Marek let go of him all at once, and Willem stepped away.
“Don’t drop them, my boy,” Marek said.
“What on—what are you …?” Willem blustered.
Marek glanced down, and Willem followed his gaze to his own hands. The cuts on his wrists had already healed, the pain had been replaced with an uneasy nettling, and the black gemstones were traced with delicate slivers of deep crimson—blood red.
“My apologies, Willem,” Marek said. “It works better somehow if you don’t know it’s coming.”
Willem got the distinct impression that was a lie. “What works better?”
“Place the stones in the corpses’ mouths now,” said the Thayan. “Two in each mouth.”
Willem hesitated.
“I’ve infused them with your blood,” Marek explained, though it appeared to tire him to have to do so. “When they animate, they will look to you for instruction, not me.”
A chill ran through Willem’s body, and his knees went weak. He blinked, but gathered himself quickly. He wasn’t sure he—
“Go on, now,” Marek said, irritated. “I’d like to return to the warmth of my hearthfire before dark, if you don’t mind.”
Willem turned and squatted next to the first corpse. Though it wasn’t easy, he shifted all of the little stones to his left hand. After a few tries he finally figured out how to hold the stones with one hand and force the corpse’s mouth open with his right. He dropped two of the blood-infused onyx chips into the dead man’s mouth and pushed it closed.
“Good boy,” Marek said.
Willem grimaced at that, but moved on to the next body, and so on down the line of dead workers. When he was finished he stood, and almost fell to the ground when his head spun. His head felt heavy and his eyesight dimmed. Blinking, breathing deeply, he began to feel normal again after a moment.
“You should eat better,” the Thayan told him with a wink.
Willem shook his head and stepped away from the bodies.
Marek began chanting meaningless words and waving his hands in front of him. His face was set and determined, cold and inhuman, and though he might have looked or sounded ridiculous if it was indeed meaningless gibberish and waving about, Willem knew there was nothing random about it. Willem’s hair began to stand on end, and he itched his scalp. He shivered and had to clench his teeth together to keep them from chattering.
One of the bodies moved.
Willem stepped back, almost skipped in the mud, and drew in a sharp breath.
A second corpse twitched, and the arm of a third reached up to the sky then fell back down. Within a few heartbeats all fourteen of them jerked where they lay on their backs.
Bile rose in Willem’s throat, and he choked it back.
One of the dead men rolled over onto all fours. Mud dripped from its nose, and it opened its mouth wide, its dead lips falling away from teeth caked with dried mud. The two stones fell out of its mouth and splashed onto the wet ground. The thing, its mouth still open, staggered to its feet. Still clothed in its simple homespun peasant’s blouse and breeches, at first it looked almost normal. But the pale, gray cast of its skin and its yellowed, jaundiced eyes betrayed it. Its arms hung limp at its side, and it staggered. When its boot—and it only wore one, the other was likely still buried in the mud where it had died—stepped on the onyx chips, Willem heard a quiet crumbling sound. When it moved its foot again the two gemstones were gone, replaced with a black powder.
Two or three at a time, the other corpses awakened, rolled over, and expelled the gemstones. They stood, shifting on uncertain feet, staring blankly in whatever direction they happened to be facing when they first stood.
Marek approached them, and the creatures didn’t seem to notice him at all. He bent and retrieved one of the stones. He came to Willem and held it out to him. Willem took the gemstone in his hand before he realized it had just been spat out by a zombie. The thought made him flinch and squeeze the stone, which crumbled to black dust in his hand.
“It’s like a piece of charcoal,” Willem said, brushing the dust from his hand.
“More than twenty-five gold pieces each,” Marek said. “Worry not, though, I’ll bill the ransar.”
Willem looked at the black dust that still coated his fingertips. There was no trace of red. His stomach turned at the thought that his blood had somehow been ingested by those hideous abominations.
“They’re all yours, my boy,” the Thayan told him. “Keep your commands simple. They’re not quite as quick-witted as they were in life, though by the look of these peasants and the nature of the work they were content to do, I doubt it was a long way down for any of them.”
Willem nodded, but avoided looking at the zombies.
“Really, Willem,” Marek said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “why so squeamish? They’re better workers now by half. All they lack is the ability to understand how little they matter in the world. Think of it that way, and it’s really a blessing for them.”
Willem couldn’t look at the Thayan’s leering smile. And the wizard’s hand lingered too long on his shoulder.
“Let me know when you have another five and ten of them,” said Marek, “and I’ll come back, or send Kurtsson, to make more for you. In time, you’ll have more undead than living workers, toiling away at all hours without a drop to drink or a bite to eat, oblivious to the weather, and so on. You’ll want to wear something over your mouth and nose in the summer months, believe me, but I’m guessing that was true when they still breathed, eh?” Willem nodded and shook his head at the same time. The zombies had all turned to look at him, awaiting his command.
60
11 Uktar, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)
PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH
I don’t remember the last time I was in the Fourth Quarter,” Phyrea said, swallowing the breathless awe that threatened to overwhelm her.
Her host smiled graciously, but she hardly took notice. The opulence around her made her legs shake.
“If you have any questions about anything you see,” said Pristoleph, “please don’t hesitate to ask.”
Ask him why he lives in such luxury, surrounded by starvation and want, the old woman said.
Phyrea shook her head at the apparition, checking out of the corner of her eye to see if he had noticed. If he had, he was too much of a gentleman to comment.
“It’s not the …” she started. “You have impeccable taste.”
He looked at her—really looked at her, in a way that only one man had before.
Get out of here, the man with the scar on his face said. This one is not to be trifled with.
“It’s quite something that we haven’t met before,” Pristoleph said.
Phyrea stopped at a burled wood side table to admire a tea set that looked to have been cast from platinum traced with gold and accented with diamonds. She couldn’t have begun to guess at its value.
Do you like that? the little girl asked. Phyrea looked over at her. She stood on the other side of the hall next to an identical side table. She had her hand on a cup from a similar tea set, but one made of the most delicate porcelain. Is it better than this one?
Phyrea didn’t respond. She tried not to respond to the ghosts when people were able to hear her, but she desperately wanted to tell the little girl to stop.
The ghost picked up the teacup.
Phyrea gasped.
“Is something wrong?” Pristoleph asked.
The teacup shattered on the floor. The little girl smiled and faded away.
“What—?” the senator said, crossing the hall in a few long strides. “How did that happen?”
Phyrea didn’t follow him. She couldn’t move.
Well, the man with the scar on his face said—she saw him standing at the foot of the wide, sweeping stairs, that’s never happened before. How did she learn to do that?
Phyrea shook her head and closed her eyes.
“Was that you?” he said.
“What?” Phyrea gasped. “No.”
It was me, the little girl said into her mind.
“Is there someone with you?” Pristoleph asked.
“What?” Phyrea muttered. “No.”
“The man with the scar in the shape of the letter Z?” the senator asked.
Phyrea stared across the hall at Pristoleph and when he approached her she backed away, fending him off with her hands. He stopped a few paces from her. She looked around herself but couldn’t see any of the apparitions. None of them spoke to her.
“How do you know about him?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“The pince-nez,” he replied. She squinted at him, and he explained, “Spectacles … lenses that you wear over your eyes. Marek Rymüt gave them to me. When I put them on I could see through your eyes—it was as though I were you. That’s when I saw you for the first time, eighteen days ago, in your own mirror.”
“And you saw … him?”
“It looked as though he was there, but not entirely. It was as though he was somehow added onto what I was seeing.”
“Made of purple light,” she whispered, and he nodded. “Do you see him now?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Do you see him often?”
“Most of the time,” she replied. “They appear to me everywhere, any time they wish, except when I was with—”
She almost choked on his name. The ghosts were gone, then, just like they used to stay away when she was with Devorast.
“Used to,” she whispered.
“What did you say?” Pristoleph asked. “Are you talking to him now?”
“No,” she said, and felt the almost forgotten sensation of a smile on her face.
He smiled back at her, and for the first time she noticed his hair, red like Devorast’s, but different—not human, somehow. It appeared to move as though blown by a wind from below.
“Why did he give you those lenses?” she asked. “Why would Marek Rymüt want you to see through my eyes? Why would he arrange for us to meet tonight?”
Pristoleph said, “He arranged this meeting because I asked him to. As for the pince-nez, I have no idea, but I’m happy that he did.”
Phyrea smiled, still, even when she began to cry.
61
14 Uktar, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)
PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH
Even the place setting was intimidating. Willem placed his hand on the handle of the fork without picking it up, and ran his fingertip over the row of tiny ruby berries that accented the engraving of twisting vines. He blinked at a sparkling rainbow that beamed from a crystal decanter. The empty plate before him was made of a material he couldn’t identify with any certainty. It appeared to be ivory, but somehow hewn from a single piece. It couldn’t be, and he was afraid to ask.
Phyrea sat across from him and as hard as it was to tear his eyes from the magnificent opulence around him, he couldn’t keep himself from looking at her. He’d never seen her look more beautiful, and for the thousandth time at least he wondered if she were truly human at all, and not some Astral being, some creature of the outer heavens. But as she listened to Pristoleph’s perfunctory small talk, there was something else about her, something he’d never seen in her before. She seemed almost at peace, and peace was something he’d stopped trying to imagine for her.
“I’m curious, Senator,” Pristoleph said. “How goes your canal?”
Willem bristled and had to clear his throat before he could answer, “It’s an honor to be asked to work on something so monumental, but of course it’s the ransar’s canal, not mine.”
He felt Phyrea’s burning stare then, but wouldn’t look at her. He knew what she was about to say—or maybe she would leave it unsaid: It was Ivar Devorast’s canal.
“I’d go you one more, Willem—if I may call you Willem?” said Pristoleph.
There was no sense that any other answer but “yes” would ever be acceptable. It was the senior senator’s way of informing him that henceforth he would call Willem by his first name. Willem nodded without hesitation.
“I’d say the canal belongs to the people of the city-state of Innarlith,” Pristoleph went on.
“If not all the people of Faerûn,” Phyrea cut in.
Willem’s skin crawled, and he looked at everything but Pristoleph and Phyrea.
“All the people of Toril, even,” Pristoleph said with a heaviness to his voice that brought out the beginnings of a simmering rage in Willem, though he didn’t understand in any concrete terms why he would feel that way. “It will spark a revolution in trade.”
Willem nodded and cleared his throat again.
“Don’t you think so, Willem?” Phyrea prompted.
She seemed legitimately interested in what he had to say, and it was so unexpected, all he could do was clear his throat again.
“Are you quite all right?” Pristoleph asked.
“Yes,” Willem said around a deep breath. “I’m fine, thank you. It’s just … difficult for me, sometimes, to remember what it’s like to sit at a proper table and have a proper conversation with proper people.”
“Conditions at the canal site are rather primitive,” Phyrea explained.
“I can imagine,” said Pristoleph.
“I’m not sure you could, Senator,” Willem said, plunging forward despite his best intentions. “It’s awful. The cold, the rain, the mud … the mud gets everywhere. It’s all over you in the space of the first afternoon. None of your clothes are ever dry. Fires provide warmth—everything. You live your life around an open fire like orcs—worse, goblins. It’s not a life fit for humans to live.”
“I’m sure there are humans living in worse conditions,” Pristoleph said.
“I can’t imagine,” Willem replied.
There was a short silence that commanded Willem’s attention. Almost against his will, he turned to face the senior senator, whose hair seemed to dance more quickly, as though agitated.
“I don’t have to imagine,” Pristoleph said, and his eyes allowed no argument. “I have but to remember. You see, I was born to the streets of the Fourth Quarter. From the day I could walk I started to fight to survive. I had no family to speak of, and in parts of this city, one doesn’t have to actually do anything to attract enemies.”
Willem nodded, his neck stiff, and sweat began to pool under his arms. He wanted a sip of water but was afraid to pick up the goblet for fear of revealing how badly his hands were shaking. He kept his hands in his lap.
“It was a difficult life,” Pristoleph went on, “but not without rewards. Growing up that way, being that sort of a child, made me the man that I am today.”
Willem nodded again and glanced around the cavernous dining room—a space so large Willem’s entire house could easily have been constructed inside it. Part of him wanted to ask Pristoleph if he was, in fact, the richest man in Innarlith, but then he didn’t have to. He was sitting in all the proof of that anyone would ever need.
But then Willem wondered: Wouldn’t he be more important than he is? Wouldn’t he be ransar, if that were true? Instead he seemed to be the senator that everyone deferred to when they had to, but rarely even spoke with. His appearances at social affairs both private and public were rare occurrences.
“I am a man who doesn’t trust easily, Willem,” Pristoleph continued. “I keep my own counsel, and I do what I think is best. Often, that is also what’s best for Innarlith. Rarer still, it’s what’s best for other people.”
“We should always consider others,” Willem muttered. His face flushed, and he cleared his throat again, feeling like a child speaking out of turn.
Pristoleph laughed—laughed at him—and the blood drained from Willem’s face.
“Wherever possible, yes, I suppose so,” the strange man with fiery hair replied. “But not always, and so here we come to the reason I asked you and your lovely young bride to join me for dinner.”
“I’ll admit, Senator,” Willem said, �
�that I’ve been curious …”
“Three days ago I met Phyrea for the first time,” Pristoleph said. “For the first time in person, at least”—the two of them traded a conspiratorial smile that almost made Willem whimper in fear—“and very quickly afterward I decided to make her my wife.”
Willem blinked, choked back the impulse to chuckle, and shook his head.
“My deepest apologies, Senator Pristoleph,” he said, “but for a moment I thought you said …”
The look on Phyrea’s face made it impossible for him to continue.
“You will step away,” Pristoleph said. “Phyrea and I will leave on the morrow for a long sea journey. When we return, we will be wed.”
“But …” Willem blustered. “But that’s …”
He looked to Phyrea, who smiled at him in a freakishly maternal way that made Willem’s skin crawl anew.
“You will go back to the canal,” Pristoleph went on. “Go back and finish it. Make a name for yourself. From what I understand you don’t deserve it, but Phyrea has asked—by the Nine Hells, she’s demanded—that you be allowed to finish it. It will be your monument, your greatest achievement, and Phyrea will be mine.”
Phyrea smiled and looked down.
Willem’s jaw opened and closed, but no words came out.
“You can, of course, choose to be difficult,” Pristoleph said, and again, Willem’s attention was dragged kicking and screaming to the man’s eyes. A spark blazed in them that Willem didn’t think matched the candlelight, as though his eyes were lit from within. “Will you be difficult about this?”
Willem swallowed, mesmerized by the strange man, and well aware of the otherworldly woman that had attracted his attention. Willem didn’t think either of them were human, certainly not human like he was, not flawed, afraid, incompetent, and—“Willem?” Phyrea asked.
“I won’t be,” he said. It was so difficult to get the words out he practically barked. “I won’t stand in anyone’s way.”
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