One of the things they did leave behind, or so it was speculated since they were far older than anything elven, were the Spheres that we were currently heading for. Originally seven massive boulders, perfectly round and each made of a single rock. Now six remained, with a pile of dust, rubble, and hand-sized rocks to indicate where the seventh had been.
Maybe the ghosts were guarding the Spheres. Again, that wouldn’t be a good thing as we were at least ten days ride out from them. No one knew much about the Spheres; they weren’t easy to get to and many an ardent explorer never returned from the journey. The Spheres sat near the center of the Robani desert, an area speculated to have been the hub of the Ancient empire. Rare scrolls, from elven scholars, and a few from the trellians, referred to a great kingdom, glorious and of unmatched beauty, surrounded by a mountain chain. Then they referred to a great desert. Not much was said about how one became the other.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Covey broke into my thoughts. The old Covey rarely sounded this cheerful. I found myself missing the old Covey.
“I’m thinking about how finding ghosts isn’t a good thing.”
The rest of my complaint was cut off as Alric’s wagon came to a stop. I hadn’t been paying attention to our surroundings as I contemplated our doom. The canyon walls had been slowly increasing in height as we rode the past few days, and they now loomed high enough above us that the great hawks above us were little more than specks.
Alric jumped from his wagon, stuck his head inside, then he stepped back as Padraig stepped out. Lorcan followed, but he went to take the driver’s seat.
Both elves had their swords.
“Hold the reins. I’m going to find out what’s going on.” Covey jumped off the seat. The silence was heavy, as if it was caused by something not allowing sound to escape rather than people simply not choosing to talk.
The clatter of horse hooves echoed around us, a completely normal and natural sound in an unnaturally quiet moment. I debated jumping down and following Covey. But if I did that, with my luck this horse would take off. The canyon had widened out so I did nudge her forward.
I pulled alongside Lorcan and his wagon. Alric, Padraig, and Covey were stalking forward, and the gargoyle and Bunky flew overhead to join them. A “there is no way that’s natural” mist filled the space in front of them. Even Bunky and the gargoyle wouldn’t go forward into it. But considering that they were missing, it looked like Flarinen and Kelm had.
I didn’t want to break the silence, but I did look to Lorcan with a shrug. The slow shake of his head, followed by his own shrug and a heavy frown didn’t make me feel in the least better.
Alric had said magic could be felt. It was something I’d never been able to do, but my sword had popped off again, and there was nothing else for me to do. Waiting had never been my strong point.
I closed my eyes and mentally tried reaching out to the fog. Maybe I could find out something about it. Images—like the ones that happened whenever I touched Bunky with bare skin—knocked me out of my seat. Literally. My eyes were still shut, jumbled visions racing at me, when I felt myself fly away from the wagon. I fought to free myself amid sudden yelling and horses whinnying and stomping. The images vanished in time for me to see a pair of dancing hooves come for me. I rolled away from them but then a pair of worn, black boots took their place.
Alric stood between me and the panicky horse. I couldn’t blame the animal. I’m sure I hung on to the reins as long as I could while I was being pulled off the bench.
“What happened?” Alric was talking to me, but watching the horse. At least I assumed he was talking to me.
I got to my feet slowly. The mist was gone and we were facing Flarinen and Kelm. Both were fully armed and looked surprised to see us. I shook my head and focused on Alric.
“I have no idea. I tried to see if that mist was magic, then a bunch of weird images slammed into me and the horse almost took me out.” I looked around. “Where are Bunky and the gargoyle?”
Alric whispered a few soft words into the ear of the horse. She immediately settled down. Then he turned to me. “They took off as soon as the mist collapsed. I saw a few color blurs ahead before the next turn and I think they were following the faeries. Which was exactly the time you went flying out of your seat.”
Running hooves ended our conversation. I looked up as Padraig stepped in front of Flarinen as he charged toward us.
Flarinen looked around sharply, as if realizing he had his sword out and no one to attack. He sheathed it quickly. “We’d lost all of you and had ridden all the way back to your camp but found nothing. Rather, we found blood, lots of it, but nothing else.”
Covey scowled at him, then looked back the way we came. “Aside from the fact that you are on the wrong side of our wagons to have done that.”
Kelm moved forward but kept his horse a length behind Flarinen. “We saw what we say. None of you were here.” His voice drifted away and he sheathed his own sword.
Padraig moved past both knights, then stopped a few feet behind them. “Were you riding hard through the gorge to our camp?” He moved his feet in a circle in the dirt, and then dropped down to pick up something in the dirt.
“Yes, we were going as fast as we could. There was nothing,” Kelm spoke out before Flarinen did.
Flarinen shot his underling a stern look then got off his horse and silently went to Padraig. “There’s nothing here.”
Padraig held up a small silver and gold disk. Even where I was I could see a hole in it toward the top. “This doesn’t belong to either of you, yet it was on top of the churned dirt you rode over. It’s also not dusty or damaged. And the ground is even more churned a few paces back. As if two concerned knights were riding full bore but being held in place.”
Covey stalked over, looked at the ground, and then took the disk from Padraig. She pulled back as if it burnt her, but then looked closer. She didn’t throw it but she handed it back to Padraig quickly.
Alric moved in as well, but while he gave a cursory glance to the disk, his eyes were on the dirt. “They were here for a while, running in place. So that mist was a spell? To do what? Separate us?”
“I’m not a magic user, but I know artifacts,” Covey said. “That charm is part of a linkage of gold and silver coins, it’s not real, or at least it was believed to not be real. It belonged to one of the high mages of the Ancients and was what caused the fight that destroyed them.”
6
That quieted everyone down. Even Lorcan looked at the piece but shook his head. “I am a student of many things. Alas, this aspect of the Ancients was not part of my studies.”
Feeling left out, I also moved forward for a closer look at the disk. A feeling of dizziness snuck up on me, so I didn’t touch it. It was thicker than it looked from a distance. The silver and gold blended near the middle in a fanciful design. “I thought the relics we’re chasing were what destroyed them.” The disk didn’t look dangerous at all, even if I didn’t want to touch it.
I gave the disk another study, taking a step back when Padraig held it up for me to take. “Looks like something from a fancy necklace or bracelet. So you’re telling me the great and powerful Ancients were destroyed because of sparkly jewelry?” I was going to be extremely disappointed in them if that was the case.
“It is believed the relics combined into a single weapon was what destroyed them. This piece, or rather it and the rest of the pieces it was attached to, was what reportedly linked them together.” Covey was looking at it in Padraig’s hand. But she didn’t touch it again and kept rubbing her hand on her pants.
“I think I’ll keep this in the chest for now.” Padraig ripped a small piece of fabric from the inside of his cloak and quickly wrapped it up.
Flarinen had stayed back, but now moved forward to where Alric poked around in the churned-up ground. “So all that I saw and felt was simply…magic?” The level of disgust in his voice on the last word made even Lorcan raise an eye
brow.
“Yes.” Alric went past the churned ground. “It was triggered here, but only when you turned around. It didn’t catch either of you on the way up. What made you turn around?”
“The screams,” Kelm burst out. He dipped his head at Flarinen’s look.
Flarinen held his glare on his man a minute longer before turning back to Alric. “We heard a commotion. It sounded like you were under attack.”
Padraig joined Alric. “That’s unusual, why bring them back? Why not spell them on the way out?”
“And what would have happened had we entered that mist with them already trapped in it?” Covey joined the two elves in looking at the ground, but she was more focused on the rock debris near the side. “And why are there so many new rocks?” She pulled back a shrub that was hugging the wall.
I’d take Covey’s word that the rocks were new; I wasn’t familiar with this area. This type of landscape was similar to the trellian homeland. If she said the rocks were new, they were new.
“I think we need to leave, immediately. Another crack is starting to form.” Lorcan had silently moved behind Covey and I but was now backing away. “It’s a trap spell, an old and nasty one. I should have recognized it when we saw the first crack.”
He didn’t run but was inside his wagon before the rest of us moved. Padraig didn’t question him but quickly joined him.
Alric turned to us. “Be ready to ride hard if need be.” He waited until we went for our wagon, then leapt up on the seat of Lorcan’s wagon and readied the reins.
Covey and I ran for the driver’s seat.
“You can stay inside if you like. I’ll drive,” she said as she grabbed the reins.
“I’m fine. I’ll stay with you.” The heavy silence of earlier was returning. I almost tried to call the faeries to me, but if things did go bad, I’d rather they weren’t in it. Not to mention, depending on the badness level we might need them and the constructs to get us out.
Flarinen shook his head but was back on his horse immediately. “Are we going back, or do we try to keep moving forward?”
Alric nodded to something I couldn’t hear from inside the smaller wagon. “Forward. There’s more of the trap in place behind us. But keep pace with us. They might separate us again.”
I had a bad feeling he, Padraig, and Lorcan knew exactly who they were. Our quarry had either found us, or figured out they were being trailed. I didn’t have a chance to clarify, and wasn’t sure I really wanted to, because Flarinen wheeled his horse around and started at a trot.
Kelm stayed a bit behind, but his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. Flarinen was scanning everything as we passed but made sure he stayed near us. He was such a pompous jerk it was easy to forget that he was actually a highly skilled captain of the knights.
No one spoke so the cracking sound coming from behind us was even louder.
I looked back and saw the walls behind us starting to shatter, and smaller pieces come tumbling off.
Flarinen glanced over his shoulder. “I believe we might need to move faster?” he asked, not ordered, which alone might have been enough to cause the world to shake, but he was already increasing his horse’s pace.
A sharp crack and a growing roar came from behind and Covey slapped the reins.
“Run!”
Flarinen took off but stayed within range of the first wagon. Kelm kept pace with us. He was close enough to see that even though he was young, and his pale skin and bright red cheeks didn’t help that any, he knew what he was doing. The pacing of his horse and the one pulling our wagon was perfect.
The trail ahead widened out even more and for a moment I thought we’d made better time than expected and already hit the Robani desert. We hadn’t, and I didn’t recall such an area on the maps. The walls rose around us, even higher than before. But we were in a valley of sorts.
And it had only one entrance—the one we were riding through.
Covey noticed it at the same time I did and started to turn our wagon. Just in time for us to see the rock collapse that had followed us swallow the way we came in.
Kelm noticed us spin around and moved to follow us. He didn’t yell, or gasp, as I was sure I did. But his light blue eyes grew almost human in their roundness.
Alric did yell and swear when he saw it. Flarinen appeared to be trying to make up new words as he too turned around.
“This can’t be right,” Alric said, “there’s nothing this broad out here, and this trail has been used for centuries.”
“Any time recently? Your people have been more or less in hiding for a thousand years.” Covey brought our wagon to a halt. “Something might have changed.”
“Something that could move the very land?” Flarinen had ridden a bit back toward the way we came, but the dust of the collapse was settling and it was clear that we weren’t getting out that way.
“I am not the only scout,” Alric said as he drove his wagon next to ours. “While not as heavily traveled as it would have been before we went into hiding, we have had people through here. I’ve been through here.” He studied the high cliffs circling around us and finally shook his head. “It’s been fifteen or twenty years since I rode through, but there wasn’t anything like this.”
Lorcan and Padraig had come out from their wagon. Neither looked happy.
Padraig watched the cliffs for a few moments. Then he turned back to us. “This looks familiar, but I can’t pin it down.”
I wasn’t sure how a giant, and extremely empty, dirt bowl could look familiar. The lack of plants was only one of the oddities. There hadn’t been much in the way of plant life on the path the past few days, but I figured it was because we were going through some pretty desolate areas. This looked more as if it was planned. Hard-packed dirt as far as I could see.
“You travel through dust bowls often?” I asked more to fill up the empty space that was engulfing the air around us than to find out the answer. It looked like we were standing in a desert floor surrounded by miles of mountains. Even though the sun was hitting us now, the clouds that had brought the rain were long gone, and the air temperature was dropping.
“He’s right. There is something familiar about this set up, more so than the actual location,” Lorcan said as he looked around with a confused but almost solving it expression on his face. Mimicking Padraig.
“There is something here, something we’re not able to see.” Alric had gotten down from the wagon and his sword was out.
I jumped when my sword popped from the scabbard and into my hand. That was a new and unwelcome trick.
Covey dropped off the wagon and into a half crouch; her short spiky hair raised like the hackles on a dog. She didn’t look berserk—yet.
Flarinen and Kelm stayed on horseback but strategically moved to the edges of our group.
I shook my hand, but the hairs on my arm were up. A low howl worked its way up from the wall furthest away from us. It was soft, and discordant, as if nature itself was trying to escape some horrific confinement.
Bleating broke through the silence, and the welcome sounds of faeries yelling. At least the sounds were welcome until I realized they were war cries.
When we lived in Becca, the faeries kept their things—including their war feathers and war sticks in a small child’s toy castle. They carried them in their odd little black pouches now.
Bunky and the gargoyle were leading the charge with his bleats and the gargoyle’s honks filling the still air.
“We fight!” Garbage raised her stick above her head. War blades, or staffs, looked like nothing more than small, sharpened twigs. But they acted as a focus for the faeries’ magic and had helped us out many times.
Tension filled the air as all of us waited. We’d put the two wagons in the middle, and Alric spelled the nervous horses to keep them calm. At least we had something to keep our backs against in the battle.
7
And nothing happened.
The temperature dropped a few more degrees
and one of the faeries hiccupped. But nothing else happened.
“Any one of you skilled academics want to take a guess at this?” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the empty space in front of me to look at my friends.
“No,” Lorcan said. “But this feels old, quite old. Those we chase are not behind this.”
Alric stepped forward and away from the wagons. I watched him as he crossed in front of me with Flarinen a step behind him. Neither responded when Lorcan called to them, but marched forward as if they saw an enemy.
“Do we go after them?” They were the best fighters we had aside from Covey, so I wasn’t sure how much help I could be.
A roar of massive rocks colliding cut Lorcan off. Immediately, an arena rose before us. We were at its entrance, and thin ghostlike images filled the stands. Alric and Flarinen nodded to the far wall where a balcony held a waving figure. I couldn’t see any of the ghosts well enough to determine what species they were and if Padraig and Alric could see, they weren’t going to tell us. Their eyes were wide open but they moved as if in a trance.
I’d had enough, if this was some twisted ghost battle, they weren’t going in alone. Yet as much as I tried, I couldn’t move. Like one of those nightmares where you need to run and you can’t. I fought down the feeling of terror that rose in my gut. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the others in the same predicament. Even the faeries, Bunky, and the gargoyle were frozen in mid-air.
Two forms became more solid as they marched toward Alric and Flarinen. Two giant syclarions in archaic armor. Neither were in their dragon form, for that I was grateful. But both were armed with huge pikes.
Alric and Flarinen both crouched as the enemy approached. The fight was swift and brutal—but surprisingly not bloody. The swords seemed to go through the syclarions even though they appeared as solid as we did. More importantly, those pikes went right through Alric and Flarinen. But they weren’t completely harmless. Each time the syclarions got a blow in, our people stumbled a bit. The more blows, the longer it took them to shake it off.
The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Page 4