The Dragons of Decay (2 page)

“
I
just thought of something,” he finally said into the mirror.
“My small friends here told me some time ago that I'd be stuck
looking like a kid for a very long time. Something about the magic
altering the way my body ages.”

He
ran a hand through his hair and saw the splashes of white mixed in
with the brown as it fell over his eyes.

“
It's
the same power that's turned my hair this lovely, pinto-looking
color.”

“
Yes,
that's true,” Daniel said with a quirk of an eyebrow. “And
your point is?”

“
My
point is that I don't age the way that you do, old buddy. I think
that a trip to the elven realm, provided I didn't stay for, let's
say, more than a month, might not affect me at all, or at least not
very much.”

“
Oh
Simon,” his friend scoffed. “That's ridiculous. You...”

The
aged eyes in the mirror began to widen as he stared at Simon in
amazement.

“
Aha!”
Simon said with a grin. “See? I'm not just a pretty face. I'm
on to something, aren't I?”

“
Perhaps,”
Daniel muttered, looking off into the distance. “Perhaps.”

He
stood up abruptly and then staggered.

“
Daniel?
Are you okay?” Simon asked, concerned.

“
I'm
fine. Old men shouldn't jump up like that. Tends to make one
light-headed. Listen, I'm going to find the council and ask their
advice on this. It is quite possible that they didn't take your
wizard physiology into account when they dismissed your offer to
help. Call me back in...”

Daniel
frowned for a moment.

“
Call
me back in two days. That should give me an hour or two to talk to
them and get their opinion.”

“
Two
days? Sheesh. Okay, fine. You might also want to tell them this.”

Simon's
voice hardened and Daniel raised an eyebrow.

“
Tell
them if worse comes to worse, that instead of dooming their people to
a horrible death, they can fall back to this world and seal the elven
realm behind them. It might work, even if...” he paused and
took a deep breath. “Even if it means that you yourself are
trapped there to face your death alone.”

His
friend nodded slowly, a rather poignant expression on his face.

“
I
agree. They would hate giving up their homeland to the dragons, but
perhaps if it means saving their entire race, they'd been willing to
do it. Reluctantly, I'm sure. And hey, I'm old now anyway. If my
death comes knowing that the elves, and you and the other Changlings,
are safe from the brown dragons, I think that's a fair trade.”

“
I
don't,” Simon said roughly. “But it is the right thing to
do, I suppose. Okay, I'll call you back in two days, my time. Good
luck.”

Daniel
smiled.

“
Thanks.
I hope you're on to something, my friend. It would certainly give
those damned dragons a bit of a surprise to suddenly be faced with a
wizard in this world.”

Simon
nodded, winked and closed the connection with a shake of the mirror.

He
put it down on the desk, leaned on his elbows and looked at the two
elementals.

“
This
is bad,” he said softly. “Really, really, bad.”

“Is there no hope, master?”
Kronk asked anxiously.

“Against the primal brown dragon
and its minions?” Aeris interjected. “If there is, I
don't see it. The problem,” he continued, looking at Simon, “is
that elves can't use magic. Well, they can, but not the way that you
do. Their weapons, their clothing, even their homes are imbued with
magic, but that's because they are themselves. When they create
something, their power is transferred to that object. You see?”

Simon nodded silently, listening
intently.

“But casting spells? No, this
they can't do. Even their elders, the ones that watch what happens
here in this world, are only able to do so because they've created
items that allow them to see beyond their own realm. But they
couldn't cast a Magic Mirror spell to save their lives, literally.”

“Interesting,” Simon said
quietly. “So that's why their arrows were able to penetrate
dragon hide. The heads were magical because they were crafted by the
elves using their natural magic.”

“Exactly, my dear wizard. Dwarves
are similar to that, but they do have certain members of their
society that can manipulate magic. But they consider it almost
dishonorable to do so.” He snorted. “The dwarven mindset:
only if you face your enemy with an ax and bash in its skull have you
truly proven yourself. Bah. Nonsense.”

“Not to them,” Kronk said a
bit crossly. “You've never respected the dwarves, Aeris. Their
race is older than mankind and yet you constantly trivialize them.”

I don't,” Aeris replied with a
scowl. “I just think that if you are defending yourself, you
should use every weapon at your disposal, and that includes magic.”

He nodded at Simon.

“Take our great wizard here. He's
defeated three primal dragons. Not by slavishly following some
narrow-minded doctrine but by thinking outside of the box.”

He held up a small, blurry hand and
began ticking points off on his fingers.

“The primal black dragon; shorted
out in deep water. The primal green; choked to death in its own
poisonous breath. And the primal white dragon? Fried from the
inside-out by getting a fire elemental and an air elemental to
combine their powers. Try explaining that to a dwarf and see what
they say. They'd probably be offended by the very idea of
innovation.”

Simon looked from Kronk to Aeris and
back again.

“Is he right?” he asked the
earthen, who was still looking annoyed. “Are the dwarves so set
in their ways that they refuse to adapt and change?”

“To a certain extent, I suppose
so, master,” the little guy said reluctantly. “After all,
they've survived all this time using the same methods that have
always worked.”

“Right up until a horde of
humanoid dragons came knocking on their gates,” Aeris said with
a sneer. “They absolutely failed to handle that correctly.
They're lucky that Simon destroyed the primal white when he did, or
their capital would have fallen.”

“But it didn't,” Simon said
quickly. Kronk looked like he was holding back a stinging retort.
“The dragonoids collapsed when the primal died and the water
elementals that it had summoned were sucked back to the water realm.
The dwarves just had to kill a few dragons and that was the end to
the attack.”

“Thanks to you,” the air
elemental added quickly.

“Thanks to all of us, Aeris,”
Simon told him sharply. “It was a group effort, not just me.
Anyway, we're getting off target here.”

He stood up and walked to the door.

“Come on downstairs, guys. I'm
going to make some tea. I want to talk this whole thing out.”

He went down the stairs and the
elementals followed him.

On the main floor, Simon filled his
iron kettle and hung it over the fire in the fireplace. The room was
warm and comfortable, thanks to Kronk keeping the fire going all
night. Once the winter had rolled in early, the earthen had taken it
upon himself to keep the fire burning all day and all night. He said
it helped pass the time since he couldn't work in the garden anymore.

While he waited for the kettle to boil,
Simon fried up some smoked venison from his stores in the cellar. His
provisions were well stocked from a good growing season and trading
with the town of Nottinghill. By his calculations, he figured that he
should be able to make it through the long, cold season with no
problems. Hopefully.

He sliced up some bread from a loaf
he'd baked the day before and made his breakfast. His worried call to
Daniel had been his first order of business when he'd awoken that
morning.

After he made his tea, Simon sat down
at the kitchen table to eat. The elementals stood on the center of
the table and watched.

“Kronk, if we kept a fire going
in the stove all the time,” and the wizard nodded at the big,
cast-iron stove on the far side of the fireplace, “do you think
that it would help heat the tower? I mean, I only use it to bake
bread and the occasion pie every two weeks or so. Maybe during the
winter, we should just keep a fire lit in it at all times?”

The little earthen looked at the heavy
stove doubtfully.

“Well, we certainly could,
master, if you wish. But the fireplace is connected by ducts to the
rest of the tower. The main chimney draws off the smoke and the vents
move the warm air through the walls. The stove would only heat this
room, and only for a few feet around it. It would be a waste of wood,
to be honest. But if you want me to do that, I would be happy to.”

Simon chuckled at the little guy's
tone.

“No, that's all right. It was
just a thought.”

He ate his food quickly and then sat
back and sipped his tea.

“So, any thoughts on the
situation with Daniel and the elves?” he asked his friends.

The pair exchanged looks and Kronk
motioned for Aeris to speak first.

The air elemental seemed reluctant to
say anything, which was unusual for him, but nodded slowly.

“Yes, I suppose I have one. Your
idea about your slow aging allowing you to enter the elven realm and
return without harm is a good one, my dear wizard.”

“It is? I'm surprised that you
think so.”

“Why? I may not have thought of
it but that doesn't make it any less valid.” He paused and
frowned down at the table. “Of course, we don't
know
that it will work. And the consequences if you are wrong would
be...unfortunate.”

“
Yeah,
that's one word for it,” Simon said dryly. “But I'm
willing to risk it, if that's what it takes. But just for kicks,
let's say that I can journey there and back and survive. What can I
do against the primal brown dragon and its followers? What are its
strengths? What are its weaknesses? How many browns are there? Did
the leader bring eggs with it when it entered the elven realm? So
many questions.”

He sighed, a
long slow exhalation.

“
You
are worried, master,” Kronk said, looking at him sadly with
those glowing red eyes.

“
More
worried that I've ever been, my friend. And not just about Daniel and
the elves. What about the consequences if the brown dragons actually
do wipe out the elven race? Daniel said that there were hundreds of
dragons crisscrossing the skies over there. Maybe thousands.
Thousands! How is that even possible? We know that the dragon queen
only laid so many eggs back when she birthed the five primal dragons.
And that she apportioned out a certain number of eggs for each of
them. How many, we don't know. But surely the primal brown dragon
wasn't given thousands of eggs? I just don't understand where they
are all coming from.”

There was a
moment of silence and then Aeris made a show of clearing his throat.

“
Just
spit it out,” Simon told him bluntly.

“
Um,
yes. All right. I think that the source of the eggs is fairly simple
to figure out, my dear wizard.”

“
It
is?”

Both Simon
and Kronk stared at the air elemental and Aeris actually looked a
little abashed.

“
Well,
don't keep us in suspense,” Kronk told him. “What do you
think?”

“
Think?
I think that the brown dragons retrieved the eggs from the primals
that our wizard destroyed.”

Seeing
Simon's look of surprise, Aeris shook a little finger at him, but
smiled a bit at the same time.

“
You
really should have destroyed the eggs of the black and green
dragons,” he said. “The way you destroyed the white
dragon's eggs. I believe that the primal brown dragon or its servants
swooped down and made off with those eggs and kept them for itself.”

“
Wait.
Can it do that? Wouldn't eggs given to the primal black dragon hatch
into more black dragons?”

“
Why
would they?” Aeris said with a shrug. “We know that when
needed, a primal hatches a new dragon to replace one of its lesser
dragons that have fallen due to accident or in battle or whatever.
They don't sit on them like hens roosting. They enforce their will on
the egg and, just like that, they have a new minion. I think that the
eggs are simply neutral; blank slates that await the will of whatever
primal chooses to use them.”

“
Crap,
that's a lovely thought.”

Simon sipped
his tea and stared blankly past the elementals.

“
You
know, that does actually make sense,” he said finally. “And
if Daniel says that hundreds, or even thousands, of brown dragons are
searching the elven realm for survivors, then maybe the primal
actually hatched all of its eggs to use in the hunt. Which means that
if it wins, this world will be inundated with masses of blood-thirsty
dragons fresh from wiping out the elves and eager to root out all of
the surviving humans. Oh great.”

“
A
terrifying thought, master.”

“
That
is it. Okay, setting that aside for now, because just thinking about
it makes me nauseous, what do we know about brown dragons?”

“
I'll
get your book, master,” Kronk said quickly and hopped off of
the table. He tip-tapped across the room and scurried up the stairs.