The Dragons Revenge (Tales from the New Earth #2) (23 page)

Simon pulled his robe over
his head, sat down on the bed and sighed heavily.

“
It's a big blow to
this town,” he said as he pulled on some socks. “I'm not
sure that they will be able to recover from such a loss.”

“
They're resilient,
my dear wizard,” the elemental told him. “I have heard a
few suggestions that you should move to Nottinghill from your tower.
Apparently your help in protecting the town impressed some people.”

Simon ran his hands
through his hair and shook it out with an impatient motion.

“
Well, I appreciate
their support, but that's not happening. If she needs me again, Clara
can use the lodestone to call me and I can Gate down. I should be
able to cast that spell soon, if I keep progressing. But the tower is
my home,” he glanced at Aeris, “and yours too. I need
that isolation for my spell research. Not to mention the fact that
the townspeople would be driven mad by your constant bickering with
Kronk.”

Aeris sputtered a reply
and Simon laughed. It was his first real laughter since the attack
and it seemed to drive away the cloud of gloom that had settled over
him.

“
Yes, I assumed that
you wouldn't come,” Aeris said finally as he glared
disapprovingly. Then his expression became grave.

“
There was something
I wanted to talk to you about while I have you alone,” he said.

Simon felt his amusement
drain away at the elemental's serious tone. He glanced at the closed
door and then looked at Aeris inquiringly.

The air elemental took a
deep breath.

“
I know how hard the
last twenty-four hours have been for you and, honestly, I don't want
to increase the burden on your shoulders, but, well, I've been
thinking about that lich you destroyed.”

“
How could you not?”
Simon muttered.

Aeris nodded once.

“
Exactly,” he
said. “Now, as you know, I learned a lot about magic from the
wizards I served back in the old world of magic. Unlike Kronk and his
fellow earthen, we air elementals were used for more advanced tasks
than simply as practice for young magic-users.”

As he paused, Simon made
an encouraging gesture.

“
Yes, well, I
remember hearing about those abominations a few times. The thing
is...” His eyes darted around the room, reluctant to meet the
wizard's gaze.

“
The thing is, we
have to ask ourselves where that lich, Madam, came from.”

“
Came from?”
Simon was perplexed. “She came from Ottawa. I told you that.”

“
No, no, I don't
mean that.” Aeris said. He began wringing his hands together,
something that Simon couldn't remember seeing him do before.

“
What I mean is, how
did she come to be? How was she created?”

Simon stood up and packed
his soiled clothing into his saddlebags while he listened to Aeris.

“
She told us that,
didn't she? She mentioned that the dark gods were her masters. They
must have made her.”

“
She lied, Simon,”
Aeris said harshly.

The wizard sat back down
on the bed and watched the elemental closely.

“
What do you mean?”

“
I mean just that.
Liches are not raised by the gods; that simply isn't possible. And if
she wasn't so distracted by her duties and her grief, I think Clara
would have realized that herself.”

Simon pondered what Aeris
was saying, or intimating. He was still not sure what the elemental
was getting at.

“
Your point, Aeris?”
he asked a bit impatiently. He was still tired and hungry and he
wanted to talk to Clara and check on Kronk's progress.

The air elemental blinked
rapidly and then shot across the room and listened at the door. Simon
stared at him incredulously.

“
What...?”

Aeris flew back and
motioned for the wizard to keep his voice down.

“
I don't want to
start a panic,” he whispered.

“
A panic? After
facing a mass of undead and a lich? You must be joking. What could be
worse than that?”

“
Something much more
powerful than that undead monster. I think your true enemy is a
necromancer.”

Simon's reaction was
obviously disappointing to Aeris. He stood up and stretched, yawning
loudly.

“
Really? A
necromancer, eh? Well, that's, um, bad?”

Aeris rose to eye-level
and moved to within inches of the wizard's face.

“
Bad? Are you
joking? By the Four Winds, the world has changed beyond all reason if
hearing that you have attracted the wrath of a necromancer doesn't
make your blood run cold.”

With a tired sigh, Simon
sat down yet again and tried to marshal his patience. This was
obviously important to his friend.

“
Okay, I'm
listening. Explain why this is so bad. I'm not taking your
announcement lightly, but let's remember that magic-users have only
been around again for a couple of years. Before that, all we had were
stories and legends.”

Aeris moved to hover on
top of the bed and nodded thoughtfully.

“
Of course. Right. I
have to keep that in mind. Time passes so quickly on the elemental
plane that all of this seems more immediate to me.”

He squared his small
shoulders and looked keenly at Simon.

“
Necromancers
command the dead. That much I'm sure you must know.”

“
Yes, I know that. I
think I told you that Daniel and I used to play fantasy games back in
the day and certainly necromancers were mentioned in those games.
But, I don't know, they seemed a bit lame to be honest.”

“
Lame? Oh my. Well,
they certainly are not that. They are fallen wizards, Simon. Wizards
who have given their souls completely to the evil gods in return for
power over spirits and demons. Their powers are much stronger than
those of that lich you faced this morning.”

That got Simon's
attention.

“
How much stronger?”
he asked anxiously.

Aeris frowned in thought.

“
Let me put it this
way. You remember the power you wielded against the prime black
dragon?” Simon nodded. “Well, double that.”

Simon gasped. His memories
of how powerful his spells were then were quite clear. He had felt
immeasurably stronger then than he was now, with the knowledge that
the gods had given him of master-level wizard spells. And
necromancers were even more powerful than that?

“
Okay, now I
understand your worry,” he told Aeris. “You think that
one of those dark wizards is out there somewhere?”

He waved vaguely at the
window.

“
I can't think of
anything else that could raise a lich like that Madam,” Aeris
said. “She would have been a Changling first. Like yourself,
she would have had potential to be a wizard. This necromancer had to
have killed her first, then raised her as a lich and sent her off to
gather an army of undead minions. The rest you know.”

Simon was aghast at the
cold-blooded sound of this supposed dark wizard.

“
My God, just like
that? Kill some poor innocent and then set them on that path?”

“
Exactly. That is
what you are facing. Or so I believe.”

Simon got up, grabbed his
saddlebags and slipped Bene-Dunn-Gal over his shoulder.

“
Okay. We'll talk
about this again once we get home. For now, keep it to yourself, all
right?”

Aeris floated after him.

“
You don't think
that Clara should be told?”

Simon hesitated before
opening the door. He thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“
Not yet. I can let
her know once you and I have talked this through. I need more
information before I decide to panic the town again after this last
attack.”

He waited for Aeris'
reluctant agreement, then left the room to find Clara.

The cleric was in the main
hall, speaking to several townspeople. When she saw Simon, she
excused herself and rose to greet him.

“
How are you
feeling?” she asked as he approached.

“
I'm fine, thanks,”
he replied. “Frankly, I need more sleep. But lying in bed while
others are busy isn't something I've ever been good at.”

The cleric smiled.

“
I know what you
mean.”

She waved toward the back
of the room and Simon saw that the table back here now had some
plates of sandwiches and a big urn of tea on it.

“
Before you do
anything, have some breakfast.” She rolled her eyes at the
wizard's look and chuckled. “Fine. Lunch then.”

Simon grabbed a sandwich,
fixed himself some tea and sat down near the fire to eat.

Clara returned to the
group of villagers and they began speaking in low tones.

Aeris joined the wizard
and the pair of them watched the others.

“
Any idea what's
going on?” Simon asked him under his breath.

“
They're worried, of
course,” Aeris told him quietly. “Their defenders are
almost all dead, their numbers are significantly reduced and spring
is still far enough off that their spirits are low.”

The elemental stared at
the sad little group and Simon was touched by the expression of
concern on the little guy's face.

“
They're a resilient
bunch. They'll be okay.”

The wizard finished his
food, emptied his cup and put it back on the table. Then he gave
Clara a wave and left, with Aeris following behind him.

Before he went down to the
front gate, Simon visited one of the village outhouses and then went
to the town stables to check on Chief.

The stallion whinnied when
the wizard entered and Simon hurried to check him over and give him a
few pats and a scratch under his chin.

Chief extended his head
and closed his eyes in bliss as the wizard scratched and Simon had to
grin.

“
Yeah. Big, bad
stallion, that's you,” he murmured. The horse sighed in
contentment.

Once he'd assured himself
that the horse had enough food and water, he patted him one more
time, assured him that they'd be heading home soon and left the
stable.

Aeris had gone ahead to
the main gate and Simon hurried in that direction. He passed a couple
of villagers, who stopped to thank him for his efforts.

Simon accepted their
thanks a little self-consciously and moved on, shaking his head.

They were the real heroes,
not me, he thought. Changlings without any magic who were just trying
to live their lives in peace. They're braver than I will ever be.

As he rounded the last
house near the gate, Simon skidded to a stop on the thin slushy snow
and stared at the new construction in amazement.

The old gates had been two
large wooden doors that met in the middle, wrapped with several metal
bands for strength with large bolts to secure them.

Now there was an open
arch, cleanly built and new, with no gates at all.

“
What the...?”
he said to no one and moved forward to find out what was going on. He
soon had his answer.

As he walked through the
arch in the wall, Simon found himself standing on hardened planks of
wood. Like the old gates, iron strapping bound them together. They
were maybe twelve feet wide and extended over a pit at least twenty
feet across. The moat.

“
Wow,” he
muttered.

“
You approve,
master?”

Simon turned around to
find Kronk standing in the archway, a wide grin on his little face.

“
Approve? Kronk,
it's amazing!”

The wizard turned to
follow the moat's progress as it stretched out to ring the entire
town. He walked to the edge of the drawbridge and looked down at the
bottom of the moat.

Spikes. Hundreds of
gleaming spikes pointed upward, promising a miserable death to
anyone, or anything, that stumbled over the edge to fall below. The
moat was over twenty feet deep and its sides were sheer and
unclimbable.

“
That actually
looks...terrifying,” Simon told the elemental as he knelt down
on one knee and stared at the spikes. “Did you have enough to
line the entire bottom?”

Kronk tip-tapped across
and stood next to the wizard. He looked down as well.

“
No master. We've
covered about half of it, but we concentrated on the front and rear
entrances first. The rest will be ready in a few weeks, the
blacksmith told me. I asked him to tell Clara when he is finished and
she can inform you. I'll return and install them then.”

Simon stood up and
carefully backed away from the edge.

“
I hope the
townspeople know enough to stay away from the sides of this
drawbridge.”

He stamped his foot on the
hard wooden surface and heard barely a thud in response.