The Dragons of Ice and Snow (11 page)

“
I don't get into
snits, my dear wizard,” Aeris said loftily. Kronk made a rude
noise and he glared at him. “Well, I don't. It's just that
being summoned about, willy-nilly, is a bit disconcerting, that's
all.”

He crossed the desk and
examined the staff. He ran an airy hand over it and flew up to check
out the bronze cap.

“
Your work?”
he asked Kronk as he settled back down on to the top of the desk. The
earthen nodded silently.

“
Hmm, nicely done.
The wood is sealed well and the bronze caps on both ends are a nice
touch.”

Kronk looked surprised at
Aeris' compliment and mumbled a thank you.

“
So, you have a
staff again,” Aeris said to Simon. “Congratulations. It's
not a semi-intelligent artifact from the distant past, but I suppose
it will serve you well enough in your travels. But why did you want
to talk to me about it?”

“
Kronk was telling
me that in the old days of magic, wizards could channel their spells
through their staves, increasing their power. Is that true?”

Aeris glanced at Kronk,
who just shrugged. The air elemental looked back at Simon with
puzzled frown.

“
Yes, that is true.
I think I told you before that only wizards had the ability to use a
staff, or a wand to a lesser extent, to amplify their powers. Didn't
I?”

Now it was Simon's turn to
be puzzled.

“
Did you? I don't
remember, to be honest. But whether you did or not, my question for
you is...how did they do it? Like Kronk says, if anyone knows the
secret, it's the air elementals. Your people worked more closely with
wizards than any of the others they summoned.”

“
I can't argue with
that. They loved to gather information, those old magic-users. And we
were their favorite scouts. But I have no idea how it was done, using
staves as conduits.”

Simon watched the
elemental closely. Aeris wasn't a very good actor. The wizard could
see that he was telling the truth but something in his expression
hinted that there was more to it.

“
Okay,” he
said quietly. “You don't know the secret, if there is one. But
do you know someone who might?”

Aeris grimaced, looking
past the wizard through the window to the forest beyond.

“
Possibly,” he
said reluctantly. “There are much more powerful elementals in
my home realm than I. One of them may know something.”

Simon began to speak but
the elemental cut him off.

“
The problem, my
dear wizard, as you well know, is that the great ones of my people
scarcely acknowledge the existence of ones such as myself.” He
nodded at Kronk. “Ask him. He'll tell you the same. There is a
hierarchy of power amongst my kind and we are at the very bottom of
it.”

“
He is correct,
master,” the little earthen added. “While one of the
great ones may have the knowledge you seek, they would probably not
share it with little ones like Aeris or me.”

Simon nodded slowly.

“
Yeah, I know that.
I've learned as much from you two and my studies over the past couple
of years. But Aeris, there is one powerful elemental among your
people who might speak with you. If he doesn't have the information,
he may know someone who does.”

The air elemental's eyes
widened.

“
You're speaking of
Aethos?”

“
Exactly. I know you
and he aren't exactly best pals, but he did save your life by using
some of his own essence, right? Which means he places some value on
you, don't you think?”

Aeris snorted gently.

“
I doubt that.
Aethos was infuriated that one of his own kind was attacked, not that
it was me personally. His gift was beyond price, of course, but I
think that he would have done the same for any of my people under
those circumstances.”

Simon rubbed his face
briskly and pushed back his hair. He suddenly felt the need to get
out of the tower, walk in the sunshine and clear his mind. But this
had to be resolved first. The need to augment his power had never
been more pressing.

“
But he would talk
to you, wouldn't he?” he asked Aeris.

“
He might, yes. I
never did report back on what happened to the dark wizard who
attacked me. He would be pleased to know that you destroyed her. In
fact, he might be fascinated to learn that she had once been an herb
witch before she received powers from the dark gods.”

“
Then there's your
hook,” Simon said with a grin. At Aeris' look of confusion, he
chuckled. “Use that story to get his attention. It might make
him more inclined to help us figure out this staff business if he
knows we stopped the wizard who attacked one of his own people.”

The air elemental tapped
his chin, looking thoughtful.

“
Hmm. You know, that
might actually work. Certainly it would please him.” Then he
made a face. “But it means that I have to go back to the realm
of air. By the Four Winds, I loathe that place.”

“
I know you do. But
you are only going there for a short time, and you have my
permission, as the one who summoned you, to return at a time of your
choosing. You don't need to wait for me to call you back.”

Aeris' eyes widened and
Kronk, standing next to him, gasped loudly.

Simon looked from one to
the other.

“
What?” he
asked. “What did I say?”

“
Master, you just
gave Aeris more freedom than any summoned creature has ever had!”
Kronk said in astonishment.

“
I did?”

Looking at the wizard's
mystified expression, Aeris burst out laughing.

“
Honestly, Simon,
sometimes the way you blunder into things so innocently makes you
seem as young as you look.”

“
Well, I'm not,”
the wizard said, becoming impatient. “What have I done now?”

“
You have taken the
reins off of me, my dear wizard. You have said that I can come and go
as I choose. That I can leave this plane and return to my homeland
without permission. Wizards have never done that before.”

“
Doesn't seem like a
big deal to me,” Simon told him with an unimpressed shrug.
“I've told you both many times that you are my friends, not my
slaves. You stay because you want to, not because you have to.”

Kronk tapped across the
desk and stood just in front of where the wizard sat.

“
That is true,
master,” he said, looking up at Simon's face. “But even
so, neither of us could simply return to our homes without your
express consent. You are still the one who summoned us. You hold all
the power.” He looked at Aeris for a quick second. “But
now you have said that Aeris can leave here, go home, return, all on
his own. His terminology is appropriate. You have taken off our
reins, or our leashes, as it were.”

“
Okay, good. I
actually like that idea. Oh and Kronk? You can do the same, come and
go as you please.”

“
Master!”

“
Shush. It's done.”
Simon smiled at his little friend's gaping mouth. “I wouldn't
give Aeris more freedom than I would give you.”

He looked at the air
elemental.

“
Do you have
anything pressing to do, or can you leave now?”

“
I'll go now,”
Aeris said, still looking a little dazed. “I will try to get
something out of Aethos. Whether I can or cannot, I should be back in
a day or two.”

Simon stood up and walked
to the door.

“
Great. No rush.
Just learn what you can and we'll see you when you get back.”

Aeris nodded once and
disappeared with a little pop.

“
Kronk, I need to
get some air. It's too nice to sit inside all day.”

As he turned to walk to
the stairs, he heard the little guy jump down from the desk and
tip-tap along behind him.

“
Don't forget to put
on a jacket, master. You don't want to catch a cold.”

“
Yes mother,”
Simon muttered and rolled his eyes.

The day was bright and
crisp and Kronk's suggestion had actually been a good one.

The wizard strolled around
the small lake behind the tower, wearing a light jacket over his
robe. The sharp tang of spring was in the air.

Old leaves, damp earth and
a whiff of growing things merged into a scent that excited the senses
and made Simon grin foolishly. It was always a relief to put winter
behind him, especially after his adventures in Moscow.

At that thought, the
wizard stopped walking and found a dry place to sit while he stared
across the lake at his tower.

He hadn't spoken to
Liliana for more than a week.

I'll have to remember to
send Kronk to her with a lodestone, Simon thought. That way she can
signal me when she wants to talk.

The paladin's people had
all healed up since the dragon attack and had agreed with her. They
had no intention of leaving Moscow for the safety of Nottinghill.

Simon admired their
courage and loyalty, but thought that they were being foolish. A
handful of people could not do much to strike back at the white
dragons, in his opinion.

But they loved their home
city and had a steady fearlessness that he couldn't help but find
remarkable. The question was, what could he do to help them?

He stretched out. The dead
winter grass spotted with small green shoots crackled under his body.
Then Simon laced his hands behind his head and closed his eyes,
thinking hard.

What was a white dragon's
main weakness? Did it even have one? His first assumption would have
been fire, but all dragons could breathe fire, along with their
primary attack. He had no idea how a creature that could shoot blasts
of frost from its mouth could also shoot flame, but it could. Magic,
he supposed.

So if not fire, then what?
The primal black had shorted out when he'd lured it into deep water.
It's main attack had been electrical. The primal green dragon had
poisoned itself with its own lethal chlorine breath. So what was the
weakness of a white dragon?

Simon sat up abruptly and
slapped the side of his head.

“
You, wizard, are an
idiot,” he said loudly.

It was so obvious, it was
laughable, he thought. If the two dead primals were any indication, a
dragon's main weakness was...itself!

Simon jumped up, laughing
giddily. He hurried back along the shore, muttering out loud.

“
That has to be it.
A white dragon has to be vulnerable to its own breath attack,”
he said to himself. “They thrive in the cold but their breath
is more frigid than the coldest places on Earth.”

He trotted around the
tower, waving at Kronk who was leading the three horses out of the
stable to let them run along the lake. When he got inside, Simon ran
up the stairs to his study and sat down at his desk.

His old spell-book,
stained and dog-eared, was lying there and he picked it up and began
flipping through it.

His look of glee faded as
he searched the entire book. Then he sat back with a dejected sigh
and toss the spell-book back on to the desk.

“
I don't have any
spells that are cold enough,” he said out loud.

“
Cold enough,
master?”

Kronk tripped into the
room and jumped up to the desktop.

“
The horses are
enjoying the sun, master. They seem happy to see the spring.”

“
Yeah, me too, bud,”
Simon said absently.

“
So what was that
about cold spells, master?”

“
Hmm? Oh nothing. I
just had a theory on what the weakness of a white dragon would be,
but I don't think I can do anything about it.”

“
You think that a
creature that exists in frigid temperatures is vulnerable to cold,
master?” Kronk said with obvious disbelief.

Simon smiled at him.

“
I know. It sounds
nuts, doesn't it? But the primals that I faced were brought down by
their own powers, not mine. So I thought that I saw a pattern. I
could be totally wrong about that though.”

The little earthen looked
surprised and then smiled back at the wizard.

“
But that is
wonderful, master! I never thought of that. You may be right.”

“
Doesn't matter,”
Simon said moodily. He tapped the spell-book. “I have no spells
that use intense cold to do damage. I have Ice Storm and Ice Spear
and that's it. Ice Storm rains frozen pellets on to the target. It
doesn't do deep cold damage per se. Ice Spear is basically a
penetrating spell. So even if I'm right, it doesn't do any good.”

Kronk folded his arms and
tapped a small foot, deep in thought. He looked up at the wizard.

“
So why not learn
some more spells based on cold, master?”

Simon leaned back in his
chair, pushed back his hair and looked at Kronk quizzically.

“
And just how do I
do that? I learned my spells through trial and error, as well as from
runes in the book that Daniel gave me and, if you believe Clara,
divine intervention. I've never seen any hint of special cold attacks
in all my research.”