Simon had actually started to nod off, his exhaustion getting the better of him, when he jerked his head up suddenly and looked around wildly.
“Aeris!” he called out.
“Here, my dear wizard,” the elemental said from just a few inches away. “I am right here with you. Rest now. You are safe.”
With a child-like smile, Simon closed his eyes again and rested his head back against Aethos' chest.
The two air elementals exchanged a look and then Aethos nodded toward the doorway.
“Go ahead and keep an eye out. Goblins are full of tricks and we do not want any surprises.”
“I will.”
Aeris flew through the door, following the advancing figure of Incendus, but he stayed about ten feet behind the fiery form. Aethos waited a few more seconds and then moved out into the hallway.
A quick look at the wizard confirmed that he had either fallen asleep or passed out and Aethos took great care in holding him motionless. He did not want Simon to wake from his healing sleep.
“There are guards ahead,” Aeris said to Incendus in a low voice.
The fire elemental didn't answer but he began to pulse with heat, his body shifting from flaming red to an intense bluish-white. The moisture on the stone walls of the hallway evaporated in an instant as he passed by, filling the area with thick steam.
“Wait,” he growled back at them. “This will only take a moment.”
The others stopped and watched as Incendus disappeared through the doorway ahead. There were a pair of screams as the guards saw the elemental and then a quick flash of intense white light. The screams were cut off instantly and the fire elemental called back to them.
“Come ahead. The way is clear.”
Nothing remained of the two goblins but piles of ash and a few small pools of liquid metal, already hardening. Incendus looked at Aeris and pointed ahead.
“Do you know the way out of here?” he asked.
“I did,” Aeris replied with some embarrassment. “But I was pursued by a wizard and got turned around. I only happened upon this place by accident.”
“A happy accident,” the fire elemental told him. “Very well then. The way I see it, we have two choices here. Either we can fight our way out, something that I am not averse to doing, or we can wake the sleeping wizard and ask for his help.”
Aeris shook his head.
“He told you already that he is powerless at the moment,” he said to Incendus. “He can't Gate out of here.”
“I heard him, little one. I am neither deaf nor a fool.”
“I didn't say that you were,” Aeris replied hurriedly.
Angering a being as powerful as the fire elemental would be a very bad idea.
“Good. And when I said help, I did not mean spells. We need an earthen to cut us a way out of this warren. And not that little creature who serves the wizard, whatever his name is.”
“Kronk.”
“Whatever. We need one like Aethos and myself, with some real power. Tell me, has the wizard ever summoned such a one before?”
“I believe that he has, yes. Now, what was his name?”
Aeris thought furiously for a moment.
“I have it! It was Kassus. He helped the wizard during the battle with the primal white dragon, as well as with the construction of the new castle in Nottinghill.”
“Oh, I remember that battle. A glorious fight. Then those are our choices; fight to the exit or have the wizard summon this Kassus to burrow through to the outside. Which shall it be?”
The three elementals stared at each other, waiting for one of them to offer an opinion, when the sound of bickering voices suddenly distracted them.
The pair of old goblins, Haggs and Durg, came stumbling through the main door of the prison, arguing as usual.
“And I say a few slaps won't even be noticed,” Haggs told his partner. “He's already banged up, ain't he? Who'll be the wiser?”
“I would be.”
The servants stopped dead in their tracks at the sound of Incendus' voice. Both of them gaped at the sight of the three elementals and the remains of the guards. Haggs had time for a single, high-pitched screech before both he and Durg were engulfed in flame.
The fire was so intense that their bodies literally collapsed in upon themselves and, like the guards, ended up as piles of ash on the smoking ground.
“Now, where were we?” the fire elemental asked indifferently as he turned back to look at the others. “Should we take a vote?”
Aeris was mesmerized for a moment as he stared at what was left of the two servants. They had been horrible, sadistic little monsters, true, but he allowed them some slight pity. He doubted that their lives among their own kind had been anything but terrible.
“What's this about a vote? Can I join in?”
The three elementals saw Simon peering at them through his heavy lids, his blood-shot eyes trying to focus.
“Indeed, sir wizard, you can,” Incendus said cheerfully. “We were trying to decide on whether we should wake you or not and you have saved us the trouble. Splendid.”
“Well, screaming does tend to make it hard to sleep,” Simon told him with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
He looked past the fire elemental at the smoking remains of the old goblins.
“I assume they deserved that,” he said as he lay his head back against Aethos, as if it were suddenly too heavy for him to hold up.
“Now, what are you voting about? I'm sorry, but I'm drifting a bit here, so you'll have to explain quickly.”
“Quite understandable, sir wizard. I will be brief. Now, unfortunately, Aeris cannot remember how to retreat to the entrance of this revolting place. That leaves us with two choices, really; fight or dig. Neither Aethos nor myself are especially good at tunneling, so...”
“You need someone who is,” Simon said, finishing his thought.
“Exactly. I am told that an earthen, Kassus by name, has served you in the past. If you could ask him to join us, that would be most helpful.”
“Kassus? Was that his name?” the wizard mumbled, his eyes glazing over as they watched.
“Simon!”
He jerked upward and looked around wildly.
“Sorry but you have to stay awake for another couple of minutes,” Aeris said, looking embarrassed.
“I'll get you for that,” Simon said with a cold glare.
Then he grinned through his broken teeth.
“No I won't. I owe you my life and more. Okay then, here goes.”
He looked down the hallway and frowned in concentration, trying to stay focused.
“Kassus, I need your help,” he called out.
The floor buckled and dipped beneath their feet and Aethos rose up a few inches above it to keep Simon from being shaken. Incendus simply stood still and watched with interest.
The ground beneath the ashes that had once been Haggs and Durg burst open and a massive pair of stone arms reached up and out, pulling up the elemental they were attached to.
As tall as a man, but also almost as wide as it was tall, an earth elemental emerged and looked around with blazing red eyes. His body was coal-black and his rough features only vaguely resembled that of a man.
There were two pits for nostrils and a jagged slash of a mouth. Together with his burning eyes, the earthen looked like some crude ancient statue brought to life.
“What is this?” he rumbled in a voice that shook the walls. “Who summons me?”
“I do, Kassus,” Simon said, trying to raise his voice enough to be heard but barely managing a whisper. He was fading fast.
The earthen stomped forward until he could see who Aethos was cradling in his arms. He stopped abruptly.
“The wizard,” he exclaimed and then scowled, a frightening sight. “He has been injured?”
“Tortured,” Aethos said, a hard edge to his voice. “By goblins.”
“Goblins!” Kassus howled and smashed a fist into the wall, knocking chun
ks out of it.
Even Aeris' ears were stung by that cry and somewhere above them a gong began to ring loudly. Someone was sounding the alarm.
“Well, they know we're here now,” he said dryly, stating the obvious.
“Kassus,” Simon said weakly.
The earthen bent forward and listened closely.
“I am in no shape for a fight today. Could you open up a way for us to escape this place?”
Kassus stood up straight, his body almost plugging the hallway, and banged his chest.
“Of course, Simon O'Toole. A simple task. Everyone move back and make sure to protect the wizard; there may be some debris.”
Aethos and Aeris flew back to where the guards had been standing at their posts and watched Kassus from there.
Incendus merely stepped back a couple of paces. He wasn't concerned about flying rocks.
Kassus looked from one wall to the other and then chose the wall on his left. He pushed his arms forward and easily dug into the stone. He began pulling away chucks of it and threw them down the hallway toward the stairs, effectively both moving the debris away from the others and blocking the way for any goblins who might be tempted to attack them.
“Do you think that goblin wizard will lead an assault against us?” Aeris asked Aethos as they watched Kassus dig.
The alarm was still echoing throughout the mound, but so far they hadn't seen any attackers come streaming down the stairs at the end of the hall. It was making Aeris nervous.
“Perhaps,” Aethos answered as he looked down at Simon. The man had passed out again and the elemental smiled fondly at him.
“But their wizard is not an elementalist and he will have no power over our friend there.”
He nodded at the burning form of Incendus, who was watching the stairs as carefully as they were.
“I daresay that the goblin wizard has divined our presence by now, which means that he knows what he faces.”
Aethos adjusted Simon's body so that the wizard rested more comfortably. The elemental, naturally, showed no signs of fatigue as he cradled him easily in his arms.
“I don't like his coloring,” he said to Aeris in a low voice. “He's as pale as cream, even through the dirt. We must get him to a cleric as soon as possible.”
“I know, but even after we exit this place, the nearest cleric is across the ocean in Nottinghill Castle. It will take you many hours to reach it and, if you move too quickly, Simon will be exposed to the cold and wind and his condition could get worse.”
“Do you have a suggestion?”
Aeris was flattered that Aethos was asking his opinion. It was rare for an elemental of his power to even notice one of lower rank.
“I do, actually,” Aeris replied hesitantly. “I've been thinking about it and I believe that, if we can get him far enough away from that goblin wizard, Simon's powers will begin to return. He is an expert at using the Gate spell and it wouldn't use up too much of his energy to cast it. I doubt that it would take as much time to wait for that than it would to carry him all the way to England.”
Aethos nodded thoughtfully.
“You make a very good point. Very well, we shall do that. Just as soon as our earthen friend is finished digging us a way out of here.”
Incendus must have been listening to their conversation because he moved forward to peer into the gaping hole in the wall.
“I think he's almost through,” he said over his shoulder. “There is a lot of loose rock in here, but you should be able to make your way around it. Whoops.”
He added that exclamation as what looked like a ton of rocky chunks were ejected from the hole.
“Shove that to one side, would you?” they heard Kassus call out.
“Not a problem,” Incendus replied and he blasted the heap of rock down the hallway.
Half of it melted and pooled on the ground as slag and the fire elemental laughed heartily.
“Let us see any goblin risk themselves running across that,” he exclaimed.
The sounds of Kassus burrowing through rock ended abruptly and the earthen stomped out of his tunnel to look at the others.
“Done. There is a thin layer of stone at the end of the tunnel separating us from the outside. I wanted to make sure that you were all ready before I punched through it.”
“I don't know about the rest of you, but personally I have seen more than enough of this warren,” Aethos told them.
“Very well,” Incendus said. “Lead on, Kassus. Aethos will follow with the wizard and I will stay behind to guard our retreat.”
His eyes fell on Aeris and he smiled through his flames.
“You go as well, little one.”
Aeris bowed silently, pleased that the fire elemental had even noticed him.
“Good, let's move,” Kassus said in his gravelly, bass voice. “I am suddenly uneasy here and I wonder that the goblin wizard is letting us go so easily.”
“Wonder no more, fool,” someone snarled in a harsh voice.
A boom of thunder shook the hallway and Incendus was knocked to the ground by a blinding bolt of lightning. At the far end of the hallway, standing at the bottom of the circular ramp, was a goblin in black robes, holding a staff.
“The wizard!” Aeris exclaimed.
“You don't say,” Aethos replied dryly. “Took him long enough to show his cowardly rat face.”
Armed warriors were bunched up behind the wizard, but Aeris noticed that they stood well back, their misshapen faces pale with fear.
“Did you think that you could just barge into my home and take back what is mine?” the wizard asked with a cold laugh. “If so, you were mistaken.”
“Ugh, he's a talker,” Aethos said contemptuously. “I hate the talkers.”
He looked at Kassus and Incendus.
“Could one of you deal with him, please? I have my hands full at the moment.”
The goblin wizard might have been twenty yards away, but he could plainly hear them and he made a quick gesture.
A sphere of energy appeared around him and he smiled smugly.
“You creatures cannot touch me. Why don't you drop my prisoner and run away? I'll even give you a head start.”
“Very generous,” Kassus rumbled as he looked down at the heap of debris beside the entrance of the tunnel. “But I have a better idea.”
He looked at Incendus and nodded at the pile of stone.
“Could you melt that for me? Not completely, just enough to make it sticky.”
The fire elemental looked from the rocks to the wizard and back again and then grinned wickedly. He seemed to guess what the earthen had in mind.
“I'd be happy to. Have fun.”
Incendus pointed at the debris and a stream of intense fire played over it. The stone quickly turned to slag, a semi-solid mass of molten rock, and Kassus held up a hand to stop him.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
He stepped forward and stood over the bubbling mass.
“What are you doing, creature?” the wizard shouted. “I warn you, I am rapidly running out of patience. Flee while you can!”
Kassus bent down over the melted pile of stone, oblivious to its tremendous heat. He kneaded and shaped it with his blocky hands and then picked it up, glowering at the wizard.
“You shouldn't have touched a friend of ours,” he said menacingly. “If any of your followers survive, they had best learn that lesson.”
He raised the rough ball of molten rock above his head, brushing the ceiling with it, and sparks rained down on him.
The goblins behind the wizard screamed and fell over each other racing back up the ramp. But the wizard sneered and slammed the butt of his staff on the ground, his shield becoming thicker and more opaque.
“As for you,” the earthen said to him loudly. “You are already dead.”
“I think not,” the cowled figure spat in reply.
He raised his staff menacingly.
“I am going to...”
What
ever he had been about to say was cut off as Kassus threw the pulsing ball of glowing slag straight at him with blazing speed. It smashed into the wizard's shield, cut through it as if it was a soap bubble, and engulfed the goblin. The creature never even had a chance to scream.
His body slammed back into the wall next to the ramp and dissolved into a bubbling mass of goo.
“Ah, thanks,” Aethos said with relief. “He was quite annoying.”
“Can we please leave?” Aeris asked the others anxiously. “I fear that the mechanism that is draining my wizard's powers is still in force. We must get him away from here so that he can recover his magic.”
“Quite right,” Kassus said agreeably. “Follow me and I will open the way.”
The group followed him and watched as the earthen smashed through the wall at the end of his tunnel.
It burst open and daylight streamed into the passageway, blindingly bright after the darkness inside of the mound.
“Be careful with him,” Kassus said as he looked outside. “We are not at ground level here.”
He stood aside to allow Aethos to float by, with Aeris flying next to him, and they exited the tunnel and looked around.
To Aeris' surprise, they were actually about fifty up on the side of the mound. A drop of a dozen feet led to one of the steps of the pyramid-like structure and, if they'd had to climb down, it could have been quite dangerous.
Fortunately the air elementals had no problem with the drop, nor did Incendus. He simply coalesced into a ball of flame and floated serenely beyond the tunnel mouth.
“Do you think that the wizard will be safe if I remain here?” Kassus asked as he peered out of the opening. “Or should I stay with you until you are out of the area?”
“We'll be fine, Kassus,” Aethos assured him as he glanced down at the sleeping man in his arms.
Seen in the light of day, Simon's wounds were obviously tinged with green and a small dribble of blood was oozing from the corner of his mouth.
“We'll get him to a cleric as soon as possible and he will be taken care of,” the elemental continued, not sounding as confident as his words made him appear.
“You are staying here?” Incendus' voice crackled from inside the hovering fireball.
The Queen of Dragons (Tales from the New Earth Book 8) Page 26
