Other than a dozen dead animals?
“Yeah. Also, have you heard of any artifacts designed to kill animals but not people?”
In many realms, humans, with their utter lack of magical senses and abilities, are considered animals.
“As a half-human who grew up in Seattle, I’ll try not to find that offensive.” I tugged on the first of the tall rubber boots—it was as awkward as I thought it would be.
I am simply saying that I do not know why an elf or dragon or other enchanter of artifacts would bother excluding humans from a creation designed to kill animals. Sindari wandered off, sniffing the ground and air as he continued to speak telepathically with me. I am also not aware of many artifacts that are designed to kill animals, unless it is a booby trap that is protecting something.
“If a dragon made it, I’m sure it wasn’t put here to guard the cranberries. Zav complains if there’s even ketchup on his hamburger patty.” As I’d found out recently when taking my dragon mate to Dick’s Drive-in for a late-night snack in Wallingford. The cook had left the buns off our order of twenty burgers—even in human form, dragons had ravenous appetites—but he’d refused to believe that anyone would want the meat without condiments. “I’m positive he wouldn’t want cranberry sauce on a turkey drumstick.”
Dragons are carnivores, as are all apex predators. Magnificent predators would not have fangs if they were meant to eat berries.
“Why do I have a feeling you’re talking about yourself more than Zav?” Once I’d gotten the boots on, attached the straps to my ammo belt, and removed my thigh holster so Fezzik wouldn’t get wet, I waded out into the chilly water. A nippy wind gusted in from the ocean, salty and cold and promising a storm.
Because you know I am magnificent. I am going into the woods.
Let me know if you feel woozy from the artifact’s magic. I switched to telepathy as we moved farther away from each other. My boots bumped against underwater cranberry bushes with every step, making the passage arduous. I’d hate for such a magnificent predator to keel over like a poisoned coyote.
I detect nothing deleterious in the air. Perhaps the water is tainted, and the animals were drinking it.
The words made me pause and eye the water halfway up my thighs. Coming out here might not be wise, but what choice did I have?
“Let’s hope rubber repels magical poison,” I muttered and waded onward, floating cranberries bumping off my thighs.
Though I still couldn’t see it, my senses tingled as I drew closer to the artifact. They guided me until a faint white glow grew visible, emanating from under a raft of cranberries. Whatever the artifact was, it was fully submerged.
Wishing I’d thought to bring a rake, I used my hands and legs to make waves to drive the berries away so I could see under the water. It only partially worked, but it was enough for me to make out what reminded me of a bouquet of balloons. Balloons emanating magic.
My chest grew tighter, a telltale sign of the asthma I’d developed in the last year rearing its head. It tended to get worse in stressful or emotional situations—and also if the air was polluted with such noxious things as woodsmoke or mold spores.
I eyed the distant bonfire—no, the funeral pyre—burning near the house, but this probably had more to do with concern about what this weird artifact might do to me. Surreptitiously, I dug out my inhaler, put my back to the farmer—he was standing on the shoreline and watching me—and took a puff.
My new vantage point let me see Sindari, his silver fur visible as he skulked through the trees. No, he’d stopped skulking and had his nose to the leaf-littered ground.
I have found a fairy ring, he informed me.
Like a circle of mushrooms? I’d heard the stories that they marked doorways into the fae realm, but I’d never seen such a doorway, so I didn’t know how much stock to put in rumors. I’d encountered people with fae blood before, but I’d never run into a full-blooded representative of the race. Elves and dwarves had once lived in hidden colonies on Earth, but I’d never heard suggestions that the fae did anything but visit and kidnap fair maidens.
Indeed. There are footprints around the mushrooms. Unlike the tracks around the bog, I do not believe they belong to the farmer or his family.
Do they belong to whoever planted this artifact? Perhaps unwisely, I stuck my finger in the water to touch one of the balloons to see if the farmer had been telling the truth about being zapped. A mere brush sent an electrical shock up my arm that reverberated through my torso and made me gasp and jerk back.
I cannot tell that. They were made a few days ago.
The farmer said this artifact appeared three days ago.
Few lingering scents remain, but I believe… Yes, fae or someone traveling from the fae realm may have been here. I detect an otherworldly smell.
What constitutes an otherworldly smell to my otherworldly tiger? I poked my sword into the water under the balloons, trying to locate whatever bound them together and to the bottom, and hoped the electrical charge couldn’t travel through my blade to me.
The dirt and foliage of their realm has a distinctive smell. All of the fae lands were crafted by magic.
My sword hit something. Not a chain or a rope or anything with give. I poked around it with the blade. A stem? No, more like a trunk. I probed to the bottom and pushed the tip into the mud.
“Sorry, Chopper. I’ll give you a nice oiling later.”
Unlike Sindari, the magical sword didn’t communicate with me, but it pulsed a brighter blue as if to acknowledge the comment. Odd. In the ten years I’d had the blade, I couldn’t remember it doing that. Usually, if it glowed a brighter blue, that meant an enemy was near and we were about to charge into battle.
I scanned the shoreline of the bog again. Though I didn’t see anyone but the farmer, the sensation of being watched crept over me.
One of my necklace charms allowed me to turn invisible, and I’d encountered others with similar trinkets or innate magic, so not seeing anyone didn’t mean that nobody was there.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. You’re sure those tracks are three days old, Sindari?
They are not fresh.
A thwump came from the farmer’s bonfire, and the flames leaped ten feet into the air. He charged over to check on it.
I didn’t sense anything in that direction, but that hadn’t appeared natural. I still had the feeling of being watched.
“This place is giving me the creeps.” Not wanting to hang around in the water any longer, I angled Chopper so that I could saw at the trunk under the balloons.
The tough fibrous material gave but surprisingly slowly. Chopper had an edge sharper than any mundane blade, and I could have cut down a redwood with it, but the sword struggled to make progress on this.
I switched to hacking instead of sawing, but the water made the cuts less effective. My arm brushed one of the balloons, and it zapped me through my sleeve.
Pain and irritation swept through me, and without thinking of the consequences, I lifted Chopper and smashed it into the artifact. The balloon didn’t pop, but it shattered, spewing out a puff of glowing white mist and glass-like shards. One gouged my hand as I skittered away from the tainted air.
“Good move, Val.” I eyed the glowing mist and scooted back farther, almost tripping over a submerged bush but hardly caring. Whatever that mist was, I didn’t want to breathe it in.