The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5)

by Marie Andreas

  I wanted to stop and yell at both of them. “What is it you know, Padraig?” I was going to have to have a long talk with Alric. With everything that was going on, our romance was going to die before it got started. I think I saw Alric’s shoulder twitch, but he stayed silent.

  “Alric is correct; the book I found the note in is obscure and not properly sourced.”

  I tilted my head at him, and he resumed talking.

  “Now, that being taken into consideration, I do not want you to view what I’m about to say as the absolute truth. When we found Nasif I was hoping to ask him for his view on things.”

  “Stalling now.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it, but I needed to know.

  “Yes, I am,” Padraig said. “Fine. It appears that the manticore works within a living being, such as yourself. It can only come out when the person is dead.”

  Alric stopped this time.

  “So he doesn’t want me, he wants me dead?” This wasn’t good. To be honest, I hadn’t been sure how he was going to get the manticore out of me anyway—so dead wasn’t that much of a shock.

  I jumped and bit back a scream as my sword appeared in my hand. “Would you stop doing that? And what were you thinking, leaving in the middle of a fight?” I didn’t care that both Alric and Padraig were looking at me with concern. The sword rattled when I yelled at it. They might think these swords weren’t alive—but I was beginning to doubt it. At least in the case of the one that had latched on to me.

  The sword didn’t vanish. I’d put Covey’s sword in the only scabbard I’d had even though it didn’t fit properly. I switched the swords out and Alric took Covey’s sword.

  “Now, back to me being dead, and you two not wanting me to know someone wanted me that way?”

  Alric adjusted Covey’s sword—his had now vanished—and resumed walking. “How were we supposed to tell you? And we’re not even sure that’s how it works.”

  “The thing absorbed itself into my body, and it’s believed it was inside the person who caused the destruction of the Ancients, right? And whoever caused the death of the Ancients is dead now, right?”

  Even in the dark I was close enough to both to see them nod. “The being who destroyed the Ancients is thought to have been destroyed when they were. That is from a more substantial source, so most likely true.”

  I rubbed the cold spot on my cheek. If the only way to get rid of this was death, it and I were stuck together. Hopefully for a very long time.

  “Okay. I’m not happy, but I do need to know these things.” I grabbed Alric’s shoulder and turned him toward me. “You can’t hide things from me.”

  He smiled and kissed me. “I know.” He nodded to Padraig. “He told me the same thing.”

  He slipped his arm around me and the three of us kept walking. Bunky and the gargoyle had been flying a little ahead of us, buzzing back every few minutes to make sure we were okay.

  We must have gotten closer to the spot the wagons had been waiting at when Bunky gronked and blocked our path. A soft whinny in the shrubs a few feet back led us to the horse and the wagons. Intact and unmolested. Even all of the arcane books and whatnot were inside—only our friends were missing. Bunky and the gargoyle must have been as tired as I felt—even constructs needed a rest, and neither had had one for a long time. Both flew over to the larger wagon, landed on top, and did their version of sleeping.

  “You seriously think Nivinal would do this? Leave us the wagons?” I rubbed the nose of the horse that pulled our wagon. He didn’t seem disturbed at all. No violence had taken place when our friends vanished.

  “He might have thought we’d been killed in the town?” Padraig didn’t even sound as if he believed it.

  Alric studied the ground around the wagons and horses carefully, sifting the dirt, looking for what clues only he knew. I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face and he was tracking people by dirt. He finally looked up. “I agree with Taryn. Nivinal is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them or he never would have survived as he has. Therefore, he didn’t take the others.”

  I rubbed my face and folded to the ground. I wasn’t sure I could handle yet another random person out to get us. Or me. Nivinal might not be the only one who knew about the manticore, and how to get it out of me.

  Alric dropped to my side immediately. “Are you hurt?” He turned me to face him and looked for any visible injuries.

  “See? That right there? I sit down and immediately the thoughts go to someone attacking us. I’m not sure I can do this anymore.” I was whining and I didn’t care. “I want my old life back.” Relics, murdering mages, time travel…I was done.

  He resettled himself so he was mirroring the way I sat and took my hands. “I know you do. You and Covey didn’t ask for this. For Padraig and me, it’s part of who we are. The more we find out about the relic and what happened to the Ancients, the more I know we can’t let anyone else have it. We have to get the pieces, and destroy them. Or at least one.” He touched the side of my face. “One other than yours.”

  His face was sincere. He wouldn’t think any less of me if I walked away from this entire thing right now. I leaned over our crossed legs and kissed him.

  And got kicked in my gut. Yet another brief romantic interlude ruined by faery feet.

  I pulled away from Alric and reached into the pouch I’d made for the faeries. A few were stirring, most noticeably Garbage. I thought I recognized those tiny feet of destruction. They’d been out for less than an hour, so I was surprised any of them were up.

  Even more surprising was that Garbage was kicking her friends awake.

  “We no sleep. Up. Do. Now.” She stomped on the rest of them until one by one they woke up. “Need bath.” She flew out of the pouch and landed on Alric’s knee. “Bath.”

  I’d never specifically seen them bathe. They usually took off and did their business elsewhere, although back in Beccia they did have a large bowl I kept filled with water in the toy castle they lived in. None of them had ever asked for a bath beyond demanding it be refilled daily.

  Padraig had been checking the contents of both wagons, and got a lantern lit on the large one, but quickly came out with a water pouch and bucket. “I think we can help our valiant little friends.” He poured the water into the bucket, and then sat it down next to us.

  “They no move, dump in.” Garbage ran and jumped into the bucket—overalls, flower petal hat, and all.

  I looked into the pouch. A few of the faeries were upright, but mostly they were simply flopping around on each other. I wasn’t going to argue with Garbage on this—not to mention all of them smelled awful. Padraig might want to leave this cloak behind. I emptied the pouch into the bucket.

  Padraig watched the faeries for a moment, and then turned to us. “Nothing is taken, not even a single scroll. Except for our friends. Is there a reason you two are both on the ground?”

  I looked at Alric and shook my head. There was no way I could leave them. Not to mention they were my best defense against Nivinal killing me for the relic. I knew it was more than that. I couldn’t remember my parents very well. But a feeling of sadness, not related to their deaths, hit me when I thought of them. I’d never really had much of a family. I looked at the two elves and the faeries’ water free-for-all. I had a family now and I wasn’t leaving them.

  “Absolutely no reason. I was tired for a moment and Alric was helping me up.” Close enough, I was really tired.

  Alric rose and held out a hand to help me up.

  “Are there any clues as to who took them?” Alric nodded to where the horses were tied up, even Kelm and Flarinen’s horses had their saddles and tack removed and sat to the side. They’d even been left with food and water. “Someone was extremely considerate.”

  Padraig held out a small piece of paper with extremely tiny writing on it. Covey was the only one I knew who could write that small.

  “I’ve had some trouble with your friend’s writing, but according to her, Nasif to
ok them all.”

  I grabbed the paper, but it was too dark to read even with the lantern. I could see the scribbles, but not enough to make out the words. Magic had kicked back at me in the pub, but maybe it had been long enough now to have completely shaken off whatever Reginald’s little cage had done to me. I slowed down my thoughts and envisioned a mage glow. I wasn’t terribly adept at the little balls of light, mine usually ending up huge and unable to fly, but I wanted to see if I could do it this time.

  It felt like it took forever but a small glow appeared over my head. With a bit of nudging I got it over the paper. Yup. Definitely Covey. She didn’t seem distressed, but not happy either.

  Nasif is making us leave you and the wagons behind. He wanted the faeries too. No one is hurt, but he suggests you don’t follow us. Won’t say where, but he keeps muttering about the Spheres. No choice—must leave.

  There was more of a tone of annoyance to the note than fear. I was glad he hadn’t been able to get the faeries. It was good for us to know he wanted them though. “Why would Nasif take them? How could Nasif take them? Two fully trained knights, a serious magic user, and Covey?”

  I handed Alric the note in case I missed something. He read it quickly, didn’t even need my mage glow, then handed it back. “Nasif must have gotten the upper hand on Lorcan and used a spell on them before they could react. Dueble isn’t mentioned, but I doubt after all these years he would go against Nasif.”

  “But we were all going to the Spheres anyway. Why would he kidnap them?” Things kept getting weirder. More dangerous, I understood. I wasn’t happy but things had been getting more dangerous pretty much since I first met Alric. Weirdness was starting to get annoying though.

  The faeries flew out of the bucket and all hovered in the air. A moment later twenty-three tiny soaking faeries shook like dogs. “Damn it!” I’d been the closest and got most of the water. “Don’t do that.” I wiped off the wet spots. The faeries didn’t even look my way.

  “Is good. We go that way.” Garbage pointed across the desert. And not in the vague direction I understood the Spheres to be.

  Alric and Padraig hadn’t answered my questions, had managed to dodge most of the soggy faeries, and were now hooking up the horses and the wagons. The knights’ saddles were going in Lorcan’s wagon and the extra horses were each tied behind a wagon.

  “But don’t we need to go that way?” I pointed toward the general direction of the Spheres.

  “No. Spheres that way. No go.” Leaf flew by me and nodded sagely.

  “That’s where we need to go. To the Spheres.” I looked to the two elves for help, but they were busy finishing the horses. “Where is it you think we need to go?” The faeries couldn’t force us to go their direction, but if we went a way they didn’t like they could make the trip miserable.

  “To find lizard chicken.” Crusty had to join in. She was dripping a lot and looked like she was going to shake at any moment. I pushed her away.

  “Lizard chicken? Have either of you the slightest clue as to what that means?”

  Both looked up from finishing with the horses. “Lizard chicken? I have no idea.” Alric sat Covey’s sword on the driver’s bench for the larger wagon.

  “Is the thing. Big, kill thing. Like this.” Garbage reached over and punched my cheek.

  Right where the manticore was.

  “The basilisk?” I’d never heard of them being called lizard chickens before. Then again until recently I hadn’t heard of them at all. Not to mention, the relic was supposed to be at the Spheres.

  “Is true. That way. Far that way.” Now Dingle Bottom and Penqow were coming up, repeating it.

  I narrowed my eyes and looked as close as I dared at the damp faeries. They flew like them, sounded like them, and up until this new obsession with sending us the opposite direction than we needed to go, acted like them. But right now, I didn’t think they were them.

  “Padraig?” I asked, as I kept my eyes on the faeries as they hovered in front of me. “Is it possible that Nasif found a way to take over the faeries? A spell that made them do what he wanted?” That all of them were hovering there looking at me was proving my point. And freaking me out.

  I heard the crunching of gravel behind me and felt Alric at my side. Padraig stepped around me and got closer to the faeries.

  “No, at least no spell I’ve ever heard of could take over beings and make them do their bidding on that level. Even if any similar spells were modified, holding on to twenty-three faery brains would not be easy. Actually, I think even holding one of those minds would tax the most powerful magic user.” He dropped his voice and raised one hand slowly to the lowest hovering faery. “However, sending copies, while extremely difficult, would not be beyond the range of a mage like Lorcan. I think we can all agree Nasif appears to at least be Lorcan’s equal.” As he said the last word, he grabbed the lowest faery and uttered a spell word.

  The faery’s eyes went wide and it vanished. The spell was broken and within moments all of the faeries popped out of existence.

  I waved in the air where they had been. “How can they have been fake? They got water on me.”

  Padraig looked into the bucket. “That was a clever spell. The water transference was part of it. Why, I don’t know, unless it was simply to verify the faeries were real. This is fascinating.”

  Alric clasped his friend on the shoulder. “Rather, it would be if the person who did it hadn’t kidnapped all of our friends, including the faeries. He must have managed to grab them when they first fled Null.”

  I was looking where the faeries had been. Or rather where their spelled copies had been. “But why? Why do any of this?”

  Alric nodded to the wagons. “Had we listened to the faeries, we’d have rode hard in the opposite direction. Taking us further from the Spheres. It sounds simplistic, but the Nasif we knew was a scatterbrained academic—I think he still is. I can’t say why he doesn’t want us there, but I don’t believe he meant harm to anyone. Including the faeries.”

  “I agree. He doesn’t want us there, or he doesn’t want Taryn there.”

  Damn it. If Nasif hadn’t turned bad in the last thousand years or so, then him not wanting me somewhere involved with the relics might be a great reason for not being there. But good guy or bad guy, he’d crossed a line by kidnapping my friends and setting up a spell of duplicate faeries. I was going wherever he and they were.

  “I don’t care. He should have waited and talked to all of us. Not done whatever it was he did to the faeries. We’re going to those Spheres.” I marched to the larger wagon and started to climb inside. I paused, wrapped my hands in a cloak, and grabbed Bunky and the gargoyle—still in their construct sleep mode on top of the wagon—and brought them into the wagon with me. Riding with Alric was my first idea, but the two elves could go for far longer without sleep than I could. I could sleep while they drove. And I needed sleep. I had a sinking feeling things were going to get crazy again once we reached the Spheres.

  I’d finished getting the two constructs secured on one of the benches; Bunky gave a little twitch like a sleeping cat that had partially woken up, as I adjusted them. Aside from that, both were completely out. Alric came to the open door of the wagon.

  “We will find them. And whatever the reason behind it, I will protect you from whatever is at the Spheres.”

  “Thank you,” I said, then kissed him. “Try and keep the bumps down as well, we’ll be sleeping in here.”

  “If you two are ready, we should move. Nasif wouldn’t have left these just to help us go the wrong direction faster. He didn’t need this type of transportation.”

  38

  Alric quickly got our wagon moving after that comment from Padraig. It hadn’t dawned on me, but obviously, taking everyone and everything would have been easier than carefully leaving things behind. Unless Nasif had another mode of transportation.

  He was a serious academic who’d been, more or less, in hiding mode for hundreds of years
—who knew what he’d come up with during that time. The larger concern was why he did it.

  Even only knowing him for a few days, I doubted he’d gone evil. The Nasif I knew in the past had been willing to risk his life to get Alric and me out and back to our correct time. There was some reason behind what he did now, something that wasn’t evil—hopefully—but might not be in our best interests. Covey’s note had indicated two things: she didn’t have a choice and wasn’t happy about the situation. That was good enough for me. He didn’t take all of my friends to keep me from following—in fact, taking them guaranteed I would.

  He and Dueble could have taken off on their own and gotten there before us. Heck, if he knew where the basilisk was, why hadn’t they gotten it before? Something in the last few hours had changed everything for Nasif and, by association, Dueble.

  The wagon jolted to one side, but then corrected.

  “Sorry.” Alric’s voice was faint, but at least we weren’t under attack.

  I tried sorting through Nasif’s actions a few more times, but they narrowed down to some recent information changing his plans—or rather, giving him new ones. In addition, I didn’t really know him. There could be anything and everything in his mind justifying his actions. Rabid academics could be a dangerous lot. Covey once commented about selling half her family for some scrolls she really needed. I wasn’t completely sure she’d been joking, even to this day.

  If Nasif was on an academic search, anything he had to do in obtaining his goal was worth it in his mind.

  The wagon had settled down into a soft rocking roll, and thoughts of anything were replaced by sleep.

  I dreamed I was in a cavern, working on the biggest find ever. An intact elven courthouse. The walls and ornate decorations were clear through the dirt; I needed to dig down to them. The dirt finally opened before me and I tumbled inside. Within moments, a spectral judge appeared. An elf, but wearing my face. Around me thousands of other ghosts filled the space: elves, humans, dryads, syclarions, trellians, chatalings, and more. All of them shouting at me. It was my fault, whatever had killed them and left them here—it was my fault. They pressed closer and closer. Yelling and pushing them back did nothing—they kept coming.