New Title 1 (9 page)

So that took the holes out, but I could still look at the area around the holes.

The dirt directly around the mouth of the hole was far darker than anything I’d dug through previously at this site. It was richer and had a different feel. I was screening the dirt for any tidbits when I happened upon a small, black, shiny object.

I dusted it off and held it up. It was clearly a broken shard of something, but I couldn’t tell what. I set it aside and dug through another section of dirt. Yup, one more piece was in this batch. This one had more detail. It was clearly part of a carved item but still unidentifiable. It looked like an ancient piece of black glass. Obsidian. I put that piece along with the other one in my pouch and continued on.

Two hours later, I had a growing pile of shattered obsidian, a sore back, and no clue what the artifact had been. At least I knew whoever Qianru’s partner was had gotten the obsidian part right. I really thought it best not to tell her that whatever she was looking for may have been shattered when her chimeras, and whatever those flying fanged nasties had been, came out though.

Maybe if I spread the shards out on the table they would make sense. Of course the fact that none of the pieces were longer than a few inches and about as wide as a charcoal pencil didn’t help. Whatever this thing had been, it had been right in the middle of the trajectory of the chimera or whatever had burst out of that hole.

By the time the sun was heading down I’d gone through all of the lemonade and had collected assorted bits of black obsidian from all of the green-flagged holes. The first hole still had the most of them, but they were all about the same size and the same level of destruction. The polished and carved ends seemed slightly porous. Clearly, I wasn’t going to figure them out today.

But it was Friday and I had as close to a date tonight as I’d had in months. I gathered my belongings and nodded to the evening watcher and guard on the way out. I briefly told him I’d seen some dangerous flying creatures out in the ruins, but he just lifted an eyebrow and nodded. I’d tried, and I knew ignoring Qianru and telling guards further in town would be met with the same reaction. With a deep breath, I managed to push aside the thoughts of rampaging chimeras and whatever else had come out of the dig site.

I thought I briefly heard a bunch of faeries as I passed a clump of abandoned barns on the edge of town, but the noise vanished before I could pin it down. Besides, I had no idea why faeries would be somewhere without booze. And as long as they weren’t destroying anything, I didn’t care what they did.

I’d even managed to forget about Harlan watching my house. Until I got home.

At first I didn’t even think it was my home and was about to walk past when I recognized my neighbor’s house.

Harlan wasn’t really a spell user; he could do some small tricks, but nothing big. Nothing like what was done to the front of my house. At least I’d hoped it was just the front of the house.

He must have hired someone to cast the spell on it. It was now camouflaged to blend in with the buildings and land behind it. Which worked if you looked at it straight on, but had a weird effect if you moved a few feet beyond center.

I thought about just moving past and pretending it wasn’t my house. But I needed to get a bath and change, and besides, I’d promised Glorinal that I would try to bring the faeries.

The illusion varied slightly as I got closer and I could see a door, not my door, unless Harlan had painted it bright red, but a door. I went to grab the doorknob and it vanished.

“Harlan? What did you do?” The knob reappeared a few inches over where it should have been. Another grab, another vanish. “Harlan!”

“Ah, you are home.” His voice came bouncing out from the door, but nothing opened.

“I can’t get in, and I really hate what you’ve done.”

His chuckle was annoying and if I could get through the door I was going to tell him so. “But the door is open now, just step forward.”

I didn’t trust anyone who could do this to my house when all he was supposed to do was watch things and maybe call a locksmith out. I reached out to the door and swore as my hand went right through it. The rest of me quickly followed as there was nothing but illusion in front of me.

Chapter Ten

The inside of my house looked normal, except for all the lock rigging around the door. And a fancy long-armed gizmo that was reaching up to the faeries’ door which was now open on this side. It appeared to be a locking mechanism of some sort.

“What did you do? I just wanted you to watch the house, maybe get someone to fix my locks.”

“I read the note and you needed far more than a simple lock.”

That got my attention. “So you finally believe that Alric is back?” That would almost make the disaster of my house worthwhile.

Harlan twitched his whiskers, then nodded. “I will admit that I doubted your letter, at first.” He held up a paw. “Now you have to admit, it did seem suspicious and wishful thinking on your part. That explosion was massive and I hope he plans on explaining his survival. Once we get him back anyway.”

“So my letter convinced you?” Three months of trying to tell him about Alric and a letter makes him believe?

“To be honest, it was the smell. I admit I should have trusted what you said, but there was a stressed scent on the sofa—someone was under extreme duress and I could tell it was Alric.” He frowned and fingered the throw on the sofa. “Now granted a person’s scent can change, especially when under stress, but there was something very odd about his scent. Almost like he was Alric and not Alric at the same time.”

Great, more Alric issues I didn’t want to deal with. Someone either was or wasn’t, himself. But I didn’t have the two to three hours Harlan would take to discuss the vagaries of scent definition.

“That’s great, but I have a…meeting.” I didn’t want to say date around Harlan. That would be just as bad as telling him I wanted to know how Alric wasn’t himself—it would be hours before I’d get free from him. “I assume all of this mess means the house is locked? But we need to lock the faery door.” I’d track him down tomorrow and find out what all he had done. And get him to take all the spells off the front of the house.

“Ah, that is one of my improvements. The girls can come and go at will, but the native faeries can’t.” He tapped the odd thing attached to the faery door and waited for me to say I wanted to know how it worked. I did, but I was back to not wanting to hear the explanation right now.

I waved in agreement and started down the hall. “That’s fine. Thanks for watching things and all. I’ll contact you tomorrow….” I’d just passed what was marginally my guest room. It was really a dumping ground for everything I couldn’t find homes for in the rest of the house.

Or, rather, it
had been
.

All of my clutter had been shoved into a far corner, the bed and chair had been cleaned off and a small piece of luggage was open on the bed.

Harlan had started to follow me down the hall and stopped to peer in next to me. “I felt it would be better if I moved in here to keep an eye on things. I still have three weeks of vacation from my dig site. My patron is out of the country and prefers to not take a chance that I might find something when he’s not around to gloat.” He walked into the room and made himself quite at home in the chair. “I think its best, given the recent spate of break-ins, that your long-lost adopted cousin from Thracksburg comes to live with you and the girls for a while.”

I stood there for a few moments trying to take it in.

“I can’t do this right now, Harlan. Tomorrow. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” I started back to my room but ducked my head back into his new lair. “Where are the girls by the way?”

Harlan ruffled his chest fur, always a sign of contentment. “They said they had things to do, but would be off to the Shimmering Dewdrop later. They even asked for some coins. I think they may have decided to pay for their own drinks.”

I knew that was not ever going to happen, but I still had no idea why the girls needed money. I shook my head and went to draw my bath. It was easier than trying to sort it out.

***

It was a little after seven o’clock when I got there, but it was still very early for the Shimmering Dewdrop. The crowd was subdued, and while I did get a few folks smiling and nodding toward an empty seat at their table, I really didn’t cause a stir.

That was the funny thing about the pub. Weeknights folks started drinking right after work—providing they did work. It was a race to get as drunk as possible before they had to go home and face the next day. But Friday and Saturday nights were all about staying power. The heavy drinkers started later, and even the weekend-only drinkers usually didn’t come in until after nine o’clock.

I did a quick glance around but didn’t see Glorinal. A tightness built up in my throat. I wasn’t that late. He should have waited, right? Maybe he was late.

Foxy was at the bar engaged in a conversation with an off-duty member of the guard. Whatever they were talking about, Foxy wasn’t smiling, and his hand was holding his cleaning rag tight enough to rip it in two.

Playing it safe, but still wanting to know what was going on, I took a barstool a few feet over from Foxy and the guard. One of the half–giant barmaids, Lehua or Merliker, it was hard to tell them apart unless they were next to each other, brought me my ale. I took my obligatory long sip of Old Sod, sighed in satisfaction, and casually leaned back to study the bar and try to hear Foxy’s conversation.

Unfortunately, both of them were keeping their voices low. But with a little leaning in, I could finally pick things out.

“I’d be telling you, there’s no such man around here.” Foxy had finally put down his bar rag but it looked so mangled I’d doubted he could use it again.

“He’d be very noticeable. There could be a nice reward for whoever turned him in.” The emphasis on the word reward wasn’t very subtle.

“Look, if I’d seen this gent, a tall, white-haired, elven lord as you say, I’d tell you. But there’s scarce few of anyone carrying elven blood these days—and a pure-blooded elven high lord?” Foxy gave what he considered a laugh and others would call a low roar. “Ain’t been none of them in a thousand years. Now drink up and be gone.”

Foxy had appeared worried when I first walked in, but it was clear once he’d heard who the guard was actually looking for, and the insanity of it, his worry fled. Maybe that’s why Glorinal wasn’t here if he too thought the guard was looking for him.

But while he was extremely handsome and very definitely an elf, which was rare enough, there was no way he was an elven lord of myth. The elven lords were supposed to be the leaders of the elves before whatever caused the entire race to vanish. In a race of beautiful powerful magic users, they were the top: the most beautiful, and the most dangerous. Some academics speculated that the end of the elves came because of a battle within the ranks of the high lords and ladies that almost destroyed the world.

Personally, I’d never seen any signs of mass destruction at the elven level of any dig I’d worked, but I had seen some the brief time I was able to get down to an Ancient level. Perallan had been my patron then, and the room I’d found showed signs of serious destruction.

“But, master barkeep, if you were to find an elven man….”

“Did someone ask about an elf? That would be me.” Glorinal had come in without my noticing, caught up as I was in Foxy’s conversation. Those sharp pointed ears were extremely good at hearing as he clearly heard the guard’s words from the door.

He came up to the bar, not looking afraid or concerned. He did look a bit wan, and his eyes had fatigue lines around them that hadn’t been there this afternoon.

The guard spun at Glorinal’s words, but then shook his head. While clearly an elf, his hair wasn’t white-blond like the elven lord’s in the description and he didn’t have the thin facial tattoos that were supposed to mark their left cheeks. The hair could be covered with dye or a spell, but the marks would be much harder and take a lot of power to stay hidden. I’d seen how drained he’d been the other night hiding the dead troll—any glamour spell he’d had on would have dropped at that point.

The guard was visibly deflated but not ready to give up. “Do you dye your hair? We have ways to find out, you know.”

Glorinal looked down as the guardsman approached. “Why, you don’t like my hair color?” He looked up at me and winked.

“I could have you brought in, you know.”

“You appear to be off duty, and as such, per your own fine laws, could only bring me in if I violate a law, or lose a fight with you.” He spun back his cloak and showed the sword he carried. It wasn’t as fancy as the one Alric used to have, but he looked like he could use it. He also looked enough like a nobleman that it was doubtful anyone was going to stop him from carrying it.

The guard picked up on that as well.

“You’re not an elven lord. I’m looking for an elven lord.” He sniffed and spun back to Foxy. “If you see one, contact the guard immediately.” With that, he stormed out of the pub.

The patrons of the pub started laughing as soon as he hit the door. The idea of an elven lord was akin to finding gold in one’s back yard.

Glorinal came to my seat at the bar and gave a bow. “I do hope you weren’t waiting long. I had an issue to address that took longer than expected.”

I smiled in what was probably an extremely goofy manner. Finally, I shook my head. “No, I actually just got here a few minutes ago. I was waiting for Foxy to throw that guard out on his ear. I was afraid he was after you.”

Glorinal waved down one of the barmaids and a glass of ale appeared before him. “Me? An elven lord?” He laughed and shook his head. “Now those are myths. They were long gone by the time of the Breaking, and good riddance. When I was a child I only knew the very last ones. They were cruel, cold beings who didn’t even want to be around other elves.”

I filed that away for Covey. At some point I probably was going to introduce them, especially now that she wasn’t living in seclusion anymore. But right now I was still mad and hurt at what she’d done, so I took a slightly perverse joy in hearing things I knew she’d kill to know. Call it my little revenge.

“What was the Breaking? I assume that was when your people left?” Might as well gather some more mental ammo against Covey. Being able to talk to someone who had been around when the ruins I was going through were active and alive was something any digger would give their left end toe for. I needed to make sure none of the other diggers found out how old he was or I would never get any time with him.

“Ah, yes. That was a sad time.” He looked around and pointed to an isolated table and a pair of chairs. Or at least as isolated as it could get in here. “What say we retreat to that corner, and order some dinner? I’ve heard tell that the food here is amazing.”

“Agreed on the table.” We were walking over when three blurs flew up off the far end of the bar and arrowed in right at us. I braced for impact—even at their small size those faeries could hurt if they hit you at full speed—but didn’t need to have bothered. All three flew right to Glorinal and stopped politely in midair in front of him.

“Ah, the lovely wee ones! Good eve, ladies.” Unlike Alric, Glorinal could clearly tell what gender they were. Which actually was better than me. They all looked the same. But it made the girls very happy.

“This I tell you. See?” Garbage Blossom flew around Glorinal as if she alone was responsible for his existence and had brought him to her friends by herself.

Leaf Grub and Crusty Bucket swarmed Glorinal like he was a mountain of sweets bigger than me. They made soft little cooing sounds, and when he held out his hands, both sat right down like they were never going to leave.

As annoying as they were, I did feel a twinge of jealousy. For years, I’d had to deal with most folks not trusting or openly hating my faeries. I was their guardian of a sort. Now the entire city loved them and they were falling ass-over-wings for an elf. One I had to admit wasn’t hard to fall for.

After a few moments of the four of them whispering, purring, and generally annoying me, Glorinal looked up with a smile.

“They have told me how wonderful you have been to them and how lucky they are to live with you.” As he spoke, all three faeries rose in the air and drifted over to me. Like two nights ago, Garbage Blossom kissed my cheek and the other two followed suit.

“I…um…thanks.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I really liked the girls not causing trouble and actually acting like they liked me, but it was kind of disturbing, too. “How about that dinner? Do you want to join us?”

It must have been the way they were scrambling my brain by being sweet. That and maybe Glorinal had some odd pheromone.

What I’d wanted was a nice romantic dinner with a good-looking guy. Somehow I’d ended up doing dinner in the pub with my faeries.

But by the way their faces lit up—even Glorinal looked happy—that looked like what I was stuck with. Maybe next time I’d get to go on a real date.

Once we were seated, and tiny plates had been brought out for the faeries to eat on, Glorinal turned those amazing silver eyes on me. “So, tell me about your day? Working out in the ruins for hours must be very tiring, perhaps you need another ale?”

I looked down with a start and noticed my glass was empty.

Glorinal simply raised a hand and Lehua the barmaid zipped over—not an easy thing to do at her size—and refilled it.