Mackil, still watching the glow and unseen by any except us, drifted along behind. He definitely appeared to be fading.
“That was good of you to warn him to stay away from them both. But what are we going to do? If Mackil was the one with the way out of here, and our Mackil is fading, how will we get out?”
“We’ll figure out something.” He paused as we approached the hole in the wall, held out his empty hand toward the shattered edges, and closed his eyes briefly. The tilt of his head was almost as if he were listening to something.
“Damn it, I was hoping I could get some residue, but I can’t. We know who did it, but aside from being an ass, why do it? This isn’t just a hole, he created something.”
I was a second behind him as he stepped through the other side. I screamed as he vanished before my eyes.
15
A whirling gray circle had swallowed Alric. My heart was pounding so hard I knew everyone heard it. I glanced back, but while a few people in the pub looked my way, no one even came over. Not at the vortex, not at my scream. What I should do was go back and get Covey, Padraig, Lorcan—heck, even Flarinen. Someone to help.
But I couldn’t leave Alric trapped wherever this led. I waved to Mackil who had managed not to follow the glow after Alric. “This is urgent; I’ll pay you your weight in gold if you go back to the stable and tell them where we are.” I had no gold, but he didn’t weigh anything. I was hoping there was enough of the original greedy Mackil to get him motivated enough to focus on the task.
He tilted his head, then smiled. “Agreed.” With that, he vanished.
It might be my eyes, but the whirling circle appeared to be shrinking. I couldn’t take a chance it closed before the others got here. I held onto my scabbard and jumped into the swirling mass.
Intense cold tore through my body and I heard a lot of faery swearing. I’d forgotten Leaf and Crusty were in my pocket; Garbage had vanished with Alric. I put my hand over the pocket inside my cloak, trapping them there. The vortex was spinning and whipping by. I didn’t want to take a chance I’d lose those two, too.
They started kicking as well as yelling louder. I tried yelling back but the winds tore away my voice.
Suddenly we tumbled out of the winds and cold and I landed on all fours. On a green patch of grass…in a forest? Null was in a desert.
Since I’d put my hands out to brace myself, the faeries kicked their way out of my pocket. Leaf looked concerned as she buzzed out of my pocket and Crusty looked like she always did—confused.
“What you do?!” Leaf waved her hands in the air, doing her best Garbage impersonation, pointing out trees, rocks, the ground, everything. “No be here.”
“That thing took Alric, I couldn’t stand by and let him vanish.”
She narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms, and flew closer. Finally she nodded and tilted her head. “Is okay. We fix. Garbage know.”
“Taryn?” That was definitely Alric’s voice, but faint. We must have come out at different areas, as I’d only been a minute or so behind him.
“Here!” I couldn’t tell exactly what direction his voice came from so I stayed in place. He was the tracker, let him find me.
He must have been further away than I thought; I was about to call out again, when he came through the trees to the right.
I ran to him but stopped before I touched him. I didn’t make it a habit of memorizing my boyfriend’s clothing, but with Alric it was simple. Unless he was in disguise, he wore variations of black on black. Sometimes with an added layer of black for contrast.
He stood before me in a flamboyant green cape, a lighter green, embroidered tunic, and dark brown boots wrapped around matching leggings.
“How did you…you just left.” I waved a hand at his finery.
Garbage flew down from above and joined the other two. All three chattered loudly in native faery.
“I fell through that vortex two weeks ago. Garbage made me keep returning to this area though.” Alric stepped forward and kissed me. “You shouldn’t be here, but I really thought I’d never see you again.”
I returned the kiss, but was confused as hell.
“So what was it, why did you get here two weeks before me even though I was right behind you, and why are you dressed like that?”
“It was a trap, one I should have expected and might regret the rest of my life that I didn’t. It sent us into a time wave, one that had been manipulated and made into a weapon. The time between our arrivals was most likely due to the spell breaking down. Nivinal might not have been expecting to trap us in it, but he knew anyone with magic would be drawn in.”
He brushed back my hair then held me close again. “You shouldn’t have come.”
I pushed back so I could see his face. There was affection there, but also a lot of sorrow. “What aren’t you telling me? Where are we?”
“The where hasn’t changed. We are where Null will be. It’s the when. There’s not much in the way of civilization out here, but as near as I can guess, from a brief trip to a local village, we’re about a thousand years in the past.”
Garbage buzzed low again. “See? Told you was bad.”
“How can we be in the past? If this is a time wave shouldn’t it go away eventually? The one in the bar somehow vanished, leaving Mackil thinking it had been weeks, but Rue believing it had only been hours.” I fluttered my hand in the air as a shudder took me. A thousand years in the past didn’t feel good right now.
A wave of cold, different from the one that had engulfed me in the vortex of the time wave, hit me and I dropped to the ground. This wasn’t right. I couldn’t be here. Nothing but that thought filled my brain. I felt Alric’s hands on my arms as he held me, I vaguely heard words, but couldn’t tell what they were. I couldn’t be here. It felt like all of nature was trying to push me out of this place—or rather this time.
“Snap out!” A pair of tiny hands started hitting my right cheek. A moment later another tiny pair went after the left cheek, and someone started biting the tip of my nose. The cold, dead feeling fled, and my eyes flew open to see a blue blur trying to chew on my nose. I shook my head and sent all three faeries flying off.
Garbage and Leaf held back, but Crusty tried to fly back to my nose. I grabbed her and held her away from me. “What are you doing?” I understood the other two, in their weird way they were trying to get me back to this place from wherever I was fading off to.
“They took rest of face.” Crusty smiled and patted my thumb where it crossed in front of her. “You good now, no bite.”
I wanted to explain to Crusty that biting really was never a good option, but I knew it wouldn’t stay in that little blue head longer than it took me to say it. I let her go and she flew up a few feet overhead with the other two.
Alric had rocked back on his heels until the faery fest was over but moved closer now. “Your color looks better, that’s good. What happened?” He rose to his feet then held out a hand to help me up. With him in his finery, I felt like a slob being helped up by a prince.
“I don’t know, just an overwhelming feeling that I shouldn’t be here.” I shuddered as a residue of that empty space echoed through me.
“Understandable. I felt it too when I first landed here. We shouldn’t be here; neither of us were born this far back. Our bodies have to adjust.”
I dusted some grass off my cloak and watched the faeries cavorting around. “That explains them not having problems I guess, since according to them they’ve been around for thousands of years.”
The girls had been discussing something among themselves, but Garbage broke it off and flew down to face me. “Is longer, much longer. We go find things. Stay here.” She scowled, then turned to hit Alric. “Both. Here.”
Before I could object, not that it would have done any good, all three took off like tiny delinquent streaks of color.
“I guess we wait?” I looked around but there really was nothing out here. Not that Null was impressive, but at
least it had a pub. “Where have you been living for the last two weeks?” Alric was fine living in the wild, but I couldn’t reconcile that idea with how he looked right now. If I’d ever had any books as a kid that had elven princes in them, Alric would have fit right in.
“I have a small place a bit back in the woods from here. An abandoned woodcutter’s croft. But if the faeries said wait here, I’ll take them at their word. Garbage knew you would be coming, even though she didn’t tell me. Just kept pushing me back here.”
I blinked at him a few times then shook my head. “You’re not real, are you? I fell somewhere back in Null and am dying.” First his garb, then we’re supposedly a thousand years in the past, and he was deferring to the faeries? There was no way this was reality.
Alric’s laugh hadn’t been common since we’d left the elven enclave, but it was a welcome sound now. “I assure you that this is sadly real. I’m listening to the faeries because they have an advantage here over us, or they will if their memories of this time come back.”
That was one problem we’d encountered in the past few months. We discovered that the faeries had been around a long time, but they had almost no memories of what happened during the past.
“That doesn’t explain the clothing.” I glanced down at my sad traveling clothes, hoping that maybe coming here had changed the clothes to the time. Not at all.
“I might have liberated some clothing from a vendor in town. Rather village. A small village a few days walk that direction. I couldn’t pay for it since my coin is a bit out of date here.”
Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. Our coins were all stamped with the kingdom of Lindor, a kingdom that had only been around about five hundred years. I pulled out a gold piece and flipped it around. The king and queen, the kingdom, and its worth—nothing else. “Actually, if we were from some far distant land, our money would look odd. But gold spends the same wherever it’s from.”
Alric nodded. “I was planning on taking some money from a few upper class folks and getting by that way. But your way would be more subtle—until we run out of coins.”
“See? Not being a thief can sometimes be a good thing.”
“Fine, but it’s hard to change after—” He cut himself off. A few moments later I heard what had stopped him. Wagons, wheels, and hooves. Running hard. And a lot more horses than a pair to pull a wagon.
Alric grabbed my hand and we ran behind a large clump of tall shrubs. The road was well hidden and only a few dozen feet from us. A lathered pair of horses pulling an ornate carriage came tearing through the woods. Half a dozen riders fanned out behind them and judging by the frantic look on the carriage driver’s face, they weren’t friends.
The carriage had gotten past us when the front right wheel exploded. At least that was what it looked like from where I was hiding. In my time carriages were not made to lose a wheel at high speeds—they weren’t any better in this time.
The driver yelled something to the horses as he was flung from his seat. Instead of both animals running on and probably killing themselves by dragging the broken wagon, both slowed down. Eventually they stopped and rested with sides heaving and heads down.
They’d gotten far enough past us that the riders passed us as well. Six riders all dressed in browns and yellows on white horses. The garb would probably blend in well in the forest, but the horses certainly wouldn’t. They also looked too fancy for common thieves. Thieves who also wore masks made of fabric and beads that covered their lower face and ears.
Alric started to move and I thought maybe he figured they were far enough past us that we could run the other way. The faeries had told us to stay here, but things had changed. They’d find us when they came back.
Instead of leading us away, Alric pulled me behind a heavy clump of shrubs closer to the broken wagon and the attackers.
I couldn’t ask anything; even my softest voice would give us away, especially now that we were moving closer to the problem instead of further away.
The attackers reached the driver lying on the ground. He was moving, but his groans were clear. He wasn’t able to get up, let alone fight.
Two of the horsemen rode around him, taunting him it sounded like, but it wasn’t a language I knew. He’d been trying to roll to his feet, but flopped backwards. One of the attackers walked his horse forward, and the driver held up his right hand, shouted a few magic sounding words, the attacker was blown off his horse and vanished into a puff of smoke.
The second attacker yelled and the other four came closer. The driver tried his spell again, but his voice was weak. The leader of the attackers yelled out and all of the riders rode over the driver. It happened so quickly, no one could have stopped it. Weak or not, the scream that came from him was something that would haunt me forever.
I looked away and tried to keep the contents of my stomach from coming out. Alric said nothing, but gave my hand a squeeze.
The attackers ran him over again, though it was clear, even from where we were, that the driver died on the first pass. They then turned to the carriage.
It was on its side, the spelled horses calm even though the one who cast the spell had died. No one had come out of the carriage that I could tell.
“Both of you get out and you won’t meet the same fate as your driver.” The voice was heavily accented and low. If I hadn’t seen at least part of his face, I would think it came from a syclarion.
There was no movement from the wagon, but a branch fell from one of the trees behind us and the attacker closest to us quickly turned our way. When another branch fell further away he shook his head and turned back toward their leader.
“We want the gold, jewels, and the lady. She’ll fetch a fine price in the market. She might not live long after that, but someone will have fun with her.” The man laughed and eventually his men did as well, although not as heartily.
The door to the tipped carriage pushed open, but no one came out. I couldn’t imagine getting up and out of a wagon that way would be easy.
I pulled on Alric’s hand, then mouthed ‘we have to help them’. Yes, there were more of them than us, and they were heavily armed and ruthless, but I’d be damned if I was letting some woman be sold into slavery. Not to mention I was mad about the driver.
He smiled and kissed the top of my hand. ‘Already on it,’ he mouthed back.
An elaborately beaded arm came out of the wagon, followed by a blonde head and the rest of the elaborately beaded dress and the dress wearer. She had her back to us, and her movements were slow and measured. She must have been terrified.
“Where’s your man? We’ll deal with him before we deal with you.”
The woman had climbed out of the carriage, but on the far side and all I could see was the top of her head.
“You killed him,” her voice was oddly accented and familiar. “Galfin was my escort and my friend. And you murdered him. There is no one else in the wagon.”
She came around the edge of the carriage, but I couldn’t see her face; she wore a light drape of lace, colored to match her dress, across it. But a gash on her forehead explained why she hadn’t gotten out of the mangled carriage sooner. Her hair was pulled up high to show off the jewels rimming her delicately pointed ears. I now knew who she was—those eyes belonged to only one elf I knew.
Siabiane.
16
“Killing him was a foolish way to spend your last moments. I only regret I couldn’t stop you in time. You will be regretting that as well.” Siabiane flipped her right hand up and four of the remaining attackers rose in the air and burst into flame. She then sent the leader up in the air, and flew him around a bit as he screamed. He passed far too close to us for my comfort and his hands reached for us. I bit down a yell as a familiar looking tattoo flashed by. The image worn by those elven knights who had followed the Dark.
Siabiane flew him close to her and she placed her free hand on the side of his head. “Ah, you are naught but a minion, but your masters are linked t
o you. Let them feel this.” She let him go and waved him higher and higher. Then she burst him into flame. There wasn’t enough left of him to even drift down to hit us.
She stayed looking at her dead friend, then slightly turned our direction. “I know you are there but I don’t know who you are, nor if you intend harm. As you have seen, I am not someone to be trifled with. Please come out slowly. I am working through a lot of anger right now and I don’t want to take it out on someone innocent by accident.” As she spoke, she gently waved her hand over the mangled body of her friend. He vanished.
Alric rose slowly, both hands held in front of him to show he had no weapons. I followed his lead.
It was odd seeing someone you knew, who you realized wouldn’t know who you were for a thousand years or so. Siabiane, like most elves, aged very slowly. Yet she looked younger now. Maybe a thousand years did age even one like her, and she appeared to have a lot less care in her eyes than she did when we met her.
She removed the lace from across her face and stepped forward. “An elven lord and a human—and something else? And whatever is it that you’re wearing, my child?”
I dusted off my cloak but it was pointless. I fit right in with the citizens of Null—meaning my clothing was dusty and drab. And probably not anything anyone of this era would wear unless they were begging for scraps.
I also hadn’t thought about the being human aspect. Even though I was part dryad on my mother’s side, I looked human. A species that wasn’t common in this area during this time. I smiled but turned to Alric to get us out of this.
“I am Alric, this is my companion Taryn. We have journeyed far to get here, but all of our belongings were lost. Taryn had to borrow clothing from a washer woman a few days ago.”
Siabiane tilted her head and studied both of us. Then, finally, as if whatever she was looking for remained out of reach, she shook her head and dropped the hand she’d been using for her spells.
“There is something familiar…I can’t touch it right at this moment, but I shall soon.” She moved a step closer to me. “But there is something wrong about you, beyond you being a human, which is fascinating by the way, I will have many questions of your people. But there is something beyond that.” She peered closer at me. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Page 11
