The Amulet (20 page)

She gave him a puzzled look, but he’d already
let go of her chin and had turned to stand in front of Faen.

“Come,” he said to all three, “I need to
speak with you in private.” He gestured to a door to the side of
the room and walked ahead.

As they made to follow him, the room once
more erupted into a frenzied hubbub. The people here obviously
wanted some answers, and as yet, Faedra doubted that the king had
been able to give them any.

They followed the king through an elaborately
carved wooden door and into another vast room. The walls were lined
from floor to ceiling with bookshelves full of books, an immense
library by anyone’s standards. Faedra glanced at a few as they
followed the king to where he had seated himself behind an imposing
oversized desk in the center of the room.

“You have Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream?” she blurted in surprise, without giving a thought to the
company she was in. She had just not imagined that the fae king
would read Shakespeare. Especially the one about fairies, and
wondered what he thought of it. She blushed when she turned to see
Faen and Jocelyn looking at her incredulously, and decided it may
be wiser not to ask.

“Indeed, my child, I found it very,” the king
paused, “intriguing. Now, shall we get to the business at
hand?”

“Yes, of course,” Faedra blustered as she
walked over to join them. “Sorry.”

“No need, my dear. I understand that this is
all, shall we say, new to you. You just turned of age yesterday,
did you not?”

“Yes, Sir, I did.”

He rose and stepped around the desk until he
was standing in front of Faedra once more. She had to physically
stop herself from taking a step back when he suddenly brought his
hands up to her neck. Her eyes widened with concern and were met
with a warm smile, which made her relax a little. He untied the
scarf and let it hang open around her neck, uncovering the amulet
as his did so. She was surprised when he lifted it from her skin
and held it in the palm of his hand to examine it. He looked at it
with the warm expression you would give a dear friend who you
hadn’t seen for a while.

“Well, I have to tell you, my dear child. You
are the first Custodian since I passed the amulet to be hidden in
the World of Men, to find themselves in this predicament. There has
only been one other Custodian, in all that time, who has ever
entered the Land of Azran,” he stared deeply into her eyes for a
moment. She couldn’t quite read the emotion behind his gaze, then
he sighed, averted his eyes, and laid the amulet carefully back
against her skin. He turned and resumed his position behind his
desk.

“Sire,” Faen said as soon as the king was
seated, “do you have any idea who may have taken the book?”

The king shook his head. “Unfortunately, I do
not, Guardian, but the situation is more involved than just the
stolen book.” He hung his head and took a deep breath as if
fighting to keep his composure. “Is the same thing happening in the
World of Men as it is here?

“Yes, Sire, it is,” Faen replied.

Faedra and Jocelyn listened intently,
watching Faen’s every gesture and expression as the king
continued.

“My daughter, Vivianna, was visiting with
Elvelynn at the time of the attack. She was taken, along with the
Book of Anohs,” he explained.

“I am so very sorry, Your Majesty,” Faen
replied.

“There is more,” the king continued, looking
gravely over at Faedra, which caused goose bumps to appear on her
arms. “They have demanded I hand over the amulet in exchange for my
daughter’s safe return.” He handed Faen a piece of paper with some
writing on it that Faedra had never seen before.

“We cannot hand over the amulet, Sire. You
know the implications of that. It is not just nature that would
die.”

“I know that, Guardian. Do not concern
yourself, I have no intention of handing over the amulet or…” and
he stopped mid-sentence and glanced at Faedra.

The hairs on the back of Faedra’s neck
bristled. She knew exactly what he was about to say. If he had to
hand over the amulet, she would still be attached to it. She was
the only one who could use it, or she would have to be dead for
someone else to.

“You are the best I have, Guardian. I am
entrusting you with finding the book and bringing my daughter
safely back to me.”

“Yes, Sire, you have my word,” Faen assured
the king.

Faedra couldn’t stifle it anymore and another
loud yawn escaped. Three pairs of eyes all turned to look at her;
she could feel her cheeks burn. Here they were talking about the
impending doom of goodness knows how many realms, plus the kidnap
of a princess, and she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled through her
embarrassment.

“You are tired my child, tonight you will all
feast and rest. You will need your energy for the journey ahead.”
The king clapped his hands and two beautiful fairies appeared at
his side. “See to it that they all get plenty to eat and the best
rooms in the castle,” he commanded. They nodded their understanding
and flew to hover either side of the group of three.

Faedra looked at them, and although she
admired their staggering beauty and was entranced by the way their
wings beat rhythmically to keep them flying, she also realized how
quickly she had become accustomed to being surrounded by fae. It
dawned on her now that she hardly even noticed their wings anymore.
They were as much a natural part of them as their arms or legs
were.

“This way please.” One of the fairies said in
a lilting voice, and gestured towards a different door from the one
they had entered through, much to Faedra’s relief. She hadn’t much
liked the idea of having to walk back through the rabble that was
waiting for them in the great hall.

“Good luck,” the king said as they exited the
library room. “If anyone can find the book and return my daughter,
I know you will be the one to do it.”

Faen inclined his head in that gracious way
he always did when acknowledging someone, and continued out the
door.

CHAPTER TWELVE

They followed in silence behind the two
fairies that the king had assigned to them. For the second time
since they arrived, Faedra noticed that it was only her footsteps
that could be heard on the hard marble floor beneath them. She
looked over at Jocelyn and then to Faen to see if they were
hovering above the floor, but they weren’t. They were walking just
as she was, but they stepped so lightly their footfalls were
whisper quiet. It didn’t help that she was wearing her riding boots
that had fairly hard soles.

She started to feel embarrassed about the way
her footsteps reverberated off the walls of the grandly decorated
corridor they were walking down, and made a conscious effort to
soften her steps. It was not easy; she almost had to walk on
tiptoes. Try doing that when you need to keep up with others who
are moving with definite purpose in front of you.

They turned a corner and walked down another
corridor. Faedra could feel that Faen was deep in thought. She
wasn’t quite sure what would be going through Jocelyn’s mind,
though she had a pretty good idea her friend was wondering how
Elvelynn was doing. They carried on down the corridor until it came
to its conclusion at another big wooden door. One of the fairies
pointed at it and it opened up before they reached it. All three
followed the fairies through the door into a vast bustling
kitchen.

Yet again Faedra looked around in awe. The
kitchen was almost the same size as the great hall they had been in
earlier, although, the ceilings were not as tall. Down the center
of the room stood a long, solid oak table. Faedra guessed that it
stretched about thirty feet long by about three feet wide, and
along either side of it little people like Todmus were lined,
busily preparing food.

Some were rolling dough, some were chopping
vegetables. She saw one woman making a pie, and another peeling
potatoes. Each of them had a specific task and they were going
about it with studious enthusiasm. There must have been at least
thirty people working in perfect harmony, making the table its own
little industry. She scanned the rest of the room. From the ceiling
hung vast cast iron racks from which pots and pans of all shapes
and sizes hung. Down one wall of the kitchen were sinks and
draining boards. A hoard of workers were busily scrubbing pans,
drying them, and stacking them in neat piles.

On the opposite side of the room, the wall
hosted several huge fireplaces, easily big enough for her to stand
up in. A couple of the fireplaces had fires blazing in them with a
hog turning on a spit above the flames. A couple of little men
bustled about tending to the fires and keeping them hot enough to
cook the meat roasting above. Another of the fireplaces did not
have an open fire, but was home to an immense cast iron oven,
easily ten times the size of the old fashioned stoves she had seen
in history books back home.

No one had even given them a second look when
they entered. The workers were so engrossed in their chores, and
Faedra felt slightly relieved about that. She was feeling more and
more like a fish out of water as each moment passed, but the minute
she stepped foot into the vast kitchen a feeling of calm swept over
her. Even though the kitchen teemed with life and people were going
about their business with an energy that was almost palpable, there
was just something about being in a kitchen that brought everyone
to the same level.

The fairies motioned for them to follow down
to the end of the table. They spoke to a couple of the women
working there who looked up to acknowledge the three, nodded their
heads, and shuffled themselves, and the food they were preparing,
further down the table to make room at the end. Three chairs
appeared out of nowhere and the fairies gestured to Faen, Faedra
and Jocelyn to sit and make themselves comfortable. Faedra noticed
that Faen waited for her and Jocelyn to be seated before he sat
himself. Within a few moments, a couple of the little people walked
up and placed plates full of food on the table in front of
them.

“Thank you,” Faedra spoke to them as they
bustled around her, laying an empty plate, cutlery, and a goblet
before her. She was responded to with a warm smile and a gracious
head bob, just like the one Faen was famous for. They didn’t speak
but the fact that they gazed intently at the amulet hanging on show
around her neck, and then quickly averted their eyes, did not
escape her, but it did not make her feel as nervous any more. She
had accepted the fact that the amulet was now as much a part of
her, than she was of it.

She turned her attention to the plates of
food the dwarves had placed in front of them, and recognized a
rumbling deep from within her stomach. She was starving. There was
a plump, steaming hot chicken, surrounded by dishes of steaming,
brightly colored vegetables. A dwarf with a pitcher made his way
around to all three of them, filling their goblets to the brim. He
lingered next to Faedra, shooting a quick glance at the amulet
before scuttling off into the pantry again.

Faen gestured for Faedra and Jocelyn to help
themselves to the food first.

Ever the gentleman
, Faedra thought as
she gave him a warm smile and leaned in to pull a leg from the
chicken. Dark meat was definitely her favorite. She scooped some
vegetables onto her plate and tucked in.

“Do you have any idea where we go from here?”
Faedra asked Faen between mouthfuls.

“Tomorrow we journey into the pine forest to
summon Kernunnos,” he replied, after careful thought.

“How will Kernunnos be able to help,
Brother?” Jocelyn asked with interest.

“Um, would someone care to enlighten me as to
who Kernunnos is?” Faedra asked, slightly disgruntled. She only
started learning about this stuff yesterday, and although she
understood that she was at the bottom of an extremely steep
learning curve, it irked her how everyone talked as if she already
knew what they were talking about. Most of the time she felt
horribly in the dark, and she didn’t like that feeling at all.

“Kernunnos is Lord of the Woods,” Faen
stated, before turning back to Jocelyn to answer her question. “My
dear Jocelyn, I believe Kernunnos can help us because he is closer
to nature than any other entity in our realm. Because of what the
book controls, he may be able to sense its whereabouts through
nature here or in other realms. I am hoping he can point us in the
right direction. At the moment, it is the only hope I have to start
looking for the book.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Faedra. All
color drained from her face and she had trouble swallowing the food
in her mouth. Jocelyn noticed her sudden change of demeanor and her
look turned to one of concern. Faen noticed the unsettled glance
that Jocelyn was focusing across the table and turned to see what
had caused such a rapid change in her expression. Faedra’s face was
as white as snow as she looked blankly into space.

“Whatever is the matter, Faedra?” Jocelyn
asked.

Faedra brought her focus back and looked at
Faen. “Dad thinks I’ve gone riding. I’ve been gone all day, and now
it’s nighttime. He’ll be worried sick; he has no idea where I am.”
She spoke with fear and desperation in her voice. It was breaking
her heart to think of her dad panicking over her disappearance, and
there was no way to let him know she was safe, cell phones didn’t
work between realms.

“Do not worry, Ms. Faedra,” Faen responded
reassuringly, “your father will not know you are missing. The time
in Azran ticks differently than in the World of Men. We can spend
much more time here if needs be. You will still have only been gone
a few hours.”