Angus nodded and half-shouted, “Symptata?”
There was a long pause before Dagremon replied, “He is gone.”
A tiny woman hurried up to Angus and held a pouch out for Embril. It radiated an intense amount of flame magic, and before Embril could stop him, Angus grabbed it. He lifted his arm over Embril’s head and tugged open the drawstrings of the pouch. He tilted it toward the Lamplight spell and looked inside. It was The Tiger’s Eye.
“Giorge took it,” Embril said, clasping her hands before her. “I’m sorry.”
It didn’t surprise Angus that Giorge had taken it. He was part of Commander Garret’s plot, wasn’t he? He—
The Tween Effect, he thought to himself again. I’m suffering from it. He closed his eyes. Still the mind, he thought. This time he didn’t dismiss the mantra. As he repeated it to himself, it made the paranoid thoughts more manageable but didn’t eliminate them altogether. As he struggled to dismiss Commander Garret’s carefully orchestrated plans, he also fought to repress the intense array of the feelings he was experiencing.
Embril wrung her hands in front of herself and stared at them. She burbled on and on about how Darby had duped her—Master Renard’s man, Angus realized with a calm detachment—and how she had taken Giorge with her to the Angst temple because he knew where to find The Tiger’s Eye. It hadn’t occurred to her that Giorge would take it until after he had already done so. When she finished, she looked up at him with hopeful eyes, blinked rapidly, and took a step backward.
“You’re not Angus,” she declared as her eyes dilated. “What have you done to him?”
Angus tilted his head at her, half-smiled, and sighed. “It is me, Embril. It is a long story,” he admitted, turning his eyes away from her. He focused on the pouch in his hands, pulling the drawstrings tight and bringing it close to his chest. “Voltari did something to me, Embril,” he continued, meeting her confused, accusatory stare. “He wanted me to find the nexus for him.” He suppressed the longing he felt for her—she was so close!—because he knew it could never be satisfied. “I don’t have time to explain it to you. I have to return The Tiger’s Eye to the nexus before it is too late.” He turned to the plateau and shook his head. It was a raging inferno. “It might already be too late, but at least I can minimize the damage.”
Embril stared at him as if she didn’t know whether she should trust him or not. “Why should I believe you?” she demanded.
He sighed. If he tried to tell her what had happened—Typhus, Voltari’s merging spell, the amnesia, Sardach splitting them apart again—it could take hours. He desperately wanted to tell her, but he didn’t have those hours to spare. He had to return The Tiger’s Eye to the nexus; Hellsbreath’s survival hung in the balance. The disruption was already wreaking havoc on the plateau—and the dwarves beneath it—and if he took The Tiger’s Eye any closer to Hellsbreath, the city would suffer a similar fate. He needed a way to convince her that he was the Angus she knew, one that wouldn’t require a lengthy explanation. But how?
He smiled and changed to ancient dwarf as he said, “Embril. When I asked you to go with the patrol if I didn’t return in time, you said we would go to the Angst temple together when I returned. Is that still true?”
She blinked at him and replied in ancient dwarf, “The temple has been destroyed.”
He nodded. “The nexus has not,” he declared. “The Tiger’s Eye must be returned to it.”
Embril looked at the plateau before she said, “You’ll be killed.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. He looked down at the pouch in his hand, half-smiled, and added, “Perhaps not.” What had Master Renard said? The Tiger’s Eye consumed the one who carried it? “I must try, Embril—and quickly. If I do not cross the plateau in less than four days, it may be too late.” He looped the drawstrings of the pouch around his sash and tied a simple knot to secure it, one that would not come apart easily. When he finished with it, he brought the magic into focus and reached for one of the strands of air magic that was almost completely hidden behind the writhing mass of flame magic whirling out from The Tiger’s Eye.
He held the Flying spell loosely in his grip and asked, “Well?”
Embril looked at him, looked at the plateau, and looked at him again. “The fire—”
He pinched the cloth of his robe and said, “If I avoid the flames, my robe will protect me from the heat.”
“The volcano—”
“I have a spell that will protect me from it for a time,” he said.
Embril stared into his eyes for a long moment, and then lowered her gaze. “I cannot go with you through that fire,” she said. “I would not survive it.”
He frowned. Was there any way that he could make it safe for her? If he had the time…. He sighed, stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around her. He held her for a few seconds, then bent down to kiss her lightly on the cheek. As he pulled away, he whispered into her ear, “I love you.”
He leaned back and smiled.
Still the mind.
He jumped backward off the cliff, twisted around, and flew toward the wildfire that was consuming the plateau.
Still the body.
He did not look back.
4
Embril stared after Angus until she could no longer see him, and then she brought the magic into focus and stared at the ball of flame magic reaching down into the earth as Angus flew further and further away. She was numb inside, overwhelmed by the whirlwind of emotions that had just assailed her. The relief of seeing him, the uncertainty about who he was, the fond farewell, his love for her, her love for him, the intense fear she had felt when he had asked her to go with him into the flames, and the resurgent grief as he flew to his death. Only, he didn’t act like he was about to die, and that puzzled her.
She silently watched the dwindling ball of magic as it delved deeper and deeper into the flames. My robe will protect me from the heat, he had said. What could have protected her from it? She hadn’t expected to fly into a forest fire when she said they would go there together, so she hadn’t investigated the relevant texts, hadn’t consulted Master Thermat for advice on what magic to take with her. What good was Heatherly’s Taxonomy now? All the plants and animals on the plateau would be dead.
A part of her wanted to cry some more. Another part of her wanted to hurl spell after spell at Angus for leaving her behind. Another part of her prayed he would succeed, that he would somehow find a way to live, to come back to her. Mostly, she just watched him receding into the distance and tried not to think, tried not to feel.
“Embril?” Lieutenant Jarhad asked from beside her. He waited for a few seconds before turning away.
Angus was a small orb of flame surrounded by a swath of flame, and soon she would not be able to separate him from the magic that surrounded him. She didn’t care. She would stare until she couldn’t see him any longer, and then she would stare some more. I should have gone with him, she thought. It was a quiet thought that settled on her like the chill touch of death. But I would have died.
Then he was gone.
She stared for a few more seconds, and then turned away. There was no point in staring anymore. He was gone, and he wasn’t going to come back this time. How could he? She sighed and looked down at what was in her hand. It was his wand. She stared at it for a long time before she slid it into an empty sleeve holder. He does not expect to return.
“It will be difficult to get the horses across this,” Lieutenant Jarhad said from where he knelt by the concave funnel left behind by the wand. He bent down to rub the fine powder of the pulverized stone between his fingers. He reached down and brushed more of it away and placed his palm on the smooth, almost glass-like surface of the stone.
Embril reached for a strand of air magic and tied a quick series of knots. When she finished, she released them in Lieutenant Jarhad’s direction, and the sudden gust of wind nearly blew him over as it sent up a spray of stone dust. She steered the little spell—Angus had cal
led it Puffer—around the indentation until most of the stone residue had been blown back against the mountainside. Then she let the spell go and dropped her hands to her side.
He turned toward her, nodded, and waved to his men. She ignored him and walked carefully across the concave impression, taking each slow, steady step with great care. When she reached the other side, she sidestepped the cooling pool of lava and strode up to Giorge. He was unconscious, and Magdel was kneeling at his side. She brought the magic into focus and stared at him. There was no hint of the green magic that had enveloped him during the fight, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come back when he regained consciousness. What would he do then? How would they stop him?
“Step away from him, Magdel,” she said, her voice chillingly soft.
Magdel turned toward her, and her eyes widened. Then she promptly stepped in front of Giorge and said, “It wasn’t his fault!”
How can she say that? Embril thought in dismay. Giorge took The Tiger’s Eye, and now Angus was going to die trying to put it back. She reached for a strand of flame magic. It was vibrant, energetic, untamed. Sparks snapped from her fingertips as she flicked it between them. “Step aside,” she repeated. She was not going to allow Giorge to do anything else. Too many had already died because of him. Angus was going to die.
“No,” Magdel said, standing her ground.
“I do not wish to harm you, Magdel,” Embril said, “but I will not allow Giorge to harm anyone else.” She twisted the strand of magic and a flame jumped from one finger to another.
Dagremon stepped forward and planted her staff firmly in the ground between them. “It is over,” she said. “Symptata has been destroyed.”
“I don’t care,” Embril said. “Giorge did this.”
Dagremon’s staff began to glow with a pale orange hue as she softly said, “It was not Giorge’s doing. It was Symptata’s.”
“His curse did it,” Magdel said. “Giorge tried to stop him, but he couldn’t. Symptata was too powerful.”
Embril passed the flame strand between her hands, twisting and tying loose knots that quickly came apart. Small explosions erupted over her knuckles as each knot failed, but she didn’t hurl them at Giorge. Yet. Giorge had told her about the curse when they were in the Angst temple’s dungeon. He had even showed her the skull. Right after that, he had taken The Tiger’s Eye. “He is still cursed,” Embril said, anchoring the strand of flame around her thumb and absently tying a repetitious string of knots. The strand was much hotter than normal, but she didn’t care.
“The curse is over!” Magdel protested. “You ended it when you destroyed the Skull!”
Embril paused, crimping the last knot she had tied between her free thumb and finger. Giorge hadn’t had a green aura while they rode across the plateau together. Why not? It wasn’t until after she had discovered what Darby had done that she had noticed it.
“Embril, please!” Magdel pleaded.
Dagremon’s staff pulsed with energy waiting to be released. “It is true. Symptata is destroyed,” she said. “I witnessed his dissolution and prevented him from finding a new host. He is gone.”
Embril turned to Magdel and numbly asked, “What did Giorge do while you were waiting for us to return from checking the fires by the river?”
Magdel sucked in a breath and hurriedly said, “Giorge put the Skull together. When I found him, he was bathed in green and didn’t move or answer me until after I shut the box.” She squeezed her hands together. “That’s when Symptata took him. I know it!”
“Yes,” Dagremon agreed. “His imprisonment could not have been broken otherwise.”
Embril turned to meet Dagremon’s stoic, violet eyes and asked, “Who are you? Why are you here?”
Dagremon studied her for a long moment, and then said, “Release your spell and I will tell you what you need to know.”
Embril hesitated. If what they were telling her was true, if Giorge wasn’t responsible for taking The Tiger’s Eye, then who could she blame for it? Symptata? Dagremon said he had already been destroyed. What if he hadn’t been?
I need not exact retribution now, Embril decided. There will be time for it later. She half-turned and flicked the strand of knots over the valley. As each one came apart, a melon-sized orb of flame appeared, fizzled for a few seconds, and then exploded. She turned back around long before the last knot had peeled apart. “Well?”
Dagremon’s staff dulled to a soft glow that gave her skin an eerie orange tinge. “I am called Dagremon,” she said. “I have an inn and store south of Hellsbreath. Hobart’s Banner sought to stay there for a time this spring, but Giorge was touched by Symptata’s foul magic. I refused to let him stay. Angus and Ortis remained for one night. They sought a guide to the Haunted Plateau, and I thought that would be the end of it. None before them have returned from it. It wasn’t. Hobart and Ortis returned from the plateau without Giorge or Angus. This troubled me.”
She paused and looked at Magdel. “No others had survived the safeguards that have protected Symptata’s prison from being found. I needed to know more.” Her staff glowed a little brighter as she turned back and said, “Hobart does not know he told me. It should remain that way.”
Is she a Truthseer? Like Darby? Embril wondered as her stomach churned to life.
“I will not repeat his tale. The details are not important. What is important is that Giorge was able to gather all of the parts of Symptata’s prison except his skull. Then he died. That should have ended it, like all of the others who have unwittingly attempted to free him.” Magdel gasped and stared at her. “It did not. Hobart has a very deep sense of loyalty, and he sought to finish the deed Giorge had set out to accomplish. He took Giorge’s corpse to the steps of his tomb.” Dagremon shook her head. “Symptata’s foul magic acted on Giorge. His corpse stood up and walked inside.” She paused and turned back to Magdel and said, “I do not know what happened after that.”
Magdel said nothing.
After a few seconds, Dagremon turned back to Embril. “When Hobart and Ortis left for Hellsbreath, I joined them. Hobart had said that if Angus had survived, he was going to join them there. I had thought to speak to Angus, to learn what I could from him.”
Embril cringed, but she didn’t say anything.
“We met a Seer on the road to Hellsbreath. His name is Master Taro, and he is of the old order. He had a vision while we were with him, and what he described confirmed what I had already suspected: Symptata was free.” She paused and looked into the gem on her staff for a few moments. When she looked back at Embril, she shrugged. “I did not know what to do,” she admitted. “Symptata could have been anywhere.”
She paused and stared at the burning plateau while she continued, “After Master Taro had recovered from the effects of this vision, he told Hobart about the visions he had had of Angus. I did not think it chance that I was there to hear of them. When they left Hellsbreath for The Tween, I rode with them.” She looked at Giorge and added, “It is good that I did.”
Visions of Angus? Embril wondered, trying to fill the silence that followed. What visions? She had never heard of a Master Taro, not in her School or any of the others. Was he a renegade, like Voltari? She was tempted to ask, but there was a more important question that needed to be answered. “Who was Symptata?”
Dagremon slowly turned back to her. “A foul wizard whose memory we have sought to destroy,” she said. “Much evil was been done in his name, and his legacy has brought about even more. He lived in a time before The Taming, and there were none who surpassed his skill among your kind. As long as his activities were confined to your kind, we left him be. Then he imprisoned our queen. We had to act, and it was through our actions that he was defeated. He was killed but not destroyed. His essence was captured in fragments of the stones from which the magic comes. We did not know this until much later, and only then through rumors. He had hidden the fragments in a place we could not reach, but once a generation, they have resurfaced, calli
ng out to the one who is his heir.” She turned to Magdel and said, “All who have sought them were thought to have perished.”
Magdel turned away and knelt beside Giorge again.
“It was Symptata’s essence that surrounded Giorge and fought against me.” She turned back toward Embril and said, “He was too strong. I do not think I could have defeated him.” She frowned and asked, “How did you do it?”
Embril felt the slender wand in her sleeve. Dagremon didn’t need to know she had it, so she said, “I didn’t. It was Angus. He destroyed The Viper’s Skull.”
Dagremon slowly nodded. “I owe him a debt of gratitude,” she said. “Perhaps one day, I will be able to repay him.”
“No,” Embril calmly replied. “He is attempting to restore the balance of the nexus. It is unlikely that he will survive that attempt.” He might….
“Another debt to be repaid,” Dagremon said. “His sacrifice shall not go unnoticed.”
Embril gulped and turned toward the plateau. It was completely engulfed, a solid wall of flame that stretched between the mountains all the way back to the volcano that had cradled the Angst temple in its caldera. How far would Angus get before the flames consumed him? She shook her head and stepped to the edge of the ledge and looked into the valley. The wildfire cast a peculiar orange-black shadow over it that seemed to be inviting her to join it. She stared for some time before turning her back on it.
5
Hobart squinted at the mountainside where the strange orange and green lights were wrestling with each other. He tried to piece together what was happening, but he couldn’t. If they were using swords, he might have been able to tell who had the advantage, who was the superior foe, who would be victorious, but they weren’t fighting with swords. They were fighting with magic. Even the patrol had fled from the wizards’ confrontation—and rightly so, by the look of things. Angus darted about throwing fire at a green blur, but it ignored him. Dagremon’s staff sent orange beams to torment the green blur, and it countered with its own whip-like tendril of green. If it was a swordfight, he would think they were two expert swordsmen sparring with each other, testing their boundaries, looking for weaknesses to exploit when the decisive blow was struck.
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