Lies of Light (30 page)

She arced over the surface of the river, slithering in the air as though struggling with the sensation of flight. Insithryllax drew in a breath and roared.

The spell he’d cast augmented the already deafening sound into a physical force. The naga cringed at the sound and dipped in the air. Her tail splashed in the water then she curved back up and away, skillfully avoiding the hammerlike effect of his enhanced roar.

Insithryllax’s spell effect faded as quickly as it had manifested, and the naga slithered and twisted until she stood almost perpendicular to the surface. She shot straight up again, then turned for the far bank.

Insithryllax beat his wings once, generating great waves that crashed against the riverbank, swamping the thick vegetation.

He watched the naga fade from sight as she flew away by the power of a spell. The naga was smart enough, then, not to face him. But she was a witness. Insithryllax wondered if that would matter—and if it was worth chasing her down.

With his version of a shrug the wyrm sank back into the water and followed his nose to the three-quarters of a

dead naga he’d left floating in the current. When he found the body he wrapped a huge, handlike claw around it, beat his wings over and over again until they not only broke the surface but had shed most of the water that clung to them. He took to the air, shook himself dry—or dry enough. His scales still glistened with river water when he turned south toward Innarlith carrying the dead naga. He cast a spell that rendered him invisible so the poor little people of that petty city-state wouldn’t come to a complete halt while they watched a dragon land in their midst.

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1 Marpenotk, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) Third Quarter, Innarlith

Marek wondered at the feeling of familiarity, being in a temple where he knew he was unwelcome. Not that he was particularly unwelcome at the Cascade of Coins. Maybe it was the location, in the Third Quarter among the tradesmen and workshops____

“It could be that I’m uncomfortable with temples in general,” he said.

Pristoleph nodded, and Marek could detect at least a trace of sincere camaraderie. It was a strange sensation.

“I never had a religious upbringing,” Marek went on, “and a life of study in the Art has taught me not to rely on the whims of gods and goddesses, but to force power from the eternal Weave.”

“Careful,” Pristoleph said, pausing to sip wine from a gleaming gold cup, “that kind of talk might attract thunderbolts in a place like this.”

Marek winked and said, “I’ve risked worse.”

“Why come then?”

“It is the sort of social gathering one needs to attend,” the Thayan replied, “whether one likes it or not. I’d like to think I’m not the only one here under false pretenses.”

“Waukeen seems the type to forgive and forget,” Pristoleph said. “For the right price, anyway.” “You’re circling him,” the Red Wizard risked. “Excuse me?” “Salatis.”

Pristoleph smiled, and declined to answer directly. “So, who will you honor tonight?” Marek asked. “Wenefir?”

“Marthoon is a festival honoring guards,” Pristoleph said.

“And isn’t he-?”

“Wenefir is my friend,” Pristoleph cut in, his gaze cooling rapidly.

“Of course,” Marek replied with a curt bow. “I apologize if I suggested otherwise. I meant only that it’s well known in the city that he… looks after you.”

“As I look after him.”

“Of course,” said Marek. “Is it true that they have a dozen of these?”

Pristoleph nodded and said, “But not all in honor of guards. And you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who are you here to honor?” Pristoleph asked. “Surely not Salatis.”

“I suppose one could say that I’m here to honor guards in general.”

“A fine answer,” said Pristoleph. “I wonder why you feel I’m circling him.”

“The priests here are calling themselves ‘Waukeenar,’” Marek said. “I could have sworn they were ‘Waukeenites.’”

“No, I think it’s always been ‘Waukeenar,’ but I could be wrong,” said Pristoleph. “Apparently I’ve been too busy circling the ransar to study church protocol.”

Marek smiled and said, “We’re all very busy, aren’t we?”

“It’s always good to have one’s day full.”

“I wonder how much more full a ransar’s day is,” Marek said. “Of course, should he find he was able to trust his friends, a certain amount of pressure could be set aside.”

“Trust?” Pristoleph asked. “Really?”

“I know it can be difficult to imagine, but let’s say that if he should decide that a new aqueduct is required, say,” Marek explained, “perhaps the ransar would trust his closest allies to make sure that the right people are allowed to supervise its construction.”

“Speaking of construction,” Pristoleph replied, his eyes roaming the space above them, “what do you call this?”

Marek followed the senator’s eyes up the length of a tall marble column. The column, and seven more just like it, supported a triangular roof that protected the wide front doors of the temple. The festivities had spilled out into the street in front of the building, and the doors had been left open and unguarded—the guards were being honored within, showered with gold and silver coins, with like sums being thrown into a deep well that served as the centerpiece of the temple proper.

“That would be a portico,” Marek replied.

“Portico…” Pristoleph repeated, as though he’d never heard the word. “I suppose it’s important to have an entrance that conveys a sense of power.”

“Indeed.”

“Why Salatis?” the senator asked.

Marek blinked at the question, and took a step backward. Pristoleph raised an eyebrow and stared at him, waiting for an answer. In order to simply have something to do while he thought, Marek laughed. Pristoleph smiled, but didn’t join him in laughing.

“It’s terrible in there, isn’t it?” Marek asked. “All the colors… it confuses the eye.”

Pristoleph glanced through the open doors at the garish decorations, rugs with intricate designs, everything gilded and overly decorated.

“I keep trying to focus on one thing,” the Thayan said.

“I think if I can pay most of my attention to one thing among many, I might be able to put up with the confusion around me.”

“But when there is so much detail,” Pristoleph said, “so many colors, and all this embarrassment of riches, it can be difficult to choose one thing worthy of attention. Certainly it’s not something that should be selected at random.”

“I will admit, though with some reluctance,” said Marek, “that I too often act with some impetuosity. But then one always hopes he’ll think through every decision with care, but time and circumstances don’t always allow that luxury.”

Pristoleph smiled and tipped his chin down in the tiniest bow. His bright red hair moved in a way that seemed unnatural, as though it had a life of its own. Marek couldn’t look away from it.

“Perhaps,” the Red Wizard said, his voice low and coming from deep in his throat, “a little impetuosity might do me well tonight.”

“Risking a thunderbolt,” Pristoleph said, looking Marek in the eye and slowly, infinitesimally shaking his head, “I wonder what you think of the persistent rumor that the Merchant’s Friend has actually fled her worshipers.”

“I have heard that,” Marek replied, forcing his face to mask his disappointment.

“That she was killed, or fled Toril’s sphere, a decade ago?”

“During the Time of Troubles,” Marek said. “But then, here we are.”

“Could the Waukeenar simply be putting up a brave front?” asked Pristoleph.

“Everything is possible,” Marek said, “but to answer that with any accuracy one would have to ask the very people who would be most intent on keeping the secret.”

“And I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway.”

A bell rang, and one of the younger Waukeenar called

the faithful—and those just visiting—into the temple’s central hall for some formal rite or another. Pristoleph gave Marek a smile and started to move off into the crowd. The Thayan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. The genasi glanced down at the touch with a face so stern it seemed carved from stone. Marek took his hand away and reached into a pocket. Pristoleph watched his every move, and Marek had no doubt that the senator was ready for anything—including an assassination attempt.

Marek withdrew a polished silver box from his pocket, two inches by six inches, and hinged on one side. He offered the box to Pristoleph with a shallow bow.

“What is this?” the senator asked.

“A gift,” Marek replied. “Consider it a token of good will from the Thayan Enclave.”

Pristoleph took the silver box and looked Marek in the eye. He’d been taken off guard, and Marek made a note of that.

“Please don’t try them on,” Marek said when Pristoleph opened the box to reveal a pair of pince-nez spectacles with lenses of opaque magenta, “until you are in a private place.”

Pristoleph closed the box and smiled. Marek could see that he had intrigued the genasi, and worried him at least a little.

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2 Marpenotk, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) The Golden Road

Insithryllax, in the form of a human, stepped out into the middle of the road and crossed his arms in front of his chest. The rider pulled his horse to a stop and regarded the dark man with a soldier’s critical, suspicious eye, but didn’t draw his sword.

“Let me guess,” the rider said.” ‘Stand and deliver,’ is it?”

Insithryllax laughed, hiding an incantation in the stuttering chuckle. The power gathered inside him, tingling first the tips of his fingers, then making his forearms almost sizzle. The sensation made him stop laughing and just smile.

“I am a rider in the service of the League of Lightning Mercenary Company and House Wianar of Arrabar,” the soldier said. “Think twice, bandit.”

“Ah,” the disguised dragon replied, “good. You’re the ambassador’s escort.”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed, and his cheeks flushed. Insithryllax let the gathered Weave energy loose, thrusting his arm up and out to point at the rider. The soldier got a hand almost to his sword before the blinding blue-white flash of lightning arced from the dragon’s outstretched palm and slammed into him.

The soldier jerked forward, not back, in his saddle. The horse screamed, but the man made no sound at all. It was if he screamed in reverse. He lungs seized, drew in air, but kept it lodged in his collapsed chest. The skin stretched tight over cramping muscles, and his eyes popped in his skull.

The warhorse bucked, trying to dislodge its rider. The man’s armor had begun to glow red from heat, and Insithryllax could smell the stench of smoldering horseflesh. The lightning bolt disappeared, and finally the horse was able to dislodge its rider. Insithryllax fought down the urge to transform into his true form and make a meal of the animal, and he let it run westward up the Golden Road in a blind, agonized panic.

The soldier lay motionless in the middle of the road, slowly broiling inside his own armor.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air from the east, and Insithryllax broke into a run, casting a spell as he went.

“Remember what I told you, children,” he whispered into the wind, “no acid, and no survivors.”

He ran half a mile down the middle of the road, uphill most of the way, and when he came to the hillcrest, he skidded to a stop, sending a little splash of standing water into the still, cool air. Rain began to patter on the muddy road around him. A black shape passed over his head with a flutter of leathery wings, but Insithryllax didn’t flinch. He followed the black firedrake’s swooping dive. It went for another of the riders, a man so like the one he’d just killed they could have been twins. The rider got his sword out of his scabbard before the f iredrake tore his face off as it passed. He screamed and fell from his mount. Another black firedrake perched on him and started eating him while he died.

His horse reared and shrieked, confused, until it was taken down by a firedrake’s crocodilian fangs. As it went down, it kicked the side of the carriage, popping it up on two wheels. The firedrake, its mouth still on the horse’s neck, pushed out with one wing and tipped the carriage the rest of the way over. The driver ran, heading perpendicular to the road and downhill.

Insithryllax cast a spell as he walked toward the overturned carriage. When he was done, he sent five slivers of green light speeding after the fleeing driver. The missiles twisted around each other in the air, dipping up and down as though avoiding a series of invisible obstacles in the air, but they hit the running man in a cluster in the middle of his back, and dropped him. He slid in the mud for half a dozen yards on his face, his arms limp at his sides.

The rear outrider thundered up, a lance held firmly at his side. He growled out a long, guttural battle cry that made Insithryllax laugh, but then the dragon’s attention was drawn to the carriage. A hand appeared in the open window, smeared with blood.

A black firedrake roared, and Insithryllax broke into a run, casting another spell as he did so. A crackling sizzle cut the air. The approaching rider let loose a shriek of agony, and before Insithryllax even turned to look he

knew the source of the sizzle. The smell hit him next, and he redirected the spell away from the carriage and to his errant child.

The gust of wind knocked the black firedrake on its face and caught in its wing. The veiny black membrane ballooned up, and the force of the magic-driven air twisted its wing back and up so hard the bones snapped like twigs.

The firedrake shrieked in concert with the melting rider. The other firedrake turned on Insithryllax with an angry hiss, but backed off when the dragon merely tipped his head to one side.

He stood next to the carriage and muttered another spell, allowing himself the luxury of using the human gestures. The exercise gave the man time to crawl through the window and on to the side—which had become the top—of the carriage.

Insithryllax reached up, grabbed the man around the wrist, and pulled. With a yelp the man tumbled to the mud at the dragon’s feet.

“What—?* the man demanded, struggling to get to his feet. “What in the name of Toril do you think you’re doing?” He got to his feet, but staggered. Stepping back from Insithryllax, he steadied himself with a hand on the carriage. “Have you any idea who I am?”