The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients Book 4)

by Marie Andreas

  No weapons, no magic, and this knight might be up to something hinky. Oh, and judging by the lack of sound when I tried to clear my throat, I couldn’t even scream for help.

  “Don’t say anything, or make any sudden moves,” he said. His voice was very low and soft so it was hard to gather any information about it. I felt what seemed to be the hilt of a knife at my back.

  I held very still. He should know I couldn’t scream. It was clear we’d all been spelled at Siabiane’s house.

  “I need you to focus. We know what’s going on. Qianru has people stationed on the inside, but she didn’t find out about this attack until it was too late. So she had me healed then sent me here. There’s a very bruised knight who will be waking up soon without his uniform.”

  I recognized that voice. Locksead. Quite possibly one of the last people I would have expected to be here, but not as shocking as hearing Qianru’s name here in this place. First I find out she’s a spy, then that she’s working against Reginald and goddess knew who else. Now she had people stationed in the palace?

  “Take the knife. It’s small enough that you can hide it in your clothes. If you get those ropes off, it should free your voice and possibly your spell casting—Qianru expected him to use the rope, but she didn’t have time to fully examine it.”

  There were so many damn questions that I needed to ask right now that I was going to burst.

  “We will get you all out, I promise. Wait until our signal.” The knife shoved into my fingers was small, no more than three inches in length. Even with my hands tied and still limited movement I was able to fumble it into my pocket. I sent a mental note to the faeries to keep it handy for me, but not to play with it. Just what I needed was to be accidentally stabbed by my own faeries.

  Voices echoed down the hall from the direction we were heading. Locksead obviously heard them as well. “If you don’t sit up, bitch, the Grand Inquisitor will make this even more gruesome than it’s already going to be.” He’d changed up his voice. Being a relic thief obviously gave him plenty of acting experience. Probably where Alric got so good at it as well. Locksead’s voice was now low and more melodic, like one of the elves, but one that might have spent time down at the dock—if they had a dock and water in this land.

  The chair jerked forward and he picked up speed.

  “This one kept falling out of her chair. Handle her carefully. She might have hit her head a few times, and the captain said the inquisitor wants them all sound before the questioning.”

  I kept my face as neutral as I could, but it was not easy. Even knowing that somewhere out there my patron and her people were trying to free us didn’t make me feel that much better. I kept envisioning a pack of houseboys armed with silver butter knives. I did appreciate Locksead ordering them to treat me gentle though. I was going to have enough bruises from the carriage ride in. I didn’t need more.

  “Why is her hood off?” The knight facing me wasn’t one I recognized, nor the one behind him. Aside from Flarinen, I hadn’t seen any of the surviving knights who’d come to get Alric and me from Kenithworth.

  The one in the back narrowed his eyes and I re-focused on keeping my face neutral.

  “Is there a reason to keep it on? Its only purpose was to keep them from seeing the outside, and for blocking any spies from seeing who we were bringing in. The inquisitor would not care once they are inside.” Locksead was doing a fine job of sounding snotty now. If this inquisitor person was the one behind things, and he was pretending to work for him, the tone was perfect. Of course neither of us had any idea if these two also worked for him.

  Until I saw their faces. Yup, even in trained and deadly knights, terror found a way to peek out.

  “Agreed.” The knight closest to us came around to take control of my chair. “We will do as he ordered.”

  Crap. That didn’t sound good, but hopefully there would be time before anything bad happened. Like a few years.

  Locksead didn’t say anything more, but his hand tightened on my shoulder before I heard his footsteps turn and walk away.

  “Bring her this way.” The second knight went down an adjoining hall, one so narrow the chair I was in barely fit. Had I been able to speak, I’d recommend they get some of that weird glowing moss down here. I could barely see the knight in front of us and he was no more than a few steps ahead.

  Had I been trying to imagine a perfectly evil dungeon, this place was it. That thought expanded the further down we went. The walls were seeping something from somewhere that I figured I’d never really want to know. The knights were silent so I could clearly hear all the scurrying and scrabbling of tiny rodent feet in the walls around us.

  “Put her in this one. The inquisitor wants them all kept apart in case they decide to plan an escape.” Both guards laughed at that one.

  Again, I forced my face to stay neutral.

  The first guard wasn’t gentle as he picked me up and dropped me on the cot. I raised my bound hands at him.

  “What do you think I am, stupid? Reginald is even scarier than the inquisitor. I’m not touching anything he did to you.” He stomped out of the cell and slammed the door.

  The cell was solid brick, at least from what I could see, since my movement was still limited. I was grateful that I wasn’t as frozen as before, but I’d like to be able to move more than my hands.

  I tried Covey’s meditation tricks but that only helped for a few minutes.

  A few silent minutes. I must have been the last one locked up, as I heard nothing from outside my door.

  I mentally called to the faeries to come out from hiding and bring the knife.

  It took a few tries, for all I knew they’d passed out again, but then some squirming and Crusty and Leaf hovered in the air in front of me, holding the knife. I twisted my hands so they could drop it but it took them a minute or so to finally do so.

  I grabbed the knife, but while my fingers could move, cutting the rope while tied wasn’t going to be easy. At least not for me. Alric had probably done it dozens of times.

  Crusty and Leaf were flittering about the cell checking things out, so it took a half dozen mental calls before they flew back to me.

  I really didn’t want to trust these two with the knife and cutting the rope, but there was no way I was going to be able to do it without help. Maybe I should have Alric start training me on things like escaping from evil bad guys along with magic once we got out of here. I chased the if we get out of here thought away.

  The girls looked way too happy to help once they figured out what I was trying to have them do.

  “I hold knife!” Leaf dove for the knife, only to be bumped by Crusty doing the same.

  “No me!”

  “Me!”

  “Me!” They started slapping each other around. Or would have if they weren’t half a foot apart. As it was they were slapping the air in the direction of each other.

  Not only was this not getting me free, they were getting louder, and I seriously doubted any of the knights were going to believe the local rats could now talk.

  “Stop it!” I put as much force into my mental command to them as I could—actually considering that my freaking-out state was increasing with each word they said, I had a lot of panic behind that.

  It worked. Both faeries stopped fighting and looked at me with huge eyes and open mouths.

  “She do, me rope.” Crusty finally whispered.

  At my nod, they both, quietly, drifted to my hands. Leaf grabbed the tip of the small knife, and Crusty held a piece of rope tight.

  It took five very stressful minutes, and I was screaming myself hoarse in my head, but they finally cut through the rope binding my hands.

  The girls lifted up as soon as the strand broke, which was a very good idea on their part since I flung my hands in the air to make sure they were free of the rope.

  “Good job, girls.” I wanted to shout it, but I knew sound would carry down here in the silence.

  I wiggled my f
ingers to stretch them and untied my legs. Just normal rope down there. I guessed there was a limit to how much super-secret, magic-busting, voice-stealing rope one had.

  My limbs took a bit to recover and my attempt at stepping away from the chair ended up with me dipping down to the ground.

  Crusty and Leaf flew over to me and set the knife down next to me.

  “Play game?” Crusty tilted her head and folded her legs underneath her to mimic me.

  I kept my laugh as quiet as possible. “No, sweetie, just having some problem getting upright.” I felt a tingling in my legs as the blood flow increased. That was good, I could talk, stand, probably do magic. However, I had no idea how I could get out of that locked door without bringing the guards back. I might be able to blow the door off with my flying spell, but there was no way that would be subtle.

  There had to be another way to get out without telling everyone I was out. I had an idea.

  “Hey.” I motioned for both faeries to come closer. “Could you two get me out the way you transported the syclarions? Not far, just to the other side of the door.” I doubted even a good chill could be built up in that limited time.

  Leaf shook her head and Crusty nodded. But Crusty had looked at Leaf before she nodded, so I was sure her nodding agreed to Leaf’s shaking. I thought so anyway. Neither looked happy.

  “No. Need Garbage.”

  I knew Garbage hadn’t been on all of the syclarions. “She has to do the spell?”

  “No, three. Always three.” Crusty carefully held up four fingers.

  Crap. They didn’t need Garbage specifically, but they had to have a third faery to pull their trick.

  “Okay, then.” I looked around the cell. They could fit through the window grating, but it would put them right in the line of sight of any guards down here. I figured we were important enough, at least Siabiane and Padraig were, that there would be a heavy guard presence, even if I couldn’t hear them.

  Straw covered the floor, and not the dirty, filthy been-here-forever kind. New straw. These cells might be very old but they hadn’t been used in a very long time. Could be a good sign or a bad one. If they hadn’t been in use in a long time, then leaving us down here to rot probably wouldn’t even be noticed.

  I was already on the ground, so I crawled along the wall between my cell and what I presumed was another cell. The faeries both ran alongside me as I moved the straw away to see if there were any breaks in the wall.

  Halfway through I found a drain. One that had a two-inch-high gap above it, which led somewhere.

  I looked down. Leaf was still near me and Crusty was trying to make a pile of straw one strand at a time.

  “Okay, Leaf,” I whispered. There was a chance it wasn’t one of our people on the other side. “I need you to slide under there, but don’t do anything, just look. Then come right back and tell me who is there.”

  Leaf started to hop off my hand, but I grabbed her. “You understand? No matter who is there, you come right back.” She wasn’t as devious as Garbage, nor as scatterbrained as Crusty, but Leaf could still lose focus. I think it was part of the faery survival method.

  “Yes. Go, no stay.” She even tipped her tiny pointed chin down in a sign of complete agreement. It was the best I was going to get.

  I sat her down near the drain and watched as she slid under. I counted a minute, then a second one. Unless the room next to us wasn’t a cell, there couldn’t be that much room to look at and see who was there.

  I was about to send Crusty in after Leaf when a tiny green head came through the gap, followed by the rest of her.

  She looked quite pleased with herself as she sat there smiling.

  “Okay, who is over there?”

  “Nice lady, we talk.” Leaf readjusted her tiny flower cap as she tapped the side of her head. “Dead guy there too.”

  Nice lady could be any of our female friends, but I figured the only one who might be able to mentally talk to a faery would be Siabiane.

  “Wait, dead guy? Reginald is in there?”

  Leaf shook her head. “No. That old dead guy. New dead guy.” She pantomimed a slice across the throat. There was a bleeding dead guy with Siabiane?

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Reginald seemed more than a little crazy, and it was clear Siabiane killing him all those centuries ago still didn’t sit well with him. However, throwing some guy whose throat had been slit in a cell with her was a bit over the top. “Wait, do you mean Lorcan?” As far as we knew he was dead, and he had a scar across his throat.

  “Yup. Not dead-dead guy.” Leaf started to wander over to Crusty and her straw pile.

  The good thing was that the most powerful magic user in our group, possibly in this entire enclave, was in the cell next to me. The bad thing was I still wasn’t completely sure if there was a dead body over there or a ghost.

  “Leaf, come back for a minute. Crusty, you too.” I might need both of them on this. “Is he dead, like lying there, or is he a ghost?”

  Leaf smiled and rose an inch in the air and dangled her feet, then she swung her hand down to them and waggled her hand in the empty space beneath her feet. “Floater.”

  That might be good too; although I was becoming alarmed at how used I was getting to ghosts. Maybe Beccia wasn’t old enough to create such things.

  If we could get Siabiane free, regardless of the floater in there with her, we could have the faeries sneak through to everyone, and figure out a quiet way out. I had no idea where we were or who was really against us—a small faction led by Reginald, or, as he implied, the entire kingdom.

  “Okay, here’s what I need you to do.” I took out the knife and handed it to Leaf. She bobbed a bit under the weight, but faeries were far stronger than their size indicated. “I need both of you to crawl under there and tell Siabiane we’re freeing her. Then gently cut the ropes off her and pull them away.” Crusty was looking longingly at her straw pile.

  “Crusty, after you free everyone, you can work on your pile for a little bit.” She brightened up and the two of them slid under the space above the drain.

  I pressed close to the drain to see if I could hear anything, but I only heard footsteps outside my door.

  Crap, footsteps. Probably knights doing rounds. I scrambled as quietly as I could back to my cot and laid down. I kept my hands about where they were when they were tied, but I didn’t have time to grab the rope. Besides I wasn’t sure if touching it would do anything to my magic and if someone came in here I wanted to be able to defend myself.

  I quickly sent a mental command to the faeries to be quiet, but I had no idea if they heard me or not.

  The footsteps paused in front of my door, but the person was carrying a fire torch so I couldn’t see their face, only the flame. They held it up to the grate.

  “Hope you’re resting nicely, traitor. The morning will see you get what you deserve.”

  After that cheerful bit, he lowered the torch and walked to Siabiane’s cell.

  My plan had been to get us all out silently. However, as the guard stopped at the next cell, two things were very clear: the faeries had already freed Siabiane, and she didn’t think quiet was the best option. Maybe it was that whole being an insanely old, dangerous, and powerful magic user issue that didn’t make her agreeable to sneaking out.

  Whatever the reason, before the guard could even start his cheery greeting to her, the door to Siabiane’s cell burst open. Judging by his gurgling scream, most of that door ended up in him.

  “Alrt trivelin!” That was Siabiane’s voice, but I had no idea what the words were. Judging by the way my door popped open, I was guessing it was a spell. I had to admit, spells were much cooler with words said out loud. Alric and his mostly silent way was sort of dull. Maybe I needed a new teacher.

  I jumped off the bed and out the door. Siabiane stood there among the dying remains of the sadistic guard and the door to her cell. Leaf and Crusty flew around her happily. Crusty was waving about a few straw bits,
but then dropped them when she saw me.

  “We did good!” She flew around my head then back to Siabiane.

  A softly glowing form came slowly out of Siabiane’s cell. It was Lorcan. I’d really been hoping that Reginald hadn’t killed him, that he’d somehow just taken his form and had him locked up somewhere here. That clearly wasn’t the case. I wasn’t sure how some dead people became ghosts, but I was pretty sure you needed to start with a dead person.

  He drifted over to me with a sad smile. Siabiane stomped over to the next cell, said a few words, and then moved on to the next. Judging by the sounds, her second spell was removing the ropes that held everyone.

  “I am so sorry, child.” Lorcan’s voice was softer than before but still him. His features were all the same as well, although a bit more see through. I couldn’t see any wounds so I wasn’t sure how his brother had killed him. “This is my fault.”

  If you end up being murdered by your homicidal dead brother who then steals your body, I find it hard to say that is your fault. “That your brother is insane?”

  Lorcan’s grin came back briefly. “That might be my fault as well. I never noticed it when we were younger. But, no, I speak of this.” He waved one ghostly arm around the grouping of cells.

  “I pursued the finding of the relics. I thought that with something as powerful as the Ancient weapon, our people would feel safe enough to rejoin the world and the rest of the elves. Our people are far stronger when unified, and there is something dark coming our way. To this entire world. A darkness that has been growing the past fifteen years or so, but one our seers cannot view. Continuing to hide in this enclave will make things worse.” He shook his head and it caused him to drift about a bit. I guess learning how to be a ghost took time. “I didn’t stop to think that others might want the relics, and the weapon they make, for less than beneficial reasons.”