Rylana grimaced at the noise and shook her head, surprised the peacekeepers hadn’t brought a patrol out to check on the situation yet, but maybe they were so busy responding to fires and other manifestations of the curse that they hadn’t noticed the dragons flying around.
“Cursed blight,” the digger growled, glancing toward the pillar and also the sky. “Whatnow?”
Rylana gaped. She recognized that voice. Vernest Vormalt.
21
Vormalt must not have heardtheir approach because, as the pillar continued gonging, he bent back to the hole he was digging beside the temple wall. Or was he trying to dig down under the foundation? Rylana couldn’t imagine why until he opened the pack beside him and drew out two glowing red orbs. The magical items Jildarin had sensed?
Vormalt pulled out a short wand with a tip that also glowed red and touched it to the side of one of the orbs. It started pulsing. He tucked the orb into the hole he’d excavated, then filled it in, covering the orb with rocks as well as dirt and tamping everything down.
With the second orb in hand, he grabbed his tools and pack and moved around to the far side of the temple. Soon, clinks and scrapes sounded again.
“Explosives?” Rylana whispered, having seen such magical items during the war.
Their creation took time, rare materials, and talented alchemists usually working with a glassblower, so they wereexpensive, and she hadn’t encountered them often. If anyone could afford to buy such things, Vormalt could, but to what end?
“Is he going to blow up the temple?” she asked. “That’s sacrilegious, not to mention criminal,” she added before recalling his belief that the new god didn’t exist.
Maybe itwasn’tsacrilegious. But even if it wasn’t, destroying public property was a criminal act. And, from what she remembered of similar magical explosives, they were powerful. What if he meant to blow up the wholeislandfor some reason? She spotted a rowboat drawn up onto the beach. Maybe that would let him escape the area and detonate the explosives from afar.
“Perhaps thecurseisn’t what’s been responsible for the fires,” Jildarin said softly.
Rylana barely heard the words over the continuing gongs of the pillar. She was tempted to ask him to speak louder, hardly caring if Vormalt heard them, since they ought to confront and stop him anyway.
“I doubt he’s been setting fires all over the city,” she said, though she was growing less and less confident that Vormalt wasn’t responsible for such lawless activities. Was hetrulygoing to blow up the temple? Or was it a part of his blackmail plan? Even if all he was doing was blackmail, that was criminal too, she told herself. “And there haven’t been any explosions that I’ve heard about. Besides, he wouldn’t have been able to get into the elven enclave without an invitation.”
“Perhaps.”
As the digging sounds continued, Rylana shook her head. She had to stop Vormalt before he got any further with his scheme. She took a step, but Jildarin grasped her wrist and held up a finger.
“Unless you have fern activities in mind,” she said, “I’m planning to stop him.”
“Someone else is coming.”
“This way, troops,” came a call from the direction of the boardwalk. Was that a gnomish voice?
Rylana stepped deeper into the trees to stand beside Jildarin, not wanting to be caught next to Vormalt when the authorities arrived. She didn’t need to be condemned as guilty by association.
The clinks and scrapes stopped. A moment later, Vormalt appeared around the corner of the temple with his tools put away and his pack slung over his shoulder.
Rylana bit her lip with indecision. What if he ran for the boat and escaped before the gnomes found him?
“Let’s stop him.” This time, when she moved away from the trees, Jildarin didn’t interfere.
But Vormalt headed toward the pillar, not the rowboat on the beach. Was he going to plant a magical explosive underneathittoo? He didn’t have any more in his hands. All he did was stop next to the pillar and turn to look expectantly toward the main road where it came out of the trees. The voices of the gnomes grew louder, and Rylana could pick out the thuds of heavy golem feet.
She hesitated before stepping out of the trees. Jildarin was behind her, but he was letting her take the lead now, and he waited to see what she would do.
Uniformed gnomes with lanterns came into view, fanning out around the observatory and wedding pavilion.
“Look for trouble,” their leader said. “Somethinghas brought those dragons to the lake and gotten them agitated.”
“It has to be the curse, Lieutenant!”
“Even if the city is cursed, that shouldn’t make dragons come here to fight. And get close enough to make the pillars gong. We have a treaty with them. They usually leave Tranquility alone.”
“We don’t— Oh!” A startled gnome had noticed Vormalt.
