The Dragons of Decay (37 page)

“
Master,
you are freezing!” the earthen said.

He hurried
around the wizard and easily broke off several logs from the pile,
stacking them in the fireplace. Then he rested his stony hands on the
wood and Simon watched bemusedly as the little guy's body began to
glow a fiery red.

The wood
burst into flames and the wave of heat that washed over the wizard
made him moan with pleasure.

“
I
do not know what has happened, master,” Kronk said to him. “But
you are not well. Can you stand? The floor is too cold for you to be
kneeling on it. Come, I will move a chair in front of the fire and
you can sit on it.”

Somehow
Simon managed to get to his feet and the earthen quickly slid a
kitchen chair close to the fireplace. The wizard collapsed on to it
and just sat quietly, content to absorb the heat.

Kronk
stood in front of him, looking up.

“
Master,
I will need some help to get things back to normal here. You need
food and hot liquid and rest and I am only one person. Could you,
perhaps, recall Aeris? We could really use him now.”

“
Aeris?”
Simon repeated stupidly, feeling his brain moving at a snail's pace.
“Oh right. Yeah, good idea.”

He looked
at the space beside Kronk.

“
Aeris,
I need you,” he said weakly and then closed his eyes, waiting
for the inevitable. He wasn't disappointed.

A distant
rumble of thunder penetrated the walls of the tower and Simon gritted
his teeth. Then a burst of white light flashed through his closed
eyelids and a crack of deafening noise announced the air elemental's
arrival.

Simon
opened his eyes and watched as Aeris, who was now floating next to
Kronk, looked around in stunned silence.

“
By
the Four Winds,” he managed to say finally. “What is
going on here? How did we...”

And then
he saw the wizard.

“
You!
But you're dead!”

“
Yeah,
thanks a lot,” Simon said with genuine amusement. Just seeing
his two friends again was making what he'd been through seem more
real. “I mean, I know I look like crap, but...”

Aeris
frowned.

“
That's
being generous. I'm surprised you're even breathing.”

He looked
around the tower and then turned to Kronk.

“
This
place is too cold. Our wizard here will die if we don't get it warmed
up quickly.”

“
I
am aware of that,” the earthen said stiffly. “I only just
got back myself. I asked master to call you to help, so why don't
you? I am going to start a fire in the stove to produce more heat.”

Aeris
stared, bemused, as Kronk picked up several logs and scurried over to
the cast-iron stove. He shoved them in and then hopped in after them,
to start them burning.

“
Um,
yes. Right. Good idea,” Aeris said. He flew up and hovered in
front of Simon at eye level.

“
It
is good to see you again,” he said in a strangely gentle voice.
“When you are feeling better, I'd love to know what happened.
But for now, I'm going to boil water for tea and then make you some
food. You are a shadow of your former self, my dear wizard, and that
self was none too fat to begin with.”

Simon
could only smile at the elemental. The warmth felt so good and he was
so tired that talking seemed to be too much effort.

The next
few hours passed in a blur for the wizard. With the fires going in
the fireplace and the stove, the main floor quickly became
comfortably warm again. Aeris made him hot tea and brought up several
packages of smoked venison and some jars of pickled and preserved
vegetables from the storerooms below.

Simon ate
slowly, his young stomach adjusting to solid food, and could almost
feel his body converting the food into energy.

Once he
was done, the wizard had regained enough strength to stand by the
kitchen sink and bathe. Aeris had heated water in the kettle and
filled the sink and Simon slowly washed away the layers of grime off
of his body. When he was done, he toweled off and watched the dirty
water disappear down the drain.

Kronk came
down from upstairs with clean clothing and Simon felt a vast sense of
relief as he put on clean socks, underwear and a robe and sat back
down in front of the fireplace to sip more tea.

Then the
earthen hurried to the door and jumped up to slide open the bolts.

“
Going
somewhere?” Aeris asked him as he hovered next to Simon.

“
The
horses. I must check on them,” Kronk said, sounding a bit
frantic. “They have been alone for days and Sunshine was due to
give birth. I will be right back, master,” he added and then
slipped out of the door, closing it firmly behind him.

“
Oh
damn,” Simon said, too exhausted to move. He felt a knot of
fear suddenly burning in his stomach. “I was so caught up in my
own problems, I totally forgot about the horses!”

“
Understandable,”
Aeris told him. “Don't assume the worst, my dear wizard. Kronk
will let you know how they are.”

With a
sigh of helplessness, Simon tried to relax and be patient. He drank
some tea and rested the cup on his thigh while he stared into the
flames in the fireplace, trying to sort out his thoughts.

“
So
how long was I...gone?” he asked Aeris after a few minutes.

“
How
long? Well now, that is a good question,” the elemental replied
with a frown. “Time means nothing in the elemental plane, you
know. But I would hazard a guess and say perhaps a week, possibly
two.”

“
Two
weeks? Good grief, how is that possible?”

“
How
is it possible that you are sitting here alive and well?” Aeris
responded with a shrug. “It is a time of miracles, it seems.
Now, once Kronk returns, you really must get some sleep. You are
barely able to sit upright in that chair, my dear wizard. Whatever
you have been through has obviously been traumatic and your body
needs time to rest and grow stronger.”

“
Yeah,
I know. But I need to find out how Sunshine and the others are doing.
I also have to get in touch with Clara, Daniel, Liliana...”

He reached
up and tiredly ran a hand over his head. One thing that hadn't
regrown during his accelerated growth period earlier was his hair. It
was maybe a half inch long now and he felt light-headed and naked
without it.

“
You
know, you look even younger without that mane of yours,” Aeris
told him, amused, as he watched Simon stroke his short hair. “And
your white streaks are gone. I will admit, I am dying to hear your
story.”

“
Later,”
the wizard said. “I'm still trying to work the whole thing out
for myself.” He watched the fire burn for a moment. “There
is so much to do but I'm limited by my weakness right now. It's going
to get frustrating very quickly, I think.”

“
Yes
and we all know how much of a joy you are to be around when you're
sulking.”

“
What?
I don't sulk!”

Aeris
looked at him knowingly and quirked up an eyebrow.

“
You
don't?”

Simon
frowned and then had to reluctantly turn it into a sheepish smile.

“
Okay,
maybe I do once in a while; a little. But I'm worried about, well,
everyone really. The problem is that I think if I tried to cast a
Magic Mirror spell, I'd probably pass out.”

“
Exactly
why you aren't going to do that,” Aeris said firmly. “You
will need a few days of constant nourishment and rest before you cast
even the simplest of spells. Luckily for all of us, recalling an
elemental that you've previously summoned takes very little magical
power.”

“
Fortunately
for me.”

Almost an
hour passed before Kronk returned. The door banged open, he hurried
in and slammed it firmly behind him. A bitter wind momentarily raced
around the room and started Simon shaking again.

“
Good
news, master!” the little guy exclaimed as he scurried across
the floor. “The horses were inside when I got there. Chief had
broken open the door and they had been leaving the stable to use the
snow around the tower for water.”

“
Did
they have enough food?” Simon asked anxiously. “How's
Sunshine?”

“
They
were on the last of their hay, master, but I have fed them now and
they seem to be happy. And the mare is fine.”

He paused
a moment and then smiled widely.

“
And
so is her foal,” he said dramatically.

Simon
gaped at him.

“
She
gave birth? Oh my God! How is she? How's the baby?”

“
Mother and daughter are both
doing well, master. The filly is the picture of Sunshine, yellow coat
and all.” He chuckled. “Chief seems very proud of
himself.”

“
I'll bet he does,” the
wizard said with a broad grin. He started to get up, hesitated, and
then sat down again with a thump.

“
I don't think I'm up to paying
them a visit just yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

“
Good idea,” Aeris said
approvingly. “Don't push yourself if you don't have to. Baby
steps, my dear wizard.”

Simon had to laugh at that and the
two elementals exchange confused glances.

“
I said something funny?”
Aeris asked.

“
You did, actually, but you
won't understand until I tell you how I got back. And,” he
stood up cautiously, “that is going to have to wait. I need to
get some sleep. Kronk,” he said as he walked toward the stairs.
“Would you double-check the wall and the gates, please?
Tomorrow I'll recall your earthen friends to keep watch again.”

“
Of course, master. I was going
to do that anyway.”

“
I'll join him,” Aeris
offered and smiled at Kronk. “I feel no imminent storms, but
better safe than sorry.”

Simon stood at the bottom of the
stairs and caught his breath. He'd never realized just how steep they
were.

“
Thanks, both of you. And
thanks for the help today. If it wasn't for you, I'm quite sure I
would have died. Again.”

“
No master, you would not,”
Kronk stated. “You are very resourceful. You would have
survived, somehow.”

Aeris remained silent, only raising a
skeptical eyebrow at the earthen's statement.

“
I appreciate the loyalty, my
friend,” the wizard said affectionately. “But I think
you're wrong. Anyway, if I can actually make the climb, I'm going to
bed. Wake me up if a dragon comes knocking. Other than that, please
let me sleep.”

“
We will, master,” Kronk
said. He moved across the room to stand at the bottom of the steps,
watching Simon climb up slowly.

When the wizard reached the second
floor, he looked down and saw the little guy nodding his approval. He
winked and headed for his bedroom. Sleep had never seemed so
attractive and he was unconscious as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Simon slept long and deep and didn't
wake up until midday. When he did, he simply lay in bed staring up at
the ceiling. He was going through his memories of the last several
days and, the more he thought about them, the less any of it made
sense.

He raised his hands and stared at
them in the bright sunlight streaming through the frosted windows.

A new body, he thought. How about
that.

He wiggled his fingers, balled his
hands into fists, opened them again and looked at his palms.

The skin was pale and pinkish, but
the weirdest part was that there were hardly any lines on his palms.
A faint heart line and life line, but that was about it.

“
I really am a blank slate,”
he said softly and then he thought of the mother of this body; that
tragically lonely, brave, desperate woman who had passed away without
knowing if her child would live or die.

“
I'll never be able to thank
you enough,” he said to her memory. “I just hope that,
wherever you are, you know that.”

Reluctantly, Simon threw back his
covers and sat up on the edge of the bed. He grimaced as he realized
that he'd fallen asleep fully clothed. He stood up and stripped off
his robe, socks and underwear and threw them into the clothes basket
in the corner. Then he opened his clothes cupboard and stared at
himself in the full-length mirror.

It was his body, but it wasn't. Pink.
Good grief, he was so pink that he looked like a freshly peeled
grapefruit.

Simon stuck out his tongue at himself
and then giggled.