Apprentice Wizards of Hope

by Gary J. Davies

"I'll try to!" said Ben. With his eyes closed he managed to do something that he hadn't been able to do since he was a child. He formed within his mind a vision of himself and his surroundings. In recent years when he tried to do this he had come up blank except for himself, as a bright white image. Now however, an image of the small piece of Evil appeared to him, blackish and glowing dull red. He could indeed sense Evil!

  But how was he doing that? He looked closer at himself. The Wild Magic in his shielding was entwined with Life Energy in an intricate way, but in a way that somehow seemed obvious to him at some subconscious level. His intricately structured Life Energy shaped the Wild Magic subtlety, not so much attempting to impose brute-force control on it as taking advantage of its arbitrary nature in this universe. It was all constrained greatly however, twisted closely about his body countless times like a coiled spring. Tiny strands of it reached out only a few inches from himself. Those would detect high energies of any type, and upon detection cause the heavier strands to strike outwards. In sum, it was standard shielding, but with a Wild Magic core worked into it that wasn't at all standard.

  He focused on producing tiny strands of standard Life Energy-powered magic to provide detection and caused some of them to expand outwards - strands for sensitive standard passive sensing, not strands to cause the Wild Magic to automatically spring out destructively. Immediately he detected Soone, and also Anne and his link to her. And there also was Rick, and beyond them hundreds of people, trees, birds, and countless other living things! They were all strong in Life Energy, and beautiful beyond comprehension to sense! He hadn't been able to sense and enjoy his surroundings like this in eight years! He had regained his Wizard 'sight'!

  "I CAN SENSE YOU!" he pathed to Ann joyously. "AND OTHERS! I SENSE EVERYTHING AROUND ME!"

  "That's wonderful, Ben," she replied. "But I can still only vaguely sense you!"

  "Yes, you are still hidden from us," said Soone. "But do not despair. This is a huge step for you!"

  "OK, the rest period is over people! Let's get going again!" called out Elizabeth abruptly, from the front of the marching group. They all reluctantly resumed their march. This time Maude, Soone, and Rick floated together alongside Ann and Ben as the two teens held hands and enjoyed each other's company more intimately than had been possible for eight long years.

  ****

  In the Pentagon where General Ismith oversaw the analysis of gathered information on Hope, the Demon serge hadn't gone unnoticed. Satellite, aircraft, and drone surveillance photos and videos were on display around the war room. A large map of the Hope area was displayed on one wall, with areas destroyed by Demons shaded-in with gray. Half of Hope was shown in gray, including all of central Hope. The High School/Council complex was completely gone. All that remained of Hope's most important building was broken bits of bricks and concrete, twisted metal, and shards of glass.

  "The Demons are definitely advancing faster," said one of the analysts. All the town will be covered with Demons within the next fifteen minutes and the fences around the town breached."

  "And the fight against them?" asked Ismith.

  "Dozens of Demons have been destroyed but we estimate that their numbers have grown ten times as fast. There are several thousands of them now."

  "What about the refugees?" Ismith asked.

  "Half have reached the busses and are rapidly leaving the immediate area," said a Major. "The remainder of the three Groups still fleeing on foot might or might not reach relative safety in time. It will be close."

  "And what is the impression that our bus operatives have of the evacuees?" asked Ismith.

  "They have been model passengers, even the excessively pale and hairy ones. They are grateful and polite almost to a fault," said the Major. "That is exactly as expected from the previous assessments by Wells and Crane. For the most part these are simply ordinary people and model citizens. It's just that many of them also have extraordinary abilities. Even the werewolves and vampires often have useful psi-powers."

  "We could send in more Special Forces to help them,” said Ismith.

  "Committed manpower is already fully engaged fighting Demons that have suddenly appeared outside the town perimeter," said one of the Colonels. "We're slowing them down but not destroying enough of them. We need our elf and Wizard friends to do that, but they are apparently fully committed inside the town."

  "Commit more of our forces inside and around Hope," said Ismith firmly. "We have to save as many paranormal folks as possible; they have been the only ones effective against Demons. They just might be our only chance to win this thing."

  "Except for Plan C," said the Colonel. "And committing more assets will only mean more casualties if we do commit to Plan C."

  "Committing more assets may be our best chance to avoid Plan C altogether," said Ismith. "What is the projected loss of life from Plan C?"

  "At least three-hundred thousand people," said an analyst; "but potentially over ten times as many if the winds shift the radiation into the Boston or New York metro areas. At least fifty thousand killed outright from the blast, and most of the rest over weeks, months, and years from radiation effects."

  "Send in more assets," ordered Ismith. "A-S-A-P!"

  ****

  At the Hope High School/Council building site a solitary elf appeared, observed that the building was completely obliterated, and then disappeared again.

  ****

  CHAPTER 17

  Taken!

  Nobody took particular notice when another retreating human joined the East Group: a young man of ordinary appearance. Stragglers were constantly joining the Group as they passed more houses. People were intent on walking out of Hope as fast as they could, and watching out for attacking monsters: monsters that looked like monsters.

  Slower people had already been flown or teleported out of the Group; only the fast walkers remained: older children and younger adults, Wizards, Norms, and a few vampires and werewolves. One amazing young child-wizard named Rick remained, along with one amazing old elf.

  Soone currently floated comfortably between Mark and Ann, his feet not touching the ground as the two earthbound teens guided him along. Elizabeth had several times tried to get them to leave the Group via Wizard flight or helicopter to join the busses, but had been rebuffed. Maude floated along comfortably over Soone, like the elf she was also resting sore feet. Ben walked alongside Ann, still enjoying her company despite the seemingly unending emergency. Now that he could converse with her telepathically, they were doing it almost constantly "WE'LL ALL BE IN A BUS IN LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES," he told her. "I WANT YOU, MARK, AND YOUR MOTHER AND GREAT-GRANDMOTHER TO BE OUT OF THIS."

  "What about you, Ben?" asked Ann. "And Soone and Rog?"

  "Our place is here in Hope, Ann," answered Soone, "as long as there are Demons. I have been gathering my strength to transport Ben and myself to wherever we are most needed."

  "Hold up for another rest!" announced Elizabeth abruptly, from the front of the East Group, using her magic enhanced voice.

  "Another one already? But we're almost there!" someone protested.

  "A small Demon attacked the solders near the fence," explained Elizabeth. "We have Wizards helping the military to destroy it. We'll be moving on as soon as the mess is cleaned up, in ten or twenty minutes, tops."

  "Let's work on your wizard powers again, Ben," said Soone, as he, Ben, Ann, and Rick again sat down on the ground in a tight circle and joined hands.

  Effortlessly this time, Ben closed his eyes, extended his senses, and formed a mental picture of himself and his surroundings.

  "Try something else, Ben," Soone urged. "Anything! Something simple! Levitation, perhaps?"

  "I'm not sure that I remember how!" said Ben. "It's been a long time! And there are all these people around us! What if I accidently hurt someone?"

  "If we can collaborate, I can show Ben some things," said Rick.

  "Perhaps you can," said Soone, "but only if a way through Ben's c
loaking and shielding is found. Others are walled off from him. It has to be him that finds a way."

  "Let me try!" said Ben. He closed his eyes and enriched his vision of himself and everything around him. He was again aware of his shields and how to control them, and how to reach out with his senses. Reaching out, he was again glad to detect his friends and fellow Hope citizens.

  As well as something completely unexpected: a towering mass of Evil that was rapidly rushing up behind Soone! It had to be a Demon!

  Almost without thinking, Ben acted! He threw himself at Soone and wrapped his arms around him, along with his shielding!

  A moment later the gigantic Demon dove/tackled and wrapped his huge arms around the crouching elf and boy. There was a bright flash of light and clap of thunderous sound and they were all gone!

  Ann and Rick were blown away from the event with deadly force, as if a bomb had detonated next to them! Wizards rushed to the scene, trying to figure out what had happened. Mark attended his sister, who was not badly hurt. Rick Hortega was much more seriously injured, and was soon attended to by Maude Philips.

  "It's very bad, but I think I can help him pull through," said Maude, as she held her old wrinkled hand on his bloody forehead. "But I'll need to take him someplace quiet. And I'll check on Alan while I'm gone." With that she and Rick popped away.

  "I sensed Maude and Rick leave, but where are Ben and Soone?" Elizabeth asked, as she popped onto the scene and knelt to examine her daughter.

  "It was a young man, and then it was a giant Demon taller than two men," said a bystander. "Bigger than a rhinoceros it became, as it charged at the old elf. At the last moment Ben threw himself over the elf, and the Demon landed atop both of them."

  "And then with a flash-bang all three of them were gone!" added Mark. "Teleported away, likely by the Demon!"

  "Soone pushed me away at the last moment," said Ann, "or I would have been hurt bad like Rick. It looked like the first Demon, but many times bigger!"

  "What happened here?" asked Moco, as he trotted up to Elizabeth as a gigantic wolf and changed to half-human form to better speak with her.

  A half-minute later the Wolf screamed into the sky in pain and rage, then trotted back towards town. From the surrounding wooded suburbs came answering howls. The howls repeated again and again, moving steadily west towards the center of town and Grim Mansion.

  ****

  Ben lay on a hard surface with his arms still wrapped around his elf friend. They had been tossed there rather roughly by the Demon, but his shielding cushioned him and Soone effectively. It was a plain twenty-foot cube-shaped room they found themselves in, and it seemed to be constructed totally of Evil black rock with a red under-glow, much like a Demon.

  Ten feet away on the other side of the room stood the actual Demon: a fifteen foot tall, fifteen-ton wall of what looked like black rocks set into a core of what looked like red-glowing molten lava! "Two for one," it roared! "You saved me a trip, Ben King!"

  "You saved me a trip, Demon," said Ben, with much more bravado than he felt. "I was coming after you soon!"

  "The half-grown child-Wizard!" said the Demon. "Eight years ago you surprised me. Now I am more than ten times as strong and prepared for your primitive magic." Lightning shot out from the palm of his hand and struck and encircled Ben's shielding. The shield held and Ben and Soone were not hurt. "That's just a small reminder of what you face, human. I could strike a hundred times stronger and destroy you, but at this point I do not want to hurt my old friend Soone."

  "I have no Demon friends," said Soone.

  "You are wrong, Soone," said the Demon. "Do you remember the last time we spoke? More than an Earth century ago it was! You tried to talk me out of performing the Last Voyage ritual, and I refused. I was not ready to meet the Maker."

  "I have not spoken with Demons!" Soone protested.

  "But you have spoken with your mentor!" the Demon replied. Soone saw its image shimmer, shrink, and reform into a much smaller, more familiar form.

  Even Ben could see the change happen; he was seeing both the unchanging form of the actual Demon and a magically projected image. What he could see emerge within the Demon-form was an elf! An old elf, even older than Soone!

  "No!" said Soone. "This is the ultimate perversion! It can't be!"

  "You surely recognize your Master, Apprentice Soone!" said the Demon. "As you were once my elf apprentice, so will you become my Apprentice Demon!"

  "It is!" said Soone. "It is you! Lucian! My Master, mentor, and best friend!"

  Soone fainted.

  ****

  "Now that civilians have been bussed miles away the high command wants the town of Hope completely cleared and conventionally bombed before nightfall," said Colonel Wells. "In other words, we need to wrap up our anti-Demon sorties A-S-A-P and get our people to safety! The bombing will destroy what's left of Hope and everything within two miles of the outside fence. Where we are right now is just outside the target area and will for now remain our forward mobile command post."

  They were in a parking lot three miles outside the Hope entrance gate that used to be merely a fruit stand. Now it was the current location of Well's mobile command center, complete with a half-dozen Army vehicles and fifty Armed soldiers. A half dozen officers, the ELF team, Rog and Hope leadership sat gathered in a hastily erected Army tent that was roomier than the Colonel's ELF bus command center.

  "Why?" asked Red Eric. "You already tried intensive bombing and you know that it only delays Demons for a few minutes. The tactics that Sam has been leading are the best way that has been found to destroy the Demons, not bombing."

  "It's for political cover," said Fredrick Kroner. "Isn't that right, Colonel? In case Plan C is decided on?"

  "That's part of it," said Wells. "My superiors wouldn't want Plan C to happen until they've retried Plan B. Plan B the first time was massive but this will be a hundred times that, including special precision bunker-busting bombs for the Mansion."

  "Ben and Soone are almost certainly in that Mansion," Elizabeth pointed out.

  "Maybe they are," said Wells. "And maybe they're even alive. But maybe they aren't in the Mansion; for all we know, they teleported to Cincinnati or to the Moon. Listen, if we could get them out safe that would be great. But apparently we can't. Right now we have no viable plan to get into that Mansion."

  "Consider that there will be huge political fallout if you don't do everything you can to rescue Gaou Soone," said Rog. "Pass that on to your so-called high command."

  "Political?" asked Dr. Crane.

  "My Master Soone is the oldest, most powerful, and revered elf of Alure. Perhaps revered in a way similar to your most famous scientist, artist, and President all put together in one person. Consider also that Alure culture and science is thousands of years advanced beyond your own. I have listened to your thoughts and know that your leaders are interested in a long-term relationship with Alure and other planets. Abandoning Soone to a Demon could prevent such plans from reaching fruition."

  "Consider also the political importance of Ben King," said Eric. "Many Hope and non-Hope Wizards and others value that boy highly. Plus he may be our only hope to defeating the Demons such that your Plan C isn’t needed."

  "I will pass your thoughts on up my command chain," said Wells. "But through our drones, manned reconnaissance aircraft, and satellites, my leaders recognize the worsening situation here. Despite the best joint efforts of your people and ours, the Demons are increasing in numbers and spreading faster than ever. Fortunately there are almost no residents living near Hope, and the few that live within five miles of the fence that circles Hope have already fled the area. We have also begun evacuating nearby towns."

  "The scarcity of folks immediately around Hope is no accident," said Kroner. "Hope owns all that land and discourages outsiders. Our people surrounding Hope began evacuation when the town did."

  "Resulting in a wide ring of open farmland around Hope where the Demons can be spotted
and stopped," said Eric.

  "We have a dozen teams doing just that," said Wells. "They're all doing a fantastic job. But we are losing ground. We have plenty of Army personnel; what we need are more Wizards.

  "As of now you have two hundred more!" said Moco, from where he suddenly stood at the entrance of the tent. "Half are Unaligned human Wizards from all over the world, and half are elves from Alure. Oh, and my brother and fifty of his pack also arrived, teleported by the Unaligned.”

  “I have reports that fifty new anti-Demon teams are being formed," said Eric.

  Alan Dale, the elf Jeanine, Moco, and a massive man that could have been Moco's twin entered the tent. "I don't believe that many of you have ever met my twin brother, Pack Leader Krell," said Moco.

  "Meeting comrades of my Brother is enjoyable, but my pack came to destroy Demons," snarled the Moco look-alike twin. They even sounded alike! "We're forming new teams right away with wolves as scouts and having them shadow existing teams!"

  "Maybe there will be enough teams to stop Demons from escaping the Hope area!" said Wells.

  "We should only half of them in that way," said Moco. "The other half need to attack the Mansion."

  "But it may require all of them to stop Demons from attacking the next towns!" protested Wells.

  "Destroying the source of the Demons should be the number one priority," explained Moco, "or the Master Demon will simply continue to bring them here as fast as even your new teams can kill them. Faster, probably. The others can of course then be killed ASAP."

  "He's right," said Eric. "The source of the Demons has to be destroyed as soon as possible and we already know that simply bombing it won't work. We need to destroy the Master Demon and his Mansion of Evil using mostly wizardry while most Demons are occupied away from the Mansion. And we'll of course try to save Ben and Soone when we do that."

  "Of course," said Moco. "And by the way I've just come back from the Mansion and noticed that there are actually few Demons there and elsewhere near the center of town. Probably because there's no more stuff there for them to destroy. Now might actually be a good time to attack the Mansion."