That had kind of been my idea since I’d landed. I narrowed my eyes. “So you would have stayed here?”
“Not willingly, but I really have no idea how to get out. You are another thing entirely.”
For a brief moment I thought he was being extra sweet. Alric really wasn’t the demonstrative sort. Then he put his hand on my cheek. Right where the sapphire manticore was hidden.
“Whatever has led the relics to come back has got to be stopped. That can only be done with all of them.”
He removed his hand and I felt an echoing coldness. It could have been the lack of warmth from his skin, but it had a more familiar feel. The manticore froze things—lots of things, but fortunately not me. It worked through me since it had decided to move in.
“That actually makes no sense. If they need it all together as well, wouldn’t having a piece lost a thousand years in the past make it impossible to get it?” This time stuff was already messing with my head.
“Or they wait for you to die and take it from your bones. At any time.”
I put my head in my hands. When had my life as a digger turned into this? The answer sat next to me.
“I should hate you, you know,” I said as I took a deep sigh. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been hired to bring you in.”
Alric pulled me over to his lap and traced my face with his fingertip. “Is it all bad though?” The kiss he gave me and my enthusiastic response answered itself.
We finally broke apart when noises came from the outer room. “Well, husband, do you want to go check? It’s probably our bags.” Not that they were really our bags—neither he nor I had anything that wasn’t created by Siabiane. It would have looked odd to arrive without anything though.
He gave me another kiss, just a quick one this time, then went out the door. A moment later I heard a crash and Alric carefully called out, “Taryn? Can you come out here slowly?”
I knew he would never ask me to come out if there was something dangerous, even at the risk of his own life. But there was a strain in his voice I’d rarely heard.
I went down the short hall to the front room. The center sofa was knocked over and Alric was partially pinned under it. A short hooded form was keeping him down. At first I thought he was holding a knife. I moved closer, the person hadn’t turned around, then I realized it was a pen, not a knife.
“I really need to talk to her…to you…and her…and them.” The cloaked arm pointed to where the three faeries sat on the mantel of the fireplace. So much for them staying invisible around strangers. I glared at them, but they smiled and went back to watching Alric and his captor.
“Oh, for crying out loud, what is going on? Get off my husband.”
His speech was far more rambling than it had been when he first ambushed us, or rather me, but I finally realized who it was. Siabiane’s friend Nasif.
Nasif threw back the hood of his cloak and bounded off the sofa. Alric winced but then slid out from underneath.
“It IS you. I thought it was before, but I wasn’t certain. Now, I am certain,” he said, then waved at the girls who were showing no signs of going invisible. “Hello, ladies!” He even went so far as to hold out a hand that was now suddenly filled with sugar. If there were few, if any, faeries around during this time, how did so many people know about their addiction to sugar?
And be able to win them over so fast. “It’s Padraig all over again.” I’d muttered it to myself, but whatever crossbreed Nasif was he had acute hearing.
“You’ve heard of our valiant Padraig? You couldn’t have known him before what happened actually happened since you weren’t here then. So he must turn out okay? I so worry about him. It wasn’t fair.”
Having robbed him of all of his sugar, the faeries flew back to the mantel.
* * *
I looked over the small rambling man’s head to Alric. We must be close to the start of the war. I assumed Nasif was talking about when Padraig had been attacked and left in a deep sleep for a few hundred years.
“We’ve heard rumors of him,” Alric said as he dusted himself off and fixed the sofa. “It was horrible for one such as him to be brought so low.”
Nasif looked between the two of us for a moment, then ran over and jumped onto the sofa facing us. “I know, you know. Well, I know many things that you don’t know and will never know. I know all there is to know of the Ancients and their wee friends.” He nodded to the faeries. “I also know about those relics,” he pointed to my cheek, “and about the time shifts. You five got caught in a wave that had been weaponized.”
I stood with my hands on the back of the closest sofa. I opened my mouth a few times, looked to the faeries who shrugged and dangled their feet, then finally went around and sat down on the sofa I’d been leaning on. Heavily. Most of what he said was still smacking itself in to my skull as I tried to process it. “The faeries were close friends of the Ancients?” That was the only thing that connected enough for me to comment on.
19
Even Alric’s brows were lowered in thought as he processed what Nasif said.
“Yes. They were fast friends, long ago. But those memories were lost. When the Ancients were destroyed, much of what they held dear was lost or changed. The wee folks were lost in the dark times after the Ancients vanished. The land they knew had changed, and crude, throwback syclarions were roaming the land. Queen Mungoosey took her remaining faeries and fled.”
“Hail Queen Mungoosey!” All three faeries shouted at once. “High Queen Princess Buttercup Turtledove RatBatZee Growltigerious Mungoosey, Empress of all.” I waved them off before they launched into a second round of her full name. I never had figured out how a small flying faery cat had such a long name. Nor why she was the only faery cat I’d ever seen.
“So how do you know about us?” Alric had come around and sat next to me, but he looked as confused as I felt.
“I study time waves; no one else here even believes they exist. Siabiane humors me, but even she has her doubts. Don’t tell anyone but I have been working with the time waves to try and travel to the past.” His arms flailed around as he got excited. “If I could go back far enough, I could be there when whatever destroyed the Ancients happened. I would finally know the truth.”
I looked to Alric. We’d been flung back a thousand years. If he could go back fifteen hundred years from here, he would see what happened to them. I admitted to myself that sounded intriguing. Only if we could make our way back, that was.
“Of course time waves only seem to work in one direction, so if I made it I wouldn’t be able to come back and tell people.” He looked so earnest that it was hard not to share his enthusiasm.
Then his words hit and my stomach dropped. “There’s no way back?” The feeling that I couldn’t be here was slowly crawling back. Like a dull headache that faded but wouldn’t go away.
“Not that I can tell, however there are changes all the time, about time. What time are you all from? I know you’re not from our time; your signatures are completely skewed.” He waved one hand to encompass all five of us.
“As near as I can guess, about a thousand years.” Alric looked worried, but even he, with all of his years of adventuring, spying, and thieving, had never come across something like this.
Nasif let out a long whistle. “That is truly amazing is what that is. A thousand years. What is the world like? How big has this city gotten? It’s already far too big in my opinion. If it weren’t for my research needing to be here, I’d go live elsewhere like Lady Siabiane.” He stopped and cocked his head. “I don’t want to know, do I? And you can’t tell me, you can’t tell any of us. If you change whatever happens, and from the sorrow on your faces it is not good at all, you will cease to exist. That means this time would become a loop, never moving forward.” He then broke down and started muttering formulas, drawing them in the air in front of him. “No. You can’t tell us. Even Siabiane.”
A knock came from our suite door, followed by
the woman herself. “I’m sorry to intrude, but they’ve brought up your bags and I took the liberty of ordering the cooks to bring up dinner. It should be here shortly. I hate to impose on your first night here, but there is a small ball tonight to honor the queen. I would be most grateful if you could join us for a short while.” She came in and nodded to Nasif with a sigh. “I had a feeling you would be here.” She turned to me. “He gets odd fixations sometimes, spouts a lot of nonsense, and will talk forever. He does seem to be fixated on you, my dear.”
The faeries flew off the mantel and swarmed Siabiane. “And us! He likes us!”
Siabiane raised one delicate eyebrow at the faeries being visible.
I shrugged, still trying to process the words ball and going to. Maybe I could figure a way out later—I’d never been a dancer and doubted that was going to start now. “I know, but he already knew about them, so I guess they felt it was okay.”
I looked to Alric and crazy Nasif, then back to Siabiane. We couldn’t save the elves from what was going to happen. We didn’t even know when it would happen, but things seemed to be going bad quickly. We needed to get back to our time and stop any new disasters that would befall if Nivinal figured out how to use the relic weapon. I had a feeling we needed Siabiane on board as well—both now and in the future.
Nasif stopped his mad scribbling in the air, looked at all of us, and then nodded. “Yes, you should tell her. She’d most likely figure it out eventually. Brightest of us all, she is. But it might be too late.” With that he went back to shaking his head at the invisible numbers and words he was writing in the air. He even went so far as to wipe out one he didn’t like.
I wasn’t exactly sure how to bring it up, but Alric took that job.
“We’re more than simply waylaid travelers from the south. We are actually from the spot you found us, only a few years later.”
Siabiane looked to Nasif, but he was calculating something, so she studied both of us for a moment. Then she held out her hand and Garbage flew over. “It’s not that I doubt you, and Nasif has been claiming this can, and does, happen for years. But there are also serious spells out there, ones that can make people believe the most unusual things about themselves.” She held Garbage up to eye level.
I’d never seen my little orange miscreant be so focused.
“Truth bringer, what say ye? Are you from a different time, along with your companions?”
Garbage didn’t speak at first, then she nodded. “Yup. No here, here bad. He go, she follow, we go. Needs go back.”
Siabiane smiled and held her hand up to indicate Garbage could go back to her friends.
“I hate to say this, Nasif, my old friend. But deep in my heart I believed you were wrong. Time needed to be pure and linear.” She gave a sad smile. “It was the only thing that was. We shall deal with this as we deal with all complications. I do think between Nasif and I we can find a way to send you back to the time you came from.”
“A thousand years in the future, more or less.” I filled in since no one else was going to. I figured longer time jumps would be harder, but since we were the only ones who managed to do it, maybe that wasn’t the case.
Siabiane did pale a bit at my words. “Oh dear. I so do wish I could find out what the world is like so far from now. But that cannot come about. No one beyond us must know, and you cannot tell us anything.”
Nasif finished his calculations and nodded. “I warned them as well—nothing can be said. Nothing changed. That goes for the wee ones as well.”
The three faeries had stopped paying attention to us and were focused on their tiny black bags. All looked up at once and nodded. I heard a clinking sound—a familiar one.
“If you’re going to drink, at least go into the next room. And remember, you cannot leave these rooms unless one of us say.”
The faeries all nodded and flew to the bedroom.
“What was that noise?” Siabiane watched them go.
“Those little bags of theirs hold a lot of things—including probably a pub’s worth of ale. I will warn you, you might have heard rumors of the faeries from long ago, but I doubt they ever warned about their singing. Especially their drunken singing.”
“Faeries were never said to drink, well, anything beyond flower petal water.”
Alric let out a snort as he tried not to laugh. “That’s one rumor that was horribly wrong. Those faeries drink more than a troop of thieves after a successful haul. It wasn’t in the books I read about them either.”
Nasif got up and sat down at least five times, each time in a slightly different spot on the same couch. “Yes, things change. Wee ones change. Queen Mungoosey most likely didn’t like the change.”
“Not at all. I think there’s been a falling out among them. There might have also been an issue because Garbage led the faeries—even Queen Mungoosey—to help save me, Alric, and a bunch of other important people and things that I can’t mention.” I caught myself before I said glass gargoyle. The less said about specific events in the future, even if they probably wouldn’t impact this timeline, the better.
“They could have changed over the years,” Siabiane said. “Or my sister changed them. That was probably the case. Mathildaringa always sticks her nose in where it’s not needed. But she usually has a good reason for it.” She stopped and her eyes grew round. “I realized that when you said she’d helped you, you meant a long time from now.”
“And we shouldn’t be talking of that,” Nasif said with a smile.
A knock came and soon the front room was filled with platters of food and all talk stopped.
After we all ate our fill, including the faeries who tumbled out of the bedroom to grab some food, Nasif left.
“You will have an hour or so before the ball. I took the liberty of creating appropriate garb for both of you.”
“Are you certain we should go?” Alric asked. “The more exposure to everyone, the more chance we will let something slip.”
I knew Alric never let anything slip by accident—unless he was seriously injured. He wanted to avoid the ball as much as I did.
Siabiane looked at both of us, then smiled and tilted her head. “I think the universe is safe. I also believe you two need to go, see the queen, see how the elves live now. When we get you back to your time, you will know who we were.” She didn’t mention the impending tragedy, as Nasif had. But it was clear she’d read enough on our faces to know something happened to change all of this. She’d come to the city because of bad changes, but she hadn’t known how bad they were going to become.
Alric gave a flourished bow. “I would be honored to escort Lady Siabiane and Lady Taryn to the ball.”
I really wasn’t sure how I felt. Terror was one aspect. I’d never been to a dance let alone a ball. Or if I had when I was younger I didn’t recall it. But excitement was there as well. A real elven ball, with my real elven boyfriend. I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t say I was excited. The little girl I once was would have been happy to die right after this ball.
“Excellent. I shall be back in an hour or so.” Siabiane’s smile was relaxed. That was another reason for going; her life, like all of the elves, was about to catastrophically change.
20
The faeries were still drinking and rolling on the side table. “Girls? Change of plans. How about you three stay in the front room, drink, sing, whatever you want. Just stay out there tonight and guard the place? Alric and I have a meeting to go to, and I know you three can keep everything safe here.”
The faeries hated meetings. A ball they might have fought over, but not a meeting.
“We stay!” Leaf yelled.
“We guard!” Garbage added.
“We drunk!” Crusty warbled.
I assumed she meant drink, but she was already well on her way to drunk, so that might have been what she intended.
All three gathered their bottles and clanked their way back to the front room.
“Are you going to be okay wi
th this?” Alric came in after the girls left. “You looked terrified when she first mentioned the ball.”
Problem with being involved with a highly skilled elven tracker was that he was extremely aware of everything.
I sighed. “Yes, no, I don’t know. I would love to see a real elven ball, even a small one. But I’ve never danced in my life. Does one have to dance? Can I watch from the sidelines? Maybe I can limp and we can say I hurt myself.”
He laughed and came closer, then lifted up my chin to kiss me. “You can do whatever you want. However, I would love to dance with you. Never fear, I had enough dance lessons as a child for both of us.” He nodded to the closet. “Siabiane magicked some clothing in here for us. I have no idea what she had in those bags of hers.”
Looking into those amazing leaf green eyes there was no way I could say no. I bit my lip, then nodded.
“Okay, but since you’re my husband, you’d better make sure I look good out on the floor. Now, about the clothing.”
I pushed open the closet and almost fell over. The dress I was currently wearing was fancier than anything I’d ever worn, but the fluffy deep green and blue concoction in front of me was more dress than I’d ever seen before. I was by no means a fashion girl, but this dress could make me one.
Long tapering sleeves would reach well past my fingertips but looked like they were supposed to. Tiny jewels in the fabric sparkled as I took it out of the closet. It was fitted in the bodice, then flared out softly past the waist. The way the colors blended made them look like petals on a flower.
The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Page 14