The man my Hurog magic had warned me of earlier was even now approaching the keep while the guardsmen on duty tried to reclose the gates. Magic, Stala’d told them, was best dealt with by mages, not soldiers. They were to stay at their post and let Oreg and me deal with it.

I could detect no sign of the power that had opened the outer gates of the walls surrounding the keep, nothing but the residue of ill-magic and the remnants of the spell that had thrown open the outer defenses.

I felt the man touch the keep doors lightly, and they sprang away from his skin as if they had been hit with a battering ram. They hit the walls hard, knocking dust from the stones. If anyone had been standing next to the door, they would have been crushed.

I could see the man quite clearly as he stepped into the room. I don’t know what I expected, Jade Eyes, or Arten, or even one of the lesser court wizards—not Jakoven, surely. But it was none of them.

Instead I saw a man, neither large nor short, clad in rags and boots that were more hole than leather. The air that blew in was chill, but he seemed not to feel the cold. He walked hunched over and he moved strangely: not loose-limbed like a drunkard, nor with the clumsiness of exhaustion, but near to both. His skin, where it showed through the rags, was mottled dark with bruises, frostbite, or maybe dirt; but the dark patches seemed to grow as he drew closer. For he looked neither right nor left as he shuffled down the aisle toward me.

I didn’t recognize him.

“Can I help you?” I said at the same time Garranon pushed around me and took several steps forward.

“Valsilva? What are you doing here?”

Once Garranon used his name, I could see that the shuffling figure was indeed Jakoven’s stable master, but so changed from the jolly man I’d met that he could have been a different species. Abruptly I remembered dreaming of Jakoven calling for the stable master who had let Garranon ride out of the castle with my brother.

I caught Garranon’s shoulder when he would have continued forward. “Wait,” I said. “There’s something wrong.”

Other people started feeling the wrongness, too. The space around the stable master grew larger as he continued up the walkway toward Garranon and me. Something fell from his hand and rolled into a brightly lit area so I could see clearly it was a finger. Someone swore.

I pulled Garranon back a few steps.

“Valsilva? What do you want?” asked Garranon.

It stopped where it was, close enough for me to see its face clearly. The dark spots weren’t dirt or even bruises, but rotting flesh, the smell of which began to seep from the body into the air of the hall. I heard someone gag.