He raised his eyebrows and looked at the box again. “I see,” he said, almost reaching for the books again. He took several out and set them on the table and then lifted the chest from the cot and set it on the ground next to the table. When he turned back to her, he asked in a suddenly efficient, clinically detached tone, “Where do you hurt?”
She rattled off her symptoms, and when she finished, he had her lay down on the cot and did his own examination. His hands hovered above her skin so close that it tickled, but he didn’t touch her; it was the magic within her being stimulated by his magic. As it passed, the pain eased beneath it; it didn’t disappear entirely but became much more manageable. When he reached the small of her back, his hand touched the skin and stayed there for several seconds.
When he finished his examination, he set one of the small jars on top of the pile of books on the table and said. “Apply this ointment liberally and the blisters will be gone by morning. Keep the jar; they’ll be back again tomorrow evening. It’s going to take you a few days to adjust to riding, and if it gets any worse, let me know. Your back is something else entirely.”
His hands were warm with magic as he placed them on either side of her spine and used his thumbs to manipulate the bones back into their proper positions. When he finished, he reached for the other jar and gently rubbed that ointment onto her backside, each little dollop smothering another pinprick of pain. As he sealed the jar and put it back into his pack, he said, “I’ll return in the morning to apply a second dose. In the meantime, you should get some sleep.” He looked at the books and frowned. “Don’t spend too much time with them tonight. It will be a long, hard ride tomorrow.” He picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. He paused at the door and half-turned to look at her. “We’ll talk about the rules of magic use tomorrow. Until then, don’t cast any more spells.”
She acknowledged him with a nod as she reached for the ointment. It was quite soothing as she applied it, and when she finished, she bent over her chest and hurriedly removed the rest of the books from it. When it was empty, she pressed the panels on the side that opened the false bottom and lifted the false bottom out of the chest. Beneath it was her robe and an assortment of other items. She reached in for the robe and quickly put it on, luxuriating in the familiar softness of the cloth. Then she turned to Barnham’s. It had more in it than the spell that would let her talk to horses. Much, much more.
4
The sarcophagus’s lid stopped moving while the gap was still too narrow for Giorge to see through it. It stayed that way for a few long, torturous seconds, and then a sliver of metal slowly emerged. The blade caught and held the dim orange glow emanating from the far corner of the tomb, and then tilted away from it, rotating like a mirror capturing everything that was in the room. When it had finished its rotation, it retracted back into the dark interior of the sarcophagus.
Giorge stood still, his short sword hanging limply in his hand, the tip pointed at the floor. Momma? he wondered as sweat congealed on his palms and the nape of his neck. His chest felt like he had eaten a snake that was trying to worm its way back out again, and it was difficult to breathe past the clump of its coils in his throat.
Soft black fingertips cradled around the lip of the lid like a specter’s claw shrouded in darkness and death. They held the lid in place, and a sleek little poniard with a dull black blade blossomed from the shadows. In the gloom, it was a barely visible, thin round spike.
Momma had a black poniard like that, Giorge thought as he desperately tried to swallow. She said it was easier to conceal it when she was hiding in the darkness. He was shivering uncontrollably; he had always wondered why his mother needed such a blade. She had always been so cautious, so strict….
The hilt guard appeared. It was smothered in black leather, and if he had not been so acutely focused on the blade, so experienced in seeing the subtlest of differences among the shadows, he might not have noted it at all. The hand that followed was small and covered with a black glove that made it seem even smaller, tiny like a child’s.
Momma? Giorge gulped, knowing it was her and dreading it. She was dead. She had been dead for so long. She couldn’t be….
The lid opened.
The woman who stepped past it held her poniard in front of her in a steady, confident hand. She wore a black mask that concealed everything but her eyes—and those were two narrow slits darting about the room. They soon settled on him. They were fierce, stone-cold eyes, not at all like the kind and loving ones he remembered so well, the ones he thought he remembered.
She moved clear of the lid like a feline seeking the best route to its prey. But she didn’t advance; she didn’t attack.
She was tiny, even smaller than himself, but he didn’t remember her that way. In Little Giorgie’s mind, she had been a giant towering over him and protecting him from all the other giants.
She crouched as if she expected an attack, but something seemed to hold her back. Her blade wavered and her eyes widened. Her other hand moved toward her mouth and stopped as she mouthed something he couldn’t hear. It hovered there, like a cat’s paw with its claws sheathed in preparation for batting around a trapped mouse.
Giorge’s sword fell limply from his hand and clanged softly as it struck the slime-covered stone floor, and he sagged to his knees. “Momma,” he croaked.
She squinted at him, and the point of her poniard wobbled, lowered a bit. But she didn’t sheathe it; she maintained her defensive position. She was tense, and the slits of her eyes held a depth of uncertainty that troubled Giorge.
He was weeping again, soft tears that clouded up his vision and fogged up his mind. He didn’t know what to think, what to say, what to do. “Momma?” he sobbed, his voice cracking as he stared at her.
She stared at him and said nothing, did nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Then she took a hesitant step forward and stopped. “Giorgie?” she asked, her voice questioning. “How?”
How? The word hung in the air like a suspended thief, and Giorge’s mouth opened and closed a few times. He knew the softness of the voice, the richness of the tone that had comforted him as she held him in its arms…. He took a deep, ragged breath and said, his voice clear, almost childlike in his ears, “Symptata’s curse is over. I ended it.”
“Sympt—” his mother began as she took another step closer. Before she could take a third step, a muffled thud, as if someone was pounding softly on a heavy maple door, interrupted them. It was coming from the sarcophagus next to his mother’s.
It was answered by the next sarcophagus.
And the next.
5
It had taken Embril half the night to weave together the complex pattern of knots the spell demanded, but it was worth it. She much preferred being a horse to riding one. Unfortunately, the spell would only last a few days, and as soon as she had finished casting it, it had already begun to unravel. But there were a lot of safeguards that would keep it in place for that long. The outer knots—the ones unraveling—wouldn’t affect her shape because they were a buffer that had nothing to do with the real spell, like the outer skin of a plum. It was the inner layer of knots that had transformed her into the horse, and they were as complicated as any spell she had ever seen (other than the dome over Hellsbreath). The knots were wrought mainly from the yellow-green strands of magic emanating from the nearby horses. She had merged that magic with the magic within her and reinforced them with a complex sequence of braided strands from all the major branches of magic (except death magic). The most difficult part, though, was casting it from the book and aligning the magic within her to be receptive to its influence as she went. Most wizards couldn’t even do it, but she had a knack for it if she understood the spell, and she had thought she had understood it well enough to try.
She had happily slept on her feet until Darby’s soft call from just outside the tent flap woke her. She smiled—a strange sensation for a horse with such big lips and teeth—and said, “En-n-n-nter
.” There was a nasal twang in her voice, as if it had issued from her nose instead of her mouth. Perhaps it had?
Darby opened the flap and ducked inside. “Embril—” He stopped abruptly when he straightened and quickly lifted his hands into a perfect position for casting the simple, effective defensive spells. She had seen him take up that position in Commander Garret’s office, and she gave a short chuckle that sounded a lot like a playful nicker. He quickly examined the room with his eyes, and when he didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary, those eyes fell upon her. “Embril?” he asked, keeping his hands in position as he studied her.
“At your service,” she said, the words rumbling free from her tongue. It was an interesting tongue, one with a great deal of flexibility and length, and it kept getting in the way when she spoke. The sound of her voice fell strangely in her ears, too; they were big ears that twisted around on their own, and it created a curious echo effect. She playfully bent her front knee and lowered her head, as if she were giving a curtsey to the king.
Darby stared at her for a long time before he let his hands fall slowly back to his side. “Why?” he asked, as if he were speaking to an exasperating child who had just cut off her sister’s braids. (It was not a pleasant memory, and it took her a long time to forgive her sister for it.) His voice also had a peculiarly compelling quality that made it impossible for her to refuse to answer.
“That horse hates me,” she said, a bit defensively. Why wasn’t he pleased with her? He should have been quite impressed by the spell; it was well beyond the abilities of most wizards, even those who knew of its existence. “I won’t ride it again.”
He slowly shook his head and sighed. “It would have been simpler to ride a different horse.”
She laughed—a strange sound that blended into a whinny—and said. “I doubt that would have mattered.” She paused before adding, “Lieutenant Jarhad was going to teach me to ride today, and that would have delayed us too long.”
He frowned as he said, “He’s a good teacher, and if he thought the delay would be excessive, he would have sent you back to Hellsbreath. When he sees you now, he’s sure to do it.”
She shook her head, feeling her mane swishing against her neck like a long, heavy scarf ruffled by a strong breeze. “Why?” she demanded. “I can run as fast and as long as any of the other horses, and without the inconvenience of saddle sores.”
He stared at her for a long time, and then said, “It must be a complicated spell. How long will it last?”
She shrugged, feeling the mass of muscles in her shoulders rippling gleefully. “No more than three or four days,” she said, wondering why she had answered him. What was he doing to elicit these answers from her? Was it a side-effect of the spell?
“Perhaps he won’t be too upset,” Darby said. “We should be on the ledge by then. Your new shape will conceal you better than that soldier’s uniform. Anyone who got a good look at you in that getup would have known you weren’t a soldier. We’ll have to do something about that mane, though.”
“Why?” she asked trying to turn her head to see it. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s bright red, like your hair,” he said, “and much longer than the other horses’ in this patrol. It will stand out unless we roach it.”
She whirled around to face him and snorted, “You are not cutting it.” Then, as a playful afterthought, she mimicked Commander Garret’s tone as she suggested, “Perhaps a hat would work?”
He groaned and shook his head. “It will need to be colored,” he said. “Perhaps a healthy layer of mud will do it? Conceal the color and paste it to your neck so it doesn’t stand out so much?”
“All right,” she agreed, taking a few steps toward the tent flap.
Darby put his arm out to stop her. “You can’t go out yet,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“What do you think the men will do when they see a strange horse with a red mane coming out of the Lieutenant’s tent?” he demanded. “What do you think Lieutenant Jarhad will do when he sees you?”
She backed away from him and shuddered. She really had to pee, and she knew Lieutenant Jarhad would not like it if she did it in his tent. But she didn’t have the kind of bladder control as a horse that she had as a human, and she didn’t know how long she could wait. She was also hungry.
He looked around the tent again, frowning as he did so. “Can you release the magic of the Lamplight?”
She tried—and was alarmed to find that her hooves couldn’t manipulate the magical strands at all. There were no fingers on them, and they were too clumsy for any kind of delicate work. “No,” she said, scratching futilely at the ground beneath her.
He looked at her feet and frowned. “We should have them put shoes on you.”
She shook her head. “No need,” she said. “I will only be a horse for a short while, and it is unlikely that my hooves will crack in that time. If I step on anything sharp or get a stone lodged in my hoof, I won’t keep quiet about it.”
He smiled, nodded, and said, “I have no doubt of that.”
She bristled, then rippled her shoulders to ease the sudden burst of tension. “Well?” she demanded, “Are you going to tell the Lieutenant or am I?”
He looked around the tent again and then moved toward the table where her chest and books still rested. “Not just yet,” he said, reaching for the open book on the table. It was Barnham’s, the one that had the spell in it, and he gently closed it and put it back in the box. He stacked the rest of the books neatly on top of it, and then closed the box. When he reached for the lock, he asked, “You have the key?”
She nodded, “Of course.”
He snapped it shut and made sure it was secure. Finally, he turned to her and said, “I’ll tell the Lieutenant what you have done and try to convince him it will be of benefit to us. If I were you, I would avoid him as much as possible. He does not tolerate disobedient soldiers, and if he knew how vulnerable you are right now, he might risk punishing you severely.”
“Why?” She demanded. “What have I done that is so wrong?”
He blinked at her and sighed. “If you had gone through the soldier’s training for wizards, you would know,” he began. “The first rule is simple: Wizards may use magic only when it is absolutely necessary or when it is impossible for the casting to be detected. Wizards are a very valuable component to the unit, but we are also more vulnerable than the rest of the men. We have some training in combat, but it is much less than what they have had. We tend to keep toward the center of the unit during battle and assist as we can with our magic, provided we can do so surreptitiously. If the enemy recognizes a wizard in battle, they will attack him even to the point of ignoring the other soldiers. They fear wizards—and rightly so—and it is not unusual to use a ruse to deceive them into such an attack.”
She digested this rule and the explanation for it, and then asked, “What better deception than to be a horse? He should be happy with me. You, yourself, even said the soldier’s uniform was insufficient as a disguise.”
He shook his head. “A horse with a flaming red mane and tail? No, you have just flaunted your wizard’s ability, and he won’t care why you did it. We were not under attack, and there were plenty of alternatives to resolve your difficulties. I can see only two things in your favor that will save you. First, you cast the spell in such a way that it was unlikely to be detected unless we have been closely observed since we left Hellsbreath. If we can do something about your mane and tail. Second, it should help us to fulfill our objective more quickly.” He walked to the tent flap, paused, and turned back to her. “Do not leave the tent until Lieutenant Jarhad allows you to leave,” he said. “And don’t speak to anyone while you are in horse form. Horses cannot talk, and if your deception is to succeed, neither should you.”
She pouted until she began to wonder what it would look like to have a horse’s lower lip jutting out and quivering, and then she sucked it back to her teeth a
nd gave a curt, rapid nod.
Darby was halfway through the tent flap when she began to pee. He paused, but he didn’t look back as he told the guard outside, “Fetch Lieutenant Jarhad forthwith. He is needed here.” Then he stepped outside and let the flap fall back into place.
Embril looked down between her legs, amazed by the size of the puddle forming on the ground beneath her. Her body was doing it by itself. She thought she might be able to stop it, but she didn’t. It felt too good to relieve the pressure in her bladder. It also felt funny and made her giggle—a very strange sound coming from a horse.
6
In one fluid motion, Giorge’s mother spun on the slick floor to face the sarcophagus, lifted her poniard up in front of her, and drew a second poniard from her belt. She shifted her feet until she was able to see both Giorge and the thumping sarcophagi at the same time.
Giorge turned his head reluctantly away from her as he listened to the heavy thumps. They sounded almost like discordant heartbeats, impatient and in need of attention—or someone pounding on a door to rouse an innkeeper late at night. If Momma was alive, then—
He shook his head and rubbed at the tears in his eyes—and winced as the crud on his hands stung his eyes. He grabbed for the inside of his tunic and pawed at his eyes to clear them. As he did so, he yelled, “Help them get out!” But when he had his eyes halfway cleared, his mother was still standing there, guardedly watching both him and the thumping sarcophagi.
Giorge grabbed his sword and scrambled unsteadily to his feet. “They’re locked in,” he said, moving rapidly toward the next sarcophagus. “Like you were!” He slid into the sarcophagus and used it to keep from falling. Then he wedged his short sword into the lid’s seal, but as he pried at it, his mother stepped lightly in beside him.
She suddenly gasped and grabbed his wrist before he could lever the lid open. “Leave him!” Her voice was vicious, angry, full of hate. “Let him rot in there!”
The Golden Key (Book 3) Page 14