The Dragons of Argent and Silver (Tales from the New Earth #6) (54 page)

Virginia smiled gently and
gave her friend's hand a squeeze. It seemed to give Anna a boost of
courage and she sat up as tall as she could and met Simon's eyes.

“
I do, yes. We,”
she indicated herself and her three friends, “have been working
on our magic, trying to refine our powers and techniques. Gerard
especially.”

She smiled and wrinkled
her nose at the young man and he rolled his eyes in return.

“
He doesn't like
using his powers for offense, as I think we all know. So he's worked
hard to find new ways to channel that energy. Do you want to tell
them what you can do now?”

“
It's just a parlor
trick, Anna,” Gerard protested. “I doubt that it would
help in this situation.”

“
It might actually,
now that I think about it,” Eric contradicted him. “It's
just a different target, Ger. Think of it like that.”

The young man looked
doubtful and Tamara, who had been frowning at the foursome, spoke up.

“
What exactly are
you lot talking about? What parlor trick?”

Gerard hesitated and Anna
seemed exasperated by his reluctance and answered instead.

“
He can find
things,” she told them all. “Lost things. For example, a
few months ago I lost a locket that was precious to me.”

She put a hand on her
chest just below her neck and her expression became sad and lost for
a moment. Virginia waited and then gave her arm a little shake and
whispered something. Anna nodded and continued.

“
It was a gift I
received from my daughter, not long before the old world was
destroyed. She and her family didn't make it.”

Simon was shaken as if
struck by a blow. It was so easy to forget their past lives, but he
recalled that Anna had been an older woman with a grown child when
she had been Changed. It was a reminder that, once upon a time, they
had all been something else.

“
Anyway, I lost the
locket somehow and I was very upset. Gerard came to me the next day
and held out his hand. He had the locket! When I asked him where he'd
found it, he said that he had been drawn to the garden just outside
the front gate. I'd been weeding there all week.”

“
What does that
mean, drawn to the garden?” Sebastian asked Gerard. “Drawn
how?”

“
I have no idea,”
he replied frankly. “When Anna told us about her loss and I saw
how upset she was about it, I just thought that I'd like to find it
for her. I don't like to see her unhappy.”

The diminutive woman
smiled at him and it was Gerard's turn to blush.

“
After that, a
picture of the garden just, I don't know, popped into my head and I
wandered over there to poke around. I found the amulet almost
immediately.”

“
Just like that?”

“
Just like that.
Since then, for fun really, I've tried to find other things that
people have lost or misplaced.”

“
He found my
favorite dagger,” Malcolm said loudly and slapped the sheathed
dagger on his belt. Even when he wasn't wearing armor, he always
carried the weapon with him.

“
He's found a lot of
things for a lot of people,” Anna told them. “And the
more he uses this 'trick', the better he gets at it.”

“
Gerard, what are
the limitations?” Simon asked the young man. “Are you
limited by distance or type of object or what?”

“
Well, I don't want
to sound like I'm showing off...”

“
He's not limited by
any of that,” Eric interrupted his friend. “Honestly Ger,
you have to be more assertive, you know?”

The wizard smiled at them
and felt a rush of excitement.

“
So if I asked you
to focus on, say, a glyph, could you locate it?”

Gerard shrugged.

“
I have no idea. Do
you have a picture of it?”

Simon glanced across the
table at Sebastian, who nodded.

“
I'll get some paper
and a pencil,” he said as he got up and hurried from the room.

“
Can you find
people, Gerard?” Tamara asked as they waited for her brother to
return.

“
People?” He
frowned. “Good question. I've never actually tried.”

“
Well, keep it in
mind. If we could track down these necromancers individually, we
could take them out one at a time. Probably the safest way of
attacking them.”

“
Maybe. Maybe not,”
Aiden cautioned her. “If they are surrounded by their undead
armies, 'taking them out' as you put it might not be as easy as you
make it sound.”

“
I didn't say easy,”
she replied, giving him a hard look, “I said safer. None of
these battles will be easy.”

Sebastian came back into
the room and hurried down the table, offering Simon the writing
materials.

“
Thanks, Bastian,”
he said and began drawing the symbol.

The memory of that glyph
on the beach blazed clearly in his mind and he easily replicated it.

“
Gerard? Could you
take a look at this and see what you think?”

Simon handed the sheet of
paper down the table to the pale young man and then sat back and
waited to see what would happen.

“
Hmm. Odd looking
thing, isn't it?”

“
Now's not the time
to be an art critic,” Eric said to him. “See if you can,
I don't know, feel other symbols like that out in the world
somewhere.”

Gerard gave him an
exasperated look but focused on the drawing.

“
If I only knew how
the whole thing worked,” he muttered as he studied the glyph.
“It would be so much easier than just...waiting for a feeling.”

The room grew quiet and
the atmosphere became tense. Simon knew that this might be their only
hope of finding those evil symbols quickly. If it didn't work, he'd
have to send out Aeris and his people to begin the search, and that
could take months.

If they ever found them at
all, he thought darkly.

“
Anything?”
Anna asked Gerard hesitantly after a few minutes.

He was frowning down at
the paper and his head was cocked to the side, as if he was hearing a
distant sound.

“
Maybe,” he
said slowly. “There is something. Somethings, actually. Anyone,
which way is north?”

Malcolm pointed to the
right of where Simon was sitting.

“
That way,” he
said quickly.

“
Okay. Could I have
that pencil?”

Sebastian grabbed it and
gave it to him and Gerard flipped over the sheet of paper.

“
Okay, so north is
that way?”

He drew an arrow on the
page and marked it with an N.

“
Now, I'm sensing
three points of attraction. This way, this way and over there.”

He drew three other arrows
while Malcolm looked over his shoulder.

“
So, to the
southwest, the south and almost directly east,” the big man
said. “Any idea how far?”

“
It's not that
precise. But the one to the east is the closest. I'm guessing it's
just across the channel. Southwest is next and the southern one is
very far away.”

Tamara sighed loudly.

“
Well, it's better
than nothing. Simon, this is where we'll need your help. Could you
send three of your air elementals in those directions to see if they
can find those glyphs? I suppose that they will have to travel at
night to spot them in the dark.”

“
They may not,”
Simon told her. “They are magical creatures, after all. I'd
hazard a guess that they will be able to spot the markings no matter
whether the sun is up or not.”

“
Then you'll do it?”

He smiled at Tamara.

“
I'll ask. They
aren't my servants, after all.”

“
Right, right.
Sorry.”

“
No problem.”
He looked around at the group. “You might want to plug your
ears.”

“
Our ears?”
Keiko asked, speaking for the first time. “Why?”

Simon just smiled and
looked at the center of the long table.

“
Aeris, Brethia,
Orriss. I need you.”

He quickly put his fingers
in his ears while most of the others just looked at him in confusion.

“
He's calling them
now?” he heard Anna ask faintly.

The wizard noticed that
Malcolm and Aiden didn't hesitate. They blocked their ears
immediately.

He'd only summoned three
air elementals at the same time once before. And after his ears
stopped ringing, even though he'd plugged them, Simon vowed to never
do so again.

The triple clap of thunder
stunned everyone in the room and the elementals spent a few minutes
floating together above the middle of the table, looking quite
embarrassed.

“
Didn't you warn
them?” Aeris asked Simon as he looked around at the pained
expressions on all of their faces.

“
Of course I did. I
told them to plug their ears.”

“
Did you explain
why?”

“
Well, no. But...”

“
And this is the
wizard I serve willingly, ladies and gentlemen,” Aeris said
sarcastically. “I must be crazy.”

“
No argument here,”
Simon told him.

“
Now wait just a
minute!”

“
Boys, boys,”
Tamara interrupted. She looked both amused and sore, as she rubbed
her temples.

“
No time for joking
around; this is important.”

“
Who's joking?”
Aeris asked with a long look at Simon.

Both Brethia and Orriss
looked scandalized at the way he was speaking and the wizard had a
hard time keeping a straight face.

“
Tamara is right.
She asked me to ask you if you all would do us a favor.”

“
Of course we will,”
Aeris said quickly while the others hurriedly nodded. “Anything
for a friend of the great and powerful...well, this wizard here.”

Malcolm snorted a laugh
while Simon just rolled his eyes.

“
Fine. Look at this
paper. You see the three arrows? We need you each to pick a
direction, stay on that course as accurately as you can and follow it
until you find a magical glyph that looks like this.”

And Simon flipped the
paper over to show them the symbol.

“
That's the symbol
that has been drawing the dead from the oceans?” Aeris asked
seriously, his teasing forgotten.

“
That's the one.
Gerard here,” Simon nodded at him and the young man smiled
wanly at the elementals, “has sensed the glyphs, but the best
that he can do is tell us their direction and which one is closest.
Finding them is now up to you three, if you want to do it.”

“
We will be honored,
my lord,” Brianna told him earnestly.

Both she and Orriss bowed
to the entire company, while Aeris nodded to everyone.

“
Good,” Simon
said. “Go ahead and decide who goes where and leave when you're
ready.”

The three elementals
huddled together. They whispered and examined the symbol again. Then
they flipped over the paper, looked at the arrows and nodded in
unison. With a triple pop, all of them disappeared.

“
You know, that
always freaks me out a little,” Aiden told the others.

“
Well, they're off,”
Simon said to the group. “It could be hours or several days,
but if anyone can find those glyphs, those three will do it. The next
step is finding those nasty orbs that the necromancers use to enhance
their powers.”

Every head turned to look
at Gerard and he flushed under this sudden scrutiny.

“
Why are you all
looking at me? I've never seen those orb thingies. I mean, I'll
happily try to find them, but it will be a waste of time attempting
it if I don't actually have any idea of what they look like.”

Tamara nodded grudgingly.

“
That's a good
point. Damn it. What I'd really like to know is exactly how many of
those buggers there actually are and where they are now.”

There was a massive thump
on the door that shook it on its hinges.

“
Cripes, who
knocking with a sledgehammer?” she snapped irritably. “Someone
get that, would you?”

Half of the group was
sitting down again while the rest watched curiously as Virginia
hurried to the door. Just as she reached for the doorknob, it burst
open and slammed back against the wall.

Virginia jumped back and
then stared with her mouth open.

Malcolm and Aiden were on
their feet and across the room faster than Simon would have believed
possible for men of their size.

Aiden gently pushed
Virginia aside and the two men barred whoever stood out in the
hallway from entering.

“
Who are you?”
Malcolm growled, a hand on his dagger. “What do you want?”

“
I am seeking the
wizard, Simon O'Toole,” a voice rumbled, deeper and more
resonant than even the big man's rich baritone.