He inclined his head, managing to look regal in spite of being clothed only in sweat and the light cotton knee-length trousers that served as Cybellian undergarments. He wouldn’t have been wearing that much if the trousers had been rune-marked like his robe.
“Something amuses you?” asked Kerim.
Hastily Sham rearranged her face and cleared her throat. “When exactly did your back begin bothering you?”
His eyebrows rose briefly at her question, but he answered her without hesitation. “I was traveling and my horse slipped off a bank while we were crossing a river. I wrenched my back. Perhaps eight or nine months ago.”
“Talbot told me that it has gotten worse in fits and starts, not a steady progression.”
Kerim nodded. “I have a bad spell, like tonight’s, and when it’s over I’m worse than before. The muscles in my back ache constantly with occasional shooting pangs. My legs are . . .” he paused and for an instant there was a wild hope in his face that he quickly repressed. “My legswere numb from mid-thigh on down. It felt like they were encased in ice. I was cold all the time.” He looked at Sham intensely. “I didn’t realize how cold until now.”
“Now that it’s gone,” commented Sham with the dawn of an impish grin.
“Now that it’s gone,” he agreed hoarsely. He closed his eyes and swallowed, clenching his hands.
She took pity on him and, looking away, she began to piece together the story out loud. “Somehow, you must have attracted the demon’s attention. I don’t know why it chose to attack you differently than the other victims, or what it was gaining from you, but Ican tell you that the demon caused your disability.”
“How can you be certain?”
Shamera glanced at the Reeve and saw that he was still fighting not to hope too much.
She sighed loudly. “I suppose, since you are aCybellian —” she let her tongue linger over the term as if it were an insult of the highest order, much the same way Kerim habitually said “magic” “—I shall have to begin with a basic lesson on magic. I generally use rune magic rather than casting by voice, gesture, and component. The runes are more subtle and they last longer.”
There was a bare hint of amusement in Kerim’s voice when he interrupted her, “What is a rune?”
Sham sighed a second time and began to speak very slowly, as one might to someone who was very young and uninformed. “Runes are . . .” She stopped and swore. “I’m going to have to go simpler than that. I always knew that there was a reason that wizards don’t talk about magic to nonwizards . . . hmmm. Magic is a force in the world—like the sun or the wind. There are two ways a mage can harness the magic: spellcasting or runes. Spellcasting uses hand gestures, voice commands, and material components to shape the magic. As a mage gets better he can reduce what he uses.”
“And a rune is?”
“Runes are patterns that do the same thing. They take skill, precision, and time—but last longer than spells. Unless a limit is placed upon them, runes will absorb magic from other sources so that the ending spell is more powerful than it started out to be unless the rune is triggered. When you were hurting, I drew the rune of health on your back. It showed me that there was another rune already there. The demon managed somehow to bind you to it. I broke that rune, but there was another on your robe and a focus rune on your chair.”
Kerim rubbed his temples. “What is a focus rune?”
“Wizards cannot cast magic over long distances without aid. Some mages use an animal that is connected to them—a familiar. But the more common means is the use of a focus rune, a wizard’s mark. It allows the wizard to work magic someplace without being there. Both the rune and the familiar are dangerous to use, because their destruction hurts the spellcaster.”
“So you hurt the demon, and it sent my brother.”
Tiredly she shifted her weight off of one bruise and onto another one. “The demon probably sent the golem when it sensed that I was meddling with the rune on your back. As it happens my talents lay in the making and unmaking of runes, so I was able to destroy the rune before the golem came.”
Kerim swallowed, but he didn’t ask the question that was on his face; instead he said, “Is it dead?”
“The golem? It was never alive, remember? I suspect it’s still functioning—otherwise the demon would never have risked transporting it out of this room.”
Kerim’s eyes closed again; his mouth was set in grim lines and his hands lay forcibly lax on the ground as he said quietly, “I can feel my feet for the first time in months, and the coldness is gone. But I still don’t have much control over my legs, and I still ache. Am I going to get worse again?”
Sham rubbed weary hands over her eyes like a tired child, then managed to find the magic to cast a quick spell that would allow her to see any magical ties that still bound Kerim to the demon.
“It has no hold on you now,” she said finally. “Tomorrow I’ll clear your rooms of its meddling. Until then you should find someplace else to sleep. As for the rest . . .” she shrugged, “I am no healer, but I’d be surprised if you were able to get up and walk right now. I am absolutely amazed that you were able to attack the golem. You should know as well as I that lying around waiting for a wound to heal is almost as incapacitating as the wound itself.”
Kerim nodded once, abruptly. “Lady, would you get Dickon and send him for Talbot? There is much to be done tonight—and I think the four of us need to develop a plan of action.”
Sham nodded and struggled to her feet. She started for the door, but belatedly remembered she was still in her nightgown. Snagging the tick off the floor where she’d left it, she wrapped it around her like a robe before leaving the room.
As she trotted through the hall it occurred to her that Dickon could be the demon. He was very much at home in the Castle. Hadn’t he been one of the ones that Kerim had said did not worship Altis? She stopped in front of his door, and hesitated before knocking.
The hall floor felt cold on the soles of bare feet, and Sham shivered. Deciding that she would drive herself insane trying to discover who the demon was if she resorted to random guessing, she forced herself to knock on the door. Wearing a dressing robe, Dickon opened his door soon after the first knock.
“Lady?” he asked politely, giving no outward sign that it was unusual to be awoke at that hour by a woman splattered liberally with blood and wearing a rather large bedtick.
Sham drew the thick covering tighter, as if that would warm her feet or ward away demons. “Lord Kerim wants you to collect Talbot from his lodgings and come with him to the Reeve’s private chambers.”
“Is something wrong?” asked Dickon, losing some of his professional demeanor.
She shook her head, “Not at the moment. But . . . you might bring a bedrobe for Kerim.”
Dickon looked at her face closely a moment, before nodding and closing the door, presumably to dress.
WHENSHAM ENTEREDthe Reeve’s chambers again, Kerim had managed to pull himself into a chair. Balancing his chin on his fists, he looked up when she came in.
“Go get dressed,” he said waving a hand toward the covered doorway to her room. “I expect this is going to be a long night and you might as well be warm.”
Sham ducked under the tapestry again and opened her trunk. She saw no need to wear a dress, so she pulled out her second-best working clothes and put them on. She pulled a brush through her hair and washed her hands.
Just before she splashed water on her face, she got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and laughed. She must have run her hand across her cheek after stabbing the golem—a swipe of blood as wide as her palm covered her from ear to chin. She was impressed anew by the mildness of Dickon’s reaction when she had knocked at his door.
Clean and dressed, Sham reentered Kerim’s room carrying his tick to find Kerim asleep. She set the bedding on the floor and quietly found another chair near the wardrobes. She slid her rump to the edge of the seat, propped her feet on a convenient bit of
furniture, and settled into a comfortable doze.
A soft knock on the door aroused her, but before she could get up, Kerim called out, “Enter!”
Dickon came in, followed by an anxious-looking Talbot. They stopped just inside the door and took in the chaos that neither Kerim nor Sham had taken the time to clean up. Chairs, tables, and broken glass lay scattered across the floor. Talbot knelt by a dark stain and ran a finger through it.
“Blood,” he commented thoughtfully, rubbing his fingers on his pant leg.
“Pull up some chairs, both of you,” ordered Kerim shortly. “Dickon, I would look upon it as a favor if you would clean my sword and set it back in its sheath. I’d clean it myself, but I doubt that I’d do a good job at this point.”
“Of course, Lord,” replied Dickon.
He handed Kerim a neatly folded bedrobe before picking up the sword and wiping it down with a square of cloth he removed from a drawer. Talbot pulled a pair of chairs near Kerim’s and sat in one, while Kerim struggled into Dickon’s robe.
“I hate to admit it, Talbot,” began Kerim heavily, once everyone was seated, “but you were right; we needed a mage.”
Dickon stopped polishing the sword and gave the Reeve an appalled look before turning his accusing gaze to Sham. She grinned at him and motioned to herself to indicate that she was the mage in question.
Kerim turned to his valet. “Dickon, have you noticed any change in my brother’s behavior in the last few days?”
“No, sir,” came the immediate reply.
Kerim nodded, and rubbed wearily at his temples. “I thought not, but couldn’t be sure. I haven’t been as attentive since I found myself confined to that chair.”
Talbot and Dickon followed Kerim’s gaze to the fireplace where the metal remains of his wheeled chair sat forlornly in the middle of the flames.
Kerim cleared his throat, “Yes, well, that doesn’t seem to be a problem at the moment, does it? Let me start from the beginning so that Dickon knows as much as everyone else. You all know that I’ve been concerned with the random murders that have taken place over the past months. Once the killer began to concentrate on the courtiers, it became obvious that he was comfortable in the court—otherwise someone would have noticed him wandering through the halls.”
“I thought your selkie stable lad had more to do with that determination than the killer’s habits,” commented Sham.
Kerim smiled tiredly. “Yes, I suppose it was good we listened to him, don’t you? Talbot suggested it might be beneficial if we could search the nobles’ houses as well as the apartments in the Castle itself. Although I could have done so in an official manner, it would have caused needless panic and resentment. Talbot suggested that we bring in a thief. I agreed, and he went to the Whisper of the Street to find a skillful thief who could be trusted to do no more than look.”
Sham stood and bowed solemnly.
The Reeve smiled tiredly and continued. “According to the Whisper, Shamera had a personal grudge against the killer. One of the victims was a close friend and she was looking for him on her own. We decided to give her the role of my mistress to allow her easy access to me as well as the court. Both Shamera and Talbot were of the opinion the killer was a demon. Not the things we fought in the Swamp, Dickon—but a magical creature.”
Dickon snorted and shook his head sadly.
Kerim smiled, “That was my thought as well. The second night we were here she was attacked by the killer, but she didn’t get a good look at him.”
“The cuts I sewed up were caused by a knife or a sword; there was nothing magical about them,” commented Dickon briefly.
Sham lowered her voice dramatically. “Demons are wholly evil, highly intelligent, and better magic users than most wizards. They do not age. They hunt humans for sustenance and pleasure, though they have been known to kill other animals as well. They come from another world, akin to the one the gods inhabit, and can come here only if summoned by a mage—and the pox-eaten thing attacked me with a knife.”
“Thank you,” said Kerim with a touch of sarcasm. “I’m sure you’re trying to be helpful, but Dickon might find this more palatable if you keep the dramatics to a minimum.”
Sham tried to look repentant.
“At the time of the first attack,” continued the Reeve, “I also thought it was a human that attacked Shamera. I saw only knife wounds and surmised that the killer had chosen his victim—it fit the pattern of one killing every eight or nine days.”
“Tonight, however, Shamera found proof that convinced me that she and Talbot were right.” Kerim paused, but other than that, there was no emotion in his voice as he continued. “She found the body of my brother, Lord Ven. I examined him myself, and he has clearly been dead for several days.”
“But that’s impossible,” Dickon broke in. “I saw him this evening when I retrieved Lady Shamera.”
“Nonetheless,” replied Kerim, “his body is in the meeting room next to Shamera’s room. Dickon, you and Talbot have both seen enough battle to know how long a body has been dead; after we are through here you are welcome to examine it yourselves.”
He drew in a breath. “After I saw Ven, I thought that Sham and Talbot might be closer to the truth than I thought. When the man who wore my brother’s face attacked later this evening, I was convinced. Sham thinks the thing that attacked us is a simulacrum—a creature animated by the demon that can assume the identity of its victims. Between us, Sham and I managed to drive it off.
“Regardless of the nature of the killer, we are left with several problems. The first of these is my brother’s body. We are not the only ones who have recently spoken to Lord Ven. If we turn his body over to the priests as he is, they will certainly discover the discrepancy between the time of his death and his last appearance. Last year’s riots in Purgatory will be a faint echo of the witch-slaying that will take place if word gets out that there is a killer loose who can look like anyone.”
“Can the priests be reasoned with or bribed to keep the secret?” asked Sham.
Kerim shook his head, but it was Talbot that explained. “Our little priest, Brother Fykall, could keep it a secret if it were anyone but the Reeve’s brother who slipped his rope . . . er died. As it is the High Priest himself will want to prepare the body, and he has bilge to bail with Lord Kerim. It would please him immensely to get the Prophet to remove Lord Kerim from office and replace him with someone more devoted to Altis. A large riot might just put wind in his sails.”
Kerim leaned forward in his chair. “We need some way to conceal how long Ven has been dead.”
“We could stage a fire,” offered Dickon.
Kerim shook his head. “Where? My brother seldom went into the city and I doubt that there is a place inside the castle that can burn hot enough to destroy his body without hurting someone else.”
“We could leave him for a few days,” offered Talbot.
“No,” said Shamera. “In this climate, the body will start to rot soon. It will still be too obvious how long Lord Ven has been dead.”
“But it might work, if no one remembers exactly when the last time they saw Lord Ven was,” said Kerim with obvious reluctance at the thought of leaving his brother’s body untended for so long.
“No,” said Dickon, but he was unable to come up with more of an objection. Sham knew that he was more concerned with Kerim than with the state of Lord Ven’s body.
“I won’t be able to sleep in a room next to a dead man’s rotting body,” lied Sham firmly.
Dickon nodded approvingly at such ladylike sentiments.
Kerim, for his part, shot her an impatient look. “You were willing enough to leave Ven there when we thought that we could use the knowledge of his death to trap the demon.”
Sham dismissed that with an airy gesture. “That was different,” she said.
“What about magic?” said Talbot. “Is there some way that you can make Lord Ven’s body stiffen with rigor mortis again?”
&nb
sp; Sham tilted her head in consideration. “Yes, and mask the smell of the blood as well. I’ll need an hour of rest first.”
Dickon looked at her. “Do you really have some way of changing the appearance of the body?”
Sham grinned cheerfully at him and responded as she usually did to someone who so obviously didn’t believe in magic, “I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I wouldn’t expect a Cybellian barbarian to understand.”
“Parlor tricks,” commented Dickon in thoughtful tones.
Sometime during the past hour, Dickon had lost most of the mannerisms of a servant. Sham looked at him narrowly. Maybe she wasn’t the only one here who was good at playing roles.
After a moment, Dickon shrugged. “If it works, then it doesn’t matter if it’s chicanery or not. But—” he added with honest offense, “—if you ever call me a Cybellian again, girl, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap. I am Jarnese—” He named another Eastern country. “Cybellians are uncultured, bark-eating barbarians.”
Sham lowered her head in submission, saying in a sweet voice, “If you call me ‘girl’ again, I’ll turn you into a minnow.”
“Children!” said Kerim sharply, as Sham and Dickon exchanged mutually satisfied looks. The hint of amusement in his tone faded as he continued to speak. “Back to the issue at hand. Shamera, go rest. We’ll wake you in an hour to see about my brother’s body. I’ll fill in the details of what we know, for Dickon and Talbot.”
Sham nodded and came to her feet. As she started to duck under the tapestry, Kerim’s voice followed her, “I thought that it bothered you to sleep in a room next to my brother’s body.”
She gave him a sly look and continued into her room.
NINE
Alone in the putrid-smelling room, Sham surveyed Lord Ven’s body. Filthy work this and nothing she relished, but it had to be done. She’d told Kerim she worked best alone, but the truth was she feared his grief would distract her. He tried to hide it, but in the short time that she’d known him, she had learned how to read deeper than his public presentation. She rubbed her eyes and put such thoughts aside.