Authors: Robert P. Hansen
King Tyr waved him off and said, “Come with me.”
“Sire?” he asked, falling in behind him. “Your hand—”
“My hand can wait,” King Tyr said. “There is a more urgent
need.” As he passed him, Captain Blanchard fell in beside them. He turned and
said, “He can be trusted?”
“Yes, Sire,” Captain Blanchard replied. “Natter’s loyalty to
the throne is without equal.”
“Good,” King Tyr said, stepping into the corridor. As they
ran down the corridor, he ordered, “Send someone to the Wizards’ School and ask
Grand Master Thom if he is free. I—” he paused barely long enough for him to
notice “—am in need of his immediate assistance. Then roust the palace guard
and tell them to expect an infiltration. It may be direct or indirect, but one
is likely to occur soon. Alert the city patrols, as well. They will likely be
needed soon. And I need to speak to Rascal. Do you know of him?”
Captain Blanchard thought for a few steps, and then said, “I
do not think so, Sire. Perhaps he has another name?”
King Tyr shook his head. “If he does, I do not know it. Ask
around; some of your men might have dealt with him before. They’ll remember his
stench, and he has a scar on his left cheek, and his left eye doesn’t close all
the way. It oozes.” He paused for a breath as they briskly rounded another
corner, and then added, “Send someone to bring Iscara here. Tell her I have
need of her healing services—she does not have to bathe. Also, have the guard
locate a scruffy, dirty blonde with wild blue eyes and a dainty shape. She goes
by the name Little Billie. I would like to speak with her.”
He frowned as he turned into the corridor leading to
Grayle’s room. He had forgotten to restore the painting, and if anyone had seen
it…
He came to a stop and paused at the door. “Wait here,
Captain.”
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, the healer on
his heels. “How is he?” he asked as he hurried up to Grayle’s bed.
“Alive,” Grayle said. She glanced at her open mirror and
then at King Tyr.
“Good,” King Tyr said as he stepped aside and turned to the
healer. “Make him well, if you can. If you need anything,” he looked at Grayle
and said, “send her to me.”
The healer’s eyes dilated as he bent over Phillip. His palms
hovered about an inch from Phillips’ skin as he passed them slowly over his
still form. He shook his head when he finished and said, “I will need privacy
and silence. It will take time.” He glanced at King Tyr’s poorly bandaged hand
and added, “Sire? My assistant, Jani, is more than capable of tending to your
injuries. Would you like me to send for her?”
King Tyr lifted his injured hand. It throbbed terribly, but
he did his best to ignore it. He shook his head. “Return to me when you have
finished,” he said. He motioned for Grayle to accompany him to the door. Once
there, he whispered, “Disguise yourself—and close that mirror. I will send a
servant to tend to the healer’s needs, and when she arrives, come to my
chambers. We have much to discuss and little time for it.”
“The key—” Grayle began.
King Tyr shook his head. “Later,” he said, stepping outside
and closing the door.
Captain Blanchard’s eyes were wide as he tried to stare
through the door, but he said nothing as he fell into step beside the king.
“Yes, Captain,” King Tyr said, breathing deeply. “It is
Grayle. You will say nothing of it until we have had a chance to speak more
fully. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Sire,” Captain Blanchard said.
“Then go, and return to my chambers when you have finished.
We have preparations to make.”
As Captain Blanchard hurried away, King Tyr thought,
We
may have a dragon to slay, one that breathes magic instead of fire.
20
Grayle stared after the king and slowly closed her mouth.
Her lips pressed together, and her eyes narrowed. He had been naked when he had
come back, and there was no place for him to hide the key. Unless… She turned
toward the healer, who had his eyes closed and his hands on Phillip’s head. Her
uncle wouldn’t have given the key to Phillip, would he? Not if he was dying.
That meant he had left the key in Argyle’s room. Why? What had happened that
left her uncle so rattled and Phillip half dead?
She frowned. Argyle could have done that to Phillip. Maybe
her uncle had angered him? But that didn’t make sense, did it? Her uncle should
have been able to stop Argyle from doing it, just like she had contained Argyle
when she hosted him. Something else had to have hurt Phillip and frightened
him. What could it be? And what could it do to Argyle?
She walked softly over to the open mirror and put her hand
on it. It was a long stairwell, but she had heard
something
, hadn’t she?
Muffled echoes? Shouts, perhaps? It could have been a fight, couldn’t it? That
would explain her uncle’s injured hand. It was one of the bad things about
being Argyle’s host: if he was hurt, it was her body that suffered. But what
could have injured Argyle in his private chambers? She frowned. Could Typhus
have told someone how to get in them?
She stepped into the corridor and closed the mirror behind
her. What better disguise than to be Argyle? At the very least, she could
retrieve the key so that no one else could steal it again. She frowned. At
least this time she wouldn’t be trapped in Argyle’s form. But Argyle would be
trapped in the gem—unless someone else hosted him. She went quickly down a few
steps and stopped. Her uncle wanted her to wait for the servant and then join
him, but he hadn’t said why. Could it have something to do with Argyle or the
key? Maybe she should go back? No. Something was wrong and the answer was down
there.
She dismissed the king’s order from her thoughts and hurried
to the bottom of the stair. Then she stopped to listen—and heard nothing. She
pressed the knobs that would release the catches holding the door in place and
pushed it ajar. Still nothing. There wasn’t even any light coming from the
other side, and there should have been. Phillip had taken a lantern with him
and her uncle hadn’t brought it back. It could have gone out, though, if there
had been a fight.
She pushed on the door until there was enough room for her
to slide through and peeked around the edge of the mirror. She hissed in a
breath as she saw the mess in the room. It wasn’t the right kind of mess. The
lower half of the walls were clean. The furniture was all in the wrong places. Argyle’s
clothes were
folded
and
stacked
neatly on his bed. Her bureau had
been crushed, and the pieces were scattered about. Argyle’s top shelf had been
pulled from the wall and its contents were strewn about on the floor.
A
fight,
Grayle decided.
But with what? With who?
She sidled around the mirror and stepped into the room.
There was no sign of Argyle, but she hadn’t expected any. Her uncle had to have
put him back away before bringing Phillip to her room. But where was the box?
The key?
She needed more light.
She retreated into the tunnel and took the bottom torch from
its sconce. She carried it into Argyle’s room—keeping it well ahead of her—and
looked around again. The box sat upended between Argyle’s bed and the debris
from her bureau. She carefully stepped around the fragmented bits of wood, the
torn, moth-eaten clothing, and the odds and ends Argyle kept on his shelf. When
she reached Argyle’s bed, she knelt down and propped the torch up against the
stone slab. Then she reached out for the box and turned it over.
It was empty. Where was the Golden Key? She closed the
lid—and relief washed over her. The little gold key was still in the lock! At
least
it
hadn’t been lost. But where was the gem? Where was Argyle? She
searched the floor near the box, but it wasn’t there. She nudged some of the
shattered wood aside, but it wasn’t there, either. She went back to the torch
and held it close to the floor, making her way carefully around the room. If
the Golden Key wasn’t hidden in the debris, it would sparkle and she would find
it.
No luck.
She returned to where she had found the box and propped up
the torch again. If it was in the debris, it should be near where the box had
landed, shouldn’t it? She carefully lifted one of her ruined gowns from the
pile and set it on the floor beside her. Then she picked up a sharp-edge piece
of wood and started a new pile. She worked slowly. There was blood on some of
the splintered wood, and she wasn’t about to get a sliver—or worse. The piles
grew, and by the time she had arranged the pieces of the bureau into an orderly
pattern from largest to smallest, she was satisfied the gem was not hidden
among them.
She turned to Argyle’s collection, and hesitated. Argyle
kept a lot of grisly tokens—heads of victims, mostly—and some of them had been
recent. They were repugnant, and she should have been repulsed by them. But
somehow, she felt like they were
her
tokens, too, and seeing them in
such disarray was unsettling. But there was no way that she could restore the
broken shelf to its proper place, no way to arrange the tokens by hair color
and body part from left to right, no way to sort them according to the
importance the victim had for Argyle. But she could line them up on the floor
beneath the lowest shelf, and that would make it easier for Argyle to fix them
when he came back.
If
he came back. Where was the Golden Key?
Grayle hurried around the room, picking up one token after
another, completely ignoring the grime accumulating on her fingers, her dress.
She started with the most recent addition to the collection and by the time she
reached the last one, there was still no sign of the Golden Key. That left
Argyle’s furniture, but a quick, thorough search yielded nothing.
What had her uncle done with it? Or had someone else taken it?
Is that why her uncle was so upset? Had he fought with someone who had taken
the key from him? Had Phillip intervened, only to be left half dead?
Her uncle had been naked. It had to have happened right
before the transformation into Argyle or after he returned to himself. By the
look of the room, it was after.
She sighed. There was no point in looking anymore. The
Golden Key wasn’t in Argyle’s room, and she wasn’t about to leave it to find
out where it went. If her uncle and Argyle couldn’t stop it from being taken,
how could she expect to get it back?
She walked over to pick up the closed box and tucked it
under her arm, and then she retrieved the torch and went back to the mirror.
She stepped around it and put the torch back into its sconce. She had taken
only two steps up the stair before she stopped and abruptly turned around. She
hurried back to the open door and reached out to pull it shut—and stopped.
There was one place she hadn’t looked because she
couldn’t
look there:
Argyle’s bed. The stone slab was taller than she was, and it hadn’t occurred to
her that The Golden Key could have gotten up there—until now.
She looked around the mirror and wondered how she could get
onto the bed. But she didn’t need to, did she? She just had to see what was on
it, and she could jump high enough for that, couldn’t she? She made her way
through the piles she had made, and when she reached the bed she set the box
down and jumped as high as she could—and saw shadows. It was too dark to see if
the gem was up there. She sighed and carried the box back to the stairwell. She
set it on the third step and then took the torch back into Argyle’s room. She
positioned it on top of Argyle’s bed within reach of the edge and took three sideways
two steps away from it. She jumped—and saw the glint of something up against
the far wall. She jumped again, this time gripping the edge of the bed to slow
her descent.
It was The Golden Key!
She smiled and dropped back down. She needed a chair, and
Argyle’s wouldn’t do. It was too big and heavy for her to move. So was the
broken shelf, or she could have used it as a ramp. She smiled. There were
chairs in her room, and one of them would be high enough for her to jump up and
crawl onto Argyle’s bed. She left the torch where it was and hurried back to
the mirror. She didn’t bother to close it as she passed, and she left the box
where it was.
Argyle will tell me what happened,
she thought as she
rushed up the stairs.
Even if my uncle doesn’t!
21
Giorge blinked a few times and then focused on what was
hovering over him. It was one of Lieutenant Jarhad’s men, and he shoved his
hand in his face and asked, “How many fingers?”
Giorge was lying on the ground. Why did he want to know how
many fingers he had? Shouldn’t he already know that? Giorge shrugged. “Four,”
he said. “Two folded over and two sticking out.” He reached up and batted the
hand away from his face and tried to sit up.
His mother was kneeling at his other side and reached out to
help him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He felt perfectly normal, but his
mother’s eyebrows were scrunched up the way they got when she was worried about
something. What had he missed?
“You fainted,” his mother said. “You’ve been out for several
minutes.” She paused and added, “You were barely breathing.”
“What?” he asked, standing up. He didn’t need his mother’s
help this time, but she gave it anyway. He looked around. They were surrounded
by pine trees and mountains. They were still on the plateau, and that meant—
He turned around and saw the mountaintop burning behind
them. “It’s my fault,” he murmured. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath
to fight back the tears. It smelled of smoke.
How could I have taken it?
“Giorgie?” His mother asked, putting her hand on his arm to
steady him. “Are you all right?”
Giorge tried to smile as he turned to her and opened his
eyes. “I will be,” he lied. “I’m still a little woozy.”
“Maybe you should sit back down?” she suggested.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t have time, do
we?”
She looked to the mountain and her tongue wrestled with her
teeth before she turned her eyes back to meet his. “No,” she agreed. “Are you
sure you can ride?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Where’s my horse?”
She frowned and said, “You’re not going to ride alone.”
Giorge shrugged and said, “Ride with me then.”
His mother turned to the side and asked, “Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Jarhad nodded and shouted, “Bring his horse.” He
waited until they were in the saddle before he ordered, “Let’s go!” and rode
off ahead of them.
Giorge fell into place near the rear of the patrol. What was
happening to him? Hadn’t they been going east, not west? No, that was before,
wasn’t it? They had made camp, and then Darby had gone off on his own to the
Angst temple. He frowned. How did he know that? Didn’t it have something to do
with Embril? But she hadn’t gotten back from investigating the fires by the
river yet. His frown deepened. She had taken Lieutenant Jarhad with her,
though, and he was back. That meant she had to be back, too.
Yes, she had just gotten back and he was going to ask her
something. What was it? Something about the curse? No. He had told her all
about the curse when they were waiting for Darby, but she couldn’t help him
with it. Or was that Angus? The conversation had taken place in the Angst
dungeon, but the voice was definitely Embril’s. He was sitting just inside an
antechamber on one side of the entry passage, and she was in the antechamber on
the other side. But that didn’t make sense, did it? Maybe it was a dream
blending two things together? He should ask Embril about it, shouldn’t he?
He looked around for her flowing red hair and blue robe, but
there was no hint of it among the drab brown of the patrol. Why not? Oh, yes,
she was a horse, wasn’t she? Riding after—
“Where’s Darby?” he muttered.
“What?” his mother asked, turning her ear toward him.
“Darby,” he muttered again. “Where is he?”
“You didn’t catch up to him,” she said, her eyebrows
wrinkling as she turned a bit more so she could see his face.
Giorge frowned. Had he gone after Darby? No.
They
had. He had ridden with Embril because—
An image of Darby pinioned to the spikes—
Embril leaving for provisions—
The candle flame stretching a foot into the air—
The Tiger’s Eye—
The pieces fluttered around him like disorderly fragments of
a half-remembered dream, and a deep sense of dread settled onto him. But it
hadn’t been a dream, had it? He—
“Mother,” he said, his voice catching in his throat as the
reins hung limp and forgotten in his hands.
“What is it, Giorgie?” she asked.
“Something is wrong with me,” he whispered, as much to hear himself
say it as to tell it to her. “I don’t know why I did it,” he admitted, “but I
took The Tiger’s Eye.”
She stared into his eyes, but he wasn’t really seeing her.
He was seeing The Tiger’s Eye flying toward him, its facets glittering as they
caught the candle’s perverse flame. He had done it, hadn’t he? Taken The
Tiger’s Eye?
“Giorgie?” she asked, awkwardly lifting her hand to his
face.
“It was like when I found the first box,” he muttered. “I
couldn’t stop myself. I had to open it.” He blinked away the dream, the memory,
and looked into his mother’s sympathetic eyes. “The volcano’s erupting because
of me, Mother.”
Her arm fell to her side, but she said nothing.
There was no emotion in his voice as he said, “I couldn’t stop
myself, Mother. I took The Tiger’s Eye. It’s—”
A wave of dizziness struck him, and he couldn’t speak,
couldn’t see. Then he slumped forward, his weight pressing up against her body
as he lost consciousness.