Philip Athans - Scream of Stone

With the aid of the calming spell, Marek said, “Insithryllax, please. The ransar has always been a valued customer of the Thayan Enclave. If he has a list, we know he has the means.”

Insithryllax relaxed, but only enough to forestall his transformation-a physical change that would have burst the little parlor at its seams. If Pristal Towers was built strong enough, the dragon would have succeeded only in crushing himself and the ransar. Marek’s various contingency spells would have spirited him away, but what a mess he would have left to explain.

Truly, though, the question wasn’t what would happen if the dragon did transform and attack, but why he almost had.

“Insithryllax, please,” Marek said once more, and finally the dragon withdrew, cursing under his breath in Draconic.

When Marek once again returned his attention to the ransar, he was amazed how calm the genasi was. Pristoleph didn’t frighten easily, and that made Marek wonder what it would take to frighten him.

“They can be delivered directly to Devorast,” Pristoleph said, “at the canal site.”

“Of course they can,” Marek replied. “Ransar, I would be remiss in my duty to you and to the city-state of Innarlith if I did not advise you not to trust this man Devorast.”

“And why wouldn’t I trust a man who has only ever done everything he’s promised to do?” the ransar asked.

“Ransar, I-”

“I’m not finished, Marek,” Pristoleph said, and his use of the familiar while Marek called him “Ransar,” rankled the Red Wizard to no end. “Ivar Devorast summoned this canal unbidden from his own imagination. No one who has been put in charge of it since has used anything but his original drawings. He has not sought to enrich himself. He has refused power and influence. He is no threat to anyone, including you. Why is it you seem to despise him so?”

Marek rubbed his face with both hands and spent a long time thinking about how to respond. Insithryllax put a hand on his shoulder and began to squeeze.

“Please,” the Red Wizard whispered over his shoulder to the dragon.

Marek found himself more curious as to the source of Insithryllax’s anger than a suitably cunning response to the ransar’s question. He’d known the dragon for many years and had come to respect his often unpredictable temper, but Insithryllax had always seemed personally ambivalent toward the canal and didn’t ever seem to give Ivar Devorast much thought. He made a mental note to ask the dragon about all that in greater detail once they returned to the enclave.

“I don’t hate him,” Marek said to Pristoleph. “I hate what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. I hate how he misuses you and those who have held the office of ransar since and including Osorkon.”

“You hate that the canal will make your teleport-” “I profit from the canal,” the Thayan interrupted, perhaps just a bit too loudly. He cleared his throat, felt a wave of heat wash over him from the genasi, and in a calmer, quieter voice, went on. “I profit from the canal in many ways, Ransar, and I will continue to do just that, even after its construction is complete … should that actually ever come to pass.”

“Then what do you care who digs the damned thing?” Pristoleph asked, letting some of his anger at having been interrupted in his own house show in his smoldering eyes.

Marek’s skin crawled, but not from the ransar’s disapproving stare. The Red Wizard could sense the rage building once more from the more-than-human figure behind him. The spell should have made him as tranquil as a nursing baby, but instead the dragon seemed to have brushed it off.

Forced to concede the ransar’s point, Marek said his good-byes as quickly as he could without being overly rude and got the dragon out of there before-and it seemed to be just before-anyone was killed.

25 Alturiak, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)

PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH

Fifteen people, including Wenefir, sat on various chairs and sofas in the enormous office of Ransar Pristoleph. Some of them were mages, six were black firedrakes, and the rest were advisors and hangers on, or part-time spies. A few of them read through journal books and ledgers, occasionally making notes. Two of them played a long, half-hearted game of sava . The rest stared at one or another of a score of crystal balls that had been arranged on stands around the room. From those enchanted devices, Pristoleph was able to look in on the comings and goings of friends and enemies alike.

A small group of men stood around one crystal ball, leering and giggling at the magically conjured image of the wife of a senator they all knew well who was engaged in an illicit dalliance with her upstairs maid. The senator himself appeared in another of the crystal balls, taking tea with two other senators in an opulent sitting room elsewhere in the Second Quarter.

Pristoleph sighed and propped his head in his hands, his elbows on the gigantic desktop in front of him.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed one of the men looking into the crystal ball at the senator’s wife and her maid.

Pristoleph looked up, noticing the sudden change in mood. The men around the crystal ball stared at the image with shock and concern, all leering gone. The crystal ball showed that the senator’s wife’s maid was not a maid at all.

One of the mages passed a hand over the crystal ball and the group of men dispersed, all looking vaguely embarrassed. None of them looked at the image of the senator still enjoying his tea and gossip, unaware of how bizarre a cuckold he was.

Pristoleph heaved another sigh, louder and deeper.

“Is something the matter, Ransar?” Wenefir asked.

Pristoleph shook his head.

“Is there anything I can get you, my lord?” one of the advisors inquired.

Pristoleph ignored him and sifted through the parchment, paper, and vellum on his desk. There were letters, account ledgers, writs, and requests, and they all bored him to tears. He’d fallen behind with all the reading and signing, signing and reading, and the more he tried to force himself to get caught up, the less work he actually did. The advisors had gone from tolerant to testy to insistent and back to tolerant again, having lost interest in the fact that he’d lost interest.

As the bulk of the people in the room watched the sava game, none of them really interested in it, Pristoleph quickly skimmed one sheet after another, sliding them off the desktop as he read them. He signed one, a request for the release of a man held in the dungeons for stealing a chicken. The request had been entered by the man’s wife nearly a year before, and the man had been in the dungeon for two years before that. A letter from a senator he knew had since died of a particularly nasty strain of social disease no priest in the city was able to cure was sent off the edge of the desk only partially read. And that went on for a long time.

When one of the black firedrakes announced Ivar Devorast, he stopped.

“Everyone out,” Pristoleph said as Devorast was shown into the room.

Devorast glanced sideways at the crystal balls but didn’t stop until he reached one of the chairs that faced the ransar’s desk.

“Everyone, Ransar?” Wenefir asked, eyeing Devorast with a dangerous scowl.

Pristoleph clapped the priest on the shoulder and said, “I will be quite all right, my old friend. Please.”

Wenefir made a point of bowing low before he followed the others out of the room.

“Sit,” Pristoleph said to Devorast when they were finally alone.

“You’re busy,” Devorast said, but Pristoleph could tell the man had no intention of volunteering to leave.