“Fine, master. Still no sign of Ana, though.”
“I see. You know, maybe I should summon her back and ask her what she's up to?”
Kronk looked up at him.
“What would be the point, master? If she is innocently exploring, she might be offended. And if she is planning something, she would simply not tell you.”
“Could she lie to me?” Simon asked as he glanced up at the starry sky and then back at Kronk.
“No master, not directly. But she could simply avoid telling you the truth. Almost the same thing, but not quite.”
“Yeah, that's a good point.”
Simon shook his head and pushed back his hair absently.
“You know, life would be so much simpler if I wasn't always looking over my shoulder waiting for someone to stab me in the back.”
The little guy chuckled, his laughter sounding like stones rubbing together.
“Hazards of being a wizard, master.”
“Wonderful,” Simon replied dryly. “You know, back in the day, I never had this type of fear riding me. I was big and strong and confident in myself.” He paused thoughtfully. “Of course, I didn't have nearly as many responsibilities either.”
“Exactly, master. Then you were one among many. Now? Now you may be the only wizard in the entire world. Your burden is great.”
“Thanks, Kronk. That's just makes me feel so much worse.”
Simon grinned as he said it but the earthen looked at him solemnly.
“I know it does, master. But at the risk of being too forward, sometimes you seem to forget how much you mean to the rest of humanity. I know that you are a humble man, but you must not lose sight of your own importance.”
Simon snorted so loudly that he choked and spent the next few minutes coughing.
“Sorry, Kronk,” he finally said, wheezing a bit. “But you may be a bit biased. Now, let's concentrate on the task at hand, shall we?”
“Yes master. Look.”
The wizard followed the little guy's gaze and saw the top of the moon slowly begin to crawl over the distant horizon.
“Wow, it looks huge, doesn't it?” he said in a hushed voice. “And it's kind of red. Well, that's not at all threatening.”
“It is only the moon, master,” Kronk said, being his practical self.
No imagination at all, Simon thought as he watched the little guy stare at the rising moon. And yet so child-like. Ah well.
“I'll wait until it's fully risen, just in case,” he said. “This has to be done right the first time.”
“Agreed, master.”
And so they stood in silence and watched as the moon slowly ascended. It was beautiful in its own way and Simon felt no impatience as he waited.
When the bottom edge was almost fully exposed, he turned to Kronk.
“Well, we can almost...”
“Get down, master!” the earthen said in an urgent whisper.
“What?”
And then the little rocky body hit him like a projectile, knocking him off his feet into the tall grass.
“Kronk!” Simon said breathlessly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Shh! Dragon!”
“What? Where?”
The little guy rose up a little and pointed. Simon turned to look in that direction and his stomach clenched in fear.
Across the bloated moon, a vast winged shape soared majestically, gliding like some massive bat across the bright glowing orb.
The wizard watched in mute shock as the first winged monster was followed by another, and then another.
“My God,” he whispered. “How many are there?”
“Too many, master. Stay still and keep low.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
The two of them watched as dragon followed dragon in a majestic display. It seemed to last for hours and the moon had risen high in the sky by the time the last of the winged behemoths had disappeared.
Simon stood up carefully, trying to look in all directions at once. But the sky was clear again and he finally sucked in a ragged breath and blew it out slowly. His body was slick with sweat and his heart was still racing.
“What the hell was that?” he murmured, feeling a little dizzy. He had never seen that many dragons at once before. It had been absolutely terrifying.
“I do not know, master,” Kronk answered anxiously. “They were flying almost directly from south to north, but where they came from and where they are going, who can say?”
Slipping his staff off of his back, Simon leaned on it weakly and wiped his face on his sleeve.
“But I thought that all of the black dragons were dead! North America was their territory.”
“Apparently not any more, master. Those weren't black dragons. Did you not notice? The blacks did not have twisted horns like the ones we just saw.”
“Twisted horns?” Simon gaped at the earthen. “You could see that? Good grief, you have amazing eyesight.”
“I suppose so, master,” the little guy said with a shrug. “But do you not remember when the two dragons attacked the tower last year? They also had long, twisted horns.”
“Oh crap. They were red dragons, weren't they?”
“Yes master, red dragons. And I think that means that this continent is now part of their territory.”
“Red dragons. Great. Just what I needed to hear right now. I was hoping we would be free of the monsters for years after I killed the primal black.”
Kronk brushed off some loose grass.
“Well master, you got almost two years out of it. That is something, at least.”
“I guess so. Well, one crisis at a time.”
He slipped on the gloves and walked over to the nearest bunch of wolf's bane flowers.
“Let's get these gathered and get back. If dragons are roaming the skies in this country again, Malcolm and Aiden are needed more than ever.”
He plucked several flowers from the plants and stuffed them into the sack. Then he wiped off any residue from the gloves on the long grass, stuffed them into a pocket and looked at Kronk.
“Ready?”
“Yes master.”
Simon chanted the Gate spell, gestured at the little guy to grab the bottom of his robe and pictured the town hall in his mind. And then they were pulled into the void and away.
Chapter 19
Clara was waiting anxiously for them when Simon and Kronk appeared in the center of the hall. Someone had started a fire and it burned merrily in the fire pit, pushing back the evening's chill. The wizard stood and enjoyed the warmth for a moment.
“You got it?” Clara asked after greeting Kronk with a smile.
“Got it,” Simon replied and handed her the sack. “Put some gloves on before you handle the petals though,” he added.
“Yes, I know,” she replied and led the way back into her quarters.
She had covered her dining table with a thick tarp and, after slipping on some canvas gloves, dumped the bag's contents on to it. The petals cascaded from the sack in vivid flashes of color and lay piled together in a cheerful mound.
“You'd never know they were toxic, would you?” Simon muttered.
Clara only smiled nervously and started pulling the petals from the flowers.
The wizard quickly pulled out his gloves and began to help.
“So what are you using to grind up the flowers?” he asked.
The cleric turned and picked up a small, thick-sided bowl. It was bright blue.
“One of my people found this mortar and pestle in a burned-out hobby shop, of all places. It should do the job.”
“Excellent.”
When they were done plucking the petals, Simon slapped his gloves together to remove any pollen and slipped them back into his pocket.
Clara began to grind the petals, the pestle making an unpleasant, squishing sound she turned the flowers into paste.
As one point she stepped back and sneezed. The wolf's bane paste smelled sharply like strong pepp
er and Simon had to wipe his eyes several times.
“It can't be good for us to be breathing this stuff,” he said at one point. The cleric only shrugged, her eyes almost closed against the strong fumes.
“You can wait out in the main hall if you'd like. I won't be much longer.”
“What? And miss all the fun? No thank you.”
Clara giggled in spite of her discomfort and carried on gamely.
As she was finishing up, Simon heard the cleric chanting under her breath and realized that she was blessing the mixture. He nodded to himself and remained silent.
When she was done, the wizard took a peek into the bowl. The flower paste was a rather nasty greenish-red color, like tainted blood and he grimaced and stepped back.
“Well, I'd say we have enough,” he observed. “You could fill those little containers three or four times over with all that gunk.”
“True. Still, better too much than too little.”
Simon unscrewed the two amulets and set the one marked 'Malcolm' down at one end of the table and Aiden's at the other. He picked up the little clay bottles containing the men's blood and checked the bottoms to make sure he put the correct one by each open receptacle. It wouldn't do to make a mistake now. He opened them and moved away to allow Clara to finish.
“So, let's see how this stuff sticks together,” she said and scooped up some paste. It molded in her fingers like wet clay and she smiled.
“Perfect. Simon, I'm going to make a little dent in the middle of the paste. Could you pour a drop of blood into it? Then I'll close the paste around the blood and stick it into the amulet.”
“Ah, clever,” he told her with an admiring look.
“We'll see. Now, just a drop. That's all that Aethos said we needed, so let's not overdo it.”
They started with Malcolm's mixture. Simon gently tilted the bottle until a single drop of blood dripped into the center of the paste. He felt a little sick at the sight of the bright red liquid resting on top of the green paste.
“Why do I feel like we're performing some sort of voodoo ritual?” he said with a shudder.
Clara was too focused on her task to answer. She molded the paste into a ball and dropped it into the amulet. It fit with a little room to spare.
She let out her breath in a gasp and looked up at the wizard.
“Phew! I seem to have guessed right, luckily. Just let me screw on the top and we'll do Aiden's.”
A few minutes later, they were done. Clara carefully wiped all residue from the amulets and set them aside on an end table. She put the little bottles beside them.
She tossed her gloves on the table along with the unused paste in the mortar. She dropped the wizard's canvas bag on top and folded the tarp up around them.
“What are you going to do with that?” Simon asked, nodding at the bulky package.
“Burn it,” she replied. “That stuff is too toxic to take chances with. The mortar and pestle have been contaminated and I doubt any amount of washing will allow us to reuse them.”
“Wise,” he said. “I'll do the same with my gloves when I get home.”
“Just toss them in here,” the cleric told him and opened the tarp a bit.
He pulled out the gloves and dropped them into the bundle, smiling his thanks.
Clara excused herself and took the package into the hall. Simon sat and waited. His gaze kept drifting to the two amulets and he couldn't help wondering if, after all this, they would actually work. It seemed like magic to him, but not the clean magic that he was used to. This was more...primitive, somehow.
“I've had one of the guards take that stuff to the refuse pit we keep burning near the fields,” Clara said as she reentered.
She sat down on one end of the sofa and waved Simon toward the other end.
“We use it for burning weeds, old clothing that is too worn out to use anymore, that sort of thing.”
“Good enough. Now we just have to wait for the dawn.”
The wizard rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the darkness outside of the windows.
“Speaking of which, I wonder how long it is until sunrise?”
“Three hours, master.”
Simon jumped and looked down at Kronk, who was standing next to the sofa. He'd watched the entire process without saying a word and the wizard had actually forgotten that he was there.
“Sorry, bud,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I forgot about you.”
“Not to worry, master,” the earthen replied equitably.
“Three hours? You're sure? Of course you are. Well then, we'll just have to sit and cultivate patience, I suppose.”
Clara's face had a frail, pinched look to it and Simon looked at her with real warmth.
“You've taken this all to heart, my lady cleric,” he said with a slightly sad smile. “The burden of caring for these people is weighing heavily on you today, I think.”
She leaned her head back on the couch and looked at him sideways with tired amusement.
“That obvious, am I? Yes, I guess it is. I've never believed that life was fair, Simon, but when two people who give of themselves like Malcolm and Aiden are rewarded by being cursed like this, well, it's hard to take, that's all.”
“I agree.”
The wizard watched as Kronk jumped up to stand on the arm of the couch.
“It's kind of like the remnants of the human race, isn't it. Somehow, a handful of us managed to survive the obliteration of our species and now we're being hunted down like animals. Not to mention how we've had to start over almost from scratch.”
Clara nodded dispiritedly.
“And speaking of being hunted,” Simon said hesitantly, “since we're both in such a good mood anyway, I wanted to tell you about what Kronk and I saw,” he glanced quickly at the earthen, “when we were out west gathering the wolf's bane.”
The cleric sat up slowly and leaned forward.
“You saw something? What was it?”
The wizard thought for a moment.
“Nope, there's no good way to say this, so I'll just tell you straight up. Dragons, my friend. Dozens and dozens of dragons.”
Her eyes widened and Clara gaped at him.
“Dragons?” she repeated weakly. “Out there? But...how? The black dragons were destroyed.”
Simon made a gesture at Kronk as he slumped in his seat.
“They were red dragons, lady,” the little guy said calmly. “Many of them. They crossed the sky from the south to the north. Where they were going, neither my master nor myself know.”
“By the gods, red dragons,” she said tautly. “Let me guess; they've taken over the primal black's territory, haven't they?”
“No idea, Clara. But I'd say that's probably true.”
She stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“Why do you look even more distressed than I feel?”
Simon stood up, grabbed his cup of tea from the table and sat down again. He sipped reflectively and looked blankly at the colorful area rug at his feet.
“Clara, it was two red dragons who attacked my tower last year. Remember? Yeah, well, maybe I'm just projecting my own feelings on them here, but I think they are even more savage and hate-filled than the other dragons I've dealt with. I have a feeling that they'll jump into weeding out the remains of humanity with glee.” He shrugged. “Of course, I could be wrong.”
“Wonderful,” the cleric said gloomily. “Just great.” She stood up and took Simon's empty cup with her as she left the room.
Simon and Kronk sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, until she returned with more tea and offered the wizard his cup.
“Thanks,” he said appreciatively and sipped the hot liquid carefully.
“Kronk, I have a question for you,” Clara said as she sat at the end of the couch and tucked her feet up under her.
“For me, lady? Of course.”
She watched him over the rim of her teacup.
“I have a feeling that you know more
than Simon or I do about dragons, even if they had long disappeared back in the old days of magic.”
He shrugged his little shoulders.
“I heard things, lady. Wizards discussed things like that amongst themselves while I was in their presence. They took no notice of little ones like myself.”
Simon reached out and gently patted the earthen's shoulder and was rewarded with a wide smile.
“They were fools then,” the cleric told him shortly. “But we hopefully are not. So, my question is, where are all of these dragons coming from? I don't mean where are they patrolling or what their plans are. I mean, how are they reproducing? Just how many lesser dragons are there? If the red dragons have invaded North America, aren't their numbers stretched quite thin now?”
“Ah, I see. That is an interesting question.”
Kronk stood quietly, gathering his thoughts, and Simon and Clara exchanged an amused look. The little guy was always slow and deliberate when it came to serious answers to serious questions.
“This is what I remember, lady,” the little guy finally spoke up. “There is only one female dragon, their queen. She birthed the five primals and is a conduit for the dark gods. They pass their wishes through her. Of course, you already know that.”
Clara nodded encouragingly.
“Yes, well, the primals are all, what is the term, asexual? Something like that. They have the ability to renew their own ranks as needed. When one of their lesser dragons dies, for whatever reason, the primal knows somehow. This sets off some sort of,” he paused as if groping for the proper word, “imperative. And the lesser dragon is replaced. I would guess that if the dark gods have given the primal red dragon this new territory, then it has produced even more servants to fill its needs.”
“Yes, I get that, my little friend,” she told him, sounding a bit exasperated. “What I want to know is how? How do they increase their numbers?”
“Eggs, lady,” he answered simply. “They hatch eggs.”
“Wait a second,” Simon exclaimed. “Eggs? But you said that the primals aren't female. How is that even possible?”
“They do not lay the eggs, master. Their queen laid massive amounts of eggs back when she created the five primals. Every primal received a certain number and they replace a follower by hatching a new dragon as needed.”
Tales from the New Earth: Volume One Page 103