The Queen of Dragons (Tales from the New Earth Book 8)

by J. J. Thompson

  “I am cleaning, of course. What does it look like I am doing?”

  “But why? You cleaned that thing yesterday, and the day before that. What, are you afraid you missed a speck of dirt?”

  The little guy clapped his hands together to remove any dust from them and stepped out of the fireplace.

  “Master will want a clean and tidy home when he returns,” he said primly as he carefully arranged fresh logs for future use. “So I will make sure that is what he gets. You should be doing some housework as well,” he added pointedly.

  Aeris rolled his eyes.

  “I just finished dusting his bedroom and the study, thank you very much. But I don't do it every day; that borders on obsession.”

  Kronk just shrugged as he worked.

  “I prefer to think of it as doing my duty,” he retorted. “But feel free to call it anything you like; I don't mind.”

  Aeris watched as Kronk walked around the kitchen, checking the floor for any dirt that he might have missed. The air elemental narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  “You know, it just occurred to me that you have a martyr complex. Interesting.”

  The earthen stopped and turned around abruptly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. I think you enjoy sweating the minutiae that the rest of us just don't worry about.”

  Kronk glowered at him and then jumped up on top of the kitchen table and began to adjust the centerpiece; it was a vase of fresh flowers and he moved it back and forth, trying to get it exactly centered.

  “Don't be ridiculous; I do not do that,” he replied irritably as he moved the vase a smidgen to the left. “And I don't sweat. Hmm, does that look right?”

  Aeris floated up and landed on the table.

  “You don't look right,” he said sarcastically. “Stop obsessing, would you?”

  Kronk stepped away from the vase and sat down suddenly, his hard body clattering against the wooden table. He looked at Aeris with a desolate expression and waved his hands at the room helplessly.

  “I do not know what else to do,” he said sadly. “Our master is gone, Aeris. He is out there, somewhere; alone, possibly in pain, and we cannot do anything to help him. So all that I can do is make sure that he has a safe, clean home to come back to. If he comes back.”

  Aeris' expression softened and he walked across the table to sit down next to Kronk.

  “Of course he'll come back, you silly earthen. Simon has faced dragons, necromancers, witches; by the Four Winds, he's actually died twice! I don't believe that there is any force on Earth that can stop him indefinitely. Have a little faith.”

  Kronk shook his head disconsolately.

  “Perhaps not, but as powerful as he is, our master is still just a man. He is mortal and the longer he goes missing, the more I worry that he will never return.”

  Aeris sighed and tried to think of something positive to say. Unfortunately he couldn't come up with a thing.

  “If only one of us had gone with him,” he said softly. “Maybe then...”

  Kronk nodded silently and both of them stared into space, lost in thought.

  The front door banged open and an earthen leaped into the room. He was one of the earth elementals who patrolled the outer wall, easily recognizable because he was made partially of crystal, with translucent chunks of rock scattered throughout his body.

  “Kronk!” he called out as he entered.

  “Galt? What is it?”

  Kronk jumped to his feet and the other elemental spotted him and hurried across the room to hop up on to the table.

  Aeris stood up as well and then rose several inches to hover quietly in the background.

  “There is a...creature outside of the front gate. It is seeking an audience with our master,” Galt said hurriedly. “I told it that he was not available, but it keeps insisting that it needs to speak with him and that it will not leave until it does. What should we do?”

  “A creature?” Kronk asked, surprised. “What sort of creature?”

  Galt shrugged his blocky shoulders, his crystal bits glinting in the sunlight that was streaming through the kitchen window.

  “It is like nothing that I have ever seen before. It looks like a small human, somewhat, but it is heavily cloaked in black and I cannot see its body. It does sound like a young female though.”

  “We must see this thing for ourselves,” Kronk said with a quick glance at Aeris, who nodded firmly. “Lead on, Galt.”

  The two earth elementals jumped off of the table and quickly tip-tapped across the room and out the front door, while Aeris zipped through the air past them and flew off toward the main gate.

  “Do not leave the protection of the wards,” Kronk called up to him.

  Aeris waved in acknowledgment and kept going, until he was hovering just above the arch of the gate. He looked down and saw the odd creature that Galt had described.

  It was definitely human-like, in a way. It was short, perhaps four feet tall, and heavily bundled up in dark rags. So thick was the wrapping that Aeris couldn't actually make out the thing's true shape.

  Did it walk on two legs? Four? More? It was impossible to say. But it was hunched over, as if weighed down with pain or grief, and its posture made the elemental nervous, although he could not say why.

  What did it want with the wizard? Where had it come from? And most importantly, was it friend or foe?

  Kronk and Galt clattered along the ledge inside of the wall toward the arch and finally stood side by side just below Aeris.

  “What kept you?” he asked with a grin.

  “This is no time for jokes,” Kronk rumbled up at him. “Has the creature spoken or moved?”

  “Not in the last thirty seconds, no,” Aeris replied and rolled his eyes. “I assume that it's waiting for someone to speak to it.”

  He bowed gracefully at the earthen.

  “Feel free,” he told him.

  Kronk growled in disgust at Aeris' antics and stepped closer to the edge of the archway.

  “Greetings,” he called down, his deep voice belying his size. “What can we do for you?”

  There was a moment of silence and then the small figure replied while remaining completely still.

  “I wish to speak with the wizard, Simon. This is his home, isn't it?”

  The voice was weak and hard to make out but it was definitely feminine.

  “It is, yes. But my master is away on...business,” Kronk told the stranger, with the merest hesitation in his voice. “And I am afraid that we do not know when he will return. He could be gone for some time. Perhaps you could leave a message, or come back again in a week or two?”

  “My my, Kronk,” Aeris said quietly. “You missed your calling. You could be a courtier with those manners.”

  The earthen scowled up at him.

  “This is not the first time that I've received a visitor for a wizard. You must have done the same for other masters, back in ancient times.”

  “Don't remind me,” Aeris replied with a shudder. “I always ended up saying the wrong thing and then being punished. Ugh, they were horrid to me most of the time.”

  “Saying the wrong thing? You? Well now, I have learned something new today.”

  “Could we please focus on our present situation?” Galt muttered plaintively as he pointed down at the waiting visitor.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Kronk said, a little flustered. “Where are my manners? Aeris, stop distracting me.”

  “Me? But...”

  “Shush!”

  The little guy stared quizzically at the stranger.

  “Perhaps you could leave your name and explain the nature of your business to me and I can pass the information along to my master when he returns?” he asked loudly.

  “No, I must speak with him in person,” the visitor replied, her voice thin and barely audible. “I have traveled a long way; may I not enter and wait inside for him? I am in some pain and I'm worried about all of the dangerous
creatures that are roaming the forest. I barely managed to reach this place with my life.”

  The elementals looked at each other, Kronk and Aeris even more suspicious.

  “Afraid of monsters? And yet here she stands? I have my doubts about that.”

  “As do I,” Aeris agreed. “While that being sounds like a young girl, she may be nothing of the sort. I don't like the fact that she wants to get inside of our walls even knowing that the wizard is away. No, I don't like that at all.”

  “You two certainly do not trust easily, do you?” Galt told them. “This person may be exactly what she appears to be.”

  “Appears to be?”

  Aeris pointed down at the still figure below.

  “Galt, she doesn't appear to be anything. She's a lump of black rags crouched in front of our gate. Does that inspire confidence in you? Because it certainly does not inspire it in me.”

  “No, of course not, but she is still just one person,” Galt replied, sounding a little exasperated. “How much of a threat could she be? Between the three of us and the other four earthen who are patrolling the wall, we could probably deal with such a being should she turn out to be a threat.”

  Aeris could only shake his head at the earthen's obvious innocence.

  “He's very young,” Kronk told him as he patted Galt on the shoulder. “He has not seen how much evil the world can produce.”

  The little guy turned to Galt and indicated their mysterious visitor below.

  “Do not be deceived by a being's size, my friend,” he said in a low voice. “Our master could tear this tower apart with his powers, and there are mages in the world who could almost match that. This person, if person she is, represents a threat simply because she is the unknown.”

  He sighed and stared speculatively at the nondescript lump of rags that hid the stranger from them.

  “And even if she is not a danger to us, we could not open this gate if we wanted to; our master left orders that only elementals that he personally summoned would be permitted to come and go across his wards. That means that we can do nothing for her.”

  “Could we at least tell her that?” Galt asked plaintively. “It seems very rude to simply turn her away.”

  Aeris nodded when Kronk looked up at him and the little guy smiled at his fellow earthen.

  “Yes, we can do that. It is the polite thing to do, is it not?”

  Galt looked relieved, while Aeris seemed to be torn between irritation at the elemental's naiveté and amusement that the earthen cared so much about being hospitable.

  He had to admit to himself that Simon would have approved of the young elemental's concerns.

  “I am sorry, again, that we cannot help you,” Kronk called down. “Our master has decreed that no one may enter the grounds while he is away and we cannot disobey. I do not want you to think that our decision to turn you away is personal. It is not.”

  “Well said,” Aeris murmured.

  The mysterious figure moved slowly for the first time, becoming taller inside of her robes. She hissed in seeming pain and then became still again.

  “I understand. You are just following your natures. I can understand that. And so, I go.”

  She turned in a odd shuffling manner, moving by inches while the three elementals watched.

  “Is there nothing that we can do for her?” Galt asked. “Look, she is in pain.”

  “We can't know that,” Aeris told him, although even he felt sorry for the small visitor. “And what can we do? We are forbidden to allow her inside.”

  “Perhaps a cup of water? Some food?”

  “Galt, stop,” Kronk said sadly. “I would help her if I could, but to leave the protection of the wards would be to expose ourselves to danger unnecessarily. And that would be foolish.”

  “I...” Galt slumped in defeat. “I understand. I just wish that we could do something.”

  “We all do, believe me.”

  The trio watched as their visitor began to shuffle away. She had only moved off a few feet before she stopped and slowly turned back again.

  “You may tell Simon when you see him that an old friend came to call,” she told them, her weak voice barely carrying to the wall. “Tell him that I am pleased to see that he has flourished in the years since Ottawa was destroyed. He is spoken of in awe in many hidden places in the world and I am happy to have helped him in a small way so long ago. I shall try to return again someday, but I doubt that I will be able to make the journey twice. Farewell.”

  Kronk gaped at her in surprise.

  “You came from Ottawa, lady?” he called out as she began to turn away.

  “Yes.”

  She started shuffling off again.

  “Your name, lady? May I tell my master who came to see him?”

  The misshapen form began to fade into shadow, even in the bright afternoon sunlight and Galt gasped at this show of power.

  Before she disappeared entirely, the trio heard the stranger reply breathlessly.

  “Sarah.”

  And then she was gone, leaving Kronk and Aeris staring at each other incredulously.

  “Sarah!” Kronk exclaimed. “That was Sarah? Oh no! Master will be so upset that he was not here to meet her.”

  Aeris nodded, wide-eyed, while Galt just looked confused.

  “Who is this Sarah person?” he asked.

  “Ask him,” Aeris said and pointed at Kronk. “I hadn't been summoned to serve yet.”

  When Galt looked at him, Kronk nodded thoughtfully as he stared out across the empty clearing.

  “Yes, it was when master was still new to his powers, three years or so after the initial dragon attacks on the human cities. He decided to travel to Ottawa, his home town, to search for supplies and to check for survivors. He was hoping to discover some sign that his best friend, Daniel, had managed to evade the dragons and the drakes that followed them.”

  “How could anyone do that?” Galt wondered. “Those beasts devastated all of humanity's cities, didn't they?”

  “They did, but it turns out that Daniel was saved by the elves,” Aeris interjected.

  Kronk made a dismissive motion with his hands.

  “It is a long story, but the point is that while our master was in the city, he was saved by a young girl wrapped in cast-off old robes, a Changling named Sarah. He told me many times over the years that he wondered if she had somehow survived. He had doubted it, what with roaming packs of ghouls and other dangers, but he seemed to feel that it was at least remotely possible. And now, now that he is missing, she has appeared to prove that she did, in fact, survive. Oh, master is going to be so disappointed that he was not here to see her.”

  With a last look across the open field, Kronk turned away and walked down off of the arch.

  “You may as well resume your patrol, Galt,” he told the trailing earthen. “If anything else happens, let us know. And thank you for your promptness in reporting Sarah's visit today.”

  “You are welcome. I just wish that there had been more that we could have done for her.”

  “We do too,” Aeris told him.

  They parted ways, Kronk and Aeris heading back to the tower while Galt took up his patrol route again.

  Back inside, the two elementals sat down on the kitchen table, their favorite meeting place while the wizard was away, to discuss what had just happened.

  “So do you truly think that the person we saw today was this Sarah that the wizard spoke of?” Aeris asked as he floated, cross-legged, an inch above the tabletop.

  “I do not see how it could have been anyone else,” the earthen replied. “Except for you and myself, only our master knew the name of the child who aided him back then. It had to have been her.”

  “I'm less than convinced, but let's say that you're right, and that was the same girl. What was with the layers of rags covering her entire body? She was obviously hiding her appearance. Isn't that suspicious?”

  Kronk sat with his stubby legs stuck straight out
. He leaned back on his arms and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Master said that there were Changlings back then who were affected differently by the new magic that seeped into the world than he and the majority of Changlings were. He said most were young children who were twisted and deformed by the Change, turned into misshapen creatures that were frightening to look at. As a result, these youngsters began to hide their appearance from others, wearing heavy jackets, hoods and thick robes to avoid the hostility of others. Apparently when the world of men fell, they continued this habit until it became part of their identity. From what we saw today, I'd say that they still do.”

  “Huh. Well, if that's true, then there may be more of these Changlings around that we are not even aware of. The fact that they might have remained hidden for so long tells me that they have powers of their own; powers that may be a threat.”

  “Oh Aeris,” Kronk said in exasperation as he frowned at the air elemental. “Why must everything be so black and white, hmm? It is quite possible that Sarah and others of her kind, if there are any, are simply neutral parties. There were people like that back in the olden times, who took no side in the battle between Order and Chaos. You must remember that?”

  “I remember that no one trusted them,” Aeris said, glowering back at the little guy. “Mercenaries are what most people called them; selling their services to one side or the other. Despicable practice, in my opinion.”

  “Your opinion is irrelevant in this situation,” Kronk told him pertly. “What is most interesting to me, besides that fact that Sarah seems to have survived, is that something she said indicated that the world is much bigger in some ways than we were aware of. Even our master did not know that.”

  “Something she said? She barely said anything!”

  Kronk shook a finger at Aeris.

  “Tsk-tsk,” he said. “You were not paying attention. She said that our master is known and well respected in many hidden places in the world. Many hidden places. Now what do you suppose that means?”

  Aeris shrugged and stood up.

  “Who knows? Another mystery that we can add to the pile. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few things to do around the tower.”