"You brought a Demon here with you from Alure?" said Ben.
"I believe so," said Soone. "When you lived with me in hiding on Alure did you see other elves when they came to visit me?"
"A few," said Ben. "But you always had me masked so that they wouldn't see me."
"It took me a while to learn how to effectively do that!" said Soone. "Doing any magic with you is almost impossible! But you saw them all and none of them were Demons?"
"Of course not!"
"What about Rog, my Apprentice?"
"I saw him many times," said Ben. "He was always snooping around."
"And you could see that he wasn't a Demon?"
"For sure he wasn't!" Ben insisted.
"Maybe I'm wrong about him then," Soone concluded. "He recently told me that he knows I was hiding you that first year and he insisted on coming with me to Earth."
"Maybe he changed to a Demon sometime over the last seven years," said Ann.
"Maybe!" said Soone. "There are ancient elf legends about elves becoming possessed and changing into Demons. In any case at least I’ve managed to elude him and I have found you, Ben, and that’s good news, but I unfortunately now lack the energy to return the both of us to Alure.”
“What?” said Ben. “You want to take me with you to Alure?”
“Aye,” replied the elf. “Our realm is over-run with Evil, and only you can help us find it, since you can sense Evil and see through any cloak to identify Demons.”
“But what about the Demon that’s here on Earth?” Ann exclaimed. “Ben might be the only one that can find our Demon! He’s needed here!”
“She has a valid point,” said Ben.
“But Ben, what are you going to do when you find a Demon, here on Earth or on Alure?” asked Mark. “Can you and Soone defeat it?”
“Alas, it would take several untainted Gaou or a multitude of human Wizards to defeat even a small Demon,” noted Soone. “The size of our Council and yours was determined by how many powerful wizards are required to combat a single Demon.” His smile faded as he shrugged his tiny shoulders.
“Aren’t there over a hundred Gaou on Alure?" Ben asked. "And over a million other less powerful Wizard elves?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how many have been tainted, and they are scattered over the planet. Our Alure leadership is pathetic now; even worse than usual. Evil has tainted elf minds to the point that Evil and Demons are held to be myth by even the Elf High Council!”
The three humans looked each other as their jaws dropped open. “That’s exactly what has been happening here in Hope!” Ann was first to say.
"Oh my; that is disturbing!" said Soone.
“Could that be coincidence?” Mark asked.
“No, I would not assume it to be so,” Soone reasoned. “For many thousands of years this has not happened to the elves, and for over three hundred years it has not happened with Hope Wizards. For it to happen simultaneously both here and on Alure over the last several years is not likely to be mere coincidence. It is likely to be Demons and Evil.
"Somehow, my human friends, the Demons have learned to cloak themselves so well that even we elves can’t detect them, and to strike at our very essence without us even suspecting. If the elves fall, the Demons will reign over all. They seek to ultimately destroy all life in the multiverse but for themselves. Hundreds of life-inhabited worlds in this galaxy will be annihilated first, and without elf opposition the Demons will spread like a plague. Only Alure elves have kept them at bay.”
“Then why do they bother with Earth?” Mark asked. “If Earth Wizards are not strong enough to threaten them, I mean.”
“Excellent question, young human,” Soone remarked. “Something on Earth has indeed sparked their interest. Something they perhaps fear.”
“Me!” Ben said. “I’m a danger to them because I can sense them! I’m the reason they’re interested in Earth! I’m the reason that they are here on Earth now! I’m the reason they killed my parents! They were after me!”
“Perhaps, but it will be you that saves us all, young Ben,” said Soone.
“How?” Ben asked. “Me finding and confronting a Demon would be probably be suicidal, but for sure it would be useless, since the only powers I have are defensive!”
The old elf shrugged. “The elves are greatly weakened, that is true, but they still stand a better chance against monster Demons and Evil than do the similarly weakened human Wizards of Hope. Elves are shown as infants how to destroy Evil. That’s why you must return with me to Alure, Ben. If you can use your senses to find the Evil on Alure we elves can deal with it! Then with elven power and perspective restored we can also deal with the Evil here on Earth!”
“But you said that you lack the energy to take us back to Alure,” said Ben, “so where will you get the additional power needed?”
“Were I able to contact our energy rich sprite friend I would do so, young Ben,” Soone explained. “Sprites gather more raw energy to themselves than they need. As it is, I had thought to seek out your Wizard Council for their aid.”
The three teens exchanged knowing glances. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Mark said. “There’s no telling what our Council might decide. It's led by a Wizard named Grim that would never believe in Demons or side with elves.”
"I hadn't thought to find your Council as tainted as ours," admitted Soone.
"Ours might be worse!" said Mark.
“I agree,” said Ann. “They’re super-suspicious of outsiders, and even of themselves. My parents say it isn't natural, the way that some of them are behaving in recent years. So yes, our Council may be as tainted as yours or even worse. Half of them even deny that elves exist, and almost all of them deny the existence of Evil or Demons. But maybe you don’t need the full Council. How much power do you need?”
“The powers of four or five of your strongest Wizards might be enough for our teleportation,” Soone stated.
“The Tuttle family alone likely wouldn’t be enough then,” Ann noted with disappointment. “Besides, if we were to let Mom and Dad in on this they’d be honor bound to tell the full Council anyway.”
“So as lousy an idea as contacting the Council seems to be, it might be the only option,” Ben concluded. "The Council is made up of eleven of some of the most powerful Wizards of Hope."
“We should start with talking to Mom and Dad,” Ann added. "Let them decide who to tell next. They have friends on the Council."
Soone suddenly jolted as if startled. "There are searching spells suddenly in play here," he said abruptly. "Dozens of them; strong ones. Something must have happened to alert your guardian Wizards! My cloaking spell might not be enough to hide us; it could even call attention to us! I was not expecting such sophisticated scrutiny!"
"I feel it too," said Ann. "My Dad says in emergencies that's what Hope police do. They look for magic happening around town of any type. Then they teleport to any suspicious magic activity."
As Ben watched Ann speak, she stopped moving completely. Eyes, lips, arms, everything. She stood frozen as still as a statue. “What?” he remarked, turning to Mark to see what his reaction would be to his sister’s strange behavior. Mark, however, was also completely motionless. Frozen in mid-stride, his right foot hovered an inch above the ground, though it should clearly have been supporting most of his weight. Somehow he was defying gravity. Mark remained mute, but Ann began crying out loudly for help again and again telepathically!
“IT’S A POWERFUL STASIS SPELL, DONE BY SEVERAL STRONG HUMAN WIZARDS,” he ‘heard’ Soone tell him telepathically. The elf was also frozen motionless, Ben soon noted.
“Are you alright?” Ben asked aloud.
“WE’RE ALL QUITE WELL, YOUNG BEN,” the elf assured him. “I COULD BREAK THE SPELL BUT IT WOULD REQUIRE MUCH OF MY REMAINING ENERGY TO DO SO. I THINK THAT INSTEAD I’LL UNMASK YOU SO YOU CAN PERHAPS BETTER ASSESS WHAT IS HAPPENING.”
“Look! It’s the King boy, but I don’t see any
one else,” said a man’s voice shortly. “They must all be strongly cloaked, but we can still vaguely sense them and our stasis spells should work on them. But the boy isn’t incapacitated by us at all! He must still have those shields that everyone has been talking about!”
Ben saw several men and women converging on them from all directions, dressed in tan Hope police uniforms. Each held some sort of gun that was drawn and pointed at him and in the general direction of his friends. He couldn't sense their feelings but they looked both angry and frightened.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked them.
“Quiet, boy,” said one of the men. “You’re under arrest, elf, wherever you are! You and whoever else might be with you.”
“Under arrest?” Ben protested. “For what?”
“Attempted murder, illegal cloaking, and aiding and abiding an Unaligned intruder to Hope. The elf with you here somewhere is a wanted fugitive. We sensed strange magic hereabouts: some tricky cloaking and masking that we never saw before. Figure it must be the elf!”
****
CHAPTER 9
Jailed!
“Hey! Watch out, you’ll hurt somebody!” Ben protested, as one of the officers swept the area in front of himself blindly with a Billy-club, nearly striking still invisible Ann in the head.
In response, Soone dropped his cloaking spells totally, such that he, Mark, and Ann suddenly appeared to the startled police! The elf also freed himself up from the stasis spell just enough to speak. “Explain yourselves, Earthlings!” he demanded angrily.
“It’s the elf fugitive, all right!” the lead officer exclaimed. “I recognize him! It’s you that will do the explaining, elf. Keep your spelled stasis guns on him boys; he’s the dangerous one.”
“He’s here to help us!” Ben protested.
“Quiet boy, this elf is wanted for attempted murder!” said the officer.
“Attempted murder of whom?” Ben had to ask.
“The Wizard Council.”
“MOM AND DAD!” Ben sensed Ann exclaim.
“What about the Tuttles!” Ben asked. “Are they alright?”
“Elizabeth and I are alright,” said Red Eric, as he suddenly appeared among them. “I’d like an explanation as to what’s going on here though. Why are my children under a police stasis spell? I came when I sensed Ann's cries for help!”
“We’re all under arrest,” Ben explained.
“As you are also, Sir,” explained one of the officers, evidently the senior one present, judging from the numerous stripes on the shoulder of his uniform. He was a big man, physically two-heads taller than Eric and nearly as muscular, but he seemed to shrink in size as he confronted the enraged father Master Wizard. Several police had shifted their weapons to point them at Eric!
“EXPLAIN!” demanded Eric in a thunderous voice, as he faced the officer. Eric’s long red hair stood out, and lightning crackled and danced all around him, from eyes and hair and fingers!
"You should turn yourself in quietly, Sir," the officer told Red Eric. "Until now you and your wife have been known to be Hope Wizards of honor."
"What are you accusing us of?" Eric asked the sergeant. "Mike, we've known each other all of our lives!"
"And that's what hurts the most, Eric," said the policeman. "Several of us and the rest of the Council witnessed you teleport with this elf into Council Hall, where you and the elf attacked the Council!"
"That's totally crazy!" said Eric. "You know me better than that, Mike; you all do!"
"We thought that we knew you well," said Mike. "But a few minutes ago many of us personally witnessed you and this elf attack the Council. Submit to partial stasis and come quietly now to your internment or we'll have to attack you with deadly force. Your children could be injured in a battle between us."
Eric glanced at his incapacitated children and the little old elf. He could shield himself but not everyone. Besides, Mike and the other police were powerful attack Wizards that together could probably defeat him. Also, although he could escape via teleportation, that would mean abandoning most of the others being arrested. He shrugged, then raised his open hands as a sign of submission and let himself and the others be led away to the waiting police van. As the police handcuffed Eric and covered him with restraining wards he demanded to be immediately taken before the Council.
"That's our orders, Eric," said Mike. "The Council demands to see you and anyone supporting you."
****
The Hope Council Hall was packed full of a hundred noisy spectators and a dozen police, and smelled of smoke and burnt flesh. The long table at the front of the room that Council members sat behind was half demolished or singed black as though burned by fire. Nine Council members were in attendance; everyone except the Tuttles. Everyone was talking excitedly and seemed highly agitated.
"That's him!" shouted Council Chairman Horace Grim, who stood and pointed as the entire arrested group was marched into Council Hall. "That's Red Eric the traitor! And that's his elf partner!"
"I don't know what you're talking about and the first I've seen of this or any elf was a few minutes ago when he was already in police custody!" protested Eric.
"Liar!" said Grim. "We have the whole thing on surveillance video!"
The room lights dimmed and on the white wall to one side of the Council Table a video began to play. It showed the Council, minus the Tuttles, apparently in session, though there was no public audience. Eric was dumfounded. Why hadn't he and Ann been notified of a meeting? Why had it been a secret session closed to the public?
In the video Eric and an elf suddenly popped into view and stood before them, then drew and fired some sort of lightning-spitting hand-guns at the Council members, who ducked behind their tables while cloaking and shielding. It was over in seconds. Eric and the elf disappeared, while anti-fire spells put out all flames. Several Wizards including several Council members suffered serious burns but quickly healed themselves and each other.
"That obviously wasn't me!" said Eric. "I don't even own a gun let along a directed energy weapon! Why would I use such a weapon when I can hurl sun-hot plasma from any part of my body as a Master Wizard with attack abilities? Your so-called evidence is obviously cheap fakery."
"I saw Demons in the video," said Ben, "two of them! I saw no elf or Red Eric. This video shows that there are at least two Demons on Earth, and they can apparently assume the form of anyone!"
"Pure nonsense!" said Grim. "The boy is obviously part of this attempted coup!"
"If a coup, why was the attack directed at me and the friends of Eric rather than at you, Grim!" said Fredrick Kroner weakly, from where he sat at the most charred section of table. His clothing was charred and torn, and one of his arms was supported by a makeshift sling.
"Perhaps because the attackers could sense the weakness of you and your friends, Kroner!" retorted Grim.
Eric glanced at the other Council members and noted the disheveled appearance of those that tended to vote against Grim and the damage done to the long wooden table that they sat behind. Fortunately their now charred sections of table had evidently protected them from very powerful energy blasts. Eric had helped ward the table himself and realized that massive deadly blasts had been necessary to do the extent of the damage he saw. However, the sections of table where Grim and his closest supporters sat were untouched. How convenient for Grim! "Why were you meeting secretly without me and my wife?" he asked.
“So you want to discuss your other crimes!" Grim said. "We were meeting to discuss the declaration of war sent from the Unaligned, which also clearly implicates you Tuttles and your werewolf friend Moco! The long missing King boy is likely to be in on it also; my own son and his friends say that King has been talking about rebellion in the High School and bragging about living with the elves and the Unaligned!"
"That's a lie!" said Ben loudly, over the sound of the video! "And I sense that there is Evil in this room now! Strong Evil!"
"And there is no declaration of wa
r from the Unaligned!" shouted Moco from the audience!
"PAUSE!" thundered Grim, stopping the video. "Seize that werewolf!"
Three burly policemen converged on and seized Moco, who instantly changed to his most powerful man-beast form and shook them off as though they were rag dolls! There were shouts of alarm from the crowd as the tossed police bodies crashed around the room while Moco's roars reverberated throughout the Hall like the thunder! It sounded more like impossibly load roars of a tiger than the cries of a wolf!
"CALM YOURSELF WOLF!" thundered Eric, "VIOLENCE IS WHAT THEY WANT!"
Moco paused and quieted. His contorted features smoothed and most hair disappeared.
Recovered Police approached the Wolf much more cautiously this time, and respectfully shackled his hands and feet with heavy warded steel while a half dozen additional police pointed stun-guns as well as conventional handguns and rifles at him.
"Here for all to see is the declaration that Alan Dale dared to send to this Council!" declared Grim. On the other side wall the magnified image of a typed letter signed by Alan Dale appeared for all to read. It declared war on Hope by the Unaligned and the elves and demanded immediate surrender, and declared Eric Tuttle to be the Governor of Hope to rule at the behest of Alan Dale, leader of the American Unaligned and President of the World Paranormal League.
"That's not the authentic message that I brought from Dale!" shouted Moco, over the clamor of voices that erupted. "It's a forgery! Here is a copy of the real letter!" He held up a piece of paper in his shackled hands.
The paper burst into flame. Who had done it was impossible to tell; the room was full of angry Wizards!
“Some coward is afraid of the real letter!” growled Moco.
"So you admit to consorting with the wanted fugitive Alan Dale, and bringing the message from him!" said Grim gleefully. "You openly admit it!"
Apprentice Wizards of Hope Page 15
