Whisper of Waves

by Philip Athans

  Devorast straightened, looking down on the dwarf. Hrothgar drew himself up too, though he was barely over half the human’s height.

  “He’s not a ‘noble,’” Devorast said. “Technically, he’s just another senator, but they keep the senate at an equal number and he provides a tie-breaking vote, should that be necessary. From what I’ve heard, it almost never is. He has other responsibilities, too, but he’s no king.”

  “Bah, don’t fool yerself, boy. He’s as much a king as any other, and should you tie your fate to him, he’ll burn you to cinders before he’s through.”

  Devorast laughed at that and sat on the edge of his cot.

  Hrothgar tried to go on, to rant and rave about the ransar of Innarlith and how Devorast going to work for him was the worst mistake of all time, but he had to admit—to himself at least—that he didn’t really believe that.

  “So that’s it, then,” the dwarf said. “The ransar sends for you, and you go, just like that, leaving the winery undone.”

  It was a lame attempt to play on Devorast’s inability to leave a job half done, but then—

  “It’s not my winery,” the human said. Hrothgar blew a breath out his nose and sat on his own cot.

  “What you haven’t said, boy, is why,” Hrothgar said. “Why now? Why the ransar himself?”

  “The man he sent said the ransar received a letter from a trusted colleague that described my idea for a canal to join the Inner Sea with the great western oceans,” Devorast explained. “If he’s serious, if he’ll pay for it, organize the city-state around it, it’s worth at least riding in his coach back to the city to discuss.”

  The dwarf shook his head, but they both knew he agreed.

  “It’ll be lonely here without you, boy,” Hrothgar said, standing and putting out a hand to Devorast.

  Devorast took his hand and said, “If he is serious, and we start work, I’ll need good stonecutters.”

  “Aye, you bet your life you will. Vrengarl and I will be waiting to hear from you.”

  The ransar’s man, who’d been waiting outside the tent the whole time, cleared his throat. The two of them shared another smile then Devorast walked out.

  Hrothgar stood in the middle of the tent for a while, just listening to the sounds of the worker’s camp all around him.

  “Bah,” he said after a time, then went back to working stone.

  68

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

  THE WINERY

  Phyrea stood in the shadow of one of the workers’ tents and imagined that the darkness wrapped her like a cloak. The camp was quiet in the time between midnight and dawn. The men worked hard, long days in the hot sun, and that made their slumber deep as death. Having heard only crickets and the snores of the men, she knew no one would see her, so she took four long, silent strides to the shadow of the next tent in line.

  In the darkness it was difficult to identify the proper landmarks, so she took her time. So as not to lose her keen night vision she kept away from the perimeter of the camp, where the workers kept torches lit. She saw the tree with the three twisted boughs backlit by one of the torches. Counting three tents to the left she traced a path with her eyes that would keep her in shadow all the way there.

  Her hand dropped to the hilt of the sword she wore at her belt. She didn’t draw the blade. The glow from the enchanted platinum might attract attention. The falchion had been craving blood since the second she’d taken it from the secret crypt of her long-dead ancestor. The spirits in the house sensed it before she did and had been pushing her to use it on herself. They even suggested she kill the dwarf, but Phyrea refused.

  Phyrea crossed to the next shadow and had to squat to keep herself out of the dim torchlight. She never took her eyes off the tent of the man she’d come for. She rested for a moment, bouncing a little to stretch her legs, and thought of the dwarf. It didn’t surprise her that she found herself smiling. Though she was horrified by the little man at first, angered—enraged—by his very existence, after a time, she’d come to respect his tireless work ethic and simple, genuine courtesy, and he had real respect for Ivar Devorast.

  Vrengarl also knew where everyone in the camp slept.

  She stood and started running in a single motion. Passing through one shadow after another, she went directly to the side of the man’s tent, stopping within arm’s reach of the dull gray canvas. She put her right hand on the sword but still didn’t draw it.

  Phyrea had killed men before. It was a part of being a thief. There were guards, or witnesses, and had she let them live, they would have killed her or destroyed her in other ways, but to go out at night for the sole purpose of ending a man’s life for personal reasons was something else entirely.

  She crouched and felt along the bottom edge of the tent. She could slip her fingers under it, but when she lifted gently there was only an inch or so of play. She wouldn’t be able to crawl under it. Cutting it, even with the exceptional sharpness of the enchanted sword, would be too loud. The front of the tent faced the tent across from it, and she would have to be in the light of the torches for at least long enough to slip inside.

  They’re all asleep, she thought.

  Phyrea waited a long moment, listening carefully, but there was no indication that anyone was moving around the camp. She stood again and stepped to the edge of the tent. She peeked out along the row of tents and didn’t see anyone. The precise moment she stepped out from the side a man came out of one of the tents.

  Phyrea jumped back and her shoulder brushed the canvas. Her face was the last part of her to cross back behind the corner and she saw the man look up and toward her. Back in the shadow behind the tent, she held her breath and stood perfectly still.

  It was quiet. The man wasn’t moving either.

  She rested a hand on her sword again, but still didn’t draw it. Bending her knees a little, she made herself ready to move—to attack, run, kick, jump … whatever she needed to do.

  The man started walking. His footsteps were heavy in the dry grass and scattered gravel of the campsite. She listened to them recede then edged her face around the corner of the tent—just barely enough to see the tent the man had stepped out of. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his footsteps stomping off. Then he stopped and there was a brief silence before she heard the unmistakable sound of water trickling on the dry ground.

  Phyrea wanted to sigh but didn’t. Silently, she cursed her luck and started to think.

  She knew she could slip into the tent without the man seeing her. He’d walked a ways out of the tent rows, for obvious reasons, and since she could hear what he was doing she’d have ample warning before he came back. If she did slip into the tent, what if the man inside wasn’t asleep? If there was any sort of a struggle at all, the other man would hear and would certainly wake others. It would all go wrong.

  He was finishing up, so Phyrea had to make a quick decision. She slipped around the corner and into the tent before the man started back to his own shelter.

  Inside, she stepped to one side and disappeared into a deep shadow in the corner. The sound of the tent’s occupant’s breathing told her he was asleep, so she took a moment to close her eyes and let them adjust to the deeper darkness inside the tent. She listened to the other man return to his tent and go back to sleep. Her hand was on her sword the whole time, but she didn’t draw it.

  Phyrea had to rely on what she thought of as a thief’s sense of timing. How long would it take the man to go back to sleep? How long could she stand in the cramped space of the tent with the man she’d come to kill before he woke up? She didn’t know how long that would take but trusted herself to simply feel it.

  Her eyes began to adjust finally and shapes, if not details, revealed themselves. She could see the man lying on his side on a little folding cot, a blanket in a heap around his legs. There was a little trunk in the opposite corner from where Phyrea stood. The cot was against the back wall of the tent.

  Sh
e knew she could slit the man’s throat quickly. In a single motion she could draw the sword, step forward, bring the blade down on the man’s neck, slice back, then reverse the blade and sheathe it. She could step back and spin out of the tent and ditch back around behind it before anyone could make it out of the nearby tents to see her, even if she made a sound loud enough to wake someone.

  The problem was she wanted to say something to him before she did it. If the man died quietly in his sleep, it wouldn’t really even be murder, would it? For a peasant who worked all day in the blazing sun for a couple of silver pieces, that kind of death would be merciful, and she hadn’t gone there in the dead of night out of mercy.

  There were ways to keep people from screaming, and she’d learned more than one of them in her time stripping the Second Quarter of its riches, but in the dark, it would be hard.

  Phyrea smiled. It would be a challenge. She hadn’t been challenged in a long time—the disastrous seduction of Ivar Devorast aside.

  She stopped smiling.

  It had been a tenday since he’d come to her at Berrywilde. She saw him a few times when she’d spied on the camp from afar. She’d brought up his name with Vrengarl, who had told her that Devorast had—

  The man rolled over. She couldn’t wait anymore.

  She drew the sword so fast that even though it screeched a little coming out of the gilded scabbard it was so brief a sound that it might just have been a cricket. At the same time she stepped forward then fell to one knee next to the bed. It hurt her shoulder a little to make the angle work—the blade was somewhat longer than the short swords she’d grown accustomed to—but she jabbed down fast and hard. The tip of the blade sank an inch and a half into the front of the man’s throat. She twisted the blade just a little, as if scooping out a dollop of pudding.

  The man’s eyes popped open, and he drew in a breath, which gurgled in his throat.

  Phyrea stood, brought her knee up faster than the man could bring his hands to his throat, and she stamped down hard on his lower abdomen. The man doubled up on the cot, his hands stopping, torn between clutching his ruined vocal chords and his throbbing belly.

  Hopping up and twisting in the air, Phyrea came down straddling him, trapping his wrists under her knees. The man’s eyes bulged in his head. His breath hissed out the hole in his throat when he tried to scream. Phyrea grinned at him and his eyes bulged even more. He looked at her with such terror, she felt an almost orgasmic thrill run through her.

  She put the enchanted blade close to her face so he could see her in its glow.

  When he could see her face better, some of the fear went away—had he thought she was someone else? He might have thought she was some kind of demon or devil come to steal his voice, then his soul in the dead of night.

  Close.

  “You are a petty little tyrant,” she whispered. “You aren’t worthy to look at him, let alone bark orders at him. You shamed me worse than he did.”

  The foreman shook his head. He tried to speak, and blood bubbled out of his throat. Phyrea stuck the tip of her sword under his chin and punctured his skin. He stopped shaking his head and lifted his chin as if there was some way he could get away from her sword.

  “You stink,” she whispered.

  A tear rolled out of his eye and down the side of his face.

  She pushed her sword in and his body spasmed when the blade came up into the bottom of his mouth, punctured his tongue, and nailed it to the roof of his mouth. She stopped there, letting him suffer for the count of four heartbeats, then she drove the sword home. It was so sharp she barely had to push at all. Like a hot knife through butter the sword went all the way through the middle of his head and there was only the slightest hint of resistance when it passed out through his skull. She held the sword in his head until his body stopped shaking, then she stood, pulling the blade out.

  As she waited, listening to make sure it was safe to leave the tent and go back home, she wiped the blade on the foreman’s blanket.

  She silently thanked Vrengarl for telling her where to find the foreman’s tent and for letting her know that Ivar Devorast had returned to Innarlith.

  Her own time in the country had come to an end as well.

  69

  1 Marpenoth, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  It had been almost a month since the first transformation, and Marek had barely spent a few hours outside the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen. He’d transformed enough of the black firedrakes to get a few dozen of them started building a permanent structure there, and he and Insithryllax began spending a bit more time in Innarlith, gathering supplies, and the gold necessary to buy materials for the construction. The firedrakes learned fast—faster than Marek had expected—and the Red Wizard was delighted.

  As they walked the streets of the Second Quarter, Insithryllax in his human form of course, Marek enjoyed the late summer sunshine and the feeling of a full purse.

  “I would like to stay here longer this time,” the disguised black dragon said, “perhaps leave the city and fly. It’s been a long time since I’ve really taken wing and just flown miles and miles for days on end. I used to do that when I was younger over the Endless Wastes east of Thay.”

  “I can’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do that,” Marek said, his attention half on the dragon and half on the shoes lined up in the window of a shop they passed, “though the firedrakes still need guidance. You are their master, you know, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I think you should start acting like it.”

  Insithryllax looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. Marek knew he should be intimidated, but he wasn’t.

  “You’ve spent too much time on these black firedrakes of yours,” the dragon said.

  Insithryllax stopped to look into the shop of a weapon-smith. The weapons on display were largely ornamental, generally useless.

  “I’ve sold this man a dozen magic blades in the past tenday,” Marek said to the dragon. “He’s sold them all and pesters me for more.”

  “So? I thought you were getting regular deliveries from your masters in Bezantur. Sell him more.”

  Marek chuckled and began walking again. He spotted a familiar face—a young senator’s wife he’d heard was hiding a love child from a previous dalliance—and nodded politely to her as she passed.

  “Supply and demand, my friend,” Marek said.

  The dragon shrugged, uninterested in further explanation.

  “You may be right, though,” Marek admitted, talking as much to himself then as to the dragon. “The black firedrakes have demanded much of my attention of late, and yes, I was sent here to establish a trade in magic items imported, secretly, from Thay. I was charged with establishing buyers, developing a market, eliminating competitors, and so on, but the firedrakes … The firedrakes were my own. My idea, my creation. I don’t know; I suppose I let the idea of them get the better of me.”

  Insithryllax smiled and Marek grimaced.

  “Don’t be smug, my friend,” the Red Wizard said. “It’s unbecoming of a great wyrm.”

  A woman passing by on the street paused and cocked an eye at them. She’d heard Marek call his companion a “great wyrm” but couldn’t possibly have taken him seriously. She scoffed at them and moved on down the street. The exchange made Insithryllax smile anew.

  “And the eels?” the dragon prodded.

  Marek sighed and said, “One day, Insithryllax, I could find myself annoyed with you.”

  He ignored the baleful gaze from the disguised dragon. Though he would never admit it, he relied on Insithryllax for so much, not the least of which was some grounding in reality, a check of his ambitions. The black dragon could be tempestuous, disrespectful, and impatient, but his wisdom was undeniable.

  “Are you without mistakes, my friend?” Marek asked. Seeing the look Insithryllax gave him, Marek said, “Never mind.”

  “I didn’t think of you as the type to let someone wa
lk away like that.”

  Marek shrugged and said, “It was my fault. The eels were powerful creatures possessed of great fierceness and a wonderful natural weapon with that lovely lightning of theirs, but they were inexperienced. They were used to picking off those bloated grubs or whatever fish swim that lake with them. The Cormyrean and his friends fought back, and with some intelligence, I might add. In the end, I suppose, all that business was more a test for the eels than it was an attempt to eliminate the competition.”

  Insithryllax shook his head.

  Marek clapped him on the shoulder and said, “The woman went back to Shou Lung, and the Cormyrean was ruined in any case. Why kill him when he can be left to suffer? He revealed the weaknesses of the eels, too. I’m still working on that one.”

  “What will you do?” asked the dragon. “Make them intelligent like the firedrakes?”

  “Actually, I—”

  The dragon silenced him with a warning hand on his wrist. The words to an utterly inappropriate offensive spell came to Marek’s mind. He looked at Insithryllax and followed his eyes to the street corner ahead and to their right.

  “What is it?” Marek whispered, looking down at the cobblestones in front of him. He’d seen a man on the corner looking at them. “The man?”

  “The beggar,” Insithryllax said under his breath.

  The man on the corner, the man who was staring at them, could have been described as a beggar. His blond hair—unusual in Innarlith, where more people were of swarthy Chondathan descent—was a mess, and his clothes were torn and dirty. The fine citizens of the Second Quarter gave the man a wide berth as they passed him, no few of them looking down their noses with open contempt for the beggar.

  “He’s been following us,” the dragon said out of the side of his mouth so only Marek could hear. “He’s been keeping ahead of us but stopping from time to time to make sure we’re still behind him.”

  “Who is he?”