The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (24 page)

“
Crap, I fell
asleep,” he said aloud.

The room was pitch black.
Apparently his light had faded while he slept and he quickly created
a new one.

He stood up and was
relieved to find that he felt much stronger after his quick nap.

Aeris is going to be mad,
he thought.

That was all he needed, a
lecture from the air elemental.

He rested a hand on the
back of the chair. At least he knew that he would be comfortable with
it at home.

Okay, time to get back and
face the music, he thought with a loud sigh. And then he hesitated.

Simon looked around
speculatively and headed for the hallway.

What the heck, I'm late
anyway.

He walked down the
corridor and into the room stuffed with boxes, his light globe
following faithfully. He moved over to the crate filled with the
magical items and looked into it.

“
There's no way that
this stuff is cursed,” he said to the empty room. “Obviously
this guy was some eccentric collector of arcane paraphernalia. Daniel
used to do the same thing.”

He stared at the crystal
ball. He really wanted it. The books, jewelry, all the rest were
secondary. It could wait. But that ball, something about it drew him
to it.

Simon reached down and
picked it up and the crystal settled into his palm comfortably. It
warmed to his touch.

“
I'm taking it,”
he said without realizing that he was speaking out loud.

He hurried out of the room
and down the hallway, almost feeling like a thief escaping the scene
of a crime. He tossed the ball on to the chair, summoned a picture of
his main floor in his mind and Gated quickly, looking around as if
expecting someone to leap out of the shadows to stop him.

Back home, the candles
were all lit around the room. It was pitch black outside and Simon
realized with a shock that he had been gone for hours.

The elementals were
nowhere to be seen and he picked up the crystal ball and slipped it
guiltily into one of his kitchen cupboards, where he kept his pots
and pans. Then he moved back to the chair.

“
Hey guys?” he
called. “Anyone home?”

“
Where have you
been?” Aeris shouted from upstairs. Simon winced.

The elemental shot down
the stairs and across the room to hover in front of the wizard.

“
Well?” he
snapped, bobbing up and down with his arms folded.

“
Well what? I sat
down when I got there and dozed off. Sorry for worrying you but I was
tired. All that Gating, I suppose.”

Aeris' expression softened
and he nodded.

“
Yes,
understandable. Kronk's out with the horses. He was sure that you
were fine. It appears he was right.”

Simon shoved the chair
across the floor until it was sitting several feet in front of the
fireplace. He stepped back and looked at its placement critically,
tapping his lips with a finger.

“
Is it centered, do
you think?” he asked Aeris.

“
Hmm, not quite.”

The elemental flew over
and pushed the chair easily to the right about three inches.

“
How about now?”
he asked Simon.

“
Perfect! Thanks
Aeris. Now it feels like home.”

He looked at the couch,
saw that it was sitting exactly where his old sofa had been, and
grinned widely.

“
Amazing how a few
pieces of furniture can change a room. I don't think I realized just
how much I've missed them.”

Aeris flew to the sink,
filled the kettle and hung it over the fire to boil.

“
We organized the
new items you found, by the way,” he told Simon. “Would
you care to try that coffee now?”

“
You have some up
here?” the wizard asked eagerly.

“
In the cupboard
over the sink,” Aeris replied.

Simon went to the cupboard
and took out the can. He shook it with a smile and pulled the tab on
top to unseal it. Air rushed in with an audible hiss and he raised
the can to his nose and breathed in slowly.

“
Ah. Unbelievable.
That smell is even better than I remember.”

He stared at the ground
coffee for a moment.

“
I don't have any
filters. Oh well, I guess that I'll just have to live with drinking
coffee grounds. No big deal.”

Aeris frowned in thought
for a moment and then his eyes widened.

“
Perhaps you won't
have to do that. Give me a moment to check on something.”

He turned around quickly,
flew to the stairs that led down to the basement and disappeared
below. Simon took the opportunity to grab the crystal ball from the
cupboard. He raced upstairs as quietly as he could, ran into his
bedroom and stuck it in his sock drawer. He covered the orb and then,
after slipping on his soft indoor shoes, made his way to the stairs
again.

“
Hey, where did you
go?” Aeris called out.

“
Up here,”
Simon replied as he walked downstairs. “I wanted to put my
comfortable shoes on.”

“
Ah, I see.”

Aeris was at the counter,
ripping small squares out of a length of material that he had brought
up.

“
Cheesecloth,”
he said brightly. “We have a roll of it in storage, but until
now I'd never found a use for it.”

“
Daniel must have
added that, for whatever reason. He stored a lot of things down there
that never quite made sense to me. Why cheesecloth?”

“
Well, it's quite
porous. You can put your ground coffee in the center of a square of
cloth, tie it with some string,” he held up a length of fine
string, “and drop it in your cup. And voila, no nasty bits of
ground coffee floating around in the liquid.”

“
Aeris, you are a
genius,” Simon told him with a wide smile.

“
Hmm, yes, that has
been mentioned once or twice before over the eons,” the
elemental said, trying to appear modest.

The kettle began to boil
and he nodded at it.

“
And here is your
chance to test my idea.”

The makeshift filter
worked like a charm. Simon had never liked cream in his coffee, so he
wasn't bothered by its lack. He did like it sweet though, but had to
settle for honey instead of sugar. It worked just fine.

He sat down in front of
the fire with his first cup of coffee in years and took a cautious
sip.

“
Heaven,” he
murmured blissfully as he sat back in his new chair. “Absolute
heaven.”

The front door opened and
Kronk tapped into the tower.

“
Master, you are
back!” he exclaimed happily. “What took you so long?”

“
He fell asleep,”
Aeris said dryly. “Just as you suggested.”

Kronk hurried over to the
fireplace and jumped up on to the wide arm of the comfy chair.

“
I knew you looked
tired, master,” he said with some concern. “You must not
overdo it this soon after your return. We do not want you to suffer a
setback.”

“
I know, Kronk.
You're right. But no harm done. I'm home safe and sound, we got the
new furniture and I have,” he raised his cup happily, “coffee.
I am officially content.”

“
I am glad for you,
master. Oh, the horses are settled in and the sentries are all still
very alert along the wall.”

Kronk looked at Aeris, who
floated over to hover in front of the fire.

“
Are your people on
the roof still working together or have they decided how to split
their sentry duty?”

“
Huh, that's a good
question. Let me go up and check.”

Aeris zipped away and shot
up the stairs.

“
Are you sure you
are okay, master? You seem a trifle...uneasy.”

Simon looked at his small
friend and forced a smile. He reminded himself that Kronk was much
sharper than his quiet, slow manner would lead someone to believe.

“
Uneasy? Of course
not.” He sipped his coffee. “Maybe it's the caffeine.
Nope, I'm great. Never better. Yes sir, I'm A-okay.”

Shut up, you're babbling,
he thought nervously.

Kronk narrowed his glowing
red eyes, but nodded.

“
If you say so,
master,” he said slowly. “If you are happy, then I am
happy.”

“
Oh I'm happy.
Absolutely.”

Simon clamped his lips
together and stared at the dancing flames in the fireplace.

The earthen continued to
watch him for a few minutes, then shrugged and turned to watch the
fire.

“
It does feel like
our old home again, does it not, master?”

“
It does, my friend.
It surely does.”

“
When are you going
to travel to Nottinghill Castle, master? You must want to see your
friends after all this time.”

Simon relaxed a bit and
settled deeper into his chair.

“
I do. Quite a bit.
But let's wait a few days. If I'm so drained that I can fall asleep
at a moment's notice, then I need more recovery time. I do think that
I should get a look at our new neighbors to the south though; the
sooner the better.”

Kronk looked at him in
alarm.

“
Master, you aren't
actually thinking of going there, are you? If those beasts prove to
be hostile, you might not be strong enough yet for an extended
battle.”

The wizard glanced at
Kronk wryly.

“
Thanks for the vote
of confidence there, buddy. And don't worry; I'm not about to go down
there, at least not yet. I'll use Magic Mirror to look around. If
they've taken over the old town, it will be easy. I'm very familiar
with the layout of the place.”

Kronk settled down again
and nodded thoughtfully.

“
Ah yes, excellent
idea, master. Scouting them out first is the best way to go. You can
get the information you need safely.”

“
Yep.”

Simon finished his coffee
but was so comfortable that he waited to get up and make himself a
second cup. The smell from the burning wood was sweet, cedar maybe,
and the crackling and snapping as it burned was soothing.

A short time later, Aeris
returned and moved to stand on the arm of the chair across from
Kronk.

“
I'm happy to report
that those two upstairs have finally worked out a schedule between
them.” He made a face. “They were both so concerned about
doing a good job for you, oh great wizard, that they were afraid to
split the sentry time between them.”

Simon chuckled and shook
his head.

“
So who's doing
what?”

“
Orriss prefers
standing watch during the day and Brethia seems to enjoy staring at
the stars and moon, so it was easy to divide the time after they
realized that.”

“
Oh good. That
worked well. Any idea what they are going to do with their downtime?”

Aeris sat down and crossed
his legs. He hovered about an inch above the chair.

“
No but I suspect
that they will go scouting. It is, after all, what we do.”

“
Yeah but, that's
your job isn't it? What do air elementals do when they aren't
scouting?”

Kronk looked across at
Aeris and they both grinned.

“
What?” Simon
asked.

“
We scout, my dear
wizard. Air elementals are, by nature, intensely curious.”

“
Yeah, I've
noticed.”

“
So when we are
given the opportunity to indulge ourselves, we still poke into this
area and that, but we choose where we want to go. I suspect that
Brethia and Orriss will do the same.”

Simon pushed himself to
his feet and walked over to the kitchen counter. He grabbed the
kettle, pumped more water into it and set it over the fire.

“
Well, that sounds a
bit boring to me,” he told Aeris, “but if that's what
makes them happy, good luck to them both.”

The rest of the evening
passed in companionable conversation. Simon and the elementals
chatted about the past and about the future, their memories and their
hopes. When he caught himself nodding off in his chair, the wizard
said good night and headed for bed. It had been a busy but very
satisfying day.

The next morning dawned
gray and rainy. Simon rolled out of bed and felt the dampness in the
air. He sighed and reminded himself that rain was as necessary as
sunlight for nature to thrive. It didn't really cheer him up that
much.

He furtively searched
through his drawers and pushed aside some woolen socks to look at the
crystal ball. He picked it up and examined it closely.

What was it about the
damned thing that he found so alluring? The ball itself was the size
of his head, flawless, but no more special than any other large piece
of crystal. The base was constructed of metal, mostly silver, with
several rubies inset artfully around the edges. It sat on four scaled
paws that reminded Simon uncomfortably of a dragon's feet.