The Marenon Chronicles Collection - By Jason D. Morrow Page 0,78

exit as planned. He walked slowly to the floating object as his heart raced. He did not feel prepared to fight a horde of Anwyns. He hoped the others had done their job in clearing a path for his exit.

A second later he was within feet of the staff and reached out to touch the object when he heard loud footsteps approaching from the corridor behind him. He had been followed! He drew his sword and spun around quickly.

“Wait!” the voice yelled as an Erellen came around the corner. It was Lorcan. A sudden urgency gripped Silas. He did not want to face Lorcan again. Silas was confident in his ability to defeat Lorcan with a sword, but he would be crushed by the Erellen’s magic.

“What are you doing, Lorcan? You’re supposed to get the horses ready for escape!”

“Whatever you do,” Lorcan said, bent over trying to breathe, “don’t touch the staff!”

Silas shook his head. “You’ve been trying to keep me from coming on this job since the moment you met me.”

“No, Silas listen!”

“You listen!” Silas yelled, spit flying. “I’m not going to let you get us all killed just because you have some misplaced contempt for me.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Silas. If you touch that staff, you’ll die!”

Silas couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t understand why Lorcan was saying these things, but if the past two days were any indication, it was probably an attempt to make Silas out to look like the bad guy.

“You want me to fail so you can tell Alric you were right about me!”

“Silas, it was Alric’s plan for you to die tonight!”

Silas stared in disbelief, unable to find words to argue. It couldn’t be true. Alric had been good to him. He had given Silas his word that he would help him find his grandfather. Why would he want him to die?

“We aren’t even here for the staff,” Lorcan continued. “We’re after a medallion.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t ask me what the medallion is or what it does. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s what we’ve been hired to get.”

“Then what’s the point of sending me after the staff?”

“To be the diversion,” Lorcan said calmly. “Alric wasn’t lying when he said an alarm would be raised when you grabbed the staff. What he did lie about was what happens when you touch the staff.” Lorcan hesitated. “Every Anwyn in these parts will swarm around you and capture you. There’ll be no attention paid to Alric and the rest of them when they move in and steal the medallion. You would bear the consequences and we would be free.”

Anger seeped in deep and Silas’ blood stewed. “Why are you telling me this now and not earlier?”

“I had hoped,” Lorcan said, “that I could keep you from coming when we fought in the pit. It obviously didn’t work. Alric and I have been friends for a long time, but I feel he’s gone too far this time. The others have felt the same way. Inga, Coffman and I planned this without Alric knowing. We think we can get the medallion without killing you and that’s what we aim to do.”

“Why wouldn’t Alric hear your plan then?” Silas asked.

“Because it is too dangerous. He said the life of a random stranger is worth the assurance of his friend’s safety. He wouldn’t budge.”

Silas looked back at the staff. Judging from the way Lorcan had treated him from the moment they met, there was no way he could be trusted. He wanted Silas dead and he wanted the glory from his leader. It had to be a ploy to destroy him. He looked back at Lorcan, then back to the staff and reached out and grabbed it with both hands.

For a second Silas could hear a brief scream of protest from Lorcan, but was soon drowned by the sound of a thousand trumpets. A light flashed from the stone below the staff, blinding him where he stood. Besides the deafening alarm, the only thing he could sense was that he had immediately been knocked to the ground because of the sharp pain shooting through his cut shoulder and the sudden throbbing in his head from the landing. The staff had been lost from his grip almost as soon as he had grabbed it. How was he supposed to leave through the doors if he couldn’t even see? The alarm was still blaring, his head splitting in pain from the reverberating noises. The white light was so bright that