by JA Andrews
Alaric reached for some more berries and forced his face to stay neutral even though his mind spun.
The stone lies beneath the oak tree.
How exactly had the dimwitted wizard discovered that piece of information?
Chapter Eight
“You told him what?” Douglon hurled a stick into the fire that evening and glared from Brandson to Alaric.
Alaric toyed with the idea of using augmenta again to bring Brandson more firmly onto his side. But with everyone this close, it would influence everyone. Gustav and Douglon would become angrier. It probably wouldn’t affect an elf, but it wouldn’t stop Ayda from watching him with that odd look, either.
“You told him all that without him influencing you in any way?” she asked Brandson, eyeing Alaric.
“Of course,” Brandson said. “I told him because I trust him.”
“I’m honored that Brandson entrusted me with your secret,” Alaric said, stepping back from her. “And to prove my goodwill, I will help you find your treasure.”
“We don’t need help,” Douglon said. “Or anyone else to split it with.”
“What help could you offer?” Brandson asked, talking over Douglon.
Alaric was tempted for a moment to tell them he was a Keeper. For Brandson and Gustav, that would put him in a position of authority. But it wouldn’t convince Douglon. All Douglon would see was that he was still a human, and dwarves were unimpressed with humans. Mostly, though, he was reluctant to claim the title.
“I have found a decent amount of treasure myself,” Alaric said instead. “And I have a good sense of an object’s worth.”
“We can figure out how much it’s worth,” the dwarf said.
“Probably,” agreed Alaric, “but I do bring one more thing. A buyer.”
Brandson looked curious, but Douglon scowled.
“If the gem is as large as you think it is, the queen would be interested in it. I’d imagine she would pay you generously for it.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. “If this stone is even a quarter as grand as you say it is, I will talk to Saren about buying it.” The Keepers would pay any price for a Wellstone. And Saren would help.
The group exchanged wary glances.
“And Saren will just do as you say?” Gustav asked.
“Queen Saren,” Alaric corrected, berating himself for being so careless, “likes gemstones. She buys them at a generous price from miners. I’m sure she would do the same for yours.”
Douglon and Gustav were watching Alaric with distrust. This wasn’t going all that well.
“If you decide you don’t want to sell it, the queen will have to be satisfied with that, of course,” Alaric said. “But a gem doesn’t split four ways. A pile of gold does.”
“That’s a good point,” Ayda said. She sat a little off to the side, thoroughly entertained by the discussion.
“If you tell your queen about it, she’s likely to take it from us by force,” Douglon said.
Alaric let out a laugh. “You don’t know much about Queen Saren, do you?”
“Queen Saren is known for her fairness and generosity,” Brandson said. “She wouldn’t take it by force.”
“That doesn’t mean a lot coming from you.” Douglon shot a glare at Brandson and gestured toward Alaric. “You trust people a little too easily, don’t you think?”
Brandson scowled.
“It seems to me that you’ve benefitted from that trust a bit,” Ayda pointed out to the dwarf.
Douglon included her in his general glare, then turned to Gustav. “Is it true what they say about the queen?”
“You could probably convince her to pay you more than it’s worth,” Gustav said. “She’s never been particularly strong.”
Alaric bristled, but clamped his mouth shut.
“How generous would she be?” Douglon asked, his expression calculating.
“Very generous,” Alaric said. “I’ve seen her pay almost twice what a gem was worth if she thought it was beautiful.” Not to mention powerful and magical.
Douglon stroked his beard absently.
Brandson cleared his throat. “I vote to let Alaric join us.”
“Me, too!” Ayda burst out, as though she’d been waiting for the chance.
Alaric didn’t meet her eyes. It would be nice to keep his wits clear right now.
He looked at Gustav and was surprised to be greeted by a shrewd look. When Alaric met his eyes, though, the old man’s gaze faltered and dropped to the fire. “Fine with me,” he muttered.
Douglon stood and approached Alaric. The dwarf extended his hand. “Your word that the treasure is ours unless we agree to sell it?”
Alaric didn’t need to own the Wellstone, just get his hands on it for a few minutes. He stood and shook the dwarf’s hand.
Hours later, the talk of treasure dwindled and all parties settled down to sleep. Alaric leaned against a tree at the edge of the firelight, surrounded by the lingering warmth of the day. The only sounds were the chirps of the forest bugs and the crackle of the fire.
It was odd that he had run into this group. More than odd. To find people searching for Kordan’s buried treasure? It was impossible to think that was coincidence. If it was something else, though, Alaric didn’t have any idea what it was.
“Are you going to try to influence me?” Ayda’s voice slipped out of the darkness next to Alaric’s ear, causing him to start.
“Of course not,” he answered. It wasn’t worth pretending he hadn’t used augmenta on Brandson. Ayda probably knew he had. “You seem to be an expert at influencing people. Even for an elf.”
Ayda laughed, stepping out of the darkness and settling herself beside him on the grass.
“Influencing is such a vague idea, isn’t it? It comes in all different forms. Am I still influencing people if they just like me?” She cocked her head to the side, looking at Alaric. “But I don’t know that I could affect you, at least not without some actual effort. That is unusual, you know.”
Alaric snorted. “You don’t actually believe that.”
He couldn’t quite pull his eyes away from her. There was something fascinating about Ayda. Something shimmery around the edges, something warm radiating out, something troubling tucked in the background. Elves had a sort of intensity about them that humans and dwarves lacked, but Alaric had never met one whose intensity was so… visible. So glittery.
“Why are you such a challenge, I wonder?” She rose up and walked to the fire.
He focused on the skin of her arm, trying to catch what sparkled.
She knelt and stretched her hand straight into the fire. Alaric gasped and started forward, but she pulled her hand back out, pinching off one small flickering flame between her unharmed fingers. There was no kindling or fuel, just a single flame. She gazed at it with a pleased expression while Alaric stared at her open-mouthed. Lifting it close to her mouth, she blew on it. Starting from the bottom, the flame grew still and hardened, forming a smooth crystal.
She walked back to Alaric, pulling up a piece of long grass on her way. Stretching it between her fingers, she set the end of it against the side of the crystal and pushed. The blade of grass pierced it, leaving the orange flame dangling like a gem on a chain.
“There you are,” she said. She knelt down next to him and tied the necklace around his neck.
Alaric sat, too stunned to move.
“You are better suited to fire than leaves,” she added, motioning to Douglon who still wore his chain of oak leaf stems.
Alaric reached up to touch the necklace. It felt like a piece of glass slightly warmed from the sun. The gem was the exact likeness of the flame.
It would have taken Alaric weeks to theorize a way to do that, and even then, he probably would have only ended up with burnt fingers. Elves’ magic was elemental, but this was different. They talked to trees and helped flowers grow, but he had never heard of an elf manipulating fire like that. Fire couldn’t be changed to stone. The two things were too dif
ferent. What she had done should be impossible.
He raised his eyes to hers warily. She showed no sign of pain. It was as though she paid no price for the magic.
“Why are you such a challenge?” she repeated. Even though her smile remained pleasant, her gaze pierced into his mind.
He tried to wrench his gaze away, but he was pinned.
He couldn’t even blink.
She stepped into his thoughts and began to look around. He shoved against her presence, but it was like shoving a mountain. Disregarding him completely, she stood still in his mind and peered around as though she were in an interesting room.
Alaric focused his entire mind on her face, filling his consciousness with her eyes and smile, dragging all of his thoughts and emotions together. He felt his other thoughts strangled out by this single image.
After a moment, she blinked and was once again merely sitting in front of him, looking at him with eyes that were the soul of innocence.
“That was more interesting than I expected,” she said.
Alaric stared at her, his mind staggering, furious.
“I saw the woman in the crystal box.”
Alaric grabbed the pouch at his neck, the image of Evangeline lying still beneath the crystal flooding his mind.
“She’s the answer, you know.”
“What?” His mind was grasping about, trying to understand what had just happened.
“The answer to why you’re such a challenge. What is her name? Evangeline?”
Alaric’s gut clenched.
“A man who loves a woman that fiercely isn’t easily influenced by another.” She smirked at him. “Even by an expert influencer like me.”
Again, Alaric tensed.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her eyes still bright. “I’ll keep your secret. Interesting, though. Very interesting. I’m glad to meet you… Keeper.”
Alaric darted glances at the others, but they were asleep.
Ayda looked at him questioningly. “Do all Keepers have minds as distracted and fuzzy as yours?”
Alaric stared at her, incredulous. “What is wrong with you?”
She let out a peal of laughter. “I feel fuzzy sometimes, too. It’s so hard to keep our minds to ourselves, isn’t it? Evangeline looks kind. I like her.”
She faded into the darkness, leaving Alaric breathing fast, his fist clenched around the ruby at his neck.
Chapter Nine
Alaric sat up for a long time, his eyes and ears straining for any sign of Ayda. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this vulnerable.
Even though they knew how, Keepers did not invade each other’s minds and few others had the ability to do so. Alaric hadn’t practiced protecting his mind since eight years ago when Mallon had spread terror across Queensland, stepping into men’s minds and ripping out their wills. It was clearly time to brush up on that skill again.
Regardless, it shouldn’t have been hard to push Ayda out. He knew his Keeper skills were rusty, but this was more than that. Entering someone else’s mind wasn’t like walking into a library and opening a book. Each mind was a layered labyrinth, the darkest secrets hidden so deeply they were impossible to find. The only thing evident when entering another’s mind was what they were most focused on. But Ayda had stepped in and seen Alaric’s most protected thoughts with ease. And despite his efforts, he was certain she had left only because she wanted to.
And he still couldn’t completely shake the haziness she caused in his mind.
The stars had traveled a good distance across the sky before the vulnerable feeling faded and he could assess the situation he was in.
He had found a group looking for the exact same gem he was. Even though they didn’t know who Alaric was or that the gem was a Wellstone, it was still too much of a coincidence to ignore.
Far from being troubling, the thought was invigorating. It had been a long time since he had anything to focus on besides looking for the antidote. And here, right in the direction he needed to go, sat the tantalizing prickle of a new, unsolved mystery.
Besides, this group, whoever they were, had a map—an actual map—to where Kordan had buried his Wellstone. They could be a group of Mallon’s personal Shade Seekers whose entire purpose was to lure Alaric to his death, and he would still go along with them.
It was almost fun.
“We should be home by dinner,” Brandson told Alaric after several hours of walking the next morning. Alaric led Beast alongside Brandson’s cart like he had the day before. The smith called ahead, “With any luck, Douglon, by tomorrow night, I’ll have that axe head finished for you.”
The dwarf turned and waited for them to catch up.
“Brandson is pretty handy in the smithy,” Douglon said to Alaric. “He makes blades that look dwarfish, and they’re strong, but they’re also light.”
“When he says ‘light’ he doesn’t really mean light,” Brandson said. “I’d have a hard time swinging it. But it is lighter than the axe he carries now.”
Douglon rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “It’s light. And the blade holds an edge. My cousin will finally be jealous of my axe.”
“Are you usually jealous of his?” Alaric asked.
“Hardly,” Douglon said, “but he thinks everyone is. You should see him strutting around with that purple-shafted axe on his hip.”
“Purple?”
“Exactly. Patlon is a good warrior and has proved it often enough, but he drives us all crazy with his stupid axe. He insisted on wearing it in the presence of the High Dwarf so he would be able to describe it to the royal blacksmith when he wants a replica.” Douglon threw his arms into the air. “It’s purple!”
“Why?”
“Some rubbish about it being blessed by an elf maiden with purple hair. There’s no way Patlon has ever seen an elf. Even if he had, who wants the blessings of an elf for their weapon? It would probably just make the axe giggle.” He cast an annoyed look at Ayda. “Or refuse to cut down trees.”
Alaric laughed. “Is Patlon a close cousin?” Dwarf families were vast and complex, with every relative outside immediate family, no matter how distant, called cousins.
“As close as they come. He’s my uncle’s son. We’ve been like brothers since birth.” He paused. “Or we used to be.”
Alaric let a moment pass. He considered using augmenta on the dwarf, but these people were growing on him. He’d rather have Douglon actually trust him. “Did your break with him happen to involve a treasure map?”
Douglon stiffened. “How’d you know?”
Alaric shrugged. “You have a treasure map, but no cousin-like-a-brother here searching with you.”
Douglon studied Alaric for a long moment. “If you’re going to tag along with us, I suppose you should hear the story. It has some interesting parts, anyway, you might want to include it in your notes.
“Patlon and I were digging in the Scale Mountains looking for a diamond deposit that he had heard of when we found a strange piece of wall. It didn’t enclose anything, just leaned up against the base of a cliff.”
Alaric looked at the dwarf in surprise. That sounded an awful lot like the Wall at the Stronghold. But Douglon was talking about a place in the Scale Mountains, two days’ ride to the west.
“There had been a rockslide on the mountain behind the wall, and part of the slope had collapsed, exposing a tunnel. It wasn’t dwarf-made. It was too straight and smooth.” He shook his head in disapproval. “Didn’t take into account the natural flow of the mountain. Looked like something a human would dig. Anyway, the tunnel started at the wall—even though the wall had no door in it—and continued straight under the mountain.” Here Douglon paused to gauge Alaric’s response to this fact.
Douglon was describing a wall and tunnel exactly like that of the Stronghold.
“This sounds like a story worth writing down,” Alaric said. “Do you mind?” At Douglon’s nod, Alaric pulled out his book and a coal pencil. He quickly took do
wn what the dwarf had already said.
“The tunnel led straight ahead several hundred feet under the mountain,” Douglon continued, warming up to his story and his audience, “until it came out into a valley we hadn’t seen before. It was just an oversized crack in the mountains, really, left behind when the slopes beside it were thrust up. But it was inaccessible except from this tunnel.
“In the valley were the beginnings of a tower. A circle of iron-laced sandstone. It rose about twenty feet before it stopped, as though the builder had been interrupted. Only one room on the ground floor had been completed. A dusty bedroom.” Douglon leaned closer. “It had belonged to a wizard.”
Alaric’s mind was racing. Douglon had found a Wall, a tunnel, and a valley complete with the beginnings of a new Stronghold? In the Scale Mountains? More questions than he could voice swirled in his head.
“A wizard?” he asked finally.
Douglon nodded. “It was full of wizardy things. There were shelves of scrolls and pouches and boxes. The scrolls were written in runes we couldn’t read. But the pouches and boxes, every one held some marvel. The boxes held things like a spinning top that bounced off the sides, a pile of ancient gold coins, three dried mushrooms that hummed. One pouch held bright blue beetles the smelled of rosemary, all dead. Another was filled with pure silver sand.”
Douglon’s voice grew quieter. “All these things were fascinating, but we found the real treasure on a shelf near the bed. Next to a book, written in runes we couldn’t read, lay this.” Reaching into his cloak, Douglon pulled out a worn roll of leather.
Alaric unrolled it, reading a short, scrawled paragraph.
It feels wrong to bury something of such value. Perhaps I should give the stone to them, but I can’t bear to look at it. The memories haunt me. I will bury it in a place of honor and leave it behind. I pray this map remains useless, and I am never in need of finding it again.
The handwriting was the same as the scroll at the Stronghold. The page had been written by Kordan.
