Lies of Light

by Philip Athans

  I’ll hate you if you give it to him. He’ll kill you with it. He wants to kill you.

  She shook her head.

  “I will make a study of it,” he promised her. “And I won’t give it back.”

  We’ll shred your mind if you let him take it away, said the voice of an old woman.

  It was for you, another ghost whimpered.

  “I can’t hand it to you,” she said and took a sip of her tea. She grimaced.

  “Leave it on the floor then,” Marek told her. “I’ll take it with me when I go.”

  Don’t let him, a woman moaned. Plea—

  His spell had run its course, but Marek had heard all he needed to hear of the voices in Phyrea’s head.

  “I hate to keep bringing him up, as he seems to upset you so,” Marek said. “But I wish you would tell me why you’re so opposed to the Cormyrean and his ludicrous mission. After all, isn’t he, like me, a foreigner manipulating the weaknesses of the city you hate so? Why, one would think you’d have invited him to tea with us.”

  “I hope you two will never meet again,” she said. “And anyway I don’t care about the canal. I hope it is finished … anyway it makes no difference to me if it is or isn’t, as long as Devorast—” and only someone as astute as Marek Rymüt could have detected the pause in her voice just then—“doesn’t get to see it through.”

  “Well, then …” Marek chuckled. “Still, I wonder why Willem Korvan.”

  “What?”

  “I know you’ve mentioned his name to a number of people,” he pressed.

  With a shrug Phyrea answered, “My father thinks highly of him. And he’s a foreigner. Why not him?”

  “Why not Devorast?” Marek continued to press.

  Phyrea paused, almost froze in place. It appeared to Marek as though she searched deep within herself for an answer.

  Or is she listening to the ghosts again? he thought.

  “Because,” she finally answered, “I hate him.”

  Marek took a breath to speak, but stopped himself when he realized he didn’t know who she was talking about. Did she hate Devorast or Korvan? Or both?

  15

  9 Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

  THE LAND OF ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN

  Under any other circumstances, Marek would have demanded complete silence. He would have roared that order in a magically-enhanced voice loud enough to burst the eardrums of the offending parties, and he would have followed the order with threats so cruel the sound of them could peel the paint from a wall.

  But he didn’t do that. He unwrapped the sword to the accompaniment of saws and shovels, shouted orders and pained grunts, and stone grating against stone and hammers clanging on hot metal. As anxious as he’d been to examine that fascinating flambergé of Phyrea’s there was still work to be done on his keep, after all.

  The huge black dragon alit several paces away, scattering some of the black firedrakes that had been bent to their work beneath him. They scampered out of his way as he moved to the unfinished wall and craned his massive, serpentine neck down to regard Marek.

  “Ah,” said the dragon, “there you are.”

  The linen sheet came away from the scabbarded sword, and Marek stifled a giggle.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” the Red Wizard said. “Such craftsmanship.”

  “Elven,” Insithryllax said, betraying a dragon’s appreciation for the finer things.

  “I believe so, yes,” Marek agreed. “And do you feel it?”

  “How could I not?”

  “Such a powerful enchantment,” the wizard said.

  The dragon made a show of sniffing the air in front of him and said, “Necromancy.”

  “Yes,” Marek replied.

  “What do you want with it?”

  Marek looked up at the wyrm and smiled. Behind him, ringing the flat-topped hill upon which his keep was being built, was the sprawling camp of his army of black firedrakes.

  “They’re almost ready, aren’t they?” Marek said, ham-handedly changing the subject.

  The dragon snorted, releasing a puff of gray-black mist that made Marek’s eyes itch even from a distance.

  “Sorry,” the dragon said when Marek blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  “Part of the joys of your friendship,” the Red Wizard quipped. “But be that as it may”—he pulled the wavy-bladed sword from its scabbard—“how could I not want a weapon such as this?”

  “But you?” asked the dragon. “A wizard?”

  “Phyrea thinks that anyone who is killed by this blade is reanimated in some state of undeath,” Marek said.

  “Is she right?”

  Marek shrugged and replied, “Care to try? Haven’t you always secretly wished to be a dracolich?”

  The wyrm’s nostrils flared, but he held his acidic mist in.

  “A jest, I assure you, my friend,” the wizard covered. With some difficulty—he almost cut himself twice—Marek sheathed the sword. “I will study this in great detail.”

  “Tell me in no uncertain terms, Marek, that you have no plans for that blade that involve me,” the dragon insisted. “Unless you mean to give it to me.”

  Marek locked eyes with the dragon—not an easy thing to do—and said, “I would do nothing of the kind without your consent. My thoughts run toward … someone else.”

  Marek hoped the dragon would accept that. He was nowhere near ready to reveal any plans he had for that blade, especially since it could be some time, years even, before he set those plans in motion.

  “Good,” the black dragon said.

  “I will offer yet another apology, my friend,” said the Red Wizard. “I have not been back here as much as I would have liked. Matters in the city have kept me occupied, but the progress here is a credit to your efforts, and you have my thanks.”

  The dragon twisted his neck in what Marek had come to know as one variation on a shrug, and said, “The black firedrakes are learning more quickly every day. They act almost entirely on their own now.”

  Marek placed the sword on a table crowded with other items of varying power and went to the edge of the incomplete wall. He looked out over the finite confines of his tiny little universe and sighed. The air tasted stale, and he realized that every breath he took felt less satisfying than the last. He could feel Insithryllax eyeing him.

  “We can’t last much longer here,” the dragon said.

  Marek shook his head and replied, “No, not with so many lungs to fill.”

  The black firedrakes, some in human form, others resembling small dragons, walked or flew in a constant flurry of activity. They’d built what could best be described as a small village on the rocky plain of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen.

  “Could be they sense it, too,” Insithryllax said. With his eyes, and his great long neck he drew Marek’s gaze up into the always-cloudy sky.

  Two black firedrakes wheeled in the air, swooping in fast at each other to spray jets of hissing black acid. They dodged and weaved in the dead air, clawing and snapping their jaws. Another dozen or so of their kind circled the pair, watching their every move and sometimes spinning in the air in reaction to some surprise bite or well-placed spray of acid.

  “They’ll always do that, I think,” Marek mused, watching the circling drakes.

  One of the creatures managed to get under the other and bit down hard on its opponent’s right foot. Though he was too far away to hear it, Marek could imagine the mighty crunch of the black firedrake’s talon shattering under its sister’s fangs.

  “There are ways to replenish the air. Spells….” Marek began.

  The black firedrake that had been bitten snapped its head down and spat a mist of corrosive fluid at the drake that still had it’s broken foot in its mouth. The acid poured over its wing like syrup, and pieces of the thin membrane tore off and wafted to the ground, sizzling on the edges.

  “Still,” Insithryllax said, “at least some of the firedrakes will have to be taken out.”r />
  The burned firedrake opened its mouth to scream, and it fell away from its opponent’s shattered foot. With one wing burned almost entirely away, it spun in the air like the seed from a maple tree, shrieking in agony the whole way down.

  “Higharvestide, I think,” Marek said, pausing only when the burned firedrake hit the ground and seemed to collapse in on itself.

  Others of its kind dived in to tear chunks of flesh from its still twitching corpse and Insithryllax asked, “Why Higharvestide?”

  “I don’t know,” Marek answered with a shrug. “I just have a feeling everything will be aligned properly by then.”

  Four black firedrakes went after the one with the shattered foot and brought it down in pieces.

  “That’s less than four months away,” sighed the dragon. “We should survive until then.”

  16

  9 Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

  ABOARD JIÉ ZUÒ, IN INNARLITH HARBOR

  The air was so warm she didn’t mind being wet, even so late at night. The thin material of her undergarments clung to her, and Phyrea was reminded of her leathers, which she hadn’t worn in a very long time.

  You have as much right to it as she does, the old woman with the terrible burn scars on her face and neck whispered, maybe more so. It should be yours.

  Phyrea shook her head and looked at the woman. She stood only a few paces down the rail from her, though “stood” might not have been the right word. Her feet didn’t quite touch the deck. Phyrea could easily make out the outlines of the sterncastle through her incorporeal form, and when she spoke her lips didn’t move.

  “No,” Phyrea answered aloud, shaking her head.

  You could have killed that man, the little boy said from behind her. Phyrea didn’t turn to look but she could feel him there. No one will do anything to you if you do it. You won’t get in trouble. They’re not from here. They’re not like us.

  “I don’t want to kill anyone,” Phyrea said. “Not these people.”

  She looked out over the still water to the lights of the city. The moon was bright in the clear, star-speckled sky, trailing her glittering tears behind her. Phyrea felt a sudden urge to offer a prayer to Selûne—a prayer of forgiveness, perhaps.

  You have nothing to be ashamed of, the voice of the man murmured in her head. He sounded bored, old, and tired. Except for relinquishing the sword.

  Yes, said the old woman, you should be ashamed of giving away that sword.

  “No,” Phyrea sighed.

  Yes, the woman repeated as she drifted closer. The Thayan will destroy you and everything you’ve ever loved with that sword.

  And it was meant for you, the man said.

  And we want it back, said the boy.

  “You’re wrong,” Phyrea said, not looking at the ghosts. She ran a finger along the cool, smooth tiles on the railing. The glazed ceramic shone in the moonlight. “No, you’re lying. He can’t destroy everything I’ve ever loved, because I’ve never loved anything, except—”

  “Who are you?” a strange, heavily-accented voice interrupted. Phyrea dismissed it as another ghost, until she heard a footstep. “Answer me, woman, or your head and your body will go separately into the next world.”

  Phyrea turned her head. The woman that had been there before, the one that had taken up residence in Phyrea’s head, was gone. The silhouette of a woman stood at the hatch to the sterncastle. Phyrea couldn’t see her face, but the straight-bladed long sword she held in her right hand reflected Selûne’s brilliance.

  “Speak,” the woman demanded.

  Phyrea sighed, and made a point to leave both her hands on the railing in front of her where they could be clearly seen.

  Another hatch opened, and a man’s voice rattled through a sentence’s worth of words in some incomprehensible tongue. He was answered by a single word from the woman.

  “I am master of this vessel,” the woman said, “and I command you to explain yourself.”

  “I just wanted to see it,” Phyrea said, her voice quiet and small, weak even, but carrying well enough in the still night air. “No … I mean, I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel it.”

  The woman and the man kept quiet and still while Phyrea fought back tears.

  “My man,” the woman—Ran Ai Yu—said, “did you kill him?”

  Phyrea shook her head.

  The woman stepped closer, and Phyrea could feel her eyes on her. Phyrea was unarmed. She was practically naked. There were more footsteps, more men, more of Ran Ai Yu’s crew.

  “I might have hurt him,” Phyrea said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “You are the daughter of the master builder.”

  She wants him too, you know, the old woman’s voice whispered inside her.

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Phyrea answered aloud.

  Ran Ai Yu stepped closer still.

  “Are you drunk?” the Shou woman asked. “Are you mad?”

  Phyrea laughed and sobbed at the same time.

  “He built this,” Phyrea said. “He made it with his own hands, but more than that, he formed it in his mind from nothing. He conjured it, you know, but not the way a wizard would. It was an act of pure creation, the invention of something from nothing.”

  “Ivar Devorast,” Ran Ai Yu said, “yes.”

  Phyrea cringed, almost seized when the woman of purple light shrieked, You see?

  “Stop it,” Phyrea demanded of the ghost. “You don’t know.”

  “I do,” the Shou answered.

  Phyrea shook her head, her tears mingling with the harbor water that still dampened her face.

  “What haunts you, girl?” Ran Ai Yu asked.

  Phyrea looked up into the black sky, purposefully turning her head away from dazzling Selûne, and said, “Him, more than anything.”

  We are your blood, Phyrea, the voice of the little girl who walked through walls sighed, and we love you. We love you more than he ever will, no matter how much you smile at him, or whatever presents you bring.

  “You lie,” Phyrea whispered.

  “You must find someone to help you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “But not here. You are not welcome here.”

  One of the men spoke to his mistress in their native tongue, and again Ran Ai Yu answered with but a single word.

  Then in Common she said, “No, I can not let her swim back at night. There will be tonrongs. I will have my men lower a boat and row you back to the city. I hope you will never again be so foolish as to do this, and if my man here is dead, or dies as a result of your attack upon him, there will be a debt owed.”

  Phyrea couldn’t move, even just to shrug, nod, or hake her head. Her hands warmed the tiles on the railing, and her feet caressed the deck. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest and she stood there, her hair beginning to dry and swirl in a sudden breeze, while they lowered a boat.

  Before she climbed down into it, she looked at the Shou sailor sprawled on the deck, and in the quiet she could hear him breathing.

  You should have killed that slant-eyed foreign bastard, the little boy told her.

  Phyrea saw him standing there, the outline of Ran Ai Yu visible through the violet luminescence, and she was all but overcome with sadness.

  “Perhaps,” the Shou woman said, “if you too had something of his …”

  Not wanting her to continue, Phyrea turned and followed a wary sailor into the waiting boat.

  17

  10 Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

  THE PALACE OF MANY SPIRES, INNARLITH

  Though his skin was pale, verging on pink, and his features were typically brutish, the Ransar of Innarlith reminded Ran Ai Yu of the monks of her homeland. His head was shaved clean, and his dress was simple, functional, and devoid of ornamentation. Though in the strictly confined limits of the city-state he was a sort of king, it would have been impossible to draw any such conclusion merely by looking at him. When he walked, his arms swung at his side in an undisciplined, even b
oyish manner. He smelled faintly of garlic and the rough tallow soap the Innarlans too rarely used. His feet were clad in simple leather sandals that exposed his long, crooked toes.

  “Her name is Phyrea,” Ran Ai Yu said. “She is the daughter of your master builder.”

  Osorkon nodded as they strolled, and replied, “Of course. Everyone knows Phyrea, at least, as much as she allows us to know her. No small number of men would like to take her as a mistress if not a wife. There are rumors of a dark side to her, too—some accusations of thievery, even. What interest can she be to Shou Lung?”

  “She is of interest to me, Ransar,” Ran Ai Yu said. She didn’t bother to once again correct him, to tell him that she was a merchant—mistress of a sailing vessel of her own—and not an official, ambassador, or other sort of representative of her homeland. “Only just before middark last night did I find her standing by the rail of my ship. She had swim … swum … I don’t … but she swam there in the dark of the night at great risk, and with motives I am having trouble understanding.”

  “She can’t have been trying to steal from you,” Osorkon said.

  “I do not have reason to believe that.”

  Ran Ai Yu let her fingertips brush a blooming rose as she strolled past a particularly healthy bush. The ransar’s garden was impressive for a private residence, though the palaces of Shou Lung had gardens far larger. She’d noted the ransar’s gaze darting from bloom to bloom as they walked and could see that he appreciated the foliage and the peacefulness of the place. Somehow, it didn’t match the man.

  “She is haunted,” the Shou merchant said.

  “Phyrea?”

  “Spirits have attached themselves to her,” she explained. “One of my men is sensitive to such things. Even without his counsel, I would have seen it in her myself. She speaks to people who can not be seen.”

  The ransar shrugged and said, “Maybe she didn’t swim to your ship alone.”

  Ran Ai Yu skipped a step. Her hesitation elicited a scant smile from the ransar. She hadn’t considered that possibility—that Phyrea might have been accompanied by some number of compatriots cloaked in spells of invisibility—but somehow it simply didn’t ring true.