Richard Byers - The Reaver

It was plain that renewed violence was only a breath or two away, and this time, some of it was likely to involve Stedd. The servant with the whip started toward him, and so did two other men. Either they’d heard something about a reward offered for a boy prophet or they simply meant to punish him for proclaiming a message they considered pernicious nonsense.

When Stedd reached out to Lathander, the contact clarified his thinking and buttressed his faith. But it didn’t turn him into a different person, and on the human level, he was as alarmed as any child would be at the prospect of three grown men pummeling him, flogging him, or worse. His heart pounded, and his mouth was dry. The fear made it hard to think about anything but running away. But that would mean leaving his work undone.

Should he lash out at his assailants with magic as the village waveservant had struck at Anton? It might be possible, but he didn’t know for sure. He’d never tried to use his gifts for fighting. From the beginning, he’d sensed that the Morninglord wanted him to give people help and hope, not punishment.

That, he decided, was what he still needed to do, and he thought he saw how. Once again, he fixed his inner eye on the dawn that flowered eternally if a person only knew where to look, and prayed for an infusion of its glory.

Lathander answered with such an abundance of power that for the first time, the channeling hurt. Stedd’s insides burned like fire. Only for a moment, though, and then the pain became ecstasy. That, however, made it no less imperative that he turn the force he’d received to a sacred purpose, and with a strangled cry and a flailing wave of his arm, he hurled it forth.

At the same instant, the whip curled through the air and lashed him across the chest. The stinging blow staggered him, and he fell off the pushcart onto the cobbles. The impact smashed the wind out of him.

He tried to scramble up. The lash cracked down across his shoulders, and the stroke knocked him back down onto his hands and knees. He lunged, and a hand caught hold of his cloak and threw him back to his starting position. Dazed, he cast about for a way past his tormentors but couldn’t spot one. The bullies’ legs and the pushcart had him surrounded.

The whip snapped down again. He jerked with pain and bit his tongue. That, however, was the last stroke. As the lingering burn of it subsided, excited babbling replaced the shrieks, grunts, curses, and pounding noises of the riot.

Stedd raised his head. Fruit and vegetables lay heaped here, there, and everywhere in such profusion as to bury whatever baskets remained intact. As he’d intended, the magic he’d cast across the plaza had multiplied the foodstuffs ten times over.

A few folk were frantically snatching all they could. But more simply goggled at the abundance, or turned in his direction with the same astonished wonder in their eyes.

Someone offered Stedd a hand. When he took it and clambered to his feet, he saw he’d accepted the help of the man with the whip.

“I’m sorry,” the servant said.

“It’s all right,” Stedd answered. Talking made his tongue hurt as much as the places the whip had struck, and his voice was thick. He tried to spit away the coppery taste of blood.

“I didn’t know ,” the man persisted.

“Hardly anybody does. Spread the word. Tell people Lathander’s come back, and he’ll help us if we take care of each another, too.” Stedd stumbled as his legs threatened to give way beneath him.

The man with the whip caught him by the arm. “I did hurt you!”

“It’s not that,” said Stedd. He gave the man what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Praying that hard just pulled the strength out of me.”

“Sit.” The servant hoisted him onto the pushcart, and people gathered expectantly around.

That meant that much as he would have liked to, Stedd couldn’t just relax and recover. He needed to reiterate the Morninglord’s message now that they were ready to receive it. He even healed the folk worst injured in the brawl, although that drained every last iota of his mystical strength and attenuated his feeling of closeness to his god.

As it did, his anxiety returned. He supposed that Anton alone couldn’t snatch him from this crowd of well-wishers, but what if the pirate showed up at the head of a gang of toughs, or what if waveservants and their knavish-looking followers appeared? Could the ordinary folk who were Stedd’s new friends stand up to them, or would they simply get hurt or killed trying? He didn’t want to be the cause of that.

But he was also reluctant to scuttle off in an obvious display of fear that might undermine the hope he’d just kindled in their hearts. He was still trying to think of a graceful way to take his leave when five men-at-arms tramped into the marketplace. Each wore a blue surcoat embroidered with a yellow sun and carried a round shield bearing the same device. The maces in their gauntleted hands had blue-stained handles and yellow-enameled spiky heads.

Their leader was a tall man in his middle years with a dangling black moustache that reminded Stedd of a horseshoe. He smiled and nodded his thanks as he approached the pushcart and folk cleared a path for him and his men.

“My name is Niseus Zoporos,” he said, “and I serve the temple of Amaunator. The priests sent me because word reached them that a boy drew down the light of the sun to do something wonderful. Is that boy you, young Saer?”

“Yes,” said Stedd, thinking for an instant how odd it felt for someone to address him like he was the son of a nobleman. But of course, that bit of deference didn’t matter.

What did matter was that Amaunator, the Keeper of the Yellow Sun, and Lathander were the same deity, give or take. To the extent that Stedd understood it, Amaunator, the celestial timekeeper, was the role the god assumed when the universe required a force for stability above all else. Now that that era was passing, and the need for hope and new beginnings was paramount, he was becoming the Morninglord once more.

Given that they all served the same power, surely the sunlords would help Stedd on his way. They’d be true friends and allies, like the Moonstars.

“My master asks that you come to the House of the Sun,” Niseus said. “He says the two of you clearly have much to discuss. To that I would add that whether you know it or not, you aren’t safe on the streets, not even in the midst of these good people.”

“I do know it.” Stedd hopped down off the pushcart. His welts gave him another twinge, but at least he’d recovered enough of his physical vigor that nobody needed to hold him up. “Please, take me there.”

Umara kept imagining her wig was askew, but probably, with her cowl up, it didn’t matter even if it was. It was likely better to leave it alone than to risk somebody noticing her fussing with it.

The wig was only part of her disguise. A stain covered the tattooing on her hands and neck, and she’d exchanged her red robes for nondescript garments of brown and tan. Nothing marked her as a wizard of Thay.

The drawback to that was that she wasn’t intimidating. No one in the crowd gathered before the temple of Amaunator with its huge sundial-a rather pathetic monument in a city where the sun never pierced the clouds-cleared a path for her. She had to twist and squirm her way closer to the twelve steps leading up to the four arched golden doors.

So far, it was a waste of effort. She wasn’t observing anything she hadn’t already noticed from the periphery of the throng. But she was enjoying Kymas’s discomfort. Like the firewalkers of Kossuth and the doomguides of Kelemvor, the sunlords of Amaunator were staunch foes of the undead, and even when the vampire was merely a psychic passenger peering through Umara’s eyes, it pained him a little to approach their consecrated stronghold.