The Dragons of Argent and Silver (Tales from the New Earth #6) (29 page)

Kronk
returned quickly, skittering down the stairs in a way that always
made Simon think of someone wearing tap shoes. And he smiled at the
sound every time.

“
Here
it is, master,” the earthen said as he jumped back up on to the
chair and offered the wizard the round pebble.

“
Where
was it, anyway?” Aeris asked. “We practically tore this
place apart and found no sign of it.”

“
There
is a crack in the floor underneath one of the bookcases in master's
study,” Kronk told him. “Somehow the little stone rolled
under there and became lodged in the crack.”

“
Huh.
I wonder how that happened,” Simon said as he held the smooth
pebble up and examined it in the firelight.

Aeris
floated over and stared at the stone. He snorted as he bobbed there,
hands on his hips.

“
Not
very impressive, is it?”

“
Aeris,
it's a rock,” Simon told him dryly. “It's not supposed to
dance and tell jokes.”

He
turned the pebble over and saw the same crude etching that he
remembered from the day he received it. It felt like it had been a
hundred years ago.

“
Ah,
now that's interesting,” the air elemental said as he zipped
forward to peer closely at the design. “I've seen this
somewhere before.”

“
Have
you? Where?”

“
Patience,
my dear wizard. Give me a moment to think.”

Simon
turned the pebble so that Kronk could see the oddly-shaped rune.

“
Do
you recognize it?” he asked the little guy.

Kronk
shrugged indifferently.

“
I
am afraid not, master. Magic and runes were never of great interest
to my people. Those of the air realm concerned themselves more
closely with such things.”

“
So
I've heard.”

Both
Simon and Kronk watched as Aeris folded his legs in midair, put his
elbows on his knees and frowned in concentration.

“
Where
was it?” he said softly to himself. “Where?”

While
Simon waited for the elemental to remember, or not, he got up and
refilled his glass. The wine had been a gift from the people of
Nottinghill Castle. They were growing grapes again and their vintner
was busy turning out as much wine as he could. It wasn't half bad
either.

“
Master,
why are you drinking that?” Kronk asked softly when the wizard
had sat down again. “You rarely touch alcohol. Did something
happen while I was below ground searching for that stone?”

Simon
nodded, took a sip, nodded again.

“
You
could say that, yes. Something that goes far beyond me deciding
whether to bury Daniel's ashes in Ottawa or not. Something that could
radically change our lives, for better or for worse. I'm not sure
about that part yet.”

“
What
was it, master?”

“
Let's
wait for Aeris, okay? We'll talk when he's done thinking.”

“
As
you say, master.”

Simon
was grateful that the little guy wasn't argumentative, at least not
with him. His relationship with Aeris was another matter entirely and
they could spend hours sniping at each other. The wizard suspected
that they each secretly enjoyed it.

He
was just finishing his second glass of wine and wondering if
elementals actually could fall asleep after all, when Aeris lifted
his head and caught his eye.

“
Got
it,” he said, standing in midair again. “I remember now.”

“
And?”

“
And.
I was enslaved by a particularly nasty wizard at the time; a wizard
who specialized in rune work. She invented many unique runes and
achieved a certain, shall we say, notoriety among the magical
community.”

“
Really?
Why? What did she use her runes for?”

“
Mostly
for assassinations. She became the go-to wizard if some wealthy lord
or noble wanted someone, um, taken care of, as they say.”

“
You
worked for a murderer?” Kronk asked, wide-eyed.

“
You
know better than that,” Aeris snapped at him. “Back then
we were thought of as tools, remember? Mindless slaves who did as
they were told. Or did you have a different experience than mine?”

Kronk
hesitated and then shook his head slowly.

“
What
you say is true. It must have been horrible for you.”

“
It
was a nightmare.”

Aeris
looked at Simon hopelessly.

“
She
made me a part of her terrible schemes. As an air elemental, I was
perfectly suited for the task of spying out her targets, watching
their patterns, infiltrating their homes.”

He
hesitated and stared at the pebble that Simon had left on the arm of
his chair.

“
And
when the time was right, I would take one of this wizard's runes and
leave it in the bed chamber of her victim.”

“
And
then what would happen?”

“
They
were curses, my dear wizard. Each had its own 'special twist', she
used to say. One would cause a victim to be asphyxiated. Another
would ignite a conflagration and burn them alive. She was endlessly
imaginative, I assure you.”

“
Oh
my God. Whatever happened to her?”

Aeris'
smile wasn't pleasant.

“
She
accepted the wrong contract. Arrogance, I suppose. She'd become so
good at killing that she thought she was invincible. She was
mistaken.”

“
So
what happened?”

“
She
attempted to assassinate a master wizard. She herself was never much
more than an apprentice, except for her skill with runes. She had no
idea what sort of protections a truly skilled wizard can surround
himself with. So when I left a rune in his bedroom and she activated
it, the spell rebounded on her. I watched as she died, screaming. It
was actually rather satisfying.”

Simon shifted uneasily in
his chair. He plucked the pebble off of the arm and held it up on his
flat palm.

“
Are you saying that
this rune is cursed?”

Aeris frowned at him.

“
Of course not. It's
a communication rune. A rather limited one. More of a toy than a true
piece of wizardry. It allows the creator to speak to whomever
possesses it but only at short range; I would say a few miles at
most.”

Both Simon and Kronk
stared at him silently.

“
What? Why are you
both looking at me like that?”

“
You just told us a
story about a psychopathic killer wizard who assassinated others
using runes,” Kronk said in a strained voice. “Why would
you do that when this rune is a simple communication device?”

Aeris seemed surprised by
their reactions.

“
Because you asked
where I had seen that particular rune before. The wizard that I
mentioned worked her way up from creating spells like the one
attached to that pebble to the killing runes I told you about. Sorry.
Did you think that I was going to say it was dangerous? It isn't.
Honest.”

Simon slumped back in his
chair and let out a long, slow breath, slipping the pebble into a
pocket.

“
Good to know,”
he mumbled.

“
But I will say
this, my dear wizard. If this child, Sarah, is still alive and
learning her craft, she may very well be quite a powerful rune-scribe
by now. And that would make her potentially very dangerous indeed.”

“
Yes, I can see
that. But after what you and I saw earlier, I think the likelihood of
her survival is doubtful at best.”

Aeris nodded solemnly.

“
Master, what was
it? What did you see?”

The fire crackled and
hissed to itself as Simon considered his answer.

“
Wouldn't it be
easier just to show him?” Aeris asked.

“
Yeah, maybe. Could
you get the mirror for me?”

“
Certainly. Be right
back.”

The air elemental shot
across the room and up the stairs and Simon took the opportunity to
get up and walk to the sink. He set his glass down and filled the
kettle.

“
That's enough
wine,” he said over his shoulder to Kronk. “I don't like
hangovers any better in this body than I did in my old one. Tea would
be a better choice.”

“
I agree, master,”
the earthen said, smiling.

Simon hung the kettle over
the fire, slipped on his thin shoes and headed for the door,
summoning a mage light as he went.

“
Tell Aeris I'll be
right back; that wine's gone right through me.”

“
Of course, master.
I'll get your tea ready.”

“
Thanks. Won't be
long.”

The wizard slipped out of
the front door with the light bobbing along over his head and Kronk
jumped from the chair to the floor and then up on to the counter.

He was carefully spooning
dried tea into a cup when Aeris came back downstairs again.

“
Where's he gone?”
he asked as he crossed the room holding the hand mirror.

“
Outhouse,”
Kronk replied absently. He was concentrating on the task at hand.

“
Ah, of course. The
wine. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat and drink
and have to, you know, use the facilities?”

Kronk put down the tea box
and thought about it for a moment.

“
Not really, no. It
always seemed so...convoluted. We absorb energy directly from our
environment. I think it is much more efficient, don't you?”

Aeris flew over to the
chair and laid the mirror on one of the arms.

“
Oh, I agree. But
apparently it can quite pleasurable trying new foods and beverages.”

“
I suppose so.”

Kronk glanced at the
boiling kettle.

“
Could you bring
that over for me? I'm making master some tea.”

“
Oh, he's off the
wine? Good.”

Together they made the cup
of tea and when Simon came back in from the outhouse, it was sitting
on the little table next to his chair, steam rising invitingly.

“
Thanks guys. I
appreciate that.”

He washed his hands and
then sat down, put the mirror in his lap and picked up the cup.

“
Ah, much better,”
he told them after a few sips.

He picked up the mirror
again and concentrated on it.

“
Magic Mirror,”
he said quietly and the surface fogged over.

“
What are we going
to be looking at, master?” Kronk asked.

He had moved to the arm of
the chair and was leaning forward, watching the mirror intently.

“
I told you earlier
that I decided to zip over to Aylmer Island while I was walking along
the river.”

“
Yes and that was a
bit risky,” Aeris replied tartly.

“
Oh, it was not.
Don't exaggerate. Anyway, I noticed that the outline of the Peace
Tower looked different from how I remembered it. So while you were
searching for Sarah's pebble, Aeris and I took a peek in the mirror.”

“
And saw what,
master?”

The shining surface began
to clear and Kronk made a surprised sound deep in his throat as he
saw what Simon had seen several hours before.

“
That,” the
wizard said.

The evening had fallen
over the site of the Parliament Buildings but in the mirror it was
lit well enough to see. From the mirror's perspective, they were
looking at it from several hundred feet above the ground; a literal
bird's-eye view.

To the south of the ruined
buildings, directly below the Peace Tower, was a large hole where the
front lawn had been once upon a time. It was perhaps fifty feet
across, its interior lost in darkness. And around the hole, torches
were blazing every few yards, whipping violently in the wind.

“
It is a hole,
master,” Kronk said blankly.

“
Yes, my friend. A
hole. A hole that was not there four years ago.”

“
But why does it
worry you, master? It is big, I suppose, but any creature could have
dug it. Couldn't they? Perhaps it is a sinkhole caused by erosion
underground.”

Aeris flew up and around
to Simon's left shoulder.

“
Show him, my dear
wizard,” he murmured.

“
Show me what?”

Simon tilted the mirror
forward and the view zoomed down toward the ground at great speed.