Whisper of Waves wt-1

by Philip Athans

  Willem nodded, not wanting to either agree or disagree.

  “Sit down, boy,” the old senator said.

  Willem took a chair across from Khonsu. Between them was a little table on which the maid had set a tea service.

  “Shall I?” Willem asked.

  The senator nodded and waved a hand at him. A window rattled from the wind, drawing the old man’s attention away.

  “I hate this time of year,” he said.

  Willem poured one cup of tea, and while Khonsu gazed out the window he emptied the contents of a slim silver vial into the steaming liquid.

  “It’s been cold,” Willem said, his throat dry.

  “Cold and windy … rainy,” the old man grated. “I hate this time of year. When you’re old like me-if you’re unlucky enough to get old like me-you’ll hate it too.” He turned back to Willem and took the offered cup of tea. “It’s pain, that’s all winter is to me. Pain in the muscles, in the joints, everywhere. Everywhere pain.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Senator?”

  “I have an apothecary, thank you, son,” Khonsu said. “I think the question at hand is more what I can do for you.”

  Willem watched the old man drink his tea. He rubbed his sweating palms together and tried to keep his teeth from chattering. The window rattled again, startling Willem.

  “I’m at a loss for words, Senator,” Willem said.

  “You asked to see me,” said the old man. “You work for the master builder, and your name is Korvan, isn’t it? Not Wheloon. We’ve met before, son, and I’m old but not that old. Does Inthelph treat you well?”

  Willem wanted to look away from the old man, but couldn’t. He could see the suspicion mounting in the senator’s gaze, but it was more curiosity than fear.

  “He treats me like a son,” Willem said, and he was sincere. “I couldn’t ask for a better patron or mentor, and please accept my apologies for this Wheloon business. I just thought that perhaps some discretion….”

  “I have secrets on everyone in this city, Korvan. I’m alive today because I keep them. What’s on your mind?”

  Willem forced a smile, but inwardly grimaced at the sight of the old senator downing the rest of his tea in one half-choking swig.

  “Your wisdom is valued by many in Innarlith,” Willem said. “I thought you might be able to answer questions for me that the master builder can’t.”

  “Like, how can you move up if the master builder is always in your way?” Khonsu suggested with a wicked smile.

  “Senator, I …” Willem hedged.

  “Oh, come now, Korvan,” Khonsu said. “I’ve been around a long time, but I was young once. You’ve gone as far with Inthelph as you can. That whole wall business…. Word is you saved his incompetent arse on that one-and that keep of Osorkon’s as well. Old men take credit for the works of the young, Mister Korvan. The trick is to hang on until they drop dead. Present company excluded”-and he indicated himself with a wry smile-“they all drop dead eventually.”

  The old man laughed, and Willem tried to laugh with him but couldn’t. Khonsu didn’t notice. All of a sudden, the old senator seemed to be having some trouble seeing. He blinked, looked around, then rubbed his eyes.

  The window rattled again, loudly, startling them both.

  “What was that?” Khonsu asked, still blinking.

  “The wind,” Willem said.

  “My …” said Khonsu. “All at once I can’t seem to …”

  “I’m told it will resemble heartstop,” Willem said, his brain and his mouth moving all on their own, without his seeming to have any say in the matter. “In a man your age, that won’t surprise anyone, I should think. Old men drop dead after all, Senator, leaving room for the young.”

  Khonsu coughed, and his eyesight returned enough that he could look Willem in the eye. He seemed somehow relieved.

  “It’s not Inthelph who’s standing in the way, old man,” Willem went on. “It’s you. You’re standing in his way. All this talk. He’s heard it. He has more friends than you do now. This talk of incompetence …” Willem found it difficult to talk about that. It appeared that Khonsu was having even more trouble breathing, so Willem could pause in silence before going on. “Inthelph would regret this if he knew I’d come here to kill you and not just to trap you into admitting to me what the master builder already knows. You’ve done that, anyway, as well. I can’t have you turning on him, you fickle old …” Willem stopped himself from being too disrespectful. The murder was bad enough. “The poison in your tea was entirely my idea. The master builder thanks you for your support over the years.”

  Willem stood and looked down at Khonsu, who, try as he might, could not breathe at all.

  “Sorry, old man,” he whispered, looking Khonsu in the eye.

  Willem walked out, also having a difficult time breathing.

  He left Khonsu to die and went to the nearest public house where he didn’t stop drinking until it felt like he could sleep. By the time he fell into bed, the sun had come up.

  40

  24 Hammer, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

  ON THE SHORE OF THE LAKE OF STEAM

  Hrothgar hated being so close to the water, and it wasn’t just because of the smell. Growing up in the Great Rift, among the forges and smelters, he’d lived with sulfur and worse fumes all his life. The Lake of Steam smelled bad to be sure, but it was the water itself he didn’t like.

  He’d heard the jokes and petty insults over and over again in the time he’d spent living among humans. They had strange ideas about dwarves, not the least of which was that he and his kind should for some reason resent being shorter than humans, dislike having beards, hate working hard, and so on. Humans always thought everyone wanted to be like them. It was the most irritating of all their many and varied irritating qualities.

  Also he’d heard the jokes about dwarves not being able to swim, of them sinking like stones and drowning in even the shallowest water. What offended Hrothgar most about that was that it was true, at least in Hrothgar’s case.

  “Come, Ivar,” he growled at his human companion. “Let’s get to a decent pub.”

  Devorast continued to walk at a slow, steady, distracted pace on the smoothly rounded stones at the shore of the great lake. The night air was cold and the wind whipped at Hrothgar’s beard and made his eyes water. Devorast didn’t seem to notice it at all. The thick layer of clouds hid the stars and the moon, and that at least made Hrothgar feel a bit better. It almost felt as if they were underground.

  “Come on, lad,” the dwarf said. “Why are we here? Why do you insist on these walks?”

  Devorast shook his head and it looked to Hrothgar as if he was searching for words. There was something about that reaction that unsettled the dwarf; it was so unlike Ivar Devorast.

  “You’re bored,” Hrothgar guessed. “You finished that ship for the Shou lass and you’ve nothing to do. You’ve nothing to occupy your mind.”

  Devorast smiled at that, and the dwarf started to see some hope.

  “Get one of those gangly, beardless girls of yours,” Hrothgar suggested. “That’ll give you plenty to-”

  “You’re right,” Devorast interrupted, much to the dwarf’s surprise. “I don’t have anything to do, but my mind is occupied.”

  “Is it?” the dwarf asked. “Another ship, then? Is there someone needs a ship built?”

  “No,” Devorast replied. “I’ve finished with ships.”

  The dwarf couldn’t help but laugh-a good, loud, healthy guffaw.

  “I mean it, Hrothgar.”

  “Do you, now?” asked the dwarf. “No more ships then. Perhaps another try at a keep?”

  The dwarf laughed some more, but Devorast said, “There was something Ran Ai Yu said just before she set sail.”

  “While I was waiting to drown in that damnable little boat?” Hrothgar said.

  “Do you know what a canal is?”

  “Do you know that I’m not the village idiot?”
Hrothgar growled.

  Devorast smiled.

  “So what?” the dwarf went on. “Now you want to build a canal?”

  Before Devorast could reply the both of them were engulfed in water. The force of the wave hit Hrothgar so hard the air was forced from his lungs. It felt as if he’d fallen from a great height-a dozen feet or more-onto solid rock. He wanted to pull a breath into his already burning chest but knew if he did, he’d get nothing but water.

  Someone-it must have been Devorast-kicked him in the side. Gravel bit into his face and he was dragged along. The moment he realized he was upside down, he’d already spun back around. He kicked and kicked, but his boots found no solid ground. The water leeched all the heat from his muscles and his limbs stiffened and cramped. He couldn’t force himself to open his eyes so everything was utter blackness.

  The muscles in Hrothgar’s broad chest pulsed, so great was his physical need to draw a breath. The cold water finally found its way up his nose. His whole head burned and the dwarf was afraid his eyes were going to launch from his skull. His ears popped. Someone grabbed his ankle.

  Hrothgar felt his right hand come out of the water. The air was cold.

  The hand came off his ankle, and he felt as though he’d changed direction. He thought he was being pulled out into the lake-deeper, deeper into the black, polluted water. He gasped, and water spilled into his lungs. He tried to cough but drew in more water instead. His chest exploded with pain, and his shoulders and stomach spasmed.

  Someone-could it have been Devorast? — grabbed him by the forearm.

  Flashes of light assailed his vision, though his eyes were still closed. His head spun. He felt himself throw up but from such a detached perspective that it seemed unreal, like a distant memory.

  Hrothgar’s hearing had been instantly overwhelmed by the roar of the wave, but he was sure he heard someone calling his name, far away and as if through a maze of intervening walls.

  He must have blacked out for some time because to him there was no transition between being in the water tail over teacups, and being on his back out in the cold open air.

  The crushing weight on his chest grew steadily more intense and water poured out over his already drenched beard. His eyes were still tightly shut and try as he might, Hrothgar couldn’t open them.

  “Hrothgar!” Devorast shouted. He sounded close. Inches away, maybe. “Come on, damn it.”

  Hrothgar choked and coughed and more water came out. He took a breath.

  I can breathe, he thought.

  He tried to speak but only coughed some more. The water rattled in his chest, bubbling up his throat and sputtering out past his swollen tongue.

  Hrothgar opened his eyes and was greeted to a too-close view of a drenched, disheveled Devorast. The human looked as frantic as Hrothgar thought it was possible for him to be.

  “Hrothgar!”

  Hrothgar forced his way up to a sitting position, coughing out more and more water along the way.

  “Damn it all,” the dwarf choked out. It hurt him to speak, but he spoke anyway. “What … Wave?”

  “It happens,” Devorast, winded, replied while he slapped the dwarf hard on the back. “They call them sneaker waves. It’s just something that happens.”

  Hrothgar coughed some more and brushed Devorast away. It might have been helping, but the human slapping his back was starting to make him angry.

  Angier, anyway.

  “Damn …” the dwarf wheezed, “water …”

  Hrothgar rubbed the water out of his eyes and shook his head to dry his beard, but all it did was make him dizzy.

  “You’ll live,” Devorast said, sitting next to him on the cold, wet rocks.

  The two of them sat there, shivering, coughing, breathing, for a long time, looking out at the unpredictable waters of the Lake of Steam. The deafening roar had returned to the incessant hiss of the waves playing on the stony shore.

  “Hear that?” Devorast asked.

  “What?” the dwarf grunted. “Me choking?”

  “No,” the human replied with a smile. “The whisper of waves.”

  Hrothgar resisted the urge to punch his friend in the face and instead struggled to his feet, shivering and coughing, and in every way feeling awful.

  “You are a case for the priests, my friend,” the dwarf said, offering his hand to help Devorast up. “They could puzzle over what’s wrong with your brain until even their gods give up on a cure.”

  Devorast let Hrothgar help him to his feet, then he clapped the dwarf on his back again.

  “Can we go to a gods bedamned pub now?” Hrothgar asked.

  Devorast nodded and they both looked back in the direction of Innarlith. A signal fire burned from the top of the tall guard tower at the northwest corner of the city, where the huge curtain wall ended at the lakeshore.

  “It’s a mile back to the city,” Devorast said.

  “We’ll freeze to death before we get a sip of ale,” grumbled the dwarf.

  “Not to worry,” Devorast replied, and he started off in the direction of the city, his strides long and steady. “Another wave will get us before then.”

  Hrothgar stared at his receding back for the space of a dozen deep, rattling breaths. Devorast never broke stride. He knew the dwarf would follow him.

  And Hrothgar did just that.

  41

  21 Alturiak, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  Willem stared down at the tea cup on the table in front of him. Holding his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table, he pressed his palms against his temples in a pointless effort to block his mother’s words from entering his brain.

  “You see her time and time again,” she prattled. “This whole filthy city is abuzz, you know. One social occasion after another with her on your arm, and no, she’s hardly the easiest girl to like. She can be difficult, can’t she? She should be. She should be difficult, Willem, and you should be too. That girl knows how to behave with people to make them know that her needs, her desires, are more important than theirs. She takes charge of a room. I’ve felt it. I’ll admit I don’t like it overmuch when I’m in the room with her, but it’s that kind of woman who should be seen on the arm of a man like you. She’s the kind of a woman who could-Did you hear that?”

  He hadn’t. His hands had slipped down to cover his ears. There was something unclean about his mother talking about Phyrea like that.

  He had been seen with her all over Innarlith. He would call on her, ask her, sometime through a household servant, to join him at one function or another, and she always accepted. She always appeared looking more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her. Perhaps it was her age, that age when a girl is a girl one day and a woman the next. They saw each other often, and he thought about her more and more, but when the gala or the ball, the wedding or the cotillion was ended, they would go their separate ways. She shrugged off his advances as if he were a fly that momentarily buzzed in her ear. When she chose to turn her attention away from him, he felt utterly alone.

  That’s when he would go to Halina.

  “Willem!” his mother said, insistent, slapping him lightly on the forearm.

  He looked up at her and said, “Yes, Mother, you’re quite right.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “Were you sleeping? There was a knock. Someone is at the door and at this hour.”

  Willem stood as if in a trance. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. It must have been very late. After middark, easily. He went to the door and opened it without looking through the little window.

  “Halina,” he mumbled.

  “Willem,” she panted. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes red and puffy.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said, hearing just how flat and uninterested his voice must sound.

  “I know it’s terribly late,” she said. Her voice was raw and quiet. “I’m sorry. May I come in?”

  Willem didn’t know what
to say or do. He just stood there, looking at her.

  “Please, Willem?”

  He stepped aside and said, “I’m sorry. Of course. Of course. Come in.”

  She stepped in but not past him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He could feel her tears, hot against his skin.

  “I haven’t seen you in so long,” she sobbed into his neck. “I just … I just woke up tonight with the worst feeling. I can’t shake it. I just know that something terrible …”

  If she was anyone else-if she were Phyrea, or his mother-he would have thought that she’d trailed off like that for the dramatic effect of it, as a way of demanding that he ask her what was wrong, and play into whatever lace-fringed trap she was setting.

  But she wasn’t Phyrea or his mother.

  He pushed her away gently and closed the door. She turned away from him and dabbed at her eyes with the back of a trembling hand. With great care he drew the weathercloak from her shoulders. She must still have been cold from the night air, and she wrapped her arms across her chest, squeezing herself. Willem hung her cloak on a hook.

  “I want to get married right away,” she said in a quiet voice that trembled as violently as her shoulders. “Marry me now, Willem. If you don’t-if we wait even another tenday-something bad will happen. Something will keep us from …”

  She started to cry harder and Willem stepped behind her, taking her shoulders in his hands. She spun on him so fast he startled away. Happily, she didn’t notice and instead pressed herself into him again.

  “I love you,” he whispered to her. “Halina, my dear, dear, patient love. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. Tell me you can forgive me.”

  “I forgive you,” she whispered back, having no idea what Willem wanted most to be forgiven for.

  “I’ve been beastly,” he said. “I’ve been monstrous.”

  Halina giggled a little though she was still crying.