Philip Athans - Lies of Light

Phyrea shook her head.

The woman stepped closer, and Phyrea could feel her eyes on her. Phyrea was unarmed. She was practically naked. There were more footsteps, more men, more of Ran Ai Yu’s crew.

“I might have hurt him,” Phyrea said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “You are the daughter of the master builder.”

She wants him too, you know , the old woman’s voice whispered inside her.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Phyrea answered aloud.

Ran Ai Yu stepped closer still.

“Are you drunk?” the Shou woman asked. “Are you mad?”

Phyrea laughed and sobbed at the same time.

“He built this,” Phyrea said. “He made it with his own hands, but more than that, he formed it in his mind from nothing. He conjured it, you know, but not the way a wizard would. It was an act of pure creation, the invention of something from nothing.”

“Ivar Devorast,” Ran Ai Yu said, “yes.”

Phyrea cringed, almost seized when the woman of purple light shrieked, You see?

“Stop it,” Phyrea demanded of the ghost. “You don’t know.”

“I do,” the Shou answered.

Phyrea shook her head, her tears mingling with the harbor water that still dampened her face.

“What haunts you, girl?” Ran Ai Yu asked.

Phyrea looked up into the black sky, purposefully turning her head away from dazzling Selune, and said, “Him, more than anything.”

We are your blood, Phyrea , the voice of the little girl who walked through walls sighed, and we love you. We love you more than he ever will, no matter how much you smile at him, or whatever presents you bring .

“You lie,” Phyrea whispered.

“You must find someone to help you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “But not here. You are not welcome here.”

One of the men spoke to his mistress in their native tongue, and again Ran Ai Yu answered with but a single word.

Then in Common she said, “No, I can not let her swim back at night. There will be tonrongs . I will have my men lower a boat and row you back to the city. I hope you will never again be so foolish as to do this, and if my man here is dead, or dies as a result of your attack upon him, there will be a debt owed.”

Phyrea couldn’t move, even just to shrug, nod, or hake her head. Her hands warmed the tiles on the railing, and her feet caressed the deck. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest and she stood there, her hair beginning to dry and swirl in a sudden breeze, while they lowered a boat.

Before she climbed down into it, she looked at the Shou sailor sprawled on the deck, and in the quiet she could hear him breathing.

You should have killed that slant-eyed foreign bastard , the little boy told her.

Phyrea saw him standing there, the outline of Ran Ai Yu visible through the violet luminescence, and she was all but overcome with sadness.

“Perhaps,” the Shou woman said, “if you too had something of his …”

Not wanting her to continue, Phyrea turned and followed a wary sailor into the waiting boat.

10 Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR)

THE PALACE OF MANY SPIRES, INNARLITH

Though his skin was pale, verging on pink, and his features were typically brutish, the Ransar of Innarlith reminded Ran Ai Yu of the monks of her homeland. His head was shaved clean, and his dress was simple, functional, and devoid of ornamentation. Though in the strictly confined limits of the city-state he was a sort of king, it would have been impossible to draw any such conclusion merely by looking at him. When he walked, his arms swung at his side in an undisciplined, even boyish manner. He smelled faintly of garlic and the rough tallow soap the Innarlans too rarely used. His feet were clad in simple leather sandals that exposed his long, crooked toes.

“Her name is Phyrea,” Ran Ai Yu said. “She is the daughter of your master builder.”

Osorkon nodded as they strolled, and replied, “Of course. Everyone knows Phyrea, at least, as much as she allows us to know her. No small number of men would like to take her as a mistress if not a wife. There are rumors of a dark side to her, too-some accusations of thievery, even. What interest can she be to Shou Lung?”

“She is of interest to me, Ransar,” Ran Ai Yu said. She didn’t bother to once again correct him, to tell him that she was a merchant-mistress of a sailing vessel of her own-and not an official, ambassador, or other sort of representative of her homeland. “Only just before middark last night did I find her standing by the rail of my ship. She had swim … swum … I don’t … but she swam there in the dark of the night at great risk, and with motives I am having trouble understanding.”

“She can’t have been trying to steal from you,” Osorkon said.

“I do not have reason to believe that.”

Ran Ai Yu let her fingertips brush a blooming rose as she strolled past a particularly healthy bush. The ransar’s garden was impressive for a private residence, though the palaces of Shou Lung had gardens far larger. She’d noted the ransar’s gaze darting from bloom to bloom as they walked and could see that he appreciated the foliage and the peacefulness of the place. Somehow, it didn’t match the man.

“She is haunted,” the Shou merchant said.

“Phyrea?”

“Spirits have attached themselves to her,” she explained. “One of my men is sensitive to such things. Even without his counsel, I would have seen it in her myself. She speaks to people who can not be seen.”

The ransar shrugged and said, “Maybe she didn’t swim to your ship alone.”

Ran Ai Yu skipped a step. Her hesitation elicited a scant smile from the ransar. She hadn’t considered that possibility-that Phyrea might have been accompanied by some number of compatriots cloaked in spells of invisibility-but somehow it simply didn’t ring true.

“Nothing was missing of my cargo or personal items,” she said. “I am sure she was alone.”

“And you have a sensitive man….”

Ran Ai Yu let that pass.

“Would you like me to inform the master builder?” he asked.

“If you feel that would be proper.”

Ran Ai Yu let her gaze drift up from the flowers to the towering ramparts of the Palace of Many Spires. One tower in particular struck her eye. It was newer than the others and possessed of an ethereal beauty that was out of place in the otherwise underwhelming city of Innarlith.

“I find it difficult, sometimes,” the ransar said, “to determine precisely what is and what isn’t proper. It can plague one, don’t you agree?”

“With all honor and respect, Ransar, but I do not. I have come to know many of the ways of Innarlith, so to me I am not surprised by what you have been so kind to confide in me, but in my realm we are schooled from our youngest age-from before we can even speak-in the ways of polite and civilized society. We are taught always to know what is proper in any situation. It is the blood and sinew of our very culture.”

What she’d said seemed to please him, and he replied, “Well then I guess I will have to rely on you to tell me if it would be proper for a man like me to ask to see a woman like you in a social setting.”

Ran Ai Yu was struck momentarily dumb. She wasn’t even entirely certain what the ransar was asking.

“I am certain we will encounter each other again at receptions and such,” she said. “My business demands that I-”

“Tell me if you are uncomfortable with my advances, Ran Ai Yu,” he said, his voice sending a chill down the Shou woman’s spine.

“I am uncomfortable only because I have been here so long, and have been unable to unload precious cargo for trade in Innarlith,” she said.