Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [15]
Three black mastiffs with hides that gleamed like onyx rose from their haunches and growled as he approached the door.
"Bah!" he spat. "It's just me, you stupid chunks of rock!"
He strode up to the door guardians and stuck out his hand. Two of the dogs growled louder, but one leaned forward cautiously, touching his skin with its cold stone nose. After a heartbeat, all three dogs moved aside from the door and sat back in silence.
"Stupid…" Keph muttered and kicked at one in passing. He hurt his toe more than he hurt the stone beast.
The door opened easily at his touch and he walked through into the entry hall. The corridors of Fourstaves House were still silent at such an early hour. Keph limped, cursing with every step, across the hall and up the great, polished staircase that dominated it. At its top, he started to turn toward the south wing and the family's chambers, but paused and turned instead to look down the dark hallway of the north wing. Along that hallway, doors opened onto the laboratories and workshops of the five wizards. His hand clenched on the banister.
The amethyst ring and a pouch full of coins weren't the only things Jarull had brought back from Ravens Bluff. As he and Keph had sat at their table in one of the seediest of the Stiltways's seedy taverns, the big man had winked and said, "Don't think I forgot you, Keph."
His hand dipped into his belt pouch and he set a crystal vial on the table. Inside the vial, dark dust glittered like ground glass.
"What is it?" Keph had asked.
"It's called magesbane. Sprinkle a little where a wizard will cast a spell and he's in for a surprise." Jarull had given him a fierce grin, exposing sharp teeth. "Next time any wizard you know gets on your wrong side, you'll have something up your sleeve to turn back on them."
Keph stared, mesmerized, at the sparkling dust. "What does it do?"
"Nothing permanent," Jarull said, sliding the vial to Keph. "Give it a little try when you get home. I think you'll enjoy it."
Standing at the top of the stairs, Keph's hand slipped into his own belt pouch. His fingers curled around the crystal vial. Give it a little try when you get home. I think you'll enjoy it.
Roderio, Keph thought. When his father brought him home the day before after arranging for his release by the city guard, Roderio had passed by and simply shaken his head in disgust.
Keph turned and walked into the north wing of Fourstaves House. As he passed beneath the arch of the hallway, wards brushed against his skin like spider-webs. Through the years, Strasus had woven layer upon layer of protection over his home and especially over the dangers of its north wing. No one who wasn't supposed to be there could enter the wing. Strasus and Dagnalla had encouraged their children's curiosity, however, and Keph, like his brother and sister, had always been able to enter freely. Even after his lack of magic had become blatantly apparent, wards throughout the house continued to permit him passage, as if his parents secretly hoped it was just some phase he could still grow out of.
At the door to Roderio's laboratory, he paused again.
The door to Strasus's study was at the end of the wing.
For a moment, Keph considered changing the target of his vengeance. Part of the reason Strasus had been so angry at having to bail him out of jail was that it had pulled him away from the research that had occupied his time of late. The stone cliffs that surrounded Yhaunn were laced with old tunnels and crevices, another legacy of the city's quarry origins. Not a month before, explorers had pulled some ancient treasure out of one of those tunnels and brought it to Strasus. Keph hadn't been allowed so much as a glimpse of it, of course, but whatever it was, it had become an obsession to Strasus, an obsession that had spread to Dagnalla and Malia as well-and that left Strasus resenting every moment spent apart from his research.
Sprinkling a little of the magesbane around his father's study could be very