Alger interrupted. “With my Library?”
I looked at him. “Why are you still het up about that? Might want to figure out what really happened with the Crown, old man. She’s not in the Library, as you can see.”
He subsided. Byrne spoke up. “This is all… fascinating. And perhaps Lavendar is the one who could tell us what happened with the Crown. No…” He held up a hand to forestall her protest. “Not that I think you, or Alonzo,” he nodded at me, “took it. But perhaps you remember who else was there that night? And why did you leave that cloak behind?”
She nodded. “There was someone. But I didn’t see a face. They grabbed my cloak, and I broke the clasp to escape. I was terribly bruised around the throat for weeks.” She shivered in remembered fear. “They were trying to kill me. Alonzo was ahead of me, but I couldn’t even cry out for him, the cloak was too tight around my neck.”
“Did you see anything?” Bella asked.
Lavendar hesitated, then answered slowly. “I remember a strong smell, and... the hand that clawed at my face was covered in hair, like a beast.”
“A ‘smell?’ like what?”
“Like a wet dog.” She said simply. “It was raining that night, which was why I wore my cardinal.”
“Cardinal, like the bird?” Bella looked confused again.
Lavendar laughed. “No, it was a red wool cloak with a hood. The bird, and the human religious leaders both were named for the cloak, not the other way ‘round.”
“So you were attacked by a wolf.” I mused, my mind busy. “I wonder…”
“Oh, surely not Sean.” Bella protested. “I liked him.”
“No, not Sean. He’s a mere puppy. But there is a line of werewolves connected with Low Court.”
“Does it really matter? It has been a long while, and I am merely a tired old woman.” Lavendar looked it, too.
“We must finish this quest, first.” I told her.
She shook her head. “You will not be able to leave the dome for some hours, until they give up. Spending the night here will allow you more safety in the morning, and you must be exhausted.”
I looked around the room. “I hate to inconvenience you, but this seems better than out there for a doss.”
“It’s no inconvenience. This realm offers... much in the way of possibilities.” She got up slowly and walked across the room. I could see her age, now. She was very old, even for a Fae, and it was showing after the conversation we’d just had.
She opened a door. Beyond it I could see another hall. “You will find all you need in the rooms, and if you need anything, simply say my name.”
“No.” That was Bella, leaning on my arm, one hand on her belly. “I can see how tired you are, Grandmother, and I am almost fresh, since the men did most of the fighting. I can supply any needs.”
“But…”
Bella shook her head. “Grandmother. I have learned much since I came Underhill, and had excellent teachers even before I arrived here. But that’s a tale for another visit. I can see what you are doing, to manipulate the magic here, and I can recreate that.”
Lavendar reached for her granddaughter and gave her a hug. “You have grown up far surpassing my wildest dreams. Good night, Bella.”
“Good night, Grandmother.”
We walked down the hall. I kept opening doors to see what lay behind them. A trio of bedrooms and a well-appointed bathroom. The rooms smelled fresh, like hay that had been drying in the sun. The furniture was like the benches, rustic and simple. I pointed into one room. “We’ll take this one. Good night, gentlemen.”
I shut the door in their face and pulled Bella into my arms. She was crying. She’d held it together, as I’d known she would, until we were alone.
“Oh, Lom…” Her wings were still and drooping.
“She was your hero when you were a child. So was Bob. Then you grew up, and found feet of clay.”
She nodded, hiccupping a little. She wasn’t given to gusts and sobs, just quiet dissolution in tears, and even that happened rarely. I would have said, if she asked, that this was mostly pregnancy hormones.
“Besides, there’s something you may not know. Your predecessor was cordially loathed.”
“She was? I have to step into those shoes?” She made a face. “Still my grandmother fled. She didn’t stay and try to depose the Queen, if she was that bad? For that matter, why didn’t Alger?”
“Alger, and a couple of others, put a leash on her, from what I know. He had to step down after Alonzo’s trial. But the work went on, and she was relegated to bedroom games…” I stopped. “Er, that didn’t sound right. It’s a term that means she was only able to have limited power, not sex per se although…”
Bella chuckled. “You’re cute when you get tongue-tied. I’m not that innocent. So, they muzzled the bitch.”
I felt the laugh bubble up involuntarily. “Yeah, pretty much. Ok, I’ll stop self-censoring. Trytion has been the ruling power for a long time, but it’s meant to be a balance, you know. He was really looking forward to having you as his right-hand woman. And as you learned from Byrne today, you have earned respect in your own right.”
She frowned. “If my mixed blood… and Lom, they still don’t know about the dragon. Oh, Lom, why did she marry him?”
The tears came back. Definitely pregnancy and fatigue. I scooped her up, and she squeaked in surprise. I didn’t drop her on the bed, but it bounced under her as I put her down. She was laughing through her tears. “Stop talking?”
I suppressed whatever she was going to say. It was time to stop talking, yes, and I distracted her from unanswerable questions.
Unicorns Rampant
The next morning, Lavendar insisted on feeding us before letting us leave her home. I didn’t resist. Home-cooked meals were far and away better than trail food eaten cold while moving. She didn’t bring up the conversational thread of the night before, and by unspoken assent, neither did any of us. What was to be done about her was a matter for the future.
Bella looked queasy at the sight of food, and didn’t eat much. I didn’t like that, but let her pick and choose, knowing that having her vomit after we left the dome could be fatal. There might not be any intelligence in the things outside, but they were unendingly hungry. I was hoping we could find the door into the Library quickly and take refuge inside. Lavendar had confirmed that it was no more than an hour’s walk – or sneak, in this case – in the direction we had been traveling.
At the little gate, Bella hugged her grandmother. “We will stop on our way back. And I will be back for a visit when I can.”
“If you can… Bella, you have your wings now.” Lavendar caressed the tip of one. “You can fly without me holding you on the ground.”
“I will be back.” I recognized that stubborn tone, and so too did Lavendar, because she just opened the gate with a faint smile, and a nod for the rest of us. I noted as they passed her, each sprite gave her a salute, which she acknowledged with a bent head.
Then we were back out in the misty plane, less golden than it had been, and even thicker. I put one hand on Byrne’s shoulder.
“Keep in touch with Bella… and Bella, with Alger.”
Linked like this, we walked slowly along the wall. On the short grasses that were the only things growing by it, our progress was almost silent. Once when I heard a snuffling breathing approach, I squeezed Byrne’s shoulder and stopped our forward momentum. We stood in silence, listening, for several minutes until the only thing I could hear was the dripping of water off the distant trees. How anything grew here, with no sunlight, was beyond me. Then again, I’d never seen one of those trees clearly, they might be giant mushrooms for all I knew. Satisfied we were alone, I gave the signal to go again.
The sprites were riding on shoulders, Ewan on mine. I felt him give a little shiver. The poor guys were out of their element, and I almost regretted bringing them along. I wouldn’t tell them that, though. No point in rubbing salt in an open wound. We kept creepi
ng along the wall. It was getting darker, I realized.
It had been happening gradually, but I could barely see past Bryne, who was only at arm’s length in front of me, his shoulder warm under my grip. He was shivering, too. I had to give it to the elderly scholar, he hadn’t complained at all. He just kept going.
Until he stopped so suddenly I almost walked into him.
“What?”
I couldn’t see anything.
“We’re here.” Alger’s voice was low, but carrying. “Look.”
As Byrne and I edged forward, I could see it. A niche in the wall. Alger and Bella were standing in it. Ian, who had been riding with Alger, flew up with a shielded elf-globe in his hands. The light from it only fell on the gates, keeping us from being obvious to anything in the forest.
“So beautiful,” Bella breathed.
The gates were towering, set three paces into the wall, which made me revise upward the thickness of the Library walls considerably. They consisted of two panels, and on them were two unicorns, rampant. They looked as though they were carved of ivory, with jade insets for mane and tails. The hooves and horns were covered in gold.
At their feet, in heaps, were carved scrolls and books, in such detail I could see the words on them. I couldn’t read them, it wasn’t a language I had seen before. It was striking, and looked heavy.
“How the hell are we supposed to open these?” I asked Alger.
“We aren’t…” He was pointing to one side, and I looked, seeing a more human-sized door set into the wall near the gates.
“Are you coming?” Bella sounded amused, and I looked away from the access door.
She had the gates open. It looked like a crack when you saw the scale of the thing, but she was standing with one hand on the open gate, looking back at us with a big grin on her face. Light streamed out from the interior, making her look like she was glowing, and her wings were doing their happy sparkly thing.
Alger muttered a curse into his beard and started forward, Byrne following. I looked up at Ian and shrugged as he extinguished the now-unneeded elf globe. “That’s my girl.”
He laughed and zipped ahead to catch up with Byrne. I followed quickly, not wanting to wait and see what appeared out of the mist. This was going more smoothly than I had anticipated.
Inside, we stood in what looked like a museum. The vast room, with vaulting roof overhead, held a myriad of statues. Most of them were wonderfully lifelike, and I looked around, trying not to be distracted while I assessed the situation. Alger had said that gaining entrance to the library was only the beginning. The floor underfoot was slightly dusty over the parquetry. I scanned for movement, but only saw Alger vanishing behind a griffin, with Byrne in tow. Bella must be ahead of them.
I looked up at the snarling beak of the griffin as I walked under one outstretched wing. The whole thing looked like it had been carved from one block of marble, and it easily rivaled any statue I’d seen Above or Underhill. I dragged my attention back to the room. Other than the muted murmur of voices ahead of me, the Library was almost oppressively still. I hurried up my steps a little, wanting to ask the mad academics to shut up for a minute so I could listen… I assumed Bella would know enough to be quiet.
Something in the dust caught my eye. Swirling, sinuous curves tracked off to one side, behind another rearing unicorn statue. The plinth under this one was massive, to allow for the statue of a man, Fae or not I couldn’t tell from here, who had fallen to the ground and was desperately holding a pike upright to keep the beast from tearing him to pieces with hooves and wicked teeth revealed in an equine scream. Whatever had made the tracks had gone this way, and I could see other footprints at right angles, headed in the direction Alger’s voice was coming from.
Those would be our party. What had left this other mark? I broke into a trot. Time to get everyone together, and on alert rather than art appreciation. I went around a hideous Medusa head, lying on its side with filmy brass eyes, and dying snakes flailing. There wasn’t any rest of her, just the gruesomely detailed in brass anatomy of a violently severed neck. On the other side, Byrne and Alger stood, in animated conversation. Alger was pointing upward at something, and Bryne was gesturing as he spoke.
“But the records indicate…”
I never found out what. “Shush! Where is Bella?”
They turned to me, startled. “She was just ahead of us…” Alger peered vaguely around.
“No, she wasn’t, look.” I pointed at the ground. Their footsteps had milled around a bit, here, but there were none leading off any way but how the three of us had come in. I looked up at Ewan.
“Get up high enough to see the whole room if you can. Beware, there’s something else in here with us, I saw tracks back there.” I pointed back toward the rampant unicorn with his prey, and the sprite nodded, shooting upward in a humming blur of wings along with his compatriots. I looked at Alger. “What lives in the Library?”
“Nothing lives here. What did you see?”
“I don’t know what made them. Not us, come and look.”
I led them back to the unicorn. Both men looked surprised and bewildered at the tracks. I let out my breath. Shouting for Bella was more likely to warn this thing, if she hadn’t already encountered it. But she would have made a noise if she had, a shot if not a scream. The sprites were circling overhead. One swooped in to report.
“Nothing moving in here. But there are doors all around.”
I pointed at the track. “Find where this goes. Don’t be seen.” I wasn’t going to comment on how much better his English was under stress. I’d known for years the thick brogue was put on for outsiders to be confused by. Nor was I going to comment on how big the thing that had made these marks would have to be. They could figure that out on their own, and I wasn’t in the habit of insulting my men’s intelligence.
If Bella wasn’t in the big room any longer, either this thing had her, or… “I’m going to backtrack, see if she split off earlier.”
Alger nodded. “We’ll stay here, stay out of your way.”
“Thanks.” I moved off, looking down, trusting them to have my back and the sprites to have the air cover. The three of us had waltzed in fat dumb and happy from the door, our footprints wandering all over and even back on themselves in a few places. How many steps had there been time to take since we’d come in the gates?
I got back to where I could see the gates, which were smooth on this side. They were tightly closed again. I could see the little access door off to one side. For defense, it sucked, but I didn’t think it was defensive, not the way it was laid out. More likely easy access, and impressive access. For some unimaginable audience long gone without a trace.
Bella’s smaller boot prints had veered off here, within sight of the doors. I had been looking at Alger’s back, then, not prints, and hadn’t even noticed. The dust wasn’t as heavy here, but I could see the scuffs. They turned into full prints behind a small plinth that held up a sleeping lion pride. One looked as though it were about to roll off, a paw of golden flecked stone dangling almost to the floor. Bella had been looking at it, too, her prints at right angles to the statue, her stride as she left it relaxed.
I stopped and listened. One of the sprites was almost overhead, and I could hear the low hum from his wings. Other than that, heavy silence blanketed the room. I looked up, and he made an exaggerated shrugging gesture. Still no sign of her, then. I kept following the tracks.
Here… she had fallen, it looked like. And crawled around the base of a plinth. I walked around the corner and strangled the cry before it left my throat. There were her clothes, scattered in shreds on the floor, dusty, torn – but no blood. I turned in a tight circle, my heart in my mouth. No sign of blood, at all. Her pistol lay up against the plinth, still in the holster, which had been… unbuckled? Had the thing forced her to disarm?
I picked it up, looking at the dust and scratches that cut deep into the nylon webbing. Something had scrabbled at it. I walked in
a circle around her clothing scraps. On the other side, the sinuous marks started again. So, it was carrying her. Not a snake. I found a three-clawed footprint off to one side, half-obliterated with a lighter, almost sweeping, mark. Whatever this was, it was big. Bella wasn’t fat, but she was dense. And pregnant. I felt my hands clench into fists, helplessly.
Alger could see it on my face as soon as I came into view around yet another bedamned statue.
“What happened? Is that…?” He pointed. I nodded.
Ian swooped in. “Follow me, quiet-like.”
I broke into a run as he zipped off again. Alger and Byrne could catch up if they liked. I needed to find Bella. Ian led me in a wild chase around statues, which I wasn’t really looking at any more, to a dark doorway. I stopped there.
Listening is as much feeling as anything else. And what I felt here was a pressure. Air was coming out of the stone hall, not enough to call a breeze, but positive flow. And on the air I could smell a peculiar musty scent I associated with snakes, or lizards. My mind went back to a mission involving a particularly large lizard the locals had been calling a dragon, which it wasn’t, despite having dined on several goats and possibly more than one child. I felt my skin crawl.
Look, there are reasons serpents and dragons were one of the early atavistic fears. They are quiet, deadly, and when it comes to dragons, I’d never believed in fire-breathing until I met Beaker in action, but something with wings and the jaws of a crocodile was bad enough thank you very much anyway. Whatever had taken Bella down this way, it didn’t have innocent intentions.
Ian landed on the door lintel, standing easily on the raised carving of a tree branch that framed the opening at the top. One side was a trunk, the other simply the wall. I was beginning to overload on visuals in here. One thing I hadn’t seen yet were books.
“Hear anything?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You?”
“Not now, earlier there was a sort of scrabbling, far off, y’ken?”
So it had come this way. The talon-marks in the dust would account for the noises. I looked over my shoulder as Alger walked up, leaning on his staff with each step. He’d aged a decade in the time since we had walked into the library.
Dragon Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 3) Page 13
