Free The Dragons of Bone and Dust (Tales from the New Earth Book 7) by J. J. Thompson Page B

it
then. Either they can't or won't come back. And if they don't want to
return, can I really blame them for that? It was a crazy, scary life
that we led; dragons, undead, monsters, even a frigging god.”
    He snorted as he stroked Mortis de
Draconis absently.
    “ Not a big
god, mind you. But a god is a god. Who the hell would even want to
expose themselves to that kind of insane danger again? I mean besides
me. And you, of course.”
    He gave the staff a final pat, pushed
himself to his feet and picked it up.
    “ Well, at
least I still have you,” he said to it. “And a big point
in your favor is that you don't argue. Aeris never seemed able to
break that habit.”
    “ I've always
told you that he insulted me behind my back. See? You've never
believed me.”
    “ That wasn't
an insult. It's true. You have a bad habit of bickering and it gets
annoying after a while.”
    “ I do not!”
    Simon spun around, looking for the
source of the voices behind him.
    Kronk was standing beside the open
trap door to the roof. Next to him, floating a few inches off of the
ground, was the semi-translucent figure of Aeris. Both of them were
grinning at him.
    “ You,
you...”
    “ You're
stuttering, oh great and powerful wizard,” Aeris told him with
a shake of his head. “Sign of possible mental issues, you know.
You'll have to watch that.”
    “ Be quiet,
Aeris,” Kronk growled, his bass voice at odds with his small
stature. “Master is the most stable human that I have ever
known. We surprised him, that is all.”
    Simon sat down again with a thunk.
His staff rolled out of his hand as he stared at the elementals.
    “ You came
back,” he finally managed to say in a strained voice. “You
really came back.”
    Kronk pattered across the roof until
he was standing to Simon's right. He smiled warmly at him, his dark,
rocky face glowing with delight.
    “ Of course
we came back, master. How could we not? I swore to follow you when
you first set me free and made me a friend, not a slave. And we
earthen never break a vow.”
    “ And we airy
ones, as Kronk likes to call us, keep our word as well,” Aeris
added as he floated over to hover next to Kronk. “Besides, as
I've told you many times, my dear wizard, the air realm becomes
extremely boring and tedious over time.”
    Simon spent a silent moment just
enjoying his friends' presence. He'd been sure that they wouldn't
come back; that they were sick of him and of their turbulent lives
here on Earth.
    “ But here
you are,” he said out loud.
    “ Um, yes.
Here we are.”
    Aeris peered at him quizzically.
    “ Are you
certain that you are all right? You seem a trifle...disjointed.”
    Simon reached down and patted Kronk's
shoulder silently. The little guy's smile widened even further and
his fiery red eyes gleamed.
    “ Disjointed?”
the wizard replied as he pushed himself to his feet again. “Yeah,
you could say that. It's been a bit of a crazy time, the last day or
so.”
    Kronk easily picked up the staff and
handed it up to him. His strength was always surprising, given his
size.
    “ Thanks,
Kronk. Listen guys, I'm so grateful that you decided to come back to
me.”
    He looked at the descending sun.
    “ But we only
have a couple of hours of daylight left and the tower is barely
habitable. Could you give me a hand to start repairing some of the
damage?”
    Both of the elementals looked
surprised and looked around the roof.
    “ How long
have we been gone, master?” Kronk asked with a frown as he
skittered over to the parapet and hopped up to its top. “It is
hard to judge time passing in my realm.”
    “ Mine too,”
Aeris agreed and rose up a dozen feet. He spun in a slow circle.
“Looks the same from here.”
    “ Three
years, guys,” Simon told them heavily. “It's been three
years. At least that's what Ethmira told me. Like your realms, the
elven world's time stream runs differently than that of Earth's. It
only felt like a few months to me.”
    “ The front
gate has