The Awakened Mage Read Online Free PDF Page B

injured colt’s neck.
    “Barl bless them,” he said, dropping the splinter into the basin at his feet. “We’ll talk later?”
    “Aye,” said Asher, turning away. “Later.”
    It was a short walk from the stables to the Tower. Hollow, dreading the confrontations to come, he dragged his feet through the pathway’s raked gravel and thought it might be nice to drop down dead of a seizure just about now. So he wouldn’t have to open the Tower’s front door. Wouldn’t have to go inside. Wouldn’t have to see the faces of the people he knew were waiting there, for him, for news.
    Waiting to be told not to worry, it were all a false alarm. Waiting in vain.
    The Tower’s front doors stood slightly ajar. He took a deep breath. Wrapped his fingers around each brass handle. Pushed hard and stepped inside.
    “I sent everyone home,” said Darran, rising from his chair at the foot of the staircase. “It seemed pointless to keep them loitering about here for hours on end.”
    “Pointless,” Asher said slowly, shoving the doors shut behind him. “Aye.”
    Fingers laced precisely across his concave middle, Darran took three steps forward then stopped. “Well?” Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was in complete control of his emotions. “Is he dead?”
    Adrift in the middle of the empty foyer, Asher blinked. “No.” All of a sudden he was feeling very tired. He needed a chair. Hadn’t there been more chairs in here this morning? “Just banged up a bit. Jarralt’s takin’ him to see Pother Nix now.”
    “Lord
Jarralt,” said Darran automatically. “Asher?”
    He dragged his sagging eyelids open. “What?”
    “Is anybody dead?”
    He turned away. The maggoty ole fool was goin’ to go
spare
when he heard.
“Asher.”
    Turning back, he shoved his hands into his pockets. Forced himself to look into Darran’s haggard face. “Not Durm. Durm’s alive. Or he was when I saw him last.” He shrugged. “Just.”
    “I don’t care about Durm,” said Darran.
    “You should. ‘Cause if he don’t pull through and speak up for Gar’s magic I reckon we’re all in a mess of trouble.”
    Darran hardly seemed to hear him. “Who else? You said not Durm. Very well. Who else lives … aside from him and Gar?”
    It was the first time he’d ever heard the ole scarecrow refer to Gar as anything other than “the prince” or “His Highness.” It frightened him. “Nobody,” he said, brutal. “All right? His whole family’s dead. Oh, and Matcher too. And the horses. Better not forget the poor bloody horses, eh? All of ‘em dead. Lyin’ in bits and pieces on the side of Salbert’s Eyrie. Now, were there anythin’ else you wanted to know?”
    A thin, disbelieving moan escaped Darran’s alarmingly blue lips. His fingers unlaced. Clutched at his chest. He began to sag at the knees.
    Asher leapt at him. “Don’t you dare! You fart, you bugger, you silly cross-eyed crow! Don’t you bloody
dare!”
    Grunting with the effort he lowered Darran to the tiled foyer floor and wrenched open the sober black coat and the weskit beneath. Scrabbled at the old man’s plain cravat, loosening its knot, then tugged open the pristine white shirt. The old fool’s chest heaved for air, thin as a toast-rack covered with a tea towel. There were tears in his eyes, welling and welling like a magic fountain. He needed a pillow or something to rest on. Asher looked around, grabbed a cushion from the solitary foyer chair and rescued Darran’s head from the floor.
    Then, helpless, he chewed at his lip. Now what? He weren’t a pother, he had no idea what to do next. Dimwitted ole fart, sending away all the staff, even the messenger boys. He grabbed Darran’s right arm, shoved back the coat and shirt sleeves and chafed the blue-veined wrist, thin and pale and knobbly.
    “Come on, now,” he said desperately. “There’s been enough death around here for one day, you ole crow. Gar won’t thank you for peggin’ out on him.