He looked a little annoyed. “Yeah okay,” he said before starting again. “You gotta admit though, all this stuff is pretty amazing. I mean, assuming you haven’t taken them for granted yet,” he repeated dryly.
I merely gave him a strange look for his retort.
He slipped the relic back into his pocket and took out something else. The object made a crinkling sound. He pulled across the top of what looked like a small package until it opened then he took something from inside and put it in his mouth—to eat.
I watched him. “What is that?”
“Oh.” He looked down at the bag then back at me. “Fish crackers, you want some?”
“Fish what?” I echoed in ridicule.
“It’s junk food,” he relayed. “It’s a bit stale now, but…” he trailed off with a shrug. “This’ll probably have to hold us for a while. Do you want to try some?” He rummaged in his pockets again before tossing me another packet.
I caught it in my hand, staring at the packet in puzzlement. “Hold us? Aren’t we stopping at the village to eat?”
He was already shaking his head. “Oh no, we can’t stop at this village. But we’ll stop at the next one, stay the night there.”
I watched him again, guessing he had gotten into some trouble at this village as well. He seemed to have trouble following him around. I peered at the small packet in my hand. “This is fish from your world?”
“It’s processed.”
I blinked at the bag several times before raising it to my mouth to try to bite into it.
“Hey, hey.” He put up his hand to stop me. “You have to open the bag first.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Oh.” I tried pulling the bag apart a couple of times like I had seen him do earlier, making a face in the struggle.
“Here, let me.” He got up, made his way over, and took the bag out of my hands to open it. He tried himself a few times, grunting as he did so, but managed little less than I had.
“Well…” He flopped back on the ground with a serious expression on his face. “This bag must have some serious sort of powerful sphere of protection around it, huh?”
I snapped an incredulous look at him. The next moment, I burst out laughing.
Josh blinked at me in surprise, before he grinned, looking pleased.
I couldn’t even look at him without laughing all over again. What he said was just so ridiculous, especially given the circumstances, I couldn’t help it.
“Okay, okay.” He waved to dismiss it after a while, looking embarrassed. “It wasn’t that funny,” he said modestly before pulling something else out of another pocket—something shaped like animal ears.
I bit my lip, gaping at the pink and white object in his hands.
He cut off the top of the bag and held it out to me. He noticed my stare. “What?”
“Wha-wha-what is that?” I struggled to stifle my laughter all over again as I pointed to the object.
“This? It’s bunny ears scissors.” He shoved the scissors back into his pocket. “It’s my sister’s, okay?” He sounded defensive.
“Oh, of course.”
He shot me a suffering look. “Would you just eat,” he instructed, settling back to his seat again.
I crunched through the food, still with a slight grin on my face.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I had laughed. Given the state of things, it was surprising that I managed to find some amusement in something so silly.
After he had finished eating, I watched Josh fiddle with another few items, taking them out of and putting them back into his several pockets as though he was looking for something.
I gave him another strange look as I watched. “What kind of trousers are those? There are so many pockets.”
“Oh, these?” He gestured to his pants. “Cargo pants. Sometimes I forget I leave stuff in my pockets. Look—” He stuck his hand into one other pocket, pulled something out, and held it up to me.
I jumped upon seeing my face before me. “Whoa!”
He grinned again, retracting his arm. “It’s just a mirror,” he explained. “Like a reflector.”
“Can…I see it again?” I asked in wonder, putting my hand out and he put it on my palm. I winced again when I saw my face and saw my eyes blink within it. “Whoa…” I stroked the smooth surface with my finger. “This is amazing wizardry. You’ve contained the surface of a still lake within this little circle.”
Josh smiled again. “You can keep that if you like.”
I pursed my lips. How? “I seem to be lacking pockets.”
“Maybe you could have someone make you a new outfit with pockets,” he suggested.
I frowned, my mood changing in an instant. “Maybe I don’t want a new outfit,” I snapped.
Josh held up his hands in resignation. “All right, all right, jeez. You sure are touchy about changing things, aren’t you?” he noted, taking back the mirror.
I kept my scowl. Humans lived such short lives they would never appreciate the importance of stability, of constancy.
My existence had been constant for three thousand years and likely would have been for another three more were it not for him.
There was no way this human could possibly understand the severity of the “change” that he had just brought about.
I turned away and went back to reading—well, re-reading by now.
I didn’t want to stop. I felt as though as long as I held on to those scrolls, I would be okay. These scrolls were the last remaining link I had to a previous part of my life. A time when everything was simpler, when the relic remained guarded and safe, and humans were just annoying beings passing through, and letting them die wasn’t something to think twice about.
I shook my head. Perhaps Dantilian had been right. I had a deep love for the Forest, the Lake, a deep love for my duty. I guessed that was why I still followed Josh. I glanced back at him with a pout of displeasure. The relic was my life.
“Shh,” Josh shushed me as we moved through the forest just outside of the nearby village, heading to the other end. He was keeping an eye out for any townsfolk to show but fortunately, it was too early in the morning and the village roads were still empty.
There was a slight fog rolling in but the crack of dawn air was muggy, and unlike my Forest, this one had bugs in it.
I shooed the insects away, making a face, and every once in a while, I whacked one away from my arm, my leg, my neck. I groaned in irritation, trying to tuck my hair up so that it didn’t touch the muddy ground.
“I said quiet!” Josh hissed back at me.
I shot him a pointed look. “I’m sorry but these stupid bugs keep biting me,” I retorted. “I don’t see why we don’t just take the path out there. Nobody’s around yet. It’s too early.”
He ignored me and moved on.
Then again, I’d been complaining for quite a while about the same thing.
I pouted, scratching my arms. “What are you so afraid of anyway? What could you possibly have done to offend anyone in this village this much?”
He still didn’t reply.
I rolled my eyes. I was watching my feet to be careful where I stepped and it occurred to me that I could have really used Nona’s shoes right now. I made another face.
This particular forest seemed to me too slimy. The ground was damp and reeked of some unknown toxic odor, algae formed on the roots and trunks of the surrounding trees. It seemed more of a marsh than a forest which was probably why the insects thrived in it.
I wanted to drift up into the trees, to avoid stepping on the ground, but I had tried to lift off earlier only to discover that I had lost that ability as well, probably at the same time that I’d lost my home.
Also without the Lake’s protection thus far, I had retained several additional bruises from the jump off the balcony from last night’s escape out of Cephiron.
I sensed a different odor and furrowed my eyebrows trying to guess what it was. I sniffed again. It was an odd mix
of damp soil, smoke, and…alcohol.
I sniffed again. The smell seemed to be coming from somewhere up—
My eyes traveled up the trunk of one tree in time to see a huge figure jump down right onto Josh in front of me, pinning him unconscious to the ground.
I squeaked in surprise as several more men jumped out from behind the bushes, my breath catching in my throat as a rough, bristly arm came around my neck in an inescapable vise-like grip, and I squeezed my eyes shut in terror.
Chapter Eleven
I opened my eyes to the sight of bars again, except they were the wooden bars of a cage this time.
Oh damn. I winced and tried to sit up, only to hit my head on the ceiling of the cage. “Ow,” I said and happened to look outside.
My stomach did a dive. “Whoa—” I jumped and scooted back to the other side of the small, square cage that I was in, suspended from the top of a very tall tree.
My heart started to pound as the cage swung with my every movement. “Oh no…” I swallowed hard. I was sure I had never been afraid of heights before but without the protection of the Lake and my magic, I was no longer feeling very confident about anything.
I looked around and spotted another wooden box cage hanging to my right, quite out of my reach. Josh was inside of it, still unconscious. I panned my gaze downward.
About a dozen or so men were gathered around the base of the big tree, men of all the same description—burly, bearded, reeking of liquor, and all speaking in the same course slur.
I looked up to where our cages dangled, following the line of rope that held us aloft to a tree branch, then back down to the large stakes buried in the ground, beside four men who looked to have been tasked to watch them.
I sat back disheartened. What were they going to do to us? I thought in panicked dread.
Mages always had ulterior motives. Monsters were driven only by instincts. But men… Men were incredibly unpredictable creatures.
Josh stirred in his cage. I perked up and crawled over to the side of my cage nearest to him. “Hey,” I hissed. “Wake up. Hey!”
He groaned as he rolled over. He jumped, startled when he realized where he was, and likewise hit his head.
I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t move so much,” I advised. “The cages are being tethered from quite high up.”
Josh tried to sit up as best he could in the small space before looking around and seeing the same things that I’d seen for myself. He looked up at me in my cage across from him then cursed under his breath.
I swallowed again. “Are these the men you were hiding from? What did you do to them?”
He scowled. “I didn’t do anything to them. What makes you think I’m the one who did anything?”
I blinked, taken aback by his brusque tone. “Sorry, I just thought—”
“You just assumed I’m always the bad guy, right?” he cut in. “I never win,” he muttered to himself.
I winced again, feeling a little guilty, and watched him sulk in his cage. I never did give him the benefit of the doubt. I never gave him a chance. I was going to say something when a louder, raucous voice called up to us.
“You there’s finally awake!” the man shouted and in just as loud a voice told someone to shift our cages down a bit lower.
A commotion began among the men as they jostled to have a closer look at their captives.
I gripped the bars tight. The cages swung erratically as we were lowered about halfway down. “How do we get out of this?” I called out to Josh.
He met my gaze in a no-possible-way-we’re-fish-food kind of way.
I grimaced and looked back down. This much closer to the ground, I could see several of the men with familiar objects in their hands.
One burly guy with a red bandanna on his head was dismantling a pair of pink-and-white scissors. The other one beside him was peering at the reflecting circle with a wondrous expression on his face.
My eyes widened and my breathing started to quicken as I anxiously scanned the number of men, my gaze stopping at the hands of the same one who looked to be their leader.
The one who was shouting up to us and shouting instructions at everyone, one of the biggest men in the group, gripped the crystal case of the relic firmly in his hand.
“Oh no. The relic,” I breathed coarsely.
Josh heard me and his hand flew to his back pocket where the relic wasn’t before he searched all his other pockets. “They took everything.”
“Tha’s better.” The big guy nodded as soon as the cages stopped descending. “So you finally came back, junior,” he called up to Josh. “Back to pay your debts, I hope.”
Josh’s expression turned sour. “I don’t owe you jerks anything.”
The guy looked slightly offended. He shook his head at Josh in disapproval. “Now, now, let’s not have manners like that in front of the lady.” He turned a leering gaze at me. “G’day, miss. So sorry you had to get involved in all this but you sure keep bad company around.”
Some of the men whistled and I made a face in distaste.
“Quite surprising you need any more women, the way you took all of ours away,” the man drawled.
I shot Josh a surprised look. He did what?
“I didn’t do anything none of you didn’t deserve,” Josh defended. “Besides, those women left of their own wills because you guys are lazy bums.”
The guy growled. “Quiet, you!” he snapped before turning his gaze back to me. “Why don’t we just talk to the little lady here?”
A thin, lanky guy came up to him to whisper something in his ear and the big guy nodded. “Yeah alright, Thalmus,” he said then gestured to them all, looking up at me. “Some of us here’s been wondering what kinda hair’s that,” he called up to me. “Ain’t nobody ‘round these parts with that kinda hair. Bet people’d pay good money to get their hands on hair like that. And not just the hair, am I right?” He laughed, elbowing the thin man.
I shuddered, making a face again, and edged back into the cage, gathering my hair in my hands protectively.
“Leave her alone,” Josh barked. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah? Well, suppose you lookee what we got right here?” He held up the crystal cylinder in his hand.
“That’s mine.” Josh gritted his teeth.
The big guy howled and the other guys laughed boisterously. “I guess years of rumors’ finally paying off,” he commented. “We here’s gonna sell it and make a bundle. Betcha lots of people’ll pay good money to get their hands on this treasure.”
Josh’s scowl deepened.
I shook my head. These men didn’t even have any idea what they were presently in possession of. They probably didn’t know it would do them better to keep it instead of selling it, but they seemed like simple-minded folk. They probably wouldn’t even know what to do with that kind of power.
“Didn’t even know if them stories were true,” the big guy continued, peering at the relic close to his nose. “Didn’t know it came with a fairy wench either.”
I sucked in my breath, turning horrified eyes to Josh.
He was watching me. “It’s okay.” He tried to calm me down. “It’s going to be okay—cripe!” He cursed under his breath, trying to reach out to me but my cage was too far away. “Don’t panic, okay? Don’t even think about it,” he tried to assure. “I’ll take care of this.”
I swallowed again, my chest heaving. I pulled my legs up to hug my knees, trying to fight down the chills. Somebody help.
The men ignored us for a while, letting us dangle above them as the Great Star begun to set.
I sighed, re-evaluating the situation after much thought.
The important thing was not to panic.
Even though this was a no-win situation.
I mean, I was sure there was no way Josh could handle all of them at once.
With my powers practically gone the way they were at the moment, he and I couldn’t handle all of them at once.
&n
bsp; And that was assuming we had the chance to get out of these cages first to try to fend them off.
Even the odds of losing them in the woods weren’t good since we had no idea how deep into the forest we were. It was too thick to see in any direction. The Great Star could only indicate that we had to run east to get away.
I cast an irritated glance over at Josh in the other cage, suddenly in suspicious disbelief about how he could have managed to sneak past the guards back at Cephiron. Surely, he should be able to get himself out of a wooden cage much easier than a dungeon.
He had claimed that he was a resourceful person. Could he still be a resourceful person without the objects from his world that these men had taken? Shouldn’t he still be? I watched him for a while, attempting to weigh our chances of survival.
He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even blinking.
I frowned again then looked back up at the sky, still unsettled.
The days seemed to be going by so quickly. And there was no way to turn back the time. I couldn’t go back to my peaceful Forest. I couldn’t restore things.
I had quite again naively thought that if Josh had succeeded in retrieving the legendary relic from the Mystic Lake, perhaps the fates had decided upon a greater purpose for him, such that he would be granted the ability to protect the relic and to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
But now someone else had the relic. Someone possibly dangerous and definitely vile.
The men below laughed for whatever reason and a nerve in the back of my neck ticked.
I gritted my teeth. It was the frustration that I was partly to blame for the present situation that was making me the most angry.
But of course, I couldn’t blame myself.
I shot Josh a dirty look across the way. “This is all your fault,” I hissed.
He looked over at me, his expression already dull.
“And don’t tell me you did nothing again,” I added. “Because earlier that big guy said you did do something.”
The Curse of the Arcadian Stone: Vol. 1 Stolen Oath (Nameless Fay) Page 7