The Dragons of Bone and Dust (Tales from the New Earth Book 7) (52 page)

Simon sat down with his back against
the cool stone wall and sipped from his canteen. The ramp rose to his
left into darkness and he glanced at it every now and then.

“
Are you worried, master?”
Kronk asked.

The little guy stood to Simon's
right.

“
In here? Always. We have a
long way to go, Kronk, and who knows what nasty surprises await us.”

He looked over at Barnaby, who was
speaking animatedly to Sebastian, and he leaned toward the earthen.

“
I'm concerned that some of
us,” he said under his breath, “are taking this too
lightly, now that all of those ghouls are dead. They were too easy,
and maybe a few people now have a false sense of security. That sort
of mind set can lead to mistakes.”

The little guy looked over at the two
mages and nodded his understanding.

“
This is Barnaby's first
experience in combat, is it not, master?”

“
I didn't ask but I assume so.
He seems fairly close to Bastian though, so that's good. Sebastian
definitely has a lot of battle experience and he's level-headed.
Hopefully he'll be able to keep Barnaby in hand.”

Kronk's head jerked upward as he
looked past Simon and the wizard turned to see what had startled him.
He sighed and pushed himself up with a grunt. Break time was over;
Hallic and Aeris were coming back.

“
What did you find?”
Tamara asked. She raised her voice enough for them to hear her as she
walked forward.

The rogue looked puzzled and Aeris
appeared to share that feeling.

“
I believe that we've been
duped, my friends,” the rogue replied reluctantly.

Everyone became still and tense.
Simon narrowed his eyes and looked at Aeris.

“
Meaning?” he asked.

“
The tower is hollow, my dear
wizard,” the air elemental called out as the pair descended,
sounding a little dazed. “Absolutely hollow. It's nothing more
than an empty shell.”

“
Wait. Wait!” Tamara said
sharply over a sudden babble of conversation.

She raised her hands and barked,
“Silence!”

Everyone quieted down and she turned
to stare at Hallic.

“
Tell us what you saw up
there,” she said.

“
Nothing, lady mage,”
Hallic replied as he reached the bottom of the ramp. “Absolutely
nothing. The entire floor is unlit but it is empty of anything. No
rooms, walls, barriers or guards. It's as if someone built it and
just forgot about it. But that is not the strangest part of it. It
has no ceiling. Instead, the tower extends upwards for hundreds of
feet until it reaches the roof. I assume that the head of the
necromancers has his lodgings up there, but since none of us can fly,
except for Aeris of course, there is no way for us to reach him.
We've been effectively neutralized before even getting a chance to
face him.”

Tamara growled and pushed past him.

“
I want to see this for
myself,” she said angrily as she hurried up the ramp.

Everyone seemed to be frozen in
surprise, but Simon was quick to follow the mage, with Kronk
tip-tapping along behind him.

At the top of the ramp, they stumbled
to a halt in the sudden darkness. The floor here was bumpy and
covered in debris that they couldn't see. Both the wizard and the
mage stared upward silently, straining to see something.

The outer wall of the tower wasn't
difficult to make out; windows had been cut in the stone and the
stars gleaming in the night sky peered in at them. On several levels
above them, the same type of burning red globes had been hung in some
of these openings, pulsing brightly enough to catch the eye.

“
So that's what we saw from the
outside,” Tamara murmured. “Those globes. And here we
thought that they were torches inside of living quarters or offices.”

“
Exactly what our opponent
wanted us to think, I'd say,” Simon replied.

She nodded, barely visible in the
gloom.

“
Do we dare summon a light?”
she asked him.

The wizard looked quizzically at
Aeris, who had followed him up, as had Hallic. The elemental shrugged
and the rogue did the same.

“
It is your call, sir wizard,”
the dwarf said. “Frankly, I doubt that it matters at this
point. The undead can see in total darkness and none of us can become
invisible except for your air elemental friend here. If it helps you
to find your footing and see more details, then feel free.”

“
Let's do it then, Tamara,”
Simon told her. “If we have to fight, we'll need to see the
enemy anyway.”

She hesitated a moment and then
agreed. They both summoned a glowing orb to hover above their heads;
enough to light the immediate area.

The shuffle of many feet told Simon
that the rest of the party had climbed to ramp to join them, but he
was focused on the area around them that could now be seen in the
magical light.

“
Holy hell,” Barnaby
exclaimed. “It's like the biggest cathedral ever!”

The floor they were standing on
stretched out to the other side of the tower and, as Hallic had
reported, it was totally empty except for the piles of debris
scattered all over the place.

“
What are they?” Miriam
wondered. “Garbage left over from when they built this place?”

Malcolm cautiously approached a pile
of misshapen detritus and gave it a gentle kick. It broke apart and
the maggoty remains of several small animals spilled out, along with
a mass of flies and the thick stench of death.

“
Oh damn, that's gross,”
he said as he backed away and put a hand over his nose and mouth.

Simon looked at the remains
clinically and then looked up at the distant pinnacle of the tower.
He narrowed his eyes in thought.

“
What is it, my friend?”
Liliana asked as she moved closer to him. “What are you
thinking?”

“
I was just wondering what is
living up there that eats these many animals and poops them out all
at once.”

“
Ew, that's excrement?”
Miriam asked. She quickly moved even further back from the pile that
Malcolm had kicked open.

“
I think so. And whatever made
it is huge. It wasn't any undead minion or a dracolich and it
certainly wasn't our mysterious necromancer.”

“
Another mystery,” Tamara
said irritably. “To add to the pile. We can worry about it when
the time comes. The question now is, how in the hell are we going to
get up to the top of this tower? I'm guessing that the necromancer
and the casters who follow him can Gate in and out, but it's warded
against us doing the same thing, Hell, we can't even get close to it
using the Magic Mirror spell. So the question now is, what do we do?”

She turned and looked at the others.

“
If anyone has any ideas, now
would be a good time.”

“
Hallic, did you actually cross
to the other side of the tower?” Simon asked.

Even with his glowing orb floating
over their heads, the far side of the building couldn't be seen in
any detail.

“
Not all of the way, no. There
didn't seem to be a point,” the dwarf replied. “Why?”

“
Just curious. Aeris, could you
zip over there and take a look around, please?”

“
Of course. I'll be back in a
minute.”

The air elemental shot off into the
darkness and was quickly lost from sight.

“
What are you hoping to find?”
Liliana asked. “A staircase leading to the penthouse?”

She smiled as she said it and Simon
grinned back.

“
I'd prefer an elevator,
actually. My feet are sore.”

The others laughed a bit and the
tension eased slightly.

“
Me too,” Tamara told
him. “But I doubt if things will be that easy. They never are.”

“
My sister has always been one
to look on the dark side of life,” Sebastian told them all with
a wink. “Always searching for a way to make a sunny day a
little gloomier.”

Tamara opened her mouth to make a
stinging retort, but Hallic cut her off with a sudden gesture.

“
Be quiet, everyone. Listen:
what is that sound?”

The party froze, everyone straining
to hear what the dwarf heard.

A distant slow pulse of sound was
approaching steadily, but not from within the tower.

“
It's coming from outside,”
Malcolm whispered, just loudly enough for them all to hear him.

“
But we're on the sixth floor,”
Aiden replied under his breath. “We couldn't hear something on
the ground from here, especially from inside the tower.”

They listened closely and Simon's
eyes widened as he recognized that steady beat.

“
Wings!” he exclaimed.
“It's the sound of flapping wings. Dragon!”

Everyone looked around wildly and
Simon just had time to notice Aeris flying back to join them before
an ear-splitting crash shook the entire tower, making it ring like
the world's largest bell.

Chunks of masonry and clouds of
thick, choking dust filled the air as the far wall of the tower burst
inward and a massive winged creature shot through the gap and hovered
above them, its enormous wings blasting gusts of wind over the party.

“
At last,” a voice as
deep and low as death said with satisfaction. “I have found
you.”

All around him, Simon heard people
coughing and choking as dust was blown around them by the beating
wings of the dragon over their heads. The wizard was coughing as
well, but squinted upward through the fog trying to see the creature.
That voice sounded familiar.

His globe of light was still shining
and he sent it higher with a thought. As it approached the beast
above them, Simon saw its glow reflected in scales as shiny as chrome
plating and he gaped in surprise.

“
Argentium?” he called
out. “Is that you?”

The argent dragon's wings slowed
their flapping and he landed almost gracefully on the floor a dozen
yards away. On the ground, his true size was revealed and some of the
others, who had never seen a real dragon up close, gasped in wonder.

Almost as large as a primal dragon,
Argentium's gleaming body, with scales as bright as polished
platinum, stretched out a good seventy feet in length from snout to
tail. His enormous, sail-like wings were at least as wide but he
folded them as soon as he landed to keep them from hitting the tower
walls.

His heavy head was topped with spiral
horns like those of a unicorn, wickedly sharp, and fangs as keen as
razors filled his maw. Overall, the dragon looked fierce, dangerous
and terrifying.

But his eyes belied that appearance.
Huge and golden, they examined the party with warmth and humor and
even the most frightened of the group was reassured when Argentium's
gaze met theirs.

“
Yes, sir wizard, it is I. Bide
a moment while I change form.”

More gasps came from behind Simon as
a silvery mist engulfed the dragon. Argentium's form vanished inside
the mist and a moment later it coalesced and disappeared, leaving
behind someone who was man-shaped but definitely not human.

Argentium walked over and joined the
group, the shadow of a smile on his stern face. He towered over
Malcolm and Aiden and his platinum armor, actually part of his own
body, outshone even Liliana's.

“
It is good to see you again,
Simon O'Toole,” the dragon said. “I have sought you out
for several days now, only to find you in the heart of our enemy's
lair. How extraordinary.”

“
It's good to see you as well,
Argentium. I know that we didn't part under the best of
circumstances, but...”

“
I understand why you were
upset, sir wizard, I assure you. And I bear you no enmity. On the
contrary, I am pleased that you are willing to speak with me after
that...unpleasantness.”

“
What's he talking about?”
Simon heard Barnaby whisper to someone behind him.

“
Shut up,” Sebastian
hissed at him.

The wizard tried not to laugh as he
spoke with the dragon.

“
We need allies, Argentium, my
people and I. And you and Esmiralla are the last two lawful dragons
on Earth. Only a fool wouldn't recognize your value and I would hope
that I am not quite that foolish.”

The dragon nodded, his long platinum
hair rippling on his shoulders.

“
Wise, my friend. Very wise for
one so young. Now, we have a few moments of respite; those above did
not see my approach; they are busy planning and scheming. So while we
have the chance, would you introduce me to your companions?”

“
It would be my pleasure.”

The next few minutes seemed surreal
to Simon when he looked back on them. Introducing an ancient dragon
in human form to the others was bizarre.