The Tiger's Eye (Book 1 of the Angus the Mage Series)

Ortis heal wounds before, but nothing like this. I don’t know if he can do it or not, but at least he’s going to try. We need to let him do it. It takes an incredible amount of concentration and energy, even for a minor wound, and this….” He shook his head. “It might not work.”

  “What is he doing?” Angus asked as he allowed himself to be led away.

  “He doesn’t talk about it,” Hobart said. “Neither should we. All I know for sure is that if you want to kill a Triad, you have to kill at least two of the three constituents to make sure it stays dead. If you don’t, the other two can transfer their energy—their health—to the dead one. It has to be done quickly, and it doesn’t always work. He’ll be famished afterward.”

  “How much do you know about this?” Angus asked.

  “Not much,” Hobart admitted. “It’s just one of the conditions he had when he joined my Banner. He didn’t go into details.”

  “Do you know how he does it?”

  “I have no idea,” Hobart said. “The few times I’ve seen him heal himself, he just held hands, closed his eyes, and a little bit later the wound was gone. Those have all been minor wounds, though; nothing like this. You noticed there wasn’t much blood, didn’t you? Well, it’s always like that. The three constituents each have their own body, but they’re all connected together as a single thing. If one of them is severely injured, it will shut itself down until the other two can help it. It looks like they have died, but they haven’t. When the healing is done—if they can do it—he’ll wake up as if nothing has happened. At least, that’s how it’s gone with the minor wounds I’ve seen him heal. I don’t know about this, though.”

  Hobart frowned, and looked into the control room. “We better see what Giorge is up to,” he said. “He always gets twitchy fingers in places like this. We have to watch him pretty closely; he has pockets that I don’t think even he knows about.”

  I can relate to that, Angus thought as he glanced over his shoulder and imagined the healthy Ortises sending out silky filaments, slowly building up a cocoon. But Fyngar said the plains folk ate first….

  15

  A half hour later, when they were back in the control room, Angus asked, “What do we do now?”

  “I’m going to rest,” Hobart said, “and keep watch over Ortis.”

  “I’m going to scout some more,” Giorge said. “I didn’t get very far before you caught up with me, and we need to know what else is down here. I won’t go much further, though; I could use some rest, too.”

  “I’ll keep watch if you think we need it,” Angus said. “I haven’t been up for that long.”

  “There can’t be much down here but traps,” Giorge said. “At least, not the kind of things we’d expect to find in a dungeon. We’re too far below ground for rats and things like that. The ones who built this place are long dead—unless they’re not, and if they aren’t, we need to know about that sooner rather than later so we can get out of here before they eat us. Of course, there could be things down here that we’ve never seen before, but we won’t know that until we find them, and we won’t find them unless we start looking. Of course, they might find us….” Giorge continued muttering to himself as he walked out into the tunnel.

  Not long after Giorge left, Hobart sat down against the wall and closed his eyes, and in less than a minute, he was beginning to snore. Angus waited another half hour before picking up the torch and walking softly out of the room and across the corridor to where Ortis was recuperating. He paused only a moment to make sure Hobart was still snoring before he thrust the torch through the opening and looked inside.

  He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but whatever it was, he wasn’t right. Inside the room, the three Ortises looked almost exactly like they had when he had seen them last. There were no cocoons, no tendrils snaking out from their hands, no buds sprouting up among them, no half-devoured corpse—the only thing that was different was the wound. Instead of a gaping hole in Ortis’s chest, there was new flesh forming. He could almost see the bones merging together, the new skin forming….

  Quite a bit of the food had been eaten, but he hadn’t touched the grain—yet.

  Angus shook his head and turned around. There was no point in watching; whatever was going to happen was going to happen. He’d have to ask about it later; it would be a good opportunity to find out more about what Ortis was….

  Instead of returning to the room with Hobart, Angus decided to check on Giorge. He walked softly down the corridor and looked at the dust to see which way Giorge had gone. He followed the trail until he rounded a corner and saw him. Giorge had his back to him and was looking through an open doorway. Angus smiled, backed around the corner, and propped the torch up against the wall. Then he quietly walked down the corridor until he was standing behind Giorge.

  Giorge was muttering to himself. “It’s a trap. It has to be. Who would leave gems all by themselves in a bowl like that? It only invites curiosity.”

  Angus stepped up and looked over his shoulder. There was a large room, and in the middle, about fifteen feet away, was a short table with a bowl of gems sitting on it.

  “No panels on the floor. No arrow slits in the walls. No ceiling stones ready to fall.”

  Angus imagined Giorge frowning as he went through his checklist.

  “I should go back and tell the others,” he muttered. “But they’re busy. Besides, they won’t mind, will they? What are a few gems among friends?”

  Angus smiled. Giorge has twitchy fingers….

  “I should share them, though,” he continued. “Hobart will hire a Truthseer.” Then he laughed and added, “I’m talking to myself, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” Angus answered from behind him.

  Giorge squawked and leapt into the room. He twisted in midair and landed with a dagger in his hand.

  The floor clicked.

  Angus laughed and said, “A bit jumpy, aren’t you?” He started forward. “What did you find?”

  “Stop!” Giorge cried as his knife slashed out in front of him.

  Angus stepped back to avoid the wild slash and looked at Giorge. “Come now, Giorge. I didn’t kill you when you snuck up on me, did I?”

  Giorge glared at him, and his nearly hairless upper lip quivered as he said, “It’s trapped.”

  “What’s trapped?” Angus asked.

  “The floor,” Giorge growled. “It’s pressure-sensitive. When I jumped in here, it initiated something, and I don’t know what it is.”

  “What can I do?” Angus asked, his momentary playfulness gone.

  Giorge shrugged and took a step closer to the door. When nothing happened, he stepped out of the room. “The trap has been down here a long time,” he said, looking back into the room. “Maybe it doesn’t work any longer.”

  “Possibly,” Angus agreed. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “I wonder what it will do if I go back in there?” Giorge asked. “If I can get to that bowl, it’s full of gems.”

  “How do you know they’re gems?” Angus said. “They could be rocks painted to look like gems, a lure to draw would-be thieves into the trap.”

  Giorge shrugged. “They look like it from here,” he said. “The only way to know for sure is to get closer. Here,” he held out the end of a rope. “I’ll tie this around me. If anything happens, you can pull me back out.”

  Angus frowned. “We should get Hobart,” he said. “He is a better anchor than I am.”

  Giorge chuckled. “Don’t tell him that,” he said. Then he grinned and added, “You only live once!” He turned and stepped gingerly back into the room. It clicked again, and he half-turned. “Usually,” he said and sidled forward, his eyes darting around the room, alert for any movement.

  “They are gems!” he called, his voice radiant. “Rubies, diamonds, emeralds—they’re worth a fortune!” He opened a pouch and reached for a handful of them. He seemed poised to run, but nothing happened. He grabbed another handful—and another. Still nothing. It
wasn’t until he had emptied the bowl and took his first step back toward Angus that something finally happened: There was a sharp clang, as if a piece of metal had suddenly snapped, and the floor tilted sharply, like a pulley with its weight released. Giorge took one step toward the high end—then abandoned the idea; the floor had split in half and each part was rapidly tilting upward and away from the bowl. He jumped backward, grabbed the podium on which the bowl rested, and quickly scampered up on top of it.

  Angus pulled on the rope—but the doorway was disappearing. The floor was folding upward, the edge—over a foot thick—slid up past the doorway and took the end of the rope with it. When it reached the top of the doorway, it sheared off the rope, leaving the short end dangling in his hands.

  “Giorge!” Angus cried as the floor rotated until it squeezed itself up against the wall and completely sealing the doorway. As it did so, he caught a brief glimpse of what was beneath the floor—more rusted, iron stakes. A lot of them. And then he found himself in near-darkness, the only light coming from the far end of the tunnel, where he had left the torch.

  Angus dropped the rope and ran down the corridor. He paused to retrieve the torch as he rounded the corner, and then kept going. When he thought he was within range of being heard, he started yelling “Hobart!” as loud as he could. He kept yelling until Hobart shambled out into the hallway, his broadsword in hand. “It’s Giorge!” he yelled as he skidded to a