Demok turned the cold compress over and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead.
'I know,' he said.
He rose and stepped over to the fire. Kehrsyn heard some clinking, as of coins, and after a few moments he came back holding a burlap bag that looked like it had something the size of a cat in it. He shook it. It jingled.
'Silvers, warmed by the fire,' he said. 'They'll help.'
He sat back down beside her, pulled back the blanket from her shoulder, and gently placed the bag of heated coins at the base of her neck, tucking some behind her and draping the others across to her collarbone. The burlap was scratchy, but the warmth radiating from the coins suffused her neck with a welcome ease.
'Do you have some more of that tea stuff?' Kehrsyn asked.
Demok held the flask and she drank some more. The aftertaste was an unusual bitter flavor, and left her mouth dry.
'I think it's helping,' she said, smacking her lips.
Demok smiled, though only for a second, and said, 'Herbs from Sespech. Potent.'
Kehrsyn lay back, closed her eyes, and listened to the fire for a while, drifting in and out of sleep. She felt the pain slowly recede, vanquished between the warm tea within and the warm coins without.
'Where's Massedar?' she asked, her voice dreamy and slurred.
'Waiting next door. When you're ready.'
'Thank you for taking care of me.'
Demok laughed, nothing more than a tiny snort through his nose, and said, 'Least I could do.'
'It's almost worth it to get hit like that just to relax in a bed like this.'
'Kehrsyn, I'm-' began Demok.
'Don't worry about it,' Kehrsyn interrupted. 'It just kind of scared me that you'd… you know… nah, just forget about it.'
Another long pause filled the room, broken only by the occasional pop from the fire. Eventually, Kehrsyn started flexing her fingers and toes to get her circulation going again. She stretched her arms and legs, exhaled wearily, and lay still again.
'If you're ready,' Demok said, 'he's waiting.'
Ekur's body sagged on the tabletop. He had been thoroughly searched. His clothes were undone and his pockets turned out, revealing rather more of his pallid, cyanotic flesh than Kehrsyn would ever have cared to see. The bulbous way the flesh oozed over the wooden tabletop reminded Kehrsyn of the toad squatting atop Eileph's bald head.
A cone of clove incense smoked on Ekur's forehead, planted in the precise center of the two concentric rings that marked him as a man of letters. A shiny copper covered each eye. A deep stabbing wound in Ekur's belly lay open like a rancid mouth, the skin around the cut pulled akimbo by the inert weight of his bulk. Massedar moved carefully around the corpse, inspecting it. Kehrsyn winced and turned her head.
'Why are you keeping him here?' she whispered.
'Soon shall his secrets be mine,' said Massedar. 'I wished your presence-both of ye-that ye might witness the gravity herein and as well catch any nuance that lieth outside my ken. Silence, now, and attend ye.'
Kehrsyn stepped back. She held her arms across her chest, with one hand on her cheek as if it might shield her. She chewed on the inside of her lip. Demok stood to one side, hands crossed placidly in front of him.
Massedar crossed over to a large cupboard rather like a wardrobe, but when he opened it Kehrsyn saw it was a vast apothecary filled with alchemical preparations, raw materials, and unknown magical mixtures. His hand swayed like a cobra as he searched his supplies, then snatched an earthenware jar the size and shape of a soup bowl.
He pushed his fingers through the wax sealing the top of the bowl as he walked over to Ekur. Kehrsyn saw that the bowl was filled with a balm of a pale, disquieting shade of green. Massedar scooped the balm out by the fingerfuls and smeared swaths of it on the inside of Ekur's forearms, at the hollows of his knees, at the base of the breastbone, and across the bottom of his jaw. The scent of myrrh flooded the room, overpowering the incense, and tendrils of green started to spread beneath Ekur's skin, following the veins like blood poisoning. It was hideous to watch but also fascinating.
Massedar set the salve casually on the table and stalked back to his library of concoctions. He pulled out two flasks, one small and made of dark glass, the other large and formed of cut crystal. He slid the smaller flask into a pocket and removed the stopper from the larger, crystal flagon. He drizzled the contents over Ekur's body, starting at the head and working his way down, until almost the entire corpse had been wetted. The liquid smoked and fumed with the smell of sulfur as it struck the skin, but Ekur's body appeared unchanged by whatever magical reaction was taking place. Finally, Massedar tilted Ekur's head back and poured some of the concoction into his nostrils. That done, he set the bottle down on the table next to the balm and elevated Ekur's shoulders a little bit, letting his head sag backward. Kehrsyn figured that would help some of the strange potion to drain down Ekur's throat without being blocked by his dead tongue.
Massedar returned the corpse to its original position. Then, his outstretched hands gripping the edge of the table, he leaned low to Ekur's ear.
'Ekur,' he said.
The body did not move.
'Ekur of Shussel, answer thou me,' he commanded.
Kehrsyn shuddered and closed her eyes as she saw the corpse's mouth move. It made no noise other than the wet, sucking sound of an unattended tongue flopping around in a dead mouth. She realized that, after the nightmare of two days past, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes closed. Instead, she opened them and stared at the ground, shielding her eyes from the abomination taking place on the table.
'Thou must inhale,' said Massedar.
There followed a guttural, empty, choking sound of air being pulled past dead flesh.
'What is thy wish, my lord?' asked Ekur, in a sighing, falling, monotonous voice, his diction listless and slurred.
The remaining air exited the fat, dead lungs like a death rattle.
Kehrsyn heard a cork pop. She cast a quick glance up and saw that Massedar was pouring some of the contents of the small glass bottle into Ekur's slack jaw.
'Swallow thou that,' said Massedar, 'that thou mayest speak only the truth.'
The body swallowed it noisily, open-mouthed. Kehrsyn looked away, gooseflesh crawling over her like a million scarab beetles.
'Thou hast conspired to betray me, Ekur of Shussel. What is thy goal?'
The body inhaled again, a horrid sound that made Kehrsyn wince and curl her lip in disgust.
Again, the slurred voice came in a hollow, even-paced decrescendo, saying, 'Thou art weak in the face of Bane… Bane shall take this land from the dead hand of Gilgeam and drive the-' the body inhaled again, slowly, noisily- 'Mulhorandi back to the River of Swords… Unther shall rise, and I shall lead them to glory against the pharaoh.'
Again the lungs rattled their way to emptiness.
'With whom hast thou conspired? Speak!' said Massedar, the anger in his voice was palpable.
'We schemed with Tiamat and Furifax to steal the Alabaster Staff…' said the airy, dead voice, 'then we turned one pawn against the other… I-' another hideous snoring inhalation-'will use the staff to raise an army of undead and defeat the Mulhorandi forces… their own dead shall rise to-' the wet noise of flaccid inhalation sounded yet again-'serve me… and I shall rule this empire for our new lord god Bane… thy devotion to-'
'Enough!' barked Massedar.
His explanation aborted, Ekur let the rest of his air escape his cold lungs.
Massedar scowled at Ekur's body, drumming his fingers on the side of the table and thinking. Kehrsyn realized that she was unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for Ekur to breathe again. The silence was unnerving. She glanced up, freakishly hoping to see Ekur's chest rising and falling, so that she'd feel less awkward about breathing herself. Instead, she saw the green striations beneath his skin starting to fade and suspected that Massedar had little time left for his grisly interrogation.
'Where lieth the Alabaster Staff?'
