The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  “The construct?” The digger side of me had kicked in about the massive dragon head once I was sure I wasn’t heading for a watery grave. I knew there would be no way Covey and Padraig wouldn’t want a full investigation done. But I thought we had time. It was clearly designed to survive water, since it was built in an aqueduct. I had my doubts about surviving explosions.

  “There’s no way to get to it from this end. We can’t see the third explosion site since that was outside the hedge, but I’d bet it was to block the entrance where we came out of the water. They were more concerned about us being down there than with their own people being able to sabotage things inside Beccia.” He piled the debris back over the mouth of the aqueduct, even adding more to it until there was no way anyone who didn’t know exactly what was under there could find it. Then we headed back toward the pub.

  “Thank goodness you two are back! The faeries wouldn’t tell us anything.” Covey was standing by the back door and waved us in. The noise almost sounded like the pub was fully running. A peek into the main room told me it was. We could have just come in the front door since Foxy had it wide open.

  “Everyone is back in that room,” she said as she pointed to what I’d always assumed was a closet. Alric pushed the door open to reveal a nicely appointed room with a few gambling tables in it. A room I’d never seen, and that looked like it hadn’t been used since before I was born.

  “What is this?” My question was directed to anyone since Foxy was out in the main pub and Amara was most likely cooking like a fiend.

  “Ah, welcome back,” Lorcan said from a table where he and Mathilda were discussing a pair of scrolls. “This is Foxy’s gambling den. Apparently, gambling was briefly outlawed in Beccia sixty or so years ago. Foxy made extra funds by letting them run games out of his pub. Since then he’d been using it for storage.”

  The thing even had a small bar of its own. One that was almost completely covered by a mass of faeries. Including my three, who obviously had come immediately here after they left us at my house. Bunky and Irving were also lounging on the bar, watching over the tiny drunkards. “Where are the cats?” I didn’t really care specifically; my experience with cats in general was that they were almost as good at taking care of themselves as faeries. I just didn’t want any surprises.

  “Meows not needed now,” Garbage’s tone was that of the imperious general she’d been acting like. Her semi-prone position on the bar didn’t support that image. “Come back in need.”

  I had no idea what the cats were needed for, but I wasn’t going to ask. I shook my head and walked over to the scrolls.

  “How is your house? The faeries wouldn’t say anything except boom.” Covey walked over to where Padraig had taken over another table with books and scrolls.

  “It’s more or less intact. Whoever was causing those attacks wasn’t just trying to bring down the hedge.” I glanced over to Irving. He seemed calm; most likely the glass gargoyle was now in whatever pit the basilisk was. “They went after my house because a certain relic had appeared there.”

  Covey was across the room and in my face in a second. “The sphinx? You have the diamond sphinx?” She looked ready to pick me up and start shaking me to find it.

  I pushed her back a bit. “No. The glass gargoyle reappeared. Irving said it’s not the same as before.”

  “No same, no same, is a game!” The faeries sang. Luckily, they got distracted after two rounds.

  That got everyone to crowd in around us.

  Alric held up his hand as the questions started flying. “I held it. It is the relic, but as it did when I destroyed it, it recreated itself. I think it’s homing in to Taryn. She’s been on the move, so it appeared in her home. I don’t think Nivinal is dead, but hopefully he took a serious hit when something destroyed the glass gargoyle.”

  Covey responded first. “Where—”

  “Irving ate it. He’s promised not to eat any more relics though. Right, Irving?” I nodded to my gargoyle construct.

  He gronked in answer.

  “He say promise!” Leaf shouted out from the bottom of a pile of faeries. “Is good!”

  Lorcan moved over to the bar. “There’s no way to get it out? I understand about the basilisk. Until we find a way to neutralize it, that thing needs to stay secured. But we could study the glass gargoyle.”

  Irving looked ready to take to the air and Bunky moved in front of him. I stepped forward too. “No. Whatever Siabiane designed him for—and who knows with her, maybe it was this—there is a way for him to completely hide them inside of himself.”

  “Knowing my sister, you’re right,” Mathilda said. “She always was a crafty one.” She came closer to Irving but he didn’t fly away. “However, you’d do best to hold to your promise. No more eating relics. Unless Taryn tells you to.”

  Irving gronked and Bunky settled down.

  “Why would I tell him to do that?” I didn’t like the idea he had two in him, I wasn’t going to add more. We might not know how to get them out, but I had no doubt that Nivinal could find a way to tear Irving apart and get them.

  Mathilda shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But there could be a time and it’s always good to have an out.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’d been optimistic with the research going on that something had been resolved. Yes, we were safe in here for now. But sitting in this enclosed town we were also a giant target for Nivinal. And whoever else was out there. Amara was a goddess, but I didn’t know how much offensive magic a tree goddess would have. I’d think her powers would be like a dryad’s, to a tenth degree. We needed to find the diamond sphinx, find a way to assemble and then destroy the relic weapon, all without dying.

  Sadly, the academics were moving slower than Alric and I had and our news was more shattering than theirs.

  “It’s not good that they were able to send such a heavy spell through Amara’s hedge. That thing blocks magic as well as people,” Padraig said. He scowled at a scroll directly in front of him. Covey was rubbing off on him.

  “Is there anything there?” I walked closer to his table. The others were breaking down into smaller conversations about the hedge, the gargoyle, and Irving eating the gargoyle. I’d been traveling with Padraig long enough that I knew when he was on the edge of something. Alric was more a jump in and sort it out later type; Padraig was cautious in his fights—whether they be physical, magical, or academic. I knew that look.

  “I’m not sure.” He moved to the side a bit so I could see it.

  This scroll was more of a picture story than just words. Which, since my ability to read elven or Ancient seemed to be weak under the best circumstances, was a good thing. The upper left corner seemed to start the tale, and it was definitely a story. Huge beings, dragons if the stylized drawing was accurate, roamed. Well, they really just seemed to be living a life. Then they started dying. Other beings were attacking them. The dragons fought back. Then there was nothing.

  The detail on the prior panels had been vivid. Mountains, buildings, more massive buildings, and very small trees. But in the second to the last panel there was nothing. In the last there was a single drawing of an elf on a plain.

  “Well, that’s cheery. So, you do think the Ancients were actually dragons?” I just had a problem with that. The biggest was personal. I wanted to like the Ancients, they’d been part of the myths I recalled as a child. The elves hadn’t been what I had expected. I was going to be really pissed if the Ancients were somehow a giant version of the syclarions. I shuddered.

  Padraig caught it. And he was far better at extrapolating my thoughts than I believed. “I don’t think they were the same species as the syclarions. As much as the latter would like to have others associate them with dragons, they aren’t.” He shook his head at the scroll. “But this, along with a few other references I’ve found, and what we found in the aqueducts? I don’t know. This scroll wasn’t attributed to the Ancients in prior studies. The script is an old elven one from the
south. It was thought to be a story, nothing more. I don’t believe that now.”

  I looked over the panels again. There were one or two words I could sort of make out; lost and hope. Neither were helpful.

  “I don’t know that we can spend time trying to solve the Ancients’ mystery, not with the relics out and a new mage hunting us.” Alric had been looking at the books that Padraig had on his table, but put them down with a shake of his head. “We can’t stay here.”

  I’d been thinking the same, but I was glad he was the one who said it.

  “We can’t leave them defenseless either. Why would this place have come under attack if not for the relics?” Mathilda rolled up her own scroll as she spoke.

  “The mayor wanted something here. If you now think there was something going on with the aqueducts before the final battle between the syclarions and the Ancients, so does he. We have to go back in.” I hated when my mouth said what was in my head without clearing it through me first.

  It made sense, he was after something here, and according to Lorcan the final piece wasn’t speculated to be anywhere near here. But I really didn’t want to go back into those dark, damp, passages of doom.

  “I knew you were a bright one,” Mathilda said.

  Covey nodded. “I agree, we need to go back down there.” She was clearly a fan of further research, but she’d wanted to see more of the aqueducts. Traitor. Someone raised in a desert really shouldn’t be a fan of masses of water.

  “If we can find out what is the focus of the attack on this town, and remove it, at least Beccia will be safer.” Lorcan adjusted his robes. He’d been an advisor to elven kings and queens for centuries and was stepping back into that role. He might not be able to guide his own people currently, but he wasn’t going to ignore the other species now that the elves were part of the outside world again. Even a shabby little town like Beccia didn’t deserve to be destroyed. And as we’d seen from the few defenders who’d come out at the explosions, there was really no one else to save it.

  More scrolls were brought out, including that odd one that Foxy had. The others were looking at older ones, but Foxy’s was more interesting to me. As long as the icon of the diamond sphinx didn’t react to me again. It clearly hadn’t been done on the best paper to start with. Besides, the odd layout lines of digs that hadn’t even been thought of even now, there were a lot of dark splotchy age spots.

  “Is no.” Crusty had managed to come off the bar and silently land behind my hand without me noticing. She was barely standing. “Go backwards.” She tried spinning her arms in front of her face to pantomime backwards, but just ended up crashing to the tabletop.

  “Sweetie? What’s backwards?” I picked her up by the back of her overalls. Her legs flopped when I tried to stand her up, so I sat her down in my hand.

  “That. Wardsback.” She slid into a prone position.

  I gently put her back on the table and looked at the scroll. I turned it upside down, but I had no idea how it could be backwards.

  Upside down did nothing but make my head hurt. I looked to the others lost in their own studies, to ask if they had a clue, when I saw the tarnished mirror hanging over the bar.

  I rolled up the scroll and walked behind the bar. No one else was really paying attention. Advantage of hanging out with so many academics, they each had their own dozen theories to work on, so they were too busy to notice you doing something odd.

  Unrolling the scroll, keeping it held up to the mirror, and trying to see what was reflected was awkward at best. A soft gronking came from behind me. Bunky and Irving had joined me and both opened their mouths. It took me a second to realize they were offering to hold up the scroll.

  I secured one corner with each of them and stepped forward. Nope, looked the same, only reversed.

  “Not wards enough!” Crusty was prone on the table but somehow she was watching me. Of course, her yelling caught the attention of the other faeries who were on the bar right near me.

  “No, more wards!” That was Leaf, also prone from the bar.

  I panicked as they struggled to crawl to their feet. I really didn’t need that much assistance. Or rather that kind of assistance.

  “Bunky and Irving? Hold on a second.” I took the scroll back, flipped it upside down, and placed the ends back in the constructs’ waiting mouths.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but the outline of a chest under the ruins was not it.

  The chest covered two dig sites, at least the way they were divided now. I had no idea what it was marking sixty years ago. There was a symbol on the chest, but it wasn’t the diamond sphinx nor any other symbol I recognized.

  “Is found! Lost!” Garbage had wobbled to the edge of the bar and was peering proudly at the mirror reflection.

  “What was lost, sweetie?”

  “That. Maker. Good not good but lost. Need.” She jabbed her finger at me on the last bit, then smiled and flopped over.

  I sighed. She wasn’t unconscious, but the faeries had been drinking hard when they came back. Trying to get her to explain more was pointless.

  “What did you find?” Covey asked as she came around the bar. Thanks to Garbage and the other jabbering faeries, I now had everyone looking at me.

  “I’m not sure.” I stepped back to let Covey in between the scroll and the mirror. If everyone wanted to see it they were going to have to take turns, the bar wasn’t that big.

  “It’s a hidden map. Usually those have coded messages, but I don’t see anything.” Lorcan managed to navigate from his table through the chairs and around to me and the scroll without taking his eyes off of it once. Yet another scary elf trick. “Oops, yes there is. But it’s almost impossible to read. It’s very old.”

  “But that map isn’t more than a hundred years old,” Alric said as he moved in closer. “I recognize the style.”

  Since I was standing there, pretty much no one other than Lorcan and Covey were getting a close look.

  “The Beccian who did it drew over an Ancient scroll. What idiot would do that?” The tone of Covey’s voice did not bode well for whoever desecrated it if she ever found a way back in time to find them.

  “But they wouldn’t have seen it. You can’t see anything until you flip it upside-down and hold it to a mirror.” I wasn’t going to fight her about it.

  “Wardsback!” Most of the faeries were out, but the few that were conscious yelled out.

  “No, I think the map maker knew,” Lorcan said. “See here, the lines crossed exactly where the center of the chest is? I’d say they somehow knew exactly what was on this paper when they used it.”

  “The elves were in their cozy holes back then, so who else would have known what was here and hidden an Ancient scroll in a survey map?” I aimed my look at Mathilda. Yes, she was an elf, but not one who’d been in an enclave at the time.

  “It wasn’t me.” She scurried up for a closer look, and then shook her head. “Thought I’d make sure, the memory does play tricks. But, no, that’s not my writing.”

  “May I?” Lorcan asked. I was in the spot closest to the scroll, but he looked like he’d noticed something, so I moved. “Oh dear, oh my.”

  After a few minutes of him muttering to himself even Padraig was ready to yell. “You really shouldn’t do that.” His voice was calmer than his face.

  “What?” Lorcan looked up with a start. “Forgive me; this traveling with a group is still new to me. I believe I know who hid this. He didn’t mark it to damage it, but he needed to hide it in plain sight for some reason.”

  He’d started to turn back to the scroll when Covey grabbed his shoulder. “Who is it?”

  “Again, my apologies. I believe it was our very own Nasif who did it. He and Dueble did roam around for quite a few years. They must have found themselves in this desolate place and, for some reason Nasif didn’t feel safe taking the scroll with him.”

  “Or he had it with him and had disguised it already, when he lost it.” Alric took my
place as I moved out completely from behind the bar.

  “So what exactly does the chest mean? The faeries said it was good we found it and something about a maker?” The girls were completely passed out now.

  “I’m not sure, but this is a most awkward way to view this. No offense, gallant constructs.” Lorcan looked around the room and nodded to a clear table. “Let’s move it there. I can set a mirror spell easy enough.”

  I hadn’t even thought of trying to use a spell. I was just glad I’d figured out ‘wardsback’.

  I went to the back of the bar and took the scroll from Bunky and Irving. They might have let one of the others do it, but I could tell that both were wary after the way everyone reacted to Irving eating another relic.

  Once we got it rolled out and the ends held down, Lorcan muttered a few words and the image changed from the old version of Beccia to the original scroll. Even better than viewing it in the mirror, this way the original was much easier to read. I could actually see the words in the corner now, but even if they had been a language I knew, it would be difficult to read them.

  Judging from the concentrated scowls on the faces around me, the others weren’t able to read it well either.

  I gave up. “Maybe if we take it to Nasif, since he already translated it? And then we’d find out why he hid it.” Made sense to me. Sometimes my overly bright friends thought too much about things.

  “We could, but I think this is related to whatever the mayor is looking for. We can’t leave Beccia unguarded with whatever it is still here.” Padraig looked up briefly, then back to the scroll.

  Faeries and alcohol, academics and mysteries. I was surrounded by obsessive personalities.

  “Okay, so this chest belonged to the Ancients?” I briefly thought of the other chest in our lives, the one that belonged to the followers of the Dark and was full of gruesome books on how to kill people and take over worlds. I shuddered. Hopefully we didn’t have another one like it on our hands.