The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients Book 4)

by Marie Andreas

  Covey, Tag, and Orenda quickly introduced themselves. Siabiane smiled at all, but focused on Orenda. “One of our lost clans, you and I must talk later. I’d give much to hear of your history.”

  Orenda’s eyes were huge, her mouth hung slightly open, and she nodded. I really wasn’t sure how much information Siabiane was going to get out of her.

  Harlan had recovered from his shock at Siabiane and gave a small bow of his own as he introduced himself.

  “Pleased I am to meet all of you. I will admit I requested you come here not just to assist me dealing with my flying creation, but also to meet you. I meet so few people in public.”

  Padraig let out a laugh at that. “Through your own choice. You know many of us would welcome you in the castle.”

  Siabiane shot him a glare, but one without any heat. More like one of an ongoing argument. “There are far too many politicians there now. I would be far happier if I never had to go back there again. It’s better I stay where I am. I do wish Lorcan had been able to come as well though, there are some things that are better discussed in person.”

  “So you only called us out here for the gargoyle? I admit it is very impressive, and I’d love to hear how exactly you did it. But isn’t that a bit extreme?” Padraig said.

  “No, that’s not only the reason.” Siabiane was serious now. “You trust all of these people?”

  I was surprised that she directed that question to me instead of Padraig, or even Alric, but I nodded.

  “There is a massive disturbance going on, and not only the one caused in this enclave recently.” She got up and started pacing, something I knew Harlan would approve of. “This has been growing for quite some time, far longer than most of you, Padraig and Alric excluded, have been alive. But, I foolishly thought it was just the change coming, the time for the elves to finally come back into the world.” She held up a hand toward Padraig. “I was wrong. There is something far larger and more vile happening. And I think our people might be behind it.”

  I’d agreed up until that point. There was definitely something going on, and I figured it was all wrapped around the relics. And the syclarions and rakasa.

  “I knew there was something going on, but you think the elves are behind what’s going on outside the enclave?” Covey asked.

  “I think the two are related,” Siabiane said. “The more I looked into things in the last year, the more the hints of tragedy coming our way appeared. The rakasa back in the world is a horrible travesty. I seriously doubt that they and the syclarions would work together, but they probably have similar goals.”

  Padraig nodded. “Lorcan sees the same. The king and queen refuse to take his counsel however. And something took down the wards around the castle when we fled.”

  “Lorcan told me,” Siabiane said. “He got them back up without hopefully anyone being the wiser. But he couldn’t find the source.”

  “But the explosion?” I also wanted to ask about the bone collection, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer—if it wasn’t related to the current disaster, I didn’t need to know.

  Bunky purred loudly and I looked up just as the gargoyle landed on my head.

  Having the faeries land on it was one thing—aside from the hair pulling—they weren’t a problem since they weighed almost nothing. The gargoyle definitely weighed something.

  I did what anyone would do when a strange, large, flying thing landed on their head—I screamed.

  The gargoyle immediately rose and so did the faeries and Bunky. Suddenly the airspace over my head was filled with flying beings all seemingly at odds with each other.

  The faeries were scowling, the gargoyle was bleating, and Bunky was trying to stay between them.

  “It’s okay, girls.” I was touched at their defense of me, but it might have been more turf war than actual concern for me. “We’re all good.” I looked up at the gargoyle and smiled to show no hard feelings. It was really quite cute for a gargoyle, at least compared to the ones I’d seen on some of the older mansions in Beccia. The relic might have had the same face, but it was too small to see.

  His face was round with sharp little ears that stuck up and sideways a bit and large eyes. His nose was little more than a flap. He blinked. I was startled that he had inner lids and outer lids. “You really did the details well.”

  “I wish I could say that was all me, but any attributes are from the relic itself. I projected myself into Padraig’s labs many times before the attack. During those times I was able to take impressions, which I embedded into a construct. I was blocked from observing during the attack but didn’t realize something was wrong until it was too late.” She waved her hand toward the gargoyle. “This is who appeared. But, as I said, he didn’t come to life until the day you all came through the shield.”

  Which was an issue: was it me, the relics we were carrying with us, or that mage and his dark magic sacrifice?

  “I do want to see what he does around the relics.” Siabiane nodded to Alric.

  I expected Alric to reach into the huge pack he had at his feet, but instead he reached inside his shirt and pulled out one of the faeries’ tiny black bags. The faeries had resumed their seats next to me and all clapped when he brought it out as if they were watching a show.

  He reached inside and pulled out three bundles.

  “Okay, if you are able to use their bags, what the heck is in your pack?” I was less concerned about what was in it than the fact that, again, the faeries let him use one of their magic bags and had yet to let me.

  “Clothing, weapons, and odds and ends from Qianru’s home,” Alric said and held up his hand as soon as I opened my mouth. “Taken with her permission. I told her I needed the pack to appear large. If someone took it they wouldn’t find the relics. Or the spell chest.”

  Well, it looked like everything was coming out in the open now.

  “Spell chest?” Siabiane spun at that one. Good to know she didn’t know everything. Then it dawned on me that we had found it outside of the shield.

  “You can’t see anything outside of the shield, can you?”

  Siabiane shook her head. “No, that’s why I needed Alric to go out originally.”

  “You sent him out there?” I knew his people had sent him to find the gargoyle. That was before it was realized that there were multiple Ancient relics and even worse they worked together—possibly to destroy the Ancients. I didn’t realize Siabiane was behind it.

  “Indirectly.” Siabiane smiled at a shocked Alric. “Sorry, my boy, but I did encourage Lorcan to get the council’s approval to send you. They didn’t want to, by the way. Flarinen was their choice.”

  “But it was my idea that we needed to find this thing.” Alric hadn’t opened any of the packages but looked annoyed enough to put them back in his tiny bag.

  “And you don’t have the most respectable reputation, my friend,” Padraig said.

  “Not at all, which was why I wanted him to go, as opposed to Flarinen. Alric works on his own, no agenda. Flarinen is a tool of the government and will do whatever he is told. Now, if we could see those relics? Then you can show us this chest.”

  Alric reluctantly unwrapped the first one and Bunky buzzed over. It was the chimera. Bunky was about three times the size of the relic but they looked like they could have come from the same stone. Had one not been a magical construct and the other not made out of a bunch of tiny obsidian shards all magically fused together, at least.

  “Ah, the converter.” Siabiane didn’t move any closer, but she nodded toward it. “It enhances, it was mentioned in the codex.”

  Alric said nothing but opened the second package. Well, partially. The dragon still had something around it, a clear shield of some sort that flashed. I released a sigh of relief at that. I didn’t want to think what would happen if the magic users in this room all got hit by the greedy paranoia I had from that thing when I found it.

  “I see this must be the motivator, but its purpose in the codex was
obscure.”

  “It makes people want it, want to hide it from everyone else, and generally messes people up.” I looked at the thing, glad I felt nothing from it. That shield might protect people from whatever it did, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get any closer to it.

  Orenda didn’t say anything, but looked uncomfortable as Alric held the relic. She’d originally come out of her clan’s enclave to find a valuable icon of her people and believed this was it. The fact that it was also the totem of the rakasa seemed to disturb me a lot more than it did her.

  Siabiane watched me and nodded. “That could have been what drove the Ancients to bring it into their world. It could also have a completely different function and the greed is a side effect, or it could have been something that affected the piece after the tragedy happened.”

  Padraig leaned over. “She is often like this. There are too many options for everything, including what to have for breakfast. She will tell us all of them unless we stop her.”

  “I will not,” Siabiane said. “I want it noted that life is fluid, and we have no true idea of what these were.” She nodded to Alric who hadn’t unwrapped the third item. “And that, I assume, is the sapphire manticore?”

  That answered another one of my questions that I wasn’t going to ask—Siabiane could only see certain things and hadn’t a clue as to what that little relic did to me.

  “Actually, this is the chest that Taryn found in the fake village. She has the manticore.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Everyone looked at me with that bit of news. Bunky and the gargoyle hovered closer, and although the faeries kept their seats, they all watched the people in the room.

  “Well, child? Do you have one of those bags as well?” Siabiane said then nodded to the faeries. “I think we will have to work out a barter for one of those for myself later on. I’d read of them, but had no idea how wonderful they really were.”

  I looked to Alric. This wasn’t going to be fun, and I really hated being the focus of attention, something that had been happening far too much lately. He nodded and lifted the glamour spell.

  Even Siabiane’s jaw dropped this time.

  Bunky came down and sat next to me, still keeping an eye on everyone else. The faeries were beaming like this was all their doing, and wasn’t it wonderful?

  The gargoyle pulled back higher, then gave a huge gronk and dove for me. He pulled up at the last minute, folded his leathery wings, and landed neatly in my lap. Like a giant, glass, construct gargoyle who thought he was a cat.

  Unlike Bunky, touching the gargoyle didn’t broadcast any weird images in my head. Possibly because he was new and hadn’t really stored any up. Or that wasn’t his construct job.

  “You’re…it’s you?” Harlan leaned so far out of his chair, that I was surprised he didn’t fall out.

  Padraig held up a hand as everyone started asking questions at the same time. Even Siabiane looked shocked and couldn’t stop starring at my face.

  “I can explain, sort of, what happened.” Padraig said.

  “But first, could you hide this again?” I asked Alric. “I feel really self-conscious with everyone staring at it.”

  He nodded and before anyone could say otherwise, spelled the glamour back. It was interesting that I felt the difference. When the glamour was on I couldn’t feel the mark on my cheek very much. It felt more like a fading bruise. When the glamour was off, it felt like a giant patch of ice was imbedded in my cheek. It didn’t hurt per se, but it was really freaky.

  Everyone sat back in his or her seat once Alric had covered it back up. However, they all kept sneaking peeks at me.

  “I’m not changing, people. This thing just got in me…somehow.”

  Siabiane got up and peered into my face. “Fascinating. I didn’t even sense it before and honestly, if I didn’t know it was there, I wouldn’t feel it now.”

  “So you’re a relic now?” Orenda was clearly confused, and still looked like she wasn’t sure whether to drop to her knees in front of Siabiane or run away and never look back. Her little adventure into the world outside her clan was turning out far different than she’d expected.

  I shook my head, but Padraig answered for me.

  “No, she’s been infected by a mutating relic, one with properties we don’t know nor understand.”

  “But how did it get inside her?” Covey asked. I was now back to being a project. There were times I wondered if that was becoming my primary purpose for her.

  Padraig and Alric explained finding the relic and it going into me somehow. They only briefly touched on the bones. Siabiane’s face fell at the small bit they did say and I had a feeling she might have known a number of the people who had been in that locked room fighting to their deaths.

  “Did the codex give any clue as to what the manticore does, or an indication why it would jump into Taryn?” Covey asked while trying very hard not to stare at me in case the mark appeared again.

  Padraig had been watching the gargoyle and moved to a chair closer to it and me. “Not distinctly. The codex was written long after the disaster that destroyed the Ancients. The person who wrote it had been an elven child, a runaway who’d found the Ancients right before their end. He’d come from our original homeland on the other side of the Spheres and was quite mad by the time he arrived here. He was an old man when he wrote the codex.”

  I petted the gargoyle like a cat and I swore I heard purring. “The manticore seems to have something to do with cold, and possibly blocking or slowing magic.” I filled them in on the attack on the faeries—the girls all hissed at that—and the cold spot I’d slammed on the spot on the ceiling.

  “Could you draw it?” Covey looked up and included Alric and Padraig. “Any of you? The mark on Taryn’s cheek looks to be highly detailed, but it’s also very small. Maybe latter I can look at it under a microscope.” She pursed her lips, and narrowed her eyes, clearly wondering how best to examine my newest accident.

  Padraig nodded. “I can, if Siabiane has some paper and charcoal?”

  The faeries were now fighting among themselves and kicking their feet on the edge of the sofa. They were excited at first, and really seemed interested in the manticore on my cheek, but once it was hidden, they were no longer so interested.

  Bored faeries were dangerous. In fact, two were already missing. I looked around, but I didn’t see Leaf or Crusty anywhere. Garbage was stomping around on the sofa, looking for anyone she could pick a fight with. I needed them out of the house now, I could find the other two later.

  Siabiane came back and handed a small pack to Padraig. He grinned and took out what he needed and began drawing the relic.

  “Is it safe for them to go outside?” That was a silly question, nothing was safe if the faeries were there, but I figured it would only be polite to ask. “They are getting bored.”

  “They are fine. Perhaps they could help our gargoyle friend learn the area and become stronger in his flying?” Siabiane smiled at her creation.

  Garbage jumped up at that one. “We do!” A moment later ten faeries, Bunky, and the gargoyle flew out of the house. Unlike the faeries, Bunky and the gargoyle did at least look at me once before they took off.

  Siabiane ducked into the next room and came back with a cart loaded with snacks and beverages. I immediately took a piece of chocolate. It had been a very trying couple of days.

  “Tea? I’m afraid I don’t have anything strong on hand, but I do have some snacks.”

  We’d all grabbed tea, cookies, sandwiches, and more chocolate when a war cry came from down the hall.

  Who knew what Leaf and Crusty had been doing, but they smelled the chocolate. Before I could jump up and stop them, both faeries had stuffed their mouths with the rich, dark chocolate and flew as high as they could.

  “Oh dear, I take it they can’t have that?” Siabiane peered up.

  Both faeries had swallowed, but I hadn’t noticed they’d also filled their hands and had now stuffed the
ir mouths again.

  I sighed. Had we been in Covey’s office, with her fancy university clock, we could have timed the crash. “It doesn’t poison them—it does mess with them, though.” I held up my hand. Sure enough both faeries started looping their way down to me. The chocolate was gone and they were crashing hard.

  “Minkies! I want minkies! Dance minkies!” Crusty was yelling more than singing, for which I was extremely grateful. She was also drifting to me headfirst. I grabbed her and sat her down next to me. Then she flopped over and stayed that way.

  “Flipity gibity dakit!” Leaf wasn’t even saying words. I think she’d resorted to shouting random sounds out. She was drifting down to me upright, but her head was already starting to roll around. I grabbed her too.

  I took a pair of napkins Siabiane offered me and wiped chocolate off both of them as best I could. Both giggled at the wipe down, but they were almost out. That must have been some strong chocolate. Then I wrapped them both in the clean napkin, and tucked them in an inner pocket of my shirt. I heard one murmured request for minkies, and then both were out cold.

  Siabiane shook her head. “Chocolate does that to them? Interesting.”

  “And never give them tea,” Covey said with a shudder. “They will turn into crazy flying lunatics. Okay, they already are that, but they will be horrifically faster.”

  Clearly, Covey was still upset about the holes in her kitchen window and front door from where a very hyped-up Garbage had tried to bring us all food.

  “That was interesting, but what is this chest Alric spoke of?” The faeries’ antics were nothing new, nor interesting, to Harlan. Nevertheless, he was quite interested in the chest. I was sure I was going to get a talking to once this was all sorted out, about all the things I hadn’t told him.