The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown by Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson Page A

and Gilbert quickly followed, descending three steps into a small underground room. All that was there was a pedestal holding a bowl of water.
    Skylar dipped her wing in the bowl and brought a drop of water to her beak.
    “It’s saltwater, from the Wildecape Sea,” she said. “Agate stays pure within such waters. This bowl must have been where the sanctuary kept the gemstone. But it’s gone. Whoever took it either wanted to bring harm to this place or valued the worth of the gem over the well-being of those kind souls who tended these sacred grounds.”
    Aldwyn looked down to see Baxley’s paw prints leading directly to the pedestal, even scaling the stone stand, before retracing their way back out.
    “Baxley stole it,” said Aldwyn. “Malvern was right.”
    Skylar and Gilbert looked at him curiously.
    “He told me that my father was nothing more than a selfish grave robber. He left my mother and me for this – to pillage treasure for his own glory. That’s why he was seeking the Crown. Not to protect Vastia or summon the Shifting Fortress. He was just after a prize.”
    Gilbert looked at him with compassionate eyes; after all, the tree frog had his own experience with father issues. Even Skylar softened at the sadness with which Aldwyn had spoken.
    “I’ll be the first to admit,” said Aldwyn, “I’ve stolen a fish or two… or a hundred in my day. But that was to eat. What Baxley did was different. He had a family. He should have been with us.”
    “Our parents aren’t always the people we want them to be,” said Gilbert, in one of his rare moments of wisdom.
    “We should continue on. There’s nothing left here for us,” replied Aldwyn.
    Aldwyn led the way out of the crypt, arriving back above ground where the paw path resumed once more. Suddenly, his nostrils flared and he sniffed the air.
    “Do either of you smell that?” he asked.
    “I’m sorry,” said Gilbert, “I haven’t bathed in two days.”
    “No, it’s not you,” said Aldwyn. “It’s something else.”
    He didn’t have the precise words to describe the odour, but it was like a combination of fresh paint and chopped grass, with a third element added that he couldn’t wrap his nose around. Before he had time to take another sniff, Aldwyn heard a hissing sound coming from behind a tombstone and spun round to see a two-foot-tall, reptilian-faced humanoid with scaly skin and a forked tongue scampering towards him. Half a dozen more stalked out from the shadows of the crypts and mausoleums, carrying small shields and jagged rocks.
    “Friendly?” Gilbert asked Skylar.
    “Do they look friendly to you?” she shot back.
    “I try not to judge by appearances.”
    “What are they?” asked Aldwyn, backing off the paw-print path.
    “Rumlins,” said Skylar. “The scourge of the Northern Plateaux. I used to see them not far from here, when I would take day flights outside the Aviary.”
    The rumlins seemed to be talking to one another by using a series of throaty warbles and clicks.
    “I’m guessing neither of you can understand what they’re saying,” said Aldwyn.
    He would have expected Skylar to pipe up, but to his surprise, it was Gilbert who responded.
    “Actually, reptiles and amphibians have some lingual crossover,” said Gilbert. The rumlins continued chattering, flicking their olive green tongues, while moving in on the familiars. “ Poison, carve, lunch … I’m hardly fluent, but I’m getting a pretty good picture of what they have in mind for us.”
    The creatures began to surround the familiars on all sides.
    “That’s what the gemstone was for,” said Skylar. “To keep evil like this away.”
    One of the ugly little monsters attacked, outstretching its claws and teeth at the same time, as if undecided whether to tear Aldwyn to shreds or bite a chunk out of his back. Aldwyn wasn’t going to wait to find out. He lifted a large block of stone telekinetically into the air and hurled it towards the rumlin, whose