Philip Athans - Lies of Light

“Perhaps you need a diversion, or better yet, a family. You know my feelings on this, Willem, and I think Phyrea’s coming around. In fact, I know for a fact she is. By the Merchantfriend’s jingling purse, my boy, I’ve long considered you a son-a part of the family already. Marry Phyrea, Willem, and let’s make that truly the case, eh?”

Marry Phyrea? The thought made his head spin more than the wine or the memory of the softness of Halina’s skin. Phyrea had shown him nothing but scathing contempt, and her mouth-breathing old imbecile of a father thought that she was “coming around?” Her disdain was something Willem carried around with him like other men carried knives. It had become a comfortable part of him. Marry Phyrea? He had a better chance of wedding Chauntea herself in a grand ceremony in the Great Mother’s Garden.

“I suppose you’ve heard the things she’s been saying about you. My daughter has become quite the devotee of Senator Willem Korvan. She’s mentioned you to the ransar himself-to all the finest people. She’s sung your praises to Marek Rymut, and even to some visiting celestial from Shou Lung … you’ve met him, haven’t you? The tall, willowy one that looks even more like an elf than the rest of his kind. She’s made you something of a cause. All the wives are gossiping. They’ve sussed out her motives and I swear the wives of half the senators in Innarlith have already bought their dresses for the wedding.”

The master builder was too stupid to have invented that. It must be true. But how? Why? How cold it possibly serve Phyrea to turn her opinion of him so sharply that she would even bother to criticize him in the higher social circles, let alone praise him. But the master builder couldn’t be making it up. And what of Halina?

“Oh, gods …” Willem muttered, his gorge rising in his throat.

“Goodness gracious, Willem,” Inthelph cooed, putting a dry, bony hand on his back. “You aren’t well, are you?”

“I’m fine,” he managed to say. “I’m just …”

The master builder laughed-a cackling, old man’s laugh-and said, “My daughter can have that effect on men, can’t she?”

Willem nodded once then emptied his stomach onto the floor of the senate chamber.

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

THE LAND OF ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN

While Salatis stood in slack-jawed amazement, Marek Rymut stood behind him and wove a spell that would, as he’d heard the Zulkir of Enchantment once say, “soften the ground a bit.” It hadn’t taken trust for Marek to bring Salatis to his pocket dimension. He would either be able to depend on the man, or he’d be able to kill him. But what he wanted more than the man’s trust was his word.

“Where are we?” the senator asked, the words sounding hollow because he couldn’t seem to get his lips to come together. “Beshaba protect us from her own ill will.”

“Beshaba now, is it?” Marek asked.

He leaned in closer to the tall, angular man. Marek had to reach up a little to take the senator’s pendant in his hand. Finely crafted of red enamel over silver, the antlers depicted there had been carved from a single thin shard of ebony. Though he’d expected Salatis to move away at his advance, the senator stood stock still, gazing out over the abrupt confines of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen. Marek took the opportunity to study the man a little more closely.

He stood fully nine inches over six feet, but surely weighed less-by dozens of pounds even-than did Marek. Where Marek was bald, his head adorned with the tattoos of a Red Wizard, Salatis sported a full, healthy head of hair. A Chondathan, his hair was dark, but age and other difficulties had traced it with gray.

“What in the name of the Maid of Misfortune are those things?” Salatis asked.

“They are black firedrakes,” Marek answered. “Do you like them?”

Insithryllax wheeled in the sky overhead, a cadre of firedrakes surrounding him in close formation. Salatis looked up, and his breath caught in his throat.

“M-Master Rymut …”

“Never fear,” said Marek.

Salatis tried to run when Insithryllax reeled down to land on the hill next to them. Marek took the senator by the arm and held him. He could feel the tall man shake, and his skin was clammy and cold. The dirt shuddered under the dragon’s considerable weight when it came to ground, and Salatis almost fell to his knees.

“Stand,” Marek commanded. “This is Insithryllax. Though he will never be your subject, I would like for him to consider you an equal in the months and years ahead of us. Isn’t that as we discussed, Insithryllax?”

Marek knew that the sound the black dragon made just then was a laugh, but Salatis surely assumed it was a growl.

“Insithryllax,” the senator said, his voice shaking only a little less than his body.

“Ransar,” the wyrm rumbled.

Salatis gasped and Marek sighed.

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it,” said the Red Wizard.

“What do you mean?” Salatis asked. “Lady Doom has held me in the embrace of the barbs of her Ill Fortune. I am not the ransar.”

“You haven’t told him?” the black dragon asked.

“Not yet,” said the Red Wizard. “I wanted him to see first. After all, I’m not giving him the Palace of Many Spires, only the means to gain it for himself.”

“You’re giving me …?” Salatis began.

“Really, Salatis,” Marek said, “if you’re going to be the ransar you’ll eventually have to complete a thought. I know it’s a lot to take in, my friend, but it’s happening, I assure you. You’re here, on a plane of existence of my own creation, and what you see before you are creatures made by my hand, with the indispensable assistance of my dear friend the black wyrm Insithryllax. They are the black firedrakes, and I give them to you.”

Salatis shook his head and muttered, “I fear the Maid of Misfortune. I beg her to ignore me.”

“Oh, please, Senator. Your mistress may have her way with us from time to time, but I assure you we petty mortals make our own luck. And it was neither Beshaba nor her sister who brought me to you.”

“What can I do with these things?” the senator asked.

“The black firedrakes? Well, if you insist on getting ahead of ourselves, let’s discuss precisely that. They were created, by me, from the cross-breading of ordinary firedrakes captured from the northern shores of the Lake of Steam with my boon companion Insithryllax. He proved to be a hearty source of fatherly essence”-the dragon took a bow-“and the black firedrakes were born. After some months of nurturing, some half dozen or so began to exhibit unusually high functionality. I have put them in command of units of various sizes, though I admit that military organization is of little interest to me, so you may want to reorganize them to fit your own needs. You will be able to do so at your whim.”

“My whim….” Salatis said, perhaps just trying to get used to the idea.

“Indeed,” Marek said. “My gift to you.”

“An army of dragon-men?” asked the senator. “To invade Innarlith?”

“Well …” Marek replied. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”

The senator watched the firedrakes move around each other in silence. Some were in human form, some in the their natural shapes. He seemed equally interested in both, which Marek took as a good sign.

“Why me?” Salatis asked.

“I could give you any number of false answers, Senator,” Marek said, “but I shan’t. Suffice it to say that you have been recruited.”

The black dragon’s laugh rumbled through the stale air and was met with shrieks and calls from the surrounding firedrakes. Marek could see Salatis’s skin crawl, but the hint of a smile played at the edges of the tall man’s lips.