Scream of Stone (24 page)

“You had to know I was coming back,” Ivar Devorast said.

Willem’s shoulders sagged and a pressure pushed on his chest so that he could barely force his lungs to take in air. The tip of his tongue cracked, his mouth was so dry, and he tasted blood. The incessant pain of his teeth flared and he closed his eyes to fight back a tear.

“Willem,” Devorast said.

Willem opened his mouth—but not to speak. He couldn’t breathe.

“I should have given you some way to contact me,” Devorast said, stepping closer.

Willem managed to say, “I would have… used it.” “Why, Willem?” Devorast asked.

Willem shook his head and gasped in a breath that seemed to lodge in his throat. A stabbing pain struck his knee and his shoulders pressed down even farther. He felt as though he were being crushed into the damp ground.

“I couldn’t stop them,” Willem said. His voice was so low, so weak, he could hardly hear it himself. “He compelled—”

Willem’s throat closed and he gagged. He wanted to tell Devorast everything. He wanted to tell him that Marek Rymiit had in some way magically compelled him to accept Aikiko and Kurtsson’s “help” in finishing the canal. He wanted to tell Devorast he had no choice, that he was just a pawn, as always, of more powerful men, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t force the words from his mouth.

“Did you come here to kill me?” Willem whispered.

Devorast stepped closer and Willem tensed, certain he would feel a blade pierce the flesh of his quivering back and still his heart. He couldn’t decide if that would be such a bad thing at all. His heart beat too fast, and a dull pain spread through his chest like water spilled from a barrel.

“It was my fault,” Devorast said.

Willem shook his head.

“It was,” Devorast. went on. “I was gone too long.” “You…” Willem choked out, “should not have… trusted me.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted anyone. I should have understood that I have too many enemies to leave for five months or more.”

Willem nodded, and though he couldn’t remember breathing in, he managed to rasp, “You should have been able to trust me.”

Willem waited for Devorast to answer, but there was only silence in the tent behind him. A sharp pain in his head made him close his eyes.

“Ivar?” Willem whispered. “You can’t forgive me.”

Willem’s jaw clenched of its own accord and the agony of his teeth grinding together made him tilt off the stool to sprawl on the floor. He was dimly aware of Devorast

stepping forward to help him, then stepping away when he spun into a crouch, his hands in front of him, his fingers bent to claw at the air.

“Willem,” Devorast said. “You’re not well.”

Willem’s head exploded in a shower of liquid agony and the skin on his face tightened, stretching his dry lips into a cracking, painful grimace.

“Pity?” Willem choked out.

He looked up, and with dim, dull vision, saw Devorast’s smug, vile, hated face looking at him with condescending pity—looking at him as though Willem were a troubled child who’d done wrong, but couldn’t be blamed because he didn’t know any better.

Willem rose to his feet, and as he did the pain dropped away, like a tree sheds it leaves in the autumn. By the time he stood to his full height, he was rid of it all, the pain, the shame, the guilt—all of it. And it had been replaced by a single thought, a singular, burning desire.

From a tiny, walled-off portion of his conscious mind Willem knew he wasn’t breathing, and could feel that his heart had stopped in his chest. But that was just the smallest part of him, a part too small to stop the rest, and the rest wanted only to kill—to kill Ivar Devorast.

Willem lurched forward, both hands up to grasp Devorast’s throat, but the man turned to the side just in time and Willem, overbalanced, staggered past him.

“Willem,” Devorast said. “Stop it.”

With a feral growl Willem spun and lashed out with a backhand that caught Devorast on the shoulder. It was a weak blow, but it sent Devorast, arms flailing, into the drawing table. Wood cracked and splintered and parchment tore and crumpled as Devorast crashed to the ground.

Willem bent at the waist and twisted, which made something inside him crack and tear, and he grabbed Devorast by his threadbare black vest. Ignoring the sounds of his own body creaking, only half aware of his own pain, Willem lifted Devorast off the ground.

Devorast hit his wrists then tried to dig his fingernails into Willem’s forearms, but Willem ignored the sensation that a living human might describe as “pain.” He threw Devorast to the ground. When he hit, the air went out of his lungs in a loud grunt that Willem found at once satisfying and disturbing.

He didn’t want to kill Ivar Devorast. He had to. He didn’t want it to be a long, protracted, painful death, but it would be.

Devorast crawled away from him as Willem lurched forward.

“Willem,” Devorast gasped, “what’s… happened to you?”

Though Willem wanted to answer, he couldn’t. He didn’t know what had happened to him, and he didn’t want Devorast to know anyway.

“Die,” Willem barked out—his voice so shredded and guttural the word was hardly recognizable.

Devorast staggered to his feet and turned to run out of the tent, but Willem lashed at him with his left fist-pulling the punch at just the last instant—and knocked Devorast once more to the ground. He knew that if he’d hit him as hard as he could he would have killed him, and as he tried to understand why he’d spared the life of the man he was absolutely compelled to kill, the last trace of question, the last morsel of will, fled him.

He screamed out his rage—blind, remorseless, unfettered—at the writhing form of his victim, and he stepped forward.

The tent opened and someone stood in front of Willem.

“Surero—no!” Devorast gasped.

Willem didn’t recognize the intruder. He saw a face-eyes wide, mouth open—and a body, but that was all. It wasn’t a person, not a man with a soul and a history, but a thing between Willem and Devorast, and he couldn’t have anything between him and Devorast.

Willem lashed out, and there was no last-instant tempering of the blow, no reprieve for the unknown victim

that should have known better than to step between him and his kill.

Surero’s head exploded from the force of Willem’s blow. The dry-skinned fist shattered teeth, drove the alchemist’s mouth open, and continued on through flesh, bone, brain, and sinew to burst out the other side drenched in blood and saliva.

“No!” Devorast shouted. “Willem!”

Willem stumbled backward, avoiding the headless corpse and blinking from the spray of blood driven up from the alchemist’s still-beating heart.

The alchemist.

Willem grunted and blinked—he’d killed… who? Surero.

And that little closed off corner of his consciousness opened just enough, just barely enough, for him to realize what he’d done. That little corner spoke then to the rest of his dead mind and he knew on every level still available to him that he’d killed the wrong man.

Willem took control of his body for one step, then another, and he was out of the tent and running.

52_

17 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Sorms (1374 DR) The Canal Site

Iristoleph stood when Devorast opened his eyes. His heart raced and he almost choked on a sip of the cheap local wine he’d found in the tent.

“Surero…” Devorast said, his voice thin and raspy.

Pristoleph shook his head and Devorast closed his eyes. The genasi stood there, looking away, for a long moment while his friend relived the alchemist’s death. Pristoleph had to know more.

“What was it that killed him?” he asked. “What was it that infected you?”

“Infected…?”

“You were half dead when a work gang got to the tent,” Pristoleph explained. “Surero had been murdered, and you lay dying from some kind of disease. It was as though you were rotting alive, just… deteriorating.”

Devorast shook his head and closed his eyes.

“The men said they saw someone run from the tent,” Pristoleph continued. “They described some kind of cloying smell, but didn’t see the man.”

“It was Willem.”

Pristoleph hissed with surprise. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the room as though searching for something, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.

“How could that be?” asked Pristoleph. “The priestess from the Sisterhood of Pastorals said it was a disease associated with—”

“It was Willem,” Devorast interrupted. He struggled to sit up, but Pristoleph held out a calming hand and he lay back down on the narrow, sweat-soaked cot.

“I’m beginning to understand something,” Pristoleph said, and waited for Devorast to look at him before he went on. “I saw something at the Thayan Enclave once, some kind of undead creature. Marek Rymiit made it, but he said it was for him, that itwasn’t for sale. It wasn’t a zombie, like the dockworkers, but… something else. I don’t know what.”

Devorast closed his eyes and looked away.

“I think,” Pristoleph whispered, “that everything I feared has come to pass.”

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18 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Nagawater

When Svayyah’s right hand broke the surface of the water, she turned it palm up. From below, Devorast’s rough

but fascinating features appeared blurred and shifting, and even with eyes accustomed to seeking prey from the safety of the river, she couldn’t quite tell if the human was happy or sad. The fact that he’d come to the Nagawater, to the place they had agreed on as a rendezvous point, didn’t bode well, though. Ivar Devorast didn’t generally visit her with good news. Unless…

He took her hand and Svayyah suppressed a thrilled shudder. Though the man was surely senthissa’ssa—a teacher worthy of emulating—he was human, a lesser being, nonetheless.

Devorast slipped into the water and shivered. When Svayyah finished her spell she touched his cheek. His eyes and the set of his jaw showed the same reluctance he’d always had with the effects of the spell, he opened his mouth, and cautiously at first, drew in a breath of the frigid water. His body lurched and he coughed out a stream of bubbles, which made Svayyah smile. His second breath was better received by lungs that had finally been purged of air. She looked him in the eye and he remained still while she cast a second spell—one that would allow him to speak.

With the air out of his lungs, he was at least a bit less buoyant. When she took him by the hand and whipped her great serpentine body behind her, she had only to expend a bit more effort than normal to carry him down with her to the murky river bottom.

Neither of them spoke as she continued to carry him along, kicking up sediment behind her and scattering the green and brown fish in front of her. A giant frog kicked up a cloud of black mud, startled by the naga’s approach, and spared her a frightened glance as it swam at speed to avoid her. Svayyah looked around and remembered a sunken log and a collection of rocks that formed the shape of an arrow. She would come back later, when she was at leisure, to devour the frog.

They soon came to a submerged burrow, one of many that Svayyah had dug over her long lifetime. It was a convenient place to withdraw from the occasional dangers of the wild Nagawater. A place to sleep, eat, or plan. The entrance was barely big enough for her alone, so she pushed Devorast toward it:

When he looked at her with suspicion she said, “Come now, Senthissa’ssa. You wish to speak in private.”

Though he hadn’t said as much, Svayyah found it a safe assumption, and one that was apparently correct, for Devorast turned and swam in his ungainly human fashion, into the dark hole. The moment he cleared the passage, Svayyah followed.

Past the opening, the burrow was a roughly spherical depression in the muddy riverbank, entirely filled with water. Roots from trees along the bank held the walls together. Devorast felt around along the walls, facing away from her, and Svayyah realized he couldn’t see. She dug one hand into the mud wall and found a small gold box. She’d secreted one such box in each of her burrows, and in them were coins and other items of value. She opened the box with a sibilant, hissing sound to deactivate the magical traps that sealed it.

Inside the box was a silver coin minted millennia past by a forgotten civilization. A spell had been cast on it that made it glow with a brilliance that made both Svayyah and Devorast blink. Their eyes adjusted soon enough and they faced each other in the tight confines of the burrow. Svayyah’s serpent’s body brushed up against the side of Devorast’s leg, but the man didn’t seem to mind the contact.

“It is safe to speak here,” she said,,then raised an eyebrow and waited.

Devorast appeared reluctant to speak, but finally he said, “I came here to tell you that the construction of the canal will be delayed indefinitely.”

Svayyah was surprised, and let that show. “That’s not what we expected to hear, Senthissa’ssa,”she said.

Before she could go on, Devorast said, “Please, do not call me that.”

“It is meant to show respect,” Svayyah said. She tried not to be too irritated. After all, as wise and as capable as he seemed to be, Devorast was a human after all. “It means—”

“I know what it means,” Devorast interrupted, and he either didn’t notice the stern look of reproach she flashed him, or didn’t care. Svayyah would have wagered the contents of her little gold box that the latter was true. “Please, call me Ivar.”

“Ivar,” she said with a tilt of her head. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound. “What has happened now? More false nagas sent to kill or confuse you?”

Devorast shook his head. 1

“Your ransar has been unseated?” she ventured. “Or he has withdrawn his support and coin?” t

“None of those things, no,” he said. “It was me.”

She thought about that word, “me,” as he looked away, looked around the burrow without really seeing it. It was a strange concept, the humans had, of considering themselves an individual among many, instead of one of many individuals. Svayyah wondered if they could even understand the distinction.

“I allowed myself to be distracted,” Devorast went on.

“It is a common trait among humans,” she said, still waiting for a clearer explanation.