Once outside, she found herself on a wide ledge in front of a large pool of water. The waterfall raged in front and above her, completely blocking her view, and its spray mingled with the rush of wind that sent her robes aflutter and whipped her long hair around behind her. To her left, the ledge ended abruptly and dropped down a few dozen feet to the valley floor. To her right, the ledge ran along the mountain and disappeared under the splash of the waterfall. That was the route that was intended, but she didn’t take it. She didn’t need to climb down to the valley; she could fly across it.
She almost cast the spell and leapt from the ledge, but something held her back. Giorge didn’t know where she was, and she could use that to her advantage—and she might need that advantage. She didn’t think she did, but she had already been wrong about too many things to risk it. She needed to see where the patrol was first, and if she could sneak into it, then maybe she could catch Giorge unprepared. She turned to the right and followed the ledge behind the waterfall. It was slick—dangerously so—and she kept her hand on the cliff face to help keep her balance. There was no sign of the door, no hint of its seal—it was as if the cliff and the door were one and the same thing. If she didn’t know it was there, she would think the mountain was solid.
It took nearly an hour to get far enough past the waterfall’s spray to be able to see past it, and by then, the late afternoon shadow was stretching across the valley. It would be dark, soon, and that darkness could benefit her greatly—if she knew where the patrol was camping for the night.
The ledge she was standing on tapered downward and flattened out near the valley floor, next to the roiling pool of water at the base of the waterfall. She was drenched by the time she reached the bottom and looked up at the twilight sky—at least, that was what she thought it was until she saw the shadow line halfway up the mountain across from her and realized the late afternoon air was heavy with smoke. There was no hint of it where she was, but the wind above her was carrying the smoke east. The plateau was on fire. She couldn’t wait for nightfall before she looked for Giorge. If—when—he saw her, what would he do? Maybe if she plastered mud on her blue robe?
No. That would take too long, and by the time she finished it wouldn’t matter. She had to go now and risk Giorge seeing her. She took a deep, slow, calming breath. She would fly out over the valley until she was in the middle, and then she would rise upward in a circular motion until she saw the patrol, and by the time she reached them, she would be dry again.
She reached for a strand of air and—
Her eyes widened and she gasped. There was a black silhouette streaking through the smoke, just above the shadow line, and she recognized it.
“Angus,” she whispered as her knees buckled and she sagged heavily to the soft, muddy shore of the pool. “He’s alive,” she whimpered as the magic slipped from her fingertips. Tears gathered in her eyes and dripped down to her cheeks, mingling with the moisture still clinging to them. She stared through them, following Angus’s graceful movements as he flew north, toward the ledge, toward—
“Giorge!” she hissed. A sudden, intense burst of anger pounded its way through the tears, through the relief of seeing Angus alive, through the sudden, intense joy in her heart. “Angus doesn’t know!”
She brought the magic into focus and reached for a strand of air with shaking fingers….
15
Iscara huddled in a dark corner of one of Argyle’s playrooms and wondered how long it would be before Argyle/Symptata came back to ask her more questions. She was famished, and the air was turning stale, but at least he hadn’t killed her yet. Then again, he might have decided to leave her in the playroom until she suffocated or starved to death. No, she tried to convince herself, he would want to watch me die. She opened her healer’s bag and covered her mouth with it again. She took a deep breath, relishing the cool fresh air she was able to suck through it. The bag wasn’t supposed to be used this way—normally she reached through it to get medicine or bandages to use on her clients—but it was still keeping her alive, wasn’t it?
For now. How long would she be able to withstand starvation and dehydration? Longer than most, surely, since she could manipulate the magic within her to remove the toxic substances from her blood, delay organ failure, and stave off a myriad of other complications resulting from a lack of food and water. Eventually, though, her healing powers would fail her and she would lapse into unconsciousness and die.
She inhaled through her bag again and idly wondered how long it would take for the air in her workroom to go stale. It wasn’t sealed as tightly as Argyle’s playroom, so maybe it wouldn’t go stale at all?
How long has it been? she wondered. A day? Two? More? Will the king send someone down to find me? She smiled and shook her head. I’m expendable. He doesn’t expect me to survive. If he thought it was safe enough, he would have sent Grayle down with me. She sighed and took another deep breath from her bag and waited.
16
Angus coughed again. He had begun coughing almost as soon as he had taken flight, and it had gotten steadily worse as the smoke thickened. It was a strange smoke that left a sour taste in his throat and its warm pungency bit into his lungs. He lifted his right arm and used the sleeve to cover his mouth. It helped, but it would have been better to have waited to fly off until he had dampened one of Jagra’s sheets. There was no point in recriminations. Besides, that bastard Hobart would have kept him from flying over to the patrol without him if he had waited. Hobart didn’t want him to find Embril or The Tiger’s Eye; he just wanted to get the mission over with so he could end his Banner. Where would that leave Angus? He had signed a two-year contract with the Banner of the Wounded Hand, and he had intended to serve out that time. What right did Hobart have to abandon him like that?
His eyes stung as he flew through a particularly dense patch of smoke. Even through his sleeve he could smell the musty odor of the smoke and feel it sharpening his senses and his thoughts. Why would Hobart want to keep him from saving Embril? If he could save her, he would have The Tiger’s Eye and would be able to put it back again. If he did that, then he would be saving Hellsbreath. Hobart would want to save Hellsbreath, even if he didn’t care what happened to Angus or Embril. And he didn’t care what happened to Angus, did he? Once Angus had told him what they were doing, he hadn’t said anything to him that didn’t relate to making camp, breaking camp, riding slower, or any of the other mundane tasks Banners had to deal with when they were away from a city or village. He hadn’t even asked anything else about The Tiger’s Eye or why they were going where they were going. It was as if he already knew all about it. Maybe he did?
Angus frowned and started to chew on his sleeve as a new, troubling thought occurred to him: What if it hadn’t been Embril who had taken The Tiger’s Eye? What if someone else on the patrol had done it? He hadn’t seen Embril with them, had he? But The Tiger’s Eye was there; the disruption in the magic told him that. Of course, he was too far away from the patrol and the haze of smoke made it impossible to be certain she wasn’t with them, but what if she wasn’t? What if Commander Garret had ordered the patrol to get The Tiger’s Eye and Embril had tried to stop them? That would be just like Commander Garret wouldn’t it? He had kept him locked up in Hellsbreath’s Wizards’ School instead of letting him go after the patrol when there was still time to stop them. What if the king hadn’t issued those orders at all? What if Commander Garret had only said they were the king’s orders? And that guard at the lift? Commander Garret could have planted him there to make sure that Angus got underway when the Commander wanted him to go and not before then. But what would his motive be?
With The Tiger’s Eye at his disposal, Commander Garret would have immense power. A nexus of his own that he could carry around with him wherever he went? Who wouldn’t want that kind of power? Embril. She had no desire for power; her thirst was for knowledge. That was why he had asked her to go with the patrol in the first place. It was his fault she was
dead! If she was dead. She might not be. He couldn’t even blame Voltari for it—unless Commander Garret and Voltari were working together. Two powerful men in the same part of the world—it would be inevitable that they would cross swords or become allies.
He had better make sure Embril was dead before he did anything to the patrol. It wouldn’t do to let them know he was onto them until he was ready to act. Yes, he had to be cautious, didn’t he? He needed to find out what they knew first, and he couldn’t do that if he started throwing spells at them as soon as he landed. No, he would let them talk, even though what they said would all be lies. There might be enough truth in those lies for him to find out what they had done to Embril.
He was still working through the details of Voltari’s and Commander Garret’s elaborate conspiracy when he got close enough to see that Embril wasn’t with the patrol. If she had been—injured or no—he would have been able to identify her even through the cloths the patrol was using to cover their faces. All the riders were men. He was sure of it. All but one, and she was too small to be Embril. She was riding with another little man, one who was about the same size as Giorge. He carried himself in the saddle like Giorge did, too. Then one of the riders saw him and pointed. The rest of the patrol turned his way, and he prepared to veer sharply. The lead horseman held up his arm to stop the patrol and then turned back to Angus. They were still too far away for him to hear them, but the little man and woman—perhaps they were children?—rode up to the lead rider and stopped. They talked for a few seconds, and then the little man rode forward and unwound the cloth from his face and—
It was Giorge! He was alive! Angus slowed down to give this new bit of information enough time to settle into the elaborate scheme he was devising. How had Giorge gotten back to Hellsbreath in time to join the patrol? It shouldn’t have been possible—unless something like Sardach had helped him do it. But Hobart had said the frost elemental had killed Giorge and left behind a frozen corpse. Hobart could have lied, though. Yes, that was it. Giorge hadn’t been killed at all. He had been carried off by the frost elemental, and it had taken him back to Hellsbreath so he could go with the patrol. It made sense. Giorge knew where the nexus was and so did Hobart. If Hobart had told Commander Garret about the nexus, and Commander Garret knew about The Tiger’s Eye, then he could have told them about it. Then all they had to do was keep Angus from going with the patrol. It had been Giorge’s idea to go after the fletching eggs….
He was almost close enough to shout at the patrol, but he wasn’t going to land beside them. That would make him an easy target, and he intended to make them pay dearly for his life if they refused to give him The Tiger’s Eye. If he landed further away, and if they didn’t have bows or throwing knives—Giorge has throwing knives!—then he could prepare a spell to use against them before they were close enough to become a threat with their swords. Yes, that was what he needed to do. He veered to the right, heading to a spot well ahead of the patrol.
Hobart had been talking with Commander Garret for quite a while when Angus had barged in on them to get the king’s—Commander Garret’s—orders. What had they been talking about? Angus? The Tiger’s Eye? The patrol? Had Commander Garret offered Hobart a reward for having kept Angus away until the patrol had succeeded in getting The Tiger’s Eye? Was there a promise for future payment if he kept Angus from recapturing The Tiger’s Eye? Is that why Hobart was disbanding the Banner? Because he had enough wealth that he didn’t need the Banner anymore? But Ortis—
He frowned. Ortis didn’t fit into this plot, did he? What could he hope to gain from the volcanic eruptions? He couldn’t extort a fortune away from King Tyr the way Commander Garret could do. No, he—
Ortis was one of the Plains Folk. That made him a threat. The Plains Folk were getting ready to leave the frozen wastes north of the Death Swamps. They had already chased away the fishmen, after using the fishmen to harass King Tyr’s men in The Borderlands for years. Ortis wanted to go back to them, didn’t he? “I want to find my people,” he had said. “With the fishmen out of the Death Swamps…” Yes, Ortis was involved, but not with Hobart and Commander Garret. He had his own motives. The Plains Folk were preparing to attack Tyr—all of the subtle hints, all of the odd details, all of the little loose ends shouted it out to him. Taking The Tiger’s Eye would certainly cause enough havoc to occupy the garrison at Hellsbreath, if not half of King Tyr’s army. The erupting volcanoes alone would be devastating, and by the time the dwarves surfaced to make their attack, King Tyr’s army would be in a shambles. And then the fishmen would come up from The Lake of Scales to swallow up Hellsbreath. But if Commander Garret had The Tiger’s Eye….
Why is Giorge with the patrol? he fiercely wondered as he landed on the road. He’s supposed to be dead! That curse was real. I know it was real. I saw the magic. I saw how the magic affected things. He couldn’t have escaped the curse, and yet, there he is!
If he was going to sort these puzzles out, Angus had to compose himself. Still the mind, he thought, trying to bring the mantra to life. But it didn’t work. He didn’t need that damned mantra to steady himself; he needed to keep the sharp edge of his mind intact so he could catch them in their lies. Especially Giorge’s lies. He needed to be vigilant against Giorge’s lies if he had any hopes of thwarting their plans and saving Hellsbreath. He would save Hellsbreath! And to do that, he needed to seem calm, as if he hadn’t figured out their plans. He couldn’t tip them off, or they—
How did Giorge get here? Angus wondered again. He couldn’t have gotten from that Haunted Plateau to Hellsbreath that quickly on his own, and yet, he went with the patrol. What ally does he have that I can’t see? The Banner records didn’t say anything about his return, either, and the only way that could happen is if Commander Garret had ordered the scribe not to record it. He’s definitely one of them. That was why Giorge had asked me all those questions about Embril when we left to fetch the fletching eggs! He wanted to know who his adversary was going to be! If he hurt her…
As Angus waited for the patrol to arrive, he summoned the strands he needed for his Firecluster spell. They were strange strands, thick with magic and very reluctant to be contained. Powerful. There were a lot of them, just like there had been near the nexus in the Angst temple. He was close to The Tiger’s Eye….
Firecluster was a fairly quick spell to tie, and the effect could devastate a group packed closely together like the one he was about to face. He smiled in what he hoped was a friendly, pleasant way as he carefully wove together all of the knots for Firecluster. He left the last one unfinished and struggled to keep the magic from escaping him. It did not want to be cast! He also used a small part of his awareness to maintain control over the Flying spell, in case he needed to make a sudden retreat.
The patrol stopped several yards away from him, and Giorge and the woman separated themselves from the rest of the patrol and rode forward. Giorge had covered his face again, but when he reined in his horse he reached up and untucked the corner of the cloth—a piece of a saddle blanket from the look of it—and water dripped from his fingertips. The young woman riding with him did the same, and he was astonished by how much alike they looked. She could be Giorge’s sister! She probably was, Angus decided. He had never mentioned a sister, but that didn’t mean anything with Giorge. Everything Giorge had said about the curse had been a lie, so why not that, too? What role did she have in their plans?
Angus frowned. Giorge was surrounded by a green aura. It was the same color as the stream of energy that had come out of The Viper’s Breath when it had attached itself to Giorge. Had it completed the task? No. This aura was different from those streamers. It was as if an imperfect image of Giorge had been overlain on his skin, but it didn’t move right. It wasn’t as fluid as the Giorge moving beneath it. Where had he seen something like that before? It was Argyle! He had been superimposed onto something else—someone else. But that magic had been a golden hue.
“Angus,” Giorge said, grinning bro
adly. “I thought you were dead!”
Angus nodded and forced friendliness into his tone as he replied, “And I was told you were dead, as well.”
Giorge chuckled and shook his head. “I was for a little while,” he admitted, “but I got better. I’ll have to tell you about it when we have more time. Right now, we need to get across this ledge before the lava catches up to us.”
Where’s Embril! Angus wanted to scream, but he held his tongue and tried to act casually. “I need to speak to Embril, first,” he said. “Do you know where she is?”
Giorge looked worried and shook his head. “We got separated,” he said. “I took her to the Angst temple like she asked me to, but Darby had gotten there first. He took The Tiger’s Eye, Angus. That’s why all this is happening. She went after him to try to get it back. The last I saw of her, she was a horse running north.”
He’s lying, Angus thought.
“I’ll tell you all about it later,” Giorge offered. He paused and feigned concern as he reached up to put the damp scrap of blanket back over his face. “You should cover your face, Angus. We’ll be in the smoke soon.”
Smoke? Angus thought. Why is that important? For some reason, he knew it was important, but he couldn’t place why.
“Yes,” one of the masked men who had snuck up to join Giorge said. It was the Lieutenant in charge of the patrol, and Angus instantly disliked him. He was the man Commander Garret had chosen for this mission, and that meant he was untrustworthy. He wouldn’t trust him. “The Tween Effect is strong here.”
Angst (Book 4) Page 31