Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

When he saw Fharaud’s signature at the bottom of an expensive sheet of bleached white paper, he stopped.

Fharaud had been dead for months. They had been friends-a long time ago, before the shipwright’s public disgrace. The signature at the bottom of the letter was ragged and shaky. The letter was dated, and more than five months, almost six, had passed since it had been written. Ransar Osorkon read the letter.

Then he read it again.

He stood and crossed to a map of the city and surrounding territory that he’d had painted onto one of the walls of his office. The map covered everything from Firesteap Citadel at the northern foot of the mountains to the south, all the way north to the middle of the Nagawater. He had to reach up and stretch to do it, but he touched the thin blue line of the southern Nagaflow at the site of his new keep, then traced a straight line down with the tip of his finger to the shore of the Lake of Steam.

“Forty miles, give or take,” he whispered to himself.

More than one of the people in the room asked, “Ransar?”

He looked at the letter, then asked the room, “Has anyone heard of this man, Ivar Devorast?”

The people in the room looked at one another, and most of them shrugged.

“A Cormyrean,” Osorkon said, reading from the letter. “Once apprenticed to Fharaud, the shipbuilder.”

One of the mages stepped forward and said, “I believe the name is familiar, my lord. He was bound up in the tragedy of the Neverwind.”

“Everwind,” Osorkon corrected then waved it away. “Who is he?”

“No one, my lord,” the mage said.

“Would Rymut know him?” Osorkon asked the ransar. The wizard’s face went white and he stuttered, “M-my lord?”

“This Cormyrean has an idea that I find interesting,” Osorkon said. “It’s an idea that you mages might not like, an idea some Red Wizards might not like.”

“My lord,” the mage said. “Master Rymut may be Thayan, but-”

“I’d like to speak with this man,” Osorkon interrupted, and the mage knew well enough to quiet himself.

Two of the bodyguards stared him down and the wizard bowed.

“I heard that Rymut tried to kill him on at least one occasion but couldn’t,” said one of the advisors, the sort of man who listened to gossip but rarely passed it on.

“Shall I try again to scry him, my lord?” another of the mages suggested. “Rymut, I mean.”

The ransar waved again and said, “There’s no point. He’s blocked your every attempt. No, I think I’ll speak with this Devorast. If Marek Rymut wants him dead, and Fharaud wrote his last letter on his behalf, he must be worth meeting. Find this man for me.”

The fifteen people in the room looked at each other. They had all been given the same task, but very few of them would make any attempt at all to find Ivar Devorast.

3 Eleint, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

BERRYWILDE

I think I want the wall around the main house made a foot taller,” Phyrea said to the old woman with the horrible burn scars.

The woman, made of shimmering violet light, didn’t answer, but her smirk was enough.

“Stop it,” Phyrea whispered, looking at her but trying not to make eye contact. “That’s not it.”

The little girl walked across the room and disappeared through a bookcase. Phyrea wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to stop shaking. She hated it when they did that.

She closed her eyes and said, “Go away.”

When she opened them, they were gone, but she knew they would be back. She also knew that they knew why she wanted to repair the wall.

She stood up and walked as quickly as she could without actually running until she was out in the blazing sun.

It was still hot, but the days were starting to get shorter. The summer was coming to an end, and she was going to have to go back to the city. She might take some of the ghosts with her. She wondered if she could take any of the ghosts with her. She didn’t want to take any of the ghosts with her.

“I want to stay for a long time still,” she muttered to herself as she walked, panting and sweating across the rolling countryside of Berrywilde. “I need to get out of here and not take them with me, but one or two will come with me and then I won’t so much be here as I’ll be there.”

She stopped herself from talking by holding her hand over her mouth and kept it there until she came to the last hill. As she walked over the rise, she didn’t feel like she needed to talk to herself anymore. Phyrea perused through them as if she were looking for just the right maidens-thigh melon at the farmers’ market in Innarlith.

“Melon,” she whispered under her breath.

There he was.

“You, there,” she said to the red-haired man.

The man straightened and looked her in the eyes. He didn’t leer or grin or lick his lips. Her blood ran cold, and her skin grew hot at the same time.

“What is your name?” she asked. Her voice sounded distant and reedy to her ears, and she wondered if he’d even heard her.

“Ivar Devorast,” he answered.

“You work with stone,” she said. The thought that he might say no to that made her breath stop in her chest.

“Yes,” he answered, and she started breathing again.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“M-Miss Phyrea!” the foreman stuttered, running up to them. He turned to Ivar Devorast and said, “You, there, get back to work. This is the master builder’s daughter and she’ll not suffer the drooling leers of the likes of-”

“No!” Phyrea practically screamed. She held herself tightly, her face red and hot. That horrible foreman. That horrible little man. He was embarrassing her. He was horrible. “I want him.”

Phyrea cringed so badly that it felt like a seizure.

“No,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I require the services of a stonemason. I have a … uh …”

“Do you need work done at the house, Miss?” the horrible foreman asked.

“The wall is too short,” she said to Ivar Devorast, who lifted an eyebrow to show that he was listening. She turned to the foreman and said, “The wall around the main house.” The foreman nodded and she turned to Devorast and said, “I’ve seen you working. I think you could do an acceptable job. I require the wall around the main house to be taller. I don’t feel safe. I won’t feel safe until it’s taller.”

Devorast looked at her as if waiting for her to say something that had anything to do with him.

“My father is paying you,” she tried.

“He is,” the foreman said. “He is indeed, Miss.” He took Devorast by the elbow and said, “You take care of this wall for the young miss, now, Cormyrean.” Then he leaned in close to Devorast and whispered into his ear loud enough for everyone nearby to hear, “No funny business. Just the wall, now. Remember your place.”

Devorast didn’t seem to hear him at all. He looked at Phyrea.

He looked through her.

“First thing,” she mumbled already turning away. “First thing in the morning.”

“Two days,” Devorast said. She stopped and turned around to face him again. “I’ll need to have rocks delivered.”

That made sense, so she nodded.

“As long as the wall is higher,” she said, then turned away from him and went back to the house, where the ghosts teased her silently all night.

3 Eleint, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

BERRYWILDE

Her hands shook so badly it took her twice the normal time to get dressed. She wanted to wear her mother’s pearls but almost gave up, it was so hard for her to close the clasp.