Lies of Light (16 page)

“Gracious as always, Madam Korvan,” the master builder gushed.

But Willem knew all too well why Inthelph wanted him to marry his daughter. He thought Willem could rein her in, settler her, control her, and make her something she wasn’t. He couldn’t even do that for himself without the aid of Thayan magic. He touched the brooch again and felt just a little less warmth.

“In the winter,” he said, “the weasel’s fur turns white.” He gestured with his tallglass to indicate the white mask he wore. “If this was the Midsummer revel, I’d have had it painted brown. Phyrea is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

There was another heavy silence, but Willem felt less inclined to revel in it. Insithryllax and Kurtsson traded a look. Thurene moved her hand up his arm and found fresh skin to mar with her expensively-manicured talons. The ambassador studied him from behind her eagle mask as though he’d just crawled up out of the sea. Meykhati chuckled, and the master builder nodded in a confused, dull way.

“If you will excuse us,” Insithryllax said, and with a bow of his dragon head, he and Kurtsson moved away.

Willem caught a glimpse of a woman with a mouse mask standing behind them and got the distinct impression that she had been eavesdropping. Before he could study her in any detail, though, the master builder stole his attention.

“What do you say, Willem?”

“Yes, my dear,” Thurene pressed. “Wouldn’t the ransar’s New Year’s Masque be the perfect place for such lovely news?”

“Phyrea?” Willem asked, and they all nodded, even the woman from Cormyr. “The weasel is a night hunter that kills by biting into the back of its victim’s neck.”

“You mean its prey,” said the ambassador.

“Yes, my dear,” Thurene said with another painful

squeeze, “do say what you mean.”

“Not everyone is fond of the weasel,” he said, “though its poor reputation is hardly deserved. So it takes a chicken or two here and there. It also eats rats and mice, so even a chicken farmer can appreciate it. It’s as noble a creature as any, the weasel, and deserves a chance to survive.”

“I’m sure we would all do our best to preserve the noble weasel,” Meykhati said, his voice making it plain what he wanted from Willem.

Willem touched the brooch and studied at the people who looked at him through their masks. Their eyes pulled at him.

“Even weasels must come together for the good of their kind,” Willem said.

“Indeed,” said Meykhati. “Even weasels.”

“Master Builder,” Willem said, turning to address Inthelph. Thurene’s hand fell away from his arm, and he heard her breath catch. “In the spirit of the noble weasel, in the home of our ransar, in the presence of my mother, and because her beauty is unparalleled in all the world, I humbly seek your permission to ask your daughter to become my wife.”

Willem ignored the ensuing gaggle of congratulations. He didn’t really even hear the master builder give him his blessing, but he of course did—and with great enthusiasm. Instead, his attention was drawn to the woman with the mouse mask, who stood several paces away, staring at him. He blinked, but couldn’t quite see her eyes. Still, there was something familiar about her.

“Oh, it will be a grand affair!” Thurene all but shrieked.

He glanced at her, but then movement drew his eye back to the mouse. She took her mask off with a shaking hand.

“Halina,” Willem whispered.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she stared at him.

Willem touched the brooch, but it wasn’t courage he needed just then.

“Willem, dear,” his mother all but shouted at him. She grabbed his arm, again and he flinched.

Meykhati clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Well done, Senator. Well done, indeed.”

Willem forced his gaze away from Halina, but he could see her turn and run into the crowd of revelers from the corner of his eye. He spent the rest of the last night of the Year of the Sword talking about weasels and marriage.

28_

30 Nightal, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) The Canal Site

He moved on top of her, inside her, to a rhythm that had started out as his own, but had become a perfect fusion of two heartbeats. Phyrea let herself gasp, let a tear trickle from the corner of one eye, and let her body take his and be taken by his. She gave herself to Ivar Devorast as best she could when he wanted so little of her. He made no sounds, but his body told her that he wanted her, wanted nothing more at that moment than to be there with her. She had from him the best he could give, and more than she could ever truly have hoped for: his undivided attention.

When finally he slipped off her, Phyrea had to gasp for air. Though it was cold in his odd little cabin, a sheen of sweat covered her. She lay there until she began to shiver before she drew the blanket over herself. He looked down at her, and she wanted him to see her. The air could have been drawn from the room, the blood drained from her heart, but as long as his eyes were on her she would be sustained.

He smiled at her in that way he had that made it appear as though he knew everything, and she shivered again.

Outside, the whistle of the winter wind mixed with the sound of men drinking and laughing, shouting and

singing. Even in the remote work camp, it the New Year’s Revel, after all.

“If you tell me not to speak,” she whispered, “I won’t. If you tell me to go, I’ll go.”

“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” he said. His voice was more relaxed than she’d ever heard it. “You don’t have to await my command. I would like you to stay.”

“Then I’ll stay,” she whispered, and put her hand on his chest. He took it in his, and her thin fingers were swallowed up in his grasp. He drew her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. When the tip of his tongue drew a circle there, her body alit once again. “I’ll stay forever.”

He smiled, his teeth white in the dark space of the cabin. “Surely you have something of interest waiting for you in Innarlith. I thought you said you were going to destroy me. That, at least, will—”

“Shut up,” she said. Phyrea sat, letting the blanket fall away. She wrapped her arms around him for warmth. “Don’t say…”

But he was right. She had been working hard to poison people against him and his canal. She’d gone so far as to let her father know that she would be willing to marry Willem Korvan. Far all she knew, he was arranging the ceremony at that very moment.

“I’m here now, with you,” she whispered in Devorast’s ear.

He returned her embrace, and another tear rolled down her cheek. The embrace was so tender, she was nearly overwhelmed.

“I suppose you could stay,” he said. “Your work against me is done.”

“Please, don’t-“

“The new ransar could stop everything simply by drawing closed the purse strings,” he said. “I’ve been told that he is less than enthusiastic about the canal.”

“He listens to the mages,” she told him. “But I don’t want to have this conversation. I can’t talk about any possibility of you failing.”

“I thought you wanted me to fail,” he said, “so that I would stop before I was beaten by lesser men.”

The sarcasm was plain in his voice.

“Don’t have fun with me,” she said, and though she’d hoped to sound threatening all she heard in her voice was a little girl’s pleading.

He turned to her and kissed her cheek, then her lips.

“Marek Rymiit,” she whispered.

“The Thayan.”

“He won’t let you build it.”

“Because he makes his living by selling the magic necessary to teleport, or to open portals. I know that.”

Phyrea sighed and said, “Osorkon is dead. Who will protect you from him?”

“The Thayan has Salatis’s ear?”

“People tell me he made Salatis ransar,” she said.

“Then I’ll have to accelerate the work.”

She shook her head and told him, “By all accounts you’ve stretched your men too far as it is. How fast can one man dig? And I doubt you’ll get our new ransar to send you any more strong backs. That uprising on the docks is over, and Innarlith is back to work. Peasant men don’t need to come out here and risk monsters and trench collapses to earn a day’s wage.”

He smiled at her again, and the feeling it elicited in her was so intense, she nestled her face in his neck so he couldn’t see it.

“You have it all sorted,” he joked.

Phyrea stopped herself from crying by sheer force of will.

“Have you heard he word ‘smokepowder’?” he asked.

She cleared her throat and pulled away just far enough that she could look at him again. “Some kind of alchemy that causes things to explode?” He nodded and she continued, “But what would you want with magic? I thought you were determined not to use magic.”

“I use some form of magic every day, here and there,”

he said. “I have no aversion to the right tool for the right job, but anyway smokepowder is not magical in nature. It’s a mixture of rare earth elements that together are quite volatile.” “And?”

“With the proper application of enough force, I can move more earth than any man could shovel.”

“So, you want to dig with—” Phyrea said. She stopped when something occurred to her all at once. “The Thayan …he…”

“I won’t accept it from Marek Rymiit, if that’s what—” “No, no,” she interrupted. “Someone used smokepowder to try to kill Rymiit. You never heard of it? It caused quite a row. Innocent bystanders were injured, but the Thayan survived unscathed. The would-be assassin was just let out of the ransar’s dungeon.” “Who is he?”

“An alchemist,” she said, only then remembering the rest of the story. “He used to be quite in demand in the city, until Rymiit came along. They said he was bitter about the loss of trade to the Thayan, so he used his skills to try to blow him to bits.”

“But failed.”

“The smokepowder exploded, though,” she said. Her heartbeat quickened, and she thought she could feel his race as well. “It worked, but Marek was able to get out of harm’s way. The ground won’t be so difficult a target.”

Devorast nodded.

“Do you think it could work?” she asked, and he nodded again. “If you can dig faster, if you can show indisputable progress, Salatis may not be able to—may not even want to stop you, especially if you can bring in gold and workers from other realms, as you planned.”

“Who is this alchemist?”

“I don’t remember his name,” she said. “I could find out. I could ask, in the city.”

“Be careful,” Devorast said. “If the wrong people know

what I intend, it could end everything.”

“Trust me,” she whispered and began to kiss his shoulder.

“Does that mean you no longer want to destroy me?” he said. “This would be the perfect chance. Tell Marek Rymiit that I want smokepowder to use as a digging tool, and tell him I want to hire the man who tried to kill him to make it for me. He’ll finally just come up here and kill me himself.”

Phyrea froze. And why hadn’t Master Rymiit done just that? What was he waiting for? “Trust me,” she told him again.

29_

17 Hammer, the Year of the Staff (1366 DR)

The City of Saelmur, on the Shore of the Lake

of Steam

Your name is Surero,” the man said as he sat in the chair across the table for all the world as though he’d been invited to do so.

“Who in the infinite Abyss are you?” Surero asked, his eyes narrowing, his fingers tensing around the heavy earthenware mug he was a heartbeat from smashing over the man’s red-haired head.

“Ivar Devorast,” the man said. “If you’re finished hiding out and drinking, I have a job for you to do.”

Surero swallowed and nodded, looking around the low-ceilinged room. The tavern was crowded with people who drank and spoke, but rarely if ever laughed. The dank air was filled with pipeweed smoke and sweat, and the ale was bitter but still overpriced.

“You are Surero,” Devorast prompted.

“Yes,” Surero replied, not quite looking the stranger in the eye. “I am…” He paused to think, then finished, “I used to be.”

Devorast laughed, and the sound was so light and so sincere that Surero was forced to smile.

“I understand that you are accomplished in the creation and use of smokepowder,” Devorast said. “I have a challenge for you, closer to Innarlith, if you’re interested.”

Surero froze at the sound of that city’s name, and had to force himself to speak. “I told myself I would never go back to that pit of foreign deceit. And why should I? So I can be robbed blind again? Go back and tell your Red Wizard master that I have nothing left for him to take.”

“I don’t work for any Red Wizard,” Devorast said. “You’ve heard of the canal?”

Surero nodded, then took a sip of the bitter ale to try to hide the confusion and excitement that gripped him. His face flushed, and he began to sweat.

He waited a bit for Devorast to go on, but finally asked, “What of it? What do you want from me?”

“I need to move a great deal of earth in a very short time,” Devorast explained. “I have the idea that with a sufficient quantity of smokepowder, set in just the right places, that could be accomplished. I know why you were sent to the ransar’s dungeon, and I honestly don’t care. I have no affection for Marek Rymiit, but nor do I waste any time hating him. He isn’t involved in my project, and he won’t be. You don’t have to go back to the city. You can live and work at the site, as I do.”

“I need to know who’s coin will pay me,” Surero said.

“Mine,” Devorast said. “Where I get it from doesn’t have to concern you.”

With a sigh, Surero looked around the room again. “You see all these people, Devorast? Look at them. These are sad, desperate people. And do you know why?”

“No,” Devorast replied.

Surero stopped himself from answering right away and looked Devorast in the eye. He could see the unspoken words in the man’s steely gaze: And I don’t care.

“Tell me, have you spoken with Rymiit about this canal

of yours? Has he made his opinion of it known to you?”

“I have reason to believe he’s sent monsters to kill me on at least two occasions,” Devorast said.

Surero found it difficult to breathe. He downed the rest of his ale and almost choked on it. Devorast held up a hand and got the attention of the serving wench. He held up two fingers, and she nodded and waddled to the bar.