Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,52

this small working.

Surprised and more than a little pleased, Colath nodded.

It was safe enough here, unlike the first stone on the far side of the Cavern, with little likelihood of threat so far from the Borderlands and so distant from the lands of men.

Sheathing his swords, Colath stepped to the stone and laid his hands beside theirs.

Their hands were so striking together, Jareth thought, seeing them one beside the other. Elon’s and Colath’s were long and strong, the fingers supple, whereas his own were long and rough, the knuckles knobby and scarred from beatings and fights, despite his youth.

He looked up to meet Elon’s eyes and to find Colath looking at him with amusement.

No longer did he see Colath’s beauty, just the strength and heart of him - the sure and steady friend.

Almost as one, the three of them sank their awareness into the stone.

With a sigh, Jareth felt Elven magic, soft and sweet, scented with the aroma of growing things, meet and meld with his, softening it, yet somehow steadying it, too. He sensed Elon’s strength of mind, of spirit, his calm, and Colath’s sureness, his resolve. Yet for all of that, there was an ease to the two Elves that was a balm to Jareth’s damaged spirit.

Elon reached out, drew them together, sent power down into the earth to root there and locked it.

There was a sharp crackle of power - a sense of something snapping closed forever and it was done.

Chapter Four

With a sound not unlike the whisper of water up a strand, the fields of oats, wheat and rye bent and flowed like waves, still green, ripening in the sun. The light glinted off the feathered heads of the grain as they waved in the breeze. Above them the sky was clear and brilliantly blue. The air was hot and appeared to shimmer over the grain, although the depth of summer hadn’t yet been reached. If Elon had timed their journey correctly they would reach the northernmost Dwarven Caverns then.

He could remember a time when these lands had been nothing but open prairie with grass so high he could sit his horse and run his hands over it as he rode. It had stretched for as far as the eye could see.

That had been long before men had encroached so far north.

His memories didn’t detract from what he saw; the land was still beautiful in its regimented way, each field a square, neatly delineated by the crop within it with thin strips of green grass running between the fields and along the road.

A soft breeze blew, cooler and more refreshing than it had been now that they were in these higher latitudes. The horses picked up their pace at the feel of it but they also might have sensed some little bit of Elon’s growing elation. Something Colath shared, he knew.

Anticipation swelled within them. Each hoof beat took them closer to Aerilann. To home. A home from which they’d been separated for far too long, although any length of time away was too long.

Soon the distant forest with its skirt of grassland that marked the beginning of Elven lands would be visible on the crown of the distant hills.

The folk of men with their boundaries and ownership couldn’t begin to understand this tie his people had to the land on which they were born, the land that nurtured you and kept you, cradled you and fed you. You didn’t own it - you belonged to it. You were as much a part of it as it was a part of you, from the roots to the towering crowns of the trees that were your home. It was the scent of the loam and the mosses beneath your feet, the aroma of the things that grew and the flowers that bloomed. There were berries to be picked from bushes in the spring and early summer, roots, beans and grains to be harvested and fruit gathered from the trees in the Summer and Fall.

It was home and they were drawing close to it.

Something eased in Elon that he hadn’t known was tight but for the prickling of foresight… some niggling sense of unease he couldn’t define. A warning of some sort.

Colath sensed something amiss, too, straightening in his saddle.

After so long being hunted, they were accustomed to sensing when they were being watched with unfriendly eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jareth asked.

Elon shook his head. He couldn’t put a name to it, it was just there; the sense that he’d just