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Chapter Three

A little of my composure had come back prior to his last sentence, but that just blew it all to hell. He had
been
there? I still wanted to go find this land of the lost elves, but I had one in front of me. One who could answer all of the questions I had about his people. He had been there! It was bad when I just kept repeating the same thought in my head.

A rustling from behind the bar brought me back to reality—again. Foxy was helping Amara to her feet, and she was making the best of things by leaning very heavily into him. He finally gave up and scooped her into his arms. When I saw her shake her head violently and bury her face into his keg-sized neck I knew they weren’t whispering sweet nothings to each other anymore.

Glorinal and I both walked toward them, and Foxy gently placed Amara down on a hastily vacated chair.

“I being asking of her to tell why she was hunted but she is afraid.”

Amara pulled back her tiny shoulders and took a deep breath. “I am more ashamed than afraid—ashamed that my weakness injured others. I was a kept woman. The monster who destroyed my tree kept the pieces of the heart alive in a spelled state in order to keep me bound to him. When I found out that part of the heart had been made into this bar, I made my escape. If I can just save part of my tree and regrow it, then I can be free again.” Tears turned her eyes from a light green to an intense aqua. “I should have known the fiend would send someone after me.”

Glorinal bowed his head then went down on one knee. “I am certain your brave protector will keep you from harm. But I will be in Beccia for some time, so I can help as well, if needed.” He grasped Foxy’s shoulder in a show of brotherly companionship. “However, I know I won’t be needed.”

Foxy’s eyes narrowed when Glorinal first dropped down in front of Amara, but with his words, the smile came back to Foxy’s rubbery lips.

“Ye be always welcome here, friend.” Foxy looked around as if finally noticing that while most of the people were happily drinking their free ale, they were still far too subdued. Most likely they were all listening carefully and waiting for something else to happen. Good stories could be worth their weight in booze at other bars.

“Normally, I don’t care what that lot says, or does, for that matter. But me thinks tonight I’d rather not be having their tongues wagging about. We need to close early.” He looked Glorinal up and down. “Ye as brawny as ye look under that cloak?”

Glorinal nodded. “Aye, and moving people out would be a sight easier than what I’m doing now keeping our friend covered.”

I was about to add that I could help as well, when a tiny foot jabbed into my chest. “Ow, damn it, cut it out.” I reached up and slammed my hand hard into my chest. A second, even sharper foot jab followed, so I did it again.

“Are you all right?” Glorinal’s face creased with worry and I found myself lost in those mysterious silver eyes.

I gave myself a shake.

“What? Oh, I’m fine, but someone else isn’t going to be if she keeps kicking me. She’s got to stop waking up feet first.” I reached into my inside pocket and held up an annoyed Garbage Blossom. She usually looked annoyed, but even more so from the smashing.

Glorinal looked like I’d just pulled a handful of gold out of my clothing.

“A wee one! I haven’t seen them since I was a boy.” Glorinal held his hand out and Garbage flittered over to it. That answered the question of how long he’d been in town. Since the Battle of Beccia, the city had been flooded with faeries. If he hadn’t seen them it was because he’d just arrived. Lounging flocks of drunken faeries were hard to miss even if none of them were over four inches tall.

And Garbage was just as happy to see him from the rumble coming from her. The moment she’d landed on his hand he started whispering to her in some odd language that even when I caught a word or two I couldn’t understand. Then he started rubbing the space between the blades of her wings.

I felt a twinge of jealousy. It had taken me a year to find her favorite scratching spot and he’d found it immediately. Her rumbling grew louder.

“Is she
purring
?” I really hoped my voice didn’t sound as whiney as it did in my head.

“Ah yes, the sound of the joy of a wee one is a thing of beauty to hear, is it not? Wherever did you find one?”

I glared at Garbage, but from what I could tell she’d abandon me for Glorinal without even thinking about it. “I have these two as well.” I had felt some stirring and figured the others were waking up. Leaf Grub was still asleep but twitching, Crusty Bucket was wobbling about my hand like an unbalanced top.

“Three? You are mightily blessed to have three such gifts in your life. How did you happen upon them?”

My annoyance was now torn between the betrayal of Garbage for a total stranger and the fact that said, very handsome total stranger, was now more interested in my faeries than me. The smartass retort I was about to give died on my lips as Garbage, still purring, flew from Glorinal’s hand to my shoulder and planted a kiss on my cheek.

I couldn’t have been more surprised if the dead troll behind the bar got up and started dancing a jig on the bar.

“You must have done something wondrous to be granted three such companions.” Glorinal held his hand out for the other two.

I glanced around. Foxy was talking to the two half-giant barmaids, and they were slowly starting to round up glasses, chairs, and anything people weren’t using at that exact second.

I shook my head at Glorinal’s assessment of my worthiness—I wasn’t worthy. I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. “It’s a long story, but the city is of full of them now.” I motioned to the piles of passed out faeries that dotted almost every table. A few were starting to stir. That they’d managed to sleep through the attack at the bar said a lot.

He clearly hadn’t noticed them before, but to be fair he was kind of busy when he crashed through the door.

“I had no idea Beccia was so blessed, but I think you and I shall have much to talk about. I will tell you of my people, and you can tell me of this wonderful town.”

Leaf took that moment to let loose a huge belch and Crusty mimicked it. Glorinal might be amazingly good looking, an excellent fighter, and an elf; but he obviously was clueless on what a blessing was. I held off from bursting his bubble just yet and nodded with a tight smile.

The girls got bored, and all three climbed back into my jacket. After a few twists and pokes to get comfortable, they fell back asleep.

An argument in the far corner absolved me from having to continue avoiding what I really thought of the faeries. An extremely drunk and filthy old man was trying to pick a fight with one of the half-giant barmaids, Lehua. Dumb idea since even a half-giant could snap a fit human like a child’s toy.

And this guy was far from fit. His arms were sticks and yet his stomach managed to do a perfect impersonation of a small wine barrel. He had a beard that glistened with enough shine that it hadn’t been washed in days if not weeks, and he was listing soundly to the left no matter how much he appeared to be trying to stay upright.

“I’d better go help,” I explained as I watched the crowd. “It wouldn’t do for Foxy to have another dead body to explain to the guard.”

Glorinal nodded then walked over to the door to make sure the rest of the patrons were moving in that direction.

Just looking at the old man I was heading for made me want to go wash my hands. And take a bath. I fought to keep my shudder internal as I reached them.

“Look, it’s time to leave. Foxy’s gotta close down early tonight. Family emergency. Be good and finish your ale and take off.” I reached out to grab his collar, but flinched when it started to move. Rather, the army of bugs crawling on it started to move.

“Now. You need to leave, now.”

“Listen here, girlie, I ain’t leaving until I’s good and done. Public bar this is.”

He leaned into me while he spoke and I dodged to the side. It wasn’t enough for him to completely lose his balance but it gave me an idea. At some point during the night someone had lost a large cloak. Hell, based on the size, maybe it had belonged to dead-and-gruesome lying behind the bar. It was now draped out a few feet behind the drunk.

I had a plan, but it was going to involve me touching the walking pile of dirt and insects in front of me. I glanced over to Lehua then down to the cloak. The furry space between her brows closed in on itself a bit, but I wasn’t sure she understood what I was thinking. Foxy tended to hire for brawn not brain.

Hopefully she’d pick up on things once I got them started.

“Look, you need to go away. This is a privately owned bar.” I stabbed him in his boney chest, and he tottered back a half-step. “We need everyone out.” Another poke, another stumble. “Now.” I used both hands that time, doing a quick push with the heels of my hands like Covey had taught me when she still had hope of teaching me fighting.

It worked, sort of.

The pungent man fell backward onto the cloak, but he grabbed my left hand while he was doing it. I fell forward, managing to brace myself before slamming into his body.

I was so focused on getting away from him that I almost missed it when he said, “Taryn, it’s me, Alric. Don’t trust—” The rest was cut off when Lehua, who had finally figured out the plan, grabbed the edge of the cloak and galloped to the door with the drunk, or Alric, bouncing along behind her.

I rocked back and ended up sitting on my ass. I started to rub my eyes, but the fumes from where I had touched the drunk, or Alric, made my eyes tear up.

Three months of no word, no contact, nothing. And he shows up tonight, looking, and more importantly, smelling, like that, then gives a cryptic warning and is dragged off. I carefully worked on keeping my anger in place, so that other emotions would stay tamped down. My feelings for Alric had been all over the place since I first met him, but I’d been falling for him before he vanished. I shook my head to chase off any lingering feelings. I had to remind myself that he’d abandoned me.

Knowing Alric, even if the barmaid hadn’t grabbed him at that moment, something else would have prevented him from finishing his warning.

“Have you been injured?” Glorinal had managed to cajole or charm the rest of the patrons out into the night air. Even got a few to take the injured minotaur cook to a healer. And now he was looking at me with an honest face. Something Alric couldn’t do if his life depended on it.

I nodded and started to take his hand, then remembered what my own hands smelled like. “You probably don’t want to touch my hands right now. Our stinky friend managed to leave a memory of his visit.” He still tried to take my hand, but I noticed he held back a bit. Smart man. I wouldn’t wish this smell on a syclarion. I managed to get myself up without help, then nodded to Foxy, Amara, and the others. “Can you all take care of things here? I am making myself ill. Not to mention Qianru has an early start tomorrow—she’s touring the dig up close.” I was grateful to be digging again, and even more so that I’d managed to have a patron who didn’t appear to be a shape-changing syclarion hell-bent on world domination.

She was just a pompous pain in the ass.

Another thought struck me. Alric was back. More importantly, Alric was back and he was stinky, disgusting, and could break into my house with more ease than most people blew their nose. I did not want that bastard in my home. Even though I’d moved out of my former apartment and now had a small house, I knew he’d find me and break in without any problem.

Glorinal looked torn between helping Foxy and the others with the troll body and abandoning a lady in distress.

I tried my best to look less distressed.

“Really, totally fine. Just need some sleep. And a bath.” I held out my hands in front of me in emphasis. “I’ll be back here tomorrow night?” I didn’t have to force the hope that was dangling at the end of that sentence. He was attractive, intelligent, and not a possible sociopath. A huge improvement over the nut job who might be breaking into my home as we spoke.

“I would like to see you tomorrow night.” Glorinal smiled and gave another bow. “Never fear, I will make sure your friends are taken care of.”

With a smile toward all of them, one that may have lingered on Glorinal a bit longer, I dodged out the door.

Chapter Four

I woke up the girls as we got closer to our place. They’d been on Alric’s side at the end of the Battle of Beccia and been ecstatic when I told them he had somehow survived being apparently blasted into a nether realm.

But like me, that excitement wore off when it became clear he’d simply come back to steal that second glass gargoyle and wasn’t coming back to Beccia. Or us.

I didn’t tell them I’d seen Alric tonight, or rather that I thought I had. He’d spoken so quickly I wasn’t really sure I had. Except that sneaking into my life as a stinky, disgusting old man would fit perfectly with his sense of style.

All three faeries were groggy and cranky. Clearly whatever had knocked them out was still affecting them even though they had woken up briefly in the pub. That was until I told them I thought someone was breaking into our house. I didn’t want to tell them about Alric, at least not until he was right in front of us and their anger hadn’t had a chance to diffuse. But I wanted them ready for anything.

Garbage Blossom was the most excited. Of the three she really enjoyed damaging other sentient beings. A lot. I had no idea how faeries were raised, but something went a bit wrong in her childhood. Or it was just a skill she developed as a hobby later in life.

Before I could stop her, she flew off my shoulder and raced to the door. When we first moved into this house, I’d had another fly-through tunnel installed over the door, just like we’d had in my old apartment. But I kept it shut when we were out now. The first week after the battle I’d find hundreds of formerly wild faeries lounging about my house eating and drinking everything in sight.

Garbage remembered it was locked right before she slammed into it, but continued buzzing around like a large deranged bee in a flower petal cap and faded overalls.

“Hold on, if someone’s gotten in we need to go in quietly. As soon as I open the door, Garbage, you fly to the far left. Leaf, you take the far right and Crusty, you fly straight in. I’ll hit the glows at the same time and hopefully we can catch whoever it is.” Truth be told I didn’t see any evidence of anyone having broken in. But I’d never noticed it the other times Alric entered without telling me either.

For once, the girls did what they were supposed to. A bright orange blur shot off to the left, a green one went to the right, and the blue one darted forward where she promptly slammed into the far wall.

I loved my little Crusty Bucket, but common sense wasn’t her strong point. Or even a minor skill. In fact, I’d pretty much figured out that common sense avoided my tiny, chronically drunken faery as a matter of principle.

I ignored her buzzing around as she shook off her wall attack and hit the lights. To see nothing out of place.

Really, there was plenty out of place. My housekeeping skills, never a strong point, had gone seriously downhill since I’d gone back to digging full time.

But there was nothing out of place from where I thought it had last been. And more importantly, no nasty-smelling Alric in disguise messing up my favorite chair.

I motioned to the girls to follow me into the bedroom, well, Garbage and Leaf mainly. Crusty was staring at the glow light with an oddly bemused smile.

We did the same break at the entrance to my room, but again when I summoned the glow, nothing appeared to be lurking there. Except a pile of laundry that I was supposed to take to the cleaners right after work this evening.

To be safe, I peered under my bed and in my closet, but no Alric. I did however find a nicely used stick-ball bat that I kept hidden in the back of my closet. I wasn’t sure why Alric was in town, why he’d been lurking in the pub in disguise, nor where he’d gone when Lehua tossed him.

But if he broke in here, I was going to be ready.

***

I woke up the next morning twisted, stiff, cranky, and possibly bruised. Alric had never come by, but falling asleep in a chair—even a favorite one—while holding a stick-ball bat didn’t make for a comfortable night’s sleep.

  To make matters worse, I’d not been as thorough in getting Alric’s stench off my hands as I should have been. Raising my hand up to wipe the sleep out of my eye was an almost fatal mistake.

My gagging was cut off by Garbage Blossom slamming into my stomach.

“Need out now.” She flew to the door and when she got there before I did, she zipped around for another targeted attack on my squishy middle.

“Knock it off. I’m not letting you out if you keep doing that.” I held up the bat to block her but she stopped more because she felt like it than any real fear of me injuring her.

“Where are you three off to?” I didn’t usually ask, but Garbage also never seemed this anxious about getting out. Especially since the sun was just starting to think about maybe rising in the next hour or so.

“Places.” Crusty zigged right in front of me and executed a beautiful spiral. If she could just do those moves on command I might be able to make money off her as an act. “Have important places go.” She was twirling around too fast for me to really see her as I shuffled to the door.

Leaf spun by doing the same acrobatics. Now I was suspicious. Leaf wasn’t lazy per se, but the spins she was pulling took more energy than she usually could drum up first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, that thought moved slower than my hand did opening the door, and all three were gone before my mind told my hand to block them.

Their war feathers. The damn faeries weren’t wearing them, but at least Crusty and Leaf were carrying their war feathers and their war sticks. Nothing good ever happened when those flying nut jobs went to war on someone. I just hoped I didn’t end up in jail for whatever it was. And that they didn’t bring back any dead, or alive-but-really-pissed-off, rodents.

I stood with the door open for a bit. The cold pre-morning air felt great against my cramped-up body. A nice long bath sounded heavenly. At least until I remembered my draconian patroness and her wanting an ungodly start this morning.

Qianru wasn’t evil, and she was a far better patroness than my last patron, but she did get weird ideas sometimes. Normally she stayed away from the dig site. I’d dig where she felt treasures would be, then report in every few days with my findings. Immediately, if something looked to be a major artifact. Or in theory anyway. So far we’d found plenty of lesser elven artifacts, basic day-to-day items that were beautiful, but not very exciting.

The thrill wore off after your fifth or sixth fancy salt shaker.

But for some reason she had decided that this morning she was coming to the dig. That together she and I would unearth something magical, a major find.

With a shake of my head at the futility of that idea—as a newcomer, Qianru’s dig site was a lesser one on the edge of the main ruins—I shut the door. A quick wash, change of clothes, and a final check to make sure all of my doors and windows were securely locked, and I was out into the dawn.

Some towns were beautiful in the early morning, or at least I’d been told. Silent, glistening worlds where the morning light found new places to reflect.

Yeah, Beccia was not one of those towns.

The streets looked like I felt— like they had slept in a chair clutching a piece of rough wood. Little piles of refuse gave testament to the wild night the city had had, or rather, the average night in this part of town. That was it. The city had a hangover, and the crisp early morning sun was just making the pounding in its’ head worse.

I shoved my hands into my cloak pockets and made my way to the ruins. Since the battle, the ruins had been under constant guard. Even though the syclarions had been defeated, and the official syclarion ambassador had claimed the homeland had no knowledge of what Thaddeus had been doing, the digger council and Antiquities Museum were taking no chances. The lead harridan of the museum, a vile woman named Glariste, had even launched a harassment campaign against me. Unofficially, of course. But she triple-checked every document I turned in, and I swear she followed me in town sometimes.

Where there had been one potential weapon of mass destruction, albeit tiny and made of glass, there could be more. And if anyone was going to have the future ability to destroy the world, it was going to be one of the rich patrons of Beccia. The advantage of one of them getting it would be that they probably wouldn’t realize what it was and would put it on highly protected display to lord over their cohorts in the rich and snarky classes.

As I approached the gate, I made sure the watcher bird could clearly see my face. A nod from the skeletal bird to his keeper and the gate was raised to let me in. Those damn watchers gave me the creeps. They weren’t local. The security company that the council had hired to make sure the ruins stayed protected brought them in from some land far to the south.

Their long narrow beaks with sharp hooks at the end were only good for one thing—ripping meat out of hard to find places. Places most folks like to keep their skin over. Greasy black feathers seemed to be constantly on the verge of falling off, and in fact rare was the day I made it home without at least one hiding somewhere on my person.

As if their looks weren’t charming enough, they were magical. Not spelled creatures. These were like the faeries, they
were
magic. Seeing into people was their gift.

I never had enough nerve to ask Harlan what they saw when they looked inside someone’s head.

I nodded to a few of my fellow diggers, trying to keep my envy at their prime digging locations from showing on my face, and made my way toward the back of the ruins.

Qianru hadn’t been upset at getting a dig far from the main buildings. In fact she’d actually seemed very pleased when we first met and she told me where we were digging.

Some patrons were simply dilettantes. It was socially popular to be somehow connected—not as a digger, mind you—with the elven ruins. Many sat back in their Hill estates, never contacting their diggers, but waiting for the find that would make them the talk of the social circuit for a day or two.

Qianru was an actual scholar.

But that also meant, like most scholars, she was a bit nuts.

Now don’t get me wrong, my best friend has the scholarly bent. Covey was probably the smartest person I knew in many fields. That she had locked herself up in what could only be considered a monastic lifestyle since the battle because she felt she was a throw-back to her berserker ancestors simply confirmed the level of crazy.

My patroness hadn’t shown much more than a basic eccentricity so far, but the missive that I’d received yesterday about joining me for today’s dig seemed a bit too excited for a sane person.

“Ah, very good. You’ve made it just on time,” Qianru’s voice was far louder than someone of her tiny size should ever be allowed to wield. I hadn’t seen her on my approach to our dig site, because she was bent down shifting through something on the ground. At less than five feet tall, she came up to my chin. That was until you counted the hat and the long black feather that came with it. I ignored the fact that it looked a lot like a watcher feather, and that combined with her hooked nose and rather small, wide set eyes just accented the similarity between her and the disturbing birds. “Now come along, I’ve set up a proper base camp. Yours wouldn’t do at all.”

I followed her around a large gapen tree only to find a mini village. My base camp, if that’s what you wanted to call it, was mostly me setting up a small shelter among the lower limbs and massive roots of the gapen tree.

Qianru had two full-size tents, a large table, and a houseboy.

The houseboy was even wearing Qianru’s livery—speckled yellow on a purple background with a red chimera rampant across it. At least I assumed it was supposed to be a chimera. Like dragons, the chimeras were supposedly long-lost real creatures. Personally, since in all my digging around I’d never found a bone of either, I think they were a fanciful addition to the myths of the past. But its real or mythological status wasn’t why I questioned if it was a chimera. The designer had added so many curls, swishes, and outlandish embellishments that the animal itself was distorted. All in all it was a livery designed to hurt the eye.

“Wow.” Mostly that was from seeing the scary livery up close, but Qianru took it differently.

“Yes, yes. This will work much better, I will leave all of this when we finish our project today. Truly, I had no idea your situation was so primitive. How can proper work be done if one doesn’t have the appropriate support structure behind it? The ancient Spheres of Rumaike were not built with scraps of fabric and tree roots.”

I’d have to take her word for it. I’d only seen drawings of the Spheres; huge, impossibly rounded structures made of thousands of foot-high, carved stones. There were five of them, six if you counted a pile of rubble that some academics insisted was the remains of the key Sphere. All were within line of sight of each other in a huge circle. In between them were lines of massive standing stones of varying sizes.

No one had the slightest idea what they were for, who built them, or how they built them. But most archeologists put their age at over 3,000 years old. During the time of the Ancients.

I had dreams about seeing them someday. But since it took a lot of money, and far more digger cred than I would probably ever have, it was nothing more than a dream. I almost wanted to ask her if she’d seen them. The Robani Desert where the Spheres were found was not that far from her homeland to the south. But it would just annoy me right now to know she’d been where I dreamed to go. And since I was stuck with her for at least the day, possibly longer, I needed to stay pleasant.