"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 fingerfuls 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.