Whisper of Waves

by Philip Athans

  She looked around but didn’t see the red-haired man. Resisting the temptation to call out his name she just stood there, her knees shaking, running her fingers through her long, soft hair. She heard rock scraping on rock from behind one of the piles. He was behind there—must have been kneeling or squatting, since the pile was half his height.

  She walked slowly around the pile of rocks, moving her hips, almost slithering when she walked. He didn’t hear her coming. She looked down at the ground as she came around the rock pile. Only by looking at the wall could she tell she stood where he could see her.

  “Mornin’, Miss,” he said.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  She put a fingertip in her mouth and her other hand on her hip, gently rolling her hips as if she was about to turn around. Normally she could feel it when a man was looking at her, but that wasn’t happening. She couldn’t take it and finally had to sneak a look at him.

  She gasped, jumped back, and almost screamed.

  It wasn’t the beautiful red-haired man kneeling behind the rock pile. It was some kind of misshapen thing, standing up on two squat legs, so short it was hidden by the pile of stones. It looked at her from behind a mass of matted hair that covered its face so that she could make out only a grimacing mouth full of flat yellow teeth and two beady eyes that stared at her with puzzled intelligence.

  She almost screamed again, then a word popped into her mind: dwarf.

  She’d seen the dwarf at the winery site. He had stood next to Ivar Devorast.

  “Where …” she said, her voice shaking along with the rest of her. “Where is Ivar Devorast?”

  “Oh, yeah,” the dwarf said, looking at her as if she were a mad woman. “He couldn’t make it this morning, Miss, so he asked me to come in his stead. I’m a capable stonemason, Miss, and can promise you a good job raising yer wall here.”

  “He …?” she said. “He sent you?”

  “Aye, Miss,” replied the dwarf. “Name’s Hardtoil, Miss. Vrengarl Hardtoil. At yer service.”

  Phyrea’s fists clenched again, and she closed her eyes. Her entire body tensed, but it wasn’t just anger.

  “Miss?” the horrible little dwarf asked.

  Without another word to the thing Devorast had sent in his place, she spun on her heel and went back to the house. She knew they’d be laughing at her and they were. Gales of laughter followed her from room to room, even as she ripped the dress off and threw it aside. She went back to where she’d dropped the knife.

  “No!” one of them screamed. “The sword!”

  She cried while she cut herself, and they laughed at her the whole time.

  65

  8 Eleint, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

  THE LAND OF ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN

  The black firedrake struggled under Insithryllax’s massive talon. It wasn’t trying to escape—it knew better—but it was just trying to breathe. The black dragon held it firmly to the ground of the alien dimension while Marek Rymüt walked around and around the dragon in slow, deliberate circles.

  The rest of the firedrakes, hundreds of them, wheeled in the air far above, watching Marek with fiery eyes smoldering with nascent intelligence.

  They’ve come a long way, Marek thought with a smile.

  “I’m bored,” the black dragon rumbled.

  Marek looked up into his reptilian face and said, “Patience, my friend.”

  “Patience?” the black wyrm replied. “I’ve given you your little mutants, your black firedrakes. I’ve helped tame your lightning fish—whatever you call them.”

  “I’ve been thinking, ‘Fury’s Eels.’”

  “Spectacular,” said Insithryllax. “I’m tired of this place. I can’t live out here like an animal anymore. It’s not a proper life for a civilized creature. You or I.”

  Marek looked back down at the restrained firedrake and said, “One more little experiment.”

  “Then what?”

  Marek sighed.

  “At least tell me what we’re doing here,” asked the wyrm.

  “This is the last element in the creation of the black firedrakes,” Marek explained. He let his chest swell with pride when he spoke, and why not? It would be his greatest achievement. “With this spell, the new ransar’s shock troops will be ready to serve him.”

  “What new ransar?” the dragon asked. “We were sent here—you were sent here—to take control of the supply of magic. We’re here to sell magic items, not to supply ‘shock troops’ … whatever that is, to some human bureaucrat.”

  Marek laughed and said, “Magic items? Watch this, my friend.”

  He kneeled on the soft, mossy ground next to the pinned firedrake. The creature’s eyes rolled to take him in, and softened when they fell on Marek’s face. The beast recognized him. Marek had seen similar looks on the faces of his mother’s dogs. The thought disappointed him.

  He spoke the first word of the first spell and the firedrake flicked its tongue at him. Marek smiled back at his creation and wove the spells, first one, then another, then a third, and a fourth. It took a long time, a lot longer than each one would have taken had he stopped in-between and cast them individually. Done together, each one was more powerful and more permanent. Into the casting he mingled words in Draconic that didn’t trigger spell effects but were a message to the firedrake:

  Don’t worry, little one, you’ll understand soon.

  When he was finished, the firedrake looked at him again, and instead of a dog, the look in its eyes reminded Marek of his niece Halina when she was a baby. There was an unmistakable spark that promised—in due time—real understanding.

  “Let him up,” Marek said to the dragon.

  Insithryllax hesitated a moment then took his massive front paw off the still firedrake. The smaller creature rolled onto its feet but didn’t stand. Instead, it scuttled back, keeping its head down, not looking its masters in the eye.

  “What have you done to it?” asked the dragon.

  Marek looked at the black firedrake and said, “Look at me, my son.” The creature didn’t seem to want to, but it finally lifted its head to meet the Red Wizard’s gaze. “Change.”

  The black firedrake’s shiny ebon scales quivered as what looked like shockwaves rippled across its sinewy length. There was a loud pop!, then another. Its bones began to creak and grind under its muscles. The firedrake closed its eyes and its long, crocodilian face folded in on itself.

  “Marek,” Insithryllax sighed, “what have you done?”

  The firedrake’s wings shriveled and collapsed, shaking and spasming as they reformed into arms, the claws on the end shortening and articulating with tinny cracks to form human hands.

  It went on like that for agonizing moments until a human male with dusky brown skin lay naked on the spongy ground where the black firedrake had been. The transformed creature looked up at Marek with eyes a deeper black than any human eyes he’d ever seen. It crawled and writhed on the ground, looking at itself in obvious confusion and unsure how to use its new limbs.

  “The new ransar’s shock troops,” Insithryllax said.

  Marek smiled and approached the transformed monster, reaching out a hand to it. The black firedrake took his hand, and Marek helped it to its feet.

  “We should start naming them now,” Marek said. “Each one, in turn, as they’re transformed.”

  “You do still have the ability to surprise me,” said the wyrm. “They’ll be able to change back and forth … as I do?”

  Marek nodded and sent a reassuring smile the dragon’s way. Then he turned back to the firedrake.

  “Olin,” Marek said to the shivering naked man. “Captain Olin. Yes?”

  “Oh …” the transformed firedrake stuttered. “O-Ol …”

  Marek chucked, and the false human smiled back.

  “So,” said Insithryllax, “all you have to do is cast that spell over and over again, one for each of the firedrakes?”

  “One for each of the firedrakes,�
� the Red Wizard replied.

  “Olin?” said the captain of the new ransar’s shock troops.

  “In the meantime,” Marek said to the dragon, not looking back at him but considering in detail the form of the transformed reptile before him, “I’ll see what I can do about building a home here. One you can call your own, yes? So you don’t have to suffer the cruel elements of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen.”

  The dragon sighed, and Marek could sense his tacit agreement, but he also worried that perhaps his time with the great wyrm was drawing to a close.

  “I’ll need someone to teach them how to use human weapons, too,” Marek said, “not to mention how to comport themselves in civilized society. They’ll have to learn Common, and maybe Draconic, too, or Chondathan?”

  “This one appears capable, but that will take time,” said the dragon.

  Marek shrugged and said, “Time, magic, and coin will buy us what we need.”

  “Will it?” asked the dragon, though he didn’t sound the slightest bit unconvinced.

  “Hasn’t it always?” Marek replied.

  66

  13 Eleint, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

  THE WINERY

  There you are, you lying bastard,” Phyrea shrieked, having lost all control of her anger and embarrassment. “You won’t forget your place again you sweaty, filthy pack mule. You’re not fit to toil in the blazing sun with the rest of these wretched peasants.”

  She’d found Ivar Devorast working on the foundation stones of her father’s new winery after finally giving up hope that he was just teasing her and would finally come to the house to finish the wall in place of that terrible dwarf.

  “I should have you thrown out of here,” she ranted. “I can have you tossed out with the rest of the refuse. You should be sent back to whatever Fourth Quarter hovel you squirmed out of to live out the rest of your miserable existence picking scraps up off the street with the rest of the dogs.”

  The other men had all turned to watch, and they began to laugh and hoot, egging her on, but Devorast just stood there and looked down at her. There was the slightest hint of a smile curling the edges of his mouth, as if what she was saying amused him. He didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised, much less offended. That fanned Phyrea’s anger.

  Words stuck in her throat. Her eyes grew hot and filled with tears, but she couldn’t suffer the idea of that man seeing her cry.

  His eyes widened ever so slightly, inviting her to say more, and Phyrea just grimaced.

  “Miss?” the grungy little foreman asked from behind her. “Is everything all right, Miss?”

  Phyrea started to turn toward the foreman but then spun, whipping her right arm around and slapping Devorast full on the face. She was strong, and she hit him hard, but the man barely flinched at the blow. The impact sent a sharp stab of pain through her own wrist. Her palm burned from the blow and from the scrape of his rough, stubbly face. Her hand, wrist, and arm tingled and shook when she dropped it to her side.

  Devorast smiled at her amid a cacophony of hoots, whistles, and gales of laughter from the other workers.

  “Miss!” the foreman exclaimed. “Miss, has this man …?”

  He couldn’t say it. Phyrea looked at him and shook her head.

  “He has …” she said, blinking back her tears. “He offended me, but he didn’t touch me.”

  “I will have him dismissed at once,” the foreman promised, sending a red-hot glare at Devorast.

  “No,” Phyrea said. “No. I want him to stay and work. I want him to work until his back breaks.” She looked back over her shoulder at Devorast—just a glance. “It’s all he’s good for.”

  The foreman said, “As you wish, Miss.” Phyrea was already stalking off back in the direction of the house.

  She kept up a fast pace until she was over the hill, then she started running. She cried most of the way, sometimes stopping to cough and catch her breath. By the time she made it back to the house her thin linen dress was plastered to her, and her hair was soaked and matted with sweat.

  She went into the kitchen and splashed water from a basin onto her face, wiping the kohl from her eyes. She cried off and on while she drank some of the water, then she broke a few dishes. She stomped around the room in an incoherent rage. Her eyes fell on a half-full bottle of Sembian wine. She picked it up—Usk Fine Old from Selgaunt, a fine vintage—and drank the rest of it in three long, choking gulps.

  Phyrea sat on one of the kitchen chairs and cried for a long time, then sat there for a while longer. She didn’t think of Ivar Devorast. Finally she stood on weak legs and made her way down into the wine cellar. She picked a bottle at random and brought it up to the kitchen where she found a corkscrew and a glass. She opened the bottle as she walked back to her bed chamber. There she stoked the fire in the little black wood stove and began the comforting process of warming water for a bath.

  The sun set before she was finally ready to strip off her sweat-soaked clothes. She drank the wine more slowly, and from a glass, but her mind still wouldn’t settle on a single thought. Devorast dominated her thoughts, but she was able to suppress the image of him enough to at least take care of herself.

  She sat in the bath for a long time, slowly sipping the fine Turmishan vintage.

  She had just poured the last of it into her glass and set the bottle down on the floor next to the tub when she saw him standing in the doorway.

  The most surprising thing was that she wasn’t more surprised to see him there. She didn’t gasp or cry out. She sipped her wine and looked down to make sure that the foam on the water covered her. It was. Only her head and the soft curve of her shoulders were visible above the surface.

  Devorast stared at her. He wore only dirty breeches. He wasn’t even wearing shoes.

  “You’re trespassing,” she said, her voice echoing in the tiled bath chamber.

  “Have me arrested,” he said. His voice played on her ears like a chorus of angels, though it was just a man’s voice.

  Though the bathwater had long gone tepid, her body began to burn with a heat from within.

  She lifted the glass to her full lips and took a tiny, playful sip, looking at Devorast from the corners of her eyes.

  He stepped into the room and before she could set the glass on the floor next to the bottle, he was standing over her.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but—” And his lips were on hers.

  She wanted to fight him off but couldn’t. He reached into the bathwater, and his rough, strong hand covered the small of her back. He lifted her out of the water and drew her into an embrace that washed over her, warmer than any bathwater. She sank into him, and their tongues met. A moan sounded of its own accord deep beneath her breasts, which were pressed hard into his firm chest.

  The tile floor was cold against her skin when he set her down, but he was on top of her and the warmth, the heat of his body, stole the cold away. The soap from the bathwater made them slide against each other. Her mind reeled and she felt almost as if she was about to lose consciousness.

  His lips came off hers and started playing at her breasts. She breathed in short, shallow pants. Her hands explored his body one inch at a time.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped. “Who are you?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he helped her to pull off his breeches and Phyrea’s entire body tingled. She gasped again and started to shiver.

  “Don’t,” she said, though she didn’t mean it.

  “Stop it,” she whispered, but she didn’t stop either.

  When his kisses went lower and lower down the front of her, her leg straightened and kicked over the wineglass. It shattered on the cold tile and she felt something hot and wet on her foot. They slid on the floor and she kicked the tub. A sharp sting blazed on her ankle and she only vaguely realized she’d cut herself. She didn’t care. She’d cut herself before.

  “Who are you?” she moaned.

  He gra
bbed the hair at the back of her neck and pulled her face into his. They kissed as if breathing each other in, as if they needed each other’s very life essence to survive.

  “I should kill you,” she whispered as he took her head in his hands and guided her, took her, used her. And she let him.

  She used him. And he let her.

  In the morning, she awoke to find her ankle carefully bandaged, and the glass, wine, and blood cleaned from the tile floor.

  She was alone in the house.

  “If you want to cut yourself, it’s all right,” whispered a voice from beyond the grave. Phyrea closed her eyes and covered her ears, but she could still hear the whisper as clear as the sunshine streaming in through the open windows. “But use the sword. Use the sword.”

  Phyrea lay in bed, trying to replace the voices in her head with memories of being in Devorast’s arms, of the powerful, confident man inside her.

  Finally she rolled over and reached under her bed. She found the sword right where she’d hidden it, wrapped in a silk robe. She drew the blade and admired its cool platinum glow, evident even in the bright light of morning.

  She drew back her covers and touched the wavy, razor-sharp blade to the inside of her thigh. There was a bandage there. She hadn’t bandaged herself there.

  But he had.

  She threw the sword to the floor where it clattered on the hardwood, and the ghosts of Berrywilde screamed while she dressed.

  67

  21 Eleint, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

  THE WINERY

  Hrothgar stood with his arms folded, watching Devorast gather up his meager possessions. Vrengarl was still working on the wall for the human girl. The tent already seemed empty.

  “It’s a mistake, Ivar,” the dwarf grumbled.

  Devorast tied the strings of his rough, tattered bag. He smiled a little, but that was all.

  Hrothgar sighed and said, “You’ll be a noble’s plaything.”