The Golden Key (Book 3) (39 page)

2

Typhus knelt on top of the wall wrapped around Tyrag and
looked back at the city one last time. He would miss it, but it was time to
leave it for good. It wasn’t the first time he had left it for good, but this
time Argyle’s men weren’t chasing after him. This time, Typhus had decided to
go on his own, and he was certain he would not be coming back.

He let his gaze cross over the city and shook his head. It
had been so easy to do his job here. Nearly all of his victims had lived on the
same street, which made escaping easy. Still, from this perch, the city looked
strange with all the streets forming perfect squares within the perfect circle
of the high wall guarding it from the attacking grain fields.

He sighed and slid over the side. The guards made their
rounds with such rigidity in their schedule that he had no difficulty entering
or leaving the city. He had always wondered about that. It was as if the King
wanted
him to escape—wanted
them
to escape. Argyle knew their schedule and took
liberal advantage of it.

Typhus settled softly to the ground and walked silently
along the outer wall. The guards on the wall wouldn’t see him down there unless
they bent over to look straight down the wall, but they seldom did that.
Besides, the black cloak he wore would conceal him from them if they did,
provided he moved slowly enough. At least he didn’t have to worry about glowing
blue anymore; that had disappeared when Sardach had taken away his magic and
gave it back to Angus. He didn’t really mind losing the magic, though; it was
too dangerous. At least it had helped him get out of Argyle’s dungeon while he
had it, and for that he was as thankful as he was about anything. But the
temptation to use it would have been too great, and he would have made
mistakes, just like he had with the Cloaking spell. Still….

As he neared the well-lit area around the gates, Typhus
veered away from the wall and dropped to his hands and knees. He wormed his way
through the stubble on the ground where they kept the grain trimmed low for
defense. They might see him, of course, but they probably wouldn’t do anything
about it. He was
leaving
Tyrag, and they tended not to care about that
very much. Another oddity of the city guard.…

By the time he was smothered in darkness, he was confident
enough to stand upright and walk with purpose. He had a destination of sorts,
but it was vague and uncertain. The first step, the most important step, had
been simple: leave Tyrag. The second step was also simple: Make it to Wyrmwood.
He had a plan for that. There were groups of farmers heading out in the morning
with wagons full of grain seed. He would join one of them as a guard, go as far
as they did, stay a little while in their village, and then leave with a few
more coins than he had had when he arrived. He would be cautious, though; he
would only take them from the ones who could afford it. There was no sense
making more enemies and having them follow after him. The last thing he needed
was a trail of bodies in his wake. Perhaps he should only take some food and
supplies?

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. He needed
to focus. He was still much too close to Tyrag, and the guardsmen had horses.
Besides, he couldn’t decide what to do to the villagers until he got there and
found out what they had. Then he would be off to the next village to do the
same thing all over again. At some point he would have to steal a horse. He
smiled, pondering the audacity of stealing one of the guardsmen’s horses, but
it was too risky even for him. The guardsmen weren’t after him, and as long as
he left them alone they would probably leave him alone. But Argyle….

Typhus hurried forward, intending to intersect the road
about a mile or so away from the city. The farmers would be leaving through the
gates before dawn, and he wanted to be in place when they went by. Surely one
of them would welcome him into their group, and that would make it much easier
for him to escape.

He would go to Wyrmwood, but then where? That was the
question he hadn’t answered yet. He couldn’t stay in Tyrag because Argyle’s
network stretched to the furthest reaches of the kingdom. There was no safety
for him in Tyr as long as Argyle lived. He had thought about killing Argyle,
but he no longer had the resources he would need to do it. Perhaps when he had
rebuilt his status?

Hellsbreath would be next. He wasn’t going north into the
Death Swamps; there was nothing for him there. He couldn’t go back to his
father, either; the old bastard wouldn’t lift a finger to help him a second
time. That left only two options: The Western Kingdom and The Southlands.
Hellsbreath was the gateway to both of them. But what would Dirk do?
Hellsbreath was his city; it wasn’t part of Argyle’s organization. But they had
a loose alliance and did favors for each other. Otherwise, they left each
other’s organizations alone—for now.

He would have to deal with Dirk when he got to Hellsbreath.
It should be a simple matter of tribute, and he would acquire enough for that
when he got to Wyrmwood. There was a tantalizing surplus in the center of the
city, and he had an idea about how to get past that wall of theirs….

He shook his head again. There would be plenty of time to
think about what to do while he was crossing Tyrag. It was a long walk, and he
would have a plan by the time he got to Wyrmwood. From there? He shrugged. It
didn’t matter. He would be far from Argyle, and once he reestablished his reputation,
there would be nothing to worry about.

Almost nothing. Argyle still might be tempted to put a
contract out on him, and his reach was far….

3

Angus hated being helpless, but there was little he could
do. Embril had been gone for too long for him to catch up with her. He wanted
to go after her, but he couldn’t. Commander Garret had forbidden him to leave
Hellsbreath, and the guardsmen wouldn’t let him go. Worse, his scrolls, book,
and the wand had been confiscated and placed in the care of the Grand Master.
The only explanation Commander Garret had given him was that King Tyr had
ordered his banner into service and he wanted to make sure Angus stuck around
until his companions returned. He had protested quite strenuously before complying,
and now all he could do was wait and watch.

In the mornings, he watched for Hobart and Ortis on the
south road. After four days, there still wasn’t any sign of them, and his
concern was growing. Had the Haunted Plateau lived up to its reputation? Had it
swallowed them up like it had the trappers? They should have made it across it
before his return to Hellsbreath, and it wasn’t that far from the cliff to Dagremon’s.
If they had gotten there….

But what if they hadn’t reached Dagremon’s? They had been
low on supplies; they could have starved on the plateau. No, that wasn’t
likely; Ortis was too good a woodsman for that. But what was delaying them? Had
Hobart gotten worse? He shouldn’t have, unless Angus was misremembering the
effects of the yiffrim blood. He had tried to find out, but
Heatherly’s
Taxonomy
wasn’t in the library; Embril had apparently taken it with her
when she left. He had smiled at that.

In the afternoons, he watched from the north wall, trying to
see Embril or the patrol. He had seen a few patrols, but they weren’t the right
one, and with every day that passed without word, without sign of her, he grew
more and more anxious. He
wanted
to ride out far enough to see the
plateau, but Commander Garret wouldn’t let him. He wouldn’t even let him
practice flying because it would be too easy for Angus to fly out of the town
without reporting his departure. So what could he do? Worry. Watch. Wait.

On the third day after his return, his waiting ended. It was
a little after noon, and he was making his daily trip from the south wall to
the north wall. He had stopped for a meal in the Wizard’s School, and the place
was nearly full of students. They were chatting and eating and studying like
usual when an alarm sounded. He didn’t know what it meant, but the Master
Wizards he recognized leapt to their feet and ran from the room. A few of the
older students followed them, and many of the younger ones suddenly looked
terribly frightened. He turned to the nearest table and asked, “What is it?”

The boy—he couldn’t be called a man yet—looked at him with
wide brown eyes and struggled to speak. Nothing sensible came out of his mouth
for a few seconds, and then he gasped, “It’s the alarm! Something’s happened to
the shield.” Then he turned away and asked the others at the table, “What do we
do? We have to help them, don’t we?”

“And do what?” a young girl asked, a tremor in her voice.
“We don’t even know how to tie a proper knot yet. How can we help them?”

Angus rose at that point. He didn’t know the particulars of
the spells involved in the shield, but he had ample skills and might be able to
help in other ways. He could do something, surely—or at least find out what was
happening. He turned to the boy and asked, “Where have they gone?”

“Who?” the boy asked, a pleading look in his eyes.

“The Masters,” Angus said. “Where would they go?”

“Up the spire, of course,” the girl answered.

Angus nodded and walked calmly out of the room. He wasn’t
sure if there was anything he could do, but he would help if he could. As he
strode calmly, unhurriedly to the spire’s stairwell, he easily sidestepped the
wizards who ran by him. None of them stopped him, and by the time he reached
the spire stair, it was clear something major had happened. Dozens of wizards
were already nearing the top of the stairs, and some of them had flown directly
to the top. Angus would have done the same, but he hadn’t been able to prime
for his Flying spell since his return. Commander Garret had seen to that.

It took almost twenty minutes to reach the top of the stair,
and by then, the wizards had filled the walkway and fluttered around in the
air. But they weren’t doing anything other than looking to the northwest,
pointing, and talking in hushed tones or not at all. Angus turned that way, but
he saw nothing—until he brought the magic into focus.

“No!” he gasped, almost sagging to his knees as he saw the
whirling disarray of flame magic pummeling the sky in the distance. It was like
a candle flame but ten thousand times its size, and it was pure, unfiltered
magic. He
shouldn’t
have been able to see it at all, but—

“No!” he barked, trying to push his way through the crowd to
get closer to the edge. “It can’t be! She wouldn’t—”

Master Yrdic turned to him, hurried over, and turned Angus
to face him. He studied Angus for a long moment, and his face grew grim. His
eyes narrowed, and he squeezed Angus’s arm and said, “Come with me.”

Angus resisted long enough to look to the northwest once
more, and then he allowed Master Yrdic to lead him away from the others. When
they reached the door to the stairwell, Master Yrdic put him inside and said,
“You are not allowed up here.”

Angus turned and glared at him, but Master Yrdic was already
turning away. He stepped forward and clutched the sleeve of his robe and said,
“Wait!

Master Yrdic half-turned, scowled, and shook free of Angus’s
grip. But he waited.

“I think I know what is happening,” Angus said. “Let me
speak with the Grand Master.”

Master Yrdic scowled at him for a few more seconds, his deep-set
eyes widely dilated, and then nodded slightly before whirling away. He easily
maneuvered his way through the crowd and leaned in close enough to the Grand
Master to whisper in his ear. The Grand Master turned to look at Angus, nodded,
and gestured for him to approach.

Angus took a deep breath and strode forward. His pace was unhurried;
he needed time to decide how best to explain what he knew without being
consumed by the shock of Embril’s betrayal.
She couldn’t have!
he
thought as the wizards parted before him.

She couldn’t have!
he thought as he strode up to the
Grand Master.

But who else could it be?

# # #

Thank you for reading
The Golden Key
, and I hope
you enjoyed it. Book 4 should be out in late spring or early summer. In the
meantime, you might consider writing a review or reading one of my other works.
Thanks again!

Robert P. Hansen

Robert P. Hansen teaches philosophy at a community
college and writes fiction and poetry in his spare time. His work has appeared
in various small press publications since 1994.

Poetry

2014: A Year of Poetry
: a collection of
poems that were primarily written during 2014.

A Bard Out of Time
: a long fantasy poem
accompanied by other fantasy poems.

A Field of Snow and Other Flights of Fancy
:
a collection of light verse and other short poems.

Last Rites…and Wrongs
: a collection of
macabre poetry.

Love & Annoyance
: a collection of poems
on love and philosophical speculation.

Of Muse and Pen
: a collection of poems on
writing and the creative process.

Potluck: What’s Left Over
: a collection of
poems with no particular theme.

Fiction

Have You Seen My Cat? And Other Stories
: a
collection of mystery, science fiction, and cross genre short stories.

The Drunken Wizard’s Playmates and Other
Stories
: a humorous fantasy novel and a few other fantasy stories.

The Snodgrass Incident
: a science fiction
novel in which the crew of
The Snodgrass
travels to Enceladus to
investigate the formation of a new Tiger Stripe.

The Tiger’s Eye
: Book 1 of the Angus the
Mage series of fantasy novels.

The Viper’s Fangs
: Book 2 of the Angus the
Mage series of fantasy novels.

The Golden Key
: Book 3 of the Angus the
Mage series of fantasy novels.

Worms and Other Alien Encounters
: a collection
of science fiction stories.