Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm)

by Valerie Douglas

  Carefully, Elon lowered him to the ground.

  “Go,” Colath said, “see to Jareth. He still lives.”

  Nodding, Elon went to kneel beside the young wizard, looking with horrified dismay at the arrow that pierced him.

  The arrow that Jareth had taken for him, to save his life.

  That sacrifice pained him but not nearly as much as the arrow pained Jareth, who didn’t have Elven magic to aid his healing.

  He didn’t need to ask why Jareth had done it, knowing Jareth shared his vision. He understood why the street urchin from the streets of Doncerric knew justice better than those who had never known injustice.

  “Jareth,” Elon said, his throat tight, sensing how tenuous Jareth’s hold on life was.

  His friend drowned in his own blood.

  Those deep brown eyes opened to look up at him.

  So young for a man. As a wizard he would live longer than most of his folk, if he survived this day, this journey.

  Carefully, Elon slid his arm beneath Jareth’s shoulders, lifted him up enough to reach the arrow.

  “This will hurt,” he warned.

  Jareth gave him a look. He coughed, spraying blood across Elon’s tunic and nodded.

  To Elon’s amazement there was a touch of apology in the young wizard’s hazed brown eyes. For the mess. Elon went still and then took a breath.

  “Hold on,” Elon said, “Trust me, my friend, and don’t let go of life. Fight for me.”

  Jareth’s heart fluttered. The words stunned him.

  “Friend?” he whispered.

  “Yes, Jareth,” Elon said, firmly, “Friend. In the truest sense of the word. I wouldn’t lose you.”

  Something within Jareth twisted even as something inside him grew stronger.

  Going to one knee, his beautiful face paler than normal, Colath joined them, a hand on Jareth’s shoulder.

  “Nor I, Jareth.”

  Those brown eyes went from one to the other, from Elon to Colath.

  Jareth wanted to weep.

  And struggled to take a bubbling breath. He set himself, and nodded.

  He looked at Elon as his friend’s strong hand curled around the arrow that protruded from his chest and steeled himself. Instead of sending him into oblivion though, the motion of pulling it seemed to shock him into greater clarity. The remainder of the arrow slid out of him, pain spearing through him in an agony so great his body arched and a gurgling cry tore from his drowning lungs, spraying blood everywhere.

  Elon almost lost him, he felt him fade but Jareth fought and clawed for life.

  Even in the face of his own injury, Colath was beside him, lending him strength.

  Jareth’s pain became Elon’s as he merged with his friend, as he took the young wizard’s pain as his own. He subverted the agony, sought the rhythm that was Jareth his friend, the music of him when he was whole, the sense and sound of him deep, true and clear. He drew energy from the earth through himself until he felt incandescent, suffused with light and then he poured it into Jareth.

  For Jareth the agony was nearly unendurable. Darkness tried to bury him, to drag him down, but he fought it, fought it with every fiber of his being.

  Friends.

  Warmth suffused him, poured through his body like a flood tide, washing the pain away with it. Warmth and something else. Magic of a kind he’d never known. He could almost feel his muscles, nerves and skin knit to become one again. A sound that was almost like music whispered in his head, a harmony that tried to be and then was clear. It rang clear. Like a bell inside him, the sound swelling.

  With his head cradled in the crook of Elon’s arm, he watched in amazement as power surged through him and the wound in his chest knitted before his eyes.

  Stunned, Jareth looked up into Elon’s strong, stern face.

  “You can Heal,” he whispered in astonishment.

  No one knew that Elves could Heal. Healers were almost unknown among men and those few lived a life of hell. They could only heal so many.

  If word got out that Elves could Heal, they might very well have another war on their hands.

  Elon nodded, looking at him. “I can.”

  In that moment Jareth knew exactly how much Elon of Aerilann trusted him.

  Friend.

  Jareth looked up into Elon’s dark steady gaze.

  “Know this,” Colath said, gently, because Elon wouldn’t. “As hard as it is to do, our Healers are enjoined from healing Men. Healers are too few among us as well. Even with all the healing our bodies can do, even our folk must sometimes have a Healer - fighting with the Borderlands creatures or even accidents cause damage such that we cannot spare the lost energy of even one. Having Elon out in the Kingdoms is already a sacrifice.”

  Elon had healed him, Jareth.

  Nodding, Jareth nodded weakly. He understood all too well what Colath said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t tell.”

  “My thanks,” Elon said. “I never doubted, but it would be…difficult.”

  More difficult than what he was about to do but only by a slight degree.

  Elon looked at Colath.

  “Aerilann,” he said.

  Giving Elon a look, eyebrows lifting, Colath allowed his mouth to twitch a little. Amused.

  “This should be…enlightening.”

  Jareth looked from one to the other warily as they helped him into the saddle, wondering what they were up to.

  “I would go home,” Elon said, wearily, feeling every inch of his own wounds, of stretched muscles and cuts he hadn’t marked at the time.

  They would have to heal of their own. Healers couldn’t heal themselves.

  In the distance there was a clamor, alarming at first, all of them fearing another attack, but it was only the farmers come out to battle the fire with blankets and beaters.

  Smoke spiraled into the sky as the fire spread.

  This, though, was a magic Jareth could do. With a gesture and a soft incantation he dampened the fire, drew off its energy before he slumped wearily in the saddle.

  It was as well that Arlis was already dead, once the farmers found out who’d set the blaze.

  Chapter Five

  It was a pleasure and a joy for Elon to draw close to Aerilann again, to ride through the high, thick green and gold grasses that would soon be the buffer zone between Aerilann and those who would take from her, who would violate her.

  This though was only the buffer zone, ahead were the towering boles of the trees of the wood. Sunlight speared down through the thick green canopy, the outer edge of the great forest that was Aerilann and her environs.

  Even now, Elon could lift his head and inhale the scent of home, the thick powdery duff that lay beneath the trees, the sharp tang of the pines, and a whisper of flowers. Here beneath the great outer trees the air was slightly cooler. In the depths of the forest, though, it was always comfortable with soft breezes to refresh body and spirit.

  Jareth kept waiting for them to stop, to set camp.

  There was a haze, almost a fog, which seemed to rise up out of the ground around the base of the trees, not surprising given how cool it must be in there.

  But they didn’t stop, not even at the edge of the fog. A light tingle of magic brushed over his skin as they moved through it. A Veil of some kind, then. A magical protection.

  Fear touched him. Not of where he was going, but of the responsibility, of the undeserved honor they did him.

  “Elon,” Jareth protested.

  They were entering Aerilann, truly Aerilann. An Elven Enclave, where men didn’t go. Men, much less wizards…

  What would the Elves within think of Elon, of he and Colath, for bringing him among them?

  “It will be well, Jareth,” Elon said quietly. “It’s time for this, and if any, I would it was a friend first.”

  That pierced and silenced him.

  He looked up, around, and then there wasn’t room for anything but wonder.

  His breath
left him in a sigh of sheer awe. His heart ached.

  In all his life, Jareth had never even imagined much less seen anything as lovely as Aerilann. He’d didn’t have anything to compare it to, although the wizard’s Collegium came close. All his life he’d yearned for something like this; a place where he’d belong, where he’d be welcome. He understood what it was to have such a place and then to have to leave it.

  The Elven Enclave went beyond magic - beyond imagined - for it was real and it was all around him. He was surrounded by the cool green of the deep forest and yet the air was warm and filled with the sweet scent of flowers, soft against the skin. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair. It was refreshingly cool. To his astonishment he could see people move above him in the trees. Elves walked along flowered pathways between the trees, thick vines stretching from one tree to another to form a bridge that these folk nimbly traversed.

  In the clearings carefully cultivated bushes and small trees grew in the light that streamed down between larger trees.

  Much larger trees.

  At the base of some of the trees were verandas, for want of a better word. Stone or wood floors were encircled by a railing and roofed by wood shingles or thatch thickly entwined with flowering vines. The vines twined around the railings and cutwork braces that supported the roofs. The air was filled with the light or spicy scent of their flowers.

  Jareth bent his head back and back to look up into the branches.

  A stairway twined around the bole each tree, circled around it, rising up into the lower branches where floors had been created. Nearly concealed by the thickly leaved branches, these living spaces were set among them; bright walls of Elven-silk fluttered in a myriad of colors and glowed like flowers among the limbs and leaves.

  Somewhere someone played a flute or a pipe lightly, a few voices trilled wordlessly to the tune as soft laughter echoed among the branches. It was a lilting song - light yet complicated.

  Here in the understory were copses of smaller trees or groupings of flowering bushes. Pathways and trails ran between them through which Elves walked, some in conversation, others to more purpose.

  Folk, Elves, rode to intercept them but Jareth was too enraptured with Aerilann to notice. He’d have been happy with just this glimpse. Only dimly did he register the discussion, however mild, that raged around him.

  Looking at him, at the look in his eyes, Elon knew that whatever would come was worth it for Jareth’s sigh alone.

  Elon allowed himself a small smile at the look on Jareth’s face.

  He glanced at Colath, who smiled at Jareth’s dumbfounded expression and nodded back.

  “Elon,” an Elf said, reasonably. “He’s a man.”

  “As I’m aware,” Elon said, “He’s also a wizard. Still, he will enter. He’s my friend.”

  “Mine as well,” Colath added.

  “No man has ever entered an Elven Enclave,” another said.

  “There is a first time for anything,” Elon said, “although I believe that the men and women who were our allies during the wizard wars did enter our Enclaves.”

  “We’re not at war,” another said.

  “For which you can thank this man,” Elon said, “Or else we might have been. He saved my life at the risk of his own and nearly died for it.”

  “As he did for me,” Colath said.

  That silenced the opposition as shock reverberated through them at the thought of the loss of their First and his true-friend.

  Jareth still couldn’t believe he was here, in Aerilann. Where men didn’t go.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, reverently.

  Suddenly a dozen Elven eyes were on him.

  He swallowed hard and looked back at them.

  For a moment he was dumbstruck - his throat too tight to speak. He hadn’t meant to say anything, it had just come out.

  Before them was a great stone veranda ringed with a wood and vine railing. From above, flowers appeared to drip like beads of water from vines that twined through the stone carvings of the roof. A circular railing twined around the trunk of one of the largest trees, it spiraled up into the branches to the balconied, silk-walled apartments above, the silk the color of turquoise and jade.

  Colath looked at Jareth and nodded as Elon folded his hands on the saddle horn with a small smile on his usually stern face.

  “Thank you,” Jareth said, simply. “For letting me see this.”

  Among that empathic people, the depth of his feeling was clear.

  It stilled them.

  Then one, a woman, reached across their horses to lay a hand over Jareth’s “I am Sareth. Second among equals. You are welcome here, Jareth of the Kingdoms.”

  Slowly, Jareth straightened in the saddle with a small apologetic smile and shook his head.

  “No, Sareth. With my thanks but I am Jareth, wizard. I serve no one, am beholden to none. None command me, I serve all and everyone, Elf, Dwarf or man at need. I am Jareth… Just Jareth.”

  Now Elon understood more clearly what the wizard Dorcet had seen in Jareth and why he’d sent him. They shared the same vision but Jareth was the heart of it.

  A whisper of foresight went through him, bound in struggle, grief and triumph.

  The way would not be easy, nor would it be straight, nor was it even assured, but hope for them all glimmered on the horizon.

  Swinging off his horse, Elon tossed the reins over the railing of his veranda.

  He was home, finally and at last.

  Turning, he looked to Colath, who let out a sigh of satisfaction and relief as he looked around for a moment in satisfaction before swinging down from Chai.

  Bewildered, a little uncertain, Jareth dismounted.

  The horses trotted off in the direction of the paddock, to be untacked, brushed down and freed to graze by whoever served at the stables.

  “Come Jareth,” Elon said and offered his hand in the traditional greeting. “Welcome to Aerilann and my home.”

  Jareth’s breath caught as he looked at Elon, knowing what it was he did.

  He let out a breath with a glance to Colath, and then, for the first time, clasped Elon’s arm as friend to friend.

  Something seemed to lock and seal between them, a promise, from Elon to him and back.

  Colath reached out, too, then, offered his free hand in the same way.

  Straightening, his chin lifting, Jareth took it and felt the same sense of closure, of rightness.

  Looking at them, at Jareth and Colath, a frisson of foresight whispered through and over Elon’s skin, a soft whisper of sudden sure knowledge.

  Slowly, he nodded as he let it move through him.

  Jareth, wizard and man, would be a part of his future for many years to come…in what way, what manner? Friend, companion, advisor…

  Some of their folk arrived with food, Sareth joining them for the briefing.

  Hitching himself up on the stone railing Jareth made himself comfortable as Colath crossed his arms to lean a shoulder against a post while Elon paced - his head lowered thoughtfully - as he considered their options and began to outline them for the others.

  Looking around, Elon had a sudden strong sense of rightness. Something lifted within him, a sense of something beckoning.

  There would be sorrow and pain, joy and pleasure, struggle and triumph. Nothing was sure, but they would try and keep trying. Until there was peace.

  Elon said, “There are still the remaining boundaries to be set….”

  The Coming Storm

  #####

  About the author

  As an old favorite author used to say “I’m five foot two, blonde-haired and blue eyed, the rest is subject to change without notice.” Currently Valerie is happily ensconced in the wilds of central Ohio farm country with two dogs, two cats and an African clawed frog for company as she writes. The frog doesn’t say much. You can contact her through her webpages:

  www.valeriedouglasbooks.com

  www.vjdevereauxbooks.com

 
Other Novels by Valerie Douglas

  Fantasy

  The Coming Storm series:

  The Coming Storm – A Epic Fantasy – in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comes the epic tale of Elon of Aerilann, Elven swordmaster, his true-friend Colath, the archer Jalila and the wizard Jareth, as they, with the aid of Ailith Heir of Riverford, try to discover why the creatures of the borderlands do battle with them, and why?

  A Convocation of Kings – sequel to The Coming Storm. A shadow has fallen over the Kingdoms and once again Elon, Colath, Jareth and Jalila are called to answer it. One ally is lost but another returns while a terrible tragedy nearly costs them a third. Now a member of the ruling Council, Elon of Aerilann and his companions, Colath, Jareth and Jalila are forced to fight for the Alliance they've given everything to preserve, even as a breath of hope is offered...

  Heart of the Gods – In search of the ancient Tomb of the Djinn, archaeologist Ky Farrar awakens its lethal, and lovely, guardian. Unfortunately, Ky isn’t the only one in search of the tomb and the danger to the world that lies within it.

  Servant of the Gods – Orphaned as a child, Irisi became a mercenary to survive. Captured by the Egyptian army and made the spoils of war, she finds herself drawn to their commander. Though the attraction is mutual even he can't save her from enslavement and she's forced to fight in the ring for entertainment. In a desperate attempt to regain her freedom she throws herself on the mercy of the Gods, only to discover that her fate is written in prophecy...

  Romance:

  The Millersburg Series

  Irish Fling – Ali was the smart one, but brains didn’t stop her from crashing and burning. A desire to connect with her roots takes her to Ireland, and a chance meeting with internet mogul Aidan O’Connell. Even brilliant Ali with her nearly photographic memory doesn’t see the danger lurking when she sees the wrong thing.