Lies of Light (8 page)

Phyrea nodded, making it plain she’d lost interest in stories about tea she didn’t even drink. Instead she looked at Insithryllax.

“The way your eyes dart around the room,” she said to

the dragon, “constantly on the lookout for—what? Another mad alchemist? A rival wizard determined to resist the inevitable? I was under the impression that no such attacks have come for some time.”

So, Marek thought, you’ve been studying me, too. Well done, girl. But tread lightly.

“I am happy to report,” Marek said before the even more wary black dragon could assume the worst from her playful question, “that my efforts to civilize the trade in enchanted items and spellcraft in Innarlith has met with some success of late. It is a credit to the city of your birth.”

Phyrea forced a smile and said, “Any foreigner can have his way with Innarlith. It’s to your credit only that you have tamed the other foreigners.”

Marek laughed that off and said, “You hold so low a regard for your own city, I wonder why you stay here.”

That elicited a look so grave Marek was momentarily taken aback.

“Please, Marek,” Insithryllax said, “you’ll offend the girl.”

When the Red Wizard regarded his old friend, he was happy to see no trace of real concern on his face.

“Please do accept my—” Marek started.

“No,” Phyrea cut in. “Don’t bother. Of course I hold this cesspool in low regard.” She paused to listen to something, but the tea room was characteristically quiet. “Of course I do.”

Marek put the cup to his lips and whispered a spell, hiding the gestures as a momentary indecision over which of the little pastries to sample.

… him the sword, a voice whispered from nowhere. It was a strange sensation. Marek had heard voices in his head before, had often communicated in that way, but it was something else entirely to hear a voice in someone else’s head. It’s for you.

Then a woman: We meant it for you.

And a little boy: If you give it to him, we will be cross with you.

Marek resisted the urge to shudder. Instead he took a sip of tea and studied Phyrea’s face.

She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt, but she looked older than he knew her to be. She’d seen only twenty summers, but to look at her eyes he’d say she was fifty.

“You’re not well,” he ventured.

She shook her head, but told him, “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard the things you’ve been saying about that horrid man,” Marek said. “You know, that ditch digger?”

“Devorast,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and said more loudly, “Ivar Devorast.”

Use the sword on him, a man all but screamed at Phyrea and Marek brought to mind a spell that he hoped could save his life if she followed that order.

Devorast, the little boy whined. I hate him. You need to kill him with the flam… the flam…”

“The flamberge,” Marek said aloud, risking that the ghosts would realize he could hear them.

Phyrea looked him in the eye for the first time that day, but before Marek could do so much as smile she looked down at the tightly-wrapped bundle at her feet—a sheet of soft linen precisely the dimensions of a sheathed long sword, tied together with twine.

No!one of the spirits screamed.

Wait, breathed another.

“You’ll be able to tell me…” she started, but was interrupted by the boy.

I’ll hate you if you give it to him. He’ll kill you with it. He wants to kill you.

She shook her head.

“I will make a study of it,” he promised her. “And I won’t give it back.”

We’ll shred your mind if you let him take it away, said

the voice of an old woman.

It was for you, another ghost whimpered.

“I can’t hand it to you,” she said and took a sip of her tea. She grimaced.

“Leave it on the floor then,” Marek told her. “I’ll take it with me when I go.”

Don’t let him, a woman moaned. Plea—

His spell had run its course, but Marek had heard all he needed to hear of the voices in Phyrea’s head.

“I hate to keep bringing him up, as he seems to upset you so,” Marek said. “But I wish you would tell me why you’re so opposed to the Cormyrean and his ludicrous mission. After all, isn’t he, like me, a foreigner manipulating the weaknesses of the city you hate so? Why, one would think you’d have invited him to tea with us.”

“I hope you two will never meet again,” she said. “And anyway I don’t care about the canal. I hope it is finished … anyway it makes no difference to me if it is or isn’t, as long as Devorast—” and only someone as astute as Marek Rymiit could have detected the pause in her voice just then—”doesn’t get to see it through.”

“Well, then…” Marek chuckled. “Still, I wonder why Willem Korvan.”

“What?”

“I know you’ve mentioned his name to a number of people,” he pressed.

With a shrug Phyrea answered, “My father thinks highly of him. And he’s a foreigner. Why not him?”

“Why not Devorast?” Marek continued to press.

Phyrea paused, almost froze in place. It appeared to Marek as though she searched deep within herself for an answer.

Or is she listening to the ghosts again? he thought.

“Because,” she finally answered, “I hate him.”

Marek took a breath to speak, but stopped himself when he realized he didn’t know who she was talking about. Did she hate Devorast or Korvan? Or both?

9 Kythorn, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) The Land of One Hundred and Thirteen

TTnder any other circumstances, Marek would have demanded complete silence. He would have roared that order in a magically-enhanced voice loud enough to burst the eardrums of the offending parties, and he would have followed the order with threats so cruel the sound of them could peel the paint from a wall.

But he didn’t do that. He unwrapped the sword to the accompaniment of saws and shovels, shouted orders and pained grunts, and stone grating against stone and hammers clanging on hot metal. As anxious as he’d been to examine that fascinating flamberge of Phyrea’s there was still work to be done on his keep, after all.

The huge black dragon alit several paces away, scattering some of the black firedrakes that had been bent to their work beneath him. They scampered out of his way as he moved to the unfinished wall and craned his massive, serpentine neck down to regard Marek.

“Ah,” said the dragon, “there you are.”

The linen sheet came away from the scabbarded sword, and Marek stifled a giggle.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” the Red Wizard said. “Such craftsmanship.”

“Elven,” Insithryllax said, betraying a dragon’s appreciation for the finer things.

“I believe so, yes,” Marek agreed. “And do you feel it?”

“How could I not?”

“Such a powerful enchantment,” the wizard said. The dragon made a show of sniffing the air in front of him and said, “Necromancy.” “Yes,” Marek replied. “What do you want with it?”

Marek looked up at the wyrm and smiled. Behind him, ringing the flat-topped hill upon which his keep was being built, was the sprawling camp of his army of black firedrakes.

“They’re almost ready, aren’t they?” Marek said, ham-handedly changing the subject.

The dragon snorted, releasing a puff of gray-black mist that made Marek’s eyes itch even from a distance.

“Sorry,” the dragon said when Marek blinked and rubbed his eyes.

“Part of the joys of your friendship,” the Red Wizard quipped. “But be that as it may”—he pulled the wavy-bladed sword from its scabbard—”how could I not want a weapon such as this?”

“But you?” asked the dragon. “A wizard?”

“Phyrea thinks that anyone who is killed by this blade is reanimated in some state of undeath,” Marek said.

“Is she right?”

Marek shrugged and replied, “Care to try? Haven’t you always secretly wished to be a dracolich?”

The wyrm’s nostrils flared, but he held his acidic mist

in.

“A jest, I assure you, my friend,” the wizard covered. With some difficulty—he almost cut himself twice—Marek sheathed the sword. “I will study this in great detail.”

“Tell me in no uncertain terms, Marek, that you have no plans for that blade that involve me,” the dragon insisted. “Unless you mean to give it to me.”

Marek locked eyes with the dragon—not an easy thing to do—and said, “I would do nothing of the kind without your consent. My thoughts run toward… someone else.”

Marek hoped the dragon would accept that. He was nowhere near ready to reveal any plans he had for that blade, especially since it could be some time, years even, before he set those plans in motion.

“Good,” the black dragon said.

“I will offer yet another apology, my friend,” said the

Red Wizard. “I have not been back here as much as I would have liked. Matters in the city have kept me occupied, but the progress here is a credit to your efforts, and you have my thanks.”

The dragon twisted his neck in what Marek had come to know as one variation on a shrug, and said, “The black firedrakes are learning more quickly every day. They act almost entirely on their own now.”

Marek placed the sword on a table crowded with other items of varying power and went to the edge of the incomplete wall. He looked out over the finite confines of his tiny little universe and sighed. The air tasted stale, and he realized that every breath he took felt less satisfying than the last. He could feel Insithryllax eyeing him.

“We can’t last much longer here,” the dragon said.

Marek shook his head and replied,.”No, not with so many lungs to fill.”

The black firedrakes, some in human form, others resembling small dragons, walked or flew in a constant flurry of activity. They’d built what could best be described as a small village on the rocky plain of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen.

“Could be they sense it, too,” Insithryllax said. With his eyes, and his great long neck he drew Marek’s gaze up into the always-cloudy sky.

Two black firedrakes wheeled in the air, swooping in fast at each other to spray jets of hissing black acid. They dodged and weaved in the dead air, clawing and snapping their jaws. Another dozen or so of their kind circled the pair, watching their every move and sometimes spinning in the air in reaction to some surprise bite or well-placed spray of acid.

“They’ll always do that, I think,” Marek mused, watching the circling drakes.

One of the creatures managed to get under the other and bit down hard on its opponent’s right foot. Though he was too far away to hear it, Marek could imagine the

mighty crunch of the black firedrake’s talon shattering under its sister’s fangs.

“There are ways to replenish the air. Spells….” Marek began.

The black firedrake that had been bitten snapped its head down and spat a mist of corrosive fluid at the drake that still had it’s broken foot in its mouth. The acid poured over its wing like syrup, and pieces of the thin membrane tore off and wafted to the ground, sizzling on the edges.

“Still,” Insithryllax said, “at least some of the firedrakes will have to be taken out.”

The burned firedrake opened its mouth to scream, and it fell away from its opponent’s shattered foot. With one wing burned almost entirely away, it spun in the air like .the seed from a maple tree, shrieking in agony the whole way down.

“Higharvestide, I think,” Marek said, pausing only when the burned firedrake hit the ground and seemed to collapse in on itself.

Others of its kind dived in to tear chunks of flesh from its still twitching corpse and Insithryllax asked, “Why Higharvestide?”

“I don’t know,” Marek answered with a shrug. “I just have a feeling everything will be aligned properly by then.”

Four black firedrakes went after the one with the shattered foot and brought it down in pieces.

“That’s less than four months away,” sighed the dragon. “We should survive until then.”

16

9Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) Aboard Jie Zud, in Innarlith Harbor

Ihe air was so warm she didn’t mind being wet, even so late at night. The thin material of her undergarments clung to her, and Phyrea was reminded of her leathers,

which she hadn’t worn in a very long time.

You have as much right to it as she does, the old woman with the terrible burn scars on her face and neck whispered, maybe more so. It should be yours.

Phyrea shook her head and looked at the woman. She stood only a few paces down the rail from her, though “stood” might not have been the right word. Her feet didn’t quite touch the deck. Phyrea could easily make out the outlines of the sterncastle through her incorporeal form, and when she spoke her lips didn’t move.

“No,” Phyrea answered aloud, shaking her head.

You could have killed that man, the little boy said from behind her. Phyrea didn’t turn to look but she could feel him there. No one will do anything to you if you do it. You won’t get in trouble. They’re not from here. They’re not like us.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Phyrea said. “Not these people.”

She looked out over the still water to the lights of the city. The moon was bright in the clear, star-speckled sky, trailing her glittering tears behind her. Phyrea felt a sudden urge to offer a prayer to Selune—a prayer of forgiveness, perhaps.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, the voice of the man murmured in her head. He sounded bored, old, and tired. Except for relinquishing the sword.

Yes, said the old woman, you should be ashamed of giving away that sword.

“No,” Phyrea sighed.

Yes, the woman repeated as she drifted closer. The Thayan will destroy you and everything you’ve ever loved with that sword.

And it was meant for you, the man said.

And we want it back, said the boy.

“You’re wrong,” Phyrea said, not looking at the ghosts. She ran a finger along the cool, smooth tiles on the railing. The glazed ceramic shone in the moonlight. “No, you’re lying. He can’t destroy everything I’ve ever loved,

because I’ve never loved anything, except—”

“Who are you?” a strange, heavily-accented voice interrupted. Phyrea dismissed it as another ghost, until she heard a footstep. “Answer me, woman, or your head and your body will go separately into the next world.”