stupid, was that no one seemed to know that the up-and-coming senator was the son of a human woman and a fire elemental. They seemed to accept that he had “unusual hair.” He occasionally wore makeup to soften the deep red of his face. He told people he was Chondathan, and the idiots bought it.
Pristoleph looked deeply into his eyes and Marek finally looked away, though he was confident that the senator would see that he was telling the truth.
“You told me you have progress to report,” said the genasi, who looked down at his desktop with a distant, cold gaze that made for an attractive contrast with his fiery nature.
Marek always had the hardest time staying focused in the presence of Pristoleph. Maybe it was the man’s hair-so like fire dancing across his scalp. Or was it the equally hot embers that blazed in his deep, winered eyes?
“Rymiit,” the genasi prompted.
With a smile and a nod, Marek said, “The butchers have finally formed their guild and have agreed to allow in the men who work at the slaughterhouse, including the day laborers and those unfortunate wretches who clean out the stalls. Can you imagine so ghastly an occupation? Really.”
“And?” the impatient senator growled.
“And,” Marek went on unfazed, “the drovers are in as well. Should one be so inclined, one might be able to bring the meat supply to a grinding halt. Oh, please do excuse the pun.”
There was no indication that Pristoleph had even heard the joke.
“Good, yes?” asked Marek.
“A start,” Pristoleph replied. The genasi turned to gaze from a window that looked out over the street in a good, but not outstanding section of the posh Second Quarter. “It’s not good enough, though.”
“No?” Marek chanced.
“The teamsters,” Pristoleph replied, still looking out the window. “The men who drive the carts, who deliver things, carry things, and move things around.”
“Ah, yes,” Marek joked. “That would be a teamster.”
“And the dock hands,” Pristoleph continued, ignoring the Thayan. “The men who load and unload ships.”
“Work gangs,” Marek explained, surprised he’d have to. Pristoleph often spoke, publicly too, about his rough and tumble upbringing in the uncharted wastelands of the Fourth Quarter. Surely he knew how poor people earned their meager coppers. “The more prosperous ship masters have gangs of these men, and the gangs all hate each other. They come to blows on a semi-regular basis, even killing each other from time to time. You’re more likely to form a guild of senators.”
“I thought perhaps you could bring your magic to bear,” Pristoleph said, turning his smoldering glare back on Marek.
“It would be a challenge,” the Red Wizard said, hoping to put off giving him a real answer.
“Control how goods move into, through, and out of the city,” said Pristoleph, “and you control the city. These dockhands and teamsters are just men, trying to feed themselves and their families. Should they have an extra silver for a beer or a whore at the end of the month, they’ll set aside their squabbles.”
“And if they don’t?”
“If they don’t,” Pristoleph said without a hint of emotion, “find the leader of each gang, then pay the second in line to kill him and throw in with us. He’ll enjoy our protection so no one will be able to do the same to him. We’ll call it the Trade Workers Guild.”
“Catchy,” Marek said.
The Red Wizard could feel that the conversation was done, but he didn’t want to go.
“Pristoleph…” he started.
Marek Rymiit was rarely at a loss for words.
“What about Khonsu?” Pristoleph asked.
Marek got the feeling that the genasi knew why he was uncomfortable, guessed what he was trying to say, and by moving on to other business, was giving a clear signal that would prevent a more violent refusal.
The Red Wizard liked to think he could take a hint.
“When he wakes up,” Marek replied, “he’ll be… over. Whoever it was who tried to kill him may as well have. There’s not a senator in Innarlith who won’t be happy to be rid of him. I think he’d have been killed in his sleep except they all hope he’ll wake up, see what a ruin he’s become, and it’ll torture him”
“Don’t be so sure,” Pristoleph said. “Could be he wanted it all to stop.”
“So he alienates his colleagues,” Marek said, taking up the thought, “betrays his friends, opens himself to his enemies, and lets his own arrogance burn out of control in the hope that someone will kill him?”
Pristoleph looked down at his desktop again and said, “You have work to do.”
As he walked out Marek puzzled over what he was sure only he was sensitive enough to detect in the otherwise ruthless and uncompromising genasi: a flash of regret so brief it was over in less time than it would take to blink an eye. While it was there, it was as intense as everything about Pristoleph.
Pristoleph, Marek thought, letting the strange man’s name roll through his mind. It’s a shame I’m going to have to destroy you someday. Truly, truly a shame.
43
26 Tarsakh, the Yearof the Wyvern (1363 DR) Along the Banks of the Nagaflow
The lone dista’ssara set up his camp near the bank of the river with a slow, relaxed air that Svayyah found hypnotic. The naga had never thought of humans as particularly interesting, but from the first time she’d seen that one in particular, she’d been unable to banish him entirely from her mind.
He was a male, and watching him brought out Svayyah’s female side. It wasn’t natural, she knew. It wasn’t acceptable, but when she looked at him, she felt like a female.
Nothing would ever come of that, of course, and the four-limbed freak was a dista’ssaraone of the hands of the embodimentand so would always be her lesser, but again, the man had a certain quality.
Svayyah watched him from the water, which was where she always felt more comfortable. The humans called the river the Nagaflow, and Svayyah and her tribemates liked the name. It was a warning to humans and their apelike kin that the water was home to their betters, the naja’ssara, the water nagas.
He was looking at her, and she hadn’t noticed.
A chill ran down her serpentine body, like tickles of lightning running all twenty-five feet from the base of her skull to the blunt tip of her tail.
“Are you all right there?” the man asked, standing and moving closer to the water, as if he was about to swim out to her.
“We are fine, dista’ssara,”she said, bruising her tongue with his inelegant language. “Keep your distance.”
He was surprised by that and said, “I didn’t see you there. If you’d prefer, I can set up my camp elsewhere if you’re bathing here.”
He looked around while Svayyah tried to figure out what he was trying to say.
“Are you alone here?” he asked. “Are you from the keep?”
Ah, Svayyah thought, he thinks we’re human.
She suppressed the natural tendency any of her kind would have to be mortally offended by that implication and shook her head. Her face would have resembled a human’s, especially from a distance. He thought she was some dista’ssara girl out for a swim.
“Do you practice the Art?’ she asked, though she felt confident she knew the answer.
“Magic?” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Strange,” Svayyah said, surprised. “You carry yourself with a confidence that only a strong connection to the Weave could bring, especially for a dista’ssara.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” the man replied. He was cheeky, Svayyah had to give him that. “What does that mean, dista’ssara?”
“In your insufficient tongue, we believe: ‘hands of the embodiment.’”
