The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (8 page)

And then the fire was gone
as if it had never been and Simon was standing there, staring at the
staff in a room that seemed much darker without the bright flames.

“
Wow.
Never do that again, okay?” he muttered at the staff. “That
totally freaked me out.”

He sat down on the bed
with a heavy thump and leaned the staff against the bedside table.
His hands were trembling and he was covered in a thin layer of sweat.
The fire had been real enough; his loincloth had burned off in the
intense heat and he was completely naked.

Simon wiped the moisture
off of his forehead with the back of his hand and then stared at his
skin. Something was different. What was it?

He stood up and walked
across the room to rummage around in the closet, looking for a towel.
When he'd found one, he wiped off the sweat and then caught a glimpse
of himself in the mirror.

“
Well,
that was unexpected, wasn't it?” he said and grinned with
embarrassment. His reflection grinned back, a strangely innocent
expression considering how much death and destruction he'd seen in
the past few years.

Simon winked at himself,
very pleased that his hair hadn't burned off. He laughed lightly and
turned toward the bed. Then he spun around and gaped at his
reflection.

He stepped closer to the
mirror and peered at himself. He smiled and the smile was returned.
He reached up and touched his face, running his fingers over the
smooth, young skin. Skin without mark or flaw. The scars were gone.

“
Oh
my God,” he gasped as his eyes filled with tears. “I'm me
again.”

He looked down at his
body. Same skinny frame, same knobby knees. But the spiderweb of
scars had vanished. It was as if he had never encountered the dragon
and been burned.

Simon was stunned. How was
such a thing possible? Opheilla had said that the scars were beyond
her ability to heal, that they were permanent. But now they were
gone.

He shut the closet door
and turned to look across the room at the staff. With some
hesitation, he walked over to it and picked it up carefully. Then he
sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at it.

“
How?”
he asked it. “How did you do that?”

There was, of course, no
answer. The staff was a simple length of metal again; covered with
runes and intricately carved, yes, but just a staff.

“
Mortis
de Draconis,” he whispered in a strained voice. “Killer
of Dragons. Well, I guess you liked your name. Thank you so much for
this gift.”

Simon thought and thought about his
transformation. Obviously the fire that the staff had ignited along
itself and then on to him had, somehow, re-injured his body, undoing
the damage from the original attack. How it had done that without any
pain was the great mystery. But he had no answers, only gratitude.

He put on some new underwear, lay down
again and stared blankly at the ceiling, feeling grateful and numb at
the same time. He finally slipped into a fitful sleep and, when he
woke up several hours later, it was to the sound of Opheilla's loud
gasp.

The wizard sat up slowly and turned
toward the open door. The cleric stood there gaping at him, a covered
tray in her hands.

“
Hi Opheilla,”
he said, still groggy. “How's it going?”

She entered and set the tray on the
bedside table. Then she put her hands on her hips and ran her eyes
along his arms and then over his face. Her expression was one of
disbelief.

“
By the gods,
Simon. What happened to you?”

“
Happened?”
he replied, dragging out the moment for a bit. Seeing the normally
unflappable woman caught totally flat-footed was delightful. “What
do you mean?”

She scowled and shook a finger at him.

“
Don't play
the innocent with me, young man. Your scars. They're all gone. How is
that even possible?”

Simon explained what had happened
earlier when he had christened the staff. Opheilla sat down beside
the bed and listened quietly, nodding several times but allowing him
to tell the story.

When he was done, she sighed heavily.
Silently, she stood up and examined his arms. Then she pulled back
the quilt and checked out his chest and legs.

Having become used to the cleric's
ministrations, Simon allowed the examination without comment and
without any embarrassment.

When she was done, Opheilla covered him
again and set the tray of food on his lap after helping him sit up
and arranging his pillows to support him.

She sat down and stared at him in
wonder.

“
This is the
most extraordinary thing that I have ever experienced, my friend.
Scars are not wounds and rarely answer to my prayers. But your idea
is probably right. The fire from the staff somehow corrected the
earlier damage from the dragon attack. Amazing. How do you feel?”

Simon was digging into a bowl of
mushroom soup and paused, the spoon halfway up to his lips.

“
Feel?”
He put down the spoon and looked at her. “I feel relieved, to
be quite honest. I am more grateful than you can ever know for your
life-saving healing. I really am. But going through life with that
twisted horror of a face was a difficult thing to accept. If I had
to, I would have managed, of course. Accept, adapt. That's always
been my motto.”

He felt his face turning red.

“
But I was not
an attractive man, back before the Change, so I never had much of an
ego about my looks. Being Changed into...” he stroked his
cheek, “this, well, I kind of like the new me. I'm pleased that
people seem to find me easy to look at. And so, as bad as it may
sound, I'm thrilled that my face is back to looking the way that it
should. Is that egotistical?”

The cleric laughed and waved away his
concerns.

“
Of course
not, Simon. Even as a dwarf, I was dismayed by the evidence of your
injuries. There is no shame in wanting to look like yourself.”
She patted his cheek and winked. “And even though you are a
human, you are rather cute.”

He chuckled and began eating again.

“
Thanks. What
I can't wrap my head around is what really happened. This staff isn't
like my old one. That staff was a relic of the past and very
powerful. This one,” he nodded at the weapon where it leaned
against the wall, “is brand new. I have no doubt that Stanis is
a skilled blacksmith and artisan, but I would never have believed he
could have created something so extraordinary.”

“
He couldn't,”
she replied flatly. “And I'm sure that Stanis would say the
same. Those runes he found must have been the key. I think we should
count ourselves lucky that they didn't have an adverse effect. They
easily could have.”

Simon finished his meal and thanked the
cleric. They chatted for a little while and then she left with an
admonishment to get some sleep.

“
It may be a
trying day tomorrow,” the cleric told him. “You will need
all of your strength.”

After she was gone, Simon stared
pensively at nothing, worried about a laundry list of things. The
council meeting was just one item. He wondered how Kronk and Aeris
were doing without him. And about Liliana, Tamara and Sebastian. What
was their new home like? Had they found any more survivors?

He snuggled deeper under the covers.

And now they all lived in a castle. A
castle, of all things! What was that like? It sounded like a fairy
tale.

The smile on his face faded as he
remembered some of the original stories.

The problem with fairy tales was that
they didn't always have a happy ending.

The next morning, Simon was up early
and washed and dressed before Opheilla showed up with his breakfast
tray.

“
Well now,
this is a surprise,” she said as she walked in.

The wizard was sitting on the side of
the bed, going through his list of permanently memorized spells.

“
Good
morning,” he said with a wan smile.

“
Good morning,
my friend. I'm glad to see you up and ready to go. But you look a
little peaky this morning. Is something wrong?”

Simon accepted the tray politely and
set it down beside him on the bed. The cleric pulled the bedside
chair back to give him some room and sat down, watching him closely.

“
Not really.
I've been thinking about this meeting, that's all. Except for you and
Stanis, I haven't really spoken with any of your people since I got
here. And now I'm going to face your rulers and possibly the king.
It's a bit worrying, that's all.”

“
I
understand,” Opheilla replied as Simon began to eat his
porridge. It was actually some form of fungus, but it looked and
tasted remarkably like oatmeal and he liked it.

“
It would be
an overwhelming prospect for anyone, I suppose,” she continued.
“But as I've told you, they're just a collection of people
elected to do a job. One thing we dwarves do pride ourselves on is
our manners. At least when we are at home,” she added with a
slight smile.

“
The council
will be courteous, Simon. Even if some of them aren't exactly fond of
magic-users, they will follow the accepted forms and remain polite, I
have no doubt.”

Simon finished his breakfast and began
sipping a hot beverage that he was convinced was green tea, even
though he'd been assured several times that it was actually made from
the roots of some plant he'd never even heard of.

“
Wait a
second,” he said as the cleric's words sunk in. “You
never said any of them didn't like spell-casters.”

“
I said that
they were a group of individuals, my friend. Of all types. Some are
bound to be less than pleased that we've harbored the only known
human wizard for months. I have no idea how many there are, but I
doubt that the number is very high. If it had been, you never would
have been allowed to stay, would you?”

“
That's true,
I guess. So when do we leave? Or should we wait for Stanis?”

“
He may join
us at the meeting; he had some prior commitment. We, however, can go
as soon as you finish your breakfast,” Opheilla said and smiled
as he hastily gulped down the last of his drink.

Simon set down the cup and stood up. He
walked over to the closet and checked himself out in the mirror.

His hair was long enough to cover half
of his ears now and Simon was happy to see it growing back. He'd felt
naked with short hair. He pushed it back and it fell naturally to
frame his face. He had selected a somber brown robe appropriate to
the seriousness of the upcoming meeting and smoothed it out, hoping
that it wasn't too wrinkled in the back.

After a last look at his too-young face
and large, mismatched eyes, he walked back to the bed and picked up
his staff.

“
I'm ready,”
he said to Opheilla. “Or at least as ready as I'll ever be.”

“
Very well,
sir wizard,” she replied with a warm smile as she stood up.
“Let us go and meet the council.”

The council chambers were
a half-hour's walk from Simon's quarters at a normal pace, but
Opheilla moved slowly, letting him conserve his strength. The pair
passed dozens of dwarves going about their daily routines. The cleric
was greeted respectfully by many of them.

Apparently it wasn't a
school day and children ran in and out of the tunnels and around the
adults just like children did everywhere. Simon had only glimpsed a
few of the youngsters since he'd arrived and had almost expected them
to be as grave and serious as most of their elders seemed to be.

But the little ones
laughed and played, shouted and squealed, and behaved pretty much the
same as human kids would. The wizard couldn't helped grinning at
their antics and his anxiety about the upcoming appearance before the
council members dissipated as he was distracted by the children and
their playfulness.

“
Are
they bothering you?” Opheilla asked at one point as she saw him
watching two youngsters chasing each other.

He chuckled and shook his
head.

“
Quite
the opposite,” he replied as he saw one boy tag the other and
race away, the second boy hot on his heels.

“
It's
pleasant to see kids being kids. No offense, but your people are
usually quite a serious bunch.”

The cleric nodded with a
smile as she continued walking, the crowds moving out of their way
politely.

“
Yes,
we are, aren't we? It can be a hard life, living in the depths of the
world. We are constantly on our guard against many things, including
the very earth around us. And now, with the old gods returning, we
have to contend with monsters and other magical threats again. It is
a sobering situation to be in. I suppose we aren't as loud and
boisterous as others, like the elves, might be.”

Simon was using his staff
as a support as he walked and the length of metal rang musically each
time he set the end against the ground. Several of the passing
dwarves seemed to stare overlong at the weapon as he passed and he
wondered why.

Opheilla became thoughtful
when he mentioned it to her.