I really had no idea why the faeries hadn’t flown once they’d cleared the hedge, but the addition of the cats did make an impressive entrance.
“We might want to get out of the way.” I jumped out from the two massive roots I’d been fighting from and ran to the pub door. Alric and Padraig joined me just as the cat and faery wave swept past us.
The crash of the two groups was impressive, and even more so when half of the faeries jumped off their cats and flew to attack the squirrels in the tree.
Within three minutes, most of the squirrels were dead and the few survivors had scurried off.
Garbage flipped in the air and shouted a war cry that was echoed by the faeries surrounding us.
“We win!”
“That was impressive, sweetie. But who are your extra friends?” Getting the additional twenty faeries back was a good idea; I wasn’t sure about increasing the flock.
“Is more friends! Just help now. Back later. Now they and extra meows go back.” Garbage raised her staff and the leaf-clad faeries remounted their cats, bowed to Garbage, and then rode off toward the hedge.
So much had happened in the past few days, I was ready to go play faery and drink until I passed out.
I turned to Padraig and Alric but they had climbed up a bit to inspect the tree and didn’t seem concerned about Garbage’s apparently increasing political power in the faery realm. Both were just standing there with their heads tipped.
“I think it will be fine.” Padraig finally broke the silence and reverently patted the tree before he and Alric climbed down.
“Bodies need go.” Garbage scowled at the dead squirrels as if the least they could have done was die somewhere else. She raised her arm and the remaining faeries starting swirling around where the bodies were.
“Wait!” Alric held up his hand and ripped the magic command chain off the nearest squirrel. “We might be able to find out who sent them.”
Garbage nodded once he stepped back again and the faeries whirled until they became a blur. When they stopped the squirrel bodies were gone.
Chapter Ten
Alric looked at the small chain and jewel in his hand. “This is far more powerful than I’d expected, and at least a third of the squirrels had them on. Not only could they have severely damaged Amara and her tree, they could have taken out half of Beccia in a few hours.”
“It’s not in great shape already,” Padraig said and nodded down the alley to where the rest of the town could be seen.
He was right. Beccia had never been a glamorous place, or even an okay place. It probably looked tired and worn the moment it was built. However, the town had taken some serious hits as of late, and it showed. Not all of the damage from the battle of the glass gargoyle had been repaired, and since then evil elves, rakasa, and sceanra anam had played with it. Now the mayor of Kenithworth and his syclarions had taken a bite and were looking for more.
Covey stuck her head out of the pub doorway. “Whatever you did, it worked. Amara says her tree will recover and the hedge stands. Plus, we think we have a way to track Foxy.”
We trooped back inside the pub, Alric still focusing on the small squirrel bauble.
The faeries flew in over our heads and went right for the bar. Twenty-three cats in a wild variety of colors and sizes were piled up near the fire. I really hoped that we weren’t going to have them with us the entire time now. I liked cats, I really did. But taking care of that many would be problematic and expensive.
Mathilda and Amara were looking at Amara’s map, but looked up as we came in.
“Thank you for saving us.” Amara shook her head. “But I don’t understand. The squirrels of Beccia love my tree. Why would they attack it?”
Alric looked up from his study of the small chain. “They didn’t. These weren’t your local squirrels. These were trained, spelled, and yes, possessed. I’d say our friend the mayor has many allies on his side, some possibly from inside Beccia.” He looked to me.
I had the same thought. Okay, after he pointed me toward it, but I still had it. Back when we’d first run into squirrels like this, they’d been controlled by a few of the crime lords of Beccia. The extremely heavy magic-using crime lords. “Cirocco or Largen?”
“Or both,” he said. “Amara, have you heard anything? Are they out of jail?”
Both had been locked up after the glass gargoyle incident but so had Grimwold and I knew he’d gotten out a few months ago. Cirocco’s prime henchman had been last seen running away in Kenithworth. He could be working with the mayor now for all we knew.
“Possibly? I don’t really pay attention to that.” She dropped her focus back to the map.
“Let’s assume one or both are helping the mayor. We need to be careful moving around out there.” Alric looked down at the map. “How did you narrow down where Foxy is on just a map? When we go out we need to be targeted on him and avoid being seen.”
Mathilda patted Amara’s shoulder. “Our dryad and I cast a spell. Well, I did, but I used her love of Foxy to make it work. He’s here, but not here.” Her smile dropped. “I can’t explain it, but he’s right here, and there are more people with him.” She tapped a section of the map near the old ruins. “But yet, when I try to scry, I only see the trees, not him, nor any buildings.”
I hadn’t noticed the small scrying bowl behind her. Scrying was a dicey form of old magic, often not showing anything beyond your reflection gazing into a bowl of water. Yet, I knew if anyone could make it work, it would be Mathilda.
“But if there are no buildings there, where is he?” Amara looked ready to weep again. For a goddess, she cried a lot. Then again, she was the only goddess I knew, so maybe this was normal for them.
“If they were underground, there would be some evidence,” Covey was now scrutinizing the map. Actually, she was glaring at it. If it had been an errant University student, it would have given her an answer immediately.
Underground. When I’d been on the run from the evil syclarion who’d been planning world domination, and who turned out was my newest patron in disguise, I’d fallen into an aqueduct. They ran deep under the ruins but, due to expense, had never been examined. From time to time, relics that seemed to be from there showed up—usually on the black market. My friend Harlan had a collection of gold-copper squares that I was pretty sure were the remains of a sarcophagus I’d been trapped in inside that aqueduct.
“What if they were underneath? Way underneath?” I briefly retold my tale, with a few muttered cheers from Leaf from her prone location on the table near the map. She’d been with me on that adventure and had gone for help when I became trapped.
“Elven aqueducts?”
Lorcan shook his head. He’d been mostly silent the last hour, but I knew he was thinking. “Not ours. They were made by the Ancients. When we first moved into this area, after they’d vanished, we tried to utilize them. But they were too damaged and were beyond our abilities to repair. I hadn’t thought of them since before the Breaking.”
“Could whoever took Foxy and the others be keeping them there?” Covey rocked back a bit, but glared at the map.
“That would mean there was an opening near there. Where I went in was partially intact, that’s why I ended up on that wild ride. I have no idea how far it went before I got stuck.”
“I didn’t get a chance to go back after I rescued you, but from the stale air I’d say most of the passages were long closed.” Alric had been studying the squirrel chain, but slipped it into his pocket. “We need to go when it’s night to avoid being seen crossing the city; we have to assume there are spies in town. But that’s going to make it even more difficult to find an entrance.”
“We find.” I would have expected Garbage to be drinking with the rest of the faeries, but she flew over and landed next to Crusty and Leaf. She pulled them to their feet. They both wobbled, but mostly stood up. “Foxy friend.”
I was again surprised at the changes in my orange faery. I wasn’t going to complai
n though. “You could help find the entrance? At night?”
Crusty nodded and tapped her nose. Or rather, she tried to and ended up slapping herself in the face instead.
“Smell. Better at night.” Leaf yawned but seemed to be shaking her drunk off.
I peered out the back door. It was late afternoon. It wouldn’t be dark enough to hide us for a few hours.
“I think we should get what rest we can, then head out at dusk.” Alric was already moving furniture around to make places to lie down.
Amara brought blankets from behind the bar. “You should be fine. No one is going outside at night anymore. It was too dangerous when that mayor person was here. I’ve not told anyone that I made the hedge, so they are sure the mayor is up to something.”
“What about them?” I hooked a thumb at the four old regulars sitting in their own world and not even noticing us.
Amara smiled. “They probably won’t notice. But you’ll need food for such a journey. I’ll feed them too. They will rest well afterwards.” She winked and turned to go to the kitchen, but stopped and ran back to give me a hug. “Thank you for coming back. Foxy knew you’d save us.” Then she ran into the kitchen with Dogmaela following.
The good news was that Amara was an amazing cook. Mathilda’s food had been very good, but prior to that I’d been eating berries, travel bread, and jerky for almost a month. A real meal sounded wonderful. The bad news was the wave of guilt at her parting words that slammed into me. Foxy had more faith in me than I deserved. Yes, I had been fighting to gather the relics over the past few months. And been taken prisoner by elves. And gone to Null, fallen into the past, and a few other things. Still. I’d never thought that maybe my friends back here needed help. When I thought of them it was for my own purposes—I missed them for me. I wasn’t thinking that they might be in trouble as well.
Yet Foxy had been sure I’d save them.
I wiped away a stray tear before anyone noticed; maybe Amara was contagious. “Garbage? Do you want all of your people here to go, or just a few?” I’d gone over to pick up some ale for us and noticed the extra faeries were getting rather drunk. The little black and white one, Penqow, was no longer talking in words, but speaking in belches.
Garbage was on the table with the map. She didn’t fly over, but she shook her head. “No. They disobey. They stay.” She was pissed about the faeries leaving Alric and the others. I couldn’t blame her. A year ago I’d say the faeries were far more annoyance than help. That had changed. Not that I thought Alric and the rest needed help, but it might have been helpful to have had the faeries with them. Not to mention if they’d been more clear in the message they told Alric when I left.
“Okay, then you, Leaf, and Crusty need to stay sober.”
“Tea?” Crusty hadn’t really been paying attention, or so I thought. However, she grabbed that idea quickly. We’d found out completely by accident that tea made the girls hyper. Like fly so fast no one could see them until they smashed into a tree fast.
“No.” I didn’t try to hide my shudder. The first time Garbage had tea she’d carved a hole in Covey’s kitchen window and hunted down a bird to feed Harlan. Harlan was a chataling, a bipedal feline species. Having the bird flapping around Covey’s home wasn’t an experience any of the three of us were going to forget for a long time.
The girls looked disappointed but sat down to make their own plans.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Alric came up to me and rubbed my arms.
There were so many mixed emotions on his handsome face I wasn’t sure where to start. Concern, compassion, but also hurt. I knew he wasn’t going to question why I’d taken off on my own and left him—yet. We were in crisis mode. But he’d gone the past month thinking that I’d been kidnapped. To find out I’d left on my own was a painful surprise that had been clear on his face.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“Not now. But if you’re not up for this, you should stay here.”
I pulled back. It wasn’t compassion from him, but pure calculating planning. He was trying to decide if I would be a help or a hindrance on this mission. “Foxy is my friend, more so than any of yours. I’m not leaving him down there any longer than we have to.” Maybe some emotional distance between us would help. I knew leaving would cause him pain, but it was better than me changing into whatever I’d become at the Spheres and accidently stomping on him or one of the others. I may have made that decision rashly, but I would do it again. “Besides, I’ve been in those damn aqueducts longer than anyone, even you.” I didn’t want to fight, but this wasn’t how I’d envisioned our reunion.
“Here comes Amara with food,” Covey said far too cheerfully.
I looked around and pretty much everyone except for the faeries was looking at Alric and me in that ‘we’re not really looking at you, but we’re listening’ way. Both Alric and I took a step away from each other and the tension dropped.
I sat between Covey and Mathilda as Amara brought enough food for a hundred people. We finalized the plans as we ate, then bedded down on the pub floor for a few hours. That Alric and I were as far away from each other as possible wasn’t a good sign.
I hadn’t even had time to dream when I was rudely awakened by three beings stabbing me in the gut. Garbage, Leaf, and Crusty were awake and extremely sober. And far too energetic. I squinted at them, but they just looked to be normal energetic, not tea-driven insanity energetic. If the rest of the faeries were staying here, I needed to warn Amara about not giving them tea. Chocolate was also risky, but it just made them mellow, so I wasn’t as worried about that.
It was when all three turned to me and put their fingers over their mouths that I got worried. That and the sound of heavily clawed feet walking in front of the pub.
Chapter Eleven
The pub was mostly dark, with only a light from the kitchen breaking the gloom. Foxy always left one glow on, and it was nice to know Amara was doing the same. It was enough to see the faeries’ faces, especially when they came right up to my nose. But I couldn’t see much else.
The scrabbling footsteps outside continued. There was more than one syclarion out there, and they were walking slowly, as if they were looking for something.
I closed my eyes and focused my energy on my sword. Alric and Padraig could call their spirit swords to them whenever they wanted. Mine seemed to have a mind of its own and came, and went, when it felt like it. But if a bunch of syclarions were about to burst in, I really needed my sword to want to be here.
I grabbed Garbage and brought her to my mouth as I whispered. “Can you tell the others? Start with Alric and Padraig.”
“Others do. And spies sent.” Garbage’s grin was terrifying at this distance.
Swearing came from outside and the footsteps stopped. “Damn it, it’s just some of those stray cats.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear the low guttural voice of a syclarion. An echo of more swearing voices told me there were at least six out there.
“Keep searching. We don’t have much time and the cats must have triggered the alarm.” They slowly moved off. I knew syclarions could move fast when they wanted to, so the slow walking was deliberate. Obviously not all of them had been chased off during Amara’s purge, or they’d managed to sneak in while the hedge was having problems. The attack on Amara’s tree might not have been expected to succeed, but just to drop the hedge long enough to get the syclarions back into town. Minutes later, the footsteps had gone and all of my friends sat up.
“I have spelled the windows now, so no light will escape,” Lorcan said as he magically lit the glows in the room. Foxy used to only have cheap candles, but he’d been improving his clientele in the past year. Probably Amara had a big influence on that change. As his wife, this pub was hers too. I briefly wondered if he knew he was married to a tree goddess.
“Meows say eight,” Leaf said as she flew up from conversing with two of the cats. “Bad smell.”
“This doesn’t chang
e anything, except that we have to be more careful.” Padraig held up his hand before Alric could speak. “No, you’re not doing this alone now. The plan hasn’t changed.”
“How do you know that was what I was going to say?” Alric didn’t even pretend to look surprised, regardless of his words. “It’s a logical idea though. One person can get through unseen better than a mass of people. I can get in, get Foxy and the others out, and be back in an hour.”
“No.” I stepped forward before anyone else could speak. It wasn’t just whatever was falling apart between Alric and me. It was that I knew we needed to do this as a group. I’d no idea why, I just knew it.
“I agree with Taryn,” Mathilda said. She shot me a questioning smile. “There is more here than we see. I’m feeling that, and somehow so is Taryn.” She pointed to Alric, Padraig, Covey, and me. “You four need to go. Lorcan and I will stay and protect Amara and her tree.”
“And us!” Garbage had her war feathers on and the other two were donning theirs.
“Yes, and you three. The rest of the faeries, the constructs, and the cats will help us protect the tree.” Mathilda might be new to everyone but myself and the faeries, but her wisdom held true. Everyone nodded. Even Alric, although he was the last and didn’t look happy.
It only took a few minutes to make sure everyone was armed and ready to slip out the back door and down the alley behind the pub. The town had large lanterns on the major roads, and this street was usually well lit. There were a few working, but mostly they just created tiny pools of light separated by massive amounts of darkness.
“Keep Taryn in the middle of us. Her eyesight is the weakest in the dark,” Alric said.
Covey shot me a look but I shrugged. It was rude, but it was also accurate. The two elves had excellent night vision and, while Covey’s wasn’t as good as theirs, as a trellian hers was better than mine.
The roads were empty, but we stayed close to the buildings. Clearly, there were people we’d rather not meet out here. Even the faeries were silent as we quickly made our way to the edge of town. Alric was in his element sneaking around and I felt a bit of pride. That feeling crumbled when I remembered what was going on between us right now.
The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6) Page 7
