The Dragons of Ice and Snow (13 page)

“
Okay, I agree on
the weirdness factor, but if Aethos says that this is what has to be
done, I'm willing to give it a shot.”

Kronk looked at Aeris and
pointed at the door. The other elemental nodded and they both headed
for the exit.

“
Hey guys, where are
you going?”

They stopped at the door
and looked back at Simon.

“
First rule of
elemental servants, my dear wizard,” Aeris said with a wry
smile. “Never learn your master's true name. And yes, I know.
You aren't our master, at least in your own mind. But the rule holds.
Call us back in when you're done.”

Kronk gave the wizard a
quick wink and they both left.

Simon heard the earthen's
rocky feet tip-tapping down the stairs and shook his head.

I don't know if I'll ever
understand them, he thought. Not totally, anyway.

He stared at the staff. It
seemed to glow in the sunlight shining through the window behind him.

“
Okay, nameless
staff,” he murmured to it. “Let's see if this works.”

Simon pressed his lips
together and pricked his forefinger. A bead of blood slowly built up
on it and, before it dripped off, he began to slowly write on the
staff, across its length.

“
v...a...l...a...g...a...r,”
he said aloud as he wrote each letter. He had to squeeze his finger
twice to coax out more blood to finish writing his real name.

When he was done, Simon
sat back and sucked on his finger as he stared at the crooked, bloody
letters. Nothing happened.

“
Well,” he
said to the staff. “Are you going to do something or what?”

A silence dropped over the
room. The sounds of birdsong from outside became muted and Simon felt
like his ears were stuffed with cotton.

“
What?” he
whispered. He couldn't hear his own voice.

And then he watched with
wide eyes as the bloody letters seemed to sink into the wood of the
staff. The length turned a bright, wet red for an instant and then
the white ash body glowed with a blinding light.

Simon squinted through
sudden tears at the staff. He felt pain, a sharp stab in his chest
that drew a gasp from his lips and then...it was over.

The staff lay innocently
on his desk, just a length of wood. The wizard watched it
suspiciously, as if it were a sleeping snake that might strike at any
time.

“
Guy? Hey guys!”
he yelled. “You can come back up now.”

In a moment, he heard
Kronk jumping up the steps again and Aeris shot back into the study
just ahead of the little earthen.

They both settled on top
of the desk and looked closely at the staff.

“
Did it work,
master?”

Simon shrugged.

“
I guess so. The
letters were absorbed into the wood, anyway. And a few...strange
things happened. Whether it will help augment my powers, well, we'll
see.”

“
What strange
things?” Aeris asked.

“
It doesn't matter,
really. I guess the next step is to test it out. But that can keep
for now.”

Simon lifted the staff off
of the desk and leaned back to rest it against the window ledge
behind him. He turned and looked at the air elemental.

“
Aeris, Kronk and I
were discussing the possible weaknesses of the white dragons while
you were gone.”

“
Were you? All
right. Any conclusions?” he asked skeptically.

Simon explained his
reasoning to the elemental, based on what had happened during his
battles with the black and green primal dragons.

Halfway through, Aeris
began nodding slowly. When the wizard finished, the cloudy figure had
a definite look of admiration on his face.

“
You know, it never
occurred to me that the dragons were their own worst enemies.
Interesting, isn't it? Hmm.”

“
Exactly. The
problem is, if the white dragons can be harmed by intense cold, I'm
in trouble. None of my spells does that kind of damage.”

“
Really? What about
your Ice Spear spell? Or Ice Storm?”

Simon shook his head.

“
I'm not saying that
those spells won't damage them, although I doubt that they will do
much. I need a spell that uses intense cold, like their breath
attacks, not frozen water. At a guess, I'd say their scales would be
more than thick enough to block an ice spear. And the hail?
Doubtful.”

Aeris floated up and down,
looking thoughtful.

“
So you need to
learn an offensive spell that attacks with deep cold, is that it?”

“
Exactly.”

“
And we think you
can help,” Kronk piped up.

Aeris stared at him.

“
Me? Well, that's
very complimentary, I'm sure, but I don't know any spells. No
elemental does. You know that,” he said to the earthen.

“
True enough,”
Kronk replied. “But we know the
magic
,
don't we? You know how air magic works. I know how earth magic works,
correct?”

“
Well,
yes, but...”

“
And
you know someone who understands how to use cold-based magic.”

Aeris
looked puzzled.

“
I
do?”

“
Yes!”
Kronk said, exasperated. “Granted, his powers are over water,
but he can use cold to enhance those powers.”

Simon
watched, fascinated, as Aeris' puzzled expression turned to one of
comprehension.

“
You're
speaking of the water sprite, Aquamastis?”

“
Exactly,”
the wizard said. “I watched him freeze an entire swath of the
river during my fight with the black dragon. It had to take not just
a massive amount of power, but incredibly intense cold as well.”

“
Okay,
I agree. So what do you want to do, approach him and ask him how to
summon the deep cold?”

“
Basically
yes.”

Simon
impatiently pushed his hair off of his face and yawned suddenly. He
blinked an apology at the elementals.

“
Sorry,
I don't know why I'm tired. Anyway, Aeris, you've spoken with
Aquamastis a few times. Do you think that he would be amenable to
sharing that information?”

To
his credit, for a change the air elemental answered the question
directly.

“
No,
I don't,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “I don't
think he would care enough to bother, to be quite honest.”

Kronk
stepped closer to Aeris, looking indignant.

“
Not
care enough to bother? Who summoned him to Earth? Who
gave
him the river he now calls home? Our master did! Does that sprite not
remember that?”

Aeris
looked taken aback by the little guy's anger and retreated a few
inches.

“
No,
it's not that. He appreciates Simon's aid. But he feels that helping
our dear wizard defeat the primal black was his part of the bargain.
In his mind, they are now even.”

He
looked up at Simon.

“
It
isn't ego, really. But an elemental as powerful as Aquamastis would
not share something like the key to using the deep cold magic without
expecting something in return. And what can you offer him that he
would want?”

The
wizard had to agree. The water elemental had been quite clear after
the death of the black dragon. He'd told Simon that they were even
and that was that. What could he offer Aquamastis for his knowledge?
Simon felt himself deflate. Nothing. Nothing at all.

“
Relax,
Kronk,” he said. The little guy's red eyes were still glowing
with anger. “Aeris isn't the bad guy here. Neither is
Aquamastis. It's just his nature. And you're right,” he told
Aeris. “I have nothing that the sprite would want. So, I guess
I'll keep researching. Maybe somewhere buried deep in Daniel's notes
is a clue that I can use. I mean, it was just a thought anyway,
getting help from a being that powerful. We're no worse off than we
were before.”

Kronk
looked up at him, slowly cooling off as he stared at Simon.

“
You
aren't upset, master?”

“
What
would be the point? I just wish, I dunno, that things didn't always
have to be so complicated.”

Simon
stared off into space blankly, suddenly too tired to think. He
guessed that attuning the staff to himself had used up more of his
energy than he'd realized it would.

Nothing
that some sleep wouldn't cure, he thought wearily.

Kronk stood still, staring
dejectedly at the desktop, his little red eyes barely glowing.

Simon glanced at Aeris and
was surprised to see the elemental smiling in a self-satisfied way,
looking from the wizard to Kronk and back again.

“
Why do you look so
pleased with yourself?” he asked.

Kronk looked at Aeris
curiously.

“
Why? Because, my
dear wizard, you are missing a very obvious solution to your problem.
That's why.”

“
Really? Pray
enlighten us, oh wise one,” Simon said with a sarcastic grin. A
flutter of hope swept away his fatigue and he watched the elemental
intently.

“
I'll do that,”
Aeris answered loftily. “Aquamastis is a very powerful water
elemental, it's true. But his powers are the same as all of his kind,
just as mine are and Kronk's are. The only difference is in their
degree.”

He paused as if waiting
for Simon to say something, but the wizard simply looked back
blankly.

Aeris threw his arms up in
the air.

“
Don't you see?”
he asked impatiently. “
Any
water elemental knows what Aquamastis knows. Any of them.”

A
light bulb suddenly snapped on in Simon's head and it must have shown
on his face because Aeris grinned broadly.

“
Ah,
I believe our dear wizard has connected the dots,” he told
Kronk, who looked confused.

“
I
still don't understand,” he said plaintively.

Simon
knew that the little guy was very bright, but that it took him time
to put things together, so before Aeris could say something that
might hurt Kronk's feelings, he hurried to explain.

“
What
Aeris is saying, my friend, is that if I summon a water elemental,
but one of the smaller ones, like you two, he or she could tell me
what I wanted to know, because all of their powers are the same.”
He quickly glanced at Aeris. “Correct?”

“
Precisely.
A summoned being, as you well know by now, Simon, must obey the
summoner. And before you say it, I will. You don't want to order us
about and you don't want to play the master. I know that. But like
both Kronk and I, if you summon a water elemental and offer them
their freedom, as you did for us, I have a feeling that their
gratitude would be enough to convince them to help you.”

“
Of
course!” Kronk crowed with sudden delight. “Aeris, that's
brilliant!”

“
It
is?” The air elemental stared at him, apparently lost for
words.

Simon
had to turn his laugh into a cough at Aeris' look of surprise.

“
He's right. It
hadn't occurred to me to ask a less powerful version of Aquamastis
for help. That's a lesson for me. Thanks.”

“
Err, you're
welcome.”

The wizard felt
re-energized and sprang up to move to his work table, grabbing his
spell-book as he went.

He stood at the table
while he skimmed through the book to the well-worn page that held the
Summoning spell.

“
Okay, you guys
ready for some company?”

Aeris flew over to the
table while Kronk jumped down from the desk, quickly tip-tapped
across the room and leaped up to join him.

“
All set,” the
air elemental said calmly.

“
Ready, master,”
Kronk added eagerly.

“
Good. Whoever we
get, I hope they're in a good mood.”

Neither of the little guys
said anything, they just stared at the middle of the table and
waited.

Simon memorized the spell,
flipped through the spell-book to the page covered with the runes of
the four elements and added the minor water rune to the spell in his
mind.

He swallowed nervously.
This was always the big unknown when summoning an elemental. They
were people, and you never knew if you'd end up with someone with a
sweet disposition like Kronk or acidic like Aeris.

With a deep breath, Simon
stared at the table and chanted the incantation. He paused a moment
and added the word of command.