The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  Travel was slow, steady, and boring for the next week. The faeries stayed ahead of us as they realized we weren’t going to get there faster no matter what they tried. Each day Mathilda and her cottage would take off. However they traveled, it wasn’t the same path as the rest of us. Unfortunately, she said it really wouldn’t work having anyone other than herself inside it while it traveled. Or so she claimed.

  At least Covey, Lorcan, and I slept inside most nights. Padraig and Alric stayed out near the fire.

  “I just went down the road a bit and someone is definitely on the trail ahead,” Alric said as he came in for breakfast on the morning of the eighth day. That was another benefit of Mathilda’s cottage, good food not cooked over a fire.

  “How far up?” Padraig pushed himself away from the table but kept his tea with him.

  “Too close. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice them on the final scouting last night. They must have been just past the point where I turned back, and kept moving later than we did.” Alric didn’t look up as he piled eggs and toast onto a plate, but there was a subtle jab there. He agreed with the faeries about our pace—he wanted us to ride longer each night.

  Padraig and he had a long debate about it. Padraig’s more conservative way of thinking was that if we tired the horses too much each day, they’d have nothing left in terms of energy if an emergency came along. He eventually won, but Alric was still a bit annoyed. A reoccurring situation these days.

  “How far will we have to go off path to avoid them?” Lorcan had given over how we were getting there to Alric and Padraig. He was focused on what he was going to need to do once we got there in order to open this hidden realm. No one could completely explain to me or Covey what it was, beyond that a lot of magic would be needed to open it.

  “I’d like to go on ahead on my own and check first. I pulled back once I was certain there was someone up ahead.” He shrugged. “It’s probably no one to worry about, they’re coming south instead of following us north. But I should at least check it out.”

  “I’m going with you,” I said as I folded my arms. I had no logical reason I should go, but I’d be damned if I would let him go into lone wolf mode again. We were a team…two teams actually. One of all of us, and one of Alric and me.

  He started to shake me off, and then tilted his head. “Fine. If the rest of you don’t mind, Taryn and I will be riding ahead a bit and seeing if we can find out if those coming south are a threat.”

  “We go too!” Crusty barreled into the side of my arm, then climbed up to my shoulder.

  I looked around as Leaf came over and landed on Alric. Garbage watched and nodded.

  “Why do I feel like these two are here for a reason?” I knew if it was something important Garbage would be going. But she was sending her two highest sidekicks, so it wasn’t trivial.

  “We love you,” Crusty said as she reached over from my shoulder and tried to hug my entire neck.

  Leaf just laughed and played with Alric’s hair.

  “I need know what go on. They tell.” Garbage folded her arms as if she always sent spies along with us.

  Alric looked at me. “I’m not sure we can easily hide from them, so might as well take them along. Besides, if we need to send someone back here, we’ll have two options.”

  I turned my head to see part of Crusty as she resumed her seat on my shoulder. “Are you going to sit there the entire time?”

  “Yes.” She beamed at me as she slowly moved one hand toward my hair.

  “You are not to use my hair to steer me, or as a device to hang on. If you fall off, you can fly. Got that?” They’d tried steering me with my hair a few months ago. The faeries had fun. I didn’t, and I wasn’t going through that again.

  Crusty shrugged, grinned, and pulled her arm back to hang onto my cloak.

  I buckled on my sword. It had been around almost continuously recently and it might be trying to be a well-behaved weapon. I also added a brace of knives. Wouldn’t hurt and I noticed Alric was stashing a fair amount of weapons on his person. It could just be him being over-prepared, or he could be more concerned about what might be out there than he was letting on.

  The others had gathered around the table and were already engaging in a lively discussion about the scrolls that would hopefully get us into the hidden realm. That was another reason to go on this side trip—getting away from more scroll debates.

  We got on our horses and headed through the trees. Alric usually rode off the roads and paths, but close enough that he could still see the path. With his dark horse, all black ensemble including a cape with a hood that was now up, he would be hard to spot from the road.

  I had my hood up as well; since it had been growing steadily colder each day we traveled, but its deep red color really didn’t make me less visible. If I was going to skulk around with Alric on a regular basis I would need to find a darker cloak.

  I nudged my horse closer to Alric’s as we reached a wider area. “How far up did you go this morning?” I kept my voice low, but it might have been pointless as Crusty had started to hum. Loudly.

  “Crusty, shh, we need to not make noise.”

  “Yeah, is quiet!” Leaf yelled in Alric’s ear.

  “Bringing them was a mistake. I know where the others on the trail are now, they haven’t moved from where I thought they were earlier. They also aren’t trying to be quiet any more than our winged friends.” He pulled Leaf off his shoulder. “We’re close. You both need to be silent. But if someone attacks us, you two fly high and far, then go back to Mathilda’s. Promise?” He watched Leaf until she nodded, then looked over to Crusty.

  “Quiet.” She grinned and nodded.

  “This way.” He put Leaf back on his shoulder and led us through some denser forest.

  I dropped my horse behind him to ride single file again. He slowed then stopped, and held one hand up for me to halt. I also held my breath, but that was my doing not his. It took me a little longer to hear what he had, but I heard the noises. Someone was not only nearby, they were digging. And someone near them wasn’t happy about it.

  Alric slowly and gracefully got down off his horse. I got of mine slowly. Gracefully wasn’t going to happen.

  Even the faeries stayed quiet. Crusty had put her hands over her mouth, but her eyes were getting bigger the closer to the noise we went.

  After a short while, Alric dropped down behind some bushes. We were even closer than I’d thought, the speakers were just on the other side of the plants.

  “I told you we have to move on. This envoy needs to speak to the rulers immediately.” The voice wasn’t one I recognized and didn’t sound like a syclarion—two things I was grateful for. It sounded snotty and entitled, one thing I was not grateful for. Evil I could fight, entitled just had to be ignored.

  “And I told you, Captain, there is definitely something here. If we leave this site half dug we are as much as giving away these treasures to the nearest ruffian!”

  Alric and I both looked at each other in shock. It was Harlan.

  I started to move forward, but Alric held my shoulder and shook his head. He was probably right; we needed to know what the situation was first. Harlan could be a prisoner. He and his newest ladylove, the elf Orenda, had left Alric’s enclave months ago to go speak to her people about the coming troubles. She came from a group of young elves who had been separated from Alric’s people after the Breaking and had been hiding in their own enclave for the past thousand years. Like Alric’s people but without the elders and knowledge and documents they’d taken with them. She’d snuck out looking for the emerald dragon relic, joined a bunch of relic thieves plus Alric in disguise, and fallen in love with Harlan. He was a chataling, a species whom her people would have never seen.

  Yeah, something bad could be going on.

  “I cannot wait any longer, they—”

  “You will wait as long as I say you will wait.” Imperious and sure of herself, I knew that voice well: Orenda. When we first
met her she’d sounded like that. But as the reality of the world outside of her people’s enclave started settling in, most of her imperiousness had vanished. Good to know she could call it up when needed.

  I was about to say we should probably go in when Crusty threw aside her hands from her mouth and yelled, “We here!” Leaf joined in and the two of them tore through the trees.

  “It’s done now,” I said but kept my voice low. There was no way anyone was going to miss those two.

  Alric frowned and shook his head. “Wait.” There was something he’d noticed that wasn’t making him happy.

  “Damn it! Wasn’t their cage locked?” That was the captain. “Gregoli, you were to keep it locked!”

  “Those aren’t any of the prior ones, Captain.”

  “They locked up the faeries?” My voice was low, but my temper was not. When we’d split up, Garbage had called in some more faeries and sent some with Qianru and Locksead who went south to her people, and some with Harlan and Orenda. It didn’t matter that I personally didn’t know these faeries, nor that I had thought about locking mine up numerous times.

  I did not like people who trapped faeries.

  I held up my hand to Alric before he could speak. “Sorry, sneaking is over. I need to go beat up some elves.” I pulled out my sword.

  I thought he would stop me, but he grinned and unsheathed his sword as well. “Agreed.”

  He motioned for our horses to stay in place where we’d left them, and then he and I walked through the trees.

  “Those are our faeries. Do you have a problem with them?” I got out before anyone could respond to our appearance.

  Harlan was waist deep in a pit not too far off the road, Orenda standing between him and a tall, dark-haired elf in armor. About twenty also armored and snotty looking elves stood behind them with horses and a familiar carriage—the one Orenda and Harlan had left the enclave in.

  Crusty and Leaf had swarmed Harlan first, but then the faeries in the cage sitting in front of the carriage started yelling. I hadn’t seen them at first, but we all saw them now.

  Crusty tore to the cage, but Leaf flew up in the Captain’s face. “What. You. Do?!” She was getting really good at imitating Garbage.

  The Captain pulled back at first then tried to grab her. The two guards near the cage tried to do the same to Crusty.

  “Touch them and you will regret it.” I raised my sword. Alric’s people called the swords he and I bore spirit swords. There had been some trouble when I called mine for the first time because they are only supposed to go to special elves, and I am clearly not an elf. I had no idea if these elves knew of them or not, but they were still damn impressive weapons.

  “I need you to unlock the cage and let our friends free,” Alric said. He hadn’t gone full snotty-elven-noble yet, but it was there, lurking. He’d thrown back his hood so there was no mistaking he was an elf. He wasn’t flashing his high lord mark on his left cheekbone yet, but I knew that, as much as he disliked it, he would if these other elves became difficult. He preferred to keep it hidden with a glamour.

  “Taryn! Alric!” Orenda ran forward and enwrapped me in a massive hug. Nice of her, but it did sort of ruin the image I was trying to project.

  “Good to see you two!” Harlan waved at the dirt in front of him. “Seems odd, but I found a scroll that indicated a find of sorts here.”

  “Good to see both of you as well, but you let them be caged?” Crusty and Leaf were both working on the lock. One of the guards stepped forward to stop them, but I raised my hand in a ball. I personally never cast spells that way, but I knew others who did. Hopefully Orenda’s people did too. “I wouldn’t. We’re both pretty heavy magic users and really like the faeries.” He hesitated and looked to his captain. “I’d be watching me. Your captain isn’t going to save you if I let this spell go.”

  “We didn’t have a choice,” Orenda answered my question about the faeries. “It was either that or they stayed with my people to be studied.” She glared at the captain.

  My two tiny lock picks broke open the lock, and a fleet of faeries flew out and surrounded us. The new ones carefully kept us between them and the elves. But they didn’t fly away. They had promised Garbage they would keep an eye on Orenda and Harlan, and in their minds that wasn’t over. Crusty and Leaf hovered between us and the elves.

  I kept an eye on the elves in armor but lifted my hand to the closest new faery. “Hello there, can you come down for a moment? What’s your name?”

  It was a lovely purple faery with dragonfly type wings and a gorgeous smile. “Pansy Dragonfly.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, still keeping my eye on the elves. “Have any of these elves hurt you or your companions? Be honest, you’re safe now.

  She glared at the captain and even stuck her tongue out at him, but then shook her head. “No. Trap us. But not hurt.”

  “That’s one point in your favor,” Alric stepped forward. He’d sheathed his sword. “How about we start over? I am Alric, this is Taryn, and those two are Crusty Bucket and Leaf Grub. Who are you and where are you going?”

  The captain looked ready to not answer, then another glare from Orenda motivated him. It wasn’t until he glared back that I saw the resemblance. Orenda had bright red hair, and lots of it, and his was almost as dark as Padraig’s but their faces were similar when they glared at each other.

  “I am Captain Balith of the king’s guard of the land of Caeria. With me are a handpicked company of twenty royal guards sent to escort my sister Orenda and her…companion to visit with another group of elves. One that I believe you are a part of. They believe we must work together against some threat. I am here to explain why that won’t happen.”

  “Balith, you have no call for that, and you know it.” Orenda got right in her brother’s face. “The king sent messages with both Harlan and me for the royals in Alric’s enclave.” She shook her head and looked to Alric and me. “It’s probably best if you ignore Balith and his people.”

  Harlan had been watching the proceedings like one of those net ball games. “Yes, well, as I was going to say, a map, which somehow disappeared while I was still in the enclave, indicated a find in this area. I do believe we have a cache of stolen relics.” He held up a broken elven saltshaker. Which was ignored.

  “We are not staying here,” Balith said. “I don’t care if you two join us, but there are far more of us than you. And I have more than enough help to drag Orenda and Harlan back into the carriage.” He was clearly not counting the faeries, or his math skills were worse than his manners.

  Alric took a few steps around Harlan’s pit, then nodded to Orenda. “Has he always been this big of an ass?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, sadly. Not my favorite brother.”

  Before Balith could retort, the point of Alric’s sword was under his chin. “As Taryn said, we are both magic users and could blast all of you apart without even getting close. But we do have these lovely swords. Do they mention spirit swords in your kingdom?” He added some elven words and Balith paled. He hadn’t responded to the sword at his throat except to freeze. But his people obviously had memories of the spirit swords.

  “She is not one of us. Only pure elven kind, the strongest and best of our people, can call one of those blades.” His eyes narrowed. “You lie.”

  Alric stepped back, threw his sword, which vanished the moment that it left his hand, then called it back. “Do any of your people have mage sense? You clearly don’t or you would have recognized both of our blades.”

  I was glad Alric didn’t expect me to throw my sword. It had been behaving recently, but with my luck the thing wouldn’t vanish and would just hit someone.

  “I do.” A smaller knight, one who looked uncomfortable in his armor, came out from the back. His eyes widened as he saw both of our swords clearly.

  “It is true…how many do your people have that you can give them to outsiders?”

  “You can’t give someone one of these.” I p
ut mine back in its sheath. “They chose their carrier.”

  Harlan nodded randomly, then turned back to his hole and continued digging.

  “Balith, remember the stories I told the council? The ones you didn’t believe? These are two of the magic users I spoke of. Taryn sent an enemy fighter thousands of feet below ground. With just a move of her hand. Alric is an elven high lord.”

  A bit embellished, and Orenda hadn’t actually been there when I sent Glorinal deep underground. We wouldn’t mention what he came back as, or me blowing that thing up.

  Balith didn’t look happy, but unlike another elven knight I knew and was annoyed by, Flarinen, he was willing to back down.

  “I am honored to meet you. Both. However, we can’t stay here, we have a ways to go, and must be back quickly.”

  Orenda rolled her eyes again. I had a feeling she did it a lot with this one. “He’s afraid he’ll miss the tournament in three weeks.”

  I looked to the other knights and, aside from the mage, they looked to be of the same mindset as Balith. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but your people never really came out of their enclave until Orenda, right?” At a few nods, I continued. “So this is new. Meeting other people is new. And all you want to do is crawl back into your enclave? And you need to go to your tournament, but you are afraid to face a real threat to everyone, including your enclave? The people we’re up against took down an extremely powerful shield built by elves with more power than you could imagine. They destroyed it. This threat is real. Quite frankly I am surprised that such a fierce fighter as Orenda came from such shoddy stock.” I had no idea where that came from, and from Alric’s look neither did he. But he gave a small smile and nod.

  Silence filled the clearing as my words settled.

  “I found something!” Harlan had been being himself and not paying attention to anything he felt didn’t interest him. “A bunch of chests and trunks, a bag or two. Yup, this looks like a relic robbers haul that got stashed and forgotten. Judging by the depth and the age of the map where I found the reference, I’d say it’s probably been here at least two hundred and fifty years.” He finally realized that everyone was staring at him and it wasn’t in admiration. “What?”