Dragon Blood (Hurog #2)(66)

I could see the man quite clearly as he stepped into the room. I don't know what I expected, Jade Eyes, or Arten, or even one of the lesser court wizards - not Jakoven, surely. But it was none of them.

Instead I saw a man, neither large nor short, clad in rags and boots that were more hole than leather. The air that blew in was chill, but he seemed not to feel the cold. He walked hunched over and he moved strangely: not loose-limbed like a drunkard, nor with the clumsiness of exhaustion, but near to both. His skin, where it showed through the rags, was mottled dark with bruises, frostbite, or maybe dirt; but the dark patches seemed to grow as he drew closer. For he looked neither right nor left as he shuffled down the aisle toward me.

I didn't recognize him.

"Can I help you?" I said at the same time Garranon pushed around me and took several steps forward.

"Valsilva? What are you doing here?"

Once Garranon used his name, I could see that the shuffling figure was indeed Jakoven's stable master, but so changed from the jolly man I'd met that he could have been a different species. Abruptly I remembered dreaming of Jakoven calling for the stable master who had let Garranon ride out of the castle with my brother.

I caught Garranon's shoulder when he would have continued forward. "Wait," I said. "There's something wrong."

Other people started feeling the wrongness, too. The space around the stable master grew larger as he continued up the walkway toward Garranon and me. Something fell from his hand and rolled into a brightly lit area so I could see clearly it was a finger. Someone swore.

I pulled Garranon back a few steps.

"Valsilva? What do you want?" asked Garranon.

It stopped where it was, close enough for me to see its face clearly. The dark spots weren't dirt or even bruises, but rotting flesh, the smell of which began to seep from the body into the air of the hall. I heard someone gag.

"Garranon," it said clearly.

Garranon's shoulder stiffened further under my hand because he heard it, too. I don't know that I would have recognized the voice of the king's stable master, but I would recognize the voice it now used anywhere.

"Jakoven," Garranon replied steadily.

I caught sight of Tisala, someone's sword in her hand (she hadn't been wearing one), stalking around behind the thing. Her sword looked more useful than the ceremonial short sword I held.

The body of the stable master shook its head dolefully, and as I watched, the rot began to spread across its left cheek. "Twenty years, Garranon. I gave you twenty years and you betray me."

I watched its eyes carefully. It saw only Garranon. I doubted if Jakoven even knew where his creature was.

"Yes," agreed Garranon.

The thing began shuffling forward again, saying, "See what happens to those who betray me? See what you have done to this man?"

Before it could touch Garranon, I threw up a shield of magic. After seeing the trick with the door, I shouldn't have been taken by surprise at what happened - though in my defense, watching the accelerated rotting of the stable master was distracting me.

The pulse of magic that hit my shield was stronger than anything Oreg had ever hit me with. Red sparks flew up and ignited small fires on the great timbers that arched three stories over our heads. Tankards of alcohol burst into flame around us, lighting the hall as if it were daylight.

I cried out with the flash of pain it caused and lost hold on my spell. But Tisala ran the creature through with her sword and knocked it off balance, so it stopped short of Garranon. Instead, it stumbled to its knees and gasped in pain.

She'd struck right through the spine, but it began pulling itself toward Garranon anyway. Tisala jerked her sword free for another try, but stopped when it began speaking again.

"I'm all right," it said in another voice that must have been the stable master's own. "I'm just very hungry. I'll eat and be just fine." As it talked, great clumps of hair fell off with bits of scalp still clinging to it.

I tugged Garranon back onto the dais because he stood frozen in horror or guilt. I could feel that breaking my shield changed something, with the creature. The magic that held it wasn't quite as focused. It stopped to eat a crust of bread that lay in its path. Crumbs fell like snowflakes out the sides of its face where the muscles of the jaw had rotted away. If I lived to see this finished, I'd have other things to dream of than the Asylum.

"Stay back," commanded Oreg from the far side of the room, near the open doorway, and the men who'd drawn their weapons as Tisala attacked halted where they were. "If you touch it, your flesh may well rot way as quickly as his is. Let Ward and me deal with it."

"What is it?" I asked Oreg, but it was Orvidin who answered, his face gray and drawn.

"A golem," he said, spitting on the floor to ward off evil spirits, a habit that leads the Oranstonians to call us Shavig barbarians. "I haven't seen one of these since my father offended the Acholynn in Avinhelle, and I hoped to never see another."

"Perhaps," said Oreg, who'd circled the thing and took his place beside me, staring all the while at the remains of the stable master, which finally finished the food on the floor and started to slither forward with legs dragging behind it.

"Garranon?" The thing sounded bewildered, but its advance was steady, if slow. "The king said I shouldn't have let you go. Did I do wrong?"