The Tiger's Eye (Book 1)

by Robert P. Hansen

  “Because of the coins,” Giorge whispered.

  Angus frowned. “What does Typhus have to do with the coins?”

  What had the Truthseer told him about them? Nothing. She only wanted to know who had given them to him, but he couldn’t—

  Bug-Eyed Jake had called him Typhus. Didn’t she mention him? Yes, she asked if he knew Bug-Eyed Jake. What did he tell her? Yes, that was it. He’d met Bug-Eyed Jake in Hellsbreath’s Hellhole. No, he hadn’t known him before. No, he didn’t know Typhus. No, he wasn’t Typhus. No—

  “They think the coins you had were part of what he stole from—” Giorge paused, looked around at the isolated ridge, and then finished, “From someone you don’t steal from. He wants them back. And he wants Typhus.”

  My name is Angus. I am Voltari’s apprentice. I have been his apprentice for ten years. My home is Blackhaven Tower. I do not know Typhus. I have never met Typhus. The gold coins were in my pockets. I didn’t put them there. I don’t know who did. Voltari must have done it.

  “No,” Angus said. “She only wanted to know where I got them. I told her.”

  Angus shrugged and continued eating. “Apparently my answers satisfied her,” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He looked out at the mountains and valley in front of him and asked, “Where are we, anyway?”

  I was apprentice to Voltari for ten years? Is that true? It has to be true, doesn’t it? He couldn’t have lied to the Truthseer, could he?

  “We’re almost across the ridge,” Giorge said. “You’ve been in a swoon for over two days. We thought you were going to die when they carried you out of that tent, but the Truthseer said you were only sleeping and you would wake up eventually. When we asked how long, she said she didn’t know; she had never used so much incense before, and it was even making her groggy. When you didn’t wake up the next morning, we decided to tie you to your horse and move on for as long as it was safe enough to do so.”

  Angus finished his stew and held out the bowl to Giorge. “I don’t suppose there’s any more?”

  “Sorry, Angus,” Giorge said. Then he grinned and added, “There wasn’t that much to begin with, and it was all Ortis could do to keep us from eating what was left.”

  “Hardtack, then,” Angus said, reaching into a pocket.

  Giorge stood up and moved to the ledge. “If that mountain were a bit lower, you could see Hellsbreath from here,” he said. “And that,” he pointed southwest at a high mountain with three summits, two of which were already covered with snow, “is our destination.”

  “The ledge won’t take us there,” he continued. “But it will get us to that plateau leading up to it.”

  “I thought we were going into a valley,” Angus said.

  “We thought so too,” Giorge said. “But we were wrong. Why don’t you come see for yourself?”

  Angus pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can barely stand right now. I’ll fall off the ledge.”

  “I’ll help you,” Giorge said, moving in to support him with his shoulder before leading him closer to the edge. “See?” he said, pointing down at the bottlenecked valley below them. “We saw that valley from the mountain where you made the tunnel. This cliff is the north edge of that valley, and there’s another cliff on its west edge. That cliff is about half as high as this one. All of those mountains funnel down into it. You can tell because of the waterfall; it’s the source of the river that flows by Hellsbreath.”

  “Another reason for the road to cross here,” Angus said. “If we had followed the river, it would have led us to that lake.”

  Giorge nodded. “When Ortis looked at the map, he thought this road went through a valley. He still thought that after we saw this ridge. But now, it’s pretty clear it drops down into that plateau and crosses it. When it gets to the other side, it climbs up around that east summit—the low one without any snow—and if he’s reading you’re map right, we’ll find the temple nestled in among those three peaks.”

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” he said. “We may not get there at all. We’ve seen fires on the plateau at night. Distance wise, it should be about a week. The mountains look a lot closer than they are because of their size. But if the road is still passable, it will help cut down on the time. If not,” he shrugged. “One thing is certain; if the temple’s still there, there’s a good chance it hasn’t been explored.”

  “Good,” Angus said. “We may as well get going then. I’ve had enough rest for now.”

  “Are you sure you can ride?” Giorge asked. “You feel weak to me.”

  “I can,” Angus said. “Gretchen is a gentle ride.”

  “Good,” Giorge said, grinning and ushering him to his horse. “We’ve been lucky up here so far, and I’d rather get off this cliff face before anything decides we’re food. It isn’t as defensible as the plateau will be. Not much room to maneuver.”

  Angus half-smiled. “It may be more defensible down there,” he agreed, “but there are fewer things that can attack us up here.”

  Giorge helped Angus into his saddle and then mounted his own horse. They rode side by side for nearly an hour before Angus began to sag in his saddle. After a lengthy rest, they continued, and by late afternoon, they neared the end of the ridge and the road began to slope downward at a noticeable rate. A few minutes later, Ortis called a stop, and when they gathered in a small, vulnerable clump of horses and men, he said, “There’s a cave. It’s occupied.”

  18

  “How quiet can you ride?” Hobart asked, his voice soft, intense, his armor clanking lightly as he walked.

  “Quieter than you in your armor,” Angus replied. “Why?”

  “We don’t know what is in the cave,” Hobart said. “It’s big and it’s loud. Giorge is going to see if he can get a peek at it.”

  “So?”

  “If it’s a bear,” Hobart said. “We can probably outrun it with the horses if we get a bit of a head start. It might follow us for a little while, but I doubt it. If it’s already in its lair for winter, it probably doesn’t need any more food. That doesn’t mean it won’t eat it, if it’s easy enough to catch; only that it would be more likely to attack a single rider than a group. Except, of course, if it’s in its lair, which is likely. It will defend itself, but how far it will go, I don’t know. We should be close enough to the plateau to elude it.”

  “And if it isn’t a bear?” Angus asked, reviewing the short list of spells he currently had at his disposal.

  “It’s too big to be easily managed,” Hobart said. “But the cave is too narrow for it to be a dragon, and too short for it to be a giant.”

  “What’s the plan, then?” Angus asked.

  “We’ll decide that after Giorge gets back—unless the thing catches him. Then we fight. We won’t have any other choice, despite the hazards of fighting in such confining, precarious conditions.”

  “Let’s say it isn’t a bear,” Angus said. “What else could it be?”

  “That’s just it,” Hobart said. “There are things in The Tween that we don’t know about. It would have to be one of them. We’re hoping to sneak past it without it catching us.”

  Angus frowned. What kind of creature could it be? Perhaps if he were to look? But how? His spells were geared toward defense and offense, not subterfuge. Most of them were blatantly obvious; it was difficult to conceal an open flame. In fact—

  “Hobart,” he asked. “How large is the cave entrance?”

  Hobart shrugged. “About eight feet wide and maybe ten high.”

  “Is it a deep cave, or a shallow one?”

  “I couldn’t tell,” Hobart answered. “It can’t be too shallow, though; the rumblings were too muted, and if it’s a bear, they like deep holes. You would too if you were going to sleep for four or five months.”

  Angus nodded. “I have an idea,” he said. “If all we have to do is make it past the cave, that is.”
>
  “We’re near where the road curves onto the plateau,” he said. “If we make it to there, we should be all right for now.”

  “How near?” Angus asked.

  “Maybe a mile,” Hobart answered.

  “When Giorge comes back, I need to talk to him,” Angus said. “He’s not going to like it very well, though.”

  “Why?” Hobart asked. “What do you want him to do?”

  Angus shrugged. “Let me use his net.”

  “If it will get us past the cave,” Hobart said, “he won’t mind.”

  “He won’t get it back,” Angus said.

  Hobart shrugged. “He’s not any good with it anyway.”

  Angus smiled, “Do you think that will matter to him?”

  “No,” Hobart admitted. “But if it gets us past that cave without anyone getting mauled, I’ll buy him a new one first chance we get.”

  “Good,” Angus said, dismounting and handing Hobart his horse’s reigns. “Catch me up when you go by,” he said. “You’ll know when.”

  Angus hurried past Hobart, Ortis, Ortis, and the other Ortis and paused next to Millie only long enough to get Giorge’s net and to grip and test the weights in his right hand. Then he hurried along the cliff face until he was near the cave opening. While he waited for Giorge to emerge, he drew the magic to the edge of his awareness and sought out the strands he would need for the two spells he wanted to combine together. The selection of red-tinted and blue-tinted threads was ample, and he brought two of them into sharper focus than the others so he could manipulate them more quickly.

  Giorge eased around the cave opening and sidled along the edge, making almost no sound. If it weren’t for the blackness of the hooded cloak standing out against the gray-brown cliff face, Angus wouldn’t have even noticed him. When Giorge saw Angus with his net, he paused only slightly before hurrying up to him.

  “What’s in there?” Angus whispered when Giorge was next to him.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “I went back as far as I dared. Its rumbling got louder, but I couldn’t see anything.”

  “Too dark?” Angus asked.

  Giorge shook his head. “No,” he said. “It was almost like the mountain was breathing. The sound seemed to be coming right out of the stone.”

  Angus frowned. “How deep is the cave? How far back did you go?”

  “I went in about twenty feet,” Giorge said. “I couldn’t see the end of the cave, so it has to be a lot deeper than that.”

  “How close were you to the sound?” Angus asked.

  Giorge shrugged. “Who could tell? It might have been an echo.” Then he reached out and poked his net. “Why’d you bring that?”

  Angus half-smiled. “I’ll tell you later,” he said. “For now, I’m going to use it to block the cave entrance while the rest of you ride quietly past.”

  “How—” Giorge began, then shook his head. “I don’t need to know. How much time do you need?”

  “By the time you get back to them,” Angus said. “I should be ready.”

  Giorge nodded and hurried quietly toward the others. Angus watched for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and walked slowly, casually up to the cave entrance, the net jangling quietly. He slowed, and then stopped altogether when he was next to the cave mouth. It was, as Hobart had noted: about eight feet wide and ten feet high. When he leaned forward and looked inside, all he saw were rocks and shadows. But the sound was something entirely different. If the rumbling hadn’t been so loud, uniform, and rhythmic, he would have thought it was Hobart snoring. But there was no exhalation of air accompanying it, no shuddering or rattling of a giant ribcage, no wheezing inhalation—just the rhythmic, steady rumble gradually growing louder then softer but never disappearing altogether.

  He reached out for the strong blue thread he had selected, wrapped it around his left forefinger and linked it to Giorge’s net with a tight little knot. He continued tying the sky magic around each weighted segment of the net, and when he finished, he reached for the weakest flame strand he had chosen. He pinched it between two of his fingers and touched it lightly to each of the small, round metal weights. Then he stepped away from the mountainside and moved close to the edge of the cliff. He was in a vulnerable position, now; whatever was in the cave could see him but he still could not see it.

  He sidestepped softly to the center of the cave entrance, his eyes alert to any movement just beyond the threads of magic he held in his mind, in his hand.

  Nothing. No movement at all; just the incessant rumble….

  Angus lifted the net’s weights over his shoulder and threw them, spear like, at the center of the cave, letting its guide rope follow limply after it. As it flew, Angus manipulated the threads of magic with a short series of gestures, and the net spread outward, each weight attaching itself to a different part of the cave entrance, and sticking as if it had been welded to it. When the net settled, it looked to him exactly like a spider’s web, and he hurried to the other edge of the entrance, watching the cave’s interior—

  The rumbling stopped.

  Something moved.

  It was large, almost too large to pass through the cave entrance. He couldn’t see it clearly—it was little more than a bulbous collection of rubble shambling toward him—but he knew what it was, and he knew it was not something he wanted to fight alone. But the others—

  “Ride!” he yelled, not bothering to look to see if they were obeying him. He was too busy tweaking the knots, easing them apart until the flame suddenly burst free and traveled along the tightly-woven threads of the net until they met in its center.

  “Ride!” he yelled again, letting go of the strand of flame and clinging to the sky magic with a greater sense of urgency.

  The thing waddled crab-like toward the entrance, slowed, but continued forward. The flame won’t stop it! Angus thought fiercely, studying the creature—a collection of boulders arranged over its shell. It had pincer-like brownish-red claws and short legs. Eye clusters.

  He nudged the burning net forward, toward the creature, and it backed away a bit.

  Ortis hurried past, Giorge close behind.

  Angus urged the net further inside, pushing the creature back—

  Ortis passed again, with the pack horse.

  The creature edged forward, tested the air with its claw, the clacking echoed from the cave walls like a rock skipping down a road.

  Angus gripped the blue-tinted thread firmly and tied off a knot. It would wriggle free fairly quickly, but it should hold the net in place long enough for him to mount his horse.

  Ortis passed a third time, and then Hobart, leading Gretchen, slowed long enough to release Angus’s steed and look inside the cave.

  “What is that thing?” he asked as he drew his broadsword and took up a rear guard position to allow Angus time to mount his horse.

  Angus didn’t answer; he was struggling to get his foot in the stirrup, and once he did, he had trouble getting into the saddle. Gretchen, despite her training, was having difficulty resisting her instinct to flee from the fire and kept backing away from it—and him. By the time he was in the saddle, Hobart had turned and was urging them forward.

  “It’s about to break free,” he said. “I don’t think those flames are going to keep it in there.”

  “Ride!” Angus said, finally in his saddle. “We need to get away from it. It won’t pursue us far.”

  Hobart nodded, and they hurried after their companions. They didn’t stop until they reached the relatively level, much wider expanse of the plateau. They watched for the creature behind them, but Angus was right; it didn’t follow them.

  “Will it come after us later?” Hobart asked.

  “Doubtful,” Angus said. “It’s an ambush predator; it digs a hole, conceals itself inside it, and when fish come by, it lashes out to get them.”

  “Fish?” Ortis said. “There aren’t any fish up here.”

  “No,” Angus agreed. “And that thing shouldn’t
be here, either. It lives on the bottom of large lakes, seas, oceans. It shouldn’t have been able to survive outside water, but somehow it is.”

  “That thing lives in water?” Hobart asked. “It looked like it was made of stone.”

  Angus nodded. “It’s carrying the stone on its shell,” he said. “You heard that rumbling? That was its labored attempt to breathe making those stones grind together.”

  “How did it get up here?” Giorge asked.

  “That,” Angus said, “is a good question. But here’s a better one: Who put it there and why?”

  Ortis frowned. “Someone doesn’t want us over here,” he suggested.

  “Or,” Angus said, turning toward the interior of the plateau. “Someone doesn’t want something up here to go across that ledge.”

  “Are there any tracks, Ortis?” Hobart asked.

  While Ortis inspected the ground of the nearby area, Angus frowned. “You know,” he said. “That thing should have gotten you, Giorge. It’s fast when it wants to be, at least in water.”

  “I was quiet.”

  Angus half-smiled. “You’ve heard of trapdoor spiders, haven’t you?”

  “Sure,” Giorge said. “They dig little holes in the ground, and when a bug or mouse goes by, they snap out of it and—” Giorge frowned.

  “Now you understand,” Angus said. “It’s like that trapdoor spider. It doesn’t hear anything; it feels it. No matter how quiet you were—or how loud—it had to have known you were there. So, why didn’t it attack?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t hungry?” Hobart suggested.

  Angus shook his head. “It would have stored us for later consumption, just like a spider keeps flies wrapped up in silk until it’s ready to drain their blood.”

  “Rabbit sign,” Ortis said. “If there’s anything larger, it will be deeper in the plateau. Probably near the river that feeds the waterfall.”

  “All right, Angus, what are you thinking?”

  Angus shrugged. “It may have been sleeping,” he said. “We probably could have just passed the cave without waking it up. If it was sleeping….”