“What the hell...?” he wheezed in confusion. “How did that happen?”
“I hit you, my dear wizard,” Aeris said from somewhere out of his sight. His voice was strained and low. “Be careful. Something is happening.”
“What are you talking about?”
The air became thick with ozone, to the point where Simon could taste it, metallic on his tongue. He wanted to push himself up and look around, but he was too weak. He could barely turn his head from side to side.
There was a weird feeling inside of his skull, as if something was draining out of it. It wasn't painful, but it was the creepiest thing that the wizard had ever experienced.
'I am free,' Esmiralla's voice said softly, a final thought as her presence faded away.
“She's gone,” Simon murmured, his relief so huge that he felt close to tears. “Finally we're separate again.”
“Don't celebrate too quickly,” Aeris told him, almost in his ear. “Something's wrong.”
“What? What's going on?”
Simon tried to get up but his body wouldn't move. He felt like he was paralyzed, but he knew that it was because every ounce of strength had been sucked out of him. It was frightening and frustrating in equal measure.
“Do not move, master,” Kronk said from his right side. The earthen also sounded like he was inches away.
“Do not move. Something is approaching. Something dangerous.”
“Goddamn it!” Simon hissed. “I can't just lie here like a sacrificial offering. I have to get up!”
“Open your hand, master, and take this,” the little guy whispered.
“Take what?”
The wizard had barely enough strength left to open his right hand. He forced his head to turn slightly in that direction as well.
Kronk was dragging something through the long grass, slowly as if to escape something's notice. He lifted it a bit and placed the end of the long object into the wizard's hand.
Simon tightened his fingers around it and smiled in spite of the circumstances. It was Mortis de Draconis, his dwarven staff. How the little guy had known to bring it along and leave it hidden in the field, just in case it was needed, was a mystery. But the wizard was extremely grateful.
The staff wasn't sentient and yet, at its touch, a surge of energy ran up his arm and into his body. It tingled and itched like an electrical current and his muscles sucked it in like a sponge absorbing water. In a matter of seconds, Simon had enough strength to push himself up on his elbows.
“Stay down,” Aeris told him quickly. “It's not over.”
“What's not over?” Simon asked, bewildered. “Esmiralla's gone. I can feel it. So that should be that.”
“It isn't. Look.”
Aeris pointed at the bonfire, which was blazing impossibly bright, ten foot high flames shooting toward the heavens. The egg, glowing a brilliant orange-red at the heart of the fire, had doubled in size and was rocking violently back and forth.
“What the hell?”
It was at that moment that the fire died completely. It almost looked like the egg had sucked the flames into itself. All light was extinguished except for the fiercely glowing red ovoid, now pulsing like a giant heart.
“Back away, master,” Kronk urged Simon and he began to yank at his shirt.
“Yeah, not a bad idea,” the wizard replied.
He was still too weak to stand so Simon pushed himself backwards through the thick grass with his hands and arms, dragging his staff awkwardly along with him. Aeris pulled him by one shoulder and Kronk by the other and the three moved in a weird, crab-like scuttle. It wasn't fast but it was steady.
They made it about twenty yards.
“Stop, guys,” Simon told the elementals. “Stop.”
“What is it?” Aeris asked and rose up a couple of feet to look back at the pulsing egg.
It was throbbing faster now, blinking like a red fluorescent strobe light. With each flash, it grew a little larger. It was now as big around as Simon was tall, but cracks had appeared, blazing a brilliant ivory through the red shell. A chalk-like white totally devoid of color.
“I think it's going to blow. Get close to me!”
The two small figures moved in closer to Simon, standing next to his arms.
The wizard didn't know whether he had enough power left to use magic, but it looked like the alternative would be to be ripped apart if the egg shattered violently, so he had no choice.
“Shield,” he said through gritted teeth, expecting pain.
Instead a dome of energy, just large enough to protect him and the elementals, appeared around him. He could feel the power flowing, not from himself, but up through his body from the staff.
“Wow,” he whispered. “Thanks Mortis.”
And then the egg exploded.
Chapter 8
Simon was tossed across the meadow by the force of the explosion along with Aeris and Kronk. The three of them bounced against the inside of his shield but fortunately, except for a few bruises that were caused by the earthen smacking into him, the wizard was unhurt when they stopped rolling.
“Whoa,” Simon managed to say when he'd caught his breath. “Everyone okay?”
“We are fine, master. Are you injured?”
“Bumps and bruises, my friend; nothing more.”
“Sorry about head-butting you, master,” Kronk said, looking away in embarrassment.
Simon chuckled.
“No worries. We were all flung around randomly. Now, what happened to that damned egg?”
The center of the field was obscured by heavy clouds of smoke. The thick black fog roiled and churned like a living thing. Simon and the others watched intently.
“I wonder if it did a lot of damage?” Aeris said.
“To what? It might have blown a hole into the ground, but that's easily mended,” the wizard replied absently as he waited for the smoke to clear.
A shrill, distant cry made him forget about the explosion. Simon knew that sound.
“Master,” Kronk said urgently. “Get up. Dragon!”
“I know.”
Simon pushed himself shakily to his feet using his staff. His legs were still wobbly but at least he could stand.
“Where is it? Can either of you see it?” he asked as he scanned the night sky, looking for any sign of a dragon.
“Not yet,” Aeris said as he rose up to head height. “But it sounded like it was a long way off. It may pass us by.”
“I doubt it,” Kronk told him.
The little guy was looking at the cloud of smoke, darker than the night around it.
“It might have seen the egg exploding,” he continued worriedly. “In the dark, the flash could have caught its attention from a great distance.”
“Great,” the wizard groaned. He stretched his sore back, leaning on his staff for support. “Just what I don't need, a frigging dragon attack.”
“Where is Esmiralla?” Aeris wondered, peering at the smoke. Even with the evening breeze, the heavy cloud seemed reluctant to dissipate.
“You think she's in there?” Simon asked as he tried to watch both the sky and the smoke. “I felt her leave. It seemed like she withdrew a great distance.”
“Then why did the egg explode, master? I thought it was a metaphor for her breaking out of the merging between the two of you.”
“Really? Is that how the magic worked?”
The little guy scratched his rocky head loudly.
“That was my guess, master. Perhaps not, thought. This magic is new to me.”
The haunting cry was repeated, but the echoes around the glade frustrated the group's efforts to locate the source.
“It sounds...weird, don't you think?” Simon asked as he turned in a slow circle, scanning the starry sky.
Aeris snorted in disgust.
“It's a dragon, my dear wizard. Isn't that weird enough?”
“I don't mean that, wise guy. I mean, even for a dragon it sounds strange. Could it be injure
d maybe?”
The answer appeared abruptly, right over their heads.
A flash of bright light and a streak of fire lit up the sky and a glittering vision soared into view.
“It's Esmiralla,” Simon gasped. “Oh, I'd forgotten how beautiful she is.”
The silver dragon banked and glided down in a tight circle toward the clearing.
“She is that,” Aeris whispered reverently and Simon was reminded that the air elementals had once almost worshiped the silver dragons.
“Master?”
The wizard continued to watch the dragon, lost in her splendor. Her silver scales glowed in the darkness and, even at her size, she flew with a delicate touch that he'd never seen in any of the chaotic dragons. Maybe it was because she was the first female dragon that he had ever seen, except for the monstrous queen.
“Master!” Kronk repeated, tugging at his pant leg.
“Yes Kronk, what is it?” Simon asked irritably, tearing his gaze away from Esmiralla.
He looked down at the little guy and the earthen pointed across the field.
“We have been deceived,” he stated flatly.
“What?”
Simon followed Kronk's pointing finger and then stumbled backwards so quickly he fell over. His shield had faded and he landed on his back hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
He lay gasping like a fish out of water while Aeris looked down at him in confusion.
“What exactly is wrong with you now, oh great one?” he asked curiously.
The wizard couldn't seem to catch his breath and simply pushed himself up a bit and pointed.
The three of them stared upward with a mixture of shock, fear and awe. The smoke had finally blown away, but instead of a simple hole in the ground, a towering figure stood there, dwarfing the trees of the forest beyond it.
“I live again,” a bass voice made of glass and steel said. The meadow trembled in response.
Esmiralla reached the ground, back-winged and landed delicately near the towering figure that took up half of the field.
“Greetings, my lord,” she said in her oddly feminine voice.
She folded her silver wings gracefully over her back and lowered her head almost to the ground.
Towering over Esmiralla was a creature that Simon could not believe even existed.
Stretching at least a hundred feet long from horned head to wickedly spiked tail, it was a dragon. Its eyes were as sapphire-blue as the silver dragon's, but slanted like a cat's. Its scales were blazingly bright, metallic but neither silver nor white. A pale forked tongue flickered in its fanged mouth, tasting the air like a monstrous snake.
The strange creature looked down at the bowing silver dragon and Simon thought that it looked confused. Its heavy brows came together and it tilted its head slightly.
“Esmiralla, isn't it?” it rumbled.
“Yes, lord. I am grateful that you remember someone as unimportant as I.”
“Rise, child. You need not bow to me. And you are not unimportant. We are equals, you and I.”
She raised her head but kept her eyes focused on the ground.
“We are far from that, my lord. But I will not argue with you. We have much to discuss but first, allow me to present to you the one who made your rebirth possible.”
She swung her head around and fixed Simon with a steely gaze. The wizard had managed to stand, still wobbly, and met her eyes as calmly as possible.
“Simon O'Toole, wizard, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to one of the greatest of my people, Argentium, also known as the argent dragon. My lord, this is the wizard who enabled me to recall you from the Void.”
“Ah.”
Argentium took one step toward the wizard. The ground shook so violently that Simon almost fell down again and was only saved by Aeris grabbing his sweater by the shoulder and Kronk bracing his knees.
“Thanks guys,” he whispered.
He craned his neck back and stared almost straight up. The argent dragon's head towered thirty feet above him and blocked out the stars overhead.
The dragon peered down at him, his huge jeweled eyes glowing against the darkness.
“So I have you to thank for my resurrection, human?” he asked, his voice making Simon's body quiver.
“I have no idea,” he shouted back, hoping the dragon could actually hear him. “I was just told that Esmiralla was using her magic to separate herself from my consciousness. You are a...surprise.”
There's a hell of an understatement, Simon thought wryly.
“What is this?”
Argentium whipped his head around and stared at the silver dragon.
“Am I hearing this correctly? Did you use subterfuge to summon me back to the mortal realm?”
Esmiralla backed up a step and seemed to wilt, her wings drooping under the argent dragon's glare.
“I...my lord, it was necessary. I did not know if this wizard would agree to give up a part of himself to bring you back.”
“Necessary? How was it necessary? Did you even bother to ask him?”
“Wait!” Simon shouted. “Hang on a minute!”
Amazingly both dragons turned to look down at him. Esmiralla actually had to move over a step to see him around Argentium's body.
“What was that about giving a part of myself? What part?”
He looked down at his body, but his limbs were all intact and all he had to show for the ceremony were a few bruises. He wasn't even bleeding from a scrape or cut.
Esmiralla hesitated and Argentium glowered at her.
“Tell him,” he commanded sternly.
“Yes, my lord. Wizard...Simon, please understand. I needed the dragon egg and the two kinds of draconian blood to reassemble Argentium's essence. But we dragons are physical beings. We are immortal but not indestructible. We are magical but not natural spell-casters. So I needed a piece of a mortal, a mortal who could use magic. You are the strongest spell-caster in this world, and the only good wizard, so you were the logical choice.”
“So you just used me, is that it?” he said loudly, trying not to show his anger. It was threatening to overwhelm him and he did not want to lose control.
“And killing the primal red dragon? Was that planned or just a happy coincidence? If you hadn't needed me for this ritual, would you have merged with me and saved me from the explosive death of the primal?”
“No,” she said and hung her head. “No, I would not have. I needed you alive for the ceremony. Alive and healthy.”
“And the cost? What did you take from me?”
“Something you will never miss, I am sure. A trifle really.”
“Tell him!” Argentium repeated in a thunderous voice.
“A kidney. One little kidney. You have two, after all. The second one is more of an evolutionary afterthought. You will be fine.”
Simon gaped at her in total shock. He looked down at the elementals and they stared back, their expressions mirroring his own.
“You violated me,” he said, barely able to speak. How the dragons heard him was a mystery, but they obviously did.
“Now, now. It was hardly a violation,” Esmiralla said quickly. “I merely...”
“You ripped out one of my organs, you crazy bitch!” he screamed at her.
The silver dragon reared back, her expression changing to one of fury.
“You dare speak to me like that? You dare!”
“Silence!” Argentium roared.
His massive head whipped around and slammed into Esmiralla. Impossibly, the silver dragon was lifted off her feet and flung into the forest to land with a resounding crash. Trees and leaves were thrown in all directions. Sleeping birds and animals suddenly began screeching and calling, their confused cries filling the night. The ground bucked as if an earthquake had struck and the wizard almost lost his footing again.
Argentium turned his head and extended his neck downward to stare at Simon. His eyes and maw filled all of the wizard's sight.
“I cannot undo what that fool has done, wizard. Would that I could. She brought me back for the right reasons but in absolutely the wrong way. I am shamed beyond words. What can I do to make amends?”
Simon was shaking, still trying to wrap his mind around what the silver dragon had done to him. He looked up at Argentium, feeling numb.
“Nothing. Just...leave me. Take that treacherous creature and go away. I never want to see either of you again.”
Argentium sighed, sending a hot wind whipping past the wizard and blowing leaves and grass into the air.
“As you wish. But know this: if you have need of my aid, you simply need to call upon me and it is yours. I shall take the fight to the dragons of Chaos and their masters, I assure you of that. Be well, wizard. And, even though this was done against your will, thank you for giving me life once more. I shall not waste it, I promise you.”
Simon could only nod. He had nothing more to say to either of them.
“On your feet,” the argent dragon snapped at Esmiralla. “Get up and follow me.”
The wizard could see the glowing form of the silver dragon struggling to stand in the middle of the wreckage her fall had created. When she was on her feet again, Argentium leaped upward. His massive wings flapped once and carried him away into the purple sky.
Esmiralla hesitated a moment and she turned her head to look at Simon. From a hundred yards away, their eyes seemed to meet and all the wizard saw was sorrow and regret. It didn't touch him at all.
She looked up, leaped toward the starry sky and was gone.
All that was left of the nightmarish experience was the remnants of the bonfire, crushed beneath the weight of the argent dragon. The grass of the field was churned up and a wide swath of trees at the far edge of the clearing had been torn out by their roots and flattened by the silver dragon.
“What a mess,” Simon said to fill the sudden silence.
The forest had quickly become quiet again and the moon was slowly descending.
“Come along, master, and have some tea,” Kronk urged with a gentle nudge against Simon's leg.
“Yes, let's head inside, my dear wizard. You have earned a good rest.”
Simon had to smile at their concern. He might have been betrayed by Esmiralla, but he could always trust these two.
Tales from the New Earth: Volume Two Page 50