The Dragons of Ice and Snow (38 page)

“
Really?
Good. So how are things at home?”

They walked
slowly to the edge of the meadow, where the ground dropped away
sharply.

“
Fine,
master. Still no sign of Ana, though.”

“
I
see. You know, maybe I should summon her back and ask her what she's
up to?”

Kronk looked
up at him.

“
What
would be the point, master? If she is innocently exploring, she might
be offended. And if she is planning something, she would simply not
tell you.”

“
Could
she lie to me?” Simon asked as he glanced up at the starry sky
and then back at Kronk.

“
No
master, not directly. But she could simply avoid telling you the
truth. Almost the same thing, but not quite.”

“
Yeah,
that's a good point.”

Simon shook
his head and pushed back his hair absently.

“
You
know, life would be so much simpler if I wasn't always looking over
my shoulder waiting for someone to stab me in the back.”

The little
guy chuckled, his laughter sounding like stones rubbing together.

“
Hazards
of being a wizard, master.”

“
Wonderful,”
Simon replied dryly. “You know, back in the day, I never had
this type of fear riding me. I was big and strong and confident in
myself.” He paused thoughtfully. “Of course, I didn't
have nearly as many responsibilities either.”

“
Exactly,
master. Then you were one among many. Now? Now you may be the only
wizard in the entire world. Your burden is great.”

“
Thanks,
Kronk. That's just makes me feel so much worse.”

Simon
grinned as he said it but the earthen looked at him solemnly.

“
I
know it does, master. But at the risk of being too forward, sometimes
you seem to forget how much you mean to the rest of humanity. I know
that you are a humble man, but you must not lose sight of your own
importance.”

Simon
snorted so loudly that he choked and spent the next few minutes
coughing.

“
Sorry,
Kronk,” he finally said, wheezing a bit. “But you may be
a bit biased. Now, let's concentrate on the task at hand, shall we?”

“
Yes
master. Look.”

The wizard
followed the little guy's gaze and saw the top of the moon slowly
begin to crawl over the distant horizon.

“
Wow,
it looks huge, doesn't it?” he said in a hushed voice. “And
it's kind of red. Well, that's not at all threatening.”

“
It
is only the moon, master,” Kronk said, being his practical
self.

No
imagination at all, Simon thought as he watched the little guy stare
at the rising moon. And yet so child-like. Ah well.

“
I'll
wait until it's fully risen, just in case,” he said. “This
has to be done right the first time.”

“
Agreed,
master.”

And so they
stood in silence and watched as the moon slowly ascended. It was
beautiful in its own way and Simon felt no impatience as he waited.

When the
bottom edge was almost fully exposed, he turned to Kronk.

“
Well,
we can almost...”

“
Get
down, master!” the earthen said in an urgent whisper.

“
What?”

And then the
little rocky body hit him like a projectile, knocking him off his
feet into the tall grass.

“
Kronk!”
Simon said breathlessly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“
Shh!
Dragon!”

“
What?
Where?”

The little
guy rose up a little and pointed. Simon turned to look in that
direction and his stomach clenched in fear.

Across the
bloated moon, a vast winged shape soared majestically, gliding like
some massive bat across the bright glowing orb.

The wizard
watched in mute shock as the first winged monster was followed by
another, and then another.

“
My
God,” he whispered. “How many are there?”

“
Too
many, master. Stay still and keep low.”

“
Yeah,
no kidding.”

The two of
them watched as dragon followed dragon in a majestic display. It
seemed to last for hours and the moon had risen high in the sky by
the time the last of the winged behemoths had disappeared.

Simon stood
up carefully, trying to look in all directions at once. But the sky
was clear again and he finally sucked in a ragged breath and blew it
out slowly. His body was slick with sweat and his heart was still
racing.

“
What
the hell was that?” he murmured, feeling a little dizzy. He had
never seen that many dragons at once before. It had been absolutely
terrifying.

“
I
do not know, master,” Kronk answered anxiously. “They
were flying almost directly from south to north, but where they came
from and where they are going, who can say?”

Slipping his
staff off of his back, Simon leaned on it weakly and wiped his face
on his sleeve.

“
But
I thought that all of the black dragons were dead! North America was
their territory.”

“
Apparently
not any more, master. Those weren't black dragons. Did you not
notice? The blacks did not have twisted horns like the ones we just
saw.”

“
Twisted
horns?” Simon gaped at the earthen. “You could see that?
Good grief, you have amazing eyesight.”

“
I
suppose so, master,” the little guy said with a shrug. “But
do you not remember when the two dragons attacked the tower last
year? They also had long, twisted horns.”

“
Oh
crap. They were red dragons, weren't they?”

“
Yes
master, red dragons. And I think that means that this continent is
now part of their territory.”

“
Red
dragons. Great. Just what I needed to hear right now. I was hoping we
would be free of the monsters for years after I killed the primal
black.”

Kronk
brushed off some loose grass.

“
Well
master, you got almost two years out of it. That is something, at
least.”

“
I
guess so. Well, one crisis at a time.”

He slipped
on the gloves and walked over to the nearest bunch of wolf's bane
flowers.

“
Let's
get these gathered and get back. If dragons are roaming the skies in
this country again, Malcolm and Aiden are needed more than ever.”

He plucked
several flowers from the plants and stuffed them into the sack. Then
he wiped off any residue from the gloves on the long grass, stuffed
them into a pocket and looked at Kronk.

“
Ready?”

“
Yes
master.”

Simon
chanted the Gate spell, gestured at the little guy to grab the bottom
of his robe and pictured the town hall in his mind. And then they
were pulled into the void and away.

Clara was
waiting anxiously for them when Simon and Kronk appeared in the
center of the hall. Someone had started a fire and it burned merrily
in the fire pit, pushing back the evening's chill. The wizard stood
and enjoyed the warmth for a moment.

“
You
got it?” Clara asked after greeting Kronk with a smile.

“
Got
it,” Simon replied and handed her the sack. “Put some
gloves on before you handle the petals though,” he added.

“
Yes,
I know,” she replied and led the way back into her quarters.

She had covered her dining table with a
thick tarp and, after slipping on some canvas gloves, dumped the
bag's contents on to it. The petals cascaded from the sack in vivid
flashes of color and lay piled together in a cheerful mound.

“You'd never know they were
toxic, would you?” Simon muttered.

Clara only smiled nervously and started
pulling the petals from the flowers.

The wizard quickly pulled out his
gloves and began to help.

“So what are you using to grind
up the flowers?” he asked.

The cleric turned and picked up a
small, thick-sided bowl. It was bright blue.

“One of my people found this
mortar and pestle in a burned-out hobby shop, of all places. It
should do the job.”

“Excellent.”

When they were done plucking the
petals, Simon slapped his gloves together to remove any pollen and
slipped them back into his pocket.

Clara began to grind the petals, the
pestle making an unpleasant, squishing sound she turned the flowers
into paste.

As one point she stepped back and
sneezed. The wolf's bane paste smelled sharply like strong pepper and
Simon had to wipe his eyes several times.

“It can't be good for us to be
breathing this stuff,” he said at one point. The cleric only
shrugged, her eyes almost closed against the strong fumes.

“You can wait out in the main
hall if you'd like. I won't be much longer.”

“What? And miss all the fun? No
thank you.”

Clara giggled in spite of her
discomfort and carried on gamely.

As she was finishing up, Simon heard
the cleric chanting under her breath and realized that she was
blessing the mixture. He nodded to himself and remained silent.

When she was done, the wizard took a
peek into the bowl. The flower paste was a rather nasty greenish-red
color, like tainted blood and he grimaced and stepped back.

“Well, I'd say we have enough,”
he observed. “You could fill those little containers three or
four times over with all that gunk.”

“True. Still, better too much
than too little.”

Simon unscrewed the two amulets and set
the one marked 'Malcolm' down at one end of the table and Aiden's at
the other. He picked up the little clay bottles containing the men's
blood and checked the bottoms to make sure he put the correct one by
each open receptacle. It wouldn't do to make a mistake now. He opened
them and moved away to allow Clara to finish.

“So, let's see how this stuff
sticks together,” she said and scooped up some paste. It molded
in her fingers like wet clay and she smiled.

“Perfect. Simon, I'm going to
make a little dent in the middle of the paste. Could you pour a drop
of blood into it? Then I'll close the paste around the blood and
stick it into the amulet.”

“Ah, clever,” he told her
with an admiring look.

“We'll see. Now, just a drop.
That's all that Aethos said we needed, so let's not overdo it.”

They started with Malcolm's mixture.
Simon gently tilted the bottle until a single drop of blood dripped
into the center of the paste. He felt a little sick at the sight of
the bright red liquid resting on top of the green paste.

“Why do I feel like we're
performing some sort of voodoo ritual?” he said with a shudder.

Clara was too focused on her task to
answer. She molded the paste into a ball and dropped it into the
amulet. It fit with a little room to spare.

She let out her breath in a gasp and
looked up at the wizard.

“Phew! I seem to have guessed
right, luckily. Just let me screw on the top and we'll do Aiden's.”

A few minutes later, they were done.
Clara carefully wiped all residue from the amulets and set them aside
on an end table. She put the little bottles beside them.

She tossed her gloves on the table
along with the unused paste in the mortar. She dropped the wizard's
canvas bag on top and folded the tarp up around them.

“What are you going to do with
that?” Simon asked, nodding at the bulky package.

“Burn it,” she replied.
“That stuff is too toxic to take chances with. The mortar and
pestle have been contaminated and I doubt any amount of washing will
allow us to reuse them.”

“Wise,” he said. “I'll
do the same with my gloves when I get home.”

“Just toss them in here,”
the cleric told him and opened the tarp a bit.

He pulled out the gloves and dropped
them into the bundle, smiling his thanks.

Clara excused herself and took the
package into the hall. Simon sat and waited. His gaze kept drifting
to the two amulets and he couldn't help wondering if, after all this,
they would actually work. It seemed like magic to him, but not the
clean magic that he was used to. This was more...primitive, somehow.

“I've had one of the guards take
that stuff to the refuse pit we keep burning near the fields,”
Clara said as she reentered.

She sat down on one end of the sofa and
waved Simon toward the other end.

“We use it for burning weeds, old
clothing that is too worn out to use anymore, that sort of thing.”

“Good enough. Now we just have to
wait for the dawn.”

The wizard rubbed his tired eyes and
looked at the darkness outside of the windows.

“Speaking of which, I wonder how
long it is until sunrise?”

“Three hours, master.”

Simon jumped and looked down at Kronk,
who was standing next to the sofa. He'd watched the entire process
without saying a word and the wizard had actually forgotten that he
was there.

“Sorry, bud,” he said with
an apologetic smile. “I forgot about you.”

“Not to worry, master,” the
earthen replied equitably.

“Three hours? You're sure? Of
course you are. Well then, we'll just have to sit and cultivate
patience, I suppose.”

Clara's face had a frail, pinched look
to it and Simon looked at her with real warmth.

“You've taken this all to heart,
my lady cleric,” he said with a slightly sad smile. “The
burden of caring for these people is weighing heavily on you today, I
think.”