guards, who continued to act as spies.
“I think we can expect a renewed attack at any time, and if our other allies don’t arrive soon, they’ll have nothing to do but bury our dead,” Maggie continued to his audience of one small cat. Unlike Thirrin and Tharaman, he still believed that Grishmak and his werewolves would honor their agreement and that even the Vampires would fulfill their obligations to their treaty with the Icemark — but timing was all-important, and the Empire might yet deliver its final blow before they were ready.
“We can only hope for miracles, Primplepuss,” he went on. “Speaking of which, I have an appointment.” Climbing to his feet, he stroked the cat until she purred, then left his room and headed out along the twisting corridors of the palace. He was on his way to the infirmary.
Over the last two days he’d become very good at avoiding the witches as he made his way down to the cellar in the infirmary building. They were often far too busy to notice one old man walking quietly along, and it was a simple business to reach the cellar, collect a torch from one of the sconces on the wall, and then carefully descend the wet and broken steps that led to the cave.
Now, as he held the torch high over his head, he could see the pitted and worn treads that corkscrewed sharply to the right as the spiral stairwell disappeared into the black depths. The now familiar scent of damp earth rose up to meet him, as did the constant drip and splash of water. He was smiling to himself as he picked his way carefully down the steps. During his visits he’d been watching the progress of a miracle, and he fully expected to be further astonished when he once more raised his torch over Oskan. But even though it was an incredibly happy event occurring at a time of so much fear and destruction, he hadn’t told anyone else about it. Not even Thirrin, who probably had more right than anyone else to know. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d kept it secret, and if his logical scientist’s brain analyzed his motives, it shied away from drawing the most obvious conclusion: Maggiore Totus had a superstitious dread that if too many people knew, then the miracle would stop and Oskan would die.
At last he reached the bottom of the broken stairwell and stepped out across the muddy floor. He knew the way perfectly by now and hardly needed the torch; its light would be used purely to observe the wonder. Over against the far wall he could just make out the low bed, and he hurried forward. He splashed to a halt before the prone figure of the injured warlock and held up his torch; as the shadows fled, he gasped aloud. The long tendrils of mucus and serum that hung from Oskan’s body had developed into ropes of skin that buried themselves deep into the thick, rich mud of the cave floor, and they pulsed slightly as he looked at them. But most astonishing of all was Oskan himself. He was almost perfect. All of the burned skin had sloughed away, to be replaced with healthy pink flesh that seemed to glow under the torchlight. His hands, lying folded on his chest, were shapely and smooth, and his facial features had been completely rebuilt so that the familiar expression of faint amusement presented itself to the world once more. Not only that, but Oskan actually seemed to have grown taller, his legs reaching much farther down the bed than when the healers had first left him in the cave. And even his hair was growing back, a dark fuzz clouding the new skin, like down on a hatchling.
Maggiore laughed aloud for joy, but then when Oskan’s eyelids twitched and he seemed about to wake, he clamped his hand over his mouth. The old scholar knew that the healing sleep was not yet finished and he quietly withdrew so as not to disturb it. He paused only to sink his hands into the mineral-rich mud and thank the Goddess for her gift of healing. Then, taking up his torch, he hurried back up the steps.
Scipio Bellorum sat in his chair rather than lying in bed as the surgeons had wanted. The stump of his wrist still throbbed where they’d cauterized the arteries with red-hot irons and sealed the wound by dipping it in boiling pitch.