Free The Golden Key (Book 3) by Robert P. Hansen Page B

had found a fitting end, one that fit well with his
timid nature. Something violent, perhaps? Something that would have made him
shriek in terror as it approached? She sighed; if she asked this new Truthseer to
show her Fanzool’s death, would it be amusing enough to be worth seeing? Or merely
a sad and pathetic end to a sad and pathetic life?
    She hoped the Truthseer would need her assistance. She owed Typhus that much—and more! The way he had left.…
    The funny little man laughed as if he had seen the image in
her mind, but she squared her shoulders and ignored him. Yes, she didn’t like
him, but Argyle would not be pleased if she acted on that dislike, and
she knew what Argyle could do to those who displeased him. She had been the
instrument of his displeasure on many, many occasions. Still, if Gimpy—yes,
that was what she would call him—gave her much more incentive…. She thought of
a particularly vicious game she could play with him, but he showed no sign of
noticing.
    As they rounded the corner and neared the door to the
chamber in which Typhus had been placed, she slowed down and let Gimpy get
ahead of her. Argyle’s lackeys were outside the room, and the door was shut.
That was not unusual; there was no way to open the door from within the
chamber, and Typhus had been very securely bound. She had even taken away the
little bit of metal under his scalp that she had discovered when she healed him.
Still, it was Typhus, and if anyone could find a way out of those manacles, it
would be him, and it would have been wiser to have some men inside the room
watching him from a distance. No, it didn’t bother her that they were outside
the room; what bothered her was what wasn’t in the hallway.
    “Where are they?” she called, coming to an abrupt stop a few
yards from the door’s edge.
    Gimpy stopped and turned to the right until his left eye was
staring at her. “Pardon?”
    “Where are my things!” she almost shouted, staying well away
from the others.
    “What things?” he asked.
    “We put them inside,” Crooked Knife said. “No sense in
having them sitting out here when you’re going to be using them in there, now,
is there?”
    “No sense!” She half-screamed. “That’s exactly what you
have, you fool. It’s Typhus in there, and you just let him have what he
needs to kill all of us. How could you be so stupid?”
    “Now see here, young lady,” Gimpy began, somehow putting a
sneer in his puffed-up voice as he chastised her. “I don’t care who it
is in there; no one could break out of those manacles I put on him.”
    She stared at the Truthseer’s eye and began to giggle. “No
one?” she repeated. “He isn’t no one ; he’s Typhus , the most
resourceful assassin you will ever meet—if you live long enough. He even found
a way to hide from Fanzool for nearly two years.”
    “Fanzool was incompetent,” Gimpy said with derision in his
voice as he straightened somewhat. “I am not.” Then, quite abruptly, he turned
and gestured to the lackeys. “Open that door,” he said.
    The lackey-with-no-brains drew his nasty looking crooked
knife and positioned himself in front of where the door would open. Once in
place, he nodded to his companion. Gimpy hobbled up beside him while the other
lackey pressed the panel on the wall that would release the door’s lock. A loud
click echoed down the corridor, one that was loud enough by far to give Typhus
plenty of warning of their approach. It was meant to give that warning, to let
the prisoners know the game was about to begin. The door slowly peeled itself
away from the wall, and a bright light burst out through the crack that formed.
    After a moment, Iscara’s eyes widened. The light was too
bright to be a candle and too steady to be a torch. It could only be—
    “Magic!” Iscara gasped, but before she could give warning,
Crooked Knife began to gurgle and suddenly staggered backward with his hand clutching
at his throat. Blood spouted out