The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  “Not the best idea to have them out there alone, but I don’t think we have a choice.” Lorcan watched them vanish as we went outside. “I do admire you for dealing with them for so long. They are adorable, but quite a challenge.”

  I laughed. That was the understatement of the era.

  Our horses were out front, saddled and ready, along with a golden shimmery palomino. I’d been right about Mathilda being able to call a horse to her. It reacted to her as if they were old friends.

  Mathilda cast a series of spells on the cottage once we were saddled. “That should hold it, and keep it from unwelcome eyes.” The cottage seemed to fade from view. Even though I knew it was there, my eyes couldn’t focus on it.

  Lorcan rode up next to Alric. They both touched the map and set the spell. I couldn’t see anything, but judging by their reactions, they could. It was a good idea to have two of them involved.

  Alric took the lead with Lorcan directly behind. The woods were a little thinner here, but he was still going faster than I or, judging by her constant adjusting, Covey was used to. There was little call for horses within Beccia and neither of us left town much.

  However, considering who was behind us, I agreed with the increased pace. Not to mention if it was difficult to get into this thing, having more time to do it would be better.

  After almost an hour and no sound of pursuit, I started to get worried. It said a lot about my current life that not hearing someone after me was grounds for concern.

  Garbage and her entourage came flying up. “Path clear. Is bored.” They swarmed Alric and Lorcan first, and then drifted along to the rest of us.

  The two constructs started falling further behind us, finally dropping out of sight behind Padraig. That would be bad if they were close enough to recognize Bunky. Irving hadn’t been with us when we went to Kenithworth, but Bunky had been.

  “Garbage, get Bunky and Irving back here.” I could have yelled but there was a stillness in the forest that disturbed me. It hadn’t been silent a few moments ago.

  Garbage opened her mouth to argue, but nodded instead. She sensed something as well. She motioned for two of the other faeries to join her, but left Leaf and Crusty with us.

  They’d just left when my horse stumbled. Not badly, just a mis-step. But she’d been extremely sure footed up until now. Then the bushes paralleling our path started shaking and crumbled as the ground underneath them gave way.

  “Rakasa!” Alric yelled from the front as three shapes exploded from the ground in front of us. He had his horse leap over them as he was only a few feet away, but Lorcan’s balked.

  Five more came out of the ground near us, but that was it.

  “Eight? I could kill that many on my own.” Covey was not impressed and looked ready to jump off her horse and prove her statement.

  “They are just trying to slow us; maybe the mayor expected more of them?” Alric stayed on the other side of the line of rakasa but didn’t look concerned. “These don’t look well.”

  I had no idea what constituted looking well for one of the small, toothy, gray-green creatures, but they did look greener than before. And they weren’t attacking.

  Bunky and Irving came racing back from behind us, gronking loudly. Garbage and her faeries flew faster.

  “Is trap—make move now!”

  Alric made to strike the head off one of the rakasa, but Garbage swooped down and blocked him. “No. Boom!”

  Lorcan nudged his horse toward the rakasa in the front, but they moved out of his way. They blocked us when the rest of us tried though, so we rode into the woods to get around. They stayed on the path, their eyes dull. Alric raced through the woods with the rest of us following and the faeries and the constructs nudging us to hurry.

  We’d ridden for less than a minute when the explosion happened.

  The trees around us shook and a few smaller ones fell. Alric detoured around two fallen trees, glancing back to make certain we had followed.

  After a half-hour he slowed the horses down.

  I was shaking as much from the wild ride as the mess behind us. “Did they make the rakasa explode?” Considering the little monsters had been on the bad folks’ side, that seemed a little extreme. It would have been effective had we not known to flee, however. “And why did they back off from Lorcan but not us?” I kept my voice low. Everyone was watching the woods around us, but no plants moved, and the normal bird and animal sounds were starting to come back.

  “I think they didn’t go after Lorcan because they didn’t want the map he’s carrying to explode,” Padraig said. Like the rest of us, he was watching the woods carefully.

  I was keeping an eye on the ground and the plant life. Maybe those ones that blew up were the last of the rakasa. But maybe they weren’t. I had a bad feeling that even years from now, when this was just something we talked about in pubs on rainy days; I was still going to be disturbed when the ground shook even a little.

  I finally stopped staring at the ground. “Garbage? How did you know they were going to explode?” They had been behind us, but there was no way they were far enough back to have heard anything from our followers.

  Garbage scowled behind us in the general direction of the still smoking trees and path. I couldn’t see anything specific, but the smoke trailing up was noticeable. There was no sign of fire, so at least the rakasa were nice enough to not burn the forest down.

  “He know.” She flew over to Bunky and patted him. “He save.” Garbage was definitely growing in her new position as general—she usually took credit for everything whether it had anything to do with her or not. Her giving credit to Bunky was a major change.

  “Thank you, Bunky. How did you know?” Padraig was closest to us and held up his hand to give Bunky some scratches.

  Bunky gronked with great earnest and bobbed a few times.

  “He said he could smell it, bad magic,” Alric said. “Again. And again, knowing could have been helpful.”

  “Unless he just developed it,” I said. The faeries kept developing new-old tricks. Things they said they did ages ago, and they were now doing again. Maybe the chimeras were going through the same process.

  Even I understood the loud gronk that followed as an affirmative.

  Alric started slowly walking his horse in circles. At first I thought maybe he’d been hit by a spell. Then he got off his horse and stalked, there was no other word for it, between two trees. They were only about two feet apart, and they looked odd. Like no other trees I’d ever seen. Tall and slender, yet they looked solid. He turned around with a smile and a shake of his head.

  “Good news: this is the entrance to the hidden realm, bad news: the mayor and his folks are very close behind us.” He got back on his horse and motioned for Lorcan to ride toward the spot where he’d been standing. “I figure we have one shot before they get here.”

  If Lorcan was worried, he didn’t show it. I really hoped that I got to be as old as him some day so I could be that calm under pressure. He started saying the spell words and a fog grew between the two trees. Then faded.

  “I need more magic users to say it with me.”

  I rode forward but as soon as I started to say the spell words, the trees changed and their limbs appeared to move away from each other and us.

  “Maybe that’s what Queen Mungoosey meant, you can’t help on this one.” Lorcan shrugged but the other three magic users rode forward and joined in on the spell. The fog returned and a dark line running parallel to the trees appeared and held. Lorcan pulled out a small knife. “It doesn’t appear that this pertains to the faeries since they are magic beings, nor the constructs, but the rest of us need to throw a few bits of hair into the passage before we cross. Part of the spell was telling the hidden realm who we were and now we have to demonstrate it.” He looked at the horses. “We should probably also blindfold the horses as the passage isn’t going to be like anything they are used to. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t use magic inside the hidden realm. I’
ve no idea what would happen, but it is strongly discouraged according to the map.”

  Once an older shirt of Padraig’s had been torn into strips, and the horses’ eyes covered with the strips of fabric, Lorcan handed his knife to Mathilda and she cut off a lock of her hair, tossed it at the thin dark line, then nudged her horse forward and vanished.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Knowing we were going through a weird portal and actually doing it were two extremely different things. We’d tied blinders on the horses, but I wished I’d asked for one as well. Even though most of my friends and their horses had gone through, the entrance still looked like nothing more than a line. One that was somehow accommodating horses loaded with full tack and equipment that was far wider than the line or even the space between the two trees.

  Even Covey seemed far more interested than terrified. Maybe being an academic was similar to having a strong religious belief system—it cushioned you from fears in this world.

  Alric had his horse tied behind mine and he was walking mine in. My brain tried to pull my body away as first Alric and then the front of my horse went through the impossibly narrow slot.

  I held my breath as I went through, not expecting the bitter chill. There were a few moments of nothing, not unlike when I went back in time a few months ago. That got my heart racing. What if this wasn’t a normal magic portal at all? What if it was a time one? I shuddered. Going back once was enough.

  As soon as that thought started bouncing around my brain, my horse and I came out of the dead space. The space before me looked normal. Just a massive open plain, with little more than grasses for a long distance, which became a heavy forest a few miles away. The chilled feeling didn’t fade.

  Alric led us out of the way as Padraig came through. The faeries, Bunky, and Irving were right behind Padraig and the faeries were laughing as they tumbled out of the portal.

  The portal that was now shutting. “Should it be doing that? Lorcan’s spell will get us back out, right?” I stayed on my horse as Alric took off its blindfold, but I was ready to run back and try to hold the portal open if need be. This place was chilling more than just my skin no matter how harmless it looked.

  Alric glanced up as he removed the blindfold from his horse then untied his horse from behind mine. “I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s safer in here with that shut. Our followers were almost upon us when we went through. I’d say less than twenty minutes behind—they were definitely using magic to increase their speed.”

  I opened my mouth to chastise him for not mentioning that earlier, and then shut it. He was right. It was better not knowing how close they had been to us. “If they know where we went, can’t they wait for us out there until we come out?”

  Alric patted my leg as if I was a skittish horse. “From the map, it doesn’t look like the exit is anywhere near here, so it stands to reason it will send us out into the real world in a different spot as well.” With another pat and a nod he mounted his horse.

  “Is boom!” Crusty flew into my hair as she yelled.

  I pulled her free after I realized she wasn’t trying to get free herself.

  “Sweetie? What is boom?” Booms made me nervous.

  “Fixing boom. Going BOOM now!” She kissed me on the cheek and flew off after the others.

  That didn’t make me feel better.

  As before, Alric took the lead, with Padraig bringing up the rear. It was interesting that they didn’t even communicate, but just automatically slipped into place. Even though we had an entire plain, we formed a single line, also like before, behind Alric. I stayed right behind him, with the faeries and constructs flying nearest to me. Then Mathilda, Lorcan, Covey, and Padraig. After a few moments, the faeries took off across the plain.

  Since everyone else was either studying maps, scrolls, books, or lost in their own thoughts, I tried to see if I could find anything about this place that marked it as different. Aside from the chill. The sun was warm, but when I tried to find it in the sky, all I could see was a diffused glow over to the left. As if someone had a giant warehouse and a glow was lighting it from behind a curtain.

  “What is it my dear?” Mathilda broke ranks and nudged her horse up alongside mine.

  “Just wondering how it can look sunny, have no sun, and be so cold.” It had started just as a chill, but now I was thinking of getting out my heavier cloak from my pack.

  Mathilda looked up and shrugged. “We’re in a hidden realm, something I’m afraid no one alive today fully understands. Even if all of the magic users with us right now were gathered together into a single being, we wouldn’t have the power to create one of these. The scrolls imply they were created by the Ancients to protect favorite areas. Or used by them, but created by beings even older.”

  “I’m confused, is this area real or magically created?” Covey also broke the single file rank and came up on the other side of Mathilda.

  Mathilda smiled. “Both. This was a real place, it still is. But it now only exists in this hidden realm. As for the lack of sun, I think it’s here, but masked somehow, possibly something they were protecting here didn’t like direct light. However, I’m not sure why you say it’s cold—it’s quite warm.” Her smile dropped. “I do hope you aren’t coming down with something.”

  “Taryn is never ill, as she will tell you, repeatedly. Hung over, yes; ill, no,” Covey said.

  “It’s true, I can’t recall being sick a day in my life. Of course, I don’t recall much prior to you finding me all those years ago. But I really don’t feel like I was sick before either.” It was odd, never being sick. I’d never thought about it until now though. Aside from a bit of bragging when my friends got colds, that is.

  Mathilda leaned over and put the back of her hand against my forehead. “I believe you are sick now. You have a fever.”

  I didn’t think Alric was paying attention, but he turned on his horse. “How can she be sick? She was fine when we rode through.”

  As if Mathilda’s stating it made it true, I felt my body start to collapse. I felt achy, cold, hot, sniffling, and a tickle was growing in my throat. “What is this? Am I going to die?” If this was a cold, I knew I’d never had one. This was awful and unforgettable.

  “You won’t die, but I’ve never seen a virus hit this fast or hard. Oh dear, catch her.”

  I was looking at Mathilda, rather the two Mathildas that had appeared when I felt the world sliding under me.

  Alric got to me first, even though Covey was closer. I felt both of their hands on me as they lowered me off my horse. The rest gathered around and Mathilda and Lorcan dropped down next to me.

  “What’s wrong with her? She was fine.” Alric looked more concerned than I’d seen for a long time—I must have looked horrible.

  “She’s been spelled. Damn it, the protections around this place are attacking her.” Lorcan pulled out the map and was shaking his head over the words. “We did everything correctly, but the spell isn’t recognizing you. Good thing you have a strong constitution; this could have killed someone.”

  “What now?” Garbage flew into view, which was a good thing because I didn’t think I could move my head at this point.

  “Taryn is ill and we need you to stay back,” Mathilda said, as she pulled things out of her pack. Mostly herbs from what I could see. “I’ll need someone to hold the water bag so I can mix these.”

  “No, we fix,” Leaf said as she and Crusty flew into my line of sight next to Garbage. Before anyone could stop them, they and the other twenty faeries swarmed on me. Even through the aching, I felt the pairs of tiny hands grabbing on to skin, hair, and clothing.

  “Is okay! One of us!” They yelled, but I had no idea at what. They were just looking upwards at the sky. They repeated it twice more and my aches subsided. By the fourth time, I felt fine, and a bit silly lying on the ground.

  “Sorry, we no know.” Garbage patted me on the cheek, right where the manticore was, nodded to Mathilda, and then led her flying army
off across the plains again.

  I was sitting up, but not ready to stand yet. The manticore was shooting off little cold rays across my face. “Can anyone see this?” I removed my hand from my cheek but from the looks I got, while I felt it, it wasn’t visible.

  “See what?” Alric held my other hand, studying my face.

  “The manticore is sending out cold waves across my face. Could it have been making me cold?” I doubted it had been what made me sick, but the cold part I could see happening. The frigid waves subsided.

  “I don’t know,” Lorcan said as he too studied my face. “There’s almost no information about these places, and absolutely no way to know how the relic would respond. Since part of the spell to gain entrance involved establishing what creatures were coming through, it might have read you as something other than who you are because of that relic.”

  I rubbed the side of my face once more; it almost felt normal. Alric got to his feet, helping me up as if I was an old lady who fell out of her moving chair.

  “I’m okay.”

  He engulfed me in a hug. “You scared me. I’ve never seen you that pale.”

  It was a little over-kill if it had just been a cold, but since it appeared to have been a spell attacking me, or attacking the manticore, I agreed with his reaction. Besides, it felt good to be in his arms.

  “I hate to break this up, but if Taryn is ready to ride, we should probably get moving.” Lorcan, Padraig, and Mathilda were already back on their horses. Covey was waiting to see how I was.

  I gave her a nod and Alric a quick squeeze. Maybe when this was over he and I could go somewhere nice and relaxing and sort ourselves out again.

  “Come, my lady, I shall escort you to your horse.” A flash of the gallant Alric that I’d seen when we were in the past appeared as he led me to my horse.

  “Why so slow?” Garbage came zipping back and circled around us. “I fix. You go.” She pointed to the line of trees, nodded once, and took off with her faeries, and this time the constructs as well, behind her.