Stepson.
“Oh. That. Yes. Eventually.” As the body that had been Tasfalen came down the
stairs in total disinterest. And stopped and stood at the bottom. “It doesn’t
have much volition. But it doesn’t need that either. Does it?”
Niko’s body went into still another spasm. Jihan had gotten his jaws open and
Tempus had forced a small wooden rod there-gods knew where Randal had come up
with it, out of what debris of the office. It kept Niko from biting his tongue
through. And Randal had pulled another thing out of that otherwhere of a mage’s
storage-had gotten bits and pieces of that armor he had worn and tried to fit
the breastplate to a body that kept trying to break its own spine.
Niko screamed when that touched him. He screamed and flung himself into a spasm
that Molin would not have thought was left in that wracked body; his own muscles
ached with pity and his hands sweated. “It’s killing him,” Tempus yelled, and
shoved Randal and the collection of metal aside. “Dammit, let him be; Jihan,
hold onto him, hold onto him-“
Tempus hugged him hard against him and shut his eyes and tried. Molin saw what
he was trying, sensed the effort to break through the barrier that existed in
Niko now. He threw his own strength into it, and felt Randal add his.
Trees groaned in the wind, crashed and fell, and the ground quaked. Ischade put
out all her effort to stay others, her arms about the sleeper, Janni’s white
shape holding him from the other side. The wind grew colder, and the thing
battering at the gate grew more powerful.