The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) (20 page)

3

Fanzool moved to the middle of the clearing he had made, set
his satchel down, and opened it. He took out a candle and lit it with one of
the few flame-based spells he knew. It was a simple spell, one that created
little more than a momentary spark, but this time a three inch flame shot
briefly upward. It lit the candle easily enough, but it also singed his
eyebrows. He set the candle in front of him, roughly due south, and used its
flame to light a second one. He placed it at a right angle to the first—what he
thought was west—and quickly finished with the last two candles. They formed a
square, and that was what mattered. They didn’t have to be on the cardinal
directions, but he preferred it that way. It made it easier to remember the
direction the spell indicated.

Next, he set out the components of the spell. He didn’t have
an animal to kill, but that wouldn’t be a problem; there was plenty of very
strong death magic all around him. In a way, he was glad; he wouldn’t have to
kill anything; but in another way, he was saddened by the death that surrounded
him. Whatever it was that had been killed had been killed
violently
.

The water was easy enough to procure; he filled the bottom
of a bowl with snow and melted it. It wasn’t quite the purified water he would
have liked, but it would do. There was no need for coals; he was surrounded by
powerful strands of flame. There was plenty of rock, as well. All that remained
was the seed, and he set it down in front of him.

The spell was a complicated one, and he didn’t cast it often
because he was never quite sure if he did it right. Still, he had primed for
it, just in case the coin had failed him. He had thought about casting it at
the crossroads—and would have, if the coin had not been so adamant in pointing
him to the west—and now he had no choice. Now the coin
had
failed him,
and he had to cast it. There was no other way to find out if Angus were dead or
somewhere else. If Angus was somewhere else, it would find him. If he was dead,
it would find nothing. Unless he cast it wrong.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind as best he could,
but it was always difficult for him. His senses sharpened, and every little noise,
every little ache, resounded in his mind to merge with the echoes of his
pounding heart and rushing blood. The wind whistled through the temple, and the
first fluttering of snow spattered through the hole in the ceiling. He opened
his eyes and focused on the magic around him. He reached for the nearest thread
that suited the spell’s purpose—a thin, translucent aquamarine from the bowl of
freezing water—and made a looping spiral around the candle to the south. When
it was in place, he anchored it to his left index finger. It really didn’t
matter which strand or candle he used, as long as he did them in the right
order from that point on. So he pivoted to the right and brought a thick, deep,
brick red strand to him. The strength of its magic surprised him, and he
almost
lost his grip before he was able to wrap it around the candle to the west.
The candle’s flame immediately flared to white-hot intensity and stayed that
way. It was a troubling sign; he had never had flame magic react that way, and
he didn’t know what to make of it. But at least it was warm, and after a time
he hooked the powerful strand under the first knuckle of his left pinky and clamped
down on it. It
did not
want to be contained!

The rustic brown strand clinging to the rock beneath him was
next. He pulled it around the north candle and anchored it to the second finger
on his left hand as he reached with his right forefinger to snag a very pale,
sky blue strand of sky magic. It was cold to the touch, but that didn’t matter.
Sky magic was sky magic, as far as he was concerned, and any strand would work
for the spell, even one of the bitter cold high altitude strands. Still, it was
a stark contrast with the heat emanating from the strand of flame that was
struggling so violently to break free from his grasp, and when he anchored it
to the finger beside it, the cooling effect seemed to counter the
near-blistering heat coming from it. That left the strands of life and death.

He reached for the thin wisp of green lying dormant deep
within the seed and wrapped it around his left thumb. Then he snagged a black
strand that seemed eager to snag
him
! He cringed at its numbing touch
that seemed to sap the life from him, but he quickly suppressed his discomfort.
Why wasn’t it like the death strands he usually used? What was it about this
one that made it seem
more
dead?

It didn’t matter. He needed to braid together the life and
death strands, and that was difficult enough to do with one hand
without
distracting himself with questions that weren’t important. He started by
knotting the two strands together. It wasn’t a powerful knot, but it would hold
long enough for him to weave them together, and that is what he did. He only
needed a foot or so intertwined, and when he finished, he pinched the two interwoven
threads between the index finger and thumb on his right hand. Then he made a
loop out of the braided portion and pinched the other end between them as well.
He pulled the strands from his left thumb and wrapped the loop around his right
palm, capturing each of the other strands within the loop, and quickly formed a
fist to keep them there.

The difficult part was over; now all he needed to do was think
of Angus and slowly rotate in a tight circle. When the spell found him, it
would tell him to stop. He brought the image he had memorized into focus and
concentrated on it as best he could. He said Angus’s name over and over again in
his mind to maintain his attention on the wizard he sought. He spun steadily,
like the coin, letting the energy of the strands guide him. As he spun, those
strands wrapped around him, growing tighter and tighter with each completed
revolution. But he wouldn’t stop until he felt the first stirrings of the spell
taking effect.

At first it was an impression, only, a vague sense of
direction as he passed a certain point in the spin, and then he felt it more
strongly on the next revolution. When he came to it the third time, his spin
slowed, and on the fourth, it stopped altogether. He opened his eyes. He was
facing southeast, but he didn’t know it; the temple ruins had been replaced by a
mountain. It was an unfamiliar mountain with a high plateau connecting it to
several others. He was still quite distant from it, but there were riders at
the edge of the plateau. One of them was looking at him.

What?
he almost cried before clamping down on his
heartbeat and breathing. No, Angus couldn’t be looking at him; the spell didn’t
work that way. It had to be a coincidence. Only Fanzool could see through it.
Angus had to be looking at something else, something in the sky. The storm,
perhaps? Yes, that was it; it had to be.

Fanzool concentrated, forcing away the intrusive thoughts
and bringing the image of Angus into sharper focus. He pushed the spell closer,
until the image in his memory was merging with the image from the present. Then
he switched focus, letting the memory fade and capturing the present image. It
was uncanny how much he looked like Typhus! The two could almost be twins. But
Typhus was dead, wasn’t he?

The magic wavered. His attention as it shifted away from
Angus the wizard and toward Typhus the assassin. It was a subtle shift, but one
that was already beginning to disrupt the spell. His grip on it was weakening,
his control slipping, but he couldn’t stop the thoughts of Typhus from interfering
with those of Angus.

Typhus!
It was a powerful thought, a far-reaching
one. But it was not his own.

Fanzool struggled to maintain his hold on the spell, to
return his attention to Angus. Then quite unexpectedly, the magic settled down
and strengthened. It was still firmly fixed on Angus, but a second image—the shadowy,
unreal image of Typhus—superimposed itself
over
Angus.

Typhus!
Sardach hissed in his mind.

Fanzool gasped.
He can’t be there! He’s dead! I know he’s
dead!
But he was there, and he was glaring back at him, as if he could see
Fanzool through
the spell in the same way that Fanzool could see him!
There was no mistaking that cruel and indifferent face for Angus, no mistaking
the sadistic hatred filtering through those eyes, no doubt about the
maliciousness with which he stretched out his hand to squeeze—

No, Typhus wasn’t reaching out; it was Angus. What was he
reaching for?
The spell!
A feeling of dread swarmed through him.
He
sees it!
But it wasn’t possible! Then Angus touched the magical energy Fanzool
had sent to locate him, probed it, found—

No, it was
Typhus
who had found him, who had touched
his mind. Fanzool would recognize that hideous laughter anywhere! He had heard
it countless times while tracking the assassin for Argyle; that sadistic glee
was embedded in so many of the objects he had possessed, the weapons he had
used. But what did it mean? How was Typhus there? He
couldn’t
be there;
it was
Angus
sitting on that horse, probing the magic. He was certain of
it. And yet, Typhus was
the one reaching out for him through the magic.
He was certain of that, too! How could that be?

The images blurred together, with the ghostly image of
Typhus becoming a mere apparition hovering beside Angus, bleeding into him, devouring
him. Or had Angus devoured Typhus? The strange double-image was disorienting,
and he tried to fight through it.

Typhus!
Sardach hissed in his mind, reached out
through
his mind—

There was something wrong with the spell. It wasn’t acting
properly, and he had never been very good at troubleshooting spells. That was
why he had gone into divination; it was safer when spells went wrong, and they
seemed to go wrong for him on a much too frequent basis. Miscast divination spells
generally only gave false readings; they were seldom dangerous to the caster.
But this time?

He reached out, focusing on the image of Angus and trying to
dispel the one of Typhus. But Typhus wouldn’t leave—
Sardach
wouldn’t let
it leave—and he couldn’t
push him away! How was he there? He couldn’t
escape the simple question, the one that had plagued him since he had first
touched the coin’s residue.
Who are you? Angus? Typhus?
Then, as if
compelled to do so, he delved deeper into the spell, deeper into Angus.

Angus stared back at Fanzool as if he were trying to delve
deeper into
him
. But that wasn’t possible, was it? How could Angus—

Something was wrong.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

Tyhpus is there,
Sardach hissed.
He is there!

Sardach had control of the spell now.

Who?
It was a new voice, one he had heard before.
Angus was thinking at him, trying to discover who he was!

Fanzool’s heart thrummed madly in his chest, and his
breathing was coming in short gasps. But he couldn’t stop the spell! Sardach
wouldn’t let him!

Then the shadowy image of Typhus erupted
through
Angus,
as if it had been drawn out from deep within him, and it stared defiantly
at
Fanzool,
saw
Fanzool, and
smiled
at Fanzool. The eyes—a sharp,
transparent, frigid grey—held Fanzool’s as if they were a reflection of his
own, and laughter erupted in his mind.

Angus—Typhus?—suddenly lifted his hands and made a series of
rapid gestures, and Fanzool felt the familiar ticklish touch of energy being
bled from one of the magical strands he was using. The sky blue strand that had
taken him to Angus, the same one that
Angus
could use to find
him
!

In a panic, Fanzool opened his left hand, abruptly releasing
the strands he had captured for the spell. They whipped about him, sending him
into a mad twirl as they unwound.

The candles scattered.

He was airborne.

He struck the wall….

4

Angus watched the strand as it grew nearer and wondered what
it could be doing. It was a strange strand, and not just because he could see
it at such a distance. The color seemed to shift from one to another, across
the broad spectrum of magical energy as if it didn’t know what kind it was. But
it shouldn’t be doing that. It
really
shouldn’t be doing that. Naturally
occurring magic
couldn’t
do that. Yes, it could shift from living to
death magic, and sometimes it changed within a given spectral color from one
shade to another, but never from one color to another
and back again
.
And the strands
never
moved like that, either. They always followed a
roughly predictable pattern, but this one? It was crossing over that pattern as
if it were cutting through it. It
couldn’t
be natural. And if it wasn’t
natural, that meant it had to be a spell. But what kind?

He frowned and tried to draw the strand to him so he could
get a better look at its construction. It was a foolish thing to do—tinkering
with another wizard’s magic always had consequences—but he really wasn’t tinkering
with it, was he? He just wanted to see the strands more clearly. And there
were
strands, not just one but several types of magic woven together to create the
appearance of the shifting colors.

At first, it resisted his efforts, which is what he expected.
The wizard who had cast the spell had control over it, and Angus’s interference
wouldn’t go unnoticed. But that interference was tentative, probing. He wasn’t trying
to disrupt the spell, he was trying to understand it. Then, quite suddenly, the
resistance disappeared completely and the interwoven threads rushed toward him.

Angus tried to let it go, but it wouldn’t let go of him! It
had attached
to him
, as if the spell were somehow meant
for him
.
But how could that be? What kind of spell could do that? A scrying spell? Was
someone trying to locate him? Why would they want to do that? He wasn’t
important enough to garner such attention, was he? Who would be interested
enough in him to seek him out? The only friend he had was Embril, and she
wouldn’t do it. Would she?

Angus half-smiled. Was Embril watching over him? Was she trying
to contact him? He had heard of such spells, ones that could reach over vast
distances to send messages, but he couldn’t cast them. Perhaps he should have
learned to do one of them? If he had, he could have told Embril about the delay
in his return and she wouldn’t need to seek him out. If it was her. It was
close to the time that Commander Garret would be leaving, wasn’t it? But Hobart
didn’t think he would go for another week or two. Was he leaving early? Had
something happened? He was
almost
overdue for his return to Hellsbreath,
and she
might
be concerned enough for him to do it. Could he send her a
reply?

He frowned and let the magic come to him and tried to make
contact with the one who had sent it. If it were Embril, would she recognize
what he was trying to do? Would she see his attempt to manipulate the strands
as a message? But what if it was someone else?

Who else could be interested enough in him to track him down
like this? Voltari? He almost laughed at that; there was no reason for Voltari
to keep watch over him, and he found it difficult to believe the cold-hearted
old wizard would even care enough to do it. He might be
curious
about
Angus, but not at all concerned. But if it wasn’t Voltari or Embril, who else could
it be?

He had no idea. But could he find out? He began to
manipulate the thread with his fingertips, brushing lightly against it as if he
were testing the intensity of its power, its willingness to be captured. He was
not going to cast a spell with it, but if he could twist the magic of the spell
being cast at him, he might be able to trace it back to its point of origin and
see
the wizard casting it. He smiled as the magic reached into him. The spell
was
directed at him! But why?

He focused on the patterns of the spell, sending his own thoughts
outward, down its braided length, striving to see what was at the other end. It
was probably a futile effort, and he knew it. If he understood how the spell
worked, then he would have a much better chance. Instead, all he saw was the
murky storm clouds on the distant horizon and the outline of the magic piercing
into them. It ran northwest, toward Hellsbreath, and he brought to mind an
image of the city. He was flying over it, just above the protective bubble, and
the volcano to the west was smoldering, spewing up bits of ash and rock. But it
was just a memory. The spell wasn’t originating from Hellsbreath—at least, not as
far as he could tell—but somewhere beyond there. Somewhere northwest of
Hellsbreath.

He frowned. If it were Embril, if Commander Garret had left
much earlier than expected…. No, it couldn’t be, not this soon. The temple was
too far away from Hellsbreath. It would take at least as long as he’d been gone
for them to get there on horseback. And yet….

Angus brought an image of the temple grounds into his mind
and concentrated on it. He sent the thought to the magic, fully expecting
nothing to happen. But something
did
happen! An image began to form, a
blurry image muffled by blowing snow lightly settling to the ground. No, not
ground, to the
floor
. And in the center of the floor, sitting cross-legged
and surrounded by candles was a robed figure. He couldn’t see him clearly, and
when he tried to bring it into focus, something—
someone
—screeched in his
mind.
Fanzool!

Angus shuddered. The voice was in his mind, but it wasn’t
his own. Fanzool? Was that a name? Was that the wizard who sought him out? He
was an old wizard with a gaunt, almost cadaverous expression, as if he had
eaten little for a very long time, and his eyes—

Angus’s hands began to work the magic without any direction
from him, without any apparent pattern or design to their movements. They weren’t
trying to cast any spell he knew; they were trying to unravel the one that had
captured him! But the movements were all wrong! The strands couldn’t be
unraveled that way; all his hands were doing was tangling it up a bit. If they
wanted to break the spell, they would have to be at the other end, where the
knots holding the strands together would be. But he couldn’t do that from here—
his
hands couldn’t do that. No, not hands,
hand
. It was his right hand
that was frantically trying to disrupt the spell.

A new image superimposed itself over the cadaver who had
cast the spell, but it was difficult to tell them apart. It was a wispy, smoke-colored
apparition with little form of its own, other than the two ember-red eyes
staring back at him.

Sardach!
the voice in his head cried, and his right
hand pulled furiously at the magic.

Typhus is there!
The apparition hissed, its voice
distant, hollow, as if it were coming from an empty coffin.
He is there!

Typhus? Angus turned away from the magic, away from the
apparition, and looked around him. There was no one there, not even his
companions. They had already ridden into the snow-laden trees and had almost
disappeared. He and Gretchen were standing alone at the edge of the precipice.

Then, quite suddenly, the magic snapped violently from his
grip and shot backward, toward the storm. As it went, the interwoven strands
separated, forming a kind of rainbow pattern as they retreated and disappeared
from sight.

But the smoke-like form, hovered in his mind for a long
time.

“Sardach?” he muttered, frowning. Was that who had sought
him out? A wizard named Sardach? Was it a message? A warning? It hadn’t been
his
thought; it had been someone else’s. The caster’s?

Had the spell been miscast? Had it been meant for Fanzool?
Had Angus captured it by mistake? Was Typhus after Fanzool? Was Sardach?

But it
felt like
the spell had been for him!

“Sardach?” he said again, letting the sound roll over his
tongue. “A strange name for a wizard.” So was Fanzool. At least Typhus fit an
assassin well. He shook his head and tried to still his shaking right hand.
What had possessed it to act that way? Why—

Later. The storm is approaching.
He needed to join
the others and find shelter. It would be a bad one. He sighed and turned his
horse, urging Gretchen to a quick walk as he followed the path that the others
had made through the snow. At least there were no other tracks that he could
see, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be animals. He would have to check
Giorge again when he caught up with them.

Sardach is coming.

He frowned. It was his thought, but it was not his voice. A
memory? An echo from the spell? Was it something from his misplaced past
seeping into the present? Did he know Sardach from a different life, the one he
could no longer remember? Had he done something to infuriate the wizard? He
shook his head and urged Gretchen to a slightly faster pace, as if he were
trying to outride the haunting thoughts that were pursuing him….