The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (22 page)

BOOK: The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1)
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Chapter 26

 

 

My second day at work started much better than the first. I didn’t have to deal with any harridans from the Antiquities commission, and no one shot any arrows at me, black fletched or otherwise. The events of my little enforced meeting with a creature out of my nightmares the night before I chose to steadfastly ignore.

That syclarion was way too powerful for me to even add him to my list of troubles. He seemed to believe me that I had nothing to do with the attack on his men, and that was that. I was definitely not going to think about what his men had been doing in an open dig site, and just who was shooting at us.

The other event of last night had gotten me thinking however. Something was up in the faery world. I didn’t know if I’d luck out and get another wild faery visit, but I’d stolen a variety of sweets from the girls’ larder in the kitchen. They’d been gone by the time I woke up, so hopefully they’d stay out of trouble for the day.

Pockets loaded down with lumps of sugar, I trudged into the dig site. Thaddeus was nowhere to be seen, but the equipment was there. I wandered around to where he had set up his day tent, cookies and tea were laid out. A thin trail of steam wafted up from the tea pot. Wherever he went, he couldn’t be far.

Call it my paranoid mind, but based on the recent events, I didn’t want to yell out his name. If something bad was happening to him, it would be better if no one knew where I was.

I would inform the guards as I ran past the front entrance, but that was as far as my risk taking was going at this point.

The tiny self-protecting part of my mind yelled at me to just run. Leave now, then if he was fine I could apologize to him tomorrow.

The more rational part of my brain said he was fine, just maybe called away somewhere.

I picked up a cookie to nibble on while my brain decided which side it was on. The tea smelled heavenly so that followed, and yet one more cookie to fill in the edges.

I’d go find him.

I really wasn’t a coward, but too much had happened lately to not leave me a little paranoid.

Even a blind ogre could see the thin trails leading away from the back of the tent. Heel marks. Someone had been dragged.

The screaming to run away grew significantly louder in my head, but emboldened by my tea and cookies I forged on.

The trail led to a small clearing not more than a hundred yards from the dig site. A small mound lay off to the left covered in wild flowers.

I made a move toward the flowers, and they rose up as one and flew up in a blaze of color.

They weren’t flowers at all but at least a hundred wild faeries, all different colors. Thinking of my conversation with the girls, I looked for a gray one in the fleeing group, but I couldn’t find one.

They didn’t seem concerned about me, but at the same time they weren’t going to stick around. Most were long out of sight when I remembered the sweets in my pocket.

“Wait!” I fumbled with my pockets, finally shoving my hand up with whatever came out.

There were still three faeries in the clearing, and all three froze. They had been facing away from me, and I knew they didn’t understand my cry. The intense sense of smell my faeries had must be even more acute in their wild cousins. The bright steaks darted over my head, then whirled around me. No purple this time, but one was yellow, one red, and one a deep green.

The green one seemed to be the leader of the small group.

With a high-pitched cry, she dove into my hand and came back with two lumps of rock candy. The other two circled two more times before becoming brave enough to drop down and each took one.

“You, take him. He not well. Something wrong about him.” The words the green faery spoke trilled with extra letters, and I could only understand her after years of living with my three domesticated faeries. But I was surprised she spoke anything I understood at all.

She continued to watch me, then pointed at the lump they’d been sitting on. Finally I stopped staring at them long enough to follow her tiny arm.

Thaddeus was lying there on his side, bound, gagged, and unconscious.

By the time I looked back to the faeries, they were gone.

Shoving the rest of the candy into my pocket, I ran to him and carefully rolled him over. He was breathing. And there were no gaping holes or bloody wounds that I could see. A bruise was darkening on his right cheek, and his clothing was completely covered in grass, although that could have been from the hundred or so faeries that had been standing on him.

Had they attacked him?

A look at his wrists answered that. I had no doubt of faeries’ ability to take down things much larger than they, especially with that many of them. But I did have problems with the heavy rope intricately knotted that bound his wrists and was echoed on the one binding his ankles.

“Thaddeus? Are you ok?” I shook him gently, not sure what had been done to him. One brown eye squinted open before I got his gag completely out.

“I will be all right. Once I find those hooligans who did this and give them a thrashing! Dwarves of the mountain clan are not to be trussed up like game hogs.” He wiggled his hands for emphasis and I loosened them quickly.

“What happened?” I rocked back and sat down on the ground while he freed his legs.

“I was sitting there having my tea, not five minutes ago, when these two thugs approached. Being a proper dwarf, I offered them tea. To which I was rudely insulted. Without so much as a how are you today, they picked me up, dragged me back here, and began interrogating me!”

“Two thugs, eh?” A nasty little crawling feeling crept up my neck. “Any race I’d know?” I hadn’t meant to say that. But I also didn’t want to say syclarion in case one of them was within hearing.

“Yes, two of those vile syclarions. But these must have been the low backwoods cousins. They were far cruder than the examples of that race I used to see in the Capital.”

There was no way that there could be four of those guys running around. While I was trying to decide how much to tell Thaddeus, my face gave me away.

“What is it, child? Don’t tell me you ran afoul of the beasts as well?”

I know some people can read faces better than others, but I couldn’t believe my face had been that transparent.

“No, actually I haven’t. But I heard a lady mention something about them yesterday in the pub.” I gave my best clueless shrug and smile. “But they didn’t grab her, just scared her.”

Thaddeus looked ready to pursue it further. Was my face sending out secret codes or something? I didn’t want to talk to him, or anyone, about my encounter with those two syclarions. Mostly because of the one they obviously worked for. Even sitting in the sun, in an open meadow, a chill took over me if I thought of the vile and cultured voice.

“What is it, my child?” Thaddeus wasn’t going to let this go. I knew he meant well but it was for his own safety that I kept my previous night’s encounter to myself.

“Nothing. I just had a long night.” I quickly rose to my feet and held out my hand to help him up. “You don’t know what they were after? They must have said something.”

Thaddeus shook himself off and led the way back to camp. “Not at all. Well, they did ask about a gargoyle of some sort. Something about something hidden or stolen. Their accents were so heavy I couldn’t understand them at all.”

I had to fight to keep my face calm when I heard the word gargoyle. What was all of this about? Ancient scrolls? Impossible artifacts?

“It was a good thing you chased them off when you did.” He had continued talking while my mind went into panic mode. “Although I don’t see that you are carrying any weapons?”

Caught off guard, I even looked down at my own empty hands. My stun cuffs were in my back pocket, but they hardly counted as weapons. “I don’t have any. There was no one around you when I arrived. Well, except for about a hundred wild faeries.”

I found myself walking alone as he stopped in his tracks. “Faeries?” He pulled at his shirt that was covered in grass stains. “These are faery tracks? Wild faery tracks?”

“I guess so. They all flew off when I came into the clearing. But they were all over you when I first showed up.”

“The purple one?” His eyes glowed, giving off a golden rim to his brown irises that vanished an instant later.

“I’m not sure, they were in a giant swarm.” For some reason I didn’t want to tell him about the three I’d given the sweets to. Or that the green one actually spoke common. I didn’t have much in life that was just mine, but communicating with wild faeries was too special for me to share. Not right now anyway. “They left as soon as I arrived. But what were the syclarions after? And why did they tie you up if you were already unconscious?”

“Those, my child, are some good questions, which we may never find the answers to.” He settled down and poured some tea for both of us, handing me the cup I’d helped myself to earlier. Clearly we weren’t going to get to the dig until he had his proper tea time. “But for now, I need to relax and recover from my ordeal. Why don’t you tell me about your previous patrons? I’m sure you have many interesting stories.”

***

The rest of the day picked up once we had a nice hour break for tea. One problem with someone who didn’t worry about money, he also didn’t worry about wasting time. I was almost ready to tell him about everything, Alric, the syclarion, the scroll, Covey, anything, if he would just let us get to the dig.

Luckily for both my sanity and my secrets, he came around before that happened.

“It sounds as if this Perallan was a wise man. Very sad that he died so suddenly,” Thaddeus mused as he led the way down to the golden door of the day before. “Did he leave you any gifts? Any parting remembrances?”

There was an odd tone to his voice, but I was in worse mental shape than him after my encounter with the two gruesome brothers and they didn’t even hurt me. Of course it was the voice behind them that scared me. Still, Thaddeus was justified in having a bit of an edge.

“Not really. He gave me a castle for the girls, but it wasn’t from these ruins. He’d done some research and thought there might be another outpost in Airthain.” I kept my shudder from showing—with my luck Thaddeus was a fan of the place. Airthain was a predominantly dreg city, and they weren’t fun to be around in large numbers. Or even in small numbers for that matter.

“I can’t say I’ve even heard of any major finds there. Not that I would be interested even if they were. We dwarves have fine ears, and what dregs do to song is a jail-able offense in my home mountains.” He picked up a fine brush out of his kit and began working on removing debris from the doorway. “You don’t know what he was looking for there?”

I caught myself staring. I still was not used to a patron getting his hands dirty. I shook my head and went back to my own dusting. “I have no idea, to be honest. He didn’t tell me at the time and we only spent a few weeks there. The only find was a hundred-or-so-year-old farmhouse buried under debris and he let my faeries keep a doll castle as their own.”

“Interesting.” But his tone said he really didn’t think so.

I was fine to work in silence. While I didn’t mind talking with my patron, it felt like he was looking for something in our conversation.

The rest of the dig was exceedingly uneventful. But considering how eventful my life had been as of late, I was more than happy for dull. Thaddeus still wouldn’t let us into the chamber, although I was pretty sure I could fit in without disturbing anything.

That thought must have shown on my face because he carefully set a store-bought shielding spell over the entrance to the dig.

“Well, lass, yet another fruitful day. Tomorrow we may be ready to enter the chamber.” Thaddeus packed up the last of his dig tools and walked with me out.

We parted ways at the edge of the ruins, me heading further in to town, planning on hitting the Shimmering Dewdrop on the way home. Dirty or not, I needed a drink after last night.

 

Chapter 27

 

 

The Shimmering Dewdrop was really calling my name, and I was almost there, when a thought derailed my plans. Covey. As much as I wanted to pretend that my life was normal, and strange men weren’t kidnapping me at all times of the day, that wasn’t my life. Resolving what was causing my life to head down the crapper needed to take some precedence. Which meant heading over to Covey’s house on a night when I desperately just wanted to sidle up to the bar. I’d also been hoping that Marcos might be there this evening. I hadn’t seen him since whatever had happened the night I found the body.

Maybe he had decided I was associated with far too many dead bodies and left town. I also paused on my new direction away from the pub. A peek wouldn’t hurt. And if he was there, well then, that might still be getting some answers. Such as whether that amazing kiss I recalled came from him or Alric.

As cowardly and odd as Marcos was, I couldn’t help but hope that it was his lips I kept dreaming about. If it had been Alric I might just have to join a convent.

But spending time going into the pub wouldn’t help solve the mystery of my life, and Covey might.

So with a sigh, I departed toward Covey’s nice, plain neighborhood. She lived in such a quiet and respectable part of town I swear the houses themselves gave me dirty looks when I came by.

It wasn’t really that late, but I was still surprised to see that Covey’s house was thoroughly well lit. You pretty much could tell what room Covey was in at any time from the dim glow that she’d move from room to room.

But right now her house looked like it was lit up to welcome the Chosen ones.

More than a little disturbing, but I was here now, so I wasn’t going to waste the trip.

Knocking on the door got no answer.

I knocked again.

This time I heard laughing, but not close enough to the door to hear who it was. But what if it wasn’t good laughter? Had someone followed my connection to Covey and was laughing even as they tortured her? Paranoia was becoming my go-to response, but that didn’t make it any less potentially valid.

I tested the door. It was open. Damn. That meant I now had to decide if I was going to be brave and charge in to possibly save my best friend or if I was going to be smart and go find someone with weapons.

A low-level rumble bounced off the partially open door.

Swearing at myself, I pushed the door open completely and snuck inside. They weren’t in the front room, and not a single stitch of fabric was out of place. That was a good sign, however, I wouldn’t put it beyond Covey to force her attackers to wait while she straightened any imagined mess.

As reassuring as the lack of mess was, the fact that the door had been open and Covey still hadn’t responded to my entrance had me worried. The woman had ears like a blind mole during mating season.

I crept forward, hugging the wall as I approached the kitchen. The sounds were coming from there.

A loud cackle made me jump from my hiding place before I was ready, and I stumbled into the kitchen.

“How good of you to drop by, Taryn.” The tone in Covey’s voice made me do a triple take. First off, she didn’t really like people dropping by, even me. Secondly, she sounded positively giddy.

And she was laughing with a handsome man at her table. One I knew far too well. Alric.

“I believe you already know our friend, Alric. Come over and take a seat. We were just discussing some of the mysteries surrounding the elven scrolls.”

I slowly came in, but seriously debated just turning around and walking out. But there on the table were the two scrolls and a pile of notes next to them. One I recognized from Covey’s office, the other must have been the one Alric stole. What was going on? She was ready to kill him not three days ago, and now they were laughing and carrying on?
And
she was looking like a school girl with her first crush?

“It’s nice to see you again.”

I almost fell down again once I got a good look at Alric. Had she not stated that it was him, and had I not accidentally committed that profile to memory, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him. Bookish and bland, his features were still the same, but washed out. His clothing was conservative and he had a pair of spectacles perched in front of his green eyes. Even those looked different however. Instead of their bright green color accented with a dangerous glint, they seemed quite calm and hazel.

I didn’t trust him for a second.

First he works some sort of mojo on my faeries, winning them over in an unheard of manner, now my best friend? Once we got away from Covey, he and I were going to have a serious conversation. Actually, part of me wanted to avoid any conversation with him. I still had no idea who had been on my bed the other night. Or why they had been left there. As it was I’d washed the entire bedding and flipped the mattress a few times even though it appeared Alric must have done so when he took the body.

“What’s the matter?” Covey asked as she settled back down into her seat. “I thought you would be glad to see him.” Not only was she acting strange, she was losing her memory. She was the one who had pointed out that Alric was at the root of many of my problems. Maybe she hadn’t pointed it out, but she had vehemently agreed with my assessment.

“Why are you talking to him?” I kept my voice low and tried to talk out of the corner of my mouth. I doubted it would do any good, he had demonstrated disgustingly good hearing in the past.

“Why ever not? He’s not your enemy, are you?” She practically burbled as she rose again and went to pour me some tea.

Was she spelled? She’d said at one point that she didn’t think Alric was a magic user, but more than a few odd things had happened when he was around. His control over the faeries for one. But Covey was smart when it came to avoiding being spelled. Even though as I was magic numb I couldn’t feel them, I knew she would have wards up.

The light green glass of her wizard’s ball in the window winked happily in the glows. So, no spell.

“I have never thought of myself as Taryn’s enemy. I have only tried to help.” Even his voice was low and meek. He may not have used a spell, but he was very good at being what people wanted to see. He knew Covey well enough to know what type of person she would respond to.

And he’d done it so well I couldn’t get her away to explain things to her.

“Right.” I wanted to add more, but Covey practically shoved me into the chair at the table. Then she slid a cup of tea and little sandwiches in front of me.

“I’m glad you came by. We’re trying to put our minds together and transcribe the scrolls.” Covey settled down in her chair, but only after making sure she topped off Alric’s tea cup.

“Yeah, about that.” I blew on my tea quickly, then took a sip. “He did steal one, after all. Knocked you out, kidnapped me, stole the scroll—any of it sounding familiar?” If I had expected Alric to look guilty I’d be waiting until morning. He simply gave me a bland smile and pushed his fake glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“I explained that to Dr. Ghrelin when I came here. I’d been misled about the status of the scrolls, who had them, and why. I immediately came to offer the scroll and my services once I realized I had been duped.”

“I told you to call me Covey.” The last time there was a grin that big on her reptilian face she was getting ready to swallow something. Then again, she already had. I had no idea what Alric’s real agenda was, but I knew it wasn’t what he was telling her.

“Anyway, none of that matters. I think we’ve solved some of the words. This here means ‘storm’ then this one is ‘sleeping’, I think.”

I tuned her out for a moment and frantically searched my jacket pockets. Her words triggered the memory of that scrap I’d found in my bedroom. After holding off the girls from destroying it, again, I’d decided to keep it in my work jacket. Probably not the safest spot for an ancient bit of scroll, but the scraps were tougher than they appeared.

“I don’t think that’s ‘sleeping’.” I unfolded the long tear of paper that I’d found under my bed.

“Oh? Why?” Covey asked without looking up. Alric however was staring at the strip of paper in my hands.

“Because I found this. And while I can’t read it now, I was able to read a part of it briefly when I first touched it. It said the storm of death to destroy all, and something about pulling out of time. It also mentioned a glass gargoyle.” I had my suspicions that the mysterious cloaked man who broke into my home a few days ago asking about the gargoyle might be Alric. He was far more than he appeared, of that I was certain. I watched him closely when I spoke.

The calm bookish Alric of moments before vanished as he jumped to his feet to snatch the scrap out of my hand. Would have worked, except that I was half expecting him to do that and leapt back at the same instant causing him and me to crash backwards together.

Covey was not amused by the resulting pile of limbs on her kitchen floor.

“Damn it, get off of me!” I tried shoving Alric off of me while at the same time keeping a firm grasp of the scrap. Too many folks had messed up my life recently for him to run off with my first clue. Or at least the first clue I knew about and actually kept. Who knows what had been taken each time my place got ransacked.

“I need to verify the translation.” The tone in his voice was definitely back into his meek academic mode. The location of his hands however, was not.

“There’s nothing to translate
there
.” I adjusted my knee and pushed up. He quickly moved both hands and rolled free.

“If you two are finished rolling around.” Covey leaned forward to help me up. Which she did, however she also took the scrap. I thought about fighting back but the truth was one of them would get it from me, and I’d rather it was her.

After dusting ourselves off and sharing a few pointed glares, Alric and I both returned to the kitchen table. I carefully pulled my chair around so I was out of arm’s reach for him.

“I can’t make out much. This seems to be of an older era than the two I had.” She looked up and scowled at me. “Why ever did you tear it?”

“I didn’t tear it. I may not be as interested in non-translatable pages of gibberish as you two, but you know I would never damage an artifact.”

Covey poured another cup of tea and stared at the fragment some more. Alric was watching me more than the scrap, but I was trying to ignore him.

“But you said you were able to read it? How?”

I didn’t like the look in Alric’s eyes when he asked me that. Covey still had her head down over the scrap so she didn’t see the flash of green that peered out of his lowered lids.

The last thing I wanted to do was tell him anything.

“I don’t know. When I picked it up, the words just came to me in a flash. Then I couldn’t read it anymore. But I remember what I saw.” Damn it! I didn’t want to tell him anything and here I was spilling everything. As a magic sink, spells shouldn’t work on me. Unless they were horrifically powerful. Alric held my eyes, but I broke the glare to look to Covey’s ward ball. Still burbling happily to itself with no reaction to any spell.

Was Covey that far wrong? Could Alric be a magic user so powerful he could leave major ward spells undisturbed and get through to a magic-numb person? I shivered and moved my seat further from him.

Covey was still engrossed in the slip of scroll, so I shot Alric a quick glance.

And was totally unprepared for the look of utter confusion, with a smidge of fear that now filled his face. The look only lasted an instant, then he pushed back his glasses and resumed his meek appearance.

Now that was interesting. He was almost scared of me. Like that time in his hidden hovel in the ruins, only I didn’t attack him this time. I’d have to store that information. If I could find out what disturbed him, I might be able to use it to my advantage.

“It’s no use. I simply can’t translate any of it. Although if you are right about those words then that would change what we thought we had so far.” Covey shook herself and double blinked her eyes as if she’d just now realized how tired she was.

“How did it get so late?” She quickly snatched up both scrolls while I reclaimed my small piece. “I think you’ll understand why I’ll keep these for now, won’t you, Alric?” She patted his hand, but wasn’t as solicitous as she had been moments before.

“Well, I—”

BOOK: The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1)
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