As promised, the air elemental headed off to visit Nottinghill Castle, goaded on by an increasingly worried Kronk. But even for one of his race, Aeris knew that it would take him several hours at top speed to reach the castle and all he had to keep him company were his roiling thoughts.
“If he comes back before I reach Tamara and the others, have the wizard recall me immediately,” he told Kronk sternly before he left. “I'm going to look awfully foolish if I arrive at the castle to report him missing, only to find Simon chatting to the others through his mirror.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” Kronk had replied impatiently. “Now go, and do not get sidetracked. This is no time for useless adventures.”
“Like the one our dear wizard is on, I'm sure,” Aeris grumbled as the earthen all but pushed him off of the kitchen table toward the door.
“I'm going, I'm going!” he protested. “Stop shoving!”
“Then go already!”
It was early evening by the time that Aeris reached Nottinghill Castle. Torches were already lit on top of the high walls and several guards were walking along the perimeter on patrol.
It hadn't taken long to start bringing up the inhabitants from Kingstone, the elemental thought with some surprise. They must really have grown tired of living underground. And I don't blame them in the least.
He was wise enough to slow his approach and begin to glow in the fading light so that the guards could get a good look at him. Most of the humans had seen or heard of the elementals by now, but Aeris wasn't going to take any chances; their arrows were enchanted and could actually harm him.
After receiving directions from a wide-eyed young woman who was gripping her sword hilt rather tightly, Aeris entered the castle proper and sought out the main hall, where he'd been told the leaders were meeting. Even with directions though, it was not easy to find. The castle was twice as large now and maze-like for newcomers like himself.
When he'd finally found his way and entered the massive central hall, Aeris was greeted warmly by Tamara and the others, including her brother, the mages from the Defiant and Malcolm and Aiden.
Liliana was there as well, deep in conversation with a large Asian man wearing a black leather tunic that Aeris recognized as the paladin, Lei Zhang. She looked up and nodded in greeting and then went back to her intense discussion.
The room was still mostly bare, its gray stone walls unadorned, but a meeting table made of heavy oak was placed in the center of the hall and a dozen chairs were placed around it. A huge marble fireplace built into one wall was radiating heat from a merrily-burning pile of logs to counter the chill in the air and it gave the plain chamber a more homey feeling.
Several jugs were scattered around on the table and the leaders were drinking their beverages and talking animatedly. They were obviously happy to be back in their own home again.
“And to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit, my friend?” Malcolm called out jovially.
He was drinking from a large tankard and from the redness of his face, Aeris guessed that he was quaffing wine.
Aiden rolled his eyes at his partner's loud question and smiled at the elemental.
“It's good to see you, Aeris. Is Simon with you? Hopefully he's accepted our invitation to check out the new castle.”
Aeris flew across the room to hover above the long table that the group was sitting at. He moved to its center and turned in a slow circle.
“I am afraid not. This is something rather more serious.” He hesitated and then added, “Possibly. I'm not sure yet. It could be nothing but you never know.”
“Aeris,” Tamara said loudly, cutting off his meandering speech, “Focus. Tell us what's going on, please.”
“Yes, of course. Forgive me, but I am perhaps a little more rattled than I thought I was. Um, my wizard seems to be, err, missing.”
A silence fell over the table and every pair of eyes was suddenly glued to Aeris' face, including the two paladins.
“Missing?” Liliana repeated harshly. “What do you mean, missing?”
“I mean that he is gone and neither Kronk nor I have any idea where he is, lady paladin. He left yesterday while we were away and has not returned, at least as far as I know. Lady mage,” he turned to look at Tamara. “I would ask that you try to contact him or call Kronk to see if the wizard has returned home. We serve him but we cannot know where he is unless he summons us. Please help,” he added plaintively.
“Of course we will,” the mage replied firmly. “Sebastian, fetch my mirror, would you?”
“Right away,” her brother said and he sprang from his seat and hurried out of the hall.
“Was he worried about anything, Aeris?” Aiden asked as they waited for the mirror. “Besides the day to day concerns of life, that is.”
“Well, sir warrior, he was worried about the dragon queen, of course, but had sent me and two others to seek her out. It was when I returned from that mission that I found him missing. Kronk got home at almost the same time, from working on this castle, but the wizard was not there. That was about twenty-fours hours ago now.”
“And were you successful?” Chao, the brother of the paladin, asked.
He was dressed in a simple brown robe and was playing with a fan that seemed to be made out of some sort of greenish metal, folding and unfolding it constantly. It jingled pleasantly, like tiny bells, as he fiddled with it. His thick black hair flowed like water to his shoulders and framed a delicate face and large dark eyes.
“Well, yes and no. I haven't had a chance to report the results to my wizard, so...”
“You would rather speak to him first,” Chao said with a gentle smile. “Of course. I understand duty completely. Forgive my curiosity.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Aeris said with a polite bow. “If Simon O'Toole is truly missing, then I will make a full report to this council. I am sure that he would want me to pass along what I've learned.”
“Ah, now I am intrigued,” the conjurer told him. “But I am also patient. I will wait.”
Sebastian trotted back into the room, carefully holding up his robe so that he didn't trip on it. Malcolm snickered at the sight and Aiden poked him hard in the ribs.
“Shush!” he said under his breath.
Malcolm just grumbled blearily and subsided, vaguely watching Tamara take the hand mirror from her brother.
“Thanks Bastian. Now then, let's see what we can see, hmm?”
Chapter 7
The entire company appeared to hold their collective breaths while Tamara cast the Magic Mirror spell. Instead of specifying a place, she targeted Simon by name and waited for the magic to track him down.
A few long minutes passed as the mage frowned at the surface of the mirror, seemingly trying to will it to make the connection. Finally she sat back with an irritated growl and put it down on the table.
“Nothing,” she told the others. “Not even a flicker. The spell cannot find him.”
“I didn't think that was possible,” Aiden said in confusion. “You should be able to at least see Simon, even if he's asleep, shouldn't you?”
“Until now, I would have thought so,” Tamara agreed. “But as you have just seen, that didn't happen. I don't understand it.”
“At the risk of saying what others may be thinking,” Lei said calmly. “If the wizard is dead, your spell would fail, is that not so?”
“He isn't dead, Lei,” Malcolm said with a scowl at the paladin.
He was apparently sobering up quickly; worry about the wizard was clearing his head.
The two large men exchanged steely glares down the length of the table and the atmosphere cooled noticeably.
“I did not say that he was,” the paladin replied evenly. “I said if. I do not know Simon O'Toole, but he is responsible for my brother and I being here and I owe him a tremendous debt. I assure you that I hope he is well.”
Malcolm blinked several times and nodded abruptly.
“Sorry,” he said ruefully.
“I am very fond of that man. Not only is he a good friend but, like you and your brother, Aiden and I owe him.”
“A debt that we can never repay,” Aiden quickly agreed. “We would be beasts roaming the wilderness if not for Simon and our late friend, Clara.”
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” Aeris interrupted loudly. “But my wizard is not dead, of that you can be sure.”
“How do you know, Aeris?” Malcolm asked, a note of hope in his voice.
“Because I am still here,” he said simply. “When a wizard dies, his summoned elementals, like myself, go back to their own realm. The tether that ties them to this world is severed and they are released. But as you can see, I have not disappeared. No, Simon O'Toole is alive. The inability of your spell to reach him,” he turned to look at Tamara, “may be caused by several things, lady mage. He might be behind magical wards. He could be being kept in total darkness, or deep underground. Or he could be under the influence of a spell that is keeping him in a coma-like state. All of these things can defeat a Magic Mirror spell, and I am sure that there are others as well that I do not know about.”
“Or he could actually be in a coma caused by an accident or an attack, is that not so?” Chao asked in an even tone.
“That is so, yes,” Aeris replied reluctantly.
Tamara nodded, pensively running her fingertips over the back of the hand mirror.
“Good to know, I suppose. So, either Simon is being held against his will by someone, or something, that knows how to hide him from us, or he's met with some sort of accident out there that has rendered him incapable of reaching us or being reached.”
She looked around the table.
“I almost hope that it's the former, to be honest. If he's, say, fallen into a crevasse or banged his head and is lying comatose somewhere, the odds of us finding him alive diminish by the minute.”
“All the more reason to get up and do something,” Malcolm stated loudly and banged his fist on the table. “Why are we sitting around here like witless children?”
Liliana stood up to speak.
“Malcolm, we cannot go rushing off without having a plan of action,” she said calmly. “We must focus and decide how to proceed next. Surely you can see that?”
The big man scowled at her but the paladin met his angry gaze steadily until Malcolm nodded.
“Good. Tamara, I am not the leader here,” she continued, “nor am I a magic-user. I leave that aspect of the search to you and the other mages. But might I suggest that we seek out as much help as we can get?”
“From where?” Sebastian asked before his sister could speak. “We few here are all that are left who would care about Simon. There might be a few survivors scattered around the world that we haven't found yet, but we are the only ones who would want to look for him, aren't we?”
“Are we? What about the dwarves?” Liliana asked.
There was a quick mutter of conversation around the table at that idea.
“Shandon Ironhand is a friend of Simon's and, I think, would be willing to use his resources to help to find him. And Aeris,” the paladin said, “you and your people will help as well, will you not?”
“Of course, lady paladin,” Aeris told her. “But without the wizard to summon more of us, there are only three air elementals currently on this world and that is all that are available to help. But we will do what we can.”
“I am sure that you will do your best,” Liliana told him with a smile.
She looked down the table at Tamara.
“You're up,” she said with a small teasing grin and sat down again.
“Thanks,” the mage replied in a dry tone.
She stood up and pushed back her chair. Then she began to walk slowly around the table, thinking out loud as she went.
“So, we have the mages here who can search using our mirrors. And with luck, the dwarves can aid us as well. They have considerable resources to draw on and they are much older than we humans. They may pull out a few surprises that we don't even know about yet. Aeris and his friends will search as well, and we all know how fast they can move and how skilled they are at scouting. Anyone else have any ideas?”
She stopped next to Chao's chair and looked around at the others.
“Our problem, as I see it, is that we don't know exactly where to start looking,” Aiden said.
He was fiddling with the pendant hanging from a chain around his neck; the one that kept him safe from the tainted werewolf blood that coursed through his veins.
“If we only had a starting point, we'd have a much better chance of finding Simon quickly.”
“True.”
Tamara looked at the anxious faces around her and then focused on Aeris as he floated above the center of the table.
“Is there no clue that Simon left that would at least give us a hint of where we should start looking? None at all?”
He shrugged helplessly.
“None, lady. When we returned home yesterday, he was already gone. He had told one of the earthen guarding the tower that he was going out and to keep the gates locked, but that was all he said. He left his atlas lying on the desk in the study, but it was closed and none of the pages was marked. His pile of note paper was untouched. I am sorry, but that was all that I found.”
“Wait a moment,” Chao said into the silence that followed Aeris' statement. “You said that he used an atlas before he left?”
“Yes sir.”
“So we can assume that he might have mapped out where he wanted to go, picked out coordinates to Gate to, is that correct?”
“Possibly. But if he did, he took the list with him, so we are left with nothing.”
The small, finely-featured man smiled at Aeris.
“Perhaps not. Unfortunately I cannot Gate. However, my new mage friends here can.”
He looked at Tamara.
“Could you Gate to the wizard's tower?”
She looked puzzled at the question, but nodded.
“Outside of it, yes. But if the gates are closed then the wards are active. I couldn't get in.”
“Well, I am sure that this nice elemental would allow you to enter, would you not? Or you could enter yourself and fetch that atlas for Tamara?”
Aeris looked as baffled as the rest of the group appeared to be.
“Yes sir, I would happily do that. But what would be the point? I mean, no disrespect intended, but the book was closed. There is no way to tell which map he even looked at, let alone exactly where he went.”
“Ah, no visible way,” Chao corrected him. “But I happen to know a being who has aided me in the past who might be able to examine that book and gain some insight into what the wizard searched for when he last used it.”
“Seriously?” Tamara asked, surprised. “What kind of person could even do that?”
“Well, she's not a person, per se,” the conjurer said with a quick glance at his brother, who was grinning widely. “But then again, I suppose she is, in her own way.”
“Careful,” Lei warned him with a laugh. “If Ellas hears about you not considering her a person, she'll be offended.”
Chao waved away that comment.
“She's always offended by something I say or do. Fortunately she's also egotistical enough to help us just to prove how clever she is.”
“Excuse me,” Liliana said. “But is there another magic-user out in the world that we don't know about? Why didn't you bring her with you?”
Lei actually began laughing, which confused everyone even more. His brother frowned at him and made an impatient gesture.
“Stop that,” he said. “You are not helping. No, Liliana, I am not speaking of a human being. Ellas is a...sprite, I believe you would call her. A pixie. A little magical being who comes to me at need when I summon her. She has a unique talent that enables her to glean information from inanimate objects simply by handling them. I believe that the term back in the old days was psychometry.”
Most of the company looked mystifi
ed by that statement, but strangely enough it was Malcolm who began nodded in understanding.
“I remember reading about that, way back when,” he told them. “It was from a list of superpowers that I looked up, all relating to telepathy, that sort of thing.”
“Why on Earth were you looking up information like that?” Aiden asked, obviously mystified.
“I used to be a super hero nerd, okay?” his partner replied defensively. “I loved all that stuff.”
He suddenly looked down at his hands in surprise and clenched one massive fist.
“But I suppose that we're all super heroes now, aren't we?” he said in wonder. “Who'd have believed it?”
Aiden patted him on the shoulder with a warm smile and looked across at Chao.
“Well, if your, um, pixie friend can help point us in the right direction, then I'm all for it.”
Everyone around the table was nodding in agreement and Tamara looked at Aeris.
“If I teleport us to the tower, do you think that you can open the gate so that I can get that atlas?”
To her surprise, the elemental shook his head.
“No lady. I'm sorry but I cannot. The earthen that are patrolling the outer wall were ordered by my wizard to seal the gates and only allow the elementals who serve him access to the grounds. They will never let you in and nothing that I can say will change their minds, not against a direct order from their 'master', as they insist on calling him. He hates that term, by the way,” he added.
“Well, that doesn't sound good at all, does it?” Malcolm said to Aeris. “Surely they would take your word that Tamara is trustworthy, wouldn't they?”
“They would, of course, but an elemental cannot disobey a direct order from the one who summoned them. It is impossible to do so, at least for those of us who are the smallest of our kind. No, I am afraid that until the order is rescinded, no one but elementals can enter or leave the tower grounds.”
“But you can fetch the atlas and bring it to Tamara outside of the walls, can't you, Aeris?” Aiden asked impatiently.
“Oh yes, certainly. I can do that, lady mage,” Aeris told Tamara, who had been listening with some irritation.
The Queen of Dragons (Tales from the New Earth Book 8) Page 8
