The Dragons Revenge (Tales from the New Earth #2) (13 page)

“
But
I, I...”

“
Master,
look at your hands,” Kronk urged.

Simon
held his hands up against the fire and his eyes widened in shock.
Seen against the light, they were almost skeletal. His knuckles stood
out like knobs on a tree branch and the skin looked thin and
stretched.

He
looked at Aeris and then at Kronk, both filled with concern, although
the air elemental tried to hide it with his brusque tone.

Maybe
they are seeing more clearly than I am right now, he thought. Was he
just being stubborn? If so, it could cost him his powers, or worse.
And that would leave the world with one less weapon to use against
the dark gods.

Simon
bent down and picked up the blanket with a trembling hand. He wrapped
it around himself again and snuggled into the chair.

“
Okay,
guys,” he said in resignation. “You win. Perhaps I
should
take a break from practicing. For a little while, anyway.”

“
Wonder
of wonders, he's finally seeing reason,” Aeris said with a tiny
smile.

Kronk
grinned broadly.

“
Excellent,
master. You need to eat more and work less. We will take care of any
chores that need doing. Won't we?” he asked Aeris pointedly.

“
Hmm?
Oh yes, of course we will,” Aeris said, trying to sound more
eager than he looked.

Simon
chuckled at their exchange.

“
Thanks,
you two. I know you have my best interests at heart. Maybe I've been
a bit too eager to regain what I've lost. It's mid-winter now anyway.
I'll rest, read a few old books I haven't read for a long time and
get my strength back.”

“
Well,
at least that will save me from having to travel to Nottinghill and
telling Clara what's been happening here,” Aeris said slyly.

“
What?
You weren't going to squeal on me, were you?” Simon asked
faintly.

“
Of
course I was. And bear that in mind the next time you overexert
yourself. You wouldn't want that poor woman slogging through the cold
and snow to check on your health, would you?”

“
You're
heartless, Aeris. Do you know that?”

“
Of
course I am. I'm an elemental. We don't have hearts. Now why don't
you be a good little wizard and go up to bed. Your convalescence
starts now.”

Simon's recovery took
almost three weeks. Once he had admitted to himself that he really
had pushed his mind and body too far too soon, the wizard was able to
take a step back and relax, albeit with poor grace.

He went to bed early and
slept until noon most days. He sat by the fire drinking cup after cup
of chamomile tea and reading old beloved books that he hadn't picked
up in years. He ate when he was hungry, baking bread and cakes using
his precious supply of flour and actually enjoying the mundane tasks.

In short, Simon O'Toole
took a holiday from magic. The elementals allowed him to light
candles with his power, but that was the extent of it. And to his
surprise, the wizard began to feel better.

He put on some weight,
although with his lanky frame, Simon would never be a heavyweight.
His tremors disappeared and he became a little less susceptible to
chills. Although he would never like the cold of winter, he did
become better at coping with it.

And the black smears of
exhaustion faded from under his eyes. Even his dark hair, with its
streaks of white caused by casting master-class spells in his fight
with the black dragon, became fuller and shinier again. It hung down
below his shoulders now, but Simon had no urge to cut it. Long hair
on a wizard, at least in his mind, seemed to be appropriate.

Aeris traveled to
Nottinghill once during Simon's convalescence, to see if Clara and
the villagers were doing all right. When he returned, he assured the
wizard that he hadn't told the cleric about Simon's condition. In
fact, he said that he had reassured her that all was well and that
when the weather became more tolerable, they would all travel to the
village for a visit.

“
Thanks, Aeris,”
Simon said with relief after the air elemental's report. “Clara
has enough on her plate taking care of her own people without
worrying about me.”

“
You're welcome,”
Aeris replied with a tight smile. “And you're right. Winter is
hard on them and the cleric helps to keep them organized and focused.
I hope when the weather breaks that we do head down there to see
them.”

“
Oh, we will, we
will. But I'd rather wait until the spring, or close to it. This is
pretty much the worst winter that I can remember, and that includes
the winters I lived through back in my old life.”

Aeris floated above the
desk in the study. Simon had been idly going through his spell-book,
but under the watchful eye of the elemental, he hadn't attempted to
cast even the simplest of spells.

He suddenly made a
notation on one of the spells, looked at it intently and nodded.
Aeris watched this curiously.

“
What was that for?”
he asked Simon, indicating the spell-book.

“
Hmm? Well, I know
it sounds weird, but in the past few days when I've checked my
spells, I've found some, I don't know, mistakes in the incantations.
So I've been correcting as I read through them.”

“
How do you know
they're mistakes? They worked before, didn't they?”

Simon read the spell under
his breath, careful not to concentrate and actually memorize it.

“
Yeah, they did.”
He shrugged. “I've just had a, you know, feeling. That's all.”

The air elemental seemed
to be pondering that answer and then his expression brightened.

“
I wonder if this is
the gods of Justice finding a surreptitious of helping you again?
They were thwarted by their enemies when you were stripped of your
magic and your knowledge, so perhaps they are fine-tuning your
spells, making them more efficient.”

The wizard sat back and
thought about Aeris' notion. It wasn't a crazy idea. Simon had picked
up spells through dreams in the past, dreams that he'd learned
originated from the gods. So maybe they
were
helping again, this time in a more subtle, less obvious way.

“
That's
a possibility, Aeris. Good thinking. The gods may actually be taking
advantage of my down-time to slip these alterations into my dreams.”

He
smiled a bit crookedly.

“
I'm
certainly getting enough sleep these days.”

Aeris
floated over and hovered next to Simon, staring down at the
spell-book.

“
Well,
if we're correct, there's no way to substantiate the theory until you
are at full strength again and able to try to cast them. In the
meantime, by all means continue with those tweaks. They may prove
very useful indeed.”

“
I
will,” Simon said and went back to scanning the book.

Simon
estimated that it was late January or early February when he was
declared fit and back to normal by both Aeris and Kronk.

He
was both amused and slightly irritated by the fact that the two
elementals were the ones deciding when he could try to use magic
again, but they had his best interests at heart. That was at least
reassuring.

On
the first morning that he was feeling like his old self, Simon
brought his spell-book down to the main room and sat at the kitchen
table as he went through it. He drank tea and tried to decide which
spell to attempt first.

He
had modified almost all of them in some way. Runes had been
rearranged. Some had been added while others were erased. In fact,
the book was looking decidedly frayed and dog-eared and he decided to
copy all of the spells out into a new notebook at the first
opportunity. He had a stack of them in storage.

“
So
which spell are you going to cast first, master?” Kronk asked a
bit anxiously. He was standing on the table next to Simon. Aeris
hovered nearby.

Both
of the elementals were watching him closely; in case he overdid it,
Simon assumed.

“
Yes,
oh great wizard. What spectacular feat of magical prestidigitation
are you going to impress us with?”

Simon
glared at Aeris, who grinned insolently at him.

With
a reluctant laugh, the wizard shrugged.

“
I
haven't decided yet. It won't be Sparkle, that's for sure. I've had
enough of that spell.”

He
hesitated, sure that the two were going to protest, and said “I
thought maybe a Magic Missile spell.”

Simon
was half right.

“
Master!”
Kronk was aghast. “You cannot begin your magical practices
again with that spell! It is much too taxing on your delicate
system.”

Simon sighed loudly.

“
Kronk, I'm not made
of spun glass, you know.”

“
But...”

“
Hang on a moment,
my rocky friend,” Aeris said to Kronk. He was looking at Simon
speculatively. “That's not such a bad choice actually.”

“
What?” Kronk
stared at Aeris incredulously. “Do you want our master to harm
himself again?”

“
Naturally not. But
as far as offensive spells go, Magic Missile takes the least effort
to cast. It is the first one that wizards learned back in the old
days when they began battle training.”

Simon found himself
nodding in agreement with Aeris. One of the first times ever, he
thought wryly.

“
That's why I choose
it, Kronk,” he told his little friend. “Remember, when I
was first starting out, I was casting that spell soon after I
summoned you by accident.”

Kronk looked from one of
them to the other, his expression one of disapproval. Then he threw
up his little arms and looked so fiercely at Aeris that the air
elemental flew back a foot.

“
Fine. If our master
injures himself, I am holding you responsible.”

Simon tried to reassure
Kronk, but the little guy was having none of it.

“
Go ahead, master.
Do what you want to. I know you will anyway. I will just stand here
and try to catch you if you collapse.”

“
Oh, for...Kronk,
you and my late mother could have exchanged notes on guilt trips, do
you know that?”

The little guy tapped
across to the far side of the table and stood there with his arms
crossed, staring sadly at Simon.

“
I do not know what
you mean, master,” he said stiffly.

“
Yeah, right.”

Simon read through the
Magic Missile spell slowly, memorizing the incantation carefully. He
wanted to make no mistakes on his first cast. He knew he'd never hear
the end of it from Kronk if he did.

When he was certain that
he had the spell locked into his mind, he got up and walked to the
front door. It was a clear, cold day but the air was calm and it
wasn't quite as frigid as it had been over the past few weeks.

When he slipped the bolts
aside and opened the door, he heard a gasp from behind him.

“
Master, you should
put on your coat! You'll catch a chill.”

Simon just shook his head
silently and stood in the doorway staring across the yard.

The wall was half-covered
with snow, banked up six feet high by the winds that usually blew
around the tower. The wizard was looking for a target for the Magic
Missile spell. He focused on a section of the wall just above the
snow-line where there was a random patch of frost that stood out
because of its irregular shape.

“
Okay,” he
muttered. “Here we go.”

He spared a regretful
glance at Bene-Dunn-Gal, leaning against the wall next to the door.

Not yet, he thought. I'm
not powerful enough to use it yet.

Then Simon raised his
arms, stared across the snow-covered yard at the wall and chanted the
spell.

“
Invectis!
”
he intoned firmly and braced his arms against his body.

The
results were unexpected and more spectacular than he had imagined
they would be.

Bolts
of light blasted from his fingertips, screamed across the yard and
slammed into the wall. His arms were pushed back by the force of the
spell and Simon stiffened them even more as he concentrated on his
target.

There
were two differences with this modified spell compared to his old
Magic Missile spell. The magic missiles were bright blue, not white
the way they used to be. And missiles had streamed from both hands.
The old spell was cast using only one hand.

After
a dozen dazzling bolts had crashed into the wall, leaving black
smudges on the thick barrier, Simon's hands dropped to his sides and
he had to take several deep breaths to slow down his racing heart.