The Scofflaw Magician (The Artifactor Book 3) (15 page)

Just what was
in that water?!

In an automatic
motion, she reached for her tool belt, intending to do a quick study. But of
course she hadn’t brought any of that in here with her. Swearing, Sevana
promised herself she’d come back tonight and do a proper study. She was
duplicating this, no matter what.

“Sevana?” Aran
queried, voice dry. “You realize you’ve been in there for almost a half hour?”

Stone the crows.
No, she hadn’t. To cover that up, she responded, “I’m only partially dressed,
do not come in. And what’s in this water?”

“A variety of
things, I imagine. Why? Do you feel better?”

“Better is a
very weak word.”

“If you ask,
they’ll tell you.”

What?! Since
when did the Fae share any secrets? Sevana jerked her shirt over her head,
leaving her hair dripping wet over one shoulder, and grabbed her dirty clothes
in a rough bundle. She wasted no time getting to the entrance so that she could
demand of Aran face to face, “What?”

He regarded her
levelly, his head canted ever so slightly to the side as if he couldn’t
understand her surprise. “You know this.”

“I know nothing
of the sort,” she denied, near to spluttering. “The Fae have never shared any
secrets with me until this week. It wasn’t until three days ago that I learned
I had my own name among you!”

“Truly?”
Rocking back on his heels, he considered that. “Perhaps Aranhil was waiting for
the right moment to tell you.”

“The right
moment passed and he didn’t. Veassen told me. But that’s beside the point. Can
I truly ask questions now and get answers?”

“As long as
they are harmless things, like the water. Our truest secrets must remain with
the Keepers.”

The way he said
that word gave it a special significance. Sevana’s ears perked at it. “There
are specific people that keep secrets?”

“The masters of
that craft, yes. No one soul knows everything, but each knows how specific
things are made. It is safer this way.” His tone suggested she should already
know this. “Are not humans the same?”

Sevana snorted.
“Humans are more ambitious and greedy by nature. It’s a lack of talent,
education, and position that keeps us from knowing everything. But believe me,
if given the option of knowing or not knowing, I’d choose to know.”

“Is that
right.” He leaned down slightly to put their heads at the same level, eyes
boring into hers. His gaze was so penetrating that it felt like he saw through
everything, reading her secrets as easily as if she had said them aloud. It
made her flush and instinctively take a half-step back. He did not let her
retreat far as he challenged, “And yet you have not pressed to know exactly how
the ink is made. Instead, you only ask for the knowledge that you absolutely
must have to do the task you have been given.”

Swallowing
hard, she forced her voice to remain level, her feet to stay where they were. “That’s
a separate matter.” Sevana hadn’t even been given the information she’d requested,
after all. But he was right; even knowing that she now had the right to ask,
she wasn’t sure if it was wise to do so. One word from the Book of Truth held
unbelievable power. What would happen if she made a whole bottle of the ink?
She wasn’t completely immune to theft, try as she might to safeguard her
stores, and having that much power just lying about in her (un)organized
storerooms seemed the height of folly.

“Is that
right,” he repeated, this time indulging.

Uncomfortable
for some reason, she cleared her throat. “Are we being called for?”

“Just now the
message came through that they were ready for us.”

“Give me a
moment.” Turning sideways, she slipped past him and headed for her room. It
took a few minutes to put her clothes away, pull boots back on, and pin her
hair up. But with that done, she needed nothing more than her bag of tools.
Grabbing it, she stepped back out and found that Aran was already waiting on
her.

He straightened
at her entrance, his gaze unnaturally focused on the door. “Ready?”

The moment
before had not quite left yet. She still felt like he had the ability to see
right through her even with his head facing the opposite direction. Sevana
kicked that thought out only for her mind to notice something else entirely. Now
that she was paying attention, his hair was also wet, fresh clothes on. Had he
bathed somewhere else? He must have. Sevana grumbled mentally and jerked her
mind back on task again. Really, what was wrong with her today? “I’m ready.”

“Then let us
go.”

“Aran.”

“Yes, Sevana.”

“You should
have warned me about the lizards.”

“They are
komodo dragons.”

“They are
lizards that are the size of a horse and are poisonous. Poisonous lizards that
are eyeing me like I would make a good after-dinner snack. And you should have
warned me.”

Aran was very
careful not to smile but she knew he was laughing internally at her. “They are
nice lizards. They won’t bite.”

She eyed the two
komodo dragons with distinct distrust. They really were huge, not perhaps as
big as a horse, but still quite large. They were a color close to granite grey,
reptilian eyes focused on her with unswerving attention. If not for the two Fae
that were standing right next to her, she would have pulled out a wand and
frozen them on the spot. Alas, her hosts would likely be displeased with her
for doing so.

Forus was the
guardian of the storerooms, or something equivalent to it, and it had been he
that Alyan had taken them to. He was much older than any of the Fae she had
met, his pale skin and hair looking more translucent than real, giving him the
air of a breathing ghost. Still, he was the first to greet her with a perfectly
human handshake, which put her somewhat at ease with him.

“The komodo
dragons are the second line of defense to our storerooms,” Forus informed her
in his thin, wispy voice. “The first of course being the forest itself.”

Sevana would
have thought that an exaggeration if not for the fact that she had seen the
forest act as a barrier with her own eyes.

“How easy is it
to get past them?” she asked Forus, keeping a weather eye on the lizards as she
spoke.

“It is not.”

That was
probably Fae-speak for ‘impossible.’ Right.

Forus turned to
the komodo dragons and said something in a hissing string of sounds. At least,
she assumed he was speaking to them, as they reacted as if they understood
exactly what he said. They turned as one, putting their backs to the group, and
split up to go around different sides of the building.

For once, it
was an actual building, made of layers of stone. It was so perfectly laid that
she couldn’t find a trace of mortar anywhere, the chinks fitting neatly
together. It was not of a stone that she recognized, and Sevana assumed it to
be a native rock of this region. All around the top of the flat roof was a
canal of water, which let out over the doorway in a small waterfall that was
caught and carried around another canal that went around the base of the building.
It looked as if they had taken advantage of a natural brook, or would have, if
it didn’t wrap around perfectly.

“The water, I
take it, is another defense?”

“Running water
is powerful, a connecting force, and we use it to power the shield that is in
place here.” Forus gave her a discerning study. “You know this.”

“Running water
is something I use often in my spells and devices,” she admitted frankly.

“Then elements
of nature are used in human magic?”

“Often. They
are the most powerful after all.”

Forus didn’t
respond but she could see him mentally tuck that information away.

“You haven’t
seen any signs that someone disturbed this place?” she asked, already pulling
out her lens to do a quick study.

“We have not.
It was not until Aranhil spoke to us that we even thought to check our stores.
It was…alarming to see a vial of ink missing.”

Alarming was a
mild way of stating it, or so she gathered. Lifting the lens to her eye, she
studied the building from top to bottom and back again. The information that
scrawled across the glass was interesting, to say the least. Sevana let out a
low whistle. “Powerful shield you have here.”

“How powerful,
in human terms?” Aran asked her.

“A fourteen,”
she answered, not lowering her lens. “In human terms, we call these
anti-spells, because anything higher than a twelve breaks the laws of magic and
becomes something else entirely. If this were made by humans, I’d be
frantically trying to find a way to either contain it or break it, as it would
be highly volatile. But this is so well balanced, it’s obviously not going to
do anything but what it’s intended to do.”

“Can a human
get past this shield, then?” Forus sounded worried about this possibility.

“Theoretically,
yes.” She lowered the lens to shake her head. “But gentlemen, I wouldn’t fret
about it. It would take a powerful magician with the skills of an Artifactor to
do so, and even then, he’d need weeks to sit here and try different approaches
before succeeding. Which your lizards would not allow. No, he didn’t do this in
the traditional way. I see no traces of magic around this place, either.”

Aran frowned
thoughtfully. “Would they still be here?”

“We’re talking
about a spell that would be powerful enough to dismantle something that’s on an
anti-spell rating. Oh yes. Traces would remain for several months afterwards.
And it would be quite the fireworks when he set it off, too. The theft would
have been noticed if he used human magic to breach this shield.”

“That is an
excellent point,” Forus allowed. “So what now?”

“Now, you lower
that shield so I can take a look inside.” Sevana hefted her box lens in her
hand, ideas starting to whirl in her mind. “Forus, can I examine how you do
this?”

“You may watch,
yes.” His tone indicated she wouldn’t be able to see much.

Sevana would
take as much as she could get. Lifting the lens to her eye, she watched as
carefully as she could as Forus began to lower the shield. He didn’t do a
single thing on a physical level, it was more like he opened his internal core
so that the shield recognized who approached. Seeing even that brief glimpse
inside of a Fae shocked her system as intensely as being hit by a meteorite.
Sevana hissed in a breath, rocking back on her heels, reeling from the mental
blow.

A warm hand
settled at the small of her back, keeping her upright. “I think,” Aran noted
carefully, “that she is able to see far more than we gave her credit for.”

Sevana ignored
him and dropped down to her heels, frantically digging out a journal from her
bag and a pencil. Ignoring both men, she wrote at lightning speed, recording
everything that she could remember about that split second. It was sadly only
three paragraphs but it was still three paragraphs more than any human had ever
been able to figure out about the Fae.

“Sevana…” Aran
said in a warning tone.

“This will not
be shown to anyone other than me and my master,” she swore, sticking the pencil
in the pages and closing the journal. “But you must understand, everything I
learn here is vital to unraveling this mystery. I dare not ignore anything.” And
Master would kill her if she didn’t pass this along.

Forus’s brows
were drawn together in a tight frown. “This human magician could not duplicate
our magic.”

“We don’t know
what he did,” she corrected, getting back to her feet. “We know he didn’t use
human magic. That’s all we know. Did he transform himself into something that
the shield wouldn’t recognize as a danger?”

Forus shook his
head before she could trot the full question out. “The shield bars all from
entering, animals and elements alike.”

Well that was a
good thing to know. “Then the only other option we have is that he somehow
found a way to mimic a Fae’s core energy. He did something to convince the
shield that he was one of you, and should be allowed to pass.” Seeing the twin
looks of disbelief on their faces, she growled, “Like it or not, that’s the
only option we have left. As impossible as it seems, that’s what he did. Also,
for the record? I’ve seen this man do something impossible
three other times
so it would be very unwise to underestimate him. He’s crafty. Evil, but
crafty.”

Forus really
didn’t like this idea, and Aran was close to swearing, but they didn’t argue
with her which must have meant they understood that she was at least partially
correct. Without another word, Forus focused on the shield again, and the water
stopped in its tracks. The waterfall ceased so that they could enter without
getting sopping wet, which Sevana appreciated.

They stepped
inside, her head turning about so she could get a good look at the place. For a
place of magic, it was sadly like every other storeroom in existence. There
were rows upon rows of shelves, items of different sorts stacked neatly on
them, sometimes labeled, sometimes not. Sevana was dying to open a few boxes
and bottles and take a look at things, but she had an idea she’d be kicked out
immediately if she tried it, so she quelled the impulse. Forus led them to the
back wall before stepping to one side, indicating an empty spot.

There were
twelve identical vials that looked like small perfume bottles, dark and
delicate. Or she should say, there used to be twelve, but there was an empty
spot in the front. There was no dust on these shelves, so it was impossible to
say how much time had elapsed. “When was the last time that someone did an inventory
of this place?”

“Six months
ago, in human terms.”

“So it could
have been missing for six months and no one would have noticed?”

Forus pursed
his lips together. “No, I think not. I fetched something here four months ago
and I would have noticed a vial missing at that time.”

“Four months,”
she repeated thoughtfully, staring at that empty spot. “Yes, I think that’s
about the right time frame. It would take about four months for him to make all
the preparations and act on it.” Taking her lens back out of her pocket, she
studied the whole area for a long moment. “Ahhh, he wasn’t as careful here. I’m
seeing a trace of his magical core.”

“This is good?”
Aran sounded hopeful.

“It’s strange,
is what it is.” Sevana lowered the lens, staring blindly ahead as she pulled up
several memories. “It’s him, I know it’s him, but it’s not at the same time.”

Aran and Forus
exchanged confused glances before Aran admitted, “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure
if I do,” Sevana grumbled sourly. “He definitely changed his magical core
somehow. My hypothesis earlier is now validated. The reading is different than
it was before. But part of it is identical.”

“Changing the
core, is that difficult?”

“No, it’s
deadly. Impossible. You either kill yourself or you burn out your magical core
trying. Until this moment, I would have sworn that no human alive had managed
it.” Sevana lifted the lens to her eye again, taking another long look at the
scene. But the numbers and information didn’t change. “This is vexing. How did
he
do
this?”

“Perhaps you
are mistaken?” Aran offered.

Sevana shook
her head in firm denial. “I am a prodigy in my field, Aran. Believe me, if this
was possible, I’d know about it. This man, whoever he is, has found a way to
bend the rules of nature enough to change his very core. He’s either insane or
stupid. Possibly both.”

“What now?”
Forus asked. He sounded and looked disturbed, as if this whole situation was
giving him nightmares.

“Now, I set
this problem aside.” Seeing their frustration, she shrugged, smile twisting in
a not unsympathetic way. “Gentlemen, as much as we would all like to know how
he got in here, it’s not the main point right now. The fact is he
did
get in, took something that no human should have their hands on, and did
unimaginable damage with it. We can figure out how he did it later, at our
leisure. Right now, I know what I need to—it’s him. Now you need to give me the
rest of the information that I’m missing. How is the ink made? I don’t need the
exact process, but I do need the elements and their individual power levels.”

Forus squared
off with her, mouth in a flat line. “After you know this and reverse what has
been done?”

She heard the
unspoken part of that question and answered, “I will come straight back here
and figure out how he got in. Believe me, I don’t want this situation to happen
in the future. It’s giving me chills to think someone can duplicate this,
somehow. I want to plug this hole in your defenses as much as you do.”

That satisfied
him although there was still a twitch in one eye that suggested he wouldn’t
sleep well in the next few nights. “Then I will tell you how the ink is made.”