Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

Pristoleph, Marek thought, letting the strange man’s name roll through his mind. It’s a shame I’m going to have to destroy you someday. Truly, truly a shame.

26 Tarsakh, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

ALONG THE BANKS OF THE NAGAFLOW

The lone dista’ssara set up his camp near the bank of the river with a slow, relaxed air that Svayyah found hypnotic. The naga had never thought of humans as particularly interesting, but from the first time she’d seen that one in particular, she’d been unable to banish him entirely from her mind.

He was a male, and watching him brought out Svayyah’s female side. It wasn’t natural, she knew. It wasn’t acceptable, but when she looked at him, she felt like a female.

Nothing would ever come of that, of course, and the four-limbed freak was a dista’ssara-one of the hands of the embodiment-and so would always be her lesser, but again, the man had a certain quality.

Svayyah watched him from the water, which was where she always felt more comfortable. The humans called the river the Nagaflow, and Svayyah and her tribemates liked the name. It was a warning to humans and their apelike kin that the water was home to their betters, the naja’ssara , the water nagas.

He was looking at her, and she hadn’t noticed.

A chill ran down her serpentine body, like tickles of lightning running all twenty-five feet from the base of her skull to the blunt tip of her tail.

“Are you all right there?” the man asked, standing and moving closer to the water, as if he was about to swim out to her.

“We are fine, dista’ssara,” she said, bruising her tongue with his inelegant language. “Keep your distance.”

He was surprised by that and said, “I didn’t see you there. If you’d prefer, I can set up my camp elsewhere if you’re bathing here.”

He looked around while Svayyah tried to figure out what he was trying to say.

“Are you alone here?” he asked. “Are you from the keep?”

Ah, Svayyah thought, he thinks we’re human.

She suppressed the natural tendency any of her kind would have to be mortally offended by that implication and shook her head. Her face would have resembled a human’s, especially from a distance. He thought she was some dista’ssara girl out for a swim.

“Do you practice the Art?’ she asked, though she felt confident she knew the answer.

“Magic?” he said. “No, I don’t.”

“Strange,” Svayyah said, surprised. “You carry yourself with a confidence that only a strong connection to the Weave could bring, especially for a dista’ssara.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” the man replied. He was cheeky, Svayyah had to give him that. “What does that mean, dista’ssara?”

“In your insufficient tongue, we believe: ‘hands of the embodiment.’”

He took a step backward and said, “You’re a naga.”

“We are Svayyah,” she said. “We are naja’ssara , what you would call a water naga. Does that surprise you?”

“No,” the man said, running a hand through his orangered hair. “I suppose it shouldn’t anyway.”

“Do we frighten you?”

“No,” he answered quickly enough and with sufficient confidence that Svayyah believed him. “Do you want me to go?”

“If we did, we would have told you to go,” she said.

“‘We’?” the human asked. “Are there more of you?”

“We are alone here,” she replied, and the man appeared to understand. “We have seen you here before, when the dista’ssara started to build that tower.”

The man looked up at the structure, nodded, and said, “Does that offend you?”

“It surprises us,” she replied. “It is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“We knew it,” Svayyah said. “You are responsible for that structure, aren’t you …”

“Ivar Devorast,” the human said.

“Ivar Devorast,” the naga repeated. “Why are you here? Why would you camp at the riverbank and not live in your own work?”

“That’s a long story,” he said.

“Which is a long story?” Svayyah asked. “Why you’re here, or why you don’t sleep in the human tower?”

“Both, I suppose,” Devorast replied.

“Well, then,” said Svayyah, “light your fire, sit, and tell your tale, Ivar Devorast.”

He looked her in the eye for some dozen heartbeats, then an understandably suspicious smile came across his face and he said, “Thank you, Svayyah, I would like that.”

Svayyah blinked at him, stunned into silence while she watched him set his campfire. He’d answered her as if her command to light his fire and tell her his story had been a request.

Another tingle played down the scaly length of her snakelike body, and Svayyah writhed in pleasure as the human began to speak.

16 Mirtul, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

They say he just came out of it all at once,” Inthelph whispered, but not so softly that half the room didn’t hear him. “He lay at death’s very door for … how long?”

“Five months,” Meykhati provided.

“So long….” Inthelph whispered.

Willem’s head spun and his hands shook. He couldn’t look at the master builder or at any of the senators that stood around him. He breathed only with some difficulty.

“At the very least,” said Senator Djeserka, “you have to give the old man his due. I heard he had enough of that poison in him to drop a stone giant.”

Meykhati nodded and said, “He had a team of clerics working on him practically day and night. Apparently he’d given Waukeen’s temple enough gold over the years that the Merchant’s Friend thought he deserved another year.”

Willem’s mouth went dry. It felt as if he’d crossed the Calim Desert on foot.

“If Waukeen was any kind of friend to that particular merchant,” the master builder said, “he would have let him go.”

“Are you all right, Willem?” Meykhati asked.

Willem’s eyes went wide when he realized the men were looking at him. If he looked half as bad as he felt …

“I’m well, thank you, Senator,” Willem answered, faking a smile.

“My, Inthelph, I think you might be keeping young Willem out in the rain too much,” Meykhati joked, slapping Willem on the back with a fatherly wink.

“Willem has been working very hard lately,” said the master builder. “He’s decided to take control of his own fate.”

Willem spun on Inthelph, his face flushed, sweat soaking him. The three senators were taken aback, but Inthelph laughed and the moment passed.

“He’ll be a senator soon enough,” the master builder said.

Willem studied his cheerful, sociable demeanor and told himself that Inthelph didn’t know anything, didn’t know it was he who had poisoned Khonsu.

The senators moved on to other subjects, including the names of their younger, easier-to-manipulate colleagues whom they had managed to move into the committees once run by Khonsu. Though the old man could maintain his seat on the senate-he’d paid for it long ago, after all-he was a lone vote without consensus or allies. He could sit on the senate forever, but for him it would never be anything but a meaningless title ever again.

Willem swallowed his third glass of brandy and closed his eyes while it burned his throat. His hands were still shaking but not as bad.

He wanted to say, “I got away with it.” He wanted to tell Inthelph and his smug friends who had set the stage for their triumph over the old man. What would they have done?