Ortis nodded. “Maybe there’s an easier path down not far from here.”
Hobart squared his shoulders and turned abruptly. “I’ll check this way.” He began to jog at the edge of the road, wondering how far he would get before he collapsed. Only later did he realize he didn’t have anything for carrying snow if he had found an easy way down the slope.
15
Iscara reached out for the healing salve she used to ease the pain of burns and aid the healing process and set it on her work table. Then she picked up the jug she kept tucked under the table and said, “I can’t heal you if I can’t see you.” She wasn’t sure if that was true or not; if the burns only needed the salve, then Typhus could rub it onto them by himself. If she needed to use her magic to facilitate the treatment, she might be able to do it even without seeing him; all she would need to see was the magic within him. But she would need to know precisely where he was to do that, and she would also need to see the wound before she would know how much treatment it would need.
“Of course,” Typhus said from beside her. She almost jumped; he could move so quietly when he wanted to, and it startled her even more with him hidden by the Cloaking spell. She wasn’t worried that he would hurt her; he would only do that if it was necessary, and as long as she did what he wanted, it wouldn’t be necessary. It was his weakness, and she was going to capitalize on it. That was what the jug was for—if she decided to risk using it. Typhus might recognize the poison it contained, and if he did.…
She sighed and pushed the jug to the side. It was a lovely thought, and killing Typhus would no-doubt get her on Argyle’s good side, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Typhus would recognize the poison, and he would kill her for making the attempt. Besides, she had agreed to heal him, and that was what she would do. After that.…
She was about to open the jar of healing balm when she realized he hadn’t released the Cloaking spell. “Well?” she said, turning in his direction. Perhaps if she brought the magic into focus? Would she be able to see him then? She wasn’t sure; the Cloaking spell bent the magic around someone to make them appear not to be there, and she didn’t think a casual glance—or even a concentrated effort—would make that apparent to her. The magic would look normal, wouldn’t it?
“Umber,” Typhus whispered. He was so close she could feel his breath on her neck, and then his hands were on her shoulders, twisting her around. “What does umber look like?” he demanded, his breath hideous as it descended upon her like the force of a blow. She would have to give him something for it before—
“Show me umber!” he demanded, squeezing her shoulders in his vice-like grip. Normally, it would have aroused her, but there was something different about his touch this time, something … desperate.
Iscara winced, trying to remember what umber looked like. It was a shade of brown like that old chest her grandmother had given her when she had first started healing people. Where had she put it? She looked around the room until she found it hiding near a corner by her bed. Why had she put it there? Oh yes, the potion—
Typhus’s grip tightened, and she nodded toward it. “That weathered chest is close,” she said. It wasn’t quite umber, but it was similar enough to give him an idea of the shade.
Typhus’s fingertips dug painfully into her shoulders as he said, “No, no. The magic. Show me an umber strand of magic.”
Why would I do that? Iscara wondered. You can’t see magic. How—
“You can see magic?” Iscara asked. Was it possible? Could he see it? Had he cast the Cloaking spell on himself? But that would mean—
Typhus abruptly spun her around and leaned up against her back. It was a familiar touch, one she had welcomed many times, but—
“Show me!” Typhus hissed into her ear. “Draw it to you. Now!”
Iscara bit her lip as she brought the strands of magic into focus. What if there were no umber ones nearby? It was a rare strand, one that was tied to a special kind of rock, and there weren’t many such rocks near Tyrag. They were mainly in the mountains or deep underground, that’s why most wizards who used Cloaking carried a piece of the rock with them when they traveled. She licked her lips; a part of her was very much aware of his nakedness, his raw musky sweat. He had been gone so long.…
She blinked. He wasn’t here for that, and she wasn’t going to give it to him anyway. He had left her without a word, and she would never forgive him for that. He wanted to know what umber magic was like, but there wasn’t any. There weren’t many umber-like strands, either, but she picked one out and brought it toward her. “This is the closest one,” she said. “It’s a bit too light—”
“No!” Typhus gasped, his body tensing, pressing rigidly against her back.
Her lips parted slightly, and she sucked in a quick breath. It was not passion that consumed Typhus; it was fear. What was he afraid of? She had never known him to be afraid of anything but Sardach, and that was only because he couldn’t kill the elemental with blade or poison. Typhus wasn’t even afraid of Argyle; if he had been, he never would have taken—
“It has to be this one,” Typhus said, his voice urgent, strained. A brown strand approached her and hovered in front of her eyes. “Do you see it?” He demanded. “It’s umber, isn’t it?” She had never heard him be so urgent, not even after—
“Isn’t it?” He was desperate. Why?
“That’s sienna,” Iscara said, “not umber.” How could he make that big of a mistake? The two shades were so different—
Typhus gripped her arms so hard she thought he would snap them like twigs, but when she winced, she wasn’t sure if it was from pain or pleasure. Then his grip abruptly eased, as if the strength had fled from his fingers, and Iscara wrenched herself free. She turned to him, to where she knew he still was, and smiled. She reached out, put her hand on his chest, and leaned forward. Then he was gone, and her hand flopped limply down to her thigh.
“No,” he said, a short distance away. “It can’t be.”
What was wrong with him? Why did he want to know what umber looked like? It wasn’t an important color, except—
A Cloaking spell? It uses an umber strand, doesn’t it? If he used sienna instead….
Iscara fought the urge to giggle, but she was too excited to keep her pleasure from her voice. “What is it?” she asked, knowing the answer. “Can’t you show me the burns?” She brought the magic into focus and saw what shouldn’t be there: Typhus’s familiar nakedness was clearly outlined inside a blanket of sienna strands. She couldn’t hold the smile back any longer as she asked, “What’s wrong, Typhus? You didn’t use the wrong strand of magic, did you? Surely you know better than that.” But he wouldn’t know better, would he? He hadn’t been trained in magic. But he had somehow found a Cloaking spell and cast it. Surprisingly, it hadn’t killed him. Instead, it had made him a beacon of brown amid the swarming strands of magic surrounding him. He couldn’t be seen by normal sight of course, but anyone who could see magic would have no trouble spotting him. A lot of people could see magic.
“Don’t you?” she asked, letting her mirth escape in little bursts of giggles that quickly escalated. She followed him with her eyes as he tried to side-step out of her line of sight, but when he saw he couldn’t evade her, he stopped. He stepped up to her, his brown silhouette reeking of anger and hostility.
“Do something!” he demanded, his fists clenched and his tone fierce and full of emotion, so utterly different from his normal chill dispassion.
Iscara slowly shook her head. “There is nothing I can do. You cast the spell, and only you can end it.”
He stepped forward and reached for her shoulders again. This time his grip was firm but not painful, and a bit of hopefulness crept into his tone. “How?” he demanded. “What must I do?”
Iscara shrugged and reached up to stroke his chest with her hands. “I’m sorry Typhus,” she said, not meaning it at all, “but I don’t know.” Then she moved her hands from his chest to his arms, sliding them s
lowly, softly to his wrists. He didn’t resist as she lifted his hands from her shoulders and held them out in front of her. “Now, why don’t I tend to those burns? They don’t look too bad.” She couldn’t see them clearly, but she wanted him to think she could.
Typhus did not resist her as she rubbed the ointment over his seared fingers, but the blisters told her they needed more than just the ointment. The burns were severe, and she needed to touch the magic within him to tend to them properly. But she couldn’t do that; the sienna cocoon was an impenetrable barrier that kept her from seeing the magic inside him just as the Cloaking spell kept normal sight at bay. Eventually, she gave up and brought his fingers to her lips and kissed them. She would have done more, but the balm tasted atrocious and she had to turn away to spit it out.
Typhus moved away from her and began to pace with his hand held to his chin. Minutes passed as she watched his futile efforts. What could he possibly know about magic? It surely wouldn’t be enough to fix his mistake or he wouldn’t have made it in the first place. Would the Wizards in Tyrag help him? They knew Argyle was looking for him, and some of them had been Fanzool’s friends. They wouldn’t help the man who had caused his death, even if he was Typhus. And Gimpy probably had friends, too. Then she grew bored with waiting and said, “I have to go tell Argyle where the key is.” She moved to the door, evading Typhus as he continued to pace. She paused at the doorway and said, “You shouldn’t be here when I get back. Argyle might be with me.” It wasn’t true, of course, and Typhus knew it. She had known Argyle for four years, and she had never seen him outside of his dreary little dungeon, and had never heard of anyone else seeing him outside of it either. No one she spoke to seemed to remember when he had arrived in Tyrag, only that he had been in the depths of the city for as long as any of them could remember. Even the old timers couldn’t remember him in any other way than how he was now.
Typhus stopped pacing and stared at her. After a moment, he nodded. “I won’t be,” he said.
“Good,” Iscara said. “Perhaps after they have gone?”
He glared at her like an angry bronze statue, and then shrugged. She smiled at him, let the magic fade from sight, and froze in place. She could still see Typhus’s outline, but it wasn’t a sienna silhouette; it was a faint, almost ephemeral, blue sheen that hinted of ghostly apparitions.
“What is it?” Typhus demanded as she stared at him.
She shook her head, sighed, and stepped back into the room. She walked up to him, took his arm, and led him to her mirror. It was the large, full-length mirror that captured the whole of his luscious body in its surface.
“We can’t have you running around out there like that,” she said, admiring the sinewy curve of his muscles and wondering what it would be like to wrap herself around his ghostly form. “What would the priests say?” She paused and shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t be good at all.” What could she do about it? Wrap myself around—she began, then she smiled and reluctantly released him. She moved back to her work table where there were plenty of bandages.
“Are you coming?” she demanded, turning toward him with a long, narrow strip of cloth in her hand. “These bandages should cover up that glow, but you’ll have to get something to cover them up on your own.”
It took three overlapping layers to keep the glow from shining through, and when she finished, she gave him a long, lingering kiss before leading him from her workroom and sneaking him out the side door. She paused only long enough at the top of the stairs to grab one of her old cloaks, and once they were in the street, she released his hand and gave it to him. “You’re on your own now,” she said. “I will tell Argyle that Aggles has the key where Sardach dropped him. He’ll like that.”
“Angus,” Typhus said, but she ignored him. Names weren’t important.
16
A massive albino kitten meowed politely into Angus’s ear just before it nestled up to his right shoulder and took a playful little bite. It gnawed gently at first, gradually eating away the flesh until its jagged teeth crunched into the bone, snapping it lengthwise so it could gleefully lap at the marrow. It purred incessantly in his ear the whole time, and the vibrating rattle sounded almost like voices talking in the distance. He focused intently on those sounds. They were important.
The purr gradually shifted into a jumble of sounds. Words began to emerge from those sounds, as if being teased free and brought closer by sharp gusts of wind. But they were just disconnected bits that made no sense to him. Then the kitten latched firmly onto his shoulder and growled menacingly, tugging on him as if it were trying to drag him away. He slid on the rough ground for a space, and the sudden agony of his shoulder sent him reeling. But it was a dream, and he knew how to manage pain in dreams. All he had to do was still his mind. But he didn’t want to still his mind; something about the pain mattered.
The kitten dropped his shoulder, hissed viciously, and spat at something Angus couldn’t see. It crouched as if to spring and stared at something approaching his feet. He turned his gaze that way and saw a brawny old man towering over him. He had a belly-length bushy white beard that he threw over his shoulder while he worked and a mop of white hair that hung down to his knees. Leatherworking tools fitted into his belt within easy reach, and he was shaking his head in admonition as he looked at Angus’s feet. This boot is too small, he rumbled. It needs to be resized.
Angus frowned. That wasn’t what Ungred had said when he had visited him in Hellsbreath to have him fix his boots. Ungred had told him they were too large. He had left them with Ungred, and when he had returned two days later, they had fit perfectly. It was as if Ungred had molded them to his feet. Ungred had also reinforced the heel and sole so they would last longer. But what was Ungred doing here?
The kitten lashed out with its paws and pinned down his left side. It was a heavy kitten, and he found he couldn’t move.
Ungred took out a sharp knife and knelt down next to his left foot. He shook his head and pointed at Angus. They are too big, he said. I will have to resize them. A moment later, he started whittling away at Angus’s toes. The fresh burst of pain nearly overwhelmed him. He gasped. He tried to push Ungred away with his right leg. He tried to lift his left arm, but the kitten held it firmly in place. He tried to move his right arm, but it didn’t obey him. He kicked again with his right leg, but it was a feeble movement that did nothing to deter Ungred.
Ungred had his toes cut off, but he wasn’t satisfied. The boot still wouldn’t fit, so he began trimming away strips of flesh from his shin and chipping away at the bones in his ankle.
Angus kicked futilely, and then, sweating beads of ice, he turned to the kitten and asked, “May I please have my arms back?”
The kitten turned to him, smiled, and licked his face. It was purring again, and its claws bit into his left arm without breaking through the skin. After a few more seconds, it resumed munching on his right shoulder.
It was some time before it lifted itself off his left side.
17
Typhus paced with a fervor he seldom allowed to manifest. He had made a mistake when he had cast the spell, and there was no point harping about it. He had had no choice, and the risk had been worth taking. It had gotten him out of the clutches of Argyle, and now he had time to deal with the consequences of the spell. If he hadn’t cast it, Iscara would have tortured him—gleefully, playfully—regardless of how readily he had answered their questions. She still wanted to torture him, and her flirtatious advances didn’t change that; the torturing would only enhanced her pleasure like it always did. Perhaps he should kill her?
He frowned, keeping the corner of his eye on her as she watched him pacing back and forth. She could see him, but only because of her magic. She shouldn’t be able to see him even then, but the sienna—Stop! he screamed at himself. Find a solution!
But what could he do? He didn’t know enough about magic—he didn’t know anything about magic—so how could he find a solution? He would have to get help fr
om a wizard who knows more about the spell he cast. He glanced sidelong at Iscara and dismissed her from consideration. If she had known what to do to correct his mistake, she already would have struck a bargain with him. It would be a barely tolerable bargain that would greatly increase her pleasure while bringing him much pain. Another form of torture…. I can fix you, she would have purred as she stroked his cheek. But it will cost you dearly.
Typhus thrust the thought away. He couldn’t afford the distraction of Iscara’s entertaining imagination. He had to think. He needed to figure out what to do. He hadn’t anticipated this problem, but could he turn it to his advantage? If the Cloaking spell was permanent, how could he use it? What good would it be for an assassin to be undetectable except by magic? He smiled, walking more quickly, thinking of the many narrow escapes he had made, especially those that left him rotting in a dungeon for a brief time. How many of them would he have avoided if his pursuers hadn’t been able to see him at all? Perhaps this was not as bad as it first seemed?
What if it was worse? What if it wasn’t just masking him from others’ sight? What if the spell was biding its time before doing something more hideous, something that would not be conducive to his welfare? At the very least, he would have to find out, and that meant talking to a wizard. If only Angus were here! It was his spell….
But Angus wasn’t here, was he? Typhus was alone with Iscara, and neither of them knew enough about the spell to be of use to him. Iscara could be a brief distraction, of course, and he paused in his pacing to take a long, lingering look at her. He avoided her eyes, though, and focused on her delightful body. Would it be worth it? He felt himself stirring, and shook his head. No, there was no time. Argyle would know of his escape soon if he didn’t already know about it, and he would realize Iscara was involved. He would send someone to find out how involved she was.
The Golden Key (Book 3) Page 10
