The Dragons of Decay
Read The Dragons of Decay Online
Authors: J.J. Thompson
Tales
from the New Earth: Book 4
The
Dragons of Decay
by
J.
J. Thompson
Text
Copyright
©
2015
J. J. Thompson
All
Rights Reserved
“
Do
not run from a battle with dragons;
rather
turn and face it.
For
even if you die,
you
die in glory.”
Simon
O'Toole
Table of Contents
1
“
Are
you insane? No, you are not coming to help! Understood? I've lost
enough, I won't lose the last friend I have.”
“
Look,
I may appear to be a child but I'm not. I'm a big boy and I make my
own decisions. And if I want to help, then damn it, I will!”
The
old man in the mirror pushed back his wild mane of white hair and
sighed in frustration. Behind him was a forest clearing. The trees
were limp and brown, looking like they were made of rubber as they
sagged, lifeless.
“
Simon,”
he said. “You can't enter the elven realm. You know that. Look
at me for heaven's sake. I was young and strong before I came here.
Then I returned to Earth and aged forty years. If you enter, you will
never be able to leave. No human can. Is that what you want?”
The
young man hissed in frustration. He was staring into the hand mirror
that he was holding as if looking at a computer screen. But it wasn't
technology, it was magic.
He
sat back in his chair behind the desk in his study, and glared at his
oldest friend. He pushed back his own hair, dark but streaked with
white, back over his shoulders and frowned, his too-young face
flushed with frustration.
“
It
doesn't matter what I want, Daniel. You may only be human but I'm
not. I'm a Changling, remember? The difference in the flow of time
between here and there may not affect me at all; have you thought of
that?”
“
Of
course I have. But if it does, you will be trapped here. And how
exactly are you going to be able to continue your battle against the
dragons on Earth from the elven realm, hmm?”
“
I
can cross that bridge when I come to it. Look, the battle isn't here
right now anyway. It's there. You and Ethmira and the elves are being
hunted by the primal brown dragon and its followers. I should be
there to help!”
“
And
I would like nothing better than for you to be here, believe me. But
then what? Say we do somehow defeat the browns.”
Daniel
looked around the dismal forest dejectedly and shook his head.
“
Absurd
as that sounds at the moment. Fine. You will have helped save the
elves and their homeland. Bully for you. Well done, hero.”
Simon
felt himself blushing at his friend's sarcasm.
“
And
then you'll get to watch, using the lovely Magic Mirror spell that
you are using now, while the red dragons turn our home world into a
cinder. Good job there, Simon.”
The
young wizard narrowed his eyes as he stared at Daniel.
“
Are
you done? Aeris is the king of sarcastic comments around here,
thanks. I don't need another one.”
“
I
think I resent that,” the little air elemental said from
Simon's right.
“
Why?
It's true,” a second voice spoke up from the wizard's left.
He
glanced with a quick grin at the earth elemental standing on the desk
next to his left shoulder.
“
Thanks
Kronk,” he said. “Now please, shush guys. This is
important.”
“
I
may sound sarcastic, Simon, but my point is true enough. If you could
help stop the brown dragons here, you would probably be unable to
return home. No, I think the elves have the only proper solution. It
may not save them or their world, but it will erase the threat of the
primal brown dragon and its servants from the Earth forever.”
Simon
leaped to his feet and began pacing around the room, staring into the
mirror while the elementals watched with deep concern.
“
You
can't let them do that, Daniel!” he said insistently. “You
will die. You and Ethmira and the rest of them will all die!”
“
Don't
you think we know that?” his friend said wearily. His wrinkles
were much deeper than the last time that Simon had spoken to him and
he was pale with exhaustion.
“
But
if the elders seal this plane entirely, the threat is over. The brown
dragons will reduce this world to a rotted and decayed horror, but
will then be trapped for all eternity with their own handiwork. Much
joy will they get from it,” Daniel added bitterly.
The
wizard sat on the windowsill and tried to think of a solution. For
some reason, the primal brown dragon and its horde of lesser dragons
had invaded the elven lands two months ago, Earth time. He couldn't
keep the time differential straight in his head, but that had only
been about a week or two in the elvish realm.
Unfortunately,
he hadn't been able to contact Daniel in all that time. After his
battle with the primal white dragon, the elves that had aided him,
including Ethmira, had withdrawn to their realm and everything had,
supposedly, gone back to normal.
The
other Changlings who had participated in the fight; Liliana, the
paladin from Moscow, Tamara and Sebastian, the sibling mages from
London, and the two warriors from Nottinghill, Malcolm and Aiden, had
all gone back home and gotten on with living their lives.
Simon
had done the same. Winter was setting in before he tried to call
Daniel using the Magic Mirror spell and had been unsuccessful. But he
hadn't worried too much. Contact with the elvish plane was hit and
miss; sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Besides, the elves
and Daniel were safe, he thought. Why would the dragons threaten
them? And even if they wanted to, how could they possibly cross over
into another world to attack them?
It
was only within the last week that Simon had made contact with his
oldest friend, and had learned the truth.
The
primal brown dragon had somehow opened a portal into the elven home
world and his horde of lesser dragons, hundreds and hundreds of the
foul creatures, had spewed into that green and peaceful land and had
begun to ravage it.
As
for why, the story had come from Daniel himself.
“
The
brown dragons and their leader were the ones responsible for driving
the elves from Earth thousands of years ago,” he'd told Simon.
“They have a special hatred for them. Now, we don't know for
certain, but I believe the brown dragons learned that the elves were
part of the group that attacked and helped destroy the primal white.
That leaves only two groups of dragons on the entire Earth now; reds
and browns. It is quite possible that the browns blame the entire
thing on the elves.”
“
But
we're responsible, the Changlings,” Simon had objected. “Hell,
if they want to blame one person specifically, they can blame me. I
started this whole thing, after all.”
“
No,
you didn't. The gods of Chaos started this war, not you. But
irregardless, you can't reason with a dragon. They are evil to the
core and arrogant beyond belief. If the primal brown dragon blames
the elves for the deaths of its siblings, which I think it does,
nothing will turn it aside.”
In
the short span of time since the invasion, the dragons had attacked
the main elven city and reduced it to slag. Brown dragons spewed a
form of acid that seemed to break down solids on contact, turning
them into a nightmarish mass of sludge. That included buildings,
plants...and people.
Now
the elves were on the run. Their entire world was apparently covered
with deep forests and ancient trees. It would take the dragons a very
long time to exterminate the entire elven species, but dragons were
immortal, and patient.
“
There
has to be another way,” Simon said desperately. “There
just has to be.”
“
There
isn't. I wish there were, believe me. I'm not the heroic type, old
friend. Death certainly isn't my first choice as a solution to the
dragon problem, but there doesn't seem to be another one. The elders
have discussed it, they've asked for everyone's input. They even came
to the resident human in the group,” and Daniel tapped his
chest with a wry smile, “and wanted to know if I had any other
options. But I don't. So here we are.”
The
wizard turned and looked out of the window. The panes were etched
with frost and the field and forest beyond the walls of his tower
were dusted with early snow.
Looks
like another hard winter, he thought absently. Harder still when your
best friend is about to die and you can't do a damned thing about it.
He
frowned into the glare of the sunlight reflecting off of the snow.
Something was nudging at the back of his mind; an idea half-formed
and tenuous. What was it?
Turning
away from the window, Simon crossed the room and sat down again,
looking at the elementals. They returned his stare with worried looks
of their own.