The Dragons of Argent and Silver (Tales from the New Earth #6) (55 page)

“
What do you want of
him?”

Simon jerked upright in
his chair at the sound of that voice. He leaped to his feet, trying
to see past the two warriors.

“
Guys? Let him in,
please.”

“
You know this
person, Simon?” Malcolm asked over his shoulder.

Before the wizard could
answer, the two men were flung back and slammed against the side of
the table.

“
We have no time for
this,” the commanding voice rang out.

Both of the warriors
sprang up again and seemed prepared to do battle.

“
Stop guys, stop!”
Simon yelled at them.

He rushed forward, pushing
past the others.

“
Don't try to
interfere,” he said to the warriors. “You'll only get
hurt, or worse.”

“
I'll take my
chances,” Aiden said angrily.

Malcolm just growled, his
eyes fixed on the door.

“
Please don't.”

The wizard waited but the
unseen visitor seemed to be waiting for an invitation.

“
You can come in,”
Simon called out.

There was a collective
gasp as a figure filled the doorway and slowly entered the conference
room.

He was so tall that he had
to duck low to make it under the lintel and when he was actually
inside the room and stood up, his head almost brushed the ten foot
ceiling.

“
My God,” Anna
whispered fearfully. “Who is that?”

“
Folks, may I
introduce Argentium, the argent dragon.”

The man looked at each
person for a moment and then sketched a vague salute.

“
It is good to meet
you all. Unfortunately we have no time for pleasantries. Wizard, you
are needed on the battlements.”

“
For what?”
Simon asked him in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“
More importantly,
how did you get past our wards?” Tamara asked coldly.

Simon admired her courage,
considering how overwhelming the argent dragon's presence was.

“
Your wards impede
lesser beings,” Argentium told her in an equally cool tone. “I
am not such a one.”

“
What's going on?”
the wizard asked.

“
You and these
others are about to face something that you may not be prepared for.
I...”

He looked around at the
group and a fleeting look almost of pity crossed his perfect
features.

“
I did not expect
this. I did not foresee it. But it has happened and so I have come to
warn you. It is the least that I can do.”

“
Spell it out,
dragon,” someone said from the doorway. “What have you
done?”

Argentium looked over his
shoulder.

“
Mind your tone.
Good manners cost nothing.”

Someone else walked in and
around the massive armored figure. Her own armor flashed and
glittered in the candle light as she stood next to Simon and glared
up at the dragon.

“
Liliana!” the
wizard exclaimed with pleasure. “I was wondering where you
were.”

“
On patrol. I just
returned and followed our 'friend' here. Amazing how he just appeared
in the courtyard. Quite a talent you have there,” she added,
speaking to Argentium.

He nodded, looking vaguely
amused, but then turned back to Simon with a grave look in his eyes.

“
We have been
deceived, wizard,” he rumbled.

“
Deceived? What do
you mean, deceived?”

“
Misled, tricked,
misdirected, whichever term you choose to use. Those glyphs that
Esmiralla showed you were a distraction. Our foes wanted our
attention diverted away from what they were truly doing.”

“
Which was what?”
Liliana asked.

“
Raising dead
dragons.”

There were a few
exclamations from the others but Simon frowned at Argentium, puzzled.

“
But we already knew
that they were doing that, didn't we? I mean, my tower was attacked
by a dracolich. And you told me that the necromancers were killing
and raising the red dragons.”

Argentium made a
dismissive gesture.

“
I do not mean those
creatures. The necromancers have come together as a group. They have
used all of their powers to travel the world to find the sites of
your battles, wizard, and then combined their magic to perform
hideous rites.”

“
My battles? But
why...”

Something clicked in
Simon's mind and he stared at the argent dragon in horror.

“
Oh my God. They've
raised the primals?”

“
They did, but they
did not just raise them as mindless slaves. These black wizards and
their dark gods have infused the undead dragons with the spirits of
the fallen primals. They could not raise all of them, of course. But
they found enough mortal remains to revive two of the primal dragons:
Pyrathius and Crystallos.”

“
Crystallos? Who is
that?”

“
The primal white
dragon. “

Liliana exchanged a look
with Simon.

“
Oh damn,” she
whispered. “He was the most twisted of the lot of them.”

“
Was he ever. So
where are they now, Argentium?”

“
As I just said, you
are needed on the battlements. They are here.”

The walls of Nottinghill
Castle were crowded with defenders. At least they felt crowded to
Simon, who rarely saw more than two or three people together at a
time.

Now all of the able-bodied
residents manned the walls, except for a few care-givers who were
watching over the castle's dozen children.

Simon stood back and
watched as Malcolm and Aiden organized the defenders. He knew very
little about such things and left it to the experts. The magic-users;
himself, the mages, and Liliana, were grouped together on the
southern battlements, looking out into the darkness. So far there was
no sign of the attackers that Argentium had warned were about to
descend upon them.

“
Maybe he was
wrong,” Sebastian said as they all scanned the star-fulled
skies. “Can you see these monsters in the dark?”

“
Definitely,”
Simon told him. “The dark magic that infuses them burns with a
horrible, purple fire. Didn't you notice it when those undead wyverns
attacked the castle?”

The mage shook his head.
Simon could just see his eyes reflected in the torchlight.

“
I was too busy
trying to save our asses to care. But if that's the case, where are
they?”

“
No idea. I'd ask
Argentium but he naturally disappeared,” the wizard said with
some disgust. “Typical draconic arrogance.”

The torches that sputtered
and wavered in the wind atop the walls were planted at ten yard
intervals and marginally helped the defenders see each other. Simon
actually wondered if they did more harm that good, considering that
they made it harder for him to see beyond the battlements.

“
I thought you liked
him,” Liliana said quietly.

Her armor flickered and
blazed in the reflected torchlight and Simon could see her more
clearly than anyone else. She wasn't looking at him; like the others,
she was looking up into the night sky.

“
As much as I can
like any dragon, I suppose,” the wizard replied in a low voice.
“But I don't trust him. Not after what Esmiralla pulled on me.”

The paladin was the only
other person that Simon had told about the silver dragon's treachery;
he had thought that she deserved to know, considering her connection
with Esmiralla.

Liliana gave him a quick
look of understanding before she stared up and out again.

“
I know that trust
is hard to come by after such an act, my friend,” she murmured,
too low for the others to hear. “But I don't think that you
should paint Argentium with the same brush as the treacherous silver
dragon. I speak as a paladin now when I say that I sense only concern
and nobility in the argent dragon.”

Simon thought about that.
He had reason to trust Liliana's feelings. He knew the powers that
she wielded, none better. But still...

He leaned on his staff in
his left hand and unconsciously rubbed his stomach with his right,
thinking of his missing kidney.

“
Look!”
someone down the wall to his right shouted. “What's that?”

“
Where? What?”
a host of voices responded.

Everyone tried to look in
all directions simultaneously. Tamara's voice rose above the babble
and she pointed her glowing wand toward the southeast, where the sea
glimmered vaguely under the stars.

“
There!” she
shouted and everyone became silent and looked in that direction.

Far out over the wild
waves of the ocean, two specks of light, side by side, the one on the
right higher than the other, could just be seen approaching.

“
Can you make out
any details?” Keiko asked, her voice barely audible.

“
Not yet, but unless
I've just gone colorblind, they're purple.”

“
Damn it,”
Simon hissed.

He stepped back from the
group, unnoticed, and then hurriedly strode to the southwest corner
of the parapet. The area was empty of defenders; everyone had rushed
away to get a closer look at the potential threat.

“
Looking for me,
wizard?” a voice rumbled from the shadows.

Argentium appeared as if
he had materialized out of thin air. Maybe he had.

“
You read my mind,”
Simon told him dryly, looking up at his remote, perfect features.

“
Hardly. I
anticipated your need. You want to know how to defend against those
two primal dracoliches, do you not?”

“
If you wouldn't
mind, yes.”

“
Ah.”

The argent dragon looked
at the distant lights and Simon turned toward them as well.

“
Those two, they are
not the mindless undead that you have come to know,” Argentium
said thoughtfully. “Enough of their essence has been gathered
and infused into their bones to make them almost as aware as they
were when they were alive.”

“
How is that was
possible?” Simon asked him as he watched the approaching
lights.

“
To be frank, I do
not know. But we are speaking of divine interference here. The dark
gods have extended themselves to their utmost, exhausting their
powers over this world to make this evil miracle happen.”

“
But why? Why would
they? Aren't thousands of resurrected sailors enough of an army?”

Argentium glanced down at
the wizard with a sardonic look on his face.

“
Bah. Cannon fodder.
You alone could destroy those mindless automatons by the hundreds.
They are of little threat to even the mages that defend this castle.
No, they needed to bring back their most powerful servants to destroy
the one threat, the one power, that has thwarted their plans to
reenter this world time and time again. If they can wipe out that
threat, their victory is almost assured.”

“
What threat? Us,
the remnants of the human race?”

The dragon laughed, a deep
bass sound. But he did not sound amused.

“
No, not your
people, wizard. You.”

Simon gaped at him,
speechless.

“
Are you serious?”
he asked when he'd finally found his voice. “Me? I'm nothing. A
minor irritant at best.”

“
Can we cease with
this self-deceptive drivel, please?” Argentium asked, sounding
exasperated for the first time. “Why do you insist on
pretending that you are less than you are? Is it possible that you do
not yet understand the extent of your powers? Surely not.”

“
I...”

Simon had no answer. To
himself he'd always been Simon O'Toole, once a middle-aged I.T. guy,
now a Changed young wizard. But just a guy; normal, rather shy,
grateful for being given the opportunity of a second chance at life.
But a major power? A threat to gods? Him? No, not possible.

“
I cannot accept
that,” he whispered. “I won't. No one should be that
pivotal to the direction that this world will take. No one.”

“
Accept it or not,
as you see fit,” Argentium told him with a measure of sympathy.
“But those two primals are on their way here and now to destroy
you, not the others. And they will tear down this castle, wipe out
its inhabitants and obliterate anything and everything that stands in
their way to accomplish their ends.”

“
But you can stop
them, right?” Simon asked desperately. “They can't stand
up to you. They're flying skeletons, for God's sake!”

“
Perhaps. Perhaps I
could. But I am not allowed to intervene.”

The wizard stepped back to
get a better view of the argent dragon's face. The crowd behind him
was exclaiming in fear as the pair of undead primals got close enough
for people to see their massive wings flapping in the darkness. They
left a jagged trail of purple flames in their wake.