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

Even air had magic
running through it—sky magic of all sorts—and a bare whisper of air would show
some sign of it. Was it empty? Really empty? Was there nothing in the
scroll tube at all? Not even air? It was possible, and that would explain the
absence of magic. After all, if there was nothing in it, there could be no
magic in it either. Or scroll. Or treasure. Unless there was some other reason
for the absence of magic. But what could that be?
    “Angus?” Giorge prompted, reaching up to wrap his hand
around the scroll tube.
    “Hmmm?” Angus looked at him and blinked. He let the magic
fade to his periphery but didn’t let it slip all the way into the background.
He had a feeling that he might need it, and if he did, it would be good to have
it at the ready. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “Either there is nothing
inside this scroll tube or something is keeping me from seeing its magic.” Is
that what it was? Could the scroll tube be made from something that shielded
whatever was in it from his sight? Voltari had mentioned creatures from elsewhere
that were untouched by magic; could this be what he meant? Was the scroll tube
made from one of their horns? No. The scroll tube had magic in it; if it was a
horn from a creature that was untouched by magic, the ivory would not have had
magic in it. Perhaps the scroll tube was lined with the skin of one of them? That was possible. It was also possible that it was something Angus did not
understand and could not know. There was only one way to find out: open the
scroll tube. Was it worth the risk?
    “It’s all right, Giorge,” Angus said, kneeling down beside
him. “See? The two ends of the scroll tube will turn, but you have to press in
on these two points.” He pressed at the base of the caps and turned them
slightly. “To open them, you have to line up the right symbols. It may take a
few minutes to figure out which ones—”
    “I’ll do it,” Giorge said, pulling the scroll tube from
Angus’s grasp. “I got a good look at it before you came back.” He pressed the
two ends and began turning them. “It didn’t look right to me, but I couldn’t
figure out why. Now I know. The patterns were misaligned.” He finished
adjusting the caps and there was a soft click.
    Angus brought the magic into sharper focus and said, “One of
the ends ought to screw off now. Release the base and find out.”
    Giorge nodded and a few moments later, the scroll tube cap flopped
open on its hinge. He looked into the end of scroll tube and exclaimed,
“Scrolls!” He tipped the scroll tube and letting them slide out onto his palm.
There were four of them, each about four inches long and tied with a thin cord
of braided thread. The threads were of different colors, one each of yellow-green,
a mixture of ice blue and white, a mixture of deep green and black, and the
last of pure black. The scrolls were tightly coiled, and the vellum looked
almost new.
    Angus frowned. As the scrolls had slid out, they burst to
life. There was magic in them, and that meant something had obstructed
his view. And that was dangerous. Whoever had hidden the scrolls had
wanted them to stay hidden. Were they too dangerous? Too powerful? Both? The
magic in the scrolls corresponded to the braided cords wrapped around them. The
yellow-green was permeated by the life-giving energies of animals, and would
relate in some way to them. The ice blue and white was riddled with frost and
rime—would it cause a snowstorm? An avalanche? Something worse? The deep green
and black was plagued with death and dying, but it was not the most worrisome
one; it still had life clinging to it. But the last one, the one tied with
black, was densely packed with consumptive black, the kind of horrid
death that lingered and infected everything around it. It was the most powerful
form of death magic, the kind that would bring back the dead, call them forth,
sustain them, and control them. Voltari’s sentinels had such