The Golden Key (Book 3) (6 page)

6

It was dark when Angus woke up, and the moonlight barely
made the shadows around him take shape; lumpy shapes that could be almost
anything. But most—all?—of them were rocks. Would he be able to see well enough
to climb over them or past them? Should he risk it? He was still exhausted;
perhaps more rest, instead?

No,
he thought.
The weakness will only get worse.
I must go while I am able enough to do so.
Still, he stayed in the crevice
for a few more minutes before gradually making his way along the mountainside
just above the snowline. He was uncomfortable trusting the breeches to keep him
glued to the mountain, but with their aid it was much more like walking than
climbing and he made far better progress than he otherwise would have. He was
almost around the edge of the outcropping when the magic around him blared to
life in a splendid array of gray and white and black. He gasped and almost lost
his grip on the mountain before he realized what he was seeing. Once he settled
into place again, he blinked rapidly and studied the array of strange colors.
What was wrong with the magic? Why could he see magic
now
but couldn’t
see it
before
?
How
was he seeing it? He frowned; he hadn’t even
thought
about looking at the magic, but there it was.

He turned his attention to the magic within him—but still
couldn’t see it. It didn’t make any sense. How could he see the magic
around
him but not the magic
within
him? Then, quite suddenly, he realized what
was happening. He wasn’t looking at the magic around
him
; he was looking
at the magic around
Typhus
! It was Typhus who was focusing on the magic,
not Angus, and his awareness of it was somehow bleeding through to him in the
same way it had when the healer was tending to Typhus’s wounds.

Can I use this magic?
he wondered. He took a deep
breath and reached out for the magic around him, and the pattern changed
dramatically, as if there were two overlapping sets of images. Both images were
still only strands of gray and white and black, but the arrangement of those
strands was considerably different. He tried to reach out for one from the new
image
and it came to him!
Almost immediately, he let it go again and
reached for another one. He let that one go a moment later, and then
concentrated on the color scheme, trying to decipher which shades of gray would
match up to the colors he was familiar with. It was no use; he couldn’t tell
which shade of gray was red, which was blue, which was green… The only ones he
was truly confident about were the black and white; they had to be the same as
always.

He needed to fly if he could, but he still couldn’t see the
magic within him and wasn’t ready to risk casting that spell. It would be
better to cast Lamplight first; he could do it reflexively, and he didn’t need
to see the magic within himself to cast it. He concentrated on the strands
around him, studying their behavior, the way they pulsed, the way they crossed
over each other, the way they twisted and twirled. Then he reached out for one
he thought was acting like a flame-based strand and brought it to him. He took
a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his hand do what it needed to do. A
moment later, a bright burst of light filtered through his eyelids, and he turned
his head away from it.

He opened his eyes slowly, giving them time to adjust to the
sudden glare of the Lamplight spell. But it wasn’t the usual yellow-orange glow
he was accustomed to seeing; it was a murky, soft, blue-white glare that
reminded him of the aura that resulted from an incomplete Cloaking spell. He
frowned. Had he grabbed the wrong type of magic? If he had, the spell should
not have worked at all, but the spell
had
worked—just not the way it had
always worked before. Would other spells do the same thing?

Simple knots are the most powerful ones
, Voltari had
told him so long ago.
They have a versatility that cannot be overestimated.
All other knots are derivative combinations of the simple ones.

All other knots are derivative?
Angus frowned and
turned the idea over in his head. If the Lamplight knot—one of the most basic
ones for flame—could work with other forms of magic, why hadn’t Voltari told
him about it? Surely Voltari had known that it would.

He turned to the Lamplight glowing in his palm and studied
it. It wasn’t warm to the touch at all; instead, it was moist and cool, as if
it were a tiny, incandescent globe of water, and the light it shed was much
dimmer than normal. The range of the light it provided was only about two dozen
feet before it bled into the darkness.

Magic is simple
, Voltari had told him.
Spells are
complex.

Angus shrugged; there was no point worrying about it now. He
had enough blue-tinted light to see by, and that would hasten his progress. He
attached it above his left shoulder, just behind his ear where the glare would
be mostly hidden. Should he try to cast another spell? Flying would be optimal,
but would Typhus keep the magic in focus long enough for him to cast it? And if
Typhus quit looking at the magic, would Angus lose his grip on the spell? Perhaps
if he skimmed atop the surface of the glacier?

Angus took a deep breath and brought the magic around him
into sharper focus. He studied the shades of gray, of white, of black. He was high
in the mountains. There should be plenty of blue, white, and brown. It wasn’t a
volcano, so there wouldn’t be very many red strands, and they would be weak.
That was the mistake he had made with the first spell; he had chosen one of the
abundant gray shades. Had it been a water-based thread or a sky-based thread
heavy with water? With all the snow around, it could have been either.

As he sorted through the strands, trying to group them into
ever-tightening categories with a narrow range of shading, he considered what it
was he was about to do. It was reckless in the extreme, and it might not work
at all. Worse, it could backfire. Still, he had cast the Flying spell so many
times over the winter that it was
possible
his body knew it well enough
that it didn’t need priming,
and
he had primed for it before his
encounter with Sardach. He hadn’t been able to cast it during that battle, and
it should still be primed. He didn’t know for sure, since he couldn’t see the
magic within him, but if it were still there and if his hands remembered the
movements, he
might
succeed in casting it, just as he had the Lamplight
spell. If he did, he would be able to make it across to the other mountain in
minutes instead of avoiding the valley and creeping along the face of the
mountain at a snail’s pace. He sighed and looked down at his useless right
hand, still firmly tucked into the belt of his robe. It would be risky to cast
the Flying spell with one hand, but at least Voltari had prepared him for it. It
had been a harsh lesson, one with far too many lashes from Voltari’s Firewhip,
but he had eventually cast Lamplight by using just his left hand. But Flying
was a much more complicated series of knots.

He licked his lips and looked at the magic around him again.
He thought he had narrowed down the grouping of sky-based magic, but he wasn’t
sure. It was one of two prominent groups, both of which were a
light-to-middling color of gray. One would have to be sky, and the other should
be earth; there were simply too many strands for them to be anything
else—except, perhaps, the ice-based magic tied to the snow, but that should be a
whitish color—or a
very
pale gray—and the chill white strands looked the
same as they always did. The darker gray should be earth; brown was darker than
the blues in the sky. He reached out for one of the strands from the lighter
grouping and brought it to him.

I’m too weak to make it back without flying,
he
rationalized.
At least if I die this way, I’ll have died trying to save
myself.
He sighed, closed his eyes, and the fingers of his left hand began
to move.

7

The moment Iscara saw Argyle’s new Truthseer she immediately
disliked him. He was a scrawny little thing that reminded her of a spider with
acne. He was pretty enough in a weird sort of way when you ignored the bulging
eyes and big ears, and he was much younger than Fanzool. His arms dangled at
his sides as if he didn’t know what to do with them, and he tilted to the right
as if his right leg was shorter than the left. He limped, but she was certain
it was an affectation; there were no injuries that she could detect, no
distortions in the magic within him. He kept his head turned to the right as if
he was listening to someone talking to him, but his eye always stared forward.
He had two eyes, of course, but only one of them faced forward; the other
looked to the right, and that eye bore into her as if it could see her deepest,
darkest secrets. Perhaps it did, and that’s why she didn’t like him?

Fanzool had been better. He had been a friendly fellow, and
she had been able to manipulate him without any difficulty at all. All she had
to do was move in close beside the old man, brush up against him, purr
something sweet into his ear, and he would blush and bluster until he finally
caved in to whatever it was she had wanted him to do. But this one? This—what
had Argyle called him? Drub? Drud? Something like that—didn’t blush, and if he
ever blustered, it would be the blustering of a blizzard bringing a cold death.

“We have only one task,” the Truthseer said. “We must find
out where he has hidden Argyle’s key.”

Iscara nodded and turned away from his discomfiting gaze. He
was hunched over, too, but there wasn’t any deformity in his spine as far as
she could tell. It was only part of the image he had concocted for himself,
just like the wizard’s robe draped about him. It was like her healer’s gown,
something to let others know what she was. His affectations were a lot more
elaborate than hers, especially the staff whose grip was topped with a demon’s
head. It had big ears, too. He leaned heavily against that staff as if it were
sucking him into the ground as he walked. Maybe that was why he limped and slouched
so much?

“What key?” she asked as they plodded down the hallway
toward the corridor where Typhus was sleeping. She would have preferred to move
faster, but he could only plod along. If they had to run, what would he do?
Plod a bit faster? Or stop the pretense? And it was a pretense; she was certain
of it. Everything about his appearance was manufactured, carefully cultivated
to make others uncomfortable, to make them think he was weaker than he was. But
he couldn’t hide those big, bulging eyes.
They
were powerful, and she
was certain they could look past the surface—past
her
surface—to
penetrate the sordid depths roiling beneath it. Fanzool never made her feel
that way. He had pretty, amusing eyes that filmed over with tears when her
playthings screamed.

“A small golden key,” the Truthseer said. “Typhus will know
which one.” He shuffled forward at an easy pace, ignoring her impatience—or
antagonizing it intentionally; she wasn’t sure which. He struck her as the kind
of man who didn’t know how to deal with a strong-willed, independent woman who never
fainted at the sight of blood; especially the blood she, herself, had spilled.
“Its whereabouts is of the utmost concern to Argyle. If needed, you will assist
me in discovering its location.”

If needed?
Iscara frowned. She had always enjoyed
assisting Fanzool during his interrogations. It was almost more amusing to see
his
discomfort than it was to hear her plaything’s screams. She smiled and, despite
herself, hoped Fanzool had found a fitting end, one that fit well with his
timid nature. Something violent, perhaps? Something that would have made him
shriek in terror as it approached? She sighed; if she asked this new Truthseer to
show her Fanzool’s death, would it be amusing enough to be worth seeing? Or merely
a sad and pathetic end to a sad and pathetic life?

She hoped the Truthseer would need her assistance. She
owed
Typhus that much—and more! The way he had left.…

The funny little man laughed as if he had seen the image in
her mind, but she squared her shoulders and ignored him. Yes, she didn’t like
him, but Argyle would not be pleased if she
acted
on that dislike, and
she knew what Argyle could do to those who displeased him. She had been the
instrument of his displeasure on many, many occasions. Still, if Gimpy—yes,
that was what she would call him—gave her much more incentive…. She thought of
a particularly vicious game she could play with him, but he showed no sign of
noticing.

As they rounded the corner and neared the door to the
chamber in which Typhus had been placed, she slowed down and let Gimpy get
ahead of her. Argyle’s lackeys were outside the room, and the door was shut.
That was not unusual; there was no way to open the door from within the
chamber, and Typhus had been very securely bound. She had even taken away the
little bit of metal under his scalp that she had discovered when she healed him.
Still, it was Typhus, and if anyone could find a way out of those manacles, it
would be him, and it would have been wiser to have some men inside the room
watching him from a distance. No, it didn’t bother her that they were outside
the room; what bothered her was what
wasn’t
in the hallway.

“Where are they?” she called, coming to an abrupt stop a few
yards from the door’s edge.

Gimpy stopped and turned to the right until his left eye was
staring at her. “Pardon?”

“Where are my things!” she almost shouted, staying well away
from the others.

“What things?” he asked.

“We put them inside,” Crooked Knife said. “No sense in
having them sitting out here when you’re going to be using them in there, now,
is there?”

“No sense!” She half-screamed. “That’s exactly what you
have, you fool. It’s
Typhus
in there, and you just let him have what he
needs to kill all of us. How could you be so stupid?”

“Now see here, young lady,” Gimpy began, somehow putting a
sneer in his puffed-up voice as he chastised her. “I don’t care
who
it
is in there;
no one
could break out of those manacles I put on him.”

She stared at the Truthseer’s eye and began to giggle. “No
one?” she repeated. “He isn’t
no one
; he’s
Typhus
, the most
resourceful assassin you will ever meet—if you live long enough. He even found
a way to hide from Fanzool for nearly two years.”

“Fanzool was incompetent,” Gimpy said with derision in his
voice as he straightened somewhat. “I am not.” Then, quite abruptly, he turned
and gestured to the lackeys. “Open that door,” he said.

The lackey-with-no-brains drew his nasty looking crooked
knife and positioned himself in front of where the door would open. Once in
place, he nodded to his companion. Gimpy hobbled up beside him while the other
lackey pressed the panel on the wall that would release the door’s lock. A loud
click echoed down the corridor, one that was loud enough by far to give Typhus
plenty of warning of their approach. It was meant to give that warning, to let
the prisoners know the game was about to begin. The door slowly peeled itself
away from the wall, and a bright light burst out through the crack that formed.

After a moment, Iscara’s eyes widened. The light was too
bright to be a candle and too steady to be a torch. It could only be—

“Magic!” Iscara gasped, but before she could give warning,
Crooked Knife began to gurgle and suddenly staggered backward with his hand clutching
at his throat. Blood spouted out from between his fingers.

The Truthseer barely lifted his hands before his knees
buckled and he crumpled to the floor.

The door continued to crank open as the other lackey watched.
Light flooded into the corridor. Nothing stepped out of the room.

The lackey at the door mechanism finally reached for his
sword—
but it wasn’t there.
Something had already pulled it from its
scabbard and struck him with it from behind. He shuddered, the kind of shudder
that rattles a man’s bones, as the bloody tip sprouted from his chest. As he
sagged to the floor, Iscara screamed and ran down the corridor.