Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) (17 page)

“We were pursuing Lord Morven and had caught
up to him,” he informed them. “We had him surrounded and demanded
that he open his carriage so that we might search it for the young
woman, Alina.”

“Had you told him he was to be arrested?”
Gryffon asked.

“Not at that time,” he answered, “we did not
want to provoke him into anything until we knew where the girl was.
She was our first priority.”

Layna and Gryffon nodded.

“He had ten guards with him, five in front
and five behind, so we were in a good position. However, that was
when we were ambushed.”

“Ambushed?” Layna asked in surprise. “How
could they have known you were coming?”

“We can only assume that someone in the town
alerted him. But we don’t think it was Morven’s own men that
overtook us. I would stake my honor on them having been his
father’s. I have heard of Lord Morven before; he’s not nearly smart
enough to have arranged an ambush, nor good enough to have put
together a group of men as talented as those that we came across.
His father is well-known for protecting his son. And given the
intense fear that Morven was showing until something suddenly
changed his mind…”

“No doubt he recognized some sign of his
father’s men before you did.” Gryffon nodded.

“Were many Knights injured?”

“There were minor injuries, but luckily none
too severe and no casualties. Lord Morven’s father, the Baron, may
indulge his son’s illegal behaviors and protect him from the law,
but he’s a fairly law-abiding citizen himself. I wouldn’t doubt it
if the men were given specific instructions not to harm any of the
Queen’s men beyond repair.”

“Well, that’s some good news,” Gryffon
acknowledged.

“Was Alina in the carriage?” Layna asked.

“She was not, we are still unsure of her
whereabouts. It is possible that we were incorrect in our
assumption that he had her. Or at least that he had her with
him.”

“But he definitely took Natalya,” Layna
reminded him needlessly. She thought for a moment. “I will go look
for her with you.”

“Layna…” Gryffon started, but did not finish
his protest at the look that she gave him. She was not about to let
Natalya and Alina both be taken by Morven. It was bad enough that
her ignorance had allowed whatever atrocities that Alina had
already suffered to have happened and the massacre at Hardonia. She
would see to it herself that things were righted the best that she
could.

CHAPTER 9

Lorcan smiled at the woman who hovered at the
front of the library possessively. She glared back. He’d been
trying to gain access to some of the older books, but she insisted
on watching him like a hawk. She seemed convinced that he was up to
no good, and simply refused to believe him when he told her he
truly just wanted information.

Raina had been successful in finding out some
useful tid-bits from what her friends’ parents would say in front
of them, but so far nothing concrete. And everything led to more
questions. Lorcan found himself wishing that he’d paid more
attention when the wise women had told their histories during his
lessons.

There had been mention of a stone that the
statue of Sheila Greyclaw had once held, but the statue had been
destroyed some time ago and no one seemed to want to talk about it.
All of the adults seemed to be part of some conspiracy against the
younger generation, intent to keep from them the truth of their
past and the Elder’s real intentions.

Lorcan wasn’t convinced that many even knew
of the real intentions themselves, but all seemed to blindly follow
the wisdom of the Elders without pausing to think about whether or
not it was really wisdom or just revenge. He understood that the
Dark King had done terrible things, but no one alive today could
say that it had happened to them, and no one in the Lost Lands had
actually done it to them.

He backed out of the library again; with the
woman watching him, there was no point. He strolled down into the
Fourth Circle, hoping to run into Raina, and was not disappointed.
He hailed her with a quick wave and she gave him a smile,
extricating herself from the conversation she’d been in and coming
over to him.

“Did you get it?” she asked him
excitedly.

“Not yet,” Lorcan shook his head, “she’s been
watching every move I make in there.”

“We need to find a way to distract her.” She
bit her nails.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Lorcan agreed,
“and I also thought that it might be a good idea to get some of the
others to join in.” At her crestfallen look, he quickly explained.
“Not that I think that the two of us can’t do it, because we’re an
amazing team,” he held out both hands. “But if even our parents
don’t know about what’s really going on, we will need as many
people on our side as we can get to convince them.”

Raina looked thoughtful a moment, then her
face broke into a smile. “We could be like a secret group!” she
whispered, her eyes darting this way and that conspiratorially. “We
should come up with some sort of name, like the Band of Truth, or
the Truth-Seekers.”

“Maybe we should be like the Book Club so
that our parents won’t get suspicious if we use it in public. You
know, because we’re trying to get a book?”

“The Book Club?” she asked skeptically. “You
don’t think Slade would be suspicious of you being in a book club?”
She had a smile playing on her lips and Lorcan rolled his eyes at
her.

“Alright fine, not the Book Club. But this is
serious. Isn’t it a little scary that the Elders have had this
secret agenda they haven’t told anybody about?”

She nodded, her expression sobering. “It is.
Makes you wonder what else they are up to.” She scrunched up her
face in thought. “I have an idea.”

Her idea involved inviting a group of younger
children to join their club. Being younger, they would
automatically be more inclined to want to be part of an older kids
club, but also, they had been spending their time of late at the
waterfall. And the pool below it held all manner of slimy
creatures…just the type of creepy-crawlies that the librarian was
known to dislike.

“Hey guys,” Raina called to them as they made
their way down the slippery slope.

“Boo!” a small boy with a face full of
freckles jumped out at them and held a snake in Raina’s face.
Lorcan moved forward to push it away from her, but stopped as he
noticed her response.

She didn’t budge, and just looked at the
snake inches from her face. “Cool snake,” she commented, and held
out her hand. “Can I see it?”

Lorcan’s appreciation for Raina grew. He
hadn’t realized she was so…he shook his head to clear it of the
annoying thoughts. Though he enjoyed her company, he was beginning
to be a little concerned about his feelings towards her. He should
be the one putting snakes in her face, not getting upset when
someone else did it to her. Girls were supposed to be gross, but
the kiss the other night hadn’t been gross at all. In fact, he’d
actually really
liked
it, and he wanted to do it again.
Think happy thoughts.
Yeah, the snake was really cool.

The little boy wrinkled his nose and stuffed
his hands – along with the snake – into his pockets. “What do you
want?”

“We’re hoping we can get you to join a little
project we’re working on,” Raina began and launched into the
explanation of what they wanted. They had decided to dumb down the
details a bit for them, since they were a bit young yet to have to
worry about important adult things.

It didn’t take them long to convince the
children, or to put their plan into motion. Now, not more than an
hour later, Lorcan was in position outside the library, waiting for
the signal. He crouched low under the window opening, not wanting
to be spotted and ruin the whole thing.

He saw several of the younger children
skitter by, one of them pausing to give him a thumbs-up with a wide
grin on his face. In his other hand, he clutched a disgustingly
warty toad. Moments later, the librarian screamed.

Lorcan waited.

Another scream, louder this time, and on the
move.

He tensed in anticipation.

The screams got closer, and he could now make
out the words, “Get it off! Get it off!”

Then he heard the distinct scream of Raina as
she came to the woman’s ‘rescue’. The screams intermingled as the
children let more and more of the slimy creatures loose in the
library. Lorcan hoped that they wouldn’t do any damage to the
books, but concluded that their mission was important enough to
risk it.

Finally, he heard the signal he’d been
waiting for. Raina yelled out frantically, “Quick! In here!”
Followed by the crashing of a door slamming shut as she shut the
librarian into the closet.

Lorcan leapt to his feet and squeezed in the
window. He sprinted towards the back, where the really good stuff
was kept, and scanned the volumes for the ones of interest. He had
been able to determine the titles that would be useful to them from
his research in the front of the library, so all he had to do was
find them.

“Hurry up!” whispered a hushed voice and
Lorcan glanced over his shoulder to see a cute little girl standing
in the doorway. She had one hand on the doorframe and was looking
from him back out into the larger main room.

He gave her an annoyed look for distracting
him, then finally found the titles he was looking for. He quickly
snatched these from their shelves and raced back to the window. Out
of the corner of his eye, he saw many little children rushing about
the main room, scooping up the offending creatures.

The librarian was banging on the door and he
saw Raina watching the window for him worriedly. He stepped into
her line of sight, and held up the books for her to see. She smiled
broadly. Just as he disappeared out the window and the last of the
younger children gathered up the rest of the little beasties, Raina
opened the closet door, freeing the librarian.

Lorcan heard her saying through the window,
“Whew, I think it’s okay now. Where did they all come from?”

“I don’t know,” sputtered the woman, who
Lorcan imagined was glaring around the place, searching for more of
the creatures. “But the library is closed for the day.”

Lorcan heard Raina being shuffled out and the
door slammed shut behind her. They could hear the librarian
mumbling to herself, letting out a squeal every now and again as
she came across a missed creature.

The group swarmed around the side of the
building and followed Lorcan and Raina up a level, where their
laughter wouldn’t be heard by the woman. There they fell into a
heap of hysterical children, the giggling of the younger children
seemingly contagious. Soon, however, the thrill wore off and Raina
and Lorcan both looked excitedly at the books. The younger children
were not as impressed, and the boy with the freckles spoke up.

“Let’s go do it some more!”

Lorcan tried half-heartedly to dissuade them
from causing more mischief, but Raina just shrugged. “It will make
people less suspicious of it happening at the library,” she
suggested.

“As long as I don’t get blamed for it,”
Lorcan mumbled.

“Come on,” Raina said, ignoring his comment.
“Let’s go somewhere and read!”

*

Katya entered the dark cave behind the door
carefully. Stones lit up at her passage, glowing magically. They
were embedded into the wall and created a calm ambiance. She made
her way down the corridor, searching for signs of malevolence. By
all accounts, the place seemed to be made more to please than to
keep away, a far cry from the fields of burnweed to get to the
place. The walls of the cave had been polished to the same gleam as
the columns outside and Katya had to admit that the result was
beautiful.

She felt a strange sensation as she moved
into the dark, but nothing happened. After a moment or two in the
pitch black, more of the stone lights sprang to life around her.
She glanced back, and did a double-take. The opening she had just
walked through was gone. Apparently it had only been one-way.

She ran a hand over the now-solid wall and
sent a magical probe through. It encountered only rock. It wasn’t
illusion. These people must have come up with a way to harness a
transportation spell into the landscape to create a permanent
gateway. Katya was impressed.

She turned and moved forward. There was no
going back now, she’d just have to see where it took her. This
passageway was more beautiful than the last, the stones that lit
the way only the beginning of the decoration. Around each of them
were intricate mosaics of smaller stones, making designs that
captured the light and seemed to make the images come to life. She
touched one of the rubies that made up an eye of a lizard depicted
there and gasped as it came loose and clattered to the ground.
Katya glanced behind her in alarm, hoping that the touch hadn’t set
off any sort of trap. She hurried on her way.

At the end of the hall, the path widened
suddenly and forked off in two different directions. Katya paused
and looked at both entrances. Each had a symbol painted above it,
the one on the left was a deer and the right was a snake. Both
passages faded so quickly into darkness that Katya could not see
more than five feet into either, the light from the stones behind
her angled in such a way to prevent their light from reaching
beyond.

Finally, Katya shrugged and picked one. Her
pursuers were likely to come pounding down the door any second. She
made for the right-hand cave and walked through. She found herself
in a passageway much like the first and she moved through this
quickly, hoping to find a place she might be able to hide in.
Unfortunately, it was just a hallway.

At the end of this hallway, Katya came upon
another choice. It had once again split into two caves, one marked
by a turtle on the left and by a horse on the right. Once again,
she picked one and walked through. She repeated this process three
more times, becoming worried that it would be a never-ending
passageway that she would travel through until she died of
starvation.