Apprentice Wizards of Hope Read online

  Apprentice Wizards of Hope

  By

  Gary J. Davies

  Published by Gary J. Davies at Smashwords

  Apprentice Wizards of Hope

  Copyright 2017 Gary J. Davies

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the only exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy.

  This e-book is a work of fiction created by the author and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are a production of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Thank you for downloading this e-book!

  Contents

  Foreword

  Apprentice Wizards of Hope

  Prologue: Eight Years Earlier

  CHAPTER 1 - Homecoming

  CHAPTER 2 - Desolation Glen

  CHAPTER 3 - Dinner

  CHAPTER 4 - Trailer Trouble

  CHAPTER 5 - The Hortegas

  CHAPTER 6 - Evaluations and School

  CHAPTER 7 - Scheming Demons

  CHAPTER 8 - Busy School Day

  CHAPTER 9 - Jailed!

  CHAPTER 10 - Premonition

  CHAPTER 11 - Demons Attack!

  CHAPTER 12 - Breakout!

  CHAPTER 13 - Battle at Desolation Glen

  CHAPTER 14 - Norm Invasion

  CHAPTER 15 - Death at Grim Mansion

  CHAPTER 16 - Breakthrough!

  CHAPTER 17 - Taken!

  CHAPTER 18 - Inside Grim Mansion

  CHAPTER 19 - The Void

  CHAPTER 20 - Peace and Promise

  Story Notes

  About Other Publications by this Author

  ****

  Foreword

  Even if there is no such thing as real magic, the universe we live in is still truly miraculous, especially (from our perhaps limited human/Earth-centric viewpoint) its biological life. Scientific study has revealed much of how life persists and evolves, and how it likely arose as a result of self-organizing tendencies of matter in certain accommodating 'Goldilocks' environments. It increasingly appears that self-organization, life, and its evolution are all natural consequences of the physically realized system of mathematics that is our universe.

  Yet science has still not adequately explained some of life's greatest mysteries. For example what is consciousness and 'free will'? And what is life itself? Is it all purely matter and energy following the incredibly complex system relationships (especially quantum mechanical interactions) increasingly sought by science? Is the reach of objective measurement exceeded such that in principle some knowledge is unobtainable or at least unverifiable? Or is there something transcendentally spiritual/magical to life that is somehow by its very essence beyond the grasp of science?

  And if there are some sorts of elemental spiritual/magical forces in play with regard to life, are there in turn elemental anti-life 'evil' forces that oppose them? And if there are beings of life that embody such life forces, could there perhaps also be beings of anti-life? Beings that because they are themselves a perverse, elementally evil form of life, are compelled to oppose and destroy all other forms of life as a matter of primal instinct locked into their very structure?

  The current consensus science view is that in reality there is no solid objective evidence for any of that. As layer by layer the onion is pealed back by science, it all appears to be in the math. Natural (i.e. mathematical) tendencies for order vie with natural tendencies for randomness/disorder in proportions and ways that nicely result in us and everything else without recourse to anything spiritual/paranormal. No matter how deep we dig, it’s the math turtle all the way down.

  Nifty, but purely the stuff of science without a need for resorting to compellingly mysterious paranormal forces or beings, unless the need for an ultimate turtle/prime mover upon which it all rests is insisted upon to reach some sort of perhaps psychologically driven need for comprehensive philosophical or theological closure. However, one can at least imagine such things as 'magical' life and anti-life forces and write stories such as this one, though there is some work involved in creating the necessary self-consistent science-fantasy setting/conceptual framework.

  Towards the end of this volume Story Notes are provided that identify some of the concepts and characters created to provide the conceptual framework for this story which may be of interest to readers, though there is certainly no necessity to read them prior to reading the story text itself. This actually represents far less notes than often required for a novel, but that reflects an advantage with fiction and in particular with fantasy-fiction: though everything has to 'fit together' plausibly, much stuff can simply be made up! Reality can be tweaked as the story proceeds! How handy!

  No map is included, as the town of Hope is a gated community very near your own home, and you are no doubt at least familiar with its location already, although the name may be disguised and before reading this story you were probably not aware that it is inhabited by Wizards and other beings of power such as vampires and werewolves. Similarly, no map of the elven planet Alure is offered, nor is a roadmap to the all-encompassing Void attempted. The text of the story itself is the only path provided to those places.

  Also note that there is an 'About' section at the end of this book which describes the other published eBooks of this author. All fourteen published products of this author's writing hobby - mostly fantasy/sci-fi novels, novellas, and short stories - are available where this story was obtained.

  I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  ****

  Apprentice Wizards of Hope

  Prologue:

  Eight Years Earlier

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” shrieked Sky the sprite joyfully, as she winged her way through cold thick swirling gases. There were always exciting storms occurring on Jupiter, one of her favorite gas-giant planets in this universe!

  It was while looping high in Jupiter's cold atmosphere that her sharp senses noticed unusual storm activity on distant Earth. She detected a Northern Hemisphere thunderstorm of truly outrageous proportions, though it was somewhat early in the year for Earth hurricanes. Curiosity aroused, she immediately teleported herself to Earth, though it cost her much of her stored energy reserves to do so.

  The trip to Earth was well worth the trouble, for soon she was soaring through swelling, swirling black thunderstorm clouds! Many phenomena in the universe were more powerful or visually spectacular, but few featured such delightful contrasts. Countless tingling high voltage amps of burning lightening repeatedly flashed through her, while cold rain and stinging hail pummeled her sensitive blue skin, though not so violently that they threatened to tear the relatively delicate webbing of her wings, which would have been an annoying inconvenience. It was such intoxicating sensations that drove her to ecstasy, as well as the thrill of chaotic flight through gusting, buffeting winds. Such experiences reminded her of her birthplace the Great Void, though this universe was a much more ordered and safe place.

  She didn’t often visit Earth, not because in recent millennia it was absolutely teeming with annoyingly ignorant yet pretentious humans, or because the elves of Alure had declared Earth to be out of bounds, but because there were usually much more spectacular energy-rich events to enjoin with elsewhere, even in the comparatively bland dimensional realm that included Earth. Sprites could traverse the Void to travel among the infinity of relatively stable a
nd hence persistent universes but this universe was by far her favorite. It was a universe of delightful contrasts: of light and darkness as well as heat and cold, and of delicate yet stubbornly persistent complex life-forms as well as spectacularly huge cataclysmic destructive events.

  Hidden within the storm she sensed a touch of magic energy that was slightly unsettling to her: Wild Magic that had escaped from the Void between universes. Normally, she would revel in the discovery of such magic, and drink it freely into herself, body and soul, for such magic sustained her, defined her: she was herself a child of the Void and the chaotic Wild Magic that often surged through it between universes. But she also sensed that this particular storm was tainted: poisoned with elemental Evil that corroded native life forms and energies, and she cautiously shut off Wild Magic absorption, lest she herself be corrupted. Even robust sprites were not totally immune to the deadly corrosive effects of Evil.

  It wasn’t unheard of for Wild Magic to burst between universes and trigger disturbances such as this storm, but then it should have been a pure raw Wild Magic that she sensed. The flow of these energies didn’t feel quite right to her. It felt as if the magic was being worked by some alien force, that instead of being simply chaotic, something was subtly shaping it towards some unknown purpose. However, she concluded that the puzzling circumstance of oddly shaped Wild Magic wasn’t enough to offset the pleasurable physical aspects of the storm.

  Part of the storm’s electrical and kinetic energy she absorbed, but most of it she simply allowed to sweep her further into the central swirling cluster of towering dark thunderclouds. Abruptly however, there was a sharp reduction in storm power levels, as if an impossible amount of energy had suddenly been withdrawn from the center of the storm. Rain droplets around her instantly froze into gritty bits of ice, some as large as her small fisted hand, though it was early summer on this part of Earth, and she was too low in altitude for such cold. Flight through the increasingly large and irregular shaped hail was rapidly becoming less than pleasurable. As a precaution she thickened and toughened her wings and body skin.

  She considered immediately returning to Jupiter, which despite its perpetual chill had truly vast and wonderful storms, but decided not to. Something was subtly controlling this storm, and that roused her curiosity. In her experience only an extraordinarily powerful Demon born of the Void could influence Wild Magic and absorb energy in a manner such as she had witnessed here, and as far as she knew there were no Demons at all on Earth.

  She didn’t often think of elfin matters, but realized that such a Demon could possibly destroy the Balance that the elves worked so hard to maintain. Though she wasn’t particularly interested in elf notions such as the Balance concept by which among other things the Demons were kept at bay in this universe, she loved elf cookies and had several elf friends, and knew that any information useful to the elves could be parleyed into sweet rewards by a clever sprite. In sum, news of a Demon on Earth could mean yummy cookies for herself!

  She decided to first verify the presence of a Demon. Despite the increasingly unpleasant flying conditions she spiraled further downward, approaching ever closer to whatever was shaping and absorbing the energy.

  A curious sight greeted her at ground level in the very center of the storm. Three humans, two adults and a small child, huddled together within a forest clearing as they struggled to shield themselves against the onslaught of a powerful Demon. The general location itself was strong in magic, she noticed: a natural nexus for Earth-generated Life Energy due to unusual geological features in the area.

  The Demon itself stood on two legs and was roughly humanoid in shape, and was of course dominantly black in color, though there were bright red cracks and spots where rampant energy glowed from deep inside it, as though at any moment it might be blown to bits by the unearthly Evil energies that powered it from within. Though details of its irregular features were masked by intermittent cascades of rain, hail, and sleet, and by a barrage of lightning bolts that lanced out from its two huge clawed hands to strike at the humans, between flashes Sky could see that the Demon also presented a pair of horns, red glowing eyes and open, maniacally grinning mouth. Where it stood the surrounding smoldering ground was blackened and covered with hot, red-glowing, Evil-saturated grey ash.

  Sky didn’t much care for Demons; probably in large measure because she had never yet met a Demon that hadn’t immediately tried to kill her. In this case she had enjoyed for a time the storm which the Demon had evidently instigated, but she didn’t like senseless destruction and carnage, which was pretty much what Demons were all about. Evil-welding Demons generally hated and killed all non-Demon life-forms that they encountered, and this Demon was apparently no exception.

  She sensed that the Evil tainted desolate area surrounding the cowering humans was completely devoid of life, where minutes earlier there had doubtlessly been trees and other normal Earthly life-forms. The Demon was attracting huge quantities of Evil from the Void and pelting the forest and humans with it. Even the soil itself, which normally would be teeming with countless billions of tiny living creatures, had already been completely sterilized and corrupted with Evil.

  Astonishingly, the powerful attack was somehow being thwarted by the humans. The Demon couldn’t even force its ponderous body closer than a body length from his intended victims, and the Demon blasts of glowing plasma energy were completely stopped by some sort of invisible shielding that surrounded the humans. That was very interesting! Humans were, Sky recalled, quite fragile physically and usually not capable of consciously controlling any magic at all, let along magic that could oppose an exceptionally powerful Demon from the Void!

  It was at that point she realized that the battle was taking place on the outskirts of a town named Hope that was said to be inhabited by humans that showed signs of fledgling magic ability. These humans under attack must be strongly gifted with magic; that was obviously how they were protecting themselves! They were using the Life Energy of this place, drawing to themselves the strong flow of life-produced magic that flowed through the Earth in the Hope area.

  She also recalled that the town of Hope was redundantly on the elves’ list of specific forbidden places to visit, in addition to Earth itself being altogether forbidden. Those were of course elf rules to be ignored by free spirited sprites.

  The Demon absorbed another huge amount of energy from the storm; so much energy that Sky tumbled towards Earth as winds abruptly paused and much remaining moisture froze into fine gritty bits of sleet. As Sky flapped her wings and adjusted her weight to compensate, the protective shield of the humans was at last overcome by a massive blast of raw energy from the Demon, and the humans were instantly destroyed.

  No, not quite, Sky noticed. The two poor adults had been reduced to smoldering cinders that collapsed into powdery gray ash under their own weight, but the child still appeared to be intact, though it had slumped down onto the smoking, glowing, ashen Evil ground and lay still and apparently unconscious.

  The Demon’s glowing red eyes widened in surprise, and it advanced closer to the child; such that the human was almost physically within its reach. Abruptly its massive hands erupted in burning lightening that quickly surrounded the child; a blast much reduced compared to the previous one that had broken through the protective shield and incinerated the adults, but still quite deadly to any living creature. The Demon’s eyes widened again when it saw the powerful blast deflected such that it had no apparent effect on the child!

  In response the Demon roared in anger, and then lifted its immense arms to absorb yet more energy from the storm. The storm may have been triggered and shaped by Wild Magic, but the creature was using simple storm energy in addition to Evil to attack the humans. This time so much energy was absorbed that Sky had to expend some of her own reserves to stay aloft. Annoyed, she watched as the Demon pushed ever closer to the child. If the small, delicate appearing child wasn’t soon reduced to ashes by energy blasts it would surely be
pulverized physically by the massive black monster!

  On a whim, which is what most frequently motivated any sprite, Sky shunted in and snatched the child from the reaching claws of the Demon, then flew away so quickly that the Demon could only gawk in surprise at the empty stretch of ground where the human had lain only moments earlier!

  It was Sky’s taunting laughter that drew the monster’s attention to her as she struggled to gain altitude while hindered by the added weight of the child. Her momentum had been enough to sweep her and the human away from the Demon’s immediate grasp, but not enough to carry them out of sight of the monster.

  Screaming with rage, the Demon let loose its blast of gathered raw energy at the escaping pair, a towering column of lightning plasma that would have destroyed elf or even Demon, but not an energy loving sprite, not when the sprite was far enough away to sufficiently reduce the effect of the blast. Instead, the sprite gratefully absorbed much of the energy that managed to strike her.

  Riding the crest of the remaining blast and applying what she had absorbed from it allowed Sky to burst away from the scene, indeed it allowed her to transit straight to Alure itself! The only awkward part of the trick was to simultaneously protect the child from the Demon’s blast and bring the unconscious waif along with her. The child, though no larger than herself, was for mysterious reasons extraordinarily challenging to hold onto and transport, but with great difficulty she managed.

  ****

  Old Soone labored in his garden, savoring the feel of rich dark soil in his wrinkled old gray elfin hands as he carefully packed it around the Tunish plant’s delicate roots. He could immediately sense vibrant life in every tiny bit of soil, as well as in the plant itself.