Angst (Book 4)

by Robert P. Hansen

  Taro cringed as another image flashed to life as if it was being painted on the ceiling. He was high above a city and looking down into its bowels. It was a compact city, with the houses tightly packed and the streets forming a perfect grid pattern. At its center was a tall tower—

  A Wizards’ School! Taro thought, sucking in a sharp breath. The wizard has to be there! But which school is it? He blinked and took a deep breath. All the Wizards’ Schools were in cities, and there weren’t very many of them. The walls! he thought, excitedly. They were high walls with ramps and stairs leading down into the city. They were much higher than any he had ever seen, so that ruled out all of the cities in the Western Kingdoms. And beyond the wall in front of him was the silhouette of a mountain, and that ruled out most of the others. The grid pattern was meticulous, and that meant it was in Tyr.

  “Hellsbreath!” he chortled. “That has to be Hellsbreath!” He blinked, trying to get a sense of the layout of the city, but the vision drew his attention back to the Wizards’ School’s spire as if he were running up to it. The top of the spire was encircled by a walkway, and the vision zoomed in on it at a dizzying speed. A wizard—not the one he sought—was staring up at the sky as if it were the most beautiful woman in all the Western Kingdoms. Taro watched him watching the sky for a long time, growing more and more bored as the seconds of stillness turned into minutes of stillness. By the time the wizard moved—a sudden, sharp jerk of his head—Taro was feeling drowsy. Then the wizard pointed and shouted something the vision didn’t capture. Even if it had, it would have been drowned out by the deafening squeal of a dying pig. At least, that’s the closest sound he could think of to match the infernal noise that erupted in his head and pushed away his drowsiness.

  His vision expanded, and he saw doors opening on the spire. Other wizards flowed out of the doors like soldier ants defending an anthill under attack. In less than a minute, the walkway was crowded with wizards staring and pointing into the distance. A few of them were flying. They must have been talking excitedly, based on how they were waving their arms about, but Taro couldn’t hear what they were saying because it was taking too long for the pig to die. He wasn’t sure it would matter, anyway. Then a wizard in black robes stepped out of the spire, and Taro focused his attention on him. It’s him! he thought, dismissing the other wizards from his awareness. He wasn’t gaunt in this vision—Before? he wondered. After?—and his beard and hair were immaculately trimmed. It was a stark contrast to the afterimage of the other vision, and that troubled him. So did the ashen expression that settled onto his face as he stared at what the other wizards were staring at but Taro couldn’t see.

  I wonder what’s troubling him? Taro thought as the vision dissolved into the stones of the ceiling. Then the ceiling began to glow orange-red, slowly melting into rivulets of molten rock tracing the cracks along its length. Bits of ash and stone began to shoot out from those, and Taro desperately rolled onto his side and lifted his arm to cover his head. Even the sharp, unrelenting pain in his neck and arm didn’t stop him as he scrambled to his hands and knees and crawled away from the melting ceiling. The molten rock followed him, and he winced as it spattered on the ground next to him. Then he was huddled up against the wall with his arms protecting his face. His eyes were closed, and still he saw the lava burbling out of the ground around him. The mountains were exploding!

  Mountains? Taro thought through his terror. There aren’t any mountains along this coast. He opened his eyes a slit. The rivers of lava were still there, but there wasn’t any heat emanating from them. He lowered his arms, but he couldn’t see the room he was in; all around him was an immense field of lava bubbling up from the ground. Another vision! he realized, drawing up his good left knee and hugging it. But what does it mean?

  Then he saw it. Someone was flying over the lava as if he were a bird skimming across the ocean looking for fish. His back was to him, but there was no mistaking that black robe and tall, thin figure. What is he doing there? Taro wondered, glancing around. Where is it, anyway? He shook his head. There was no way for him to know. Yet. Damned visions! he thought in frustration. Why couldn’t they make sense before what they depict has happened?

  Taro huddled against the wall, shuddering as image after image passed through his mind, each one was more perplexing than the last. He didn’t understand any of them, but he did his best to memorize what details he could of them while the images were still clear. By the time the last image faded away, he was certain of only two things: He needed to find that wizard before it was too late, and the place to look for him was Hellsbreath. But how would he get there?

  6

  “Captain Blanchard has arrived, Sire,” Phillip said as he entered the king’s bathing chamber.

  “Good,” King Tyr said as he picked up the third towel. The first towel had been for his hair, and the second for his left arm. This one was for his right arm, and when he finished rubbing it five times, he refolded the towel and stacked it neatly on the growing pile to his left. As he reached to the right for the fourth towel, he said, “Fetch my dinner robe.”

  While Phillip hurried to comply, the king used the last five towels to dry off each leg, his back, his front, and his hair for a second time. By the time he had finished, Phillip had the gown ready and the king backed into its arms and let Phillip drape it over his shoulders. As he tied the sash with an exacting, firm knot, he said, “Bring Captain Blanchard into my study. Have him check the registry for a Banner wizard named Angus. I will join him shortly.” He needed to put his hair in order before he could focus on the business at hand.

  Twenty minutes later he strode into his study and frowned at Captain Blanchard. The chair he was sitting on was slightly askew, and he had moved the lamp. He was hunched over a book and, judging by his scrunched up eyes and the movements of his lips, was reading it. By the time he realized the king had arrived, King Tyr was already starting to sit down.

  “Sire!” Captain Blanchard said as he leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair. In his hurry to pick it up, he bumped up against the table and dislodged it from its proper place. The lamp shook and tilted, but it had a wide, weighted base that kept it from falling over. King Tyr reached out to steady it anyway, and then slowly rose to his feet.

  “Captain,” King Tyr said as he adjusted the position of the table. “Do be careful.” By the time he was satisfied with the table, Captain Blanchard had the chair held out in front of him, as if it were an offering of some sort. King Tyr closed his eyes and frowned. “Set it down, Captain.”

  “Sire,” Captain Blanchard said, gently replacing the chair on his side of the table. It was a bit off in its position, but that always happened when he had guests. He had even grown somewhat accustomed to waiting until his guests had left before he corrected it. It was difficult, but normally his guests had something important to tell him, and he would focus on that as best he could. But it was easier when someone was sitting in the chair, so he gestured for Captain Blanchard to sit. “Thank you, Sire,” Captain Blanchard said as he pulled the chair out and maneuvered himself into position.

  Captain Blanchard had been fully trained, of course, but even so, he was a quarter inch off-center, but the king nudged him over with a finger until he was almost in the precise spot for a proper dialogue. Then the king looked down at the Banner Registry and recoiled back into his seat, almost knocking it over in his effort to put distance between himself and the filthy, disordered tome. Splotches of ink had been dribbled on the page. The handwriting was horrendously inconsistent. The ink had faded with age near the top of the page and was strikingly bold and fresh at the bottom. It had no uniformity at all! “What is this?” he demanded, fighting to keep from standing. “I asked for the Banner Registry.”

  “Yes, Sire,” Captain Blanchard said. “This is it. I collected it from the gate, myself, not more than an hour ago.”

  King Tyr’s lips pressed together and he felt his eyebrows lower like they always did when he was peeved. �
�I had intended for you to bring my copy,” he said through thinly parted lips. His copy was a much more precise version of the daily entries, which were collected at the end of the week and transcribed by a meticulous hand whose exacting penmanship was almost a form of art in its own right.

  “Yes, Sire,” Captain Blanchard said. “I had intended to do so but remembered hearing about a Banner wizard named Angus only yesterday. One of my men had reported that such a wizard had arrived at the city’s western gates but two nights ago. He was near death, and demanded that they take him to a healer named Iscara. Since you wished for me to have this same healer brought to you, I thought it best to bring the Banner registry from the gate. Your copy will not be updated for three more days and did not include the relevant entry.”

  “I see,” King Tyr said, trying to force the tenseness from his shoulders. “And what are they using in its stead?” he asked.

  Captain Blanchard’s mouth opened and closed, once, before he replied, “I had not thought to ask, Sire. Surely they have something for when this is taken to be copied by your scribe?”

  King Tyr frowned and tried to set it aside, but the glaring scrawl screamed at him. It must be cleaned up, but if he acted on that impulse, the entry could be lost entirely! Instead, he lowered his hands to his lap and clenched them tightly together. “What does it say?” he asked, fixing his eyes on Captain Blanchard’s neatly trimmed hair. The symmetry and precision was comforting, but it did little to ease the clenching of his hands.

  Captain Blanchard pointed at the page and said, “This fellow Angus is the wizard for The Banner of the Wounded Hand. That’s Hobart’s Banner. I served with him in The Borderlands for a time. He’s a giant of a man, and as capable with a sword as any I’ve ever seen. But he sneezes a lot. Having him at your side is worth a dozen other soldiers at your back. He—”

  “Yes, yes. He’s a marvelous fighter. What of the wizard?”

  Captain Blanchard gulped and nodded. “Of course, Sire,” he apologized. “The wizard Angus joined his Banner last autumn after Teffles had been killed by wolves. Teffles was only with the Banner for a short time, as a replacement for old Ribaldo when he died. Ribaldo was a fine old wizard who could drink with the best of them. You know, it’s a bit funny that Hobart didn’t kick Angus out of his Banner after he put that hole in Hellsbreath’s wall. I would have. It must have cost the Banner dearly to get him out of the dungeon, and the injunction was pretty severe. He must be a very powerful wizard, indeed, but you’d expect that from someone trained by Voltari.”

  King Tyr’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared as he heard this, but he didn’t interrupt Captain Blanchard. The man didn’t know about the mysterious hole suddenly appearing in Argyle’s warren, and he wasn’t about to tell him. And Voltari! He almost shook his head as he recalled his grandfather’s stories about that foul wizard, stories Captain Blanchard did not need to know.

  “Now,” Captain Blanchard continued, “the description of Angus recorded at the time he joined the Banner is somewhat different from the description recorded here two nights ago, but his injuries could account for some of the discrepancies and the bad lighting for the rest. It is difficult to determine a man’s height in torchlight when he’s lying on a stretcher—that sort of thing. The eye color, though, is another matter. How a man can go from having light blue, almost silver-gray eyes to dark blue eyes is beyond me, but it could just be how the scribes saw the same thing differently. I have a man in my unit who can’t see the difference between red and green, and—”

  “The wizard?” King Tyr interrupted.

  Captain Blanchard nodded again. “Yes, Sire, but this is important. The men at the gate weren’t sure about him being the wizard described in the Registry. He was a little different in size and shape, his hair and eye color seemed a bit off—that kind of thing. Since there weren’t any others from his Banner with him, they weren’t sure what to do. But then Angus collapsed and the Lieutenant in charge decided it was better to risk being wrong about who he was than to treat him as if he wasn’t who he was. So he brought this Angus into the city and took him to Iscara for healing, even though it was a strange request. We have plenty of our own healers, and Banner men are entitled to their assistance, as you well know, but he insisted on being taken to her. It was only after my man had agreed to it that this Angus fellow used an old pass phrase about the fishmen being nearby. Hobart’s Banner had encountered a small group of them in the mountains west of Hellsbreath just before winter, and Angus thinks they were headed to the Lake of Scales. I’ve already sent word to Commander Garrett in Hellsbreath to check that out.”

  King Tyr felt his face begin to flush at the mention of fishmen, but he clamped down his teeth to keep from interrupting again. Captain Blanchard was right: this was becoming a very interesting distraction.

  “Now,” Captain Blanchard continued. “My man took him to Iscara’s and stayed there while she and a few other healers worked on him. He’s a good soldier, and he kept an eye on everything they were doing. He didn’t know at the time what Angus meant about the fishmen, and he thought it might be a more immediate threat. You know how those rumors about The Borderlands are circulating. Men going missing and all. Well, he stuck around to find out what he knew—which wasn’t much, by the way. He hadn’t seen the fishmen; he had only overheard something that led him to think they were at the Lake of Scales. But it does make sense—if you don’t think overmuch about how they might have gotten there without being seen by our patrols.” He paused for a moment and then shook his head.

  “Well, this Angus should have had his leg cut off—that’s what our healers would have done—but Iscara and the other healers grew him a new one. That’s what my man said they did, and I believe him. He’s not the sort of man who would make something like that up. He hasn’t the imagination for it. Now, Angus was unconscious for a long time while they healed him, and afterward, but something odd happened. Iscara had another patient—at least, she said he was a patient—who was skulking about her shop that made my man uneasy. He was all wrapped up with bandages that covered his face and hands, and he walked as softly as a ghost and moved like a cat. That bothered my man, but as long as this other fellow didn’t do more than raise his hackles, he had more important things to do. It’s too bad that he didn’t know about the patrol that had fought with a man wrapped in bandages like that, or he would have dealt with him differently. But that particular incident hadn’t been circulated through the ranks, yet. I only just put the two together myself, and if it is your desire, I can ask Iscara about it.”

  A man wrapped in bandages hiding at Iscara’s? One that walks as softly as a ghost? There’s only one man it could be: Typhus. “No, Captain,” the king said. “You need not trouble yourself with the matter. I will discuss it with her myself this evening.”

  Captain Blanchard nodded. “Of course, Sire,” he said. “The man in bandages seemed to know Angus—at least, something happened between them that made the man in bandages scream in horror and collapse into unconsciousness. Iscara said the disease that afflicted the man gave him fainting spells, but my man didn’t believe her. He didn’t pursue it, though; he hadn’t talked to Angus yet.”

  King Tyr waited for Captain Blanchard to continue, but when it was clear he wasn’t going to, he asked, “And when your man talked to Angus, what did he find out?”

  “Oh,” Captain Blanchard replied. “Aside from his suspicions about where the fishmen are, not much. It was enough at the time for him to know that it was just another rumor, and Angus agreed to talk to him at length once he had had a chance to recover. Based on the injuries they saw, he thought it would take a few days, even with the healing.”

  “Very well,” King Tyr said, keeping his eyes fixed on the symmetry of Captain Blanchard’s brow. “Return the Banner Registry to the gate and track down this Angus. He may have spent last night in Willowby’s Inn. Start there. I would like very much to talk with him about these fishmen. We have made little headway o
n locating them, and if he knows something more about where they may be, I want to hear it from him.” He stood up, and Captain Blanchard gathered up the Banner Registry, bowed, and turned away.

  King Tyr moved to reposition the chairs, and just before Captain Blanchard reached the study door, he stopped him. “Oh, and Captain,” he said, “send word throughout the kingdom. If Angus, wizard of the Banner of the Wounded Hand, arrives in any outpost or city, he is to be restricted to that location and I am to be told at once of his arrival. Since he is a wizard of some note, his spells are to be temporarily confiscated, and if it becomes necessary to arrest him, they have leave to do so. Also, call up the Banner of the Wounded Hand for special duty. I may have use of them in the near future.”

  “Yes, Sire,” Captain Blanchard replied. “What orders shall I give them?”

  King Tyr frowned. He didn’t know what he was going to do with them yet. But if Angus was responsible for what happened beneath the castle, if he had done something to Grayle…. “Have them wait for further instruction,” he said. “That is all.” Pug is dead, he thought. Is Grayle? I may not be able to act openly to avenge what has happened to her, but surely there is some task I could assign to them that would lead to Angus’s death? A jaunt into The Borderlands, perhaps? The missing soldiers aren’t just a rumor; something is happening there, and I want to know what it is. If only it was just the fishmen!