“Why would you think that we could help you, if these others couldn’t?”
Ben shrugged. “What else can I try?”
“Fair enough. Well, I must say, your case is intriguing, whether or not we believe the more fantastic parts of your story. Our Wizards on watch duty did report detecting the presence of a powerful entity behind your house the day you moved back. They didn’t respond quickly enough to identify what it was. Do you know anything about that?”
“That was just a short visit by Sky.”
“Your sprite friend?”
“Yes, ma’am. That was reported to the Council through the Tuttles.”
“Interesting; I didn’t hear that part. The Council doesn’t pass on everything that they know, especially in recent years.”
“Well, I’m not hiding anything. I don’t figure that I’d get anywhere here by doing that.”
"That is a naïve but laudable viewpoint, Benjamin King. Well, now that I understand better I’ll do what I can for you.” She stood up. "I’ll first get you looked at by school staff folks that help youngsters with problems that are somewhat similar to yours, and I’ll be visiting you again myself very soon.”
“One more thing you should know about me, ma’am.”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t just come back here to get myself fixed up. I came to find the Demon.”
“The one that you say attacked you eight years ago?”
“The one that Sky saw kill my parents eight years ago.”
“I see. Are you saying that there is a Demon here in Hope somewhere?”
“I’m saying that if there is, I’ll find them.”
“If you do, then what?”
“I’ll kill it, somehow.”
“Interesting. The official Council view is that Demons don't exist, and if they did they wouldn't be regarded to be alive. If they do exist they haven't been seen in Hope for over a century and have become as irrelevant as elves.”
"Humans would all be long dead if it weren't for elves watching over us. But there was a Demon in my backyard eight years ago. Full of Evil."
"So you say. I believe you believe that, but I'm not sure that I do." She also didn't share the Council's certainty that Demons and Evil didn't exist. That notion had been mostly pushed in Council by the Grim family, over the objections of her boss and close friend Fredrick Kroner.
Over several days Ben was interviewed repeatedly by the school psychologist, the school doctor, and the school counselor. They reported to Vice Principle Sharp that they had found no serious problem in Ben, other than his obvious lack of control over his powers, and a problem with distinguishing reality from fantasy as far as elves, Demons and Evil were concerned. He had no Norm learning disabilities; only severe disabilities with regard to learning magic.
Ben also had long sessions with Sharp about his magic skills or lack thereof. During one of those he mentioned his linkage spell with Ann. "That could be very significant," she insisted.
"But it's mostly blocked!" Ben retorted. "We can't share feelings like we used to!"
"But in part it isn't blocked. It could be a breach in your otherwise totally blocked skills that could be exploited to get back other skills. Maybe attacking you won't break down or bypass whatever is blocking your skills, but communicating with Ann might!"
Ben doubted it. Since returning to Hope he had tried dozens of times to strengthen his link with Ann but failed.
Is this all that his return to Hope would amount to, Ben wondered? He seemed to be getting nowhere. Perhaps he would have been better off remaining with the Unaligned.
****
CHAPTER 7
Scheming Demons
In the Elf High Council, Soone was making no headway at all.
“Of course we will all miss your wonderful forests and gardens if they die, Gaou Soone, but surely you exaggerate their importance,” Council Leader Hemsope said. “And surely you exaggerate your inability to combat any problems. You are by far the most skilled among us when it comes to gardens. The Council reasserts its confidence in your ability to address any such problems.”
Soone needed their help, not their confidence. He took a deep breath and tried to re-energize himself for further argument. After days of battling plague after unnatural plague that had assailed his gardens he was near exhaustion. Only his pride had kept him from asking for Council help before this, that and a deep suspicion that the Alure Council would be of very little help. It was a suspicion now being confirmed.
The entire Council looked much older and tired than Soone recalled, as if the last few years had been decades. And their reaction to his plight was even worse than Soone expected. They offered no help at all! How could elves have such low regard for gardens? “My old friend Gaou Hemsope, if you will not send help, then will you at least visit my gardens, and provide advice to me on what may be done? As a personnel favor?”
Hemsope shook his head, an action, oddly, that was mimicked by all the other members of Council. Soone had never known the Council to so overwhelmingly agree on anything before this. “Unfortunately, matters of greater urgency occupy myself and the other Council members.”
Soone wished that he had the strength to probe them, their behavior was so incredibly odd! He hadn’t been to the Council in many years, but it was difficult for him to understand how it could have changed so much. The Council he remembered would have argued for days before making any pronouncement, and would not have been cowed by Hemsope. He had expected lively thoughtful debate, not apathy and conformity. “Our gardens are being attacked viciously by unknown enemies,” Soone again asserted. “My garden’s problem is an urgent Alure problem. A very dire emergency!”
“You are certainly adamant, Gaou Soone,” Hemsope conceded. “Very well, we will send to your gardens an official emissary to assess the situation for us.”
“You will?” Soone asked, disbelieving.
“We will. Be gone now, and let us to our other business attend.”
Clearly dismissed, Soone let himself be escorted from Council Chambers by several well-armed, muscular young elves. That was yet another change in the Council. Due to the guards, Soone had difficulty even getting into the Council Chambers! It was perhaps the most disturbing change. Council meetings used to be open to attendance by all elves; now an invitation was required. Only hasty telepathic communications directly with Hemsope had gotten Soone into the meeting at all!
After leaving Council Hall, Soone made a side trip to the nearby Grand Hall, in hopes that the sight of healthy gardens would improve his disposition.
He could sense trouble even before entering, but could scarcely give credence to what he already detected. Stepping through an ornate stone arch, his eyes quickly confirmed his worst fears. “Maker help us!” he uttered, as he sank to his knees in despair. Before him stretched dozens of acres of ailing, dying plants. Dead, rotting leaves and flower petals littered the ground and the smell of dead, rotting life filled the air. The Grand Hall Gardens were in far worse shape than his own!
“Gaou Soone!” cried out a member of the unusually small contingent of elves that attended the garden. Soone recognized the fellow; it was Hancow, an elf with considerable gardening skills. The old elf stumbled to Soone on obviously tired legs, followed by the others. Shockingly, old Hancow himself looked decades older now than he had appeared only weeks earlier when Soone last saw him! Soone also recognized Jeanine, an older Wizard from a distant rural village that occasionally visited his gardens.
“Praise be! The Council must have at last sent for him!” said another.
“Help us, wise Soone,” another one implored. A dozen Wizards, garden attendants all, gathered around Soone. They were dirty and exhausted, but smiling.
“Where are the other attendants, Hancow?” Soone asked, as with help from one of the attendants the gardener struggled to his feet. “How could this be allowed to happen?”
“But you must surely be aware that the others have gone to t
he fields, Gaou, to try to save the food crops!”
The news hit Soone so hard that he nearly fell down again. “What! Elf food crops have also been corrupted?”
“Of course! You didn’t know? Your apprentice Rog has been here nearly every day since it all started two weeks ago! We have all been working night and day since then, here and in the fields.”
Soone’s head was spinning. Two weeks? That was even before his own gardens began to fail! Why hadn’t Rog told him? Why hadn’t somebody else told him? Why hadn’t the Council asked for his aid? “What has the Council done?”
“Nothing, until now. Didn’t they send you here?”
“No. My own gardens are also under attack, I came to the Council to ask them for help to save them.”
The smiles of the attendants disappeared, and their shoulders sagged. Three of them dropped to the ground moaning in despair, much as Soone had done when he first saw the blight in his own gardens. Old Hancow slumped and would have fallen, had not Soone grasped him by the arm and held him up.
“Take heart, elves,” Soone implored. “I’m here now, summoned or not. Tell and show me what you know, and I’ll help if I can.”
Encouraged somewhat, the attendants led Soone all about the Garden, pointing out damaged plants and telling him what they were doing to mend them. “We’ve tried growth and wellness spells, anti-fungal and anti-corruption poultices, and nutrients and stimulants,” said Hancow. “We've risked our lives to obtain Dragon dung, pixy pee, and other rumored elixirs and poultices that have proved useless. We’ve tried science and magic from other worlds. We’ve tried everything we know and experimented with things we don’t.”
“You haven’t treated the root cause,” said old Jeanine, as she pointed an accusing finger at Hancow. “It’s Evil, that’s what it is! Evil! We elves can't directly sense it, because it's not of this world, but we can recognize its effects!”
“There’s no such thing as Evil!” protested a younger elf, as Hancow shook his head. Soone recognized him, it was Knarf, one of several young Grand Hall attendants that in recent years occasionally visited his own gardens.
“Nonsense!” retorted Jeanine. “Why? Just because that fool Council says so? Why believe anything they say!”
“You’re fresh from the country, Jeanine,” said Knarf, “where elves are far behind the times and hopeless in coping with change.”
“Why do you say it’s Evil?” asked Soone. "None of us can directly detect Evil."
“Because I’ve seen it all before. There are no conventional cures to this. This is the corruption to life that Demons bring.”
“There are no such thing as Demons, and certainly none on Alure,” replied Knarf, in exasperation.
“So the Council now says,” Jeanine replied. "Some of us know otherwise!"
“I don’t know any more!” said Hancow, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Is there such a thing as Evil or not?”
Soone shook his head in disbelief. “How can any elf not believe in Evil? Keeping Evil and Demons from spreading death about the universe is what we elves do! It is the task that has defined us for countless thousands of generations! What’s wrong with you elves?”
“Times are changing,” Hancow stated quietly. “We haven’t directly encountered Demons for almost an entire elf generation. Most elves alive today have never even seen a Demon or experienced Evil. The Council has declared that any danger from Demons is past, if there ever was a danger in the first place. There is no Evil. The whole concept of The Balance has been declared to be a fraud.”
“That’s utter madness!” Soone protested. "The life on dozens of key worlds depends on our protecting it from Demons and Evil from the Void!"
“If Demons do exist, they’re ill beings that deserve our pity and help, Gaou,” said Knarf.
“They are beyond help,” Soone said. “They are pure Evil incarnate from beyond our universe!”
“You haven’t been out of your gardens in a very along time, Gaou,” said Hancow. “Elf views on many things have changed. Why support wards against a nonexistent enemy to protect off-Alure life when our needs here are so great? Our focus needs to be on Alure.”
"If the other worlds were to fall to Evil, Alure standing alone would also soon fall!" said Soone. "It is the combined life-force of all life that holds Demons and Evil at bay! Alure has no choice but to maintain The Balance everywhere!"
"Superstitious nonsense!" said Knarf.
Soone shook his head. It wasn’t only Council that had changed; the views of the entire elf society had shifted! “What about other elves? Where are your families and friends and neighbors? Why aren’t they here helping to save the gardens?”
Knarf shrugged. “Why should they? Gardening is not their job.”
Gardening wasn't their job? This was all wrong! Suddenly, and shockingly, Soone realized whatever was attacking the plants was attacking far more! It all fit together too well. “Jeanine is right about Evil causing this, but it’s not just the plants that are sickened. My fellow elves, you’re poisoned also; and the Council is poisoned, poisoned with Evil and twisted in your minds! But how is that possible? What of your personal shielding?”
The others looked at him as if he had gone mad.
“Gaou,” Hancow explained again patiently, “it is settled philosophy now that Evil doesn’t exist. It follows then that it can’t be seen or touched or touch us, and is thus not a danger to elves. Personal shielding is thus a waste of effort that has been abandoned by most elves for several years.”
"Of course it has!" seconded Knarf.
"Suicidal madness!" said Soone.
“Evil can muddle thoughts, and it can kill,” Jeanine told Hancow. “Elves have fought Evil for millennia! Doesn’t our history mean anything to you?”
Hancow appeared to be confused. He looked back and forth from Soone to Jeanine to Knarf, clearly distressed.
Soone reached out and put his hand on the old elf’s forehead. What he didn’t sense there shocked him profoundly. “HANCOW, WHERE IS YOUR PERSONAL ANTI-EVIL SHIELDING?” he asked quietly and privately.
“We don’t need protection from what doesn’t exist,” Hancow again explained, but he seemed uncertain. “Nobody bothers with personal shields against the influence of Evil anymore. It's a waste of powers!”
“Of course it is,” added one of the young elves.
Soone was so stunned that he couldn’t reply.
“I have kept my traditional shields,” said Jeanine.
The statement elicited groans and snickers from most of the attendants.
“I think that both Jeanine and the Gaou should go,” said Knarf, angrily. “How can they help if they believe such nonsense?”
“He’s right,” said another young elf, a female. “They’re only keeping us from our work. We’ll solve this for ourselves, if it needs to be solved. Perhaps we are entering a new time when these plants are no longer needed anyway. If we don't need the Balance Wards, than why do we need great gardens to keep them strong?”
Except for Hancow and Jeanine, the attendants turned from Soone and wearily returned to their efforts. Soone stood and watched them, shaking his head. They were wiping and cutting corruption away from plants, washing with disinfectants, and chanting spells – all the usual things. None of it would be sufficiently effective against elemental Evil, especially if their hearts and minds weren't in it.
Demons had done this! Evil brought by Demons, and Demon spells against elves that corrupted hearts and minds! Once Evil was fixed in an object it was almost impossible to remove it without direct effort by elves that knew and believed in what they were doing! Somehow a Demon had infiltrated Alure, and infested Alure with Evil at many locations, including his own gardens and this one. Life here was dying, and with it the Life Energies that were the source of most magic and warding against Evil.
“We need to find and destroy or at least remove the source objects of Evil from our gardens,” said Jeanine, breaking into Soone’
s thoughts. “Both the Demon and the specific material that has been tainted with Evil must be dealt with.”
“Of course,” Soone agreed. With great focus and deliberation Evil could be eliminated by elves and especially by teams of Gaou, but the saving spells had to be cast against something, against the specific objects or substances that had been infused with Evil that affected everything near them with sickness and death. Find the Evil, and it could be contained by strong shielding spells and even obliterated. Elves were all taught how to destroy Evil, it was a matter of overcoming it by using the order inherent in the life of this universe. The difficult problem was in precisely locating Evil, as Evil could only be detected indirectly by elves.
“Gaou,” said Hancow, “Though I have gone along with the new ideas I am old enough to remember what Demons were like, and so much Evil would imply Demons. Do you really think it’s Evil that we are dealing with? It seems unbelievable after so many years!”
“But it fits all of the facts," said Soone. "Your attendants and the Council and everyone else that has discarded their shielding have been corrupted. Elves are far more resilient than plants, but according to legend, confused, delusional thinking and weakness are common symptoms of an Evil influence. All the Garden attendants here show those symptoms.”
“Deluded or not I now follow your logic,” Hancow acknowledged, “though my head spins to do so. But Demons could not be here in Alure! Demons are massive, horrible monsters, misshapen and larger than a dozen elves. They would surely be seen and recognized at once!”
“If we are right about the Evil then one or more Demons must be near, or been here in the recent past and left Evil behind to continue the work of the Demons,” insisted Soone.
“They must be well cloaked then,” Jeanine suggested.
“Or they both cloak and physically disguise themselves so well that they pass for one of us,” said Soone. "Perhaps they cloud our thinking as some sort of mass hypnosis. Or perhaps they shape-shift. Elemental life-forms that need not assume any specific shape or substance. As beings from the Void perhaps they can change their size, shape, and mass! There are old legends of such things."
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