Whisper of Waves wt-1

by Philip Athans

Inthelph smiled and said, “One does get used to it.” Thurene’s smile was gracious but unconvinced. “Good night, Master Builder.”

  “Good night, sir,” Willem said.

  With a shallow bow, the master builder went off into the night.

  “You haven’t met his daughter yet?” Thurene asked once the door was closed.

  “No, Mother,” Willem answered, just getting the words out felt like a titanic struggle. “I had held out some hope that …”

  “If she’s such an embarrassment to him,” Thurene offered, “perhaps it’s just as well. Still, a man your age….”

  “You must be tired,” he said, glancing at the narrow staircase that would take his mother to the room he’d prepared for her.

  With a sigh, she said, “Good night, my dear. In the morning perhaps you’ll show me this city of yours.”

  “I will, of course,” Willem replied. “Good night, Mother. It’s good to have you here finally.”

  She touched his cheek with cool, dry fingers, smiled, and went upstairs to bed.

  Once he was certain she was asleep, Willem crept out of the house as quietly as he could, met Halina at a tavern they often slipped away to on nights her uncle was at home, and because his mother wouldn’t want him to, he asked her to marry him.

  21

  30 Alturiak, the Year of Maidens (1361 DR)

  FOURTH QUARTER, INNARLITH

  Standing under a scaffold at the top of the wall, Willem Korvan managed to stay at least somewhat dry, but the damp air still chilled him to the bone. While he stood there shivering, he watched the rain drench the city of Innarlith. The rooftops steamed in the dull gray light.

  Footsteps drew his attention and he turned to see Ivar Devorast, soaked to the skin, his ill-fitting clothing not only drenched but surely not substantial enough to have kept out the cold anyway. Willem’s first attempt to speak to his old friend failed on his tongue, he was so startled by the man’s appearance. Devorast had never taken any care with his personal grooming, but standing there on the wall, he looked … poor.

  Devorast stood in the rain staring at Willem, waiting. Willem took a step to the side and nodded Devorast into the small space in the shelter of the scaffold. When Devorast stepped out of the rain, Willem detected a subtle reluctance and couldn’t be sure if it meant Devorast didn’t want to come in out of the rain or that he didn’t want to stand so close to his former landlady’s son.

  “It’s ridiculous …” Willem said, then realized he was speaking aloud. The rest of the thought he finished to himself alone: … that I should be made to feel uncomfortable when I’m the one doing you a favor.

  Devorast didn’t seem to have heard him anyway.

  “It’s been a long time,” Willem said.

  Devorast nodded.

  “Two years?” Willem asked.

  Devorast shrugged.

  Willem sighed and before he could stop himself, before he could think it through, he said, “I owe you my career, you know.”

  Devorast had no response. When Willem looked at him all he saw were Devorast’s sparkling, animated eyes darting from structure to structure in the town below, lingering only on the tall masts of the ships bobbing in the rain-muddied harbor.

  “Anyway,” Willem went on, “the fact that there’s a wall for us to stand on is a testament to that, and you have never asked for anything in return.”

  “The work was reward enough,” Devorast replied.

  Even with the cold air already making him shiver, Willem shuddered at the sound of Devorast’s voice. It was as clear, as solid and uncompromising as ever. It was a king’s voice, coming from the body of a pauper.

  “Still, I owe you,” Willem said, “and I’m the sort of man who makes good on his debts.”

  Again, no response was forthcoming from the stoic Devorast.

  “I’ve heard that things have finally hit bottom for your shipbuilder,” Willem said.

  Any other man might have flinched, but Devorast simply nodded.

  “All Innarlith was shocked by the accident,” said Willem.

  “If it was an accident,” Devorast replied. “You think it was something else?” asked Willem. “Do you believe someone deliberately opened that portal in the sky?”

  Devorast’s lips tightened to a thin slit, but he didn’t speak.

  “Well, anyway,” Willem said, “a man has to eat, and with that at least, I think I can help. If I do this for you, though, I will consider my debt to you paid in full, and we will continue for the rest of our lives never speaking of it again. Agreed?”

  “What do you intend to do for me?” Devorast asked.

  As if on cue, both of them turned at the sound of hurried footsteps and watched the master builder hustling up the temporary wooden stairway from the ground far below. Though some stretches of the stairway were covered to protect workers and soldiers from falling debris, Inthelph was as drenched as Willem and Devorast. He hurried to the shelter of the scaffold, and Willem was certain Devorast would move out to give the master builder room out of the rain. With each footstep closer that Inthelph drew, the less likely that seemed to be. Devorast appeared only barely aware of the man.

  Finally, Willem stepped into the chilling downpour and the master builder shook rain from his weathercloak under the scaffold.

  Keeping his anger in check, Willem said, “Master Builder Inthelph, may I introduce my good friend and classmate Ivar Devorast, late of Marsember in the Kingdom of Cormyr.”

  The master builder looked Devorast up and down like a man examining a fencepost for rusty nails.

  Devorast, in turn, remained impassive, but nodded in a minute approximation of a bow and said, “Master Builder.”

  “Devorast, is it?” Inthelph said, turning his stare to Willem. “Willem tells me we met in Cormyr. Though I’m sure I don’t recall that meeting, I’ve heard good things about you, despite the sad incident with the Neverwind.”

  Willem’s skin froze on his body and his heart sank in his chest. Of course he’d heard the ill-fated cog referred to by that slanderous name “Neverwind” before, but to say it in the presence of a man who at least had a hand in its design and who had suffered greatly for its loss, was rude beyond description. Willem stood still, having no idea what to say or do.

  “They say she was too big for her britches,” the master builder went on.

  “It was precisely the size it needed to be,” Devorast said, his voice betraying no hint of animosity or anger, “and it was seaworthy.”

  The master builder plastered a false grin on his face and said, “Of course it was. Though I know you’ve heard more than one authority maintain that she was simply too big for the portal.”

  “Master Builder, sir …” Willem started, but when Inthelph looked at him and raised an eyebrow, he had no idea what to say.

  “Fear not, Willem,” Inthelph said. “I have learned to trust your instincts and your judgment. If you judge this man to be worthy of my attention, then he must be, past failures aside.”

  Willem watched Devorast for any sign of a reaction, certain that that last comment must rankle even him, but there was nothing.

  “He is one of the great …” Willem said, still looking at Devorast. “He is one of the great minds.”

  Devorast looked him in the eye then, and something that might have been silent thanks passed between the two men. Inthelph blew a breath out his nose-not quite a scoff but close enough.

  “Well, then,” the master builder said, “I won’t keep any of us up here in the freezing rain any longer than we need to be. Devorast will have a place at the keep.”

  “The Nagaflow Keep?” Willem asked, not surprised by the master builder’s decision.

  Devorast looked between the two men, obviously waiting for further clarification.

  Inthelph nodded and said to Willem, “Have him show me something in two months’ time.”

  “Of course, Master Builder,” Willem said, “thank you, sir.”

  “Yes,”
Devorast said, and Willem could hear the reluctance in his voice, the words almost sticking in his throat, “thank you.”

  Inthelph drew up his collar and stepped into the rain but paused at the top of the stairway. He turned to Willem and Devorast and said, “I think you will find that failure for me will mean worse than a year or two in poverty, Devorast. Do as well as your friend says you can.”

  It had not the slightest ring of encouragement.

  Willem and Devorast watched the master builder disappear down the stairs, then Devorast said, “The Nagaflow Keep?”

  “A watchpost really,” Willem explained. “The ransar wishes to keep a closer eye on the river to the north.”

  Devorast nodded and said, “Fine.”

  Willem was about to say something when Devorast just walked away, following the master builder down the stairs. Hate seethed under Willem’s skin and in the beating of his heart. He wanted Devorast to know how he felt. For the sake of fairness, just once the perfect Ivar Devorast should know what was like to be afraid, to be a failure.

  “Fail,” Willem whispered after him, “you arrogant …”

  He sighed instead of being vulgar then waited half a frigid hour before climbing down from the wall.

  22

  3 Tarsakh, the Year of Maidens (1361 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  When the black firedrake tore the man’s throat out, killing him instantly, it was tantamount to an act of mercy. After all, it had already melted off his face with its spittle of flaming acid.

  As he looked on from a second-story rooftop above, Marek Rymut was of two minds. He was thrilled by the sheer destructive power and undeniable effectiveness of the black firedrakes, but at the same time he was horrified by the ill-timed, accidental appearance of the creatures. It had been only a month and a half since he’d promised Insithryllax more space for his brood and that long since Marek had been down to check on them. Things had obviously gone from bad to worse in the hatchery.

  Marek cringed away from a blast of heat and ducked behind the peak of the roof-a good thing, too, as shards of glass pattered onto the shingles around him. He looked over the edge and simultaneously grinned and grimaced at the sight of the billowing, orange-traced smoke billowing out of the blasted storefront. It took only seconds before the lamp-oil merchant’s shop was completely engulfed in flames, which quickly spread to the neighboring buildings.

  Screams of agony mingled with shouts of warning as the citizens of that once-quiet neighborhood took to the streets, some of them scurrying around in a blind panic like mice stirred up by a barnyard cat. More than one of them was on fire. A woman cradling a baby in her arms crouched in the middle of the street, screaming at a black firedrake that toyed with them before making a meal of both mother and child. A man in the apron of a butcher did his best to fend the creature off but was rewarded for his gallantry with a stream of blue-flickering acid to the face. Marek marveled at the precision of the firedrake’s attack. He had done well in their breeding indeed.

  Aware that the spells that granted him a limited ability to fly and rendered him invisible would both soon fade away, Marek tore himself from the spectacle and hopped off the rooftop and into the air. Though he was certain it couldn’t see him, he had to dodge one of the firedrakes that swooped down to slash at the back of a draft horse. Though too small to carry the animal, the firedrake’s black dragon blood must have sent that idea to its limited brain. It quickly realized the error of its ways, though, and alit on the street to snap at the draft horse the old fashioned way. Though he had scant seconds to lose, Marek snuck furtive glances at the horse’s courageous if futile efforts to fend the firedrake off with its powerful hooves. By rearing up on its hind legs, all it did was open its groin to the firedrake’s acid. Left writhing in pain at the end of its harness, the cart behind it bobbing up and down so hard the wheels finally shattered, the horse succumbed to a savage bite to the neck.

  Marek whipped around a corner, following the obvious, ever-widening path of destruction the black firedrakes-his black firedrakes-had left in their wake. Three blocks of Sulfur Street were already ablaze, and if he’d bothered to count he would have seen at least pieces of a hundred human bodies. Great columns of choking black smoke rose up into the warm, unseasonably sunny, early spring sky. Marek had to hold his breath and close his eyes for a few seconds as he passed through one of the smoke columns. He came out the other end dusted in black soot and coughing just the same.

  Pulling up a bit higher in the sky, he looked in the direction of the underground hatchery, expecting to see the path of destruction end-or more properly begin-there, but it didn’t.

  “They found a back door,” Marek muttered to himself, then closed his lips tightly so as not to draw the attention of one of the swooping, soaring firedrakes that filled the air around him.

  Below him, Marek saw a small pottery shop he’d actually frequented a few times-they were one of the few shops in the Second Quarter that specialized in local artistry, where most others were caught up in a growing craze for imported ceramics from Shou Lung-and he knew then how the firedrakes had gotten loose.

  The little shop was still on fire, though more accurately it was the pieces of the little pottery ship that were on fire. The building itself had been burst open from the inside, and Marek smirked at the irony of the image that crossed his mind: a black firedrake bursting from the confines of an egg.

  The floor of the shop had been shredded, and from the way the planks were standing up along the rim of all three of the biggest holes it was obvious that the lizard-creatures had broken up from the cellar. That space was rendered open to the sky, but the smoke still rising from it stung Marek’s eyes and he couldn’t see how they’d managed to get into the basement.

  Finding no other recourse, Marek quickly rattled off a spell to protect him from the blistering heat of the ruined cellar. The wood glowed orange and gave off little yellow sparks that shot up into the air only to come down as snowflakes of black ash. Even through the spell, Marek began to sweat, and he had to squint against the smoke and ash that colored the air around him.

  The bass rumble of an explosion from a few blocks away startled him. Another seller of volatile wares-alcohol, perfume, paint-any number of things might have gone up like that.

  Setting himself back on the task at hand, Marek swatted at smoldering timbers and stepped through half-melted nails and jagged black shards of broken glass, until he finally came to a yawning hole in the floor of the cellar. It might at one time have been a cistern, or a glory hole, or even a well, but it appeared to Marek as if it had been sealed off years ago-likely even before the pottery seller took over the building. It was an easy guess that the shaft connected to a tunnel that connected to another tunnel that connected to something else that connected to the underground space he’d taken over for the firedrakes. Cursing his bad luck that they’d found it more than his negligence in not finding it first, Marek scanned through his memory for a spell that would seal it, and seal it well and for good.

  With a sigh he remembered the perfect transmutation, and at the loss of a few other spells he’d thought that morning would have been more useful, he conjured the right elements from his mind, drew upon the Weave, and filled the shaft in by moving the very earth itself around its edges. He had to step back, then use the last few heartbeats worth of his spell-granted ability to fly in order to keep out of his own area of effect, but while more fires burst into life in the city blocks around him and more screams and shouts echoed through the streets and alleys, he turned the gaping hole into a smooth-bottomed crater. With the blackened remains of the ruined shop still creaking around it, Marek thought the whole thing looked like a fireball had gone off, and all trace that the firedrakes had come from the cellar of the little pottery shop were-

  “They came from the cellar of the little pottery shop in Phriterea Alley!” a young man’s voice shouted from behind him.

  With a deeply pained sigh, Marek t
urned to see a pair of wide-eyed young watchmen stumble from an alleyway, casting about for any sign of the black firedrakes, or any sign of the shop. Their eyes never paused on Marek, who remained invisible.

  “It’s right there,” the guard who’d spoken before said.

  His comrade, a slightly older fellow whose tabard showed the rank of sergeant, asked, “Are you sure, mate?”

  “Positive,” said the watchman. “I saw them break through the walls with pieces of the pottery merchant’s wife in their jaws.”

  The young man gagged into the back of his hand at the memory, and the sergeant spat on the wreckage-strewn floor of the alley.

  “Have you told anyone else?” asked the sergeant.

  The younger man shook his head, and the sergeant took him by the arm and said, “Come on then, lad. The captain will-”

  He stopped because that’s when Marek became visible. The sight of the man in soot-covered robes appearing from the thin air startled both of them. Marek saw a flash of relief cross the face of the younger watchman when he realized it was just a man and not a firedrake.

  But then, Marek Rymut didn’t consider himself “just a man.”

  And he hadn’t become visible on purpose. It’s what happens when you cast a spell meant to kill someone.

  The fireball engulfed both of the guards in a sphere of blazing yellow-orange. The already burning buildings on either side of them cracked and bent, the few parts of their walls not already scorched danced with livid flames, and smoke ballooned into the sky, rising like the bubble from a breath let loose underwater.

  The younger man had the decency to die instantly, but the sergeant stumbled around a bit, his iron helmet melted to his scalp, his clothes and armor burned away to reveal what was left of the skin underneath, just a mass of swelling blisters. He took a few steps, groaned, and fell over dead.

  Marek cast another spell to make him invisible again then another to reveal the thoughts of anyone who might be watching.

  The neighbors had obviously had the good sense to clear out a long time ago, and Marek started running back in the direction of the worst of the firedrake attacks, confident that no one else alive knew the source of the firedrakes’ escape. Even if a few did, he reasoned, the shaft had been sealed well enough that no one could trace them back to the hatchery.