Chapter 11

Dev was disgusted. Almost as soon as he got to the palace, the King's wizard, and a half dozen mages who had seen what he was doing on the way to the palace, all descended upon him. They all wanted to know the spell he used. They demanded that he write it down immediately.

He told them he would write it down, but he wanted to rest a bit first. He retreated to Lord Benaldin's office to get away from the mages and the one wizard waiting for the promised spell in Lord Benaldin's clerk's office.

"You might as well write the spell down now, and I will take it out to the King's wizard. That way you won't be bothered with questions of where you got the spell and who trained you. Still, it is going to happen, you know," Lord Benaldin stated sympathetically.

"Well, I do know it is not against the law to do magic. They have no authority over me," Dev responded vehemently.

"Wizards and mages are a tenacious lot, if anything. Don't be surprised if they appear wherever you are or go looking for answers. You have shown them two things now. One, you can read Telgar's spells that the King has, and now this spell that was unknown until now," Lord Benaldin replied logically.

Dev grabbed a parchment and quill and started explaining the spell and then writing it. He made sure to instruct the user not to try to cast it from a wagon, carriage or horseback. The caster must remain on the ground and have nothing between him and the spell but his clothing.

Dev read and reread what he had written to make sure everything was as it was in his mind. He then passed it to Lord Benaldin who left his office with it and was gone for several minutes.

Lord Benaldin returned and sat at his desk, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Well, what happened my lord?" Dev asked anxiously.

"A mage from the mage's guild took possession of the document from the King's wizard almost as soon as I handed it to him. The King's wizard was a bit put out, if you ask me," Lord Benaldin chuckled.

"Are they still out there?" Dev asked with concern.

"No. I told them they had what they wanted and to leave my office. I stayed out there until they all left," Lord Benaldin said with satisfaction.

After that, they worked on a problem that had arisen in the west. In an area fairly close to where Dev had grown up, people were reporting livestock going missing. The local garrison had sent an officer to investigate and what he reported was unusual indeed.

The officer had taken along a tracker to see if they could track where the animals had disappeared. What was unusual was what had happened next. They had run into elves! Elves had not been seen in Darlonther for almost two hundred years. They had withdrawn after an elf princess had been raped and killed and they had wanted justice.

Unfortunately, the killer had been the first-born son of the then local duke, and he refused to surrender his son for justice. Back then, the King of Darlonther had been in a weaker position and had been unable to give the elves the justice they desired.

The result was that the elves all withdrew from contact with humans, but before they left, they had destroyed the castle of that duke and killed everyone who was in it at the time. None had realized the power the elves had at their command until that situation had happened

"Do you know a town by the name of Spriggans?" Lord Benaldin asked.

"Yes my lord. It is about a four day walk from where I used to live," Dev said with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Good! Then you know the area. Perfect. I will send you out to investigate this officer's claim of having discovered elves, and if he has, I want you to try to open a dialog with them.

"It has been too long since we have had contact with the elder race. I will give you a letter from the King to give to their Lord. Hopefully, gods willing, we can redress our mistake from that time long ago.

"This will also be a perfect time to get you out of the way here, and let the mages forget about you. Devlin, you have been an interesting person to have working for me. I must say, you have made life interesting in such a way as I have not experienced in some years," Lord Benaldin said laconically.

"When did you want me to leave, my lord?" Dev asked in a worried tone of voice.

"Well, not right away, but soon. We need to get you out of the sight of the mage's guild. You are a very clever and resourceful person. I think you will do well as a special investigator for his majesty. Say, two weeks. That should give me time to get the letters from the King, and work out the logistics for you," Lord Benaldin answered.

"Letters? I don't understand. I thought the King was going to write a letter to the elves?" Dev asked a bit confused.

"He is. But he has to endorse a letter appointing you as special envoy, with extraordinary powers. It might take me a week or so to convince him that you are qualified," Lord Benaldin said with a grin.

Despite the mage's guild and the King's wizard having the spell to remove snow from the streets, there was no rush to go out and remove it. Dev was now even more contemptuous of the vaunted mage's guild. All that trouble to get him to give up the spell, and no visible movement had been done in the city, with the exception of people removing snow the old way, with shovels.

In the meantime, Dev spent time learning what the crown knew of the elves, from old records. Apparently at one time, Darlonther and the kingdom of the elves had been moving towards a serious bonding between the Elvin royal house of Strelia and the Darlonther house of Kaslen. That had been terminated when the princess had been raped and murdered.

Dev looked up from the record he was reading, and wondered out loud why the King had not demanded the head of the duke's son on a platter for what he had done.

"It is a little known fact, that the then King of Darlonther was a weak man who was ultimately a coward. He was shortly replaced by his brother as King after he mysteriously fell from the battlements of the old Kaslen family castle.