The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) by Robert P. Hansen Page A

water, life,
death—but there were others he didn’t recognize. What they meant when combined
together in the way they were was beyond him. The symbols he didn’t recognize were
placed in what he thought were strategic places, but it was only an impression
and nothing more. He couldn’t even determine which basic knot they were derived
from—if, indeed, they were knots at all; they could be symbols of a language
instead of magical runes.
    “I can’t figure out how to open it,” Giorge said, his voice
soft and his eyes fixed on the scroll tube.
    Angus smiled and held out his hand. “Let me,” he said. “I’ve
dealt quite a bit with scroll tubes.”
    Giorge glanced at him for a long moment, then grinned and
shrugged. But he didn’t hand Angus the scroll tube. “What do you think is in
it?” he asked. “A scroll?”
    Angus chuckled. “What else could it be?” he asked.
    Giorge’s grin broadened. “Lots of things,” he said. “Poison
gas, for instance. A map. Gems. Coins. Probably not coins, though; it isn’t
heavy enough for that. It could even be empty.”
    Angus frowned; he hadn’t considered that it could be
something other than a scroll. After all, scroll tubes were for scrolls,
weren’t they? What if it was something else? What if it was poison gas? If he
opened it without safeguards, would it kill him? And even if it was a scroll, it
could be protected by traps. Magical traps. That’s what he would do if he were
trying to protect his scrolls. In fact, he should have done something like that
already. Why hadn’t he? They were his most valuable possessions, and he threw
them in his backpack as if they were a spare pair of socks. He frowned. He
really should have copied them into Teffles’ book; it at least needed a key and
could be carried in a pocket of his robe. But he had so many other things to do….
    “Let me see it,” Angus said. “I should be able to tell if
it’s a scroll or not. At least if it’s a magical one; there is always a pattern
to them that is detectable. There is magic in the ink to keep it from fading.”
As he waited for Giorge to hand him the scroll tube, Angus concentrated and brought
the magic into focus.
    Giorge reluctantly handed it to him as he asked, “Do you
know how to open it?”
    Angus nodded, “I think so.” Then he saw something that he
didn’t think was possible, and a frown creased his lips and forehead. “This
isn’t possible,” he muttered. “ Everything contains magic.” But not the
scroll. If it was a scroll. Whatever was inside the scroll tube had no magical
strands running through it at all. He peered more closely, sharpening his focus
and trying to find the smallest hint of magic, but there was none. The scroll
tube held magic, a very light shade of gray for the slow decay of the ivory mixed
in with the earthy, metallic tan clinging to the silver. His hands had magic in
them—the same kaleidoscope of colors that every person had—and so did
everything around him. But whatever was in the scroll tube had nothing .
There wasn’t a single thread that went through the scroll tube to touch
whatever was inside it.
    “What is it?” Giorge asked, his voice rigid with
anticipation of something horrid—or horribly exciting.
    “An impossibility,” Angus said. “There is no magic inside
this scroll tube.”
    Giorge relaxed and grinned again. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
    Could it be a scroll without magic? No, not without magic;
it’s an absence of magic. Nothing was ever completely without magic; it
pervaded everything. Angus shook his head and slowly rotated the scroll tube,
studying it from all angles. What could it be? He had never heard of anything
that didn’t have magic within it. It couldn’t be a scroll, could it? Scrolls
were always riddled with a spider web of magical threads; there was magic in
the ink that made them as permanent as they could be. It couldn’t be a magical scroll, then. But why didn’t he see something ?