Death & Magic (The Barefoot Healer, volume I)

Death & Magic chapter 41

Each teacher gave a little speech about what a wonderful man and wizard Degoran had been, and how shocked they were by his sudden demise, and how great a loss he was to Kyturil. Adramal watched them all carefully, trying to decide which of them was in fact glad he was dead. She reached no conclusion: all seemed genuinely heartbroken.

The teachers stood around Degoran’s funeral pyre, one at each cardinal point of the compass. They pointed to the kindling stacked around the base. Adramal sensed a wave of magic, like a heavy, itchy blanket. Four small fires started and quickly joined together, sending thick white smoke into the still air. Soon the flames reached the corpse, wrapped in layer upon layer of cloth. These had been soaked in sweet-smelling oil to mask the odour of burning flesh. That scent brought back memories Adramal would rather not have faced. Mama’s gone, beloved. The magic that was in her has become part of the ground, the water, the air. She put an arm around Meldoran and surrendered to her grief.

“Stay where you are!”

Adramal opened her eyes to see a dozen or more priests of Mathran running towards the pyre. She looked frantically for an escape route, but more priests surrounded the apprentices, their raskarims held out. She sensed magic around her — apprentices readying spells. As if that would do any good. People jostled her, fear in their eyes.

“Wizards, you are surrounded and outnumbered! Offer no resistance!” Now she recognised the speaker — Marik, the Head of the External Inquisition. Her fear turned to anger. “We are here to arrest two dangerous criminals! We have no quarrel with the rest of you!”

“This is a funeral!” someone shouted. “Show some respect!”

“There are no criminals here!”

“Go back to your stinking temple, you filthy sons of whores!”

Three of the priests had converged on Lorgrim, who was swatting at them with his cane and cursing loudly. But the remaining teachers were unmolested — who else had the priests come for? She looked around, grateful for once for her height.

Two priests marched Rakbanorath towards one of the breaches in the outer wall. He walked with a steady dignity, as though he had already accepted his likely fate.

“No,” she whispered. Lorgrim had shown himself happy to commit blackmail, so it was no great stretch to imagine him capable of murder. But Rakbanorath? He was here to save lives, not to end them.

The priests who surrounded Lorgrim had by now picked him up and were carrying him to the outer wall. The rest of the priests slowly withdrew from around the apprentices and teachers, and followed their colleagues. A couple of senior apprentices ran after the priests, shouting. One of the priests cast a spell, and the apprentices went down, clutching their shins.

“Everybody back inside the middle ward,” said Eskalyn. His voice shook. “Go back to your quarters.”

The following day, after lunch, Eskalyn called everyone into the Great Hall. His face red and his breathing laboured, he said, “I’ve just come from the city. I have some news about Lorgrim and Rakbanorath. I wanted you all to hear it at the same time, to prevent rumours from spreading.”

It was too late for that, Adramal thought. At breakfast, she had already heard a dozen ideas about what had happened, all mutually contradictory and each one wilder and more implausible than the last.

Eskalyn continued, “The City Watch have got it into their heads that Degoran’s death was not suicide, dreadful as that is, but murder.”

The room erupted in uproar. Shendar shouted for quiet.