by Eric Vall
“Trouble,” the mage’s voice replayed the partial message.
Then Abel and Maze sprinted into the room after it.
“The Sundex!” Abel gasped as he held his sides to catch his breath. “It’s gone!”
So much for guarding the relic.
The bandits had already made their move.
Chapter 9
Naomi led us on a sprint through the hallway and down the stairs into the pitch-black opening to the catacombs. She weaved back and forth down the path that led to the Sundex, and we all had to run to keep up with her. Her magenta hair stuck out behind her as she rushed through the tunnels, and then she finally skidded to a stop.
By the time we reached the cavern that held the Sundex, even I was breathing a little harder than normal. What had been a mysterious ten-minute stroll previously had turned into a three-minute race to an empty pedestal today. The hexagon stone had been raised from the floor, but the Sundex was nowhere to be seen.
“Gods!” Naomi hissed as she circled the pedestal in the center of the room and waved her fists around. “How could we let this happen?”
“They must have used the storm as a distraction,” Nike said as he ran his fingers through his black hair with frustration. “We focused all of our attention on that and left the castle unguarded.”
“We are fools!” the lizard mage shouted and began to pace the length of the room before she turned and pointed at me with fire in her amber eyes. “And you led the way!”
“Be careful, my lady,” I warned with a growl. “I have only helped you since our arrival. I understand you are upset, but keep in mind, the curse had already begun before we got here.”
“He is right, Naomi,” Vallen agreed with his hands raised between us. “We had the issue with the crops long before they arrived.”
“Not to mention, we helped get rid of the first group that tried to steal it,” Polina scoffed and folded her arms over her chest.
“Yeah, and then we finished off the group that started the storm,” Marina pointed out.
“And we’ll help find the others,” Trina finished with a smirk. “We never leave people alone in their time of need.”
“Do not question Lord Evan’s honor, my lady,” Miraya said in a soft tone that somehow still commanded attention. “He is more honorable than any man you have ever known, I promise.”
“I suppose,” Naomi muttered, and I imagined she’d remembered our little adventure after the storm.
She was upset about the relic’s disappearance, but she knew I had nothing to do with it. I had no ill intentions here, and she needed someone to blame.
“My lord, I hate to bring more bad news, but there are more footprints over here,” Abel called out from a different tunnel.
“What is it now?” Vallen sighed as he turned to face his young warrior.
“Oh, gods,” Naomi groaned before she stomped over to the tunnel and followed the tracks.
We could hear her huff and growl for several minutes, and then she returned a moment later with her hands clenched down at her sides.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Some of the texts I stored in the next cavern are gone as well,” the lizard mage replied.
“What kind of books?” Alyona asked.
“Mostly old magic and history,” Naomi answered with a sigh. “The spells weren’t of any use to me, and there was hardly any room for the history books upstairs, so I stored them here.”
“What kind of old magic?” Miraya raised a stark white eyebrow.
“Really basic things,” the lady mage said and shrugged. “How to create an orb of your power, how to begin meditation, how to read spells, things like that. Most of those I had figured out on my own, but I didn’t want to get rid of the books.”
“Basic spells can be used for building your own spells,” the princess murmured. “The bandits must be trying to write more magic as Sila did. They must have at least one more powerful mage who is able to use those skills.”
“Why do they want the Sundex so badly?” Laika wondered. “This is an extremely intricate plan to gain one artifact.”
“It’s priceless,” Naomi said without meeting her eyes.
A doubtful thought flickered across my mind, but it was gone before I could focus too much on it.
“Then we must find it before they leave the city,” I decided. “Surely, they wouldn’t try to leave in the middle of the day.”
“No, they’ve probably found somewhere to hide until nightfall,” Nike replied. “We’ll need to search the places we discussed earlier, especially anywhere we know is abandoned.”
“How are we going to look through all of those buildings in one day?” Vallen asked in a worried tone. “That is a lot of ground to cover, even if I send all of my men.”
“We don’t want to send all of them anyway,” I said. “Otherwise, we may be playing exactly into their plans. If all the guards are on the ground searching, they could easily walk out the front gate without anyone seeing them.”
“True,” Aaliyah agreed, and the lioness flicked her long golden tail back and forth as she thought. “We have to keep some of the guards in place while the rest of us search.”
“But how do we search everywhere so quickly?” Naomi asked.
“I have an idea,” I said as a thought struck me. “We need the guards to talk to the people in the houses. The citizens may talk to familiar faces more easily if they’ve noticed anything odd. And the guards can search the homes of anyone who should be answering the door but isn’t.”
“I’ll have them start at once,” Vallen declared and turned to Abel. “You go talk to the guards out front. Tell them to follow Lord Evan’s plans immediately. We need to ensure our people are safe and that no bandits are hiding among them.”
Abel nodded, and he and Maze rushed back out of the cavern to the stairwell.
“As for my group, we will split into four smaller groups, but I will take on the biggest section of the city,” I said. “I’ll use my magic to search the buildings quickly.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Naomi asked with a look of doubt on her face.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeves,” I replied as I waggled my eyebrows.
The lizard mage scoffed before she turned to lead us back upstairs.
The walk back to the main level was quiet, and I focused on how to move forward even though I was annoyed the bandits had stolen the Sundex right out from under us. I knew we’d get it back, but the first step was to figure out how they even knew where it was.
Once we reached the castle floor, I took the lead and headed to the front door, and as we stepped into the sunshine, I divided our party into groups.
“Nike, Laika, and Miraya, you search the shops east of the market,” I ordered. “The dryads will search the west side. Naomi, Aaliyah, and Ravi, you can search the buildings north of the jail, and Alyona and I will search the south side of it. We’re focusing on abandoned or otherwise empty buildings right now. The bandits are most likely hiding somewhere no one will happen to run into them. Does everyone know where to go?”
“Why can’t I be in your group?” Naomi asked and crossed her arms.
“I didn’t realize you wanted to be.” I smirked. “I think Aaliyah and Ravi can handle their section on their own if you’d like to join Alyona and me.”
“It’s not like I want to be with you,” the lizard said quickly. “I just want to see what your magic can do to find them. That’s all. I’m curious.”
“Uh-huh,” I chuckled. “Well, let’s go, then.”
We split up, and Alyona, Naomi, and I headed for the jail and then turned south. The one-room jailhouse that contained our friend Byron was small compared to the abandoned buildings around it. They stood two or three stories high, and the beams that connected the buildings were stretched over the top of the jailhouse. The buildings were close together here, but it seemed to be an architectural preference due to the sand they used to build their
houses.
“What did these used to be?” I asked as I gestured to the buildings.
“They have served many purposes, but typically, these were used to assemble various things,” Naomi replied. “Many of the people who make a large number of their products like dishes, clothes, or blankets decided to move their whole operations to the market as more shops were built there. Then they didn’t have to transport their wares halfway across the city. They could simply move them from their upstairs facility to a downstairs shop.”
“So, these buildings were just left untouched?” I looked up at the three-story building we’d fought the bandits on earlier and then glanced around to look for the human mage’s body. It seemed someone had already moved the corpse, probably to avoid upsetting the locals.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “We haven’t found a new use for them yet.”
“My money is on one of these,” I muttered. “Let’s get started.”
I led the women around to the door at the back of one of the buildings and pushed it open. Cobwebs floated to the floor, and a layer of dust had settled on the couple of tables and chairs that had been left behind. The first floor was almost completely open, as though it had been a lobby of some sort for whatever had been built upstairs. I could see from the door to the windows at the front of the building, and if it wasn’t for the dust, I could have probably seen the street. The layers of grime had built up on the glassy surface and made it impossible to see outside, though, so it could be a good hideout due to the cover the dirt provided.
I listened intently, but I couldn’t hear any sign of movement, so I opened my maw and released the sound wave that I used for my echolocation magic. The wave rippled through the building and reflected back to me, and in my mind’s eye, I could see the shapes of every box, chair, and table on the entire floor, and the images confirmed no one hid in or behind any of them. I could even see the details down to the tiny mites of dust that rested on the ground, and it was clear this place hadn’t been disturbed in months.
“No one is in here,” I announced as I pulled the door shut and stepped back into the sun.
“How can you tell?” Naomi narrowed her amber eyes.
“I used echolocation,” I replied with a grin. “I can send out a sound wave, and it creates a map of the area when it reflects back to me.”
“Like a bat?” she asked as her eyebrows shot up.
“Exactly.” I smirked. “So, I can see no one is in here, and I can even tell the dust is undisturbed. Let’s try the next one.”
We searched each of the three other empty assembly buildings south of the jail, and the bandits were nowhere to be found. We only found more abandoned projects and furniture with layers of dust on their surfaces.
As we approached the fifth building, Naomi looked discouraged at the lack of progress.
“Don’t worry, my lady,” I told her. “We’ll find them.”
“You’re very confident, Lord Evan,” Naomi muttered and folded her arms across her chest. “What if they’ve already escaped the city?”
“Someone would have seen them,” I insisted. “You have a guard on the watchtower, as well as several at the gate. They couldn’t have simply walked outside the walls.”
“You’re probably right,” she replied with a sigh and let her arms flop to her sides.
“He is right,” Alyona assured her. “Lord Evan is very skilled with such things. Trust me, we have seen many kinds of enemies, and he has always known exactly what to do.”
“You have quite a bit of faith in him,” Naomi said with a slightly confused expression. “He has never disappointed you?”
“Not once,” the princess replied firmly. “And he will not disappoint you, either.”
Naomi looked lost in thought as her hand drifted up to the scar on her face, and she didn’t seem to realize what she was doing as she traced the harsh, pink line from her forehead to her cheek while she stared at nothing we could see.
For a moment, I wondered who gave her the scar, and I wanted to tear that person limb from limb. I considered asking her, but I decided she would tell me when she was ready.
Then I stepped up to the next building, a smaller two-story with glass windows that looked like they were nailed shut, and the sign above the door indicated it was a library.
“No one uses the library?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not this one,” Naomi answered as she focused on me again. “It was damaged by a sandstorm a while back, and the owners decided to build a different structure closer to the market. They said the new building would be better protected there and more people would come.”
I furrowed my brow as we reached the door, and I leaned against it so I could gently push it open. Just inside the door was a half-wall and then row after row of shelves, and I could see the pile of sand that had leaked in through a large gash in the side of the building. Someone had tried to cover the gash with a cloth, but the adhesive had started to fail, and the cloth lifted with each burst of wind outside. While this building didn’t have the cover of the more stable structures, it could be a good place simply for its ability to look like a bad place to hide.
I released the sound wave into the space, and it reverberated back with the image of three people crouched behind the shelf furthest from the door. I listened with my dragon hearing, and I could just barely make out the slightest sounds of their breathing. Without the echolocation, the sounds could have been mistaken for the cloth blowing in the breeze.
I leaned back out to the women and held up three fingers, but as Naomi made a motion to push inside, I held my arm out. I had another idea I wanted to try out, and this seemed like the perfect time to do it.
I opened my maw to release the sound wave and added my petrification magic to the wave. It floated over the half-wall and into the room of shelves, and as the sound reflected back, I could feel the petrification slam into the thieves who were hidden away. The trio grunted when the magic washed over them, and I grinned as I felt their bodies stiffen from the power of my magic. Then I gestured for the ladies to come inside now that I’d handled the bandits.
I led them over to the three thieves who laid on the ground with their rigid bodies piled on top of each other. All three men appeared to be human, though one of them had a strange scent I couldn’t place. It was almost salty, like ocean air when you were standing on the beach.
“Are they dead?” Naomi asked as she peered around me at the bandits.
“No,” Alyona answered. “Lord Evan has the power of petrification.”
“A useful skill,” the lizard murmured. “Now what? We can’t exactly question them.”
“Let’s look for the Sundex,” I suggested. “If they took it, it has to be here somewhere.”
“We should have everyone help look,” Naomi replied as her gaze dragged over the empty shelves. “It could be anywhere in here.”
“Good idea,” I agreed with a nod. “I’ll send a messenger.”
“No, let me do it,” the lizard mage said with a shy smile. “I’d like to improve that skill.”
“Of course,” I chuckled. “Go ahead.”
Naomi summoned her lizard messenger, and the reptile appeared in a puff of gray smoke. Then the creature almost seemed to smile up at her when she bent down to pet it as she spoke.
“Go to Lord Vallen and Lord Nikolaus and tell them to come here and help us search,” she commanded. “Tell them we’ve found some bandits.”
The lizard dipped his head and then split into two lizards before they disappeared through the wall of the library.
“W-What, ah, why?” Naomi stuttered through her question as her wide eyes continued to stare at the space on the wall where the lizards slipped out.
“Why did it split in two?” I clarified, and she turned back to me and nodded. “The two people you wanted him to go to are not in the same place, so your magic creates a second version of the same message for each of them.”
“Fascinating,” she exhaled.
I grinned at her, and the three of us began to comb through the room and the bandits’ pile of belongings. I ripped through several knapsacks and found survival supplies like food and canteens, a compass and map, and some clothes. There was nothing personal inside, no pictures or letters, and I couldn’t decide if that was because they thought they might get caught or because they didn’t have anyone they cared about. The bandits somehow seemed to only care about money, so it was probably a mixture of both.
Alyona and Naomi dug through the piles of destroyed books and papers from the old library. Many of the boxes had mounds of sand piled inside, and the women had to sift through them to get to the things underneath. Then Nike, Laika, and Miraya came into the building and looked around.
“What are we searching for?” Laika asked as she came around the half-wall. “You said you found the bandits?”
“Yeah,” I said as I gestured to the pile of petrified thieves on the floor. “We found these guys hiding in here, but no sign of the Sundex yet.”
“Okay, we’ll help you look,” Nike replied. “Have you been upstairs yet?”
“Nope, just started down here,” I answered. “We need to check everywhere.”
“I’ll go up there,” he said.
“Could I go look up there as well?” Miraya asked as she gazed up at the shelves on the next floor.
“Yes, of course,” I replied. “Just give a shout if you guys find anything.”
Nike dipped his head and then led Miraya up the winding staircase to the second-floor loft. A balcony overlooked the first floor, and the wooden spindles of the railing appeared dusty but stable.
I could hear my friends as they rifled through boxes and shelves to find the relic, and I continued to search through the area where the bandits had hidden. I wondered if they could see me in their petrified state as I searched their belongings for the Sundex. I hadn’t used my power on any people yet, and it wasn’t like I could have asked the bats.
Once I finished the immediate area, I expanded outward and searched along the walls and shelves around them. Every book I grabbed felt like it would decay into dust the moment I moved it, and the boxes seemed to be filled with trinkets and useless items. Then I found a box high on the shelf that was nearly hidden in the shadows.