Delver Magic III: Balance of Fate, Jeff Inlo [most popular ebook readers .txt] 📗

moments to consider the situation put before him. He looked once more at the elf guards that stood nearby. It was their job to protect the camp elder, the leader of the camp. Certainly, they were there to protect Loftber, but were they also protecting him? Did he now count more than the other elves of his camp?

“I find it difficult to argue with what you say,” Lief allowed. “You are right on many counts, we do face difficult times and we must have one true leader, one voice that will direct us all. I suppose for all Petiole’s faults he understood that as well. Perhaps that is why he acted toward me as he did, perhaps I should have done more to help him.”

“Petiole would have viewed your help with disdain, would have looked upon it as an insult to his authority.” Loftber interjected.

Lief nodded. “I suppose my help would have simply created greater controversy.”

“Indeed, it would have.”

“The same type of controversy you talk about now,” Lief admitted.

Loftber said nothing, simply looked closely at the younger elf before him.

“So where does that leave us?” Lief wondered aloud. He then stopped and returned Loftber’s gaze. “I asked you before if you were going to put the burden of leadership on me and you said it would not be that easy. If you can not lead, and I can not lead, where does this leave us—a problem with no solution?”

“There is a solution,” Standish Loftber said with more than a hint of sorrow, “a bitter one, but a solution none the less. No, you can not lead this camp for you are not the camp elder. You would face the same challenges I would face. The camp will follow you even during difficult times, probably much longer than they would follow me, but if times grew truly dark, their loyalties would eventually be torn between following you and looking to an elder. Elflore is powerful in its guidance to keep us together. If you were to assume the role of leadership, it would be in stark contrast to the very essence of elflore. Eventually, even your leadership would be questioned.”

“Then how can there be a solution?”

Loftber answered quickly this time as if he knew he must forge ahead and any delay would only make it more difficult.

“There can be a solution because it can be possible for an elder to lead. The dilemma occurs only if you are here. If you were not, there would no longer be a question of authority. The problem exists only while you are a member of this camp. Do you understand?”

Lief grimaced as if a sword plunged into his chest, and Loftber continued so as not to let silence deepen the wound.

“If you leave, this camp survives. If you stay, I and the other elders on the council believe we will fall into disarray. You will witness the chaos of anarchy as dark creatures prey on us because we are no longer able to act as one. While it pains me to ask you to leave, understand that if you stayed you would only witness the destruction of your camp.”

“So I am to be exiled, and the camp will follow you as the camp elder?” Lief questioned with an edge of anger beginning to grip his voice.

Loftber answered Lief’s bitterness with somberness of his own.

“It will be a short tenure of leadership. Once I announce that you are leaving the camp at my request and with your agreement, I will announce that I am leaving as well.”

For a brief moment, any trace of Lief’s growing resentment was quickly replaced with bewilderment.

“You’re going to relinquish? Then again the camp will have no leader! This is not making any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Loftber stated with a steadfast determination. “This camp will have a leader, one leader, and a leader that can not be blamed for sending away the legendary Lief Woodson just to accommodate his own weaknesses. I will hand over the camp elder position to the next in line. Shantree Wispon will take over. She will then be in position to lead this camp with no bitterness, and no question to her authority. No one will blame her for your departure, and after you have departed, no one will wonder whether her decisions meet with your approval. I believe she is well suited to handle the situation.”

“I have no doubts about Shantree’s abilities,” Lief argued. “But that is not the point. You are supposed to lead, not her. How can you ask me to leave because it will restrict your ability to lead, and then turn around and avoid what is required of you?”

“Is that it? You think I am simply surrendering my responsibility? No, that is not the case at all. It is just the opposite. I am taking full responsibility. I see clearly what I am doing. First, I am asking you to leave your home, to accept banishment as a reward for your noble actions. You have done nothing for yourself. Your actions saved this camp, indeed the entire elf race. And now I stand here and tell you to go. I believe you will eventually understand why I’m doing this, but that is not nearly enough. If I am to ask that of you, I must be ready to make the same sacrifice myself.

“Think for a moment, Lief. What I ask of you, I feel I must. I do it because I believe it is the only way this camp will survive. If I stay, then it appears I did if for myself, to remove you as a challenge to my authority. I will appear as Petiole, weak and selfish. I could not live with myself. If, however, I accept banishment as well, I will have acted purely in the best interests of this camp. No one can second guess my intentions. No one can for one moment believe that I acted to satisfy my own desires. It is the only way for the situation to truly be resolved. You accept banishment, I accept banishment. We move on and allow this camp to survive as it has for generations and will for generations more.”

The elder elf quickly moved to a related matter so as to make his understanding of the matter as clear as possible.

“There is something else you should know,” Loftber continued. “I will also be asking Holli Brances to leave this camp. For the very same reasons you must leave, she also must go. Holli is a guard and is looked at in a different light than you. She went to Sanctum as part of her duty and she assisted against Yave as a trained member of the elf guard. Still, she now also has her own place in elflore, a legendary standing. If Shantree faces difficult times, and I believe she will with so many dark creatures appearing in our midst, then she can not afford to have anyone in this camp that would be viewed as—what is the best way to put it—an alternative.”

A cloud of confusion began to swirl in Lief’s thoughts. The bitterness he could almost taste was growing. It was becoming hard to think and harder still to control his anger. A sharp question flew from his lips.

“And have you spoken to her of this yet? Have you tried to soften her banishment with your unselfish decision to leave on your own?”

Loftber paused. He did not like the tone of Lief’s voice and liked even less the raging glare that was glowing in the younger elf’s eyes.

“No, but I have no doubt she will agree. I am a camp elder, she is an elf guard. She knows her duty. She will do what I ask, though I believe it will be a greater burden on her than on the two of us.”

“Duty?” Lief almost laughed at this word. “You wish to speak of duty, the all encompassing word that will ensure her cooperation? You can say that word to her and you know she will do as she is told, but you wonder whether or not I will agree?”

“Indeed I do. And that, Lief, is truly an illustration of the problem that exists. If you do not agree, I can not force you. I could order the elf guard to remove you, but I wonder if they would actually follow that order. Only an elf guard might be able to answer that, and I am not ready to put that to the test. The traditions of the elf guard are very strong. I do not wish to be remembered as the elf that destroyed those traditions.”

With this, Lief tensed. His glare became almost hateful and Standish Loftber could actually sense the deep anger that boiled in the younger elf. The elder elf did his best to control the situation and sooth the growing tensions between them.

“As you said, I am the camp elder. You ask me to lead, then I will do so. Any wisdom I can draw on tells me that I am doing exactly what must be done, no matter how difficult it is. I take responsibility for resolving the issue before this camp. If you stop me in this— my first order as leader—then you prove my point and allow the dilemma to continue. If you realize that instead I am doing exactly what you want me to do, what this camp needs me to do—to lead, then you will cease your objections. I need you to withdraw from this camp, to strike out on your own. You are now legend and no one will forget you, but your final days in this land must be spent elsewhere. Where you go, I leave that to you. Once you accept this request, I will also withdraw from this camp and will seek refuge elsewhere. The legend will be gone as will the one that asked him to leave. The camp moves on without both. Do you really wish to continue to debate this with me and prove that my leadership means nothing to you and start our spiral to final oblivion? Look upon the elves below us, see how they all now watch us and understand that there is no other way.”

Lief, however, ignored the stares from the elves below. He vented his ire directly at the elf before him, the elf that represented the elders of this camp that did nothing when Petiole acted so foolishly.

“Words… words of so-called wisdom.” Lief now spoke in a low growl as he tilted his head downward ever so slightly. He brought his glare of sheer anger directly upon Loftber. “How long did it take you and the other elders to put together such an eloquent speech?”

Lief paused only long enough to allow Loftber to open his mouth, but the younger elf pressed forward before a single utterance could be spoken.

“Where were these words when they were needed? You said you didn’t want to be remembered as the elf that destroyed the traditions, is that what you are concerned with… how you will be remembered? Let me tell you how I remember you, as a member of the camp council that did nothing when we faced our greatest dangers. You now think you make a grand sacrifice so your name can be placed in elflore? It would be a disgrace to those that truly belong there if such an attempt was ever made. Here is some truth for you and the other elders, something for you to contemplate during your self-imposed exile. You bickered and argued when Petiole led this camp, the lot of you. You showed all the courage of a yearling deer that bolts at the first snap of a twig. You allowed Petiole to drop the