The Tiger's Eye (Book 1)

by Robert P. Hansen

  4

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  They were his friends.

  Light and sound were his enemies. He fought against them, an endless battle that he could never hope to win. But the struggle was important. He didn’t need to be perfect; he only needed to try to be perfect.

  He took a slow, deep breath, and held it. He stepped forward, gently lowering the toes of his right foot into place. The heel settled soundlessly behind them, and he exhaled softly over a fifteen count before shifting his weight. He inhaled slowly and picked up his left foot, moving it forward, toward the shapely silhouette of the young woman lying on her side. Another breath, another step.

  There was a half moon. Half moons were better than full moons. A little before or a little past the new moon was best. The dim glow provided ample lighting for him to see the shadows within the shadows, to know what they were. A quarter moon would be better than a half moon.

  He took a third step—four more to go. The maids-in-waiting sprawled about the floor around the bed, sleeping on pillows and cushions, but there was a path. If he was careful. If he stepped with perfect delicacy.

  His foot fit snugly between one maids’ rumpled hair and another’s dainty ankle, her shiny silver anklet glistening where the moonbeams struck it a glancing blow. There wasn’t room to lower his heel, but that didn’t matter; he could balance precariously on the toes of one foot for many minutes if he needed to. But he didn’t need to.

  He took a fourth step, placing his left toes in the space between another maid’s forearm and bicep, barely avoiding her nose, her elbow. He was glad he had cleansed himself and his clothing, ridding them of their normal subtle pungency….

  Then the path was clear.

  He stepped rapidly, silently up to the side of the bed.

  She turned toward him in her sleep. Her eyes fluttered, opened. She smiled.

  His hand snaked out. The stiletto—

  Angus burst upright, a muffled scream clinging to the back of his throat. His breathing was rapid, sharp, almost painful. His heart was pounding like a woodpecker trapped in his chest. He closed his eyes and mouthed the silent mantra that would calm his body, his mind.

  Still the mind.

  Still the body.

  Still the mind.

  Still the body.

  He couldn’t recall when he had learned the mantra, but it worked; within seconds, his breathing and heartbeat had calmed considerably, almost stopping altogether.

  He opened his eyes and looked around the dark room, wondering at the fleeting impressions of the nightmare, wondering why it had been so potent, so real. It was as if he had actually been there….

  Then it faded to less than a memory, less than even a forgotten memory….

  He frowned. It had been months since his last nightmare, and it troubled him greatly that they had returned on the eve of his departure….

  5

  Angus woke before dawn. He was far from rested but found it impossible to return to sleep. He got up and dressed in the outfit he felt most comfortable in: the padded leather tunic; the strange, form-fitting trousers; and the high, soft-soled black boots. He filled his pockets with spell-casting paraphernalia—the mnemonic fragrances that enhanced his recall—the gold coins, and the garnets. He slid his dagger into its scabbard on the belt and the stilettos in their boot sheaths. He filled his backpack with the rest of the gear he would take with him: tinder and flint, candles, quill and inkwell, a handful of loose-leafed parchment, the scrolls containing his spells, a few days worth of food, fishhooks and string, and the strange, ill-fitting black robe Voltari had given him. There was still room, so he put two of the apprentice robes on top of what he had already packed. Then he focused and tugged on the strand of magic that would transport him to Voltari’s antechamber.

  Voltari rarely allowed him into his antechamber, and never unsupervised. It was a small room with a desk, robes, boots, water basin, and other amenities. Angus had never been in Voltari’s living chamber, and he didn’t expect to be asked in now.

  Voltari was waiting for him at the desk, a pile of scrolls carefully stacked before him.

  “Master?” Angus said, his voice catching in his throat.

  Voltari looked up at him, nodded, and picked up the pile of scrolls—there were about a dozen of them. “These are yours,” he said, holding them out.

  Angus hesitated for only a moment—he had long ago learned the painful lesson of obedience—and set his backpack down on the floor. He accepted the scrolls and began unrolling one of them. “Thank you, Master,” he said, a touch of reverence in his voice.

  “Not now,” Voltari said, putting his hand on Angus’s to prevent him from opening the scroll. “Stow them in your pack.”

  Angus frowned, bent to his pack, opened it, and unceremoniously pulled out the extra robes. When it looked like he might pull out the black robe, Voltari put his foot on his hand to stop him.

  “You should wear that robe at all times,” he said. “It is not a gift I gave lightly. Its magic will provide some measure of protection—much more than that getup you’re wearing now.”

  “Yes, Master,” Angus said, reaching for the ties of his tunic.

  Voltari sighed and shook his head. “The choice is yours, Angus,” he said. “Stow the scrolls for now. You will have time to change later if that is what you wish to do.”

  “Yes, Master,” Angus said, carefully securing the scrolls in his backpack. Once he had done so, Voltari uncharacteristically held out his hand and helped him to his feet.

  “Here,” Voltari said, pointing at a map spread out on his desk and weighted down with smooth, walnut-sized black stones. “You should travel here,” he pointed to a spot on the map labeled Hellsbreath Pass. “There will be many opportunities for wizards of your ability there.”

  “How far is it, Master?” Angus asked, trying to memorize the contours on the map.

  Voltari shrugged and slid the stones aside to let the map roll back up into its natural position. He handed it to Angus.

  “Thank you, Master,” Angus said, putting the map into his backpack.

  “Your gratitude is unnecessary,” Voltari said, his voice surprisingly soft. “It is customary for the Master to bestow a gift of spells upon his apprentice when he completes his training. These scrolls contain those spells, both ones you have mastered and others you have not. The latter spells are selected by the Master with the expectation that the student will be able to learn them without further guidance. This gift is intended to assure the survival of the magic and, indirectly, the apprentice. One day you will continue the line of wizardry I have taught you by passing this knowledge on to your own apprentices. These spells are the foundation of that tradition, one on which you will build your own repertoire of spells.”

  “Yes, Master,” Angus said.

  Voltari nodded. “From here on, you will be on your own,” he said. He gestured at Angus’s backpack and waited for him to pick it up. His voice was stern and unrelenting as he finished, “My service to you is over. Do not return here.” Then Voltari’s anteroom disappeared and Angus found himself standing outside Blackhaven Tower for the first time.

  Blackhaven Tower was a single twisted spire faced with smooth, curved obsidian blocks that captured the dawn and sprinkled it about in all directions. It was fairly narrow—perhaps twenty feet in diameter—and rose only about thirty feet above the ground, tapering as it rose until it curved sharply inward near the top. Angus frowned; the interior was much larger than the exterior. Was Voltari’s complex underground? Was it somewhere else, entirely? With Voltari’s penchant for teleportation, it wouldn’t surprise him. Still, there was a large wooden door in front of him with a towering figure standing in tall, deep recesses at either side of it. Does it open? he wondered, taking a step forward. He stopped abruptly and sighed. Do not return here….

  The sentinels guarding the door were draped in shadow, but the morning sun flickering on the dingy yellow-white of
old bone. A pair of simmering red orbs near the top of each form shone like eyes held in a silent, deathless vigil. Did they move?

  Angus gulped and concentrated until he brought the magic into focus. Blackhaven Tower and the surrounding hillside faded into the background—still visible as a shadow world at the periphery of his attention—and a maelstrom of writhing strands of magic erupted in the foreground. The magic centered on the guardians and the door, which looked like it had been carved from wood but was wrapped with the pulsating strands of sienna and brick red—a powerful, explosive earth- and fire-based magical trap. Anyone attempting to breach it without magic would almost certainly be killed by the blast, while the door would remain completely intact.

  Beside the complex braids woven through the door, the sentinels oozed black tendrils of death magic, its power fluctuating as the tendrils came into contact with their surroundings, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating. The sentinels were dead, the animated dead Angus had read about while he was exploring Voltari’s library for a way to regain his memory. But Voltari hadn’t taught him very much about that aspect of magic; he had merely let him know that it existed and described the basics of how to draw upon the consumptive energy when necessary. He hadn’t taught him anything about death magic, the kind of magic that draws heavily upon the gray and black strands to animate the dead and destroy the living. He hadn’t even taught him how to defend against such magic; Angus had had to find that out for himself, and he wasn’t entirely sure he understood it.

  One of the sentinels lowered its flickering red gaze and fixed it upon Angus. A gigantic poleax grated as it dipped downward and pointed at him. “You are unwelcome,” the sentinel said in Voltari’s rough, guttural growl.

  “But—” Angus began, taking a step back.

  The other sentinel lowered its poleax, and they both stepped forward, their armor clattering noisily against the fleshless bones. They were the skeletons of giants nearly half as high as the tower, armed with poleaxes and wearing mirror images of incomplete plate armor. The one on the left wore the right half of the suit of armor, while the one to the right wore the left half. They moved another step forward.

  Angus turned and hurried south, looking backward several times until the two sentinels had finally given up their pursuit and resumed their position by the door. He slowed and looked for a comfortable place to sit down, a place where he could study the map Voltari had given him. The scrolls would have to wait.

  What am I to do now? he wondered, looking at the black tower jutting above the small maple trees threatening to reclaim the land. How could you do this to me?

  His lips trembled as he fought back the urge to cry. Was he angry? Afraid? Grief-stricken? Or was it just self-pity? Maybe all of them, he decided, as he sat down on the fallen trunk of an old maple and recited the mantra to calm his mind….

  6

  Angus took Voltari’s advice and headed south. He had quickly dismissed going north or west; Voltari’s tower was near the northwest corner of the old map, and he had simply written DEATH SWAMPS—FISHMEN across the northern border. Along the western edge were mountains, and he had scrawled XENOPHOBIC MOUNTAIN DWARVES—IMPASSIBLE over them. That left east or south. East of the foothills of the western mountain range was a wide open space labeled KINGDOM OF TYR. It was an expansive plain that ranged from the Death Swamps in the north to the mountains hugging the edge of the map’s southern border. An east-west road split the kingdom in two and led to the capital, Tyrag, in the heart of the kingdom on the eastern edge of the map. He briefly considered going to the capital, but when he thought about doing it, he broke out in a sweat and felt a nearly irresistible urge to run in the opposite direction. That left south. The mountains in the southwest corner were topped with smoke plumes, and Angus was leery about going there. But Voltari had said to go to Hellsbreath, and the name was hastily scrawled near an X nestled in among them. Not far from there, to the northwest, there was an ominous symbol he didn’t recognize, a sort of teardrop superimposed onto a flat pyramid. It was vaguely similar to the runes representing flame magic, which were variations of a candle flame, but this one was far too smooth—and the pyramid was meaningless to him. Still, there was a thin line leading to it—a road? trail?—from near Hellsbreath, and it was the only thing on the map that wasn’t a label or didn’t represent some kind of terrain. What is it? he wondered, scratching it lightly with his fingertip. No matter, he decided; I have to go to Hellsbreath, first, anyway.

  Hellsbreath looked like a major hub for travel. From there a road went into the mountains to the west and another sloped southeast along the edge of the southern mountains. A third transected the town, heading north and south. Those and the east-west road through Tyr were the only ones on the map, and the only other town Voltari had identified was Wyrmwood, which was located at the spot where the east-west road from Tyrag intersected the north-south road from Hellsbreath. The road continued north a bit further, nestled against a squiggly line that Angus took to be a river, and stopped a considerably distance from Blackhaven Tower. Or it could be nearby; there was no sense of scale or distance on Voltari’s map. The river continued all the way to the Death Swamps, and Angus decided he would meet up with it and follow the road south. If he were lucky, there would be human settlements on its banks that Voltari hadn’t bothered to mark on the map, small villages that were of no importance to him. Once he was underway, he could decide where to go from there. First, though, he had to find civilization.

  Voltari had built Blackhaven Tower in a secluded little valley surrounded by steep foothills plagued with nettles and thorn-encrusted bushes. At least the latter had ripe edible berries; tart little black and red ones that had pinprick seeds that stuck between his teeth. There was a small stream running through the valley, its waters flowing east. He followed it, expecting it to eventually meet up with the river or one of its larger tributaries. It was narrow, barely three feet wide, and meandered through thickets, shrubs, and intermittent maple groves. Along its banks grew clumps of tall grass, fully half his height, riddled with snakes, spiders, and a wide variety of small birds and insects. There were no fish larger than his finger—and not enough of them for a meal—but they helped to ease his hunger a bit. At least the stream was shallow enough that it didn’t top his boots, and wading through it was easier than dealing with the thorns or having his legs smothered by the thick growth of tall grass.

  Near dusk he belatedly sought shelter, but the hills on either side of the stream were lined with densely-packed impassable thickets. It was well after dark before he finally settled on a small knoll that split the stream apart for a few dozen feet. The ground was damp and mushy, held together by the grass’s thick entanglement of roots, and after he trampled down a swath of it, the grass provided ample cushioning for a bed. He set his backpack down and did a thorough search of the knoll. There were no snakes or spiders to worry about, so he returned to the small clearing he had made and sat down. The soggy ground squished beneath him, and he hurriedly stood up before the water seeping up through the grass could dampen his trouser bottom.

  “I should have brought those robes,” he muttered. “I could have put them on the ground to sleep on.” He sighed and shook his head. “The present and future, not the past,” he finished. “Focus on what I can do, not on what I should have done. Don’t forget it, but no sense dwelling on it.”

  He thought about cutting the grass and dismissed it. It would take too long, and a few more layers would only deter the water seeping up through them a little longer. Besides, it was a chill night, and a little extra warmth would be welcome. So, he took out the robe Voltari had given him and slipped it on over his clothes, clenching his teeth as he anticipated the inevitable, unrelenting itchiness it always gave him. But, this time, it didn’t aggravate his skin, and the odd intrusion of magic on his body was curiously mild, almost unnoticeable. The chill left him in moments, and not long after that, he lay down for some rest. A thick sliver of moon peeked over t
he mountains, and he was somehow comforted by its slim presence and the subdued light it cast upon everything. He fell into a light sleep, a part of his mind alert for anything out of the ordinary.

  But everything was out of the ordinary. The hard stone shelf he slept on had been replaced by soft, soggy grass. The comforting echoes of his breathing bouncing off his chamber walls were gone. The rhythmic pulsing of blood rushing through his ears and the soft thrumming of his heartbeat were overwhelmed by the trickle of the stream, the whistles of a night bird, the rustle of the wind in the thickets, the distant scurrying of something small making its way through the thickets, the light touch of an insect on his cheek, the faint, rancid stench of a rotting log, the overwhelming twinge of fresh cut grass crying out for mercy….

  Sleep would not come. If only he was nestled in the stark, quiet confines of his chamber in Blackhaven Tower! But he wasn’t, and he never would be again. Voltari had ordered him to never return, and he wouldn’t. Tempting his master’s wrath would be far worse than a few sounds and smells. He could tolerate the delicate touch of an insect’s brittle legs, a moth’s fluttery wing. But he still couldn’t sleep.

  His muscles bunched up around his sternum and tension radiated outward from their center. Still the body, he thought, closing his eyes and mouthing the mantra. Still the mind. He was the master, now, and he methodically registered each sensation, categorized it, and let it pass through him. One by one they disappeared from his awareness until only two remained: the rhythmic pulsing of blood rushing through his ears and the soft thrumming of his heart. He listened to them, drew comfort from them, and let everything else slide away….