The Dreamer's Curse (Book 2) Read online

  Decker, from behind her, leaned forward slightly and asked in an undertone, “He’s close enough to you to call you by nickname?”

  “We trained under the same master.”

  “Ahhhh.”

  Sarsen hadn’t changed much since she’d last seen him, back when Bel and company had finally left. He wore black leathers over his lanky frame, probably to protect him from the chilly wind, wiry black hair still cropped razor-short, and dark brown skin looking paler after going through the winter months indoors. His beard was stubbly and his eyes bloodshot, both signs that he hadn’t slept well since she’d called him. He slowed to a stop in front of her, looking her over from head to toe, eyes strangely penetrating. “Tell me you didn’t try tackling that thing on your own.”

  “Do I look suicidal to you?” she retorted dryly. “I gathered information and made a rough plan of attack while waiting. Well, that and drank mulled cider. It’s quite divine here. You must try it.”

  Sarsen let out a breath of relief. “Good. Master beat it into my head before I left that we are not to try and deal with this alone. In fact, he said if we could borrow the help of other magicians that would be wise.”

  “There’s two more in town,” Decker offered.

  “Thank mercy.” Sarsen belatedly held out a hand in greeting. “Sarsen Vashti, Artifactor.”

  “Decker,” the hunter responded, accepting the offered hand. “I’m one of the hunters of this village.”

  “He’s also our volun-told guide while we’re here,” Sevana added, still amused by that turn of events. Turning, she spotted Krause headed their way at a quick walk, girth shaking under the force of his pace. “And that is the Ombudsman of Chastain Village, and acting mayor, Krause.”

  Krause practically beamed up at Sarsen as he held out a hand. “A pleasure, sir. You must be Sevana’s colleague that she was expecting.”

  “Sarsen Vashti, Artifactor,” Sarsen introduced himself again patiently. “Pleasure is mine, sir.”

  “Now that we’ve made nice, let’s get to work,” Sevana suggested, wanting to move the pleasantries along. “Get that contraption of yours out of the road first, though.”

  Sarsen shot her challenging smile. “A contraption that is superior to yours.”

  “That is a point you have not yet proven, my friend.” An anticipatory tingle went up her spine. After the fountain was properly slayed and defeated, she had every intention of challenging Sarsen to a race.

  “Some things are self-evident,” Sarsen informed her with mock-gentleness, as if explaining a difficult thing to a child.

  “Ha!”

  Chuckling, he went back to his glider, shifting it about by the nose and rolling it well free of the road. As he did so, Krause leaned in closer and asked quietly, “How long have you two known each other?”

  She opened her mouth, frowned, and mentally added it up. “Thirteen years.”

  Krause gave her a knowing smile and nod. “That’s why you act like siblings.”

  They were very much like siblings, actually, despite having no blood relation whatsoever. But Master treated all of his apprentices like his own children, so developing such a relationship didn’t surprise anyone.

  “But you’re not actually related….” Decker sounded unsure of that even as he said it.

  She gave the man an exasperated look. “I’m short, blond, and fair while he’s tall, lanky, and looks Sa Kaon. How can you possibly think we’re related?”

  Decker raised his hands in surrender, not even daring to comment.

  Sarsen came back to them with two large bags slung over his shoulder, one of which Decker stepped forward immediately to help carry. Sarsen handed it over with a thankful nod but didn’t slow his pace. “Alright, Sev, tell me some good news.”

  “I already did,” she replied as she turned and started shoving her way back inside the village. Seeing as how the show was over, most people made way for them automatically.

  “What, that you didn’t start working on your own?” Sarsen’s mouth crimped into an unhappy line. “Is that really the only good news you can share?”

  She gave a shrug, wishing she actually had something but bad news to report. “I researched extensively yesterday and this morning and analyzed the fountain as much as I could. Here’s what I know: the artifact is hidden in one of the stones that make up the central fountain for the courtyard. It’s dated at the end of the eighth century—”

  Sarsen winced at that.

  She caught the expression and paused mid-sentence, clapping in mock-applause. “Oh good boy, you actually remember enough about history to know that’s a bad thing!”

  He rolled his eyes in a clear bid for patience. “I’m not completely hopeless when it comes to history, Sev.”

  “Can’t prove that by me. Anyway, continuing on—the artifact works on the elements of its own power, reflected light, and running water. Hence the power level of sixteen. There’s also a very strong shield up around it at all times.”

  “Probably to prevent accidents from happening while its magic is active,” Sarsen said aloud in a rhetorical tone.

  “That was my guess as well. But the shield poses a serious problem. Getting around it will not be an easy task.”

  Sarsen gave her a long look as they headed toward the main square. “Is this easier or harder than Bel’s curse?”

  “I’m still debating that.”

  Krause, following along behind them, piped up. “Was the prince’s curse truly so terrible?”

  Sarsen looked over his shoulder long enough to answer, “In terms of power, no. Bellomi’s curse was somewhere around a ten when Sevana came in. But because it had been attached to him so long, we had to borrow the power of a dragon in order to break it.”

  “It’s not the power levels that make a job easier or harder,” Sevana couldn’t help but add. “It’s the danger level involved. Right now, I don’t know which one I would rather deal with: a man-eating dragon with a touchy temper or an equally cantankerous artifact with a high power level.”

  For some reason, this made Sarsen chuckle. “Well, Sev, you were complaining you were bored.”

  “Not that bored,” she grumbled under her breath.

  In the next moment, they rounded the building and came into the square, letting Sarsen get his first proper look at the fountain. Unable to resist seeing it for himself, he pulled out a wand from his belt pouch, pointing it at the fountain and activating the spell: “N E FO LE .”

  Numbers and words in pure white light traced themselves in the air right in front of his nose. He read them as quickly as the wand could write them, expression becoming grim and set. “You said you had a rough plan, Sev.”

  “Either find a way to break the shield first, separately, so we can attack the artifact directly, or we attack the elements that are attached to the fountain and slowly wear out its power source.”

  Sarsen let out a long breath as he put his wand away again. “That’s a very rough plan.”

  “Needs refining,” she admitted with an unconcerned shrug. “But I couldn’t do much planning until I knew what Master gave you. Let’s find a place to sit and spread the goodies out so I know what we have to work with.”

  ~ ~ ~

  They retreated to Sevana’s temporary workroom in the Hall, and mysteriously gathered more people along the way. Goffin and Roland came out of thin air, as far as she could tell, but she had no objection to them taking a seat at the long table as they would likely be drawn into this fairly soon. Why Krause and Decker wanted to listen in too she didn’t understand at all. Most of their conversation would be in very technical, magical terms that would go straight over both men’s heads. If they thought she would stop and explain every little thing to them, they were sorely mistaken.

  Sarsen took a look around the room as he stepped in, taking in the size and shape of it, the things Sevana had already brought in and scattered along one end, and the map of the village with all of its magical markers that hadn’t b
een moved yet. He gave an approving smile. “This is quite nice to work in.”

  Krause seemed relieved. “I’m glad it suits you, Artifactor Vashti.”

  “Sarsen, please. And yes, better to work here than other jobs I’ve had. Well.” He slung the bag on his shoulder into an out-of-the-way corner before motioning Decker forward. The hunter handed over the bag he carried and Sarsen started to unpack it even as he explained to Sevana, “You told Master some of the elements of the fountain, but you weren’t sure then what elements belonged to the shield and what belonged to the fountain.”

  She nodded sourly. “They’re blended very well together. It took me most of the morning to be sure which was which. I take it he threw in a little of everything?”

  “All but the kitchen sink.” Sarsen listed them off as he sat different glass bottles and jars on the table in a neat row. “Fairy’s kiss, acorn from a 1,000-year-old tree, piece of a fallen star, a word from the Book of Truth—”

  Sevana had a hard time biting back a gasp at that. Her eyes flew wide as she stared at the miniature leather book on the table. A word from the Book of Truth had a ridiculously high power level, partially because of its rarity (it had been crafted during the time of great magic) and partially because it took considerable skill to lift it from the book’s pages. “Master had one of those?!”

  “Very well hidden,” Sarsen informed her, still looking a little awed. “He said use it only if it’s absolutely necessary, and if we don’t use it, he will come hunting for us if we don’t give it back.”

  She had an impulse to say she had used it and then squirrel it away somewhere.

  “Behave, Sev,” Sarsen warned her. “You know he’ll find out. He always does.”

  She let out a long, disappointed sigh. “You’re right. Alright, what else?”

  “Stillness of a moonless night and shiranui.”

  “Moonless night was used as part of the shield,” she informed him absently.

  “What, really?” Sarsen let out a wordless growl. “It took considerable digging to find that, too.”

  “This is Master’s storerooms we’re talking about. It takes digging to find anything.” Master could not claim to be organized in any sense of the word. She was the queen of cleanliness in comparison to him. Sevana had a working theory that the man kept accepting multiple apprentices just so he always had a cleaning crew on hand.

  Goffin cleared his throat to get their attention. “Sevana, might we know what the shield’s elements are?”

  “As I said, stillness of a moonless night, dwarven-made mountain stone—”

  “Wait, wait,” Roland protested, both hands up. “The fountain is made from dwarven stone?”

  “The ancient ruins lying off to the northeast of here?” she said tartly. “Yes, that’s all dwarven stone. It’s a minor fortune lying about and not a person in here recognized it for what it was. It’s also the reason why the shield around the artifact stayed intact. If they had used any other stone to complete that fountain with, the shield would not have had the energy it needed to activate.”

  Krause held up a hand. “Ah, ancient tales said that dwarven stone would hold up to any amount of weather without wearing away. Is that really true?”

  “You looked at the ruins, didn’t you?” Sevana responded, losing patience quickly. “It didn’t seem odd to you that all of the stone there still had sharp, prominent edges?”

  Krause looked sheepish and couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “We didn’t think the ruins that old.”

  Sevana lifted her eyes to the heavens, asking how she ended up working with such ignoramuses.

  Sarsen, a kinder and more patient soul than she, said gently, “It’s dwarven stone. It’s very, very expensive and hard to find in this area of the country. It had to have been shipped all the way from the Shinogee Mountains to get here. If I were you, after all this was over, I’d hire an expert to go through those ruins and dig out anything else that has been buried in them. Then, once you know it’s safe to do so, I would take the ruins apart and sell all the stonework before word of this gets out and you have robbers show up to do the work for you.”

  Goffin, proving to have good business sense, immediately turned to Krause with a professional smile. “I’d be happy to go take a look while I’m here and see if there’s anything else dangerous hidden.”

  “There are at least three things I saw,” Sevana told him absently, already focused back on the job at hand. “Anyway, the last element is moonlit water. The stillness of a moonless night and the moonlit water tend to blend together, but I’m fairly certain that they are not directly connected.”

  Sarsen turned to her with his forehead furrowing. “Fairly certain?”

  She hesitated before admitting grudgingly, “I’m not entirely sure. I believe that they were meant to blend together to keep the shield attached to the artifact. But there’s something about the way it’s designed…” she trailed off, still not quite sure what bothered her or why. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “I’ll take a look,” he promised. “Maybe I’ll see it. Alright, so, with those elements and the ones of the artifact, what does that leave us? The acorn we can toss out.”

  Seeing the two villager’s confusion, Goffin explained in an aside, “It clashes with the water elements. It wouldn’t work well.”

  Both men made silent “ah” sounds as Sevana and Sarsen sorted out what was on the table into useful and not useful piles. “Fairy’s kiss will blend well, as will the word from the Book of Truth—”

  “—although I’d rather not use that if we don’t absolutely have to,” Sarsen put in.

  “—which leaves us with the shiranui from Master,” Sevana finished. “Plus the captured sunlight and flask of sulfur mud from the Mudlands that I have.”

  Roland leaned over the table to peer at the bottled mud. “Now when did you have a chance to get that? It’s ridiculously hard to buy on the market.”

  “When I was still working on the solution to Bel’s curse, I took him there to test something and stocked up while I could.” She said this as if it didn’t mean anything, but she could tell from the gleam in Roland’s eyes that she had caught his interest. “I have a few other flasks in my storerooms, if you’re interested?”

  “We’ll talk prices after this,” he promised firmly.

  Sarsen poked her in the ribs, making her jump. “Will you focus?” Ignoring her dark scowl, he pointed at the useable pile. “Now, if we’re aiming on taking down that shield first, I suggest we use some sort of combination of shiranui, mud from the Mudlands, and captured sunlight.”

  Sevana held up a hand in a staying motion. “Wait, Sarsen. Don’t get ahead of things. We don’t know what will happen if we break the shield.”

  He opened his mouth, paused, and subsided into a thoughtful hum as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

  Decker cleared his throat. “You said there was another Artifactor you wanted to speak with, a historian that specializes in these things. Why? I mean, you sound as if you know what to do.”

  She shook her head in denial. “There are too many unquantified facets to this problem. How strongly is the shield tied to the artifact? By destroying it, do we destroy the artifact as well? Does it have some sort of fail-safe where attacking one part will make it transport, or burn, or do something else entirely? Can we use a spell that is only slightly stronger to attack with? Or will it be too weak to take down the shield? If not, will it cause a magical backlash that will destroy half the village?”

  “You see our hesitation,” Sarsen added, taking pity on their unease at Sevana’s words. “We don’t want to do anything, or try something when we only have half the information and we’re guessing at the other half. Jacen—the other Artifactor—might or might not know anything, but we still need to discuss this with him. He might know something, or he might be able to help us figure out more. We reckon it’s worth the aggravation to research as much as we can before we tackle your fountain.”<
br />
  “By all means,” Krause choked out, face ashen, visions of destroyed villages dancing in his head.

  “Until then, I take it we’re counting on you two to keep track of everyone and rescue them when they need it?” Sarsen asked the magicians sitting at the table.

  “That we will,” Roland assured him.

  “Good. Well, it’s too late to leave tonight, so why don’t we go to Jacen’s tomorrow?”

  Sevana smiled at him sweetly. “We can even take our own vehicles. How about I race you there?”

  A feral smile lit up Sarsen’s face at the open challenge. “Mixing business with pleasure, Sev?”

  “Always.”

  They flew directly north toward Denniston Forest and the Belen-Kindin border. Sevana pushed Putter to its absolute limits, flying far faster than prudence dictated, and she stayed neck and neck with Sarsen the entire way. The way the air whipped around her felt exhilarating like she had never experienced before. She caught herself laughing aloud several times just from the adrenaline rush.

  They reached Jacen’s place in about half the time it should have taken. Sevana navigated Putter to land on a slight knoll outside the front door in a small circular motion, settling down with an easy bump and short skid on the slick grass. Sarsen, of course, had to come in even easier and used up much more ground in order to land. He came to a stop about five feet ahead of her, on the road that led up to the gated door, unbuckling the harness as he completely rolled to a stop.

  “I won!” she called to him as she climbed off the mini-skimmer.

  Sarsen stopped with his hands on the last set of buckles and frowned up at her. “What are you talking about? We got here the same time!”

  “I landed a good fifteen seconds before you did,” she pointed out victoriously.

  “The landing doesn’t count!”

  “Who says? If you wanted to only count airtime, you should have said so from the beginning!”

  He lowered his goggles to give her a dark glower. “We’re racing on the way back. No way I’m letting this cheap victory of yours slide.”

  She gave him a cheeky grin. “Fine by me.” As she waited for him to get completely free, she grabbed the bag with her notes and the scans she’d taken, slinging it casually over one shoulder. Then she took a long look around the area.