The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (26 page)

So beautiful, he thought. So pure.

The orb seemed to grow, or else he was being drawn into it, and a
figure emerged out of the light, a massive outline that towered above
him, looking down with eyes as golden as the light around them. It
was a dragon.

Simon gasped and frantically reached for a spell, any spell. But his
mind was blank and he stood, helplessly, waiting for the monster to
strike.

The dragon was twice as large as a lesser dragon and was so different
from others of its kind that Simon's fear was washed away by wonder.

It was glittering as if made of metal. Its scales were silver,
gleaming with clean light. Its golden eyes stared into his own, not
with hatred and hunger, but with warmth and compassion. It was an
expression the wizard had never seen on a dragon's face before.

“
You
have revealed yourself to me, wizard, so now I reveal myself to you.
I am Esmiralla, last of the silver dragons.”

The huge head moved forward and the dragon actually bowed to him.

“
A...silver
dragon? I didn't know that there were any silver dragons.”

The broad wings unfurled slightly and, as they moved, a chiming of
scales rang through the air.

“
There
are not; not anymore. But once we lived, as did the other draconic
servants of the Light; gold, bronze, copper, brass. All gone now. All
destroyed by the Chaos lords and their accursed servants, the dark
dragons. I am the only one to survive.”

She shook her tremendous head and her eyes reflected her pain.

“
I
wonder, from time to time, if I was left alive as a curse. Or perhaps
it is some sort of universal joke played upon me by the cosmos. And
yet I live and I live and I live.”

Simon looked around and realized that they were standing inside a
huge cavern. He couldn't see the limits of the open space, but the
ceiling was only feet above the dragon's head and looked smooth and
shiny, as if Esmiralla had worn it away with her head over the
centuries. Perhaps she had.

“
You've
been here for thousands of years?”

“
Indeed
I have. After all of my people were destroyed, I was instructed by
one of the lords of Light to retreat to this,” she looked
around listlessly, “prison, shelter, whatever you wish to call
it. It was sealed behind me and I fell into an enchanted sleep, to
wait hopelessly for a better future.”

Her sadness gave way to a look of amusement.

“
Apparently
this is it. I suppose even gods have a sense of humor.”

“
A
poor one, I'd say,” Simon replied critically.

“
I
cannot argue with that,” Esmiralla agreed.

Simon couldn't believe that such a creature existed. She was what he
had always pictured when he thought of dragons. Her silver scales
were perfectly formed, her long snout and almond-shaped eyes were
symmetrical and smooth. Even the horns that jutted above her brows
were beautiful; they were translucent and shone like crystals.

“
So
why have you contacted me now, after all this time?” he asked.

The dragon sat down and the floor shook slightly. Her tail slipped
around to cover her feet and Simon thought that she looked like a
massive cat as she stared down at him.

“
I
did not contact you, young man. You contacted me. The orb that you
found is an artifact created by wizards millennia ago, along with
other items; a wand, books of spells, other things.”

“
I
found those too!” Simon exclaimed. “But the only thing
that drew me to it was the crystal ball.”

“
That
is how it works. If you know any other magic-users, you might want to
expose them to those other relics. They are artifacts that can only
be used by those who follow the Light and they are quite powerful.”

“
Huh.
Well, thanks. I'll remember that. So I found the orb and contacted
you. Now what? You've been trapped in this cave basically forever. Do
I need to, I don't know, dig you out or something?”

Esmiralla laughed, an amazingly gentle sound from such a large
creature.

“
I
am not trapped here, wizard. I have left my sanctuary several times
since the evil dragons returned. In fact, I have been in contact with
one other human since your race fell. She is one that I knew I could
trust with news of my existence. She was the one who told me of you,
which is why, when you mentioned your involvement with the fall of
the primals, I knew who you were and exposed myself to you.”

“
She
told you? She who? Someone I know?”

Another gentle laugh.

“
I
will leave it to you to discover this person's identity. Now, we must
sever this connection before our mutual nemesis, the Chaos lords,
discover us. Any more questions?”

“
Just
one right now. I'll ask more later, if we can communicate again in
the future. Can we?”

“
Of
course. The crystal ball can reach me where no other spell will. Just
keep the conversations brief. Now, your last question?”

“
Yes.
I was wondering something. When the dark primal dragons died, their
servants, the lesser dragons, all died as well. But you are still
alive. Does that mean that you are the primal silver dragon or...?”

Esmiralla laughed, but there was a note of grief mixed in with the
sound.

“
Alas
no. Neither primal nor queen am I. There will be no more silver
dragons to brighten the sky. You see, unlike those animals who serve
Chaos, we of the Light were never slaves to our primals. We were
servants to a certain extent, yes, but individuals with our own wills
and desires. That is why it took many years of fighting to destroy
us, because each of us had to be hunted down and killed
individually.”

“
Oh,
I see. Well, thanks for that. Would you prefer that I keep your
existence a secret?”

“
For
now, I think that would be for the best. I believe that you have
several trusted elemental servants?”

“
How
do you...?”

“
I
told you, wizard; I spoke with someone who knows much about you. If
you wish to share your knowledge of me with them, that will be
acceptable. Once summoned, an elemental's loyalty is unquestioned and
unbreakable.”

“
I
know,” Simon replied with an affectionate smile.

“
And
now I leave you. Keep hope in your heart, young man. Dark days lie
ahead, but in the end, the Light shall prevail.”

The scene began to fade away, like a gentle dream.

“
I
hope so,” Simon murmured and then, with a jolt, he found
himself sitting in his study, staring at the crystal ball again and
wondering if he'd actually just spoken with a silver dragon.

When Kronk came back
inside later that day, Simon was downstairs baking bread. The
delicious smell wafted through the tower and the little guy smiled as
he entered and watched the wizard puttering around the kitchen.

“
We have finished
the repairs, master,” he said as he hopped up and down on the
rug just inside the door, shaking off the rain water.

“
Oh good. How did it
go?”

“
Fine, master.”

The earthen tapped across
the floor and jumped up on to the table. He watched as Simon slipped
on some thick gloves, opened the oven of the cast iron stove and
began pulling out fresh loaves of bread.

“
The outer wall is
holding up quite well, but we do not like to allow the natural
weathering to get too far ahead of us. It saves us major repairs
later if we catch it early.”

“
Makes sense,”
the wizard replied as he put the four bread tins on a towel on the
kitchen counter to cool. He shut the oven door, took off his gloves
and set the kettle on top of the hot stove to boil.

“
No sign of Aeris
yet, master?”

“
Nope. But it's only
been a few hours.”

Simon rinsed out his
teacup and added dried tea to it.

“
I expect it will
take him a few days to find any cattle. I just wonder if they were
mutated into something else, like the horses were.”

He folded his arms and
frowned in thought.

“
It's quite possible
that they are now totally unsuitable to be domesticated, if they can
even give milk at all. Who knows?”

“
That is true,
master. But many animals remain exactly the same as they were before
the dragons returned. The deer in the forest are basically the same,
just slightly larger than they were. The smaller creatures; rabbits,
squirrels, foxes, all seem to be in their original form.”

The water boiled quickly
on the stove and the wizard nodded as he picked it up and began to
make his tea.

“
I know. It's so
weird how arbitrary the whole thing was. Was there a plan by the
Chaos lords? Or did things just Change randomly when exposed to
magical energy? I'd really like to know that someday.”

Simon took his tea and sat
down in front of the fireplace, sighing contentedly. Kronk jumped
down to the floor and then up on to the arm of the chair.

“
Well master, you do
know that the Changlings were chosen, not mutated at random.”

“
Yeah but that's
because we were Changed by the gods of Light, not those Chaos
bastards,” the wizard said with a scowl. “All the other
Changes were brought about by the evil gods.”

He sipped some tea and
became thoughtful.

“
Maybe their name
says it all. They are chaotic, random. It's quite possible that
everything was altered haphazardly. If that is the case, I wonder if
these so-called gods are even rational. They might just be insane.”

Kronk shuddered and Simon
glanced at him curiously.

“
What is it?”

“
Nothing, master.
Just that the idea of beings that powerful being irrational is not a
pleasant one. Evil or not, I do hope that they are not crazy. At
least you can fight those who are sane. But gods who do things
randomly? How can you even plan a response to something like that?”

The wizard patted the
little guy's shoulder reassuringly.

“
We'll find a way,
Kronk. We will. After all, weak or not, the lords of Light are on our
side in this. And they, at least, should know how to counter their
dark cousins.”

“
Let us hope so,
master. Let us indeed hope so.”

Simon moved up to his
study after the bread had cooled and he'd wrapped it for later use.
He'd hidden the crystal ball again but had decided that as soon as
Aeris returned, he'd tell both of his friends about it and about
Esmiralla. This whole sneaking around thing did not sit well with
him.

In the meantime, he
grabbed a book on farming off of his shelf and began to read. Horses
he knew, somewhat, but cows? They were a different story. How on
earth Daniel had known which books to fill his shelf with was a
mystery, but he had and Simon was constantly amazed at the resources
he found when he had a need for them.

He flipped through the
book, fascinated to learn about bovine physiology. Four stomachs?
Really? Yikes.

Some time later, Simon
went back downstairs, made a cup of coffee, still thrilled that he
was able to do so, and went back up again. Kronk had gone out into
the rain and he had the tower to himself.

He sat down in his study,
sipped his coffee for a minute and then picked up his mirror. He
wasn't sure why he'd been putting off this task, but it was about
time he contacted his friend Daniel.

“
Magic Mirror,”
he said simply and watched the reflective surface fog over. He kept
his friend's face fixed firmly in his mind and waited as patiently as
he could.

The mirror cleared
reluctantly and Simon found himself looking at a bright, sunlit
glade. The grass was sprinkled with wildflowers of many colors and
they twinkled with dew in the morning sun. It was an idyllic scene
and he couldn't help but smile.

A lone figure was sitting
in the shade of a huge old tree, resting against the trunk and idly
reading a leather-bound book. It was Daniel.

Simon watched his oldest
friend with great affection. Prematurely aged when he had traveled
from the elven realm to Earth, Daniel's thick white hair hung to his
shoulders and his wrinkled face gave him an aura of wisdom. He looked
content and healthier than Simon remembered and he was encouraged by
the sight.

The figure in the mirror
was wearing an ornate, cream-colored robe covered in fine stitching
and looked a lot more like a wizard than Simon thought he himself
ever would. It suited him very well.

The wizard twitched the
mirror and it zoomed in closer on his friend.

Daniel frowned and looked
up, examining the glade with his hawk-like gaze.