Lies of Light (9 page)

Phyrea turned her head. The woman that had been there before, the one that had taken up residence in Phyrea’s head, was gone. The silhouette of a woman stood at the hatch to the sterncastle. Phyrea couldn’t see her face, but the straight-bladed long sword she held in her right hand reflected Selune’s brilliance. “Speak,” the woman demanded.

Phyrea sighed, and made a point to leave both her hands on the railing in front of her where they could be clearly seen.

Another hatch opened, and a man’s voice rattled through a sentence’s worth of words in some incomprehensible tongue. He was answered by a single word from the woman.

“I am master of this vessel,” the woman said, “and I command you to explain yourself.”

“I just wanted to see it,” Phyrea said, her voice quiet and small, weak even, but carrying well enough in the still night air. “No… I mean, I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel it.”

The woman and the man kept quiet and still while Phyrea fought back tears.

“My man,” the woman—Ran Ai Yu—said, “did you kill him?”

Phyrea shook her head.

The woman stepped closer, and Phyrea could feel her eyes on her. Phyrea was unarmed. She was practically naked. There were more footsteps, more men, more of Ran Ai Yu’s crew.

“I might have hurt him,” Phyrea said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “You are the daughter of the master builder.”

She wants him too, you know, the old woman’s voice whispered inside her.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Phyrea answered aloud. Ran Ai Yu stepped closer still.

“Are you drunk?” the Shou woman asked. “Are you mad?”

Phyrea laughed and sobbed at the same time.

“He built this,” Phyrea said. “He made it with his own hands, but more than that, he formed it in his mind from nothing. He conjured it, you know, but not the way a wizard would. It was an act of pure creation, the invention of something from nothing.”

“Ivar Devorast,” Ran Ai Yu said, “yes.”

Phyrea cringed, almost seized when the woman of purple light shrieked, You see?

“Stop it,” Phyrea demanded of the ghost. “You don’t know.”

“I do,” the Shou answered.

Phyrea shook her head, her tears mingling with the harbor water that still dampened her face.

“What haunts you, girl?” Ran Ai Yu asked.

Phyrea looked up into the black sky, purposefully turning her head away from dazzling Selune, and said, “Him, more than anything.”

We are your blood, Phyrea, the voice of the little girl who walked through walls sighed, and we love you. We love you more than he ever will, no matter how much you smile at him, or whatever presents you bring.

“You lie,” Phyrea whispered.

“You must find someone to help you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “But not here. You are not welcome here.”

One of the men spoke to his mistress in their native tongue, and again Ran Ai Yu answered with but a single word.

Then in Common she said, “No, I can not let her swim back at night. There will be tonrongs. I will have my men lower a boat and row you back to the city. I hope you will never again be so foolish as to do this, and if my man here

is dead, or dies as a result of your attack upon him, there will be a debt owed.”

Phyrea couldn’t move, even just to shrug, nod, or hake her head. Her hands warmed the tiles on the railing, and her feet caressed the deck. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest and she stood there, her hair beginning to dry and swirl in a sudden breeze, while they lowered a boat.

Before she climbed down into it, she looked at the Shou sailor sprawled on the deck, and in the quiet she could hear him breathing.

You should have killed that slant-eyed foreign bastard, the little boy told her.

Phyrea saw him standing there, the outline of Ran Ai Yu visible through the violet luminescence, and she was all but overcome with sadness.

“Perhaps,” the Shou woman said, “if you too had something of his…”

Not wanting her to continue, Phyrea turned and followed a wary sailor into the waiting boat.

17_

lOKythorn, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith

Though his skin was pale, verging on pink, and his features were typically brutish, the Ransar of Innarlith reminded Ran Ai Yu of the monks of her homeland. His head was shaved clean, and his dress was simple, functional, and devoid of ornamentation. Though in the strictly confined limits of the city-state he was a sort of king, it would have been impossible to draw any such conclusion merely by looking at him. When he walked, his arms swung at his side in an undisciplined, even boyish manner. He smelled faintly of garlic and the rough tallow soap the Innarlans too rarely used. His feet were clad in simple leather sandals that exposed his long, crooked toes.

“Her name is Phyrea,” Ran Ai Yu said. “She is the daughter of your master builder.”

Osorkon nodded as they strolled, and replied, “Of course. Everyone knows Phyrea, at least, as much as she allows us to know her. No small number of men would like to take her as a mistress if not a wife. There are rumors of a dark side to her, too—some accusations of thievery, even. What interest can she be to Shou Lung?”

“She is of interest to me, Ransar,” Ran Ai Yu said. She didn’t bother to once again correct him, to tell him that she was a merchant—mistress of a sailing vessel of her own—and not an official, ambassador, or other sort of representative of her homeland. “Only just before middark last night did I find her standing by the rail of my ship. She had swim… swum… I don’t… but she swam there in the dark of the night at great risk, and with motives I am having trouble understanding.”

“She can’t have been trying to steal from you,” Osorkon said.

“I do not have reason to believe that.”

Ran Ai Yu let her fingertips brush a blooming rose as she strolled past a particularly healthy bush. The ransar’s garden was impressive for a private residence, though the palaces of Shou Lung had gardens far larger. She’d noted the ransar’s gaze darting from bloom to bloom as they walked and could see that he appreciated the foliage and the peacefulness of the place. Somehow, it didn’t match the man.

“She is haunted,” the Shou merchant said. “Phyrea?”

“Spirits have attached themselves to her,” she explained. “One of my men is sensitive to such things. Even without his counsel, I would have seen it in her myself. She speaks to people who can not be seen.”

The ransar shrugged and said, “Maybe she didn’t swim to your ship alone.”

Ran Ai Yu skipped a step. Her hesitation elicited a

scant smile from the ransar. She hadn’t considered that possibility—that Phyrea might have been accompanied by some number of compatriots cloaked in spells of invisibility—but somehow it simply didn’t ring true.

“Nothing was missing of my cargo or personal items,” she said. “I am sure she was alone.”

“And you have a sensitive man____”

Ran Ai Yu let that pass.

“Would you like me to inform the master builder?” he asked.

“If you feel that would be proper.”

Ran Ai Yu let her gaze drift up from the flowers to the towering ramparts of the Palace of Many Spires. One tower in particular struck her eye. It was newer than the others and possessed of an ethereal beauty that was out of place in the otherwise underwhelming city of Innarlith.

“I find it difficult, sometimes,” the ransar said, “to determine precisely what is and what isn’t proper. It can plague one, don’t you agree?”

“With all honor and respect, Ransar, but I do not. I have come to know many of the ways of Innarlith, so to me I am not surprised by what you have been so kind to confide in me, but in my realm we are schooled from our youngest age—from before we can even speak—in the ways of polite and civilized society. We are taught always to know what is proper in any situation. It is the blood and sinew of our very culture.”

What she’d said seemed to please him, and he replied, “Well then I guess I will have to rely on you to tell me if it would be proper for a man like me to ask to see a woman like you in a social setting.”

Ran Ai Yu was struck momentarily dumb. She wasn’t even entirely certain what the ransar was asking.

“I am certain we will encounter each other again at receptions and such,” she said. “My business demands that I-“

“Tell me if you are uncomfortable with my advances,

Ran Ai Yu,” he said, his voice sending a chill down the Shou woman’s spine.

“I am uncomfortable only because I have been here so long, and have been unable to unload precious cargo for trade in Innarlith,” she said.

He sighed at the change in subject and said, “There are men in this city who are inflaming the passions of the working class, though I have no idea of the purpose behind it. I strive diligently, I assure you, to take matters in hand. You will unload your cargo when limited resources make it possible.”

“It is warm today,” she said.

Ransar Osorkon grunted in the affirmative.

“I arrived on the twelfth day of Alturiak,” she said. “Though I greatly enjoy your city and its people, now it is four months gone by, the warm winds of summer blow, and still my ship is at anchor in the harbor.”

“Take your complaints to the harbor master,” the ransar replied.

Ran Ai Yu nodded and changed the subject. “I have been to visit the site of the canal that Ivar Devorast constructs in your name. It is of great interest to me, to one day be able to sail into the Sea of Fallen Stars, which I have long heard tell of, but have never seen.”

“Devorast didn’t tell you that he was building it in my name, did he?”

“I only assumed.”

The ransar sighed, and Ran Ai Yu risked a glance at his face. His pinkish skin had turned a deeper red, and she could feel that he was embarrassed by her rebuff.

“It honors you, nonetheless,” she told him.

“Devorast____” said the ransar. “Now that one is

haunted.”

“But not in the same way as the master builder’s unfortunate daughter?”

“No,” Osorkon replied. “Devorast is haunted by his own greatness. If the son of a whore had an once of political

ambition I would have had to have him killed a long time ago.”

It was Ran Ai Yu’s turn to be embarrassed. She said, “She knows Ivar Devorast, yes?” “Phyrea?”

Ran Ai Yu nodded, and the ransar shrugged and said, “I suppose so.”

“I think she came to my ship because he built it.” “Devorast built your ship?”

“He did, yes,” said the Shou merchant, “some three years ago.”

“That’s right,” the ransar said. “He did build ships.”

They went a few slow steps in silence, and Ran Ai Yu could no longer ignore the feeling that he wanted her to leave.

“I will allow you to proceed with your day, Ransar,” she said. “Please accept my most humble thanks for the honor of your time, and your garden.”

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. Though she didn’t want to, etiquette demanded she do the same.

“I will try to convey to the master builder that his daughter is haunted,” he said with a trace of a bow, “by Ivar Devorast, and other ghosts.”

She didn’t believe him, because it was obvious then that he didn’t believe her. Still, she bowed, thanked him, and went back to her ship.

18_

11 Kytkorn, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) The Chamber of Law and Civility, Innarlith

Willem Korvan wasn’t drunk, but he had been drinking. He’d come straight from the inn where he’d been with Halina. He still smelled of her—or at least he feared he did, but it was the smell of the wine he feared most. The air inside the giant chamber that served as a meeting room—a

sort of temple—for the senate of Innarlith was dry and hot. Though it was many dozens of times the size of the room in the inn, he felt more closed in by the senate chamber. He found it more difficult to breathe there.

“Do you think it a waste of your time, my boy,” the master builder said, “if I tell you again how proud I am of you?”

Willem couldn’t answer, so he shook his head.

But I can’t believe this, he told himself. She can’t be the one I end up with. My mother is right. Marek Rymiit is right. They’re all right. Halina is wrong.

“You’ve done well these past months, Willem,” Inthelph droned on. “We are all very happy with you—all your generous patrons.”

He thought of a dozen sycophantic replies to that but spoke none of them. He couldn’t muster the energy to push that much air out of his lungs.

“But you should also know that I expect more of you than a vote in these chambers,” Inthelph went on.

His voice made Willem’s skin crawl. The master builder spoke to him in paternal tones, and Willem wanted nothing more than to strike out. He couldn’t gather the strength to speak to him, but he felt sure he could snap the old man’s neck in the blink of an eye. They were alone in the chamber, after all. It would be a simple enough thing to concoct a story—a tragic fall, almost silly really, that such a great man might trip on a stair and fall just so as to break his neck. No one would question, would they? Would they take the master builder’s still corpse to a priest and inquire of his departed soul? Would Inthelph accuse Willem from beyond the grave? It was the sort of thing one had to consider, though they never did that with Khonsu____

“Though you’re a senator now you’re still a very talented young man, and the city needs your talents, perhaps now more than ever.”

But then the old man was wrong, wasn’t he? Willem had no talent—none at all—save the talent for impressing

easily impressed old men and shy, bookish foreign women. He couldn’t build anything. He couldn’t leave a legacy, or a mark on the world. But he could kiss withered old arse with the best of them. Willem desperately craved more wine, or something stronger.

“I just simply deplore the notion that any serious program of public works should proceed without your involvement. It’s a disservice to the city, the ransar, and the people of Innarlith—a grave disservice indeed.”

Willem tried to sigh, but had no strength to do it, so he just sat there trying to keep a picture of Devorast’s canal from forming in his head. They both knew that that was what the master builder was talking about. But apparently only Willem knew that there was no way in all Nine screaming bloody Hells that he would be able to build it. Willem couldn’t even really imagine the thing. He understood the basic concept of course: Build a trench from the shore of the Lake of Steam to the bank of the Nagaflow and somehow fill it with water to form a man-made river. But it was such a long way, and would have to be so deep.