The Golden Basilisk (The Lost Ancients Book 5) Read online

  “I’ll make sure we don’t.” He grinned as he said it, then his face dropped and a scowl appeared. I knew I saw through his and Padraig’s glamours, but if I didn’t I would have sworn he slipped one on. The laughing, handsome elf of the moment before vanished and a surly looking person of uncertain heritage now walked alongside me.

  “That’s really disturbing when you do that. Rather, that you can do that.” I walked around a drunk blocking our path. At least I hoped it was a drunk, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not and wasn’t going to check.

  “Years of training. I can’t always use magic.” His voice was his, but rougher and gravellier. Far closer to that of his persona of Carlon than himself.

  “So you’re being Carlon right now? No glamour?” I had pretty much hated Carlon the moment he kidnapped me, then really hated him when I found out it had been Alric in one of his personas the entire time that I was worried he’d gone missing.

  He shrugged. “Some, but not enough to give me away if the magic breaks. And I’m only tapping into some of Carlon’s attributes. I might need to be more vicious than he was.”

  “These personalities are like different people to you, aren’t they?” My friend Harlan often went in disguise, or so he called it. But it was always still Harlan. Alric had been roaming the outside world for years, where he couldn’t let anyone know he was an elf. He’d gotten good at it.

  He was making for the largest pub on the street. While I probably would have picked the smaller one right near us, my reasoning would have been that I could really use an ale right now. Alric was trying to figure out what was going on and how we could get out of here. His reason won.

  The doors were made out of thin wood that didn’t completely reach the top or the bottom and did nothing to keep out the cold. By the way they were hung I’d guess they weren’t originally here when the pub was built.

  It was early in the morning, so I was surprised that the place was open and there were so many folks already here. Looking around I realized that they probably never closed, at least not with the doors we walked through. The people here weren’t starting their day drinking, they just hadn’t finished their night.

  A long bar faced the entrance and ran most of the length of the place but the majority of the still-drunks were at tables. No groups, not even a pair, only fifteen solitary drunks of a number of races and both genders.

  The bar was bigger than any in Beccia, but thanks to the worn, dingy, wood floors, walls, and ceilings, and the fact that said ceiling appeared ready to collapse on the patrons at any time, it managed to look small and unwelcoming. That a full-blooded male dwoller was behind the bar didn’t help at all. Dwollers were mostly insane; they fed on the blood of others and could almost function in society when well fed and under control of someone more powerful than they. Good or bad, this one seemed well fed.

  Not a place I would ever have chosen to drink in.

  Alric slunk up to the bar and the dwoller behind it. I followed along as I really wasn’t about to go try and talk to any of the people at the tables. The unspoken word is that if you are by yourself, and you’ve been drinking all night long, you deserve to be left alone.

  “Black ale for both,” he spoke so low I barely heard him and I was right next to him. The dwoller was a few feet away, but with the hyper hearing common to most of their people, he obviously heard. With a nod, he pulled two glasses to the tap.

  He said and did nothing untoward as he slid one in front of Alric, but paused and gave me a sickly grin as he put mine down closer to me than it needed to be. “She yours?” Dwollers had elongated canines that made their sss’s sound like a bucket of snakes.

  I fought the shiver crawling up my arms and tried to glare him down.

  “Mine. For now. You want to buy her?” Alric took a long drink and wiped the foam away with his cuff. “I get tired of redheads so easily.”

  Redhead? Crap, what did he do? I could see myself in the bar mirror—more or less—but enough to see I looked like me. But if he glamoured me I wouldn’t see it.

  “She’s a lively one then?” The dwoller reached out to touch my face, but I had a dagger at his wrist before he got within an inch of it.

  “Very.” I kept my voice steady but did my best to channel Covey. I couldn’t play change the persona like Alric, but I would be damned if anyone saw me as a target here.

  A look of surprise flashed across the dwoller’s face, but then he resumed his grin and gave a nod. With an equal nod to Alric he went to the far end of the bar.

  I put away my dagger and moved closer to Alric. “What do I look like? And why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  He didn’t answer, but took another long, slow drink. I was about to pour mine over his head when he finally turned to me.

  “Just a few modifications. You have long red hair, a scar on your right cheek, a kind of nasty looking one if I say so myself. And are built like a farm hand. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure it would hold with the way magic seems to be fluctuating around here.” He shrugged. “But it did.”

  I pointed a finger at him, but instead of yelling at him I took a drink of my own ale, then a second one. The tension of the past day shook itself free. “Okay, but next time, warn me. Carlon was always such a bastard.”

  “But he comes in handy,” Alric finished his ale, then leaned against the bar with his back to it and studied the room. Quickly at first, then slower.

  Anyone looking at him would have thought he was simply a scraggly guy watching the door, most likely for someone he pissed off. But I knew him better. Well enough to realize he’d seen someone he wanted to talk to. If my guess was right, the person was directly to Alric’s right. A young man with gray hair. Some breeds had gray hair naturally, not a part of age. But this didn’t appear natural. And unlike the rest of the bunch, he appeared sober even as he was lying on his table trying to look drunk.

  “So, what’s with your new friend?” I held my glass of ale to my lips and kept my voice low.

  “He’s recently here, but came through with someone and is trying to find them. I think whoever he came with might be helpful to us.”

  That was less than informative. “How can you tell?” I didn’t clarify what part I was asking about, I didn’t see anything Alric did. I was beginning to feel ridiculous holding the glass, so I took a drink then sat it behind me on the bar.

  “His hands have unique calluses, ones from mining equipment. He’s too young, regardless of that ridiculous hair, to be the lead miner, so he was working with someone, probably a secret mine, and they ended up here in Null. His master went to find something and left him to wait.” Alric flagged down the dwoller and ordered a lighter ale and a plate of stew and bread. The dwoller nodded when Alric said to bring the food to our new friend when it was ready. “And in spite of him trying to look like he’s been here all night like these others, he hasn’t. Let’s go talk to him, shall we?”

  Without waiting for my response, he pushed off from the bar stool he was leaning against, took the new ale, and walked over to our guy. I finished my own ale before I got up and followed.

  “Hey there, haven’t seen you around. New?” Alric flipped the chair across from the boy around, slid into it and put the light ale on the table. “First one is on me.”

  The guy perked up at Alric, his words, and the ale shoved in his face, but he wasn’t as young as he looked. Rather he was younger than he was trying to look but older than I’d expected.

  “I’ve been drinking all night, I don’t need another one.” He pushed the glass back, but not far. He was trying to do what Alric did, change his voice. But he was as bad at that as he was at lying.

  “Look, kid, I know people, it’s my job. You’re young, no money, no food, no drink. I take care of those things; you answer my questions, and those of my partner, yes?” As he spoke the dwoller came out from behind the bar carrying a greasy plate. Not fancy, but the meat and veg looked reasonably cooked and could be ident
ified. Two aspects I always looked for in food.

  The guy had fought taking the ale, but he lost against the food. As soon as the dwoller walked away, our new friend shoved food in his face so fast I thought he would choke. With a nod to Alric he also downed his ale.

  “Thanks,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “We did just get here. Some of our stuff came but not our money. Or it was taken when we were out.”

  “How long ago did you come here?”

  “Woke up yesterday, think I was only out for a day. My master was with me. He got real mad when he figured our stuff was gone, and said he knew who did it. Which would be weird because I don’t even know where we are or how we got here. But Mackil seemed to know exactly how to get here and what happened. It was like he planned for us to get taken.” He managed to get all of that out and still finish half of his food and ale.

  Alric had been watching him, but he turned to me with a scowl. The same one I was sure I had once the guy’s words settled in. If no one could get out, then how would this Mackil know how to get in, be trying to get in, and why would he want to, and how would he know that someone took their belongings and they didn’t come through with them?

  12

  “How did you—” Alric’s interrogation was cut off as the two flimsy doors slammed open. Actually, the one on the right flew half-way across the bar.

  “We’ve been cut off, boy!” The voice that came through the now gaping doorway sounded like a huge man, I’d guess someone Foxy’s size by the reverberations alone.

  I was not ready for a four-foot-high dwarf who’d clearly been living on the wrong side of a bar table for a few years.

  He was sober right now, and his short white blond hair was almost aquiver with how sober and pissed off he was.

  Few dwarves lived in Beccia. I think we were too lowbrow for them and they were insulted as a race about all of the restrictions about digging. Dwarves taught their young to mine pretty much as soon as they could crawl, and they didn’t take to being told where, when, and how they could dig. Not to mention the idea of having a patron made them choke. Mostly we’d see them march through town once a year or so as they moved from summer to winter digs. Beccia was in-between the two mountain ranges, but not close enough to be more than a walk through.

  This one never would have gotten past all of the bars in Beccia long enough to have gotten pissed off about the digging situation.

  Unlike most of his kind, he wasn’t wide. He was stocky, but he was practically waif-like compared to the troops that marched through town. Most likely it was due to hard times combined with excessive drinking. The serious drunks often forgot to eat.

  He didn’t acknowledge Alric or me, but whipped out a chair and slammed himself down next to the man we’d fed. “I’m Mackil. Two more of whatever he had,” he said then hooked a thumb at us and smiled when he got a good look at Alric. “They’re paying.”

  Alric didn’t look fazed in the least—once his brief annoyance at being interrupted vanished at any rate. I swore I saw a smile crack his practiced scowl.

  “Mackil? Really? That’s what you’re calling yourself now?” He shook his head. “By the way, this is my…partner, Glanis. Don’t piss her off; she’s not as warm and fuzzy as I am.”

  Glanis? I supposed he could have come up with a worse name. I did like the ‘don’t mess with me’ part. I patted my sword to reinforce the image. And said a thank you under my breath to it for being here. As for them knowing each other, or rather the dwarf knowing one of Alric’s personas, I wasn’t sure how I felt.

  “It’s close enough to the family name so I can remember it when I’m in jail and the bastards are demanding something to call me by.” He nodded to the silent guy we’d fed. “That’s Rue. He’s a breed but a good worker.”

  I looked closer at Rue. It wasn’t polite, but I seriously doubted that was even a concept in Null.

  Mackil caught me looking. “Yup, human/dwarf. Too tall and gangly for one of us, but I took him in as my apprentice anyway.” He turned away from both Rue and I and focused back on Alric.

  “What are you doing here, Carlon? You working a job too?”

  Alric shrugged. “Maybe. If so I can’t be talking of it. And you?”

  “Oh, I’ll talk about it all right. I got robbed. Was a simple job, pick up some items, get picked up and brought here, get paid, and get sent back. The bastards robbed me and have gone into hiding.”

  I looked to Rue, but he shrugged and gave a small nod.

  “What kind of idiot deliberately sets himself up to come to Null?” Alric had ordered more ale, but I noticed he didn’t touch his—I did the same.

  “You’re here, ain’t ya? Either you came on purpose, same as me, or ya got caught.” The food was put down on the table, both servings in front of Mackil, and he managed to fling it around enough to get some in his mouth.

  “I had a sure-fire way out—they gave me a blood swearing.”

  “You got a blood swearing from someone in here?” I had to jump in. I ignored the glare from Alric. I’d had enough magic training to knowing what a blood swearing was. A spell contract enforced by a blood draw. Nasty things.

  “Naw. They wasn’t in Null. This was a spell contract.” He rolled up one sleeve and showed off his tattoo. A huge red X covered the width of his forearm and a signature, also in red, was scribbled underneath. I couldn’t be sure but it looked like it began with R. “They was taking precautions if they got pulled in while heading for the Spheres. The spell warned me a day ago, so I got the stuff they ordered, and Rue and I went to the spot they said.”

  “The Robani desert?”

  “That’s where they got snagged, and by your voice, so did you.” He patted his arm. “This little baby guaranteed wherever I was, me and anything I was hanging onto would be brought here.”

  I wanted to ask what they’d made him bring, but didn’t want to mess up Alric’s game. I’d figure out how we were going to play this when we were back in the stable.

  “What did they take?”

  “Damn bastards. They took their own box, couldn’t use it anyway, was locked in serious spells. That’s what happened to Rue’s hair—tried to open it and it spelled him. But they also took my money and my way out. I’ve been here before, and gotten out every time.”

  Alric leaned forward, close enough to bite Mackil if he wanted. And right now he looked to be growling. “How in the seven hells of the Navirain province have you gotten out of here? Look around, no one gets out of here unless it’s going in the ground.”

  Mackil snorted and finished his first ale. The bar keep had taken him at his word and given him two of everything we gave Rue. The first plate of food was gone as well.

  “Yeah, forgot you’d been missing for a while. There’s been some changes out past that town you hung out in, Beccia. A compound with some serious magic shit.” He drained half of the second glass then scratched his side for almost a full minute. “Thing is, magic everywhere is becoming stronger. I got paid good hard coin to test a system to get people past magic barricades. The gent behind it said he knew of one that was foolproof-no way out, but gave me enough gold that even if it failed pulling me back, I’d be set for life. Stuck here, yes. But rich is rich. Had to go way out in those damn canyons, got jumped by some syclarions, they took me out and I woke up here.” He shook his head. “Got pulled back a few hours later.”

  Alric rocked back in his seat. “That’s not the same as knowing how to get out of here. And where are your magic using friends now?”

  I felt the ale rumble around in my stomach. I should have known we wouldn’t find a way out that quick.

  Mackil snorted again and almost choked on his food. “I’m not misspeaking, you mis-guided son of a two-headed goat. I got sent back three more times, this is over a number of days, mind you, last month. They was checking their ranges, and more than one mage wanted to play. The last time the bastards didn’t pull me back. So I found my own way.” He shrugged and motioned fo
r the dwoller to bring him more ale. As an afterthought he pointed to Rue. “They’ll be buying one more for each of us.”

  I expected Alric to shake him off. We did need help, but this scum wasn’t it. Instead, he nodded to the barkeep.

  “So, with my secret way, I made it back. There must be a time veil in there somewhere—time slips around looser than it should. Being as I’d stolen from them mages, including the way to get back, I couldn’t go back to working for them. Luckily, Reggie came along.”

  At least now it was clear why the mages near Beccia didn’t bring him back. They knew he robbed them and felt it was safer to leave him stuck. They obviously didn’t know that he’d taken the way out of Null. His value had gone up for us by a lot. Hearing him mention Beccia wasn’t good, but hopefully when he said outside of it, he meant far outside.

  Alric sat back and studied Mackil with a Carlon look. In other words he was scowling so much he was making my face ache.

  “What was the name of the main mage?” I really didn’t want to know and hadn’t planned to ask—it sort of came out. Either it was a name that would make me sick to my stomach or it was someone I didn’t know. I had no idea if the mayor of Kenithworth was a mage or not, but I did know he was interested in Beccia.

  “Some dwoller freak, Cirocco. Seemed to be the man behind things. Had some little weasel working for him, Grimwold. He was the one who recruited me. I think they were actually looking for Carlon here.”

  The mayor I’d been expecting, I wasn’t too surprised about Reginald being involved, although he and Nivinal shouldn’t have passed anywhere near Beccia.

  But Cirocco? He was one of the crimelord wizards of Beccia and had been involved with some nasty business when I first met Alric. Actually, he had been part of why I met Alric—they’d put a bounty on him and I’d been forced to bounty hunt to make ends meet.

  If they were looking for Alric, they wanted him and not Carlon. Considering Grimwold had last been seen on the run in Kenithworth and Cirocco had been in jail, this wasn’t a good development.