The Dragons of Decay (8 page)

“
Well son,” he said to
the young man in the mirror with the blue and brown, mismatched eyes,
“you ain't no rock star, but you'll do.”

Then he stuck out his tongue, giggled
at himself and went back to the study.

The loud noises from the first floor
began to taper off soon afterward, for which Simon was very grateful,
but then a sharp chemical smell, so strong that it made his eyes
water, wafted through the room.

The wizard got up and went out to
stand at the top of the stairs.

“
Kronk? What the heck is that
horrible smell?”

“
Smell, master?” Kronk
called out. He tapped over and looked up from the bottom of the
staircase. He had a puzzled expression on his face. “What
smell?”

“
I don't know. It smells like a
mixture of turpentine, cat pee and vomit.”

The little guy looked around with a
frown and then his eyes widened.

“
Oh, I think I know! It's a
sealant, master. We are sealing the floor, walls and ceiling to
prevent dampness from getting into the wood.”

“
A sealant? Okay, that makes
sense. But what's it made of?”

Kronk shrugged, a quick movement of
his sloped shoulders.

“
I cannot explain it, master.
We combine elements from the earth, certain minerals and natural oils
buried deep below the surface. It dries quickly though, so the smell
won't last long,” he added brightly.

“
Great,” Simon grumbled.
“Okay, thanks. Call me when you're done, please. I'm going a
bit stir-crazy up here.”

“
I will, master. It won't be
much longer.”

The wizard smiled weakly at Kronk and
went back into his study, grabbing a book from the bookshelf at
random and sitting down with a sigh.

It didn't take long for the smell to
fade away, but by that time, Simon could actually taste it and was
constantly swallowing to clear his mouth. He looked at the doorway
and wished for the first time that he had actually had doors
installed on the second floor rooms back when the tower was built.

He glanced at the shuttered windows.
The storm was still whipping around the tower and even if he'd wanted
to open a window, he couldn't. Kronk had managed to keep a fire going
in the fireplace downstairs, so at least the tower was warm, but
opening one of the windows for some fresh air would quickly drop the
inside temperature to sub-zero levels.

I need a cup of tea, or three, he
thought mournfully. Actually, what he really wanted was coffee. God,
how he missed coffee.

Once again he wished that the
original dragon attacks on humanity's cities and towns hadn't
annihilated stores and malls along with people's homes and everything
else.

There must be an overlooked warehouse
someplace where there are crates of instant coffee just waiting to be
scavenged. I mean, I know that the drakes cleaned up whatever the
dragons missed, but surely somewhere out there is a stash of frigging
coffee.

Simon sat back and frowned in
concentration.

Maybe if I got the coordinates for
Columbia from the atlas and Gated down there, I could harvest some
coffee beans? Surely they're still growing wild in the fields or
whatever?

That idea lasted less than a minute
and then his practical side kicked in.

Okay, first of all, I'd need to get
some volunteers from Nottinghill to even make the attempt worthwhile.
Then I'd have to transport us all down there at the proper time of
year, spend a day or two harvesting, then figure out what the hell to
do with the beans once we had them. Should they be treated with
something? Dried out in the sun for however long? And how do you know
when a coffee bean is exactly ready to be picked?

Simon stuck out his tongue and blew a
raspberry at himself. Stupid idea. No, when the crisis with Daniel
and the elves was resolved, he thought and crossed his fingers, he'd
summon the team of air elemental scouts he'd had working for him once
before and send them out to search for supplies. Canned and bottled
food couldn't be trusted after so many years, but instant coffee and
other things like it should be okay.

He nodded to himself, grabbed a piece
of paper from the pile on the desk and made a note for later. Then he
slipped it into a desk drawer and looked up just in time to see Kronk
tip-tapping into the room, a broad smile on his rough little face.

“
We are finished, master,”
he said happily. “I hope you weren't too bored up here while
you were waiting.”

“
You're done?”

Simon leaped to his feet and walked
toward the earthen.

“
No, I was fine,” he told
the little guy, who turned and led the way out of the room. “Ignore
my whining from earlier, Kronk. You guys do in a day what might have
taken a week or more for a team of workers back in the old days.”

“
Thank you, master,” the
earthen replied as he began to hop down the stairs. “But we
just do what we do because it comes naturally to us.”

Simon reached the bottom of the
staircase and turned, holding his breath and hoping for the best.
What he saw exceeded his expectations.

The floor and walls were totally
repaired. They glowed with a healthy sheen, the rich dark wood
showing beautiful veins beneath the clear coating the earthen had
sealed it with.

The ceiling beams had been scraped
down and resealed as well and if he hadn't known that there had been
a fire earlier, Simon would never had guessed the place had been
damaged.

The sofa was still missing and he
felt a pang of loss. He'd had the comfortable old thing for at least
five years; it had been moved from his living room in his last
apartment a year before the end of the world. But of course Kronk and
his helpers couldn't replace it. They could build in wood, stone and
minerals, but a stuffed cushion would be beyond them.

The little guy was watching his
expression and jumped in to reassure him.

“
There is a woman in
Nottinghill who repairs their furniture, master. I have spoken to her
once before. In the spring, I can arrange for her to make cushions
for a new sofa for you and I will build the frame for it. I am so
sorry that we do not have the knowledge to do it for you.”

“
No, no, my friend,”
Simon hastened to tell him. “It's fine. Better than fine; it's
fantastic!”

He turned to look at the rest of the
room and smiled with delight.

The earthen had built a new kitchen
table and chairs in a lighter wood. Like the rest of the wood in the
room, it had a healthy gleam to it and looked homey and comfortable.
The counter and cupboards had been repaired and resurfaced as well
and all signs of soot and fire damage on the stone surrounding the
fireplace had been scrubbed away.

They had even built a new clothes
cupboard near the door for his outerwear and Simon took a moment to
open it and look inside.

He looked at Kronk and the other five
earthen who were waiting anxiously for his reaction.

He smiled warmly at all of them.

“
As usual, you bunch always
exceed expectations. It's marvelous, really. And I'm not just saying
that.”

He looked around and sighed
contentedly.

“
I've got my home back,”
he said happily. “Yours too, of course,” he added
quickly. “Thank you all so, so much.”

They all bowed in unison, their
little blocky faces looking up at him with smiles of their own.

“
Thank you, master. I speak for
all of us when I say it is always our pleasure to serve you.”

Kronk looked at the others and
rattled off something in his own language. They nodded and murmured a
reply and then the group went out, closing the door firmly behind
them. They'd even straightened out the latch that the wights had bent
back when they'd burst into the tower.

“
Where are they off to now?”
Simon asked him as he crossed the room to examine the kitchen area.

“
I've sent them back to patrol
the wall, master.” the little guy said. He tapped over and
jumped up on to the table. “I'm sure Aeris is curious to see
our repairs and now he can allow my fellow earthen to take over the
watch on the wall.”

“
Ah, good thinking.”

The wizard sat down and worked his
butt around on the new kitchen chair. The elementals had contoured
the seat and, for a wooden chair, it was smooth and comfortable.

“
Wonderful,” Simon said
and sat back to simply enjoy his home.

Aeris popped into the room and flew
over to join Kronk on the table. He looked around the room with
narrowed eyes and the earthen watched him a bit nervously.

“
Well?” the wizard asked.
“Are you going to be nice and compliment Kronk and his friends
on their work or are you going to say something mean?”

“
Mean?”

Aeris looked at him and then at
Kronk.

“
Of course not. They've done a
wonderful job; very efficient.”

The earthen stared at him, obviously
speechless. Simon felt the same way.

“
What? Why are you two looking
at me like that?” Aeris asked irritably. “I give credit
when credit is due. Well done, Kronk.”

“
Thank you,” the earthen
replied weakly.

Simon patted the little guy on the
back.

“
See? Even Aeris knows you've
done a great job.”

Kronk nodded silently, still
digesting the air elemental's compliment.

The wizard looked regretfully at the
fireplace. His comfy stuffed chair had been destroyed and, like the
sofa, was beyond the earth elementals' skills to replace.

Ah but I loved sitting in front of
the fire during the long winter nights, he thought with a pang of
sadness. Oh well, it could have been so much worse.

He pushed aside his negative thoughts
and jumped up. He grabbed his kettle, shined to a dull glow, and
filled it from the pump.

“
My celebration of this
marvelous repair job begins with a cup of tea in my new kitchen,”
he told the two elementals with a grin.

He hung the kettle in the fireplace
and rummaged through the kitchen cabinets.

“
It's good to see how quickly
things are getting back to normal,” Aeris said with approval.
“And now that they are, did you get in touch with your friend
in the elven lands? It's been two days, after all.”

“
I did,” Simon told him.
He leaned back on the counter to wait for the water to boil.

“
Daniel said that they've moved
further away from the main center of the dragon attacks, so that's
good news. And he looks better than the last time we talked.
According to him, the elvish glamor should keep the dragons off of
their trail for some time.”

“
That is good news, master,”
Kronk piped up.

“
Yep. He also said that the
elves are striking back against the brown dragons.”

He picked up the boiling kettle and
started to make his tea.

“
You know,” he said over
his shoulder. “I wonder just how many elves there actually are?
I mean, it's a whole world, right? So are there thousands of them?
Millions? I mean, sure, there might be a thousand brown dragons,
although I hope not, but if they're fighting against the entire race
of elves, maybe things aren't as one-sided as I think they are?”

He sat down with his tea and sipped
it gratefully, a contented shiver moving deliciously down his back.

“
I don't think there are many
elves, master,” Kronk told him in his slow, careful way. “As
I remember these things from the old days, there were never that many
to begin with. A birth was cause for celebration because it happened
so rarely.”

“
I agree,” Aeris said as
he watched Simon drinking his tea. “Elves are immortal. They
were decimated by the dragons thousands of years ago and I'm sure it
has taken them this long to rebuild their numbers. Of course,”
he added thoughtfully, “their time runs differently than the
time on this world, so perhaps their population is back to where it
was before the dragons attacked so long ago.”

“
Hmm,” Simon murmured
through a mouthful of tea. He swallowed and put down his cup.

“
I suppose it makes sense. If
you were immortal and reproduced the way that humans do, you'd be
hip-deep in people in a very short time. So, there may only be a few
thousand elves?”

“
Quite possibly, my dear
wizard.”

Simon stood up and went to stand by
the small window near the front door. The wind and snow still swirled
around the tower but he looked through it, thinking hard.

A few minutes passed and Aeris flew
across the room to hover near the wizard and stared out the window
with him.

“
So why the serious face?”
he asked quietly.

“
Hmm?”

Simon glanced at him from the corner
of his eye, smiled a bit and watched the storm again.