Whisper of Waves

by Philip Athans

  “What is it?” Marek asked, bending to take up the glass. He set his nose onto the rim and pulled in a long noseful. “Sembian. A fine old cask.”

  “Do you think so?” asked the dragon.

  Marek took a small sip of the wine before asking, “Is this a trick?”

  There was that rumbling laugh again then Insithryllax said, “It’s not Sembian, but it’s made from Sembian grapes. Would you believe it was bottled right here in Innarlith?”

  “No,” Marek answered.

  “And yet it was.”

  Marek took another sip, impressed by the wine’s subtle mélange of flavors. He hadn’t heard that Innarlith—Innarlith of all places—had begun making fine wine.

  “Something to keep an eye on,” he told himself, then regarded the dragon. “You appear tired. Tell me I’m not overtaxing you.”

  Instead of saying “No,” the dragon just laughed.

  Marek met the wyrm’s eyes finally and he stopped laughing. The beast had gotten even bigger, if that was possible, in the twenty-three years of their acquaintance. The spells Marek had used to enthrall the dragon had long since faded. They stayed together the last decade because they both wanted to. They had become friends, allies, cohorts, compatriots, and both of them knew that the other could turn on him in a second and certainly would in time, but until then they would help each other, protect each other, and keep each other’s secrets. Lesser mortals would have called them friends.

  The dragon was surrounded by a dozen smaller creatures similar to himself. The other monsters had the heads and general shape of a dragon, and the jagged, batlike wings, but only two legs. Their eyes, though fierce and dangerous, didn’t burn with quite the same malignant intelligence as Insithryllax’s.

  “The food has been coming regularly,” the black dragon said, nudging one of the firedrakes away with the tip of one massive wing. The lesser wyrm scurried off in a scrabble of claws on stone. “I get out from time to time, and the firedrakes have been … accommodating.”

  “Are they laying?” Marek asked. “If not, this is all in—”

  “Twenty so far,” the dragon interrupted. “I think they’ll start to hatch soon. Since these … ladies aren’t exactly blacks, I can’t say how long they’ll need to gestate, but they smell healthy and the firedrakes care for them as if they’re viable.”

  Marek’s heart raced.

  “I thought you’d find that to your liking,” said Insithryllax.

  “If there is anything you need,” the Red Wizard said, “you need only ask.”

  “I’ll submit a list,” said the dragon, “but in the meantime, perhaps just an answer to a question.”

  “That can be the most valuable commodity of all,” Marek joked.

  “These … things …”

  “Black firedrakes,” Marek said, the words slipping off his tongue in a most pleasurable way.

  “What are your intentions for them?”

  “Feeling paternal, are we?” Marek teased.

  The black dragon sniffed and shook another of the red-scaled firedrakes off his haunches.

  “They’re to be a gift,” Marek finally answered.

  “A gift …” the dragon said, puzzling over Marek’s choice of words. “A gift for whom?”

  Marek Rymüt took another sip of the promising wine, laughed, and said, “Whoever can help me the most, my friend. Whoever can help me the most.”

  13

  3 Marpenoth, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  The smell of richly oiled wood mixed so well with the aroma of the food and wine that Willem thought it almost musical. It was just as that word came to his mind that real music began to play, drawing his eye to the musicians who had gathered in the corner. He recognized the tune as a minuet popular four or five years ago in Cormyr, the work of a better known Cormyrean composer whose name escaped Willem for the moment.

  “Ulien,” Inthelph said from behind him.

  Willem turned even as a chill ran down his spine and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Surely the master builder hadn’t actually read his mind.

  “That’s correct, isn’t it?” the older man asked, seemingly taken aback by what must have been an odd, disturbed look on his young charge’s face. “The Cormyrean composer.”

  “Yes,” Willem said, recovering himself. “Indeed. He is quite well known in Cormyr and a favorite of the Court, or so I’m told.”

  Inthelph smiled and nodded, taking a deep breath. The master builder radiated such an air of contentment and self-confidence Willem thought he could have warmed his hands over the man.

  “I must thank you for your gracious invitation, Master Builder,” Willem said. “Your home remains the most extraordinary …” He let his voice trail off so that Inthelph would think the room had struck him speechless.

  Indeed, Willem had been to few homes more impressive. The place dripped of the gold—bar after bar of it—that must have gone into the place. By Cormyrean standards, it would have been considered an adequate hunting lodge by the most wealthy of the Court. Where King Azoun might have marble, Inthelph had wood, but wood cut from the finest hardwood trees in Faerûn and polished to such a luster it nearly took Willem’s breath away. Stained in colors meant to dazzle, the effect was one of being inside a rainbow made of wood.

  The furnishings were of equal quality and the lighting a mix of natural and magical designed to bring out not only the richness of the woodwork but of its owner as well. The three hundred or more guests at what Inthelph had called “a small gathering of friends” in the engraved invitation all glowed in the rarified air, their skin taking on the richness of their surroundings.

  “There is someone I was hoping to introduce you to, Willem,” said the master builder.

  “Indeed, sir?” Willem asked.

  “Yes. His name is Marek Rymüt, and I think he’s someone you should know, or more appropriately, he’s someone who should know you.”

  He’d heard the name Marek Rymüt before, of course, and by all accounts he was indeed someone Willem should add to his list of contacts and patrons. Rymüt was well known as a source of magic items, a spellcaster for hire, and an experienced and capable consultant in all things related to the Weave. Magic could be more valuable than gold and could mean the difference between success and failure, life and death, for anyone with ambition.

  “Well, sir,” Willem said, “I’m at your disposal.”

  Before Inthelph could go on, a middle-aged woman whom Willem only vaguely recognized took the master builder gently by the elbow and greeted him with a shallow curtsey and an even more shallow smile.

  “Ah, my dear,” Inthelph said returning the woman’s curtsey with a little nod.

  The two began trading banalities and Willem found himself utterly hung out to dry. He suppressed the beginnings of a feeling that might have turned into indignation, anger, or something else inappropriate and instead stepped back a few steps and turned—into the face of a woman who was walking quickly behind him.

  They both recoiled from the near collision, eliciting only cursory glances from the partygoers around them. There were a few stuttered apologies, furtive glances, only passing the other’s gaze, and they stepped away from each other, he with boot heel clacking on the polished wood floor, her in a rustle of skirts and a toss of an errant strand of hair.

  Before Willem could voice a suitable apology, he finally really saw her.

  She was young, but Willem couldn’t say how young. Her body, hidden as it was in the formal skirts and fold after fold of silk and satin, was difficult to make out but she reflected a sense of slimness devoid of athleticism. Her pale face with its prominent cheekbones and slightly too-sunken eyes was one that in a woman of her youth would be called “homely” but would surely turn to “handsome” by her fortieth year. Her eyes blazed blue, and one of them peeked at him from behind that errant strand of chestnut hair, long and straight, with just the hint of a curl at
the very last quarter inch. She smelled of rose oil and her thin lips were brushed with just a wisp of red. Her hands, as pale as her face, were tiny, ending in thin fingers that came almost to points at the tips, fingernails well manicured but not painted.

  “Do please accept my apologies, miss,” Willem said finally, hoping his voice didn’t sound as reedy and trivial to her as it had to himself.

  She smiled at him, and for just the briefest moment it was a smile of such warm sincerity that Willem was all but knocked over by it. He felt the curve of her lips, and the sparkle that passed like a shooting star in her eyes, in the deepest bottom of his heart.

  Then her smile faded to one of polite graciousness, and Willem wanted to take a step away from her but didn’t.

  “May I introduce myself?” he asked her, his voice finally sounding like his own.

  She cleared her throat—not a dainty sound, Willem was surprised to enjoy—and said, “If that is your custom, sir.”

  Her voice wouldn’t have sounded like music to anyone else’s ears but Willem’s.

  “Willem Korvan,” a man’s voice said, startling both Willem and the girl.

  Willem had to consciously refocus his eyes, forcing them away from the girl and to the man in military regalia who had appeared as if by some translocational magic at his left elbow.

  “There you are,” the officer went on. Willem finally recognized him as Thenmun, a minor but quickly rising lieutenant who had been recently assigned to aid in the reconstruction of the wall. The lieutenant had apparently been told by someone in authority precisely what had led to his predecessor’s reassignment and since then he had done an admirable job of avoiding the master builder’s wrath or Willem’s.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Willem said, grasping right forearms with the man as was the custom in Innarlith. “Here I am.”

  “Ah,” said the young officer, “do you two know each other?”

  “No,” Willem answered before the girl could. “I’m afraid we have not been properly introduced.”

  The girl smiled at him again, showing only a half-second of that true smile—enough to cause Willem’s palms to sweat.

  “Well, then, please allow me,” said Thenmun. “Miss Halina Sverdej, this is Master Willem Korvan, late of the kingdom of Cormyr.”

  Thankfully, it was not custom for men and women only just introduced to take hands, so instead she curtsied again.

  Willem nodded and said, “Miss Sverdej, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise, Master Korvan,” she said.

  “Please, call me Willem.”

  The girl blushed but smiled.

  “Well, then,” Lieutenant Thenmun said, grinning as well, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  The officer gave Willem a secretive leer, his back carefully placed to Halina, and withdrew.

  “You are from Cormyr,” Halina said.

  “I am,” he replied, then chanced: “Your accent is … pleasing. I would guess that you are a stranger here yourself?”

  “I am,” she replied. “I have come from Thay to live with my uncle.”

  “Have you’ve been here long?”

  She shook her head as the minuet came to a close, and they paused to participate in the quiet smattering of applause that followed.

  Before the musicians began to play again, Willem said, “Then I hope you will allow me to introduce you to the city I have come to call home.”

  Her answer was a smile that almost caused Willem Korvan’s heart to break apart in his chest.

  14

  13 Marpenoth, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  A copper for your thoughts,” she whispered, snuggling closer to him, if such were possible, her leg sliding up along his and her arm circling tighter so that she wound around him like a snake.

  Her skin was as soft as her smile, as gentle as her manner, and as intoxicating to Willem as the finest wine.

  In the tenday since they’d met, they had seen each other four times and all four times had ended up in Willem’s bed. Though it wasn’t discussed and would have been frowned upon in the most polite circles, it wasn’t uncommon. They were young, after all, and life was short.

  “We’re young, after all,” Willem whispered in response, “and life is short.”

  She giggled, and the series of little exhales tickled his neck. He turned his head and kissed her.

  “Is that all?” she asked, her voice so quiet he felt it against his lips more than heard it with his ears.

  He shook his head and she looked so deeply into his eyes all he could do was speak.

  “I’m afraid,” he said.

  She shook her head, closed her eyes, and dug her forehead into his shoulder. He traced a circle on her shoulder, raising gooseflesh for a moment, then eliciting a sigh from her.

  “I am,” he went on, “and why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Because you’re good at what you do,” she whispered into his neck, then the tip of her tongue—not warm but hot—flicked against him, sending a thrill through his body he didn’t try to mask.

  “Am I?” he asked, his mind refusing to follow his body into the pure physical bliss he knew she could bring to him. “I’m not so certain.”

  “The master builder seems to trust you,” she replied.

  “How can he not? All I do is agree with him. That and do all the work he’s been tasked by the ransar to do himself. He’s claimed credit for enough of what I’ve brought to this project and others that should he dismiss me he would have to explain my mistakes as his own. If he could even identify them as mistakes.”

  “You don’t enjoy your work?” she asked, then kissed his neck, her lips as hot as her tongue.

  “I do,” he admitted. “I do very much, but sometimes … often … occasionally, anyway, I don’t feel up to it.”

  “You do your best,” she whispered, her voice growing heavier, sleepy.

  “That’s precisely the problem, and if I was the only one who suffered for it, that would be enough.”

  “No one has suffered for what you’ve done,” she said, her fingertips beginning to play at the hair on the back of his head.

  “There was a man,” Willem said, closing his eyes, concentrating on the feel of her skin against his, “who would tell you differently, a lieutenant with a promising career ahead of him.”

  “Not Thenmun,” she said, then started to nibble on his earlobe.

  “No,” he replied, “No, not Thenmun, but someone very much like him. I had him reassigned … exiled, almost, for arguing with a decision I’d made, for questioning my figures.”

  She had no response, only continued to work at his ear because she knew how much he liked it.

  “He was right, you see,” Willem admitted, “and I was wrong.”

  Her tongue began to caress the inside of his ear and he drew away playfully, unable to keep the grin from splitting his face. They turned onto their sides, facing each other, and Halina pulled the thin white sheet over their heads. He couldn’t look her in the eye, not when her body lay exposed so. He couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off her and didn’t bother trying, and she did nothing to stop him.

  “The master builder may have made a mistake,” he said.

  “Stop it,” she whispered. “Who else would he trust the way he trusts you?”

  “I told you: He trusts me for the wrong reasons,” replied Willem. “There’s someone else. Someone I … someone I used to know. He would have been the better choice.”

  “Someone from Cormyr?”

  Willem nodded and said, “He’s here too. He came a few days, maybe a month, after I did.”

  “Then if he was so much better than you,” asked Halina, “why isn’t he becoming the master builder’s right hand instead of you?”

  Willem’s heart sank and he said, “Why not indeed?”

  “I believe in you,” she whispered, then they kissed.

  When they parted a few minutes la
ter, he smiled and finally did look her in the eye. He brushed a strand of hair from her crystal blue eyes with the tip of a finger.

  “Why do we always end up here?” he asked, making his voice as light as he could, and finding it surprisingly easy to do.

  “Well, Master Korvan,” Halina replied, her voice a mockery of a chaste lady’s indignation, but the blush in her pale cheeks was all too sincere. “You should know better not to ask a lady why she—”

  “No, no, no,” he interrupted, placing a fingertip gently to her thin lips to silence her. As he went on, the tip of her tongue drew circles around his fingertip. “I meant, why do we always come here and not to the lady’s bed?”

  She gently brushed his finger away with a hand she then placed on his rough, unshaven face.

  “You know I live with my uncle,” she said. “Though there are many nights he doesn’t come home, I never know when he’ll be there, and I doubt he would approve.”

  “You know,” he said, “you’ve never told me about this uncle of yours, just that you live with him and the two of you are from Thay. What is he, a Red Wizard come to enslave the fair city-state of Innarlith?”

  A dark look crossed her eyes for so brief a moment, Willem couldn’t be sure he’d really seen it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said before she could speak. “That was boorish of me to make a joke like that … to assume everyone from Thay was some—”

  She silenced him with a kiss, then said, “My uncle has come here on his own, not as an agent of the realm. He has some business interests here, but he doesn’t trouble me with specifics. His name is Marek Rymüt.”

  She must have seen the effect the mention of that name had on him. Her eyes went wide and she took her hand off his cheek.

  “Marek Rymüt?” he said, pulling the sheet off his head so that they could see each other in the light from the fireplace. “Marek Rymüt is your uncle?”