Finart

When Ephorus reached the house with the medicine, the mother was already dead. Told the news, Finart gripped the window sill until the wood creaked. When Ephorus explained that he had buried her and gave him a rag toy from his childhood that she had kept, Finart shook his hand and thanked him, saying it was enough for him that she had been buried.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Exalon said that Finart's mother gave her son a mixture she prepared regularly; Finart remembered a grey mush she made him eat without question, saying it would keep him strong and calm. His unusual strength and this remedy led the companions to suspect that he was a werewolf who had never transformed and did not know what he was.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

Their own first attempt, herbs ground in a mortar with hot water, came out black, frothing and very bitter, nothing like the grey remedy. The town's doctor explained that the herbs were needed but not enough: Finart's mother had obtained blood from him, which came from a calm person whose mind was gone and whose body alone lived. He said one tube of it in skilled hands could make two months' worth of doses. Using the herbs and the mother's mortar of old local wood, he mixed herbs and blood until the black mash turned pale grey, strained it and gave the companions two doses; the dregs, he warned, were a poison that could put a person to sleep if swallowed and kill a weak one.^1617181920

Ephorus fed it to Finart as a dish made from his mother's herbs. Finart, who had been suffering bad dreams and sleeplessness, ate once he learned nothing was asked in return, and was visibly eased. Afterwards the companions told him that he was a werewolf and that his mother's mixture had kept him from changing. He said his mother had told him to take it until he was thirty; what would happen after that, no one present knew.²¹²²²³

While the companions were believed dead, Finart stopped taking the remedy, changed into a wolf and attacked, leaving the town awash in blood, as the kobold Pitt told it. The northern bard Galmar also changed and fought him in the square to stop him; both werewolves died, and Jasper's men burned their bodies for fear of the contagion. Exalon later said he would still keep his promise of justice for Finart's mother.²⁶²⁷²⁸