Just after dark, hegathered the special items that he had prepared into a cloth bagand set off for the fountain. When he arrived it looked as if thewhole town had come to watch. Many had booked seats in theeating-houses around the periphery of the plaza, which wereoffering special meals and drinks and had set up lanterns aroundthe fountain to ensure their patrons got a good view.
Zephira was wearing herown leather armour, her shield bracers and a short sword in asheath at her side. She saw Aquitain arriving and ran over to him alittle worried.
‘I hope you know whatyou’re doing. If this doesn’t work we’ll be the laughing stock ofthe town for weeks.’
‘So do I,’ he said,looking at the crowd.
‘I expected a fewobservers, but not everyone. Here, take two of these boxes of fairysprinkles. They contain two powders separated by a small divider.To get them to work, you pull out the divider and shake thepackage. Then you tear off the lid and hurl the contents over thefountain. The fine powder will form a cloud of dust, which willstick to the elementals making them glow so that we can see them.Don’t do it until I give you the signal. Now, let’s mindlink sothat we can coordinate our actions, and then you keep watch overthe other side of the fountain.’
Through the mindlinkZephira asked how he was going to talk to them. He told her thatthe air elementals communicated with high-pitched whistles right onthe edge of normal hearing, while the water elementals used lowfrequency splashing sounds. The Logicon body shell had a built insound generator which was normally used for Logicon communications.He would use that together with his mind wizard ability to altersounds to create the elementals’ speech; in a similar way to theway he used it to generate newman speech. Hopefully they wouldunderstand him. He had already conducted a ritual to help him hearand understand them.
They waited untilmidnight and nothing happened. Many people got bored or drunk andleft for their homes. Suddenly the wind picked up all around thefountain and he could hear splashes in the water and spray blew allaround, but he couldn’t see the near invisible creatures. He usedhis power to see the glow of magic and could see vague deep purpleglowing, blob-like shapes swirling all around the fountain.
He gave Zephira thesignal and she threw her two packets into the air over thefountain. Simultaneously, Aquitain threw two packets over thefountain from his side. A huge cloud of sparkling dust appearedwhich blew all over the place. Both Zephira and Aquitain werecovered and glowed like giant glow-worms. However, six small airelementals about the size of eagles and just as fast were alsocovered, and glowed as they zipped and sped around the fountain,diving at rabbit sized glowing watery blobs blocking the entry tothe top of the fountain.
‘Air friends. Stop!Come! Listen!’ whistled Aquitain as loudly as he could. He did itabout three times before they took notice, and then they flew overto him and circled around him. The sight must have impressed thecrowd, for all the talking, laughing and joking had stopped. It wasdead silent. Perhaps the spectators thought the glowing airelementals were spirits or ghosts.
‘Why fight?’ heasked.
‘Who you?’ theywhistled back.
‘Wizard friendAquitain,’ he replied.
‘Want food, want food,want food,’ they all whistled.
‘Where food?’ hereplied.
‘In fountain,’ theychorused.
‘No understand,’ hesaid.
‘Want food. Infountain.’ they said it several times but Aquitain couldn’tunderstand. How could air elementals need food from a fountain?There was only water in the fountain. Suddenly one of the airelementals departed, flying unbelievably fast up into the sky. Theothers stopped talking and flew around him in lazy circles.
‘What’s happening?’asked Zephira through the mindlink. ‘I can see that you’ve gottheir attention. Are they aggressive?’
‘No, they’re hungry.They want food from the fountain and the water elementals aresitting in the holes at the top of the fountain where the watercomes out. I’m not sure what to do.’
‘Can you talk to thewater elementals?’
‘I’ll try,’ he said,and tried speaking to them in splashing water sounds, but theyeither couldn’t understand him or just plain ignored him.
Suddenly the airstarted to blow like a gale. Zephira could hardly stand up andcrouched beside the fountain, grabbing hold of the pool edge forsupport. Water sprayed out like heavy rain in all directions andAquitain sat down to keep from being blown over. The watching crowdscattered to find cover, and the lanterns extinguished.
‘What do you want,wizard?’ demanded a much deeper gusty, whistling voice in theDraconic language. He looked up and saw hovering over him a hugeblurry creature the size of a house. He was quite surprised. Not atthe size of the creature, but that it had used the Draconiclanguage. This was the ancient language of power attributed to thedragons that was used universally by wizards to manipulate magic.It was also used in the written form to create scrolls, andextensively during the manufacture of magic items. Aquitain hadstudied it for years and knew it well.
‘I am Aquitain, awizard artificer newly employed here. I wish only to help. Youryoung ones want food from the fountain. I don’t know how to give itto them,’ he said.
‘I am Whooshoo, Makerof Storms,’ said the elder air elemental.
‘It is a long timesince I have spoken to a wizard. We have taken food from the cavernbelow the fountain for centuries. The old pathways we have used arenow all blocked. The young ones are hungry and want to go downthrough the fountain to the cave below, but are stopped by ourwater cousins. Remove them if you wish to help.’
‘Perhaps we couldreopen the old ways?’ suggested Aquitain, thinking that might beeasier than trying to clean small water elementals out of theplumbing.
‘That would be anacceptable solution,’ said Whooshoo.
‘Can you tell me wherethe old way is, and I’ll go there and see if
