Runes and Relics

by Kay L. Ling

  Elias rose. “We should all turn in soon so we can get an early start tomorrow.”

  It was getting dark, but Ahmonell’s night sky with its silvery shimmer was never totally dark, even on a moonless night.

  “Will we have breakfast here or eat along the way?” Jules asked.

  “We’ll eat first. I need raaka or coffee before facing another day on the road.”

  Elias and Kaff went into the tent. Jules waited outside for Ben and Tina Ann, hoping to have a word with them. He drew them aside as they approached, and said quietly, “Thank you for what you did—taking the stone away from me.”

  “Like Gem Master Elias says, we be a team,” Tina Ann said.

  Ben nodded. “Breghlin ern’t much on lookin’ out for others, but we be learnin’.”

  They went around to the rear of the tent since it was closer to their bedrolls.

  Kaff and Parcune had already gotten into theirs, leaving their tunic and pants in a crumpled heap at their feet. Elias was using his green robe as a pillow. Jules closed the tent flaps and stepped over the gnomes to reach his bedroll, wishing the tent were a little larger.

  He had just gotten inside and was trying to find a comfortable sleeping position when Parcune yanked one of the tent flaps aside and growled, “The tent needs air, and lots of it.” He made a disgusted noise and Kaff smothered a giggle.

  Jules got the point, and even though breghlin were dense at times, they probably did, too. The odor seemed to be coming mostly from their unwashed bedding, but it was hard to say.

  “Open the flaps at your end,” Parcune said when the breghlin didn’t take the hint. “Nothing’s going to drag you off during the night.”

  Ben threw open one of the rear flaps. “Better?”

  “Not much,” Parcune muttered.

  Where’s our team spirit now? Jules thought. Living in close quarters wouldn’t be easy and would demand a great deal of tolerance.

  After a few minutes Ben started to snore, then Tina Ann. Their snores alternated—bass and alto—forming a comic melody.

  “For pity’s sake,” Parcune moaned. “How are we going to sleep through that?”

  Jules had infused opalite jasper, so he could draw its powers to help him sleep, but it took considerable skill to project it to others, and he had never tried it.

  Elias told him telepathically, Give it a try.

  Reading my mind again, Jules chided him.

  I confess. Go ahead. You can do this.

  Before long, Parcune and Kaff were breathing heavily, apparently asleep, and the breghlin had shifted positions and were breathing deeply but not snoring.

  Good job, Elias said. It’s working on me, too.

  Jules smiled and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  It had been hard for Lana to say goodbye to Jules and keep their parting cheerful. They might never have a future together, but reminding herself of that did nothing to change her feelings for him. A powerful bond linked them, despite living in different worlds. She felt drawn to him physically and emotionally.

  She had driven home with music blaring, trying to chase away her depression, and then spent the evening dusting, vacuuming, and putting away laundry to keep her mind off their separation.

  Monday morning, it had been all she could do to drag herself from bed and go to work, and when she got to the store, her mind wandered constantly. Of course, Arlene had noticed and was even more bossy and annoying than usual. When Susan had called, wanting to get together for lunch, Lana had jumped at the chance, and they lingered over lunch, talking about their jobs and families.

  Today would be worse than yesterday, Lana told herself gloomily as she stared out the kitchen window, nursing a mug of coffee. Jules, Elias, and the rest of the Amulet Team were leaving today for an indefinite period of time, and there was no way to stay in touch to know if they were safe. Burning S’s throne had destroyed S’s unnatural creatures, but wild animals and militant bands of breghlin posed a threat. Part of the reason Ben and Tina Ann were on the team was to explain the Amulet mission to breghlin, should the team encounter any. Hopefully, breghlin clans would let them pass peacefully.

  Pushing herself up from the table, she carried her mug to the sink. It wouldn’t do to mope around like a lovesick teenager. This week would be the hardest, and she was doing her best to stay busy. Today after work she was holding the second meeting of the Secret Society. Greg and Jordy hadn’t heard about Ahmonell’s Amulet much less the mission to the barrier. They didn’t know that Elias and Raenihel had moved S to a Tree Home. Lana could hardly believe how much had happened lately. It seemed like months since the first meeting at her apartment.

  Wednesday would be dull. Her nieces and nephews were finally helping out with Mom and Dad’s household chores, but some jobs weren’t suitable for kids their ages so she had promised to come after dinner.

  Thursday evening, Susan was coming over for gem lessons. Lana had secretly transmitted a little of her own infused powers, and now Susan was even more motivated to practice.

  Friday night, Lana had no plans—maybe TV or a book unless one of her friends wanted to get together.

  Saturday morning, Franklin would send a driver to pick her up at the usual place near the portal. After spending nearly a week without human company, he should be glad to see her, she thought with a grin. Maybe she didn’t have it so bad after all. Putting up with Arlene couldn’t be as bad as settling disputes between bickering gnomes and breghlin.

  The week went by faster than Lana expected. She used slow times at the store to experiment, holding Fair Lands gems while drawing infused Ahmonellian powers. Based on her initial tests, most Fair Lands-Ahmonellian gem combinations didn’t produce anomalous reactions . . . with one notable exception: Susan’s favorite gem, aventurine. When Lana drew aventurine along with any Ahmonellian gem power, everything went haywire, and she’d gotten some really bizarre reactions. Like the time the entire building had started to shake, rattling the windows. Fortunately, it hadn’t lasted long, but long enough for Arlene to burst from the office in alarm. Lana told her it was just a passing truck with a heavy load. Arlene probably didn’t believe that, but it really didn’t matter.

  Saturday morning, shortly after six, Lana bounded out of bed, anxious to get to Shadowglade. Her experiments had made her all the more anxious to infuse additional gem powers, and she could only do that in Ahmonell.

  After eating a hasty breakfast, she packed her backpack and made up a gem pouch with gems she had never taken before: kyanite, morganite, chrysoberyl, spinel, heliotrope—and of course aventurine. If she got the nerve, she would test some of Elias’s gems with aventurine.

  When she went through the portal, she left behind several inches of snow and twenty-mile-an-hour winds. It was wonderful to come here and find spring-like weather. In a few hours, it would probably be close to seventy degrees.

  Sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy, and the air smelled fresh, as if it had rained recently. She jogged all the way to the waiting cart and was surprised to see that the driver was none other than Franklin. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt he’d gotten from relatives in her world, and his graying dark hair was overdue for a haircut. Since neither he nor Jules had money for services in her world, they might have to put up with her cutting their hair. That, or let it grow long like Elias’s.

  “Don’t you have more important things to do than play taxi driver for me?” she asked as she got into the cart.

  He gave her a conspiratorial grin and snapped the reins. “I needed an excuse to get away.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “More or less. As soon as the team left, I delegated tasks to breghlin and gnomes. They need to get used to managing Shadowglade, but sometimes it’s easier to do things myself than supervise them. What about you? How was your week?”

  “I got together with Greg and Jordy. They say, ‘Hi.’ I filled them in on everything that was going on, especially about Ahmonell�
��s Amulet. Now they hate S even more. They said they’re glad she’s in a Tree Home instead of the library. It’s like solitary confinement.”

  Franklin smiled. “I suppose it is. She gets food every day or two, but I doubt anyone stays to visit. It must be killing her not to know what’s happening at Shadowglade. How are the boys doing? Are things calming down?”

  “Yes. Their parents don’t have them on such a short leash now. And they’re doing okay at school, but they missed a year so they won’t be graduating with the rest of their class. Jordy has been drawing more lately. Living here has inspired a love for fantasy art. He wants to do cover art for novels and illustrations for magazines.”

  “Maybe he’ll be famous someday, and you can say you knew him back when he was a rat.”

  Lana laughed. She could still picture Greg and Jordy as rats, one gray, one brown, perpetually arguing with each other and telling corny rat jokes.

  “What about Jules’s relative, Susan? Are you still getting together?”

  “Yes. Once a week. I don’t think she has many friends. She’s kind of a loner, but we get along fine, and she really enjoys our gem studies. I’d like to see her more often, but we’re both too busy. Her ex-husband takes their daughter every other weekend so she has free time then, but I’m always here.”

  “Too bad you can’t bring her with you,” Franklin said.

  “I know, but the fewer people who know about Ahmonell the better.”

  Franklin slowed the cart as they started down a fairly steep hill. “It’s a wonder the enchanted folks Elias restored and sent home never told anyone about this place, but as far as we know, they haven’t come back or sent anyone to investigate.”

  “They probably wanted to put the experience out of their minds.”

  Franklin nodded. “You may be right. I’d like to meet Susan since she’s related to Jules, but I can meet her at your place sometime.”

  The mere mention of Jules made Lana’s heart heavy. She was looking forward to a weekend at Shadowglade, but she always spent most of her time with Jules, and it would seem strange to be there without him. She’d miss Elias too. Despite getting off to a bad start, she had come to love and respect her great-great grandfather.

  “By the way,” Franklin said as they drove through a shallow creek, “I’m supposed to tell you that Jules left you a letter in Elias’s desk.”

  She perked up at that. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to see the team off.”

  “They left Tuesday morning around nine. I said my goodbyes over breakfast.”

  “I know how much you wanted to go. It’s good of you to stay behind.”

  “Someone has to be here to keep the gnomes and breghlin in line,” he said lightly, but his cheerful tone didn’t fool her. He’d give anything to be on the Amulet Team. “Every morning, I stop at both ministries and go over requisitions. Then, I check on Tyla and her family in the library. There’s nothing I can do for them, but I like to be supportive. After that, I go out to the barns and check on the breghlin. I’ve been running woodworking classes for them after they finish their chores.”

  “By the sound of it, you don’t need any help this weekend. You have everything under control.”

  “I’m putting you in charge of staff disputes,” he said, shooting her a wicked grin. “Call me if it comes to bloodshed. I’ll be meeting with gnome and breghlin tradesmen in the equipment barn. I have a list of projects that need to be done, and I’m handing out assignments.”

  “I’ll be in the office doing gem studies, and I’ll let the staff know where I am. Which reminds me, how is the spell book behaving?”

  “Fine, but with Elias and Jules away, it’s sure to talk your head off. Good luck getting any work done.”

  Lana smiled. “Believe it or not, I’m starting to like that book. Maybe it will teach me more about native gems.” She told him about her gem experiments and the strange reactions she’d gotten with aventurine.

  Franklin let out a low whistle. “An earthquake you say?”

  “Well, just a tremor, really,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Powerful stuff that aventurine!”

  “Good thing I wasn’t using Susan’s bracelet.”

  “Susan’s bracelet?”

  “It has several aventurines, and they’re crazy powerful! When I touch them, it feels like a low-level electrical charge. Most blue-green aventurine comes from India, but hers could have come from some part of the world where their powers are stronger.”

  “Well, we don’t need any earthquakes, especially with Elias and Jules gone, so be careful, all right?”

  “I will,” she promised. She’d take reasonable precautions, like looking through Elias’s notebooks to see if he’d done any experiments with aventurine.

  When they reached Shadowglade, Lana looked around in amazement. Last week she had seen emerging shoots and assumed it was field grass. Now that the plants were taller and had yellowish-green buds, she knew what it was—strath!

  “I’ll let you off here and take the cart back to the barn. I don’t suppose you brought more coffee,” Franklin ventured hopefully. “We’re almost out.”

  “Actually, I did. When you come back from the barn, tell the kitchen staff to make us a fresh pot. Then join me in Elias’s office.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  She grabbed her backpack and climbed out of the cart, smiling at the thought of Jules planting strath because he knew she was fond of it. If she missed him before, she missed him all the more now. She blinked back tears. It was ridiculous to get teary-eyed over flowering weeds, but the weeds meant as much to her as a bouquet of long-stemmed roses. Jules was a wonderful man. It was a shame their ambitions kept them apart, but she wouldn’t want him to abandon the gnomes, and he wouldn’t want her to give up the jewelry store.

  A different guard than usual stood inside the door this morning. He was a young gnome with thick black hair, and a long beard that came nearly to his belt.

  “Jarrick at your service,” he said warmly. “It sure is quiet with Elias and Jules away and all the visiting clan leaders gone. It’s been positively dull. But dull can be a blessing, I suppose. Those visiting dignitaries and their guards caused quite a commotion. And how they could eat!”

  Lana smiled. “I’ll try to liven things up a bit.”

  When she reached Elias’s office, she started looking for Jules’s letter. It was in the center drawer with a piece of phorish on top like a paperweight. Removing the crisp sheet of unlined paper from the envelope, she started to read.

  It wasn’t exactly a love letter, but there was no mistaking his affection. He joked about the privations of camping with the team, and said she could use his bedroom while he was away. He wished she could be with him, exploring Ahmonell. When he returned, they would work on her knife, so she should pick out the gems she wanted to use. She finished reading the letter, and sat daydreaming.

  She would love a knife like his. Lucky her—she had a boyfriend with gem powers and creative skills. She found herself absently humming a cheerful tune.

  “You are in good spirits today.”

  She jumped at the unexpected voice, crammed the letter into the envelope, and then realized it was only the spell book. She laid a hand on her chest. “You scared me! Yes, I’m in a good mood, but I miss Elias and Jules.”

  “We have something in common, then. I miss them too. With all Elias’s burdens lately, he has become rather irritable, but I do not take it personally. Jules is seldom cross. Before he left, he cleaned and polished my binding. Was that not kind of him?”

  “Yes, that was very thoughtful.” She shoved the letter into her backpack. “I have a lot of research to do. Maybe you can help me. I’m studying interactions between Ahmonellian and Fair Lands gems. Elias said to read through his notebooks, but maybe you have some helpful information too.”

  “I am afraid not. Sheamathan feared Fair Lands gems since they burn evil beings like herself. She wrote quite a
bit about Jules’s knife—the Challenger’s blade, particularly during the era when she was searching for it, but aside from that she mentions Fair Lands gems only in passing.”

  “All right. Thanks anyway. I guess I’m on my own.” She brought Elias’s notebooks over to the desk and started looking for references to aventurine. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, then Maggie Ann came in with coffee, and Franklin sailed in behind her and set a vase of strath on the desk. He sat down and Maggie Ann poured their coffee.

  “Strath reminds me of how much things have changed around here,” Lana said. She took a sip of coffee. “Thank you, Maggie Ann.”

  “They sure has,” Maggie Ann said. “Pythanium and brontskellers be gone, flowers be growin’ on the grounds, an’ the Mistress be livin’ in a tree somewheres.” The breghlin shook her head, as if still finding all of this hard to believe. “Anythin’ else you need?’

  “Would you stop in the library and ask Tyla to come here?”

  “Happy to,” Maggie Ann said and hurried away.

  Lana said to Franklin, “I haven’t found anything about aventurine so far, but I’ll keep looking. Tyla can help me.”

  “If you don’t find anything, what will you do? Take your chances and experiment anyway?”

  “Probably. Tyla can help with that, too, unless she’s in the middle of something more important in the library. Have they found any information about the Amulet?”

  “They’ve found more references to the land beyond it, but nothing about the Amulet itself, so we have no clue how to break through. I have a feeling Tyla would like to get out of the library and help you test gems for a change.”

  “I’m interested to hear what she’s learned about life over there. Some information will be hopelessly out of date, but it would still be interesting.”

  Franklin blew on his coffee before drinking some. “The gems in the office, they’re all good ones, aren’t they?”

  “By good, you mean they don’t have dark powers?”

  He nodded.

  “Of course. Elias wouldn’t leave Dark gems laying around. Why do you ask?”