enough,” Earno explained. “A purge will clear them of venom, at least enough to keep them from dying. They can recover from the rest, given time.”
“And they take a long time to die, in any case,” Tyr remarked. “I have seen enough of it this fall. The skin and muscles contract, until they can neither move nor breathe. Then the joints snap and they are torn to shreds by their own bones. It is terrible to think that we might have saved our Rangan traders, and many of the Other Ilk as well, by simply . . . well, sticking a finger down their throats. . . .”
Most of the poisoned dwarves had been dosed and given into the care of their families. This was too dangerous a method with the spellbound, though: it was impossible to know what commands had been laid upon them until the spell was loosed. Also, the spellbound could pass their compulsion to others like a plague, by means of the dragonlight lingering in their eyes. They were kept in the Healing Chambers—along with those who tended them.
The summoner and the Eldest arrived at the first patient.
“Ah, Vendas,” Tyr said. “I knew his father well. Has he improved, do you think?”
Earno inspected the dwarf’s stiff motionless face, the eyes clenched shut like fists. “No,” he finally answered the Eldest. “He hasn’t. I am concerned about this dwarf. A command may have been laid upon him. He was a hunter?”
“Yes, one of the few males. His companions were all slain; he alone was left alive and unwounded.”
“He should be separated from these others and a guard placed on him, one who knows the dangers.”
“Very well.”
The next patient was Deor.
“That herbal goo of yours,” he told Earno, “gave me really foul dreams.”
Earno smiled tentatively. “No,” he replied, “it merely released them. And I’m glad to hear it.” He passed a mirror before the young dwarf’s eyes, watching his reaction, and nodded. “You are dismissed, Deor syr Theorn; the spell is loosed.”
“I never felt spellbound, you know. Just a little strange.”
“There was no command laid upon you. I guess you looked into a dragon’s eyes last night, when they struck at the workers around Southgate-ruin.”
“Well, I did. Just for a moment.”
“Last night you wouldn’t admit it.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Deor looked surprised, then disturbed. “That’s true!”
“Don’t worry. There never was any real danger. A spell unfocused by a command simply fades with time. But until it has faded it makes one liable to suggestion.”
“Eh. That was how you got me to drink that stuff.”
Tyr laughed. They were about to move on when Deor said, “Is there any news about Morlock?”
“No,” said Tyr.
“Ah, well. He can have only just reached Haukrull by now.”
After the rest of the victims were examined, and most of them released, Earno walked with Tyr to his chambers to have breakfast.
“It is a good thing you were here,” Tyr told him. “Our dragonlore is out of date, and much of it has been lost. Even in my youth it was considered a useless and somewhat morbid study. No one of us would have recognized the threat of spells.”
Earno didn’t wish to say how the idea had come to him. So he said, “I thought some still studied the subject for its own interest.”
“There are always antiquarians. I sent a few to you yesterday, when I heard what you were doing. I hope they didn’t get in the way.”
“They were helpful. Without them I would never have known an infusion of maijarra leaves could loose the spell.”
“Helpful, were they? Frankly, I’m surprised. I spent half the night, or maybe it just seemed that long, arguing with one of them. He had a notion that dragons were actually extinct. That was . . . before. You understand. Now he insists that the dragons we face today are a different breed than those we fought ages past in the Longest War.”
“Um. Interesting.”
“But useless. The definition of an antiquarian.”
Earno shook his head. “They say you are an antiquarian yourself, Eldest Tyr.”
“They just mean I’m old. But I’m not useless, not yet.”
They arrived at the corridor leading to the Eldest’s chambers. Tyr pulled open a door and waved Earno in. “Just wait in here a moment, until I’ve seen about breakfast. It’ll be nothing fancy, mind you. The feasts are over for Thrymhaiam, for a season.” Then he left.
In the room where Earno found himself there were workbenches, where restless dwarves could work with their hands while they waited to see the