The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) (12 page)

“How do we find them?” Hobart asked. “That’s what we need to
do first.”

Giorge shrugged. “They will find me,” he said. “And with
each one, the curse will grow stronger. The next one—whichever it is—is up
there,” he added, turning and pointing past the trees to the eastern mountains.

“How?” Angus demanded. It was bad enough to be plagued by “a
plague of woe”; how much worse could the curse get? Then he thought about how
many different ways magic could be used to torment and kill, and he realized
just how mild it was to be attacked by birds and squirrels. There would be
worse things, and they were going to find them. But what were they? How could
he prepare for them if he didn’t know what to expect?

Giorge shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s just a
feeling that I have. I’m not sure how far it is, or where exactly we’ll find
it, but I know it is east of here.”

Angus shook his head. “No,” he said. “How will the curse get
worse? If we are going to help you, we need to know what to expect. Isn’t that
right, Hobart?”

Hobart nodded. “If we know what to expect, we can prepare
for it more effectively.”

Giorge shrugged. “Auntie Fie never said,” he told them. “I
don’t think she could have said; most of my predecessors were too busy dealing
with the curse to leave behind very many clues. That’s something I hope you
will fix for me. When it takes me,” he said, turning to address Hobart directly,
“I want you to go to Lundrag and find Auntie Fie. Tell her what happened. Tell
her
everything
. She’ll know what to do with it.”

Hobart said, his voice strained and a peculiar look in his
eyes, “You won’t die. I won’t let you.”

Giorge smiled, a knowing, kind smile. Then he shrugged.
“I’ve died before,” he said.

Angus frowned, “Do you remember it?” he asked. Had he died
before? Had Voltari resurrected him? Reconstructed him? Is that why he can’t
remember anything about his past? Is that what the Truthseer had touched? A
past life?

“No,” Giorge said. “I just know it’s true.”

“What else do we need to know?” Angus asked. “What else can
you tell us?”

Giorge shrugged. “I’ve told you what Auntie Fie told me.”

Angus frowned and was about to ask if he had found out
anything else on his own when Ortis stood up and said, “I’ll take first watch.
Angus? Care to join me? You should be well-rested.”

“I am,” Angus said, reluctantly rising to follow him to the
perimeter.

When they were out of earshot of the campfire, Ortis said,
“You need to hold your tongue about Giorge when you’re around Hobart. He has
tolerated more than enough of it already, and I doubt very much he will
tolerate much more.”

Angus frowned and said, “I only spoke the truth.”

Ortis paused for a few seconds, and then said, quite softly,
“Some truths must not be spoken.”

5

After priming for his spells, Angus returned to the group
and glanced at Giorge before letting the magic slip away. There were no new streams
of magic flowing out of the pouch, so he helped Ortis dole out the breakfast of
leftover stew and fletching eggs.

“We should go back to Hellsbreath,” Hobart said as they ate
their breakfast. “The wizards there may be able to help.”

Doubtful
, Angus thought.
They won’t understand the
magic any more than I do.
But he held his tongue and said nothing. He
couldn’t encourage them to go back to Hellsbreath, but he wasn’t going to
dis
courage
them, either. It was where he wanted to go, and if he told them what he
suspected to be true, they would go somewhere else. “The libraries might have
something about Symptata,” he offered. It was true; they might, but he doubted
very much that they would. “Perhaps there will be something about his curse.”

“We’ll need supplies,” Ortis added. “We aren’t equipped for
a long journey, and there won’t be enough time to hunt.”

“Dagremon’s is closer,” Giorge said, “and it will take us
further east. Going back to Hellsbreath will waste time. Also,” he added,
frowning. “The urge to go east is getting stronger. Whatever it is, it’s
drawing me to it, and I’ll have to leave soon, with or without you.”

“Dagremon’s?” Angus asked.

“Dagremon is an elf,” Ortis said. “She has a trading post and
inn near the south end of this cliff. Most of her business is with the trappers
and the caravans from the south. The people in the valley exchange fish and grain
for the pelts and meat the trappers bring in. She’ll be busy this time of year;
most of the trappers will come down before the mountains thaw. A few will bring
ice with them.”

“Ice?” Angus repeated. “For their meat?”

“No,” Ortis said. “For the villagers. If the Lake of Scales
didn’t freeze completely during the winter, they’ll need it for their ice
houses.”

“They aren’t houses,” Hobart corrected. “They’re covered
pits. Trenches, really. They dig the trenches into the hillside and fill them with
ice. They store their fish there, and when the Western Kingdoms come to trade,
they’ll take the fish and some of the ice with them. It’s a very lucrative
business.

“How long before we leave?” Giorge asked suddenly.

“If you want,” Angus said, “I can fly down and get some more
fletching eggs before we go.”

“No need,” Hobart said with decisiveness. “There will be
plenty of meat and bread at Dagremon’s. The sooner we leave, the sooner we free
Giorge from the curse.”

Angus frowned. He had primed for the Flying spell so he
could gather more eggs. That was why they were here, and that was what he had
planned to do. If he had known they were leaving right away—and he
should
have known—he might have primed for something else. Then again, flying might
come in handy at some point.

“Yes,” Ortis said, standing to douse the fire and cover the
embers with dirt. “We should get going.”

Angus sighed. He would have liked to have had more time to
finish eating. But they were right. The sooner they freed Giorge from the
curse, the better; and if it ended up killing Giorge instead, it would be over
even sooner. Either way, he wouldn’t have to worry too long about it.

“How far is it to Dagremon’s?” he asked.

“Two days by horse,” Hobart said.

Two days
, Angus thought. “Do you think we’ll get back
to Hellsbreath to guide Commander Garret’s men into The Tween?”

Hobart stared at him, shook his head, and walked away.

Giorge shrugged and followed after him.

Ortis asked, “Do you really think that matters, now?”

Yes!
Angus thought.
Embril is waiting for me
.
His shoulders sagged as he reluctantly followed Ortis and remembered….

6

Angus was heavy-laden with books as he walked from his room
to the Wizards’ School’s library. They were an odd collection of texts, some
very old, others quite new, and they covered a variety of topics from the Dwarf
Wars to the Fishmen Incursion. But they weren’t what was on his mind; it was
the scroll he held in his left hand. That and Embril.

The door to the library was open, as it always was, and he
strode in and moved to the librarian’s counter. She was there, reading from an
old tome and jotting down notes on a scroll. He smiled as her long, straight
red hair caught the candle’s flame and challenged it to a duel. The sheen was
brilliant, like the purity of flame magic had been captured in each strand
draped over her dainty shoulder. She dipped her quill into the inkwell without
lifting her gaze from the text, and it dribbled on her desk as she moved it to
the scroll. As she wrote, her thin red lips moved, mouthing words he couldn’t
hear, framing the thoughts she was jotting down.

He set the books down as softly as he could at the end of
the counter and smiled at her. She didn’t look up from her scroll or the tome
as she said, “Thank you for returning the books.” She had a lilting voice,
high-pitched and throaty at the same time, and when she put it to song it
created a melody of its own.

He held the scroll tightly as he moved closer to where she
was working, and then leaned his elbow against the counter. He glanced at what
she was reading—it was a rare old dwarf text, far older than the Dwarf Wars by
the look of it. He waited until she was dipping her quill into the inkwell
before asking, “A little light reading?”

She abruptly lifted her head, and her lips parted and her
eyes grew wide. “Angus,” she said, smiling and dropping her quill in the
inkwell. She had a delightful smile, full of warmth and generosity, and when it
touched her eyes, it brought them closer together in color—making the brown one
seem more blue and the blue one more brown. She glanced down the counter and
said, “Finished already?”

He shook his head, “No,” he said, “but I will be leaving
tomorrow.”

She gasped and repeated, “Leaving? So soon?”

“Yes,” he said, “but only for a week or two. Hobart came to
see me this morning, and we’ll be going south to gather fletching eggs.”

“A bit early for them,” she said. “You might not find any.”

Angus tilted his head and shrugged his left shoulder.
“Nevertheless, they plan to leave in the morning.”

She glanced at the books again and nibbled on her lower lip.
“You do intend to return, though, don’t you?” She moved to the books and began
sorting them into piles that, to Angus, made no sense. Why put a book on the
Dwarf Wars with a Master’s treatise on the nuances of air magic?

“Yes,” Angus said. “We’ll be accompanying Commander Garret’s
men when they go to find out if there are more fishmen on the plateau.”

“And when they come back?” she asked without looking up from
the books.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We haven’t discussed that yet.
I don’t even know if Hobart has thought past guiding the patrol to the Angst
temple.”

“And you?” she asked, looking at him again. “What will you
do?”

Angus frowned and shrugged. “I’m a part of their banner,” he
said. “I go where they go.” Then he paused. “At least for another year and a
half. Then,” he shrugged again. “It will depend upon where I am. A lot can
happen in two years.”
Twice a lifetime
, he added to himself.
My
lifetime
….

She nodded, looked at the scroll in his hand and frowned.
“That’s not one of ours,” she said.

He looked at the scroll and held it out to her. The vellum
was new, and it still had a faint chemical odor hinting at the curing process.
He had rolled it up tightly and used the Angst bracelet to hold it in place.
Around that, he had wrapped a colorful scarf. He had made the scarf himself,
gently weaving together the different strands of thread into the complex
pattern he had envisioned. It had taken him days to finish it, since he had
tied each knot with his fingers, and he was unaccustomed to tying real string
together. He handed it to her and said, “This is for you.”

Embril’s eyebrows rose and she smiled again as she accepted
the gift. But instead of untying the scarf, she began to slide the scroll free
of the bracelet. “What is it?” she asked.

Angus reached out and put his hand on her charmingly ink-stained
one. “Not here,” he said softly, looking around the library at the students.
“Is there somewhere we can speak privately?”

“Why?” she asked, her lips quivering as she tried to smile
and frown at the same time.

He sighed and repeated his question, “Is there?” If there
wasn’t a place in the library for a private conversation, then he would have to
wait and talk with her after she had finished for the day. Would she come to
his chambers? Would he go to hers? Should he risk it? Would she? Everything
seemed
to suggest that she wanted more than the casual friendship that had grown
between them during his frequent visits to the library, but what if he was
wrong? How could he pursue more when he was leaving again and may not return
for nearly two years? Perhaps longer?

She nodded slowly and said, “Come this way.” She led him
behind the counter and between two long rows of scrolls stacked neatly in their
vertical compartments. As she passed, she said, “These are the scrolls that no
one can take from the library. They contain the basic formulae for the
different branches of magic, and the apprentices have to copy them by hand
during their first year.”

Angus smiled. Voltari had made him do the same thing when he
began learning his spells, and it had taken him weeks to realize how small the
differences were between some of the knots the texts described. But when he
had, Voltari had put him to work copying and learning spells.

They passed behind the ends of several rows of shelves, and
then she used a master key hanging from her necklace to open the door to a
small antechamber. “Master Ollis uses this room for his research, but he is
away for a few days. We can talk in here.”

He nodded and followed her inside. It was a small chamber,
barely large enough for a desk, stool, and a few shelves of books. It was very
cramped quarters, and he was tantalizingly close to Embril’s sleek form. She
was almost as tall as he was, and her light blue robe brushed his arm as she
passed. It was made of a soft fabric, but he couldn’t place what it was. He
almost
reached out to touch it, to touch her, but instead, he stepped around the door
and closed it behind him.

She was watching him expectantly, and he gestured for her to
sit on the stool.

“What I am about to tell you must remain between us,” he
said, his voice was soft, weary. “I found something that must not be lost
again, something that few should know about.”

“That sounds ominous,” Embril said, smiling mischievously as
she sat down and put the scroll across her lap.

Angus nodded slowly, “It is,” he said. “The scroll explains
why,” when she reached to take it out of the bracelet again, he shook his head.
“Don’t read it now,” he said. “Don’t read it at all unless I fail to return in
time.”

She frowned and her back straightened. “What do you mean?”
she asked. “How might you fail to return?”

Angus shrugged. “Since I joined the Banner of the Wounded
Hand, I have learned that things seldom go as planned. I would not be at all
surprised if we get sidetracked and this little trip to collect fletching eggs
takes considerably longer than we anticipate.”

“Oh,” she said, relaxing a bit but not quite slouching.

“The scroll is a precautionary measure, in case something
does happen. If I don’t return before Commander Garret leaves, you must read it
then. It will explain what you need to do, and why you need to do it.”

“What is this about?” she asked, absently tapping the scroll
lightly against her knee.

“I can’t tell you yet,” he said. “I am not even sure if I
should tell you at all.” He frowned and sighed. “The knowledge on that scroll
must not be forgotten again. It’s too dangerous. If it falls into the wrong
hands….” He shook his head and sighed.

Embril nibbled on her lower lip again and said, “This isn’t
fair, Angus. You’re putting me in a very uncomfortable position.”

Angus nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “I would not be doing so if
I did not trust your judgment.” He paused and half-smiled, “If I did not trust
you,” he added softly.

She blushed, and said, “If it’s such dangerous information,
you should tell the Grand Master.”

Angus shook his head. “No,” he said. “He will be tempted by
it.”

“Tempted?” She looked from him to the scroll and back again.
“What is this about?”

Angus frowned. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to tell her any
more than this. “I should be back before Commander Garret leaves, and if I am,
then you won’t need to worry about it.”

“What if you don’t come back in time?” she demanded.

He sighed and said what he knew he would have to say but had
hoped wouldn’t be necessary. “I know where a nexus is, one that has been lost
for a very long time.”

She gasped and her eyes grew wide as she mouthed the word,
nexus.

“It’s a major one,” he added. “In your hands are all you
need to find it. It must be kept safe. If anyone were to disturb it,
Hellsbreath might be destroyed. I can’t risk Commander Garret’s men stumbling
upon it by accident. If the wizard with them finds it….” He shook his head.
“I’ve said more than I should have.”

“Where—”

Angus held up his hand to stop her question. “Please,” he
said. “No more questions. The scroll will explain everything
if
it needs
to be explained. Put it someplace safe where only you have access to it, and
let us both hope that you don’t need to read it.”

She gulped and demanded, “Why me?”

Angus smiled as the sad, familiar ache swarmed over him, and
then he turned and opened the cubicle door. He stepped out and walked slowly
past the rows of shelves, his head bowed as he imagined how things could be if
they weren’t as they were. He was nearly to the end when she caught up with
him.

“I will keep this safe until you return,” she said, her tone
strong, determined. “And then
we
will go together.”