Tales from the New Earth: Volume One

by Thompson, J. J.

  “Master! You made it!” the elemental exclaimed with relief.

  Simon looked up at the green dragon. It had banked away from the tower once the wards had been activated and was now circling high up in the air, its long neck extended as it scanned the ground.

  “Not yet,” the wizard told Kronk. “Do me a favor, would you? Take Chief to the stable and unsaddle him? Walk him around until he cools off, give him some water and then get ready to let all three horses out so that they can run to the lake.”

  Kronk looked up at him in confusion.

  “You want to send them beyond the protective shield, master? The dragon would probably kill them out of spite.”

  “I know that. I said to get them ready, not to release them yet. I'll let you know when.”

  “As you wish, master,” the earthen said dubiously.

  Simon handed him the reins and Chief followed Kronk slowly as he led the horse back toward the stable.

  Aeris flew out of the front door and hurried up to Simon.

  “You're alive,” he said with some relief. “Good.”

  He looked up at the massive outline of the green dragon, malevolently circling the tower, occasionally bellowing in fury.

  “You've made it mad, I see. Well done.”

  Simon had to grin at the familiar sarcasm.

  “And now you've led it back to our home.” Aeris looked at the wizard quizzically. “An act of desperation or some wild scheme?”

  Simon bent over, shook his hair to clear out the bits of dirt and bark and then threw back his head to get the hair off of his face. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with a sleeve.

  “A bit of both, I suppose,” he told the elemental absently, still watching the green dragon. “Obviously our ugly friend up there knows that there's a shield around the tower. Do you think it could smash through if it wanted to?”

  Aeris floated next to Simon's shoulder and followed his gaze.

  Night was descending in earnest now and the stars began to shine brightly in the purple sky. The dragon shone with its own putrid green light, still trailing a cloud of glowing gas behind it.

  “At a guess, I'd say yes. But, large or not, it would be wounded in the attempt, perhaps quite badly. Something I'm sure it is aware of.”

  “Ah, so that's why it's biding its time. Good.”

  Simon hurried up the front steps and into the tower.

  “So what is this crazy plan?” Aeris asked as he followed him inside.

  Simon held up a hand and drew a large glass of water from the pump at the kitchen sink. He drank it off in great gulps and then stood leaning on the counter, breathing deeply.

  “Ah, I needed that,” he said finally. He splashed some cold water on his face, wiped it off with a dish towel and then crossed to the stairs.

  “I'm heading for the roof. Come on and I'll fill you in.”

  He ran up the stairs as quickly as his tired legs could carry him, Aeris floating along behind him.

  Once he had opened the trapdoor to the roof and climbed out, he looked up until he had spotted the circling green dragon.

  “Close the door, would you?” Simon asked the air elemental, and Aeris lowered the trapdoor carefully and joined the wizard in watching the dragon.

  “You realize that we are trapped here, don't you?” he asked Simon quietly. “If you try to Gate out and escape, I'm sure that the dragon will know and will attack at once.”

  The wizard looked at Aeris and smiled, looking pleased.

  “Yes, I know. In fact, I'm counting on it.”

  “You're...? Are you mad? That creature is more powerful and much more clever than the primal black dragon. If you are thinking of trying something creative, it could backfire.”

  Simon's smile faded and his face became grim. A cool breeze stirred his hair and rippled the robe along his body. Bene-Dunn-Gal was in his right hand.

  “I know. There is no chance of me destroying it one on one. I hit it with a Fireball spell and it only made it mad. So I have to try to trick it. The one thing that this dragon shares with the black is its arrogance. It waited to attack me back at Heather's place. I thought at first that it might be a little afraid of me.”

  He snorted at the idea.

  “But it isn't. These creatures are too old and too powerful to fear anything, especially not a human, even if he is a wizard. No, it was disdain. It was toying with me, mocking me. It was playing with me the way a shark will toy with its prey, circling it and nibbling at it until it is ready to strike.”

  He nodded toward the dragon.

  “That's what it's doing now.”

  “So what do you plan to do?” Aeris asked nervously.

  Simon looked at him again and tried to smile reassuringly. He didn't think it worked very well.

  “First, I'm going to intensify the wards. I want them as powerful as possible.”

  “Intensify? But, how? These are the strongest wards that the spell-book contains.”

  “Watch,” Simon said and moved to stand in the center of the roof. He held Bene-Dunn-Gal aloft and stared at it intently for a long moment. And then with a cry, he slammed the staff on to the stone in front of him, the end digging slightly into the surface of the roof.

  Aeris drew back, wide-eyed, as arcs of power, like lightning, erupted from the jewel at the top of the staff and shot out in four directions, hitting each ward that was embedded into the edges of the roof at the four points of the compass.

  A sizzle, like the magnified sound of burning meat, cut through the air and the stench of ozone rose up from the wards.

  The effect only lasted a moment and then Simon slumped forward and rested both hands on Bene-Dunn-Gal, using it to stay on his feet.

  “Simon? Are you all right?” Aeris asked quickly as he flew toward the wizard.

  “Whew. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay.”

  Simon straightened slowly, a crease of strain cutting the skin between his eyebrows.

  “That was a little more...intense than I thought it would be.”

  The elemental's eyes widened a bit.

  “You have another streak of white in your hair, my dear wizard,” he said gently.

  “Not surprising, I suppose. I'll be an old man before this body gets through puberty.”

  The smell of ozone still hung over the roof and Aeris looked around in confusion.

  “What just happened? The wind has faded and I can't hear the sounds of the forest anymore.”

  Simon looked up at the green dragon as it slowly swam through the night sky. A blast of green poison shot ahead of it as it roared, apparently in response to the tightening of the wards. But neither the wizard nor Aeris could hear it.

  “I've sealed the tower completely. A fly couldn't get in here now. Not even a microbe could slip in, I'd say.”

  “But Simon, that's crazy! Kronk and I don't need to breathe, except when we speak, but you'll run out of oxygen in minutes.”

  The wizard pushed back his hair and nodded as he watched the green.

  “I know. Now, here is what you need to do. Go down to the stable and tell Kronk to get the horses ready. Move them to the back gate and wait. In five minutes, I'm going to drop the shield around the tower. That will be your cue to get them and yourselves out of here.”

  He turned and gazed levelly at Aeris.

  “Do you understand?”

  The air elemental scowled.

  “Of course I don't understand. Do you really want to die? The dragon will know instantly when the shield drops and it will attack at once. You won't stand a chance.”

  Simon shrugged.

  “I know,” he said. “You have five minutes starting now. Go!”

  “But...”

  “Go! Or do you want me to order you?”

  Aeris shook his head in surrender.

  “No, I don't. All right, you crazy wizard. I'm going.”

  He began to turn away, stopped and shook a finger at Simon.

  “But remember, retreating to fight ano
ther day is not cowardice. Sometimes it's just wise.”

  And with a pop, the air elemental disappeared.

  Simon closed his eyes wearily and nodded once to himself.

  “And sometimes it isn't an option,” he said quietly.

  Slipping Bene-Dunn-Gal over his shoulder, Simon crossed the roof, opened the trapdoor and slipped inside.

  He hurried down the stairs, pausing once to pat the sturdy stone wall of the tower.

  “Built by men, reinforced by earth elementals. I hope you survive this. I'm rather fond of my home.”

  He gave the wall a final affectionate pat and then headed down the stairs to the first floor.

  Simon left the tower and closed the door firmly behind him. He tapped it with his staff and heard the bolts lock behind him. Then he went down the steps and moved to stand in the middle of the yard between the tower and the gates.

  Faintly, from the rear of the building, he heard a loud whinny.

  Good, he thought. The horses are in place.

  He wiped his sweaty palms on his robe, slipped the staff off his shoulder and rested it on the ground.

  The air was becoming stale and dry. He coughed a bit and cleared his throat and then, from memory, chanted an incantation and left it hanging in the air, uninvoked. It felt like prickles of static electricity against his skin.

  “Here we go,” he said to no one in particular and, raising his staff, dropped the ward's shield around the tower.

  A slap of wind, held back and feeling almost resentful, blew across the yard and over his body. The smell of the night and the sounds of the surrounding forest returned instantly and Simon felt a measure of gratitude for their familiar presence.

  But then the sound of reality got his attention. A roar of triumph and spite shivered down from above and he looked up to see a green arrow of terror dropping out of the sky, straight at him.

  “Shield,” he said quickly and ran around the corner of the tower to escape from the dragon's sight.

  A rush of green-tinged wind followed by a earth-shaking shudder rippling through the ground announced the dragon's arrival. Simon fell against the wall of the tower as the convulsion under his feet sent him reeling. The Shield spell bounced him, unhurt, off of the wall and he finally found his balance and then stood quietly, waiting.

  “So, this is how the great wizard greets his nemesis? By cowering in the shadows?”

  The dragon had lowered the volume of his voice, but the air still rang and throbbed in Simon's ears from the sound.

  “Come now, your magic has failed you, little wizard. You cannot run and you cannot hide. If I must, I shall tear down this puny hovel of yours to find you. But let us face each other with some dignity, as least. Come out, and your end will have a touch of nobility to it.”

  Oh, the monster is loving this, Simon thought angrily. He bit his lip so that he wouldn't begin flinging insults at it. Not yet, he told himself. Not yet.

  With a deep breath, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, the wizard threw back his shoulders and stepped around the corner of the tower to face the dragon one last time.

  Chapter 26

  The green dragon's bulk was stuffed into the space between the front of the tower and the outer wall. It had writhed itself into a heap like the snakes it resembled and its head reared up higher than the top of the tower.

  As Simon stepped into view, a high-pitched hiss, not unlike the sound of a steam whistle, came from the creature's throat and its blazing yellow eyes widened in anticipation.

  “And here you are,” it said in a voice that could have been wrapped in honey, it was so sweetly satisfied. “Found your courage at last, have you? Good, good. I have wasted too much time with you already. I grow tired of our game of, what do you humans call it, cat and mouse? Yes.”

  The massive head dipped toward the wizard and he stumbled backwards as it overwhelmed his senses. Six feet over his head, it stopped and he saw his skinny little body reflected in eyes that were as large as he was.

  They blinked once, slowly, and contemplated him with obvious contempt.

  “All of this trouble for one tiny ape. Do you know, your ancestors were giants compared to you. Their power almost rivaled our own. Can you imagine it? It was wise of the dark ones to retreat into the Void and take the magic with them. It destroyed the elder wizards and now the way is almost clear for the gods to return. What a triumph it will be.”

  A small cloud of greenish gas had begun to gather around Simon's shield and he knew that it was the only reason that he wasn't choking on his last breath. Strangely, the thick gas dribbled like heavy fog from the dragon's jagged maw and the beast kept its head high above the poisonous cloud.

  “Retreat from the world?” Simon found his voice at last. “They didn't retreat from the world. They ran away! They flew in terror from the gods of Light before they were destroyed. It wasn't a retreat, it was a rout!”

  The head pulled back and the green hissed even louder than before. Its eyes narrowed and burned brightly, like the sun at midday. Chlorine dripped like saliva from its lips.

  “Have a care, insect! Have a care. Your insults mean nothing, but your death is in my claws. I can make it as quick or as agonizing as I choose. Do not incur my wrath.”

  Two minutes, Simon thought. My shield will fail in two minutes. Time to take a leap of faith.

  He hesitated and thought: I sure hope this works.

  “Incur your wrath? What wrath?,” he shouted. “I killed the primal black dragon, watched it disintegrate into small pieces in the deep waters of the river. Where was your wrath then? I slaughtered your own drakes like I was stepping on insects while you watched and did nothing. You have no wrath, no fire! Like your black sibling, you are nothing but a tool in the hands of twisted, perverse gods. Where is this vaunted power of the dragons? You drool like a mindless beast and expect me to be afraid?”

  The dragon reared back, its sinewy body uncoiling as its head lifted higher and higher above the wizard.

  “You dare! You dare bait me? Very well. Taste my power. Your puny shield will not stand against the full force of my breath. Die, human!”

  The dragon sucked in an enormous lungful of air. Simon was almost lifted from his feet by the vacuum created as it inhaled and inhaled.

  And then the enormous jaws opened and the head shot down toward him exactly like a striking cobra about to sink its fangs into its prey. The jaws gaped even wider and a blast of dense chlorine, so thick that it was almost black, billowed toward him.

  “Invectis!” Simon yelled frantically, finally invoking his prepared spell. As the world dissolved, he raised Bene-Dunn-Gal and activated the tower's wards.

  And then he was falling head over heels, thick grass grabbing at his body as he spun and flopped.

  Bad landing, he thought as he came to rest with one arm curled around his staff and the other in the warm waters of the lake.

  “Master! Master!” Kronk yelled.

  Simon could hear the little guy's feet skittering across the grass but his vision was blurred with flashes of red and yellow and he had to close them for a minute to stop himself from throwing up.

  “By the Four Winds, what's going on?” Aeris exclaimed, somewhere to Simon's right.

  “Hi guys,” he said, eyes still closed. “If I'm here then I guess I'm still alive. Huh, that's a surprise.”

  He forced himself to open his eyes and sit up. He was sitting on the sandy shore of the small lake behind the tower. Both Aeris and Kronk waited a few feet away, identical expressions of surprise on their faces.

  Simon almost grinned but an ear-splitting scream of rage and pain cut through the air and suddenly nothing was very funny at all.

  He used Bene-Dunn-Gal to push himself to his feet and turned to look at the tower.

  The strengthened shield created by the wards glowed dully against the night sky with its bright, clean stars, but within the shield, the air had turned thick and green.

  Clouds of pure chlo
rine gas roiled and bubbled, as thick as heavy smoke, but much more deadly.

  As Simon watched, he saw the green dragon's head rear up to smash against the shield. It answered by bursting into light and another agonized scream shivered the night air.

  The wizard slowly began to walk toward the tower, watching and listening as the green dragon's attempts to escape became weaker, its cries more feeble.

  “Simon? What did you do?” Aeris asked plaintively. “What is happening?”

  The wizard stopped and leaned on his staff. He felt almost detached from the entire event that was happening inside the shield and replied to the air elemental in a dreamy kind of voice.

  “A long time ago, when I was the old Simon O'Toole, and I had started training for iron-man competitions, I read this book. It was called The Way of the Warrior, I think. Written by a Chinese warrior, or something. A line in the book always stuck in my mind. Something about using an enemy's own strength against them. Well, that's what I did here.”

  He waved at the tower. The dragon couldn't be seen anymore, but its roars still rang out, only now they were tinged with fear.

  “One of my fantasy books claimed that while a green dragon's main weapon was poisonous gas, it couldn't actually breathe the gas itself. Personally I always thought that was a load of horse-sh...well, I thought that it was absurd. But a little while ago, I saw the primal green lift its head high enough to stay out of its own cloud of chlorine gas. It was avoiding breathing the poison.”

  He looked at Aeris, hovering next to his shoulder and then down at Kronk, who was watching him in open admiration.

  “So I tricked it. I cast a Gate spell before I opened the shield to let it attack, but I didn't invoke it. When I goaded the monster enough for it to use its full power against me, I Gated out and activated the tower's runes at the same time. I just got lucky there. I might have been trapped in there with the dragon if my timing had been off by even a second. But at least it would have died with me.”

  He sighed and leaned more heavily on Bene-Dunn-Gal as he watched the tower.

  “The shield won't let fresh air in or the chlorine gas out. If it wasn't weakened by its own poison, the dragon could easily break through the barrier. But instead, with every breath, it's killing itself.”