13
8 Eleint, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) First Quarter, Innarlith
How is it possible that you haven’t changed at all?” Surero asked.
Devorast glanced at the alchemist, shrugged, then looked down when a Shou sailor set his canvas bag down on the planks next to him. The young man bowed and scurried back up the gangplank to the deck of the ceramic ship.
“It’s been a mess since you’ve been gone,” Surero went on. “People are saying there’s going to be another in our long line of civil wars.”
“That can’t have anything to do with my having been gone,” Devorast said.
Surero didn’t realize he was joking at first, so rare a thing that was with Devorast. He smiled as Devorast picked up his bag and turned to look back at the ship. Ran Ai Yu stood at the rail and held up a hand. Devorast returned the gesture, turned back, and started to walk. Glancing back a few times at the Shou merchant captain, who continued to stare at Devorast’s receding back, Surero fell into step beside him.
“She isn’t coming?” Surero asked.
“She’s moving on up the Sword Coast to trade.”
As they walked the length of the long pier, Devorast looked at the ships tied up along the way. Surero watched his critical gaze run up the masts and follow the length of their rails. Ahead of them, a gang of stevedores unloaded barrels from a groaning old coaster while the crew hooted at them from the rail. The smell of decayed flesh, intermingled with the sulfurous stench of the Lake of Steam assailed them as they walked, and Devorast slowed. Surero took his arm to keep him moving at pace.
“Zombies,” the alchemist said, “courtesy of the Red Wizards of Thay.”
Devorast didn’t react with the same sort of horrified fascination most people did when they first encountered the new breed of dockhands. Still, it was plain enough in his expression that he didn’t approve.
“It’s worse,” Surero told him. He found it difficult to go on. He didn’t want to say it, but he knew Devorast needed to know. “They’re building the canal, too.”
The sigh that came from Devorast was one of the most frightening sounds Surero had ever heard. He shivered as they passed the zombie work gang. None of the undead creatures paused in their slow, methodical work to notice them. Both men put hands to their faces, covering their noses as they passed.
“They’re still working on it,” Devorast said. “I’m surprised.”
Surero could tell he was disappointed as well.
“Salatis has made speeches about it,” said the alchemist. “He said all the right things then put the whole project in the hands of a fool named Horemkensi. Do you know him?”
Devorast shook his head. They left the zombie longshoremen behind.
“Accidents…” Surero started, then just shook his head. “It’s been a long time.”
“I was told that you were brewing beer,” Devorast said, and Surero was surprised to see him smiling.
“I am,” Surero admitted. “I don’t mind it, actually. I make good beer.” The alchemist sighed and said, “It’s been a long time.”
“Has it?”
“Seven months?”
“Are they following the plans?” Devorast asked. “My drawings?”
“The best they can, I think,” Surero said. “But their best is horrendous. There’s a hope that the new ransar will be more inclined to bring you back. If there is a new ransar, “that is.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the time I’ve been in Innarlith,” Devorast said as they stepped off the wood-plank pier and onto the gravel streets of the First Quarter, “it’s that there will always be another ransar.”
Surero smiled and said, “You haven’t changed.”
“It hasn’t been that long. We have a lot of work to do.”
“What do you intend to do?”
Devorast didn’t miss a step. “I intend to finish itmy way, whoever the ransar is.”
14
2 Uktar, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) Firesteap Citadel
From a distance they looked like lionsbig, solidly-muscled cats built more for strength than speed or stealth. At first she didn’t even notice the third set of limbs, forward and higher up from their front legs, but at the end of those limbs were hands, and in those hands they carried weapons. Their heads, like their bodies, were more lion than man, but even from far away, it was the eyes that made them different.
“Innarlans won’t like them,” Phyrea said when she heard Pristoleph step onto the roof behind her.
He chuckled and stood next to her, his hands folded together and resting on the top of a battlement.
“They’re not even human,” Phyrea added.
“The current ransar employs undead to build the canal and to crew the docks,” Pristoleph reminded her. “Surely a few of their neighbors from the south won’t disturb people too much.”
“The zombies that work the docks belong to you. And who says anyone likes them? At least Salatis’s are well outside the city walls.”
Phyrea felt more than heard a sigh in her head. It was the old woman, and she was tired of being out in the southern frontier, at the hard and crowded fortress surrounded by soldiers.
“The people of Innarlith are accustomed to a certain transience in the position of ransar,” Pristoleph said, and Phyrea winced at the implication.
They’re going to kill him, the man with the scar on his face whispered in her ear.
“Yes, they are,” she whispered back.
“Well,” Pristoleph said with a surprised smile, “you’re easy to convince today.”
Phyrea shook her head in reply.
“The wemics have no interest in Innarlith,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t have to worry about their crude tents lowering the property values in the Second Quarter.”
They’ll kill him in public, said the old woman. They’ll make a show of it.
“What do they fight for then?” she asked, ignoring the ghost.
“Magic weapons.”
She narrowed her eyes and turned on the senator.
“It’s almost too easy,” he went on. “They’re obsessed with enchanted weaponsany sort of weapon, and any sort of enchantment.”
“And you buy the weapons from the Thayan.”
Pristoleph shrugged, the look on his face not quite petty enough to be smug, but he was indeed pleased with himself as he stared out over his growing army.
“There are costs with Marek Rymiit that go far beyond the coin,” she warned him, her face flushing when she realized it was both unnecessary and useless for her to try.
“I am familiar with his desires,” Pristoleph said, “and much more in touch with his true motives than he realizes.”
“You are a brilliant man, Pristoleph, but Rymiit is something else.”
Pristoleph shrugged again and said, “He’s killed, driven into exile, or employed every other mage of reasonable skill in Innarlith. I need the weapons because I need the wemics, so I deal with Marek Rymiit.”
“And you have them,” she said with a sigh. “So what are you waiting for?”
He laughed and said, “Are you anxious for me to make my move on the Palace of Many Spires because you
