Angst (Book 4) (8 page)

16

I am Grayle
, she thought as she approached Phillip.
Argyle
is no more.
Phillip’s eyes were lowered, as they should be, and he was
still on one knee, the torch held off to the side.
I am Grayle
. He was a
young man, a few years her junior…. “Phillip,” she purred as she reached down
to cup her hand under his chin and force him to his feet. She smiled. He had a
smooth, strong jawline, and she ran her finger along it to his ear. She
playfully tweaked the lobe as she stepped close enough for their bodies to
almost touch. In a soft, inviting tone, she said, “I need you to do something
for me.” She let her hand slide down the pulsing ridge in his neck until it
settled on his shoulder. She brought her other hand up between them and lightly
pressed it against his chest.

“M-m-milady,” Phillip gasped, trying to look anywhere else
but at her. “What is your d-d-desire?”

Her smile broadened.
He didn’t stutter when he was
younger, did he?
she thought, flexing her fingers over the rough cloth of
his tunic.
Grayle….

Her lips parted slightly, and she inhaled the faintly rustic
scent of his sweat. He tried to mask it with a floral perfume, but he couldn’t
escape his rugged upbringing. Her hand slid from his shoulder to the firm
muscle of his upper arm. It was tempting, so tempting, but….

She sighed and plucked daintily at the cobwebs clinging to
his dusty gray tunic. There would be time later…. She carefully peeled away a
long strand and shook it from her fingers. “I,” she said as she reached up for
a particularly noisome clump clinging to his collar, “need a bath.” She paused
and looked into his eyes. The pupils were huge, almost completely devouring the
thin blue ring around them. Each word dropped from her tongue like a bit of
nectar dangling from a lilac bloom as she added, her voice husky, “A long, hot
bath.” She thrust out her lower lip and used her poutiest tone as she finished,
“But I can’t get through all those pesky little cobwebs.” She made a brusque
pivot and sauntered back to Argyle’s gigantic purple pantaloons and sat down on
them. “Could you clear them away for me?” she asked, bringing the familiar,
stained cloth up to cover her chest as she waited for him to find his voice.

He finally nodded sharply and said, “Milady, the king has so
ordered. I shall see to it once I have reported to him that you are alive. It
will be done by dawn.”

“Pooh,” Grayle pouted, letting the purple cloth drop down to
her lap. “Surely,” she said, leaning slightly forward, “you could clean it
before then. I haven’t had a—” she ran her eyes over him and smiled broadly “—
decent
bath in years.” The fingertips of her left hand traced her collar bone. “I
would be
so
grateful—” her voice was husky and a bit rough as her left
hand settled lightly on the top of her breast “—if you would hurry.”

“Certainly, Milady,” Phillip said, bowing again before he
hurried through the secret door and up the stairwell.

Grayle
almost
followed him, but the cobwebs and dust
were too repulsive. Instead, she wrapped herself up in Argyle’s noxious
pantaloons. They smelled horribly of Argyle’s stale sweat, but it was a
familiar, comforting reek.
I am Grayle
, she reminded herself, wondering
how long it would take for her to convince herself of it.
Argyle is no more
….

17

Taro slept fitfully. He couldn’t shake the feeling that
something horrible was about to happen, and every time he managed to fall
asleep, his dreams were haunted by flickering flames and thunder so loud that
it deafened him. Those rumbles woke him time and again, and the false dawn
found him half-awake when Abner came to rouse him.

“Master Taro,” Abner softly called as he knelt down beside
him. “It’s time to leave.”

Taro sighed and half-opened his eyes. “Do you feel it?” he
asked.

Abner looked up at the gray dawn and said, “It may rain
later.”

Taro smiled. “No,” he said. “The sun will shine upon us this
day, but tomorrow….” He shook his head as a sadness softly descended upon him.
“I am weary, Abner, and there is no hurry to leave today. Wake me when the sun
begins to rise above the mountains.”

Abner hesitated, as if he were about to object, but he said
nothing.

Taro’s voice was soft and sad as he began to sing, this time
without the added emphasis:

A day will come with no return

for he who stands alone

amid the flames that do not burn

amid the molten stone.

He’ll walk on air and pluck the strands

his magic has unleashed

and leave behind a troubled world

in search of lasting peace.

The chaos of a time gone by

shall come once more to be,

as magic long restrained and tamed

will once again be free.

Taro half-opened his eyes and found Abner leaning over him
with a furrow across his smooth forehead.

“You have another verse, then?” Abner asked.

Taro ignored Abner’s concerned look and resisted the urge to
grumble. So what if it had taken him weeks to come up with a third verse? He
hadn’t even thought about the song since they’d left Humphrey’s village, and
yet, the verse had sprung into his mind fully formed as if of its own making. A
residue of a dream? A memory from a vision? He sighed. “The day is upon us,
Abner,” he said as he patted the young man’s forearm. “I sense a time of chaos
is near.”

“Then we should hurry,” Abner said.

“No,” Taro said. “We must wait for Hobart.”

“Hobart?” Abner prompted.

Taro waved his hand dismissively and closed his eyes. “I am
weary, Abner. Let me sleep.”

Once Abner had left his side, Taro tried to sleep through
the raging firestorm tormenting his dreams—but he couldn’t sleep; he knew that
firestorm was but a shadow of what was coming.

18

Giorge stared at the gleaming, clear crystal of the snake’s
skull. There was something infernally sinister about it. The eye sockets were
empty, but there seemed to be an afterimage of a pair of beady, glittering eyes
reaching out for him. The mouth gaped like something should have been embedded
between its gaping jaws. And where were its fangs? Snakes should have fangs,
but this one…

“There is one chance,” he began, his voice soft, “and only
one.” The skull silently, expectantly stared back at him. “To lift this
burden,” he continued, “and be undone.” He reached into one of his secret
pockets and brought out the huge emerald he had found in Symptata’s first box.
“When the Viper’s Breath,” he said, holding the Viper’s Breath next to the
snake’s mouth. It was the right size, but he didn’t insert it. Instead, he set
the Viper’s Breath on the log next to him and reached into another pocket. This
time he held up two jade fangs, each as long as his mother’s poniards, and
said, “The Viper’s Fangs.” They would fit perfectly in the toothless upper jaw.
He set them on the log next to the Viper’s Breath. “And the Viper’s Eyes,” he
added as he took them from his pocket and compared them to the empty sockets.
They would be a perfect fit. “Are found again,” he said, setting them next to
the others, “and once more merged with the Viper’s Skull.” He turned back to
the box and reached in to lift the heavy skull from its resting place. “The
curse will end,” he finished. “The quest fulfilled.” He set the skull next to
the gems and shook his head.

“Mother was wrong,” he said. “I was wrong. The curse isn’t
over.” He sighed and ran his fingertips over the smooth crystal. “Will it end
now if I put the gems into their sockets? Or will something worse happen?” He
frowned and examined the box for secret compartments, scrolls, anything that
might be helpful. He found nothing and sighed. “What should I do?” he
whimpered, staring at the gems, at the skull. Any one of them would be worth a
fortune—what price would all of them bring if they were together again?

He lifted the skull and examined it. It was a simple block
of crystal that had been expertly carved—so well done that there was no hint of
a tool mark on its smooth surface. He ran his fingers over it, expecting
something to happen, but nothing did. At length, he replaced it in the box and
started to close the lid. He had it halfway closed when he paused and slowly
lifted it again. He left it open and reached for one of the Viper’s Eyes. He
held it up to his left eye, saw nothing, then switched to his right eye. The
box still had no magic in it, but the crystal skull radiated what looked like a
swarm of magical threads tightly bound together. What would happen if its magic
was released?

He slowly lowered the Viper’s Eye into the waiting socket.
It fit neatly into place, and when he lifted it again, it came free without any
difficulty. He let it slide into place again, and reached for the second Eye.
The Fangs were next, and they seemed to graft into place when they touched the
crystal, but settled on his palm with but a slight tug. He held onto the
Viper’s Breath for a long time before he finally slid it into position—and
nothing happened. Like the others, it was also easy to remove again.
Is the
skull just a fancy holder for the gems?
he wondered as he stared at the
completed skull.

* * * * *

Giorge blinked. It was dark, and what little moonlight there
was did little more than free shadowy shapes from darker recesses. One of those
shapes was staring at him, and he had to blink away the afterimage of the
Viper’s Skull before he could see her clearly. “Momma?” He asked, glancing
around the clearing. “I must have fallen asleep,” he suggested.

“You didn’t look asleep,” she said. “You didn’t even notice
my approach. If you were asleep, you would have. I made more than enough noise
for that.”

He frowned. She was right. He would have heard her
approaching. She had trained him to do that before he was five. He didn’t feel
rested, either. He felt—

How did he feel? Numb? Empty? Drained? Something like that?
What had happened to him?

“Are you all right?” his mother asked as she put her hand to
his forehead. “You look pale.”

He half-smiled. Only she would say something like that in
this darkness. “I’m fine,” he said, certain it was untrue and not wanting his
mother to worry. What had happened to the afternoon? It had been near midday
when he had sat down for a rest—and opened the box. Now it was night. “How long
was I gone?” he asked. “I mean, how long have I been here?”

“Hours,” she replied. “I waited as long as I dared, and then
left camp shortly after dusk. It was not easy to track you.”

“Well,” he said. “We should be getting back, then.” He tried
to stand but couldn’t. He frowned and half-smiled. “At least my legs got some
sleep.”

His mother didn’t smile as she reluctantly lifted Symptata’s
box and put it on the log beside them, where it perched as if it were as light
as a feather.

As he began massaging his thighs, she put her hands behind
his ankles and flexed the knees. He fought the urge to whimper as the
circulation returned, and when the tingle began to subside, he stood up and
hobbled around.

His mother didn’t look at him as she said, “I saw what was
in the box.”

He winced and didn’t look at her. “At least the curse is
really over now.”

His mother looked up and waited until he met her gaze before
she said, “Are you sure?” She paused, stood up, and moved in front of him. She
reached out and gripped his upper arms and said, “That thing did something to
you. I saw it.”

He tried to turn away, to keep walking, but she held him in
place. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “You saw how pretty it was.”

“I saw something,” she said. “It was as if a candle’s flame
connected you to that thing.”

Giorge shrugged. “It didn’t feel that way to me,” he said.
It was true. He couldn’t remember
anything
about all those hours that
had passed him by; to him, it was as if nothing had happened. He had sat down
at midday and a blink of an eye later, it was midnight. Where had all those
hours gone?
Hours!
How long would he have sat there staring at the
Viper’s Skull if she hadn’t come looking for him? “What do you mean?” he asked,
as much to avoid thinking about what had happened as it was to find out what
had happened. “How was I connected to it?”

Her brown eyes were dark, brooded as she studied him. “It
was like a rainbow was flooding from it and into you,” she said. “I tried to
rouse you, but you were oblivious to my presence—until I closed the box. What
happened to you?”

I don’t know!
Giorge thought as he smiled. “Nothing,”
he said.
Magic? What did it do to me?
“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,” his mother said, then glanced around them.
“We’ll talk more of this later, after we get back to camp. You can walk now?”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “but there isn’t anything else I
can tell you. I don’t know what happened after I reassembled the skull.” He
turned back to the log to retrieve Symptata’s chest, but his mother grabbed his
arm.

“Leave it,” she said. “The curse is over. Let it rest.”

He thought about it for a long moment and then shook his
head. “No,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to leave lying around like this.” He
pulled free from her and retrieved the box. “Maybe Embril will know something
about the curse,” he said. “She’s a librarian. I meant to ask her about it, but
we were riding too hard to get here. Then she flew off with Lieutenant Jarhad
before I had a chance to bring it up.”
If it’s magic,
he thought,
she’ll
see it, won’t she? She’ll be able to tell me what it is, won’t she?
“Maybe
the Skull was taking the curse away?” he offered, not really believing it.

His mother said nothing as she led him out of the clearing.
They walked in silence, their footfalls barely noticeable behind them, but
Giorge’s mind was raging. What had happened to him? Why couldn’t he remember
it? Was the curse really over? Was it beginning again, in a completely
different way? What would happen if he took the gems from the Skull again?
Anything? Nothing?
Could he
take them back out again?

He shook his head. If only Angus were here for him to talk
to about it. But he was dead, wasn’t he? The curse had killed him, too.