“Is it coming back?” inquired Kerim in a suspiciously mild tone.
Sham shook her head, but there wasn’t a lot of assurance in her voice as she said, “I don’t think so. I’ll go get Dickon.”
“No, wait,” said Kerim. “I think ... I need an explanation of this night’s events before you go. I feel like I have been thrown blindfolded into a pack of wolves. You might start with what it was you did to me that allowed me use of my legs.”
Sham sank wearily to the floor opposite Kerim’s position. “I think I need to ask you a few questions before I understand enough of it to tell you what’s happened.”
He inclined his head, managing to look regal in spite of being clothed only in sweat and the light cotton knee-length trousers that served as Cybellian undergarments. He wouldn’t have been wearing that much if the trousers had been rune-marked like his robe.
“Something amuses you?” asked Kerim.
Hastily Sham rearranged her face and cleared her throat. “When exactly did your back begin bothering you?”
His eyebrows rose briefly at her question, but he answered her without hesitation. “I was traveling and my horse slipped off a bank while we were crossing a river. I wrenched my back. Perhaps eight or nine months ago.”
“Talbot told me that it has gotten worse in fits and starts, not a steady progression.”
Kerim nodded. “I have a bad spell, like tonight’s, and when it’s over I’m worse than before. The muscles in my back ache constantly with occasional shooting pangs. My legs are ...” he paused and for an instant there was a wild hope in his face that he quickly repressed. “My legs were numb from mid-thigh on down. It felt like they were encased in ice. I was cold all the time.” He looked at Sham intensely. “I didn’t realize how cold until now.”
“Now that it’s gone,” commented Sham with the dawn of an impish grin.
“Now that it’s gone,” he agreed hoarsely. He closed his eyes and swallowed, clenching his hands.
She took pity on him and, looking away, she began to piece together the story out loud. “Somehow, you must have attracted the demon’s attention. I don’t know why it chose to attack you differently than the other victims, or what it was gaining from you, but I can tell you that the demon caused your disability.”
“How can you be certain?”
Shamera glanced at the Reeve and saw that he was still fighting not to hope too much.
She sighed loudly. “I suppose, since you are a Cybellian—” she let her tongue linger over the term as if it were an insult of the highest order, much the same way Kerim habitually said “magic” “—I shall have to begin with a basic lesson on magic. I generally use rune magic rather than casting by voice, gesture, and component. The runes are more subtle and they last longer.”
There was a bare hint of amusement in Kerim’s voice when he interrupted her, “What is a rune?”
Sham sighed a second time and began to speak very slowly, as one might to someone who was very young and uninformed. “Runes are ...” She stopped and swore. “I’m going to have to go simpler than that. I always knew that there was a reason that wizards don’t talk about magic to nonwizards ... hmmm. Magic is a force in the world—like the sun or the wind. There are two ways a mage can harness the magic: spellcasting or runes. Spellcasting uses hand gestures, voice commands, and material components to shape the magic. As a mage gets better he can reduce what he uses.”
“And a rune is?”
“Runes are patterns that do the same thing. They take skill, precision, and time, but last longer than spells. Unless a limit is placed upon them, runes will absorb magic from other sources so that the ending spell is more powerful than it started out to be unless the rune is triggered. When you were hurting, I drew the rune of health on your back. It showed me that there was another rune already there. The demon managed somehow to bind you to it. I broke that rune, but there was another on your robe and a focus rune on your chair.”
Kerim rubbed his temples. “What is a focus rune?”
“Wizards cannot cast magic over long distances without aid. Some mages use an animal that is connected to them—a familiar. But the more common means is the use of a focus rune, a wizard’s mark. It allows the wizard to work magic someplace without being there. Both the rune and the familiar are dangerous to use, because their destruction hurts the spellcaster.”
“So you hurt the demon, and it sent my brother.”
Tiredly she shifted her weight off of one bruise and onto another one. “The demon probably sent the golem when it sensed that I was meddling with the rune on your back. As it happens, my talents lay in the making and unmaking of runes, so I was able to destroy the rune before the golem came.”
Kerim swallowed, but he didn’t ask the question that was on his face; instead he said, “Is it dead?”
“The golem? It was never alive, remember? I suspect it’s still functioning—otherwise the demon would never have risked transporting it out of this room.”
Kerim’s eyes closed again; his mouth was set in grim lines and his hands lay forcibly lax on the ground as he said quietly, “I can feel my feet for the first time in months, and the coldness is gone. But I still don’t have much control over my legs, and I still ache. Am I going to get worse again?”
Sham rubbed weary hands over her eyes like a tired child, then managed to find the magic to cast a quick spell that would allow her to see any magical ties that still bound Kerim to the demon.
“It has no hold on you now,” she said finally. “Tomorrow I’ll clear your rooms of its meddling. Until then you should find someplace else to sleep. As for the rest ...” she shrugged, “I am no healer, but I’d be surprised if you were able to get up and walk right now. I am absolutely amazed that you were able to attack the golem. You should know as well as I that lying around waiting for a wound to heal is almost as incapacitating as the wound itself.”
Kerim nodded once, abruptly. “Lady, would you get Dickon and send him for Talbot? There is much to be done tonight—and I think the four of us need to develop a plan of action.”
Sham nodded and struggled to her feet. She started for the door, but belatedly remembered she was still in her nightgown. Snagging the tick off the floor where she’d left it, she wrapped it around her like a robe before leaving the room.
As she trotted through the hall it occurred to her that Dickon could be the demon. He was very much at home in the Castle. Hadn’t he been one of the ones that Kerim had said did not worship Altis? She stopped in front of his door, and hesitated before knocking.
The hall floor fell cold on the soles of bare feet, and Sham shivered. Deciding that she would drive herself insane trying to discover who the demon was if she resorted to random guessing, she forced herself to knock on the door. Wearing a dressing robe. Dickon opened his door soon after the first knock.
“Lady?” he asked politely, giving no outward sign that it was unusual to be awoke at that hour by a woman splattered liberally with blood and wearing a rather large bed-tick.
Sham drew the thick covering tighter, as if that would warm her feet or ward away demons. “Lord Kerim wants you to collect Talbot from his lodgings and come with him to the Reeve’s private chambers.”
“Is something wrong?” asked Dickon, losing some of his professional demeanor.
She shook her head, “Not at the moment. But ... you might bring a bedrobe for Kerim.”
Dickon looked at her face closely a moment, before nodding and closing the door, presumably to dress.
When Sham entered the Reeve’s chambers again, Kerim had managed to pull himself into a chair. Balancing his chin on his fists, he looked up when she came in.