Angst (Book 4) (38 page)

8

Hobart reined in his horse and held up his hand. Ortis came
up beside him, and Hobart turned to him. “Stay here,” he said through the sheet
covering his head. The smoke was thick, and the damp cloth seemed to be
helping, but he didn’t like the idea of confronting the patrol while wearing
it. He reached up and pulled it down, and the loose, damp folds settled on his
saddle. “It will be better if I talk to them alone,” he said. “Wait for my
signal before joining me.”

“They know Angus was with us,” Ortis said.

Hobart nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “But we don’t know who
among them can be trusted.”

“A better reason for me to join you,” Ortis said.

“No,” Hobart declared. “I know the Lieutenant in charge. He
is one of the few men who have bested me at wrestling.”

Ortis turned toward him and raised his eyebrow. “No small
task, that.”

Hobart grinned at him and then rode forward at an easy,
nonthreatening gait. He stopped about a quarter mile away from the patrol and
waited. The smoke bit into his eyes, and he squinted against it. Then he lifted
the cloth over his mouth and nose so he could breathe without it burning
through his nostrils and down the back of his throat.

The patrol stopped a dozen paces ahead of him, and
Lieutenant Jarhad rode forward. He had a piece of a saddle blanket covering his
face, and he reached up to loosen one side of it. “Well met, Hobart,” he said
as he reined in his horse.

“That would be Commander Hobart, Lieutenant,” Hobart said.
If the king was going to give him the rank, he may as well enjoy it while it
lasted. “But no matter; I won’t be one much longer. I am ending my Banner when
we finish this mission.”

“What mission is that, Commander?” he asked. “We have
already confirmed there are no more fishmen over there,” he gestured at the
plateau. “If we overlooked any, they have been fried by now.”

“That was your mission, Jarhad,” Hobart said. “Ours is of a
more delicate nature.”

“Yes,” Lieutenant Jarhad said in a low tone. “Dagremon spoke
of it.”

Dagremon? How did she know what it was?
“What did she
say?” he asked.

Lieutenant Jarhad reached up and scratched below his ear,
where the piece of saddle blanket had been tied, and said, “Too little for my
taste.” Then he shrugged. “But if she had said more, I likely wouldn’t have
understood her. Magic makes no sense to me.”

Hobart nodded in agreement. “I have become accustomed to the
wizards in my Banner, but there is much they do that is beyond me.”

Lieutenant Jarhad glanced back at the patrol and then
lowered his voice and leaned forward. “She said your friend Giorge had been
cursed, and that you had brought her here to cure him of it.” He shook his
head. “A dreadful cure, if you ask me. He’ll be mending for weeks, and he may
not be able to walk again. At least he can feel his feet.”

Giorge is here,
Hobart thought, trying not to let it
show.
He’s injured. Better than still being dead.
“Yes,” Hobart said.
“That was a part of our mission. There was more.” If it was a part of his
mission, he hadn’t been aware of it. But he wasn’t going to let Jarhad know
that—or what their real mission was—unless he pressed the issue.

“Angus,” Lieutenant Jarhad said with a nod. “Embril has not
said much since he left us last night.”

Hobart nodded. If he had betrayed Angus like she had—
if
she had—he wouldn’t be speaking about it either. “I will speak to her and
Dagremon later.” He paused and added, “And Giorge when he is up to it.”

Lieutenant Jarhad nodded and turned his horse so that he
faced the plateau. “Angus seeks to end the fire, doesn’t he?” he asked. “I do
not envy him this task.”

“Nor I,” Hobart said in his most somber tone.
So, he
knows enough about The Tiger’s Eye to realize what is going on.
“He has it,
then?” he asked.

Lieutenant Jarhad nodded. “I should not have trusted Giorge
when he returned without Embril.” He shook his head. “Dagremon says the curse
made him take it, but I am not convinced. I know his reputation.”

Hobart frowned.
Giorge took The Tiger’s Eye?
“Lieutenant,” he slowly began, “I have traveled many years with Giorge, and he
is many things. I would not put it past him to, shall we say, collect a few
mislaid valuables here and there, but I have never known him to put others at
risk when he has done so. If he knew that
that
—” he pointed at the fire
that was still raging on the plateau “—was going to happen if he took it, then
he would not have done so.”
Was it true?

Lieutenant Jarhad was silent for a few seconds, then
shrugged. “So you say,” he said as he turned back to face Hobart. “Let’s
continue this discussion on our way back at the tunnel. This smoke is giving me
a foul taste on my tongue and burns my throat.”

Hobart nodded. “I will ride with you,” he said. “There is
much you need to tell me.”

Lieutenant Jarhad raised his arm and his patrol moved toward
them. While they waited, Hobart said, “Let’s begin with Giorge. Where did you
meet him?”
And was he dead at the time?

Lieutenant Jarhad pointed at the far end of the ledge and
said, “There is a cave there, the one you told us about. It was empty, but he
somehow crawled out of it with his mother. I don’t know where he could have
been hiding….”

9

“There have been a lot of riders through here, Master Taro,”
Abner said. “You can see the signs of their passing even in this gloom.”

Taro leaned heavily against his walking stick and carefully
examined the shadows of the tunnel. He thought they looked familiar, but he
would have to wait until daybreak to be sure. But his first impression was that
it was the tunnel from his vision, and that was a good enough reason to stop
for a rest. “We’ll stay here,” he told Abner. “When the riders return, my
vision will be complete.”

Abner looked at him and shook his head. “It took three days
for Hobart to come last time, Master Taro,” he said. “How long will it be
before this vision is fulfilled?”

“However long it takes,” Taro replied, but he was wondering
the same thing. All he knew for sure was that the vision happened during the
day because he could see the sun’s rays lighting up the end of the tunnel.
Whether that would be tomorrow, the day after, or next year, he didn’t know for
sure.

“If it takes longer than a few days,” Abner said, “we will
need to return to Hellsbreath to replenish our supplies.”

“We will not have to wait long, Abner,” Master Taro said.
“Of this, I am certain.” It was strange that it didn’t feel like a lie.

Abner looked speculatively at him and asked, “Another
vision, Master Taro?”

“Ha!” Taro replied. “Common sense, Abner. Only a fool would
have risked staying on that plateau with all that fire about, and there’s only
one place for them to go to get away from it. They had to cross over that
ledge. We haven’t seen them up there, so they must have done it already. It
will only take a day or two for them ride from there to here.”

Abner looked quizzically at him and asked, “Is Angus a fool,
Master Taro? You said he is surrounded by fire in your vision, didn’t you? That
has to be the plateau, doesn’t it?”

Taro scowled at Abner in the near-darkness, and then
shrugged. “He is no fool, Abner,” he said. “He is desperate. Desperate men do
what is necessary, and often what is necessary may seem foolish. Besides,” he
settled down on the floor of the tunnel and stretched his leg out to ease the
constant pain in his knee. “He isn’t going to die there.”

“He isn’t?” Abner asked.

Taro leaned back against the tunnel’s wall and closed his
eyes. “I am tired, Abner,” he said. “I must be well rested when the vision is
fulfilled.”

“Yes, Master Taro,” Abner said in a dissatisfied tone.

“Fear not, Abner,” he mumbled as sleep threatened to settle
on him. “Angus will not die today.”

“Today?” Abner repeated. “Is your vision of him happening
today?”

Taro yawned and mumbled, “Let me sleep, Abner.”

10

Voltari had siphoned off as much energy as he could from his
position above the bubbling lake of lava that stood between him and the nexus
point, but it was not enough to fully power his machine. He needed more, and he
could only get the additional energy by moving closer to the nexus point before
it collapsed. He sighed and took out the scroll Angus had penned for his Lava
Flow spell. It wasn’t a particularly complicated spell, but its bluntness was
exactly what he needed. He unrolled the scroll and skimmed through the
cumbersome descriptions of the sequence of knots, absorbing each one as his
eyes passed over it. There had to be a simpler way to cast the spell, but he
didn’t have the time to think through the adaptations that would do it. When he
finished priming it, he rolled the scroll up and returned it to the sleeve of
his robe. Then, without hesitating, Voltari drew the remnants of the nexus’s
magic toward him. It was still potent, like the strands of magic after they had
been tamed, and he quickly, efficiently, tied the knots of the spell. When he
finished, he knelt down at the edge of his machine and cast the spell. Tightly
bound whip-like tendrils of air threaded their way downward, and as they
approached the lava, he felt them merging with the molten stone. He manipulated
each thread until they were rotating in a tight spiral that drilled into the
lava and left behind a whirlpool-like hole in the heart of the lake. He kept
manipulating the spell until the hole was wide enough for him to fly through it
with his machine, and then he descended into it.

A part of his mind kept tight control over Lava Flow to
prevent the lava from collapsing in upon him, but mostly he focused on
directing his machine closer to the hub of the energy that was still pouring
out of the dying nexus. It was far below the surface of the lava, and it took him
quite some time to reach it. The heat was stifling, deadly, but Angus’s Shield
of Flame spell was working perfectly, and he felt none of it. The orangeish-red
glow of the lava was more than enough for navigating down the vertical tunnel.

As Voltari approached the nexus, his machine gathered up the
energy radiating out from it, and by the time he was hovering directly above
it, the machine had almost captured enough energy for him to activate the spell
it contained. But he waited to do so. This would be his only chance to leave
this world and return to his own, and he was not going to risk it by
prematurely activating the spell. He was so focused on his machine that he
didn’t even notice Angus approaching until he was beside him.

“I am pleased that you survived,” Voltari said without
emotion. “I had hoped that you would.”

“Why have you done this?” Angus demanded. His voice was
harsh, as if he had been screaming for hours, and he looked as though he had
been carrying an ogre on his back all day. He was tall and skinny again, and
his black beard and hair had been singed, making him look almost like a chimney
sweep instead of a wizard. But there was no doubting the ability in those calm,
heavily dilated eyes. There also was no hint of Typhus left in him. How had
Angus managed that? Voltari was
almost
curious enough about it to ask
him, but there was no time for digressions; he needed to complete his task and
go.

Voltari turned back to his machine. It had more than enough
magic in it to activate the spell, and he could leave at any time. He didn’t
need to explain himself to Angus… Without turning, he said, “You should go,
Angus. The Lava Flow spell will not hold for long.”

He activated his machine and felt an incredible surge of
energy envelop him in a cocoon that pulsed and spun with ever-increasing speed.
He smiled. That was how it had been when he had arrived in this time for a
brief visit and been trapped. The Taming had diluted the magic so much that he
hadn’t had the power for his return trip. Until now. He closed his eyes and
braced himself for the disorientation that would come when the cocoon imploded
upon him and twisted his essence into something that it should never be. At
least when it was over, he would be home.

11

It took three days to cross the plateau, and Angus was
surprised he wasn’t dead. The smoke had thickened steadily as he flew through
it, and each breath had been like breathing in scalding water. His robe had
done its best to stabilize his temperature, but it hadn’t been enough. The
first few hours had been brutal, and then something peculiar happened: he
started to breathe normally, as if there was no smoke at all. It had puzzled
him for only a short time before he realized what was happening: The Tiger’s
Eye was breathing for him. It had reached out to him with its magic and was
sustaining him as he flew through the hellish conflagration. But what else was
it doing to him? Master Renard had said it had absorbed the Angst priests who
had carried it during their migration. Was it doing the same thing to him?

Three or four days
, he reminded himself as he flew up
the side of the mountain.
I don’t have much time.
The valley where the
Angst temple had stood was melted into a gigantic pool of lava, and what he saw
in its center infuriated him: Voltari dropping into a hole in the lava.

He’s using my Lava Flow spell,
he thought,
and
Shield of Flame.

Angus flew as quickly as he could, but he didn’t reach the
vertical shaft in the lava until after Voltari had disappeared down into it.
I
should have called it Lava Tube,
Angus thought as he looked down the deep,
narrow shaft. It was almost like looking down an endless well, but no well he
knew had walls that glowed reddish-orange and went down for hundreds of feet.
What
are you up to, Voltari?
He wondered as he contemplated entering the
opening.
Is this a trap?
Angus asked himself.
It would be so like
you,
he mentally shouted after Voltari. Still, his hesitation was short
lived: he had to stop Voltari. To do that, he had to go down the shaft of
slowly spiraling lava, even though it looked like it could close in upon him at
any time.

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.