with the horses quickly, it would take time for them to return. If they were still interested in returning. He sighed and went back to the tent.
Billigan and two workers were standing beside the tent entrance. The workers had their picks hanging loosely over their shoulders, and their hands tightened on them as Angus approached. He stopped in front of them and said, “No need for guards tonight. Their horses scattered. It will take them at least until dawn to catch them.”
The workers looked relieved and were about to turn back into the tent when Billigan shook his head. “No sense in taking chances,” he said.
“They’re gone for now,” Angus countered as he stepped between them and opened the tent flap. He paused and added, “I don’t know if they’ll be back again or not, but they aren’t looking for a confrontation. If they were, they would have attacked when they had the element of surprise on their side. We may as well get some sleep.”
Angus let the flap fall and walked back to his corner. He set his pack down and lay with his head resting against it. Within a few moments, he felt sleep approaching, and just before he was overtaken by it, he wondered how he had lost control of the spell. What had caused his brief, almost deadly lapse of concentration? It was almost as if his right hand had acted of its own accord….
14
The muffled, rhythmic, distant CHNK-nk of metal on stone.
The sloshing of water being vigorously stirred.
A kink in his neck—noticeable, distracting, but not overly painful.
His hand was throbbing, a dull, soft throb that was neither urgent nor negligible.
The warm, inviting aroma of baking bread.
His stomach grumbled.
There was a thick, nauseating film lining his cheeks, teeth, and tongue.
He had to pee.
Angus opened his eyes to a narrow, patient slit and let the dim light from the lamps filter into his consciousness. It was subdued, casting mottled patches of soft light and long, fluttery shadows on the tent walls.
He took a slow, deep breath, savoring the aroma of the bread as it tickled his salivary glands to life. The spit was a welcome change to the foul-tasting, gunk clinging to his tongue and teeth.
He sighed, stretched—winced as his neck muscles protested—and sat up. The tent was nearly deserted; only the boy was there, scrubbing away at the workers’ tunics and trousers. They must have two sets, Angus thought, not really caring. Maybe I should wash mine?
Angus nodded to himself and carefully removed the black wizard’s robe. He shook it and all of the dust and dirt on it dropped easily to the ground. He examined it closely (it looked as clean as the first day he’d gotten it), folded it, and set it on his backpack. His removed his boots and set them next to his backpack. Then he began removing the items secreted in his reinforced leather tunic, placing the picks, garrotes, tiny vials, and whatnot into his boots. Only as he was putting the last item into his boot—a small key—did he realize he had no idea where any of these items had come from or, for that matter, how he knew they were there. And the key….
It was a complex key, one with a prong curved like a misshapen sickle facing away from the handle, jutting out from just behind the sharp point of the main prong. On the top, there was a series of three notches, each slightly askew from the vertical. What is this key for? What does it open? The right half of his mouth tilted upward as the left dipped down.
He eventually shrugged, dropped the key into his boot with the rest of the things, and removed his tunic and under-tunic. The stench was overwhelming, familiar and not-quite-right. But it only lasted a few seconds before his nose adjusted to it. He finished stripping, finding a few more items hidden in the trousers, and carried his clothes over to the boy.
“What do they call you?” Angus asked.
The boy shrugged. “Whatever they want,” he said. “Sometimes they even use my name. It’s Dirdl.”
“Well, Dirdl,” Angus said. “Would you mind washing these while I bathe?”
The boy used a short oar-shaped piece of wood to fish out the worker’s trousers he was scrubbing, and then used it to skim away the grit floating on the surface. When he finished, he held out his hands and Angus gave them to him.
“What time of day is it?” Angus asked.
“Nearing midday,” he said.
Angus nodded. “Any sign of our visitors from last night?”
“None,” Dirdl said. “Unless they’re out there right now.”
“All right, Dirdl,” Angus said. “Don’t scrub too much on the leather. When you finish with them, put them on the table.”
“We have a line strung up outside,” Dirdl said as he put Angus’s undergarments in the barrel and began twisting them around the oar.
“No need for that,” Angus said, smiling. “I’ll dry them myself.”
Dirdl nodded and went back to work as Angus moved to the tent flap and stepped outside. The workers were clambering over the rock, their mallets and chisels clattering away in a well-conducted ballet. The sun was near its zenith, and it was warm, as warm as it got in late summer, and there was a brisk, moist wind hinting of a storm. There were clouds to the west over the mountains, and Angus wondered if it was going to rain. If so, it might be wise to stay with the workmen another day….
He went to the down-slope side of the road to urinate, shaking his head at the extensive scorch marks from his miscast spell. Wasteful, he thought as his dark yellow stream shot outward with a vigor that nearly surprised him. I’ll have to prime myself before I leave. When he finished, he went back inside the tent and made his way to the wash barrel. Once he began scrubbing, he was surprised by how much dirt had accumulated on his skin, and by the time he had finished washing, Dirdl had already put his wet clothes in a pile on the table. Now he was taking the loaves of bread from the brazier.
Angus went to the table and focused on the magic only long enough to tweak a light red strand and make a single long, looping slipknot with it. He wrapped the knot around the clothes, as if he were tying up a horse to a stable gate, and slowly pulled the loop tight. As it dwindled, its energies escaped in a carefully controlled minor burst of warmth, just hot enough to cause a fog-like mist to sizzle up from the wet clothes. By the time he was finished, they were dry enough to put on, and he dressed quickly. I should have dried my boots this way, he thought, instead of letting my feet get infected. He returned to his boots, robe, and backpack; picked them up; and carried them to the table.
He dumped the items out of his boot and reached for the first one. He picked it up and hesitated. Where do they go? he wondered, holding a small vial of dark green fluid in his left hand. What is this, anyway? Then he shrugged, dropped it in his right hand, and quickly slipped it into a small pouch just below his elbow. He barely paid attention as he efficiently replaced the other items and promptly forgot about them.
He slipped his boots on, stretched—his neck barely twinged—and opened his backpack. He paused to unwind the bandage from his hand and looked at the burns. They were almost fully healed! No sense using the ointment, he thought, setting the bandage aside and flexing his hand. He still had full mobility, though his flexibility was a bit stiff. In time….
He sorted through his scrolls and selected two of them. He set them on the table and collected one of the lamps. As he returned with it, he broke off a sizeable chunk of bread from one of the fresh loaves. By the time he finished the bread and washed it down with a half flagon of beer, he had the lamp’s wick fully extended to provide the most intense flame.
“Dirdl,” he called.
“Yes?” the boy promptly replied.
“I must not be interrupted,” he said. “Is that clear?”
Dirdl nodded.
“Good,” Angus said, turning away and beginning the preparations for priming himself to receive the imprint of the spell from the scroll. It was a familiar spell, one he knew well. Still, he had to reinforce his memory to make sure he had both his body and mind receptive to the magic. He stead
ied his breathing and heartbeat, slowing them significantly in the process, and then cleared his mind of everything around him. The sights, the sounds, the smells—all of them disappeared from his awareness as he went through the process Voltari had taught him. When he reached the trancelike state, he brought the magic within himself into focus and quickly aligned it for the familiar spell, pleased to note how quickly the strands followed his direction. It wouldn’t be long before he wouldn’t even have to be in a full trance to prime himself. Then he turned to the second scroll.
It was a difficult spell. The strands were interwoven in a complex, ever-changing pattern, and he had to go deep within himself to connect with it, to manipulate it, to pave the way for the magic. The complexity was at the limit of his ability, and it would take all of his mental strength to prime it properly. It was a time-consuming process, but without it, the spell would be ruined—or worse; it would backfire.
When he was satisfied that he was once again in full control of the magic within him, he turned outward, shifting his awareness to the scroll’s pattern of knots and the runes mixed in among them. He followed the runes directions and gradually shifted his internal framework to match the one described in the scroll. Minutes passed before he reached synchronicity and was ready to memorize the knots themselves. It was the most vulnerable, sensitive point of the priming process, and he had only memorized a few