The Emerald Dragon (The Lost Ancients Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Covey stepped forward at this, clearly having decided she had observed as much as she could from Orenda, and most likely felt I would screw up our questioning.

“Tell me about the artifact. Has it always been with your people? Did they take it during the Breaking?”

Orenda’s eyes flew wide again and she looked quickly back and forth between us. “You are not clan; you are both of the younger races, and how is it you know of the Breaking?”

She was definitely not from Alric’s clan. Nor, thank goodness, from wherever the tribe Glorinal and Jovan came from. I was beginning to wonder how we thought the elves had died out, since it seemed there were pockets of them all over the place.

“Let’s leave it at I’m a university professor and she’s an archeologist specializing in your people. We know,” Covey said. I gathered we weren’t going to point out that we hadn’t known about the Breaking until a murdering elven member of the Dark came to town. Yeah, probably better not to mention that.

I went to sit a bit further away. Alric’s odd little hideaway didn’t have a lot of seating, but a stool grew out of the wall near the door. Orenda looked toward me; maybe she thought I was nicer or she wanted to make sure the keeper of the demonflyers was in sight at all times.

“Perhaps when you have forgiven me for my assumptions and attack upon your person, you can explain where the knowledge came from.” Orenda tilted her head in a well-practiced show of apology.

Covey shrugged. She wasn’t the type to care for formalities, what she cared about was information. She hadn’t been interested at first when Alric brought up the emerald dragon, but the sheer repetition of it right now was clearly piquing her interest. “The dragon?” The tone was crossing into annoyed professor now.

“I am not one of our religious leaders, but I can tell you the hgythh was rescued from its place in the temple when the Breaking came. It was kept as a sign that we could reclaim our lives as we had saved ourselves from the cult that tried to destroy us.”

Covey sat back in her chair and flexed her fingers. It was a predatory move, but for her it was mostly because she was thinking.

Orenda was watching her fingers almost as closely as she’d been watching the faeries. She may have called both of us younger races, but she clearly recognized a trellian.

“Done now?” Garbage and the other two were sitting on the edge of the table swinging their legs. Bored faeries were almost more dangerous than drunken ones and I didn’t know how much more Orenda’s ill ease about them would help us.

“Fine, go bug Harlan. See if he’s found anything about Alric.”

All three were out the door before my words ended.

Orenda narrowed her eyes. “That is an elvish name. Have you resorted to calling yourselves by your superiors’ names?”

Oh, she was going to be fun. Jovan had that same attitude, along with wanting to destroy the world. However, even he hadn’t been quite as annoying as she was.

“Our superiors?” Covey leaned forward now, her eyes narrowing. “My people recall who freed the elves from the sahlins. We know what our
superiors
did by leading them to us.”

That was news to me. Alric had mentioned it, but I’d no idea that Covey’s people had passed the history along. I guess when some all-powerful magic users try to dump a bunch of murdering maniacs in the middle of your home desert, it stuck with a culture.

Orenda deflated a little bit. Covey was right, she was young. And sheltered.

“You know your history well; my people have not forgotten the aid brought to them by the lesser races.”

“I’d stop using that lesser races bit unless you want to see how well I am still in touch with my berserker ancestors.”

I couldn’t see Covey’s face from where I sat, but seeing Orenda’s was enough. I knew there was no way Covey would allow herself to slip into that berserker status for someone like Orenda, but the elf didn’t know that.

“So, then is Alric now a common name among your people?” She might be young, but she was trained somewhat in diplomacy. However, I still had questions about a people who would send someone like this out into the strange world.

Alric, I could understand. He was trained to be sneaky and deadly. I didn’t doubt Orenda could fight in a controlled environment, but it was clear from her reactions that her people had been as sheltered as Alric’s over the centuries.

“Alric is an elf, I’m thinking from a different clan.” I told myself I’d imagined her eyes lighting up at that. He was more or less
my
elf from another clan. I was not going to go into that with tall, elven, and beautiful.

I waved my hand as she started to ask questions. “Look, save all of that for later. Right now, why did you come here to find the relic?”

“Fair enough, I have treated you both poorly.” She gave an extremely graceful bow especially considering we still had her tied up. “Our dragon guardian, the relic, was stolen some time ago. We cannot function properly without it.” She pulled herself up proudly. “I took it upon myself to bring back our guardian totem.”

Covey got up with a sigh, and motioned for Orenda to turn so she could untie the rope. “So, you decided that regardless of what your people were doing you would make a name for yourself by finding the emerald dragon.” She shook her head.

“Now what do we do with her?” I watched as Orenda rubbed her wrists. Most likely the ones who stole the dragon were the actual remnants of the original cult behind it, the rakasa. Or a new breed of devotee. Either way, leaving her to run around looking for them wasn’t a good idea.

Covey’s look said she’d reached the same conclusion. “We let her go.” Orenda jumped up to grab her weapons, but Covey pushed her back onto the sofa. “But, I’ll warn you that someone has been leaving emerald dragon stamps all over Beccia the last two days. In stone. I’d advise you to be careful.” She gave a thin-lipped smile.

Orenda’s face had been full of enthusiasm at the freedom, but it crashed when she heard about the markings. But, she finally nodded and started picking up her things.

Orenda had finished stowing all of her weapons and was putting the bow and quiver back over her shoulder when the ground slammed into itself. It was a single sharp jolt and it knocked all of us to the ground.

“They found me!” Orenda screamed.

I pulled myself off the ground, braced my legs against any other shakes, and looked out the open door. Not a soul in sight.

“Nope, unless whoever is looking for you is coming up from underground, no one has found you.” A fair amount of tree debris was drifting down, but this explosion hadn’t been close enough to knock down any trees.

Orenda didn’t look like she believed me and stayed on all fours. There was no way in hell her people would have let someone like this out into the wild world. Most likely the ‘they’ she was worried about finding her were the search party out trying to bring her home.

I motioned to Orenda. “Are we really just going to leave her to wander around?”

Covey started to shrug, and then smiled. “Harlan.”

That was perfect. Harlan had always wanted to meet a female elf. He could keep an eye on her, and we’d get both of them out of the way.

“Are you certain that wasn’t caused by
them
?” Orenda was settling down but she still looked a little white around the eyes.

I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what she was talking about, but being rude to her probably wasn’t the best idea. We may need her help later on. “Who is them?”

“The Ancients, the ones who almost destroyed the world.” She blushed. “I know they are probably tales told to frighten children, but growing up we were told that a race of giants vanished long before we came north, thousands of years before the Breaking. They were dangerous and brutal and held such magic powers that not even the mightiest mage of elven lore could match. Our elders told us that if we were bad, or tried to go beyond the clan boundaries, they would come back for us.” She waved one long hand in the air. “But clearly there were never any such beings.”

Covey and I shared a look, which Orenda caught.

“They are real?” Her hand shook as she pointed out the doorway. “And that ground shaking was them moving around?”

I gave her some credit. If I thought giant, all-powerful beings were coming out of childhood stories to smite me down, I probably would have run away screaming.

“There is evidence of a race of beings that we call the Ancients.” Covey spoke slowly, as if weighing how much to say. “But we’ve not seen anything that indicates they were giants, or that they attacked anyone. They did vanish long before your people appeared to have arrived in the area however.”

“But our elders seem so sure of the stories. They aren’t just tales for children.”

Something Alric had once said about those who survived the Breaking came back to me.

“How old are your elders?” Alric had said most of the eldest were either lost in the Breaking or didn’t survive long once they had all scattered. The wounds they received in the Breaking destroyed the oldest and the most powerful. I’d assumed that the other clans, if there were any, would have been in the same situation.

“Very old, at least five hundred years.”

Which would mean all of their elders were lost, since the Breaking was over a thousand years ago. Something had been shortening the lifespans of those who survived the Breaking if all of them were gone within five hundred years. No time to deal with confused history at this point. Harlan could work with her.

“We have a friend who will be more than happy to help you with this. He might even be able to help you find the emerald dragon. How long ago did it get stolen?” Covey said but her focus was clearly on getting Orenda dropped off as soon as possible.

“A few years ago. Someone tunneled under our defenses to get into our city. They took the artifact, killed many of our people, then vanished.” The scowl on her face was more than a reaction to the crime. “Our leaders said that it was other elves that took it. But that is ridiculous. We are all one people.”

I knew a few elves that would have fit the bill. We had no idea how long Glorinal and Jovan had been off doing their evil deeds before they came to Beccia. They, and perhaps more of the Dark, could have attacked her clan. However, we were back to me not wanting to discuss all of this now. We needed to find out what exploded this time, and drop off our elvish princess with Harlan and get back to tracking down who took Alric.

I started herding Orenda toward the door. “You’re probably right. Now let’s go find someone who will help you. Covey and I have to go solve some problems of our own right now.”

We all went out of the small cottage, but I wasn’t sure how to shut the door. Alric’s spells of hiding should still hold, even if he wasn’t in the area. But we couldn’t help if someone stumbled upon it and saw an open doorway.

When the girls had sung the door had vanished, an issue I hadn’t worried about until now.

“Oh, however did you get it open?” Orenda muttered a few words under her breath, and then waved her right hand in an elaborate arc, and the door came back. The house also seemed to fade a bit. If you got this far, and knew it was there, you could see it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t notice it.

“I do hope you can figure out how to get back in. It wouldn’t be proper if I compromised another elf’s home.” Now that her bouts of fear were gone, Orenda was back to her superior attitude.

Judging by the way Covey was flexing and un-flexing her hands as she led the way out of the ruins, I had a feeling the sooner we dumped off our elf friend the better.

Chapter Nineteen

Covey stayed out in front a bit, more to get away from Orenda than to act as point for anything. We were out of the ruins and headed into town when Covey finally dropped back. “We still need to find that second changeling again.” She’d kept her voice low, but since Orenda was between us, she couldn’t miss it.

Her laughter was not what I’d expected. It was far throatier than I would have given her credit for. “You are kidding now. Changelings? Those never even made proper tales to scare children with.”

Again, our faces gave us away.

“You simply cannot be serious. Creatures that can change what they look like on a whim? No one has that kind of magic anymore. And I doubt they ever did. Our forefathers would never let such things be created.” The superior tone and attitude was something that had to have taken a few hundred years to perfect. Her people, wherever they were, had the brainwashing down to an art.

“Orenda meet reality, reality meet Orenda.” I was hoping she and Harlan took a shine to each other, because she was really bugging me. But her reaction to beings who could change their appearance did make me wonder about her clan’s magical abilities. Alric could and would glamour himself with ease.

“Not going to explain it here.” Covey looked around, but there was still no one at this end of the town close enough to hear us. “But, yes, they exist.”

“But—”

“No.” Covey cut her off, then turned and marched toward Harlan’s new home.

His wives still hadn’t let him back into their family home, so he was living in an upscale flat closer to the center of town. From the way he was settling in, it might be a permanent housing change. He still visited his wives from time to time, and they him. However, they’d grown tired of his increasingly eccentric ways and if they didn’t have to live with him it was better for everyone.

We were on the edge of the more populated area of town, when I pulled both Covey and Orenda back. I pointed to Orenda’s very noticeable ears. “Can you let your hair down enough to cover those?” Even Alric had kept his hair long and loose to help folks forget what he was, and just about everyone in Beccia knew what he was. A strange elf, even a beautiful lady elf with huge doe eyes, wouldn’t be well received in town. Not until the attacks from Jovan and Glorinal faded a bit.

“What is wrong with my ears? They show I am of the highest family in my clan, someone to be respected and honored.” Orenda pulled back away from me as if I was going to rip off her ears here on the street.

I wouldn’t go after her ears or her hair, but she backed right into Covey and her nice knife. With a single swift movement, Covey sliced the leather cord holding back Orenda’s hair.

Orenda let out a meep-like squeak and grabbed the cord as it fell. Her red hair tumbled around her face making her look even younger than she already did. “Why did you do that?”

We were starting to see more people, and in minutes we’d be going down the pub lane. I held on to her arm and stopped her from trying to pull her hair back without a cord or ribbon. “Quickly. Until recently, the people of this town thought the elves were all dead or vanished. This city is built upon the ruins of your people. We found a few elves. One, Alric, we think is on our side.” I ignored Covey’s raised eyebrow at that. “But the other two were brutal murderers. One a member of the Dark, another, an elder from before the Breaking who had helped the Dark in the end. They hurt a lot of people in this town and killed dozens, so I wouldn’t go around advertising you’re a pure-blooded elf around here.”

Orenda was duskier than Alric, but her skin faded to the color of milk when she heard the word ‘dark’. Her people may have a messed-up history, but some things got preserved.

She nodded once, pulled down her hair until it practically covered her face, and seemed to hunch down into herself.

She stayed silent through the rest of our trip. Covey skirted the pub lane, but I liked to think it was because it was faster to cut through side streets than any fear on her side that I would wander into The Shimmering Dewdrop.

Harlan was leaving his flat as we approached. He had moved up in his abode choice; the last time he’d picked his own place it had been a falling-down wreck on the poor side of town. This neighborhood made me feel very outclassed.

Orenda started relaxing the further we got into the nicer side. Most of Beccia would be a rude shock for our elf.

“Hello, ladies.” Harlan gave a short bow that was strictly because of Orenda, and that was without even knowing she was an elf. He was always looking for new ladies to charm. “I was about to run some errands, see what exploded this time, that sort of thing...hello?”

As he spoke, I reached up and pulled back Orenda’s hair.

Harlan grabbed her hands in his and shook them like an elected official on voting day. “My dear, a real live elf woman. Such a nice change from those men, not that they weren’t lovely.” He scowled as who he was talking about caught up in his head. “Well Alric isn’t bad.” He shook his head. “But you, oh, you must come inside and tell me your story. I’m Harlan by the way.”

Orenda was looking overwhelmed and I wondered if her people had any history that included chatalings.

“She’s Orenda, not from Alric’s
or the others
clan, and new to the area.” I looked up at Harlan’s flat. I knew he had multiple extra rooms. “And she needs a place to stay.”

“I couldn’t possibly.” Orenda’s voice came back but she was still watching Harlan shaking her hands.

“Of course you can. Where else would you go? Back into the ruins? I can assure you, you wouldn’t find them a good place to sleep.” Covey jumped in, telling me she felt we’d dawdled enough.

Harlan had already started turning Orenda around and leading her toward his front door. “I can brew some tea and we can have the biscuits my wives delivered, and you can tell me all about you and your clan.”

The tea and biscuits might have started her moving, but the chance to talk about herself got Orenda’s feet running for the door.

Covey didn’t even wait for them to get to the door, before she swung me around and started back down the street.

“What are you so impatient about?” Tea and biscuits sounded lovely about now. Too bad I hadn’t thought of raiding Alric’s little house for food.

Covey was still pulling my arm, and considering her legs were about six inches longer than mine were, it was fast enough to make me run to keep up. “I saw him.”

“Who him?”

“Alric. However, I think it’s the second changeling again. Just down that street, came around the corner, saw you and me, then took off.” Covey was on the prowl; her head went down a little bit and every few dozen feet she’d slow down.

I followed behind, but my thought was on the last quake. And Alric. I didn’t think the two were really connected, but both were starting to freak me out. I completely agreed with Covey on getting rid of Orenda, but we needed to get back out in the ruins and find out what was going on.

There wasn’t much I could do about finding out about the most recent quake if I wanted to keep up with Covey. She was already a few feet ahead of me. My magic wasn’t much but she might need it if this changeling gave her a bad time.

Covey had darted around a corner, and I did as well, granted, still a few feet behind her. And right into an unconscious Covey with Alric standing over her with a large stick.

“Alric?” It was safer to let the changeling think I was fooled. “Are you okay?”

The changeling spun to me and lowered his stick. The relief on his/its face was a nice touch. “This is a changeling. I don’t know where the real one is.”

I sighed. Yup. It was a changeling. There was a tinge of fear in the voice. The changeling had the same bag. I wondered what the real Alric had in the damn thing, and if I’d ever see him again to find out. I shoved that thought back into some dark corner. It took a few tries. Now that my mind had grabbed a hold of Glorinal potentially being alive and roaming free, and with Alric now missing, it was coming up with horrific scenarios faster than I could squash them. I wouldn’t be able to do anything if I just crawled into a corner weeping.

Covey was down, at least for now. However, I doubted I could keep the changeling here long enough to wait for her to wake up. I didn’t want to seriously hurt it, not until we got more information out of it. But I needed to get it away from Covey.

I dropped my head and let out a long slow breath. Hopefully if I calmed my breathing down enough, I wouldn’t have my head explode from fire ants when I tried this spell. Or so Covey kept insisting. She’d become an advocate of meditating recently, even if she herself didn’t use it much. I think she’d spent too much time with those nuns during her recovery after the battle for the glass gargoyle.

On my final exhale, I pulled in the power, said the spell words, and reached out for the changeling to come away from Covey.

Problem with spending one’s entire life as a magic sink and suddenly getting powers? Very little control of those powers. The spell I used wasn’t, or rather shouldn’t have been, strong enough to do anything except move the changeling a few feet away. Even that was stretching it, as it was a cantrip used for small objects.

Instead, I cast the spell, and then backed up frantically as the changeling and his bag, slammed into me.