Scream of Stone

by Philip Athans

  “Surero—no!” Devorast gasped.

  Willem didn’t recognize the intruder. He saw a face—eyes wide, mouth open—and a body, but that was all. It wasn’t a person, not a man with a soul and a history, but a thing between Willem and Devorast, and he couldn’t have anything between him and Devorast.

  Willem lashed out, and there was no last-instant tempering of the blow, no reprieve for the unknown victim that should have known better than to step between him and his kill.

  Surero’s head exploded from the force of Willem’s blow. The dry-skinned fist shattered teeth, drove the alchemist’s mouth open, and continued on through flesh, bone, brain, and sinew to burst out the other side drenched in blood and saliva.

  “No!” Devorast shouted. “Willem!”

  Willem stumbled backward, avoiding the headless corpse and blinking from the spray of blood driven up from the alchemist’s still-beating heart.

  The alchemist.

  Willem grunted and blinked—he’d killed … who? Surero.

  And that little closed off corner of his consciousness opened just enough, just barely enough, for him to realize what he’d done. That little corner spoke then to the rest of his dead mind and he knew on every level still available to him that he’d killed the wrong man.

  Willem took control of his body for one step, then another, and he was out of the tent and running.

  52

  17 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Sorms (1374 DR)

  THE CANAL SITE

  Pristoleph stood when Devorast opened his eyes. His heart raced and he almost choked on a sip of the cheap local wine he’d found in the tent.

  “Surero …” Devorast said, his voice thin and raspy.

  Pristoleph shook his head and Devorast closed his eyes. The genasi stood there, looking away, for a long moment while his friend relived the alchemist’s death. Pristoleph had to know more.

  “What was it that killed him?” he asked. “What was it that infected you?”

  “Infected …?”

  “You were half dead when a work gang got to the tent,” Pristoleph explained. “Surero had been murdered, and you lay dying from some kind of disease. It was as though you were rotting alive, just … deteriorating.”

  Devorast shook his head and closed his eyes.

  “The men said they saw someone run from the tent,” Pristoleph continued. “They described some kind of cloying smell, but didn’t see the man.”

  “It was Willem.”

  Pristoleph hissed with surprise. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the room as though searching for something, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.

  “How could that be?” asked Pristoleph. “The priestess from the Sisterhood of Pastorals said it was a disease associated with—”

  “It was Willem,” Devorast interrupted. He struggled to sit up, but Pristoleph held out a calming hand and he lay back down on the narrow, sweat-soaked cot.

  “I’m beginning to understand something,” Pristoleph said, and waited for Devorast to look at him before he went on. “I saw something at the Thayan Enclave once, some kind of undead creature. Marek Rymüt made it, but he said it was for him, that it wasn’t for sale. It wasn’t a zombie, like the dockworkers, but … something else. I don’t know what.”

  Devorast closed his eyes and looked away.

  “I think,” Pristoleph whispered, “that everything I feared has come to pass.”

  53

  18 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

  THE NAGAWATER

  When Svayyah’s right hand broke the surface of the water, she turned it palm up. From below, Devorast’s rough but fascinating features appeared blurred and shifting, and even with eyes accustomed to seeking prey from the safety of the river, she couldn’t quite tell if the human was happy or sad. The fact that he’d come to the Nagawater, to the place they had agreed on as a rendezvous point, didn’t bode well, though. Ivar Devorast didn’t generally visit her with good news.

  Unless …

  He took her hand and Svayyah suppressed a thrilled shudder. Though the man was surely senthissa’ssa—a teacher worthy of emulating—he was human, a lesser being, nonetheless.

  Devorast slipped into the water and shivered. When Svayyah finished her spell she touched his cheek. His eyes and the set of his jaw showed the same reluctance he’d always had with the effects of the spell, he opened his mouth, and cautiously at first, drew in a breath of the frigid water. His body lurched and he coughed out a stream of bubbles, which made Svayyah smile. His second breath was better received by lungs that had finally been purged of air. She looked him in the eye and he remained still while she cast a second spell—one that would allow him to speak.

  With the air out of his lungs, he was at least a bit less buoyant. When she took him by the hand and whipped her great serpentine body behind her, she had only to expend a bit more effort than normal to carry him down with her to the murky river bottom.

  Neither of them spoke as she continued to carry him along, kicking up sediment behind her and scattering the green and brown fish in front of her. A giant frog kicked up a cloud of black mud, startled by the naga’s approach, and spared her a frightened glance as it swam at speed to avoid her. Svayyah looked around and remembered a sunken log and a collection of rocks that formed the shape of an arrow. She would come back later, when she was at leisure, to devour the frog.

  They soon came to a submerged burrow, one of many that Svayyah had dug over her long lifetime. It was a convenient place to withdraw from the occasional dangers of the wild Nagawater. A place to sleep, eat, or plan. The entrance was barely big enough for her alone, so she pushed Devorast toward it.

  When he looked at her with suspicion she said, “Come now, Senthissa’ssa. You wish to speak in private.”

  Though he hadn’t said as much, Svayyah found it a safe assumption, and one that was apparently correct, for Devorast turned and swam in his ungainly human fashion, into the dark hole. The moment he cleared the passage, Svayyah followed.

  Past the opening, the burrow was a roughly spherical depression in the muddy riverbank, entirely filled with water. Roots from trees along the bank held the walls together. Devorast felt around along the walls, facing away from her, and Svayyah realized he couldn’t see. She dug one hand into the mud wall and found a small gold box. She’d secreted one such box in each of her burrows, and in them were coins and other items of value. She opened the box with a sibilant, hissing sound to deactivate the magical traps that sealed it.

  Inside the box was a silver coin minted millennia past by a forgotten civilization. A spell had been cast on it that made it glow with a brilliance that made both Svayyah and Devorast blink. Their eyes adjusted soon enough and they faced each other in the tight confines of the burrow. Svayyah’s serpent’s body brushed up against the side of Devorast’s leg, but the man didn’t seem to mind the contact.

  “It is safe to speak here,” she said, then raised an eyebrow and waited.

  Devorast appeared reluctant to speak, but finally he said, “I came here to tell you that the construction of the canal will be delayed indefinitely.”

  Svayyah was surprised, and let that show. “That’s not what we expected to hear, Senthissa’ssa,” she said.

  Before she could go on, Devorast said, “Please, do not call me that.”

  “It is meant to show respect,” Svayyah said. She tried not to be too irritated. After all, as wise and as capable as he seemed to be, Devorast was a human after all. “It means—”

  “I know what it means,” Devorast interrupted, and he either didn’t notice the stern look of reproach she flashed him, or didn’t care. Svayyah would have wagered the contents of her little gold box that the latter was true. “Please, call me Ivar.”

  “Ivar,” she said with a tilt of her head. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound. “What has happened now? More false nagas sent to kill or confuse you?”

  Devorast shook his head.

  “Your r
ansar has been unseated?” she ventured. “Or he has withdrawn his support and coin?”

  “None of those things, no,” he said. “It was me.”

  She thought about that word, “me,” as he looked away, looked around the burrow without really seeing it. It was a strange concept, the humans had, of considering themselves an individual among many, instead of one of many individuals. Svayyah wondered if they could even understand the distinction.

  “I allowed myself to be distracted,” Devorast went on.

  “It is a common trait among humans,” she said, still waiting for a clearer explanation.

  Devorast shrugged her comment off and said, “Do you have anything in that box that can help me send a message?”

  Svayyah said, “No, but there are other boxes.” She thought for a moment then asked, “What has happened?”

  “I allowed an enemy in too close, and so did Pristoleph. Even he won’t be able to stop him now.”

  “Explain,” Svayyah said, curious about the vagaries of human interaction.

  “The Red Wizard I’ve told you about,” he said, “sent agents to install a portal in the canal. He’s done something to Willem Korvan, something that made him some kind of monster.”

  “You’ve known for some time that the Thayan would be just as happy to see you dead,” Svayyah said. “You’ve told us yourself that this one means to take the canal from you, or destroy it. If he’s kept you alive this long, it means he intends to shame you in the process.”

  Devorast nodded.

  “So what has changed?” she asked.

  “He’ll kill Pristoleph, too,” Devorast said. “When that happens, I’ll only have Hrothgar, and some of the men.”

  “The alchemist?”

  “Killed by Willem Korvan,” Devorast said, and at that moment Svayyah saw more emotion on the man’s face than she’d ever imagined from him. “That was my fault, too.”

  “It sounds like it was Willem Korvan’s fault,” she said. “But that aside. You gave us the impression that Pristoleph was stronger than the Thayan, that together the two of you could—”

  “Marek Rymüt controls the senate,” Devorast said. “And it’s the senate that names the ransar. Whoever is named ransar controls the black firedrakes.”

  “The ransar’s guards?”

  “If they strip Pristoleph of his title he’ll find himself surrounded by acid-spitting monsters that can hide in human form.”

  Svayyah stopped to consider that, but could find no other conclusion than the one Devorast had come to.

  “Then it’s over?” she asked.

  Devorast didn’t reply, and didn’t look at her.

  “Ah, well,” the water naga said, “we were never convinced it was such a good idea after all, all those human ships passing over us—tolls or no tolls.”

  54

  19 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

  SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

  Home.

  The word itself had lost all meaning to him, but it was both more and less than a word that brought Willem Korvan to his own door. After fleeing the canal, fighting all the while against a compulsion to return—to return and kill Ivar Devorast—Willem wandered south. His dead, numb legs carried him along ground that grew increasingly familiar, even to senses ravaged by undeath.

  He entered the city under the cloak of night, crawling in along the edge of where the wall met the rocky shoreline of the Lake of Steam. He thought he might have killed a guard, or even a whole contingent of them, and maybe even more people as he wound his way through the streets of the First Quarter. He couldn’t remember for sure. Perhaps there had been no people at all. He thought he could still hear a woman’s primal, ragged scream echoing in his ears, but it might have been his imagination—or his inner ears drying and crumbling in his head.

  Something that could have been described as memory moved him through the city. There were people in the First Quarter, talking and singing in taverns and festhalls along the quay and a few blocks deeper in. But when he crossed that invisible but very real line into the Second Quarter, the city went quiet. Candle- and hearth-light burned in windows high above the streets, but not many. Most windows were dark, the residents asleep, or pretending to be so the neighbors, who were themselves pretending to be asleep, wouldn’t notice and begin whispering rumors of—

  Of what?

  Willem had forgotten what he was thinking. He didn’t understand himself.

  The buildings may as well have been solid to him, boulders or stone towers carved out by wind and water. The streets were as a canyon. The idea that there was anyone inside those structures made no difference to Willem.

  There was in fact no reason for Willem to go home. It wasn’t a matter of his will or his master’s. It was as though his body walked there entirely of its own accord, and for reasons it kept to itself.

  The garden gate was never meant to be anything but ornamental, and Willem didn’t even think of it until his knee clipped it and the latch broke free to clatter onto the flagstone pathway. He didn’t worry that the sound would alert anyone, because it didn’t matter.

  Though he still had a key in his pocket, when he got to the door and found it locked, he pushed against it, broke that latch, too, and stepped inside.

  He looked around at his own foyer and was staggered by a sense of familiarity, but he couldn’t put a name to any of the objects there. He had no recollection of where he’d found the little silver things or the ceramic things, or the flat representations of things that hung on the walls.

  He stepped in, tracking in mud and horse manure from the streets. He smelled it, but it didn’t matter.

  A noise from upstairs drew his eyes to the ceiling. He took a step into the house then dragged his other foot behind it, and the door slammed closed. The sound didn’t startle him. He took a few more steps into the house, moving for the parlor. He stopped at the foot of the stairs when he head more sounds—someone moving around—from above.

  “Willem?” a familiar voice called.

  Willem looked up the stairs. It was a woman. Someone he knew.

  “Willem, my dear,” the voice came back. “Is that you?”

  He opened his mouth to respond but had lost, at least for the nonce, the ability to speak. It was something that came and went. What issued from his throat was a dry rattle.

  “Willem?” the woman repeated.

  Willem could feel the fear in her voice, could smell it in her even from up the stairs. He staggered another step to the bottom of the stairs and waited.

  She took two steps down and called his name again. She paused, waiting for an answer, and when she got none she stepped down one more. Willem could see her foot, bare and at the end of a fat, stumplike ankle. Candlelight flickered on the steps.

  “I have a dagger,” she said, her voice quaking, “and I know how to use it.”

  Willem stepped back, clearing the foot of the stairs, and watched the feet take two more steps down. She bent to look at him, perhaps seeing his shadow, perhaps merely sensing his presence at the bottom of the stairs. He saw the silver candlestick in her hand.

  She had to take one more step down to see him, and just as she lifted her foot, Willem lunged.

  Her grabbed the thick, fleshy ankle and pulled. Though she was heavy, Willem was strong, and the woman’s feet flew out from under her. She hit the stairs hard on her back and her nightgown flipped up to cover her face as she tumbled down the steps like an overstuffed sack of flour.

  Something made Willem step back and he started when his back touched a wall.

  Squealing like the terrified pig she was, the woman squirmed about on the floor, pulled her nightclothes from her face, and sat up, the candlestick still in her hand. The candle had fallen out and extinguished itself in its own tumble down the stairs. She held the candlestick in front of her like a weapon to ward him off. She had no dagger, but Willem had known that was a lie the moment she’d said it.

  Their eyes m
et. The woman screamed in horror. Willem recognized her and a word came to him: Mother.

  She rolled on the floor, trying to get away from him when he bent toward her. He tried to speak to her, but couldn’t. She screamed and screamed and the sound rattled in Willem’s ears, then echoed in his head. He didn’t like the sound. The sound was bad, and he wanted it to stop.

  Willem grabbed his mother by the back of her head, his fingers twisting her hair. He pulled her head up and mouthed the word “Mother,” but she couldn’t see his lips. She screamed even louder, so loudly that Willem had to close his eyes, though that didn’t actually do anything to make the noise stop. He smashed her face against the floor and the scream was momentarily combined with a wet crack, then she quieted to a moaning, sickly sound that made Willem’s dead flesh crawl, so he smashed her face down again.

  Her body convulsed and her legs kicked out. He drove her face once more into the ever-increasing puddle of hot, sticky blood and broken teeth. She kicked one more time then was still.

  He let go of her head and stepped back. His right knee gave out and he fell, then scrambled back on his hands, fetching up against the door.

  He opened his mouth to scream, but when he did his eyes fell on the corpse of his mother and he heard the sound of her blood, dripping at first then pouring over the lip of the single step that led into the parlor.

  A barely-audible rattle escaped his wide-opened mouth.

  He climbed to his feet, using the wall to steady him, and burst out the front door. The street outside was quiet, and he soon found the cold embrace of a dark alley. There he clawed at the brick wall and tried to think about what he’d just done. He tried to weep, but quickly forgot why, and instead just clamped his teeth shut and shook his head.

  There’s another, he thought. There was a better one.

  A better—what? He didn’t know.

  He staggered away, not even conscious that his lips mouthed the name “Halina.”