The Emerald Dragon (The Lost Ancients Book 3) Read online

  Covey wasn’t a big fan of pubs in general, and The Shimmering Dewdrop in particular, since she felt I spent too much time there.

  She didn’t wait for either of us to respond, but stomped down the path to the pub.

  Neither Harlan nor I were motivated to try to catch up with her. She was in a foul mood and those were never healthy for folks around her. Maybe, if I was lucky, Alric would be at the pub and she could take him down a few pegs.

  “Where did you leave Alric?”

  “I knew you weren’t that mad at him,” Harlan said with a chuckle. “But I was about to ask you how you managed to stop that knife, since I don’t think that would be good talk for the pub.”

  Damn it. “I’d hoped maybe you hadn’t noticed that.” I lowered my voice. “Yes, I used magic. No, I have no idea what spell it was. Yes, you’re welcome for saving that thick head of yours.”

  Harlan gave me a polite sniff. “No dragon bane?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t know Covey would turn into a knife-flinging monster before my eyes. I….” I let my words drift. No dragon bane, yet no fire ants in my skull. That was an improvement. And hopefully not the start of some new side effect that just hadn’t shown up yet.

  “Ah.” Harlan’s smirk told me all I needed to know—he made the connection too since I wasn’t bitching about my head.

  “We can talk about it later.” Much, much later, if I had my way. I had no idea where this magic came from, or what I could do with it. Harlan was certain I would become some mighty mage and live a life of power and wealth. Or something equally ridiculous.

  “Now where’s Alric? Did he find anything of interest?” We were approaching the pub so we both had to watch our words. Not that it would last long with Harlan. He could spread gossip faster than an entire henhouse of grandmothers.

  “He found something. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was; just rolled up the scroll he’d been looking at and left.” Harlan held the door to the pub open for me. “I had to put the mess away, but I will not be the one telling Covey about the missing one.”

  “He stole another scroll?” Obviously, the hopes I had for a reformed Alric were completely unfounded.

  Harlan scowled but the way he tapped his teeth told me he was scowling about something in his head, not me. “He muttered something. No, I simply can’t recall it.”

  Covey had gotten to the pub first and commandeered one of the best tables. From the disgruntled but trying-not-to-let-her-see-it looks on the faces of the people at the tables around her, it may not have been empty when she took it.

  I couldn’t blame folks for getting out of her way. She had clearly been trying to find her missing time on the walk over here, and just as clearly hadn’t been able to. She looked ready to spit nails, and then hammer them into someone with her fist.

  “This is acceptable?” At the nods from both Harlan and me as we sat, she nodded as well. “Then talk. I already told Foxy to bring you both whatever it is you drink. But you need to talk now.”

  Harlan jumped right in. “You left your office, then an hour or more later, you threw a knife at my head in the ruins.”

  “That was not helpful.” She started to turn toward me but then twisted back to him. “I do apologize about the knife however. I wonder how I missed.” She wasn’t saying she had hoped to hit Harlan, although if she knew he didn’t stop Alric from stealing another scroll, she probably would change that thought. However, Covey had impeccable aim. She turned to me. “I see you and I may have more to talk about, later.”

  The look she gave me said that she may have lost time, but like Harlan, she had an almost obsessive issue with my magic. She knew darn well why she missed.

  Foxy walked up then, bringing two ales and one very clear water in a fancy glass. “Fresh spring water from the Longhan Mountains. Amara sends it with her best regards.” He put the water in front of Covey. Then gave Harlan and me the ales. He looked ready to chat, but a ruckus from the kitchen pulled his attention and he nodded and left.

  I didn’t know when he’d be back, so I quickly told Covey about her sudden appearance in the ruins.

  The telling of it had been brief, it all had happened in a few minutes, but Covey’s face changed from annoyance to worry.

  “Sahlins?” She took a long drink of the spring water before her. “Are you certain? That was the exact word I used?”

  Now she was making me worried. I hadn’t been sure if I heard of the term before, but when she used it I was trying to get her to stop throwing sharp weapons around. “As far as I know, yeah, that’s what it sounded like. You said they were coming and we needed weapons.”

  Covey drained the rest of her glass in a single gulp, and then studied the drops inside as if they had answers.

  “The sahlins were desert dwellers. None survived after decades of being hunted by my people—before we became civilized. They were mindless, vicious things, little more than animals that could talk. And kill. Tales were passed down to trellian children that one day the sahlins would come back and repay our race for what we did.”

  The three of us were silent. First, a cult thought to be extinct, but one that had tried to destroy the elves, left evidence they were back. Now nightmares from a long-lost trellian past were haunting Covey. Of course, since Covey had no idea what had happened to her during her missing time, there was no way to know if the threat from them was real or not. Or if the two were connected.

  Harlan coughed and looked embarrassed. “Ah, this isn’t pertinent to this discussion, but I just remembered the other thing about Alric. He was going to break into your patroness’ home.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sadly, I had just taken a sip of ale when he spoke. Sadder for Harlan, since I couldn’t control it when he made me choke and he got hit with a bit. Served him right for not telling me Alric’s plans right off the bat.

  “He’s doing what?” Covey and I managed to say it at the same moment. At least Alric’s newest exercise in stupidity had drawn her out of her worry about her missing time, and potential killers stalking her.

  “Why is he doing that?” I knew we should be out trying to stop him, but I also knew that with that slippery bastard, he was probably already gone now. I looked closely at Harlan. He was a bit of a blowhard, and definitely a gossip. He was not, however, a scatterbrain.

  Alric had been teaching me more than how to use magic. He was also training me to read signs to see if others had been using magic or had been hit with some.

  “Hold still.” I peered into Harlan’s eyes. Yup, a faint shadow flashed across his eyes. It could be something else, but most likely he was recently spelled. “That bastard.”

  Harlan pulled his head back and looked between Covey and me. “What? What did he do?”

  “Alric spelled you. That’s why you didn’t remember until now that he was breaking in.”

  Harlan downed his ale then rolled to his feet. “We need to stop him.”

  I flagged down Lehua, the half-giant barmaid. “Can we get some food to go? Doesn’t matter what.” When she’d nodded and jogged into the kitchen, I looked to the others. “Going there won’t help. He would have timed it so the spell broke as he finished. We need to catch him at home.”

  “His apartment? He’s rarely ever there,” Harlan said.

  “I know.” I smiled. “Not there. He had a spot in the ruins before, but I think he’s found another one recently.” Again, another thing I’d hoped I’d been wrong about. “I think we may even get there before him.”

  Lehua came back with a few bags of food that I shoved into Harlan’s arms. “Thanks. Tell Foxy to put it all on Alric’s tab.” In the last few hours, Alric had unraveled all of the changes I thought he’d made. Obviously, he never ever made them, but was making it seem that way to get whatever he was after. As usual. If I wasn’t so worried about whatever he might have taken from my patron, I would have found a nice corner of the pub and sat there wallowing in ale for a few hours. I really had horrible tast
e in men.

  Covey grabbed my arm as I turned to go. “If you can tell Harlan was spelled, look in my eyes.”

  I didn’t know which answer would be worse, that someone took her memories with magic or without.

  “I may not be able to tell, and even if I see something it may not mean anything.” I ignored the fact I was leading us on a hunting trip based on what I saw in Harlan’s eyes.

  Covey shook her head. “I don’t care. Check.”

  I knew we couldn’t leave until I did it, and while I was sure where Alric was hiding, I wanted to make sure we got there before him. Besides, the pub patrons were looking at us oddly.

  Covey had to bend down, since we were both standing and she’s a good foot taller than I am. It was weird looking in Harlan’s eyes; it was positively bizarre looking in Covey’s. Her eyes were those of a true predator, and somewhere thousands of lifetimes back in my family tree, an ancestor of mine shook in fear.

  I took a deep breath, pulled in whatever skills I had, ignored the screaming voices, and looked.

  A spell slammed into me and tore the air from my lungs. I dragged in another breath, trying to sort out what I was seeing, or at least pull away from Covey’s eyes, but neither attempt worked. Finally, I collapsed to the floor.

  Covey and Harlan were around me in moments, with the rest of the pub hovering around on the edges. Not wanting to be involved, but desperate to know what weirdness I’d fallen into this time.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Covey’s question sounded like she’d asked it before and didn’t like the answer.

  I forced a nod, as I didn’t recall giving her an answer before.

  She and Harlan pulled me off the floor and sat me back on a chair. Then Covey turned to the gaping masses.

  “Don’t you all have something far more important you should be doing?” Her hands were on her hips and the do-not-mess-with-me tone flew strong.

  Even the drunkest person around us fled within a minute under that glare.

  I felt bad for Covey’s students.

  “I was spelled, wasn’t I?” That was Covey’s concern. I’d been knocked on my ass, had no idea what I’d really just seen, and she was worried that she had been spelled.

  “Yeah.” I took a sip of the ale in front of me. “I have no idea what happened, but I’d say someone messed with your head.” And mine, but I didn’t say that out loud.

  “Could you tell anything else?” Covey shoved another ale at me and nodded. “You looked like you needed another. Now, what else did you see? You didn’t collapse about Harlan.” The look on her face said she was wishing she drank about now.

  “It’s my wonkie magic.” I tried to shrug it off and took another long drink of the free ale. “Sometimes it goes badly.”

  “You are a terrible liar, Taryn. But I won’t pry now, you still don’t look good,” Covey said.

  I finished my ale, then stood up. Proud when I only wobbled slightly. Whoever had spelled Covey was of a far different type of magic user than Alric. “Now, can we go find out what that pointy-eared bastard is doing this time?”

  Harlan looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Covey got to her feet and pulled him up with her.

  And fell back to their seats when the pub rattled its walls.

  I might have thought the bouncing around was another added bonus from peering into Covey’s eyes, except that everyone who had been upright in the pub had taken a tumble.

  “Another earthquake!” one of the patrons shouted from under his table. He had been under it since we came in, so most likely he was just upset the shaking ground woke him up.

  Considering that the first two earthquakes we had today were actually delayed explosions from spells, I hoped he was right and this was natural. If I kept telling myself that, eventually I might believe it.

  When more faeries started living in town, Foxy had made a tiny entrance above the top of the doorframe for them. When it had only been my three, they had to wait for someone to open the doors to let them in or out, but now faeries could come and go at will.

  Three blurs of color shot in through the hole over the door and headed right for me.

  “Not our fault!” Garbage yelled defiantly to anyone who would listen.

  A horrific rattling at the door made many folks dive for cover again. Harlan went over and opened the door to let Bunky in.

  The crazily flying chimera listed to one side and seemed a bit stunned. If constructs could be stunned. Crusty Bucket flew over to him and patted him comfortingly.

  I shook my head and focused on Garbage. “What wasn’t your fault?”

  “Boom.” Leaf buzzed forward with a serious look. “We no boom.”

  Garbage pushed ahead of her. “Things out there go boom. We not out there. Not our fault.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes. “Do you know where the boom is?” I ignored the worried looks from both Harlan and Covey.

  All three faeries shared a look and Bunky buzzed around behind them. While they were conferring, I motioned for him to come closer. I wanted to get a look at the side he favored.

  I found out the first time I saw him, that I couldn’t touch Bunky without a flood of strange images filling my head. It didn’t seem to happen to others, and Alric said it was related to my odd magic. Since I didn’t have my gloves with me, I motioned for Bunky to turn a bit.

  A long shallow gash marred his left side. I had no idea what would do that to magical obsidian, but it probably wasn’t good. And it confirmed that the faeries and Bunky had been in the center of something.

  The three faeries were still arguing, but then Garbage pushed the other two aside and flew back to me. “We no faulted. But we go there.” She was clearly not happy, but then none of them looked happy.

  “Aren’t we going after Alric?” Harlan regained his annoyance at being spelled. His tail lashed back and forth a few times. Not a good idea in a crowded pub.

  “I have a feeling whatever caused that shake might be a bit more important.” I was hesitant to say ‘explosion’ in the pub. The rattling had shaken folks up, but for the most part they went back to their drinking. The quakes of earlier in the day had shown them the buildings probably wouldn’t collapse.

  “Same.” Crusty looked up from where she was petting Bunky.

  Garbage waved at her to stay quiet, but Crusty completely missed it.

  “Him and boom. Same.” She patted Bunky and I swore I saw the injury heal a tiny bit.

  I shook my head as her words hit. “Wait, Alric exploded?” I doubted their ‘boom’ was that literal, but I needed to be as clear as possible.

  “Silly.” Leaf shook her head. She also ignored Garbage’s waving off. “He there. It boom.”

  I finally gave up and turned to Garbage. “Look, I know you didn’t do it, whatever it was. But I need to know where it was.” I held up one hand as Crusty started excitedly bouncing around. “Not just ‘out’. I need to know where. You need to take us there.”

  Garbage didn’t answer me at first but turned to the other two and chittered something that sounded very angry in native faery. Finally, after a few more strong words, she turned back to me.

  “Fine. We take.” She started toward the door but then spun around quickly. “Just remember not our fault.” The way her lower lip stuck out I knew something of what we were about to see was definitely their fault.

  The rest of the patrons were carefully not looking our way, and I’d already added all of our drinks and food onto Alric’s bill. We followed the faeries out the door.

  Bunky stayed by me as we left. He listed less, but whatever had happened had left him rattled. The faeries were his friends, but I was his protector. In his mind anyway.

  Covey and Harlan were silent at first, but then started talking once we were clear of the pubs.

  “Is this where we were going anyway?” Harlan said as we turned toward the outer edge of the ruins. “I need to give Alric a piece of my mind.”


  I refrained from pointing out Alric took a piece already—or rather blocked the memory of part of it.

  The girls were still buzzing ahead, clearly annoyed by how slow we were going.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Alric seemed to favor this one side of the ruins. Not popular with patrons or diggers, it was rocky and jutted out over a cliff that led down to the Forgotten Plains. Most of the ruins were safely far from this edge.

  It was late on a weekend so not too many people were around. The ones that were peered down over the cliff. A cliff edge that was quite a bit closer to us than it had been previously.

  “Oh crap.” I started running toward the huge section where the former cliff had decided to join the plains below. The plains way below. If Alric had been in there—it looked like the approximate location of his most recent hovel—he was too far down for us to recover his body.

  “Alric!” My heart started pounding. Yes, I’d been pissed off that all the changes I thought he’d made, he hadn’t. But the idea that he was gone for good terrified me. My heart wasn’t ready to lose him.

  “What?” He stood in between a few of the lookie-loos and I hadn’t even seen him. The fact he had his black cloak on and the hood pulled up hadn’t helped.

  “I thought you were in there.” I ran to get to him before Harlan and Covey could have their words.

  As I got closer, I noticed his hands were bloody and he had scrapes on his face and up his left arm where his sleeve was pushed up. He was also dusty and was hanging on to a large pack on his back so tightly his knuckles were white.

  “I was.” His face was grim and furious. He shook his head tightly as Harlan and Covey got closer. “Not here.”

  “Look, whatever you did to me, was completely uncalled for—” Harlan stepped around a rock to get a better angle for his tirade. He also got a much better look at Alric’s condition.

  “Not. Here.” Alric watched the people around us for a few moments, and then shook his head. “We need a private place to go.”