Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

“Don’t get blood all over me,” Marek said.

The Vaasan held up a hand in understanding, the bloody axe dangling limply in his other hand.

“You know what to do,” Marek prompted.

Kurtsson cast a spell with casual ease and in moments he’d taken on the remarkably convincing form of an anonymous street thug, but he was still drenched in blood. Anyone who might see him leaving the home of the slain wizard would describe a dark-haired Chondathan with a full beard, a pronounced limp, and a sailor’s tattoo on his hairy forearm. The fair-skinned, blond-haired Vaasan wizard would never be a suspect in the murder he’d so gleefully committed at Marek Rymut’s command.

“When you’ve had a chance to clean up,” Marek said, “meet me at the Rose and Stone for a brandy, eh?”

The ugly street urchin grinned-he was even missing teeth, the illusion was so complete-and with a chuckle, Marek opened a dimensional door and made good his escape.

6 Tarsakh, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

FOURTH QUARTER, INNARLITH

The pain was gone. He could see, and he could breathe, but his body was numb. He couldn’t move his legs or his arms.

“Can you speak?” Devorast asked.

“Yes?” Fharaud said, not sure until the word passed his lips if he could or not.

Devorast smiled and sat down next to him.

“I’m going to die today,” Fharaud said.

He didn’t recognize his own voice. It sounded like his grandfather’s voice.

“You say that every day,” Devorast replied.

“But he’s been dead for years,” Fharaud said.

“Who has been dead for years?”

Fharaud shook his head. He tried to order his mind, so that he wouldn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

“I have so much to tell you, Ivar,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure that the Shou woman will tell him all about the girl-that the spirits inside her …”

Damn it all, Fharaud thought. I’m doing it again.

“What can I get you, old man?” Devorast asked. “Are you hungry? Can you eat?”

“No,” Fharaud answered. “If I had known it was my last meal, though, I would have demanded better than soup. That was yesterday, wasn’t it? When you last made me soup?”

“Yesterday,” Devorast replied, and he wasn’t lying. Ivar Devorast had never lied to him. “Yes. You should eat.”

He shook his head again and said, “I told you, I’m going to die today.”

“And I told you, you say that every day.”

“Do I?” Fharaud asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. It felt good to sigh. “This time I mean it.”

“Do you intend to do yourself in?”

Fharaud opened his eyes and looked deeply into Devorast’s.

“I won’t ask you to kill me,” Fharaud said. “You’re going to have to trust that a man knows when he’s going to die.”

Devorast nodded and said, “Then you should tell me what you need to tell me.”

“They will be away for thirty-three days, the two of them,” he heard himself say. “No, that’s not it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m putting things in the wrong order,” Fharaud said. “But listen to me. Listen to me when I tell you that when I went through that gate, and when I fell … when Everwind fell and my body was shattered my mind was splayed open and the future poured in. It overwhelms me, but I can see it. I can feel and taste and hear it. I have the future living inside me, but it’s a future that doesn’t include me.”

“I’m not interested in having my fortune told, old man,” Devorast said. “Let me make you some soup.”

“He’ll be watching you when you meet with the dwarf and the alchemist,” Fharaud said, but Devorast had already stood and gone to the stove.

He’d brought a basket of vegetables with him and started sorting through them, preparing his soup with the same calm efficiency that he did everything.

Fharaud closed his eyes again and tried to put everything in order, but as he sifted through the barrage of images and sensations that came to him and the others that were lodged in his memory, he skipped a breath. He stopped breathing, then started again.

It’s started, he thought. That’s how it starts.

“One breath,” he whispered, “then another, and another, then the rest of them, and that’s it.”

“I wasn’t able to get the okra,” Devorast said as he began to chop the vegetables.

“You have taken better care of me than I deserve,” Fharaud said to his former disciple’s back. “I haven’t done … I didn’t do enough for you to deserve this. I want to help you more before I go. I want to tell you the things that have been revealed to me.”

“The onions are very mild, though,” Devorast said, “just the way you like them.”

“Damn it, Ivar,” Fharaud said, loudly. The effort made him cough, and something warm and wet spattered his chin. “Damn it.”

Devorast turned around and quickly returned to his side, leaving the vegetables on the board next to the stove. He dabbed at Fharaud’s chin with a handkerchief and the dying man could see the blood soaking into the rag.

He could taste it in his mouth.

“Pristoleph,” Fharaud said, his voice reduced to a wet, rattling whisper.

“No,” Devorast said, and Fharaud saw the calm in his face and that calmed him too. “No, it’s me. It’s Ivar.”

Fharaud sighed and more blood dribbled from his mouth.

“No,” Fharaud rasped. “No, Pristoleph … you will fight him. You will have to fight him in the end, I think. I think I saw that, and I think it’s the most important. The rest, you will …”

Fharaud didn’t know how to finish it, and in that moment just before he drew his last breath, he finally decided that he should speak no more. No man should know his future in so much detail. He should discover his own fate on his own, shouldn’t he?

He could see, and he could see Devorast’s face and eyes. Devorast didn’t believe him anyway. He wouldn’t listen. He would do everything he’s done, feeding him, bathing him, visiting him every day, but he would not listen.

“You don’t have to,” Fharaud whispered.

He tried to breathe in, but couldn’t. Devorast saw his distress and leaned closer, concern plain on his face. Concern, but not fear.

“Fharaud?” he said. “Can you-?”

Devorast stopped talking and their eyes met-truly met in a moment of understanding. Fharaud felt Devorast’s hand in his and marveled at the simple sensation. He could feel. He couldn’t breathe, but he could feel.

His heart skipped a beat-was that panic?

If it was it was as fleeting as half a heartbeat, then Fharaud was at peace.

“Good-bye, my friend,” Devorast whispered.

Fharaud wished he could say good-bye too, but he couldn’t, and Devorast would understand. He tried to keep his eyes open as long as he could, but in due course the room went dark.

The last connection with the material world that Fharaud experienced was Devorast’s last whisper, “Rest well, Fharaud. Rest well.”

And he was gone.

17 Tarsakh, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

The sculpture was called “Small Evil Deity Crouches in the Running Stream, Mindful of Its Breathing.” To Willem it looked like a twisted bit of metal fastened to a plank of polished cherry wood. He didn’t know much of the blacksmith’s art but could imagine that its graceful curves might have been difficult to fashion had the metal-it looked like iron-started out straight. Still, he had the sneaking suspicion it had been formed by accident, perhaps as a result of a foundry spill or other minor mishap.