Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [144]
“That fellow who poisoned himself last night.”
“Ye gods!” Blaen said, amazed. “Has the tale spread as fast as all that?”
“It has to those with the ears to hear it. Your Grace, I’ve come to spare you the expense of burying that fool. Does his lordship know where the corpse lies?”
“Here, is he kin to you?”
“Well, since every clan has its black sheep, you might say that he is.”
Puzzled, the gwerbret glanced at Jill.
“Please, Your Grace?” she said. “Please do what he asks.”
“Well and good, then. Can’t be any harm in it.”
Doubtless consumed by curiosity, Blaen personally escorted Nevyn and Jill out to the ward and hunted up a warden. It turned out that the corpse had been wrapped in a blanket and laid in a small shed usually used for storing firewood. Between them Nevyn and Jill dragged it outside onto the cobbles. Nevyn knelt down beside it and pulled the blanket back to study the corpse’s face.
“A Bardek man, is he?” The old man sat back on his heels. “Now, that’s a peculiar thing!”
He rested his hands on his thighs and looked at the corpse for a long time. From the slack way Nevyn sat and the drowsy look of his eyes, Jill suspected that he was in a trance. Every now and then his mouth moved soundlessly, as if he were speaking to someone. Finally he looked up with a toss of his head, and his eyes snapped fury.
“What an ugly little soul! Well, we’ll send him to his rest whether he wants to go or not.”
Motioning Jill and Blaen back out of the way, he stood at the head of the corpse and raised his arms high, as if he were praying to the sun. For a long while he merely stood, his face set in concentration; then slowly he lowered his hands, sweeping them down in a smooth arc until his fingertips pointed at the dead thing on the cobbles. Fire burst out in the corpse, an unnatural, ghastly fire, burning blue-silver in peaks and leaps. When Nevyn called out three incomprehensible words, the flames turned white-hot and leaped high, too bright to look upon. With an oath Blaen threw one arm over his face. Jill covered her eyes with both hands. She heard a tormented moan, a long sigh of terror, yet oddly enough, mingled with relief, just as when a wounded man knows that his death is near to free him from pain.
“It is done!” Nevyn called out. “It is over!”
Jill looked up in time to see him stamp three times on the ground. Where the corpse had been lay only a handful of white ash. When Nevyn snapped his fingers, a little breeze sprang up and scattered it, then died down as abruptly as it had come.
“There,” the old man said. “His soul is freed from his body and on its way to the Otherlands.” He turned to the gwerbret. “There are strange things afoot in your rhan, Your Grace.”
“No doubt,” Blaen stammered. “By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell, what is all this?”
“Dweomer, of course. What did it look like?”
Blaen took a step back, his face pale, his mouth working. Nevyn gave him a gentle, patient smile of the sort mothers give to children who’ve stumbled onto something they’re too young to understand.
“It’s time that everyone in the kingdom learned the truth about the dweomer,” Nevyn said. “His grace may congratulate himself on being one of the first. Would his lordship allow me and Jill to take our leave of you for a little while? I have an urgent matter to attend to in the city.”
Blaen looked at the cobbles, still shimmering with heat, and shuddered.
“If my lord wishes.” The gwerbret abruptly elevated Nevyn’s rank. “I should be willing.”
Nevyn caught Jill’s arm through his and led her firmly away.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve been so frightened.”
“As well you might be. Now, here, child, the danger’s not over yet. You’ve got to understand that. Stay close to me and do exactly what I say.”
Jill nearly wept in disappointment.
“When I scryed, I saw you guarding Ogwern the thief,” he went on. “Take me to him. If you had a bad time last night, I’ll wager he did, too. That fellow was trying to suck the life force out of you so