The Dragons of Decay (21 page)

She finished the picture and Simon quickly reached
out and picked it up.

“Dear God,” he muttered. “What
is this?”

“Oh my,” Kronk said softly.

The wizard looked at him and saw that the little
guy was gaping at the picture in surprise.

“What is it?” he asked the earthen.

“It is a goblin, master,” Kronk
whispered. “A goblin!” His face twisted and he glared at
the creature with loathing. “They are a scourge, a blight on
the Earth. I thought that I would never see such monsters again.”

“A goblin?”

Simon stared at the detailed drawing.

He saw a spindly, dark-skinned creature standing
upright but hunched over, arms long enough to almost scrape the
ground. Its skin was tight over its bones and it looked like the
monster had no muscles at all. There were wicked spurs on its elbows
and knees and its fingers were tipped with broken claws.

The face was the worst. Huge eyes with
vertically-slit pupils like a cat's eyes, a stubby bump for a nose
and a wide, gaping maw of a mouth, rimmed in jagged fangs. Its ears
were high and pointed, reminiscent of an elf's ears. And on top was a
pointed, bald head, wrinkled and leathery.

The goblin was wearing some sort of ragged armor;
strips of leather that covered its torso and a skirt of leather with
bits of metal sewn on to it. It held a twisted sword above its
grotesque head and had its thin lips pulled back in an insane scream.

“So that's a goblin,” Simon said under
his breath as he examined the creature. “And they built those
mounds?”

Kronk spoke up before Brethia could answer.

“Yes master. I remember now. Back in ancient
times, they polluted the earth with their foulness. They would choke
the ground water with their waste, strip a land bare of any game,
including humans, and then, when there was nothing left to consume,
they would move on and do it again. As I said, they are a blight,
like a horde of locusts.”

“Brethia,” Simon began and the air
elemental jumped at her name. She was obviously still skittish.

“Easy there. Try and stay calm, please.”

“Yes. Yes, of course, sir wizard. Forgive
me. It has been a...trying time.”

“I can see that,” the wizard said
sympathetically. “But I need all of the information I can get.
I hope you understand that? I don't want you to think that I'm
badgering you.”

She drew herself up and squared her shoulders.

“Of course not, my lord. I am at your
command.”

Simon shifted uncomfortably and Kronk winked at
Brethia.

“My master does not like giving commands,”
he told her frankly and smiled up at the wizard. “He prefers
suggesting rather than ordering others around.”

“He's right,” Simon told her. “I
just need a few questions answered, that's all.”

She nodded silently.

“Good. First of all, where did these goblins
even come from? As I understand it, the gods of Chaos can't just
arbitrarily create something from nothing. If they could, the world
would already be theirs and we'd all be dead.”

Brethia seemed to be choosing her words carefully
as she answered.

“My lord, even with all of the dragons that
were sent against them, the human race could not have been decimated
in a day, or even a year. Do you agree?”

“I do, actually. I've always wondered how
seven billion people could have been destroyed by a few thousand
dragons and their minions, the drakes. Of course, once technology was
rendered useless, that made fighting back almost impossible. Still,
that's a heck of a lot of people to wipe out in a very short time.”

“Yes, sir wizard, it is. But you see,”
her voice lowered and Simon leaned forward to hear her better, “they
weren't wiped out. Not entirely. Some were Changed by the lords of
Light, like yourself. Others...well, others were Changed by the gods
of Chaos. At least that is my belief and the belief of many of my
kind.”

And she reached down and tapped the drawing of the
goblin.

Simon hissed between his teeth and drew back in
shock.

“You're telling me...”

“I am telling you that your people were not
all wiped out. Some were mutated into these monsters.”

“Oh God,” the wizard muttered and
covered his face with his hands.

The idea of being Changed into a creature as
horrible as a goblin was almost impossible to wrap his head around.

Something occurred to him and he dropped his hands
and stared at the air elemental.

“Do they know?” he asked in quiet
desperation. “Do they know what they've become?”

“It is...possible, my lord. But if they do,
I believe that such knowledge would have driven them mad long ago.”

“Just how many goblins are we talking
about?” Kronk asked her.

Brethia only shrugged.

“There is no way to know without doing some
sort of census. I would not recommend that. Getting too close to
these creatures can only result in the destruction of the one
attempting to spy on them.”

She shook her head sadly.

“I believe that is what happened to my
companions,” she added.

“
Goblins
killed them?” Simon asked blankly. “But how? I know how
hard it is to harm an air elemental. Physical attacks don't work.
Your people can't even be touched by normal weapons.”

“
That is
true, my lord,” Brethia agreed. “But do not let my
illustration lead you to believe that these creatures are mindless
beasts; they are not. They are twisted and perverse, but they are not
stupid. Goblins can wield power, much like you can. They enchant
their weapons with foul, dark magics. And those weapons can harm or
even kill elementals, even my people.”

“
Is that
true, Kronk?” Simon asked, feeling a bit dazed. “No
offense, Brethia,” he hastened to add.

She smiled a bit for
the first time.

“
None
taken, my lord.”

“
Yes, that
is true, master,” Kronk said reluctantly. “There were
many stories of goblin magic-users in the old days. There were even
rumors that, occasionally, a goblin wizard would rise among them. The
wizards back then scoffed at such tales, but then, they were quite an
arrogant lot, if you will forgive me for saying so.”

Simon smiled at him.

“
From
everything that you and Aeris have told me, I believe you. My God,”
he muttered to himself. “Magic-wielding goblins.”

“
That is
not all, my lord,” Brethia said. “Even a horde of goblins
does not account for all of the humans that might have escaped the
dragon attacks. I believe that the dark gods used your people as,
forgive me, raw material to unleash other horrors into this world.”

“
Oh great.
Like what?”

“
I have no
idea, sir wizard, but it makes a sick kind of sense, don't you think?
Monsters such as ogres, trolls, banshees, dark faeries, pixies; all
of these creatures existed in the old days of magic. As did wights
and even wraiths. The gods of Chaos want to reshape this world so
that they can be released from the Void. The only way to do that is
to recreate the world of the past.”

“
Damn. And
here I thought that all they had to do was eliminate my people and
they could just sail back in.”

“
No
offense, my lord, but that is a rather simplistic notion.”

Kronk frowned at her
but Simon nodded slowly.

“
I'm
starting to see that.” He blinked as a horrible thought caught
up with what Brethia had just told him. “Then that means that
the wights that attacked us were...Changed humans?”

“
Assuredly,
my lord.”

The wizard got to his
feet, feeling numb, and walked over to stare out of the window near
the door. There was a small hole in the thick ice on the glass and he
looked out blankly at the bright world beyond.

Brethia's report was a
revelation. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, it had always felt
wrong that the human race had been decimated so quickly and easily.
And now it seemed that it hadn't. What could those damned Chaos lords
have turned his people into? Monsters, obviously, but what else?

Uneasily, he
realized that the question should be turned on its head; what
couldn't
they have
been Changed into?

Simon rested his
forehead on the window for a moment, the cold burning his skin a
little. If Brethia was correct, the wights that he had destroyed
weren't undead after all; once they had been human. And then they had
been twisted and perverted into insane monsters.

He pulled back his head
at that thought. Or had the transformation actually sent them into
madness? It was a horrible idea that made him shudder.

The wizard moved to the
clothes cabinet, took off his boots, left them on the mat next to it
and put on his indoor shoes.

“
Brethia,”
he said as he walked back to the counter to make more tea. “Are
you absolutely certain that the other air elementals were destroyed?”

“
I am not
positive, my lord, no. But we had agreed to meet at the northern
border of Mexico, the one from the map you showed us, at a certain
time and no one except for myself showed up. I waited many hours, but
none returned. We are very punctual; it is part of our nature. I
assumed that they did not meet me because they had been killed.”

Simon made his tea,
looked at the two elementals and cocked his head to the side.

“
Well then,
why don't we find out for sure?” he asked them. “Come on,
I want to try something.”

Simone led
Kronk and Brethia upstairs and into his study, teacup in hand. He sat
down at his desk and the elementals climbed up and moved to stand
side by side in front of him.

The wizard
opened a drawer, rummaged around inside and pulled out a sheet of
paper.

“
These
are the names of the scouts that went south,” he told Brethia.
“Could you show me which ones were with you when you began your
mission in Mexico?”

She
floated closer and the wizard turned the paper so that she could read
it.

“
These
ones, my lord,” the air elemental said, tapping four names on
the list.

“
Okay,
good. Thank you.”

Simon put
down the paper and motioned for Kronk and Brethia to move to his side
of the desk.

“
Now,
let's see what happens,” he said, a fist of tension tightening
his stomach.

He looked
at the first name on the list.

“
Asteer,
I need you!” he said loudly.

There was
a long moment of silence and Simon saw Brethia's face settle into
lines of despair.

He hissed
between his teeth and his eyes moved to the next name.

“
Orriss,
return to me!”

There was
no reaction and Simon cursed quietly. His shaking finger slipped down
the list.

“
Sessa,
come back!”

They
waited and nothing happened.

“
I
think you were right, Brethia,” he began to say and then
stopped and looked around curiously.

The air in
the room began to vibrate and Simon felt pressure in his ears, as if
he'd suddenly dropped twenty floors in a high-speed elevator.

“
What?”

There was
no thunder, no flash of light, but slowly, painfully, a small figure
appeared, curled up in the center of the desk.

“
Sessa!”
Brethia exclaimed and flitted over to the motionless elemental.

She knelt
down next to him and gently rolled him over.

Sessa
flopped on to his back like a rag doll and lay there, apparently
lifeless.

“
Is
he alive?” Simon asked as he leaned forward, desperately hoping
that she would say yes.

“
He
is, master,” Kronk told him as he knelt next to Brethia, who
was examining her fellow elemental. “If he was not, he would
not have responded to your summons.”

“
Yes,
of course.”

As they
watched, Brethia placed her hands on either side of Sessa's head and
bowed her own. Simon held his breath, wondering what she was doing.
He knew instinctively that he shouldn't interrupt, whatever was
happening.

The
shimmer of light that all air elementals seemed to emit in times of
stress slowly drained from Brethia. It traveled down her arms and
into the body of Sessa, which began to shudder and shake, convulsing
as the power engulfed him.

“
Is
she healing him?” Simon asked Kronk quietly.

The little
guy nodded silently as he watched the procedure closely.

It felt
like hours but only a few minutes had passed when Brethia sat back on
her heals with an audible sigh of exhaustion.

“
How
is he?”

She looked
up at the wizard and smiled weakly.

“
You
may ask him yourself, my lord,” she told him.

Simon
watched in amazement as the injured elemental lifted his arms to his
head in a very human gesture of bewilderment.

“
What
has happened?” he asked in a surprisingly deep voice. “Where
am I?”