The Golden Key (Book 3)

by Robert P. Hansen

  He smiled and shook his head. “I need it for when I use fire-based magic.”

  Iscara sighed. “What do you have, then?” she asked.

  “Bring me my backpack,” he said. “I have some gems that should be a fair price for your services.”

  A fair price? she scoffed as she turned and stepped out of the room to get his backpack. There would have to be a lot of gems for that. She paused in front of the little alcove and took out the key for it. She sighed as she slid it into the slot and opened the door. As she lifted the backpack from the shelf, she thought, At least I’ll have the breeches for Typhus. They must be worth something or he wouldn’t have wanted them back. But what would Typhus pay her for them?

  7

  Angus was dead.

  Embril barely made it into the cavern. She sat down on her wooden chest and closed her eyes. Still the mind. Sardach had killed him. Still the body. Or had he? Still the mind. Was there any way she could find out for sure? Still the body. There were divination spells, weren’t there? Still the mind. Sardach had ripped him apart! Still the body. Where did the elemental come from? Still the mind. Why hadn’t she brought any divination spells with her? Still the body. Why hadn’t she cast one before she left Hellsbreath? Still the mind. She should have….

  She tenaciously focused on the mantra until her hands quit trembling and her emotions were cordoned off from the rest of her mind. It was dangerous to keep them under such tight control for long, but she needed to do it. There would be time to deal with them later, after she returned to Hellsbreath. Then she would track down Angus no matter where he was!

  Even if it killed her.

  She was still reciting the mantra when Darby joined her, turned to the others in the cavern, and said, “Leave us.”

  The mantra held her body still as the sounds of rocks scraping against each other entered her sharply focused mind and were dismissed. When the echoes from the tunnel fell silent, Darby asked, his voice soft, “Why are you on this mission?”

  Embril tried to thrust aside the intrusive question, tried to let the softly-modulated syllables wash over her the same way that the sounds of the scraping rocks had but a few moments earlier. But she couldn’t. The question slid past the effects of the mantra, and she found herself answering, “Angus asked me to come with you.” Her tone was flat, emotionless, but her chest tightened as she heard herself speak his name.

  “Why did Angus want you on this mission?” Darby asked.

  “He trusts me,” Embril said, amazed at how quickly, how easily she was responding to him. Was the mantra working properly? It seemed to be; she seemed to be in control of her mind and her body like she always was with the mantra, so why was she answering him? He had no business asking her these questions, and she should have been able to completely ignore them. No, she was ignoring them—the mantra was letting the sounds pass over her like they always did—but she was answering them despite the mantra’s effects. This puzzled her, and she turned her attention to her mind, to her body, trying to discover what it was that was happening.

  “What has he trusted you with?” Darby asked, his tone patient, as if he was accustomed to clarifying his questions.

  Embril studied herself as she found her body reacting to the question, forcing an answer from her lips. “Knowledge,” she said. “Dangerous knowledge.”

  There was a pause, and then Darby leaned closer and asked, “What is this dangerous knowledge?”

  Embril struggled to control her body, to keep it from answering, and for a long moment, it seemed to be working.

  “You know you want to tell me,” Darby purred into her ear as she struggled to keep silent.

  “Yes,” Embril said. It would be a relief to tell someone, Embril thought, feeling the mantra slipping.

  “Tell me,” Darby ordered, his voice a sharp, clipped whisper.

  A part of Embril fought against the urge to answer, but most of her watched in curiosity as she did. “He found a nexus that has been forgotten,” she said. A part of her felt an intense amount of relief in finally sharing this burden with someone, but the mantra cast that relief aside and left her with the cold certainty that she should have said nothing. Another part of her wondered, What is happening to me?

  “Where?” Darby asked.

  There was something wrong with her body. It was being affected by something, and whatever it was, it was also affecting her mind. The mantra was strong, intact, but there was a part of her mind that had been separated from the stillness it was maintaining. How was Darby doing it? What had he done to create this imbalance? Could she overcome it? Was there a way? She focused more fiercely on the mantra, trying to adapt it to correct the flaw in her body so she could still the rest of her mind. “He didn’t say,” she answered. Purge the body.

  “Then how will you find it?” Darby demanded.

  Embril frowned. He still had control, and when he exercised it, she saw a pattern in her body shift. She tried to force it back into place, but the effect was too powerful and she was inexperienced in dealing with it. She fought to keep from answering, but she had to tell him the truth. He’s a Truthseer! she suddenly realized as she heard herself say, “His map.” He’s tampering with the magic within me!

  In the brief silence that followed, Embril turned her attention to the magic within her, studying the familiar patterns and looking for those that were out of place. If she could reorient them into their normal position—but they were in their normal position! Darby wasn’t manipulating them. What was he doing, then? How was he making her answer?

  “I’ve seen his map,” Darby muttered. “There is no indication of a nexus on it.”

  Embril opened her eyes and looked through the rubble pile at the magic outlined beneath it. Darby was sitting across from her, and he reached out with his hand. He flicked his fingers and a light powder sprayed out from them and settled on her face.

  “What map?” he asked.

  Still the body, she thought, trying not to breathe in the powder. Was that what he was using to make her answer? “This one,” she found herself saying as her hand reached into her sleeve and brought out the colorful scarf Angus had woven for her. She held it out to him.

  He accepted it, shook it out, and studied it for several seconds before he asked, “How is this a map?”

  She held her breath and kept her lips pressed tightly together. She wanted to answer, but now that she knew what was happening, the mantra gave her a small measure of control. She pushed the desire aside as best she could and continued to hold her breath. He glanced up at her and tossed another pinch of powder her way. She tried to turn her head—but couldn’t! Something was holding her in his spell, and she couldn’t break free!

  “How is this scarf a map?” he clarified.

  “Angus said to follow the red thread when we reach the temple,” she said. “It will lead me to the nexus.”

  “Why do you want to go there?” he asked.

  This time, she had no difficulty answering. “I don’t,” she said.

  Darby considered her answers for some time and then held the scarf out to her. “We will talk more of this later,” he said. “In the meantime, I want you to forget about this conversation. Is that understood?”

  Embril stared at him as a part of her mind thrust the conversation aside, putting it with the anxiety she felt over Angus’s death—if Angus was dead. She secluded it there and blinked at Darby. Why was he sitting there? “Did you need something?” she asked him.

  After a moment, he nodded and said, “Giorge described a mushroom that he believes causes the Tween Effect. I noticed that you have Heatherly’s Taxonomy with you, and I would like to look at it. There may be information about it.”

  “Of course,” Embril said as she stood up. She moved to behind the chest and knelt down to open it. Why was she so eager to help Darby? She wanted nothing more than to get him away from her, and she didn’t know why. Still the mind, she thought as she unlocked the chest. Still the body, she
added as she opened it and started taking out the books. When she had Heatherly’s volume on mountain flora, she held it out to him and said, “Hold this for a moment.” The rock pile accepted it, and she put the other books back in the chest. She closed the lid and took the book back from him.

  “What did it look like?” she asked as she rifled through pages filled with numerous drawings of plants until she reached the section on mushrooms and slowed down.

  “Dull yellow-gray, long stem, inverted bowl-shaped crown.”

  Embril flipped through a few pages and asked, “This one?”

  The rock pile bent forward and shook back and forth, the stones grating on each other. “No. He said it grew like strawberries.”

  “Rhizomatic?” Embril muttered as she turned a couple of pages. “Ah!” she said. “I believe this would be it. It’s hallucinogenic. Heatherly warns against eating it.”

  The rocks shifted as they reached out for the book and said, “I’ll show it to him.”

  Embril nodded and opened her chest again. “Take this with you, too,” she said, rummaging around for the other volume of Heatherly’s Taxonomy, the one pertaining to fauna. She opened it to a page she had marked and said, “Ask him if these are the creatures he saw with the fishmen.”

  Darby accepted the book and the rocks ground together as he moved quickly to the tunnel leading to the cave entrance.

  Embril watched him leave, wondering why she suddenly felt so nervous, so uncomfortable around him. She hadn’t felt that way toward him before, so why did she now? Was it the Tween Effect? It was supposed to make people paranoid, but she hadn’t felt anything like that at all. Or had she? She had felt an intense, irrational fear when Lieutenant Jarhad had arrived at the cave and seemed about to attack her. Was that what they meant by the Tween Effect? Or was it something else? She frowned. No, this was different from what had happened with Lieutenant Jarhad; she had been terrified then. This felt more…sinister. Why?

  8

  Hobart pushed himself to continue despite the weakness in his knees and the uncertainty of his grip on the cliff face. It was the last steep, narrow stretch, and it was the worst of them. The stream had dwindled to a narrow, hurried channel and had left behind an inch-deep layer of ice across the whole of the ledge. Ortis had already lost the lead horse, barely managing to press himself against the cliff face to avoid plunging off the side with it, and they were only halfway down. The other horses were anxious, and their footfalls frequently slid as they stumbled forward until their hooves caught on a knob of rock or rare dry spot that righted them—or they bumped into the horse in front of them and it managed to hold its footing enough to keep them both from cascading down to the bottom in a heap. That was how they lost Ortis’s horse. The second one slipped, slid forward, and bumped into its rear. It was startled and leapt forward, and when it landed, its legs slid out from under it and it had plunged off the side. The second horse managed to stop before following it over the edge.

  Hobart took each step carefully, letting go of his grip on the rough nodules of the cliff face only when he was confident his perch on the narrow shelf at its base was secure. The shelf—the stream bank near the cliff—was only a few inches wide but it rose above the rest of the ledge and was mostly free of ice. The second Ortis was behind him, patiently keeping up with his sluggish pace, and the horses were getting further ahead of him with each step forward. They were almost through the steep part, and then the ledge rose a few feet before widening and dropping at a shallow pace for the last mile or so. All they needed to do was to reach that rise, where the stream was blocked and forced to go over the edge, and they would be done with the ice. All he had to do was hold onto the cliff face and take another step. But he couldn’t. His fingers were numb and fluttered like a butterfly’s wings in a stiff breeze. His thighs felt like he was carrying a fallen comrade on each shoulder, so weak they were. But still he forced his right leg forward, then the left.

  Hobart closed his eyes and concentrated on his fingertips, trying to will them to melt into the cliff face. He clung to the cliff, but as he stepped forward, the stone under his right hand shifted and a palm-sized chunk of it broke free. His arm jerked away from the cliff face, and his eyes snapped open. He twisted, and before he could bring his hand back up, his right foot slipped off the tiny shelf. His foot hit the bottom of the stream and he instinctively shifted the bulk of his weight to it before he realized what he was doing. The stream sloshed around his boot, and a moment later, it slid downstream. He tottered for a long moment before his weakened left hand lost its grip and his left foot twisted. He tried to jump too late and splashed down on his back.

  The streambed was slick, and the current carried him downstream before he could do anything about it. He thrust his hands out, hoping to find something to hang onto but only managed to keep himself in the channel of the stream. He was quickly gaining speed, and he didn’t have the energy to fight against it. He focused on the twilit scene below him and conserved his strength. He would need it to catch himself when he banged into the horse in front of him—if he could catch himself.

  It didn’t take long to find out. As he approached the rear of the horse, he lifted his arms and spread them wide apart. He braced himself for the strain of the impact when he struck the horse, but it wasn’t enough. He simply didn’t have the strength left, and when his arms struck, they splayed painfully backward and he almost slid through the horse’s legs. But he didn’t. Instead, the horse’s legs slid forward with him, and the horse lost its balance. It sat down on him, and started kicking. His armor clanged when the hooves struck it as the horse thrashed around, trying to stand up. One of its hooves caught him under his left armpit and sent him sprawling backward.

  Hobart tried to grab onto something, but there was nothing there, and he started back down the streambed at a slower pace. He tried to avoid the hooves as he approached them, but there was nothing he could do. The horse was crazed, thrashing about so wildly that it completely lost its footing. Then, just before he struck it again, it twisted and one of its front hooves struck the cliff face. It pushed outward, and its head and neck went over the side. If it had stopped kicking, it would have been able to recover, but it was frantic. It whinnied in horror as it slid over the side, and then Hobart was sliding past it, heading for the next horse. It was Leslie.

  9

  After the rubble pile left, Giorge moved closer to his mother and smiled, “I know where we are.” He pointed to the southeast and said, “Hellsbreath is on the other side of those mountains. We can reach it on foot in a week and a half. If they let us have a horse, we can be there in four or five days.”

  His mother turned her gaze to the west and asked, “Do you think they will give us one?”

  Giorge shrugged. “It’s a reasonable request. If they have one to spare, they will,” he said. “It’s one of the banner privileges. But they aren’t really treating us like they should. Banners have special status, and they’ve been treating us almost like prisoners. That interrogation went far beyond what it should have. They knew I was who I said I was from the start, and that should have ended it.”

  “At least he healed you,” his mother said, reaching out to pat his hand. “If we were prisoners, would he have done that?”

  Giorge frowned. “Perhaps,” he said. He could have healed him for other reasons, couldn’t he? Something didn’t sit right with that fellow, and he couldn’t place it. Most soldiers would have been satisfied by his banner status and the explanation about where he had come from, and most of their questions would have focused on completing their mission. He knew that Embril’s questions were out of concern for Angus—he was sure of that—but not the rubble pile’s. Who was he, anyway? Embril had called him Darby, but what did he look like under the magic wrapped around him? Did Giorge know him from somewhere? At least he hadn’t taken the Viper’s gems from him—but would he try? There was still plenty of time for him to do it.

  “Do you want to go back to Hellsb
reath?” his mother asked. “Is that your home?”

  Giorge half-smiled and shook his head. “I have no home,” he said. “I sometimes winter in Hellsbreath. It’s an interesting city with a lot of opportunity.” He frowned and looked closely at her for the first time since they had left the tomb. She was dressed in soft black leather that covered everything except her face, and if she hadn’t lost her mask, that would have been covered too. Her hair was black, too; long, wavy black strands that dangled down past her shoulder, and she had caramel-colored skin that could blend easily into the shadows. At the moment, she was staring past the cave entrance, her brown eyes lost in the distance to the west and the muscles in her cheek tight against the bone. He followed her gaze and frowned. “You want to go home, don’t you,” he said, his voice low. “To the Western Kingdoms?”

  She turned toward him, and a sad, tight smile twitched at her thin lips as she nodded. “It is my home,” she said. “I know it’s been years since I left, but to me it was only a few weeks ago.”

  Giorge sighed. He couldn’t go back there, could he? They would hunt him down if he did. But his mother…. “We may not be able to go anywhere for awhile,” he said. “Banners have duties as well as privileges, and they have a claim upon me. Our banner was here last fall, and we encountered fishmen on that plateau—” he pointed out the cave to the southwest “—and were supposed to lead them to where it happened. We didn’t get back in time to do it, though.” He paused and shook his head. “But I’m here now, and they may want me to go with them. If they do, you’ll have to come with us—unless you want to travel on your own without a horse.”

  His mother turned and smiled. It was the same loving smile he remembered from so long ago. “I go where you go,” she said, squeezing his hand.

  Giorge clenched his teeth and turned away from her. It was still too strange to have her alive again after finally coming to terms with her being dead, but there she was, exactly like she had been before—only different. She had never been cold or harsh in his memory, but she had wanted to leave his great uncle locked in his sarcophagus. Why would she want to do that? He turned to her and asked, “Why do you hate my great uncle so much?”