The Golden Key (Book 3) (4 page)

“More than most,” Commander Garret said. “I believe it is
important for the Commander of a garrison to know as much as possible about
those things that may impact his decisions. The history of the conflicts in an
area is one of those things. The dwarves have very long lives and even longer
memories.”

“Good,” she said. “Then you know how they ended, how the
volcanism drove the Dwarves away.”

“Some say they caused it,” Commander Garret said.

A sad smile fell upon her face as she shook her head and
said, her voice almost a whisper, “They didn’t.”

He waited for her to say more, but before she could—if she
was going to at all—there was a tap on the door and Lieutenant Jarhad called
out, “Commander?”

Commander Garret stared at Embril for a long moment before
he set his palms on the table and pushed himself upward. He lingered for a few
more seconds, and then shook his head and moved quickly to the door. He
unlocked and opened it.

Lieutenant Jarhad had a variety of caps, hats, and other
headgear in his arms, and Commander Garret stepped aside to let him enter.

Commander Garret smiled as he joined them at the table and
said, “Let’s see which one looks best, shall we? Then we’ll see about a
uniform.”

1

Hobart looked toward the setting sun and shook his head. It
had been two days since Giorge had walked into that tomb and it had disappeared,
and there was still no sign of Angus. Ortis had kept watch from the lift every
day, but there was nothing, not even a whisper of thunder or a glint of
Lamplight. He and another Ortis had climbed as high as they dared up the
mountainside on which Giorge had disappeared, and even from that vantage point
they had seen nothing, not even a small patch of blackness on the white,
glacial landscape below them. Then they had spent a day and a half climbing
down the mountain and up the next one without anything to show for it but
aching muscles and hungry bellies.

“We have to go back,” Ortis said as he sat down beside Hobart.
“If we go any further, we’ll run out of supplies on the way back to Dagremon’s,
and you saw how sparse that plateau was. Even if we left now, the grain for the
horses will likely run out before we make it across.”

Hobart nodded without turning. What Ortis said was
reasonable, but a part of him, the part that had duty drilled into him over and
over again in his training, the part of him that
never
let a comrade
down, was pulling him further and further away from the lift. He set his jaw,
straightened his back, and said nothing.

“You know we aren’t going to find him,” Ortis said, his
voice soft. “That thing carried him away.”

Hobart nodded again. He had seen that thing ripping Angus apart
like a hungry soldier rending off a chunk of day-old bread, and then it had carried
him away. There was no telling how far it had taken him, but that didn’t matter
to Hobart. “He’s a part of the banner,” he said, his tone resolute. “We owe it
to him.”

Ortis shook his head. “Not to our own peril,” he said. “You
know he wouldn’t want that. It would be different if we knew he was out here
somewhere. We don’t. That thing could have carried him anywhere. Or worse.”

Hobart’s jaw muscles tightened and his eyes narrowed as he
fixed his stare on the pink and purple sunset. Under other circumstances, its
beauty would have gladdened him, but not this time; this time, it was the torch
igniting the flame of Angus’s funeral pyre. “You heard the thunder,” Hobart
said, his tone defensive, decisive. “He used the wand.”

“Yes,” Ortis agreed. “But to what effect? You saw how my
arrows passed through that thing as if it wasn’t there, and your sword sliced
through it as if it were made of air. Don’t you think that wand would have done
the same thing?”

Hobart frowned and shook his head. “You know that spell he
has that makes the breeze? It blew that thing away from us, remember? The wand
is a lot more potent than that spell.”

Ortis shrugged but said nothing. What more could he say,
anyway? Hobart wondered. Ortis was right, and Hobart knew he was right. But he
wasn’t ready to admit it. Instead, he stared at the sunset and let the thin,
chill mountain air ruffle his cloak. He had failed, and there was nothing he
could do about it, no body to take back to bury. At least he knew Giorge had
met his end, the one meant for him, and that gave him some sense of closure,
but Angus? Where was he? Was he alive? He clenched his fists in frustration and
anger. Was Angus being tormented by that thing? Was it ripping him to shreds
even as they sat watching the darkness creep in around them? Was he already dead?

Hobart sighed, the kind of sigh that made his whole body sag
as if it were under a great strain, and looked down at the broadsword laying
across his knees. He eased the tension in his fingers and said, his voice grim
and decisive, “All right, Ortis. We’ll start back in the morning.”

They sat in silence until the darkness had consumed them,
and then Ortis pointed at the black silhouette of the mountain southwest of
them. “We can cross back on that side of the valley,” he suggested. “We might
be able to see something from that vantage point that we couldn’t see from this
side.”

Hobart, his head still bowed, nodded and pulled his cloak in
around him. He leaned forward and closed his eyes, thinking about how foolish
he had been since Giorge had died. If he had been thinking clearly, he would
have brought the tent, more provisions, torches.… But their gear was with Ortis
and the horses back in the cave because he had made a mistake no soldier should
make: he had let grief overwhelm his judgment before the task was done.

He shook his head and shivered.
A lot of good a tent did
in a cave
, he thought as he began to doze.

2

Angus reached up and pressed his fingers against the ice
shaft. The surface was fairly smooth, and a thin, fresh layer of ice had formed
on it. It was as slick as could be, and there was no way he could climb up it
in his condition. As he considered what to do, water formed beneath his fingers
as the ice began to melt. He pressed his palm firmly against the ice and
waited.

Seconds passed before a tiny streamlet trickled down to the shelf
below him. Minutes passed before the indentation was deep enough for his hand or
toes to fit into it. He removed his hand and reached up a little higher and to
the left. He pressed against the icy wall and waited. Minutes went by before he
was satisfied the impression was deep enough. Then he reached lower, near the
bottom of the shaft, to make a toehold. It would be very slow going, and there
was no telling if he would have the strength and patience to make it all the
way to the surface, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t climb like Giorge
even with both arms and legs working properly; that had been Typhus influencing
him. He was sure of it.

A half-remembered image popped into his head as he thought
about how easy it would be for Typhus to climb up the convoluted shaft. Typhus
had been thinking something when Angus woke up in the cave after his battle
with the frost elemental. He had been groggy, and Typhus had taken control of
his body and was thinking about how he could kill Ortis and Hobart and then
escape by climbing along the walls of the cave. There was something… It wasn’t
in words; it had been a rapid flash of memory, of habit. What was it? Something
about his breeches? Yes, Typhus’s breeches were unusual. They were special.
They were made from…what? Silk? He had gone somewhere to buy silk harvested
from the webs of enchanted spiders. Yes, that was it; he used his breeches to
help him climb.

No
, Angus thought, his eyes growing wide.
He
didn’t use them to
help
him climb; he used them
to
climb. The
silk clung to surfaces like a spider clings to a wall! All he had to do was
think
about climbing, and up he went!
Angus closed his eyes and bowed his head,
trying to bring the memory into sharper focus, to see if there was something he
had to do to make the breeches work. What was it?

By the time he abandoned the effort, his hand was nearly
three inches deep in the icy wall, and he quickly brought it out. There was
only one thing he needed to do to make the breeches work: hike up his robe. As
long as the breeches maintained contact with the wall, they would cling to it
and he could climbing with the effortless ease of spider. But they had to be in
direct contact with the surface; they wouldn’t work if they weren’t.

He frowned. He couldn’t take off his robe; he needed its
magic to keep from freezing and its belt to stabilize his arm. He would have to
rearrange the robe so the breeches could touch the ice. After several minutes’
effort and much pain, he had the hem draped over his left shoulder and tucked
into his belt. Then he sat down and leaned back for some rest. He was too
exhausted to climb up the shaft. At least the bunched up robe gave his neck
some support, and he was able to touch the wound in the small of his back. It
seemed superficial enough, and with luck, it would heal on its own, but if it
got infected…

Before falling asleep, he tried once more to bring the magic
into focus. This time, nothing happened.

3

Typhus barely stirred as he woke up, and his breathing
hardly changed from the slow, methodical rhythm of rest. His head sagged
forward, pulling uncomfortably against the back of his neck, and a tightness
tugged at his shoulders. The sharp edge of metal bit into his wrists and
ankles, holding his arms and legs wide apart. The balls of his feet barely touched
the cold stone floor—a smooth,
clean
floor—and he shifted slightly,
taking nearly a minute to move scarcely two inches to the left to put his
weight more fully on his legs to ease the strain from his arms.

He was naked.

His tools were gone.
All
of his tools, even the one
imbedded under the skin at his hairline.

The manacles were tight on his wrists, but not so tight that
they cut off circulation. He wasn’t
dangling
from them, either, even
though they prevented him from moving more than a few inches in any direction.
It was as if whoever had him didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary pain—for
now. What would happen later? What would they do when they discovered he was
awake?

They?
Who had him?

He focused on his breathing, letting the steady rhythm of his
expanding and contracting chest fill his senses and clear his mind. He had been
captured before, been manacled before, and had even been hung up like an animal
to be butchered a few times, and it did no good to panic. But those times, he had
always had
something
he could use to pick a lock or kill his captor.
This time…

He had been running. Why? He frowned as an image of his
father’s tower came abruptly to his mind, filling him with dread and fear. What
would possess him to go back there?

Argyle. His men had been chasing after him. He had taken
some coins, but—

No, Argyle didn’t care about the coins. It was the key he
wanted back. He had said so when Sardach—

His breathing quickened despite his efforts to still it, and
he half-opened his eyes. Darkness enveloped him in its comforting touch, a deep
darkness that penetrated everything and left behind a blank wall. He could see
nothing
,
not even the slightest difference in the shades of gray around him;
all
of it was the uniform blackness that only happened underground or in a
completely sealed room.

I’m in Argyle’s dungeon
, he thought as he listened
intently for any hint, any whisper of movement around him. The muffled jingle
of the manacles, the heartbeat thrumming softly in his ears, the faint whistling
of his breath—these were the only sounds, and he risked lifting his head to
look around.

Darkness and more darkness.

He strained against his manacles for nearly a minute before
deciding they were too secure to be pulled from the wall, too strong to snap.
He tried to twist his hands from them, but they were too tight, even after he
dislocated his thumbs. Had they been welded into place? He shook his head
slightly; there were no burns on his wrists, and if they had been welded into
place there would be. They even seemed to tighten as he struggled against them,
and he wondered if they might be touched by magic. He frowned; they had thought
of everything this time. Maybe if he could see it might help? There could be
something within reach he might be able to use. He doubted it, though. He was
in one of Argyles little playrooms, and the only things in them were the
manacles and chains—except when Argyle or his cronies came by for a visit.
Perhaps then?

Typhus sighed. If he were still with Angus, he’d be able to
see magic and cast the Lamplight spell. He had watched Angus do it more than
enough to be able to tie the knot himself, but until he had been joined with
Angus, he had not been able to see magic. Voltari had been so utterly
disappointed that he couldn’t teach him how to cast spells that he had sent him
and his mother away. Even after his mother had died, Voltari would have nothing
to do with him, and that had suited him fine; he had wanted nothing more to do
with Voltari, either. He had survived well enough on his own without Voltari’s
help—until Argyle had sent
everyone
after him. Even then, even with his
life in the balance, it had been difficult for him to ask Voltari for help. It had
been even more of a surprise when Voltari had agreed to help him. Had his
father felt a fragment of guilt for abandoning them?

A harsh, low snort escaped from him, and his eyes grew wide
as he listened intently to see if anyone had heard. After a minute, he relaxed
again, as much as he dared to relax in light of the situation. It hadn’t been guilt
that drove Voltari to help him; his father wasn’t plagued by a conscience any
more than he was. It was one of the few things they had in common. Nor was it love,
for Voltari had none of that, either. Duty? No; Voltari had abandoned that when
he sent them away. In the end, it must have been curiosity that had convinced
him to do it—or the challenge of devising a spell that would thwart his pursuers.
Yes, that must have been it. There had been no compassion in Voltari’s eyes when
he had blended his essence with Angus’s and then buried him so deep in the
folds of Angus’s memory that no one could find him—until Fanzool had sought him
out and his magic had touched him. Even then, it was Sardach, not Fanzool, who
had drawn him to the surface, and then Typhus had seen as Angus saw, had felt
as Angus felt.

He shifted slightly and flexed his toes to ease a cramp that
was forming in his left leg. It was a barely noticeable, methodical series of
slight movements that were just enough to cause his calf and thigh to quiver,
and he did it without conscious thought.

What does Angus do when he seeks out the magic?
Typhus
thought, closing his eyes and visualizing the process. The first time Angus had
done it, it had nearly overwhelmed him. The colors were so vibrant, so fresh,
so
new
. The blues and reds and greens and browns were so unlike the
shades of gray that followed him around wherever he went. He had known the
words for the colors and had even tied them to the different shades of gray he could
see—at least in broad strokes; the nuances had left him completely
bewildered—but he had never realized how lively and vibrant they were. Or was
it just the magic that made them seem so lively?

Look inward first
, Typhus thought, reaching for the
magic within him and expecting it to be as futile as it had been before he had
been joined with Angus. But this time, the magic flared to life as brilliant
and chaotic as it had been when Angus had done it that first time. He could see
it! There was magic within him,
and
he could see it!
What’s more,
there were pathways in the magic that he recognized, pathways that were tied to
the spells Angus had primed for, the spells
they
had primed for. Could
he cast them?

He quickly reached out to the magic around him, and shrunk
from the kaleidoscopic landscape of whirling colors. He knew this was normal—he
had seen it often enough while he was merged with Angus—but he didn’t have the
discipline, the experience, the
knowledge
that Angus had, and he
couldn’t temper its impact. He winced, shut his eyes tight, and it burned
through his eyelids as his mind continued to draw the magic toward him. Then,
as if on their own, the strands retreated to the edge of his vision and dimmed
considerably. He blinked away the afterimage and shuddered. Yes, that was what
Angus had done, wasn’t it? He pushed them away and focused on the ones he
wanted. Then he would reach out
with his mind
to draw in only those few strands
he needed for his spells. He smiled as he studied the pulsing little streams of
color. After a few seconds, he reached out for a red one that was so different
from the gray shade he called red….

The thread came toward him as it had done for Angus, and he
guided it to his right hand. He had a little play in the chains, but it still
took a long time for him to bring the strand close enough to grasp it between
his finger and thumb. It was warm, much warmer than he remembered from his
experience with Angus, and it vibrated against his skin like a settling
bowstring after a killing shot. He reached for the magic within him that was
primed for Lamplight and slowly, carefully, clumsily tied the simple knot
together. An orb of light burst to life on his palm, and he turned from the
sudden, intense glare. Still looking away, he slowly opened his eyes and let
them adjust to the sudden brightness in the room.

It was one of the rooms Argyle used to entertain his guests.
The huge stone door stretched upward nearly fifteen feet to the ceiling, and Typhus
frowned. It should have been
exactly
fifteen feet, but the builder had
been a few inches short. Argyle must have been unhappy about that; he needed
fifteen feet of clearance to avoid banging his head on the ceiling. The door was
closed, and he knew its seal was so tight that it would muffle the loudest
scream to a bare whisper in the corridor beyond.

The room was a fifteen foot cube, and he was pinned against
the wall opposite the door, halfway between the walls to the left and right.
But what caught and held his attention was the table set in the corner next to
the huge door. There were all sorts of potential weapons on it: tongs for
pulling out fingernails, blades of various sizes and shapes, mallets…. He had
seen that array before—had
used
that array before—when Argyle had an
especially nasty job for him. They planned to torture him. But why? There was
no need for it; he would tell Argyle what he knew about the key and be glad of
it.
If
it came to that. It should be a simple transaction: his life for
the information about the key. But he had killed so many of Argyle’s men.…

A thoughtful, sinister smile consumed his face as he ran
through the various ways he could use those tools of torture to kill,
efficiently and quickly, anyone who came through that door.
If
he could
get to them. The small blades would be best; he could maneuver with them much more
easily in the confined quarters than the more cumbersome ones—especially if
Argyle sent more than one of his henchmen through the door to have a chat with
him. He frowned; there would be no fewer than three; any less would be an
insult. Argyle might even be with them, and that would pose a significant
problem. First, though, he had to reach the implements, and that meant he had
to free himself from the manacles. How could he do that?

He looked at the writhing, lopsided sphere of the Lamplight
spell. It should have been a perfect orb, like Angus’s, but that didn’t matter.
He had cast it, and that meant he could cast other spells. Could one of them
help him escape before Argyle and his henchmen returned? He frowned: who would Argyle
send? Sardach?

Typhus took a deep breath, frowned, and looked down at his
chest. Sardach had crushed his ribs in that vice-like grip of his, hadn’t he?
Yes. He was certain of it; he had even heard the ribs crumble and felt their
jagged ends slash into his lungs. And yet, he felt as whole, as healthy as he
had ever been. Why? Who had healed him? He shook his head and his heart sunk in
his chest.
Iscara
, he thought.
Only she would be so delightfully
cruel. She takes torture to places no one else can go.
It was true, too; he
had seen her take a man to the verge of death and then heal him a dozen times
before finally letting him succumb to it—and that was
after
she had elicited
the information Argyle wanted.

Had Iscara healed him? Would she be among those who came
through that door to chat with him? He shook his head.
First things first,
he thought.
Those weapons are pointless if I can’t get to them in time.
He looked at the manacle on his right wrist. There were no seams, no welds in
it; it was as if it had been forged whole around his wrist—and the magic
entangled with it was probably how it had been done. Had Iscara done it?

There was play in the chains, though, and his wrists were
supple enough that he could rotate his hand in a small circle of about six
inches in diameter. It wasn’t much, but if he twisted his wrist and flexed his
fingers, he could touch the third link from the manacle. He smiled; they had
done everything possible to prevent an assassin from escaping—to prevent
him
from escaping—but not a wizard. If they had known he had spells, they would
have crushed his fingers or cut them off. He smiled. Iscara would have enjoyed
doing that, playfully, slowly slicing through one finger at a time with that
enchanting grin on her lovely face.

He fondled the Lamplight spell as he looked inward for the
magic again. The part of him that had been primed for casting it was now a
tangled mass; he wouldn’t be able to cast it again without priming for it. But
there was no way for him to prime for it again. Angus had the scrolls, and he
was lost in the mountains where Sardach had dropped him. Typhus would have to
be careful with his magic; he would only have one chance to cast the meager
spells he had available to him, and each one was more precious to him now than ten
thousand gold coins—and he had already cast one of them.

He sighed and squeezed the Lamplight until it became a
furious, bubbling, marble-sized ball of raging fire. He hissed as pain swarmed
over his fingertips and quickly pushed that marble to the chain link. As soon
as it was attached to it, he pulled his fingers back, the tips reddened with
harsh welts where they had stayed in contact with the spell for too long. They
throbbed in agony, but there was nothing he could do but clench his teeth and
endure the pain.

In seconds, the chain link glowed red and softened. He
pulled against it. Several seconds passed before it began to separate, and a
few more went by before it finally broke. He gritted his teeth and reached for
the little fireball still clinging to the dangling chain link. He quickly urged
it toward the chain holding his other arm in place. As that link began to glow,
Typhus wondered if the spell would last long enough for him to get his legs
free. Angus had said something about the Lamplight spell that troubled him: the
smaller the globe, the more intense the heat and the more quickly the magic
would break free from the spell. And this was the smallest he had ever seen the
Lamplight, much smaller than what Angus had done with it.