The Golden Key (Book 3)

by Robert P. Hansen

  The Golden Key

  Book 3 of Angus the Mage Series

  By Robert P. Hansen

  Copyright 2015 by Robert P. Hansen

  All Rights Reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Ronda Swolley, of Mystic Memories Copy Editing, for the copy edit, and Linda Foegen of American Book Design for the cover art and Voltari’s Map.

  Dedication

  For Big Slicks with Sticks

  and the other pool league teams

  I’ve played with over the years.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Connect With Me

  Voltari’s Map

  Prologue

  Separation Anxiety

  For Friends and Family

  Gambits

  End Games

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Additional Titles

  Connect With Me

  For reviews of The Tiger’s Eye and The Viper’s Fangs, updates on my writing, excerpts from my novels, samples of my poetry, and links to my work online, visit my blog at: http://www.rphansenauthorpoet.wordpress.com/.

  Although I seldom use it, you can also follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/frummery).

  Visit my Amazon author page at: www.amazon.com/author/rphansen

  Voltari’s Map

  Prologue

  1

  Iscara was a healer by default. Her mother was a healer. Her grandmother had been a healer. Her sisters were healers. Even her cousin Niddy was a healer, and she was an idiot. She couldn’t even tie the laces of her bodice, but she had a knack for tweaking the magic within people back into alignment when it was needed. Iscara’s father hadn’t been a healer, though; he had married into the family. Before that, he had been a soldier, and she had listened with avid, glowing admiration while he told his blood-soaked stories about the Fishmen Incursions. She loved those stories and longed to be a soldier hacking and slashing the fishmen to pieces. But she wasn’t; she was a healer, and she was good at it—her mother and grandmother had seen to that. But she didn’t like being a healer.

  She sighed and walked down the corridor at a brisk pace. It was a gloomy hallway, lit only by the dim glow of small, half-consumed candles spaced too far apart. The air was full of their warm, smoky stench, which had nowhere else to go. Her footfalls echoed softly off the corridor walls, and at the end of it was Argyle’s door. She smiled as she hurried up to it, and her heart tingled with excitement as she approached the quaint little knocker he used. It was the forked tongue of a protruding snake’s head, and she had to slip her hand into its gaping maw to reach it. It was a beautifully crafted mechanism carved from gray granite that melted into the stone of the door to give the impression that it was a snake slithering out of its lair to strike at an unsuspecting prey. There were simpler ways to administer the poison she had sold to him, but Argyle was much too elegant for those. He had style.

  She tickled the forked tongue to life until the snake’s mouth snuggled down around her arm. A moment later, a resonant clang reverberated through the corridor like a shield carelessly dropped on a stone floor and allowed to settle on its own. Her smile broadened until her teeth peeked out between her lips, and then Argyle’s sonorous monotone filled the corridor like the ragged remnants of a used cocoon. She mouthed the words as they descended upon her, her lips fitting into each one with mock precision, “Who calls upon me?”

  She waited until the snake’s cold, hard fangs tightened against her skin and threatened to draw blood before she responded. The poison the fangs carried didn’t worry her—she had the antidote in her bag—and any injury the fangs did to her arm could easily be repaired. Not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to be one of the visitors Argyle didn’t want to see, but she didn’t have time to find out now. His summons had been urgent.

  “Iscara,” she purred, her voice husky, the sounds dripping from her tongue like sweat pooling together to form the name. A moment later—far more quickly than usual, and without the menacing red glow in its eyes—the snake released its grip on her arm and the door slid aside. Her smile slipped from her lips as they flattened and pressed together, and she almost frowned as she hurried past the door as soon as the opening was wide enough for her to squeeze through. Argyle wouldn’t set aside his dramatic flair unless it was very urgent, and when that urgency concerned Iscara, it meant someone important to him was in dire need of a healer, and not—

  She almost fell as she ran into one of Argyle’s lackeys, but he held on to her just long enough for her to maintain her balance. He had been waiting inside the archway that led into Argyle’s meeting room, and once she was steady on her feet again, he said, his tone impatient, “This way. Quickly!” It was the lackey with the crooked knife that looked like a crescent moon had been captured and given a handle, and she thought of him as Crooked Knife because of it. It was simpler than remembering his name, but she never called him that to his face. She never called him by name, either; she couldn’t remember it. Crooked Knife took hold of her elbow and half-tugged, half-guided her along the inner wall and into a shadowy corner.

  Where’s Argyle? she thought as the frown finally settled into place. Is he injured? The thought troubled her greatly; with all the precautions Argyle had implemented to preserve his life, it would take a very elaborate plan to get close enough—

  Crooked Knife pressed against a stone block set in the wall, and it eased back and clicked into place. A moment later, a door-sized portion of the wall sprang outward a few inches. He pulled on its edge to open it and then hurriedly pushed her into the narrow corridor beyond. It was barely wide enough for both of them to scurry through it side by side, and the only light was coming from a torch at the far end of the corridor where it intersected another narrow corridor that ran perpendicular to the first.

  Iscara knew about Argyle’s secret passages, but this one was different from the others she had seen. It wasn’t a huge gaping hole like the ones Argyle used, and it was longer. Most of the other corridors went only a short distance before ending in a sealed room where the torture would take place. She thought of them as her playrooms, and she had thought that was why he had sent for her. As they hurried up to the corner, her shoulders sagged a bit more; she had so hoped Argyle hadn’t wanted her to heal someone…

  Crooked Knife paused to lift the torch from its sconce, turned to her, and said, “Step where I do. Don’t deviate more than a few inches from the path I take.”

  Iscara nodded. It wasn’t the first time one of Argyle’s lackeys had told her something like that, and she knew better than to ignore the advice. She had seen the wounds of those who hadn’t listened to it—or hadn’t received it.

  Crooked Knife stepped along the wall for several feet, and then crossed at an angle to the opposite wall. He only took a few steps along that wall before moving to the center of the corridor and running to the end. The tunnel split again, and he turned left and ran down the center until he was nearly to the end before nestling up against the left wall. The corridor ended at a door, but he ignored it. Instead, he put the torch in a sconce on the wall and turned the sconce to the right until the torch was pointed at the end of the corridor. A moment later, a panel slid open beside the sconce, and he ushered her into the small room beyond.

  It was a cozy little room with a brazier of coals set on the floor next to a table. There were two chairs beside it, and another lackey—the one with pointed toes who always sneered lasciviously at her—sat in one of them, his thin little knife nudging around half-eaten food on a copper platter. She would have smiled at him but
Crooked Knife—perhaps she should try to remember his name sometime, but it seemed so unimportant— firmly gripped her arm and led her through a small, open doorway that led to a brightly lit bedroom.

  She squinted against the sudden brilliance of a dozen candles, but Crooked Knife gave her no time to adjust to them as he urged her toward a large bed nestled in the far corner. Someone lay cuddled in among the vibrant green coverlets as if they were wearing a shroud, and she half-expected it to be Argyle, but the man on the bed was much too small to be him. Who could it be, then?

  They came to a stop at the edge of the bed, and Crooked Knife finally let go of her arm. He had squeezed it too tightly, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her react to the pain he had caused. Instead, she turned to the man drenched in the contours of the coverlet. His shape seemed familiar to her.

  “Heal him,” Crooked Knife demanded, pointing at the man. “Quickly!”

  Iscara leaned forward and gently pulled away the coverlet. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Typhus?” she muttered. But it couldn’t be Typhus; Fanzool had said he was dead. But it looked—

  She shook her head. It didn’t matter if it was Typhus or not; Argyle wanted him healed—and quickly. After that….

  She scowled and put her hand on the man’s forehead and brusquely nudged the dark brown hair away from the eyes. They were closed, but she knew if she opened them, they would be two pale gray icebergs whose depths were filled with such coldness that they would never thaw—not even for her. Her fingertips slid down his cheek to the long scar that traced a path from his ear to his collarbone and idly wondered why Typhus had never let her heal that scar.

  What would Argyle do to me if I refused to heal him? she wondered. She shook her head and thrust the thought away. She knew what Argyle was capable of—what she had done for him—and it would not be wise to find out. Perhaps after Argyle was done with him, he would give Typhus to her as payment? She almost smiled at the thought, but then she remembered what Argyle would do if she failed in her healing.

  She lifted the coverlet from the rest of Typhus’s body and set her bag on the bed beside his head. It looked like a small bag, not much larger than a coin purse, but it was wrought from magic and its interior was a conduit to the storage room containing her healing supplies. Herbs, bandages, needle and thread, splints, and anything else she might need was within easy reach when she put her hand into it. But what would she need?

  She concentrated on the magic within her patient, and her eyes were drawn to his chest. A nearly solid patch of dark red, almost black energy throbbed around his heart. Her brow furrowed as she studied it. It didn’t belong there, and it wasn’t connected to the rest of the magic in Typhus. It was as if something else was inside him, keeping the heart beating a slow, steady rhythm. But what—

  Sardach? she thought suddenly. Yes. Sardach is with him. Argyle had sent Sardach with Fanzool to find him. She frowned and turned her attention away from the thing encasing Typhus’s heart. If Sardach were inside him, his injuries had to be severe. Sardach would never enter someone without it being a life-threatening situation, and then only if Argyle had commanded it. She had only seen it once before, and that—

  She shook her head to clear it, and then took a deep, calming breath. She needed to focus, and she needed to do it now. Sardach had already been inside Typhus for too long, and the foul creature couldn’t sustain Typhus forever. It was time for her to get to work. She concentrated on the magic within her and held her hand out over his chest. She frowned; there was something wrong with the magic in Typhus, something besides the presence of Sardach, something besides the injuries he had sustained. She couldn’t tell what that thing was, and that confused her. She was a healer, and healers had a knack for recognizing the discord in the magic of others and then identifying the cause of that discord. It was how healers knew what treatment was needed. But here, the magic of Typhus was in a state of torment she had never experienced before, and she couldn’t find the cause.

  “What is this?” she muttered, absorbed in the confusing array of threads and wondering what it meant. She shook her head again and thought, I can’t treat what I don’t understand. There’s no point dwelling on it when there are other injuries I can treat. She turned to those injuries and made a quick assessment of them. The ribs were crushed and one of them had punctured through the wall of the heart. The lungs…

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. If it weren’t for Sardach, Typhus would be dead.

  It would be a delicate, difficult healing, even without the confusion in Typhus’s magic, and with it?

  “Get out,” Iscara said without turning.

  Crooked Knife didn’t move. “Argyle—”

  Iscara turned and glared at him. “Get out,” she repeated, her voice resolute, “and stay out. Stand guard to make sure there are no disruptions. None. Not even Argyle.” Without waiting for a response, Iscara turned back to her patient and opened her bag.

  2

  A chill, damp darkness enveloped him. A dull, musty odor swarmed around in the dust like spider legs dancing on his skin. Giorge lifted his left hand, and it banged against a wall. He tried the right arm, but it was squeezed up against the wall and the sling made it difficult to move in the confined space. He leaned backward, then forward, but no matter how he shifted his position, the walls remained but an inch or two away, as if they had been drawn in from the darkness and solidified into a harsh, unrepentant cocoon.

  Where am I?

  He blinked, and his eyelids brushed lightly across the surface of his eyes. Eyes? He frowned; these were his eyes, not the cold stone of the Viper’s Eyes, but he still couldn’t see. Was he blind again? More blind? Without the Viper’s Eyes, he couldn’t even see the magic around him anymore.

  He tilted his leg to press his knee against the wall in front of him. It was hard, smooth, and curved slightly outward. As it rose from the floor, it tapered around his leg as if it had been molded to fit his leg perfectly, with barely enough room for him to wiggle around a little bit. He tried the other leg and found the same thing. It even had nodule-like indentations for his kneecaps.

  He exhaled as much air from his lungs as he could and wondered how long he could survive on what little air there was in the small, enclosed space. Minutes? Perhaps a half hour? Longer? He would need to escape from it quickly. He squeezed his left arm in front of his abdomen and brought it upward until it pressed painfully between his ribcage and the sling. Then he gritted his teeth and shifted his right arm upward until it nestled uncomfortably beneath his chin, almost crushing his windpipe. He had expected a jolt of pain, but there was nothing. His right arm didn’t hurt at all.

  It was a tight fit, but he had both arms pressed against the wall in front of him. He pushed outward as hard as he could, using the weight of his body to provide leverage against the wall behind him. It gave a little, as if the seal was not quite true, as if it were a door whose bolt had a little play in it. Was it a door? One conforming to his body’s shape? He had seen doors like that before, but only in mausoleums when he chanced to visit them looking for bits of buried treasure. On those, the image of the dead was raised outward to give the impression of life suspended instead of life done and gone. What if he were inside one of those things? Would there be a reverse impression on the lid? He frowned; all the ones he had seen had been smooth on the inside when he had opened them. Maybe it was something like a suit of armor? But that didn’t make sense; armor had arms and legs that moved, and this thing didn’t. It was just a hollowed-out shape that followed the rough contours of his body. Besides, why would he be wearing armor? It was far too cumbersome for his purposes. Whatever it was, it gave a little bit when he pressed on it, and if he pressed harder, it might give even more.

  He slowly repositioned himself and used the back wall to brace his elbows. Then he leaned back as far as he could and lurched forward with all the weight and power he could muster. There was a sharp little twang, as if a spring
had snapped apart, and then the wall in front of him swiveled away. He heard a tiny metallic clink at his feet as he staggered forward, sagged to his knees, and reached out with his hands to stop from tumbling forward. The floor was damp, and he slid forward until he lay sprawled atop its matted, slimy surface. When he rose to his hands and knees, fetid, spongy strands clung to him in droopy little clumps. It was like the pond scum he used to conceal himself from the monks who had chased him out of that little village with the quirky temple. They were a determined bunch, those monks, and he had had to stay under that scum a long time, his nose jutting up into it just far enough to snatch a breath or two. That scum had smelled bad enough, but this stuff reeked much worse: it had the stench of decay clinging to it.

  He rose to his knees and shook his arms several times before the last of the muck sloughed away from him. Then he peeled it away from the hilts of his sword and throwing knives. Then he realized he could see the dingy gray crud spreading out across the floor around him. I’m not blind, he thought, relieved despite his confusion. The Viper’s Eyes had replaced his own, but now? He reached up to touch one of them—and jerked his head back, cursing and blinking rapidly. The slime on his finger burned, and when he tried to rub it out of his eye it only made things worse. It was only after he had scraped away the crud and used the underside of his tunic to wipe at his eyes and face that the burning eased.

  He sighed and blinked back the tears to clear away the haziness. The room was almost completely black but for a strange, dull, orange glow emanating from a corner far ahead of him. It wasn’t much light, but he had long ago learned to navigate in this kind of near darkness, and it gave a strange cast to everything. The room was expansive, at least forty feet square with an eight-foot high ceiling. To his immediate left, some twenty feet away, the room was in shadow that gradually lessened as it approached the well-lit corner. The lighting continued along the far wall in front of him, and then dwindled to the right until it was lost in a darkness his eyes couldn’t penetrate. If there was a wall to his right, it was too deep in the darkness to be seen. Four large columns, evenly spaced, held up the ceiling, blocking his view of parts of the room, and he would have to move to see around them. But the floor was too slick to risk it at the moment.