Into the Heart of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

see.
    These abilities were enhanced, magnified, and
projected over distances through a combination of chance and cunning; for Mynar
was of the royal blood of Krall, a neighboring gen to the Kale Gen. When he had
stolen his gen’s stone of power, it had bent to his will.  But Mynar had been
called sorcerer long before he had stolen the Krall Stone.
    And so it was on this day that Mynar had used what
remaining power he could muster to mimic the muscular image of Lord Karthan’s
chamberlain, Khazak Mail Fist, as he and his fellow conspirators milled about
in the outer chamber of the prison, awaiting their cell assignments.  Though
his now bulging arms were still in shackles, he managed to hide that fact under
his cloak, which now was a dark blue color; the color of cloak that Khazak Mail
Fist sometimes wore.  Deftly stepping to the side of the group nearest the
entrance, he suddenly stood up straight as the pair of guards assigned to watch
them looked up from the scroll they were scribing on. Surprise at Khazak’s
sudden appearance was evident in their faces.
    “Sire!” They both snapped to attention in unison.
    “Keep at it.” Mynar nodded dismissively, a gruff
look of dissatisfaction on his face.  As the two guards self-consciously went
back to their task of recording the prisoner’s names, Mynar walked up beside
them as if inspecting what they were doing. At the same time, he subtly grabbed
one of the keys to the shackles that hung on a nail on the side of the desk. 
He then nonchalantly walked out of the chamber as the confusion of where ‘the
last prisoner’ had gone began, leaving the rest of his fellow conspirators to
whatever fate awaited them.
    Two turns of the passageway later, Mynar was out
of the smoky torch light of the prison and in the cool darkness of the cave
system.  Here, in darkness untainted by torchlight, the unique heat vision of
his race showed white tendrils of heat wafting up from his body, encircling the
shackles and the key he had stolen in their warmth, outlining the hole where
the lock was.  Stopping for a moment, Mynar dropped the Khazak façade. 
Standing where another passage met his, Mynar worked the awkward angle to get
the key into the lock and turn it.  Soon, the shackles were dropped and Mynar
was free.
    “You seem to have lost something.” An icy voice
stopped Mynar dead in his tracks.  Turning to look down the side passage where
the voice had come from, he could clearly see a kobold holding up a belt with a
large pouch on it… a very familiar kobold and a very familiar large pouch. 
Behind the kobold, a pair of armed warriors stood in stony silence.  Turning
back to the main passage, he saw three more warriors appear from around the
next bend. When they stopped and drew their swords, Mynar’s surprise turned to
foreboding. 
    The surprise disarmed Mynar of his customary
arrogance.  He licked his lips nervously as his tail twitched behind him; he
knew he was cornered, and unlike the unwitting guards, he knew he couldn’t
escape this kobold with trickery.  “Khee-lar Shadow Hand,” he addressed the
kobold holding the pouch, mustering as much confidence as he could.  “You seem
to have the Krall Stone.”
    Khee-lar walked forward, the two warriors behind
him keeping pace.  With a nod from their master, the pair grabbed hold of
Mynar, throwing him to the sand floor of the passage like a sack of meat. 
Their master came up and squatted next to the prostrate form of his former
mentor.
    “Your attempt to overthrow this gen and take the
throne seems to have failed.” Khee-lar’s icy voice struck like daggers.  “Tell
me, what did you promise Troll and Kort?  Which one did you pick to be your
puppet on the throne?”
    Mynar tried to get up, but one of Khee-lar’s
warriors planted a foot in the middle of his back while another grabbed his
horns and planted his face in the sand.  “You’re making a mistake,” Mynar
grunted.  “It was all for you!