Death of a Darklord

Konrad frowned at him, his green eyes filling with anger. 'I think that is not a question for idle curiosity, bard.'

Harkon gave a small bow, graceful but not quite as sweeping as before. 'You are quite right, Master Burn. I am a bard, and idle curiosity is a hazard of my profession.' Still half bent over, he looked up at Konrad. 'Of course if I am to sing of this deed, to immortalize her bravery, I need to know the facts.' He straightened and found himself distressingly taller than Konrad Burn. He was a tall man and didn't like giving it up, but nothing was perfect.

Harkon forced himself to smile. 'So perhaps my curiosity is not completely idle.'

Konrad shook his head. 'I do not believe you intend to write some great epic. I think you are just a vulture eager to hear of other people's sorrows.'

Konrad pushed past him.

'Ah, yes, you have your own more personal loss to mourn, do you not?'

Konrad stopped on the stairs, back straightening. He turned slowly to look upward at the smiling bard. The rage on his face was murderous. It made Harkon's smile widen.

'My loss, my grief is my own business. It is certainly none of yours.'

'Forgive me, please. I speak without thinking. It is a terrible fault of mine.'

Konrad came up two steps, then stopped. His hand that gripped the banister trembled, white-knuckled. He wanted to rush up the stairs and attack the bard.

Harkon toyed with saying that one last thing that would push the man over the edge of his anger. He had to force himself to stand still, not to widen his smile farther. Even that might have been enough to bring Konrad up those last few steps. It would have been delicious, ironic, but he might have been forced to hurt his future body. That would be self-defeating. He let it go. The hardest thing was to keep the knowledge from his eyes, the surety that he could kill this man if he wanted to.

The pride and confidence in Burn's face, his stance, said clearly that even that one look would have been enough to cause a fight. His future body had quite a temper.

'A loose tongue can get a person killed,' Konrad said.

Harkon fought to keep his face pleasant and blank. The man wanted to fight. His grief had translated into anger, and he wanted a target for that anger.

Harkon hoped to witness when that rage found its target, but he could not afford to be that target. He might have to keep a closer eye on Konrad. If the man got himself killed before Harkon could switch bodies, that would spoil all his plans.

'I most humbly beg your pardon, Master Burn. Please believe me when I say you have my deepest sympathies.'

'You speak of things that you know nothing about, bard. I won't believe they are dead, not yet.'

'I am sure you are right to be hopeful. Some kind soul might have opened a door, as I opened the door for you.'

Konrad suddenly looked embarrassed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'I have not thanked you for saving our lives.'

Harkon waved it away. 'Master Ambrose thanked me for you all.'

Konrad shook his head. 'No, we would all be dead now if not for your bravery.' The words seemed to stick in his throat.

Harkon narrowed his eyes, studying the man. Did he know something as well? Were all his carefully laid plans known by his adversaries? Had Calum Songmaster had a change of heart? Had Harkon been betrayed? If Calum would betray his bosom friends, why not betray Harkon? Because he, too, wanted a new body. Harkon had thought that the offer of escape would insure Calum's loyalty, but there was dislike in Konrad's face. He had saved the man's life. Why would he dislike him?

'Truly, it was nothing.'

'Modesty does not sit well on you, bard.'

Harkon had to smile. 'It is not my natural habit.'

'How long have you been in Cortton?'

The change of subject caught Harkon off guard. He smiled to hide it. 'I came only recently, a day ago.'

'The innkeeper says you were here for some weeks, then left after the dead began to walk. You knew what the town was like, how dangerous it was. Why did you come back?'

'I am a bard. I sing of great deeds, or great tragedies. I could spend my life singing other people's ballads, but the best songs, the ones that make a reputation, are those you write yourself.'

'So you came back for a song,' Konrad said.

'Yes.'

'Is that worth risking your life?'

'Yes.'

Konrad shook his head. 'You sell your life cheaply, Lukas.' He turned and clattered down the stairs.

Harkon watched him go, thoughtful. He had planned to make this a great game, to destroy everyone Konrad loved before he took him. It was part of the reason for the undead plague. Now, perhaps he should simply take the man and leave the others to clean up the mess he had made. Yet, if Ambrose suspected Harkon of being what he truly was, he could not leave Ambrose alive.

They had to die, all of them, as he had originally planned. Perhaps just quicker. It wouldn't be as much fun, but then, occasionally business had to come before pleasure.

TWENTY-FOUR

Blaine lay on the snowy street. His long yellow hair spilled out around his face like pale water. His cloak was bunched underneath his body, the white fur black with soaked blood. One leg had been bent at a painful angle, trapped under his body. Blood had poured from his mouth and nose, painting the lower half of his face black.

Elaine knelt by his lifeless body. The key to the door had been on the attic floor. It had glinted up at her from the patch of moonlight. The deadman had dropped it while killing Blaine. How she would have gotten outside without the key, Elaine didn't know.

Now, she sat by his body, watching his blood leak into the fur of his cloak. A line of blood trickled from the fur to snake through the snow like a dark river trailing the finger of a god. Elaine screamed and tore at the snow, scattering it. The blood trickled down to pool in the frozen street. There was nothing she could do to stop it.

Or maybe there was something. She had seen Sil-vanus raise the dead, felt him do it. Could she do it now?

Elaine reached out and touched his face. The skin was still warm. He was barely dead, so close to being alive. Could she bring him back? Jonathan had told stories of sorcerers that raised zombies. If she did it wrong, would Blaine come back as a walking corpse? That was worse than death, but Elaine had to try. She would wonder forever if she didn't.

She gazed at Elaine's wide, staring eyes, looking at the sky but seeing nothing. Snowflakes fell on his upturned face. They melted on his eyelashes, making tiny dots of moisture on his cheeks, like tears.

Elaine took a deep breath and tried to gather what she had learned from Silvanus, tried to imagine how to raise her brother back to life. It wasn't like healing a wound, was it?

A sound behind her made her whirl, half-falling into the snow. Two zombies stood at the mouth of the nearest cross street. One wove back and forth as if drunk. It took a step forward and legs collapsed. When it tried to stand, one leg slid out of its tunic and lay twitching on the ground. The zombie balanced on the remaining leg as if this had happened before.

A puff of snow fell from the opposite roof. She looked up and found a man-shape silhouetted against the moonlight. It leapt downward, almost seeming to float, hands and legs wide as if for balance. It landed with a thump on the snow and scuttled backward into the deeper shadows that hugged the houses.

The thing seemed almost to glow with a white leprous light, the tint of night-growing fungi. It crouched in the shadows. It looked like a naked man, but wasn't. It raised its face and looked at her. Its eyes glowed like black fire, sparking with an eternal flame that had nothing to do with moonlight.

It opened its mouth and hissed.

Elaine rose slowly to her feet. At the end of the street, the dead were gathering, but just as the other