The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [84]
Kehrsyn watched the exchange with interest, gauging the voice and expressions of all three. Ahegi and Demok wanted to continue the debate, but clearly Massedar wanted the subject dropped. Did he suspect Bane might have an agent among his people? If so, publicly disregarding such thoughts would put the agent more at ease.
"I think you're both wrong," hazarded Kehrsyn. "Tiamat always opposed Gilgeam, even killed him, right? And no one would willingly let Bane here. I mean, he's a foreign deity, right?" She looked around for support but found only hard eyes upon her, excepting Massedar's gaze, which was much softer. "So I think that whether it's Tiamat or Bane, they're just helping the real enemy: the Pharaoh of Mulhorand. They deliver this to the Mulhorandi army, it helps them take Messemprar, and whoever it was that helped out, they get to rule Unther under the Mulhorandi banner. Doesn't that make sense?"
Silence hung in the room.
"Perfectly," said Massedar. "Kehrsyn," he said, "thou standest against the shadowy hand of the pharaoh. To thy duties: I have retained thee for the recovery of my own property. Thou shalt apprise me of thy progress. At the least, each eve shalt thou return here and thereafter to bed in a room which I shall have prepared for thee." He moved closer to her, reached out, and gripped her upper arms in his hands, saying, "Thy future-"
A flare of heat and pain ripped through Kehrsyn's left arm as his fingers massaged her burn. She cried out and jerked herself out of his hands, dragging the burn through his powerful fingers. Her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor, her right hand clutching her left arm just below the shoulder, and she scooted away from Massedar.
For a moment, nothing existed but the pain in her arm as it exploded in a surf of fire, but, as her sight returned, she saw Massedar kneel down beside her. She couldn't read his expression through her teary eyes, but his words carried through the ringing in her ears.
"What is the matter? Speak thou!" His voice seemed at once concerned and demanding.
"They burned me." Kehrsyn forced the words out evenly. "The back of my arm, right where you…"
She saw Massedar look at his right hand, rub the fingers together, and smell them. He looked at the back of her left sleeve, then snapped his fingers again.
"Healers!" he ordered, then he leaned closer to Kehrsyn, his voice almost a whisper. "Why didst thou not tell me?"
"It's just a little burn," she answered.
"None of the land," he replied. "I have but small hopes it is not festered. My best shall attend thee, for I vouchsafe merciful provision on those close unto me. Arise thou," he said, "and be healed within thy room, that nothing shouldst mar thy smile."
He gently helped her to her feet and escorted her from the room. Kehrsyn cast a desperate, sidelong glance at her cloak, wrapped around the counterfeit staff and laid under the chair, but Demok stepped forward and picked it up, tucking it under an arm.
Massedar took her to a private room furnished with a comfortable bed, a nightstand with a few drawers and topped by a candle, and a mirror and washbasin. The stand beside the washbasin held a brush and several scented toiletries. These at once thrilled and mortified Kehrsyn, who had never been able to indulge in such luxuries as perfumes and fine soaps and lotions and balms, and who therefore had no idea which might be which, let alone the proper uses and applications.
Demok tossed her cloak on the floor beneath her bed and left the room without another word, leaving her alone with Massedar for a few nervous heartbeats until the healers came, a craggy old man and a half-elf woman with thin, flat hair.
The men discreetly turned their backs while the half-elf helped Kehrsyn out of her jersey. She then wrapped Kehrsyn's torso in a plush towel for modesty, and the healers inspected the burn.
Massedar sat on the edge of the bed next to Kehrsyn.
"Would that thou mightest