Apprentice Wizards of Hope

by Gary J. Davies

  "Much too slow, Zen!" Rog taunted, as he dodged attack after attack!

  Though the little elf dodged skillfully, it was only a matter of time before a bolt caught him squarely, Ben and the others realized. The Demon was constantly renewing itself from the Evil of the Glen, and could probably keep this up indefinitely, while Rog likely had only moments to live!

  "The elf buys us time!" said Red Eric, between lightning blasts. "But what are we to do with it?"

  "ROG SAID SOMETHING ABOUT A TRAP!" pathed Soone. "WHAT TRAP WAS HE TALKING ABOUT?"

  "This place is a special place of Earth Life Energies," said Ben. "That's why the Evil was placed here, to block the good magic and replace it with Evil!"

  "It may pose a danger to Demons then! Perhaps a natural trap!" said Ann.

  "Rog must know that!" said Ben. "That's why he dodges around the Glen instead of fleeing into the forest! This Glen with its Life Energy is the very trap that can destroy the Demon!"

  "Only if the Demon is placed within the Energy flow and kept there long enough to destroy it!" said Soone. "I suggest that coordinated telekinesis may serve!"

  "Sounds like a plan!" said Alan. "But how do we get the creature into the Life Energy flow to start with? In the Courtyard we could only slow it slightly with our combined telekinetic powers and now it has strengthened itself!"

  Rog continued to taunt the Demon and dodge its attacks! As he had hoped, the Demon partly followed him, walking through the Evil, which had been reduced to a small area not much larger than a typical living-room, but so far the creature had stepped around the fount of Life Energy at its center. Even though the Life Energy was invisible, both Wizards and Demon could still sense where it was.

  "There needs to be more taunting targets to confuse it," said Rick Hortega. Except for Ben, the others hadn't even realized that Rick and the other well-cloaked Apprentices were even on the scene! Ben watched through their cloaking as Rick's group moved as one towards Rog on the far side of the Glen.

  "Yes, this Demon is a hopeless dunce," shouted Rick, from where he suddenly appeared when he was half-way to Rog! The Demon responded with a power-blast, but Rick was already gone!

  Noting the efforts of Rog and Rick, the grouped Wizards cloaked and dispersed themselves around the Glen, appearing visible to taunt the Demon for a few seconds before again turning invisible and scampering or teleporting away from the resulting blast from the Demon.

  "You try to trick me into leaving what remains of the Evil," said the Demon, "but it won't work! You will tire and I will blast you away one by one! I can't lose!"

  He could be right, the Wizards thought.

  In the forest behind the King house, more Hope Wizards by the hundreds gathered and were organized by Sharp to surround the Demon in the Glen of Evil! Young and old, weak and strong, they had heard of the death and destruction at the Town Hall and Courtyard, and the threat that the Demon would soon bring death to everyone in Hope and beyond! Sharp had half of them shield and half of them prepare to 'grab' the Demon, though all were instructed to for now stay just out of sight of the Demon.

  The Demon could sense them though; hundreds of them just out of sight!! He could sense their fear, but also their growing anger and determination. Life Energies were concentrated within them all, so much Energy that it irritated him to be so near them! But very soon they would all be dead! He was still sure that once he killed the ring-leaders that were nearby, the rest would flee in fear. Let them! Some would escape him, but there would be no place to escape the apocalypse that the Master would soon release upon them when he returned from Alure!

  Meanwhile dozens of Wizards were circling, taunting him with pathetically weak blasts of lightning and then cloaking and dodging away when he tried to blast them back! A few of them were even hit by his power blasts; he was sure that they were! But they were shielded and his blasts had become so weak that all the attacking Wizards were now escaping harm! But he would get them somehow! He had too!

  That annoying elf Rog reappeared again to his far-right and he stepped towards him! The Demon was determined to get him this time! He was so intent on blasting Rog that he didn't notice that he had stepped into the erupting fountain of Earth Life Energy until he felt it burning his foot and leg!

  "Now!" a Wizard shouted!

  The Demon tried to pull away from the Life Energy but he found that he couldn't! He was held fast by hundreds of Wizards! He turned off the pain but it was still not pleasant to watch his foot and leg disintegrate. Worse, he could feel the rest of his body being pushed irresistibly into the Life Energy flow! He had to get loose! Nevertheless when he sensed that one of the closer Wizards had gotten careless and dropped his shields, he struck! The Wizard disappeared in a cascade of Demon lightning!"

  "Don't let go of it or lessen your shields and cloaking!" Eric called out with his magnified voice! "It's still dangerous!"

  The Demon struck out again and again even as it disintegrated, but the blasts continued to became weaker and less accurately directed. It tried to teleport away several times but failed; it was far too weak to teleport. It was dying, little by little. Finally it seemed to self-destruct: dozens of pieces of it flew away from its center. The pieces totally disappeared into the small remaining blanket of Evil ash.

  "All the pieces of it need to be destroyed," said Soone, "or it will regenerate itself using the Evil as raw material!"

  Rick reformed his group around the field of Evil and resumed constriction and destruction of it. Other Wizards joined them and accelerated the destruction process. Evil, including the last remaining chunks of Demon, was totally disappearing from the Glen at last!

  ****

  Deep within a Pentagon Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility, Dr. Richard Phelps of the CDC fought back laughter. He glanced about at the other dozen people sitting in the small conference room for some sign that they were also amused but saw none. "You've got to be kidding, Colonel Wells! You couldn't have flown me here from Atlanta and had me sign oaths of secrecy for this! You say your project is called ELF and you are set up to deal with people with paranormal powers and aliens that call themselves elves?"

  "Yes," said Ed Wells. "The name was sort of an inside joke until we very recently found out that there actually are real elves. All new ELF Team personnel go through what you are going through now, Dr. Phelps. Your indoctrination is much rushed due to recent extraordinary activity in the community we study, but what you just said sums things up nicely."

  Phelps shook his head. On the big digital screen in front of him was the fuzzy image of hundreds of people suspended in the air above a large glass-dome structure. "You claim that these are actual flying people, Colonel?"

  "Yes, there is a secretive USA town occupied by several thousands of people with paranormal powers," said Wells. "This satellite image includes inputs out of the range of the usual optically detectable frequencies but these people are usually not so careless to display their abilities like this. This greatly enhanced photo showing flying people is of their community center only a couple of hours ago. This and other intel confirms that some sort of crisis is currently occurring within their community: something that clearly rises to the level of an immediate national security concern."

  The screen image changed to a video obviously taken from high above.

  "We sent in spy drones today and got some very interesting footage," said Wells. "By this time the flying people were gone, but look at the dome!"

  The center of the dome was obviously damaged; large sections of glass were missing!

  "Maybe the flying people were trying to fix dome problems but failed, or maybe they caused the damage themselves; we don't know. But we suspect some sort of relationship to the unusual activities towards the outside of town that we have also been observing. On-screen a suburban landscape appeared: houses scattered intermittently among areas of forest and grassy fields.

  "What's that dark circular area in the middle of the view?" asked Phelps. />
  "Exactly what we've been wondering for eight years," said Wells. "It appears to be an area of no life. At first we thought it was a burned area, but it seems to cause gravitational and magnetic fluctuations. It's been that way for eight years, until today. Our sources say that the Hope people aren't sure themselves what it is."

  Drone video was displayed showing a much smaller blackened area. Suddenly a flash of light occurred within the blackened area. "What was that?" Phelps asked.

  "Detailed analysis suggests artificial lightning," said Wells.

  More flashes occurred at irregular intervals; dozens of them. "What's happening?" Phelps had to ask.

  "Detailed analysis suggests a battle using lightning between Wizards and a monstrous alien creature." said Wells. "We have still photos that show more detail."

  "Wizards?" asked Phelps, but then the next image took his breath away. On a carpet of what looked like ashes stood a nightmarish creature: black but with red-glowing eyes and mouth and devilish horns atop its head!

  "Eight feet tall, we estimate," said Wells. "And packed with deadly power."

  The next image caught a bolt of lightning emanating from the creature’s open hand to strike out at a man at the periphery of the shot.

  "The human Wizard was blown to bits," we concluded. "The humans seem to have gotten the monster cornered in the ashen area and they appear to have defeated it only minutes ago, but we'll need to confirm that for ourselves."

  "We?"

  "Myself and a few selected science and military specialists are going to examine the site and our security forces will take on defensive positions in the area. Our core group of science and security specialists is mostly the people in this room. You will meet most of them on route to the town but know now that the Project is led by myself and Dr. George Crane."

  A small thin gray-haired man of perhaps sixty rose from his seat and reached out to firmly shake the hand of Phelps. "Nice to have you aboard, Phelps," he said. "I think you'll fit in well with the rest of the science staff. That includes our own biologists of course, but we are required by Congress to have a CDC rep. So you are going with us as our new CDC medical expert. If that monstrous creature and the elves are really alien life forms they could present severe bio-hazards, couldn't they?"

  "Conceivably," said Phelps. "But am I supposed to believe any of this? For example this business about there being real elves and real paranormal phenomena?"

  "Give me slides 32 and 33 and show Dr. Phelps some levitation, John," said Crane.

  The man at the computer controlling the presentation made a few entries that brought to the screen the image of what appeared to be two normal looking teenagers: a boy with black hair and a girl with striking red hair. They appeared to be helping to hold up the small being that stood between them. It was a head shorter than the teens: a non-human with grey skin, huge ears, and large sad eyes. The next photo showed the elf again, if that's what it was; this time the small creature was waving and winking at the camera!

  "The elf actually seems to realize that our distant stealthy drone is taking photos of him," said Wells. "We don't know how!"

  "We can ask him when we meet him," said John, as he rose from his chair. Then he kept rising until he was floating in the air several feet above the gathering, who didn't pay much attention to what was for Phelps the most amazing thing he had ever seen in his life! So far!

  ****

  As the last bits of Evil and Evil Demon were being obliterated in the Glen, a monstrous apparition abruptly appeared nearby, took in the scene with its red eyes, roared in rage, then disappeared with a loud snapping sound that suggested teleportation.

  "That was a second Demon, just like Ben said!" noted Ann. "And it's twice as big as the other one!"

  "Not that I'm sad to see it go," said Eric, "but where do you suppose it went?"

  "Not far," said Soone. "I sensed it has low energy levels, for a Demon. It likely came all the way from Alure."

  "Our poor planet!" said Rog.

  "To the contrary, I suspect that the Alure elves fared well against the Demon, or it would have much higher energy," said Soone.

  That was confirmed when moments later, another elf popped into view nearby.

  "Jeanine!" Soone exclaimed, as he shook loose from the two teens that supported him and rushed to warmly greet the newly arrived elf with warm hugs.

  "Gaou Soone!" said Jeanine in elven, "I am much relieved to sense your powerful Life Energy aura and see you well! There was Demon trouble also here on Earth, I assume?"

  "Yes, but human Wizards and elves triumphed! The Demon that attacked us is destroyed," said Soone. "My Apprentice Rog was particularly heroic!"

  Rog's face tuned a shade darker and he smiled but said nothing.

  "A monstrous Demon attacked and killed the Alure Council members but was then stopped by the gathering of elves you requested, Gaou. Though weakened it fled before it could be destroyed. Elves have teleported to several different worlds to look for it; I was assigned to try to locate it on Earth. Did it come here?"

  "Yes," said Soone, "near where you now stand and only minutes ago. Then it ported away, though not very far away, I'm afraid. It lacked the energy to leave Earth."

  "It must be found and stopped!" said Jeanine.

  "Yes, with the help of the human Wizards including our friends here," said Soone. He glanced around him at the many watching humans. Most had puzzled looks on their faces.

  "Wizards who might be willing to contribute if they could but understand elf language," said Ben. "I'm the only human here who does!"

  "Oh, I'm sorry," said Soone, switching to English. For the next few minutes Soone and Ben introduced Jeanine to the others. Ann, her mother, and her great-grandmother were particularly pleased to meet a female elf. In fact all the humans were entranced by the three elves, a factor that at least to a limited degree softened the blow of death and destruction that had been dealt to Hope by the first Demon.

  Hope people were upset. Thousands still congregated at the Glen and at the High School/Council complex to find out what was happening. It had still only been hours since dramatic deadly events began in the morning, and as it became more clear who and how many had died during the ordeal, there was much despair and crying among the citizenry. Hope was a town of only about ten thousand, where almost everyone knew almost everyone else. The Council Members, Attack Wizards, and police that had been killed were all well-known citizens with many friends.

  Sam Putt at the High School and Red Eric at the Glen exchanged information telepathically and periodically gave updates to the crowds, as more and more situational information was gathered.

  The emerging news wasn't all bad. Most injured parties were already healed or well on their way to being healed, thanks to the efforts of dozens of Wizards with healing skills. Among the rapidly recovering wounded was Fredrick Kroner, much to the relief of his friends and colleagues Eric and Elizabeth Tuttle. Kroner had suffered grave injuries, but he received expert medical care by surviving Council staff members. He would soon be completely well! The trio comprised the only surviving Council members, in a town that had just suffered major trauma and badly needed their leadership.

  "The worse may be yet to come," said Ben. "The second Demon is twice as big as the first."

  "Yes, which means that this second Demon is likely far more powerful than the first one," said Soone, "according to collected elf wisdom with regard to Demons."

  "Soone, you're the Demon expert here," said Red Eric. "Where has it gone?"

  "Somewhere with Evil where it can recover strength and decide on its next moves," said Soone.

  "It wants to bring a Demon Horde here," said Rog "To do that it needs tons of Evil. But we have destroyed all the Evil here at the Glen."

  "On Alure there was more than one cache of Evil," noted Jeanine, who due to Soone spells had been picking up English absurdly quickly. "The same tactic is likely to be in effect here."

  "There was Evil at the C
ouncil Hall that with Apprentice help we have already nullified, but it was not huge amounts," noted Eric. "There must be another large stash of Evil near the Courtyard that Demons are able to draw on."

  "The Grim Mansion!" piped up Mark suddenly. "The Evil is there so the Demon is there!"

  "Maybe!" said Red Eric. "The Grims certainly had ties to the Demons, and like the Glen it is a nexus point for Life Energies that the Demons would seek to nullify. We should check out the Mansion A-S-A-P. That will be a highly dangerous task; I'll have Sam Putt do it! By the way, where is Troy? He didn't teleport here to the Glen with us."

  ****

  In the Grim Mansion Troy was busy in his father's office gathering all the cash and valuables that he could find. He carried a large cloth laundry bag and a suitcase that were already stuffed with valuables from all over the Mansion. He would use it to buy himself a new start in the outside world, where even his modest Wizard skills could be applied to achieve vast power and wealth. He'd have his way with Norm women too, as many as he wanted! He'd probably father himself scores of Mixy brats! With the Hope community shattered there would likely be nobody to stop him!

  Suddenly he was startled to sense someone else in the Mansion with him. He certainly wasn't expecting company; the Mansion was warded nearly as strongly against unwanted guests as the High School/Council Hall complex. Since he was a small child he had known how to get into the Grim Mansion, but as far as he knew he was the last person alive to know how to do so! Now he sensed someone in the basement which in recent years he avoided because of the inexplicable headaches it caused. In fact the entire Mansion seemed to do that, such that he spent most of his time at the homes of friends.

  "Troy my lad!" said the Master Demon as it stepped into the room. The ceilings were just high enough to accommodate the monster, though it had to duck to get through the doorway. "It pleases me to see you again!" The voice was that of Troy's father, Horace Grim! With a gesture of its hand a bolt of power shot out and obliterated poor gawking Troy immediately! Only a bit of ach and smoke remained to sink onto the floor and spread into the air. He would have preferred to kill Troy slowly and painfully, but after the setbacks on Alure and Earth he felt a need to get on with things. He couldn't waste his attentions on a single biologic: he had to kill them all!