Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8) by Brad Magnarella (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

a coiled rope and a wooden bucket large enough to bathe in. Bree-yark approached the well and peered inside.

“This is it,” he said. “Faerie’s on the other side of the water.”

I came up beside him. Dropsy hopped from his pouch and stood on the well’s stone wall. When I looked down, I expected to be face-to-face with a shimmering surface, but the well was dry for as far as I could see.

“What water?” I asked.

Bree-yark dug into his pouch and came up with a coin of some otherworldly mint. He dropped it over the mouth of the well, and we waited. Eventually, from far below, came the faintest kerplunk.

“That water,” he said. “You ready?”

“Wait, you’re not planning on jumping?”

“Relax.” He chuckled. “We’re heading down in the bucket.”

“Of course,” I said dryly. “The bucket. Why didn’t I think of that?”

I reached for one of my neutralizing potions, an incantation on my tongue, before stopping myself. If I downed the potion, I risked canceling the very magic we would be counting on to get us into Faerie.

Dropsy hopped aside as Bree-yark used his considerable strength to heave the bucket onto the wall ringing the well. A rope trailed from the bucket handle, and Bree-yark began fussing with the rest of the coiled stack. It was only when he pushed it to one side that I saw the pulley system bolted into the ground.

“Goblin engineering?” I asked.

“Damn right,” Bree-yark grunted. “All right, go ahead and climb in. I’ll push you out.”

“In the bucket, you mean?” I looked at the proposed conveyance.

This is frigging crazy, I thought. But if it’s the only way… I checked that my pockets were sealed before climbing onto the stone wall. Very gingerly, I set one leg inside the bucket and then the other.

“You too, Dropsy,” Bree-yark said, taking the lantern and placing her beside me.

Moving my pack around to my front, I squatted low, knees jutting up to my shoulders. It was a tight fit.

“Everyone in?” Bree-yark called, and shoved us into space. The bucket plunged several feet—holy hell!—before stopping suddenly. We swayed side to side, knocking against the walls. At one point we nearly tipped over. When we steadied again, I blew out my pent-up breath while Dropsy glowed excitedly.

Above us, Bree-yark was standing on the stone wall, holding the rope that suspended us. It looked as if we’d have to take two trips. But no sooner than I’d formed the thought, the goblin dropped the rope’s slack into the emptiness below and began walking down the side of the well like a mountaineer.

“Hey, I’m not sure there’s room in here,” I said.

Bree-yark turned and planted his taloned feet on the bucket’s rim opposite me. Our conveyance rocked dangerously before settling again. When I looked up, his sharp, smiling teeth were glinting in Dropsy’s light.

“Next stop, the Fae Wilds,” he announced like a proud host. But all I could feel was a nervous foreboding.

The pulley system creaked and the bucket swayed as he began lowering us down.

10

Bree-yark’s echoing grunts provided an offbeat to my pounding heart as we descended. The opening of the well had long since disappeared, isolating us in Dropsy’s orb of enchanted light. After several more minutes, I had to know how close we were to the water. But as I reached toward Dropsy, she shrank back.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

When she relaxed, I grasped her brass handle. Then I lifted her slowly, craning around until we could both see over the side of the bucket. Some distance below, Dropsy’s glow caught a wrinkle of water. Before long, the dancing wrinkle became a round, glittering sheet. Dropsy seemed to transfix on it too.

Oh, this is fae water, all right, I thought.

When it was close enough to touch, I anticipated the splash, wondering what would follow. But no splash came. The water was falling away. I turned toward Bree-yark. “Why are we going back?”

“We’re not,” he grunted, despite that he was drawing us up hand over hand. “We’re through.”

“Through?” I peered back down. The glittering circle of water looked the same as when we’d been descending. But the sides of the wall were made of smooth stone now, not the jagged granite from earlier. And when I looked up, I could make out the opening. It wasn’t distant at all, only fifteen or twenty feet away.

Well, holy crap.

When we reached the top, Bree-yark stepped from the bucket. Bracing the thick rope between his teeth, he pulled our conveyance onto the well’s rim. Still holding Dropsy, I climbed out and stepped into a cavern whose ground was strewn with pretty autumnal leaves. Natural light entered from an opening a short distance away.

I didn’t have to ask if we were in Faerie. The air was unnaturally fresh and clean, everything in my vision several degrees sharper. And beneath it all flowed the magic of the realm: subtle and seductive.

I clapped Bree-yark’s thick shoulder. “Well done, sir.”

He bowed his head modestly. “Well, I promised to get you to Crusspatch’s, and we’re not there yet.”

“How far a journey are we talking?”

“About a day’s march, if memory serves.”

“Then let’s go ahead and potion up.”

I set Dropsy down and retrieved two potions from my coat to cancel fae magic and then two more for stealth. I’d packed ample quantities of both, my coat practically dragging with their weight.

Outside, a bird began to sing. The lilting song brightened my mood, and I caught myself smiling. My coat felt lighter too. Hell, if I flapped my arms, I might even take flight. I snorted a laugh at the thought. Bree-yark, who had been organizing his pouch, looked from me to the approaching song.

“Oh, crap,” he said, “that’s a satyr’s panpipe. Quick, Everson—cover your ears!”

It now dawned on me that for the last several seconds I’d been smiling stupidly at the potions in my hand when I should have been activating them. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except merriment and mirth.

“A satyr’s what?” I asked, giggles spilling