Philip Athans - Lies of Light

For all Toril as though he’d never noticed the helms and spears, Marek went on, letting his false face flush red with insincere passion.

“Our new law will show itself in our utter contempt of private property. And not because we seek poverty for ourselves-I think we’ve all had enough of that, eh?”

And there Marek paused, and folded his arms across his barrel-chest. His eyes closed, he couldn’t see if the watchmen pressed the assembly further, but so what if they did?

“Our new Law of the Quayside will protect us the same way the laws of the senate protect the aristocracy, because the struggle itself makes it necessary. And what we start here today on the very edge of the city, will soon rise in the whole of Innarlith. It is revealed in our Laws of the Quayside that we can do nothing with our power unless we bend the senate to our will the same way they have bent us to theirs for so very, very long now. When our law becomes the only law, our struggle will end.”

Marek scanned the edge of the crowd and had to struggle not to let his disappointment show through his illusory features. The watchmen stood their ground and after a time only the first few rows of dockworkers continued to send fearful glances their way. The rest of the laborers seemed to have fallen for Marek’s Laws of the Quayside-a concept he had arrived upon the afternoon before and that had given him acute cases of the giggles off and on in the hours before bedtime.

“So long as our fraternity remains small, and separate from the guilds of our Third Quarter brothers, the tendency toward our mastery of all Innarlith does not come so clearly to light. But if we gather more men into our fold, and come together finally with the trade guilds, then more and more thunder gathers in the storm cloud fists of the working men. The Law of the Quayside must meet the Law of the Third Quarter. From that struggling mass there then comes about a fresh bridge between the common man and the forces by which we’ve been-until now-blown like the wind churns the water. A new era will come to pass. We will raise our voices in victory, even as the senate shrieks in horror!”

The frightful cheers that rose up from those words once again made Marek struggle not to laugh. It was as though they already celebrated the impossible eventuality he’d just promised them.

The zombies, he thought, will be quieter, too.

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

THE CHAMBER OF LAW AND CIVILITY, INNARLITH

Senators,” the clerk called out in his clear, practiced baritone, “and all those having business with this distinguished body, please be upstanding for the Ransar of Innarlith.”

Osorkon watched from the doorway, making mental note of those who stood the fastest and those who stood the slowest. Everyone in between were his true enemies.

He took the podium and said, “Be seated, honored colleagues.”

He paused for a deep, dramatic breath during the ruckus that followed.

“I thank you all for allowing me to humble myself before you,” he said, speaking the traditional opening line of a ransar’s address to the senate without a trace of the contempt he held for the majority of that body. “I have come here today to speak once more of a great work.”

The murmur that swept through the senate chamber was as forced as it was predictable.

“The near-continuous efforts of a small army of craftsmen has done honor to the city of their birth, to their ransar, their senate, and the man who so capably leads them in their historic endeavor. Of course, that man of whom I speak is Ivar Devorast.”

The name sent a shockwave of affected outrage through the senate, and the ransar smiled.

“Oh, I know how you feel about Devorast,” Osorkon continued, his tone conversational, as though the whole of the assembled senators was but one man. “Believe me, he can be”-a well-placed pause-“frustrating, at times. But does the city-state benefit from his genius or his charisma? Considering Master Devorast’s considerable-”

“Master Devorast?” Salatis shouted from the floor of the senate. He stood, turning once to each side to indicate that he addressed his fellow senators. There were a few hisses, but most if not all of the men in that room expected someone to interrupt eventually. “Surely the ransar errs in the use of that title. For the city of Innarlith has but one master builder, and his name is Inthelph.”

Osorkon looked to Inthelph’s chair, and a few of the senators patted him on the shoulders, then urged him to stand. The master builder stood, bowed, then sat again, not once looking the ransar in the eye.

“You all know of my deep respect and affection for the master builder,” Osorkon said. “Was it not I who appointed him, after all? No, when I used that appellation it was to honor a foreign dignitary.”

“He is no dignitary, this man,” Salatis broke in. “He is a commoner in the realm of his birth, not important enough, loved or respected enough, to be kept close by his king’s side. If Cormyr recognized his so-called genius, why would Ivar Devorast be here?”

“In that, my dear old friend,” Osorkon said to Salatis, “I will simply be happy that King Azoun’s loss is Innarlith’s gain.”

“Need I remind you that you are no king, sir?” Salatis said.

A hush fell over the assembly then, all eyes darting back and forth between Osorkon on the podium, and Salatis alone standing among the seated senators.

“No,” replied the ransar. “You need not remind me of that, Senator. I meant only that the kingdom of Cormyr has lost a good man to the city-state of Innarlith. Their loss, is our gain.”

“Your gain, you mean,” Salatis pressed.

“The canal benefits me, yes,” Osorkon said. “There is no secret that my ships ply the waters of the Lake of Steam, and trade as far north as the Sword Coast. Should the Vilhon Reach be open to them at last, and the Sea of Fallen Stars beyond, Cormyrean coin, Sembian coin … gold from the Moonsea to the Old Empires will find its way into my purse, but don’t think for a moment-not for a moment-that it will fill my purse alone. Riches enough for us all will pass through that waterway. Of that I have not the slightest doubt.”

Osorkon paused, and in some small way he still hoped someone would speak up then in support of the canal, with loyalty to their ransar, but he knew no one would.

Salatis looked around the room, his hands palms up at his sides, making a great show of waiting for the same thing. Finally he said, “Ransar, please believe me when I say that all of us realize that trade eventually will flow through this canal of yours, but-”

“This canal of ours , Senator,” the ransar interrupted.

Salatis continued without missing a beat, “-how much and how soon? If it costs forty pieces of gold to build a wagon, and one sells it for thirty-five only after taking a decade to build the damned thing, what kind of trade is that? This insanity that takes place to the northwest will drain more gold from our coffers while it’s being built than it will drain water from the Lake of Steam when it’s completed. And will any one of us even live to see that day?”

Osorkon smiled through the round of applause and cheers that followed. When the senate quieted enough for him to be heard, he said, “Is there any guarantee, Senator, that any of us will live to see the morrow?”

The two men stared at each other across a stretch of air as heavy as it was silent.

“Perhaps,” said Meykhati, rising with his hands at his side as though he was surrendering to someone, “we can agree that trade will flow once the canal is done, and that many in this body will profit from it either directly or indirectly-but is that the most pressing question?” Meykhati paused for effect, but Osorkon knew what was coming. “Perhaps it is the man who builds it, not the watercourse itself, that offends. Perhaps there is another man better suited to oversee this project so that it can be completed in a timely fashion … so that we will indeed all live to profit from that trade.”