Angst (Book 4)
Page 13
She glanced over at him. If it weren’t for the long years showing in his eyes, he could be mistaken for a boy, and when he sat with his knees up to his chest like that, it enhanced that youthful image. The shadows flickering on his soft brown skin only made him look more childlike, but it didn’t matter. He was right. If they stayed here for long, they would need those provisions. “Are you hungry?” she teased.
He grinned, his creamy white teeth dancing in the flickering flame of the candle. “Always!”
Embril fought back the urge to chuckle and shook her head. “Tell me more about that curse you mentioned,” she said. “It will take your mind off your stomach.”
His grin faded and he turned away from her. He wrapped his arms tightly around his knees, put his chin on them, and rocked forward. Then he tilted his head to look at her, and asked, “Do you remember what I told Darby?”
Embril searched her memory for a few seconds. “Some of it,” she admitted. “I wasn’t listening very closely. I was exhausted from casting all of those spells.”
“Well,” Giorge said. “It started when….”
By the time Giorge finished explaining what he knew about the curse, Embril was no closer to understanding it than she had been before he started talking. But she was hungry, and she decided it was time to fetch the provisions. As she flew up the stairwell, she thought about what Giorge had said, sifting through it for hints of something useful. Yes, it was important that Symptata had hired a witch to punish Giorge’s grandmother twenty-some-times removed, but that didn’t tell Embril how the curse was woven. Yes, it was important that the curse followed Symptata’s family line and that only Symptata’s heir could break the curse, but it didn’t help to understand how the curse’s magic worked. Yes, the poems were important, but the clues they held were ambiguous at best—so ambiguous that Giorge had thought the curse had ended twice because he had interpreted them differently. Mostly, Embril had listened, but every now and then she interrupted him with a question. He answered them as best he could—when he could—but those answers seldom helped her to understand the curse itself; he simply didn’t know how magic worked, and without that understanding, his answers weren’t very helpful. What was helpful was the Viper’s Skull. When he showed her that….
She needed to pay attention to what she was doing, where she was going. The tunnel was narrow and difficult to fly through, and Darby was in the temple somewhere. What would he do if he was in the room with the trap door and she popped up out of it? What if he caught her off guard? She frowned. He had caught her off guard before, hadn’t he? That’s how he had been able to find out about the nexus. She hadn’t known he was a Truthseer, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have expected him to use his Truthseeing abilities on her—and she had been arrogant enough to think that something like that couldn’t work on her. How wrong she had been! What else was she wrong about?
Where was Darby? Why hadn’t they seen him yet? They had been down there long enough, hadn’t they? He had clearly made it down to the bottom of the stairwell—his Obscuration spell proved that—but why hadn’t he gotten further? He hadn’t gotten further, had he? The nexus was still intact, and The Tiger’s Eye still hovered over the chasm. It had spoken to her, inviting her to join it…. Had it done the same thing to Darby? Had he been captured by The Tiger’s Eye’s spell? It was a spell, wasn’t it? Even as she flew through the charred room and into the bright late afternoon sunshine, she felt it whispering to her, and a part of her wanted desperately to turn around. It was a small part, easily managed. Had Darby succumbed to it? Is that why they couldn’t find him?
She paused at the rubble of the outer wall long enough to set the candle down, and then whinnied softly. It was an invitation, a query, a request for companionship, and it received a pair of quick responses. In moments, both horses had joined her, and she smiled as she patted their necks and rubbed their muzzles. She hugged the one that had brought her to the temple and reached up for one of the saddlebags filled with provisions.
Darby’s horse is still here, she thought as she slowly removed the saddlebag and slung it over her shoulder. If Darby had left, he would have taken his horse with him. There were fresh footprints leading into the temple, but none leaving it. Darby had made it to the bottom of the stairwell, but there was no indication that he had gone any further. If he hadn’t cast the Obscuration spell to hide the Angst symbol, she would have thought he hadn’t even gotten that far.
An Obscuration spell!
A sudden realization swept over her, the kind of insight that causes a complete upheaval of reasoning. He wanted to hide the symbol so no one could find it! So I couldn’t find it! But that would mean—
He didn’t want to disrupt the nexus, he wanted to protect it.
She turned back to the temple and flew slowly toward the candle. As she flew, she re-thought her suppositions. If Darby had wanted to protect the nexus, he wouldn’t have had to go any further than the bottom of the stairwell. If no one could see the magic of the Angst insignia, they couldn’t open the panel. If they couldn’t open the panel, they couldn’t find the nexus. If they couldn’t find the nexus, they couldn’t disrupt it. But if that was his plan, why hadn’t he returned? He had had time, hadn’t he?
Or had he?
She entered the temple and quickly made her way to the room with the trapdoor. By the time she reached the stairwell, her stomach was knotting up like a First Order’s tangled up spell. What if Darby hadn’t avoided the trap? What if he had cast the Obscuration spell when he reached the bottom and couldn’t fly out of the stairwell like she had done? Flying wasn’t the kind of spell a Truthseer would typically know, was it?
She dropped quickly down the center of the stairwell. Giorge said he hadn’t seen Darby in the pit, she thought. Giorge….
She landed at the bottom of the stair. It would trigger the trap, but that was what she wanted. She counted off the time it took for the collapsing stairs to reach her, for the floor to begin retracting. There was ample time to cast an Obscuration spell before the trap reached her. But Angus had written about the trap in the scroll, and Darby had the scroll. He had to know about the trap, and that meant he could have prepared for it.
Unless he couldn’t read ancient dwarf.
While she waited for the floor to slide out from beneath her, she quickly replayed Darby’s interrogation of her. It had been expertly done, and by the time it was over, she had told him all he would need to know to reach this point. But he hadn’t asked about the trap….
The candle’s flame fluttered. It was burning more rapidly than it should, and it wouldn’t be long before it died out. Even so, the light it offered was diffuse, and she needed something brighter to see the pit clearly. She brought the magic into focus and squinted at the bright strands of flame wavering around her. She reached for one of them, and cringed as it singed her fingertips. She had never had that happen before, and she tied the simple knot for Lamplight as fast as she could, not even caring that it was a sloppy one. The tiny globe roiled and raged in her palm, and flames flickered across its surface. She thrust it away from her, remembering Angus’s admonition: Be careful when casting spells near the nexus. The magic is powerful there.
Too powerful, she decided. The flame strands around her were more powerful than any she had ever seen, more powerful even than the ones beneath Hellsbreath’s Wizards’ School. But they hadn’t been that strong when they had arrived, had they? And these strands were disordered, unruly….
The floor had nearly reached the halfway point, and she flew slowly over to the far side, where she could see the pit beneath her. She already knew what she would see long before Darby’s milky white stare looked up at her. She quickly turned away as the knot in her stomach becoming a tangled, misshapen skein. She flew up to the Angst symbol and pressed the missing teardrop. There was no need to hurry, she knew, but the panel opened so slowly….
Giorge lied to me about Darby, she thought. What else has he done?
27
After Embril left to get the provisions, Giorge counted off a full minute before he reached into his pack and brought out the second candle. He lit it quickly, picked up his pack, and ran down the corridors as fast as he dared. He didn’t know if it would work or not, but he had to find out if he could lower the floor and gain access to the nexus. Unlike before, he took the shortest route to the room instead of going the long way around. As he approached the room, the candle flame rose higher, and he held it further away from him. He only slowed to a quick walk when he stepped into the room and skirted the hole in the floor.
“Well,” he muttered as he circled the podium and came to a stop behind it. He set the candle on the floor—its flame flared like a torch—and muttered, “Where was the panel?” He pushed against the column where he thought she had pushed, but nothing happened. He moved his hand several times in the general vicinity, and still nothing. “I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled. “Embril won’t be gone long.” He continued to press against the podium for several more seconds, and then stopped in frustration. “What did she see?” he wondered. “If I could see it—”
He rolled his eyes and dropped his pack. “Idiot,” he muttered as he took out and opened Symptata’s box. He reached in for one of the Viper’s Eyes, which came loose with ease, and brought it up to look through it. He tried to ignore the glare from the strands of magic around him, and turned his attention to the column. There was a red shadow, and it looked like the Angst symbol—but part of it was missing. Angus said that about the one in the stairwell, didn’t he? And then he pressed—
Giorge pressed against the spot where the third teardrop should have been and waited. How long before she gets back? he wondered as the floor began its slow, steady descent. Do I have enough time?
He paced until the floor dipped below the top of the slit in the wall that led to the nexus. When enough of the slit was revealed for him to squeeze through, he dropped down on his hands and knees and slid feet first into it. He lithely dropped down to the narrow ledge and turned around. He lifted the Viper’s Eye. The magic was brilliant. A thick, steady stream rose from deep below him and then it fractured into dozens of tendrils. He lowered the Viper’s Eye and squinted. There was only a little light from the candle reaching the room, but it was enough for him to get a vague sense of its dimensions. Beneath him was a hole that fell into darkness. Above it was a spherical cave. In the middle of the sphere was The Tiger’s Eye. It was huge, easily as large as his head, but there was a problem. He couldn’t reach it from where he was. If he tried, he would fall into the pit beneath him. If he tried jumping, he would fall into the pit. If he tried to climb the walls—he reached out to touch their glass-like smoothness—he would slip and fall into the pit. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway; he couldn’t reach The Tiger’s Eye from the wall because it was in the center of a sphere.
He turned around and climbed onto the still-lowering floor. He clambered over to his pack and almost upended it. The size of my head, he thought with excitement, reaching out for The Viper’s Skull. He quickly slid The Viper’s Eye back into its socket and paused. He took the skull out of Symptata’s box and smiled. It should fit nicely, shouldn’t it? he thought as he rummaged through his gear. He had half of it out before he found the grapple hook and thin, strong rope. As soon as it was in his hands, he turned and hurried back to the little spherical room. He took a deep breath and paused.
Why am I doing this? he wondered again. What can I do with the damned thing when I get it? His hands seem to be moving by themselves as he tossed the grapple with perfect aim. It clanked against The Tiger’s Eye and its barbs caught on the sharp-edged facets of the humongous ruby. He almost fought the urge to jerk it free, but his arms convulsed of their own accord. The Tiger’s Eye broke free from whatever was holding it in place and tumbled toward him. The grapple slipped free, and he dodged its sharp prongs as it whizzed past him. He almost fell into the pit from his effort to catch The Tiger’s Eye. It was warm and heavy in his palm as he staggered back into the room. Too warm; its touch should have burned his fingers.
He didn’t hesitate. Embril would be returning soon, and he needed to be in the right corridor when she passed if he had any hope of escape. He dropped The Tiger’s Eye into Symptata’s box, closed the lid, and locked it. He stuffed the gear back into his pack as best he could, then set Symptata’s box on top of it. He had to jiggle the contents to make The Viper’s Skull fit, and then strapped it shut. He picked up the candle—its flame was even stronger and had burned through nearly half of it—and ran from the room and down the corridors. Somehow, the flame seemed to grow, and he stopped at a corner to set it down. He hurried up to the next corner and watched the end of the dark corridor that ran parallel to the one he was in. As he waited, he steadied his breathing and wondered why he had taken The Tiger’s Eye.
Candlelight rapidly approached the end of the corridor, and a moment later, Embril hurried past. Giorge rushed back to retrieve his candle, and then ran quietly through the corridors until he almost reached the entrance.
He didn’t leave. That was pointless. There was no way he could make it up the stairwell before Embril realized what had happened and came after him. She could fly up the stairwell ten times faster than he could run, and his only hope was deception. He had to convince her that he didn’t take it, and it wouldn’t be easy. She’s a Truthseer! he suddenly remembered. When Darby interrogated me, she made me say things I didn’t want to say!
The churning sound of the trap’s mechanism crackled from the room housing it, and Giorge’s heart began to beat more slowly, the way it always did when he was on the verge of getting caught. If the trap was resetting, that meant—
Giorge scurried up to the entrance and into the stairwell. The floor had nearly moved back into place, but it was still a foot from the wall.
She knows I lied about Darby! he realized. She won’t believe me!
The hollow, clanking echo of the stairs lifting back into place above him sent a shiver down his spine. How long would it take for them to finish? It didn’t matter. He had only one chance, now, and that was to run up the stairs.
He started running.
28
Voltari woke with such sharpness that he immediately brought into focus the magic he always kept at the edge of his awareness. He summoned strands to himself and his fingers quivered as his mind bent those strands to his will. The movement of his fingers was barely noticeable, and only those very well-trained in magic would have recognized its purpose. The spell he wove was his own creation—as most of the spells he used were—and he waited until he had it at the ready before he opened his eyes to evaluate the mundane world beneath the magical overlay.
As he studied what was around him, his breath eased in and out of his lungs like the soft expansion of a recalcitrant bellows. His books were as he had left them when he had settled down for a brief rest. The shadows cast by the perpetual Lamplight were unmoving, as they should be. The air was a bit staler than it had been, but that was to be expected; mustiness was quite normal for his subterranean home.
He was alone.
He sat up and tested Blackhaven Tower’s defenses. Mut and Gyf were standing silent vigil, and when he gazed through their eyes he could see nothing out of place. The spells surrounding the door had not been tampered with. There was no residual hint of someone passing along the threads of his Teleportation spell. Everything was as it should be, and yet he knew there was something wrong. Something had disturbed his slumber, but what was it?
His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as he realized what it was. The magic around him was slightly different. Some of the flame strands were stronger, more vibrant, more alive. The difference was barely perceptible—no one else would have noticed i
t—but Voltari had become so attuned to the array of strands in and around his tower that the shift in their normal patterns of behavior was obvious. He smiled and reached out for the part of the Teleportation spell that would take him into the depths of his complex, to where the magic he drew upon originated. He tweaked it.
A moment later, he was standing in utter darkness, surrounded by the magnificent pulsing of the death magic emanating from the minor nexus far beneath his tower. The blackness of its strands was somehow deeper, richer, more intense than the darkness of the empty, unlit cave. As he studied it, a slow, toothless smile began to form. Instead of its normal slow, steady upward thrust, the magic emanating from the nexus was fluctuating, increasing and decreasing in power, wavering like smoke rising from a flame as a slight breeze tickled it. The magic was dancing.
He reached out to touch the free-flowing stream, and a soft, sinister chuckle rumbled through the small cave. He gripped the strand firmly, letting it flow over his fingertips. A nexus point has been disrupted, he thought with glee. The Taming has been broken!
He lingered for several seconds, bathing in the vitality of the brief spurts of unencumbered magic. It wasn’t completely free, yet, but it would not take long for the magic to escape from its bounds. Soon, he thought, I will return home. He reluctantly released the magic and reached for his Teleportation spell. How would the disruption in the nexus affect it? Where would it send him? To the special room of the library that no one knew existed? Or somewhere else? He didn’t bother to shrug. He didn’t bother to hesitate. He didn’t bother to take precautions. He simply tweaked the spell.
The Hunt Begins
1
“Sire,” Phillip said as he walked into King Tyr’s private chambers. “Rascal wishes to speak to you.”
“Indeed,” King Tyr said. “Have you made the preparations?”
“Yes, Sire. The screen is in place and the cleaning wench is waiting.”