“But I am here, master, so you need not think of such things.”
Simon chuckled at the little guy's practicality.
“You're right. And now I'd like to ask for another favor, if you can spare some time away from your chores.”
“Anything I can do for you, master. You need only ask.”
Simon nodded at the hovering Aeris, who floated near his shoulder.
“Our friend here mentioned lodestones and the fact that if I had a pair, Clara could signal me if she wished to talk. Have you heard of such things?”
“Lodestones.” Kronk looked down at the ground and tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, lodestones.” He looked back at Simon. “I know of these, master. I have not thought of them in a very long time. But Aeris is correct. These stones call to each other at need, because they are created from one larger stone. They are rare though. It would take me some time to find one.”
He looked around the garden and nodded to himself.
“If you want me to find this stone, I believe that I am caught up with my work and have the time.” He watched Simon with anticipation.
“How long would it take?” Simon asked him. He wasn't sure he wanted the little guy away too long. Not for his hard work but because he would miss him. Aeris wasn't half as chatty and amusing as Kronk was.
“Perhaps a day, master. Perhaps longer. There is no way to know. I can feel that there are none nearby, so I will have to travel some distance to find one. I will be as quick as I can,” he added as if reading Simon's thoughts.
Simon nodded reluctantly.
“Okay, my friend. I think it's important for Clara to have a way to contact me. The world is becoming more dangerous by the day and she might need me in an emergency.”
“That is true, master. Very well, I will leave immediately.”
He looked over at Aeris and put his little rocky hands on his hips.
“Take care of our master while I am gone,” he told the air elemental sternly. “Make sure the gates are sealed after dark. See that he eats all of his meals. When he casts spells...”
“Yes, yes. I know, Kronk,” Aeris said and held up his hands as if in surrender. “I'll take care of him, never fear. You'd better get going. The faster you find a lodestone, the faster you can get back to babysitting.”
Kronk glowered at him while Simon put a hand over his mouth to hide his grin.
“I will see you soon, master.”
And with a wave, Kronk sank into the ground and disappeared, leaving a mound of dirt behind him.
“Wow. I don't think I'll ever get used to that,” Simon said as he stared at the lonely pile of earth on the otherwise tidy ground.
Aeris faked a yawn.
“Inefficient. Air elementals travel with much more finesse.”
Simon tamped down the earth gently with his foot and then walked over to the stable to let the horses out for a run along the lake shore. He watched with delight as they raced back and forth and then lost himself staring at the placid surface of the water.
Some time passed and the horses settled down and grazed peacefully on the rich green grass as Simon sat against the wall, enjoying the day. He dozed after a while in the warm sun.
Finally he stood up and brushed leaves from his robe. A quick glance at the sky told him that several hours had gone by and he whistled to gather the horses together. He led them back to the stable and administered pats all around before he put them back into their stalls to nibble on fresh mounds of hay.
Aeris had disappeared and when Simon got back to the tower, he was surprised to find the elemental making tea. There were several sandwiches piled on the kitchen table and, when he spotted them, he realized how hungry he was.
“What's all this?” he asked Aeris as he sat down at the table.
“Kronk told me to take care of you, remember?” the elemental said gruffly. “If I don't, he'll complain for days after he gets back. So sit and eat, Simon, before you waste away.”
And the elemental rolled his eyes as he handed Simon the cup of tea.
Simon chuckled and accepted the tea gratefully.
“Well, thanks for this, Aeris, no matter what your motives.”
The elemental nodded once irritably, flew out the open door and disappeared.
Although he missed Kronk around the place, Simon managed to lose himself in his spell research for the rest of the day. He went to sleep reeling with exhaustion, something that was becoming a habit, he thought with a touch of tired amusement, and awoke the next morning to find Kronk standing on the end table beside his bed, waiting patiently for him to wake up.
“Good morning, master,” the little guy said brightly.
“Morning,” Simon grunted and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. “You're back sooner than I thought you would be.”
He sat up slowly and ran his fingers through his hair. When he looked back at Kronk, the elemental was holding up an unremarkable piece of rock the size of Simon's fist.
“Is that it?” he asked Kronk as he reached over and took the stone from him.
“That is it, master. It wasn't too hard to find, but I had to travel deep to get it.”
Simon turned the stone over in his hands. It was gray with little veins of pink running through it. Sparkles of tiny crystals embedded in the rock threw back winks of light in the morning sun beaming through the window.
“Huh. Not too remarkable looking, is it? So how do you turn it into two lodestones?”
Kronk gestured for the rock and Simon handed it back to him. He watched in fascination as the little guy held the lodestone in both hands and looked down at it with a frown of concentration.
“Like this, master,” he said and Simon's mouth dropped open in surprise as the stone snapped cleanly into two pieces.
“Gees, Kronk. You really are stronger than you look,”
The elemental smiled and shrugged. He offered the two stones to Simon and then jumped down to the floor.
“I hope you put them to good use, master. I must go and check on the horses. They are due for their morning feeding.”
And with that, the little guy tip-tapped out of the room and Simon heard him jumping down the steps heading downstairs.
Simon sat back in bed and weighed both stones in his hands. Kronk treated the retrieval of the lodestone like no big deal, but it would certainly help Clara and Simon stay in touch and that was priceless. Now he just had to get it to her.
He slipped out of bed and dropped the stones on to his blanket while he got dressed. As if in answer to his thoughts, by the time he'd put on a clean robe, Aeris flew into the room and hovered at shoulder height a few feet away.
“I notice that Kronk is back,” he said as he watched Simon.
“Yeah, he is.”
Simon picked up the two stones and showed them to Aeris.
“Could you do me a favor and take one of these to Clara? There's no rush. If you're heading down there later this week, you can wait until then.”
“No, I can go today. I agree that it's important for you two to have a connection, just in case.”
Simon handed him one of the stones and Aeris stared at it a moment.
The stone that Simon was holding suddenly lit up with a ghostly glow and became warm, bordering on hot, in his hand.
“Whoa!” he said, almost dropping it, and Aeris laughed lightly.
“Yes, it works.” He held up his own stone and Simon saw that it too was glowing.
“I just wanted to test it to make sure. Handy little things, aren't they?”
The glow faded just as quickly as it had appeared and Simon was again holding a rather ordinary piece of stone.
“Yeah, no kidding. Good idea to test it. I wasn't sure it would work, to be honest.”
“Well then, I'll travel to Nottinghill and give this one to Clara. I should be back by dinner time. Any trade goods for them before I go?”
Simon thought for a moment.
“Nope. That new crop of lettuce will be ready by early n
ext week, but that's the only thing that's almost ready. Thanks for doing this, by the way.”
Aeris looked surprised at Simon's gratitude.
“No problem, young wizard. Kronk's not the only one who likes to feel useful.”
He flew toward the window.
“I'll see you soon,” he said and then floated out into the sunlight and vanished.
The weeks began to flow by quickly for Simon and life took on a routine. His days were spent researching and testing spells, working the garden with Kronk, taking occasional rides in the forest accompanied by Aeris and puttering around the tower.
July slipped into August and toward the middle of the month, Simon finally discovered a spell that proved to be more useful than any other he had found yet. It was also the spell that almost killed him.
In retrospect, he realized that he'd become too complacent and had let his guard down when it came to testing new spells. He really should have tested it in the clearing beyond the gate. Instead he cast it in his study in front of his work table and that was almost his undoing.
The spell was the most complex he had ever put together. Three air runes of differing strengths, three water runes and a fire rune all mixed in together.
Somehow, Simon now knew when a spell was viable by simply adding and subtracting runes until it tingled under his fingers. Most of the time, the spell ended up being useless. The epitome of this was a spell he ended up calling Sparkles.
Aeris was with him, as he usually was when Simon was casting spells, and watched when he used the spell for the first time.
Simon went through the incantation, intoned the word of power to activate it and then stared as several colorful sparks of light popped in the air a few feet in front of him. And that was all.
He'd looked at Aeris.
“That's it? That's all it does?”
“Apparently. Why? What did you expect?”
“I don't know. Something more than a few sparkles, I guess.”
Aeris looked amused.
“Not all spells are useful, Simon. In fact, I would say that there are more spells that serve no function than there are ones that do.”
“Why?” Simon asked simply.
“That is the nature of magic, I suppose. Back when your technology functioned, I would guess that most inventions proved to be of little use.”
Simon thought about all the gimmicky things sold back in the day, most of which served little purpose.
“Yeah, that's a good point.” He sighed. “Well, I'll write this 'Sparkles' spell down, but I think I'd better add a section to my spell-book and label it 'Useless Spells'. I'm sure there will be more.”
“Almost certainly,” Aeris said, still smiling.
And those useless spells may have added to Simon letting his guard down when it came to testing other new spells. At least that's what he told himself later, when he was healing up.
He had written out the new combination of symbols and showed it to Aeris. The air elemental had more experience with magic than Kronk did because the old wizards used him and his fellows to carry messages and do chores that they didn't entrust to other types of elementals.
Aeris had looked at the spell and frowned.
“What?” Simon asked him.
“I don't know. It reminds me of something.” He stared at the runes and finally shook his head. “No. No idea. But take care, Simon. I don't think this is one of those throwaway spells.”
Simon read over the incantation again.
“Good. Between the sparkles, the blasts of cold air, and that stupid spell that sounds like a long fart, I'd like a new spell that was useful.”
Aeris chuckled and then became serious again.
“Maybe we should head out to the field? Just in case?”
Simon shook his head.
“My back is killing me from all the weeding I did yesterday. It's amazing that Kronk and I can pull weeds all day long and the damned things show up again twice as thick as before.” He stretched and grimaced as his back crackled.
“It'll be fine. The water runes outweigh the fire rune, and the air runes balance the water runes. So it's not a variation of Fireball or Meteor and I've already discovered Lightning.”
“And almost fried yourself in the process,” Aeris added dryly.
“Don't exaggerate. I was barely singed.”
Simon stretched again and turned toward the window to get away from Aeris' look of disapproval. Who's the wizard here anyway, he thought irritably.
He memorized the spell and added the word of command to the end. Then he took a deep breath, winced as a wire of pain shot down his spine and cast the spell.
As he intoned the last word, “Invectis!” he glanced out at the distant forest across the field.
There was a rush of air, a clap of ear-shattering thunder and Simon felt like something had smashed into his body and given it a massive shove. He flipped head over heels like he was tumbling down a hill and then he stopped and looked around.
For a second he thought he was floating. A quick look around and he saw the open window of the tower where he'd just been standing in his study, fifty yards away. He was at eye-level with it and found just enough breath to scream as he began to fall.
He hit the ground thirty feel below and heard his leg snap like a dry twig. The pain followed and he screamed again. Blackness threatened to engulf him but he fought it off.
Focus, Simon, focus. He'd been injured a lot back in the old days, in his old body. Cracked ribs, a broken arm, other things. Just breathe, man. Catch your breath and then check out the damage.
He lay there staring up at the clouds scudding across the deep blue sky and followed his own advice, breathing slowly and steadily.
His right leg pounded in time with his heart and the waves of pain slowly diminished to an almost bearable agony.
The earth exploded next to him and he turned his head sharply, hissing with the pain of the movement.
Kronk was standing there. How he'd even known what had happened was a mystery but Simon felt a bit better now that he wasn't alone.
“Master! What happened?” Kronk asked in a voice verging on panic. A new experience for Simon, considering how calm the little guy usually was.
Before he could answer, Aeris appeared above him and floated down to hover over his head.
“Damn it, Simon! I told you to cast that new spell out here! You could have died!”
“Yeah, I know,” Simon answered. He was surprised at how weak his voice was. “You were right, again.”
“I'm sorry I was. Now don't move and I'll check out your injuries,” the air elemental told him brusquely.
He floated along the length of Simon's body and the wizard followed him with his eyes.
“You can diagnose injuries?” he asked breathlessly.
“Yes, of course. I can see through your flesh to the bones and organs beneath. Something I do rarely. It is a bit disturbing.”
“No kidding,” Simon murmured.
He tried to smile at the worried Kronk.
“It's okay, my friend. I'll be okay. Aeris did warn me and now I'm paying for my own stupidity.”
“He should have been more forceful in his warning, master,” Kronk said as he glared at Aeris.
“Hey, don't blame me. You know full well that we can't stop wizards if they insist on doing something dangerous,” Aeris said indignantly.
Kronk reluctantly nodded.
“That is true, I suppose.”
Aeris floated back into view.
“Well, the good news is that your organs are undamaged, although your kidneys have been bruised. I think urinating will be painful for a while.”
“Great.” Simon muttered.
“The bad news is that your leg is broken. But it's a clean break and should heal with no problems, as long as we can immobilize it.”
Simon sighed raggedly.
“Best I could hope for, I suppose.”
He slowly lifted his head and l
ooked at the tower in the distance.
“Now the question is, how the hell do I get back inside?”
There was a moment of silence as the three of them considered their options.
“Well, you could crawl,” Aeris said, ignoring Kronk's glare of outrage, “but that would do more harm to your leg. Or you could call for help.”
“Help?” Simon stared at him blankly. “Help from whom? Clara is three hours away, and I think lying here with an unset leg might be a bad idea.”
“Agreed. But I wasn't thinking about the cleric. You have several elementals who have offered their help if you need them again.”
Simon's eyes widened as he realized what Aeris was talking about. The air elemental nodded at his expression.
“You can summon any of the earth elementals who helped build your wall for you, or you can call upon Aethos. He did offer his services if you had need of him again, did he not?”
“Yeah, Aethos.” Simon thought of the powerful air elemental and his warning not to summon him again unless it was very important.
“I'm not sure that he would consider carrying me to the tower important enough to respond to a summons.”
“My fellow earthen would, master,” Kronk spoke up. “And between us we could easily carry you home.”
“Could you? Okay. I think that's a better idea. I really don't want to anger a being as powerful as Aethos.”
The air became warm and the sky darkened momentarily.
“What now?” Simon asked, grunting with pain as he raised his head again.
A disturbance to his left coalesced into the towering figure of a humanoid made of air and mist.
“You know, wizard, if you do not wish to summon me, repeatedly saying my name is not the best way to avoid it.”
“Aethos?”
“Of course.” The power in the elemental's voice made the air quiver.
Aeris bowed low and Kronk nodded once.
“I'm sorry to call you,” Simon said hastily. “I didn't mean to.” He winced as he tried to sit up.
Aethos gestured for him to stay still.
“I know that. It was my choice to come. This task will only take a moment and, as I told you before, you intrigue me. It would be an ignoble end for a budding wizard to die in a field because of a broken leg, would it not?”
The Dragons Return Page 23
