The Dragons of Ice and Snow (53 page)

I
wonder if that's where those tales originated, from old memories of
air elementals?

“
Very
well. I speak for my own when I say that we will lend you our support
for this battle. Afterward? Well, we'll deal with that when it comes.
I know how much this spell-casting costs you, sir wizard, so with
your permission, I shall call my brethren here and you may have their
names. Consider it a thank you for being so much more admirable than
the wizards of old.”

Simon,
who was starting to feel a little light-headed, accepted the offer
gratefully.

Aethos
said nothing for a moment. He simply lowered his head and closed his
eyes.

And
then the field felt a lot smaller as eight air elementals, each as
large or larger than Aethos, appeared with a whoosh of wind and a
distant rumble of thunder.

“
Take
their names, Aeris,” Simon told the little guy, who looked a
little calmer.

Each
one gave his or her name to Aeris, some speaking in what the wizard
assumed was their native tongue. It sounded like a whistling breeze,
rising and falling in pitch. Several times the little guy laughed at
some comment they made.

When
they were finished, the air elementals, like the earthen before them,
bowed to Simon and vanished back to their own realm.

Aethos
lingered for a moment.

“
Do
you have a strategy, a plan, sir wizard?” he asked quietly.

“
I
do, Aethos. Whether it will work is another question. But I do have a
plan.”

“
Excellent.
But don't rule out the direct approach either. Sometimes brute force
can work where finesse does not.”

“
I
agree. I think there will be plenty of that as well.”

“
Good.
I'm a simple being, after all. Point me at a target and let me go. It
works quite well as a rule.”

And
with that and a smile, Aethos vanished.

“
Well,
that was easier than I thought it would be.”

“
I
agree, master. Aeris, are you all right?”

Aeris
looked at them both for a second, then gave himself a bit of a shake
and shrugged.

“
More
or less. I thought for a minute there that I was going to be
recalled. Thank you, Simon, for sticking up for me.”

“
Friends
to the end, Aeris,” Simon told him with a smile. “Friends
back each other up. You made no mistakes out there and Aethos needed
to know that.”

“
Friends.
Yes,” the air elemental said reflectively. “Yes, we are,
aren't we?”

He
smiled a bit shyly at both Simon and Kronk.

“
So,
all that remains are the fire elementals, yes?” he asked the
wizard.

“
Yeah.
I'm glad that Aethos did me the favor of summoning his people for me.
I should have enough strength to get through this last bit, then I'm
definitely going to crash. And don't look at me like that,” he
added seeing Kronk's look of concern. “I'll be fine. Let's just
get it over with, okay?”

“
Yes
master,” the earthen answered dubiously. “You know best,
as always.”

“
Yeah
right. I know that look. Okay, here we go.”

The
fire elementals looked nothing like Simon imagined.

When
he raised his staff and cast the first summoning spell, a distant
bang, high over theirs head, echoed across the sky.

“
That's
weird,” the wizard said. “It sounds like an old-time
sonic boom. But that's...”

His
voice caught in his throat as he saw a distant point of bright yellow
dropping like a meteor straight down toward their heads.

“
Holy
crap! Run!” he shouted and ran back toward the tower, Kronk and
Aeris on his heels.

The
burning yellow streak of light turned incandescent red just before it
hit the ground with an explosive roar. Burning grass and smoldering
dirt flew in all directions at the impact and Simon covered his eyes,
coughing at the smoke that blew across the field.

“
What
the hell,” he said, gasping for breath, “was that?”

“
Always
overly dramatic, aren't they?” Aeris muttered to Kronk, who
nodded and frowned.

“
Always.
You would think after being left in their own realm for this long,
they would have calmed down by now, wouldn't you?”

“
Exactly.”

“
Wait,
what are you two talking about?” Simon asked as he waved a hand
in front of his face. A pall of smoke still hung over the field and
the light breeze wasn't having much of an effect on it.

“
Is
this the fire elemental's way of making an entrance?”

“
Exactly,
my dear wizard. They are powerful and headstrong and destructive.
Untamable for most wizards and highly selective about who they will
take orders from.”

“
Oh
great,” Simon said in exasperation. “You're just telling
me this
now
?”

A
low growl interrupted Aeris' answer and the three of them peered into
the slowly-dissipating smoke nervously.

“
Wizard,
step forward,” growled a voice from the center of the field.

With
a loud gulp, Simon gripped his staff firmly, after wiping his palm on
his robe, and walked toward the voice.

As
he approached, a flickering flame rose up from the ground to hover
over the burnt grass. It was taller than he was and wavered and
snapped like the fire in his fireplace.

When
he got to within a dozen feet, Simon stopped and stared, waiting for
some response.

“
So,
you are the summoner,” the flame said as it continued to burn
the ground beneath it. Its voice sounded like someone cracking
walnuts together; sharp-edged and unpleasant. Little wisps of smoke
drifted out of the earth. “You are the one who has been
declared an enemy of the water realm, is that so?”

“
That
is so,” Simon answered firmly.

There
was a pause and the flame simply floated there, crackling and pulsing
with heat.

“
Excellent!”
the flame said suddenly. “I am pleased to hear that. I am
Incendus. I speak for my people in this matter. We also are informed
by our great leader that you are making war against the dragons,
yes?”

“
That's
true. I am.”

“
Ah,
it is truly a day of wonders. We have waited long ages for this. We
knew, as only the elementals can, that the dark ones would return
from the Void eventually. And that they would unleash their servants
upon the world. Dragons, bah!”

Sparks
scattered around the intense flame and Simon jumped back in surprise.

“
We
will join in your fight against these creatures. As you can see,
summoning us causes some minor destruction.”

Simon
looked at the bare stretch of ground and the ashes where the grass
used to be and nodded once.

“
Yes,
I can see that.”

“
And
so, I shall give you the names of others of my kind, equal to me in
strength of will and power. You may then call us when we are needed.”

The
flame jerked forward toward the wizard and he held himself still by
sheer force of will. The heat increased and he could feel beads of
sweat rolling down his face.

“
I
hope that we will not have to wait too long for this battle,”
it said in a low, ominous tone.

“
No
more than a few days,” Simon answered quickly. He thought he
could smell his robe starting to singe.

“
Ah,
very good.”

“
Aeris,”
Simon said and turned to see the air elemental still back near the
wall.

“
Come
over and take down the names that Incendus is going to give you,
please.”

“
Over
there?” Aeris called out.

“
Yes,
over here! Come on, he won't hurt you.”

He
turned to the flame.

“
You
won't, will you?” he asked under his breath.

A
burst of laughter, followed by more sparks, was his only answer.

Aeris
slowly floated forward and wrote down the names on his piece of paper
It was beginning to smolder by the time he was done and he quickly
raced back to stand beside Kronk near the gate.

“
Thank
you, wizard, for this opportunity. I look forward to seeing you
soon.”

“
So
do I, Incendus. And thank you and your people for answering my call.”

The
flame intensified and Simon stumbled back as it turned from red to
yellow to a blinding, searing white.

“
We
would not miss this for anything,” Incendus bellowed and then,
with a blast of heat that knocked Simon flat on his back, the
elemental was gone. All that was left were bare patches of earth and
the smell of cooked grass and dirt.

As
Kronk and Aeris rushed forward, Simon stood up, coughing and swatting
at little burning patches on his robe.

“
Well,
that was different,” he said lightly, trying to make the other
two smile. It didn't work.

“
Yes.
It is good to know that they are powerful, master,” Kronk said
soberly. “But will they do more harm to friend or foe? That is
the thing that I worry about.”

Simon
gave the damaged ground a last look and then headed for the tower.

“
Yeah,”
he said with a sigh. “You and me both.”

The plain at the foot of
the high mesa was frigid and covered with sheets of ice and thin
snow. Wind howled continuously and Simon was finding it hard to be
heard.

It was D-day, as the
wizard jokingly called it. Dragon day. Three days after his group
meeting using the Magic Mirror spells, he was ready.

Well, he thought, 'ready'
is a relative term. He was rested, his head was crammed with as many
spells as it could hold and his allies were eager to go.

Simon had hosted Malcolm
and Aiden overnight. The two warriors had traveled to the tower and
had spent a companionable evening with the wizard and Kronk and
Aeris. The two men were incessantly cheerful and their mood was
contagious.

They'd also had a few
ideas about the battle to come, and they and Simon hashed out
possible scenarios. It was all hypothetical, of course, and the
wizard reminded them that in his two earlier encounters with primals,
he had been flying by the seat of his pants and hadn't really had a
battle plan.

“
But that's why we
have confidence in you, sir wizard,” Aiden had told him. “You
adapt. You adjust. Sure, you have a plan for the upcoming
confrontation, but I have no doubt that if things go sideways, you
will find a way to turn it to your advantage.”

Watching the two big men
now as the wind whipped snow past them, Simon wasn't so sure. His
adapting had been less quick-thinking and more panicked
improvisation.

He hunched over a bit and
tightened the heavy coat across his shoulders, sliding the staff over
a bit to seat it more comfortably along his spine. Malcolm and Aiden
were wearing heavy plate mail and massive, two-handed swords hung
across their backs. The bitter cold didn't seem to bother them at all
and Simon envied their toughness.

Personally, he had begun
shaking the moment they Gated to their current location. Kronk and
Aeris waited nearby, speaking together quietly. The wizard looked at
them fondly for a moment, but with a hard edge of concern as well. He
was asking Aeris to put himself in a dangerous situation again and,
even though the air elemental was willing, if he got hurt, it would
be Simon's fault.

Someone tapped him on the
shoulder and he turned awkwardly. The ground was flat but slippery
and his boots didn't grip very well.

“
Any idea how long
we have to wait for the elves?”

Simon shrugged as he
looked at Liliana. He had Gated to Moscow to pick her up and then to
London to meet Tamara and Sebastian. The brother and sister mages
were talking, each making sharp hand gestures, but the screaming wind
carried away their voices and he couldn't hear what the subject was
that made them look so intense.

“
Soon. According to
Daniel anyway. Their time-line is so different than ours that it's
hard to pinpoint exact times but they should be here...”

He stopped in mid-sentence
and squinted into the wind. Then he grinned and lifted his chin in
that direction.