immediately noticed that Sky carried something nearly as large as herself: something that was not blue like the sprite. Knowing Sky, it was probably some tantalizing curiosity that she planned to barter for his elf cookies, though truth be known, Soone would gladly treat her to free cookies to secure her visits. Yes, he was a loner, but he was a lonely loner. Especially in recent decades he counted the young sprite as one of his closest remaining friends.

Sky landed lightly a few feet from him, and watched the elf’s face for reaction as she lay her burden gently on the ground before him, her every motion as smooth and graceful as the most elegant of dances imaginable.

Greetings old elf, she said cheerily. She was small even for a sprite, largely humanoid in form and only half a head taller than Soone, but very slim and elegantly graceful, even when standing on solid ground with wings somehow folded and absorbed into herself and levitation powers extinguished. Her smooth, featureless skin and long head hair were rich blue in color, and her big eyes were very elf-like: wide yellow orbs with huge grey pupils that danced with hints of blue or green when she was excited. Right now they were solid green, which suggested that the sprite was very excited about something. Cookies, probably, thought Soone.

Soone’s jaw dropped open and his own eyes widened in surprise when he studied the sprite's burden that now lay before him, evoking a mischievous giggle from Sky. What the elf at first had thought to be merely a bundle of rags was clearly humanoid in form: it was a creature of some sort, and a live one and an air-breather at that, for he could see it move rhythmically very slightly and sense the small amounts of warmed air that it exhaled. It was likely sentient, as evidenced by the clothing that covered most of it. The exposed skin of its face and one arm was light tan with a hint of pink: almost white in color. Oddly, the skin appeared to be clean, even though parts of the clothing it wore were covered in blackened ash.

The oddest thing about it was that it was warded in some manner, for he did not directly sense it as a living creature, but merely as a neutral void in the continuum. What creature is it that you have brought to torment me and The Balance with this time, foolish sprite?

A small injured creature, wise old elf, another life for you to mend. A male, I think.

You think? I truly doubt that. Oh! He finally recognized what it was, and the recognition took his breath away. It couldn’t be! Not even Sky would be so foolish! It’s an Earth human?

Only a very small one. A child.

"Humans have emerging magic abilities and are among the Council’s two dozen or so strictly forbidden species of the Galaxy to contact,