intoxicants.
“Pristoleph?” a female voice called over the din.
He didn’t stop running, snaking a course through the tightly packed revelers, but he turned his head at the voice and saw a familiar face.
“Nyla,” he said between panting breaths.
It had been two years since he’d last seen Nyla, and they hadn’t parted on the most amicable terms. The woman insisted that Pristoleph owed her a tidy sum of gold that wasn’t due her. Harsh words had been exchanged, and she’d ended up in the tent of a rival of Pristoleph’s, serving the artillerymen mostly, after their hard days at practice with their trebuchets.
Until, that is, Pristoleph killed said rival and sent Nyla on her way with a threat he couldn’t quite remember just then, but of which he’d meant every word.
“Stop that son of a” she shrieked, then stopped abruptly when someone barreled into her from behind.
Something made Pristoleph stutter-step to a halt and turn.
Nyla went down face-first and hard, the too-heavy tray in front of her, and the man who’d run into her sent her down even harder, having lost his footing and come up full onto her slim back. They both fell faster than gravity alone would have mustered, impacting with a deafening clatter of broken clay flagons, tearing fabric, and snapping bones. The last thing Pristoleph saw of them was the bottom of the whychfinder’s boots as he finished his ungraceful arc and sprawled all arms and legs amongst the rapidly withdrawing crowd.
Mead went everywhere, dousing more than a handful of men, none of whom were terribly happy about it. A few of them bent to grab up the sprawling soldier, and all eyes went to the source of the ruckus.
Pristoleph was fairly sure no one but he saw a bow slide along the sawdust-covered floor to end up at his feet. He bent to retrieve it, then moved toward the center of the disturbance, dodging the elbows and legs of the men who were delivering a wild but sound beating to the fallen whychfinder.
“Hold!” Pristoleph shouted.
All but two of the men stopped, turned quickly, and blanched at the sight of Pristoleph, who swaggered into their midst. The other two got a couple more solid blows in before their fellows grabbed them by the elbows and turned them away.
“Pristoleph,” one of the men said, nodding, his eyes on the floor.
Pristoleph ignored the mana stevedore and part-time. rapist named Rorganand didn’t bother identifying any of the other men, all of whom were quickly going back about their business.
He stopped and looked down at the young soldier writhing on the floor. His tabard was soaked with blood and mead, and his chain mail scraped the worn wood floor. He fumbled for a dagger at his belt, which Pristoleph quickly relieved him of. He grabbed the whychfinder by the collar and dragged him, arms and legs twitching, mumbling through broken teeth and swollen lips, in a beeline for the front door.
“My eye!” Nyla screamed from behind him. “For the love of all that’s holy, my eye!”
Pristoleph paid the shrieking, pain-crazed woman no mind. Instead, he pushed the wounded soldier through the door and into the relative quiet of the late-night street. The few passersby might have been momentarily startled, but in the Fourth Quarter, no one got into the middle of fights that spilled out of inns. It was too easy a way to end up dead, maimed, or worse.
He laid the man out on the floor of the alley next to the inn, leaned up against the wall, and worked to calm his breathing. The whychfinder opened the one eye not swollen shut and regarded Pristoleph without the slightest hint of recognition at first. By the time Pristoleph was able to breathe easily again, the soldier stared at him with undisguised fury, though he didn’t try to rise from the alley floor.
“Why?” Pristoleph asked the man. “After a year and a half, why?”
“I don’t know why,” the soldier said.
“Why me?”
“You deserted,” the soldier answered.
“They don’t send a whychfinder after every conscript who chooses life over lord,” Pristoleph said. “You know why you were sent after me.”
The whychfinder managed a crooked smile and Pristoleph could tell that the expression pained him
“The captain misses his whores,” said the soldier, “and if you kill me, he’ll send another right after me. He’s got more whychfinders than camp-followers these days.”
“I’m out of that line of work,” Pristoleph said. “I’ll let you live so you can tell him that.”
“He won’t care, but I’ll let you spare me just the same.”
Pristoleph forced a smile and said, “You won’t find me in this neighborhood again. You won’t find me on the streets.”
“Going somewhere?”
Pristoleph’s smile faded as the soldier started to laugh. He reached down to his belt and drew the whychfinder’s dagger.
“Yes,” he said, and the whychfinder stopped laughing. “I’m going somewhere.”
Pristoleph killed the man with his own dagger, left it waving slowly back and forth in his chest, and disappeared into the shadows.
7
6 Alturiak, the Year of the Lion (1340 DR) The City of Amruthar, Thay
The map was a series of illusions that hung in the air of the broad circular chamber and produced the only light in the room. Marek Rymiit let his eyes drift across the shimmering blue line that represented the southern coastline of the Vilhon Reach. He reached up to cut the coastline with the tip of his finger. He guessed that the width of his fingernail eclipsed maybe five miles of coastline between the cities of Hlath and Samra.
A group of Red Wizards settled into positions around the circumference of the room, each accompanied by one or two trusted bodyguards and a secretary.
Marek looked around the room and returned the silent, nodding greetings of friend and foe alike. Though it had been over four years since he’d returned to civilization with Insithryllax in tow, most of the Red Wizards still gave the transformed dragon wary looks. Some, Marek knew, were hoping the series of powerful enchantments that held the dragon in thrall would one day fail and leave Marek Rymiit at the wyrm’s mercy. Others, he hoped, saw Insithryllax as an ally as dependable as Marek himself. It was just that balance upon which the Red Wizard’s life teetered.
“I will make this brief,” said the tharchion as he swept into the room through a rapidly fading dimension door.
What little noise there had been in the roomthe shuffling of feet, a stifled cough, or whispered commands to assistantsdropped away. The tharchion held up one nearly skeletal arm and with a crooked, knobby finger, pointed to a floating point on the great map.
“Reth,” the tharchion said, “Tovek.”
The Red Wizard named Tovek, a confused expression crossing his brow for just a split second, bowed in response as the coastal city of Reth blazed with a fierce orange light that picked it out from the dull blues and greens of the translucent map.
The tharchion’s finger followed the coastline southwest and settled on the city of: “Iljak, Toravarr.”
Toravarr, no less confused than Tovek, bowed to the tharchion., As he spoke the name of one city after another, the corresponding point blazed with an orange radiance. Finally, the tharchion pointed at a small sphere hanging on the eastern edge of the Lake of Steam, and Marek’s heart sank.
“Innarlith,” the tharchion said, “Rymiit.” Marek Rymiit made certain his face betrayed none of what he was feeling. He bowed even as the tharchion moved on to the next city, and stood only after he’d named two more.
Insithryllax leaned in toward Marek’s left ear, but the Red Wizard waved him off with a barely perceptible shake of his head. The dragon paused momentarily then leaned back.
They stood in silence until each of the assembled wizards had been assigned to a different city.
