Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

“It just comes right out of you, doesn’t?” Willem asked, not expecting an answer.

“There’s no sense in drawing until you see it in your head. I imagine it, in every detail, then draw what I see.”

“I’ve never been able to do that,” Willem admitted.

“Your skills lie elsewhere,” said Devorast.

Willem’s face grew hot, and he pressed his teeth together. His anger was so intense it blurred his vision.

“Oh, really,” he said, “and where do my talents lie?”

He picked up the stack of parchment and rolled it quickly, making himself not worry about smudging or tearing them even though they were the single most important documents of his entire life. It was going to take him tendays to copy them all, but once he had and construction began, and he was given his seat on the senate, he could finally relax, spend the gold he’d sacrificed no less than his soul for, and to the deepest pits of the Nine Hells with all the rest of it.

He’d be done. He’d have succeeded.

“People,” Devorast said. “You can be around people. You can talk to people.”

“Yes,” Willem replied as he slid the parchment into the leather tube he’d brought with him. “I am very good at changing myself to make other people like me better. I’m very good at getting what I want from people while giving them as little as possible in return.”

Still not turning to look at Devorast, Willem started to walk to the door.

“Are you going to give me as little as possible in return?” Devorast asked.

Willem stopped but still didn’t turn around.

“Willem?”

“We’re finished, you and I,” Willem said. “This is the last one.”

“Retiring early?”

“After a fashion,” Willem replied, still not turning around.

“I suppose I should kill you before I let you walk out of here with those,” Devorast said. His voice was as flat as always, almost monotone.

Willem tensed and lifted the heel of his right boot a fraction of an inch off the floor. He kept a silver-bladed dagger in his boot and had been practicing with it-slashing, stabbing, even throwing.

He didn’t hear Devorast stand. He hadn’t moved.

“Why don’t you?” Willem asked, still not turning around, just standing in the doorway, one foot inside and one foot outside of the little shack. “You should kill me. I would kill me, if I were you. I made you promises. You worked very hard, created something that will live forever in the skies above Innarlith, casting its shadow on all the city’s inhabitants for all time to come. Here I am, stealing it from you, walking away with it without even turning around to look you in the eye.”

Devorast heaved a world-weary sigh that only fanned the anger that smoldered in Willem.

“I hate your stinking guts,” Willem said, his voice low and quiet, an animal’s growl. “You should kill me for what I’m doing, but you don’t even think that much of me, do you? You don’t even notice me enough to hate me. Is that it, you arrogant son of a whore? Is that why you’re going to let me walk out of here with these, without leaving a thin silver behind?”

“No,” Devorast said, and still his voice hadn’t changed in the slightest. “I’m not going to kill you because you’re going to build it.”

“The tower?”

“The tower,” Devorast replied. “You’re going to build it, down to every detail, aren’t you?”

“We built the keep up north,” Willem said. “We built it just as you planned.”

“So, go,” Devorast said, absolving Willem of at least that afternoon’s sins.

“That’s it?” he asked. “No gold? No threats?”

“Go and build it, Willem,” said Devorast. “Build it and you can keep your gold.”

“No one will ever know it was you. No one. Not ever.”

“I don’t care,” Devorast replied, and Willem believed him.

“You will die in obscurity,” Willem said, “and you could have been anything you wanted to be.”

“All I ever wanted to be was me,” Devorast said, “and I’ve had that all along.”

Willem nodded, and though he wanted to laugh, he couldn’t.

“Build it, Willem,” Devorast urged. “I’ll see it every day and know it’s mine. I don’t care if anyone else knows its mine. I don’t care if I never have two coppers to rub together. I want to see that built, though, and I don’t mind telling even you that.”

“Even though we’re enemies now, you and I?” Willem asked, suspicious.

“We’re not enemies,” Devorast said.

Willem almost turned around, almost turned on him, almost attacked, almost screamed, almost … but he didn’t move.

“Do you have a sword, Ivar?” he asked.

He took Devorast’s silence for a no.

“You should carry a weapon with you now,” Willem said. His voice was so low, so pained, he had to force each word out with deep, hard pressure in his chest.

Willem walked away, not waiting for Devorast to respond. He wouldn’t anyway.

14 Flamerule, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

FIRST QUARTER, INNARLITH

Hrothgar and Vrengarl lived in a basement. It was cheap, the walls leaked, there was moss on one wall, and algae on the floor. It was cold in the summer and colder in the winter, and the sun never shone directly in the one iron-barred window that was so small neither of the cousins could have crawled out it in a fire. Even poor humans wouldn’t be caught dead in the place, but the dwarves felt right at home. Vrengarl had started growing mushrooms in the closet and had harvested the first few to make a pungent broth.

“Here,” Hrothgar said, handing a dented tin cup of the simple soup to Ivar Devorast. “It ain’t much but it’ll warm yer cockles. If you have any cockles.”

Vrengarl chuckled and Devorast smiled, taking the cup. The human put his nose in the little wisps of steam that rose from the broth and smiled again at the hearty aroma. He glanced at Vrengarl and nodded.

“I’d offer you bread, but it went moldy,” Hrothgar said, taking a seat on the rickety old chair. Vrengarl preferred the stool, and the newer, less rickety chair was more likely to hold up a human, so they’d offered it to Devorast.

“You’re pale and sickly,” Vrengarl said to Devorast. “If you’d like some of that bread for the medicinal value, I can fetch it from the trash for you.”

“No,” Devorast said, wrinkling his nose. “No, thank you, Vrengie. The broth is fine.”

Vrengarl nodded and bent over his own broth, slurping loudly. Hrothgar realized that Devorast had called his cousin Vrengie, as he did sometimes, and Vrengarl hadn’t beaten him to a bloody pulp.

“You don’t have a copper to your name, do you?” Hrothgar asked the human.

“I have a copper,” Devorast replied with a shrug.

“Still living in that shack?” asked Hrothgar.

Devorast took a sip of broth and shook his head with his lips pressed tightly together.

“Had to give it up?” asked Vrengarl.

Devorast nodded, then took another sip of broth.

“What in the name of the Soulforger are you still doing in this rat hole of a city, then?” Hrothgar said, his deep voice booming off the close stone walls. “Go home to Cormyr or something. Go find someplace where they appreciate men like you.”

“The story would be the same in Cormyr,” Devorast said. “Still, getting out of the city is an appealing thought.”

“He should come with us,” Vrengarl suggested, looking at Hrothgar.

The dwarf didn’t even have to think about it.

“You should, damn it,” he said.

Devorast raised an eyebrow.

“Some rich bastard’s building a … what is it again?” Hrothgar asked his cousin.