Chapter 5 - Asmodeus the Dark Elder.
On the other side of the kingdom, Asmodeus the Dark High Elder was vexed, in fact, vexed was not the word, he was incandescent with rage. But whenever he was angry, light would emit from his body and little flashes of lightning shot out from him, not a good trick, as it was ruining his image as Asmodeus the Dark, as when angry, he was, in fact, Asmodeus the really quite bright flashy High Elder. The fact that his darkness could not hide the light annoyed him even more and in a vicious circle of incandescent jiggery-pokery, he got lighter and brighter as he got angrier and angrier. Of all the powers and magic that had weakened, why not this one? The one which he could not control. It made some of the dark wizards snigger, not that any of them would dare to even curl a lip in amusement, as diminished powers or not, Asmodeus was still more powerful, darker, and eviler than any of his cohorts.
Unlike the other High Elders, Asmodeus was not High Elder by either election or consensus, Asmodeus bullied and fought his way to the position just as all the previous incumbents of the post at Castell yr Tywyll had done. One day, it would happen to him. He would be deposed by another power-hungry despot who wanted to rule the roost instead of Asmodeus.
"The boy is here! The boy is here! How did he get through the cave without me knowing?" he raged.
"Calm yourself my Lord High Elder," said Lodi, one of the dark wizards, "we do not believe that he is the so-called saviour of Trymyll, he is just a boy."
"Don't fool yourself, it is him," raged Asmodeus, "It is him!” he repeated, “find him, bring him to me."
“But why is the boy so important? He’s just a boy, not a great wizard, not even an acolyte. He has no power, no magic, no inner aura, nothing that we can sense or detect.”
He then calmed completely and in a very ordinary and non-scary voice said.
“He is wearing the ring of the elders. A ring of great power that can only be worn by one who is worthy to wear it. If he were not the chosen one, the ring would have left him as soon as it was placed on his finger. If an unworthy person removes it, then it will return to the true owner immediately.”
“Then how do you propose we obtain this ring of the seven elders?”
Asmodeus ignored the question. He needed thinking time. Instead, he asked.
"Who is he with?”
"He is with Llewel the Elder, Flintock and a trygall."
"Llewel the Little" he mocked, "That fool is all politics and no magic. Flintlock is a sentimental, soft-hearted fool and the trygall will have no loyalty to any of them.”
“What do you command oh Lord High Elder?”
“Just fetch him or the ring. If you can’t get the boy, bring me his finger or hand, I care not which or how!”
Lodi was a little squeamish about blood and stuff like that. He neither favoured cutting off Tom’s hand nor even his finger. He thought that bringing the boy in one piece would be his best choice, after all, he didn’t want to leave a trail of the boy’s blood and his own vomit for others to follow.
One of the other elders spoke, in his most sycophantic tone of voice, "Most High Elder Asmodeus, why is the ring so important? If no one may wear it unless the ring chooses and accepts that person, what good is the ring to anyone?” He chose his words carefully as he dared not mention that Asmodeus may not be worthy enough to wear it.
“Because you fool, when I am the Elder of Elders, I will be worthy to wear the ring and then the ring will protect me from all. I will be both invincible and indestructible. The mightiest, most powerful wizard ever to walk the land.
No one thought it wise to argue with him the fact that having a high office, even the highest in the land, may not make him any more worthy to wear the ring.
Lodi bowed deeply and withdrew. At the city gate, out of the defensive enchantments which guard the city against outsiders entering and from the unauthorised exit by anyone wishing to leave, he opened a small and very ordinary looking gate, walked through, and as he did, he was transported to the other side of the kingdom to a large wood, close to a small hut he could not see, in a clearing he could not see, with smoke rising from the chimney which he also could not see. This was as close as he could get as he could sense that the area was surrounded by enchantments and magic, a step closer and he might set off a rolling sequence of spells which would end in his certain discovery and maybe his imminent demise. From a distance and shrouded in an obfuscation spell that prevented others from realising he was there, he watched and waited for the unlikely and unsuspecting group to appear.
His wait was short. Within a few minutes, they emerged from nowhere as if walking out of a mist that was not there. They were still preparing to leave but had only come out of the shack to have a look round for possible danger and to get their bearings for the day ahead.
Lodi could not see where they had stepped from and to be truthful, he didn’t really care, but the tracking spell they had placed on Llewel’s trainers had led him to this spot, and that was close enough.
He would use a stun and bind spell. He raised his wand, there was a large flash that shot towards the group followed by another flash and Lodi fell, stunned, and bound to the forest floor. In front of Tom was hovering a large gold shield, which as he looked, started to fade, and then seemed to withdraw back into the ring he was wearing.
No one really saw or understood what had happened except Llewel.
“Boy, show me your ring,” Llewel examined the ring closely, "and how long have you had this ring?”
“Forever," said Tom.
“Don’t be stupid, you’re only thirteen. You could not, therefore, have had it forever or you’d be four and a half billion years old, so, let’s try that simple question again, perhaps I’ll reword it to make it simpler for you. How long have you been wearing this ring?”
“Well, as long as I can remember, I’ve always worn it I suppose. My dad put it on my finger when I was a baby before he left.”
“Have you never wondered why, as you have grown, the ring continues to fit and has not, as your fingers got bigger, dug into your flesh, cut off the circulation and made your finger drop off?”
“No,” said Tom.
“Then you are more stupid than I thought.”
None of this was helping his ever-cooling feelings about Llewel the Elder.
Llewel continued..., "Have you ever taken the ring off?”
“Yes, once I took it off and put it in my pocket when we were making bread at school, Mrs Glyn told me it was not hygienic to wear a ring while cooking, but when my hand came out again, the ring was back on my finger. Another time a bully from school took it off me and ran off, but when I looked down, it was back on my finger, another time......," Llewel held up his hand to cut him off in mid-flow.
“Enough! Have you ever wondered why?”
“No,” Tom said.
“I somehow thought not," Llewel’s voice mellowed to almost a friendly tone, "Tom, you have an incredibly special and very magic ring on your finger. The ring is called the ring of the seven elders. At the moment this, this, an excuse for a wizard,” he explained, pointing at Lodi, “came through a portal and cast the spell at you, it then bounced back leaving him both stunned and bound by his own spell, the ring reacted throwing up a golden shield which reflected the spell straight back onto himself.”
“It was enchanted several millennia ago by the seven Elders of Trymyll. It then vanished. Legend and myth surrounded it...., " Flintock was stopped in his tracks by Llewel.
“Enough, too much information will confuse the boy and inform the prisoner.”
He waved his wand around Tom’s head and muttered a few incantations.
“There, that’s wiped what little brain he has of all we have just said about the ring.”
Tom didn’t wish to disavow him of his little trick, but he remembered everything he said, the ring had in fact reflected that spell back to Llewel so that Llewel had now forgotten what was said.
“Now, what was I saying? I seem to have forgotten what we were talking about. Oh well, never mind. Back to the problem at hand.
He flicked his staff and the bound and still stunned dark wizard disappeared back through the portal to face his fate with Asmodeus the Dark Elder. Which would not be too harsh, his reputation was far worse than reality! Probably just get a good telling off.
“Anyway,” said Llewel, “the ring’s far too powerful for you, I will have to look after it for you, just until we get the Council of High Elders, then you can have it back so you can give it to them. What I want to know, is why I was not informed that you had the ring, why was I not told…” he muttered.
“This should be interesting,” muttered Flintlock under his breath.
“Come on hand it over,” said Llewel, now returned to grumpy, bad-tempered, and arrogant mode.
Tom handed over the ring, Llewel popped it into his leather purse and tied the leather lace. Llewel then looked at Tom with a slightly vindictive smile on his face, he looked down at Tom’s hand and the smile vanished, the ring was back on his finger.
“I could have told you that would happen,” said Tom.
“Give!” said an even more irritated Llewel. This time he took out his wand, placed the ring in his purse again, whirled his wand around the purse muttering something unintelligible, there was a flash of light.
“The purse is sealed, nothing can get out of there until released by me," he smirked again. The smirk disappeared as soon as he looked again at Tom. The ring was back on his finger again!
“Oh well, have it your way then, but the High Elders will want their ring back. Mark my words they will. Mark my words, mark my words," his voice trailed off at the end to more of a mumble as he repeated the last bit of his sentence several times, almost as if he were trying to convince himself.
Excitement over it was time to hit the road to Castell y Blaenoraid. The small troupe returned to the ‘shack,’ collected some extra rations for the journey and exited it again, Howel the dragon, still in small Jack Russell terrier form, Llewel the Elder, Flintock, Tryg and Tom. Flintock released all the spells and incantations around the clearing and handed Tryg a small, bejewelled gold and glass phial suspended on a long gold chain. A flame shot from nowhere and the hut disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the smoke then swirled round and round like a small whirlwind and shot into the phial ready for the next time they needed it.