“That's true. So what do you want me to do? Order him to stay behind? You know that I won't do that. I don't command any elemental and I never will. You all work for me voluntarily; you aren't slaves.”
“I know. I know. It's funny but, for the first time, I almost wish that you were more like the wizards of old.”
“The slave masters?” Simon asked sharply. “From what all of you have told me, the ancient wizards were horrible, arrogant human beings. I will never be like them!”
Aeris rose up to eye level again and smiled at him.
“Easy does it, my dear wizard. I only meant that they exercised some control over their summoned helpers. You, on the other hand, do not.”
“No, I don't,” Simon agreed, his anger fading as quickly as it came. “Look, if you want me to suggest to Orriss that he remain here, I can talk to him about it. But that's the best that I can do.”
“Never mind then. I think that I'd rather have him where I can see him and keep him safe, rather than take the chance that he'll head off on his own and perhaps share the same fate as his brother.”
“Agreed.”
“Okay then, I'm off. Call me tomorrow and I'll update you on our status.”
The elemental cocked his head to the side slightly.
“Do we still have permission to teleport directly back to the tower if necessary? It's a lot faster than flying the whole way.”
“Always. Tell Brethia and Orriss they are permitted to do the same. Better safe than sorry.”
Aeris nodded and vanished, leaving the wizard alone to worry about whether or not he'd made the right decision. Unfortunately there was no easy answer to that question.
The next few days were a weird time for Simon. Even though his outside wall was still manned by a handful of earth elementals, the tower itself was almost completely silent, with Kronk away in England and Aeris off searching for the dragon queen's nest. He didn't like it.
It was one thing to live a solitary existence; he preferred it that way. But it was another to be totally alone without any friends to talk to. It made him realize how very precious the two elementals were to him.
I'd better not tell Aeris that, he thought with a quick flash of humor. His smugness level would go through the roof. Although I suspect that he already knows.
But because he needed a distraction from the sudden hollow silence of his home, Simon decided to go on a little adventure of his own, of sorts. He sat in his study for an hour with the atlas opened on his desk and jotted down the coordinates of several places on Earth that he'd never been to, back in the old days. He was curious to know how they might have changed since the return of magic to the world.
Kronk would lose his mind if he knew that I was going to do something like this, he thought as he slipped the list of locations along with their coordinates into his robe and hurried downstairs to get his staff.
He felt a giddy exhilaration, as if he was being a naughty child.
Hey, I'm allowed the occasional field trip too, he reassured himself. I mean, who's the wizard here anyway?
He grabbed Mortis de Draconis from its resting place beside the front door and headed outside.
At the front gate, Simon looked up at the wall and spotted an earthen trotting along on patrol. He called up to it.
“Yes, my lord?” the elemental replied. “How may I help you?”
“I just wanted to let you and the others know that I'll be out for a while. Please keep the gates sealed until I return, okay? No one gets in unless it's one of the elementals who works for me.”
“Of course, sir wizard,” the earthen told him in his gravelly voice. “I will pass along your message to the others and lock the rear gate myself.”
“Thanks. I'll be back soon.”
The elemental bowed and hurried off in the direction of the back gate.
Good, that's taken care off, Simon thought. Now let's see here; where should I go first?
He pulled out his list, closed his eyes and pointed at it blindly. When he opened them again, he looked at the name and numbers that his forefinger was touching and grinned.
“Okay then. Pyramids of Giza, here I come.”
He memorized the coordinates, slipped the paper back into his pocket and grounded his staff. Then he summoned a shield and focused his will.
“Gate!”
“Wow,” Simon murmured a few minutes later as he turned in a slow circle, his shield shimmering in the twilight. “I wasn't sure that they'd survived.”
He was standing on the summit of the Great Pyramid, with the sun sinking in a glory of orange and red in the west. On one side of him, the endless desert stretched out as far as the eye could see, the eternal Nile still flowing, oblivious to the fate of mankind.
On the other side lay the ruins of the ancient city of Cairo, leveled on the Night of Burning. It was a sobering sight.
“I wonder if anyone survived,” he asked himself. “It's possible, I suppose. There must have been six or seven million people living here before the dragons struck.”
He ground his teeth in useless wrath. What was done was done. The problem hadn't just been the initial dragon attack; it had been the army of drakes that were sent in to ferret out any survivors. It had proven to be a damnably efficient system of extermination.
A hot wind blew by the wizard, making his robe billow and flap around him like wings. There was only the scent of dry sand in the air and Simon could feel his nostrils pinch shut at the lack of moisture. How the Nile wound through the arid desert the way that it did had never made sense to him, but there it still was.
He looked down at the base of the pyramid, still visible in the fading light.
“Might as well poke around for a bit, as long as I can still see.”
He focused on a barren stretch of ground.
“Gate.”
The teleportation took less than a second and then he was abruptly looking back up at the top of the enormous edifice.
Quite the change in perspective, he thought as he absorbed the size of the pyramid in its entirety. How ancient man had built this thing was beyond him. Maybe it was actually older than anyone had thought and had been constructed using magic? It was an intriguing idea.
Simon began walking the perimeter of the massive construct, stepping over scattered rocks and avoiding larger blocks of stone. He was examining the sides of the pyramid, looking for the entrance. He wondered whether anyone had taken cover inside the passages of the building when the dragons struck.
In the end, it wasn't that hard to find. Legions of tourists' feet had worn enough of a path in the hard ground that traces were still easy to spot.
The wizard climbed up the side of the pyramid and summoned a mage light as darkness fell like a blanket over the desert. The silence was eerie and, as he stepped inside of the structure, Simon paused a moment to wonder whether this was a good idea.
It can't hurt to just take a look around, he thought hesitantly. The place is lifeless.
It was much cooler inside of the pyramid and he felt a chill crawl up his spine as he moved slowly along the main passageway, the dust he disturbed rising to float around him like a thin fog. There was an odd scent in the air, a hint of putrefaction, as if something had crawled into the darkness and died. It was a disturbing thought.
He was tempted to climb all the way through to the fabled King's Chamber that he remembered seeing on television shows, but the atmosphere was just too creepy.
God only knows what might be lurking in there, he told himself as he looked down the tunnel beyond the radius of his magical light. I'm out to explore, not get eaten by something horrible.
Once upon a time, such an idea would have just been the product of an overactive imagination. But now? Now the nightmares had been made real and he'd seen enough of them firsthand not to seek out more on his own.
Simon pulled out his list with trembling fingers and read off a random set of coordinates. He spared a final thought for the ancient pharaoh
s that had once ruled in Egypt and then Gated away. His mage light disappeared in an explosion of multi-colored sparks.
In the darkness that the wizard left behind, something monstrous growled to itself and settled back into an uneasy sleep.
So this is the Grand Canyon, Simon thought with wonder and surprise.
He had just jerked back from the edge of a precipice with a yelp of surprise. His coordinates had been a little too precise and he had exited the Void at the very lip of the massive canyon. Fortunately he wasn't afraid of heights.
“Awesome,” he muttered. “It's enormous.”
It was as dry here as it had been a moment before in Egypt, but way down at the bottom of the canyon, a layer of mist rose from the winding waters of the Colorado River. Simon could see a ribbon of green growing along its distant shores and he was curious to know what sort of life existed down there now.
Up at the top of the abyss, the ground was dotted with stubborn, stunted trees that looked long dead. Rough boulders and heaps of sand and gravel gave the country an image of almost moon-like desolation.
I wonder if it was always like this, Simon thought as he reached down and grabbed a handful of gritty dirt. Or was this an effect of the magic that had altered the whole world in some way?
He dribbled the soil between his fingers and watched it drift away in the arid wind. As he wiped his hand on his robe, a quick shadow passed over him and he whirled around and looked up at the sky.
Another shadow flashed past and then another.
“Whoa,” he whispered in awe.
Soaring majestically hundreds of feet over Simon's head were creatures that he'd never seen before, not even in pictures. Perhaps they were ancient monsters out of legend, but if they were, he'd never heard of them.
Enormous wings covered with multi-colored feathers stretched out at least a dozen feet on either side of the creatures' bodies. But these weren't bird-like forms. Instead, the wizard stared in amazement at what looked like human-shaped figures, gliding and soaring with ease in the pale desert sky.
Long hair whipped behind them and Simon could see distinct arms and legs even at such a great distance. They looked for all the world like angels.
Or demons, came a cold thought. The creatures might have had beautiful plumage, but their bodies were dark and stick-like; thin almost to the point of emaciation. And as he listened carefully, the wizard could hear piercing screeches as the flyers called to each other. They sounded vicious.
Simon counted a dozen or more of the things and he was grateful that either they hadn't noticed him or they were ignoring him. Either way, he decided that a hasty retreat was in order.
Rather than travel to another set of coordinates on his list, the wizard decided to get a closer look at the river at the base of the canyon. He picked out a distinctive rock formation and focused his will upon as he raised his staff.
“Gate,” he said and was yanked forward by an unseen hand as he slipped into the Void.
A moment later he was standing several feet above the raging waters of the river on a rocky outcrop. The air was filled with a steady roar of sound as the water raced along its ancient path.
Simon looked up at the distant rim of the gorge with wonder. It appeared even farther away from down below. He was pleased to see no signs of the mysterious flying creatures from down here. He had a feeling that, whatever they were, they weren't benevolent beings.
He carefully picked his way down off of the outcropping until he stood beside the flowing waters. Using his staff to steady himself, he squatted down and ran his fingers through the liquid. It was surprisingly cool to the touch, but looked clean and free of pollution.
A cure for humanity's environmental sins, he thought bitterly as he stood up again. Just wipe us out. Problem solved.
A distant echo of sound from downstream got his attention as it rose above the rumble of the river. It sounded like horses whinnying.
Horses? Down here? How is that possible?
He got his answer quickly as a large creature breached the surface of the water a hundred feet away.
With the head and torso of a horse and the long trailing body of a serpent, a pale monster leaped up from the river and dove out of sight again.
“A hippocampus,” Simon gasped, remembering an illustration he'd seen of the mythical beast. “Oh my God.”
It wasn't just an aberration either. Two more water horses leaped out of the river as he watched, apparently just for the sheer joy of it.
“So beautiful,” he said softly. “How can something that looks so awkward be so graceful?”
He leaned on his staff and just watched with a quiet joy as the creatures jumped and played together. Whether they could see him or not, they totally ignored the wizard and he was allowed to observe them without interruption.
Finally the three water horses drifted downstream and around a far bend of the river and Simon let out a long sigh. The trip had already been worth it, just to have seen what he had seen. But now his legs were getting tired and he looked around for a soft spot to sit down and rest.
A small clump of dried grasses a few feet from the flowing waters proved to be comfortable enough and he sat down with a grateful groan. He slipped off his shoes and stretched out his legs until his feet were immersed in the cool liquid. It felt wonderful.
How long has it been since I've been totally alone and on my own, he wondered as he leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the sky. Years probably. It was a nice change, at least for a day.
Perhaps it was the sense of peace brought on by his surroundings, or maybe it was simple exhaustion, but Simon found himself drifting off to sleep to the singing of the river. His shield flickered and faded as his eyes closed.
Chapter 4
“I think that it looks better than the original,” Tamara said happily.
She was standing on a hill that rose above the surrounding forest. It gave her an excellent view of the new Nottinghill Castle, two miles away. Even at that distance, the mage felt dwarfed by the massive building.
“How much bigger is it?” she asked the rocky little figure that was standing next to her.
Kronk was smiling with pleasure at her compliment and looked away from the new building to stare up at her.
“Almost twice as large, lady mage,” he rumbled politely. “Your choice to expand the castle gives your people a lot of room to grow in the coming years. You may house several thousand humans in there comfortably now. And if you want any renovations, you need simply ask for my master's aid and I am sure that he will send me and the other earthen back to help you.”
There were several people staring across the tops of the trees at the distant castle, including Tamara, her brother Sebastian, Malcolm and Liliana. They had gathered together when the elemental announced that the construction work was finally finished.
“You and your friends have achieved wonders in a very short time, Kronk,” Sebastian told him warmly. “We'll be sending a message down to the dwarven capital later today and with luck they'll start ferrying our people home tomorrow. I'm sure that the excitement level will be very high.”
“My excitement level is pretty damned high right now,” Malcolm told them all with a wide grin. “And Aiden has already started talking about decorating our rooms.”
He rolled his eyes as the others laughed.
“What the hell do I know about curtains and colors? I tried telling him that whatever he decides is fine, but he insists on my input. I predict several loud discussions between us in the near future.”
“Try not to break anything,” Tamara warned as she shook a finger at him. “We're going to be relying on the dwarves for most of our new furniture and I don't want you two breaking things during one of your 'discussions'.”
“No promises,” Malcolm replied with a heavy sigh. “Aiden may look calm on the surface, but get him riled up and that Korean blood in his veins starts to boil.”
Liliana stood apart from the others an
d stared at the castle, her expression inscrutable. Tamara walked over to her while the two men continued joking with each other and looked at her curiously.
“Is something wrong?” she asked quietly. “You look...less than impressed.”
The paladin shook her head as she kept her eyes on the distant building.
“No, I am very pleased by the results of our elemental friends' efforts. I'm thinking more about what that castle represents.”
“Which is?”
Liliana turned to look directly into Tamara's eyes.
“It's a huge middle finger directed squarely at the gods of Chaos. They used their servants to tear down the old castle and build their dark tower. And now, with the help of the argent dragon, we've destroyed that symbol of the gods' power and rebuilt the castle bigger and better than ever. Don't you think that they will want to retaliate in some way?”
The mage snorted and contemplated their new home.
“How? Their dragons are destroyed; their necromancers as well. And they are still scratching at the wall between the Void and this universe, fighting their endless war with the lords of Justice. What exactly can they do against us now? Our greatest dangers are the many new monsters that are springing up in the world around us, not the old gods.”
Liliana frowned at the almost flippant tone in Tamara's voice.
“And the dragon queen and her new brood? Are you not concerned about that? Couldn't that be the result of the Chaos lords' interference? And what about the goblins and the ogres? The evil gods still have many servants out there in the world.”
The mage's expression darkened.
“Yes, of course I'm concerned. Don't mistake confidence for foolishness, my friend. But we are in a much better position now, especially with the new castle, than we were even a couple of years ago. All of our magic-users are more skillful now; our warriors are as well. We have added several very powerful members to our little community, including the Zhang brothers and the three mages that were living in that cave.”
Tales from the New Earth: Volume Two Page 123