Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [145]
“How do you know?”
“He told me just now, of course. Since he’d been dead some time, he couldn’t tell me much more, because his shade was already beginning to break up and weaken. So I just sent him on to his judgment, much as I would have liked to squeeze some more information out of him.”
Jill felt herself turn rigid with fear at this talk of ghosts.
“Now, now,” Nevyn said. “It’s a perfectly ordinary thing, but it’s not the right time to explain it all to you. Let’s see what’s happened to Ogwern.”
When they arrived at the Red Dragon Inn, they found out that Nevyn was quite right to be concerned. The frightened innkeep told them that Ogwern had been taken ill the night before and that he was in his chambers. They hurried upstairs to find the door shut, but when she knocked, Bocc opened it.
“I heard Ogwern was ill,” Jill said. “I brought an herbman we can trust.”
“Thank every god in the Otherlands,” he said with sincere piety. “This has been horrible, it has. I never thought I’d be grateful to a cursed warden, but if his grace hadn’t set that great, strong fellow at the door for a guard, Da would have thrown himself out of a window, I swear it.”
Nevyn nodded grimly, as if he’d been expecting just that. They went in to find Ogwern lying in bed with a frayed blue blanket pulled up around his massive neck. Although he was staring at the ceiling, he looked more terrified than ill.
“Last night was like being in the third hell,” Bocc said. “We were having a tankard in the Red Dragon, and all at once he started shaking and raving.”
“I don’t want to hear of it.” Ogwern pulled the covers over his head. “Leave a dying man in peace, all of you.”
“You’re not going to die,” Nevyn snapped. “I’m an herbman, good sir, so pull the blanket down and tell me your symptoms.”
The blanket receded until Ogwern’s dark eyes peered over the edge.
“I’m going mad. Oh, doom doom doom! I’d rather die than go mad, so brew me up some kindly poison, herbman.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Stop ranting and tell me about these ravings.”
“Tell him, Da,” Bocc broke in. “Tell him about the chickens.”
Ogwern groaned and pulled the blanket up again.
“He started talking about drinking blood,” Bocc said. “About killing chickens and drinking their blood.”
“It was horrible.” Ogwern lowered the blanket. “I don’t truly know what to say. All at once I was terrified, good sir, and I started shaking and sweating buckets. I knew I was doomed, you see, that I was going to die, no matter what I did.” Ogwern let his voice trail off weakly. “But I had to drink the blood. But it was disgusting. I’ve never felt such terror in my life.”
“And then he started screaming that it would be better to die fast than slow,” Bocc broke in. “He grabbed his dagger, so we jumped him, and me and a couple of the lads got him here about the time the city wardens shows up. After he tried to jump out the window, we tied him to the bed, but he went on raving and yelling about wanting to die.”
“Ah, I begin to understand,” Nevyn said. “Then at first light he turned suddenly calm.”
“Just that.” Hope dawning, Ogwern sat up, revealing that he was fully dressed under the blankets. “It was so sudden that it was like a fever passing off.”
“Exactly, but it wasn’t a fever, but a poison. Now, here, Ogwern, you must have an enemy in town who put a particular herb in your drink: oleofurtiva tormenticula smargedinni.” Nevyn rolled off this imposing name with a flourish. “Fortunately, your bulk saved you from a fatal dose. This poison unbalanced the humors, giving the victory to the hot and moist over the cold and dry, which support the rational faculties. That’s why you wanted the blood, you see, to slake your humors. Then, as the body feels the poison work, the mind can’t understand what’s occurring and can’t take rational steps to combat it, and thus the clever poison doubles its own effects.”
“Ye gods!” Ogwern whispered. “Fiendish, good sir.”
“You must guard yourself very carefully from now on. For the