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

by J. J. Thompson

  “It's late, or early, depending on your point of view. I propose that all of us give what happened here some thought and meet again tomorrow. We're all tired and may not be thinking as clearly as we should. We need some time to assimilate what we've seen and heard and to analyze it properly. Agreed?”

  There was general consent from everyone and Tamara looked at Aeris with an appreciative smile.

  “You have done us all a service, my friend. Not only have you passed along valuable information, but you helped us expose a plot of some sort. We now know that there are unseen forces working against us, although who and what they are and what they want is a mystery. I'd like you to return tomorrow, at around noon our time, when we'll meet again. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we would value your input.”

  “Hear, hear,” Sebastian said with a grin.

  Aeris bowed and smiled in return.

  “Thank you, sirs and ladies. I would be happy to help in any way that I can. I will be back tomorrow.”

  He gave each of them a quick glance and disappeared with a muffled thud of air.

  “I wonder if he really knows how much we appreciate him?” Aiden said as he sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

  When he got back to the tower, Aeris had to give Kronk a detailed account of everything that had happened in Nottinghill. The earthen was left dumbfounded after hearing about the cursed stone.

  “So that means that master isn't being held by Lacertus,” he mused.

  Both of the elementals were sitting on the kitchen table, a lone candle burning on the mantelpiece. The view through the windows was beginning to brighten as dawn approached. They had been talking and speculating for several hours.

  “Haven't we already come to that conclusion?” Aeris asked. “We keep circling around to the fact that we are, as Tamara said, back to square one. The wizard is gone and we don't know if he's been imprisoned or has had an accident.”

  “Or is intentionally hiding for some reason,” Kronk murmured.

  Aeris stared at him in surprise.

  “I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “Why though?”

  “How should I know? I am just a simple elemental, not a great wizard like our master.”

  With a snort of derision, Aeris stood up and rose several inches above the table.

  “Well, simple one, give it some thought. You've known Simon a lot longer than I have and maybe something he said in the past is a clue to his whereabouts now.”

  At Kronk's skeptical look, Aeris shrugged.

  “I know that it's a long shot, but we're running out of ideas. And while you're wracking your rocky little brain, I'm heading for the Grand Canyon.”

  The earthen stood up and stared at him in surprise.

  “What? You're going there alone?”

  “I'll be fine, Mom,” Aeris said with a laugh. “But thanks for the concern. See you in a few hours.”

  And with that, the air elemental flew across the room, pulled open the door and zoomed off.

  “At least he could have closed the door behind himself,” Kronk muttered as he began to walk to the edge of the table.

  Aeris reappeared in the doorway.

  “Sorry!” he exclaimed.

  He waved, grabbed the door latch and slammed it shut.

  “Well, well, he is learning,” the earthen said with an affectionate smile. “And it's only taken about six years.”

  At top speed, Aeris reached the general vicinity of the map coordinates that he was given in about two hours. The sun was still climbing above the horizon, as he had traveled some distance to the south and west, and he had a clear view of the huge canyon from a thousand feet up.

  “Huh. Just looks like a big crack to me,” he muttered. “Why was the wizard so fascinated by it?”

  He looked down along the length of the fissure and saw the river at the bottom racing along on its endless journey.

  “A big wet crack,” he corrected himself. “Still boring. Ah well, let me see what I can see.”

  He dropped out of the sky at great speed and came to a precipitous halt at the edge of the canyon.

  A slow turn revealed no signs of life, but tough brush and grasses quivered in the mild breeze and broke up the monotony of the grayish landscape.

  “This place must have been more fertile once,” Aeris said to himself. “I wonder what happened to it? At least there's richer vegetation down along the river. Maybe the wizard went down there and explored a bit.”

  He flew into the canyon, becoming invisible as a precaution, and headed for the river below.

  The fast-moving water echoed loudly at the base of the towering cliffs and it raged and roared as it splashed over rocks and large stones.

  Aeris winced at the cacophony. He wasn't fond of loud noises, even though air elementals made a deafening entrance when they were summoned. He'd told the wizard that, several times, but he wasn't sure if Simon had believed him.

  The banks of the river were covered with sand and pebbles, gritty material that would show the footprints of anything fairly heavy that had walked over it recently. Aeris was pleased to see that.

  “If he did wander around down here, I should be able to find some signs.”

  He looked up and down the river. It appeared to go on forever and he sighed in resignation.

  “Well, I suppose I'll just search for several miles in both directions on this bank and then cross over and do the same on the other side.”

  He shook his head as he began to head upriver.

  “This is going to take forever.”

  In fact, it took about three hours. Aeris had spent the first two on one side of the river and covered about ten miles of its length. Then he had crossed it and spent an hour on the other bank. He had found and identified the tracks of Malcolm and Veronique immediately and had shaken his head in disgust at the limited area that they had searched.

  Humans, he thought critically. Ah well, at least they made some sort of effort.

  And then he found a spot where the searchers' tracks had mingled with the footprints of someone else.

  What's this, what's this, he wondered excitedly. Something new?

  Aeris got closer and scanned the gritty surface carefully.

  “Let's see here,” he said softly as he flew a few feet off of the ground, following the tracks. “Someone appeared here, stepping off of this large boulder, and then walked a few steps to the edge of the water. Hmm, okay. Then what?”

  Aeris pointed down at the shallow prints, tracing them as if he was drawing pictures on the pebbly ground.

  “He stopped and turned, right, and stood in the same spot for a few minutes. The prints are deeper right there. And then? Ah, and then he moved over a few feet and,” he narrowed his eyes. “sat down beside the water. Now why would he do that?”

  The elemental wondered if Simon had stumbled, maybe fallen on the damp, slippery ground. But no, there were no scuff marks to indicate an accident. The wizard, if these tracks were his, had deliberately sat down on what was obviously not the most comfortable of surfaces.

  “Why does he do things like that?” he asked himself. “The ground is hard and uneven, the pebbles are wet and the air is cool. He could have caught a chill or something.”

  Aeris sounded, although he'd never admit it, as worried as Kronk would have, had he been there.

  “Fine, so he sat down. But what happened after that? Where did he go?”

  A hooting call sounded from downstream and Aeris turned to look for its source.

  “Well now, I haven't seen one of those for a long time.”

  A sleek body, pale in the sunlight and topped with an equine-like head, was bobbing along in the river a hundred yards away.

  Aeris smiled at the sight and his smile widened as the animal was joined by two others.

  Water horses, he thought. How lovely. When were you brought back into the world?

  He knew the creatures to be gentle herbivores and had no fear that they ha
d played any part in Simon's disappearance.

  “Did you see anything though?” Aeris whispered at them. “Even if you did, you couldn't tell me, could you?”

  Did the wizard fall into the river perhaps?

  The sudden thought made Aeris shiver and he flew out over the rough water, peering into its distorted surface fearfully.

  What I wouldn't give to have one from the realm of water with me right now, he thought.

  He stared at the turbulent liquid for a long moment and then threw up his hands in resignation.

  “Well, if I must, I must,” he said aloud and dropped straight down into the river.

  Naturally the elemental didn't have to worry about breathing under water, but he didn't like being submerged. It was a foreign environment for him and it made him nervous.

  He held steady against the aggressive flow of the river and scanned the bottom in all directions.

  Even if Simon did fall in, he thought, he would have been swept away downstream, perhaps for miles.

  But he isn't dead, Aeris reminded himself for what seemed like the hundredth time. I am still here, so the wizard isn't dead.

  He flew through the water and felt its substance pass through him; unlike the feeling of the winds high in the sky, the liquid felt thick and soupy and he didn't like it one bit. But he had to search regardless of his distaste.

  He scanned the river bottom in all directions, starting from where the signs led to the edge of the water. He moved straight out into the middle of the flow and then turned slowly, looking, looking, seeking anything out of the ordinary.

  Perhaps if the water had been more cloudy he would have missed it, but an odd, unnatural lump in the silt a dozen yards away caught Aeris' attention.

  What is that? It looks too straight and even to be natural, he thought.

  He approached the strange shape cautiously, constantly on guard for traps. After his experience with the stone that 'Sarah' left him, he wasn't taking any chances.

  Weeds waved in the mud on the river bottom and over the odd shape, but Aeris pushed them aside and gingerly poked at the object.

  A flash of brilliance made him retreat, fearing the worst, but when he looked back all that he saw was a length of wood and metal; a staff.

  “Mortis!” Aeris exclaimed, his voice muffled by the rushing river. “What are you doing here?”

  He zipped down toward the staff and pulled it out of the sticky mud, shaking it to rinse off the silt. Once it was clean, Aeris flew straight up and erupted into the open air with a gasp of relief.

  “No more swimming,” he promised himself. “It feels too weird.”

  He carried the staff to the river bank and laid it down carefully. Then the elemental rose up several feet to examine the weapon.

  Almost six times his length, the dwarven staff was sheathed in a lattice of silvery metal and its length was covered in runes. The king, Shandon Ironhand, had created the staff for Simon and had imbued it with magic to make it a potent weapon against dragons.

  “Mortis de Draconis,” Aeris whispered to it. “Slayer of Dragons. Where is your master? What has happened to him?”

  The staff, naturally, was mute and the elemental stared at it in frustration.

  “So wherever Simon is, he's unable to summon you to his side. That's bad. That is very bad.”

  He picked up the staff awkwardly and hid it beneath some bushes growing near the water.

  “I'll return for you,” he promised it. “But I have to head downstream in case our wizard was swept away in that direction.”

  The elemental soared skyward until he hung a hundred feet over the river. He marked the staff's hiding place in his mind and then shot off downstream, scanning all points that he could see along the way.

  The river twisted and turned, had rough patches and smooth sections, and Aeris began to despair that he would ever find a sign of the wizard.

  “He's not dead,” he told himself angrily. “He can't be. Don't be such a fool. Focus!”

  The vision of an air elemental rivals that of the greatest eagle and Aeris was straining his eyes for the slightest indication of a footprint, or a scrap of cloth; anything to indicate that Simon had passed this way.

  He flew around a sharp turn in the canyon and came to a dead stop. The gorge opened up here into a valley several miles across and almost filling the great space was a huge mound, reminiscent of a massive pyramid. It rose up in crooked steps almost to the rim of the canyon itself and Aeris stared at it with a mixture of horror and revulsion.

  “Goblins!” he hissed, turning invisible instantly just in case any of the foul creatures were around.

  “What are they doing here?”

  The goblins had constructed their mound in such a way that it straddled the river, a gaping tunnel burrowing underneath the structure that allowed the water to flow through.

  Aeris ascended and circled the mound, examining it on all sides. He grimaced as he saw the foul water that flowed out on the other side of the goblin's home.

  “Polluted, like everything else they touch,” he said with disgust.

  A chill ran through him as he pictured Simon in the clutches of those evil beings.

  “If the wizard is in there, the Four Winds only know what is being done to him,” he murmured fearfully. “But how can I know if they have him or not?”

  Don't be such a coward, Aeris, he told himself sternly. You're a scout, there is your target. So do your duty and scout!

  The elemental bobbed in the wind, aghast at the thought of actually entering that place. Goblins had mages and even wizards among them. They created magical traps that could easily catch him and they were brutal to their enemies.

  They couldn't have Simon, he thought. If they did, the wizard would already be dead. Goblins don't keep prisoners. Or at least they didn't, back in the old days.

  He continued to circle the mound, searching for lookouts or guards or any signs of movement. But there were none, just the ever-flowing river and the heat waves rising from the edifice as it baked in the noon sun.

  Aeris knew that goblins were nocturnal by nature and avoided direct sunlight if possible. They could endure it if it was necessary, but they would never choose to travel anywhere by day.

  Which means that the mound is probably infested with the creatures, he thought with revulsion. They'll be in there, teeming like maggots until the sun goes down. And if Simon is in there with them...

  He shuddered. What could he do? How could he find out if the wizard was a captive or not? Think Aeris, think!

  His eyes were drawn back to the river as it flowed beneath the mound. The tunnel that it entered was wide and high enough to allow the water to run through it freely.

  He dropped lower to the ground and tried to pierce the shadows inside of the opening, but beyond the burning sunlight was impenetrable darkness. He could see no guards or sentries lurking there, but that meant nothing. It could be a deathtrap.

  On the other hand, Aeris knew that goblins weren't the smartest of creatures. Certainly they could use magic, but they were crude and lacked the finesse of human spell-casters. It was quite possible that the river passage wasn't guarded at all. The goblins might feel very secure in this remote area, with no enemies anywhere in the vicinity. They may have become lax about security.

  Make up your mind, you silly elemental, he told himself. You can't float out here forever.

  With a final glance at the heavens, Aeris dipped down until he was just touching the surface of the water and he allowed it draw him toward the tunnel.

  I must really be crazy, was his final thought as he plunged into pitch blackness.

  Chapter 19

  A deep chill penetrated Aeris' body as he floated into the tunnel beneath the goblin mound, shocking after the heat of the canyon outside. The river was actually steaming in the sudden temperature change and a thin fog shrouded its surface.

  The elemental felt a wave of relief.

  More camouflage for me, he tho
ught.

  The flow of the river slowed inside the tunnel and Aeris reasoned that it was deeper here for some reason. He waited until the water had carried him along several dozen yards and then slowly rose up until he was just above the band of mist.

  Even with his enhanced vision, it was hard to make anything out in the almost total darkness. The glow from the tunnel mouth was easily seen but the walls and ceiling of the passage itself were difficult to distinguish from the surrounding gloom.

  The roar of the river reverberated through the tunnel and made listening for any movement impossible. Aeris realized that he would have to actually move to the walls and search that area if he wished to get any information. It wasn't something that he wanted to do, but he saw no other way to investigate.

  If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to get Kronk down here to search the mound from underground, he thought. And won't he just love telling me what a poor scout I am.

  With that thought as an incentive, the elemental strengthened his resolve and floated slowly across the river, every one of his senses on high alert.

  He reached the riverbank and found a ledge about six feet wide running along the side of the water. He froze for a moment, listening futilely for footsteps or any sounds of movement. The path told him that the goblins had constructed it as a patrol route along the length of the tunnel.

  Paranoid little parasites, he thought irritably.

  He heard and saw nothing and rose up to hover just above the ledge.

  If this is used for patrols, then there must be an entrance into the mound along here somewhere.

  He looked back toward the tunnel entrance but saw only a smooth wall reflected in the daylight seeping into the gloom.

  Must be the other way then, he told himself. So let's get on with it before I lose my nerve.

  The elemental moved very slowly deeper into the cloying darkness, staying close to the wall and examining it minutely as he went. He wouldn't put it past the goblins to camouflage their entrance and he didn't want to miss it.

  Fifteen minutes passed and Aeris began to see an illumination ahead. He had become so used to the absence of light that the meager brightness startled him.