The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  Chapter Twenty

  “I believe so,” Padraig shook his head. “It is somehow related to the relics.” He tapped a corner of the words. “I just can’t figure how it’s related nor why we never saw any other reference to it.”

  “That would be a good question for Nasif,” Lorcan said. “I think we underestimated him and Dueble roaming around for almost a thousand years—and just what they were doing during that time. But right now we need to figure out where it is and how to get it.”

  “Unless the map is way off, this shows it covering two dig sites.” I shook my head. “How are we going to dig up something that big, and what are we going to do with it?” I had hoped that maybe the spell on the scroll would make things more clear, and narrow down the location. Nope.

  “I think I see what was done.” Alric had been holding back, but he’d been studying the map. “There’s a trick, one that elven map makers used to do with hidden locations.” He looked up and his grin got wider as he took in Lorcan and Padraig’s looks. “See? There are things to know outside of your studies. I learned it when I became obsessed with maps as a kid and was working out how to run away.” He took the map and turned it toward himself. Then muttered a few spell words.

  Lorcan’s spell held, but now a new one was laid over it. The lines from the spell outline bounced around each other and finally converged in one spot.

  “Is that my old dig site with Qianru?” Just how much had that crazy old lady known? Of course, she’d gone down to the south to rally the elves in her hometown, so I couldn’t ask her. I was in shock that my dippy patroness was actually an agent for her people in the southern lands. She’d known where the chimeras were going to come out of the ground and now, it appeared, where an Ancient chest was.

  “It looks like,” Alric said. “It’s in the far corner, nothing but trees there now. She most likely didn’t know it was there, or you’d still be digging for it.”

  “It’s outside of the hedge.” Covey had been glaring at the map but finally came up for air. “The mayor, and whoever else is out there, must not know exactly where it is, but they know something is down there.” She pointed to another area on the map. “As near as I can estimate, this is where the dragon construct was, where that woman they mentioned had prisoners digging. I questioned Foxy, but they were told nothing, other than to dig where they were told. They’d dig, be pulled back, a troop of syclarions would investigate, and then they’d dig again. They were headed this direction.” She pointed to my dig site.

  “We need to find it first,” Alric said.

  From the look on his face, I half expected him to run out the door that second.

  “We need to work out a plan,” Lorcan said. “We will draw attention as soon as we are out there. The people working against us are going the long way for a reason—she doesn’t know exactly where it is. But she must have some information that’s leading her. And we have to believe the mayor is working on his own agenda toward it as well.”

  “I’d really like to know what it does.” I looked around at my friends. They were just ready to grab it, whatever it was. I was less optimistic. “What is a chest going to do? More importantly, what was it designed to do? The girls said maker, but maker of what?”

  “I think it helped keep the relics hidden before they were put together as the weapon.” Mathilda had been quietly working on the corner of the map with the words.

  “Could it call the relics to it?” I wasn’t getting it. “I don’t see what a chest that held the relics could do.”

  Padraig didn’t look up from the scroll; he had that calculating something look. “The relics can be sensed; they seem to respond to each other, so on some level they must be felt by beings stronger in magic than those of today. The chest would have blocked that. If the Ancients could have sensed the relics, they might have stopped their destruction.”

  “Nasif believed the weapon wasn’t supposed to be used against the Ancients, but in an attack against the syclarions.” I wasn’t sure if I agreed with him or not.

  “True, but we’ve got many theories and no way of finding the truth at this point,” Mathilda said. “Even if, hypothetically, this wasn’t to be used against the Ancients, there were also plenty of powerful syclarion mages at the time. The chest could have blocked them from sensing the relics as well.”

  Alric shook his head. “It has to have some power beyond that. I’ve met the mayor of Kenithworth and he wouldn’t be going through all of this simply for something that might have stored a bunch of relics.”

  Padraig nodded. “I agree. I haven’t met him, but this is a lot of time and money for an academic exercise. And we’re not sure who is working with him. Some of us might have done it just to find the answers, but not someone whose motive is power.”

  I pulled back as they kept debating. I needed to look at this as a dig. Just a normal dig. I’d been digging these ruins for over fifteen years. I knew them far better than Nivinal, whoever this woman was, or the mayor and his mage flunkies—even the ones who were from Beccia. Folks from the Hill were patrons, they didn’t dig themselves.

  “We have to do it at night.” I studied the map. “And one of Alric’s hidey holes is close by the spot so we can use that as a staging area. Since my house has survived, I can get my supplies. And I’m pretty sure Alric can break into Harlan’s place to get his.” I looked up to find everyone looking at me. “What? This is what I do, people. I’m afraid it might take a while to get to it, and we don’t want to tip off the mayor. Just because he, or whoever he is working with, closed off that section of the aqueduct, that doesn’t mean that they’re not still digging.”

  “I can take care of getting Harlan’s supplies,” Covey said. She was the first to respond; everyone else was processing. “I’ve had reason to break into his place before.”

  Alric nodded and the first serious smile I’d seen in a while appeared. “I can go with Taryn and see what we can get from her place. She’s right, my cave is here.” He tapped a spot next to the intersection of the lines and the supposed location of the chest.

  “It’s settled then. Since we only have two real experts on digging through the ruins, I think Taryn and Alric should lead. Covey and I will be back up,” Padraig said.

  Lorcan looked ready to argue, then shook his head. “Agreed. We can’t all be out there, and this way Mathilda and I can work on getting a better idea of where the sphinx is before we leave this town.”

  “And make sure that Amara and Foxy are ready for us to take off quickly.” Alric gathered his belongings back into his pack.

  “Us too!” Garbage yelled. She, like the rest of her bunch, was still prone.

  “How about you stay here and help Lorcan and Mathilda.” I looked beseechingly toward Mathilda.

  “Oh, please do. I shall need of you to help me.” She turned back to me once Garbage waved and flopped back down. “I will go a different direction when we depart and will meet you on the trail north to the sphinx. I can follow the faeries now that we have reconnected, but I need to get my house.”

  I didn’t blame her, having a traveling house along would make trail life much better. I’d have to figure out a way to ride in it from time to time.

  “We can meet here.” Padraig pointed to a location on the map that was closest to the hedge. “I’ll have Amara and Foxy go with us there so that she can let us out.”

  Covey nodded, slipped her own pack over her shoulders, and left. Alric had gathered my pack, and Foxy’s scroll, and opened the door.

  “They go!” I’d thought Garbage had passed back out again, but as she yelled, Bunky and Irving followed us out the door. Bunky even made a dive for Alric’s head but didn’t seem upset when Alric ducked. It was an old game they used to play.

  “Shouldn’t they stay?” I watched the two constructs bob in the air.

  Alric looked back through the door to where the faeries were stirring. “I’d rather have the constructs over the faeries. This way, if we need to get w
ord back quickly, we can.”

  There were a few more people roaming around the streets than before, not at like Beccia normally, but definitely more than earlier. We were also going a different route to my house than before. Like the Shimmering Dewdrop, all of the pubs now appeared open.

  We were both quiet on the way toward my house this time, but, unlike last time, I was okay with it. I was already focusing on the best way to approach the dig once the sun went down. Night digs were not my favorite, but I had done them before. Knowing Alric’s sneaky ways, he was probably an expert at them. I’d have to talk to Padraig about those clearthin glows.

  The house looked as we’d left it, and I heard the spells around it pop as I walked up the lawn. The door wasn’t locked, but with a spell on it, it probably didn’t need to be. I’d just crossed into the living room when a wave of cold air hit me.

  “Please do come in and close the door, or I will kill him.” The voice came from a shadow in the corner of my living room. My front door shut on Alric’s face without me having to do anything.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Alric was yelling and pounding on the door. Bunky and Irving were most likely the source of the additional thunks against it. Normally, a verbal threat by an unknown source would have been met with skepticism, but there was something oddly familiar and terrifying about that voice. They were telling the truth. I wouldn’t have opened the door for anything.

  “Who are you?” I flexed my hand for the largest push spell I could think of. Yes, I knew deadlier spells, but fear was trying to take over my brain. Part of me recognized that I didn’t know this person—the other part was shaking in terror.

  “I am Edana. I am also your best hope and your worst enemy. I know that you and your friends are looking for the relics. I can give you the life you want, with the man of your dreams, peace, if you just give me the diamond sphinx.” As the person spoke, their voice became more feminine, and images invaded my mind. Even knowing it was a spell didn’t make the emotional and mental impact any less. A nice home, my friends coming to visit from the homes nearby, Alric holding me in his arms each night.

  “Now, if you don’t, I can make things so much worse.” The images this time were enough to drop me hunched over to the floor. My friends were dead or dying. Alric was being slowly tortured.

  The pressure in my head suddenly stopped.

  “I know you don’t have it yet, but I also know that you might be the one to find it. I don’t know who you are, or what you are, and I don’t care. I killed my son to get the chimera. I have no problem doing the same to you and your friends.”

  I was just rising to my feet when the shadowed form vanished and my front door blew in.

  “What just happened?” Alric had his sword in one hand and his dagger in the other. Bunky and Irving were tearing around my house but kept looping over the corner where my attacker had been. Or rather, her image.

  I rubbed my arms at the cold that lingered from what she’d sent me in that spell. “I’m not sure. But I think I met Nivinal’s mom, she called herself Edana. She has the chimera now.” I briefly explained her demands, without going into the details because they were still too fresh in my mind to say out loud.

  Alric was silent for a few moments after I finished. Then pulled me into his arms. The feeling was almost too similar to what the spell had felt like, but I ignored that. “Why those two? You’re certain she didn’t want the rest? Just the sphinx?”

  He had me bundled tightly to his chest, so I just nodded. He held me away from him so he could see me. “Are you okay? I know you’re our only official digger, but I can do this without you.”

  I pushed at his chest. “No way, who knows what you’ll mess up.” I smiled. I couldn’t think about whoever that woman was. I had a job and we were getting that damn chest, and then getting out of here. “Let’s get my tools; we have a chest to find.” I paused halfway to my back rooms. “Could you tell the others? They need to know, but I don’t want to recount it again.”

  “I will.” He walked over to the corner where the shadow had been, held out a hand, then pulled it back as if burnt. “It’s the same magic tinge that I felt near the hedge and the first time we were here. She was looking for the gargoyle, or you, before.”

  “I hate to say me, but since she didn’t even bring up the gargoyle, I’d say that wasn’t her goal.” I started sorting through my digger supplies. Then I shook my head, grabbed them all, and dumped them in a huge pack I had. I had no idea what we’d need, and I also had no idea when we’d be back here. Not to mention, even spelled my house seemed to be a target for dangerous folks.

  Alric and the constructs were investigating the corner where the woman’s image had been. He turned and shook his head. “Whoever she is, she’s skilled. The residue I sensed is already gone.”

  “Great, so Nivinal is dead but we’ve got someone worse.” I started to struggle with my new pack and my old pack. Alric took the new one out of my hands and put it on his back. Show off.

  “We’ve definitely got someone different. And she didn’t give you much of an option, but this was the first time an offer of something in exchange for a relic has been made.”

  As we left my house, the constructs did one more flyby of every room, and Alric re-set the spell. “I’m setting it to both of us this time. Not that it worked against her.”

  The walk to where we were meeting Covey and Padraig was short, but both Bunky and Irving kept buzzing around anything even remotely suspicious. By the time we reached the hedge I was about to jump out of my skin.

  Covey was there with an additional pack almost as large as the one Alric was carrying for me. I knew that paranoid Harlan would have kept his prize digger tools hidden somewhere, but judging by the fact that Covey looked like she’d been sitting for a while; I’d say she didn’t have a problem finding them.

  “You two look far more upset than you should be for making a quick trip.” She stood and looked us both up and down. “Are you two still fighting?”

  “We’re not fighting, and we weren’t earlier.” Alric kept talking over Covey’s snort at that. “There was a guest waiting for us at Taryn’s home. It appears there is someone more dangerous than Nivinal—his mother, Edana. Or that was the name she gave us. I’ve never heard of her.”

  “The good news is she claimed to have killed him to get the chimera, so maybe he really is out of the picture?” Even I had a problem thinking that was good news, but it had to be better than both of them being alive. I might have defeated Nivinal’s spell image when I’d transformed, but there was no guarantee I could do that to him in person—with or without changing into something big and scaly.

  “How in the hell did she get through the hedge? We need to go back and warn Amara.” Covey had her packs on her back in a second.

  “She was only there as a spell image, like mother like son I guess. But she is so powerful that I probably would have given her anything she asked for.” An unwelcome thought hit me. Granted, spell images could come from anywhere if the mage throwing it was strong enough. But I had a bad feeling she wasn’t far. “She’s probably the one helping the mayor. Or rather, he’s helping her. He might not even realize he’s doing it.”

  Padraig came jogging up at that moment; Amara and Foxy were a bit behind. He shook his head. “There’s no way those looks can be good. Taryn, your distress can be felt by any strong mage in the area. Or could, it’s fading.”

  I looked to Alric, but he shrugged. “I never felt it beyond an initial stab of terror when that door slammed. I could tell something was wrong, but no distress.”

  “What happened?” Padraig put one hand on the hedge, checking to see if that was the source.

  “Taryn was attacked in her house by the spell image of Nivinal’s mother. He might be dead,” Covey said. “And they don’t want to give more details.”

  “I can’t.” I looked to Alric.

  He squeezed my shoulder. “Just say Nivinal might really be dead, his
mother is worse than he was, she has the chimera, wants the sphinx, and scared the hell out of Taryn.”

  “Good enough for me; we can discuss it later.” Padraig fixed one of his glorious smiles on me. Seriously, someone needed to build a new elven kingdom so he could rule it. He knew whatever happened was big, but he trusted both Alric and I enough not to push it.

  Without a word, he set up eight clearthin glows around us.

  “Is everything okay?” Amara asked as she and Foxy joined us.

  This wasn’t the time to discuss this, and since there wasn’t a way that hedge was going to stop spell images, nothing that she could do right now.

  “More information about those who are trying to get the relics, I’m afraid. We need to find this chest, and then leave here,” Padraig said with a nod toward the hedge.

  Amara’s sharp green eyes took in all of us, and her look said she’d pry the information out of us later—most likely with some amazing food. That was fine with me; I’d be in a much better condition to talk about it when we were back and safe in the pub. “I will have to close the hedge after you leave; more information usually means more attacks, and I will not abide by that. But the hedge will now recognize you on this trip, all of you.” She waved to Bunky and Irving bobbing in the air above us. “It will let you come back one time even without my presence. I would make it permanent, but it would weaken the spell.” She waved her hand and a pathway through the hedge opened. “Good luck, and quick travels.”

  Padraig gave a small bow, then led us through the hedge, the clearthin glows strung along the length of us with one ahead and one behind. Going through the hedge didn’t feel as closed in as the first time we went through, most likely because I didn’t feel like it was thinking of eating me. Now that it recognized us as friends, it wasn’t as scary.