Riddle in Stone (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book One) (31 page)

“Yes, my lady,” the shopkeeper said with exaggerated grace. “I can assure you they are authentic. They came from the High Courts of the Longborough Providence. Lady Josephine used to wear them herself. In fact, they were a birthday gift to her from Queen Isabel.”

Edmund listened from the back of the gallery, pretending to read one of the overpriced books lining the merchant’s many shelves. After learning nothing of use at the Lower Library, he had been exploring the city’s numerous antique shops, hoping to find a map of the northern mountains or maybe a weapon made from Iliandor’s smoke-colored metal. Unfortunately, he found nothing that could help him rescue Molly.

He doesn’t know what he is talking about. Lady Josephine would have been only three years old when Queen Isabel died.

Stay out of it.

I hate fakes.

Edmund exhaled in disgust. Lying next to him, Thorax tilted her head and raised her floppy black ears.

A woman wearing an expensive mink wrap and a treasury full of jewelry examined the pair of earrings the shopkeeper was holding.

She doesn’t have a clue what she’s looking for.

Stay out of it.

But she’s being taken advantage of! How can I just stand here and do nothing? I should do something.

Don’t do a thing. It’s none of your business.

“I will take them,” she said, opening her coin purse.

The amount of money she handed the salesperson made Edmund look twice.

This is worse than highway robbery!

Stay out of it.

But he’s robbing her!

Stay out of it.

If he had a knife to her throat, I would be expected to do something. Why shouldn’t I do something now? She’s being robbed just the same!

“Thank you so much for your business, Lady Annette. And if I come across anything else that you might like, I will be sure to keep it in the back with the merchandise for my
. . .
special customers.”

“It is always a pleasure, Reginald,” she said, putting on the fake diamond earrings. “You are my favorite, you know that. So many of these other dealers are nothing more than poorly dressed charlatans.”

Somebody should teach him a lesson. I have to do something.

Don’t!

The skinny salesman offered a high-pitched chortle as he escorted her to the door. His chuckles became deeper and more genuine after she had gone. Then he noticed Edmund standing by the stacks of books.

“My dear sir,” Reginald said, slipping the Lady’s coins into his pocket as he bounded over to Edmund, “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t see you back here. Please excuse my horrid oversight. I—”

He took in Edmund’s ill-fitting attire and bare feet, the pleasantness draining from his face.

“Oh,” Edmund said, examining his baggy clothes. “These.” He winked knowingly at the merchant. “Consider this a disguise. I’m actually n-n-nobility.”

“Of course you are, sir,” Reginald said as if his time was being wasted. “May I be of some assistance? Beautiful animal by the way. We usually don’t have customers bringing them into the shop. This is a rare treat.”

Thorax bared her teeth.

“That’s a fine work you are examining,” he said, motioning listlessly to the book on the military exploits of King Romis the Sixth in Edmund’s hand. “It’s an original dating back to the early 400s, most likely written by Eol the Scribe.”

The ink is barely dry. The pages are brown because they were placed by a fire. I can smell the smoke.

Edmund slipped on a smile. “You have such a beautiful shop here. It’s positively wonderful! I’ve been all over this city and I must say, there is no other establishment its equal.”

A little more pleasure crept into Reginald’s tone. “You honor me. How can I repay your kindness? Are you looking for anything in particular or just
. . .
browsing? We don’t sell shoes, in case you weren’t aware.”

Edmund ignored the sarcasm.

“I was hoping that you might have something from the old n-n-northern lands, something from Iliandor’s time? He’s of great interest to me, you see.”

“Iliandor?”

The fake doesn’t know who Iliandor is.

“How, how about weapons?” Edmund asked, changing the topic. “Have you ever seen antique weapons made of a smoky, bluish kind of metal?”

“Smoky, bluish metal?” Reginald repeated. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“It’s of no great matter,” Edmund assured him. “It’s just an inferior alloy that turns color as it ages
. . .
very rare. I’d pay a great deal for such an item.”

At this, Reginald’s eyes regained their twinkle.

Edmund pretended to think. “Do, do, do you have any books or maps from the northern lands? Something that may be special? Perhaps something that you don’t keep out here where just anybody could sully them with their uneducated hands?”

“You know,” Reginald said, as if an idea had just come to him. “I have just such the thing for you. And if I remember correctly, it came from Iliandor’s own personal library.”

“You don’t say?” Edmund said with mock amazement. “Well, I would love to see it.”

Reginald considered Edmund’s appearance again. “You understand, these items are quite rare and, although reasonably priced, not everybody could afford such treasures.”

Edmund snorted a laugh.

“Let me see what you have. I have m-m-more than enough money, I can assure you.”

Still skeptical, the salesman went off to a back room.

When he was out of view, Edmund withdrew the three tiny diamonds that Norb had in his coin pouch. Winking at Thorax, he put his finger to his lips. Thorax lay back down.

“
Forstørre nå
.”

The minuscule stones doubled in size.

“
Forstørre nå
.”

They grew again. Edmund stole a glance around, making sure that the salesman hadn’t returned.

“
Forstørre nå
.”

Now the diamonds were as large as Edmund’s thumbnail. They were still flawed and crudely cut, but by size alone they would fetch fifty gold pieces each from any reputable dealer.

Reginald returned with a towering stack of books. He beckoned to Edmund as he arrayed them in a line across a glass table.

“I’m sure one of these will be of interest to somebody with such a fine eye for—” He stopped, his hand covering his horrified mouth. “I, I
. . .
I am truly sorry for my slip of the tongue. I meant
. . .
”

Touching where his left eye used to be, Edmund waved a hand. “Oh, not to worry. Not to worry. Please, show me what you have. They look splendid.”

“Thank you, sir. You’re most kind.” Bowing, Reginald finished arranging them across the table. “As I said, they came directly from Lord Iliandor’s personal library in the far northern city of Azagra. Did you know that he had one of the most extensive libraries in the entire continent? It contained some of the oldest books ever written, it is said. It’s a shame that it was burned down in the year 439.”

He just looked all of that up when he was in the back. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

Edmund examined the books placed in front of him with forced eagerness.

These are all cheap fakes. I hate fakes.

You shouldn’t be doing this. Just leave. Leave now before you get yourself into trouble.

He stole money from that woman and somebody should teach him a lesson.

Don’t!

I’m tired of running from fakes!

Picking up a small book of poetry with a faded green cover, Edmund read the title aloud. “Leaves of Spring.” He sucked in air like he had found a Crown Jewel from the Gods.

“Oh, you have tremendous taste, sir.” Reginald said. “It is said that Lord Iliandor used to read these very poems to his beloved wife every night before she fell asleep.”

I bet.

Don’t do it. Just walk away.

Edmund clutched the book as if he couldn’t stand to part with it.

“How much?”

“For you, a new customer, I’ll give it to you for one hundred and fifty silver—a bargain as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“I would indeed!” Then Edmund let a sad expression settle on his face. “B-b-but can you hold it for me? I don’t have many coins. Horribly heavy things, you understand.”

A look of validation appeared in the Reginald’s smug eyes.

“But I have an appointment with a jeweler tomorrow,” Edmund went on. “He’s going to give me ten gold pieces for each of these.” He opened his hand, showing the three monstrous diamonds. They shone in the sunlight streaming in from the windows.

His fingers rising to his lips in astonishment, Reginald took a small step back, unable to breathe. “May, may I
. . .
?” He held out his hand, the air leaking out of his lungs.

Edmund gave him the diamonds.

Reginald inspected them closely with an eyeglass. Edmund could see the pulse quicken in the merchant’s neck.

“Well,” the salesman said, his voice trembling ever so slightly, “I could
. . .
I could buy these from you for, say, twelve gold pieces each. That would save you the trip to the jeweler. I’d even throw in the book for free.”

“Are you sure? That’s a lot of money!”

“Of course. Anything for the valuable customer, such as yourself!”

Reginald counted out the coins and pushed them across the table before Edmund could change his mind. “And, of course, your exquisite purchase.” He smiled, handing Edmund the small green book.

Slipping the coins into his thread-worn pockets, Edmund smiled back. “Thank you s-s-so much! Everybody is correct about you. You are a fair and honest businessman!”

“You’re too kind.” Reginald bowed again, his hands still clutching the three inflated diamonds as if protecting them from thieves. “But you’ll pardon me. I must put these in a safe place.”

“By all means. And thank you. I’ll come back—”

But Reginald had already run to the back room.

Beaming on the inside, Edmund turned to leave, nearly bumping into a rumpled woman standing behind him.

“Oh,” Edmund said, attempting to calculate how long the diamonds would keep their present size. “Hello
. . .
Edith, is it? Yes. Hello. How, how are you doing this afternoon?”

“You really shouldn’t purchase anything here,” the woman from the library said. She wiggled her fingers at Thorax. Thorax wagged her tail. “Most of these items aren’t genuine.”

Wanting to be as far away from the shop as possible when the diamonds reverted to their original size, Edmund began walking out of the boutique, gesturing for Edith to come with him.

“Really?” he said with forced disbelief, examining the small book of northern poetry he’d acquired. “It’s a fake?”

“You already knew that,” Edith replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

Get out of here! Those diamonds will change back in ten minutes if not sooner.

Relax. It isn’t like he’ll stare at them for that long. He’ll gloat for a few minutes and then lock them in his safe. He won’t notice anything wrong until morning.

Then what will happen?

“So . . . wh-wh-what brings you here this evening?” Edmund asked, attempting to change the subject as he hurried down the street, the assistant librarian attempting to keep pace.

“I wanted you,” she said and then corrected herself. “That is
. . .
I found something that might be of interest to you. Back in the library.”

“Oh?”

What could she have possibly found that would warrant her searching all over the city for me?

“You expressed a desire to see maps of the northern portions of the Haegthorn Mountains.”

“Maps?” Despite his desire to get as far from the phony antiquarian as possible, Edmund’s stride faltered. He turned to her. “What did you find?”

“I think it would be best if I showed you.”

Edith brought Edmund and Thorax to the book lenders building. It was closed, being that it was well past sunset. But Edith had a key to the front doors. She let them in.

Inside, all was dark.

Lighting a small lamp, Edith led them through several storerooms.

They passed thousands of shelves overflowing with books. Crates and chests and cabinets lined the walls. Countless yellowing scrolls sat in holders like priceless bottles of wine stacked to the ceiling.

Edmund gaped around him as they walked.

There’s more here than I could read in a lifetime. Who knows what lost pieces of literature have been tucked away behind one of these boxes or cabinets, forgotten to the world for centuries?

“You initially indicated you were interested in the Haegthorn, particularly any maps of the eastern side,” Edith said as she walked deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Except for the three-foot ring of light around her lamp, everything was completely black, like an endless void. Their footsteps echoed in the rafters high overhead. Edmund inhaled the familiar scent of ancient parchment with satisfaction.

“I thought that you might be interested in a small collection we have. We don’t let many people see it. But it may be what you are looking for.”

Climbing up a ladder to the top shelf, Edith pushed aside several dusty crates with bundles of age-worn papers protruding out of them. Reaching as far as she could, she pulled a book the size of a tombstone out from the shadows.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” she said, carefully descending the ladder.

Setting the book on a worktable, Edith studied Edmund’s expression as he inspected the cover.

It was old, even by Edmund’s standards. Its leather binding was worn completely through in places. The thick pages crackled as he opened to the middle of the tome.

On the left-hand page, there were notes written in High Ruduel, one of the ancient languages that scholars once used when humans first made the voyage to the continent. It was an arduous tongue, especially in its earliest derivations, but Edmund knew it fluently. He skimmed through the many records and sketches, fascinated.

“This part seems to be a paleographer’s translation tablet,” he said. “Whomever it belonged to was attempting to decipher—” He beheld the right-hand page.

Those runes . . .

“You’ve seen these symbols before,” Edith said.

They’re the same from that book in the troll’s cave. I wish I could have rescued it. I wonder what it said.

“What? Yes . . . yes, I have. Briefly.”

Edmund turned a page, examining the runes painstakingly printed on the right side of the book.

“The Royal Library is said to have an entire room full of manuscripts like this, but nobody can read them,” Edith said as Edmund scrutinized the pages.

Really? Nobody? This is fascinating!

He turned up the lamp’s wick. Black smoke spiraled up into the darkness above them.

“So when a seller approached master Horic with this text,” Edith went on, “he purchased it with his own money. He never catalogued it for fear somebody might wish to check it out.”

Edmund turned another page.

“I bet he paid a fortune for it,” Edmund said, marveling at the quality of the sketches.

“He did. He spent nearly his entire lifesavings.”

It’s probably worth every penny. Shame nobody came to Rood trying to sell something like this to me.

“Every few days or so he takes it down and tries to decipher the characters. He’s been trying for decades, but he can’t make heads or tails of what they say. As I said, nobody can.”

Edmund examined the book’s binding. It seemed to be made of some strange silver thread.

What does this have to do with anything? Yes, it’s remarkable. But why is she showing it to me?

Edmund looked up at her, perplexed. “Why—?”

“Because I thought you might like to see these.”

Carefully, she turned past several hundred pages, past page after page of topographical charts, drawings of land features, and other sketches. As she turned, illustrations began depicting mountains, some crude thumbnail sketches, others detailed diagrams of unknown regions that unfolded into large pages several times bigger than the actual tome. She stopped when she came to a series of simple maps, faded arrows and notations drawn throughout the margins.

“I believe this,” she said, pointing to a dark line angling off to the left, “is the River Laudrum.”

As he studied the precision of the contour lines and the block-like letters of the ancient print in the margins, Edmund nodded in agreement.

His heart jolted.

The River Laudrum!

That might have been the river I saw when Crazy Bastard was running away! If we followed it north, it would lead the knights right to—

Scanning the upper right-hand portion of the map, he found a tiny cartographer’s icon for a tower. A faded line connected it with a notation off to the side.

Page 3811.

His heart surging, he searched for page 3811, his trembling fingertips making it difficult for him to turn the pages.

“Be careful,” Edith said. “You’ll tear . . . ”

He found page 3811.

A wave of cold washed over his clammy skin.

“Are you okay?” Edith asked.

Edmund pointed at the book, his throat feeling as if it were being squeezed closed. He fought for breath.

There, on page 3811, was a meticulous pencil and ink drawing of the Tower of the Undead King.

“Wh-wh-where . . . where did you get this?” He examined the drawing closer.

There was no doubt that it depicted the Undead King’s tower. It was so clear, so precise, that he could make out the very window from which he had watched Crazy Bastard scamper down into the valley below. It was as if he could see himself in the picture, gazing out longingly with the telescope. Even the trees in the foreground appeared to be identical to what he remembered.

“As I said,” Edith said, “Horic bought it years ago, long before I came to work here. Long before I was born, I’m sure. Would you like some water?”

Edmund shook his head as he read the annotations written alongside the image of the Undead King’s tower.

It was abandoned back when this was made . . . whenever that was.

Turning to a page number printed in the margin by the picture of the tower, he clutched at Edith’s arm like a stumbling blind man.

“What is it?” she asked.

It’s the entire layout of the tower! Every . . . single . . . floor.

With this information, we could rout out every goblin from every hiding spot in the entire tower. Now the King will most certainly be willing to send his knights!

The goblins won’t have a chance!

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Edith asked again.

Edmund nodded. “Y-y-yes, yes I am. Wonderful, in fact. Thank you.”

There were more page numbers, more illustrations detailing every foothill, every stream, every mountain peak in the region. There were even indications where caves were as well as crude schematics of entire cavern systems—where they could be accessed and where they became impassible. One page even had a lifelike drawing of the three portcullises through which he and Pond had escaped.

Edmund read aloud the notations under the picture. “ . . . unable to open . . . extraordinary alloy . . . unexplored ruins on other side . . . skeletons of unknown origins . . . ”

“How old is this book?” he asked Edith. “Best guess.”

Edith’s scrawny shoulders lifted. “A thousand years? But Horic believes that it is a copy of a much older text. If you notice, the handwriting is all different, as if it was copied by a series of scribes and bound. It’s far too precise to have been made in the field.”

“I need to study this,” Edmund said. “Can I—?”

Thorax leapt to her feet.

The echoes of a door closing rolled through the darkness toward them.

Edith went white.

“We have to put this back,” she said, closing the tome quickly.

“But I need it,” Edmund protested.

Edith scrambled up the ladder, slid the book back into the shadows, and then repositioned the crates in front of it.

“Please, I need—” Edmund said as Edith grabbed his hand.

“Come on,” she said, leading him deeper into the storage room. “If he finds us, he’ll . . . ”

She pulled him through another door, closed it softly, and urged Edmund and Thorax behind several dusty chests stacked on top of each other. She blew out the lamp’s flame and waved away the black smoke.

“I really need—” Edmund began in a harsh whisper.

Edith’s nails dug into his forearm. “Please be quiet!”

A scarlet glow appeared underneath the door. There were slow, halting steps, then a shuffling movement, as if crates were being repositioned.

An eternity passed. Edith clung to Edmund’s arm, her sharp breaths rasping in the darkness. Then there were slow steps walking away, the red light retreating with the echoes.

When they emerged from their hiding spot, the tome was gone.