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the large vat they'd discovered.
Wynn shook her head and looked up, but not at the zupan's son. Magiere saw
fear in the sage's unblinking eyes. For an instant, all Wynn's horror turned
upon her, and Magiere backed away.
"There's another over here by this iron box, " Leesil called from the right
side of the room. "But it's... something else. I'm not sure what. "
The words barely entered Magiere's thoughts. What did the remains of this
sealed chamber reveal concerning the death of her mother? Had something been
done here to Magelia in order to bring her unnatural daughter into this world?
Magiere saw her whole life infested with the dead and undead. Even her birth
was somehow forecast with these bones, yet she couldn't fathom what they told
her of the past. She sensed somehowknew that the contents of this room were
connected to her.
There were only more questions, and no answers.
Beside the crusted vat lay the second body they'd found. Wynn had partly
cleared the hardened leather clothes from it, telling them it was had been a
dwarf. The sage knew of these people from aseatt dwarvish for a city
stronghold or fortified haven across the bay from the capital of her homeland,
Malourne. That capital, Calm Seatt, had been named out of respect for the
dwarven people who'd helped to build its first keep.
Neither Magiere nor Leesil had ever met one of his kind. Wide framed and wide
jawed, with a skull as large as a soldier's helmet, his thigh bones were as
thick as her whole wrist. Slightly yellowed with age, the bones had speckled
shadows in them like a hint of granite.
"If any of this bears upon the past you're looking for, "
Cadell said, "I don't care to know any more of it. We've enough troubles of
our own. "
"More than you thought, " Magiere replied bitterly, but she didn't explain.
Whatever happened here had been done in haste and then sealed up. Few but
Leesil could have uncovered its existence. But if she had come looking, who
else might do so, as well, once word traveled of what had been found here?
Magiere couldn't bear looking at anyone in the room. She turned her attention
to the vat, and hunger churned inside her.
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The vat's outside was tarnished. Wynn had scraped away dust and grime to
reveal engraved symbols, each no larger than a coin, across its entire
surface. She had asked Jan for paper and charcoal to make rubbings for later
study. At one side of the vat, dark stains ran down it as if the contents had
been poured out or had spilled over.
When Magiere looked inside the vessel, a thicker stain covered the bottom
third of its depth, creating a dried and cracked layer. She took the crystal
from Wynn, startling the sage, and lowered its light into the vat. The cracked
layer in the bottom had a distinctive dark brown color, like liquefied earth
dried out. When her hunger stirred again, Magiere knew what it was from
instinct more than anything else.
"They were bled... here, " she whispered.
When she stood up, she faced the elf's corpse lying in the chamber's front
left corner, and she looked down at the dwarf's.
"Sacrificed, " Wynn whispered.
"How long ago... " Magiere trailed off and turned to Wynn. "How old are these
remains?"
Wynn looked away, and it took a moment for her to answer.
"It's impossible to be exact. But from decomposed animals I've studied in the
past, I would guess no more than thirty years, perhaps less. "
The sage backed toward the far side of the room. Her hand shook visibly as
she pulled her short robe more securely around herself.
"So, " Magiere asked in a hard voice. "Twenty-six years would be as good a
guess? About the time I was conceived. "
Leesil came up beside Magiere, glanced once at the vat, and tried to pull her
away. Magiere jerked her arm out of his grip-In all, six corpses had been
found. One was human with leather armor and a sword, perhaps a guard during
the time when her father had been lord of this place a father who might not be
as unknown to Magiere as she'd once thought. Welstiel had posed as an ally
during the fight with Miiska's undead, but that conflict, as with the one in
Bela, had been of his making. From the beginning, he'd known of her dhampir
nature, as well as the falchion and the amulets. In Bela, he'd claimed to be
preparing her to assist him in gaining whatever ancient treasure he sought.
Visions... in Bela, there had also been horrible visions. By accident, she'd
stumbled upon another attribute of her dhampir nature to experience the moment
of a kill through an undead's perspective. To lure her to the capital,
Welstiel murdered the council chairman's daughter and left the girl's body on
her own doorstep. By chance, Magiere had walked in his steps at the death
scene while holding a scrap of the girl's dress. She relived that moment, felt
the victim's flesh tear in Welstiel's teeth as if she were him.
How much more would she see with an innocent's bones in her hands? At least
she would know if he had been here... if he was the one she'd come here to
find.
Magiere knelt down and wrenched the dwarf's skull from its carcass.
"What are you doing?" Cadell said, and took a step toward her. "Enough of
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