What are you doing here? the voice of the sad woman murmured.
Phyrea looked to the door, ignoring Thurene’s struggles to stand and her blustered, shrill greetings. The woman stood next to the door, not sparing Willem a glance as he stepped in. Made of pale violet light, she looked as though she was about to cry, the same as always. There was something both comforting and terrifying about that particular undead creature.
Phyrea didn’t stand, even when Willem walked into the room. He looked back and forth between his new bride and his mother with crippling uncertainty. Phyrea imagined she could hear crickets chirping in the still expanse of emptiness inside his handsome head. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and slipped his rain-soaked weathercloak from around his shoulders.
“Willem, my dear,” Thurene all but screamed.
“Really, Mother,” he said, “are you all right? What have you two been talking about?”
He eyed Phyrea with a look that surprised her. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.
“Oh,” Phyrea said, her voice light, almost girlish, “we’ve been having a wonderful time, just us girls.”
“Really…” Willem said, not believing her. He looked at his mother and raised an eyebrow.
“We’ve been having tea,” Phyrea cut in before Thurene could speak. “Would you like some?”
“Everything is fine,” Thurene said, but her face was pleading and desperate.
“Or would you rather just turn in?” Phyrea asked, and had his full attention.
Phyrea stared at Willem, keeping his eyes away from his mother, but she could sense Thurene sagging, almost falling to the floor.
Willem swallowed and said, “I’d love a cup of tea, thank you.”
He handed his weathercloak to his mother, who almost dropped it and looked at it as though it was some alien creature from a foul outer plane. Phyrea smiled at both of them and turned back to the tray. She picked up the knife, ignored both Thurene’s series of little gasps and the laugh that echoed in her head from the man with the z- shaped scar, and cut another slice of pear. She held it up to Willem, who took it out of her hand without a second thought. She looked at Thurene with fire in her eyes, and the old woman was smart enough to swallow whatever it was she wanted to say. Willem ate the slice of pear with a smile.
“I…” Thurene said, “I’m feeling… tired.”
“Mother?” Willem said, turning to look at her.
Thurene turned her eyes to the floor and started for the stairs.
“I’ll leave you alone,” she muttered. “Good night.” “Good night, Mother,” Willem called after her. “Sleep well.”
When he turned back to Phyrea, she patted the seat next to her and smiled.
51
2 Ches, the Yearof the Shield (1367 DR) Aboard the Ransar’s Yacht, the Lake of Steam
It had been some time since Marek Rymiit had been at sea. It wasn’t exactly his preferred method of travel. The deck rose and fell at irregular intervals, but the motion was smooth, almost comforting, without any violent lurches to challenge the stomach. Though it wasn’t yet spring, the air was warm with only a light wind. The smell of the lake had numbed his nose so he hadn’t been able to smell it since only a little while after they’d shoved off from Innarlith. The sail on the single mast fluttered above him. He found the noise irritating.
“It is a lovely day, isn’t it, Master Rymiit?” the young woman standing next to him said. He glanced at her and smiled. “And the ransar’s yacht is most impressive,” she added.
“Well,” Marek said with a sigh, “one does have the responsibility to keep up appearances.”
“Of course,” said the young woman. “And I would also like to tell you again how delighted I am to”
“Please, Senator Aikiko,” Marek said with a wave of one hand. “You may not want to thank me once you’ve seen this hole in the ground.”
The senator giggled in a way that some men might find alluring, but made Marek cringe. He spared her another glance, noting the clothes she wore. She’d dressed for an expedition, in tan tunic and trousers. Though the sky was a gray overcast, the sunlight dim and diffuse, she wore a hat with a brim. Overall she looked like a petty aristocrat on her way to a masque dressed up as a laborer.
“I can’t wait, Master Rymiit,” she said, her smile never wavering. “I can’t wait.”
She smiled. Aikiko was a pretty woman, small and delicate with features that had a subtle hint of elf to them. She might have been a half-elf, but Marek knew she was in fact entirely human. Her father, himself a senator before his untimely death a decade past at the hands of a bitter political rival, was from Innarlith, but her mother was Kozakuran.
“Do the others know why we’re here?’ she asked.
Marek shrugged and shook his head. One of the reasons he’d thought of Aikiko was as a way to get rid of her. She’d become a fixture at his regular meetings for the junior senators, and her voice and cloying mannerisms irritated him.
Kurtsson emerged from below, his pale skin and bored expression somehow reassuring. When he spotted Marek and Aikiko he approached with the minimum of greetings. Any further conversation was cut short by the approach of the last two of Marek’s guests.
“Ah, Senators Djeserka and Korvan,” said Marek, “so good of you to join us.”
Willem appeared sheepish, embarrassed, though he wasn’t necessarily late. Djeserka’s look was as vacant as usual.
“Djeserka,” Marek said, “is it true that you once apprenticed to the man who built this vessel?”
Djeserka seemed surprised by the question, but gathered himself quickly and nodded.
Marek smiled, stomped a foot on the polished mahogany deck, and said, “Fine workmanship. Do you know its name?”
“She,” Djeserka answered, “is Heart of the Heavens.”
Marek laughed and said, “A strange custom that, referring to boats and ships as ‘she’ and ‘her.’ I’ll never understand why that is.” He looked at Kurtsson and winked. “We should start calling wands ‘she.’” The Vaasan chuckled.” ‘She’s as good a wand of fire as any created in the workshops of forgotten Siluvanede.’”
Aikiko laughed along though Marek could tell she didn’t really understand the joke. Willem looked out at the water with an unpleasant grimace. He didn’t seem to enjoy being out in the water, or could it be that he didn’t enjoy the reason. Marek didn’t care either way.
“Well,” the Red Wizard said, “on to the matter at hand, yes? We’re on our way to the site of the canal that we’re certain will one day link the Lake of Steam and the Nagaflow and on and on, talk, talk, talk. It’s an undertaking that I argued strenuously against when it was first presented to me. It’s something that I felt would have a profoundly negative overall effect on the city-state.”
He paused and smiled. Kurtsson at least knew that Marek had no interest in the overall effect that anything but his own trade in magic items might have on the city-state, but the others seemed to accept his words well enough.
Of the four of them, Willem looked the least interested. He appeared unwell, his skin was pale and deep, dark bags hung under his eyes. Somehow he was no less handsome. His eyes darted around, never focusing on anything for long. Marek couldn’t tell if he was drunk, frightened, or both.
“This whole thing was the work of one man,” Marek continued. “For all intents and purposes he’s a renegade from Cormyr who came to Innarlith with selfish designs. He had his way with our fine city-state for longer than he should have been allowed, indulging in his own desires without care for the greater good.”
Marek paused again, happy to see that Willem, Aikiko, and Djeserka seemed to be caught up in his disingenuous oratory. Kurtsson was more concerned with an errant cuticle, but then he was the smartest of the four.
“I’m happy to say that as time went on I changed my opinion of the canal itself,” Marek said. “I’m now of the mind that it will be a crucial part of the future of trade not only in the fair city-state of Innarlith but throughout the coastal regions of Faerun. What has changed is who will build it, and how it will be built.”
