What in god's name are you doing? a startled, somewhat panicked voice asked.
Paen?
What are you doing to me? Stop it! Stop filling me with that blasted light!
I'm not filling you with light. I'm charging a scrying bowl.
You may think that's what you're doing, but you're damn near blinding me.
Don't be ridiculous. How can charging a bowl spill over onto… hey! You're talking to me!
There was a long pause before Paen sighed resignedly into my head. Where are you?
Butterfly World. Why?
I'll be there as quickly as I can.
You're welcome to watch, of course, but there's no need for you to be here. I've brought my Diviner friend Jake along to keep me from sucking all the tourists into another dimension.
Paen sighed again.
That was a joke. Seriously, there's no need—
I'll be there. Don't scry without me.
Paen's presence withdrew from my mind, leaving me with the feeling of loss. "Well, crap."
"Eh?" Jake asked, still looking expectantly at me.
"One of my clients wants to watch the scrying," I said, setting the bowl on my lap.
"Why didn't you say that before you dragged me in here?" Jake got to his feet. "How long will this client be? Will I have time to take in the scorpions?"
"I don't know where he is. Hang on, I'll ask." I reached out with my mind, holding an image of Paen, bringing up all the confused morass of feelings I had about him. Where are you?
On the way. I should be there in about ten minutes.
"Go look at the scorpions," I told Jake. "Come back in about fifteen minutes."
"Erm… Sam? I didn't see a mobile phone there." Jake looked a bit perplexed.
"Oh… well… this client just happens to be telepathic," I said, trying to avoid specifics.
"Righto." He toddled off without any further questions. That's one of the things I liked about Jake—he didn't sweat the little stuff.
I debated just going ahead and doing the scrying without waiting as ordered by Paen—after all, I am a take-charge sort of person, and he was paying me to do a job—but in the end I justified a wait as something that would be courteous and professional. Not to mention the good five minutes I spent flat on my belly hiding from the group of Scottish horticulturists who were grouped just on the other side of the clump of palms that screened me from the walkway, examining the leaves with a closeness that almost led to my discovery.
Where are you?
Butterfly house, off to the left of the entrance, north corner, hidden behind a sturdy clump of palms.
Could you have chosen a brighter spot? I don't think this sunlight is quite enough to fry me to a crisp.
I didn't know you were coming to the party. There's a shady spot just behind me, covered by an energy curtain and hidden behind a big misting pump, if you want to risk that. I have to stay in the sun. It powers me.
The palms in front of me rustled as a black shadow streaked into the corner made dark by an overhead curtain, and a lurking machine that churga-churgaed away quietly to itself.
What are you doing?
I smiled at the peevish note in Paen's voice. Poor man, all this sunlight had to be uncomfortable for him.
Listening to the butterflies argue.
A meaningful pause filled my head. Butterflies argue?
Oh yeah. They're really actually quite cantankerous for such pretty things. Always getting into fights with each other.
I see. Is this an elf trait, or have you just lost your wits?
I gave him a mental eye roll. Look, I don't pick on you because of the way you were born, OK? So don't give me any grief about being able to understand butterfly. And while we're on the subject of different—what made you change your mind about doing the mental thing with me?
A sigh emerged from over my shoulder, in the vicinity of the misting machine. I smiled straight ahead at a couple of startlingly blue mortho butterflies that were flitting around taunting each other.
"Are you going to try scrying now?"
"As soon as Jake gets back from looking at creepy-crawlies. Are you going to avoid answering my question?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I don't wish to answer it. How long will the scrying take?"
"Probably not too long. Why are you so adamant about avoiding the fact that we can mind-talk?"
"Why are you so desirous of doing it?"
I shrugged, still watching the butterflies as one took offense to a slur and attacked the other. "I've never had this ability with anyone. It's pretty unique. I just don't understand why you're so freaked about it—oh, hi, Jake."
"Don't tell me, you're talking to the butterflies?"
"No, to my client, Paen Scott. Paen, this is Brother Jacob, one of the Diviners who used to teach me."
Jake glanced around quickly, giving me a worried look. "Erm… Sam…"
"He's behind the machinery," I said, waving at the big misting machine. "He's a Dark One. Sunshine is a no-no."
"Ah," Jake said, squinting at the machine. "Pleasure."
"Likewise," came Paen's voice from behind the machine. "Can we get on with this? I have a tip I'd like to discuss with you, Samantha."
"Tip? What tip? About your statue?"
Paen said nothing.
"Fine, be mysterious." I sighed, picking up the black mirrored bowl in one hand, the flask of spring-water in the other. "Hopefully this won't take very long."
Scrying isn't my forte. I came to that conclusion some ten minutes later, when I was trying to decipher the images that flashed in my mind while covered with hundreds and hundreds of squabbling butterflies. An image of the gold bird statue popped into my head for a moment. Clearly I had statues on the brain. I closed it out and focused my thoughts on the monkey statue before looking into the bowl.
"What exactly do you see?" Jake asked, batting at a couple of butterflies that left me to investigate him.
"I see the statue," I hissed through my teeth, experience having proven that opening your mouth to speak while covered in butterflies is not a good idea. "It's a black monkey all right. Smallish, kind of ugly. Has a really big… er… masculine attribute. Looks Pagan rather than Chinese."
"Where is it?" Paen asked from the cover of the misting machine.
I shook my head to dislodge a couple of the butterflies that clung to my eyelashes, and looked deep into the reflective water held in my scrying bowl. It was a bit difficult to scry because the butterflies, evidently attracted to me while I was doing my sun elf thing, were flitting around in front of the bowl, but I managed to see past them, past the surface of the water, deep into that twilight place between realities also known as the beyond.
"It's in a dark place. Closely confined in some sort of sarcophagus or something like that. Maybe a tomb," I said, sending the mental picture of it to Paen. "There's a definite feel of it being held in a confined, protected place."
"A tomb? What tomb?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No idea. I can't see its location beyond the fact that it's entombed. All I see is the statue itself."