The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (6 page)

Harlan had been carefully transferring Garbage Blossom into a small fabric handkerchief, and looked up. “Ah, lass, you are worn through. Never fear, I’m sure the ladies have your home right as sunshine.” He beamed and handed me the sleeping faery. “I only marry the best.”

Carefully tucking Leaf and Crusty in with their companion, I placed the three into my shirt pocket.

Harlan was up the instant I finished my task. “If I may escort you?” He held up one arm.

I laughed and took it. It might be nice to lean on someone; I was feeling a bit ill-used as of late.

“Don’t worry, my dear.” He patted me on the head like I was a lost kitten. “You’ll be in and out of those ruins before anyone is the wiser.”

Chapter 7

Harlan was partially right. I made it to the fence without anyone noticing. But now I was stuck hiding behind a pile of plant debris, huge tree fronds, and clippings long forgotten and allowed to compost while a small army of guards took up the perimeter. And considering I was in-between their marching line and the spell-warded fence, I couldn’t even slink away to try another time. They must be switching shifts, because the amount of noise and confusion was amazing even by their standards. With a sigh, I settled into my leafy cover and pulled out a hard roll I’d grabbed from Foxy’s the night before.

I was just raising it to my mouth when a green head popped out of it. I managed to keep from screaming, but I did throw the damn roll as hard as I could at a distant tree.

As it was flying I realized I knew that tiny green face. Leaf must have fallen asleep in the roll. Even though all three had been stuffed into food comas last night, Leaf didn’t need to wake up to keep eating.

Damn, now I didn’t have any food. And I’d have to risk exposure to get the damn faery. Who knew what she’d do if she was left to her own devices. Actually I did know, that was the problem.

The roll tumbled into the knee-high clump of grass below the tree. The jungle swallowing the ruins was mostly made up of giant Gapen trees, giant monsters with roots the size of my thigh, like the one I’d thrown the roll at. They had a tendency to gather bits of everything in-between those roots, and while I didn’t think the rumors of them swallowing what fell in there were true, I’d rather not test that with Leaf Grub, even if I was pretty sure she’d survive it. After a quick glance to make sure none of the guards had seen the flying roll, I crouched down and made my way to the tree.

There wasn’t any movement from the grass, so perhaps Leaf had flown free. There were few things that could slow down a faery.

They were also not common in the kingdom of Lindor. When my trio of trouble had first joined me, I’d asked them where the rest of their people were. I got vague stories indicating they were out. Somewhere, just out. After a week or so of trying to get a straight answer I decided to leave off.

“Leaf,” I kept my voice low. Those damn faery ears could have probably heard me from my hiding place. I should have stayed put. “Damn it, Leaf, get up. This isn’t safe.”

I crept closer and picked up the roll. It looked clean and I was still hungry. Dusting it off I slipped it in my pocket.

And almost jumped ten feet in the air when a pair of tiny freezing faery hands grabbed my ear. “Looking what for?” Leaf chittered in my ear.

I kept from jumping, but grabbed Leaf hard. “Don’t do that! Damn it, I’ve told you not to scare me.”

“But—”

I covered the entire lower half of her face with my thumb. “No. I’m trying to get into the ruins and I can’t take a chance someone will see you. You need to stay in my pocket and be quiet.”

Her huge gold eyes looked wounded, but she nodded. I released my thumb.

“Don’t say a word. I’ve got to get through that fence. I can set off a nummer spell and fitz out that fence, but it’ll only last only a few seconds. I’ll have to wait for them to spread out and be distracted. So you’ll need to stay quiet, stay still, and do what I say.” I held her up to my face. “Got it?”

Her bright little green head bobbed up and down enthusiastically. Then she slipped through my fingers and took off like a shot over the guards’ heads. An instant later a series of small explosions indicated she’d found their spell locker.

Leaf was usually my favorite, but right now I wanted to kill that faery.

Then every single guard tore back toward the weapons locker. Not a single one waited behind thinking perhaps it was a trick.

Idiots.

Maybe I wouldn’t kill Leaf after all. I ran for the fence perimeter as I whipped out the spell packet. The nummer spell should cancel out this part of the fence long enough for me to fling myself over it.

A vague lavender scent drifted out as I ripped open the packet. One problem of being magic numb with no powers, having to rely on idiots who sold pre-packaged spells and thought scenting them was a nice touch.

Ignoring the flowery scent, I threw the packet at the fence, then scrambled up it myself. The guards were still yelling in the distance, so hopefully that meant they were all trying to contain the spells that Leaf had set off.

I was just climbing down the other side of the fence, when a suspicious tingle, and lack of lavender scent, told me the spell was finished. I flung myself off the fence and rolled as far away as I could. My hands were smoking a little, but all in all it went much better than I had expected.

And I wasn’t in custody or shot yet.

Taking advantage of my homicidal and disobedient faery’s continued hijinks, I ran into the jungle surrounding the ruins. I didn’t want to run straight into the area they’d first blocked off. There was too much of a chance of secondary guards, and my heart was pounding too loud for me to have heard them if they approached.

For the second time in less than an hour, I crouched behind a clump of green and sticky plants and waited to sort things out.

The area I’d worked for Perallan lay no more than ten minutes from the most heavily guarded portion of the fence. Talking to Harlan on the way back last night, I’d found out that that area was the first closed off. I’d ransacked my brain for anything I could have found leading up to Perallan’s death. But the weeks before had been lean, and he had stayed on site with me, taking anything I found practically before it was out of the ground. My memory clearly wasn’t going to give me any answers.

A shrill whistle of a faery with a war prize came into hearing followed by the faery herself landing in my hair. I grabbed her to keep her quiet as I listened for followers. The faeries were fast and hard to see, but there were so few of them in Beccia it wouldn’t be hard for anyone who saw her to know who she was. And who she lived with.

Satisfied that we were safe for the moment, I opened my hand. Leaf chattered something unintelligible and waved her prize: a small black feather. It was clearly taken from a guard’s ruff, the small feathered collar worn by the upper command. He might not notice it was gone, but Leaf would be crowing over it for weeks. I started to take it from her, when she frowned.

“Mine.”

“Leaf, I told you to stay quiet. You did well just now, but that wasn’t what I told you to do.”

“Good I did, I keep prize.” Her tiny jaw jutted out.

I didn’t have time for this. I had no idea how long it would be before the guards recovered enough to re-position themselves.

With a sigh I let go of the feather. “Fine, but put it away. It’s making you noisy.”

She cooed over the feather a few more moments, then using some magic only faeries seem to have, folded it into her tiny pocket. I’d long ago given up trying to figure out how that worked.

With Leaf and her prize secured, I made my way into the heaviest foliage and began circling around toward my former dig. The Gapen trees were more massive here, as if this was their home and they were only now branching out to the rest of the ruins. I remembered how still the air was as soon as I hit it again. It had taken me over a week to get over the closed in feeling of this dig site when Perallan first brought me here.

I hadn’t been there in over two months, and judging from the robust plant life, no one else had either. Diggers were usually sloppy about how they got to work, always making new trails. Clearly once I’d been forced out due to Perallan’s death, no one else had gotten a contract for the area.

I made good speed, even with taking a few side routes to keep me off the main trail. I froze when I heard voices ahead. Leaf stuck her head out of my pocket, her golden eyes looking more than willing to fly ahead and spy. I shook my head vehemently and pinched her back into my pocket.

Slowing my steps down to where hopefully no one would hear me, I crept up to the clearing ahead. Pausing every few steps to make sure if someone heard me they wouldn’t think someone was walking, I eventually made it. I crawled behind a large bush and waited. The ruins were only a few feet from my hiding hole, but the voices were at the far end of the clearing. I couldn’t see them, and didn’t want to take the risk of them seeing me. Listening would have to do for now.

My wait was rewarded.

“I tol’ you we can’t wait. Whatever it is that buyer wants, we can’t keep this closed up.” The unseen speaker’s voice graveled with the recognizable low twang from the far southern states. An older man by the sound.

“The reasons for my actions are not of your worry, nor are they negotiable.” Another male voice, but so soft I had to lean forward to hear him. “You have been instructed as to what you need to do. You and your people will do it.”

“Now see here, you can’t go blasting us around like peasants. My people and I have been—” His words ended in a strangle. A rattle and the sound of kicking feet followed, then silence.

“You there,” the clearly dangerous voice said, “your master is not able to continue the task. Are you skilled enough to proceed?”

My palms sweated at that voice, even though I wasn’t the one he was talking to.

“Yes sir,” a much younger but better educated voice said, “I can lead the workers. We will find your items.”

Boots crunching on gravel told me Mr.-High-and-Scary was moving toward his new victim. “What do you know of my items?”

Hopefully the educated man was smart enough to give the right answer. Sitting here listening to a slow series of murders wasn’t a safe hobby.

“Nothin’, sir.” The boy’s voice dropped into his southern roots. “I just know what we all know. You are lookin’ for symbols, we find them, we get away from them, and we tell you.”

The air felt even heavier in the silence, then the sound of a back being slapped broke the tension. “Wise man. Very well you know my…” He stopped in mid-sentence and took a step my direction. “What is…?”

I stopped breathing, willing my folded legs to have not gone numb in the last few minutes. Whoever he was, he killed far too well and too easily for me to let him find me.

He paused and I debated whether to run or stay still. The prey side of my family line screamed run, the smarter side said freeze.

“Never mind, I thought I heard something. Keep your teams on twenty-four hour searches, and move slowly. There will be traps and anything could be a clue.” A rustling sound followed. “I will be unavailable for a period of time. If you find anything, contact my people and they will get word to me. And get rid of this body far from here. We don’t want him connected to me, do we?”

“No sir.” The educated voice was quick, and just a bit panicked. “We will find it, sir.”

“See that you do.” How four words could sound that menacing I had no idea. There was no way anyone could pay me enough fame or fortune to be in that digger’s shoes. The scary man’s booted footsteps took him away from my site but I was in no mood to move yet.

It was a good thing I didn’t. A few minutes later, a huge, winged form flew overhead.

My gut tried to crawl out and flee. Whoever that scary cultured voice was he was either a syclarion, the shape changers who ruled most of the known world from unseen seats of extreme power far from here, or he had one working for him as a mount. I wasn’t sure which thought was more terrifying.

There was no place I wanted to be more at that instant than my home. Or even better, the Shimmering Dewdrop. Taking low deep breaths, I tried to calm myself. Why in the hell would anything here be big enough to bring the attention of a syclarion? I’d never even seen one. Beccia was a modest-sized town and didn’t attract the big fish. But I knew who they were, and I knew they were supposed to be the ones who protected the kingdom.

But unless dragons had suddenly popped out of the mythology books, become real, and their kids were flying around, there was nothing else that could have been as big as that shape that had flown over.

Swearing to myself, I tried to weigh my options. Things had gotten a hell of a lot worse in a tiny bit of time. I needed to re-evaluate spying for Harlan and trying to catch Alric. Neither action was worth getting killed.

Just as I was trying to sort out my thoughts, shouts came from behind me.

Damn it, the guards must have figured out someone got in when they were gone. Maybe I’d left a trail or triggered something I didn’t see. Whatever caused it, I had to get out of here now. The fact that the terrifying shape changer was gone didn’t calm me much. His new foreman could call him back.