The Dragons of Bone and Dust (Tales from the New Earth Book 7) (17 page)

The wizard put a hand on the back of
the couch and Aeris flew down and sat on it.

“
And where
do you suggest I find it? The local spell shop?” Simon asked
irritably. “Hang on, we're leaving.”

The trip back to the tower with the
couch only took a few minutes. Simon left it standing in the middle
of the room because it needed a good scrubbing to remove the bits of
mold that were clinging to its edges.

“
Should we
take anything back with us?” he asked Aeris as he got a good
look at the couch in daylight. It looked even better than he'd hoped.

“
Nothing
that I can think of,” Aeris replied. He was nodding as he
circled the sofa. “Good choice, by the way. Whoever built this
thing was a true craftsman.”

“
I agree.
Okay, let's get back before Kronk starts wondering where we are.”

“
Bah. I'll
wager he's still poking around in that other bunker.”

“
Well, let's
go and see.”

Back in the underground shelter,
Simon summoned another mage light and let it bob along over his head.

“
Funny how
they disappear when I Gate,” he said thoughtfully as he looked
at the bright globe floating above him.

“
Why funny?”
Aeris replied. “You are their source of energy. When you leave,
they can no longer exist. The same thing happens when you fall asleep
with one of the lights still on. No conscious mind equals no power.”

Simon leaned on his staff and thought
about that. Something was poking at the back of his mind, but he
couldn't quite grasp it.

“
I'll have
to think about that some more in the future,” he said. “There's
something about that theory that...”

A grinding sound broke his train of
thought and Simon turned just in time to see Kronk step out of the
hole in the wall he had created earlier.

“
Welcome
back,” the wizard told him. “How did it go?”

Kronk smiled broadly.

“
Master, I
think we have not only found you a new chair, but some other useful
things as well!”

“
Like what?”

The earthen laughed in obvious
delight.

“
I would not
want to spoil the surprise, master. Come and see for yourself.”

“
And just
how is he supposed to do that?” Aeris asked sarcastically.
“Unlike yourself, our dear wizard can't just walk through solid
rock.”

Kronk ignored the comment and
gestured for Simon to follow him into the bathroom.

“
The people
who built these shelters must have been friends, master,” he
said as the room lit up from the mage light. “There is a
concealed corridor leading from this room to the washroom in the
other bunker.”

“
Okay,
that's weird,” Simon said with a laugh. “A secret tunnel
between bathrooms? Awkward if you walk in at the wrong moment.”

Kronk smiled, looking slightly
puzzled.

“
If you say
so, master. Unfortunately the mechanism has seized up and no longer
functions. I came through from the other side and found this door
sealed, so I will have to break it down. I wanted to warn you first
though. Now please stand back. There will be flying debris.”

Simon hurriedly backed out of the
bathroom and waited as he heard Kronk begin to smash through the
hidden door.

“
I sometimes
forget how strong you all are,” he said to Aeris as he waited.

“
We are,
yes, but the earthen are truly the mightiest. Don't tell Kronk I said
that though.”

It only took a few minutes and then
the little guy called them back in. He had bashed a hole through the
wall between the ornate brass bathtub and the toilet. It was only
high enough for Simon to crawl through, but he stopped the earthen
when he offered to make it bigger.

“
It'll be
fine, Kronk. No need to get fancy here.”

The tunnel on the other side of the
ruined door was lined with sheets of brushed aluminum and it sloped
gently downward. The floor was tiled in white marble, discolored by
years of dampness. There were light fixtures in the ceiling every few
feet, but their housings were rusted and several were cracked. A few
wisps of cobwebs fluttered in the light bobbing over Simon's head.

“
Watch your
footing, master,” Kronk said as he led the way. “Some of
the flooring tiles have cracked. It must have been caused by the
stone shifting over time.”

The little guy had been right about
the distance between the two bunkers; the passageway only ran about a
hundred feet or so and ended in a door that had been opened inward.
Simon stepped inside with his light and saw a second bathroom almost
identical to the first one.

“
Same
builder, I'm guessing,” he said to the others. “Ornate
and overdone. Tacky as hell.”

Kronk motioned them to follow him and
the three existed the washroom into another living space. This one
though was a little different than the previous bunker.

“
Whoa,”
Simon said in surprise. “Now this person was a lot more
thorough than the other guy.”

“
That is
what I thought as well, master,” Kronk agreed.

Aeris just looked around silently,
wide-eyed.

The furniture was very similar to
that of the other shelter; heavy, leather-bound chairs and couches,
many shelves of books and hand-crafted tables. The difference was how
things had been preserved.

Every piece of furniture was wrapped
in thick plastic. Layer upon layer of wrapping had kept almost all of
the contents of the room in pristine condition. The owner had even
shrink-wrapped their books.

Oddly enough though, this bunker
hadn't been as well sealed as the other one. Dust blanketed
everything and little clouds of it puffed up to hang in the still,
stale air as Simon walked around.

He coughed and cleared his throat
several times, trying to walk slowly to keep the fog of grit to a
minimum.

“
Wow, Kronk,
you've discovered a gold mine of stuff!” he exclaimed as he
tried to peer through the dirty plastic covering one of the large
chairs.

“
Excuse me?
I believe that I was the one who discovered this...mausoleum,”
Aeris told the wizard sharply.

“
Aeris is
correct, master. If it hadn't been for his exploration of the ducts,
we would never have found this place.”

The air elemental looked mollified by
Kronk's statement and Simon was quick to agree.

“
You're both
right. Thanks, Aeris. It's like discovering a lost treasure. And a
lot more useful to me too.”

“
Just doing
my part,” Aeris replied graciously. “Are you taking that
chair home?”

“
I'm not
sure yet. Could you poke around the rest of the place for me? I'd
like to unwrap this and see what kind of condition it's in.”

“
I will
help, master.”

Aeris began to glow brightly again.

“
Sure, I'll
look around. It shouldn't take too long.”

He floated off toward a far doorway
while Simon and Kronk began to carefully remove the plastic from the
heavy, over-stuffed chair. The dust slid off of the covering in a
thick cascade and the wizard had to walk away for a few minutes until
it settled again.

“
My God,
that's nasty stuff,” he said thickly after coughing for what
felt like forever.

“
Rock dust,
master,” Kronk told him as he continued to peel back the layers
of plastic. He was naturally unaffected by the choking dust. “Not
good for breathing. Please wait over there and let me finish
unwrapping this.”

“
Good
advice. Thanks.”

A few minutes later they were staring
at a sturdy chair covered in thick black leather. Even though dust
had settled on it, Simon sat down anyway, to test it out.

He sighed happily and grinned down at
Kronk.

“
It's
perfect, my friend. Absolutely perfect. Any signs of mold or rot?”

The earthen ducked underneath the
chair for a minute.

“
None,
master,” he said as he reappeared. “It looks practically
new.”

“
Like I
said, a treasure room. We're definitely taking this home with us.”

“
Found what
you wanted, I see,” Aeris said loudly from the doorway. “But
before we leave, you might want to check this out.”

Simon got up and brushed the dust off
of his robe. He walked toward Aeris with Kronk trailing behind.

“
See what?”

The air elemental motioned for them
to follow him and led the way out of the room and into a long
hallway. The walls and ceiling were paneled in wood that had warped
and cracked over time. The thick rug on the floor was red but smelled
cloyingly of mold as Simon walked on it.

“
I wouldn't
want to stay here too long,” he said as he wrinkled his nose at
the odor. “Some types of mold can get into the lungs and do
nasty things to you.”

“
This won't
take long,” Aeris assured him. “It's just up ahead.”

The hallway turned to the left after
a dozen yards or so and then ran on for about fifty feet. There were
two open doors on each side that they passed and Aeris pointed at
them as they went by.

“
Store
rooms. I assume they were meant to hold food and water, among other
things. Unfortunately, they were never used. Like the wrapped
furniture, the owner of the place seemed to be thinking of the
distant future, not any immediate threat.”

“
Yeah, I
don't blame him,” Simon said sadly. “The world was no
more dangerous when things went bad than it ever was; who would have
expected dragons to rain fire down on their cities? Only Daniel, I
guess.”

At the end of the hallway was a huge
steel door, like the vault door in a bank. It was the same design as
the one in the first bunker except that this one was open.

“
The place
wasn't sealed shut?” Simon asked in surprise.

“
I believe
it was in the process of being sealed. Send your light ahead of you,
my dear wizard, and see what lies there.”

Curious about Aeris' strange tone of
voice, Simon waved his mage light forward and it floated past them
and through the open door of the bunker.

“
Oh my God,”
he whispered in shock. “What happened here?”

Piled in the opening were bones; lots
of them. Dozens of people had died here, apparently frantically
trying to enter the shelter and close the thick door behind them.
They had failed.

Aeris floated downward and hovered
over the remains. Old clothing was disintegrating and the skeletons
were so intertwined together that it was impossible to get an
accurate count of the dead.

The elemental suddenly darted down
and picked up something next to the pile of bones. He exclaimed
loudly in disgust and then flew back to Simon.

“
This
explains a lot,” he said angrily as he handed the wizard a
heavy, black object shaped like a dagger.

It was a claw.

“
Drakes,”
Simon hissed in anger.

“
Exactly. At
a guess, I'd say that these people survived the initial dragon attack
upon their city and tried to retreat to this bunker. Unfortunately
the drakes tracked them down and killed them before they could get
inside and seal the door.”

Kronk moved forward and stared sadly
at the remains.

“
It is so
tragic,” he said in his heavy, bass voice. “Even sadder
is the fact that even if they had made it into the shelter safely,
they would still have died.” He looked up at Simon. “There
were no supplies here. No food, possibly no water if the plumbing
system had broken down. They would have died a horrible, lingering
death.”

Simon dropped the claw on the ground
and wiped his hand on his robe. After a final glance at the unknown
dead, he turned away.

“
Come on,
guys. Let's get that chair and go home. I'm suddenly not feeling very
cheerful anymore.”

After a good cleaning, the sofa and
chair quickly became part of the tower. Simon was especially happy to
have a comfy chair in front of the fireplace again. It had been
acquired under unhappy circumstances, but at least it was being used
again.