Lies of Light (19 page)

As Svayyah found her breath again and forced herself upright, gasping in huge lungfuls of the dry air, she watched Devorast jump again—and land on his feet. He pulled a woodsman’s axe from a tree stump, and jumped again. His jump sufficed as a charge, taking him straight at the banelar.

“Your naga can’t save you, human,” the banelar shrieked.

Svayyah winced at the words, “your naga,” and searched her mind for a spell.

Devorast took an aggressive swing with the axe, sending the banelar jumping several paces backward to avoid the axe head. Whatever magic allowed it to jump like that was obviously still in effect.

Svayyah tried to cast another spell, but coughed instead. She panted, but couldn’t quite find her regular breathing rhythm.

The banelar had no such difficulties, and rattled off what sounded like a prayer. Devorast drew back his axe. The banelar’s incantation came to an end, and so did Devorast’s ability to move.

Svayyah spit venom to the hard, unforgiving ground and realized that Devorast was firmly held in place. Svayyah had sacrificed enough for Ivar Devorast and his canal that she simply couldn’t watch Devorast fall to the poisoned fangs of a banelar.

“Away with you, dista’ssara,” Svayyah shouted at the banelar. “This human is mine. You can owe me for the other three.”

She cast a spell at the same time that sent bolts of solidified Weave energy hurtling unerringly at the banelar. The thing didn’t even look up. The missiles raced through the intervening space, turning a little at the precise moment Svayyah assumed they’d bite into the banelar’s greenish underbelly—but veered into the brooch and disappeared into the black design. The banelar stood, brushed itself off, and hissed so loud it started a dull pain throbbing in Svayyah’s ears in time with her racing heart.

The banelar, having defeated her missiles without actually having to do anything, leaped at her. The spell effect was still active, and the banelar cartwheeled over first one then a second of the dead bodies. It brushed so close to Devorast that the fine hair right around his forehead rustled in the breeze. Devorast followed the thing’s progress with his eyes, but otherwise stood stock still.

Svayyah blinked and disappeared again so that the banelar landed in what would have been the perfect offensive trap. Then she blinked again right away to move herself once more between the pit and the banelar.

The banelar stumbled to a stop, and Svayyah disappeared again—

—only to find that the banelar matched her spell-for-spell. She appeared just a little closer to the banelar. The creature uttered a word Svayyah recognized—Draconic for “horns”—and a ram’s head made of blue-white mist charged through the air at her. Ready for it, her spell still active, Svayyah blinked out of its way and appeared a dozen feet off to one side to watch it rush past her, harmless, then disappear into the thin air.

Svayyah glanced at Devorast, who stood frozen in place still, and said to the banelar, “Are we supposed to be impressed with that? Holding that ape? You’re out of your depth, banelar. We will not be so easily stymied.”

The creature sneered at her and said, “I was paid to kill the monkey, but you I’ll take for the meat.”

Then it started casting another spell, and so did Svayyah. Though the banelar’s spell had no visible effect, the naga conjured a trident shaped from shadowstuff in the air. The spectral weapon danced before her, and she smiled at the look of fear that flashed across the dista’ssara’s eyes.

She blinked closer to the thing, whirled the trident around her in a full circle, anticipated the banelar’s dodge, then stabbed in low and angled upward.

Though it appeared insubstantial the trident was solid enough when it touched the banelar. The creature jerked back and to the right, avoiding two of the three prongs, but the third dug a ragged furrow in its slimy underbelly.

The banelar hissed in pain, but looked at her with strangely renewed confidence, and cursed at her in what sounded like Orcish. Svayyah ignored the insult and blinked away before it had a chance to bite at her.

Svayyah materialized at the edge of the hole, her snake’s body folding over the stack of lumber. She whipped the spectral trident around herself again and didn’t hear the banelar speak the command word for its ring.

“How many cuts will it—” she started, then the breath was once more driven from her lungs by the ghost of a ram.

The force of the blow sent her sprawling like a limp, fallen vine, into the pit. She scraped against the dull edge of the saw blade that still hung from the rig. If she’d hit it at a slightly different angle the fall might have cut her—even killed her.

Svayyah wondered at the banelar’s freshly attuned senses. She knew of any number of spells that might have helped, and knew it must have cast one. It was beginning to anticipate her blinks. It had sent the ram at her even before she’d appeared at the pit’s edge.

And it can still jump, she thought.

She rattled off the words to a spell as fast as she could

and still be sure it would work, then blinked away before she had a chance to see its effect. But just the thousandth of a heartbeat before she altered her location she saw the banelar arc through the air, coming right down at her into the pit.

She was well away when the long steel saw blade shattered into thousands of twisted, razor-sharp shards.

Svayyah barked out a laugh and twisted her spectral trident in the air in front of her. As she expected, the banelar leaped from the pit. It was alive, but bleeding from dozens of cuts.

“That will cost you,” it threatened.

“We have spent all we wish to already,” Svayyah sneered. “Your miserable existence ends.”

While she spoke the banelar stuttered out a ragged-edged incantation, swaying in time with it. Svayyah gathered the defenses she’d cast on herself close to her. She closed her eyes and slithered backward. The spell hit her in the eyes, making them water. Her vision blurred. She struggled to keep them open, battled to resist the magic that sought to blind her.

Not concentrating on any particular destination, she blinked away. She arrived somewhere nearby, but was momentarily disoriented. She saw a moving shape, blurred and indistinct, but knew it was the banelar.

“Someone’s miserable existence ends now,” the banelar hissed. “Of that I can assure you.”

Devorast, she thought. It’s going after Devorast.

She heard the banelar’s voice chanting in Draconic. Svayyah recognized the words, even the cadence, and gasped. She blinked the last of the fog from her eyes and disappeared—once again knowing precisely where she’d end up.

The thing lunged at Devorast, whose eyes widened. He was helpless, and Svayyah could see from what parts of his face he could move that he didn’t like it any more than she would have.

The naga appeared directly behind the banelar, her weapon made of shadowstuff held firm in the air above her head. She stabbed down hard, pushing the trident with the strength of her mind. It sank deep into the serpent creature’s purple carapace, but she wasn’t fast enough.

Devorast opened his mouth, but couldn’t scream. The banelar bit into his shoulder so hard Svayyah heard its fangs scrape bone. The sizzling noise that accompanied that sound confirmed Svayyah’s fears.

Svayyah twisted the spectral trident and pulled back with it, letting it slip past her body to drag the banelar off of Devorast. The banelar had a grip on Devorast’s shoulder for the heartbeat or so it took to die, and the spell that held him rigid disappeared all at once. When the banelar’s fangs came out, Devorast fell to his knees. With joints stiff and creaking, he put a palm to the wound, but hissed and pulled his hand away—burned by the already potent venom, made caustic by the banelar’s spell.

The vile creature slumped to the ground, still and lifeless, so Svayyah let the spectral trident disappear.

She looked down at Devorast, who lay on the ground, writhing in agony, his jaw stiff and his eyes closed. Bright red fluid bubbled up through the punctures made by the banelar’s fangs, as though his blood boiled.

Svayyah spoke the words of a spell and turned her head north, in the direction of the humans’ keep on the banks of the Nagaflow. Not identifying herself, but being sure to mention Devorast by name, she whispered on the winds a message that would carry the half a dozen miles to the nearest human ear. She told them that Devorast was going to die, and die soon, and that he needed their help.

“We will stay with you until your people arrive,” the naga told him, though she wasn’t sure he could understand her.

Devorast was breathing—panting even—so he was still alive, but he’d lost consciousness. Fortunate, Svayyah thought.

Knowing it would take time for the humans to cross the half a dozen miles from the keep—hopefully with one of their priests—and able only to hope that Devorast would still be alive when they got there, Svayyah turned her attention to the banelar. She used a spell to slip the rings off its still, limp tentacles, then stared at the brooch. It was a black triangle, its top rounded, the point on the bottom. In the center was a gold disk overlapped with an ebony symbol—the letter Z from the human alphabet-emblazoned above it. She didn’t recognize the mark, didn’t think it was the symbol of any god, but knew it had to have some significance. Banelars rarely if ever acted on their own. They were servant creatures. The brooch was a protective device, one that ate her magic missiles, but it was a sort of badge, too, that claimed the banelar in the name of—who? What?

Svayyah turned to the fitfully-sleeping Devorast and said, “I hope you live long enough to find out who sent this wretch, and exact your revenge.” She sighed and studied the dying man. The muscles under his smooth skin quivered with strange tremors. “And now perhaps you will start to carry weapons—or at least a thrice-bedamned healing potion or two.”

34_

22Tarsakh, the Yearof the Staff (1366 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith

A-nyone who understood the difference between beautiful and pretty could see that the girl was the latter. Her round face and big brown eyes were pleasing to the eye, but lacked definition. Her black hair was clean and combed, but she didn’t bother doing too much more with it. Her simple white silk shift revealed enough of her body that customers knew what they were getting; not enough to appear crass.

“If there is anything I can get you while you—” she said.

“Nothing, thank you, girl,” Marek interrupted, waving her away. “We aren’t customers. We’ve come to see the lady of the house.”

He could see the girl thinking, considering her response, sizing him up. She glanced at Salatis, and Marek could tell she recognized him. When her eyes passed Insithryllax and settled back on Marek, the Red Wizard could tell she’d never seen either of them before, and that concerned her.

“You can go, Cassiya,” Nyla said. The girl couldn’t help herself, she sighed in relief and scurried out. “I know she’s not your type, Master Rymiit.”

“She may be mine,” Salatis cut in with a cheerful leer.

An annoyed grimace passed quickly across Nyla’s face, then she smiled and turned to Salatis and said, “I can do better than that for the ransar.”

Salatis dipped in a shallow bow and was about to speak when Marek said, “The ransar told me you had something to say to me?”

Nyla sighed and sat in one of the deep-cushioned easy chairs scattered around the tastefully-decorated parlor. A fire roared in a fireplace big enough to stand in, and the air smelled of wood smoke and rose oil. The woman put a hand to her forehead and traced around the edge of her eyepatch with the tip of a finger.

Marek gestured to Salatis to sit, and wondered briefly if the man would ever be used to his position enough to be offended when others sat while he stood.

When they had settled in Marek asked Nyla, “What can we do for you?”

“You know my business,” she said, glancing between Marek and Salatis.

The ransar avoided her gaze, but Marek said, “It’s an old profession.”

Nyla might have wanted to laugh, but didn’t. She said, “I have a hand in other things, and I have friends within the city and without.”

“Do you require our assistance, Senator?” Salatis asked. “No,” she said, and Marek didn’t believe her. “But it’s occurred to me that I can help you.”

“I’m all ears,” Salatis replied with that same leer. “This canal,” she said.

The three men waited for her to go on, but instead she fingered her missing eye and appeared deep in thought.

“Go on, please,” Marek prompted. He brought a spell to mind and cast it with a tap of his toes and a gesture he passed off as scratching an itch. It wasn’t the best way, or the easiest way, to cast the spell, but it was worth it not to reveal himself. “Tell us what’s on your mind. You’re among friends.”

Even before she spoke, Marek heard her voice in his head. She thought and spoke at the same time, his spell revealing her hidden intentions. Marek listened to both with great interest.

Tell them only what they need to know, she told herself.

“I understand you have reasons for not wanting Devorast to finish the canal,” she said.

When Marek nodded, she thought, The Black Network is angry enough with me. Keep it close.

“And you have to be wondering why I would care when I’ve made my fortune in flesh, and that won’t change-canal or no canal,” she said.

“But you have friends,” Salatis said, “and would like to keep them.”

She glanced at the ransar, nodded, and thought, You’re not the friend I had in mind, fool.

“I can help you,” she said to Marek.

“What have you done?” he asked, staring deep into her eyes.

What does he know? she thought. Marek could feel the panic rising in her. Does he know about the banelar? “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “Have you tried to help us already?” Marek asked. “You

haven’t… paid a visit to the Cormyrean, have you?”

He knows, she thought. By the Dark One’s divine corpse, he knows everything,

“I want to help,” she said, looking Marek in the eye.

“Well,” the ransar broke in, “I’m sure your services will be of value to the city-state. But I haven’t quite made up my mind in regards to the canal yet. There are arguments to be made both for and against.”