Viper's Kiss - Lisa Smedman [68]
Arvin slid down the rope. "I saw a symbol just like this one, years ago," he told the others as he recoiled his rope. "It was the central motif on an old, threadbare carpet from Calimshan. The carpet supposedly once had the power to fly; the noble who owned it thought that repairing it might restore its magic. He hired me to do the job. The day after I completed the work, he must have decided to try the carpet out. His servants found him sitting on it later that day, dead. He was slumped at the center of the carpet, without a mark on him. The spot he was sitting on was blank-the symbol I'd restored had vanished."
Karrell glanced nervously over the side of the wagon. "We are inside the symbol," she observed.
"Yes," Arvin answered.
"But not fully inside it?"
"We're not at the center of it, no," Arvin began. "But I'm not sure if that-"
Dunnald abruptly stood. "This is getting us nowhere," he said. "We can't just sit here all night." He clambered down from the wagon and walked toward the line in the snow, then squatted down next to it.
"Don't touch it!" Arvin warned.
Dunnald drew his sword and used it to prod at the symbol. "It's a trick," he announced. "A feint, to frighten us away from the woods. I'm touching it, and nothing's happening."
"You're touching it with your sword," Arvin noted, wondering if the sergeant would be stupid enough to touch a foot to the line.
He wasn't.
"If it is a magical symbol, it's not very effective, is it?" Dunnald commented as he straightened up. "It's narrow enough to step right over." He gave Burrian a meaningful glance. "If this is what waylaid our two patrols, we need to get a report back to the fort."
Burrian's eyes widened. He wet his lips. "Sir, I…"
Dunnald cocked his head. "Are you refusing my order, Burrian?"
Burrian shook his head. "No, sir.. It's just…"
Dunnald gestured at the track in the snow. "Tangle- mane walked across it without harm. Look here-one of his hooves actually touched it."
"He's a centaur," Arvin interjected. "Perhaps centaurs are immune to it and humans aren't."
"Humans crossed the symbol once already," Dunnald countered. He glowered at Burrian. "Get down from that wagon, Burrian."
The soldier swallowed. "Yes, sir." He glanced at Arvin, lowering his voice to a whisper. "What do you think?"
"I don't know," Arvin said, less certain now. "The sergeant's right about one thing: we did pass across it once already in the wagon. But I'm no wizard. I don't know how these things-"
"Trooper Burrian!" the sergeant snapped. "Now!"
Reluctantly, Burrian climbed down from the wagon. He started to walk up to the track in the snow, then turned around again and came back to wrench a board off the wagon. He laid this across the track, visibly screwed up his courage, and took a long step across, taking care to keep both feet on the board. As his foot touched the board on the far side of the track, however, he crumpled to the ground.
Karrell gasped then leaped out of the wagon. Arvin shot to his feet, calling out a warning to her, but Karrell had the presence of mind to stay well back from the line in the snow. She dragged Burrian away from the dark line in the snow, lifted his arm, tugged up his sleeve, and pressed her fingers to the inside of his wrist. "He's dead," she announced, staring accusingly at Dunnald.
Dunnald's eyes narrowed. He wheeled on Arvin. "This is your fault. You said the center of the symbol was what killed, not the-"
Arvin leaped out of the wagon and caught Dunnald by the collar of his cloak. The sergeant tried to draw his sword, but Arvin batted his hand aside. "Not another word," Arvin growled. Shoving the sergeant aside, he stared at the dead man who lay facedown in the snow, feeling sick. Then he squatted to study the symbol. The line was darker than it should be-blacker than the shadows that filled it. Though both Burrian's body and the board he'd tried to use as a bridge had been drawn back across it, scuffing deep gouges in the snow, the line itself remained intact.
"Can you dispel it?" Arvin asked Karrell.
She looked doubtful as her