He took a step backward and said, “You’re a naga.”
“We are Svayyah,” she said. “We are nqja’ssara, what you would call a water naga. Does that surprise you?”
“No,” the man said, running a hand through his orange-red hair. “I suppose it shouldn’t anyway.”
“Do we frighten you?”
“No,” he answered quickly enough and with sufficient confidence that Svayyah believed him. “Do you want me to go?”
“If we did, we would have told you to go,” she said.
” ‘We’?” the human asked. “Are there more of you?”
“We are alone here,” she replied, and the man appeared to understand. “We have seen you here before, when the dista’ssara started to build that tower.”
The man looked up at the structure, nodded, and said, “Does that offend you?”
“It surprises us,” she replied. “It is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“We knew it,” Svayyah said. “You are responsible for that structure, aren’t you…”
“Ivar Devorast,” the human said.
“Ivar Devorast,” the naga repeated. “Why are you here? Why would you camp at the riverbank and not live in your own work?”
“That’s a long story,” he said.
“Which is a long story?” Svayyah asked. “Why you’re here, or why you don’t sleep in the human tower?”
“Both, I suppose,” Devorast replied.
“Well, then,” said Svayyah, “light your fire, sit, and tell your tale, Ivar Devorast.”
He looked her in the eye for some dozen heartbeats, then an understandably suspicious smile came across his face and he said, “Thank you, Svayyah, I would like that.”
Svayyah blinked at him, stunned into silence while she watched him set his campfire. He’d answered her as if her command to light his fire and tell her his story had been a request.
Another tingle played down the scaly length of her snakelike body, and Svayyah writhed in pleasure as the human began to speak.
44
11 Mirtul, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
They say he just came out of it all at once,” Inthelph whispered, but not so softly that half the room didn’t hear him. “He lay at death’s very door for… how long?”
“Five months,” Meykhati provided.
“So long…” Inthelph whispered.
Willem’s head spun and his hands shook. He couldn’t look at the master builder or at any of the senators that stood around him. He breathed only with some difficulty.
“At the very least,” said Senator Djeserka, “you have to give the old man his due. I heard he had enough of that poison in him to drop a stone giant.”
Meykhati nodded and said, “He had a team of clerics working on him practically day and night. Apparently he’d given Waukeen’s temple enough gold over the years that the Merchant’s Friend thought he deserved another year.”
Willem’s mouth went dry. It felt as if he’d crossed the Calim Desert on foot.
“If Waukeen was any kind of friend to that particular merchant,” the master builder said, “he would have let him go.”
“Are you all right, Willem?” Meykhati asked.
Willem’s eyes went wide when he realized the men were looking at him. If he looked half as bad as he felt…
“I’m well, thank you, Senator,” Willem answered, faking a smile.
“My, Inthelph, I think you might be keeping young Willem out in the rain too much,” Meykhati joked, slapping Willem on the back with a fatherly wink.
“Willem has been working very hard lately,” said the master builder. “He’s decided to take control of his own fate.”
Willem spun on Inthelph, his face flushed, sweat soaking him. The three senators were taken aback, but Inthelph laughed and the moment passed.
“Hell be a senator soon enough,” the master builder said.
Willem studied his cheerful, sociable demeanor and told himself that Inthelph didn’t know anything, didn’t know it was he who had poisoned Khonsu.
The senators moved on to other subjects, including the names of their younger, easier-to-manipulate colleagues whom they had managed to move into the committees once run by Khonsu. Though the old man could maintain his seat on the senatehe’d paid for it long ago, after allhe was a lone vote without consensus or allies. He could sit on the senate forever, but for him it would never be anything but a meaningless title ever again.
Willem swallowed his third glass of brandy and closed his eyes while it burned his throat. His hands were still shaking but not as bad.
He wanted to say, “I got away with it.” He wanted to tell Inthelph and his smug friends who had set the stage for their triumph over the old man. What would they have done?
Willem didn’t know, which is precisely why he kept his mouth shut. Instead he looked across the seemingly endless ballroom at Khonsu.
The old man sat in a chaira strange contraption with wheels on the sides. A blanket was draped over his frail, sticklike legs. His skin was the color of bleached parchment. What little hair he’d had was gone and his dull eyes were lined with red.
Behind him stood the old chambermaid. She didn’t look much healthier than her half-dead employer.
Willem crossed the room. He didn’t know why, but he wanted a closer look. He wanted to be sure the old man really was still alive. From a distance he looked dead.
“Senator,” Willem said.
Khonsu looked up, his eyes twitching and rolling, looking for the source of the sound.
“Senator Khonsu,” Willem repeated, leaning in a bit.
The old man’s eyes found him and bulged. He drew in a deep, ragged, phlegmy breath.
“Senator,” Willem said, glancing at the chambermaid. The old woman looked at him the way she might a melon in the marketplace, if she wasn’t in the market for melons. There was no recognition, no realization that the mysterious Mister Wheloon had crossed her path again. “You’re alive.”
The old man opened his mouth, and his chin quivered. His eyes twitched in their sockets.
“It’s all right, Senator,” Willem said.
“What do you want?” Khonsu rasped.
Willem looked at the maid again. Her mind was on the buffet on the other side of the room. Though she wasn’t paying any attention to either of them, Willem knew he couldn’t say what he really wanted to say.
“No one knows who did this to you, Senator,” he said instead.
Khonsu shook his head. His legs jumped a little under the blanket and he turned his face away as if afraid Willem was about to strike him.
“They say no one will ever know,” Willem chanced.
“No,” the old man whispered. “No.”
“You will let me know,” Willem said as he took a step back, “if there’s anything I can do for you.” And Willem lay awake the entire rest of that night wondering what made him say, “A cup of tea, perhaps?”
