The Dragons of Decay (22 page)

“
You
are safe, my friend,” Brethia told him as she stood up. “You
have returned to the wizard's tower.”

Sessa sat
up slowly and looked around. He smiled tentatively up at his friend,
then he saw Kronk and nodded. The earthen returned the greeting.
Finally, the elemental noticed Simon and immediately leaped to his
feet, nearly falling over in his haste.

“
Easy
there,” the wizard said quickly. “You've had a rough
time. Take a moment to get your balance.”

“
Yes,
my lord. Thank you,” Sessa said with a ragged bow. “But I
would not lie down before you and shame myself. It is my duty to
serve.”

Simon did
his best not to roll his eyes.

Kronk's
spiritual twin, he thought with faint amusement.

“
Serve
me? That's fine, if you choose to. But die for me? No way. Now, are
you able to tell us what happened to you?”

Sessa put
a hand to his head again. He was still standing on the desk instead
of hovering above it as Brethia was doing, which Simon assumed meant
that he hadn't recovered his strength yet.

“
It
is very disjointed, my lord. I was assigned to scout the most
southern section of northern Mexico. Halfway through my sweep, I came
across a very large structure. I had never seen anything like it
before.”

“
Really?”
Simon looked at Brethia. “I thought that you were familiar with
those mounds?”

“
I
am, sir wizard. But Sessa is quite a bit younger than I. He was
created long after we were denied the ability to visit this world. He
has no experience with such things.”

“
Now
wait just a moment,” the other air elemental protested. “I
have studied with our older brethren. I have learned what I needed to
know to become a good scout.”

Wow, Simon
thought. The air elementals have a school for scouts? Cool.

“
Have
you?” Brethia asked. She seemed amused. “So why did you
not recognize that structure?”

“
I...”

Sessa
frowned and looked down. He finally shrugged and looked at them.

“
I
do not know. I will have to inquire when we get home.”

“
Good
idea,” Simon told him. “But for the moment, please just
tell us what happened.”

“
Oh!
Of course, my lord. I beg your pardon. But if I may inquire, what
were those creatures that I encountered?”

“
Goblins.
You were attacked by goblins.”

“
Goblins,”
Sessa repeated in amazement. “So that's what they were.”

He drew
himself up and rose from the desk an inch or so, which Simon
considered to be a good sign.

“
I was on the third day of my
mission when I first spotted the mound, my lord. Up until that point,
I had seen no signs of life except for plants and trees. And birds;
many, many birds. It seems that the flying creatures have survived
the depredations of both dragons and goblins down there.”

“
There aren't many in this part
of the country anymore,” Simon interjected. “But last
year we saw a few Canada geese fly by heading north to nest and then,
three months ago, a few more flew by to winter in the south. It was
thrilling, to be honest. There were more chickadees and robins around
last summer as well.”

Sessa waited patiently while the
wizard spoke, nodding silently.

“
They are surprisingly hardy
creatures, it seems,” he said when Simon was done. “At
any rate, there were no animals to be seen that did not have wings.
It was disquieting.”

He floated slowly over to the
picture of the goblin and looked at it pensively.

“
I approached the mound
carefully, invisible. The one that I encountered was massive,
hundreds of feet in circumference and perhaps a hundred feet high.
Along the base were numerous round openings leading into darkness,
but I avoided them. The warm stench that rolled out of them was
revolting; like mounds of rotting corpses and garbage had been left
to putrefy in the sun. Instead I made my way carefully to the top of
the structure.”

He looked from the elementals to
Simon and then pointed at the drawing of the mound.

“
That arch on top in the sketch
was also atop the one that I was scouting. I was intrigued and wanted
to examine it more closely.”

“
Oh my friend,” Brethia
said gently. “That was such an error in judgment.”

“
Yes, I know,” Sessa said
and hung his head in embarrassment. “As you and I are the only
ones of our kind I see here, I may assume that the others were
captured as well, perhaps by being, like myself, overly curious.”

“
You were just doing your job,”
Simon told him, trying to sound encouraging. “How could you
have known how dangerous it was?”

“
I should have known, my lord,”
the elemental replied wearily. “We all should have known.
Brethia is the oldest among those sent to scout. She knew. We should
have too. But we did not.”

“
At any rate,” he
continued, “I made my way to the top of the structure to
examine the arch. It was an amazing thing, made of some sort of blue
stone, shot through with veins of gold; quite lovely actually. But
around the arch were the remains of dozens, possibly hundreds of
animals. And not just animals. There were many rotting goblin corpses
as well, their chests split open, headless, mutilated in numerous
ways. I did not recognize these creatures; if I had, I would have
retreated at once.” He sighed. “I should have done so
anyway, but I was confused. I wondered why there were bodies lying
around the arch, exposed to the daylight. It was very perplexing to
me.”

“
Ritual sacrifice,”
Brethia said flatly. Sessa stared at her in horror. “They use
the power released by the physical body at the time of death to
infuse their spells with energy. It is the darkest, bloodiest sort of
magic there is.”

She looked at Simon.

“
Sir wizard, I was pursued by a
goblin patrol while I was waiting at the rendezvous point; that is
why I was so exhausted when I returned. They used spells to detect my
presence and to attack me. It was only by sheer luck that I managed
to escape and make my way back.”

She tapped the picture of the mound.

“
Goblin magic is crude and weak
at best, unless they perform these rituals to boost their power. Then
it can be truly dangerous.”

“
I see,” Simon said
thickly, disgusted by what he was hearing. “Please go on,
Sessa.”

“
Yes, my lord. Well, I could
make no sense of the carnage that I was seeing and finally decided
that it might be best to get a safe distance away from something that
was so obviously dedicated to the dark gods. Unfortunately, I had
waited a moment too long. As I was turning to descend the mound, the
arch began humming; a weird, eerie screech of sound. It was glowing a
dirty purple color and I found myself unable to move. Then a streak
of this thick, dark light engulfed me and I found
myself...elsewhere.”

“
Elsewhere?” Kronk
repeated. “You did not know where you were?”

“
No. I can only surmise in
retrospect that I was transported deep inside of the mound itself. I
was bound to some sort of stone table by chains of pure energy and
surrounded by creatures very similar to the one in the drawing. They
were all gibbering and laughing insanely. The smell was beyond
description. The crude walls were decorated with bones and flayed,
dried skin and lit with guttering torches. My invisibility had been
negated and I was essentially helpless.”

“
What happened?” Simon
asked as Sessa seemed to be drifting off into the horrible memory.

“
Someone else entered the small
room. The goblins ceased their capering and hooting and stood back
respectfully and let the figure pass. It was another goblin, but this
one wore robes of dark red. By the smell, I can only assume that they
had been dyed with blood. It held a crooked staff and its skin was
hanging in folds off of its face and body. The skin was green, as if
the creature was laced with gangrene.” Sessa shuddered. “But
it was the eyes, the insane, glowing red eyes, that caught and held
my gaze. The magic-user, for that was obviously what it was, began to
chant and power lashed me like a burning wire. I have never felt such
pain. And over and over again, it kept asking in words that I barely
understood where I was from and what I was doing there. Over and over
again. And every question was followed by a whip of agonizing power.”

Sessa turned away from them,
shoulders hunched, and floated across the desk to hover at the far
edge; a sad and broken-looking figure.

“
And what did you tell them?”
Kronk asked harshly.

Simon looked at him in surprise.

“
Kronk, go easy on him. After
what he's been through...”

For the first time that the wizard
could remember, the earthen ignored him completely. He tapped across
the desk, peered into Sessa's face and repeated the question, his
expression not one of anger, but of fear.

“
Tell them?” the air
elemental repeated weakly. He drew himself up, looking almost like
Aeris in that moment, proud and bold.

“
Nothing! I told them nothing!”

Kronk took a few steps back but the
elemental pursued him.

“
How dare you even ask me
that!” Sessa spat angrily. “I may be young and stupid,
but I would never betray the one who summoned me. Never! If the
wizard had not called me back in time, I would have died rather than
betray him.”

“
I...yes of course, I see,”
Kronk said contritely. “Forgive me. My only concern is for my
master's welfare.”

Sessa seemed to deflate and shook his
head.

“
No, it is I who should ask
your pardon. That was...unseemly. But death would have been
preferable to the shame I would have had to live with if I had
betrayed a master.” He looked up at Simon. “And I think I
can confidently say that if my fellow scouts have been destroyed,
they too went to their dooms without telling those creatures
anything.”

Simon looked at Brethia who was
watching with an expression of pride on her face. She caught his look
and smiled bitterly.

“
He is correct, my lord. None
of my people would betray you. That is one of the reasons the ancient
wizards trusted us as scouts; our loyalty is unquestioned and
unshakable.”

The wizard nodded.

“
I know that,” he said,
to both air elementals. “I've learned all about that from
Aeris. Kronk knows too but, as you might have noticed, he's a bit of
a worrywart.”

“
I would not use that
expression, master,” the earthen said a bit defensively.

“
I know that, my friend, but
it's true all the same.”

Simon read through the list of names
and found the last scout's name.

“
So far, you and Brethia are
the only ones to answer my summons,” he told Sessa. “I
want to try the last name on the list before we go any further, so
could you all clear the center of the desk please?”

The three elementals moved back to
give Simon room and he glanced at the name again and took a deep
breath.

“
Verissa, I need you!” he
called out.

They all waited as the silence
stretched out for several minutes and then both Brethia and Sessa
bowed their heads.

“
Two of us,” Brethia said
in a voice heavy with sadness. “All that is left of our party.
Our realm has not lost three of our people for millennia. Our lord
with be furious.”

“
I don't blame him,”
Simon said tightly. “I share his fury. These goblins are a
horror.” He ran his fingers through his hair and pushed it off
of his face.

“
And to think that they were
once human. The lords of Chaos have a lot to answer for.”

After a long moment, Brethia
approached the wizard and hovered in front of him.

“
My lord, if you have no
further need of us, Sessa and I should return home. We must report
what has happened to our leaders, who will in turn break the news to
our ruler.”

“
I suspect he already knows,”
Sessa said as he floated over to join her.

“
Yes, I suspect so. Do we have
your permission to withdraw, sir wizard?”

“
Yes, of course you do.”

Simon looked from one small,
translucent face to the other.

“
But before you go, please know
how sorry I am for your loss. If I had, even for a moment, suspected
that there was danger in the mission I gave you, I never would have
sent any of you in the first place.”

“
My lord,” Sessa said
with a sad smile. “If you had known of the danger, you would
not have needed us at all.”

“
We were doing what we do best,
sir wizard,” Brethia added. “What we were trained for. Do
not reproach yourself for the outcome. Rather, if I may be so bold as
to suggest this, prepare yourself. One day, if these goblins continue
to expand their territory, you will have to face them. Now you at
least know that they exist. Be ready.”