The Emerald Dragon (The Lost Ancients Book 3) (2 page)

I quickly busied myself with more tea as an image of a battered and broken Slim Jankins popped into my head. The stubborn satyr had survived his attempt at flying when I flung him away from me in the ruins a few months ago. However, almost every bone in his body had been broken.

Lucky for me, he had no idea what had happened, and I wasn’t telling anyone. But while Slim had been trying to kill me, and probably deserved a sound thrashing for all of his criminal activities, what if that had happened to a friend? Or an innocent? I had no control over what I did to him.

“Fine. But I won’t like it. And if my head explodes I am coming back from the dead to haunt you for the rest of your long life.” I waved the flittering waitress over. “He’ll be paying.”

Alric handed her a handful of coins—I still had no idea where he got funding from, and I didn’t know that I wanted to know—then we left.

We were a few pubs down the street when the ground started shaking.

Chapter Two

We were too close to one of the more ramshackle pubs on the lane, so both Alric and I ran for the center of the street before parts of the buildings could drop on us. By the time the shaking stopped five minutes later, everyone from inside the pubs had joined us.

Parts of the Kingdom of Lindor regularly had earthquakes—Beccia wasn’t one.

“Ach, Taryn, what be that?” Foxy was the last person to join us in the street, most likely making sure all the stragglers were out of his pub.

“An earthquake?” the minotaur next to us answered. Which started a major argument between a dozen or so other Beccian citizens as to how impossible that was since Beccia didn’t get those and clearly magic was involved.

At which point they all looked at Alric.

“It wasn’t me, and I agree, it was an earthquake.” When Alric had saved the town the first time from the ravages of the glass gargoyle and my former patron Thaddeus, everyone thought he was dead and a martyr. When they realized he was not dead, had come back, and again saved the town, they celebrated him for hours. Until someone pointed out that he was an elf and put that together with the fact that two elves had kidnapped good Beccian citizens, killed over sixty of them, and again tried to destroy the town. At that point, they collectively decided they weren’t sure what to think of him. Well, straight women and gay men ignored the drama and just gave him mooneyes.

They muttered at Alric’s comment, but regardless of how they felt about him, the entire town agreed he was not someone to be messed with. They dispersed and went back to their early Saturday afternoon drinking.

“I thought we don’t get earthquakes.” I said.

Alric took my arm and changed direction, so we were going further into town. “We don’t. That wasn’t an earthquake.”

Damn. I would have hoped that in the last five months of knowing Alric I’d get used to the lies. Nope, he got me again.

“Then what was it?”

He grinned. Anything mysterious and possibly deadly seemed to make him do that. “I have no idea, but we should go check.”

“Checking what? We go, too.” Garbage Blossom, my orange faery, said as she flew past while riding Bunky like a flying goat.

“Bumbling rumbles!” Crusty Bucket chirped as she flew around Bunky.

“Not our fault!” That was Leaf Grub’s contribution as she too flew over Bunky.

As usual, Bunky said nothing but seemed content to be with his faeries.

Before I could respond to anyone, the ground shook again. Instead of the long, slow rumble of a few minutes ago, this one was sharp enough to knock Alric and me to the ground. Then it stopped.

Alric’s grin vanished as he got to his feet and helped me up as well.

Garbage Blossom’s scowl matched his as she glared from atop her obsidian steed.

“That was not an earthquake either.” He picked up speed and almost started running when a second sharp jolt hit. This time neither of us fell, but the faeries and even Bunky tumbled about in the air as an invisible pressure wave hit them.

“What the hell is going on?” I said to anyone or anything that had an answer.

Alric didn’t say anything but increased his pace. Unfortunately, everyone who had gone back to their pubs and homes after the first quake, were now back in the street. Running evolved into dodging at this point.

“That was an explosion, a big one,” Alric finally said as we reached the end of the pubs and he turned down a narrow lane to the left. There were a few businesses at this end, scattered among a collection of tiny gnome houses. The only big thing down here was the Antiquities Museum.

Or rather, the only big thing down here
had been
the museum.

A huge wall of dust and airborne debris brought us to a stop before we could see the end of the lane, or the building. Bunky and the girls dropped lower in flight, and all four hovered a bit behind us.

I thought Alric would keep going anyway, but instead he muttered a few words and threw his left hand in the air. A wind came from behind us and thinned out the dust.

“I thought you said not to use magic for simple things?”

He scowled at the dust still hanging in the air. “No, I said don’t waste magic. This isn’t wasting it. We need to see what happened. Now.” He flung his right hand up this time and the dust vanished.

So had the museum.

The Antiquities Museum had been built about sixty years ago. An offshoot of the university, no big elven ruins had been found at that point. Since then, each administration added onto it until it had become almost as large as some of the massive ruins below the city. It was ugly, awkward, and ill designed.

It was also missing.

“You didn’t accidentally do that, did you?” I didn’t think he would have, but one never knew.

Alric’s glare said volumes. “If I destroy a building it wouldn’t be by accident.” He went to the far side of the hole where the museum had been.

A group of unconscious people were in a pile at the bottom of the ruined steps that had led into the museum. While Alric stalked around the hole, I ran over to see if any of them were alive. There were two museum guards and two of the employees, all still breathing but very battered and bloody. They must have been running out of the museum when it collapsed into the hole before us.

I stepped past them and peered into the giant hole. If anyone had still been inside when it went down, they were dead now. From the pile of bricks and debris, the building must have crumbled as it fell into the hole beneath it. As if the ground under the center of it vanished and the building followed. Even the nearby trees looked crooked.

“These people need help,” I said to Alric but he was busy frowning at something in the dirt a few feet away from me.

“It’s coming.” Alric waved a hand behind us. Foxy, his fiancé, Amara, and half a dozen townsfolk came up the path. Foxy and Amara were an interesting pair. Foxy was about seven feet tall, with long floppy ears and tusks that jutted up from his lower jaw. Amara was a pureblooded dryad, so tiny and frail she continuously looked like a faint breeze could lift her up. The faeries and Bunky led them and I hadn’t even noticed that they left us.

Foxy thanked the faeries, then came to where I stood and motioned to the handful of townsfolk with him. “Gather around, we be needing to get these people to a healer.” Foxy was in his new take-charge mode, one that started after he fell for Amara a few months ago. I had no idea how the relationship between he and Amara had finally been settled. She had been originally using him to get information about us and the relics for the people she worked for. Who, unbeknownst to her, happened to be Jovan and Glorinal. Foxy had taken the betrayal hard, but it looked like love had managed to overcome it.

“What happened?” Foxy stepped beside me and peered down the hole. Then he shuddered and took a step backwards.

Alric joined us as he wiped his hands on his black pants. He’d been messing around with the dirt again. “I found a number of smaller holes and, judging by the age of the debris, someone spent weeks tunneling under the museum.”

“So this was a natural collapse? Well, not natural if someone dug the ground out from underneath it, but this wasn’t an explosion?” I had my doubts.

“Oh no,” Alric peered down the hole and shook his head. “There was an explosion. A bunch of them I’d say. The others were too far away for us to feel them, and they were probably smaller. They ended here.”

Foxy folded his arms and nodded. “Then where it be starting?”

Alric shook his head, and the frown on his face carved a few more lines. “I’m not certain, but judging from the collapsing trees, I’d say it started in that direction.” He pointed out to the forest behind the former museum. Trees, huge old gapens, tilted unnaturally. “If I had to guess I’d say it started about two miles from here. At the mine.”

Chapter Three

I regretted eating all of those sandwiches now. “What do you mean,
mine
?” While Beccia hadn’t mined for the last thirty or so years, plenty of former ones were around. It didn’t have to be
that
one.

“That mine. The one that collapsed two months ago, taking that bastard with it.” Alric looked ready to jump down in the hole in front of us to find answers, but he shook himself and stepped back instead.

One of the guards was too big for the others to carry, so Foxy nodded to us and went to help.

I waited until he was out of earshot. “Are you trying to say that
he
caused this?” The townsfolk were almost as wary of Glorinal’s name as Alric was. “How could that be? That mine was huge and it collapsed. I don’t care how strong a magic user you are, if an entire mine falls on you, you are dead.” He needed to be dead. I still woke up at night in terror of him and what he tried to do. And what he threatened to do. Both he and Jovan had been working for someone else, someone they both called Master. However, Glorinal went crazy and decided that with me at his side, willing or not, we could overthrow everyone. Including Jovan and the Master.

Alric bent down, sifted the dirt through his fingers, and then looked up into the trees. They were denser here than I recalled, but then I didn’t think I’d ever studied them as I was doing now. “I don’t know. What I do know is that magic was used—a lot of it—to displace the ground under the museum. And judging by the tracks, some people escaped into the woods afterwards.”

“But it doesn’t have to have been him. Besides, how can you even make a guess about what happened?” I was worried that someone destroyed the Antiquities Museum, but I was terrified that Glorinal might not be dead. Denial was a fine place, and I was staying there.

Alric gave me a look as he rose to his feet. “I’m a scout, remember? I was trained in tracking.” He dusted his hands off again and put an arm around me. I slipped my arm around his waist and leaned close. He rubbed my shoulder for a few moments, then lowered his voice. “We have no idea if he survived. Most likely these were just treasure hunters looking for the chimera.” He dropped a kiss on top of my head.

I looked up into those amazing green eyes. “Liar.”

“I tried.” He shrugged, gave my shoulder a final squeeze, and headed back to the main road.

I should have accepted the lie.

The people carrying the injured had gone, but more townsfolk headed our way. More folks who looked like they would ask questions.

Alric grabbed my arm and briskly started walking away. Harlan had been in the new crowd, but he broke free of them and followed us. He was a good friend, fellow digger, and possibly the nosiest person I knew. He hated me to say it, but I’d long ago decided his insatiable curiosity was a throwback to his feline ancestors. Harlan was a chataling, a species that looked like a house cat had mated with a human. Chatalings hated being called cats.

“You two are up to something. Now, what really happened back there?” Harlan’s whiskers twitched.

“We need to get to the mine. Now.” Alric dropped his voice low. As soon as we were out of sight from anyone at the collapsed museum, he turned us down another lane, and then twisted back through two alleys.

“Mine? What mine?” Harlan kept up with us, but he had missed the earlier conversation.

“Keep it down.” Alric shot him a look and gave a quick shake of his head.

Harlan, sensing a great conspiracy at work, simply smiled and laid one claw aside his nose with a wink.

“Alric thinks the explosion that took out the museum started at the mine,” I said then held up a hand to stop him. “Yes,
that
mine.” I looked around to make sure no one was listening; I was now sure I saw Glorinal everywhere.

Harlan froze, his eyes wide, and his tail lashing about. Glorinal and Jovan had kidnapped him and Covey when they’d grabbed townsfolk.

I was sure Harlan’s nightmares were at least as bad as mine.

“No.” That was the most succinct I’d ever heard Harlan, but I agreed with the sentiment.

“I need both of you to calm down. We’ve no idea what happened, but I can almost guarantee that the magic shields around the mine fell with those earthquakes. We need to get there and see what really happened before the council realizes their shields are gone.” Alric turned down a few more alleys, one nothing more than a two-foot-wide gap between two old stone buildings, then to a trail into the woods.

I shoved Glorinal out of my head. With any luck we’d find his skeletal remains in the mine and I could sleep better at night. Finding the chimera artifact would be a bonus.

It wasn’t hard to follow the line of destruction once you knew what you were looking at. The explosions out here hadn’t been as large as the one that swallowed the Antiquities Museum, but they left a brand-new ravine in the woods. Trees tipped over or hung out over the edge, their roots reaching out toward the abyss.

The mine had already collapsed, thanks to the fight with Glorinal, so the new damage was even further down. I hadn’t been near the mine, none of us had, since that horrific day, but it looked like the hole was deeper and wider now.

The fact that all three of us could walk right up to it told me Alric was right about the shield being down. Magic of that sort would have been tied to a nearby object. Chances were the tether was down in the hole now.

“Who is going down there?” Harlan peered over the edge, but the look on his face said it wouldn’t be him.

“Me.”