As he flew rapidly down the shaft, Angus felt a peculiar sensation, as if the lava was calling out to him. It was like a whisper on a windy day that you were never quite sure you really heard. He slowed down and stared at the lava, trying to tease out what it was saying even as he dismissed it as a fatigue-induced hallucination caused by The Tween Effect. He hovered for a long moment, and then lifted his right hand and stretched his index finger toward the lava as if to poke it. A thin, round, bulbous polyp of lava stretched out and entwined itself around his finger. It was a strange sensation. The extreme heat should have burned the flesh from the bone, but it felt like a soft caress from a dear friend. The whispering grew louder, but even when he strained to hear them, the words were indecipherable. He almost lost himself in the sensation before he remembered why he was there and pulled his hand back. The polyp probed around for a few seconds and then retreated back into the lava.
He was still mulling over what had just happened when he reached the bottom of the shaft and saw Voltari standing on a device that seemed to be drawing the energy of the nexus into it.
“I am pleased that you survived,” Voltari said. His tone was empty and cold, the way it had been when Angus had done something that pleased him. It was a stark contrast to the tone he used when he was displeased…. “I had hoped that you would.”
“Why have you done this?” Angus asked. Where had his anger gone?
Voltari dismissed the question without even acknowledging it, like he had done so many times when he was teaching Angus about magic. At least this time he didn’t cuff him as if he should know the answer. Instead, he said, “You should go, Angus. The Lava Flow spell will not hold for long.” Then he activated the machine and a tremendous surge of magic enveloped him in a whirling iridescent kaleidoscope of rainbow hues. In moments, it shrunk in upon Voltari and he disappeared. Angus stared after him for several seconds before he remembered what Voltari had said about his Lava Flow spell. He looked upward, but it was already too late. The lava had already collapsed—but not completely. He was hovering in a spherical pocket of air surrounded by lava.
I’m at the nexus, he thought. I should return The Tiger’s Eye to its rightful place. But if I do… He looked up at the lava surrounding him and knew with certainty that he could move through it with ease while he had The Tiger’s Eye. But as soon as he used it to cap the nexus, the lava would swallow him up.
He reached into the pouch tied to his sash and brought The Tiger’s Eye out. It was warm and almost moved in his hands as it drew the magic of the nexus into it. Sparks seemed to dance along its facets, and he imagined he heard a chorus of voices softly calling out to him from inside the gem. “Join us,” they seemed to say. “Join us.”
Is it that simple? Angus wondered. If I restore the nexus, can I join the Angst priests in its heart? Will it accept me in time? Or will the lava burn me alive? He looked at the lava again. He was standing in the center of a sphere that was nearly the same size as the hidden chamber in the Angst temple where he had found The Tiger’s Eye. Was that how that chamber had been formed? Had the bubble of lava solidified around The Tiger’s Eye as it cooled down? Did the Angst priest have to make the same decision he was facing? Should he flee and live while condemning hundreds or even thousands to their deaths? Or should he return The Tiger’s Eye and prevent the volcanic catastrophe from getting any worse? Only, the Angst priests hadn’t died; they had been absorbed into The Tiger’s Eye, and Angus had been feeling its influence grow as he crossed the plateau.
Embril, he thought with a pang that almost broke through the lingering effects of his mantra. If only love were enough...
He lifted The Tiger’s Eye into position, took a slow, deep breath, and released it.
12
Taro stood his ground at the mouth of the tunnel and waited for the men riding toward him. He couldn’t do much else, since his bum knee was giving him fits after his climb out of the tunnel and Abner was still sleeping. He couldn’t blame the boy, of course; it had been a hectic trip and his fragile nerves were about as frayed as Taro’s old cloak had been.
The riders slowed as they approached, and one of the blurry figures shouted, “Well met, Master Taro! It is I, Hobart!”
“Well met, Hobart!” he shouted back, but he didn’t move out of their way.
Hobart and the others reined in their horses. “Let us go inside the tunnel,” he said through the white sheet covering him. “The air out here is tainted.”
The masked men have arrived, Taro realized. She will be with them. He took a deep, acrid breath that burned in his lungs and sent his senses shivering. “I would speak to one named Embril,” he said. “It is a private matter of some urgency.”
He imagined Hobart scowling at him through the sheet as Hobart asked, “How do you know of Embril?”
Taro shrugged and said, “I have seen her in a vision. Send her forth.”
“Now, Master Taro,” Hobart complained. “Surely we can enter the tunnel and purge the smoke from our lungs, first.”
In response, Taro turned and hobbled painfully down into the tunnel, his walking staff chipping away at the old lava deposits as he leaned heavily on it. He put his free arm against the wall to help him balance, but it took a long time for him to reach the bottom. By the time he had, Embril was at his side. He glanced at her to make sure it was the woman he needed to talk to, and then nodded. Her long red hair was covered in soot, and so was her light blue robe. But her eyes—one brown and the other blue—held the forlorn despondency that had almost brought him to tears when he had first seen it in his vision. There was no expression on her face, as if her muscles had stopped working.
“Worry not, Embril,” he said at once. “Angus is not dead.”
She turned to look at him, but there was no spark of hope in her apathetic eyes. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice flat, empty.
“I am Taro, Great Elder of The Sacred Order of Prophetic Sight.”
She stared numbly for a long moment, and then she began to laugh. It was a high-pitched laugh that lingered and grew until it bordered on hysteria. “SOPS!” she cried. “SOPS!”
Taro shifted his weight to his good leg and used his walking stick to tap her sharply on the shoulder. She yipped, jumped away from him, and her eyes grew wide.
“How dare you!” she said, moving her hands.
He glared at her. “Angus is not dead, you silly girl,” he chided. “You will speak to him again.”
Restrained anger flared to life in her eyes as flame danced from one of her fingers to the other, like it had in the vision he had had. He pointed the tip of his walking stick at her and said, “Stop fiddling with that magic, Embril, and listen to me. I have seen what happens to Angus, and I will tell you about it. I will tell no one else. What you do with that knowledge is up to you. Will you listen?”
Embril squeezed her hands into tight fists and her jaws tightened. Her eyes were wide as she nodded without speaking—just as he had seen her do in the vision.
“Good,” he said. “You know that he has gone to the volcano, but you do not know what has happened to him there. Another wizard was already there, an old man in black robes standing on a strange floating tabletop of metal. The old man floated down through a tunnel of lava to the center of the volcano, and Angus followed him. When the old man disappeared, the lava collapsed in upon Angus, but he was not killed by it. It flows around him now, as he gathers up the courage to do what must be done. He faces a dreadful choice. He can escape from the volcano and live, but thousands will suffer and die if he does. Hellsbreath will be lost. The dwarves…” He shook his head and sighed. “They have already suffered greatly, and their suffering will grow tenfold. Or he can remain forever trapped in the heart of the volcano.”
“Trapped?” she asked, her tone as sharp as Hobart’s sword. “How?”
Taro shook his head. “I do not know,” he admitted. “I only know the stone he carries is the key. It is what will sustain him.”
“The Tiger’s Eye,” she gasped.
He paused and frowned. “There is one in your party who can explain it,” he said. “Ask him about it.”
“Giorge!” Embril cried, turning away from him.
“No!” Taro snapped. “It is not Giorge. It is that other wizard, the plump one. You must speak with him. He will not want to talk to you, but he must. Tell him what I have told you. He will explain what needs to be explained. Do not let him stay silent, but tell no one of what he speaks. Angus has not ended the danger; he has only held it in abeyance.”
This time, she almost ran out of the tunnel, just as she had done in her vision, right before the masked men came riding into the tunnel.
As she left, Taro moved to the side of the tunnel to give the riders plenty of room to maneuver past him. As they settled into the tunnel, he saw the one with the litter strapped to it. When it was safe to do so, he approached it and tapped the young man lying in it on the shoulder. When the young man opened his eyes and looked at him, Taro said, “Don’t go after the fletching eggs, Giorge. I have seen what they do to you.”
Giorge stared at him for a very long time, and then slowly turned his head away.
13
As they approached the road that ran north from Hellsbreath to Wyrmwood, Hobart slowed his horse until he and Ortis were several lengths behind the rest of their large group, but he didn’t say anything until they stopped at the crossroads.
“We have travelled much together, Ortis,” he said.
Ortis nodded. “I have enjoyed our journey together, Hobart,” he said, “but it is time for us to part company.”
“Are you sure you will not return to Hellsbreath with me?” Hobart asked again. “I will end my Banner and ride with you to find your people.”
Ortis shook his head, “No, Hobart,” he said, looking north toward Wyrmwood. “This is a journey I must take alone.”
“Giorge will need you,” the one on his other side added. “His recovery will be long.”
Recovery? Hobart wondered. How does one recover from being dead and buried?
“I believe he intends to return to The Western Kingdoms,” the third Ortis offered.
The Ortis to his left turned his steady orange-tinted eyes toward Hobart. They were impassive, brooding, ominous as he added, “It would be wise for you to accompany him.” Then, without another word, the three of him flicked the reins of his horses and headed north at a slow walk.
Hobart stared after him for a few long, painful seconds, and then turned south. He stayed well behind the patrol for a very long time.
14
Iscara huddled in upon herself and gasped for breath. Argyle/Symptata was not coming back or he would have done so days ago. No one else knew where she was. It was hopeless to cling to what feeble life she still had left in her. But she refused to die—if only to spite him….
Epilogue
1
The jostling wagon sent shivers of pain through her misshapen back, but it didn’t matter anymore. She had long-ago learned to send the pain away when she needed to, and in recent years it had become such an essential part of her routine that she didn’t even need the mantra to do it anymore. It was a small price to pay for the knowledge she had gained while stooping over books and scrolls for nearly two hundred years. But her time was coming to an end, and there was only one thing left for her to do.
She turned to her youngest grandchild and smiled at him. He looked so much like his grandfather when he was his age. But that was long ago, so very long ago. “Tell me, Ackard,” she said. “Have you heard the tale of Angus the Mage?”
Ackard’s lips curled up a bit as he turned to her. “Of course, Grammy,” he said. “Everybody knows how he sacrificed himself to save Hellsbreath.”
She smiled and shook her head. “That is just the end of the story,” she said. “There was a beginning to it.”
“Sure there was,” Ackard teased. “But it’s boring, isn’t it? If it wasn’t boring, the bards would sing about it.”
She shook her head. He was young but had a lot of promise. He would learn. “I knew him, you know,” she said, turning her gaze to the mountains ahead of them. “Before he became famous.”
Ackard turned to her and his bushy blonde eyebrows scrunched up in a bunch over the bridge of his wide, flat nose. “Really?” he asked as if he didn’t believe her. “You’re that old?”
She chuckled and shook her head, “Older,” she said. “I was a young woman when I knew him.” She reached up behind her and brought the long, pale, almost white, orange-tinted braid in front of her and looked down at it. “My hair was bright red at the time,” she said, her voice soft, sad. “His was as black as the night sky and just as mysterious.” She smiled and looked over at him. “And as mussed up as your own. His beard wasn’t much thicker than that scraggly little thing you have, either.”
“Grammy!” Ackard reached up and tugged on the thin little blonde curls. “It’s coming in a lot fuller this spring than last fall,” he protested. “It won’t be long before I look like I ate a bear and forgot to swallow the tail.”
She shook her head and chuckled. “It will be a full one, soon, Ackard. I was just using you as a reference point to give you an idea of what he looked like. That painting they have in the wizard school was after he changed. I knew him before he changed.”
“What do you mean?” Ackard asked. “What change?”
“Ah,” she smiled. “For that, I have to tell you how it started. I wasn’t there, then,” she admitted, “but he told me about it later, after he died. We talked often, then.”
Ackard scowled at her and shook his head. “Were you playing with death magic again?” he accused. “Isn’t that forbidden?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No, not death magic. It was another kind of magic altogether. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves, isn’t it? We were going to the beginning, when he didn’t know who he was, and before everyone else made him into what he was to become.”
Ackard shook his head. “More riddles for me to solve, Grammy?”
She smiled and patted him on his knee. “We have time for the story, Ackard,” she said. “It will take us many days to reach the shrine.”
“Oh,” Ackard said. “It’s one of those stories.”
She frowned at him until she saw his lips quivering, and then smiled and said, “Yes, Ackard. It’s one of those stories. And if you listen well to it, you might learn something important.”
“All right,” Ackard agreed with a grin. “I’m listening.”
She nodded. “It started in Blackhaven Tower.”
Ackard’s eyes grew wide and his mouth opened. “His tower?”
She slowly nodded as a sad smile settled onto her lips. “Yes,” she agreed. “Voltari’s tower. You see, Angus was his apprentice.”
“What?!” Ackard cried. “But—”
“I told you that you only knew the end of the story,” she said. “They don’t tell the beginning.”
He frowned and stared at the road ahead of them for a few seconds. “Was he really his apprentice?” he asked. “Did he really study death magic?”
She smiled and turned her gaze forward. “Voltari was a master of many forms of magic,” she said. “He taught Angus about fire and earth, and Angus learned it well. And then Voltari made him forgot it all.” She paused and turned to him. “That is the real beginning. When he woke up in Voltari’s tower and couldn’t even remember who he was.” She paused to stare down at the braid in her hand, marveling at how it still hinted at orange after all these years. “Would you like to know what happened next?”
Ackard pursed his lips together and squinted at her. “It’s a long story, isn’t it? And this is a long trip.”
She fumbled with her braid, flipping the end if it through her fingers as if she were toying with a strand of magic to show her students what it could do. “Not long enough,” she muttered to herself. Then she sighed, turned to him, and smiled again. “But it will
take us all the way to the shrine.”
His tongue swirled behind his lips for a few seconds and then he asked, “Is this one of those stories you use to teach me a lesson?” he asked. “Can’t you just tell me the lesson, instead?”
She shook her head and said, “If there is one, you have already failed to learn it.” She looked down at the tail of her braid, the wrinkles on the backs of her hands, the supple fingers absently manipulating it. “I have told no one this story,” she said. “It should not die with me.”
He turned sharply toward her and his mouth opened and closed. His eyes were wide for a long moment, and then he blinked. “I’m sorry, Grammy,” he finally said. “I will listen.”
She didn’t look up as she said, “You must do more than listen, Ackard. You must hear and remember. My burden—the truth of Angus—will become your burden, and when the time comes you must share it with others.” She turned to him and added. “This will be my last visit to the shrine.”
Ackard looked at her with a rare serious expression and slowly nodded. “I will remember,” he promised.
“Good,” she smiled and patted his knee again. “It begins when Angus woke up and didn’t know who he was….”
2
“The story ends here,” she said as they entered the large, open courtyard of the shrine. The shrine was little more than an altar surrounded by bare rock and fields of flowers. Behind the altar was a stone obelisk that stretched up thirty feet, and at the top of it was a simple geometric symbol: three teardrops radiating out from a central circle. She pointed to the symbol and asked Ackard, “Do you know where that symbol comes from?”
Angst (Book 4) Page 38