Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [16]
Keph wrinkled his nose. No, he thought, Roderio first. Let's see what this dust does.
He pushed against the door of the laboratory and felt more wards sift over him. When the eerie sensation passed, he stepped through and closed the door.
Cool flames sprang to life in bowls around the room. In an open-sided case of glass, a lizard striped in bright green and blue stirred at the sudden light. Roderio's familiar. Keph hurried across to the case as the lizard lifted its head drowsily from the magically warmed rock with which Roderio pampered it. Before it could do more than look around, Keph drew a cloth of dark velvet over the case, plunging it into shadow once more. He heard a slow, reptilian sigh of contentment as the lizard sank back into sleep.
He let out a sigh of his own and looked around the laboratory at workbenches, vessels and braziers of various kinds, books, scrolls____________________His eyes fell on a rack of jars and pots, ingredients for the potions that Roderio was fond of creating. Books and vessels lay open on the workbench nearest the rack-Roderio was getting ready to brew some new concoction. Keph smiled to himself, went over to the rack and selected one of the jars at random. Setting it on the workbench, he popped off its lid and peered inside. The jar held some kind of dried, crumbled moss. "Perfect," he murmured.
He pulled the crystal vial out of his pocket and worked out the stopper, then carefully sprinkled a measure of the magesbane dust into the jar. It seemed to meld into the moss-he had to look closely to be sure it was even there. Roderio wouldn't see a thing. He closed the jar and replaced it on the shelf. He started to replace the stopper on the vial as well, but stopped.
What if Roderio didn't need the contents of that jar for his potion?
Cursing under his breath, Keph glanced over the books laid out on the workbench, but they were written in the flowing, elongated script used by elves. He couldn't read a word. He turned back to the rack and grimaced, then pulled down another half a dozen jars.
When he left the laboratory, less than half of the magesbane dust remained in the crystal vial but the chances that Roderio would be reaching for an ingredient treated with the dust were much higher. For good measure, Keph had even sprinkled a little of the dust into a couple of the vessels waiting on the workbench-to his delight, the dust vanished against glass just as easily as it had melded into the moss.
Let's see who's sneering tomorrow, Roderio, he thought as he staggered toward the south wing and his bedchamber.
Keph woke to the sounds of hideous screams and horrified shrieks. It took a heartbeat before a name passed from the shrieks to his brain.
Roderio.
He thrashed free of the bed sheets, jammed himself into a pair of trousers, and wrenched open the door of his chamber to peer down the hallway. Servants were crowded around the arch of the north wing, kept back by the wards. The sharp odor of acid stung his nostrils. Keph's heart jumped from his chest into his throat.
Snatching up a shirt, he pulled it over his head and charged, still barefoot, down the hall.
"Move!" he shouted at the milling servants. "Move!"
Maids and underbutlers leaped out of his way. He careened through the wards and into the north wing.
Roderio lay stretched out on the floor of the hallway, surrounded by those few trusted servants able to bypass the wards on that wing. Dagnalla cradled his head and Malia was kneeling down at his side. Keph stared at his brother. His face was blistered and red. Fragments of broken glass were embedded in the skin of his face and neck as well. His eyes, clenched shut, were the worst. Blood oozed out from under the lids. His upper robes had been ripped away, exposing his chest and arms-they were burned too, though not so badly as his face. One servant clutched scalded hands, while another was thrusting the torn robes away with a stick. Saturated with a bilious yellow-green liquid, the ruined fabric smoldered and steamed.
"All gods have mercy…" Keph gasped.
Malia