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Chapter Nine

I flattened myself to the ground, or rather the force of the explosion did it for me, and three of the six houseboys tumbled over. Dirt rained over the clearing like a deranged anti-snow storm. Qianru was still standing, but I noticed that she dropped to a crouch position to balance herself on the bucking ground.

I’d expected yells to be coming from the rest of the ruins. It was early, but I knew that plenty of diggers were already here. And something like an explosion or five was never a good thing. There were deadly spells left by design or accident in some of the ruins—explosions meant danger to everyone here.

Yet no one was yelling or running over. Nothing seemed to be happening in those minutes but what was immediately around us. The shaking ground seemed to be slowing, but the smoke was increasing. Suddenly five black serpentine shapes burst out of the ground. They were about six feet long, with nasty looking hooks at the end of equally nasty looking translucent black wings. Their faces were long and narrow and full of tiny jagged teeth. I got a very good and terrifying look when the one closest to me paused in midair for a heart-stopping moment and stared at me.

Right when I was sure I was going to be eaten by the thing, it gave a screech that would wake the dead and flew off. The other four followed, and they all quickly vanished.

The silence that followed made my pounding heart sound all the more surreal.

None of the houseboys had moved. The ones who had fallen stayed that way. Although they didn’t look injured, they also didn’t look like they thought moving was a good idea.

Qianru was the first of all of us to shake it off. She stepped around the paralyzed houseboys and took a few steps toward the closest red-flagged hole, then very elegantly collapsed.

I scuttled out from under my table and walked over to my fallen patroness.

But Joie got there before me. He quickly removed a small vial of smelling salts from his vest pocket and waved them under her nose. Either the salts were standard for all houseboys, or fainting wasn’t uncommon for Qianru.

Her head jerked a bit then her eyes flew open. “That was interesting!”

Again, she and I really needed to agree to disagree on her concept of interesting.

“What were those things?” One thing I knew for sure, they didn’t look like any chimera drawing I’d ever seen. I also knew they looked very dangerous and not like something folks would want flying around. I was trying to ignore the fact that they came out of holes that had already been used. That five of those things were flying about was horrific—that there could be more of them wasn’t something I could process right now.

“I have no idea. Isn’t it wonderful? I have so much to report back to my partner.” She got up and started gathering her things and giving orders to her houseboys.

When no instructions appeared to be coming my way, I gave a cough. When she still didn’t mention me, I finally raised my voice.

“What about me? Do you want me to dig? Report this to the authorities?” I didn’t add, ‘Go home and hide under my bed’ but I thought it.

“You should start with the green flags first. Those were the ones we accurately predicted. The yellows were ones we didn’t think would give birth, but had a reference to, and you saw the reds. Those were holes that were completely unexpected.” She threw a nice hardened scowl at one of the offending holes.

“I am certain you will find great treasures today, but I need to go.” She glanced at the table and the food and drink. “Hmmm, I will leave you the food and lemonade, but do you also need one of the houseboys?”

That sounded fun, diving into scary holes dug by who-knows-what and being supervised by an adolescent houseboy. “No, I’m fine. Are you sure we shouldn’t tell the guard? Someone in government? The Antiquities Museum? Those creatures looked nasty.” And I was really hoping they had flown far away from Beccia at this point. I didn’t know about the others but I wasn’t going to sleep well tonight.

“We don’t want to do that. Think of all the people who will want to take a look.” She gave a shudder that dislodged one of the black feathers in her hat. It spoke volumes to the staying power of whoever dressed her that the hat hadn’t budged once during the entire morning’s events. “And we never tell those beasts at the Antiquities Museum anything about our digs.”

I figured she just didn’t want anyone knowing whatever had happened for some dire reason to be disclosed later. Although I did agree with her assessment of the Antiquities Museum. Since the battle they had become far more rigid on all regulations. But I still had a job. I was really hoping no more holes would explode, and on the plus side she wouldn’t be peering over my shoulder all day.

“Whatever you say. I’ll put away everything tonight when I’m done.” It was Friday, and while she could make me work the weekend—my contract agreed on a set number of those—she hadn’t done so yet. Had there actually been something of worth to find in this site, I’d stay the entire weekend on my own. But searching unnatural holes in the ground just didn’t seem right. Nor did it appeal to my archeologist training.

I could tell she was thinking about it this time though. But the moment passed and she gave me another one of her smiles—all teeth showing. “That will be fine. I don’t think we need to dig over the weekend. But do leave a report of any findings.”

Without another word to me or the houseboys, she marched out of the dig site. Joie gave me a brief nod, then led the houseboys out after her.

Once I was certain they were all gone, I sat back down in the remaining camp chair. I couldn’t connect this in any way to the vanishing, reappearing, and vanishing again of Alric. But it definitely wasn’t lost on me that my life got very complicated whenever he was involved.

A few deep breaths, and a sandwich and a half, and I felt as fortified as I was going to be.

I picked up the small equipment pouch I carried with me during any dig and advanced on the first green-flagged hole. I wasn’t sure what she expected, but there was no way I was just going to dive into one of those things. She’d hired a trained archeologist. She was getting one, and I’d be doing this on my terms.

First things first—examine the area around the hole. This one didn’t have any shattered artifacts around it, so that was hopeful. The hole was about two feet wide, and unlike my original assessment, it was almost more square than round. The sides were fairly clean which indicated whatever came out of it—I still wasn’t sure about the whole chimera issue—came out with great force and was at least as wide as the hole.

I pulled my notebook and pencil out of the pouch and jotted notes. I pretty much hadn’t needed to jot down anything since my second day on this dig.

I was going to have to use one of my treasured hoard of snap lights if I wanted to see anything inside the hole. A magic user, even a relatively minor one, would probably be able to spell a twig or rock, toss it in the hole, and see how far it went. Alas, as a full-fledged magic sink I didn’t have that option. I’d bought some magic-charged items with my first paycheck from Qianru, but so far hadn’t needed to use any.

I would have been excited to finally need to use one, but this wasn’t how I’d expected to do it. My visions of using them to find hidden rooms of rare artifacts vanished. With a sigh I pulled out a snap. They were small little glows that worked for a few hours at the most; they were tiny and tough and not too bright. I sometimes called them faery glows.

The thumb-sized wafer had just left my hand and I was peering into the hole when a hand grabbed my shoulder. Causing me, of course, to scream, flail about, and almost fall into the hole.

“Easy there. I have no problem rescuing lovely ladies, but I’m not fond of holes myself.” Glorinal’s voice was nice to hear, once the pounding in my temples quieted down.

I had been very much looking forward to trying to find him tonight. Especially since thanks to Harlan, I’d missed him at the pub last night. Preferably after I’d taken a nice hot bath and was dressed in something that would remind him I was a woman. My baggy digger shirt, vest, and worn leather pants tucked into battered boots weren’t going to be doing that any time soon.

Instead I looked like a street urchin who was probably green in the face from almost falling down the hole.

He pulled me up from the ground and backed a few steps away from the hole. He looked a bit better as we got away from it—he really didn’t like holes. Probably would be even more upset if he had a clue what had caused them. Or even worse, the ones with the red flags.

“Um, yeah. So what brings you out here?” I was such a witty conversationalist with him, it was amazing he even wanted to say two words to me. Although, with his looks, he probably was used to females of any species falling over themselves around him.

“I was passing by the ruins and heard some explosions. I’m very glad you weren’t hurt.” He led me to the table and poured some lemonade. I had a feeling I was going to get sick of that drink very soon.

How had he heard it, but yet no one else came running? For that matter, how had he gotten into the ruins? Only diggers and patrons were allowed.

“Ah, you are wondering how I got here?” His smile made me start to question my own name. “I work as a consultant sometimes with a patron not far from your site. As such, the watchers and the guards let me in.” He peered around me and frowned at the holes. “I know I’m not a digger myself, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of technique.”

I stared at him for a few seconds, then focused on his words. “Ah, it’s not a technique. It was an experiment that my patroness wanted to conduct. It got a little out of hand and she felt the need to retire to her home for the rest of the day.” I’d always found that lies work best when they are as close to the truth as possible. And it really sort of was what happened. Minus chimeras and killer flying snakes.

He looked around the site but didn’t seem impressed with my patroness’ experiment. “I will bow to the experts. I simply consult on scroll and metal work.”

I almost blurted out about Harlan’s sarcophagus pieces, but I caught myself in time. I was still mad at Harlan and Covey, and still had no idea what they were up to, but I wasn’t going to tell a virtual stranger—no matter how good looking—about Harlan’s find.

“That’s very interesting.” I realized that sounded bored, so I smiled and nodded. “No, really it is. But I need to get back to work. My patroness can be a hard task mistress if I don’t stay on track.” The last thing I wanted was to send him away, but I needed to work and I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in or around those damn holes. I didn’t dissemble well and he’d probably get the entire story out of me in a few minutes.

“May I call on you tonight?” He’d taken back my hand and was looking at me like I was actually someone special. Or gorgeous. Or both.

I gave an odd sounding whimper and nodded. I was about to tell him where to find me, when it dawned on me that I had no idea what was going on with Harlan or the door lock, and who knew when Alric would reappear. “Meet at the Shimmering Dewdrop? Say about seven?” That should give me enough time to get home, deal with Harlan and whatever he’d done to fix my door locks, clean up, and walk to the pub.

“That would be lovely, and I do think we should check to make sure your friend the barkeep and his lady are all right. Something came up and I was unable to go there last evening.”

I’d almost forgotten that it had only been two nights ago that that troll had attacked the bar. When I was around Glorinal I felt like I’d known him for years.

At my nod, he kissed a clean part of the back of my hand—luckily I hadn’t really started working yet—bowed, and left the dig site. I was just settling into a happy swoon when he came back.

“Could you also bring those lovely wards of yours? The faeries? It has been a blessed long time since I’ve been in the company of wee folks such as them.”

The last thing I wanted to do was spend a potentially romantic night with the three of them buzzing around. But it was hard to say no to a face like that. “Sure. As long as they’re home, I’ll bring them.”

“Until this evening then,” he said as he bowed and left the clearing. Again.

I sat there staring where he had gone for a few minutes before I recalled I was actually working. Damn. I had a long day ahead of me, but hopefully a nice evening at the end of it.

My plan had been to count how long it took the snap glow to hit the bottom of the hole to give me an idea of the depth. That fell apart when Glorinal appeared and I really didn’t want to waste another snap. But I could still make a rough judgment based on how small the light was now—it couldn’t be that deep after all.

Peering over the edge showed a very dark hole with a light the size of a speck at the far end. There was no way in hell I was going down there.

I pulled out another snap, I really hated wasting them, but I knew the only way Qianru was going to accept me not going down there would be to give her some numbers. I activated the spell and tossed it down, counting the entire way. At least thirty feet.

I noted it down in my little book and made a star by it to remind myself to play it up a lot. Diggers worked in layers, we slowly dug through levels. We didn’t blast thirty feet down. Not to mention any artifacts down there when the chimeras had come up would have been shattered.