Lies of Light

by Philip Athans

  Truesilver glanced behind him at the fortress and said with a smile, “It’s an impressive fortification. Quite new by the look of it.”

  “Being a part of its construction is one of the great joys—one of the great honors of my life.”

  “And it, too, was built by Devorast?”

  “It’s his genius behind it, aye,” the dwarf said. “But there was some politics around it … it was finished by someone else, but to Devorast’s specifications.”

  Truesilver nodded and narrowed his eyes. Hrothgar had to look away—he didn’t like the way the human examined him.

  “Can it really be done?” asked the Cormyrean.

  “The canal?” Hrothgar asked. When the human nodded, he continued, “By Moradin’s sparking hammer, yes.”

  “You have considerable confidence in this man.”

  “When he sets out to do something, he does it,” the dwarf replied.

  “High praise from any dwarf,” the Cormyrean observed. “Your accent is strange to me. You aren’t from the North.”

  “The Great Rift,” Hrothgar said, looking the human in the eye again. “Can I ask you, sir, why you’re here?”

  The human had come with a letter of introduction from Ransar Osorkon and half a dozen armed guards in leather armor and steel breastplates emblazoned with a stylized dragon. His guards wore bowl-shaped helms and carried odd hook-shaped polearms Hrothgar couldn’t place a name to. Truesilver had a well-crafted long sword at his belt. He had the air and manner of someone important, and Hrothgar knew they needed all the friends they could get, even friends from as far away as the Forest Kingdom.

  “I have been sent by His Majesty King Azoun the Fourth to assess the feasibility of this canal and report back to the Cormyrean nobility,” he explained. “As you can imagine, a watercourse to connect the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Great Sea, the Sword Coast, and all points west, would be quite a boon to the shipping trade out of my home city of Marsember.”

  Hrothgar nodded and said, “Indeed. That’s one of the things that drives us to complete the damned thing.”

  Truesilver chuckled, and though Hrothgar didn’t usually like it when humans laughed at him, he found himself smiling back at the man.

  “Tell me, though,” Truesilver asked, his manner shifting quickly from jovial to earnest, “why did he go out there himself? Surely your—or, well, the ransar has sent soldiers to protect the workers and the work site. Why would the master builder himself go chasing off after some wandering monster?”

  “Well, first off Ivar Devorast is surely a master builder, but he’s not the Master Builder of Innarlith,” Hrothgar corrected. He tried to resist a sneer at the mention of the idiot Inthelph’s title, and once again his eyes were drawn to the great keep—great in spite of Inthelph’s efforts to the contrary. “But the only answer I have to your question is I haven’t the foggiest idea in boisterous Dwarfhome why Devorast thinks he’s got to fight off every giant frog or baby dragon that happens by us, but he does. It’s kinda the way he is. I’ve heard humans call it ‘hands on.’”

  Ayesunder Truesilver laughed, and Hrothgar felt compelled to join him.

  “A man after my own heart,” the Cormyrean said. “I’ve been accused of the same sin myself.”

  They laughed a bit more, then there was a pause in the conversation that made Hrothgar shuffle his feet. He didn’t know what or whom to look at.

  “I don’t want to take any more of your time than necessary,” Truesilver said, “but one more question: I was told that Devorast had something to do with a ship built in Innarlith that was meant for the Royal Navy of Cormyr.”

  “Aye,” was all the dwarf wanted to say.

  “The ship was called Everwind, and she broke apart in the portal that was to deliver her to the Vilhon Reach.”

  “Aye, it did at that.”

  “Not to press you on a subject that seems uncomfortable for you, but it was explained to me that the ship was built too large for the portal,” said the Cormyrean. “If that’s the case, and Ivar Devorast was at least in part responsible for that disaster, how can I give my king any assurance that a similar fate won’t befall this much grander, more complex undertaking?”

  Hrothgar let a breath hiss out through his nose and steadied his temper before answering, “I heard it told a different way, sir.”

  “Do tell.”

  “The ship wasn’t too big for the magical portal, or whatever you call it. The portal was made too small for the ship, and made that way on purpose, by someone who didn’t want that ship to get to the Vilhon Reach in one piece. The ship itself was sound, and I have no doubt it would have pleased your king, and yourself. Men like Devorast have enemies, Warden.”

  Hrothgar made himself stop there, but he held the man’s eyes for a long moment. He got the feeling soon enough that the Cormyrean understood the gravity of what he was trying to say.

  “Well, then …” the man started, but trailed off when his attention was drawn away to the southwest. “Is that him?”

  Hrothgar turned and saw a man crest the top of a low hill some hundred yards or so away. Long red hair blew in the hot summer wind, and Hrothgar knew the walk well.

  “Aye,” the dwarf said with a long, relieved sigh, “that’ll be Ivar Devorast.”

  Truesilver set off to meet Devorast, and Hrothgar scurried to keep up with him, wincing a little at the lingering pain from the injuries that had slowed him down for a long and trying month. His muscles loosened up as he went, though, and soon they stood face to face with Devorast, who dragged behind him, lashed with ropes, the carcass of another of the strange black dragon-creatures. Two of the ransar’s men who’d gone with him followed behind, each dragging a makeshift litter on which two more of their comrades lay. One of the soldiers on the litters was dead, melted beyond recognition. The other was burned badly and quivered in unrelenting agony. The men who bore their litters bled from cuts Hrothgar could tell came from both tooth and claw. Devorast appeared dirty, soaked with sweat and spattered with blood, but otherwise uninjured.

  Truesilver motioned his men forward and though the Innarlan soldiers were confused by the presence of a troop of Cormyrean Purple Dragon regulars, they were grateful for the help. When the dead and wounded were on their way to the keep, Hrothgar made his introductions.

  “Ivar Devorast,” he said, “this here’s Ayesunder Truesilver, Warden of the Port of … what city was it, sir?”

  “Marsember,” Truesilver answered, holding out a hand.

  Devorast took the Cormyrean’s hand in the human manner—briefly—and said, “Warden, welcome to the Naga Plains.”

  The Cormyrean nodded at the dead monster and asked, “What is that thing? I’ve never seen the like.”

  Devorast dropped the rope from around his shoulders and stepped away from the carcass. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s not the first one we’ve had to kill.”

  “Dangerous work,” Hrothgar added.

  “Any work worth doing generally is,” said Truesilver. “So I understand that you’re Cormyrean yourself.”

  “I was born and raised in Marsember,” Devorast replied.

  “Ah, well, then greetings from home,” the warden said with a smile that Devorast failed to return.

  “The warden was telling me that he was sent by the king of Cormyr himself to report on the canal,” Hrothgar cut in, hoping to forestall any uncomfortable exchange between the two men. Devorast wasn’t one to pine for home, but Hrothgar was smart enough to have identified Ayesunder Truesilver as an important ally, and sometimes Devorast’s manner….

  “That’s correct,” the warden of the port said. “His majesty has taken a personal interest in your endeavor.”

  Devorast had no reaction to that. Some more of the ransar’s soldiers had approached and Devorast waved them forward. “Take this to the keep. We should have it examined. I’d like to know what it is and where it came from.”

  Hrothgar watched Truesilver watch the ransar’s
men take charge of the dead dragon-thing. A smile threatened the edges of the Cormyrean’s mouth.

  “Maybe we should go back to the keep, too, eh?” the dwarf suggested. “Talk over this canal business over an ale or two, so the warden can report back to his king that he’ll have a sea route to Waterdeep in his lifetime.”

  Devorast nodded, and Ayesunder Truesilver grinned and said, “Yes, let’s. I’ll drink to that.”

  When the two humans started walking to the keep, Hrothgar breathed a sigh of relief.

  25

  Higharvestide, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

  THE PALACE OF MANY SPIRES, INNARLITH

  “‘… due to increasing civil unrest.’” Ransar Osorkon read from his own decree.

  “Really, Ransar,” one of the last of his hangers-on sighed, “there’s no use in reading it over and over again.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” said Kolviss, another of Osorkon’s dwindling supply of toadies. “Thensumkon is right. You did the right thing.”

  They stared at him with their wet, dull, puppy eyes, and Osorkon had to look away. He sat at his desk behind a bigger than normal stack of unsigned parchment with his head in his hands.

  “Well, Tlaet?” the ransar asked when he thought the silence had dragged on long enough.

  “Oh, Ransar, of course I agree!” Tlaet beamed, probably concurring with a point from the day before.

  “And then there were three,” Osorkon whispered.

  “Ransar?” Thensumkon prompted.

  Osorkon didn’t answer, didn’t even look at the bloated, sweaty advisor. Instead he looked at the wide double doors that were the only way in or out of his office. He’d contemplated having a secret door installed, but then none of the other ransars before him had done that—at least if they had it remained a secret. He’d never found one, and he’d looked. There was only one way into the ransar’s office, and only one way out.

  “That’s fitting,” he whispered to himself.

  “Fitting, Ransar?” Kolviss asked. He smiled and revealed a silver tooth. His hair was greasy, and Osorkon could smell him even from six paces away—and he didn’t smell good. “Do tell us what’s on your mind.”

  Osorkon sighed and said, “I was just thinking that I used to have six bodyguards.”

  All three of his dim-witted “advisors” turned to look at the doors. On either side of the stout oaken portal, barred with a steel pole it took three men to lift, was a single guard. They stood stiff and at attention, and they were good men who’d been with Osorkon for a long time. For more than a tenday they’d been the only ones to report for duty.

  “Did you order a reduction in your personal staff, my lord?” asked Tlaet.

  “No, Tlaet, I didn’t,” he said.

  “Well, then, who did?” the idiot Tlaet asked.

  “Well, you piercer-brained spore-farm, if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it was Marek Rymüt.”

  “Ransar?” Thensumkon asked.

  “Oh,” Tlaet interjected, “there he is now.”

  Osorkon, confused, looked up and followed his boot-lick’s empty gaze to one of the twenty crystal balls that still adorned his private sanctum. Over the past two months they’d one by one gone black until only two still glowed with the image of a distant locale. It had been about that long since he’d seen or heard from one of his staff of mages, so there was no one to tell him why they’d stopped working, and no one to make them work again.

  One of the crystal balls was locked on a top-down view of Senator Salatis’s seat in the senate chambers. The second showed Osorkon’s outer office, empty since he’d sent his secretary home to hide in her house while dockworkers and tradesmen clashed in the street, drunkenly beating each other up in lieu of organized holiday festivities.

  Osorkon looked into the first crystal sphere. Marek Rymüt sat in Salatis’s blue-and-white upholstered armchair with its bright red cherry wood accents. On the top of the back of the chair was a cherry wood emblem of three lightning bolts converging on a single spot. The symbol was a clear indication that Salatis had recently converted to the worship of Talos, the Bully of Fury’s Heart.

  “Rymüt,” Osorkon whispered, confident that the Thayan couldn’t hear him anyway, “what are you doing there?”

  Marek looked up, and Osorkon could swear they made eye contact. A cold chill ran down his spine, and he could feel his face go white.

  “Ransar?” Kolviss said, his voice shaking. “Ransar, what’s that?”

  He pointed at the other functioning crystal ball. Displayed therein was the empty outer office—or at least it was supposed to be empty. Something pulsed in the center of the room. It looked like a cloud of black and purple smoke, formed in a tall oval shape.

  “It looks like a door,” Tlaet remarked with a childlike lilt in his voice.

  “Ransar?” one of the bodyguards called from the door.

  “Be ready,” Osorkon told the two guards. “It’s happening.”

  “What’s happening?” asked Thensumkon. He didn’t even sound curious.

  Osorkon glanced at the crystal ball that revealed the senate chamber and saw Marek recline in Salatis’s chair and put his sandaled feet up on the desk in front of him. Again, Osorkon could swear he made eye contact, and the Thayan wizard smiled.

  “There’s someone,” Kolviss said.

  Osorkon’s eyes snapped back to the view of his outer office, and he stood. A man of medium height but sturdy build stepped out of the cloud of black and purple smoke just as if it was indeed a doorway. He held a finely-crafted longaxe in both hands and was dressed for battle in black leather ring mail.

  Osorkon watched as five more followed the first man. All of them looked enough alike to be brothers. They appeared of mulan descent with dusky brown skin and eyes that appeared black in the crystal ball. All six of them went to the doors to the ransar’s office. None of them spoke, no orders were given. They all held identical weapons.

  “Stand alert, men,” Osorkon told his bodyguards. “They have axes, so they’ll get in, but it should take a while.”

  The ransar opened a cabinet behind him and drew out a carved mahogany box that he set on a stack of parchment on his desk.

  “Ooh,” Thensumkon said, “what’s that?”

  Osorkon looked at him, but didn’t answer. The fool had no idea they were all about to be killed.

  Well, he thought, ignorance is bliss.

  While he dug in a desk drawer for the key to the box Osorkon kept his eyes fixed on what transpired in his outer office, though the temptation to look back at Marek Rymüt—who continued to stare directly at him from the Chamber of Law and Civility—nettled at his nerves. Two of the six assassins stood close to the double doors, opened their mouths, and for all appearances vomited on them. A stream of black fluid gushed up from deep in their throats and flowed over the smooth-polished oak. The wood began to dissolve like a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea … actually a little faster than that.

  “All right, men,” he warned the guards, “they’ll be through the doors a bit sooner.”

  He found the key and blinked sweat out of his eyes as he struggled with the lock on the mahogany box. He didn’t remember feeling so warm before the assassins stepped out of a cloud in the next room.

  “Should we be leaving?” asked Kolviss.

  Osorkon had to smile at that one, but withheld his reply when he finally got the box unlocked. He opened it with a faint squeak of long-neglected hinges. Inside, nestled in rich green velvet, sat a mace. The weapon, which had been enchanted to contain the concentrated essence of lightning, had been in his family for generations and as a boy he’d been schooled in its use.

  He drew it out and looked at the door. The sizzling sound of whatever caustic substance the strange men had vomited onto it grew louder and louder, then a wisp of brown-gray smoke twisted up from a spot a finger’s length from the crack where the two doors met.

  “There is another way out of here, isn’t there, Ransar?” asked Kolv
iss.

  “Where are we going?” Tlaet replied.

  “Where are we going?” Osorkon asked. “That depends on what god you prayed to last.”

  “I always pray to Waukeen,” Thensumkon said. “Don’t we all pray to Waukeen, for gold and whatnot?”

  Osorkon shook his head, hefted his heirloom mace, and stepped around his desk to stand in front of it, facing the door. He refused to look at Marek, so instead he let his gaze linger on his map. Painted onto one wall, the huge representation showed everything from the middle of the Nagaflow south to Firesteap Citadel in excellent detail. Ten months before, on the Ninth day of Nightal in the Year of the Wave, Osorkon had had a thin, straight blue line, running north-to-south, painted in the space between the Nagaflow River and the Lake of Steam.

  The door sizzled so loudly his ears began to ring. Palm-sized chunks of wood fell off only to dissolve away to nothing but black blisters on the wood floor. Movement to the side caught Osorkon’s attention and he watched as another figure stepped through the hovering black cloud into the room beyond the disintegrating doors.

  “Salatis,” Osorkon whispered.

  “Who, Ransar?” one of the bodyguards asked as they both backed into the room with their halberds out in front of them.

  “It’s Senator Salatis,” Osorkon said.

  “Well,” Thensumkon huffed with sincere disapproval, “he won’t have that title for long.”

  “No,” Osorkon said with a wry smile, “he’ll have mine if we don’t fight well.”

  “And get damned lucky,” one of the bodyguards grumbled as he watched two more of the six assassins douse the failing doors with caustic secretions.

  With a final sizzling, shattering cacophony they were in the room. The two bodyguards dropped back to defend their ransar, stepping past a startled, immobile Thensumkon.

  “Well, now,” the advisor started to say, but the words became a gurgle then were lost entirely to the thump of his severed head hitting the floor.

  “Goodness!” Tlaet exclaimed.

  “Really, now,” Kolviss said, scurrying back in the direction of the ransar and his guards on legs shaking so badly he was obviously on the verge of collapsing, if not shattering, to the floor. “there is a back door out of here, now, isn’t there? A secret door or a trapdoor … a concealed door, maybe? Some of kind of—”