THE STORY THUS FAR
With construction of the canal well under way, all eyes point to Innarlith and to the laconic genius Ivar Devorast. Devorast, more concerned with the deed itself, pays too little attention to the forces aligning against him. All he wants to do is dig a canal, but instead he's had to defend himself against everyone from the Red Wizards of Thay and the Zhentarim to Phyrea, a woman who loves him so much that she wants nothing more than to see him destroyed.
Still haunted by the ghosts of her family's country estate, Phyrea slips ever deeper into madness, clinging to her sanity by the thinnest of threads.
The genasi senator Pristoleph set his sights on the Palace of Many Towers, but he paused along the way to steal Phyrea from her arranged marriage to Willem Korvan.
Willem, heartbroken and confused, sought solace with his mentor, the Red Wizard Marek Rymiit. But Marek has more planned for Willem than just a marriage to the master builder's daughter. Willem, who has done nothing but follow orders, has been transformed by Marek Rymiit into an undead creature, a creature designed to do only one thing: kill.
1
1 Hammer, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
A sound at his bedchamber door woke the master builder. Eyes still closed, head heavy with sleep, he rolled over and called out, "Yes ... what is it?"
No answer, and he could feel himself starting to move from the confusion of interrupted sleep to the annoyance of being ignored by his own servants. It couldn't have been anyone but the upstairs maid, but she would have answered. She would have opened the door and walked in. But she had never done that before. No one had ever thought to roust him from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.
He sighed and rubbed his face with sleep-weak hands and thought he must have been dreaming. He hadn't heard—
Tap.
His breath caught in his throat. The sound was unmistakable. It still echoed in his ears. Then came the scraping, ragged nails dragged down the length of the heavy oak door.
Could it be one of the dogs? Inthelph thought, but no, it couldn't be.
The scraping stopped, and again Inthelph thought he might have dreamed the sound, but it was less a thought and more a hope.
Tap.
Scratch.
Louder, but shorter, as though the claws sank deeper into the wood. He imagined the deep furrows that must have been cut into his door.
His hands shook, and he clutched at his bedclothes.
There were guards in his house, and the staff. No one who meant him any harm could have gotten as far as his bedroom door. It was why he'd never bothered to have a lock installed. Anyone who could get as far as his door was surely—
His door was not locked.
The tap came again, but louder, the tips of hard, heavy talons digging into the wood—then the scratching, louder, more insistent.
The master builder reached for the drawer in his bedside table. He had a dagger there, the blade enchanted so that even he would seem a formidable fighter with it in his hand. The drawer squeaked on its tracks and clunked open so loudly Inthelph winced. He fumbled for the knife, making even more noise, then there was the tap again, a knock, a thud, scratching.
"I have a knife," Inthelph said, even though his probing fingers hadn't yet found the blade.
The scratching stopped. Inthelph's fingers closed on the dagger's handle and he drew it out of the drawer. He sat up in his high, soft feather bed, holding the dagger in front of him in a shaking hand. His mouth was dry, but he tried to swallow anyway. Pain and fear made him whimper, and the whimper made a cold sweat break out on his forehead and between his legs.
"For the love of... for goodness's sake, who is it? What do you-?"
"Inthel—" a voice from beyond the door interrupted.
The voice was familiar. At first he thought it was Willem Korvan, but it couldn't be. The voice was raspy and weak—an old man's voice.
The scratching noise came again, and Inthelph thought
he detected a trace of desperation in the sound of the claws on the door.
"Willem?" he said, but it couldn't be.
"Inthelph. Help me."
It was Willem. His voice was weak, barely above a whisper, but it was Willem Korvan.
Inthelph slipped out from under the covers and dropped to the floor. The chamber was cool and damp, the fire having long since burned to smoldering orange embers in the untended fireplace. Where was the maid?
"Willem?" the master builder called out, the dagger still in his hand, but largely forgotten. "Are you injured, my boy?"
No answer, but Inthelph thought he could hear a scuffling of feet in the corridor beyond. He sensed hesitation.
"Willem?"
The door handle turned. Well-oiled and polished, it made no sound, but caught the dim orange light from the spent fire.
The master builder rubbed his eyes and stood. He stepped away from the bed, closer to the door, but still held the dagger in front of him. He squinted in the darkness and cast about for a candle. He'd never had to light one himself—where was the upstairs maid?—and he wasn't quite sure where they were kept. Anyway, he had no flint and steel.
He tried to swallow, but his throat hurt. He coughed. Spittle dripped onto his chin, but he didn't have the strength to wipe it away. He shook in more than his hands, his whole body reacting to the cold and the fear.
"Help me," Willem whispered from the darkness behind the door, which had come open a crack.
The fear began to diminish, and the master builder took a step closer to the door. Willem was injured, that much was plain in his voice, but Inthelph had nothing to fear from the young senator who had been his protege.
"Willem, I—" Inthelph said, stopping short when the door opened and Willem Korvan stepped out of the darkness of the unlit corridor.
"Willem," Inthelph whispered, "what's happened?"
Willem stepped in, his knee almost giving out under his weight. What clothes he wore were dirty, tattered rags. Gore had soaked into most of them, and Inthelph was hit by the overwhelming stench of dried blood. Inthelph lifted one foot to step forward, but he couldn't. He stood his ground, the dagger in front of his chest.
Willem took a step closer, then another. His head sat to one side on a neck that seemed incapable of supporting the weight. When he walked his knees didn't bend. Inthelph's eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, and he stepped closer to see Willem's face.
Inthelph gasped in a breath and held it.
Willem's lips had curled over his blackened gums, which in turn had receded off of teeth that were yellow and cracked. One of his eyes had rolled off to one side, the other locked on Inthelph and burned with a cold fire that made the master builder shiver. The smell washed over him. The cloying aroma of exotic spices mixed with the stench of rotting flesh. Willem reeked of the grave.
"What's happened to you?" the master builder whispered.
Willem reached out and batted the dagger from the old man's hand. The blade cartwheeled across the room and came to rest in a puff of orange sparks on the floor of the fireplace. Inthelph's hand went numb, and when he tried to bend his fingers he heard a popping noise and a dull shot of pain arced up his arm. He hissed.
"Marek Rymiit," Willem growled.
"Oh, no, Willem."
Willem hit him in the chest so hard that purple and red lights flickered in Inthelph's eyes. He felt the contents of his lungs pass his lips, and when he tried to inhale, it was as though the weight of the entire city had been laid on
his chest. Staggered, he tried stepping back but fell on his behind in an ungainly and embarrassing way.
Try as he might to speak, the master builder could only gasp for air that refused to enter his collapsed lungs. Willem stepped over him and crouched, his knees snapping like dried twigs.
"Marek Rymiit," the thing that had once been his most promising protege said again. His breath smelled of maggots and saffron. "Hate."
Willem reached down and Inthelph tried to kick him. It was a feeble, comedic attempt to fight back, but Willem didn't laugh. Hard, dry fingers closed around the master builder's calf and squeezed so hard Inthelph felt cold talons puncture his skin.
Inthelph's lips moved but he couldn't speak. He wanted to ask what Marek Rymiit had done to Willem. He wanted to know why the Thayan wizard would want him dead, and why he would send Willem Korvan to do it.
Or was it Willem Korvan? If it was, the promising young senator the master builder knew was dead.
The thing pulled on his leg and the pain rumbled through the master builder's body like a thunderstorm raging across a summer plain. When the Shockwave reached his head he reeled and almost fainted.
He wished he had.
The sensation of his leg coming away at the knee, the stretching and tearing of tendons, the grind of bone on bone, the ruin of flesh made his chest convulse and his vision narrow until all he could see was Willem's ruined face.
His own foot hit him in the mouth. Willem drew the leg up and smashed it down again. Inthelph's jaw cracked and one of his eyes went blind. His head vibrated and he felt pressure build and build until he was certain his skull would burst from within.
"I'm..." Willem whispered from his dry, dead mouth, "so... so sorry."
It was the last thing Inthelph heard. When his skull cracked in two he was already unconscious. When his own foot came down again and pulped his brain, he was dead.
2 _,_
4 Hammer, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) The Thayan Enclave, Innarlith
Iristoleph looked over Marek Rymiit's shoulder as they both sat. The thing that stood in the corner shifted its weight from foot to foot. It was a man, or at least it used to be. Marek turned his head ever so slightly to one side, following Pristoleph's gaze. Their eyes met and the Thayan smiled.
"Please don't mind him," Marek said. "He isn't listening and only understands what I tell him to understand."
"You feel you need a bodyguard to meet with me?" Pristoleph replied. "And I thought we were friends."
Marek twitched a little at the sarcasm, and Pristoleph smiled at him. The thing in the corner didn't respond in any way, and Pristoleph wondered if Marek was actually telling the truth. It didn't seem as though the thing was aware of their presence at all. It had a black leather hood over its head, tied tightly around the neck with a length of rope, so it couldn't see them. The fact that it was dead was obvious from its demeanor and its smell.
"You get used to it," Marek commented, and not for the first time Pristoleph wondered if the Thayan could read his mind.
"The dockworkers seem to have," Pristoleph said, drawing them to the matter at hand.
"It warms my heart to know that I have been of service to you, and that I have been of service to my adopted home."
Pristoleph spared the Thayan another smile, just to show that he didn't believe a word of it.
"Is there anything at all I can get for you?" Marek asked. "A drink, perhaps? Some food?"
"No, thank you," replied Pristoleph. He wasn't hungry, and couldn't have eaten in the presence of the animated corpse anyway. He nodded at the thing in the corner. "Is this something you want to show me? Something for the docks?"
"Oh, no, no," Marek said, once again glancing back over his shoulder. "This one is special. This one I'm keeping for myself."
"But you wanted me to see it."
Marek looked him in the eye, and Pristoleph held his gaze. He had been sized up before. Pristoleph could pass for human easily enough, but not everyone he encountered failed to notice at least something otherworldly about him. He sat there patiently and waited for a reply.
"I'm showing off again, aren't I?" the Thayan said with a wide, but self-conscious grin. "I hope that the workers I've been providing thus far have been of service to you on the docks. If you are less than satisfied with any of the services I've provided you, I hope you'll give me an opportunity to rectify the situation."
"The zombies work slowly but steadily," Pristoleph said. "The men have gotten used to them. Even the captains have stopped complaining."
Pristoleph, with Marek's help, had insinuated himself into the quay, taking advantage of the chronic dissatisfaction of the dockworkers to seize control of everything that came in and out of the city through the ports.
"You require additional hands?" the wizard asked.
"Twenty," replied Pristoleph, "to serve the caravans at the southern gate."
"The southern gate?"
"I've been in contact with parties to the south," Pristoleph said. "I will be bringing various exotic and valuable trade goods up from the Shaar."
Marek nodded and smiled again. Pristoleph didn't elaborate any further. The Thayan didn't need to know
about the wemics. The strange creatures, like lions with the souls of barbarians, were a temperamental lot, but Pristoleph could see the potential for powerful allies.
"Twenty of the dearly departed ..." Marek mused. "I see no problem with that, but we will have to discuss a new rate."
Pristoleph raised an eyebrow.
"The canal, you know," the Thayan said. "Demand has risen sharply."
Pristoleph shrugged and said, "I'm sure we won't allow a few gold coins here or there to come between us."
The Thayan dipped forward in a mock bow and they both laughed. Pristoleph looked away, not wanting to watch the jiggling girth of the rotund wizard shake with his girlish cackling. Perhaps sensing Pristoleph's discomfort, Marek stopped laughing.
"I must say, my dear Senator Pristoleph, that you've come here this evening for more than another score of zombies to unload crates."
"Weapons," Pristoleph said, and Marek raised his eyebrows, waiting for him to go on. "I require enchanted weapons. Any variety will do, but I've been asked for pole-arms of various descriptions."
"Ah," Marek breathed. "Of course, Senator. Anything you like."
Pristoleph looked at the undead thing still shifting from foot to foot in the corner.
"Almost anything," the Thayan joked. "You know you have my loyalty. I know I don't have to remind you of that."
"Of course you don't," Pristoleph replied, still looking at the undead thing. "I pay you well enough for it."
He didn't look at the Thayan, so he didn't get a sense of his reaction to that. All at once, though, a thought came to him. Marek Rymiit was more than a merchant, a trader in magic. He might have sworn his loyalty to Pristoleph, but Pristoleph knew he'd done the same to Salatis and others. Marek Rymiit was merchant enough to know that
sometimes he had to make his own customers, make his own marketplace. If the leadership of Innarlith was kept in a constant state of flux, with faction fighting faction and one would-be ransar after another stepping up to assume control of the city-state ... Marek Rymiit would always have a market for his Thayan magic items.
"I don't need your undying loyalty, Master Rymiit," Pristoleph said. "I have gold, and you have magic. That's all either of us needs to know."
3__
6 Hammer, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) The Canal Site
They had no idea what they were doing. Even from the distance of the viewing stand, Surero could see that. The more elaborate of the scaffolds had been dismantled and never fully rebuilt. Mounds of dirt had been formed too close to the edge of the trench and the rain caused mudslides—one after another. Surero could see a pile of broken tools, and a group of workers sat in a circle betting copper coins on knucklebones. The men who were digging dug slowly. The men who cut stone cut them crooked.
But it was the smokepowder that made his skin crawl.
Surero closed his eyes and rubbed his face. The press of the crowd around him made him sweat. He could feel their anticipation, at once heavy and electric in the air. Nervous giggles mingled with impatient whispers, and Surero was tempted to cover his ears.
He shifted his feet, instinctively scanning for a way out, and the wood under his boots creaked from the combined weight of the people who had come to see the greatest undertaking Surero had ever heard of destroyed by incompetence. Devorast's great dream had been stolen from him and given like a gift in colored paper and red ribbon to two men who couldn't begin to fathom its intricacies.
After the disappearance of Willem Korvan, the ransar had appointed Senator Horemkensi to complete the canal. If Horemkensi had any experience in the construction trades, any sense of the scale and requirements of the project, he might have had a chance. But the senator was nothing more than a dandy. Surero had made inquiries both discreet and overt, and all he could find out about the man was that he was the nineteenth in his line to hold his family's seat on the senate and that he enjoyed the social aspect of his position but wasn't much interested in the work itself. Surero had heard that Horemkensi spent less than one day in twenty at the canal site.
"Is that them?" a woman asked, and Surero's attention was pulled back to the disgraceful scene before him.
Three men pulled a cart loaded with small wooded kegs. Surero winced. The kegs had been the last of Surero's contribution to the canal. Packed more tightly than it could be in a sack, the smokepowder was more effective. They were too big for the holes he'd watched them dig, and there was a pile of unfinished lumber too close by. He'd thought—he'd hoped, at least—that they would move the lumber before setting the smokepowder, but the cart clattered to a stop at the edge of the row of holes.
"Is it safe here?" a man in a silk robe, his eyes lined with kohl and his too-soft hands wrapped in a fur muff, asked the pale woman next to him.
The woman shrugged and Surero shook his head. They both looked at the alchemist, obviously interested to hear more, but Surero could only swallow and grimace. He turned away from them and watched the workers—bored, tired, and dirty—unload the cart. They seemed careful enough with the kegs of smokepowder. They must have seen them explode before, but of course they had no idea how and where to place them.
Surero made a series of fast calculations that calmed his racing pulse for at least a dozen heartbeats. The viewing stand, set up on a hill overlooking the enormous trench,
was far enough away so that even if the effects of the badly-placed smokepowder kegs were worse than Surero feared, the crowd of spectators would not be killed.
Which was more than could be said for at least two dozen workers.
"Are they undead?" another woman asked. "They look normal enough to me, though they could bathe, couldn't they?"
Surero took a deep breath and held it. Word of the zombie workers had trickled into Innarlith. Rumors turned into an open secret and then a simmering debate. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on the use of animated corpses for manual labor, but no one was willing to take a stand either way. The only concession Surero was conscious of was that the zombies were kept away from the viewing stand. He could tell that a good portion of the spectators were disappointed by that. They came to see death in all its forms.
The men began to drop the kegs into the too-shallow holes, and Surero knew the people who had come to the viewing stand that day would see more death and destruction than they'd bargained for. He considered trying to do something, but he felt paralyzed. His legs refused to carry him off the wooden steps of the viewing stand. He couldn't draw in a breath deep enough to shout a warning. He wasn't sure if his inaction came from fear or resignation. He didn't want to draw attention to himself. Not with Devorast gone and Marek Rymiit still ensconced in Innarlan society. He didn't know how much tolerance anyone might have for him. He brewed beer and was good at it. He made a reasonable living. He tried to forget the canal, but he couldn't. He tried to stay away from it, but he'd made the trip to the viewing stand in the overcrowded coaches with the rest of the impotent onlookers time and again, every time left horrified by what he saw, every time more aware of how much farther away from Devorast's careful attention to detail Horemkensi had allowed things to get.
Even his considerable skill as an alchemist wasn't enough to attract Horemkensi's attention to Surero. He'd been replaced by Horemkensi's own man, an alchemist who had early on thrown in his lot with the Thayan. The alchemist's name was Harkhuf, and when Surero had first encountered him some years before, he was nothing but a minor seller of even more minor potions—healing draughts and snake oils—to the tradesmen of the Third Quarter. Surero had often joked that Harkhuf's greatest achievement as an alchemist was when he stained his fingers green—an accident that had left him permanently marked but otherwise unharmed. Harkhuf wasn't even good enough at his trade to have blown his fingers off, which is what would have happened if the concoction had done what he was hoping it would do.
And that was the man Horemkensi trusted to place Surero's smokepowder. No wonder the crowds had grown bigger and more bloodthirsty.
Someone shouted orders. Surero didn't recognize his voice. It wasn't Harkhuf. Surero briefly held out hope that one of the foremen—one of the men he'd trained himself— had realized that the holes were too shallow and was putting a stop to it, but that wasn't the case. The smokepowder had been placed and the man was simply warning the workers to step back as he lit the fuse.
Surero bobbed from side to side to see around the heads of the people in front of him. He watched the workers walk too slowly away from the holes. He couldn't see or hear the fuse from where he stood, and again all he could do was hope that it hadn't yet been lit. The men stopped far too short of the safe margin Surero had worked out in his head.
The alchemist sucked in a breath and held it. The dandy with the fur muff looked at him with wide, expectant eyes, and Surero turned away from him. He thought again that he should scream out a warning, but he knew it would do no good. If the fuse was already lit, it was too late. If it
wasn't, his would have only been one more voice from the viewing stand—a sound all the canal builders had long since learned to ignore.
Before he could decide which god to pray to that he was wrong, the first of the kegs erupted in a rumble. The hiss of dirt and rocks in the air masked the excited gasps and nervous laughs of the spectators. The next went off, followed immediately by the third. Surero kept his eyes glued to the last in the line, the one closest to the group of workers and their cart.
Too late the men realized they were too close. They must have instinctively gauged the size of the previous explosions and matched that to the distance they stood from the last hole. They turned and started to run. When the last keg exploded, a wave of dirt and loose stones, broken by the force of the explosion, tore into them. They were lost in the earthy brown cloud, their screams barely audible over the deafening thunder of the blast.
The crowd at the viewing stand held its breath, then sighed as one, disappointed that the very cloud that caused the bloody deaths of the innocent men blocked their view of the carnage. They couldn't see stones driven through flesh and bone to explode out of dying bodies in a shower of blood.
One woman had the audacity to scream. The sound was theatrical and insincere, and Surero wondered how long she'd practiced it. He heard a man laugh, and the gorge rose in his throat. He closed his eyes and turned away, bumping into someone. He was shoved and almost tripped, scolded and berated, as he pushed his way off the viewing stand. Surero didn't turn to see the dead men that littered the edge of the great trench. He pressed his hands tightly over his ears to block out the sound of the people laughing and talking in excited, loud whispers. He fled not only from the bloodshed and stupidity, but from the dense air of satisfaction that hung over the viewing stand.
4
6 Hammer, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Pristal Towers, Innarlith
The woman sat on the floor, her legs splayed under her, a simple silk dressing gown pooled around her. She wept, tears streaming down her face, her muted sobs echoing in Phyrea's head. The woman, made of violet light, didn't look at Phyrea, didn't seem to notice her at all.
Her baby died, the old woman said, her voice coming from nowhere.
"I know," Phyrea whispered. "I'm so sorry."
She got no response to that. The woman continued to cry, and Phyrea knew she had been crying for a long time, for years, even decades, and that she would never stop. The world would end to the sound of her despair.
Phyrea took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She thought about taking a sip of the wine she'd poured herself, but she couldn't will her hand to pick up the tallglass. The sound of the door opening behind her didn't startle her. She knew who it was.
"Phyrea?" Pristoleph whispered. "Do you sleep, my love?"
Her chest tightened. A wave of sadness always washed over her when he called her that. She felt a tear well up in the corner of her right eye, but it didn't fall. It hung there as if waiting for something.
There's no reason to be like her, the old woman whispered in her head.
"Phyrea?" Pristoleph whispered in her ear.
She reached a hand up and touched his face. She hadn't realized he'd come so close. He sighed when her palm met the too-hot skin of his cheek. She had stopped being surprised by how hot he felt, as though he suffered from a perpetual fever. She'd asked him about it many times and
he'd avoided the subject skillfully at first, then bluntly, and finally she stopped asking.
"Were you sleeping?" he asked, his lips brushing her ear.
She shook her head just enough to tell him she wasn't, but not enough to brush him off. Still he pulled away. The ghost's sobbing continued unabated, so Phyrea didn't open her eyes. She didn't like to see Pristoleph and the ghosts at the same time. She didn't want them to belong together.
He sat next to her on the silk-upholstered Zakharan divan. His weight made her lean toward him, and she ended up pressed against his shoulder. She sighed, surprising herself with the sound of it, as though she had already resigned herself to the reality of what he'd come to tell her, though she had no idea what that might be. He stiffened, and in response all her fears washed away until she was left feeling limp and exhausted.
"Your father is dead," Pristoleph told her. "I'm sorry."
Phyrea took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"He was murdered," Pristoleph went on.
Phyrea opened her eyes and the woman was still there, still crying, but making no sound.
He won't be coming with us, the man with the Z-shaped scar on his face said from somewhere high above her. You won't see him again. He was killed for no reason, and in the end he didn't want to live.
"Shut up," Phyrea said, her voice squeaking in her tight throat.
"Phyrea, I—" Pristoleph started.
"No," she whispered, silencing him.
Movement to her right caught her attention and she glanced over to see the little girl standing next to the sideboard, her hand poised over a crystal vase in which sat one yellow rose—her father's favorite flower.
"What kind of man has a favorite flower?" she whispered.
Pristoleph didn't answer.
"What was the point?" she asked, her voice louder. "Politics, probably," Pristoleph said. "Coin, favors... an old grudge."
The little girl was angry and she swatted at the vase. It fell from the side table and shattered on the marble floor. Pristoleph jumped, startled, but Phyrea didn't move. She kept her eyes locked on the little girl.
"What was that?" Pristoleph asked, but Phyrea didn't answer him.
"He left you, didn't he?" she whispered to the girl.
The expression of bitter rage faltered on the ghost's translucent features, but the anger didn't diminish.
"Phyrea?" Pristoleph asked. She thought he grew hotter then, almost hot enough to burn her. "What did you say? What do you mean?"
"There will have to be a funeral," she said. "He was the master builder."
"The ransar will arrange it," Pristoleph said.
"I don't want to go."
"You should."
She nodded as the little girl faded into thin air. The crying woman's sobs went with her.
"I will not let his murderer go unpunished," Pristoleph assured her, but Phyrea didn't care.
She didn't even have the energy to shrug him off, let alone tell him not to bother.
5__
1 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) The Cascade of Coins, Innarlith
Still in mourning, Phyrea wore black to her wedding. She hadn't carefully considered the choice, and Pristoleph had shown no sign that he cared. When he looked at her in the coach on the way to the temple of Waukeen, he had
looked at her eyes. The softness, the longing, the love she saw in his gaze had warmed her and chilled her at the same time. She felt safe in his presence. Safer, anyway, than when she was alone with the ghosts.
Rain came down in nearly horizontal sheets, driven by a fierce wind off the Lake of Steam. The horses faltered several times, and Phyrea held on to the arm of the coach's velvet bench for fear that the conveyance would be sent over on its side by the frequent, violent gusts.
One of the high priests met them just inside the temple doors. Phyrea didn't know his name, but she recognized his face. Flanked by a quartet of acolytes in robes of shimmering silk, the priest was draped in thread-of-gold, even finer silk, and a variety of fur that Phyrea couldn't immediately identify. His wide, pale face betrayed a reluctance no bride wants to see on her wedding day.
"My dear Senator," the priest said, tipping his chin down in the barest suggestion of a bow. "No guests have arrived."
"There will be no guests," Pristoleph said, his flat voice inviting no response.
"But surely a man of your—" the priest began.
"Do you require guests?" Pristoleph interrupted.
The priest looked down at the marble-tiled floor and Phyrea could tell he was disappointed. He had hoped that a lack of wedding guests would put an end to the affair.
"This has all been arranged," Pristoleph went on. "It has been paid for. Shall we go in?"
"Of course," the priest acquiesced.
Phyrea wiped a drip of rainwater off her temple with one fingertip and leaned in closer to her groom. The warmth that always radiated from Pristoleph soothed her.
A sudden gust of wind rattled the tall, arched window, its intricate panes of stained glass creaked in their gilded frames. All eyes glanced up at it, all of them afraid, if not certain, that the glass would buckle and shatter, but it didn't.
"Perhaps..." the priest began, then shook his head, uncertain what to say.
"Lead on," Pristoleph told him, his voice heavy with impatience.
He won't marry you, the man with the scar told Phyrea. She knew he stood behind her, and that only she could see him, and she was surprised that Waukeen would allow his unholy presence in her temple. He's afraid of you. But I think there are other reasons.
She shook her head and let herself be led deeper into the temple..They followed the priest, who walked slower than a man being marched to the gallows. The wind battered the stained glass windows all around them, seeming to come from all sides at once. The opulent interior was lit by fewer candles than Phyrea knew was typical. Gold, silver, and platinum gleamed in the dim candlelight. Though Pristoleph was as warm as ever, Phyrea shivered.
"Perhaps..." the priest started again. He came to a sudden stop, and two of the acolytes bumped into each other. A nervous shuffling of feet followed.
"Speak, priest," Pristoleph all but growled.
He won't do it, the ghost whispered. He can't.
"This is a bad day," the priest said. Phyrea looked at him, but her eyes were drawn to the acolytes. All four of them stared at the ground, refusing to look at the priest or each other. A tear dripped from the eye of one—a girl barely in her teens. "We have had a... a loss, here."
Pristoleph stiffened and Phyrea put her hand on his arm, the heat under her palm uncomfortable but not yet painful. He was getting warmer. From the corner of her eye she could see Pristoleph's strange red hair begin to dance on his head. The priest wouldn't look at him.
"One of our own was—" the priest started, but stopped when the girl sobbed, loud and sudden. Phyrea startled at the sound of it, so like the woman who appeared to her as an image of violet light, and of impenetrable sadness.
The girl turned and scampered away, and the priest didn't stop her.
"We are to be married," Pristoleph insisted. "Today."
The priest couldn't seem to be able to make up his mind if he wanted to nod or shake his head, so he just stood there and quivered.
Pristoleph shifted and Phyrea stepped away from him to avoid his elbow. He pulled a small leather pouch from under his rapidly-drying weathercloak, reached his hand in, and came out with a fistful of gold coins. He threw the gleaming disks at the priest's feet. The priest startled away from the loud, sharp, echoing clatter as the coins seemed to shatter on the marble. The windows shook again, and something hit the outside wall hard enough to startle Phyrea and all of the Waukeenar. But not Pristoleph.
"This is not..the priest mumbled.
Pristoleph threw another fistful of gold coins at his feet—more than the little pouch should have been able to contain.
"Please, Senator..."
Another shower of coins. The three remaining acolytes all stepped back as one.
"You will wed us now, and in the name of your goddess," Pristoleph said, and even from a step away Phyrea could feel the heat blazing from him. The acolytes were scared, and so was the priest. "Speak the words, even if your goddess doesn't hear."
The priest gasped. Two of the remaining acolytes turned and ran deeper into the gloom of the massive vaulted chamber. The last of the young priests in training stepped closer to the senator, his eyes bulging with outrage.
The priest held out a hand, gently pushing his student back from the burning groom, and said, "Chose your words carefully in the house of the Merchant's Friend, Senator Pristoleph."
The corner of Pristoleph's mouth curled up in a dangerous smile and he threw yet another handful of coins at the priest's feet.
The Waukeenar nodded and said, "Please hold hands."
Phyrea ignored the protests of at least two of the ghosts that had followed her, and she didn't look at the priest's face, which was a mask of resignation, fear, and exhaustion. Pristoleph's hands burned hers and she cringed at the pain but didn't pull away. He cooled a little as the priest began his prayers.
Words, the man with the scar whispered. Hollow words to a goddess in hiding.
Phyrea shook her head. She didn't care if Waukeen was alive or dead, didn't care how much gold had bought her wedding, and paid no mind to the unnatural boiling heat of the man—if he was a man—she was swearing her life to.
When the priest spoke his last words and the two of them were man and wife, the giant stained glass window imploded, burst by the fury of the air around them. The acolyte screamed, Pristoleph shrugged, and the priest began to cry.
Pristoleph and Phyrea turned and went back to their coach with the wind whipping rain and shards of glass all around them, their boots crunching broken pieces under their feet, and the sound of the wailing cries of the holy men harmonizing with the moans of the angry wind.
An interesting start, the old woman said, and as they walked out into the driving winter rain, Phyrea saw the violet ghost laughing on the steps of the once-glorious temple.
6_
1 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Pristal Towers, Innarlith
Hi s touch was hot, but not uncomfortably so. Phyrea's body responded in a much more sincere way than her mind. She did her best not to think but to let her body merge with his. She took on his rhythm, almost as though her heartbeat came into perfect synchronization with his. He
moaned, and she responded with a gasp. He squeezed her tighter and she bent beneath him like a tree making way for the wind.
They writhed in the rich satin- and silk-covered goose-down. Sweat rolled from her skin and his seemed to drink it in. His heat warmed her, fed her, made her safe.
She didn't listen to the woman crying over the still form of her only child. She ignored the chuckles of the old hag. She didn't let the little girl's growled outrage stop her. She gave herself to Pristoleph in a way that made the man with the scar on his face shake his head. The little boy with the missing arm screamed filth at them both but she paid him no heed. Instead she gave herself to her husband in a way she'd only allowed one man before him.
And that was the thought that finally worked its way in.
His name came to her first: Ivar Devorast. Then the touch of his rough, calloused hands, the smell of his musk, the sound of his voice.
If Pristoleph sensed that another had, in some way beyond the physical, come into their wedding bed, he gave no sign. Phyrea touched him and moved with him still, was warmed by him and warmed him both, but her mind began to soar from her body, her desires splitting into physical and spiritual.
Ivar Devorast had gone away. She didn't know where. Even Surero had lost touch with him. Phyrea had made inquiries at once subtle and overt, public and private, desperate and resigned. He was gone as though he never existed. His great undertaking had been ripped from him and gifted to the loudest-squealing toadies of the ransar. Tendays or longer had passed since she'd even thought of it.
And as she made love to her husband on their wedding night, as cursed as it may have been, she even let herself, for the briefest of moments, forget there was an Ivar Devorast. But that brief moment had passed.
A shrill scream tore through her as though she was being sawed in half. Though the sound came from inside her head, still her eardrums trembled against its onslaught. Her body tensed and every instinct in her made her fling Pristoleph from her. She scrambled away from him, but only a few inches, before her legs curled up, her knees knocked her chin, and her eyes pressed so tightly closed her temples began to throb.
Pristoleph's voice came to her as if from the bottom of a deep well. He called her name, confused at first, then insistent. She didn't want to hear any real emotion in his voice, not just then, so her own mind masked the fear and desperation, the uncertainty that poured over her. His hand wrapped around her arm and she trembled but didn't push him away. Tears burned her eyes, hotter even than his touch.
"I can make them go away," he all but shouted into her ear. His breath scalded her. "Let me help you."
She shook her head and was only barely conscious of telling him no.
The little girl screamed again, and Phyrea sobbed and stiffened. When the apparition began to break things—a vase, a mirror, a windowpane—Pristoleph leaped from the bed, his hair dancing on his scalp like flames.
"Go away!" he roared at the room itself.
She screamed the word "No," over and over and over again until the little girl stopped screaming and started laughing.
Never let him say that again, the man with the scar warned her.
We will kill you both if you let him say that again, the old woman threatened.
And it will hurt, said the little boy.
Then they went silent all at once. Nothing more was broken, and the feeling of them fled her. Phyrea let a convulsing sob vibrate through her sweat-soaked flesh then wiped the tears from her eyes.
"No," she whispered.
Pristoleph stood naked before her, heat radiating from his body, and she could tell that if he touched her then she would be burned. She felt herself smile when she thought of the pain—the pain that would make it go away—and she reached out for him.
Pristoleph took a step back away from her.
Embarrassed, she drew the satin sheet up to her shoulders to cover her nakedness, then turned her face away from him to cover her shame.
7_______
2 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Temple of the Delicate Chaos, Innarlith
"Xou seem very certain of Senator Pristoleph's desires," Wenefir said, his eyebrows crunched together in thought. "Has he said as much to you?"
"Does he have to?" Marek Rymiit asked. He smiled at the Cyricist who sat across from him. Wenefir's bloated, too-soft body reeked of stale perfume and sweat. The gold and silver goblet in his hand had been drained and refilled eight times by an emaciated boy in a clean white tunic. The boy's face was as soft and as clean as his clothing, but his eyes appeared almost dead. Even Marek didn't want to imagine what so youthful a servant must have been put through to burn so much of him away. "What else is there for him?"
"I assure you, Master Rymiit, the subject of the Palace of Many Spires has come up between the senator and myself on numerous occasions. Not only has he never expressed an interest in the position, but he has repeatedly criticized those who covet it."
"They say it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind," said the Thayan, "and we both know the same holds true for men—but for genasi, who knows?"
Wenefir bristled at the word genasi, and Marek returned the look with a smile.
"I am no fool, Priest of Cyric," the wizard said. "Our friend's... father, was it?... was a native of the Elemental Plane of Fire."
"Careful, Master Rymiit," Wenefir warned, then once again emptied his goblet.
The boy stepped up with the ewer, but the Cyricist waved him away.
"Ever careful, thank you, Master Wenefir," Marek replied with a wink. "I have friends and close associates among the planetouched, as among other races. I hold no prejudices in that regard."
"But some in this city do," Wenefir said.
"As a foreigner myself, I can assure you that you are indeed correct. Should Pristoleph wish to continue to keep his secret, as open as it might be among those with more than the most rudimentary education, so be it. I have kept and will continue to keep secrets aplenty on his behalf and others'."
Wenefir nodded and waved that train of thought away. They both had secrets, they all had secrets, and both he and Wenefir knew that their secrets would be kept as long as—and only just as long as—it was in the keeper's best interest to hold them.
"If it's true what you say of his ambitions," Wenefir said, "and I am not saying it is true, then this marriage is even more disastrous. Is it not?"
Marek shrugged and smiled broader. "Phyrea is a delightful girl, just the type that Pristoleph and—dare I utter his cursed name—Ivar Devorast are most drawn to. Or so I'm told." He winked at Wenefir, who grimaced. "I think she'll add an air of refinement and culture, not to mention her father's numerous contacts, to our friend's social arsenal, don't you?"
"No," Wenefir replied, not bothering to mask his surprise-even outrage at Marek's sudden change of opinion. "No, I
most certainly do not. First of all, her father's contacts fled him the second his life was beaten out of him with his own leg."
Marek searched the priest's mien for any hint that he knew it was Marek who had arranged that ignoble death, but if he did know, he didn't betray himself.
"Secondly, it is well known throughout the city-state that Phyrea is mad, and I don't mean that garden variety madness that strikes all the scions of the aristocracy in their youth, but well and truly insane. If anything, an association with her will do him damage—considerable damage. I was certain you agreed with me on that, at least, and not long ago."
Marek shrugged in a theatrical way he hoped wouldn't too deeply wound the Cyricist.
"Well," said the Thayan, "I suppose I'll have to summon that prerogative we touched on earlier."
" 'Cyric smiles on those who change their minds,'" Wenefir recited, but it was plain he didn't believe it—at least not just then. "But still____"
"But still," Marek said, "it seems to you as though my stated loyalty to Senator Pristoleph is in question."
"No more in question than your stated loyalty to Ransar Salatis."
Marek took that opportunity to lift his too-heavy goblet and sip the cloying, sweet wine. Wenefir swallowed, too, doing his best to mask the trepidation he obviously felt at having challenged the Red Wizard. Even in the safety of his secret, monster-infested temple, Wenefir had to know how powerful an enemy Marek Rymiit would be—the same way Marek knew that Wenefir was hardly a man to be trifled with.
"Here we sit," the Thayan said, "in a temple dedicated to the Mad God. I know that your own loyalty is to that master. I think it goes without saying that when all is said and done my loyalty is to a certain tharchion far, far away in my beloved homeland. But alas, all has not been said or
done, so here we are. You threw your lot in with Pristoleph early, I hear, and have maintained that even after you found a new, much more powerful and compelling master to serve. I have remained loyal to the highest bidder, while nurturing a loyalty to the next highest."
"And Pristoleph is the next highest?"
"Pristoleph," Marek said with a grin, "may well be the highest of all."
Wenefir swallowed again and looked off into the gloom of the subterranean chamber. He held up his goblet and the dead-eyed boy stepped to him and filled it again. He brought the cup to his lips but stopped before he drank and looked up at Marek, his eyes cold and hard. Marek returned the glare with a smile and Wenefir took a small sip of wine.
"So you will make a ransar of Pristoleph," the Cyricist said. "And he'll be a ransar with more coins than friends."
"Only the poorest of the Fourth Quarter wretches have more friends than coins, my friend," Marek relied. "And between the two of us, I should think, we could muster sufficient support."
"A process, I can guess, that you've already begun."
"In earnest," Marek replied with a wink. "Senator Sitre has made his intentions known."
Wenefir's eyes briefly crossed and he shook his head.
"I know, I know," Marek said, holding out a hand as though to steady the priest from across the space between them. "Sitre has long been a close associate of Salatis's, but the Palace of Many Spires does tend to inspire as much jealousy as it does awe, especially in the unimaginative."
"Indeed," said the priest.
"I wonder," Marek said, making a show of looking up at the ceiling, "what two men with the proper imagination could muster in a place like Innarlith?"
He looked back at Wenefir, who gazed off into the gloom again, imagining.
8
12 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) The Grand Canal of the Second Emperor, Shou Lung
Ivar Devorast sat on a hill a hundred and thirty miles west along the Grand Canal of the Second Emperor from the city of Wuhu, a hundred and fifty miles northwest of Ch'ungkung. Ran Ai Yu stopped, the bowls of rice beginning to burn her hands, and stared at him. She had seen westerners in Shou Lung before, had seen the faraway, lost looks in their eyes, the confusion and fear in their halting speech, the insecurity that came from being in a place at once familiar and so alien. She knew she'd felt the same the first time she'd ventured west into Faerun, and she still felt that way most of the time, even after having spent so much time in Innarlith, Calimport, and surrounding cities.
But Ivar Devorast showed none of that discomfort. His eyes darted from the unfamiliar to the exotic without ever betraying a sense of the. difference between one and the other. He'd picked up a few words of Kao te Shou already, even though they had been in her home country for but a few days.
The voyage had lasted a month—fast even for her—and Devorast had seemed equally at home aboard the vessel he'd built for her, the wondrous Jie Zud, as he was passing through the occasional magical portal they'd used to shave time from the voyage. She had been concerned about his reaction to that, but he'd had none. He seemed either to trust her to convey him safely to Shou Lung, or he simply didn't care. She hoped it was the former, but feared it was the latter.
And so there he sat, on a high hilltop overlooking the Grand Canal of the Second Emperor, stretched out far
below them, a ribbon of blue-black water no different from any river. On the other side, following the canal's lazily-winding course between the moundlike hills ran the Kaifeng Highway, a band of dusty brown punctuated here and there by the clouds of dust kicked up by a passing caravan. Ships and barges alike plied the waters of the canal, square sails making the most of the cool, strong breeze that tore through the hills. He sat facing north into Hungtse Province, though where he sat was the northern frontier of Wang Kuo. Ran Ai Yu knew that Ivar Devorast cared little for that distinction, or for any of the names people had given anything. She spared a glance at her own ship, which sat tied to the edge of the canal three hundred feet below. The ceramic tiles sparkled in the sunlight, and the sight of it filled her with awe, even though it had been hers for more than six years.
"Rice?" Devorast asked, not turning his head.
Ran Ai Yu smiled and stepped forward, not speaking until she had come to his side and he looked up at her.
"Yours will be no less impressive," she said.
He glanced at the bowl of rice she held out to him and cracked just the tiniest of smiles. Ran Ai Yu felt her heart expand in her chest, but she fought down the feeling. She couldn't keep herself from blushing, though, but Devorast didn't seem to notice.
He took the bowl from her hand and said, "Thank you. For the rice."
"May I sit?" she asked, and he nodded.
She sank into a lotus position next to him, close but not so close that anything could be implied. She took a deep breath and settled her own rice bowl in the folds of her robe.
They sat for a long time in silence, neither of them eating, just staring off into the distance at the bald hills on the other side of the canal, at the wakes of the boats running along the water, and the clouds drifting lazily across the azure sky.
"You will have to go back," she said, and her jaw started to tremble so she closed her mouth. "I have only been here a few days." "And what have you learned?"
He didn't answer for a long time, so Ran Ai Yu waited.
"Did I come here to learn something?" he asked her finally, the sound of a challenge in his voice.
"Didn't you?" she asked. "You came here to see the Grand Canal of the Second Emperor, and here it is. Will it help you build your own?"
He nodded but seemed determined to leave it at that.
"They will finish it without you," she said. "They will try, at least."
Again, he failed to respond.
"You can stay here as long as you like," she said. "It would be my honor should you decide to accompany me to my home in Tsingtao. There you can stay for as long as you wish."
She didn't expect an answer from him, and got none.
"Should you decide to stay in self-imposed exile"—at that he looked at her, startling her—"then nothing would make me happier than to be your host for as long as you wish. But you should not choose that. You should not go to Tsingtao with me, or stay here upon this hill. You should return to finish what you have begun, and finish it in your own way, and in your own time."
He sighed—a rare sound indeed from Ivar Devorast.
"I will take you back, if you wish," she said, "aboard JieZud."
Another long stretch of silence passed while she watched two clouds slowly collide and merge over the far hills of Hungtse.
"How long was that?" Ivar Devorast asked.
Ran Ai Yu looked at him, but he continued to stare out at the horizon.
"How long did we just go without speaking?" he asked.
Ran Ai Yu shook her head.
"I am curious about things like that," he said. "We measure distance. We break it up into inches, feet, and miles. But time passes only at the whim of greater forces: the sun, the moon, the stars, and the tides."
Ran Ai Yu narrowed her eyes, and try as she might, she could not understand what Ivar Devorast meant to tell her.
"You should go back," she said, unable to keep the regret from her voice.
He looked out into the far reaches of the farthest east.
9_
20 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Firesteap Citadel
They stepped out of the coach and into a cacophony of taps and cracks. Hundreds of men milled about, seemingly at random, groups surrounding pairs fighting each other with wooden swords. Other rings of men encircled half a dozen men fighting another half a dozen men with long, blunt-ended poles. Orders and encouragement—and more than a few insults and jibes—burst free of the general din.
Pristoleph nodded to a lieutenant who saluted him and helped Phyrea down from the coach. Not paying attention to the lieutenant's status report, Pristoleph watched his young bride take in the scene. She squinted in the winter overcast from under a wide-brimmed hat.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Pristoleph said, cutting off the officer's report.
The soldier bowed and scurried away into the general confusion.
"You're sure you're well?" Pristoleph said, allowing every bit of the doubt he held to show in both his voice and his face.
Phyrea didn't look at him. She held a small black parasol under one arm, which she fiddled with. He couldn't help
thinking she wanted to open it, as though the dull gray light was too bright for her. He'd been noticing that she was growing more and more sensitive to light, as though she was becoming a creature of the Underdark, and he didn't like that.
As he continued to watch her, her tight squint began to relax a little and she almost began to smile.
"Well?" he prompted.
"This is yours now?" she asked, and he could tell she was impressed. Just then Pristoleph thought he'd somehow done the impossible. "You bought this?"
"The citadel?" he replied, taking her by the arm and leading her along the winding dirt track that led through the drilling grounds toward the tall stone fortress. "Firesteap Citadel belongs to the ransar—or, well, let's say, the people of Innarlith. I bought the castellan."
She smiled at him and he had no choice but to smile back.
"I served here," he told her, his thoughts spinning back to those simpler times.
"I can't imagine you as a soldier," she said.
"I'll admit I wasn't much of a footman," he confided. "I had... other duties."
"Oh?"
"Let's just say that I provided an essential ... supply service for my comrades in arms."
"Yes," she said with a light laugh—lighter than he'd heard from her in some time, if ever, "let's just say that."
She slowed as they passed close to a group of soldiers lined up parallel to each other, swinging wooden pole arms in mock combat. One head turned her way, then another and another, until a sergeant started yelling at them while he looked Phyrea up and down himself. Pristoleph could see that she was so used to that sort of attention from that sort of man, that she didn't notice it at all.
"I want you to stay here for a while," he said, once again leading her slowly toward the citadel. "The city may not be entirely safe—at least not for long."
He looked at her, expecting her to look at him. Instead she seemed to be listening to one of those voices that only she could hear. He had to look away. When he watched her do that, his heart ached. Either she was indeed possessed, or she was mad. Either way he could pay a priest to make her better, but she refused to even hear of it. If anything else was mysteriously broken in his house, though, he would have her exorcised whether she agreed to it or not.
IP__
5Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Firesteap Citadel
Marek watched Insithryllax fidget. The black dragon wore his human guise, but his coal-dark eyes darted across the sky above him, his feet shuffled, and his shoulders twitched like a restless bird. The day was unseasonably warm, the sky a pure blue untroubled by clouds, and the dragon wanted to fly.
"He is himself again," Wenefir said. His voice made Insithryllax jump a little and turn with an angry twist to his heavy brow. The priest of Cyric ignored him and went on, "I don't know if it's the clean southern air, or maybe even that trollop of his, but it's as though he's returned from a long journey."
Marek shrugged while bowing to Wenefir in greeting. All three of them turned their eyes down to the ground fifty feet or more below them. From the top of the citadel, they could see the whole of the mustering grounds. There Pristoleph's newly-acquired private army marched and drilled.
"Certainly you agree, Master Rymiit?" Wenefir prompted.
Marek shrugged and said, "I've seen better prepared, better armed, and better disciplined armies in my day."
He could sense Wenefir stiffen at his side but didn't look at him. Instead, he let his gaze wander back to Insithryllax, who had once again turned his attention to the beckoning sky.
"Well," the Cyricist huffed, "of course we all have." Marek could tell that Wenefir hadn't. "Still, it's been barely three months."
"And they weren't an army before?" Marek teased with a smile.
The priest didn't return the smile when he replied, "Not hardly. They were rabble, most of them, living off the paltry wages of Salatis's sorry excuse for a military— and more than one of them had other interests ... other business interests that is."
"They were thieves," Marek said.
"The best of them were, yes," Wenefir replied, "while others either supported or extorted the camp followers, provided private security or other dark deeds for whatever coin might have been thrown at them... they were thieves, yes, and murderers, too."
"I seem to recall," Marek said, enjoying every second of what he was about to say with a wide, toothy grin, "hearing tell of a young soldier named Pristoleph who, some decades ago, provided his comrades in arms with the company of women ... women, one might say, of generous affections."
Wenefir tensed and Marek got the distinct impression the priest was holding himself rigid, as though unwilling to give the Red Wizard the satisfaction of whirling on him. His jaw tensed, his eyes closed, then all at once he relaxed. Behind him, the black dragon stared at the priest with the threat of violence in his eyes.
"What is it about you, I wonder," Wenefirsaid, forcing a smile on his face with obvious difficulty, "that causes me to underestimate you in all the least important ways?"
"Let us call it 'charisma' and leave it at that," Marek replied.
The priest tipped his head in acquiescence and once again the three of them turned their attention to Pristoleph at the head of his army.
11 _
14 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Firesteap Citadel
f*hyrea dreamed of a monster with a beautiful face.
A snake, but bigger than any she'd ever imagined. Its smooth, dry scales shimmered in the dim candlelight, throwing off sparks of every color. She watched it approach the foot of her bed. While one part of her mind tried in vain to assign its slithering form a single color, another part screamed at her to move, to leap from bed and flee.
But she couldn't move. The satin and silk bedclothes were loose and warm around her, but still she felt as though they held her firmly against the mattress. She lay on her back, her neck propped up on her favorite pillow, her arms at her sides, palms down, as stiff and as heavy as the world itself. Her legs might have been made of stone. She could breathe—more and more in rapid, panting gasps—and her eyes could move in her head, but even her throat refused to allow a cry for help. Instead she gurgled once, then began to breathe even harder, faster.
She looked at the door, still closed and locked, and hoped that Pristoleph would finally come to bed, that he would open the door, see the monster bearing down on her, and kill it before it could eat her, before it could enslave her mind, before it could ravage her still, helpless body. But the door remained closed, and no sound came from the corridor beyond.
The enormous snake stared Phyrea in the eye. Its face was that of a beautiful young girl, but with shimmering multicolored scales in place of youthful flesh. Hair that
resembled the feathers of a bird pressed down on its scalp to just barely frame its perfectly-proportioned features. One side of its lips, tightly pressed together, curled up in a smile dripping with murderous glee.
Phyrea had to look away. Her eyes went to the thin window—an arrow loop, really—and the starless night sky beyond. The sounds of the soldiers camped at the foot of the mighty fortress had long since quieted, and Phyrea knew she could expect no help from that quarter either.
Once again trying to speak, and once again having no luck, she turned again to face her attacker, but the monster was gone. In its place, shimmering with all the same colors, twinkling in the candlelight just the same, was the woman she had seen so many times since that fateful stay at her family's country estate.
The greens and reds, blues and oranges, faded into a familiar uniform violet when the woman's knee came down on the bed at Phyrea's feet. She had never seen one of the ghosts make an impression in furniture before, though the little girl had taken to breaking things. Something about the way the bed dipped under her weight made Phyrea want to scream even louder than she had at the sight of the snake-thing.
"Don't tell me you want to live," the woman said, and Phyrea's blood ran even colder in her already frigid veins. The voice echoed in her ears, not her mind—she was sure of it. "You can't want to live."
Phyrea opened her mouth to—to what? To scream? To respond? To argue or agree? Even she didn't know.
The woman crawled over her, straddling her prone, helpless form. Phyrea watched a tear well up in the woman's left eye and trace a path of purple light down her cheek. The ghost grimaced and sobbed, and Phyrea felt tears come to her own eyes.
"I want you to know something," the woman said, and the tear hung from the gentle curve of her chili. "I need to tell you what happened to me."
Phyrea tried to shake her head, but couldn't. The woman's face hung above her, and the tear fell onto Phyrea's chest. She felt it—hot on her night-cool skin.
"It was a long time ago," said the woman of violet light. "I remember that summer. It was the hottest summer I ever knew. People died in Innarlith that summer, and not only in the Fourth Quarter. They suffocated in their sleep, the air itself betraying them."
Phyrea wanted to close her eyes but couldn't.
"It was the Year of the Black Hound," the ghost went on—seventy-three years gone by, Phyrea thought. "It was the year of my greatest joy."
Phyrea wanted to beg her to stop, but still she couldn't speak. The woman's right hand closed over Phyrea's neck, the fingers warm and soft.
"She was born on the twenty-eightli day of Ches, on a warm spring day, to the sound of my husband's joyful sobs, and the inviting happiness of our assembled family. The midwife gave her to me, her cry strong with the promise of a long life, and she nursed right away, and with healthy abandon. From my bedside my own mother told me I had waited three days to nurse, and all agreed it was a good sign. She was a good baby. A good baby."
The woman's other hand wrapped around Phyrea's neck and with two hands she began to squeeze. Phyrea's tears blurred the face of the ghostly woman, until only the soft violet glow—and the voice—was left.
"She did everything early. She smiled, she laughed—she was my joy. She was my life. She was Anjeel. The world should know that her name was Anjeel."
No air passed through Phyrea's throat. She did everything she could to struggle, but there was no use. Her body had seemingly already died—perhaps that was it. Her stubborn, impatient mind was simply being helped along, was being forced by the ghost's crushing fingers to follow her arms and legs to oblivion.
"It was that summer," the woman went on. "That summer.
The heat. The stench from the Lake of Steam. One morning I went to the nursery—"
The woman's voice caught. Phyrea tried to gasp for air, tried to do anything—tried even to die more quickly, to just be done with it—but could only lie there. The woman's grip on her throat tightened. Pain lanced through her, sending bolts of agony up through her face and into her temples. Her vision went dark then came back again and she could blink. The tears fell from her eyes and rolled down the side of her face, burning her skin they were so hot. She blinked again and the woman made of violet light had taken on solid form.
The dream ended. The dim candlelight was gone, replaced only by the ambient light from the campfires far below, and the dim embers from her bedchamber hearth. The violet glow was gone too, and the woman who sat atop her, whose hands were even then squeezing the last of the life from Phyrea, had a new face.
Her skin was dark brown, the color of freshly tilled soil, and her hair, slicked back tightly against her scalp was as black as the endless Abyss—a black to match her cold, heartless eyes. Her clothes were a mix of black wool, black leather, and black silk, and the glint of steel betrayed a row of slim throwing knives sheathed along the length of a leather strap that went from her left shoulder to right hip.
She was no ghost.
Phyrea's vision dimmed around the edges. Her lungs burned.
The door opened.
Torchlight flooded the room and the woman who was strangling Phyrea turned her head and tightened her grip at the same time. Phyrea was only dimly aware of a new fear creeping into her mind: that her head might come away from her shoulders before she was successfully throttled.
Phyrea heard something, but the part of her mind that could interpret words had gone dark. All that was left was a burning, desperate, but helpless need to take in—
—a breath!
Her lungs filled with air, cool in her burning throat. The fingers had come away. She rocked and bobbed on the soft mattress, still only dimly aware of anything but her own breathing. She gasped and choked, sputtered and gagged as around her the bed shook, someone shouted, feet stomped on the wood floor.
Phyrea tried to sit up but couldn't. She had one hand at her throat, feeling it spasm as it fought to replenish lungs that had been fully emptied of life-sustaining air. The paralysis was fading, but slowly, and just as slowly her consciousness returned.
She blinked and could see the woman standing at her bedside, her lithe form a study in shades of black. The assassin slipped a knife from the strap, which had been emptied of half the weapons Phyrea had seen before. She didn't so much throw it as flick it and it seemed to simply disappear from her hand.
The grunt that followed was unmistakably Pristoleph's.
"Close your eyes!" he barked. "Phyrea, close your eyes!"
She didn't want to. She wanted to see him, but she did as she was told.
Fire washed over her. She felt and smelled her hair singe. There was a loud scream that at first Phyrea thought might have been her own, but her throat was still too raw, too tight to make a sound like that—not a sound that loud, and so inhuman. The scream was like a dozen screams woven into one, a chorus of sounds from a single throat.
Phyrea opened her eyes and saw the woman. Smoke whirled around her, rising into the air from her shoulders, arms, and head. She didn't seem to be burned when she turned to look Phyrea in the eye. What passed between them in that look was what must pass between a wolf and a sheep when the shepherd's arrow finds its mark—anger, frustration, and a promise they would see each other again.
The woman slithered out the window, which from where Phyrea lay appeared far too thin to accommodate her, and
she was gone. Too late, a sword blade rang against the stone windowsill, sending a spark out into the night.
The sword sliced back across the stone with a shower of tinier, short-lived sparks, and Pristoleph cursed. He didn't spare the time to look out the window before he tossed the weapon to the floorboards and fell at Phyrea's side on the bed. Blood soaked his dirty white tunic in at least three places.
"Phyrea!"
She coughed and made herself smile. He lifted her up, and though it hurt her at first to bend at the waist, the movement brought blood into veins that felt dried and brittle, and she was able to move a little more, just enough to put a hand on his shoulder, but not enough to keep it there.
He turned and shouted for Wenefir, and Phyrea let the darkness take her at last.
12___
18 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith
Do you have a garden of your own?" Ransar Salatis asked.
T'juyu seethed, but didn't allow herself to show it. Instead, she shook her head in the human custom and finished her quick but thorough examination of the rooftop garden. Within the space of a dozen of the human's ploddingly slow heartbeats she had traced in her mind's eye the path to nearly as many escape points. The garden was shockingly unsecured, especially for being what appeared to be the ransar's most favored place in the sprawling palace.
"A pity," the man rasped. His throat must have been as dry as an Anauroch summer. T'juyu didn't pity him so much as tolerate him. "Gardens are our way of writing our prayers to the Daughter of the High Forest on the world beneath her."
T'juyu might have bristled at that, had she paid the forest demigoddess more than a passing respect. She let her eyes dart around the garden and was not just unimpressed, but offended by the way the trees and flowering plants had been imprisoned in pots and boxes, trimmed and tamed into ghastly, unnatural mockeries of their natural forms.
"I didn't come here to speak of idle pursuits," she said, the sound of her own voice coming to her ears in the coarse, guttural tones of the primitive creatures she'd surrounded herself with.
"It is not an idle pursuit," the ransar replied, looking at her with his brows close together, and his jaw set in a firm scowl. Had she really been the creature he thought her to be, she might have been afraid of him just then. He was the most powerful man in the city-state after all, and it would have seemed that she was entirely in his power—alone with him in his garden, in his palace, at night. "This garden is a statement of faith."
"My apologies, Ransar," she said, playing along.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to a moss-covered marble bench.
T'juyu nodded and sat, ignoring how the moss slipped under her. It hadn't grown on its own accord but had been placed there. Salatis sat next to her with a sigh. His breath smelled of rotten vegetables and dust—an old man's stink.
"Praise be to the Dancer in the Glades," Salatis said, his eyes closed, his right hand covering a pendant that hung on a gold chain around his neck.
"The Lady of the Woods blesses us," T'juyu replied.
He looked at her with surprise that quickly turned into an almost comical, boyish delight. He smiled and his hand came away from the pendant: a golden acorn about the size of his thumb. The ransar sighed and looked up into the sky, once more devoid of stars, and heavy with the threat of rain.
"I bring you a disappointing report," T'juyu said.
"Disappointing for you," he asked, trying to be clever but only irritating her, "or disappointing for me?"
"For both of us," she replied quickly, so that his cleverness wouldn't have time to take hold. "I failed."
He sighed again, and T'juyu grimaced at the smell of his breath. She wanted to stand but made herself stay seated next to him. He sat on her left, so she drew the throwing knife from her right boot with her right hand, holding it in her palm, against the side of the bench. Salatis didn't look down but continued to stare into the empty blackness of the night sky. If he was disappointed enough in her failure to try to kill her, she would defend herself.
"There's more," she said.
"Did you fail entirely?" he asked. "It was to be both of them—the wife too."
"They both live," she said.
"Are you disappointed in yourself?" he asked.
T'juyu shook her head. She hadn't really ever had a stake in the death of that one senator and his wife. She had come to Innarlith for reasons of her own, but that commission, from the ransar no less, brought her closer in to the humans' city and their barbaric leaders. Still, it rankled her that the woman had awakened before she died. It bothered her that the senator had come in when he did. And she was still confused by the fire____
"I will take that as a yes," he said, apparently not having seen her shake her head.
It was T'juyu's turn to sigh.
"There will be other opportunities," he said.
"You are tired," T'juyu said, looking at the side of his face, at the deep lines around his eyes and mouth, the white in the stubble of his beard. "I am sorry."
She knew that last didn't sound as sincere as it should have, but the ransar didn't seem to mind.
"It's a strange thing, disappointment," he said as though speaking to the night itself and not just to her. "It comes
to you in the most unexpected guises and at the most inopportune times. It is unpredictable. Unpredictable...."
T'juyu looked away from him. He was babbling and there was something about his demeanor that disturbed her greatly. She had very little direct experience with humans, but she had seen their works often enough: strange vehicles dragged by servile animals, vessels afloat on the seas and rivers, and cities that sprawled over acre after acre of land cleared by a dizzying variety of tools. Surely no species could have achieved all those things with such unstable and preoccupied minds. Salatis must have been unusual in that regard.
"I bring other news," she said.
"News other than your failure?"
"I will not expect to be paid," she said, growing angrier.
He shook his head and waved her off.
"He is building an army," she said.
The ransar sighed and looked at her, his eyes drooping and red.
"An army?" he asked. "I knew it. I had... heard that."
"It is a sizable force," T'juyu said.
"Big enough, do you think, to threaten me?" he asked. "Big enough to overthrow me?"
"I don't know for certain, but it... it is a sizable force, and they are preparing for something."
"The defense of the southern approaches?" he said, and it took her a heartbeat or two to decide he was joking. He smiled a weary smile and said, "I knew that. I suspected that."
"What will you do?"
"I will fight him," he said, though she'd never heard a less enthusiastic proclamation. "I still command the black firedrakes. I still command the city, the loyalty of the senate... ?"
That last had the unmistakable sound of a question. T'juyu realized he didn't know who to trust, or what he truly controlled, if anything.
"You're tired," she whispered, replacing the throwing knife in her boot with only the smallest degree of stealth, because only the smallest degree was necessary.
The ransar shook his head.
"Shall I try again?" she asked.
He shrugged and though she waited far longer than she wanted to, he didn't say anything else. Finally, she stood, gave him a shallow bow that he ignored, and walked away. For all she knew, Salatis spent the rest of the night sitting on that bench, staring at nothing, a tired old man too beaten to realize just how beaten he was.
T'juyu left the palace with the distinct impression that she had chosen the wrong side.
13__
8Eleint, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) First Quarter, Innarlith
How is it possible that you haven't changed at all?" Surero asked.
Devorast glanced at the alchemist, shrugged, then looked down when a Shou sailor set his canvas bag down on the planks next to him. The young man bowed and scurried back up the gangplank to the deck of the ceramic ship.
"It's been a mess since you've been gone," Surero went on. "People are saying there's going to be another in our long line of civil wars."
"That can't have anything to do with my having been gone," Devorast said.
Surero didn't realize he was joking at first, so rare a thing that was with Devorast. He smiled as Devorast picked up his bag and turned to look back at the ship. Ran Ai Yu stood at the rail and held up a hand. Devorast returned the gesture, turned back, and started to walk. Glancing back a few times at the Shou merchant captain,
who continued to stare at Devorast's receding back, Surero fell into step beside him.
"She isn't coming?" Surero asked.
"She's moving on up the Sword Coast to trade."
As they walked the length of the long pier, Devorast looked at the ships tied up along the way. Surero watched his critical gaze run up the masts and follow the length of their rails. Ahead of them, a gang of stevedores unloaded barrels from a groaning old coaster while the crew hooted at them from the rail. The smell of decayed flesh, intermingled with the sulfurous stench of the Lake of Steam assailed them as they walked, and Devorast slowed. Surero took his arm to keep him moving at pace.
"Zombies," the alchemist said, "courtesy of the Red Wizards of Thay."
Devorast didn't react with the same sort of horrified fascination most people did when they first encountered the new breed of dockhands. Still, it was plain enough in his expression that he didn't approve.
"It's worse," Surero told him. He found it difficult to go on. He didn't want to say it, but he knew Devorast needed to know. "They're building the canal, too."
The sigh that came from Devorast was one of the most frightening sounds Surero had ever heard. He shivered as they passed the zombie work gang. None of the undead creatures paused in their slow, methodical work to notice them. Both men put hands to their faces, covering their noses as they passed.
"They're still working on it," Devorast said. "I'm surprised."
Surero could tell he was disappointed as well.
"Salatis has made speeches about it," said the alchemist. "He said all the right things then put the whole project in the hands of a fool named Horemkensi. Do you know him?"
Devorast shook his head. They left the zombie longshoremen behind.
"Accidents..." Surero started, then just shook his head. "It's been a long time."
"I was told that you were brewing beer," Devorast said, and Surero was surprised to see him smiling.
"I am," Surero admitted. "I don't mind it, actually. I make good beer." The alchemist sighed and said, "It's been a long time."
"Has it?"
"Seven months?"
"Are they following the plans?" Devorast asked. "My drawings?"
"The best they can, I think," Surero said. "But their best is horrendous. There's a hope that the new ransar will be more inclined to bring you back. If there is a new ransar, "that is."
"If there's one thing I've learned in the time I've been in Innarlith," Devorast said as they stepped off the wood-plank pier and onto the gravel streets of the First Quarter, "it's that there will always be another ransar."
Surero smiled and said, "You haven't changed."
"It hasn't been that long. We have a lot of work to do."
"What do you intend to do?"
Devorast didn't miss a step. "I intend to finish it—my way, whoever the ransar is."
14_
2 Uktar, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Firesteap Citadel
Irom a distance they looked like lions—big, solidly-muscled cats built more for strength than speed or stealth. At first she didn't even notice the third set of limbs, forward and higher up from their front legs, but at the end of those limbs were hands, and in those hands they carried weapons. Their heads, like their bodies, were more lion than man, but even from far away, it was the eyes that made them different.
"Innarlans won't like them," Phyrea said when she heard Pristoleph step onto the roof behind her.
He chuckled and stood next to her, his hands folded together and resting on the top of a battlement.
"They're not even human," Phyrea added.
"The current ransar employs undead to build the canal and to crew the docks," Pristoleph reminded her. "Surely a few of their neighbors from the south won't disturb people too much."
"The zombies that work the docks belong to you. And who says anyone likes them? At least Salatis's are well outside the city walls."
Phyrea felt more than heard a sigh in her head. It was the old woman, and she was tired of being out in the southern frontier, at the hard and crowded fortress surrounded by soldiers.
"The people of Innarlith are accustomed to a certain transience in the position of ransar," Pristoleph said, and Phyrea winced at the implication.
They're going to kill him, the man with the scar on his face whispered in her ear.
"Yes, they are," she whispered back.
"Well," Pristoleph said with a surprised smile, "you're easy to convince today."
Phyrea shook her head in reply.
"The wemics have no interest in Innarlith," he said. "I'm sure you won't have to worry about their crude tents lowering the property values in the Second Quarter."
They'll kill him in public, said the old woman. They'll make a show of it.
"What do they fight for then?" she asked, ignoring the ghost.
"Magic weapons."
She narrowed her eyes and turned on the senator.
"It's almost too easy," he went on. "They're obsessed with enchanted weapons—any sort of weapon, and any sort of enchantment."
"And you buy the weapons from the Thayan."
Pristoleph shrugged, the look on his face not quite petty enough to be smug, but he was indeed pleased with himself as he stared out over his growing army.
"There are costs with Marek Rymiit that go far beyond the coin," she warned him, her face flushing when she realized it was both unnecessary and useless for her to try.
"I am familiar with his desires," Pristoleph said, "and much more in touch with his true motives than he realizes."
"You are a brilliant man, Pristoleph, but Rymiit is something else."
Pristoleph shrugged again and said, "He's killed, driven into exile, or employed every other mage of reasonable skill in Innarlith. I need the weapons because I need the wemics, so I deal with Marek Rymiit."
"And you have them," she said with a sigh. "So what are you waiting for?"
He laughed and said, "Are you anxious for me to make my move on the Palace of Many Spires because you miss the city life, or because you believe I'm ready to win?"
"I just don't understand what's taking so long."
She wrapped her fur-collared weathercloak around her more tightly and held her arms around her, shivering in the early winter chill. It was colder on the roof of the citadel than it was on the ground, but she had grown to like the solitude it afforded her, even if the view made her nervous. She didn't like the sight of the army gathering, while at the same time something about it—something insubstantial but in its own way powerful—drew her to it.
"You're cold," he said, stepping closer to her.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind and she could feel his abnormal warmth radiating through even her thick clothing. The feeling made her close her eyes, made her breathe a little more slowly, and made the ghosts seem just a little farther away.
Enjoy it while it lasts, the woman who mourned her dead child called from beyond the grave.
"Enjoy it while it lasts," Phyrea whispered in response.
"It will last," Pristoleph said into her ear, his breath uncomfortably hot on her neck, "as long as I decide it will last."
"Are you certain of that?" she asked, but of course he was. He didn't even bother to stiffen. If anything, he held her only tighter. "Marek Rymiit may have something to say about that."
"He can say what he wishes," Pristoleph said. "When I am ransar, I'll—"
"Is that what Salatis said?" she interrupted. "I wonder if he said those same words, back in the Year of the Staff."
"Rymiit is a powerful man, but he's got his weaknesses, too. He's a dandy and he craves attention. He manipulates, but he can be manipulated."
"And he says the same about you," Phyrea said, regretting the words the moment they left her mouth.
He stepped away from her. "I had hoped you'd have more confidence in me by now."
She went to him and he embraced her. They shared a kiss and she put her hands on the side of his face. Her hair blew in the wind, whipping his cheeks, but he didn't seem to mind.
"He will help you," she said, "the same way he helped Salatis, and he will destroy you the same way he's about to destroy Salatis."
Pristoleph pushed her away, though gently. She never let her eyes leave his.
You're right, the old woman told her. Phyrea didn't look over Pristoleph's shoulder. She knew she'd see the apparition on the roof behind him. You're right about everything. What would he do, I wonder, if you threw yourself off the roof right now? Haven't you thought about that? I know you have. Just step off into—
"Nothing," Phyrea whispered, shaking her head. "Into thin air."
No, the old woman said, a pleading quality to her thin voice, into our tender embrace. Into the arms of the only family you have left.
Pristoleph looked at her with narrowed eyes under a knitted brow and Phyrea forced herself to turn away from him.
"I don't understand," he said.
She wiped a tear from her eye, and said, "You don't have to... Ransar Pristoleph."
She hoped he smiled at her, but she didn't turn to look.
15__
3 Alturiak, the Year of the Tankard (1370 DR) Third Quarter, Innarlith
Devorast paused to let a wagon laden with empty crates rattle past him. He didn't turn to watch it go and only those few missed steps showed he was aware of its passing at all. When it was out of his way he strode forward, as tall and straight, as confident as always.
The thing that once was Willem Korvan put a hand up on the rough bricks of the tannery, letting only one side of his desiccated face break the plane of the corner, only one dry, stinging eye on his prey.
No, the undead creature thought, not prey. Not yet.
Devorast turned a corner and disappeared from sight. Willem had to look both ways, up and down the dark, quiet street. With middark fast approaching, the streets of the Third Quarter were quiet and all but empty. He watched the wagon trundle off around a curve in the street, and there were no other signs of life. Candles and hearth-fires lit a few of the second story windows, but no faces appeared. No one looked down into the deserted street so late at night.
Willem stepped out from the ink-black alley and crossed the street as fast as he could—in six long strides.
Each footfall sent a stab of pain up from the soles of his feet, through his legs, and into the still, hollow place in his chest where his heart once beat. He hadn't grown accustomed to the pain. Every twinge and jab, every throb and ache, nettled and angered him, reminded him of a time when he could walk without it, speak without it, think without it—but that's all the memory of that time he had.
There were glimpses of faces, dim recollections of desires and ambitions, but all that had been eclipsed, overwhelmed, swallowed up by a single compulsion: to serve his master. And through all that, like a mountain stream through canyons and valleys, ran the pain.
When he looked around the corner of the vacant building Devorast had disappeared behind, Willem saw his prey—no, not prey, he reminded himself again, not yet-crossing the more narrow street several yards ahead. The sound of people laughing, of stories and jokes told too loudly, assaulted his ears. The pain bounced around in his head and he closed his eyes, riding a wave of rage that burned itself out quickly in his dead, defeated spirit.
Devorast went into a tavern, and Willem rushed behind him as fast as his stiff knees would allow. He slipped into a side street when he heard footsteps approach, and while he listened to another man open the tavern door, releasing another wave of voices and—something else ... music?—he turned into an alley. Rats scattered at his approach and one, foolish and brave, perhaps mind-addled with rabies, stopped to hiss at him as he passed. He came around to the back of the tavern then moved to a window that looked out onto the alley on one side.
The sound, strange and alluring—the sound of music-made him blink. He remembered the song but not its name. He liked that song—or he remembered liking it, remembered, vaguely, a time when he was able to form opinions of that kind: like, dislike, love... hate he could still feel. Hate and blind obedience.
He saw Devorast in the tavern, surrounded by happy, living people—happy even though they were simple tradesmen—and Willem reveled in his hatred. It was his hatred that sustained him like the air that used to fill the lungs, which had gone still and empty in his chest.
"Devorast," he whispered, and touched a cold finger to the colder glass. "My friend..."
Devorast approached a table and two men—no, one man and a dwarf—stood to greet him with smiles. He embraced the dwarf in a way that even the dead version of Willem Korvan couldn't believe he'd ever have seen from Ivar Devorast. The dwarf was a spectacle—all hair and grime and the drying crust of stale mead. But they smiled and they embraced.
The other man—Willem recognized him, but the name was distant and unavailable to him—patted Devorast on the back and they sat. The man Willem couldn't remember held up a hand and a barmaid approached with a tray. A man at another table grabbed at her behind as she passed but she didn't notice. Laughter followed.
The music came from a table in the back upon which sat an old man cradling a yarting. Willem closed his eyes and let the music hammer at his ears. He tried to hear what Devorast said to the dwarf and the alchemist—that's right, Willem realized, that's the alchemist—but he couldn't hear. His head throbbed in time with the music and a pain struck him, as though someone had driven a lance through his right calf.
He had pains like that from time to time and had imagined that they were either memories of wounds he'd forgotten in the past, or premonitions of injuries to come.
He imagined that because the truth, that he was rotting and when you rot, it hurts, wasn't something he could think about and remain even as sane as he was. If he let himself understand what had truly happened to him, and what was happening to him with every passing moment, he would become the monster Marek Rymiit had made him.
If he tried to remember that he was Willem Korvan, he would serve the Thayan as long as he had to until he was finally ordered to kill Ivar Devorast, then he would set himself on fire, throw himself from the top of the Palace of Many Spires, or sink himself into the deepest part of the Lake of Steam.
He'd been dead for over a year, but he still had something to live for.
16
15 Ches, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith
Iristoleph had lost count of the number of gold trade bars he'd had delivered to the Thayan Enclave in the year he spent holding the Palace of Many Spires hard under siege. The streets around the palace were lined with barricades. Shops and inns had been closed for so long the smarter and wealthier of the owners had since relocated to the edges of the Second Quarter and the less foresighted and more under-funded had simply wandered off, leaving everything behind.
The wemics, surprisingly enough, hadn't participated in any of the looting. That seemed an entirely human affair. Pristoleph, watching from a commandeered building across the street, a high-class brothel he'd made his command center, sent a daily missive by magical sending to Ransar Salatis, who remained holed up in his palace first for days, then tendays, then months, but the only return he ever got was a single prayer to some god Pristoleph had never heard of followed by a very rude suggestion as to where he should store his ambitions. The note had made Pristoleph laugh.
"It is an abomination," the wemic, Second Chief Gahrzig, growled. "We cannot be compelled to war at its side."
The wemic's clawed feet scratched the marble of the grand foyer of the Palace of Many Spires as he circled Pristoleph, his one good eye never leaving the hooded undead thing Marek Rymiit had lent him—free of charge,
no less—for the final assault on the palace. The wemic's left eye had been replaced with a smooth, polished gray stone that gave the leonine creature the appearance of a fanciful statue brought almost entirely to life.
"Patience, Second Chief," Pristoleph cautioned, purposefully not looking at the shambling corpse. "Our goal is at hand. Keep your eye on that."
Pristoleph winced—hoping it didn't show—at that slip of the tongue, but the wemic didn't seem to notice.
The undead thing stared out of the single eye hole cut into its black leather hood in what could only have been the Thayan's attempt at a joke. It saw the world through its left eye, while the wemic that despised it had only his right. The clothes it "wore" were tattered, filthy rags that had been tied around it in places to more resemble bandages than garments. Pristoleph imagined that if even a few of the knots were undone, the thing might unravel entirely. He managed to ignore the smell, but that was more difficult for the wemics.
"Follow me," Pristoleph said to Gahrzig, then glanced at the undead thing and strode across the wide foyer.
He didn't wait to be sure anyone followed him, and he didn't look back, but he could hear the tap of wemic claws on the marble, and the uneven sliding gait of the animated corpse, behind him.
When he was only a few yards from the wide doors at the other end of the cavernous foyer, the heavy oak panels flew open to reveal a line of archers, kneeling in the doorway, arrows nocked. The men looked bad—emaciated and dirty, afraid and exhausted.
Pristoleph stopped walking, put up a hand, and said, "Wait! I-"
But that was as far as he got before the men in the doorway loosed their arrows. The shafts came at him like a cloud of angry hornets, hissing as they made their way to him and the mercenaries behind him.
One of the arrows would have sunk into his chest-perhaps even his heart—had the magical shield that Marek
Rymiit provided for him not pulled his left arm up, almost against his will, to take the impact. The arrow shattered when it hit the gold-inlaid steel of the shield, falling to the marble tiles in splinters.
Most of the arrows missed their targets, but one sank into the right thigh of the undead man. Goosef lesh rose on the undersides of Pristoleph's arms when he saw the utter lack of response from the dead thing. It stood statue-still, Pristoleph's "Wait," being the last command it had heard.
The wemics were entirely less forgiving.
One took an arrow in his broad chest and struggled to stay on his feet, his black lips curled up over yellow fangs, a low, steady growl rolling from his pain-tightened throat. The wemic next to that one threw a spear, which arced through the air so fast Pristoleph's eyes couldn't follow it. It hit one of the archers in the face. There was an unexpected flash of orange light and in what must have been the barest fraction of an instant, both the spear and the archer's head were simply gone.
The archer next to his headless, twitching companion screamed—a high-pitched, desperate wail that echoed in the lofty chamber—and dropped his bow to run. When he turned, he turned in front of the archer on his other side, who, though shaking and obviously reluctant to hold his ground as the wemics began to charge, loosed his arrow. It passed right through the man's chest, and from the amount of blood that followed it, Pristoleph knew the gurgling, jerking archer would die fast.
"Stop this!" Pristoleph called out.
The wemics were in full charge by then, though, and Pristoleph's order was overwhelmed by their harsh growls and roars, the battle cries of the great cats given voice by creatures with the hands and minds of men. The one who had thrown his spear passed by Pristoleph's shield arm, and the senator saw that the barbarian had his weapon back in his hand, as though he'd never thrown it. Pristoleph remembered paying the Thayan well for that spear.
Two more arrows found their targets and a pair of wemics stumbled, but only one went down. When the first of the lion-men smashed into the line of archers, he killed two with an axe so sharp it tore through armor and bone as easily as it did flesh. There were only three archers left and they all turned to run, tangling with the guards who had stepped up behind them.
Pristoleph set his jaw and made a fist of his right hand. He had to settle himself before he could speak, and while he did, one of the guards fell to a wemic's halberd and a wemic was wounded in the shoulder by one of the guards' long swords.
"This is a waste!" he shouted. "These men who protect that door serve Innarlith. Stop and let them recognize their new ransar. They are beaten."
But no one heard him. The wemics appeared mad with bloodlust, but Pristoleph knew better. They had engaged their enemy, and they would fight to the death. Blood flew, men screamed, wemics roared, and the massacre seemed to go on for days, though only moments passed. Pristoleph didn't order the undead thing into combat, and it remained content to stand there, the arrow still protruding from its thigh.
"Senator Pristoleph?" Gahrzig said from the doorway when the last of the guards were dead.
Pristoleph nodded, not bothering to chastise the barbarian for doing what he'd been paid to do, but neither did Pristoleph praise their skill at arms. They had lost two of their number and killed eight times that many Innarlans, but to Pristoleph it felt like a defeat.
He stepped through the doorway and into the ransar's grand audience chamber, stepping over the fallen guards to do so. The men were skeletal, as though they hadn't eaten in a tenday, as likely they hadn't.
"We did a good job of starving them out, didn't we?" he asked himself as he saw a line of corpses wrapped in what looked like draperies from one of the palace's many parlors. More than three times the number of men the wemics killed had perished before the gates were forced
open—starved, likely, or fallen to the fevers that inevitably infest a closed space full of desperate, fearful men. "I will spend a long time apologizing for this."
"Or a short time paying for it," the second chief grumbled under his breath.
Pristoleph stopped and looked at Gahrzig, who met his gaze and held it.
"Have I made you so cynical, Gahrzig?" Pristoleph asked. "Have I infected you with that most human of maladies?"
The wemic's brows furrowed and he couldn't help but show a little fang. It was plain the second chief didn't like the implication, but Pristoleph turned away before anything further could be said.
"These are all house guards," Pristoleph said, not happy about changing the subject, but there was a certain time pressure involved. "There are no black firedrakes."
"He's saving them for his private chambers, no doubt," Gahrzig suggested.
"You," Pristoleph said to the undead thing, which gave no indication it knew it was being addressed in any way. "Come with me."
Regardless of the Red Wizard's caution to keep the undead thing away from the black firedrakes, Pristoleph made the decision right then that the first to fall to the strange creatures—monsters that could take the form of men, or men who could take the form of monsters—that comprised Salatis's private guard would be the thing that was already dead.
The wemics drew back as it shuffled past them, then fell into step a few paces behind for the long, tense walk through the palace. As they passed through the wide corridors, the household staff, who had been locked in with Salatis when the siege began, threw themselves at Pristoleph's feet—dirty, starving, and relieved that, even if they were killed for their loyalty to the outgoing ransar, at least it would be over—then they just as quickly scurried away, cowering under the fierce stares of the wemics.
By the time they'd climbed the many flights of stairs to the upper reaches of the palace, Pristoleph felt as though he was walking in a dream. Everywhere they should have met resistance, they found nothing. No arrows, crossbow bolts, or gouts of magical flame came from any of the well-concealed murder holes, and no acid-spitting black firedrakes manned the various blind spots in curving stairways designed for just such an ambush. They arrived at the doors to the ransar's bedchamber entirely unmolested.
Pristoleph stood before the doors with the undead creature on his left side and Gahrzig on his right. He looked at the wemic, who only shrugged. Neither of them were entirely sure how to proceed, though Pristoleph had envisioned that moment for months, if not years.
Not sure why he was doing it even as his hand came up, Pristoleph knocked on the door.
"Enter, Ransar," came a voice from within. The voice was deep, and seemed to rumble from the space beyond the carved mahogany door like thunder. It was not Salatis's voice.
Pristoleph opened the door and the wemics all tensed.
The large room was filled with men in armor as black as their hair. They looked so much alike they could have all been brothers. They were armed, but their swords were sheathed, and their spears were held point-down. When Pristoleph stepped into the room they went down on one knee in such perfect unison the genasi thought they must have practiced it for days—and maybe they had.
One of them didn't kneel, though. He stepped forward.
"I am Captain Olin," the black firedrake said, and Pristo-lepli recognized his voice as the man who'd bid him enter.
"Captain Olin," Pristoleph said, "are you prepared to surrender?"
The black firedrake smiled in the way parents smile at children who ask where babies come from. He stepped aside and motioned to the floor. The rest of the black-haired, dusky-skinned men parted to reveal the twisted wreckage of a man lying on the scorched wood floor. Only then did
the stench of burned flesh assault his nostrils. The wemics behind him grunted and backed away a step, but Pristoleph stepped forward.
Salatis lay on the floor, melted from the neck down, his head left unscathed by acid so that he could be recognized. A little orange light played around the edges of what was either flesh or some leather strap across the dead man's chest. Pristoleph bent over the corpse, the black firedrakes stepping farther back to give him room. He played a fingertip across the smoldering line and drew away a lick of fire the size of a candle flame. He let it burn from the tip of his finger, and thrilled at the subtle warmth of it. He held it up so that the black-armored guards could see it burn but cause no injury to his half-elemental flesh.
"I claim the palace," he said. "I claim the title Ransar of Innarlith."
The black firedrakes, still kneeling, bowed their heads, and Captain Olin took a knee.
"We serve the ransar," the captain said.
The wemics let up a warbling ululation, but the black firedrakes stayed on one knee until Ransar Pristoleph told them to stand.
"You," he told the hooded undead, "take this back to your master"—he indicated the liquefied corpse of Salatis—"and give him my thanks."
The undead creature shuffled forward and did as it was told.
17__
14 Tarsakh, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Canal Site
Excuse me, sir," the stout Innarlan man with the mud-hardened trousers said, his tattered wool cap in his hands.
Surero looked up and scratched his beard. He'd had it for months, but still wasn't used to it.
"Sir?" the man repeated.
Surero nudged Ivar Devorast with an elbow to the ribs and whispered, "He means you, Lord Ditchdigger."
Devorast stopped his steady rhythmic shoveling and looked up at the man, twelve feet up the side of the trench from him. He squinted into the sun and blinked a few times, but otherwise waited to hear what the man had to say.
The man cleared his throat and looked both ways as though afraid of passing carts. He opened his mouth to speak then seemed to think better of it. He set his cap on the edge of the trench and climbed down to the level where Surero and Devorast dug.
"You're him, all right," the man said in a voice that made it plain he was holding back a laugh or some other expression of joy. Surero stood, leaning on his shovel, also working to keep a smile off his face. "They said not to say anything, and I swear by whatever god looks after people who dig holes in the ground that no one will hear your name from these lips."
Devorast nodded and said, "Thank you, Mister... ?"
"No mister, anyway, sir," the man replied, embarrassed. "My name is Fador, and I'm pleased to make your acquaintance."
"What can we do for you?" Surero asked, startling Fador, who looked at him as though just then noticing someone else was there.
"Um, well..." he started, forcing his attention back to Devorast. "Little Lord H"—as the men had come to call Horemkensi—"he's told us to use four inches of sand instead of eight from now on as it's takin' too long using eight inches and he wants us to build faster."
Devorast shook his head, and Surero smiled when he saw no anger or even frustration there. It was as though Devorast had already fixed the problem that had been brought to him.
"It has to be eight inches," he told Fador. "Tell everyone I said so."
"But Little Lord H, sir..." Fador mumbled.
"He'll never know," Surero assured the man. "Likely as not he's already forgotten the order."
Fador smiled at that, still embarrassed. "But if we don't build faster?"
Devorast started digging again and Surero realized that for him, at least, the conversation was over.
"The horses had to be reshod this month," Surero said— the first thing that came to mind. Fador answered with a confused look. "If the horses all have to be reshod the work will slow, even if you used less sand."
"But the horses are fine, Master..."
"Call me Orerus," Surero replied. "Don't actually reshod them, Fador, but your Little Lord H won't know you didn't, will he?"
Fador smiled and nodded. He looked back at Devorast and seemed anxious to say something else, but Devorast just went on digging.
"Thank you, Fador," Surero said.
Fador nodded and scurried back up the trench wall, laughing.
"Well," Surero said to Devorast when Fador was finally out of earshot, "I guess the word is spreading."
Devorast, seeming to reply to an entirely different question, said, "The zombies won't lie about horseshoes."
Surero stood staring at Devorast, who went on digging for some time.
"The zombies..." the alchemist finally said, lifting his shovel to dig. "I've been thinking about that."
18_
3 Mirtul, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Sisterhood of Pastorals, Innarlith
Surero didn't mind standing in line with the rest of them for a bowl of soup and a crust of bread. It gave him a chance to look at Halina. She had changed since last he saw her,
some four years before. She had aged, but in a way that flattered her. The tired, almost simpering girl had not so much hardened, but solidified—no, he thought, that is a terrible choice of words to describe a woman so beautiful.
"I'm sorry," he said when finally he stepped in front of her, a dented pewter bowl in his hands.
She looked at him with a curious expression, as though she recognized but didn't remember him.
"You have no need to apologize, Brother," she told him. "The Great Mother smiles on all her—"
"No," he interrupted, blushing when he saw the brief flash of anger that passed through her otherwise forgiving blue eyes. "Now I must say I'm sorry."
He smiled and bowed his head and the hardness was gone from her eyes, replaced once more by a searching gaze.
"Your voice is familiar to me," she said.
"We have spoken before, though it was long ago," Surero said. "I have thought about—"
"Have you thought about other people who might like a bowl of soup, mate?" a pungent old woman who stood three people down from him in line called out. She was answered by a general shuffle and air of impatience.
Halina dropped a ladleful of barley soup into his bowl then turned to one of the younger acolytes behind her and asked, "Would you take my place, please? I must excuse myself for a moment."
The younger woman stepped into her place and took the ladle from her hand without the slightest hesitation. Something in that simple exchange made Surero's heart skip a beat. He couldn't even begin to keep the smile from his face. When she turned and looked at him again, Halina was even more puzzled.
"Why are you smiling?" she asked as she stepped from behind the table.
He nodded for her to proceed in front of him, and as she led him to a table in the far corner of open courtyard of Chauntea's temple in Innarlith, he replied, "I'm sorry, Sister."
"You apologize a lot," she told him as they sat. "You don't have to call me 'Sister.' My name is Halina."
"Surero," the alchemist replied. He realized that the accent he'd remembered—one he'd heard many times since in his imagination—was, though not gone entirely, softened. He wondered if she had made an effort to lose it, but thought it would be rude to ask.
"And where have we met, Surero?' she asked.
Surero put a hand to his beard and said, "It was four years ago, I believe. You served me soup then, too."
"I serve a lot of soup to a lot of people who have felt the sting of being brushed aside, and the ache of hunger that inevitably follows."
Surero managed to stop smiling when he said, "I hope, Halina, that I can help you now the way you helped me then and help all these people every day."
"I hope so, too, Surero," she said, but he could tell she didn't believe him. Her eyes changed the subject before her words did. "You didn't have a beard then." He blushed and she added, "You look better without it. I should like to see you again without it."
Surero was thankful for that beard when he felt his cheeks blaze with heat. He had to look away, but could still see her smile at him.
"Believe me, Halina," he said, "I would relish the opportunity to remove it."
"Then why don't you?"
"I don't want to be recognized."
Halina let her hands rest on the table and her face grew hard, though he thought she was reluctant to have to look at him like that. "This is a temple, and here you will find peace but not sanctuary. If you are in trouble, and you repent your sins in the name of the Greatmother, we could speak on your behalf to—"
"No," he interrupted again, still blushing. "Please, Sister Halina, no. That's not it. That's not it at all."
"But you disguise yourself?"
"Only to continue working in a place that long ago discharged me," he said.
"Explain yourself," she said. "Then, if it's appropriate for me to help you, I will."
The alchemist took a deep breath and did his best to explain, in the broadest possible terms, how he and Devorast—and he made a point to risk mentioning Ivar Devorast by name—had begun to work in secret not to undermine the efforts of Horemkensi, but to rescue the canal—and the workers—from his incompetence.
"But try as we might," he finished, "there are some ... workers ... who will not ignore the orders given them by this dangerous incompetent."
Halina took a deep breath and held it. Surero couldn't help but stare at her. She returned the stare with a smile and a long, slow exhale.
"There are more people here than ever, aren't there?" he asked.
Her face serious and solemn, she replied, "More than ever, yes."
"And at the canal site, at the quayside," he whispered, leaning across the table toward her, "more undead."
She closed her eyes at the sound of that last word but didn't back away. Surero still leaned forward. He looked at her, at the smoothness of her skin stretched tight against her high, aristocratic cheekbones, at the simplicity of her, the purity of her. He drank her in.
"If only I could tell you how—" she said, but stopped herself.
"You can help us," he whispered. "You can help us all." She shook her head but said, "Yes." "Will you?"
She closed her eyes and sat very still for a long time, and Surero let her, but he never took his eyes from her face.
"The sisters have discussed this," she said finally, her voice so quiet he barely heard her from scant inches away, "but they are reluctant to take sides in a city so continuously
damaged from people taking sides. And the new ransar—" Again, she stopped herself from completing a thought he could tell was too painful for her, personally, to follow through on. "But I will try."
19_
8Kythorn, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) Third Quarter, Innarlith
I^hyrea could see the gleaming minarets of the Palace of Many Spires glittering in the bright sunshine long before her coach passed though the south gate into the city proper. Staring at it gave her at least a lame excuse not to make eye contact with the nameless—at least, he hadn't given her his name—black firedrake Pristoleph had sent to watch over her on her journey from Firesteap Citadel.
The strange man in his black armor held a short spear across his lap. He breathed heavily through his nose-sniffing really more than inhaling—but otherwise made no sound. She thought he smelled of charcoal or brimstone, as though he'd spent long periods of time sitting around a campfire.
The guard didn't look at her, either, his black eyes shifting from one side of the coach to another, determined to catch a sign of an ambush that never came.
Phyrea's neck ached from looking out the window. She sat facing the front of the coach and looked out to her left to see the palace. Looking out the window meant not only that she could avoid making eye contact with the black firedrake, but she wouldn't have to acknowledge the ghost that sat beside him on the rear-facing bench.
Just because we made it this far, the old woman made of purple light said, doesn't mean we won't still be set upon by Salatis's men.
Phyrea didn't answer aloud. She didn't want the guard to think she was speaking to him. But she wanted to tell
the old woman that the black firedrakes were Salatis's men, and she'd ridden with one all day, thirty-five miles from the citadel. If he were still taking orders from the dead ransar, she would have been dead a log time ago.
Don't be so sure, the old woman said.
Phyrea cringed, drawing, only briefly, the black fire-drake's attention. She thought the smell of charcoal grew stronger for a moment, until he had reassured himself that nothing was wrong.
Phyrea sighed, still staring at the Palace of Many Spires, and the feeling of dread that was always with her welled up in her chest. There was something about the idea of living in the palace that—
The coach turned right at the first opportunity, carrying them farther from the palace, and into the seedy, impoverished Fourth Quarter.
Where are they taking us? the old woman asked, and Phyrea spared the ghost a glance and as subtle a shrug as she could manage.
Pristal Towers, Phyrea realized, not the Palace of Many Spires.
She sighed, relieved, but not sure why she should be.
It could still be a trap, said the old woman. Salatis didn't care about you one way or the other, I think, but this Pristoleph will destroy you, of that you can be sure, and we may not be here to pick up the pieces.
Phyrea answered the ghost by" letting her emotions run unchecked for the length of time it took the coach to weave through the crowded, rutted, dirty Fourth Quarter streets and pause at the gate to Pristal Towers. She hoped that the beings of light and hate indeed wouldn't be there to "pick up the pieces," or to do anything for or to her, ever again. Phyrea further hoped that the ghosts could sense that from her.
The black firedrake insisted on exiting the coach first, and Phyrea let him. She told herself she would have to make herself accustomed to the guards. She was, after all, the wife of the ransar.
A temporary turn of affairs, at best, the ghost of the old woman commented.
As she slid out of the coach Phyrea spared the ghost a smirk. The old woman made no move to exit the coach, and Phyrea briefly thought maybe the old apparition would finally just ride away. But of course she was not nearly so lucky. When she looked up to greet Pristoleph, who waited for her on the broad steps leading to the entrance to his enormous manor home, the old woman stood only a few steps away from him, returning Phyrea's smirk with her own tight-pressed line of indigo light.
"Phyrea, my love," Pristoleph said, meeting her in the middle of the stairway with a burning embrace and a kiss chaste enough to be appropriate for the eyes of the staff that lined the stairs. "Your journey was safe?"
She returned the embrace and kissed him on the cheek, which almost scalded her lips. "I was well looked after."
Pristoleph glanced over her shoulder and nodded to the black firedrake, who bowed in response then climbed into the coach.
"It has been a long time," Pristoleph whispered in her ear as she looked oyer her shoulder to watch the coach pull away.
"Does he just ride around in there all the time?" she asked with a smile and a playful wink.
Pristoleph returned the smile and said, "No, but he would if I asked him to."
He would have if Salatis had asked him to, too, the little boy with the missing arm said from behind her.
She didn't pay the spirit any mind. Instead, she let Pristoleph lead her up the stairs. She nodded to each of the household staff as they passed, all of whom were gracious enough to smile and pretend they didn't despise her, but she thought she knew otherwise.
"I thought you would never send for me," she said to Pristoleph. "For a while there I imagined myself one of those insipid princesses from a child's tale, locked away in
the highest room of the highest tower, living only to hope that the handsome prince would come to rescue me."
"If you were that princess," he said, "I would be the prince, and not the man who imprisoned you."
Her smile faltered ever so slightly at that, though in her heart she felt that was true.
"Still, it's been so long," she said.
"Not even four months," he replied, as though that wasn't a long time.
"Four months since you became ransar," she said, "but I've been at Firesteap for longer than that."
"Of course," he said, patting her hand, "and for that I am sorry, and I promise that I will spend what remains of my life making it up to you."
"I suppose I should thank you for starting that process by not making me live in the Palace of Many Spires?"
They reached the top of the stairs and he stopped her before they went inside. He held her by the shoulders and looked in her eyes. Her heart warmed in her chest at the way he looked at her.
"I would have thought you'd be angry with me about that," he said.
She put a hand to his fiery cheek and said, "Not at all. I've come to feel that Pristal Towers is my home, and that wasn't easy for me. The palace would have felt too... temporary."
"It wouldn't have been," he assured her. "It won't be."
She smiled, though she didn't believe that for a second.
I don't believe it, either, said the old woman. / wonder who the Red Wizard will choose next?
He's different, Phyrea replied in her head. Don't underestimate him.
She felt rather than heard the ghosts laugh, but ignored the feeling.
As they passed into the foyer and a butler handed them each a tallglass of her late father's wine, she said, "The city doesn't seem at all changed. It's as though nothing ever happened."
"And it wasn't easy, these last months, making that so," he said after he took a sip of the wine. She thought she heard the cool liquid hiss against his lips. "I've been busy not only restoring the damage done to buildings and streets, but to the hearts and minds of the senate and citizens alike. I think they're already starting to realize that I will be more ... let's say, stable, than some of the previous ransars."
It's not the men themselves, but the position that's unstable, said the man with the scar on his face, and Phyrea had to agree.
"So you will be the great reformer?" she asked.
He laughed as they strolled to a parlor and said, "Eventually, I hope to be, but for the nonce I've been busy putting things back to the way they were before the unfortunate siege."
A siege he instigated, the old woman reminded her.
"Even the canal has been making startling progress," he went on, and Phyrea's flesh crawled at the sound of that word: canal. "It's a wonder, considering it's still in the hands of that barely-functional idiot Salatis put in charge of it."
"Horemkensi?" she asked.
"I hear the workers call him Little Lord H, and have begun to ignore his orders," Pristoleph replied. "Even the zombie workers the Thayan sold them are starting to disappear. What does it say about a man, I have to wonder, if a zombie, magically compelled to do so by a Red Wizard's powerful necromancy, won't even take him seriously?"
Phyrea shook her head and sank into a plush, silk-upholstered sofa. Pristoleph sat next to her, so close she could feel his heat, and he waved the butler away. The servant stepped backward through the double doors, pulling them closed in front of him.
"It has been a long time," he said, setting his tallglass on the little table next to him. He took her glass from her and set it next to his, and looked at her with undisguised lust—fire, even, in his eyes.
Though the word "canal" conjured an image of a man she still knew she loved in a way she could never love her husband, she had missed Pristoleph more than she thought she would, and the heat of him, the smell of him, his commanding presence surrounded by his seemingly limitless wealth, managed to push Ivar Devorast's face from her thoughts.
"And how may I serve the ransar?" she whispered.
Pristoleph kissed her, burning her mouth with his tongue. As hot as it was, she pressed in harder still.
He pulled only a hair's breadth away from her and said, "This ransar will serve you."
20_
30Eleint, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Canal Site
It's true then," the Cormyrean said, and T'juyu, who listened, invisible and unmoving, from behind the canvas rear wall of the tent, sensed more relief than surprise in his voice.
"Warden Truesilver," a man's voice replied—it was the alchemist. T'juyu didn't know his name. "To what do we owe this-?"
"My king is dead," Truesilver interrupted. A silence followed and T'juyu had no idea how to interpret it. "Our king has fallen on the field of battle."
The alchemist cleared his throat and said, "I'm... shocked to hear that, Warden. I'm sorry."
"Devorast?" Truesilver asked.
"He was a good man," Ivar Devorast said. "He was a fair and forthright king."
"I suppose that will suffice as an outpouring of grief for the misery of your homeland," the warden replied. T'juyu wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic.
"Is that what you came here to tell us?" Devorast asked, and from his tone T'juyu could tell he didn't think that was the case.
"Please, Warden, sit," the alchemist said.
There came a rustling and shuffling of feet as the three men settled themselves in the cramped, dark tent. For a while the only sounds were the general murmur of the camp—not too loud with Devorast's tent so far removed from the others—and the croaking of unseen frogs hiding in the tall grass around them. The night sky was devoid of stars and the breeze from the west was cool and damp.
"I heard a rumor that you had returned," the visiting Cormyrean said. "You have taken back your canal, then."
There was another pause then the alchemist said, "Well ... not precisely."
"What do you mean?" asked Truesilver. "I've seen the progress. It's remarkable. This is truly a feat that will be the envy of... well, everyone."
"Horemkensi," Devorast said, "is the master builder."
"Whatever does that mean?"
"It means," said the alchemist, "that as far as anyone who matters in Innarlith knows, Senator Horemkensi is directing the construction of the canal, not Ivar Devorast."
"And I would prefer that that fiction remain in place," Devorast said. "At least for now."
There was another pause, but T'juyu could hear the warden breathing loudly. Finally the Cormyrean said, "That's an outrage. The new ransar is so loyal to this Horemkensi that he wouldn't hear your plea?"
If it was possible to hear someone shrug, T'juyu heard it, or at least sensed it from the alchemist.
"Have you even spoken to him?" Truesilver asked.
"Pristoleph?" the alchemist replied.
"No," said Devorast.
"I've met with him," Truesilver said. "I've just come from Innarlith and plan to ride the rest of the way north to Arrabar. A Cormyrean ship awaits me there so that I can return home... to a kingdom without—" He stopped speaking and even T'juyu could sense the discomfort in the air.
A footstep startled her and she brushed up against the canvas. Feet shifted inside, but T'juyu looked up at the sound of another footstep outside, then another. A man carrying a short spear and wearing ring mail that looked at least a size too big for him passed. He looked and smelled drunk—only a little—but he still seemed determined to make his rounds.
T'juyu held her breath. Of course she could kill the guard, but then there would be a dead or missing guard, and the canal site would be placed on watch. The men in the tent would suspect that it was an assassin that had brushed their tent, and they would only be partly mistaken.
"Is someone there?" the alchemist called.
"Ahoy there," the guard called back, teetering a bit as he came to a stop not half a yard from the invisible T'juyu.
"Is that you, Reety?" the alchemist responded from inside the tent.
"Aye," the guard, who must have been a sailor before hiring on to guard the canal site, said around an airy belch. "It's just me."
"On your way, then," Devorast said, and Reety moved on.
T'juyu didn't risk a sigh.
"So," Truesilver continued. "You should speak to Ransar Pristoleph."
"I don't need Pristoleph's permission to do what I'm doing," Devorast said. "And besides, his wife would never allow it."
"His—?" the Cormyrean started.
"It's complicated," the alchemist covered. "I hope we can leave it at that."
Truesilver sighed loudly and T'juyu sensed that the three of them would leave the conversation there, and so it was her cue to leave. As she made her way as quietly as she could away from the tent, she heard a shuffle of parchment or paper from within and Truesilver said, "These are interesting. The way the teeth on these wheels..."
Then his voice was lost to the night, and so was T'juyu.
21
2Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp The Canal Site
Though she had spent only a short time in the company of humans, T'juyu had gotten to know much about them. Within the first few heartbeats after stepping into the little clapboard shack that Senator Horemkensi called home, she knew he would be easy to get close to, and all she had to do was get close.
"Well, now," the man said, his voice throaty and not unpleasant, "what do we have here?"
T'juyu smiled and pulled the door closed behind her, letting her gaze dart across the confines of the cabin, reassuring herself that they were alone.
"What is your name?" he asked, his smile matching hers, his teeth bright, his eyes dull.
"T'juyu," she said, using a simple cantrip to make her voice higher, almost squeaky. She knew that sort of thing put human males off their guard.
The senator sat at a small table on which was set a silver service and a half-finished meal T'juyu didn't like the smell of. She knew that by brutish, human standards the man was considered handsome. His clothes were all silk and soft linen, his black leather boots so shiny T'juyu could see the curve of her own hip reflected in the uppers.
"Ah," he breathed, "where are my manners?"
He rose but didn't approach her. She made a sound she'd come to know as a "giggle" and it seemed to please him.
"You're Senator Horemkensi?" she asked. She knew who he was, but still she felt she had to be sure. She had to hear him at least admit to who he was, if not what he'd done.
The senator dipped into a low bow, sweeping his arm down as he went and said, "At your service, fair lady."
"And there was to be someone else," she said, brushing an errant hair from her forehead, though her hair was short, almost like a man's. She'd tried it long but hated the feeling of it brushing her shoulders—not to mention the feeling of having shoulders in the first place. "Harkhuf?"
Horemkensi blinked and said, "Alas, he is in Innarlith on an urgent errand. But what could we two possibly require of him?"
T'juyu fought not to let her disappointment show. No matter, she thought. She had the head, so what of the fate of the tail?
"You have very lovely skin," the man said, leaning against the little table, his meal forgotten. "Where are you from?"
"The Chondalwood," she said, not even bothering to lie.
He didn't seem to have heard her anyway, as though he had asked the question but had no interest in any answer.
"What brings you to my door this evening, T'juyu?" he asked, and she was surprised that he'd remembered her name. "All this way from the city..."
"Not what," she replied, "but who."
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.
"I am a gift, my lord," she said, pleased that she managed not to choke on calling him that. "I was sent by Ransar Pristoleph with his thanks for your efforts on the city-state's behalf."
Horemkensi burst out laughing and brought his hands together in front of him with a loud slapping noise that startled her.
"That old scoundrel," he said. "And here I was worried that that street urchin cum king was going to have me sent home in disgrace, if not killed."
"But you have done so well here. The whole city is talking about it," she said, and again it wasn't easy for her to keep up the pretense. She knew full well that it was another who had brought the growing canal back from the brink of disaster.
He stopped laughing, but smiled still and nodded. He took his eyes away from her and she took that opportunity to move closer to him in just a few small steps. He didn't look up when she stood only inches in front of him. His eyes traveled up her legs slowly, then lingered in her middle. Uncomfortable in the rough fabric anyway, she let her simple woolen gown fall from her shoulders. He drew in a breath.
"You like what you see?" she asked. "My form pleases you?"
"My compliments to the ransar," he whispered.
And something about that, and the way he said it, drove the last sliver of patience from T'juyu. She couldn't wait for the man to look her in the eye on his own accord. He obviously had no interest in her eyes or her face. He reached out to touch her and she let him, forcing herself to lean in closer. With the tip of one finger under his chin she drew his face up to meet hers. He smiled playfully and she thought again how handsome he was, but how dull and lifeless were his eyes.
She stared deeply into those dull orbs and held him, reaching out with her gaze, then with her mind, then with a power that rose up from the core of her being like a tide slowly rising under the gentle but relentless influence of Selune.
T'juyu wasn't the slightest bit surprised when the man fell under her spell. She robbed him of the ability to move.
"Don't be afraid, Little Lord H," she whispered into his still, confused face. "To be quite honest, this is more about me than it is about you."
He could hear her, she knew that, but she didn't get the feeling he quite understood what was happening to him, let alone what was about to happen.
"I came from the Chondalwood," she told him, "because the water nagas had made an arrangement that made my kind very, very nervous. We don't like water nagas, you see. But then I spent some time listening, some time understanding, and it's occurred to me that, despite how this hole
in the ground might benefit the naja'ssynsa it seems I was on the wrong side."
He tried to shake his head, to tell her he didn't understand, not to break the eye contact that held him rigid and helpless before her. The spell wouldn't let him look away.
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" she asked.
His eyes told her she was right.