Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “Watch Emily. I’ll be right back.”

  Linus walks back and comes around the corner. “I don’t see them. They couldn’t have been that far behind us.”

  “We are wasting time.”

  Linus comes back to Drevil. The goblin pokes around with his shovel. He finds the door. He digs a little. Opens the door. He waves Linus up.

  “When you find Andrea and Krill, make sure that you lead them to here.”

  “I am done after this. They will have to find their way by travelling out in the open.”

  “Goblin, I will stick you if you do not do as I say.”

  “I don’t have to listen to humans.” He shoves Linus through the door and shuts it.

  Andrea wakes to Krill’s stiff body. She shakes him. “Krill?” He doesn’t move. “Krill? Please.” She covers his body with hers.

  “What happened?” Drevil asks.

  “He’s dead. He was poisoned.”

  “He got what he asked for.”

  “How can you be so cruel to one of your own?”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  She gets up and draws her daggers. “You did this. You betrayed your own.”

  “He betrayed us. He sided with humans and fairies and betrayed his own. And now he has betrayed you.”

  “How has he betrayed me?”

  “The poison acts as a tracker. You will be found.”

  “You son of a bitch.” She drives a dagger into Drevil’s side. “You deserve to die instead of him.” She kicks at his body and he falls over. She runs around the corner and goes down the tunnel.

  “He’s going to find you.” He grabs his backpack and searches around inside. He brings out a stack of spade shaped leaves. He puts a few on the wound. “Stupid human bitch.”

  Jegorgon steps down into the valley of the dancing needles. He raises both of Emily’s daggers and makes an X. A path forms. Pulsating green and white. He enters the path which snakes around and inside the dancing needles. The dancing needles glow bright white. Every step he takes their luminosity intensifies. The path’s brightness grows dim. He takes the pearl from his pocket and rubs it hard. A flicker of a flame appears. The path’s light is ready to go out. The pearl glows brighter. The path’s light is gone. He carefully maneuvers around the dancing needles. He pulls his arm away. Blood trickles down. He continues. He reaches the center by the pearl’s light. On the ground there is a green circle. He places his palm on the circle. He turns his hand clockwise. Click. Turns it again. Click. Turns it again. Click. Turns his hand counter clockwise. Clang. Turns it again. Clang. Turns it again. Clang. The green circle shakes. A green pedestal rises from the ground. An open circle in the center of the pedestal sits empty.

  “Where are they?”

  Linus carries Emily to the bed inside the Brittlewaters’ house. “Where are these fairies?”

  A man and a woman enter the bedroom. “We came as fast as we could,” Mr. Brittlewaters says.

  “Who are you?” Mrs. Brittlewaters says.

  “Linus. I am a citizen of the kingdom Kell.”

  “The human kingdom sends an assassin to the fairy city. Are we to be your targets?” Mr. Brittlewaters says.

  “No, no it’s not like that. I came here with Princess Andrea but we got separated down in the tunnels. I came here with my sister, my friend, to heal her from a poison that only your family can heal.”

  “I always hated knowing that those tunnels were under our kingdoms. Unfortunately we can’t open them from above. And try finding the goblin that digs them to let you into his holes,” Mrs. Brittlewaters says.

  They look over Emily’s body. “Rabble flower. Assassin, you have used this poison before. This is not easy to treat,” Mr. Brittlewaters says.

  “I know. I hoped that I would find someone who could though.”

  “There is someone. But he’s in trouble,” Mrs. Brittlewaters says.

  “Who?”

  “He’s in the dungeon.” The husband holds onto his wife.

  “Noah. I will go into the dungeon and rescue him.”

  “Assassin, if you are caught, the council leader will have your head. He has become so ruthless. He has lost his way in the light. It has infected him with a strange evil.” She looks around as if someone might be listening in on them.

  Linus puts his hood over his head and leaves the flower shaped house. He slides underneath it. There are vines that connect to the other homes. He pulls himself across, swings from one vine to the next. Pulls himself to the next set of vines to swing once more. He jumps to the ledge and climbs up. He hides behind the fairy court wall. The throne room is just ahead. It’s going to be tricky going around that since it’s a sphere. There are no sides to grip. The ledge around the court is small but he is able to get his footing. He takes out his daggers and stabs the wall. He makes his way around the fairy court by hanging onto his daggers and taking careful steps. His feet slip as he is close to the throne room. He hangs by the daggers. He swings his body to the left and then to the right. As he builds up momentum and swings to the right, he pulls out both daggers and quickly puts them back into the wall. He loses a couple of inches in height. He repeats his actions until he gets around to the throne room. Now the tricky part.

  “All this for a woman. Shit, Linus, you’ve gotta work on your charms.”

  There is no ledge whatsoever around the throne room. He looks up. Down. He reaches into the small leather pouch attached to his belt. Berries from the bush in Coral Gardens. “Hello there.” He smears the berries along his entire chest. “I sure hope they stick.” He makes one good jump and lands on the sphere. He slides down a bit, then stops. “Hah.” He carefully slides his body across the sphere. He can see a ledge connected to a pathway. “Slow and steady.” He wiggles his body around, hoping that the berry spread holds on long enough. As he approaches the ledge, he slides down a little. He wiggles some more, getting inches away from the ledge. As he attempts to jump, he misses the ledge and falls. He lands on something soft. All around him are fairy children laughing. He feels underneath him. A giant mushroom head. He laughs. He gets up and jumps from the mushroom head to the nearby ledge. The children scatter. He quickly runs for the ramp that takes him to the tunnel that leads to the dungeon.

  He enters the dungeon. Swords are drawn on him.

  Grole comes from behind the guards. “And what is an assassin doing in my dungeon?”

  “Look, I need Noah released.”

  “A human demands a fairy to be released from a fairy prison. Explain.”

  Linus is losing his patience. But he is horribly outnumbered. “My wife is dying. I need Noah to heal her. You people signed an agreement that if we needed help we could come to you. You aren’t going to honor this agreement? I’ll take it to the king and queen.”

  Grole motions for the guards to ease up on their weapons. “Very soon, we won’t need to worry about agreements being upheld.”

  “Look, either kill me or let me go. I am not in the mood for your crap.”

  “He is very feisty. What do you say, Jegorgon, should I let him go?”

  Linus’s heart just drops. The laughter of the goblin king makes his blood boil. “You did this to Emily.”

  Jegorgon kicks Linus down. “I think she’s improved. If you just give her a little blood, she’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s you and me work out our differences.”

  “Let me kill him, goblin king.”

  “Hold on.” Jegorgon presses his foot down on Linus’s chest. Inspects the daggers. “Ah, so I was after the wrong assassin.”

  Linus reaches up and cuts Jegorgon’s arm. The goblin king growls at him. Linus jumps up. “Let Noah go or I will do more.”

  Jegorgon snaps his fingers and a cage breaks open. He wiggles a finger and Noah is thrown in front of Linus. “There he is.”

  “Glad that you can be reasoned with.”

  Jegorgon covers his wound with his other hand. “Get out.”

  Linus leaves with Noah.<
br />
  Jegorgon grabs Grole by the throat and squeezes. The fairy’s body goes limp. He throws the body into a cage. “Everyone around me disappoints me.”

  The fairy guards back away from him.

  “Why isn’t it healing?” He turns his head slowly. “You want to play games, I shall play one of my own.”

  Linus runs through the fairy city with Noah to Noah’s parent’s house. He lays Noah on the floor and goes to Emily’s side.

  “The poison is growing,” Mr. Brittlewaters says.

  Noah barely says hello to his parents. He gets to work examining Emily. “What happened to her?”

  “She was poisoned.”

  “By the flower or by Jegorgon?”

  He checks her veins. They are bloated.

  “Noah, can you save her?”

  Noah feels around her veins. “If it were the flower I’d say possibly. But if it was by the Scarlet witches, then most likely no.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “The Rabble flower is of course lethal if ingested. If the poison is slowly administered, it takes longer to kill. If only a bit gets ingested, then it is an easy turnaround. If the poison came from one of the witches, then it has been tainted by magic. That’s trickier to cure.”

  “There’s no chance then.”

  “I’ve only ever done it once and it was a miracle. The little girl ate one of the flowers. Before the poison spread throughout her body, I was able to heal her. It was very painful to watch and very painful for her.”

  “Noah, you must try.”

  “Mother, Father, can you please go get me two Aloe vera plants.”

  “Yes.” His mother runs out of the room. She brings her husband with her.

  “I have tried to improve my healing abilities but I am still a novice.”

  “Andrea is a novice assassin and she is already half as good as me. And Emily, she is my equal.”

  “Goodness, all you people falling in love. Who falls in love with me?”

  “I am not in love.”

  “You’re in love with Andrea. She may not remember you saying it, but I do.”

  “Enough talking.”

  Noah’s parents come in with the Aloe vera plants. Noah grabs one of the clippers on the nightstand and takes a piece of the plant. He squeezes it. He clips another piece from the other plant.

  “What do you have to do?”

  “I have to transfer the poison from her to the plant. Don’t worry, the plant will heal itself.”

  “I am not worried about a plant dying.”

  “You should respect the plant. It’s going to save your girlfriend.” Noah takes the clippers and pinches a piece of Emily’s skin.

  “What about the stab wound?”

  “That’s the only thing keeping her alive. The poison is slowed down by any wounds. It likes to inflict its own damage so it stays clear of infected areas of the body.”

  The skin around the cut bubbles.

  “It’s coming. It senses the plant. It’s like an aphrodisiac.”

  The poison spills out of the cut. A blackish-red liquid. Noah grabs one of the Aloe clippings and presses it firmly over the cut. The poison travels inside the clipping. The rest of the poison in Emily’s body travels through her veins to get to the cut. After all the poison has been extracted, Noah puts the other clipping on the cut. He takes the infected clipping and places it inside the soil of the plant it came from.

  “It’s important that the clipping go back to the plant it came from.”

  Linus watches Emily’s cut heal up instantly. Her stab would heals up and a scar forms.

  “You can rub more Aloe on that scar and it will fade.”

  Emily starts moving but doesn’t open her eyes.

  “She’ll come around. She had a lot in her.”

  Linus looks at the infected Aloe vera plant. It went from green to black. But the black is fading. He lays next to Emily and puts his hand over her heart.

  A commotion outside gets everyone’s attention.

  “What is it?” Linus asks. He gets up and goes outside.

  Everyone is cheering and surrounding someone. Linus moves around the people.

  Cornelius nods to everyone. He looks more like Wesley this time around.

  Arianna and Thomas come out of the throne room and rush Cornelius.

  “We warned you. What are you doing?” Arianna asks.

  “I’ve come for my wings.”

  Thomas goes to his people and raises his hands. “Your prince has returned.”

  Everyone opens their wings and flies up. The fairy dust that sprinkles down from them covers the floor. It shines and sparkles.

  “Come, son,” Thomas says.

  Cornelius is taken into the throne room.

  Linus goes back inside to be by Emily’s side.

  Noah walks over to the throne room. The guards block his entrance. “Tell Prince Cornelius that Noah Brittlewaters is here for an audience.”

  The one guard opens the doors and goes inside.

  Noah taps his foot. The guard comes back out. He moves out of the way to let him in. “Consider yourself fired. Holding me back.”

  The family is sitting on their thrones.

  Noah walks over to them and bows.

  “What can we do for you, Noah?” Thomas asks.

  “I am here to speak with Cornelius.”

  “It’s all right, Father.” Cornelius steps down.

  “Cornelius, I have many questions.”

  “Nips, how about we catch up later? I have to discuss a few things with my parents.”

  “Just tell me that Wes is okay.”

  “He is safe. There is actually something that you can do for me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Bring Linus before me, at dusk.”

  “Okay.”

  Andrea places Krill’s body in a pool of crystal clear water. Childlike creatures surround her. Their pure white faces and bodies with giant blue eyes are eerily welcoming. They appear as male but their faces are more feminine. “You will take him to where he belongs.”

  They nod as they press down on his body. He disappears underwater. She looks for him. The water is clear enough to see down to the bottom, yet she can’t see his body. She can’t see the creatures either.

  One of the creatures comes to the surface and helps Andrea out of the pool. Brings her to the path leading to the pools. It presses its head against hers.

  “What is it?”

  It runs back to the others. They all group together and start wiggling their bodies.

  “What?”

  Cornelius gets lost inside the glassy place. Everywhere he looks there is glass and his reflection. “Jack?”

  “Get out, fairy prince,” a woman’s voice says.

  “What is this place?”

  A figure forms out of the glass. A womanly shape and walk. Cornelius draws his sword. The figure lowers his sword with her hand.

  “This is the price for breaking a vow.”

  “I am sorry that I couldn’t get Andrea to listen.”

  The figure walks away. Separates, then blends into the rotating glass shards.

  “Can you give me the human Jack?”

  A ball of shards floats over to Cornelius. He sees Jack trapped inside it. Jack is screaming and pounding on the glass.

  “You don’t belong in here,” the woman says.

  “Did the goblin king open this, whatever it is?”

  “All he did was activate the relics that hold us together.”

  Cornelius looks down at his sword. “Not all of them.”

  “He had enough to do it.”

  “Figures he’d open the two most dangerous ones first.”

  “We are not one of the vales.”

  The glass shards whip around him.

  “You show us things that we don’t want to see.”

  “Like your true self?”

  Glass shards form a mirror. Cornelius doesn’t see himself. He sees the reflection of
Wesley.

  “We don’t hide the truth here.”

  “That can drive someone crazy.”

  “It usually does. Not everyone likes to see their true self.”

  He thinks he has it now. “The goblin king saw his true self in here, didn’t he?”

  The mirror breaks apart and the shards join the others.

  “Yes. He saw. He was not happy. If this were one of the vales, he’d be trapped here forever. There are few who can escape their true self.”

  “What did he see?”

  “We do not see what we reflect.”

  “I thought by coming in here that I could find a way to defeat him.”

  “You can defeat someone even if you don’t know their true self. Because when they have seen their true self, they will forever be on guard. He will start making mistakes which will lead to him failing. He doesn’t even see it coming. He is too preoccupied with trying to change who he is.”

  The glass shards split apart, creating an opening. Cornelius grabs the glass shard ball and leaps through.

  Cornelius lands on black sand. The glass shard ball tumbles down the dunes. Cornelius chases after it. Grabs it. Smashes it with his sword. Jack tumbles a few feet.

  “You have no idea what that felt like in there.”

  “You will be safe here. We are at the human city. It’s like Manhattan, but in my land. Like I told you before about it being split.”

  “Hold on. Is Wesley okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  Cornelius walks over to a dock where a line of boats sit.

  Jack walks over to the water. He looks out in the distance at a small piece of land. “Fire Island?”

  Some girls run by in bikinis. “Hey,” they say.

  “Hi.” He runs after them.

  It happens so fast, Andrea can’t process it. The pull is so strong. She walks up the path, out of the valley.

  She walks down the road. She veers off the road, into a garden full of butterflies and wildflowers. The fountain glows. She sits down on the base. She rocks her head side to side.

  Coming around from the back of her neck is a black gloved hand. Jegorgon lightly kisses her neck. His other hand goes around her waist. She nuzzles against his chest. He bites his bottom lip as he tightens his grip on her waist. She puts her hand against his cheek and brings his mouth to hers.