The Golden Key (Book 3) (38 page)

18

After four days, Embril was certain of one thing: she was no
good at skulking through woods. She made too much noise. Her blue robe stood
out too much against the gray and green and brown background. Her horse
nickered at her too often, and she nickered back. It was reflexive, a kind of
polite rejoinder that said “You’re not alone; I’m here, too.” She desperately wanted
to stop doing it, but it had become almost instinctive. Lieutenant Jarhad’s
glare didn’t help any, either. Fortunately, they found the camp before
something else had found them.

“They should have gone on,” Lieutenant Jarhad said when he
saw it. “I ordered Darby to wait three days. It’s been four.”

Embril shrugged. Why did that matter? The camp was there,
and she was hungry, tired, and sore. She needed rest, and that was where she
could get it.

“Tobar!” Lieutenant Jarhad called out as they entered the
camp. As the wiry young soldier sprinted toward them, Lieutenant Jarhad
dismounted. He towered over Tobar and demanded, “Where’s Darby?” as he handed his
horse’s reins to him.

Tobar accepted the reins and stared at the horse’s neck. “I
don’t know, Sir,” he answered. “He disappeared when we made camp here. He’s
been gone for three days. I sent men to look for him, but they couldn’t find any
sign of him.”

Why would Darby leave?
Embril wondered, a sudden,
intense knot forming in her stomach.

“Have you seen any dwarves?” Lieutenant Jarhad asked.

“No,” the soldier replied. “There was no sign at all.”

Embril lifted her leg over the saddle and slid to the ground.
She leaned against the horse for a long moment and clutched its main, wondering
why she was so apprehensive. What was it that was bothering her? Why did it
matter that Darby was gone? There wasn’t anywhere for him to go, and—

Embril turned her gaze to the three peaks to the west. They
were so close…. The knot in her stomach tightened to the point that she almost
gasped.
It can’t be!
she thought.
He doesn’t know—

“Nothing?” Lieutenant Jarhad demanded. “Where was he last
seen?”

“He went into your tent when we arrived, and the next
morning he was gone. We left it the way it was when he disappeared.” He glanced
at Embril and quickly looked away again.

Lieutenant Jarhad turned to Embril and said, “Come with me.”
Then he turned and briskly walked toward his tent.

Embril lingered against her horse for a long moment before
weakly holding out the reins to Tobar. Then she followed the Lieutenant to his
tent, each step more difficult to take than the one before.
What’s wrong
with me?
she wondered, trying to fight off the peculiar, intense feeling.
She ground her teeth and folded her arms to conceal her clenched fists inside
the voluminous sleeves of her robe.

Lieutenant Jarhad flipped open the tent flap and stepped
inside.

Embril followed, and the sudden gloom blinded her for a few
seconds. When her eyes adjusted, she almost fainted. Her chest was sitting on
Lieutenant Jarhad’s cot, and her books were scattered about, as if they had
been thrown carelessly aside. One of them was lying open on the little table,
and she hurried up to it. She glanced at the page and said, “He cast the Soft
Passage spell. That’s how he got away without leaving any tracks.”
What else
did he do?
she wondered as she stepped over to her open chest. This time,
she did gasp: The false bottom had been removed! She reached in and quickly
rummaged through what was still there. “No,” she said, her eyes widening. The
scroll Angus had given her was missing! “No!”

Lieutenant Jarhad moved up next to her and demanded, “What
is it?”

“It’s gone!” she gasped, rifling through the books on the
cot, hoping to find it lying under one of them. “He took it!” But why? He
couldn’t read it unless he knew ancient dwarf. But there were dwarves on the
plateau….

Lieutenant Jarhad reached out and gently took hold of her
shoulder and quietly asked, “What is it, Embril? What did he take?”

She bit her lip and looked at him. “A scroll,” she said.
“See if you can find a scroll.” But where would it be? How did he know about
it? She had told no one! Her breath suddenly caught in her throat. She needed
to calm down, to think.

Still the mind
, she thought.
Where is it?
she
screamed at herself.

Still the body
. She lifted her hands to her face and
pressed her knuckles against her eyes.

Still the mind
, she thought as her sleeves fluttered
down to her elbows.

Still the body
. She took a deep, soothing breath and
let her roiling emotions pass over her in waves.

Still the mind.
Why am I so scared? Why do I feel so
alone? Why—

Still the body.
She eased her fists away from her
eyes and took another slow, deep breath. She held her hands out in front of
her, but there was something wrong with them.

Still the mind
, she thought.
It’s missing too,
she told herself as she ran her hand over her naked forearm.
He took the
Angst bracelet. But how?

Still the body.
She reached into her sleeve for the
scarf, but it wasn’t there, either. He had taken that, too.

Angus is dead,
she thought, suddenly drenched in an
overwhelming anguish that nearly swallowed her up. How—

Forget this conversation
, Darby had ordered—and she
had!

Still the mind,
she thought, letting the memory of
the conversation wash over her, letting her grief escape from its confinement.
As it replayed itself in her mind, a deep sense of foreboding mixed with an
overwhelming sense of loss.

I have failed him
, she thought.
Darby knows
….

Still—
Her knees buckled, but Lieutenant Jarhad
caught her in his bulky arms.
—the body.

Tears erupted from her eyes and flooded down her cheeks.
He
asked but one thing of me, and I failed him.

She whimpered.
Angus is dead.

I failed him.

Darby
….

19

Despite the small size of the key, Argyle held it securely
between his massive fingers as he approached the tiny box resting on the high
shelf in his personal quarters. He lifted the box with two delicate fingers and
set it down on the little table next to his bed. He knelt down and leaned
forward. His hand shook as he inserted the key into the tiny keyhole and turned
it. The lid popped open and a bright yellow light escaped from the box, and Argyle
stared at the large yellow diamond in the box. It was a rare gem, one that
would be priceless even without the magic it contained within it. Argyle took a
deep, steadying breath and reached for the stone. His hand shook as the huge
paw passed through the box and the tiny fingers hidden within it took hold of
the stone.

The light whirled, swirling around Argyle’s gigantic form
and condensing it into something considerably smaller, considerably less
hideous, considerably more feminine, and when the whirling ended, she slumped
down onto the floor, covered by Argyle’s huge blood-soaked blouse and
pantaloons. The cloth was heavy and smelled atrocious, but she reveled in it.
How long had it been since she had been smothered by them? It took nearly a
minute to crawl out from under them, and she was shaking uncontrollably when
her head burst finally free. Once the rest of her followed, she looked down and
laughed.

“Breasts!” she gasped, gleefully running her fingers over
them. Tears threatened to tumble free as she felt the intensity of the
sensations. “My breasts are back!” she chortled, caressing them like they were
rare and precious silk. Then she bent over and looked down.

“It’s gone!” she squealed, sliding her hand quickly down
past her belly. “That hideous monstrosity’s gone!” She eagerly fumbled around
for a few seconds, and then clapped her hands and jumped up and down, “And the
warts, too!”

She danced up to the mirror, relishing how her body—
her
body—felt for the first time in nearly three years.
Her
body.
Grayle’s
body. Not
Argyle’s
hideous form! She was finally free of the brute!

She studied herself in the mirror, relishing the lovely
young form staring back at her. Her hair was a tangled, greasy mass of strawberry
blonde curls, but they were
her
strawberry blonde curls and she loved
them. She ran her trembling fingers through them and caught hold of one of the
wavy strands and tugged on it until it straightened. It hurt, and she smiled at
herself in the mirror. It was a toothy smile, one that desperately needed
attention, but it wasn’t nearly as gruesome as Argyle’s gaping maw. She
loved
her smile, the way her teeth parted just enough for her tongue to peek out at
her. And the eyes! They were lovely chestnut eyes, the kind of eyes that would
shame a horse with their murky, filmy depths. She had done so much with those
eyes when she was younger, and now—

She smiled. She would have the young men groveling over her
in no time at all, once she reclaimed her life! She glanced down and her grin
broadened. Not groveling,
slavering
. They’d be drooling over her with
fawning admiration, and she couldn’t
wait
to let the first one slobber
all over her. Hedred’s son, perhaps? He was a fine-looking young man, and he
had doted on her often before—

Her grin faded a bit as she realized how long it had been
since she had seen him—since
he
had seen her. What if he had forgotten
her? She gasped.
What if he found someone else to dote upon?
Three years
is a long time….

She reluctantly pulled her gaze away from the mirror and
reached for its frame. There were studs in the frame, and she tried to remember
the sequence she had to press to release it from its moorings and give her
access to the secret passage that led to her chambers in the castle. She
frowned, closed her eyes, and mentally ran through the once-familiar sequence,
uncertain if she was remembering it correctly. Then she shrugged and opened her
eyes. She pressed the studs and when she finished, the mirror clicked open. She
grinned and pulled on its edge. It pivoted outward, revealing a dark, cobwebbed
entrance to the dark tunnel beyond.

She frowned. There were supposed to be torches burning in
the tunnel, but where were they? Felix would never have let cobwebs gather, either.
Had her uncle given up on her? It had been months since he had last visited her
himself….

No matter. She was Grayle again, and that was all that
mattered. Argyle was over, and his organization had suffered much since Typhus
had trapped her in his form. But that didn’t matter anymore, either. She was
free again, and there would be plenty of time to deal with Typhus. And Angus ….

He killed Pug!
she snarled in her mind.
He’ll pay
for that!

Argyle had agreed to his terms, but
Grayle
had not.
There were things
she
could do, with her uncle’s help….

1

Stinky was bored. He had been bored for months, and it was
finally getting to him. If only the fishmen would attack! But they were gone,
and everybody knew it. Everybody but the king. He had them patrolling The
Borderlands as if the fishmen were still skulking in there waiting to make a
surprise attack. But they weren’t there, and Stinky was tired of the monotony of
pointless patrols.

He sighed. His task was simple: walk the perimeter along the
edge of the Death Swamps and look for signs of the fishmen. There hadn’t been any
signs for months because the fishmen weren’t there anymore. He was also
supposed to pay attention to the darkness, to make sure it was just darkness
and not the shadows of fishmen preparing to attack, but it was tedious. For
months he had patrolled the same two mile stretch of The Borderlands out of the
same rigid sense of duty that had saved his life many times when the fishmen
were
there. But they weren’t there anymore, and he had gotten lazy. He had become
lax in his duty, and when he looked into the darkness, he didn’t really pay
attention to it anymore. It was dark, and that was all it was.

He still listened, but when he heard the rustling of reeds
or the splash of water he seldom investigated it anymore. When he did check it
out, all he ever found were the little marsh rats swimming around and building
their reedy huts. Sometimes he hunted them for sport, but they weren’t
particularly good eating and there were too many of them to make it
entertaining. They made a lot of noise at night, and he had long-since
attributed all of the noises he heard from the Death Swamp to them. So, that
was what he thought
he heard now, even though the base of his neck
scrunched up as if it weren’t them. Could it be fishmen? Had they finally crept
out of their muddy warrens to attack? He sniffed the air.

The swamps reeked hideously, and when he had first arrived
in The Borderlands it had overwhelmed him. But after a few weeks, he had grown
used to the stench, and not long after that he was able to pick out the
rancidness of the fishmen from the rotting vegetation and stagnant water. His
nose was one of the things that got him assigned to patrol duty. Most of the
soldiers weren’t as discerning when it came to one foul odor or another; they
were all the same to them. But there hadn’t been a whiff of a fishman’s stench
in months, and there wasn’t any on the wind now. There was something, though, a
faint hint of a new smell, one he didn’t recognize. It was almost pleasant—and
that troubled him. Nothing pleasant ever came out of the Death Swamps.

Stinky inhaled deeply, trying to decide if the new smell—it
was a bit sweet in a nauseating sort of way—was a forewarning of spring coming
to the Death Swamps. There were flowers in it now, as if they knew the fishmen
were gone and they could bloom with impunity. Maybe some of them were blooming
early? If it was a flower, he didn’t recognize it. He was certain it wasn’t the
fishmen, though; he knew their scent far too well for it to be them. It wasn’t
the swamp rats, either; they smelled of the swamp with an undertone of musk and
dirt. The splashes were wrong, too; the marsh rats danced on the water and
whatever this was, it was slogging sluggishly through it. It was larger than a
rat, possibly even large enough to be a man.

He put his hand on the whittled deer’s horn at his belt. It
had been a long time since he’d sounded it, and that time there were no fishmen
waiting for them. Gunther was not happy about that. “Waste of time,” he had
said. He gave him privy duty for a week for that mistake. Still, he brought it
up to his chest. There
was
something out there, in the darkness….

Stinky hesitated to bring the horn to his mouth. All he had
to do was blow through the end of it and it would screech like a banshee
summoning the rest of the patrol. But Gunther….

Maybe that was what it was? A lost patrol? They were still
stragglers staggering out from the depths of the swamp. Could it be one of
them?

He was still mulling it over when a man stumbled out of the
darkness and into the shadows near the edge of his torch. He
almost
blew
the horn, but even in the shadows, he could see the hunched over figure wasn’t
a fishmen. The man was wearing ragged clothes that resembled his own uniform, but
they were too tattered to tell for sure. He was thin, too, like the other
survivors who had wandered out of the swamp after months of feasting on bugs
and raw marsh rats. Even in the shadows, the man’s skin was pale, almost white,
and Stinky wondered if he had been held captive in the depths of one of the
fishmen’s warrens.

It didn’t matter. If he was a survivor, Gunther would want
to know about it at once. If he
wasn’t
a survivor, Stinky wanted the
rest of the patrol at his side. He inhaled deeply and lifted the horn to his
lips.

The man reached the barrier of braided grain stalks. They
weren’t intended to stop the fishmen, but they would trip them up if they
caught around their legs. But the man stopped as if he saw them clearly and lifted
his gaze to look at Stinky. The eyes gleamed in the firelight, reflecting it
like a cat’s, and Stinky—

Stinky hesitated, his reflexes dulled by months of tedium.
It was a mistake, and by the time he realized the interloper wasn’t a survivor,
by the time he realized he was something else, it was too late. The horn had barely
squawked when he heard the twang of a bow and felt an arrow shaft bury itself
to the fletching in his throat. He
tried
to blow as he lurched suddenly
backward, but the air bubbled out around the arrow in his throat.

Then a second arrow struck….