Lies of Light (21 page)

“What does it do?”

Marek laughed, took his hand away from Salatis’s shoulder, and set it on the glass. “There’s someone I know of that would very much like to have this, I’m sure.”

Salatis shook his head.

Marek sighed and continued, “People who hear its voice are laid low—not killed, mind you, but they don’t like it too much. It has a tendency to loosen soil, as well, and even… dig holes.”

Salatis nodded and let a grin spread across his face.

“But he’ll never have it, will he?” Marek said.

“He’s getting gold from the king of Cormyr, of all people,” Salatis replied. “If indeed you mean to offer these things for sale, what’s to stop him from buying it?”

“Me,” said Marek.

“Well…” the ransar started, then finally figured out that Marek would decide who bought what, when, and for what reason. “And your superiors in Thay are comfortable

with that? I mean, what if he came here with… five thousand gold pieces?”

“Well, first off,” Marek replied, “he’d be seven thousand short.” He gave the ransar a look that he hoped would tell him the rest, and by Salatis’s response, it was enough. “I wonder to what extent King Azoun believes he can meddle in the affairs of an independent city-state.”

The ransar’s lips tightened, and his face paled. “He vexes me.”

“He wants that canal built,” the Red Wizard said as he crossed to another case. He looked down at the Wand of the Ten Mages—a one-of-a-kind piece there more for display than anything. Only one of the ten mages who’d collaborated in its creation could wield it, and they had all been dead for six centuries. “He wants his merchants to trade directly with Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, and so on, without their caravans being picked apart by Zhents and ores.”

“He’ll pay a hefty toll too,” the ransar said trying to make himself believe it.

“Will he?” Marek asked. “For the use of a canal he paid to build? And will he pay you, or will he pay the nagas?”

Salatis frowned and said, “It’s gotten out of control, hasn’t it?”

“My dear, dear Ransar,” said Marek as he moved to yet another case. He looked down at the weapon inside—a ghost touch halfspear that made him think of Phyrea. “This is your city now, and nothing to do with it is outside your control. At worst, all you have to do is rely on your friends, and you do have friends. The realms of the Old Empires, Tethyr, the Zhentarim, even the Emerald Enclave and my own homeland have made their opinions known. Cormyr and Arrabar, and even petty city-states like Raven’s Bluff, are not to be taken lightly, to be sure, but neither are those aligned against it.”

Salatis took a deep breath and said, “You know that I know that I owe my ascendancy to you, Master Rymiit. You

know that I have agreed to this enclave of yours, agreed to your three laws, agreed to… other things. But the canal will be good for Innarlith. It can be, anyway, and by all accounts he’ll be able to do it. You’ve tried to kill him, so has Nyla, and others I don’t even know of. I’ve sent black firedrakes against him myself, but nothing. If you tell me I must stop the canal from being built I will do my best to do that, but you should be warned that my best may not be entirely up to the task. There are other Realms involved now, all more powerful than our humble city-state. I could lose more than just the canal, but the city itself, should I push too hard in the wrong places.”

It was Marek’s turn to take a deep breath. Salatis could barely look at him.

“Well, then,” said Marek, “let’s put it out there then, shall we?”

“Please do.”

“It would benefit me to sell the means to travel from here to the Sea of Fallen Stars through the use of magic, but it could also benefit me to finish the canal, also through magical means. The only reason the canal is still being dug is that Devorast refuses to be killed. But you… all along you’ve had the power to stop it without killing him, or finish it without keeping him. Send the foreign workers away. Despite your fears, even Azoun won’t march to war over this hole in the ground, especially if he’s reassured that it will still be built. He can keep the trade bars flowing, for all that, but to me—with a generous return to my esteemed patron, of course”—and he winked at the ransar—”and not that arrogant bastard. Give it up, Salatis, or give it to me.”

Salatis must have realized that his mouth had been hanging open in a most unflattering way, and he clacked his lips together.

3 Uktar, the Year of the Staff (1366 DR) The Chamber of Law and Civility

Willem Korvan stared down at a blank sheet of parchment.

“Be seated, honored colleagues,” Salatis said from the podium.

Willem sat with the rest of the senators, keeping his eyes on the blank page.

“I thank you all for allowing me to humble myself before you,” the ransar went on, the greeting the same every time.

With a shaking hand Willem took the quill from its stand and dipped it into his ink well. He could tell from both the sound and the feel of it that the ink was dry.

“I will not take up too much of your precious time this evening,” said Salatis, his voice echoing through the chamber. “Before I begin, I offer a prayer to Mask, the Lord of Shadows.”

While the senate chamber echoed with the murmurs of the outraged or surprised members, Willem lifted the dry quill out and dragged it across the parchment anyway. Only the faintest smudge of gray-black marred the smooth surface.

“It is you, Lord of Shadows, that tells us the truth of what is most real: that which we can hold in our hands, lock in our coffers, or rule with the strength of our hands and hearts. We expect nothing from you, Honored Lord, but the truth of your words of warning. You have given us all you should and all you ever will, and for that we thank you.”

The senators grumbled in response. Willem pressed harder and tore a small hole in the parchment sheet. “The city-state of Innarlith is in possession … no, I

apologize … I should say that the city-state of Innarlith was in possession of a canal that will revolutionize trade in all Faerun. Promises were made by my predecessor and his agent, but were those promises kept?”

Then Willem pressed harder still and scratched the surface of his desktop.

“This once promising endeavor became a drain on our precious but limited resources, but still we believed. Still we sent our gold and our workers out to the monster-haunted frontier and all of our gold and some of our workers didn’t come back.”

Hand still shaking—maybe shaking even worse— Willem replaced the quill and laid a hand flat on the sheet of parchment. Even there it trembled.

“But at least it was ours. At least it belonged to the city-state of Innarlith. But in the past months, even that has changed. But has it only been over the past few months? Or was it the intention all along, of the late Ransar Osorkon, to sell this city piece by piece to our neighbors? When we were told that others would share in our fortunes, that was fine. We hold the canal, but not the Vilhon Reach, not the Sword Coast—but we hold the canal!”

Willem tried to take a deep breath, but hiccupped instead.

“And now,” Salatis went on, “here we are, months on, and not only our gold is being used to dig this hole, but Arrabarran gold, gold from Cormyr, gold from Aglarond, from Sembia even, and points all up and down the Sword Coast from Athkatla north to faraway Luskan. An army of men dig and saw and toil, and how many of them are Innarlan? How many are Cormyrean? How many Arrabarran? And if Mask’s wisdom has taught us anything, it’s that all you are is what you hold in your hand, and when Arrabarran hands hold our soil, our soil becomes Arrabarran soil.”

Willem’s vision blurred a little, and he started to blink so that the scene in front of him flickered—but what was

it he was looking at? The new ransar babbling about something.

“But then what can we expect from this man, this foreign man, Ivar Devorast?”

That’s right, Salatis was babbling about Ivar Devorast.

“He comes from Cormyr with his strange accent and high-handed manners. As arrogant as his king, he spits in the face of every member of this esteemed body, and every man, woman, and child who calls Innarlith home.”

No matter where Willem went, how high he rose, or how many concessions he made to his patrons in the senate, the conversation always went to Devorast.

“This Ivar Devorast builds nothing for the city-state of Innarlith. So who does he build for? Azoun? The Simbul? Not me. Has he even come here? Has he even passed through our gates in months? He hides in my keep on the Nagaflow when his enemies strike at him—and he has attracted enemies, take my word for that—and he spends the lives of my soldiers to keep himself safe, but has he even once come before this body? We all know that he has not. Has he even once come to the Palace of Many Spires or the Chamber of Law and Civilityh, even just to report to his patrons on his progress? I can assure you, he has not.”

Everyone always wanted to talk about Ivar godsbed-amned Devorast.

“So, who does Ivar Devorast work for?”

“Himself,” Willem whispered, so softly even he could barely hear it.

“Does he work for King Azoun? I know I don’t. And I know you don’t.”

Willem sighed and hiccupped again. He needed a drink.

“Senators,” Salatis pronounced, his voice heavy with false drama, “I have come to you tonight to inform you that I have decided to call an immediate halt to all work on the canal. I have ordered the forces of the city-state, led by my own black firedrakes, to peacefully repatriate all foreign

workers, and to seize all outstanding foreign gold, and I have ordered them to do this immediately.”

Willem shook his head and almost laughed at that.

“When I am certain that things are well in hand—well in Innarlan hands—I will allow work to recommence. Until that time, the Cormyrean Ivar Devorast will no longer be welcome here.”

Willem cringed. He closed his eyes and quivered as his face pinched up and his fingers curled into fists.

“Senators, I thank you for your time. Good night, and may the Lord of Shadows bless this body and the people of the great city-state of Innarlith. Praise be to Mask.”

A deafening round of applause made Willem cover his ears with his hands, until he realized that Meykhati was clapping, so he clapped too. And he continued to clap as Salatis made his way slowly from the podium, clasping hands with a select group of senators—including Meykhati and Nyla—along the way.

Fools, he thought. He’s not just going to go away.

Willem could never be that lucky.

39

4 Uktar, the Yearof the Staff (1366 DR) The Canal Site

Tell him who you are, the old man demanded.

Anger flared through her, and through clenched teeth she said, “I am the daughter of Senator Inthelph, the Master Builder of Innarlith, and if you don’t take two steps back from me this instant, there will be consequences.”

Nicely done, girl, the old man murmured. Well said.

The man who stood before her with the wicked longaxe held in front of his chest seemed to stare right through her with his too-black eyes, but he did step back. With her best world-weary sigh, she stepped around him to the door of Devorast’s little cabin. Before she could reach for the

handle the door opened, and Surero stepped out. He looked surprised to see her, but smiled anyway. “Is he here?” she asked.

Surero nodded and glanced back into the dim interior. Devorast appeared in the doorway and nodded in greeting.

Phyrea had expected him to be angry, or at least annoyed, and certainly offended that the ransar—one of the least visionary men she’d ever met—had shut him down entirely with a single proclamation.

Tell him, said the little boy. Phyrea could see him, one arm ending in a handless stump, at the edge of her vision. Tell him you’re happy it’s over and that he’s being sent away. Call him a bad name and tell him to go to a bad place.

She shook her head and said, “It’s wrong what’s happening.”

No, said the ghost of the burned old woman, it’s about time.

“We knew it would happen eventually, though, didn’t we?” Surero asked. His eyes darted from one to the other of the three black-haired guards with their longaxes and blank, emotionless expressions. “Maybe not like this, though.”

“Have they hurt anyone?” Phyrea asked.

They should, said the man with the scar on his face. She could see him standing inside the cabin, next to Devorast.

Surero shook his head and stepped out of the doorway. “We should speak inside.”

Phyrea stepped in, nodding, her eyes glued to the shimmering violet form of the man and the z-shaped scar that marred his otherwise handsome face. She felt her breathing grow faster and more shallow and did her best to control it. Her palms went slick with sweat. She’d never seen the ghosts and Devorast in the same place, had she? He used to—she thought—drive them away.

“Damn it all to the bottomless Abyss, Ivar,” she said, a keen edge of near-panic in her voice. “I told you this would happen. I knew this would happen. I dreaded this day so much I did my best to make it happen sooner just to be

through with it once and for all, but now that it’s—”

The look on Surero’s face made her stop. She couldn’t look at the alchemist. Instead her eyes settled on the spirit-form of the man with the scar on his face.

It’s over for him now, the ghost said without moving his lips. Leave him behind you. He was destroying you anyway. He never loved you. Go back to Berrywilde.

You belong with us, back at Berrywilde, the little girl whined. She stood, an inch off the wood floor, in the corner next to Devorast’s little cot.

When she realized that Surero was trying to figure out what she was looking at, she closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Oh, gods of the Outer Planes, it is over,” she said, and pressed her hands to her face.

“It looks that way,” said the alchemist, “for now.”

Devorast said nothing. Instead, he slid big sheets of parchment into a leather portfolio with his usual calm, slow demeanor.

Take us home, the little girl begged.

The door opened, and Phyrea jumped, startled by the noise and the light.