Chapter 25
Since peacekeepers and elves lingered in the street out front, ostensibly directing a search for Vormalt but also availing themselves liberally of the coffee shop’s samples, Rylana, Sylin, and Jildarin all slipped out of the bakery the back way.
Mya, saying she needed to get bread, scones, cookies, and a couple of special cake orders underway, had declined to accompany them, but she’d been confident that Jildarin had enough experience to bake the sacred bread.
Whether he had enough experience to get an ancient oven working after it had been buried in the ground for centuries was another discussion.
Their trio hurried down the waterfront street, skirting the crumbled sections that had sloughed into the lake and dubiously watching the green miasma that lingered in the city.
As daylight brightened the area, Rylana glanced at her elven comrade a few times.
While Rylana had been grabbing her bow and quiver and Jildarin the dough, Sylin had acquired a shovel from who knew where.
It wasn’t her usual weapon, but she had mentioned a need for one.
“What prompted you to return to Lucky Island?” Rylana asked.
“A bad feeling.”
Rylana arched skeptical eyebrows.
“Also, I encountered Captain Laridon while avoiding the elves swarming through the city streets.”
“Can three elves swarm effectively?”
“Very much so. The captain asked me to investigate Lucky Island independent of his team. For some reason, he thought I might have insight into glowing blue beams and how to handle them. I am skilled at dealing with atypical situations, as I’ve proven.
He’s relying on me more now for unorthodox methods of resolving crimes. ”
“And offering you a suitable amount of coin?”
“Coin and coffee.”
“The preferred compensation of assassins.”
“Of some assassins, yes.”
Jildarin, who was striding along beside them with the dough inside Mya’s proofing box, looked over but didn’t opine on the conversation.
He kept glancing toward the sky at the southern end of the lake, something that gave Rylana a bad feeling.
She hoped his mother and aunt hadn’t changed their minds and returned to the area.
“Are there still peacekeepers on the island?” Rylana asked.
“Yes,” Sylin said. “In particular, I heard the original pair that was left behind talking, blaming each other for not finding the magical devices in time. They’d been scared by the irate dragon flying around and also by the thought of accidentally setting the explosives off while they were searching, so they hadn’t been following their orders as assiduously as one might hope. ”
“Since you say the explosion revealed a troll-god temple with an oven,” Rylana said, “maybe their negligence was a good thing.”
“I could have much more effectively baked the bread in a gnomish commercial oven.” Jildarin glanced at Sylin’s shovel. “It is modern, magical, creates a steady temperature ideal for the task, and is situated in a controlled environment.”
“I’m sure it would make the process easier,” Rylana said, “but if the troll gods had an oven right there in their temple, they might be extra pleased—extra appeased—by having their offering baked on site.”
Jildarin let out an exhalation that was as much a growl as a sigh. They’d all been up the whole night, so Rylana couldn’t blame him for feeling grumpy.
Another earthquake swept through the city and rocked the street, making them pause. In the distance, one of the pillars gonged. It sounded like it came from the far side of Tranquility, so Rylana didn’t worry too much, but she caught Jildarin glancing pensively toward the southern sky again.
“Your mother isn’t returning, right?” The boardwalk leading out to Lucky Island had come into view, so Rylana quickened her pace.
Her comrades didn’t object.
“I sense neither my mother nor my aunt in the area,” he said.
“Do you sense another dragon?” Rylana asked, remembering his warning about the sisters.
“Two. Foxvonla and Loxvonla are loitering in the wetlands.”
Rylana groaned. “I was afraid of that. Don’t they have anything better to do? The city is cursed. This can’t be the right time for pursuing a mate.”
“When he said the gnomish oven was better because it was in a controlled environment,” Sylin said, “I imagined he was talking about a lack of wind and rain and a relatively steady temperature, not that the bakery was unplagued by dragons.”
“I assume that does make producing quality bread easier. But there’s still a pillar on Lucky Island.
Dragons shouldn’t be able to come too close.
” Rylana nodded to herself. Jildarin’s mother and aunt, despite flying all over the lake and glowering at them—at her—hadn’t ventured over the island itself.
Despite the heartening thought, Rylana glanced often at the sky as they jogged across the boardwalk.
She went especially quickly past the spot Jildarin had once pointed out, a gap in Tranquility’s defenses between the last pillar on the shoreline and the one on the island.
Jildarin didn’t hurry his pace, merely striding defiantly along carrying his box of dough, so Rylana and Sylin crossed the island and reached the temple site first.
Rylana gaped at the destruction that the two small explosives had caused.
They’d obliterated the new-god temple, casting rubble deep into the woods and also as far as the beach.
A chunk of the roof rested on the bench of the rowboat she’d noticed there earlier.
There was even a piece of a column lying high atop the observatory.
What had been the stone floor of the temple was entirely gone, and bare earth had been hurled in all directions too.
What remained were previously buried pillars, arches, and the heads and torsos of two troll-god statues situated across from a chimney and the top half of the oven Sylin had described that was built into one of the walls.
Though they would have to dig out the bottom half and probably unpack earth from the chimney, an impressive amount of dirt had already been cleared away by the explosion.
“Amazing how much,” Rylana said as Sylin hopped down with the shovel to start digging. “I wonder if… Do you think the troll gods wanted their old temple revealed? Maybe they helped the explosions be more effective.”
Jildarin set the proofing box out of the way and also jumped down. “Gather wood. I will prepare the oven.”
Prepare meant finish unearthing. They wouldn’t be able to bake anything until the oven was unburied. At least the simple brick structure appeared fully intact.
Belatedly, Rylana realized that Vormalt probably hadn’t planted the explosives because he’d wanted to do random wanton destruction.
Through his archaeological research, he must have known the old temple lay beneath the new.
But why had he wanted to reveal it? Had he assumed the mayor and high priest would go along with his blackmail and that this place would be paramount in lifting the curse?
A huge chunk of dirt flew past her head, then landed on the ground and split apart. Sylin was digging, but Jildarin appeared to be using his magic, as well as his hands, to excavate larger chunks of earth and rock.
Trusting it wouldn’t take them long, not with dragon power onboard, Rylana set her weapons aside, then jogged into the trees to gather branches.
“Should have brought an axe,” she muttered, certain bread needed consistent heat and a while to bake. “And a cadre of lumberjacks.”
There was a city ordinance against cutting wood in the parks, but the peacekeepers might have made an exception, given the circumstances here. Thus far, she hadn’t seen the two gnomes who’d been left behind.
“We have company,” Sylin called as Rylana returned with an armload of wood.
Rylana’s first thought—hope—was that she meant the gnomes, but Sylin was looking toward the lake.
Full daylight now brightened the sky, so they had no trouble seeing a black dragon flying over the lake between the island and the shoreline.
“One of the sisters?” Rylana had a hard time telling one dragon from another, especially from a distance, and the ones she’d seen lately had all been black. She deposited the wood next to the oven and looked at Jildarin.
“Yes.” Magic rippled in the air around him, and the chimney creaked before a huge chunk of packed earth flew out the top. Focused on getting the old oven in working order, he wasn’t paying attention to the dragon.
Rylana paid attention to her, not confident that they were safe because they were on the island. The dragon roared, sounding irritated, and their gazes met across the lake. The fire burning in the dragon’s eyes promised she hadn’t learned to love Rylana in the time since their last encounter.
“Where’s the other sister?” she wondered aloud.
“Much more wood will be required.” Jildarin physically hurled a rock out of the oven.
“I’ll get it,” Rylana said, figuring it wasn’t the time to request he say please when issuing orders.
“Being partners with a dragon must be a delight.” Maybe Sylin had decided there wasn’t room for her to employ her shovel alongside a magic-slinging dragon because she jumped out to help with gathering wood.
“Making the diner successful is satisfying,” Rylana said, “and Jildarin is coming to appreciate me.”
“Is he still making you coffee-rubbed bacon?”
“That’s how he shows his appreciation.”
“I guess I might tolerate being given orders in exchange for that.”
“It’s very good.” Rylana kept an eye on the dragon as they fetched branches.
“She’s getting closer. Do you think… I mean, the pillars are supposed to do more than sound alarms if violent beings descend upon the city, but I’ve not actually seen one lash out against a dragon before. What if it doesn’t do anything?”
“Then we’ll have to do something,” Sylin said.
“Did you bring your case of assassins’ knives, daggers, garrotes, and whatever else is stashed in there?”
Her case was, unfortunately, as bound by tranquility ribbons as Rylana’s weapons.
“I did not. A garrote wouldn’t prove effective on a dragon, regardless. Their scales are like armor.”
Yes. Rylana had loosed arrows at them before and only managed severe blows when the heads had been made from fine dwarven mithril.
“What did you use the time you cut off one’s tail?” she asked.
“As I told you before, it was only the tip of the tail, and I used an enchanted mithril blade, which I do not have along.”
“Did you bring any special weapons with you?” Rylana asked.
Sylin held up her shovel.
“Oh, that’ll be vastly effective. Entire ballads have been written about noble warriors who slew dragons with garden tools.”
“I thought we were excavating a bread oven, not going into battle.”
“Technically, the dragon probably only wants to battle me.” Rylana snapped a couple of broken branches in half to add to her pile, hoping the unseasoned wood would be good enough for heating the oven.
“That’s a relief.”
“Of course, your beauty is such that the dragons may determine you a possible distraction to Jildarin too.”
“He doesn’t even know my name.” Arms full of wood, Sylin headed back toward the oven.
“I’ve not noticed that men need that information to be distracted by women.”
“True, but he’s not a man.” Sylin waved a branch in the air. “He’s a quirky shape-shifted chef with tendencies toward pomposity.”
“Yeah, I like him too.” Rylana grinned.
“He’s not bad when he’s shirtless,” Sylin allowed. “Is he still cooking bacon with his top off?”
“Bacon and anything else that spatters grease. Apparently, it’s easier for a dragon to endure heat and wash his torso than to do laundry.”
“Quirky,” Sylin reiterated.
Rylana dropped her load of branches by the oven where Jildarin now knelt, adding kindling to a small fire he’d started. She didn’t remark on the fact that he didn’t have matches or any of the other various gnomish fire-starting devices.
As Rylana turned to go back for more wood, the nearby pillar started gonging. She jumped, startled. The dragon had come closer—much closer—and the noise didn’t deter her. She roared and flapped her wings, heading toward the island.