Philip Athans - Lies of Light

He sighed at the change in subject and said, “There are men in this city who are inflaming the passions of the working class, though I have no idea of the purpose behind it. I strive diligently, I assure you, to take matters in hand. You will unload your cargo when limited resources make it possible.”

“It is warm today,” she said.

Ransar Osorkon grunted in the affirmative.

“I arrived on the twelfth day of Alturiak,” she said. “Though I greatly enjoy your city and its people, now it is four months gone by, the warm winds of summer blow, and still my ship is at anchor in the harbor.”

“Take your complaints to the harbor master,” the ransar replied.

Ran Ai Yu nodded and changed the subject. “I have been to visit the site of the canal that Ivar Devorast constructs in your name. It is of great interest to me, to one day be able to sail into the Sea of Fallen Stars, which I have long heard tell of, but have never seen.”

“Devorast didn’t tell you that he was building it in my name, did he?”

“I only assumed.”

The ransar sighed, and Ran Ai Yu risked a glance at his face. His pinkish skin had turned a deeper red, and she could feel that he was embarrassed by her rebuff.

“It honors you, nonetheless,” she told him.

“Devorast….” said the ransar. “Now that one is haunted.”

“But not in the same way as the master builder’s unfortunate daughter?”

“No,” Osorkon replied. “Devorast is haunted by his own greatness. If the son of a whore had an once of political ambition I would have had to have him killed a long time ago.”

It was Ran Ai Yu’s turn to be embarrassed. She said, “She knows Ivar Devorast, yes?”

“Phyrea?”

Ran Ai Yu nodded, and the ransar shrugged and said, “I suppose so.”

“I think she came to my ship because he built it.”

“Devorast built your ship?”

“He did, yes,” said the Shou merchant, “some three years ago.”

“That’s right,” the ransar said. “He did build ships.”

They went a few slow steps in silence, and Ran Ai Yu could no longer ignore the feeling that he wanted her to leave.

“I will allow you to proceed with your day, Ransar,” she said. “Please accept my most humble thanks for the honor of your time, and your garden.”

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. Though she didn’t want to, etiquette demanded she do the same.

“I will try to convey to the master builder that his daughter is haunted,” he said with a trace of a bow, “by Ivar Devorast, and other ghosts.”

She didn’t believe him, because it was obvious then that he didn’t believe her. Still, she bowed, thanked him, and went back to her ship.

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

THE CHAMBER OF LAW AND CIVILITY, INNARLITH

Willem Korvan wasn’t drunk, but he had been drinking. He’d come straight from the inn where he’d been with Halina. He still smelled of her-or at least he feared he did, but it was the smell of the wine he feared most. The air inside the giant chamber that served as a meeting room-a sort of temple-for the senate of Innarlith was dry and hot. Though it was many dozens of times the size of the room in the inn, he felt more closed in by the senate chamber. He found it more difficult to breathe there.

“Do you think it a waste of your time, my boy,” the master builder said, “if I tell you again how proud I am of you?”

Willem couldn’t answer, so he shook his head.

But I can’t believe this, he told himself. She can’t be the one I end up with. My mother is right. Marek Rymut is right. They’re all right. Halina is wrong.

“You’ve done well these past months, Willem,” Inthelph droned on. “We are all very happy with you-all your generous patrons.”

He thought of a dozen sycophantic replies to that but spoke none of them. He couldn’t muster the energy to push that much air out of his lungs.

“But you should also know that I expect more of you than a vote in these chambers,” Inthelph went on.

His voice made Willem’s skin crawl. The master builder spoke to him in paternal tones, and Willem wanted nothing more than to strike out. He couldn’t gather the strength to speak to him, but he felt sure he could snap the old man’s neck in the blink of an eye. They were alone in the chamber, after all. It would be a simple enough thing to concoct a story-a tragic fall, almost silly really, that such a great man might trip on a stair and fall just so as to break his neck. No one would question, would they? Would they take the master builder’s still corpse to a priest and inquire of his departed soul? Would Inthelph accuse Willem from beyond the grave? It was the sort of thing one had to consider, though they never did that with Khonsu….

“Though you’re a senator now you’re still a very talented young man, and the city needs your talents, perhaps now more than ever.”

But then the old man was wrong, wasn’t he? Willem had no talent-none at all-save the talent for impressing easily impressed old men and shy, bookish foreign women. He couldn’t build anything. He couldn’t leave a legacy, or a mark on the world. But he could kiss withered old arse with the best of them. Willem desperately craved more wine, or something stronger.

“I just simply deplore the notion that any serious program of public works should proceed without your involvement. It’s a disservice to the city, the ransar, and the people of Innarlith-a grave disservice indeed.”

Willem tried to sigh, but had no strength to do it, so he just sat there trying to keep a picture of Devorast’s canal from forming in his head. They both knew that that was what the master builder was talking about. But apparently only Willem knew that there was no way in all Nine screaming bloody Hells that he would be able to build it. Willem couldn’t even really imagine the thing. He understood the basic concept of course: Build a trench from the shore of the Lake of Steam to the bank of the Nagaflow and somehow fill it with water to form a man-made river. But it was such a long way, and would have to be so deep.

“I’m sure you know that the ransar will soon enough discover the sort of man your old friend Ivar Devorast is, after all. That fool-it’s Tymora’s most fickle whimsy that the man has avoided his unfortunate patron’s wrath this long. I mean, honestly….”

Maybe, Willem thought, this ransar is not as stupid as you or I. Maybe he understands that though Devorast was no one’s idea of a sparkling conversationalist, he was perhaps the only human being on the whole of spinning Toril that might ever have even conceived of the thing, let alone was in possession of the skills necessary to see it done. If the master builder insisted that Willem finish the canal, he would have to do it, and he would have to fail.

“But that’s all just fancy now, isn’t it? We’ll let it be as it may, yes?”

Yes, yes, yes, Willem thought. Let it be. Let it be damned with the both of them to the endless Abyss. Willem rubbed his face, and an image of Halina came unbidden to his mind’s eye. She lay naked on the bed in the inn where he’d left her. She smiled at him in that way she had of smiling at him that made him not want to kill himself.

“Really, Willem, I worry about you. You don’t look all together well. Please tell me you’ve been sleeping. It’s sleep that is the finest tonic for any man’s body and soul. You’ve earned some rest, at least until you are called upon to finish some endeavor or another for your dear adopted home.”

Rest? Sleep? With Halina, yes, two or three days out of every ten. The rest of the time he couldn’t sleep. No half dozen bottles of wine could make him pass out, even. All he did was sit at home in the dark and think, the sound of his mother’s snoring wafting through the strangely unfamiliar halls of his townhouse. That sound reminded him of his childhood, and was just barely enough to keep him from opening his veins in the wee hours before dawn, but the house he’d bought was no home for him.