His vision was tinged with blood and the blurred world around him was painted red. He couldn't seem to focus on anything as he tried to concentrate on a single point, a way to anchor himself and bear down on the pain.
Part of the relentless agony was Simon's inability to breathe properly. His nose and throat felt like they were stuffed with cotton and he couldn't take a full breath. Pushing aside as much of the physical pain as possible, he focused on coughing and sneezing, trying to clear out his lungs and sinuses of whatever was blocking them.
The sounds of his weak coughing were so foreign to him that the wizard was distracted from his body's suffering. He used all of his strength on just his ability to breathe and finally cleared out the mucus that had been blocking his lungs and sucked in a deep, sweet breath of air.
It was such a relief that he actually laughed, a tiny gurgle of child-like amusement.
His vision was still unfocused. The world was shuttered and foreign, nothing was sharply defined and he couldn't tell where he was.
And all around him was a smell that terrified his little body; a reek that his adult mind eventually identified as the scent of death.
Sickly-sweet, cloying, it overwhelmed him and sent a new wave of pain through him as his small body unconsciously panicked, twisting and rolling, trying to get away from this all-pervasive miasma of decay.
This seemed to go on and on and, in the end, all that Simon was able to do was to cling to the remnants of his sanity and let nature take its course.
His body grew and he knew that the pain that was burning through every muscle and joint and length of bone was the result of this accelerated growth. He spared a barely-coherent thought to the words of the goddess.
She was right about the pain, he thought through another convulsion. I just wish I could care about the danger.
But he couldn't. If he had been attacked during the first few hours of his rebirth, the wizard would have been an easy target. But whether it was aid from the gods of Light or sheer dumb luck, he was left to reenter the world on his own with no outside interference.
How much time passed, Simon never knew. All he knew was that eventually the constant aching and grinding along his limbs and in his guts subsided and he found himself lying on a dirt floor, covered in filth and dried blood.
He reached up with shaking hands and wiped the crusted dirt from his eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them as tears streamed down his face. Then he sat up with an exhausted groan and looked around.
He was sitting in the middle of a hut. The walls were held up by a framework of crudely-shaped logs and covered with palm fronds. The roof was circular and a central pole, a few inches away from where he sat, kept the entire structure from collapsing.
Various bits of junk littered the ground around him. Old tin cans, rotting fruit peel, soiled clothing; it was a mess. And the smell was almost overwhelming. On top of the scent of rancid fruit and human waste and blood, was the unmistakable sweet smell of death.
Simon looked around with an effort and saw the small cot that rested against the wall. The woman who had lost her life giving birth to him was staring unseeing at the ceiling, her young face prematurely etched with lines of despair and pain.
Something within him responded to her at an unconscious level and he scrambled to his feet with the help of the central pole and staggered over to her.
Weaving from side to side, tears sprang from his eyes as he looked down at her. She looked peaceful in death and, when he reached down and closed her blank eyes, he thought that she looked like she was only sleeping.
Her one blanket, streaked with blood from his birth, had fallen to the ground and Simon picked it up and covered her twisted body, giving her the respect that she more than deserved.
His body was screaming for moisture in the sweltering heat and he looked away from the woman, seeking some sort of container, desperate for water.
He found a battered canteen that sloshed when he shook it and spent several minutes emptying it. Stale water had never tasted so good. He set it aside when it was empty and Simon took a moment to look down at his newly-grown body.
His skin was brightly pink under the dirt and his naked body was so skinny that he looked emaciated. His ribs were covered with a thin layer of skin and he could see each muscle as they stood out in sharp relief.
He was ravenously hungry but he hadn't seen any food anywhere and remembered that the goddess had said that the woman had been unable to search for food in the final days of her pregnancy.
At that thought, Simon's eyes were drawn back to the body lying quietly under the blanket.
Who was she, he wondered. What had been her name? Where was she from and what had she done, before the Change?
A noise from outside broke through his thoughts and he turned so quickly that he staggered and almost fell. Suddenly his own vulnerable position erased all thoughts of the woman who had been his mother and he moved toward the opening that led out of the crude hut.
Simon peeked out of the doorway and saw that the hut was located in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by thick jungle. Distant screams of monkeys, exotic bird calls and mysterious creaks and groans rose from the thick growth in a cacophony of sound, bruising his young ears and confusing his senses. Whatever sound had caught his attention was lost in the wall of noise and he leaned against the hut, trying to get control of his new body.
This won't do, he thought fearfully. I have got to get out of here before something comes for me. Whether it's a monster sent by the gods of Chaos or just some predator that stalks out of the jungle looking for prey, doesn't matter. I'll be just as dead either way.
His worry was that he might be too weak to cast any spells. The Gate spell blazed in his mind as soon as he thought of it and that was a great relief, but would he be able to find the strength to use it?
He needed food for energy, but there simply wasn't any. He thought of his tower and the supplies that were stuffed in the storerooms in the basement, not to mention the safety it offered, and yearned to go home.
But he couldn't, not yet.
Simon turned back to look at the cot. The woman that lay there had given him life. He couldn't just leave her, bereft, at the mercy of whatever animals would be drawn to her. She deserved more respect than that.
And so, with his strength dwindling by the minute, the newborn wizard buried his mother.
He found a battered spade outside lying next to the hut and dug a narrow, shallow grave in the packed earth of the clearing. Sweat rolled down his body and he shook in a palsy of weakness but somehow he managed to finish the job without collapsing. Then he went inside, wrapped the body in its thin blanket and gently dragged it out and laid it into the grave.
Before he covered it over, Simon knelt by the shallow depression and stared blankly at the covered body, trying to think of something to say.
“I know...”
He cleared his parched throat, swallowed what felt like a handful of gravel, and began again.
“I know that who and what I am is probably not what you wanted for your son,” he whispered. It was as loud as he could speak, and over the sounds of the jungle, he could barely hear himself.
“I'm so sorry that you didn't have a chance at life, but I want you to know that I'm grateful for your sacrifice. Your son lives on in me, and not a day will pass that I won't remember you.” He felt a burning lump in the pit of his stomach and would have wept if he could, but his body was a dried-out husk and tears simply wouldn't come.
“Good bye...mother,” he said finally and then pushed the loose dirt over her remains until the grave was filled again. He smoothed it down, hoping as he did so that it would be enough to keep the scavengers away.
As he stood up, Simon could feel his mind and body starting to shut down. He needed food and water, but he was also almost unconscious from exhaustion. He had to get away before he collapsed.
Somehow he dredged up the Gate spell from his fuzzy brain and slowly began
to chant the incantation, pausing after every second word to take a breath.
As he came to the end of the spell, the ground under his feet trembled enough for him to stagger back into the wall of the hut.
What the hell, he thought and looked up at the overhanging trees. Earthquake?
The tremor came again, stronger, and he grabbed one of the wall supports to try and stay on his feet.
Another one, and yet another and then his foggy brain finally cleared enough for him to realize what was happening.
Footsteps, his mind screamed at him, followed immediately by another frantic thought. Move!
He pictured the ground floor of his tower, the fireplace here, the kitchen table there, trying to lock the image into his mind. He felt a click and knew that he had it and then took a deep breath, ready to invoke the spell.
From the edge of the clearing thirty feet away, a massive horned head, covered with red scales and as long as he was tall, burst out of the jungle and glared at him with yellow eyes.
Dragon!
The maw gaped and the monster roared in fury, sending Simon staggering back in shock. He fell through the door of the hut and collapsed on to the ground as the dragon's jaws snapped together in the space where he'd stood a moment before.
Another roar of rage deafened him and the wizard knew he had only seconds to live. With what he thought was his last breath, he managed to say the word of command.
“Invectis,” he gasped and felt forces grip his body and begin to pull him into the void. His last sight was of the dragon's head tearing through the wall of the hut and descending down upon him.
And then he was gone.
Whether he actually passed out during the Gate spell itself or when he arrived in his tower was something that Simon never knew. What he did know was that it was the shock of the freezing cold floor under his body that woke him up.
He sat up, moaning, and looked around. He was lying in the center of the first floor of the tower. It was dark but light was beginning to glow through the ice-covered windows and he guessed that it was only a few minutes before sunrise.
The tower was bitterly cold and it took Simon some time to remember that there was no one here to keep a fire going. He was lying naked in subzero temperatures and had better do something before he died of exposure.
If he'd had the strength, he might have laughed as something occurred to him.
Out of the frying pan and into the freezer, was his thought.
But there was no time for whimsy. He had only moments before the cold shut down his terribly weak body and he had to get moving.
Simon got to his feet, creaking like an old man, and walked slowly, step by painful step, over to his clothes cabinet. He opened it, grabbed a winter coat and wrapped it around him gratefully. His layers of dirt were unimportant at the moment; survival was all that mattered.
He slipped his bare feet into winter boots and just stood leaning against the cabinet, waiting for his body to warm up.
When he had regained a bit of strength, he moved cautiously across to the fireplace. Naturally there was nothing there but ashes, but there was a pile of neatly cut logs waiting on the floor beside it and Simon knelt down and grabbed one, meaning to set it on top of the ashes.
But he couldn't.
He stared in disbelief at his skinny fingers, watching them trying to pick up a log that any child could lift. But there was simply no strength left in him. The logs were frozen together and Simon did not have the power to separate them.
The cold from the floor was biting into his legs and he slumped back and stared around hopelessly.
So, is that it then? Is this how it ends?
He might have laughed if the whole thing wasn't so sad.
Well, at least I'll die at home, he thought with a shrug of his slight shoulders. Could be worse, I suppose.
It would have been easy to just slip away at this point, but there had always been a part of the wizard that refused to quit. That small voice inside of him that gave him a kick in the ass when he really needed it. And it did so now.
No, I can't let it end like this, he thought as anger burned away the fog from his brain. Not like this. Think, Simon! What can you do, even as weak as you are, to survive right now?
If only I had someone to help me, came the responding thought.
And that was the spark.
Of course, you idiot! Think like a wizard!
He turned his head away from the cold fireplace and stared at the floor.
“Kronk,” he whispered. “I need you.”
The tower shook from its foundations to its roof, creaking in the cold. The wooden floor seemed to sag as if made of soft rubber and bounced back and then a small figure made of jagged pieces of dark rock, stood there and gaped at him.
“Hey buddy,” Simon muttered. “How ya doing?”
“Master?”
Kronk reached toward him with his small hand, his red eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.
“Master? Is it really you?”
“In the flesh. Well, what's left of it,” Simon said and then he was wracked with a violent shudder.
The wizard's obvious distress snapped Kronk out of his state of shock and he tip-tapped over quickly, looking at Simon closely.
“Master, you are freezing!” the earthen said.
He hurried around the wizard and easily broke off several logs from the pile, stacking them in the fireplace. Then he rested his stony hands on the wood and Simon watched bemusedly as the little guy's body began to glow a fiery red.
The wood burst into flames and the wave of heat that washed over the wizard made him moan with pleasure.
“I do not know what has happened, master,” Kronk said to him. “But you are not well. Can you stand? The floor is too cold for you to be kneeling on it. Come, I will move a chair in front of the fire and you can sit on it.”
Somehow Simon managed to get to his feet and the earthen quickly slid a kitchen chair close to the fireplace. The wizard collapsed on to it and just sat quietly, content to absorb the heat.
Kronk stood in front of him, looking up.
“Master, I will need some help to get things back to normal here. You need food and hot liquid and rest and I am only one person. Could you, perhaps, recall Aeris? We could really use him now.”
“Aeris?” Simon repeated stupidly, feeling his brain moving at a snail's pace. “Oh right. Yeah, good idea.”
He looked at the space beside Kronk.
“Aeris, I need you,” he said weakly and then closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. He wasn't disappointed.
A distant rumble of thunder penetrated the walls of the tower and Simon gritted his teeth. Then a burst of white light flashed through his closed eyelids and a crack of deafening noise announced the air elemental's arrival.
Simon opened his eyes and watched as Aeris, who was now floating next to Kronk, looked around in stunned silence.
“By the Four Winds,” he managed to say finally. “What is going on here? How did we...”
And then he saw the wizard.
“You! But you're dead!”
“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Simon said with genuine amusement. Just seeing his two friends again was making what he'd been through seem more real. “I mean, I know I look like crap, but...”
Aeris frowned.
“That's being generous. I'm surprised you're even breathing.”
He looked around the tower and then turned to Kronk.
“This place is too cold. Our wizard here will die if we don't get it warmed up quickly.”
“I am aware of that,” the earthen said stiffly. “I only just got back myself. I asked master to call you to help, so why don't you? I am going to start a fire in the stove to produce more heat.”
Aeris stared, bemused, as Kronk picked up several logs and scurried over to the cast-iron stove. He shoved them in and then hopped in after them, to start them burning.
“Um, yes. Right. Good idea,” Aeris said.
He flew up and hovered in front of Simon at eye level.
“It is good to see you again,” he said in a strangely gentle voice. “When you are feeling better, I'd love to know what happened. But for now, I'm going to boil water for tea and then make you some food. You are a shadow of your former self, my dear wizard, and that self was none too fat to begin with.”
Simon could only smile at the elemental. The warmth felt so good and he was so tired that talking seemed to be too much effort.
The next few hours passed in a blur for the wizard. With the fires going in the fireplace and the stove, the main floor quickly became comfortably warm again. Aeris made him hot tea and brought up several packages of smoked venison and some jars of pickled and preserved vegetables from the storerooms below.
Simon ate slowly, his young stomach adjusting to solid food, and could almost feel his body converting the food into energy.
Once he was done, the wizard had regained enough strength to stand by the kitchen sink and bathe. Aeris had heated water in the kettle and filled the sink and Simon slowly washed away the layers of grime off of his body. When he was done, he toweled off and watched the dirty water disappear down the drain.
Kronk came down from upstairs with clean clothing and Simon felt a vast sense of relief as he put on clean socks, underwear and a robe and sat back down in front of the fireplace to sip more tea.
Then the earthen hurried to the door and jumped up to slide open the bolts.
“Going somewhere?” Aeris asked him as he hovered next to Simon.
“The horses. I must check on them,” Kronk said, sounding a bit frantic. “They have been alone for days and Sunshine was due to give birth. I will be right back, master,” he added and then slipped out of the door, closing it firmly behind him.
“Oh damn,” Simon said, too exhausted to move. He felt a knot of fear suddenly burning in his stomach. “I was so caught up in my own problems, I totally forgot about the horses!”
“Understandable,” Aeris told him. “Don't assume the worst, my dear wizard. Kronk will let you know how they are.”
With a sigh of helplessness, Simon tried to relax and be patient. He drank some tea and rested the cup on his thigh while he stared into the flames in the fireplace, trying to sort out his thoughts.
Tales from the New Earth: Volume One Page 143
