The Alabaster Staff (34 page)

Ekur’s body sagged on the tabletop. He had been thoroughly searched. His clothes were undone and his pockets turned out, revealing rather more of his pallid, cyanotic flesh than Kehrsyn would ever have cared to see. The bulbous way the flesh oozed over the wooden tabletop reminded Kehrsyn of the toad squatting atop Eileph’s bald head.

A cone of clove incense smoked on Ekur’s forehead, planted in the precise center of the two concentric rings that marked him as a man of letters. A shiny copper covered each eye. A deep stabbing wound in Ekur’s belly lay open like a rancid mouth, the skin around the cut pulled akimbo by the inert weight of his bulk. Massedar moved carefully around the corpse, inspecting it. Kehrsyn winced and turned her head.

“Why are you keeping him here?” she whispered.

“Soon shall his secrets be mine,” said Massedar. “I wished your presence—both of ye—that ye might witness the gravity herein and as well catch any nuance that lieth outside my ken. Silence, now, and attend ye.”

Kehrsyn stepped back. She held her arms across her chest, with one hand on her cheek as if it might shield her. She chewed on the inside of her lip. Demok stood to one side, hands crossed placidly in front of him.

Massedar crossed over to a large cupboard rather like a wardrobe, but when he opened it Kehrsyn saw it was a vast apothecary filled with alchemical preparations, raw materials, and unknown magical mixtures. His hand swayed like a cobra as he searched his supplies, then snatched an earthenware jar the size and shape of a soup bowl.

He pushed his fingers through the wax sealing the top of the bowl as he walked over to Ekur. Kehrsyn saw that the bowl was filled with a balm of a pale, disquieting shade of green. Massedar scooped the balm out by the fingersful
and smeared swaths of it on the inside of Ekur’s forearms, at the hollows of his knees, at the base of the breastbone, and across the bottom of his jaw. The scent of myrrh flooded the room, overpowering the incense, and tendrils of green started to spread beneath Ekur’s skin, following the veins like blood poisoning. It was hideous to watch but also fascinating.

Massedar set the salve casually on the table and stalked back to his library of concoctions. He pulled out two flasks, one small and made of dark glass, the other large and formed of cut crystal. He slid the smaller flask into a pocket and removed the stopper from the larger, crystal flagon. He drizzled the contents over Ekur’s body, starting at the head and working his way down, until almost the entire corpse had been wetted. The liquid smoked and fumed with the smell of sulfur as it struck the skin, but Ekur’s body appeared unchanged by whatever magical reaction was taking place. Finally, Massedar tilted Ekur’s head back and poured some of the concoction into his nostrils. That done, he set the bottle down on the table next to the balm and elevated Ekur’s shoulders a little bit, letting his head sag backward. Kehrsyn figured that would help some of the strange potion to drain down Ekur’s throat without being blocked by his dead tongue.

Massedar returned the corpse to its original position. Then, his outstretched hands gripping the edge of the table, he leaned low to Ekur’s ear.

“Ekur,” he said.

The body did not move.

“Ekur of Shussel, answer thou me,” he commanded.

Kehrsyn shuddered and closed her eyes as she saw the corpse’s mouth move. It made no noise other than the wet, sucking sound of an unattended tongue flopping around in a dead mouth. She realized that, after the nightmare of two days past, she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes closed. Instead, she opened them and stared at the
ground, shielding her eyes from the abomination taking place on the table.

“Thou must inhale,” said Massedar.

There followed a guttural, empty, choking sound of air being pulled past dead flesh.

“What is thy wish, my lord?” asked Ekur, in a sighing, falling, monotonous voice, his diction listless and slurred.

The remaining air exited the fat, dead lungs like a death rattle.

Kehrsyn heard a cork pop. She cast a quick glance up and saw that Massedar was pouring some of the contents of the small glass bottle into Ekur’s slack jaw.

“Swallow thou that,” said Massedar, “that thou mayest speak only the truth.”

The body swallowed it noisily, open-mouthed. Kehrsyn looked away, gooseflesh crawling over her like a million scarab beetles.

“Thou hast conspired to betray me, Ekur of Shussel. What is thy goal?”

The body inhaled again, a horrid sound that made Kehrsyn wince and curl her lip in disgust.

Again, the slurred voice came in a hollow, even-paced decrescendo, saying, “Thou art weak in the face of Bane … Bane shall take this land from the dead hand of Gilgeam and drive the—” the body inhaled again, slowly, noisily—“Mulhorandi back to the River of Swords … Unther shall rise, and I shall lead them to glory against the pharaoh.”

Again the lungs rattled their way to emptiness.

“With whom hast thou conspired? Speak!” said Massedar, the anger in his voice was palpable.

“We schemed with Tiamat and Furifax to steal the Alabaster Staff …” said the airy, dead voice, “then we turned one pawn against the other … I—” another hideous snoring inhalation—“will use the staff to raise an army of undead and defeat the Mulhorandi forces … their own dead shall rise to—” the wet noise of flaccid inhalation
sounded yet again—“serve me … and I shall rule this empire for our new lord god Bane … thy devotion to—”

“Enough!” barked Massedar.

His explanation aborted, Ekur let the rest of his air escape his cold lungs.

Massedar scowled at Ekur’s body, drumming his fingers on the side of the table and thinking. Kehrsyn realized that she was unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for Ekur to breathe again. The silence was unnerving. She glanced up, freakishly hoping to see Ekur’s chest rising and falling, so that she’d feel less awkward about breathing herself. Instead, she saw the green striations beneath his skin starting to fade and suspected that Massedar had little time left for his grisly interrogation.

“Where lieth the Alabaster Staff?”

With a fleshy, wet breath, Ekur said, “It was brought to the
Bow Before Me …
they sent it to a lair I know not of.”

Massedar twisted his lips in frustration. He clapped a hand over Ekur’s nose and mouth so that he couldn’t exhale. With a grimace, Kehrsyn turned her head away. She realized she was holding her breath again, in sympathy for the image of Ekur being suffocated, and she forced herself to breathe.

“How shall I find the Alabaster Staff and recover it?” Massedar asked, pulling his hand off Ekur’s face.

“Two days hence at midnight the—” he inhaled—“ritual begins, in the Deep Hall beneath the Temple of Gilgeam … it shall be there.”

“With all the Zhents,” muttered Demok.

The city of Messemprar was starting to stir in the predawn darkness when Demok and Kehrsyn finally entered the empty building on Wheelwright’s. They had slipped Kehrsyn out of Wing’s Reach without incident, and
the former guildhouse seemed the best place for the young woman to hole up until the appointed time.

Demok started a fire in the kitchen and unwrapped a stock of provisions. Kehrsyn tossed her cloak on the floor of the foyer, sat in a chair, and stared at the growing flames.

Once the food was heating, Demok opened up some windows to vent some of the smell that had accumulated in the building. The weather had eased off, loitering somewhere between a rain and a drizzle, though the air was no less cold.

They ate in silence as the first glimmers of the winter sun’s light filtered through the cloud cover. The heat from the fire fought the cold air from outside, but their breath and the food both steamed. Demok ate his food mechanically. Kehrsyn poked at hers and didn’t really eat until Demok leaned close and ordered her to.

Once it was clear that Kehrsyn was finished, Demok took her plate and flipped the food out the window. The extravagant waste would ensure that people thought the building was fully occupied.

He set the dishes aside and sat down next to Kehrsyn. He looked at her face as she stared into the fire.

“You all right?” he asked.

After a pause, Kehrsyn nodded.

“Hard to watch?”

Kehrsyn nodded again, exactly as she had a moment before.

“Thought you hated Ekur,” he pressed.

Kehrsyn bit her lip and drew in a trembling breath. “I do,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Demok leaned in closer to hear her over the fire.

“He killed my father,” she continued, “he tormented my mother, used her for pleasure. I’ve always hated him and I always will.”

A long pause.

“Go on,” said Demok.

Kehrsyn drew in another deep breath through her nose, and Demok noted that her trembling was diminishing.

“He’s an evil man,” she said, “and I’m glad he’s dead. I don’t mind that Massedar used his … used him like that. But it was an ugly thing to hear, and … I’m … I guess I’m just … put off that Massedar could do such horrid things with such a casual air.”

“Sometimes we must do tasteless things,” said Demok.

She glanced over at him. He dropped his eyes.

“I guess he did what he had to,” continued Kehrsyn after a moment’s reflection. “And now we know what’s been going on.”

Demok nodded. They sat in silence for a while, and Demok tended to the fire. Finally, he stood up and leaned against the wall, facing Kehrsyn.

“Ever know your father?” he asked.

Kehrsyn shook her head, regret and longing marring her features.

“No,” she said, “I didn’t. Ekur killed him about a year before I was born. All I’ve ever seen of him is the rock that marks his grave. It’s just a rock. Doesn’t even have his name on it. Just the pollen stains of countless wildflowers.”

“Come again?” said Demok.

“A rock,” said Kehrsyn, measuring with her hands. “About this wide around or so, pretty heavy, really, so I figure Momma had some friends help her.”

“No, about your father.”

“Never knew him, I said.”

“Died a year before you were born.”

“Yeah, Momma told me that once when she was drunk.”

“Pregnancy takes nine months,” said Demok.

Kehrsyn’s face went pale, and she raised her hands to her open mouth.

“Oh my word,” she gasped, “I never thought of it that way.…”

Demok regretted his rashness, letting surprise guide his tongue instead of his intellect. He reached for Kehrsyn, but she rose and walked over to the window, her blanched face unmoving. She looked alarmingly like the walking dead.

“I don’t believe it,” she murmured as she stared, unseeing, at the falling rain.

As the sun rose somewhere to the east, Kehrsyn leaned her hands on the windowsill and began to cry. She tried to hold back her sobs but failed, whining in pain as she exhaled, and inhaling trembling, reluctant breaths.

Demok could do nothing but sit and wait as the city awakened and the air filled with the sounds of pedestrians. Periodically, he stoked the fire. He wished he could help her, but she was lost somewhere in the past, experiencing pain he knew nothing of.

Kehrsyn raised her head to the sky, wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, and turned back around to face Demok.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “After all this time, he didn’t kill my father.” She sniffled and ran the heel of her hand across her eyes again. “I love my father!” she sobbed, her voice crescendoing as she struggled to maintain control. “What am I supposed to do now?”

She buried her face in her hands and began weeping openly. Full-force grief wracked her body, waves of anguish pounding against her throat. Demok hemmed for a moment, then awkwardly reached out to hold her. She ended up resting her head against his breast, but he wasn’t sure she was aware of it.

He held her to the best of his ability, his jaw set in a grim line as he stared out at the city, a cold, gray world beset by warfare and hunger with little room for a hopeful, compassionate juggler. He could only see it as an allegory for her entire life.

The tide of her grief eventually receded, leaving her
spent and quiet, her arms still pulled close and her head leaning on his breastbone.

“Kehrsyn,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice like a little girl.

“Your father is still your father.”

“No, he’s not,” she said.

“He’s done more to raise you and guide your steps than Ekur ever did. Even after his death, he was your mother’s helper and your companion. He’s far more your parent than the one who sired you.”

“But—” began Kehrsyn.

“Nothing Ekur can do can change that,” interrupted Demok. “Don’t you give it away. Hold onto it. Protect it. Your father makes you who you are.”

A long pause.

“All right,” said Kehrsyn.

Demok took a deep breath. While these personal talks were curiously rewarding, they still made him nervous, scared. He preferred to deal with threats that could be stabbed through the heart or beheaded. It was so much easier, so much clearer.

“And you can thank the gods that you look like your mother,” he said, looking to end the moment before he foundered somewhere beyond his understanding.