At first I thought I was going to be allowed to stay out in the courtyard, away from ritually slain bodies and cursed jewels, but Wyln and Laurel moved quickly to join Jusson and Dyfrig, taking me with them. We crowded behind the king and doyen, earning a side glance from Thadro and an indignant shout from the mayor. Gawell gave another shout as Jeff pushed the mayor out of the way to take his place at my back. But Jusson stopped at the earth and fire warding lines drawn across the door, all of us piling up behind him.
“A moment, honored king,” Laurel said. Reaching past Jusson, he touched a shimmering earth line, and it grew brighter before forming into another sphere, slowly spinning with whorls of browns and greens, the scent of fall grasses and ripe fruit filling the air. I glanced at the earth sphere at my shoulder, suddenly remembering that it too was Laurel’s. I also remembered how quickly the cat had found us at the abandoned warehouse.
“Rabbit,” Laurel said, cutting into my suspicious speculations.
I touched one of the lines of fire and it grew hot before shooting out, a stream of flame merging with the fire sphere hovering at my shoulder. That one at least was mine.
All obstacles gone, Thadro slipped in front of Jusson and looked inside. Seeing nothing alarming, he went in and was immediately followed by the king, both angling their bodies to get through the door. Once inside, Jusson paused to look down. “Well, that explains why the door wouldn’t open.” He then moved further into the charnel house to allow the rest of us to enter.
The room was wrecked. The shroud that had been neatly draped over Menck’s body was tossed on the floor. As were the privy-infested clothes. The bowl Laurel had used to wash up after his examination of the corpse had been shattered against the wall, and even the burnt torch shafts had been pulled from their brackets and lay about, broken in pieces. And mixed in with the havoc were the coins and jewels, all seeming to pulse with malignancy.
But there was no body. At least, there was no body on the slab where we’d left it. I looked down and saw a bare foot sticking out from behind the door. As I watched, someone brushed against the door and the foot moved. I backed away, barely avoiding treading on a dully gleaming coin.
Laurel and Wyln also stepped carefully as they went to the stone slab where Menck’s body had lain the night before, the warding lines of fire and earth that Laurel and I had drawn around the slab gone. However, there were thin scorch lines on the edge of the stone, while the top glistened in the weak light coming through the windows’ grilles as if it were wet. I peered at it. Not water. Ice.
“The wards failed,” Wyln murmured, staring down at the scorch marks. “Strong lines of fire and earth and they failed. It is good that you warded outside too.”
Laurel growled low in agreement and lifted his head, once more scenting. In the air were the pungent smells I recognized from last night, but overlaying them was a new one. I frowned, trying to place it. Then my frown cleared and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. It was the odor of burnt flesh.
“Laurel was right,” Jeff whispered to me, his eyes wide as he stared around. “It wasn’t like this last night.” He started to shift, looked down to see a diamond sparkling by his foot, and drew back.
“Desecration,” Dyfrig said, his mouth a flat line. “What have you brought here, Your Majesty? What have you unleashed on my people?”
“I have already had this discussion, Doyen,” Jusson said. “My kingdom, my town, my people—the quick and the dead.”
“I have two and eighty years,” Dyfrig said, “sixty-seven of them in the church here in Freston. Your visit is the first hint of royal interest that I’ve seen. Never before. Not even five years ago when your close cousin arrived in that dumping place they call a garrison.”
I’d been watching Laurel as he examined the slab, but at Dyfrig’s words, I looked at the doyen. “But I didn’t want any interest, Your Reverence,” I said, “and I liked being at the garrison.”
“You did?” Dyfrig’s white brows were pulled together, forming a thick bar. “Even when that cancer Slevoic showed up?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “Well, you’re not at the garrison now, are you? And you’re certainly not the plain soldier you once were.” He flung a hand out at me. “Look at him, Your Majesty! He once was as normal as any boy his age. Look at what came back, returning with the same magical that took him. Flames, feathers, braids, trailing destruction in his wake! And look at this!” His hand encompassed the room. “A murder where there hasn’t been any for years, dishonoring the dead, and a vileness that reeks—”
“Rabbit, why do you look like that?” Jusson asked, cutting across Dyfrig’s diatribe.
I stared at the king a moment, then my mouth quirked in comprehension. “Because I’m mage-born, Your Majesty.”
“I know that,” Dyfrig snapped.
“Do you?” Jusson asked. “Do you know? And knowing, do you understand?” Reaching up, he pushed back his hair and suddenly his face was alien, with nothing human about it. Dyfrig’s two clerks’ eyes grew wide while, beside me, Wyln made a humming sound.
“We are changed, Your Reverence,” the king said, his own eyes full of gold. “Not changing, not going to change, not perhaps will change. Changed. Right here, right now.”
Dyfrig let out a breath. “So you say.”
“I do say. As does His Holiness the Patriarch. As does the evidence right before your eyes. Rabbit is what he always has been, a powerful mage, no matter his looks and the damned feather. Just as I am who I’ve always been.” Jusson let his hair fall again. “Not pay attention to Freston? It has been constantly on my mind my entire reign. I sent Prince Suiden here when he came to me for sanctuary from his tyrant of an uncle, the Amir of Tural. When Rabbit fled his corrupt master, I posted him here under the care of Suiden.” The king saw my surprise. “You didn’t think I knew, cousin? The Qarant spread word about Magus Kareste’s missing apprentice long before the Magus sent me the message last spring asking for you back.”
“Yes, sire,” I said, my heart thumping at how far and wide Kareste had looked for me—and at how exposed my hiding place had been.
“I sent both Suiden and Rabbit here,” Jusson said, “because it was the safest place I had. But as we have changed, so have others. Do not accuse me of bringing evil to Freston. It was here waiting for us.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Dyfrig said. “It was not.” He hit his staff end on the floor, the bells jangling. “We do not have this in us. Not this evilness, this defilement.”
“Already waiting,” Jusson said. “Beginning with the head jailer, Menck, and his larcenous, rapacious soul. Cancer? He was a man who made a habit of beating, robbing and despoiling with impunity. With impunity, Doyen. You tell me to look. You look.” Jusson pointed at the floor. “Where do you think that came from? A fortune in coins and jewels, sewn into his clothes.”
Dyfrig became still. “What?”
“You snort and rear up at Rabbit’s natural talent,” Jusson said. “Yet you winked at Master Menck’s prolonged crime spree. And this is just what lies on the surface. It makes me wonder what I’d find if I dig a little.”
Dyfrig looked down at the gold and jewels glittering among the debris on the floor. “Menck had this?” He suddenly swayed, the fight draining out of him. Concerned, I went to his side and, beating his two clerks, took his arm to steady him. His bones felt fragile under my hand.
“A fortune that made two very wealthy lords of the realm sit up and take notice, somehow in the possession of a lowly jailer in a back-mountain trade town,” Jusson said. He took in Dyfrig’s pallor. “Shocked, Doyen? Or worried?”
“I—” Dyfrig looked at Chadde. “Does Gawell know?”