He sat in the center of the foundry, his body surrounded by a nimbus of near white flames flowing through stone channels and feeding the furnaces. The Red Caps needed no wood, nor coal to fuel their fires, not when they harnessed Fire itself. The wizard’s eyes looked up as Padric passed, his crazed smile distorted by waves of heat. The goblin’s flesh may have been untouched by flames, but his mind was completely consumed. He was less frail, less stooped than when Padric had last seen him that dreadful night in Hog’s Wallow. The night Faabar had died. He did not know how he would succeed where the fomori failed, but for the memory of their brief friendship, he knew to his soul that he must try.

Padric had been given a bedchamber high in the central keep, its window far from the noise of the Cog Yard. Two guards stood by the door, but they were no longer posted to keep Padric and Svala in. They stepped inside and Padric tossed the bolt on the heavy oaken door, closing off their shared sanctuary.

He awoke before dawn, dressing quickly in the dark chamber and leaving Svala to sleep. Passing his guards without a word, he made his way down the vaulted hall to another door. It was also guarded, and Padric had to wait for one of the Red Caps to unlock it before he slipped in quietly, making for the bed wrapped in deep shadows.

As he reached for the blankets, he was grabbed from behind, arms encircling him. Padric struggled, and his assailant fought to hold him. A wet, wheezing cough filled Padric’s ear, and he broke free of the quivering arms, spinning just in time to catch the thin, naked form of the man who had once been Thegn Kederic Winetongue. Padric laid him gently on the bed as he continued to cough violently. Lighting a candle, he grabbed a rag from the bedside stool and began wiping away the feverish sweat covering the man’s flesh. The goblins must have barely fed him, for the sinewy torso now looked shrunken, a patchwork of rib bones and raised scars. Svala had been forced to shave away the Thegn’s lice-ridden hair and beard, leaving him a pitiful, bald invalid, more corpse than man.

“This is an ill-luck reversal, my lord,” Padric said gently. “I do not have your gift for healing.”

Kederic’s eyes fluttered open at his words, clouded and slow to focus.

“Then send the girl back,” he replied weakly.

Padric grinned. “Tell me what to do.”

“Supplies?” Kederic asked.

“We have…,” Padric looked to the bedside stool, “…a basin of water.”

Kederic let out a congested chuckle. “Good news is often a balm,” he said wryly. “Tell me some.”

“You are alive,” Padric offered.

The Thegn accepted that with an approving nod. Kederic was not a man to wallow.