Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

Don’t worry, little one, you’ll understand soon .

When he was finished, the firedrake looked at him again, and instead of a dog, the look in its eyes reminded Marek of his niece Halina when she was a baby. There was an unmistakable spark that promised-in due time-real understanding.

“Let him up,” Marek said to the dragon.

Insithryllax hesitated a moment then took his massive front paw off the still firedrake. The smaller creature rolled onto its feet but didn’t stand. Instead, it scuttled back, keeping its head down, not looking its masters in the eye.

“What have you done to it?” asked the dragon.

Marek looked at the black firedrake and said, “Look at me, my son.” The creature didn’t seem to want to, but it finally lifted its head to meet the Red Wizard’s gaze. “Change.”

The black firedrake’s shiny ebon scales quivered as what looked like shockwaves rippled across its sinewy length. There was a loud pop! , then another. Its bones began to creak and grind under its muscles. The firedrake closed its eyes and its long, crocodilian face folded in on itself.

“Marek,” Insithryllax sighed, “what have you done?”

The firedrake’s wings shriveled and collapsed, shaking and spasming as they reformed into arms, the claws on the end shortening and articulating with tinny cracks to form human hands.

It went on like that for agonizing moments until a human male with dusky brown skin lay naked on the spongy ground where the black firedrake had been. The transformed creature looked up at Marek with eyes a deeper black than any human eyes he’d ever seen. It crawled and writhed on the ground, looking at itself in obvious confusion and unsure how to use its new limbs.

“The new ransar’s shock troops,” Insithryllax said.

Marek smiled and approached the transformed monster, reaching out a hand to it. The black firedrake took his hand, and Marek helped it to its feet.

“We should start naming them now,” Marek said. “Each one, in turn, as they’re transformed.”

“You do still have the ability to surprise me,” said the wyrm. “They’ll be able to change back and forth … as I do?”

Marek nodded and sent a reassuring smile the dragon’s way. Then he turned back to the firedrake.

“Olin,” Marek said to the shivering naked man. “Captain Olin. Yes?”

“Oh …” the transformed firedrake stuttered. “O-Ol …”

Marek chucked, and the false human smiled back.

“So,” said Insithryllax, “all you have to do is cast that spell over and over again, one for each of the firedrakes?”

“One for each of the firedrakes,” the Red Wizard replied.

“Olin?” said the captain of the new ransar’s shock troops.

“In the meantime,” Marek said to the dragon, not looking back at him but considering in detail the form of the transformed reptile before him, “I’ll see what I can do about building a home here. One you can call your own, yes? So you don’t have to suffer the cruel elements of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen.”

The dragon sighed, and Marek could sense his tacit agreement, but he also worried that perhaps his time with the great wyrm was drawing to a close.

“I’ll need someone to teach them how to use human weapons, too,” Marek said, “not to mention how to comport themselves in civilized society. They’ll have to learn Common, and maybe Draconic, too, or Chondathan?”

“This one appears capable, but that will take time,” said the dragon.

Marek shrugged and said, “Time, magic, and coin will buy us what we need.”

“Will it?” asked the dragon, though he didn’t sound the slightest bit unconvinced.

“Hasn’t it always?” Marek replied.

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

THE WINERY

There you are, you lying bastard,” Phyrea shrieked, having lost all control of her anger and embarrassment. “You won’t forget your place again you sweaty, filthy pack mule. You’re not fit to toil in the blazing sun with the rest of these wretched peasants.”

She’d found Ivar Devorast working on the foundation stones of her father’s new winery after finally giving up hope that he was just teasing her and would finally come to the house to finish the wall in place of that terrible dwarf.

“I should have you thrown out of here,” she ranted. “I can have you tossed out with the rest of the refuse. You should be sent back to whatever Fourth Quarter hovel you squirmed out of to live out the rest of your miserable existence picking scraps up off the street with the rest of the dogs.”

The other men had all turned to watch, and they began to laugh and hoot, egging her on, but Devorast just stood there and looked down at her. There was the slightest hint of a smile curling the edges of his mouth, as if what she was saying amused him. He didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised, much less offended. That fanned Phyrea’s anger.

Words stuck in her throat. Her eyes grew hot and filled with tears, but she couldn’t suffer the idea of that man seeing her cry.

His eyes widened ever so slightly, inviting her to say more, and Phyrea just grimaced.

“Miss?” the grungy little foreman asked from behind her. “Is everything all right, Miss?”

Phyrea started to turn toward the foreman but then spun, whipping her right arm around and slapping Devorast full on the face. She was strong, and she hit him hard, but the man barely flinched at the blow. The impact sent a sharp stab of pain through her own wrist. Her palm burned from the blow and from the scrape of his rough, stubbly face. Her hand, wrist, and arm tingled and shook when she dropped it to her side.

Devorast smiled at her amid a cacophony of hoots, whistles, and gales of laughter from the other workers.

“Miss!” the foreman exclaimed. “Miss, has this man …?”

He couldn’t say it. Phyrea looked at him and shook her head.

“He has …” she said, blinking back her tears. “He offended me, but he didn’t touch me.”

“I will have him dismissed at once,” the foreman promised, sending a red-hot glare at Devorast.

“No,” Phyrea said. “No. I want him to stay and work. I want him to work until his back breaks.” She looked back over her shoulder at Devorast-just a glance. “It’s all he’s good for.”

The foreman said, “As you wish, Miss.” Phyrea was already stalking off back in the direction of the house.

She kept up a fast pace until she was over the hill, then she started running. She cried most of the way, sometimes stopping to cough and catch her breath. By the time she made it back to the house her thin linen dress was plastered to her, and her hair was soaked and matted with sweat.

She went into the kitchen and splashed water from a basin onto her face, wiping the kohl from her eyes. She cried off and on while she drank some of the water, then she broke a few dishes. She stomped around the room in an incoherent rage. Her eyes fell on a half-full bottle of Sembian wine. She picked it up-Usk Fine Old from Selgaunt, a fine vintage-and drank the rest of it in three long, choking gulps.

Phyrea sat on one of the kitchen chairs and cried for a long time, then sat there for a while longer. She didn’t think of Ivar Devorast. Finally she stood on weak legs and made her way down into the wine cellar. She picked a bottle at random and brought it up to the kitchen where she found a corkscrew and a glass. She opened the bottle as she walked back to her bed chamber. There she stoked the fire in the little black wood stove and began the comforting process of warming water for a bath.

The sun set before she was finally ready to strip off her sweat-soaked clothes. She drank the wine more slowly, and from a glass, but her mind still wouldn’t settle on a single thought. Devorast dominated her thoughts, but she was able to suppress the image of him enough to at least take care of herself.