The Dragons of Decay (38 page)

But oh my God, I'm skinny, he
thought.

He ran his hands along his ribs and
then up and over his face. His cheeks were hollowed out and his huge
eyes, one bright blue and the other a rich brown, stared out of their
deep sockets like frightened animals peering out of dark caves.

“
You need food, son,” he
told himself sternly. “Get your strength back and your ass in
gear. That's it.”

He took a last moment to rub his
head. The hair was so short, he looked like he'd just had a buzz-cut.
It made him look about twelve years old.

“
Yeah, people are totally going
to take you seriously now,” he said with an eye-roll. Then he
grabbed a robe out of the cabinet at random and closed the door.

After getting dressed and slipping
his socked feet into his battered old slippers, Simon carefully
walked down the stairs to the main floor. Aeris was just pouring
steaming water into a cup and looked up when the wizard appeared.

“
Good day, sleepy head,”
he said jovially. “I heard you get up. I thought that you might
sleep the day away.”

“
Morning, Aeris. Or afternoon.
Whatever.”

Simon sat down at the kitchen table
and accepted the cup of tea from the elemental.

“
No, I've slept enough for now.
I am really hungry though.”

“
I assumed you would be, so
look,” Aeris said and, opening a cupboard, he lifted something
out and flew over to the table with it.

Simon's eyes widened. It was a loaf
of whole wheat bread. The smell was heavenly.

“
Fresh bread? Where did this
come from?”

“
Night faeries,” Aeris
said and when Simon stared at him in confusion, he laughed.

“
I made it, of course. Where
did you think it came from?”

“
Hang on a second. You can
cook?”

Aeris flew back to the counter,
grabbed a sharp knife from the drawer and brought it back to Simon.

“
Cook? Of course I can cook,
although to be honest with you, baking bread isn't exactly
challenging, is it? Mix the ingredients, bake until it's ready and
you're done.”

Simon began slicing the bread,
fingers trembling a bit in anticipation.

“
Oh, I just thought of
something!” Aeris exclaimed. “Be right back.”

He shot across the room and
disappeared down the stairs to the basement.

Now what? Simon wondered.

He put down the knife and picked up a
slice of bread. It was still slightly warm and the wizard closed his
eyes briefly, savoring the moment. His mouth was watering so much
that he had to swallow before he took his first bite.

“
Don't eat that!” Aeris
yelled from the stairs and Simon actually dropped the slice of bread
and stared at him in shock.

“
Why? What's wrong?”

“
Nothing. Sorry, but here,”
the elemental said and handed him a jar of strawberry jam.

Simon took it with a laugh.

“
Oh, thanks, Aeris,” he
said gratefully. “I'm so hungry, I never even thought of that.”

“
My pleasure. Now, you eat as
much as you can while I go out and find Kronk. I'm sure he's with the
mare and her foal, but he wanted me to call him when you got up.”

“
Why?” Simon asked around
a mouthful of bread and jam.

“
Because, if you are up to
talking about it, both of us would like to know what happened to you.
Will you tell us?”

The wizard chewed and swallowed
reflectively and then nodded.

“
Sure. Why not? God knows I owe
it to the both of you.”

“
Good. We'll be right back.”

And Aeris disappeared with a little
pop of air.

It might help it all feel more real
if I talk about it with someone, he thought, feeling a bit nervous.
It's like it was all a dream...or a nightmare.

Simon was on his fourth slice of
bread and was just getting up to make himself more tea, when the
front door banged open and Aeris shot into the tower, followed
closely by Kronk.

The earthen closed the door, cutting
off the bitterly cold air that was pushing in from outside and
tip-tapped across the room to leap on to the table.

“
Good day, master!” he
exclaimed with a wide smile. “You look much better today.”

“
Hello, my friend. Do I? In
that case, I must have looked like hell yesterday.”

Simon fixed his tea and returned to
sit down at the table. Aeris floated next to Kronk and the two looked
at each other for a second.

“
You could say that,” the
air elemental agreed with a shrug. “We could tell that you'd
gone through an ordeal, but we didn't want to bother you with
questions. Now though, if you want to talk, we'd like to hear about
it.”

“
Only if you choose to tell us,
master,” Kronk added quickly. “It is not our place to
question you.”

Simon had to smile.

“
Stop that,” he said
affectionately. “You aren't servants, as you well know. You're
my friends. And yes, I think I should talk about it, while the whole
thing is fresh in my mind. It's starting to take on the qualities of
a dream and I have a feeling that it may fade from my memory in time.
And I don't want that to happen.”

He drank some tea and tried to
organize his thoughts.

“
Okay guys, this is what I
remember,” he said and started to talk about his meeting with
the goddess.

How long he spoke, Simon never knew,
but Aeris made him two more cups of tea and he gobbled up several
more slices of bread and jam before he was done.

Amazingly, neither elemental
interrupted him with questions, but simply listened quietly and
intently, their eyes glued to his face.

When he was finished, Simon sat back
with a heavy sigh and stretched. He felt like he'd been on a ten mile
hike.

“
That was an amazing story,
master,” Kronk told him. The little guy walked over to the
wizard and put a hard little hand on his arm.

“
I can never thank you enough
for your sacrifice. I am only a servant, master, and you gave your
life for me.”

“
You're my friend, Kronk,”
Simon said tiredly. “I don't know how many times I'll have to
tell you that, but it's true. And friends do that for each other.
Hell, you did it for me too. So let's just say we're even, okay?”

The earthen seemed to consider that
for a moment and then nodded.

“
Very well, master,” he
said solemnly. “We are even.” Then he shook a finger at
Simon. “But let us agree not to ever do that again, shall we?”

“
Deal,” the wizard
responded with a laugh.

“
So you are the pivotal point
that humanity's destiny revolves around,” Aeris mused as he
stared at Simon. “That is a heavy burden to carry, my dear
wizard.”

“
I'm trying not to think about
it, to be honest. All I can do is take this whole thing one step at a
time. And my first step today is recalling our earthen friends to
guard the wall. Kronk, can you remind me of their names, please?”

It only took a few minutes for Simon
to summon the five earth elementals who had stood watch over the
tower. All of them were thrilled that he was alive and well and, like
Kronk, were excited to be useful again.

They all trooped out to man the wall
again, talking in their gravelly language and laughing together.
Simon was relieved to have them back. It gave his life a sense of
reality again.

“
What's next, my dear wizard?”
Aeris asked after the earthen had left.

“
I want to get in touch with
Clara and Liliana, but I think I'll have to wait until tomorrow.”

He staggered to his feet and walked
over to the clothes cupboard.

“
Even doing something as simple
as recalling those earthen has tired me out.”

He began to put on his winter coat as
he talked.

“
I'm going to visit the
outhouse and then check on the horses. And then I'm going back to
bed.”

“
Excellent, master,”
Kronk told him. “Rest as much as you can, while you can.”

“
That's the plan. I won't waste
this new beginning that I've been given.” He chuckled a bit
self-consciously. “Well, I'll try not to screw it up anyway.”

Simon slipped on his winter boots,
walked to the door and took a deep breath before opening it.

A blast of incredibly cold air blew
over him and he began trembling immediately.

“
I will meet you in the stable,
master,” Kronk told him and hurried past the wizard and down
the front steps.

“
And I'll make you some food
for later,” Aeris said. “I think a rich stew is in order.
It will give your body the nutrients it needs.”

“
Thanks Aeris,” Simon
said through chattering teeth. “That sounds great. I'll be back
in a little while.”

The visit with the horses was both
exhilarating and exhausting for Simon. The three of them were so
happy to see him that they practically burst through the doors on
their stalls when he arrived. It was only by quickly handing out pats
and caresses that the wizard avoided a riot.

Once the three had calmed down, he
slipped into Sunshine's box stall to meet the new arrival. The little
filly was just as Kronk had described her. Yellow as a banana peel
with incredibly huge brown eyes and an amazing streak of brown
running the length of her back, she barreled right up to Simon the
moment that she saw her mother nuzzling his chest.

“
Hello, little girl,” he
said as he bent down to stroke her baby-soft muzzle. “Aren't
you beautiful? Yes you are!”

The filly snorted and thrust her head
frantically into his hand, making Simon laugh with simply joy. He
reached out to stroke Sunshine with his free hand as the mare watched
the interplay calmly.

“
You did good, mum,” he
told her and she whickered gently in obvious agreement.

“
Now, what shall we call her?”

Kronk had been watching from the
aisle between the stalls and now he came in and stared up at them.
The filly reached down and sniffed him, neighing softly with
excitement. The earthen was an obvious favorite of hers.

“
I have an idea for a name,
master. If you approve, that is,” he said diffidently.

“
Great. What is it?”

“
Well, since you named her
mother after the Sun, and the filly is the same color, I thought
perhaps naming her Sunbeam would be appropriate, master.”

Kronk watched Simon anxiously and the
wizard grinned down at him.

“
Perfect, my friend. She's not
quite as banana-yellow as her mum, but she
is
a bright little Sunbeam, isn't she? That's her name then; Sunbeam.”

He stroked the filly and she quivered
with pleasure.

“
How do you like your new name,
Sunbeam?” he asked her and she snorted and tossed her head
excitedly, making him laugh.

“
I believe she approves,
Kronk.”

“
Thank you, master. I hope she
does.”

They spent a few more minutes playing
with the filly and Simon made sure to fuss over Chief and Tammy as
well. The stallion ran his nose over the wizard's body, sniffing
gently as if making sure that he was real.

“
It's really me, old buddy,”
he told the big horse as he reached around his neck and hugged him.
Chief squealed a little in his throat and carefully rested his head
on Simon's shoulder, keeping his dagger-sharp horns high and out of
the way.

Tammy got her share of love as well.
The mare, hard to see in the semi-darkness of her stall, was gentle
with the wizard as well and, as he often did, Simon thought that the
Change had made them so much more intelligent than they used to be.

When he got back inside the tower,
Kronk at his heels, the wizard only had enough energy left to take
off his winter clothes and collapse on to a kitchen chair.

“
Well, that was fun,” he
said to the elementals. He was panting heavily.

“
And exhausting, apparently,”
Aeris responded from the kitchen counter. He was peeling potatoes
he'd brought up from storage and Simon watched him, bemused by the
sight. He'd never seen the air elemental wielding a knife before.

“
Yeah, it was. I'm just going
to catch my breath and then head up to bed. Hopefully I can sleep
until dinner time.”

“
The horses were very happy to
see you, master,” Kronk said as he hopped up on to the table.

“
And vice-versa, my friend. Our
new addition is quite the beautiful little lady, isn't she?”

“
She certainly is, master. And
thank you again for allowing me to name her.”

“
You named her?” Aeris
asked in surprise, pausing in his potato peeling to stare at the
earthen. “What did you name her?”