Bordering on desperation, he made his careful way up the invisible stair to Brisen-ballas, seeking Ardaz, the one man who might understand his troubles.
But the wizard was nowhere to be found.
So Del wandered under the crisp, star-bright skies of winter’s last night. He could not deny the truth of his fears and his feelings, yet he could not escape who he was, the conditioning implanted upon his heart and soul by the years of growing up in a far different world.
He thought back across those centuries as he drifted aimlessly about the elven valley, considered again the amazing course that had brought him to this special place, a winding path that had traded technology for magic, pragmatism for mysticism, humanism for spirituality.
What a wonderful journey indeed! Del only wished that it had led him to a better place within himself…
Chapter 1
The Passage of the Unicorn
THE UNICORN RAN deep, ran smooth, gliding with the ease of an eagle on wing. But no hunter this; she was a ship of peace, the pride of the National Undersea Exploration Team, NUSET, pelagic counterpart of NASA, and the one, soon after the turn of the second millennium, to garner more of the government funding. The disaster at the space station, with seven astronauts dead, a shuttle and the multi-billion dollar station lost, had curtailed NASA’s budget tremendously and dampened the nation’s taste for space exploration.
But scientists had found it easier to sell the public on exploration of the seas, the last great unexplored expanse on the planet. Particularly after yet another disastrous El Nino year, with the warm Pacific water brewing a long series of disastrous storms sweeping across the continental United States; public opinion rang out favorably for the fledgling NUSET.