on it. If what Hobart believes is true, they’ll die before being taken prisoner. Especially if they are an advance party for a larger force.”
Angus frowned. “How long will we have before the room cools down so we can find out?” he asked.
“It could take hours, possibly days,” Ortis said.
“Good,” Angus said. “I need some rest.”
11
“It’s about time you woke up,” Ortis said. “We were beginning to wonder if you would.”
Angus stretched, feeling the stiffness in his limbs and the tightness of his new skin. But there was little pain, and it was quite manageable. “How long did I sleep?” he asked, looking at the temple grounds. The fire was out, the rubble was mostly undisturbed, and the stone wasn’t glowing red any longer.
“About fifteen hours,” Ortis said. “We left you alone.”
“I appreciate that,” Angus said. “Where are the horses?”
“They’re hobbled near the grain,” Ortis said.
“Isn’t that risky? Those cat-things aren’t large, but there were quite a few of them.”
“It doesn’t seem to be,” Ortis said. “They seem to be keeping their distance for now.”
“You know, I’ve seen healing salves before, but yours is amazing,” Ortis said. “You won’t even have scars. Can you get any more of it? You’re almost out.”
“I got it from Nargeth,” Angus said. “She runs an inn in Woodwort. Ulrich, a woodsman she knows near there, makes it.”
“A long trip,” Ortis said. “But it might be worth it.”
“I doubt it,” Angus said. “He probably won’t let us have any.”
“He let you.”
Angus shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “Nargeth. It was hers. She sold it to me.” He frowned. “That’s where the other gold coin went,” he said.
“Money well spent, I should think,” Ortis said. “That kind of healing rarely comes cheaply.”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “This is the third time I’ve needed it.”
“Third?” Ortis repeated, frowning.
“Yes,” Angus said. “Nargeth used it on my feet when I arrived at her inn. They were blistered, cracked, and infected, and the salve healed them in about two days. Then, at the construction site, I burned my fingers. Compared to what happened here, it was little more than a painful inconvenience.”
“Maybe we should try to get more of it after all,” Ortis said.
“Why?”
“Did you forget the wand incident?” Ortis said. “You may not have been aware of it at the time, but that healer saved your life.”
“So?”
Ortis sighed. “Well, Angus, you seem to be accident prone. It might be a good idea for you to carry around a healing salve like this all the time.”
Angus chuckled and half-smiled—but it quickly drooped to a half-frown when he remembered Billigan’s interruption of the Firecluster spell. If it misfired…. He shook his head and said, “You may be right, Ortis. There are always risks involved in using flame magic.” But I should be controlling them. Why have I made so many mistakes? Voltari taught me better than that.
“What have you been up to while I slept?” Angus asked.
“Exploring,” Ortis said. “There doesn’t seem to be any more fishmen—or anything else for that matter. Everywhere we’ve gone is covered in dust.”
“Is there anything to eat?” Angus asked.
“Yes,” Ortis said. “I’ll get you some bread and stew.”
“Bread?” Angus asked.
Ortis nodded. “That grain is ripe,” he said. “It’s ready for harvest.”
After eating, Angus took out Teffle’s book and turned to the page with the flying spell. Ortis took his cue and left him to prime the spell. When he finished, he stretched, put on his backpack, and went to find the others.
It was late afternoon, and there was a trail passing through the room he had torched. He tried not to gag on the stench as he hurried through it to an open hallway he hadn’t noticed before. There were wooden doors on either side of the corridor, and all of them were open or dangled from their hinges. He found Ortis waiting for him near the end of the corridor, a lit torch in his hand.
Angus walked quickly up to join him. “Where are the others?”
“There are three other corridors,” he said. “They connect up to form a square. We’ve been searching them for an access point to a hidden chamber. Giorge thinks there is one, but we haven’t found it yet.”
“Why does he think there is a hidden chamber?”
“We know there was a way up to the second floor, but it was probably in the part of the temple that collapsed. But when you burned through the ceiling, you opened it up. We’ve already searched through what was up there, but there was nothing but rats and owls. The floor up there was level, and we didn’t find any trapdoors. But there has to be one somewhere; the ceilings of the rooms along the corridor on the other side of the temple are shorter than the rooms in the other three corridors.”
“By how much?” Angus asked.
“Take a look at this room,” Ortis said, ushering him through one of the doors. “It’s about a ten foot cube, right? All of the other rooms are the same size, except for the ones on the corridor opposite this one. The ceiling there is only about eight feet high. Giorge thinks there must be a hidden chamber on top of it, one that’s only about a few feet high.”
“That makes sense, I suppose,” Angus said. “Of course, the temple builders probably would know that, too. If I were them, I would make it look that way even if there wasn’t one. Or it could have been a building error; they do happen, you know.”
Ortis nodded. “Giorge thinks the same thing, but he’s checking for a trapdoor anyway, in case it isn’t a deception.”
“What about the rest of you?” Angus asked. “What are you doing?”
“We’re looking for it, too, but we’re not as good at finding them as Giorge is. He has a knack for it.”
“You know, if I had built this temple,” Angus said, “I would have the secret entrance over here, near the ceiling in an adjacent room.”
“How would you get to it?”
“A ladder,” Angus said. “Maybe stand on a box or table. It wouldn’t be too difficult. Are there any rooms that are not like the others?”
“Besides the shorter ones on that corridor?”
Angus nodded. “Larger, smaller, more furnishings, things like that.”
“They all look the same to me,” Ortis said. “Why?”
“The secret entrance probably would be in the high priest’s chamber—unless it was accessible to all of them, in which case it likely wouldn’t have been hidden.”
“Well, whatever it is, we haven’t found it.”
“I’ll help look,” Angus said, moving close to the wall and running his eyes and fingers over it. There were no obvious seams or indentations, so he moved to the next one. After getting the same results, he moved on to one room after another with Ortis tagging along holding the torch near the wall. By the time they had finished surveying the second corridor, he was almost convinced there was nothing to be seen, but as he turned to leave the last room, the one at the end of the corridor that connected with the rooms that had the shorter ceilings, he paused.
“What is it?” Ortis asked.
“The bed,” Angus said. “It’s in a different corner.”
“So?”
“Why?” Angus asked. “All of the rooms I’ve seen so far have had the bed along the wall opposite the door hinge. This one has it on the same side as the hinge.” He acted as if he were pushing the door open and added, “See? Would you want a bed that gets banged by the door every time the door opens? It won’t even open all the way with the bed sitting here.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Ortis said.
“I think the bed was here so they could climb up into the space above the other rooms, and they left it there when they closed the door. See? It isn’t even flush with the wall
, like the beds are in all of the other rooms. It’s at an angle.”
“Wouldn’t they have moved it back when they came out again?” Ortis asked.
Angus frowned. “Unless they didn’t come back out.”
“We’ve already searched this room,” Ortis said. “We couldn’t find anything.”
Angus shrugged. “Maybe it’s the lighting,” he said. “A torch is good enough for most things, but not for seeing fine details.”
“What choice do we have?” Ortis asked. “Giorge has the lamp, and it doesn’t do much more.”
Angus half-smiled, reached for the magic around him, tied the quick knot of the Lamplight spell and the orb of light flared to life in his palm. He manipulated it for a brighter intensity and moved his hand close to the wall. “Better?” he asked, as the spell illuminated the entire room with a steady yellow glow.
“You had one of those in Hellsbreath’s dungeon, didn’t you?”
Angus nodded. “It is a very useful spell,” he said.
“I’ll find a sconce for this torch,” Ortis said. “They have them on the corridor walls.”
“Unless you need it,” Angus said. “You may as well extinguish it. The spell will last for some time.”
Ortis left the room as Angus bent to the floor and began examining it. When he returned, Ortis asked, “Why are you looking there? The secret chamber would be in the ceiling, wouldn’t it?”
“Help me move this out of the way,” Angus said as he tried to lift the bed and it crumbled in his fingers.
Ortis shrugged and they spent several minutes scooping up bits of the bed and making a pile in the center of the room.
When they finished, Angus retrieved the Lamplight and knelt on the floor, his face