Elaine reached out to touch it. No one stopped her. The scales were slick, almost sharp on the ends. They covered the entire area she had healed on his arm.
Randwulf struggled to unlace his own sleeves. His skin was smooth, unblemished. His sigh of relief was loud in the silence.
"Let me see your neck," Silvanus said.
Randwulf's eyes widened. He turned, hands tight at his sides, as if he wanted to reach up and touch his neck, but was afraid to.
Silvanus brushed his hair out of the way, tucked the collar back, and hissed. There was something growing out of the top of his spine. It looked for all the world like a tiny human figure-perfect in every detail, but small enough to fit in Elaine's palm. As they watched, it opened pin-sized eyes and looked at them.
Elaine screamed, backing away.
"What is it?" Randwulf asked, fear raw in his voice.
"A growth," Silvanus said. No one corrected him. No one wanted to say it out loud.
Silvanus stared down at the stump of his arm. He untied the sleeve. "Help me," he said. Fredric cut open the sleeve with his dagger. It was an arm just below the elbow, golden skinned and whole, but its end was black and wormlike. The underside of it was white as a fish's belly, with huge suckers on it.
"What's on the back of my neck?" Randwulf asked. "Tell me."
There was a tiny wailing sound. A thin, high-pitched screaming. Randwulf turned this way and that, trying to see what was behind him. The growth's miniature mouth was open and screaming.
Randwulf started grabbing at it, tearing at it. A minute arm fell to the ground; blood sprayed in a threadlike stream. The arm crawled and flopped. Randwulf was staring at it, mouth wide, screaming silently.
"Cut it off," Silvanus's voice brought them all back from the brink of utter madness. "Cut off the thing," he said to Fredric, pointing to his malformed arm. The paladin slashed at the tentacle. Blood poured onto the floor, green and thick, not human at all.
Randwulf dropped beside the blood, clawing and tearing at the thing on his neck. The tentacle flopped and slapped at Fredric.
Elaine broke. She flung the door open and ran down the empty hallway. The sheriff waited at the bottom of the steps. He looked up. "Are they ready for us?"
Elaine pushed past him and ran for the outer door. One thought ran through her head: Jonathan was right! Jonathan was right! She was corrupt. She was worse than corrupt.
Elaine ran out into the street, ran into the winter cold and welcomed it. She didn't know where she was going, just away. Away from that room and what she had done. The memory of how good it had felt to do all the healing. Even raising Averil to be a thing of pain had felt good. And some small part of her had wanted to touch the little figure, caress it, enjoy it. To touch the thing growing out of Silvanus's body. She forced herself to be horrified, but in truth she was attracted to all of it. Some part of her would have enjoyed it all, if she had allowed it.
It was that, that more than anything else that sent her running down the street. Part of her wanted to be back in that room playing with the things she had created.
TWENTY-NINE
Gersalius stood over the grave, flame pouring from his hands. They had dumped oil over the dirt so Gersalius's fire would reach far into the melting ground. Beneath the blast of flame, the frozen earth had softened enough that Thordin and Konrad could begin to dig. Each time they reached frozen ground again, the mage sent more fire into the grave.
Jonathan objected to this blatant use of magic, but he was out-voted. And there was no time. It was early afternoon. Darkness would fall in a few hours.
Gersalius lowered his hands. Flame licked up through the dirt here and there as the oil burned away. When the fire had died completely, Konrad leapt into the nearly empty grave. He plunged the shovel into the softened earth. The blade grated on something more solid than soil.
"I think we've struck coffin," Konrad said. He dropped to hands and knees in the hole, scraping dirt away with his hands. Thordin lowered himself into the grave and began working at the other end. A coffin did appear, but it was rotted. The wood splintered at Konrad's touch, flaking away in long strips. Thordin brushed the dirt away as carefully as he could. A narrow coffin was revealed.
The foot of the box was completely crushed from rot and the weight of earth. Jonathan peered down into the grave. The sunlight beat down, making the snow sparkle and showed bones and the remains of a patterned dress.
Thordin raised his hand, and Jonathan took it, helping the warrior out of the grave. There wasn't enough room for both of them with the coffin to be opened.
Konrad tried to raise the lid, but the wood shattered in his hands. He finally just started tearing great pieces up and handing them to Thordin, who placed the wood carefully on the ground. The body was mostly bones, with some hair attached to the skull. The dress had been some fine cloth. Fine cloth does not weather well in the damp and mildew of the grave. The cloth was thick with wet-looking mold.
"Why would the undertaker's wife not have risen from the grave?" Thordin asked.
"Better, perhaps, to ask why the spell that raises the dead begins in her grave," Gersalius said.
"Do you know something, wizard?" Jonathan asked.
Gersalius shrugged. "Only guesses, and I see from your face that you may have the same thoughts."
"We need to speak with the undertaker; that I know." Jonathan stared down into the ruined grave. "Where is the sack I had you bring, Thordin?"
"Here." He raised a large burlap sack from the snowy ground.
"Konrad, start handing up the bones."
"Jonathan, we've desecrated the grave enough."
"My theory was that someone was doing all this to make a better zombie. What if that were only part of the reason. What if Ashe wanted to raise his wife from the dead, not as a zombie, but as something more. Elaine told of very lifelike zombies. The townsfolk say that the people who died early are normal zombies, rotting corpses, but the later deaths are better preserved. Ashe is waiting until his spell is perfected; then he will raise his wife."
"But why take her body?" Konrad asked.
"We will use it as a hostage," Jonathan said.
Gersalius smiled. "You can't raise someone from the dead without a body to work on."
Jonathan nodded. "Exactly."
Konrad stared down at the skull with its scraggle of hair. "I can't approve of Ashe's methods, but I understand the desire. Beatrice's death killed me, too." He shook his head as if to clear away a bad dream.
"But Elaine awaits you back at the inn," Gersalius said.
Konrad looked up, startled. Then a slow smile spread across his face. He nodded. "Yes." In that one word, Jonathan heard an end to the long grieving. An end to bitterness.
Konrad began to hand up the bones, freeing them from the molded cloth. Thordin placed them in the sack. The bones made a dry sound as they slithered against one another.
*****
Harkon Lukas sat just down the hill, listening. He had grown cold in the snow. The weak winter sunlight was not quite enough to warm him. They had discovered Ashe's secret much faster than he had wanted them to. He had not counted on the magic-user. Ambrose had such a reputation for hating magic. It had surprised him.
Harkon did not like being surprised. If they questioned Ashe, he might reveal that it was Harkon who had given him the idea for the poison and the spell, Harkon who had whispered in the undertaker's ear that he might raise his wife back to life, Harkon who had broken his mind with talk of rotting corpses and his beloved wife as so much meat for the worms.
He could not afford to have Ashe tell all. He was Harkon Lukas, a bard of some reputation, but not a known force of evil. To have the brotherhood know him for what he was would spoil everything.