gifts we have, we dedicate our lives to furthering knowledge, to understanding how we, as vessels, relate to this. How have you done that, concomitant?’
‘I would argue that we can only understand how it relates to us by understanding how we, as vessels, relate to others. In fact, just last night I discovered—’
‘Any discovery made in the company of these vagrants is irredeemably tainted by—’
‘Stop interrupting me.’
Bralston’s eyes narrowed at the boy, but Dreadaeleon, for the first time, did not look away, back down or so much as flinch. He met the Librarian’s stare with a searching scowl of his own, sweeping over the man’s dark face.
‘This is far too insignificant a point for a Librarian to harp on,’ Dreadaeleon said firmly. ‘I’m hardly the first wizard to extend his studies through adventuring and I’m sure I won’t be the last, yet you act as though I’m committing some grievous breach of law just by being in these people’s company.’
Bralston’s eyebrow rose a little at that, his lip twitching as if to speak. Dreadaeleon, forcing himself not to dwell on the stupidity of the act, held up a hand to halt him.
‘You have another motive, Librarian.’
‘You are certain?’ Bralston asked, a sliver of spite in his voice.
‘I am more perceptive than you suspect.’
For all the ire he had been holding in his stare alone, for all the disappointment and despair he had seen in the boy, it was only at that moment that Bralston’s shoulders sank with a sigh, only at that moment that he looked at the boy with something more than scrutiny.
‘Perceptive enough,’ he whispered, ‘to know you’ve contracted the Decay?’
With a single word, Dreadaeleon felt the resolve flood out of him, taking everything else within him with it and leaving him nothing to stand on but quivering legs that strained to support him.
‘I don’t have it,’ he replied.
‘You do,’ Bralston insisted.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t have it.’
‘I can sense it. I can smell your blood burning and hear your bones splitting. I followed it last night. That’s how I found it. Surely, you can sense it. Surely, you know.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Dreadaeleon said.
‘Concomitant, if I can track you across an ocean through it, it is certainly not nothing. In fact, to even sense it at all, symptoms must be forming by now. Fluctuating temperatures? Loss of consciousness? Instantaneous mutation?’
‘Flaming urine,’ Dreadaeleon said, looking down.
‘The Decay,’ Bralston confirmed.
It was unthinkable, Dreadaeleon told himself. Or perhaps, he simply hadn’t wanted to think about it. He still didn’t want to. He didn’t even want to hear the word, yet it was burned into his brain.
Decay.
The indefinable disease that ravaged wizards, that unknown alteration inside their body that broke down the unseen wall that separated Venarie from body, turning a humble vessel into a twisted, tainted amalgamation of errant magic and bodily function.
It was that which turned men and women into living infernos, turned flesh to snowflakes, caused brains to cook in their own electric currents. It was the killer of wizards, the vice of heretics, the consequence for disregarding the Laws.
And he had it.
He didn’t question Bralston’s diagnosis, didn’t so much as feel the need to deny it anymore. It all made too much sense now: his sudden weakness, his use of the red stones, his altered bodily state.
But then … how did you recover last night?
A fluke, perhaps. Such things would not be unheard-of. In fact, Decay’s fluctuating effects on magic often resulted in sudden, sporadic enhancements. It all made too much sense, followed too cold a logic, too perfect an irony for him to deny it anymore.
‘What …?’ he said with a weak voice. ‘What now? What happens?’
‘Your master told you, I am sure.’
Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. ‘The Decayed report back to the Venarium for …’ He swallowed. ‘Harvesting.’
‘We are wizards. Nothing can be wasted.’
‘I understand.’
Bralston frowned, shaking his head.
‘My duties require a survey of the ocean,’ Bralston said, ‘to scan for any signs of the heretic. After that, I shall return to Cier’Djaal. You will return with me.’
Dreadaeleon nodded weakly. A pained grimace flashed across Bralston’s face.
‘It’s … it’s not so bad, really,’ Bralston said. ‘At the academy in Cier’Djaal, you’ll still be useful to the Venarium. You’ll be able to provide services in research, even after you’re gone. And until then, you’ll be cared for by people who understand you for however long you last.’
Dreadaeleon nodded again.
‘Until then …’ Bralston sought for words and, finding nothing, sighed. ‘Try to rest. It will be a