Lies of Light

by Philip Athans

  Willem rubbed his eyes and opened them. He looked at Devorast, and his blurred vision made his old “friend” appear less hard, less intractable, softer.

  “Answer me, Devorast,” Salatis demanded.

  “Believe what you will,” Devorast replied. His voice made Willem’s skin crawl.

  There was a long silence that made the air in the room seem too heavy to breathe. Willem couldn’t breathe, anyway. He scanned the room and his eyes fell on the face of Senator Pristoleph. Beside him stood his man, the soft and effeminate Wenefir. Willem was taken by the look on Pristoleph’s face, the cold regard focused on Devorast.

  “That’s no answer,” the ransar said to Devorast.

  Pristoleph smiled as though he didn’t agree with Salatis.

  “I want to get on with my work,” Devorast said. “Will you leave me alone to do that?”

  The ransar stared him down for a long time while most of the people in the room squirmed in their seats. Devorast waited without barely taking a breath. Pristoleph turned and walked out of the room, Wenefir in tow. That made Willem smile, but he didn’t know why. Then he was afraid he was about to vomit.

  “No,” the ransar said.

  42

  8 Alturiak, the Year of the Shield (1367 DR)

  FIRST QUARTER, INNARLITH

  You looking for something, squire?” the awful woman said. She spoke without ever closing her mouth all the way. Her brightly-painted, swollen lips never met. “Or you looking for someone?”

  Willem looked at her, and his head and stomach spun in opposite directions. He staggered, his fine leather boots splashing in the greasy black puddles of the dockside street. The air stank of the Lake of Steam and the mildew that slowly ate away at the ramshackle buildings around him.

  “Had a little of the grape, have we?” the woman said. She laughed, and the sound made him sicker. “Need a hand?”

  Willem shook his head and staggered again. She stepped toward him and all he could do was watch.

  When she put her hand on him he found his last shred of strength. He stood up straighter and was about to tell her in no uncertain terms that she was mistaken if she thought he was the sort of man who might be taken in by her and her kind, but when he tried to speak he couldn’t quite get his numb lips to form words.

  Her dirty hand with its chubby sausagelike fingers prodded him. His head began to clear, and he stepped away from her and looked her in the face. She smiled wide enough that Willem could count her missing teeth.

  “If I ain’t your cup of tea, squire, just say so,” she said with a suggestive leer.

  Willem shook his head, but then his eyes found her hand. He saw a little length of string or twine dangling from her closed fist—a fist not quite closed enough. Her hand could easily have hidden his coin purse.

  He drew his dagger and the woman backed away from him. The look in her eye was one part fear and one part resignation.

  “You’ve had blades pulled on you before, haven’t you?” Willem asked.

  She forced a smile and said, “No worries, squire. No worries at all.” Her eyes darted back and forth, up and down the long, dark, empty street. She couldn’t keep the disappointment from reading in her eyes. They were all alone. “Just you be on your way, and we’ll forget the whole th—”

  He cut her face—not too deep, just with the very tip of the knife.

  She gasped. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Easy now,” she whispered. She started to shake and backed away farther, until her back came to rest against the rough plaster wall of some dockside establishment closed for the night. “Easy does it, squire.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Willem repeated. The drink and the outrage made it hard for him to move his tongue, so his voice sounded alien in his own ears. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

  She turned to run, and he kicked her feet out from under her. She fell sprawling onto her face with a grunt.

  “Don’t you dare try to take from me,” he said, then kicked her hard in the side.

  She squealed and coughed, a wet, phlegmy sound.

  “Don’t you dare try to get away,” he growled, so low he wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear him, but he didn’t care.

  She crawled to the end of a dark alley. Willem didn’t understand why she thought she’d be safer in there. She drew in a breath to scream, so he kicked her hard again, forcing the air from her lungs.

  “Don’t you dare try to scream.”

  She reached for something in the folds of her grimy weathercloak. Willem watched her fumble out the knife. It was just an ordinary kitchen knife, but Willem wondered how many men she’d castrated with it.

  “Don’t you dare pull a knife on me,” he said, and stomped down on her hand.

  The bones made a crinkling sound, and the knife slid a few inches away. She grunted—not a very feminine sound.

  “You lousy, Second Quarter son of a—” she snarled.

  But she stopped when he kicked her in the face.

  “Don’t you dare,” he said, kneeling down in the dark alley next to her, “call my mother a bitch.”

  She shook her head, which succeeded only in rubbing her face in the mud and muck on the alley floor. He cut her on the back of the neck while she was still lucid enough to feel the pain, to know what was happening to her.

  “Don’t you dare live,” he whispered, then he took off his cloak and went to work on her.

  The whole time he was killing her, he thought about that day in the hearing room. Had Salatis done the same thing to Devorast? Had they all done that to him? Had they killed him? Had they taken his life in that very room, one cut at a time?

  The whore at least had the decency to defend herself. She’d tried to talk her way out of it. She’d tried to get away. She’d even tried to fight back. Devorast had done none of those things.

  After washing the blood off his hands and face, he put his cloak back on, drawing it tight around his neck to hide the blood that had soaked into his tunic. He wiped the blood from his dagger and put it back in the sheath at his belt. The sound of footsteps alerted him to someone’s approach, and he stood in the dark alley over the bloody corpse until she passed—another streetwalker—then he darted into the shadow of another alley across the street.

  He went straight to the tavern he’d been on his way to when he was so rudely distracted. The building leaned a bit to one side and contained a permanent haze of pipeweed and wood smoke, and the lasting stench of stale beer and vomit. Over the past few months it had become one of his favorite places.

  The sailors and dockhands who frequented the place never even looked at him twice. They all minded their own business.

  He sat at a table in the corner, in the dark, and the woman who worked there—four hundred pounds if she was an ounce, and easily Willem’s mother’s age—brought him a flagon of ale and a tin cup with some kind of distilled spirit they made out back. He didn’t have to ask for it anymore.

  He lifted the tin cup and held it out to the empty chair across from him.

  “Halina, my love,” he whispered to the shadows.

  He downed the fiery liquid and grimaced. A tear came to his eye.

  Would you still love me, he thought, if you knew who I really was?

  He turned the tin cup over and set it down on the table.

  Would Phyrea love me, he asked himself, if she knew who I really was?

  43

  9 Alturiak, the Year of the Shield (1367 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  You may want to shield your eyes,” Pristoleph said.

  He looked up at Wenefir with a relaxed smile, and his friend turned away, a hand over his eyes. Looking back at the fire, Pristoleph smiled wider and sighed. He concentrated on the flames that danced in the big round brazier. The copper bowl was ten feet around and dominated his private chamber. The room was warmer than most humans would find comfortable. Surrounding it was a collection of cushions made from different fabrics imported from all ove
r Toril, from Shou silk to Zakharan wool to something called “cotton” from distant Maztica. Each of the pillows cost more than his mother had made in a year of selling her body. Every one of them was a symbol of how far he’d come. The room, sealed away with just him, and his most trusted companion, and the fire, was a symbol too.

  He let his mind go blank, banishing all worries of politics and ambition, and let his thoughts surround the orange tongues of flame. He could feel the heat not only on his face, but in his mind as well.

  “Yes,” he whispered, then opened his eyes.

  The flames burst into a brilliant white flare that would have temporarily blinded a human. Pristoleph’s eyes drank the brilliance in with a greed all their own.

  He let the flame burn brighter for a moment longer than normal, until he noticed that Wenefir had begun to sink to the floor. He cut his connection with the flames, and the light returned to its normal dull, warm orange glow.

  Wenefir shook his head and rubbed his eyes, and said, “How can you stand that, let alone enjoy it?”

  Pristoleph shrugged and replied, “My mother always told me I had my father’s eyes.”

  The only other living soul who knew what he meant nodded, smiled, and said, “Well, now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, there are things we should discuss.”

  Pristoleph nodded back and gestured to one of the floor cushions. Wenefir took a long time to lower himself to the floor, but soon found a comfortable position on a lamb’s wool cushion from Aglarond.

  “First tell me,” Pristoleph asked, “how fare the coffers?”

  “You know full well that coin is pouring in from the docks,” Wenefir replied.

  “The Guild of Stevedores …” the genasi said with a grin. “And all because of that Thayan pig’s ridiculous speeches.”

  “He may be a pig, but I hope he never hears you call him that.” Pristoleph shrugged and Wenefir continued, “He’s been a good ally.”

  “He had his own reasons for shutting down the harbor, I’m sure,” said Pristoleph. “Someday I hope to know precisely what they were. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the gold that his rabble rousing has made for me.”

  “For all intents and purposes you control the flow of trade in and out of the city,” Wenefir said. “That’s quite a gift from someone not necessarily known for his selfless generosity.”

  “No one is truly selfless,” Pristoleph reminded his friend.

  “That’s what I mean. I don’t trust him.”

  “And why would you?” Pristoleph replied. “I don’t either, but then I don’t trust anyone, do I? At any rate, as long as he can be counted a friend, we avoid a powerful enemy.”

  “It’s not like you to avoid enemies.”

  The two men exchanged smiles.

  “You did not contribute to the hearing regarding the canal,” Wenefir said. “Why not?”

  “Did you expect me to?”

  Wenefir wiped sweat from his brow. He wasn’t nervous—he had nothing to be nervous about—the room was hot.

  “The canal will surely increase shipping traffic, which will increase my income from the docks,” said Pristoleph. “I’m inclined to think that’s a good idea, but at the same time I understand why Marek Rymüt is opposed to it. It made sense to simply stand mute.”

  “I wonder, though,” Wenefir said, a thoughtful cast to his features. “Which is the most damaging addition to the city-state of Innarlith? Ivar Devorast’s canal, or Marek Rymüt’s enclave?”

  Pristoleph thought it over for a moment then said, “Both, or neither. The Thayan thinks he can pull coin into Innarlith by sending people and goods to the Vilhon Reach by means of the Weave. The Cormyrean’s going to do the same with a big hole in the ground. As long as those goods move through our docks, well….”

  “And in order to send them by magical means, does Rymüt even need our docks?”

  “Point taken,” Pristoleph said, the thought sticking in his head like a bur.

  “The Thayan Enclave draws coin for Thay,” Wenefir went on. “It fills their coffers, not ours, and puts a foreigner in a position of inestimable power.”

  “A cogent argument against it,” Pristoleph replied.

  “but …?”

  “But,” Wenefir said with a mischievous smile, “he’s already driven out every other mage, or made a partner of them, and we need magic too from time to time. Not everything is worthy of the spells necessary to disappear it from place to place.”

  “There will still be ships,” Pristoleph said, picking up the train of thought, “and if they go through a portal to the Vilhon or a canal, either way they load and unload here.”

  “And there are other sources of magic besides the Thayan,” Wenefir said. He had that look in his eye that Pristoleph had been seeing more and more, and liking less and less.

  “You know how I feel about that,” said Pristoleph.

  “Cyric’s network is growing stronger and stronger by the month,” Wenefir said. “I have made strong ties with many of the most powerful priests in the region. Show them that you’re open to their help, and they could make you ransar.”

  “Like the Red Wizard made Salatis ransar?” Pristoleph asked. “Is that what it takes? A source of dark magic?”

  “Apparently, yes,” Wenefir said. His voice had grown thinner and higher, betraying his unfortunate deformity. “In any event, it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I am sure about Cyric,” said Wenefir.

  “It’s not the god that worries me,” Pristoleph replied, “but his servants in Faerûn. Still, a new ally is always better than a new enemy.”

  “Then I’ll leave it at that for now.”

  Pristoleph smiled and tossed a flask of warm water to his sweating friend.

  “Thank you,” Wenefir said, and he drank all that was left in the flask but still appeared thirsty.

  “This canal,” Pristoleph said, changing the subject in as unsubtle a way possible, “will cause chaos, though. Either way—if they build it or abandon it—there will be confusion for some time. The city-state—the whole region from Calimshan up through the Vilhon Reach—will be off balance. If they eventually decide again on the former, it will be very off balance, and for a very long time.”

  “And you’re wondering how you might benefit from the chaos?” asked Wenefir.

  “If you can find a way to benefit from it,” Pristoleph told him, “it isn’t chaos.”

  44

  9 Alturiak, the Year of the Shield (1367 DR)

  THE THAYAN ENCLAVE, INNARLITH

  It’s all right, Kurtsson,” Marek said, though he wasn’t the least bit certain that was true. “That will be all for the night.”

  The Thayan didn’t look at Kurtsson, didn’t want to exchange any sort of nervous or knowing glance. He listened to the other wizard stand, pause—hesitate—then finally leave. Marek had every reason to believe that the Vaasan would be listening in on what happened next—he had any number of ways of doing that—but it wouldn’t matter.

  “Good evening, Wenefir,” Marek said. He didn’t bother trying to smile. He didn’t even stand. “It’s late for a visit.”

  “Not quite middark,” Wenefir replied. “But my apologies just the same.”

  Marek put his hands on the table in front of him, palms flat down.

  “Everything is well, I hope,” the Red Wizard said. “That remains to be seen.”

  Marek cleared his throat and finally managed to smile. A sense of relief washed over him, though he wasn’t sure exactly why.

  “May I offer you a drink?” Marek asked, and Wenefir shook his head. “Please sit.”

  “I didn’t come here to kill you,” Wenefir said.

  “Of course not,” Marek replied. “If anything I said or did gave you the impression that that thought had crossed my mind, please excuse me.”

  “I will have a brandy after all.”

  Marek didn’t have to stand to reach the bottle or a glass.
He kept a tray at hand when he worked late. He poured the drink, and leaning forward in his chair, handed it to Wenefir.

  “Please, sit,” he said again.

  Wenefir took a sip of the brandy—a very small sip. Maybe he didn’t even drink any at all really, but just touched it to his lips. He sat on a stool, his wide, soft body almost seemed to drape itself around the little seat. He set the glass down on the table.

  “That’s pretty,” Wenefir said, nodding at the flambergé that sat on a swatch of black velvet in the middle of the table.

  “Isn’t it?” Marek replied, wondering if that could be what Wenefir had come for—but why? That sort of thing wasn’t really his style, or Pristoleph’s.

  “Tell me you didn’t make it,” said Wenefir.

  “Oh, no,” Marek replied with a chuckle. “No, that one’s old—how old I’m still trying to determine—but old. It belongs to a friend, truth be told.”

  “Truth be told….” Wenefir repeated, a wistful look further smoothing his already soft features. “It must be a very good friend, to allow you to hold onto something of such obvious value.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “It’s enchanted?”

  “Of course,” Marek said. “Why else would I have it?”

  Wenefir shrugged, and a little smile crossed his face. They sat for a moment in silence.

  “I had a conversation, earlier this evening,” Wenefir said at last, “with Senator Pristoleph.”

  “I hope he’s well.”

  Wenefir nodded and said, “He appreciates your help in regards to the situation on the quayside, and elsewhere, and he understands your position in regards to the canal.”

  “But….?”

  Wenefir smiled, seemed relieved, and said, “There will be ships, either way.”

  “Either way?” Marek stalled, though he’d sorted it out easily enough.

  “He’s prepared to align himself openly with whatever eventuality you have in mind for the canal,” Wenefir said. “Of course, it would help if he knew your intentions.”

  “Either way …” Marek whispered.