Chapter 9 #2
Sword at the ready, she took several steps to try to see what had made the noise.
A giant stone slab—a former wall—lay on its side, the dirt disturbed.
Had that just fallen? She wasn’t sure since she hadn’t looked that closely before, but other horizontal slabs that had topped over time were covered with grime and leaves.
One even had a fern growing out of a crack.
The slab she was looking at wasn’t covered in anything. Yet.
“Because it was standing upright until thirty seconds ago?” Rylana rotated slowly, looking all about the top of the knoll, and she also peered skyward, half-expecting to find a dragon flying about. With their great power, knocking over a stone slab wouldn’t be challenging.
But the sky remained clear of dragons. This section of the forest was quiet, with few birds singing, but that had been true since she’d arrived, probably because of the nearness of the dragons.
Not sure how much time she had until Jildarin's conversation with his relatives would come to an end, Rylana picked up the book and lay it open on another fallen slab. She kept her sword out as she turned to the first page of the journal again.
After making sure that nobody had skulked out of the forest and was watching her, she skimmed down the list of names, this time taking in the notes. The mayor’s entry read:
Definitely knows about his people’s past and has a lot invested in maintaining the status quo.
His family has started as many businesses as the Avandars.
Many cousins and siblings involved, living richly and well.
Gnomes are prospering like never before in history.
They like it and having power and sway over all species living in their city. Lean on him first.
Under High Priest Miknog, the notes read:
Not clear if he knows the truth or is a willing participant in the mass delusion about the new god, but, either way, he should be amenable to protecting his position and the influence of his temples.
Why did it sound like Vormalt meant to blackmail people? High-ranking gnomes.
His earlier words about revealing the secrets of the city came to mind.
Was this about gaining something for his family?
What? And what would he blackmail the gnomes with?
The fact that he’d knocked over a little statue of a troll god?
That couldn’t possibly have done anything long-lasting and serious. Could it?
Rylana’s gaze drifted to the newly fallen slab again, and she remembered the shelf of mugs randomly collapsing in the kitchen. And the ogre wandering around with incense. Had Vormalt truly unleashed a curse? From under her family’s castle?
“How did you find me?” came a male voice from the mouth of the pyramid tunnel.
Vormalt. Hair tousled, clothes rumpled, he looked like he’d had a rough morning. She hoped he’d endured ill effects from the curse he’d apparently unleashed. Despite his haggard appearance, he stood straight with a crossbow cradled in his arms, though he wasn’t pointing it at her. Yet?
Even though his wife, Pennigrew, hadn’t given her much to go on, Rylana didn’t want to get her in trouble.
She probably had no idea what an orc’s fragnok her husband was.
And Vormalt was apparently much more of one than Rylana had believed.
Maybe he had deliberately brought poisoned cookies all those years ago, trying to get her out of the library so that he could…
what? Do exactly what he’d done? Tear up the floor to find the buried temple?
Had he been angling to get down there all these years?
If that had always been his goal, it was hard to believe he wouldn’t have found a way to get in there at some point while she’d been gone.
Maybe he’d recently unearthed some new information that had informed him where in the library to look.
Or maybe seeing her again had rekindled his interest in his quest.
Rylana bared her teeth, hoping it had nothing to do with her. She shouldn’t be to blame for any of this.
“You mumbled your intentions while you were in a semiconscious stupor on the ground under the castle,” Rylana said.
Vormalt’s brow furrowed as he seemed to consider the possibility. “Well, you’re too late to stop anything. If that’s what you care about. Is it? The gnomes are the villains. You should be on my side.”
“How are they villains?” Rylana asked, though his note about the mass delusion of the new god floated through her mind.
“They’ve been duping everyone in Tranquility for centuries. Not just Tranquility. Around the world, people believe there’s really a new god, that the old gods stepped aside or went dormant for his creation. Didn’t you see my notes?”
“No, you interrupted my reading. And having cursed stones falling over left and right is distracting as well.” Rylana waved toward the freshly toppled slab.
Vormalt blinked and peered out of the tunnel and toward it. “Is that what I heard? I thought the pyramid was coming down.”
“So, it wasn’t me calling your name that brought you out of hiding?”
“No, though I was perturbed to find you reading my notes.”
“You shouldn’t have left your diary out in the open in a public space if you didn’t want anyone reading it.”
“This is hardly a public space, and my horse was supposed to keep an eye on it.” Vormalt frowned as he looked behind her. “Where is my horse? You let him go?”
“He broke his lead because he was scared.”
“Of you? I know you said you were a mercenary in the war, but I assume you don’t molest friendly horses.”
“There are dragons in the area.”
Vormalt snorted and waved a dismissive hand.
“What are you trying to find in the pyramid?” Rylana asked. “More troll idols to tip over? Is that all you did under the castle, or did you unleash… something else?”
“The temple under your library is one of the two original troll-god shrines around the lake.”
“The room next to our root cellar was a troll-god shrine?”
“Yes. There used to be tombs down there too, from what my research suggested. Someone might have moved them before covering that area up, but they didn’t dare touch the idols, I assume.
” Vormalt eyed her sword and also the bow staff and feathered arrows poking up over her shoulder.
“I’ll be happy to tell you more if you’re on my side, but I’m not sure that you are.
I can’t imagine why you’d want to defend the gnomes, but… ”
“I don’t know if I do or not. This is all new to me, and I’m suspicious of you. How long have you been scheming to tear up the library floor and get down there?”
“It’s not that torn up. The map I recently stumbled across by the architect who designed Avandar Castle eight hundred years ago helped me locate the spot. Before that, I wasn’t even sure if it was under the library. That just seemed about the right place based on my earlier research.”
“How much earlier? Was it perhaps seventeen or eighteen years earlier?”
Vormalt smiled. “If you’re asking if my desire to wed you and be invited to move into your family’s castle was motivated by this…” He spread his hand vaguely.
“Was it? I’ve never been the most beautiful woman in the city, and I’m positive I never oozed infatuated adoration for you, even when I was a teenager.”
“You used to think I was pretty sexy, as I recall.” His smile turned into a smug smirk.
Rylana almost blurted that he was misremembering the past, but she had, perhaps for a time, been drawn by his handsome face.
It wasn’t as if he’d forced her into kissing him down by the lake or that she hadn’t gone willingly with him when he’d drawn her into the boathouse.
Her cheeks heated, chagrin and embarrassment mingling at the memory of her na?veté.
“You’re all right,” Rylana relented in saying, mostly because she wanted Vormalt to keep talking and explain everything.
He would be less likely to do that if she was hostile and made it clear she would oppose him.
That was her instinctive reaction toward whatever he was scheming, but if the new god really was a hoax—could that be true?
—would opposing him be the right choice?
She couldn’t get on board with crime and coercion, but had he unearthed something that people should know about?
“Do you want your blackmail notes back?” she offered. “What’s in the pyramid?”
“Blackmail. Really. As if I’d be so crude. But, yes, I would like—”
A large shadow passed over the knoll, and Vormalt broke off.
Rylana looked up and swore. It was a dragon, and it wasn’t Jildarin.