Chapter 3 – Unexpected Company
Soliander of Aranor felt nervous. Some would have been surprised that a man of such power could feel that way, or that he would admit it to himself, but he was no fool. Refusing to acknowledge it could lead to death, and worse. He had summoned sentient forces to do his bidding many times, and some of them could detect such a feeling and exploit it. That would lead to first one mistake and then another. All but one of his apprentices over the years had resisted acknowledging their feelings and potential impact, so he usually made the most prideful summon a demon, inevitably lose control of it, and have it take them away to eternal damnation while the other candidates watched, aghast. He smiled. Either their willingness to heed his advice soared or they left his tutelage for good.
That lone standout apprentice had always been the most promising. Soliander had been trying to find him for years, but the former student knew it and was in hiding. Far worse than being a demon’s slave awaited Everon for betraying Soliander. Tracking his whereabouts had been especially difficult during Soliander’s years as one of the Ellorian Champions. Any pursuit was doomed to fail when you could disappear from the trail without warning. His spies had turned up little, and in the years since breaking free of the quest cycle, Soliander still hadn’t found Everon, though he’d come close.
His eyes went to a window, beyond which lay the darkness of night and a tower, golden light twinkling from its windows. A prisoner occupied the top room, guarded by the supernatural and dark elves. Diara’s capture had been fortuitous. She had refused to give up her lover Everon’s location, but the Mind Trust spell had solved that problem. All ethical wizards respected that forbidden magic and wouldn’t use it. But it had its uses.
Magically sifting through her memories had yielded much, including Everon’s hide-out, but Soliander had acted in haste and cost himself his quarry. He should have taken time to plan an ambush, rather than immediately arriving via magic portal and laying waste to everything in his path. Everon was not there. If Soliander’s vast network of spies asking questions about Everon had not made it clear that someone dangerous was after him, the destruction Soliander wrought on his home had. He knew from Diara’s memories that Everon was unsure if Soliander was behind the inquiries. After all, everyone thought Soliander was missing, just like the rest of the Ellorian Champions, and yet dark elves with bluish-steel blades had often done the asking.
Only two people knew how to create such items made from the soclarin ore. And Everon only knew because he’d stolen the secret from Soliander. Those items were how they were inadvertently tipping each other off as to their activities, whereabouts, or both. One of Soliander’s spies had captured a man with such a blade, which Soliander knew he hadn’t created. The Mind Trust spell on the man led to Diara, and then to the home she shared with Everon. Since Soliander’s attack, Everon abandoned every place he’d been with Diara, who he was sure to notice had gone missing. The degree of abandonment—and the fear it revealed—told Soliander that Everon knew it was him, even if the former apprentice did not understand how that was possible. Setting traps might be the only way to get him now.
It was one reason Soliander had opened the Dragon Gate on Honyn. Not only had he needed more of the ore, but he wasn’t sure if Everon knew the gate led to the only place to get it. Had the apprentice run out of what he’d stolen from Soliander’s stash? If he knew where to get it, learning that the gate was open would lure him there, Soliander’s Detect Presence spell triggering an alarm that would bring them together once more at last. These betrayals about the ore were minor except for how they had enabled the betrayal that really mattered, the one for which Everon was to pay for eternity once Soliander got him. It was all arranged. He just needed his victim.
But now another mystery beyond Everon’s whereabouts had Soliander’s attention. Somehow his life had become all about finding people. First Everon. Now Ryan, Anna, Eric, and Matt. And maybe Korrin, Andier, and Eriana. He didn’t know where his fellow Ellorian Champions were any more than anyone else did. He had assumed they were dead or trapped on Earth. But he hadn’t been able to find Earth with any locator spell since he had returned from there years ago, and last seen the champions. He had never heard of Earth or seen it before someone summoned all four of them there, or since. It was as if Earth had never existed.
But now the locator spell found Earth on the first try. And second. And third. Even his apprentice Darron could find it. Soliander knew why, even how. Magic had returned to working on Earth, rendering the planet detectable. And the pendant being returned to Stonehenge had triggered this. He knew this even without the images in his head from the brief Mind Trust connection with Matt. Stonehenge looked about the same as when he’d last seen it in person, but the stones appeared considerably weathered, far more so than a few years would have suggested. This wasn’t the only sign that the world had transformed. When he had been there, it hadn’t been noticeably different from any other world he’d been to, but the
