When they reached the top of the rough stairs, Giogi peered into the crypt, but the guardian was silent.
Giogi crept across the crypt without a word. Olive needed no warning to step as softly as she could, but Cat couldn’t leave well enough alone.
“So where’s the guardian?” the mage asked as they waited at the crypt door for Giogi to pull out his key.
“She’s here,” Giogi muttered as he inserted his key in the door and unlocked it. “Please, don’t disturb her.”
“Giogioni,” the guardian’s voice whispered. “Not long now, my Giogioni.”
Cat whirled around and saw the huge wyvern shadow on the far wall. “Mystra’s mysteries!” she whispered excitedly. “There is a guardian.”
Giogi flung the door open and smacked Olive through. The burro needed no further encouragement. She clomped up the stairs.
“What does she mean?” Cat asked. “Not long until what?”
“Don’t ask, please,” Giogi whispered, tugging on the mage’s arm to pull her through the doorway with him. As soon as the disk floated through, too, he slammed the door shut and relocked it.
“Why shouldn’t I ask what she meant?” Cat demanded.
Giogi closed his eyes. “Because I don’t want to know,” he whispered.
They trudged up the last four flights of stairs. Giogi hopped hard on the tenth step from the top, and the secret door slid open. He ushered them through the mausoleum and out into the graveyard beyond.
The noon sky was a cold steel gray laced with low clouds, but the trio blinked in the open air as if they had been prisoners exposed to full sunshine for the first time in months.
Giogi reached into one of the burro’s packs and pulled out a vial of healing potion. As carefully as he could, he poured it down Steele’s throat. His cousin stirred and sighed, but remained unconscious.
“That’s the best I can do,” Giogi said. “We’ll have to get him to a cleric. How much longer can you carry him like this?” he asked Cat.
“As long as you need me to,” the mage replied with a gentle smile.
“Thank you. For everything,” Giogi said.
What about me? Olive thought. I’ve pulled more than my share of the weight, too, you know.
As if reading Olive’s thoughts, Giogi scratched between the burro’s ears and said, “We’ll be home soon, Birdie. You’ll get your lunch then, and with any luck we’ll get an explanation from Unce Drone before teatime.”
Yes, Olive thought. Uncle Drone’s one mage I want to meet.
Their party hadn’t gone halfway down the graveyard hill when a man wrapped in a green cloak came rushing up to meet them. He was calling out Giogi’s name. As he approached, Olive realized he was another Wyvernspur. He had the same face as Steele, Nameless, and Jade’s murderer. Good grief, Olive thought, how do Wyvernspurs tell one another apart?
Now, that has the makings of a good joke, the halfling mused. She studied the newcomer. He didn’t have a mole like Steele, but he was just as young. His eyes weren’t the right shade. Jade’s murderer had ice-blue eyes, like Nameless’s eyes. The eyes of the man before them now were definitely hazel.
Beside her Olive felt Cat start for a moment and gasp softly. Funny, the halfling thought, that’s the same reaction she had when she got a good look at Steele. I wonder why.
“It’s just my Cousin Frefford,” Giogi explained. “Let me do the talking.”
Cat relaxed instantly.
So, this is Frefford, Olive thought. Well, he’s not the murderer. That leaves me with Uncle Drone.
“Good morning, Freffie,” Giogi greeted his kinsman when they stood face to face.
“Good morning, Giogi. What happened to Steele?” Frefford asked.
Giogi sighed with exasperation. “He went in without me. I found him under a kobold trap. I thought I’d better get him back before exploring further. This young woman was in the graveyard. She offered to give me a hand with him. He’ll be all right, I think. Freffie, how’s Gaylyn?”
“She’s fine,” Freffie replied. “Mother and daughter are both fine.” His grim tone, however, did not match his good news.
Giogi broke into a grin. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you. But shouldn’t you be with them?” Frefford’s hard expression finally registered with Giogi. “Freffie, what’s wrong?”
“Aunt Dorath sent me to fetch you and Steele,” Frefford explained. He took a deep breath and put a comforting hand on Giogi’s shoulder. “It’s Uncle Drone,” he said. “Aunt Dorath said he went to his laboratory to cast some awful spell. We looked everywhere for him, but he’s disappeared. On the floor of his lab we found,” Frefford’s voice broke. He swallowed and continued. “All we found were his robes, his hat, and a pile of ash. Uncle Drone is dead, Giogi.”
9
Drone’s Last Message
Giogi felt as if he’d been pole-axed. The color drained from his face. He did not reply to Frefford’s news at once, but stood looking out at the lake in the distance. Wind whipped his hair about his face, but he seemed not to notice.
“Giogi, are you all right?” Frefford asked, squeezing his cousin’s shoulder gently.
“No,” Giogi said. “There has to be some mistake. He can’t be dead.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t a mistake. I’m sorry, Giogi. We all cared for him very much,” Frefford said. “Come on, let’s get off this cold hill,” he suggested, pulling on his stunned cousin’s arm, leading him down the hill.
Olive and Cat followed, with the disk carrying Steele trailing behind them. Frefford’s and Giogi’s cloaks whipped out behind them in a wind that swept up the hill. Olive glanced sideways at the mage and was surprised to see she wasn’t shivering with only her satin robes to protect her from the weather. Cat was deep in thought.
I’ll bet she’s weighing her chances with Giogi without his Uncle Drone to protect her from her master, Olive thought.
What are the chances, she wondered, that Drone killed Jade and retribution caught up with him the very next morning? Olive shook her head. It hadn’t seemed very likely that the old man Giogi had described as sweet and gentle would be Jade’s murderer. Now I won’t be able to identify Drone for sure, Olive realized, since he’s been turned to a pile of ash.
A pile of ash—like Jade! Did Drone meet his fate at the same hands? Was the murdering Wyvernspur running around killing all of his kin? Olive trotted closer to Giogi and pricked up her ears to eavesdrop on the two men’s conversation.
“How could this have happened?” Giogi asked, rubbing tears from his cheeks.
“We think he used a gate spell to bring in something dangerous and evil, then lost control of it, and the thing killed him.”
“But he hated gating things,” Giogi protested. “That spell always ages him horribly. Why would he do a thing like that?”
“To help him find the spur,” the Wyvernspur lord explained. “You see, after the baby was born, Gaylyn and Aunt Dorath both wanted me to lend a hand in the crypt. Gaylyn was worried for you, and Aunt Dorath, of course, is frantic to have the spur returned. Uncle Drone said that there was no sense wasting my time, because once you got past the guardian, you’d be fine, and the thief and the spur weren’t in the catacombs anyway.”
“Oh,” Giogi murmured listlessly. He thought that if he hadn’t been wasting his time saving Steele’s miserable hide, he might have been with Uncle Drone.
“Oh? Is that all you can say?” Frefford asked. “Giogi, did you know about that?” he asked, suspicious.
“Uncle Drone told me last night,” the noble admitted, “but he wouldn’t tell me why he misled us all. He said I was supposed to go down to keep up the charade, and tell him later everything that happened.”