The Dragons of Ice and Snow (18 page)

He shrugged and smiled
crookedly.

“
Something like
that. Sounds a little too Arthurian for me, but that's the gist of
what she said.”

Kronk looked confused but
Aeris was staring at the tabletop, his brows lowered, tapping his
chin.

“
Aeris? What is it?”

The air elemental looked
up at Simon.

“
Riddles, my dear
wizard. And hints. These gods never mean just one thing when they
speak. That is well known to all in my realm. What does it mean, a
legend walks the Earth? We are surrounded by legends again, are we
not? Dragons, wizards, the undead. The list goes on. What makes this
'legend' more special than any of them? And pure of heart? No
offense, Simon, but no one is pure of heart. It is not possible. The
world isn't made up of saints and sinners. All people, all humans,
are a mixture of both.”

Simon nodded slowly at
Aeris' comments.

“
I agree. I'm just
going to put this whole 'legend walking' thing on the back burner.
I'm more interested in trying to cast through my Shield spell. If I
can do that, and this wasn't just some sort of fever dream, then we
can have a look at Anaposus' Blizzard spell.”

“
Your
Blizzard spell, sir wizard,” the water elemental corrected him
amiably. “And please, now that we will be seeing more of each
other, call me Ana. It's much easier and faster to say, don't you
think?”

Simon
chuckled as he stood up.

“
Thanks,
Ana. It is. I'm going to get cleaned up and I'll meet you all out in
the field. And then we'll see what we will see, hmm?”

A half hour later, Simon
strode out on to the broad field in front of his tower. Standing side
by side in the center were the three elementals and he paused for a
moment to take in the strange sight.

The dark brown, hard-edged
figure of Kronk contrasted starkly with the ethereal form of Aeris as
he bobbed several inches off the ground and the constantly rippling,
translucent body of Ana.

Kronk's right, he thought
lightly. I think we do need a fire elemental. How cool would that be?

Yeah, right until it
accidentally burned down the tower, he added to himself and laughed
silently.

He walked up to the group
and Kronk suddenly smiled widely.

“
You brought the new
staff, master!” he exclaimed.

Simon had strung a cord
around the upper part of the staff and hung it over his shoulder, the
way he used to carry Bene-Dunn-Gal. He felt a pang of regret at the
loss of that precious weapon, but tried to let it go. He had to deal
the hand that he was given.

Now he slipped the staff
off of his shoulder and leaned it against his chest.

“
Yes, I did. And
thanks again for this, my friend. I figured if we're going to try new
things, we might as well try them all.”

He slipped his spell-book
out of an inside pocket and flipped through it.

“
Go big or go home,”
he muttered to himself.

He memorized the spell on
the page he'd turned to and looked down at the elementals.

“
Okay, everyone.
Stay close. I'll cast the Shield spell first and then this one.
Fortunately I have Shield permanently locked in my head now.”

Simon took the staff and
held it up in his right hand. He chanted the incantation for his
shield and invoked it.

As the opaque barrier
popped into existence around him, six feet in all directions, he felt
the staff warm in his hand and the shield crackled and sparked like
it was charged with static electricity.

“
I don't remember it
doing that before,” Aeris said as he watched with interest.

“
That's because it
doesn't normally do that,” Simon told him. “I think the
staff is augmenting my powers.” He smiled down at Kronk.
“Awesome.”

The little guy grinned up
at him happily.

“
Okay, now let's see
if I can cast through this thing.”

“
What spell have you
decided to use, sir wizard?” Ana asked, nodding at the
spell-book.

“
Fireball,”
Simon replied and Aeris gave a low whistle.

“
You do realize that
if the spell doesn't penetrate the shield, it will rebound and hit
us, don't you?” he asked tersely.

The wizard nodded
silently.

“
If anyone wants to
leave, just in case, now's the time,” he told them.

Kronk shook his head and
folded his arms defiantly. He gave Aeris a hard look.

“
Don't worry, I'll
stay. We must have faith in our dear wizard, mustn't we?”

“
Exactly,” the
earthen growled at him.

Simon looked at Anaposus.

“
Ana? You can get
out of range if you want. It might actually be the wiser choice.”

She frowned at him.

“
Oh no, sir wizard.
I chose to stay with you because I believe in your cause.”

Simon was startled. He
hadn't realized that the water elemental was an idealist.
Interesting.

“
I won't desert you
now,” she added.

“
Well, thanks, all
of you. Let's hope your faith isn't misplaced.”

He quickly wiped his palms
on his robe, grasped the staff firmly and chanted the spell. He
paused and looked down at the elementals again.

“
You might want to
crouch down a bit.” he said with a gesture. The three looked at
each other and got lower to the ground.

“
Just in case,”
he added under his breath.

Then he pointed the
weapon at a large, battered tree stump near the edge of the forest, a
favorite target of his that had seen better days, and invoked the
spell.

“
Invectis
!”
he barked, trying to sound firm and confident. Unfortunately his
voice broke and for a moment he sounded as young as he looked.

No
one snickered but Aeris gave a suspicious cough and quickly covered
his mouth.

There
was a moment of silence and Simon stared at the remains of the old
tree uncertainly.

“
Um,
maybe...” he began to say.

And
the stump exploded.

A
huge whomp of sound rolled across the field, sounding like an
exploding bomb, and a plume of fire and smoke expanded in a large
ball around the target.

“
Gees!”
the wizard exclaimed as he stumbled backwards.

Wood
chips and burnt pieces of bark scattered in all directions. A few hit
his shield and and flared into nothingness in little puffs of smoke.
Simon gaped at the hole where the stump had been, shocked at the
force of the blast.

“
Well
now, that was impressive,” Aeris said. He stood staring across
the field with his hands on his hips, looking pleased.

“
It
certainly was a stronger result than your normal Fireball spell,
wasn't it, master?” Kronk asked as he watched the smoke rise
from the small crater.

“
It
was, wasn't it,” Simon agreed weakly. “I guess the staff
really does help enhance my spells.”

“
Even
better news, sir wizard, is that you can indeed cast spells through
your shield.”

Ana
was examining the shield. She had moved close to it and was running a
hand lightly over it, a few inches from where it pulsed and crackled.

“
Its
power level is steady. There is no fluctuation,” she added.

“
Really?
You can tell that?”

“
Yes
Simon,” she said and looked over her shoulder at him. “Water
conducts electricity. We of the water realm understand power in all
its forms. This spell is very impressive.”

She
looked at the shield, following it with her eyes along the arc over
their heads.

“
I
cannot truly judge its efficacy, but I would say that it could repel
massive amounts of damage with being destroyed. Just my opinion, of
course.”

“
Thanks,
Ana. That's reassuring.”

The
four of them stood silently watching as the smoke cleared. The tree
stump had been obliterated. A round hole with wisps of smoke still
rising from it was all that remained.

“
I'm
going to leave the shield up,” Simon told them all. “It's
already lasted longer than it used to. I'll time it later so I know
when it's going to fade, but right now I want to see what Ana's
Blizzard spell can do.”

The
water elemental opened her mouth to object.

“
Sorry,
our
Blizzard spell is what I should have said.”

She
smiled broadly and gave him a slight bow.

“
Follow
me, guys,” Simon said. “Let's get back to the wall.”

The
wizard and the elementals walked back toward the tower, the shield
moving with them. When they reached the gate, Simon turned around and
faced the field again.

“
You're
going to cast from here?” Aeris asked.

“
Yeah.
I don't need a specific target; the spell damages an area not one
thing. I figured I'd just cast it at the middle of the field to see
what it looks like and what it does.”

“
Hmm,
good idea,” Aeris told him. “One step at a time with new
spells is the best way to go.”

“
I'm
so happy you approve,” Simon said and the air elemental made a
face at him.

With
a quiet chuckle, the wizard pulled out his spell-book again and found
the new spell that he'd copied into it earlier. It struck him that
the Blizzard spell seemed so powerful and yet was very simple; only a
few runes made up the incantation used to cast it.

Probably
a good thing, he thought. Might make it easier to permanently
memorize. If the thing actually works, that is.

“
Okay,
here we go,” Simon said.

He
uttered the incantation, keeping his eyes firmly focused on the
middle of the empty field and then, when he was done, he paused to
swallow nervously.

“
Invectis
,”
he said a bit tentatively.

Simon
wasn't quite sure what he'd expected. A slow build-up perhaps. Maybe
a cloud gathering overhead, the way the Ice Storm spell began to
form. What he got was something else entirely.

A
subsonic thud, like an invisible giant stomping his foot, scattered
old leaves and dry grass in the center of the field. Debris flew up
in the air and then, from every direction, shrill, icy winds
converged, turning the air foggy with ice crystals. A violent,
chaotic storm, thick with snow and ice, formed in the middle of the
open area. It raged and screamed with fury and Simon watched,
appalled, as the new grass and the ground beneath it froze instantly.

The
area of the storm was perhaps twice as tall as he was and twenty feet
across. It moaned and shouted like a live thing for perhaps a minute
and then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

The
field was left silent and empty. Simon waved his hand, dismissing the
Shield spell, and he and the others hurried to examine the damage.

Kronk
moved to stand in the middle of the frost-covered grass and jumped up
and down several times.

“
Master,
this ground is completely frozen,” he said in wonder. He knelt
down and touched the earth.

“
It
extends downward over two feet! The level of cold it would take for
this to happen so quickly is immense, master,” he added.

Simon
bent over at the edge of the ground frost and touched some blades of
grass. They felt like metal spikes and they were sharp enough to cut
flesh. Above the ground the air rippled, like waves of heat rising
from desert sand. But it wasn't heat; it was unendurable cold.

He
stepped back carefully and analyzed what he'd just seen.

From
the time he'd invoked the spell to the time it had fully coalesced
had been no more than two or three seconds.

Not
too bad, he thought. A couple of seconds gives me a lot better chance
of hitting something with an area spell. Nice.

“
Was
that acceptable, sir wizard?” Ana asked him as she surveyed the
damaged ground.

“
Much
more effective than I'd expected, Ana. Thank you again for this. How
much it will hurt a white dragon remains to be seen, but another
weapon in my arsenal is reassuring.”

She
smiled pleasantly.

“
Good
enough. And now, if you have no commands for me right now, I must
make a short journey.”

“
A
journey?”

Kronk
and Aeris approached from behind the water elemental. Both of them
looked puzzled.