I wasn’t sure if I was going to choke the answers out of him or Alric was.
“Too late for what? Who came after them?” Padraig stepped in, but even his patience was fading.
“Nivinal and Reginald. They’re back together. They grabbed Nasif and your friends as they came out of the spell tunnel. They’re their prisoners now.” He looked to me. “Even your little faeries.”
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“We have to get them,” I said. I wasn’t too worried when Nasif had my friends. I was annoyed and pissed. Betrayed that someone I thought of as a friend had broken that trust. But not afraid. That they were all with Nivinal and Reginald struck me with terror.
“We can’t rush in, not with Nivinal being involved,” Padraig said. “And Reginald has shown to be far craftier than we gave him credit for. I do wonder why Nivinal is working with him again?”
Alric untied Dueble.
“I think it might have to do with a spell cast on him. Reginald was doing a lot of bowing in Nivinal’s direction,” Dueble said. He slowly got to his feet as if unsure that Alric wouldn’t tackle him again.
The question was if Nivinal was coming here because he knew the basilisk was here, for something about the Spheres, or something completely different. I had a bad feeling he was covering a number of agendas in one location.
“Where does he have them?” Padraig asked. He recoiled the rope and put it in his pack.
Dueble kept watching Bunky and the gargoyle. He might not be tied any more but the two constructs were making it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere without us. “They went to the Spheres—right in the middle of them. But she can’t go.”
He looked ready to cry again. I wasn’t ready to forgive him or Nasif. If they hadn’t grabbed my friends and used that traveling spell thing we wouldn’t be in this mess.
“Why is Nivinal focused on the Spheres and not the basilisk? He’s obsessed with getting the relic weapon back together.” This change of plans couldn’t be good for anyone.
“Maybe he wants to take you.” Alric spoke before Padraig did. “He’s tried to get you a few times, and seems to know more about you than even you do. Perhaps Nasif knew something would happen to you at the Spheres and it was that Nivinal would kidnap you.”
I’d thought he was going to say Nivinal was going to try to kill me. Nasif and Dueble were seriously upset about me being near the Spheres and death would be serious. Yet, Nivinal could have killed me a number of times, both in the enclave and after. He didn’t really try. I felt more as if I was one of the relics he was gathering. Obviously, if Padraig’s research into the manticore were accurate, Nivinal would need to kill me eventually. But he had some reason for wanting me alive as well.
I ignored the flash of cold in my check that reminded me I sort of was one of the relics.
“I don’t think we can ignore that he could be after Taryn as well as the relics,” Padraig said. “The scroll said the basilisk was here, but not where. He might not realize it was terrorizing people on the trails. So, he wants Taryn, the manticore, and the basilisk, none of which we are going to give him.”
“But we can’t leave our friends behind.” There was no way that was going to happen, but part of me pointed out that if I and the gargoyle, with its belly full of basilisk, left, we’d be increasing the chances of success. There was also no way to know if my leaving might make it easier for Nivinal to grab me. We needed our friends back, and I felt it was safer if we all stuck together to do it. I folded my arms to prepare for the objections.
Padraig and Alric both looked concerned, but neither said anything. Dueble started babbling and grabbing my arms.
“You can’t. It will destroy you. Nasif wouldn’t say that directly, but he was scared for you. You and I can leave this place.”
“Can you protect her against Nivinal if this is a trap to get us to separate? He doesn’t know what’s happened to the basilisk, but he wants the manticore.” Padraig removed Dueble’s hands from my arms. “You don’t have to go with us, but he does have Nasif as well.”
Dueble gave me one more sad look, and then nodded as if he was coming to terms. “I’m coming along. I can fight and they aren’t going to be allowed to hurt any of our friends.” He looked up. “I lost my sword in the spell tunnel; do any of you have an extra?”
Alric handed over Covey’s sword to Dueble. An instant later his own spirit sword reappeared and he sheathed it. “No sheath for that one, but I have a feeling we’ll be needing them soon anyway.”
Bunky and the gargoyle dove by again, but this time in a less menacing manner. Dueble gave them a quick smile and didn’t flinch.
So, two elves, two constructs, one syclarion, and me. Up against Nivinal. Even ignoring Reginald, since he might also be a prisoner, we were screwed.
Padraig resumed leading us toward the Spheres, and Alric dropped to the back to take the last position. I went back with him. “How can we tell if it’s the real Nivinal or another of his images? I’ve only seen the real him once that I know of, in the throne room of the palace in the enclave—but I couldn’t tell the difference between him then and the image versions I’ve seen. Do we have a better chance if it’s only his image?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Alric answered. Padraig and Dueble were carrying on their own conversation a bit ahead of us. “He’s shown a lot of power even through his image. I’ve never seen anyone who can make himself work through his image like that. Siabiane has her ghosting bit, but she’s extremely limited in what she can do.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. He also has the rakasa.” I’d managed to forget about them until now. Now their tiny teeth-filled mouths were all I could think of.
“The ground under this sand is too hard. Nasif believes the rakasa couldn’t get through.” Dueble kept to the center of the path, however.
Padraig kept his eye on the trail ahead of him, but he responded. “We should watch for them. The ground here, off the trail, is far looser than it is supposed to be. The areas under the sand have gone through some recent transformations.”
I moved closer to the center of the trail as well. There was nothing more to say, we were going to a fight that we might not win but had to do anyway. I watched Bunky and the gargoyle fly a bit ahead, then come back and complete their circle again. I turned to Alric. “Is there any way we could use the basilisk against Nivinal—without damaging any of us or our friends?”
Alric watched the constructs as they faded to small specks above us. “I can’t think of a way. Maybe if things get really dire we stand behind the gargoyle and tell him to spit it out.”
“You have the basilisk?” Dueble picked up on that quickly. “Where is it?” He wasn’t paying enough attention, which wasn’t a bad thing.
“Sort of. It’s secure, you don’t need anything more than that,” Alric said.
The rest of the way we stayed silent, but we never heard the attackers until they hit us.
The first wave was familiar to three of us. The purple floating creatures who’d attacked us in the canyon. Dueble didn’t realize what they were and was raising a hand to pet one when Alric tackled him.
“Gloughstrikes! Don’t let them touch you, they are deadly.” Padraig yelled. We weren’t sure what exactly happened after they knocked out everyone. None of them had a problem after the faeries had woken them up. But we didn’t have the faeries with us right now.
There were at least thirty of the creatures coming for us, there was no way we could avoid all of them.
Padraig muttered a spell at them, but instead of anything happening to them the spell came back at him and burnt one of the shrubs behind him off the trail. “Don’t use magic against them, they’re shielded.”
The creatures weren’t moving fast, but there were enough of them that they didn’t need to. We were surrounded.
“So Nivinal is behind these things?” One came too close and I smacked it with the flat of my blade. Bunky and the gargoyle were trying to push off as man
y as they could but Bunky’s defensive lightning did nothing to the things. At least it didn’t bounce back like the spell did.
More appeared and continued surrounding us. Then some of them started growing larger.
I batted three more out of the air. They tumbled a few feet away, but then slowly came back again. There were now five of the things bulging into something larger, but they seemed to be fighting it. Maybe a spell was working? They looked almost like they were slowly exploding. Very slowly. A quick look told me neither Alric nor Padraig had cast a spell, as they were busy swinging at the ones attacking them. Likewise for Dueble.
The exploding ones weren’t exploding, but changing form. The former purple blobs grew a pair of long legs, arms, a head…and giant wings? The five turned into what looked like a combination of an elf and a giant faery.
“Male faeries.” I swung my sword faster as the speed of the gloughstrikes increased. Many of them were turning to go after the male faeries who looked a bit confused and unfinished. Garbage had said the one who’d found me back in Null shouldn’t have been on this plane, and judging by the vague confusion on the faces of the faeries in front of me—these five shouldn’t be here either.
I screamed as the gloughstrikes landed on each one of them. And stopped screaming when the male faeries grabbed them, smashed them between their hands, and ate them. I rubbed my eyes with my free hand. Nope. That’s what they were doing.
The gloughstrikes turned their focus on the five faeries, but they mostly were becoming food for them. The looks on the faery faces were akin to a giant lizard who was snacking on bugs. Satisfaction, but not a lot of intelligence. It was far more disturbing when the creatures doing the mindless killing and eating looked like the elves standing next to you.
“What are they?” Dueble was swatting at the purple things but spread his horrified glances between them and the male faeries.
“The purple things are gloughstrikes, according to Padraig. Those five are male faeries. Garbage says they’re not supposed to be here—or she did say that when I ran into one before. I have no idea how they came to be here.”
By now the faeries had severely reduced the gloughstrikes and no more were appearing. Whatever had called them to attack us couldn’t motivate more of them to come to their deaths.
Finally all of the creatures were gone, and the faeries were looking at us in confusion. Then the closest one pointed at me. “You.” His voice was rusty, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time, or ever. He nodded, the other four nodded, and they vanished.
Five lifeless gloughstrikes tumbled to the ground where the faeries had been.
“What happened?” Alric had his sword out and poked at the lifeless purple gloughstrikes with it.
Garbage had said the male faeries weren’t finished. That something had happened long ago to send them out of this plane and into another. She really didn’t like them. After they’d somehow managed to take over and modify the bodies of some of the gloughstrikes—then destroy the rest—I had to say I didn’t agree with her. Except I really didn’t like the way they’d gotten rid of them, nor the mindless look in their eyes as they did it. But I would definitely tell her about this. Once we got her and the others back.
“These ones are dead, and I don’t see any more around.” Padraig had crouched down to the closest body, which now looked like a dried flower. He didn’t touch it with his hand, but like Alric, tapped it with his sword. He also didn’t go off the trail. He took the potential threat of a rakasa attack seriously.
“I haven’t had time to find out a lot about the gloughstrikes. They were little more than myths back when they were written about. They paralyze their victims and then drain the life from them over a matter of weeks.” He got back to his feet. “They also were called into being by a powerful mage and always worked under the control of one. They’re possibly even more mindless than those faeries who ate them.”
“Those were faeries?” Dueble shuddered. “I like your little ones much better. Those were wrong. Unfinished.”
It was interesting that he used the same words Garbage had. “So Nivinal is the one behind the gloughstrikes? Even the ones we saw before?” We’d believed Nivinal and Reginald were operating under the assumption that no one was following them. And maybe they were. But they’d left a nice trap for anyone who came down after them through the canyons.
“I’d have to guess he is.” Padraig started searching his pack. Only because I’d been around my own crazed academic for over fifteen years did I know what he was looking for.
Our friends were captured, we’d been attacked, and he was looking for something to hold one of the gloughstrike bodies so he could study it after this was all over.
I was about to suggest we deal with that later, when a movement to my left caught my eye. Small, white, six legs…it was the minkie. Except for the fact that I could see the dirt and rocks covering the ground through him. It was looking right at me, and when I reached to tap on Alric’s arm to get his attention, it slowly shook its head.
Then it used an upper arm to motion me to follow it.
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I was going to say something to the others anyway, but I had a bad feeling I was the only one seeing it. It might not even really be a minkie. Since the girls had never agreed to having actually had one visit, who knew what it was. Its eyes were bright blue as it grinned.
It was a minkie, or a spirit of one, and only I could see it. And I was going to follow it.
“I think we should go that way,” I said as I started walking toward my ghost minkie, or crazed hallucination. It was a few feet to the left of the trail we were following. As I looked closer I saw there was a second trail. One that passed far closer to the Spheres than the one we were on. “Look.” I pointed to the thin line of the trail through the sand. It was even wider than the one we were on. And there was no way I could have seen it from where we’d been without a ghost minkie, something that I couldn’t explain, helping.
Hopefully no one would ask.
“I don’t know,” Alric said slowly. Then he walked over to where the two trails met. “This one is solid, and less of a curve.” He turned to me and tilted his head. “How did you see it?”
I shrugged. “Just the way the sand drifted. I thought I saw more of the gloughstrikes over there.” The minkie nodded then motioned to follow. It was only a few feet from us, but since the other three were now looking at the trail it was on, and no one reacted as if they saw it, I figured I was on my own with this.
“Good spotting. We’ll make a tracker of you yet.” Alric smiled and led the way on the new trail.
This did seem faster, and was more direct. After one false side trail, which the minkie shook its head sharply at, we made very good time.
To find the Spheres looming before us. Massive. Overwhelming. And empty. Rather the area around them was empty. They looked even more solid and rock-like the closer I got.
We’d slowed down as we approached the black semi-circle of the Spheres. They were more clumped together. The missing one was to the front. But we were hard to miss and anyone watching for us should have been visible as well.
Even with the current situation, and a high probability of death lurking before us, I couldn’t help but be awed by the Spheres. They were plainer than the scrolls had claimed. The ground around them was the same dull gray and brown as the entire area. The Spheres, on the other hand, were amazing. A good section of each was sunk into the ground but they loomed over us and were perfectly round.
Their full usage was lost to time, but the scrolls said this was a place of immense power in the time of the Ancients. The place where the relic weapon had been forged. There was debate if it had been used here or in their city under the elven ruins of Beccia.
I couldn’t help myself—I reached out to touch one.
And landed flat on my ass as too many images to count flooded my head. I looked up expecting that Bunky had touched me, but he and the gargoyle were staying high i
n the air to look for our people.
Great. Amazing things of the past and I couldn’t touch them. Probably the best way to torture a digger.
Alric helped me to my feet. He started to speak, but a scream came from in front of the stones. We all ran around the stone closest to us.
A wavering shield, looking like the surface of water, only vertical instead of horizontal, hung before us. It wavered more, then exploded as two forms came tumbling through it. As it vanished, our friends appeared.
The two that were fighting, and had shattered the shield, were Lorcan and Mackil—rather Reginald in Mackil’s former body. Both of them had a collar around their necks and I noticed neither was using magic. Nasif and Covey stood to the side, watching the fight but not looking at us—they also had collars on their necks. The faeries were in a cage and were yelling at the two fighters.
The minkie had vanished, which was unfortunate because maybe it could have done something. I still wasn’t sure what exactly the creature was, nor what it might be able to do. But at this point any help would have been good. At first I didn’t see Nivinal, then Flarinen, Kelm, and he appeared to step out of thin air. Flarinen and Kelm both held their swords ready and looked to be escorting Nivinal, and they were also wearing the collars.
Whatever the collars on their necks were gave Nivinal some control. Not complete control. I didn’t think Nivinal looked happy about his shield shattering.
Reginald was swearing like mad, and I realized that it didn’t sound like him—it sounded like Mackil.
“I’m me! Yer bastard brother is under control, stop attacking me.”
“That’s not me,” Mackil’s ghost appeared next to me. He was so faint that I was surprised he was still on this plane of existence.
Reginald’s ploy worked as Lorcan pulled back for a moment.
The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Page 33