3
It was still twilight as Angus and Master Renard hurriedly approached the lift area, but there was no sign of Hobart or Ortis waiting for them. Angus walked up to the scribe and asked, “Have you seen Hobart or Ortis this morning? We are leaving on a vitally important mission for the king, and they were supposed to meet me here.”
He recognized the scribe, but he didn’t know his name. It was the old man with long gray hair stained with ink that he had met when he had first arrived at Hellsbreath. “Haven’t seen them, Angus,” he said as he thumbed through his records until he found the page for The Banner of the Wounded Hand. He skimmed it and frowned. “Based on our records, you’re the only member of your Banner in Hellsbreath, and you are forbidden to leave.”
“Hobart and Ortis arrived last night from the south,” Angus said as he reached into the pouch in his sleeve. He brought out the king’s orders and handed them over to the scribe.
The scribe studied the seal—it was Commander Garret’s—and then read the orders. He frowned, looked at Angus, but said nothing.
“It’s a sensitive mission,” Angus said. “When Hobart and Ortis arrive, we will need to leave at once.”
The scribe turned to Master Renard and asked, “You are with him?”
Master Renard nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I will be joining the Banner for this mission, but I am not a part of the Banner, itself.”
The scribe turned back to Angus and said, “I will need to validate the orders.” He smiled and added, “You have been rather persistent in your efforts to leave, and—”
The Lieutenant standing nearby came up beside the scribe, yawned, and held out his hand. “May I see the orders?”
The scribe handed the slip of paper to him, and after a few seconds of close inspection, he nodded. “They are genuine,” he said. He turned to the signal man and said, “Bring up the lift.”
“We should check with the barracks—” the scribe began, but the Lieutenant was already handing the slip of paper back to Angus.
“That isn’t necessary,” the Lieutenant told the scribe. “Make the appropriate notations in the records. When Hobart and Ortis arrive, they are to be allowed on the lift without delay, and it is to be lowered at once.”
The scribe scowled at him without picking up his quill. “The records indicate Angus is forbidden to leave the city,” he asserted. “The rest of the Banner can go, but not him.”
The Lieutenant frowned and leaned over to read the entry. Then he pointed at it and said, “Pending the king’s order.” He gestured to the slip of paper still in Angus’s hand and said, “That is the king’s order.”
Without waiting for the scribe to continue the argument, the Lieutenant gestured Angus and Master Renard into the lift area and asked, “Do you need horses? Supplies?”
“Hobart is bringing our horses,” Angus said. “I’m not sure about the supplies.”
The Lieutenant nodded and hurried over to the signalman. After a brief conversation, the torches began to whirl again and the Lieutenant returned. “Is there anything else that I can do?” he asked.
Angus shook his head. “No, Lieutenant,” he said. “You have done enough.”
The Lieutenant nodded and turned away.
“He knows something,” Master Renard muttered. “What do you suppose it is?”
Angus walked over to the wall, well away from the other passengers waiting for the lift, away from the scribe, away from the guards, and frowned. “Only what Commander Garret told him,” he said, “and that isn’t much.” Where are they? Angus thought as he scanned The Rim for his friends. There weren’t many about yet, but he still couldn’t see them. Hadn’t they stayed at Hedreth’s? It wouldn’t take long for them to reach the lift from there.
“They’re late,” Angus muttered. “I told them to meet us at dawn.”
Master Renard looked up at the sky and then down at the valley beneath Hellsbreath’s wall. “Dawn is still some minutes away,” he said. “The delay will give us time to talk.”
“We can talk as we ride,” Angus snapped. “We’ve been delayed too long already. I should have prevented this, but that fool of a king kept me from doing it.”
“I would not speak so of the king,” Master Renard said. “He is a wise and just ruler.”
“Even wise and just men act foolishly on occasion,” Angus retorted.
“True,” Master Renard agreed. “It is of no matter, now. Let us speak of the future, instead of the past. The task we have before us is a dire one, and we need to prepare ourselves for it.”
“We should wait for Hobart and Ortis,” Angus replied. “They will need to know what we are doing.”
Master Renard shook his head. “No,” he quietly said. “They don’t. In fact, no one else should know what it is we are about to do.”
Angus frowned and shook his head. “Secrecy is what led us to this point,” he said. “If others had known about the nexus, it would have been protected, and we would not be facing the prospects of volcanic destruction.”
“You are wrong,” Master Renard said. “It would have been abused.”
Angus glared at him. “Like the Wizards’ Schools’ nexuses are abused?” he countered.
Master Renard sighed and shook his head. “This nexus is different,” he said.
Angus ignored him and scanned The Rim for his friends, but they still weren’t there. If there had been a Wizards’ School above The Tiger’s Eye instead of the Angst temple ruins, it would not have been taken.
“All right,” Master Renard said. “What I told you and the Grand Master about the Angst priests taking The Tiger’s Eye to a new location was as true as the Angst text can be thought to be true. The nexus went with it, and volcanoes erupted as they went. That is confirmed by our own historical accounts. I need to tell you the rest of it before your friends arrive.”
“Fine,” Angus said, only half-listening to him. Where are they? The lift is almost here.
“You need to know how they secured the nexus,” Master Renard continued.
“They used The Tiger’s Eye,” Angus interrupted.
Master Renard nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “but not as you are thinking they did. It was not a mere cork that fractured the magic and diffused it, like the nexus stones we use; it was mostly a reflective lens that sent the magic back to where it came from. What it allowed to be released was a mere fraction of the energy from the nexus.”
Angus frowned and looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”
Master Renard shrugged. “That part of the text is ambiguous. The verb the Angst priest used has multiple meanings. In the context of the passage, I think he meant it as ‘reflect,’ but it could also be interpreted as ‘mirrored’ or ‘thought upon.’ I could be wrong.”
“All right,” Angus said, turning back to The Rim. “We need to return The Tiger’s Eye to its rightful place. What of it?”
“When you were close to the nexus,” Master Renard asked, “what happened to you?”
Angus shuddered at the memory of the fear that had run through him, the temptation from having all that power offered up to him. “I ran,” he said. “I was sorely tempted to join them, but I couldn’t. My fear was too strong.”
Master Renard smiled excitedly. “I thought so!” His voice rose almost to a shout as he eagerly continued, “You were tempted to join them.”
Angus glared at him and growled, “You are drawing attention to us.”
Master Renard’s smile didn’t waver, but his tone softened to barely more than a whisper. “I wasn’t sure I had interpreted the text correctly, but you heard them, didn’t you? In your mind?”
Angus nodded. There had been a chorus of voices asking him to join them, and he almost had. But something had held him back, and he had never understood what it was. Ortis? He had bumped into him, pulled him from the ledge. Was that all it was? Luck? If Ortis hadn’t been there, he would have plunged into the nexus, and The Tiger’s Eye would still be where it was
supposed to be. Or would it? They would have followed after him, and Giorge would have taken The Tiger’s Eye, and what was happening now would have happened then.
“Who do you suppose they are?” Master Renard asked. “The voices?”
Angus frowned. He hadn’t thought much about that, had he? He had heard voices inviting him to join them in the nexus—no, in The Tiger’s Eye—and had tried to put the temptation out of his mind. “I suppose they were the Angst priests,” he said.
Master Renard nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Why were they there?”
Angus shrugged. “They succumbed to the temptation of The Tiger’s Eye or of the nexus,” he offered. “It captured them and holds them captive.”
“No,” Master Renard said. “They were not tempted the way you were. For them, there was only one voice, and that was the voice of their god.”
Angus frowned and turned to him. “I heard a chorus of voices, not one.”
Master Renard nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “The migration was a costly one for the Angst. As they went, the priest carrying The Tiger’s Eye was slowly absorbed into it. The voices you heard were theirs.”
Angus’s frown deepened as he stared at Master Renard’s placid blue eyes. If Embril had taken The Tiger’s Eye with her…. “How long?”
“For what?” Master Renard asked.
“How long did it take for them to be absorbed?”
Master Renard shrugged. “It couldn’t have been very long,” he said. “The migration took only a month or two, and The Tiger’s Eye was installed in the new temple within hours of their arrival. The temple, you see, had already been constructed for them before they began their migration.”
“How many were absorbed?” Angus asked. If he knew that, he could estimate how much time Embril had before she was absorbed, how much time he had to save her.
“The priest who wrote about the migration named eleven venerable sacrifices,” he replied. “I think they were the ones who were lost along the way, but I’m not sure. That passage in the text was ambiguous and does not translate well.”
Three or four days! Angus thought with alarm. The nexus was freed two days ago! Embril—
“The priest who wrote it was a terrible writer and had poor penmanship,” Master Renard complained. “Half his sentences were ill-formed thoughts, and the other half were barely decipherable. It was almost as if he was trying to obscure what…”
Angus quit listening to Master Renard and turned back to The Rim. Hobart and Ortis were walking their horses toward the lift, but they weren’t alone: Dagremon was with them.
“We need to go,” Angus said, frantically waving for Hobart to join them as he turned to the lift. Five days at most….
The passengers who had come up with the lift had already debarked, and most of the ones waiting for the lift had already boarded. He hurried up to the end of the line making their way into the lift, turned, and waved again. Why don’t they hurry? he wondered as they sauntered forward, ignoring his summons.
Embril….
4
Iscara hurried from the king’s chambers and nearly ran through the corridors to escape from the place. Everything she thought she knew was falling apart! Argyle wasn’t in charge, the king was? And Grayle hosted Argyle? She’s too small for that! Argyle was a giant, not a parasite! And what’s this Gem of Transformation? Argyle lived there? Who’s this Sympatat, anyway? Why did the king send her to find out what was happening with Argyle? Why hadn’t he sent a wizard, instead? They were more attuned to magic than she was! Healers knew a lot about life magic and death magic, but almost nothing about the rest of it. They understood how magic worked within living things, but they didn’t know much about how to make it work outside them. So how in the world was she supposed to learn something about Argyle?
Her thoughts continued to jump around from Argyle to King Tyr to Grayle to Symptata to her imminent death to Typhus to Angus to….
Nothing made sense anymore, and she didn’t like it. But the king had given her an order, and if she didn’t obey it, the king would punish her—Argyle would punish her for the king, and she knew what Argyle would do. No, what Grayal would do when she hosted Argyle again. Unless Symotap—
She almost screamed as she rushed to the nearest entrance of Argyle’s domain and hastened through the unguarded door. She ran recklessly through the abandoned tunnels until she came to the last corridor, the one where the door to Argyle’s meeting chamber was waiting for her. It was closed, and the snake’s head jutted forth, ready to strike out at her. She had never thought of the knocker as menacing before, but now that she knew who Argyle was—and wasn’t—it suddenly terrified her.
She slowed down and stopped in front of it. What would happen if she put her hand inside the snake’s mouth and pressed down on the forked-tongue lever? If ever there was ever a time for Argyle to have the snake’s fangs clamp down on her and inject their poison, it would be now, when neither Grallow nor the king had control of him—when Symtapi had control. Or did he? Couldn’t Argyle be the one in control, not Symtopoi? The king had the Gem of Transformation, didn’t he? Wouldn’t that mean that Argyle was free to do as he pleased? What if killing her pleased him?
She shook her head. How would she know? She was a healer, not a wizard, and even if she were a wizard, she probably still wouldn’t know what was going on. What did it matter, anyway? The king had ordered her to find out what she could about Argyle, and she couldn’t do that from out here, could she? I should have gone home for the antidote, she thought in distress. I still can.
She looked back the way she had come and thought about going after it. But the king wanted her to check on Argyle, now, didn’t he? She put her hand into the snake’s mouth, but she didn’t push down on the lever. She had betrayed Argyle again, hadn’t she? He had forgiven her for helping Typhus escape—again—but that was only because she had told him where Typhus had left the key Argyle wanted back. How would he react when he found out that she had failed to get that key from Anguns? Sardach had been with her when that had happened, and he would know about it. But he hadn’t summoned her, had he? If he had wanted to punish her for it, he would have sent for her long before now. If he could. Maybe Sumptupa had already taken control of him by then? Now she had come to Argyle on her own, and he wasn’t expecting her. That could end badly for her, couldn’t it?
What if it wasn’t Argyle? What if he wasn’t even there anymore? There had been rumors, and from what the king had said, those rumors could be true. Mostly true. Argyle could be dead. But the king didn’t think so; he thought someone else had taken control over him. What if it had? Would this—what was the name? Simplete? Simoplet? Something like that?—even recognize her name when she announced herself? Would he even know about how the door worked?
She almost pulled her arm out of the snake’s mouth, almost ran back to her little shop to get the antidote, almost thought about fleeing Tyrag altogether to avoid the king’s wrath, but she didn’t. Instead, she pressed down on the tongue and waited for Argyle’s ominous, booming monotone to ask who it was that wished to see him. Only, it didn’t happen. The mouth closed on her forearm with just enough pressure to worry her, like it always did, but the eyes didn’t glow red and Argyle’s ominous voice didn’t boom through the corridor asking, “Who calls upon me?”
She stood there waiting, her arm thrust into the snake’s mouth, the fangs almost piercing her skin, the poison ready to be injected into her arm, but nothing happened. Seconds passed, and a heart-rending silence closed in about her. What if Argyle couldn’t open the door? Would the snake release her? Or would she be held there until she withered and died? If that happened, she would have to pull her arm out and risk being poisoned as the fangs gouged long gashes into her forearm and clamped onto her hand. The gashes wouldn’t bother her—she could heal them fairly easily—and the pain would help clear her mind. But the poison…
Minutes passed before she finally decided to reach out with her free hand and tr
ied to pry open the snake’s mouth, but it didn’t budge. She tried to tug her arm free, but the snake bit down so snugly that her arm barely moved. She would have to jerk more firmly, and that might lead the snake to bite down more fiercely to hang onto her. But what choice did she have? Minutes had already passed, and Argyle still hadn’t asked who was there. Maybe he couldn’t? Maybe he was already gone? Maybe Sumptupa didn’t understand Argyle’s knocker? Maybe Argyle’s lair had been abandoned, just like the tunnels and doors? Maybe—
The snake suddenly released her arm, and she pulled it free so quickly that she stumbled backward. As she regained her balance, she wondered if all she’d had to do was wait. If Argyle didn’t respond within a given amount of time, did the snake release his visitor, just like it had released her? But that had never happened; there was always someone tending to the knocker. Always. If it wasn’t Argyle, it was Crooked Knife. But he was dead now. If it wasn’t Crooked Knife, it was another one of his chief henchmen. But most of them were dead, too. But Argyle never left the door mechanism untended. There was always someone in the little alcove ready to pull a lever to let them in or pull another lever to release them and send them away—or pull the last lever to release the poison.
She stared at the door, wondering if it would open. If not, there was nothing more she could do. Perhaps that was for the best? Perhaps she could return to the king and tell him Argyle wouldn’t let her into his lair? She would have to explain the knocker, of course, but Grayule—she had to remember to remember her name the next time she heard it—would confirm what she told him. Maybe—
The door began to slide into the wall.
She stared at the ever-widening gap and shuddered. There was a faint hint of green light in the air beyond….
5
“I’m telling you Ortis, he’s not the same,” Hobart said as they walked their horses along The Rim. “You should have seen him in Commander Garret’s office. He was disrespectful and insubordinate, and when Commander Garret gave him the orders he started laughing. He barely stopped long enough to tell me ‘We leave at dawn and head north.’ Then he stormed out without even telling me what it was all about. Commander Garret was not happy, but I told him it wasn’t like Angus to act that way. That was when he asked me again if I thought it was Angus, and I told him he was. I hope I wasn’t wrong.”
Angst (Book 4) Page 25