The Tiger's Eye (Book 1) (29 page)

He turned to the temple grounds and reached out for the
fires, drew them to him, fed off their energy.
The power!

Howling, screeching, the cat-things fled from him. As well
they should! He laughed as they scampered over themselves in their hurry to
escape into the grain fields, their cat-like eyes glistening with an eerie
orange glow. Cat-like eyes? He was wrong! There was no need to follow after
them; they weren’t the plains folk….

He turned to the temple, to the fishmen….

Energy surged through him, as he strode forward, into the
room, rock melting beneath each footstep, lava dripping from his fingertips.

They had their weapons drawn. Some of them charged, but as
they advanced, Angus reached out for the threads wrapped around him and fed the
energy through them. Whip-like, writhing pulses of flame cascaded outward from
him to strike the axes, the fishmen. He sent more and more energy into the
maelstrom of tendrils snaking out from him….

The other fishmen tried to run, but he was blocking the
entrance, the exit. He stepped forward, bringing the inferno with him….

They scratched at the walls, trying to pull them down, but
it was no use. He stepped forward….

They tried climbing the walls. A few tried to run past him,
their charred bodies crumbling to ash. He stepped forward….

The power surged through him, struggling to be set free, and
he let it go!

Shrieks, smoke, singed flesh….

The intensity of the heat raged through him, from him, but
there were no more targets. The fishmen who weren’t dead—if there were any—had
fled. The cat-things were long gone. All that was left was him, and—

How do I stop it?
he thought suddenly. And then he knew;
one knot held the whole spell together, and all he had to do was let it go….

Too much power!
he realized as the knot unwound.
I
can’t control it!

The flames were trying to devour him, and they would,
unless—

He drew the energy into him, channeled it to his hands,
lifted them above his head, and released it in one massive burst. It roared
upward, struck the ceiling and spread outward, melting the rock. Then it
erupted skyward, sending up a huge geyser of flame….

As the last of the energy fled from him, he sagged to his
knees and gasped. It was over; he had survived the spell. He would live—

Pain.

Sudden, intense pain swarmed around him, flames flickering
out from his sleeves, from the hem of his robe. He was on fire!

Flames,
Voltari had told him over and over again
,
are a fickle ally. They will resent your control, and if they ever have a
chance to consume you, they will. You have only one defense against such an
attack: smother them.

Angus dropped to his knees, gathered his robe close about
him, and fought the urge to run.

The robe will protect you,
Voltari had said.
If
you let it.

He screamed….

10

An eternity seemed to pass while Angus counted to twenty. A
fierce cocoon of heat enveloped him, and the air around him was crisp with
flames. When he finally reached twenty, he lifted the robe from his chest to
look down—smoke but no flames.

He took a shallow, scalding breath and ran from the
desolation around him and into to the temple grounds. The fires were contained,
sputtering; there was no more fuel to feed them. He ran a bit further, his
fingers working to untie the sash. By the time he stopped, his robe hung loose
about him. By the time he tossed it to the ground, flames were once again
beginning to flicker on his smoldering tunic.

He didn’t bother trying to untie the tunic; instead, he
reached for his dagger—and quickly let it go, his right hand stinging from the
fresh burn. He gripped the ties and wrenched at them until they broke. He
pulled off the tunic and threw it away from him.

The belt burned his fingers before he was able to unclasp
it, and then his breeches slid down and he stepped out of them. He left the
boots on—his feet were the only part of his body that weren’t hot—and quickly
surveyed the damage.

Burns on his wrist—bad ones; the skin was charred away.

His neck was ringed with blisters, and they dipped down his
chest and back.

There were minor burns spotting his torso where the tunic
had burned through.

His legs were bright red, but the burns were superficial.

His palms and fingers had welts on them.

But he was alive.

He stripped down the rest of the way, and then looked around
for the first time.

The temple grounds were empty.

No fishmen.

No cat-things.

Small fires flickered wherever there was fuel to feed them.

The rubble where he had landed radiated heat and glowed red
where the man-sized wedge had melted through it. Footprints of hardening lava
ran from it to the room where the fishmen had been—where
he
had been. It
was bright orange with heat, and there was a huge hole where the ceiling had
been.

He stood there, near-naked, alone, amid the carnage of the
ruins for what seemed like hours before he heard horses approaching. He didn’t
bother turning when they reined in behind him. He simply said through clinched
teeth, “Bring my pack.”

Several seconds passed, and then Ortis stood silently beside
him, Angus’s pack in his hands.

“Healing salve. On top the scrolls,” he said. “Don’t lose
the scrolls. They burn.”

Ortis knelt, set the backpack down, and opened it.

“Where are the fishmen?” Hobart asked from behind him. “We
saw the cat-things fleeing as we approached.”

Angus shrugged and immediately regretted it as the skin on
his back and shoulders stretched, intensifying the pain.

“Is this it?” Ortis asked, lifting out the clay pot.

“We’ll find out,” Hobart said. “Giorge, Ortis, standard
deployment. Secure the area and report in.”

“Yes,” Angus hissed.

Ortis took out a dagger and pried open the lid of the pot,
set it aside, and stood up. “How much?” he asked.

Angus held out his fingertips, and when Ortis tipped the pot
toward him, he reached in to scoop up a small amount of the ointment. He spread
it over his fingers, palms, and wrist before rubbing it lightly into the burn.
Where it touched his skin, the pain subsided but didn’t disappear completely.”

“How did you get burned?” Ortis asked.

Angus didn’t answer. He needed his concentration and energy
to keep from crying out in pain, to keep from flinching away from Ortis’s rough
hands as they pushed the healing salve over the blistered skin, the missing
skin…. Still, despite using too much pressure, the pain subsided, and by the
time Ortis had finished, it was manageable.

“That should do it,” Ortis said. “But I can’t be sure in
this light. Maybe we should move closer to the fire.”

“No,” Angus said, shuddering. “I’ve had enough of fire for
the time being.”

“What happened?” Ortis asked.

Angus sighed. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I’ve been
wearing those—” he pointed at the smoldering tunic and breeches “—under my
robes. When my spell ended, the tunic caught on fire.”

“It must have been some spell,” Ortis said. “If there are
any dwarves about topside, they know we’re here. So does everything in this
valley.”

Angus half-smiled, reached down to pick up his robes. “They
weren’t flares,” he said, then realized he couldn’t explain what they were. He
had been intoxicated; there had been far more energy in the strands he had used
than there should have been, and it had nearly overwhelmed him.

“We weren’t sure about that,” Ortis said. “Hobart said the
first one was a call for help, but Giorge didn’t think so. He had seen your
magic up close and thought that was all it was. We were still discussing it
when we saw the second one.” He shook his head. “If we weren’t surrounded by
mountain peaks, it would have been visible for hundreds of miles. That
convinced us, and we rode at a gallop to get here.”

Angus shook his head. Although he hadn’t intended it to be a
cry for help, it couldn’t have worked out any better for him. He slipped into
the robe and tied the sash. It began to itch, but he didn’t care; itching was
much better than burning. “What have they found?” he asked.

“Not much,” Ortis said. “That room is too hot to enter, so
they haven’t been able to get very far. They haven’t found any other entry
points into the temple, either.”

“Any more fishmen?”

“We can’t tell,” Ortis said. “If there are any they’ll be
deeper in the ruins, and we can’t get to them right now. It will take quite a
while for it to cool down enough to risk investigating it.”

Angus nodded. “You and Hobart speak their language, don’t
you?”

“Hobart understands it better than I do. All of Tyr’s
soldiers learn enough words to deal with them, but commanders have to learn the
language. He was slated to be a commander until his affliction.”

Angus nodded and said, “If there are more of them, tell them
to surrender or the lava man will come back.”

Ortis frowned and asked, “What’s the lava man?”

Angus half-smiled. “I am. At least, that’s what I call the
spell I cast. It merges the magic within me with the strands of flame around me
to encase me in flame. But it isn’t supposed to reach high enough temperatures
to melt stone.” He shrugged. “The strands here are incredibly powerful.”

Ortis’s orange eyes grew somewhat distant for a moment, and
then he said, “I’ve told Hobart and Giorge. If they see any fishmen, we’ll give
them a chance to surrender. But don’t count on it. If what Hobart believes is
true, they’ll die before being taken prisoner. Especially if they are an
advance party for a larger force.”

Angus frowned. “How long will we have before the room cools
down so we can find out?” he asked.

“It could take hours, possibly days,” Ortis said.

“Good,” Angus said. “I need some rest.”

11

“It’s about time you woke up,” Ortis said. “We were
beginning to wonder if you would.”

Angus stretched, feeling the stiffness in his limbs and the
tightness of his new skin. But there was little pain, and it was quite
manageable. “How long did I sleep?” he asked, looking at the temple grounds.
The fire was out, the rubble was mostly undisturbed, and the stone wasn’t
glowing red any longer.

“About fifteen hours,” Ortis said. “We left you alone.”

“I appreciate that,” Angus said. “Where are the horses?”

“They’re hobbled near the grain,” Ortis said.

“Isn’t that risky? Those cat-things aren’t large, but there
were quite a few of them.”

“It doesn’t seem to be,” Ortis said. “They seem to be
keeping their distance for now.”

“You know, I’ve seen healing salves before, but yours is
amazing,” Ortis said. “You won’t even have scars. Can you get any more of it?
You’re almost out.”

“I got it from Nargeth,” Angus said. “She runs an inn in
Woodwort. Ulrich, a woodsman she knows near there, makes it.”

“A long trip,” Ortis said. “But it might be worth it.”

“I doubt it,” Angus said. “He probably won’t let us have
any.”

“He let you.”

Angus shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “Nargeth. It was
hers. She sold it to me.” He frowned. “That’s where the other gold coin went,”
he said.

“Money well spent, I should think,” Ortis said. “That kind
of healing rarely comes cheaply.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “This is the third time I’ve needed
it.”

“Third?” Ortis repeated, frowning.

“Yes,” Angus said. “Nargeth used it on my feet when I
arrived at her inn. They were blistered, cracked, and infected, and the salve
healed them in about two days. Then, at the construction site, I burned my
fingers. Compared to what happened here, it was little more than a painful
inconvenience.”

“Maybe we should try to get more of it after all,” Ortis
said.

“Why?”

“Did you forget the wand incident?” Ortis said. “You may not
have been aware of it at the time, but that healer saved your life.”

“So?”

Ortis sighed. “Well, Angus, you seem to be accident prone.
It might be a good idea for you to carry around a healing salve like this all
the time.”

Angus chuckled and half-smiled—but it quickly drooped to a
half-frown when he remembered Billigan’s interruption of the Firecluster spell.
If it misfired…. He shook his head and said, “You may be right, Ortis. There
are always risks involved in using flame magic.”
But I should be controlling
them. Why have I made so many mistakes? Voltari taught me better than that.

“What have you been up to while I slept?” Angus asked.

“Exploring,” Ortis said. “There doesn’t seem to be any more
fishmen—or anything else for that matter. Everywhere we’ve gone is covered in
dust.”

“Is there anything to eat?” Angus asked.

“Yes,” Ortis said. “I’ll get you some bread and stew.”

“Bread?” Angus asked.

Ortis nodded. “That grain is ripe,” he said. “It’s ready for
harvest.”

After eating, Angus took out Teffle’s book and turned to the
page with the flying spell. Ortis took his cue and left him to prime the spell.
When he finished, he stretched, put on his backpack, and went to find the
others.

It was late afternoon, and there was a trail passing through
the room he had torched. He tried not to gag on the stench as he hurried
through it to an open hallway he hadn’t noticed before. There were wooden doors
on either side of the corridor, and all of them were open or dangled from their
hinges. He found Ortis waiting for him near the end of the corridor, a lit
torch in his hand.

Angus walked quickly up to join him. “Where are the others?”

“There are three other corridors,” he said. “They connect up
to form a square. We’ve been searching them for an access point to a hidden
chamber. Giorge thinks there is one, but we haven’t found it yet.”

“Why does he think there is a hidden chamber?”

“We know there was a way up to the second floor, but it was
probably in the part of the temple that collapsed. But when you burned through
the ceiling, you opened it up. We’ve already searched through what was up
there, but there was nothing but rats and owls. The floor up there was level,
and we didn’t find any trapdoors. But there has to be one somewhere; the
ceilings of the rooms along the corridor on the other side of the temple are
shorter than the rooms in the other three corridors.”

“By how much?” Angus asked.

“Take a look at this room,” Ortis said, ushering him through
one of the doors. “It’s about a ten foot cube, right? All of the other rooms
are the same size, except for the ones on the corridor opposite this one. The
ceiling there is only about eight feet high. Giorge thinks there must be a
hidden chamber on top of it, one that’s only about a few feet high.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Angus said. “Of course, the
temple builders probably would know that, too. If I were them, I would make it
look that way even if there wasn’t one. Or it could have been a building error;
they do happen, you know.”

Ortis nodded. “Giorge thinks the same thing, but he’s
checking for a trapdoor anyway, in case it isn’t a deception.”

“What about the rest of you?” Angus asked. “What are you
doing?”

“We’re looking for it, too, but we’re not as good at finding
them as Giorge is. He has a knack for it.”

“You know, if I had built this temple,” Angus said, “I would
have the secret entrance over here, near the ceiling in an adjacent room.”

“How would you get to it?”

“A ladder,” Angus said. “Maybe stand on a box or table. It
wouldn’t be too difficult. Are there any rooms that are not like the others?”

“Besides the shorter ones on that corridor?”

Angus nodded. “Larger, smaller, more furnishings, things
like that.”

“They all look the same to me,” Ortis said. “Why?”

“The secret entrance probably would be in the high priest’s
chamber—unless it was accessible to all of them, in which case it likely
wouldn’t have been hidden.”

“Well, whatever it is, we haven’t found it.”

“I’ll help look,” Angus said, moving close to the wall and
running his eyes and fingers over it. There were no obvious seams or
indentations, so he moved to the next one. After getting the same results, he
moved on to one room after another with Ortis tagging along holding the torch
near the wall. By the time they had finished surveying the second corridor, he
was almost convinced there was nothing to be seen, but as he turned to leave
the last room, the one at the end of the corridor that connected with the rooms
that had the shorter ceilings, he paused.

“What is it?” Ortis asked.

“The bed,” Angus said. “It’s in a different corner.”

“So?”

“Why?” Angus asked. “All of the rooms I’ve seen so far have
had the bed along the wall opposite the door hinge. This one has it on the same
side as the hinge.” He acted as if he were pushing the door open and added,
“See? Would you want a bed that gets banged by the door every time the door
opens? It won’t even open all the way with the bed sitting here.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Ortis said.

“I think the bed was here so they could climb up into the
space above the other rooms, and they left it there when they closed the door.
See? It isn’t even flush with the wall, like the beds are in all of the other
rooms. It’s at an angle.”

“Wouldn’t they have moved it back when they came out again?”
Ortis asked.

Angus frowned. “Unless they didn’t come back out.”

“We’ve already searched this room,” Ortis said. “We couldn’t
find anything.”

Angus shrugged. “Maybe it’s the lighting,” he said. “A torch
is good enough for most things, but not for seeing fine details.”

“What choice do we have?” Ortis asked. “Giorge has the lamp,
and it doesn’t do much more.”

Angus half-smiled, reached for the magic around him, tied
the quick knot of the Lamplight spell and the orb of light flared to life in
his palm. He manipulated it for a brighter intensity and moved his hand close
to the wall. “Better?” he asked, as the spell illuminated the entire room with
a steady yellow glow.

“You had one of those in Hellsbreath’s dungeon, didn’t you?”

Angus nodded. “It is a very useful spell,” he said.

“I’ll find a sconce for this torch,” Ortis said. “They have
them on the corridor walls.”

“Unless you need it,” Angus said. “You may as well
extinguish it. The spell will last for some time.”

Ortis left the room as Angus bent to the floor and began
examining it. When he returned, Ortis asked, “Why are you looking there? The
secret chamber would be in the ceiling, wouldn’t it?”

“Help me move this out of the way,” Angus said as he tried
to lift the bed and it crumbled in his fingers.

Ortis shrugged and they spent several minutes scooping up
bits of the bed and making a pile in the center of the room.

When they finished, Angus retrieved the Lamplight and knelt
on the floor, his face mere inches from the powdery fragments that had fallen
as the bed crumbled. He scanned the floor from one end to the next and sat
back.

“Did you find anything?” Ortis asked.

Angus shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “I thought there
would be something, too. Why put the bed here?”

Ortis grew distant for a few seconds and then said, “Giorge
has an idea; he’s coming to take a look.”

“What’s his idea?” Angus asked.

“I don’t know,” Ortis said. “He didn’t tell me.”

Angus picked up the Lamplight, stood up, and held it above
him, checking the wall and ceiling for a trapdoor. By the time Giorge arrived,
he had finished looking at the ceiling along the wall where the bed had been.
Giorge blinked when he walked in, turned his eyes away from the Lamplight, and
handed his torch to Ortis.

“Well, Giorge, what’s your idea?” Angus asked.

Giorge grinned and said, “I think they moved the bed over
there to delay pursuit.” He moved to the opposite wall and asked, “Can you
bring that thing over here?”

Angus followed with him as he scanned the ceiling and upper
portion of the wall. Then he turned to the floor. After only a few seconds, he
dropped down to his knees and tilted his head sideways, almost level with the
floor. He grinned, and snapped up, clapping his hand. “There it is!” he cried.
“Can you see it?”

Angus and Ortis both shook their heads.

“It’s a very thin seam,” Giorge said, tracing it with his
fingertip. “You can barely see it. It’s as if dwarves had carved the cap. Their
stonework is so precise that they can make it fit perfectly.”

“Can you open it?” Ortis asked.

Giorge shook his head. “There aren’t any handholds,” he
said. “There has to be some kind of release mechanism. A panel, lever, lock—it
could be a lot of things.”

“How thick do you think the stone is?” Ortis asked. “Could
Hobart break through it?”

“No way to tell,” Giorge said. “But I’d rather find the
release mechanism. If there’s a lot of treasure down there, we may have to
leave some of it behind and make a return trip. Breaking through the door will
leave it exposed.”

“So,” Ortis asked, “where’s the release mechanism?”

“It has to be nearby,” Giorge said. “Boltholes like this
need to be accessible. If it isn’t in this room, it will be in the one adjacent
to that wall or in the corridor opposite this one. Either of those would be
close to this corner. Further away than that, and the mechanics become far more
complicated. There’s also a chance that it won’t work after all this time.”

“Tell us what to look for,” Ortis said. “I’m with Hobart in
the other room and out in the corridor.”

“All right,” Giorge said. “It could be a panel in the wall;
if it is, all you’ll have to do is push on it. It could be a keyhole; if it is,
it will probably be in this room or the corridor, and it’s likely to be small.
Don’t be surprised if there’s a panel covering it.”

“How small?” Ortis asked.

“As small as an inch,” Giorge said. “Maybe even less. Don’t
leave any part of the wall untouched.”

“We may have trouble reaching up to the ceiling in here,”
Angus said.

“It won’t be up that high,” Giorge said. “It needs to be
reached in a hurry. Check from a foot above eye level to a foot below it,
first. It’s the easiest place to reach when you’re in a hurry. I’ll check this
spot and—”

“You said it could be a lever, right?” Ortis interrupted.
“There’s a sconce in the corridor along this wall, but it isn’t large enough to
hold a torch. I tried to put mine in it, and it wouldn’t fit.”

“Outside
this
wall?” Giorge asked, pointing to the
wall in front of him. When Ortis nodded, he sprang to his feet and hurried out
of the room. As he went, he called, “Kneel by the trapdoor and tell me if you
hear anything. Not too close, though; it may spring upward.”

Angus moved close to the trapdoor and turned his head to
listen. About ten minutes later, there was a soft click, and the trapdoor rose
about three inches, just enough for a handhold to appear. “That’s it!” Angus
cried, reaching for the handhold—and stopping himself from opening it.

What if it’s trapped?

He shook his head.
Why would they trap their escape
route?

He reached for the handhold again—but stopped again.
To
keep out their pursuers.

By the time he stood and stepped back, Giorge was in the
room. “What?” he said, grinning. “You didn’t take a peek?” He knelt before the
trapdoor and flung it open.

“What is it?” Angus asked.

“A tunnel,” Giorge said. “It runs under the floor along this
wall.” He stuck his head through the trapdoor for a moment, and then brought it
back up. “It’s a crawlspace. I couldn’t see very far. Give me a torch—” he
paused and gestured at the Lamplight glowing in Angus’s hand. “Can I use that
thing?”