The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  “What are we going to do about them?” I pointed to the statues. The ones near the Spheres had eventually sunk into the sand, but these wouldn’t do that.

  Lorcan shrugged. “Not much we can do but leave them. They are dead even though the stone feels warm.”

  Everyone got back on their horses and Alric did a quick recon to make sure no one was lingering who hadn’t been hit by the basilisk. He turned us around, pointing north but at a slightly different angle than we’d been originally heading.

  The faeries and constructs dropped down a bit lower than before, first sticking closer to us, then spreading out. I knew boredom was an extremely real threat with the faeries, and we were probably going to be riding for many more hours.

  “Garbage? Might I have a word with you?” I held up one hand. She came to me, but dropped on the horse instead of my hand. At least she came.

  “What? We save.” She folded her arms, ready to let loose her glare if I berated her for the faeries helping Irving.

  “Oh, I know, and we appreciate it.” I gave her my most sincere smile. “And I have a boon to ask of you. Do you think you could have your girls fly around our path, staying where you can see us, but watch the areas around where we’ve been and where we’re going?” The faeries in the past would have been too flakey to do that. I used them as part of my bounty hunting out of desperation, but they’d always been unreliable. Things had definitely changed in the past year.

  “We watch? Tell you?” She seemed to be thinking about it, but her thoughts could be somewhere else completely.

  “It would be important work. You and your faeries would have to be silent and stay unseen while you are watching for others following us or lying in wait.”

  “Important.” She puffed up her chest and nodded. “I tell them we do. Tell if things happen.”

  “Thank you,” I said as she flew off to the other faeries. Best case, we ended up with sentries on our path ahead of and behind us. Hopefully, at the least, we kept a bunch of potentially destructive little beings from getting bored. The past week had been fine; they flew off on their own and joined us at night. But that needed to change if we were being hunted.

  The rest of the day was uneventful, for which I was grateful. Mathilda met us at our stopping point within a few minutes of us getting off the horses. She must have been waiting nearby; it usually took her an hour or so to find us.

  This time she found us before all of the faeries came in.

  Lorcan quickly explained what had happened, with Garbage adding commentary on how the growly thing was her idea. I wasn’t sure why she called it the growly thing since I’d never heard it make a sound. However, I agreed that if it did, it would probably growl.

  Once Garbage decided she’d said what information that needed to be said, and the faeries had received a bunch of sugar, she flew my way.

  “We find. From stone peoples. Under rock.” She reached into her pocket in the front of her overalls, pulled out one of her faery bags, and from it, a crumpled piece of paper. “Here.”

  I took it and unrumpled it. It was the same paper about us the other group had, but with writing on the back. I read it out loud. “‘They are heading north. Don’t have yet. Will get other two pieces.’ Then a pretty damn good description of the exact direction we were going. Garbage found this under a rock; did they think their people would find it?” I handed it to Alric.

  His scowl came back after the second read. “Garbage, what type of rock was this under?”

  Garbage had shoved yet another piece of sugar into her mouth but gave him a one-eyed stare.

  I answered for her. “Why does the type of rock matter? The information never got to the mayor.”

  “Was it very round and flat? Did it feel funny when you moved it?”

  The sugar in her mouth came out at the last two questions. “Yes and yes.” She wiggled her fingers. “Spell-y.”

  Alric crumpled the paper, tossed it on the ground and threw a fire ball at it. “Damn it, not only did they give them spell breakers, they gave them a message stone. Do you know how rare those are? We had one in the enclave that we had to destroy a few years ago. Even before the Breaking, few mages could make them. The words on this page went right to the damn mage who set it up.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  There was no way that was good. “Are we sure that Edana isn’t involved in this? There seems to be a lot of high-end magic toys being thrown around.” I wasn’t sure which was worse: her being after us right now, or the mayor having that kind of magical power.

  Alric ran his hand through his hair. “I have no idea what to think at this point. No one now should have the ability to make one of those.”

  “Could they have found an old one? Old and annoying relics seem to be popping up around here a lot.” Not something I was happy about, but definitely a reality.

  Padraig shook his head. “Doubtful. We had destroy the one in the enclave because it started breaking down. It was firing spells randomly and set a shop on fire.”

  “This is disturbing information,” Mathilda said. She’d been silent when she arrived, but now seemed worried. Which we all were, but she rarely showed it. “When the surviving elves decided to hide, I took it upon myself to hunt down dangerous items. I searched for decades for any sign of those damn stones. I found nothing. I know it’s a few hours ride back, and now that we’re being followed we need to reach that hidden realm sooner rather than later, but we can’t leave that stone out there. They were rumored to be able to do far darker things than just transmit words and images. We have to go back and get it.”

  “Nope. It boom,” Crusty said.

  The rest of the faeries had gone off to go regale each other over their battle of the day, but Crusty had stuck around. Probably looking for more sugar.

  “The rock went boom? As in what, exactly?” Boom meant too many things to them for me to guess at right now.

  “BOOM!” Crusty flung out her hands, shook them, and then wiggled her fingers down.

  “That looks like an explosion to me,” Padraig said. “How did you do it?”

  I also wanted to know why. Granted, there seemed to be a ‘you didn’t ask so we’re not telling you’ situation going on with the faeries, but Garbage hadn’t really seemed to have a clue what they’d found that note under.

  “Zap! Boom!”

  I watched Bunky and Irving flying around the faeries. The chimera constructs did have an ability for an electric discharge. I’d seen it used against rakasa and sceanra anam, but never anything else.

  “Bunky? Can you come down here for a moment?”

  He came down, with Irving drifting right behind him. “Did you blow up the rock that Garbage found the note under? While you guys were fighting off the people who were after us?”

  He gave a hesitant head bob.

  “Why?”

  The series of gronks, growls, and hisses were something I’d never heard before. Nor could I understand.

  Luckily, Alric could. “He said it was new, old, bad magic. Not supposed to be used here, not now.”

  “How did you know that, my fine construct friend?” Mathilda came forward at Alric’s translation.

  Bunky came closer and gronked in earnest.

  “He said he can sense bad magic,” Alric said, then shook his head. “That would have been good to know earlier.”

  “That stands with the myths of the chimera constructs, but I honestly never thought it was literal,” Lorcan said. “From what we could decipher, they were created by the Ancients as guardians, sort of magical watch-dogs, with the main purpose of destroying the sceanra anam.”

  “And those things are definitely bad magic,” I said, then smiled at Bunky. “That was good of you to destroy it.” I ignored the snorts from Alric and Padraig behind me. I really did think it was better if something that was bad magic just didn’t exist anymore. “But you need to tell one of us before you do something like that again.”

  Bunky bobbed and g
ronked to Alric.

  “He said his first job is to protect, but he will tell us first if it doesn’t interfere with that.” Alric smiled. “I can’t fault him for that.”

  We sat up camp inside Mathilda’s cottage one final time. After this she was going to have it hide, her words, then she would join us. I had no idea how to hide something that large, but I’d given up on figuring it out. The entrance to this hidden realm was closer than they’d originally thought—one of the reasons Mathilda was a bit later, she’d been recalculating its location. It was still too far to reach tonight, but the original thought had been another few days of travel.

  We were settled in after dinner, with the constructs flying recon. We’d have regular watches still, but right now it was nice to just sit together.

  “Can you show us those shoulder pieces? I have an odd collection of armor I’ve gathered over the years in my wanderings,” Mathilda said.

  I’d gotten so used to the soft music that I’d almost forgotten about them.

  “Taryn says they sing to her.” Alric shrugged when I shot him a look. Then smiled. “It’s just another thing to keep in mind; you have armor sing to you.” He was sitting next to me and gave the shoulder his arm had been resting on a little squeeze.

  I didn’t know that everyone needed to know.

  I took them out of my pouch, yup, still singing. To speed things up, I passed them in opposite directions.

  “Definitely from the Ancient’s time. Not sure if these were the Ancients’ though,” Padraig said as he studied the smaller piece. “The sizing looks human.”

  “Humans weren’t out here when the Ancients were, I thought. Couldn’t they have been elves?” I asked. There really wasn’t that much difference in terms of body size between the two species.

  Lorcan was checking something in the bottom of the larger piece. “It could be elven, but the markings are definitely Ancient. There were a few wanderers during the time of the Ancients. Neither humans nor elves were common out here, but we were here.” He fussed over where a strap would be on a normal shoulder piece. “I thought the straps had dissolved, but it looks more as if they were never made.” He held the piece up where it would be on his shoulder. His eyes widened and he removed his hand. The piece stayed in place.

  “It’s doing that with magic?” Covey held out her hand for the smaller piece. There was no way it would fit on either Padraig or Alric, and Mathilda was still rummaging through her armor collection in the back room.

  The smaller piece slid right off her shoulder. She tried twice more, and then shook her head. “Maybe they need magic to work.” She handed it to me.

  The piece burst into a more exuberant song when I touched it. I started to raise it to my shoulder and it jumped on from four inches away. “That can’t be normal.” I reached up to take it off, but Mathilda came back into the room at that point.

  “Leave it on. Oh my. This is amazing.” She scurried over, plucked the second piece off of Lorcan’s shoulder, and held it about a foot from my other shoulder. When nothing happened, she slowly moved it closer. At four or five inches away, it jumped to me. The first piece had been gentle; this one pushed me backwards into the sofa with the force of it hitting me. Like the first one, it hung on with no problem.

  “Blood magic?” Alric had leaned forward to get a better look at the armor.

  “Bad blood magic?” I can’t say I liked any sort of magic that had the word blood involved.

  “No, no. Not bad blood magic. The armor is spelled for magic users as Covey hypothesized, and a familiar bond. Somewhere way down on your family line you were related to the owners.” Mathilda beamed. “Those markings are a family line; these two pieces belonged to a joined couple.” She came closer and gently pulled the smaller piece off. If felt as if it hugged me trying to stay on, but finally went with her. The larger piece came off easily, but considering that it was way too large to be fitting there at all without straps, there were still hinky things going on.

  “So, there were enough humans hanging around during the time of the Ancients for a family of them to wear armor with Ancient writing? Or do we think I have elvish way back in my family?” I really wished I could read Ancient; the wording looked lovely on the smaller piece.

  Mathilda shrugged, but her smile was huge. “I have no idea! Isn’t it grand? Oh, Siabiane is going to need to see these.”

  “Any clue as to why they are singing to me?” Judging from the lack of reactions as the pieces were passed around, I figured no one else heard anything.

  It said a lot that although none of them heard it, none of my friends looked surprised.

  “The only thing I would guess is that it’s a familial tie, as Mathilda said,” Lorcan surmised. I’d handed him the smaller piece this time. “It is amazing that humans had spells strong enough to react thousands of years later. Although, if they were working and living with the Ancients, that could have been where the magic came from. Who knows what it would have done had you found this a thousand years ago.”

  “Is right,” Crusty said, as she flew down next to Lorcan and patted the armor.

  “Taryn having this is right? Is that why you and Leaf brought her the other piece?” Lorcan held out his hand and Crusty quickly grabbed the sugar in it. The rest of the faeries were having a talk in the tiny house. They’d not been happy to learn we’d have to leave it behind for this portion of the trip.

  “Yes. Is her.” She fluttered over to me and landed on my lap. “Good.” Without further comment, she curled up on my leg like a tiny, deranged kitten and went to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The next morning came quietly enough, even if my sleep hadn’t been. I’d tossed and turned the entire time. This time in my nightmare it was I, not my friends, who was under attack, but it was almost comical. Giant pieces of armor, elven saltshakers, and a huge sarcophagus were chasing me. First through a massive forest, then plains, and finally through a desert.

  Then a giant gargoyle construct, similar to Irving only about twenty times the size and with a cruel face, started swooping down toward me. Its mouth was open and I was pretty sure it was trying to eat me.

  “Ah!” I bolted upright swinging my hands around to ward off the giant creature in my dream.

  “What? Are we under attack?” Unlike me, sitting in my bed trying to figure out who I was, where I was, and what was going on, Covey woke up from a sound sleep awake, aware, and with her hands already curling into claws.

  “No, sorry, just a bad dream.” I blinked a few times to get my bearings and swung my legs out of bed. The sounds of breakfast were coming from the front room, so even if I had been able to go back to sleep, it wouldn’t have been for long. Shower and packing done, I hauled myself out to the front room.

  Everyone except Alric and Padraig was there, eating and looking at the spelled map. This time they’d clustered the food to one side so that both could be done simultaneously.

  “Do Alric and Padraig know that you’re making plans regarding the map without them?” Hopefully food would clear the images from my mind. Although I did flinch when Irving and Bunky flew down from the rafters.

  “We talked about it late last night; this is more catching the rest of you up.” Lorcan pointed to the corner of the map. “Your odious friend Grimwold was right about the spell trigger. I have translated this spell completely. It will make the entrance appear, but it will only work for a few hours. We have to time it so we are far enough away that it will lead us to the correct location yet close enough to be able to work the second spell to allow us entrance.” He shook his head. “It is going to be tricky.”

  Mathilda had been securing dishes into cabinets as we spoke but came to join us. “I was able to pick up the disturbance that must have been caused by the entrance, but only enough to tell the general direction and distance. I think once we are fully ready here, we should cast the spell.” For the second time in two days, there was a crease in her forehead.

  “What d
o we need to do?” Covey was ready for action and whatever was needed.

  “I’m not sure. It appears I translated the word sacrifice incorrectly, but there is something that must come from each person.” Lorcan shrugged. “It’s not clear what it is. Nor is why the faeries felt you and Taryn wouldn’t contribute to getting us inside. I would like at least another hour before we set this off. If we miss it, this spell won’t work for another ten years. I’m afraid that was another limitation that hadn’t been clear on the prior read.”

  “That is something good to know.” I hated deadlines. “So if the only way to get the sphinx is to go inside this place, and the map is the only way inside? Could we just try the spell, fail, and leave the sphinx there?” I looked around. Yes, getting all of the relics together to be destroyed would be the best option, but if there was a simple option to make sure the weapon couldn’t be assembled for a while, and possibly forgotten in that time, we should take it.

  “Won’t work,” Alric said as he and Padraig came into the cottage. “It would be ten years for the caster or anyone connected to the spell—but another powerful mage could possibly open it before then.”

  “I doubled back to make sure no one was behind us,” Padraig said. “We are being followed. They are a few hours away, but moving fast. I sent tracking beacons back along our path, and it’s a larger group of fifty or more. The mayor of Kenithworth is leading them. The Largen copy, whoever she or he really is, is with them also. They destroyed the tracking beacons I sent back as soon as they saw them.”

  “We have to leave now.” Alric had his pack in hand and swung toward the door. “Cast the spell.”

  The faeries must have been listening from inside their tiny house, as they flew out at once.

  “We check path,” Garbage said and led her army out of the cottage before any of us could react. Even Bunky and Irving were too fast to catch verbally.