Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

He snapped his eyes shut, but still the light was so bright it burned arcs of violet smears across his vision. His feet came up off the ground and he could feel Insithryllax embrace him roughly. The two of them flew through the air-Marek couldn’t tell how high or how far. What felt like glass and nails rained all around him, hitting him from all sides at once. They hit the rough cobblestones and Marek’s head bounced on the pavement. Insithryllax fell on top of him, and if Marek had had a breath left in his lungs the impact would have knocked it out. All around them was a stifling heat that Marek knew should have roasted him.

The fire around them burned itself out in the space of a heartbeat and despite the sound of glass falling all around them, Marek opened his eyes.

The dragon stepped back away from him. Marek saw scales shining like black patent leather in the smoke-diffused sunlight.

“Insithryllax, no-” Marek coughed out.

“Die Thayan!” a wild voice shrieked amid the coughs and sobs of people who’d been caught on the edge of the blast. “Die Red-”

Insithryllax growled, and it was a great wyrm’s voice. Marek grabbed his bulging, expanding arm, and squeezed.

“Insithryllax,” he said, his voice stern and commanding, despite the fact that he was struggling to stand. He was scorched and literally smoking. Broken glass and splinters adorned his torn robe. He looked a fright. “Insithryllax. Do not reveal yourself, my friend.”

“Hold!” a gruff voice shouted from somewhere down the street.

Insithryllax’s arm shrank back to its human size and he ran after the blond man.

Marek rubbed the dust from his eyes with the back of his hand and finally got a view of the street corner. The building they’d been passing was vacant, and Marek thought he should remember what used to be there, but he couldn’t just then. The blond man ran down the cross street, three city watchmen following close on his heels. The strange beggar ran with a bit of a limp-he might even just then have caught a piece of glass in the leg-so the watchmen easily ran him to ground.

“Death to foreign-” the blond beggar screamed before he was punched into reeling silence by one of the watchmen.

Insithryllax approached more slowly while the watchmen subdued then shackled the delirious beggar.

Marek caught up to the dragon with some difficulty and told him, “You’d best be on your way, old friend. People might have seen you.”

They both looked around, but no one seemed to be too interested in Insithryllax. Those who weren’t concerned with their own minor injuries-surprisingly enough Marek saw only the odd scrape and bruise-watched as the beggar was dragged to his feet, his wrists and ankles in chains.

“Don’t be long,” Insithryllax said, then he slipped into an alley and was gone.

The watchmen dragged the weakly struggling man with them.

“Guards,” Marek said, then had to stop to cough.

“Master Rymut,” one of the watchmen said.

Marek met the blond man’s gaze. Blood oozed from his nose and he appeared on the verge of passing out, but he looked Marek in the eye.

“Thayan …” the man moaned. The way he said it, the word sounded like an accusation.

“Do you know this man?” the watchman asked Marek.

“No,” Marek replied, but there was something vaguely familiar about the beggar’s face. He looked at the would-be assassin and asked, “Who are you? What is your name, boy?”

“Sur …” the blond man said. “My name is Surero. The name of your assassin.”

Marek sighed. He couldn’t place the name. The man went limp in the guards’ arms.

“Why was he trying to murder you, Master Rymut?” the lead watchman asked.

Marek shrugged and said, “I couldn’t possibly guess. It’s outrageous, really.”

“Well,” the watchman said with a sneer of contempt for the unconscious assassin, “he’ll swing for sure. Don’t you worry about a thing, now.”

“No,” Marek said, taking all three watchmen and no few bystanders by surprise. “No, he didn’t kill me, after all. There’s no reason to kill him. This man obviously has had some difficult times of late. If he caused that explosion to kill me, who has never done anything but help the good people of my adoptive city, well … lock him up, for his own safety at least, but see that he doesn’t hang.”

Marek sifted through his purse and drew out three platinum pieces. He handed them over to the lead watchman and said, “For you and your men, for the service you provide us all.”

The watchmen all looked as if they could have been knocked over with a feather, but they took Marek’s coin-as much as they’d see in months from their paltry salaries.

“Why did he do it?” the watchman asked as his comrades dragged the man off to the ransar’s dungeon.

Marek could think of a dozen reasons even though he couldn’t remember who the man was, exactly. If the would-be assassin was summarily executed, Marek might never know who he was and why he’d acted so boldly.

The watchman still expected an answer, though, so Marek said, “Difficult times, Constable. Difficult times.”

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

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

While the warm autumn rain drenched the city of Innarlith, Marek Rymut finally met Willem Korvan. Marek had heard his name, and even seen him from afar, on a number of occasions. He knew, too, that Willem had been seeing his niece Halina. He knew, in fact, what inns they frequented and when. Marek could call to mind specific details of the young Cormyrean’s career, from the moment he came to Innarlith in the employ of the master builder-an important professional acquaintance of Marek’s-through the rumors of Willem’s having murdered the old senator Khonsu and through to his ascension to the senate in the debt of Meykhati.

“You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?” Marek asked, a sly grin splitting his face.

Willem squirmed in his chair, his eyes darting to Meykhati, who was the only other person at the small table in their private room at the Peacock Resplendent. Marek enjoyed watching the junior senator’s discomfiture almost as much as he enjoyed watching the junior senator himself. The Cormyrean was a beautiful, almost perfect specimen. The structure of his face was worthy of sonnets, his broad shoulders enough to murder for.

“M-Master Rymut,” Willem stammered, his lovely face turning red. “Sir, please forgive me if I’ve given you that impression.”

“Oh, you’re forgiven,” Marek replied with the same sly grin.

Willem’s eyes moved around the room, settling on nothing and doing everything he could to avoid looking at Marek.

“You have been avoiding him, haven’t you, Willem?” Meykhati said, his eyes flicking to meet Marek’s.

Willem sighed and his squirming turned into a sort of agonized writhing.

“Do tell,” Marek teased.

“I, um …” Willem muttered, looking at Meykhati with such desperate, powerless pleading that Marek started squirming too, but for very different reasons.

“Perhaps it’s his chivalrous Cormyrean ways,” Meykhati explained, “but Willem here was concerned that he meet you only after he had achieved a certain position in the city-state.”

Marek smiled and nodded, hoping his expression would help the junior senator relax at least a little. It appeared to help.

“Well, then,” the Red Wizard said, “now you’re a senator, and I can’t imagine you hoped for more than that.”

“No,” Willem answered, the blush fading from his cheeks. “No, sir, I couldn’t possibly.”

“I must be honest with you, Willem,” said Marek. “I’ve been curious as to why our paths haven’t crossed until now. We have so many friends in common, I thought there must be a reason. Now that I have that reason, all is forgiven.”