image with shock and concern, all leering gone. The crystal ball showed that the senator’s wife’s maid was not a maid at all.
One of the mages passed a hand over the crystal ball and the group of men dispersed, all looking vaguely embarrassed. None of them looked at the image of the senator still enjoying his tea and gossip, unaware of how bizarre a cuckold he was.
Pristoleph heaved another sigh, louder and deeper.
“Is something the matter, Ransar?” Wenefir asked.
Pristoleph shook his head.
“Is there anything I can get you, my lord?” one of the advisors inquired.
Pristoleph ignored him and sifted through the parchment, paper, and vellum on his desk. There were letters, account ledgers, writs, and; requests, and they all bored him to tears. He’d fallen behind with all the reading and signing, signing and reading, and the more he tried to force himself to get caught up, the less work he actually did. The advisors had gone from tolerant to testy to insistent and back to tolerant again, having lost interest in the fact that he’d lost interest.
As the bulk of the people in the room watched the sava game, none of them really interested in it, Pristoleph quickly skimmed one sheet after another, sliding them off the desktop as he read them. He signed one, a request for the release of a man held in the dungeons for stealing a chicken. The request had been entered by the man’s wife nearly a year before, and the man had been in the dungeon for two years before that. A letter from a senator he knew had since died of a particularly nasty strain of social disease no priest in the city was able to cure was sent off the edge of the desk only partially read. And that went on for a long time.
When one of the black firedrakes announced Ivar Devorast, he stopped.
“Everyone out,” Pristoleph said as Devorast was shown into the room.
Devorast glanced sideways at the crystal balls but didn’t stop until he reached one of the chairs that faced the ransar’s desk.
“Everyone, Ransar?” Wenefir asked, eyeing Devorast with a dangerous scowl.
Pristoleph clapped the priest on the shoulder and said, “I will be quite all right, my old friend. Please.”
Wenefir made a point of bowing low before he followed the others out of the room.
“Sit,” Pristoleph said to Devorast when they were finally alone.
“You’re busy,” Devorast said, but Pristoleph could tell the man had no intention of volunteering to leave.
He motioned to the chair and they both sat. Pristoleph let out a long sigh.
“I’m relieved to see you, Ivar,” Pristoleph said. “May I call you Ivar?”
Devorast answered with a gesture that was half nod and half shrug. Pristoleph instantly decided to learn how to do that.
“The Thayan didn’t deliver everything on the list,” Devorast said.
Pristoleph sighed again and said, “I’m not surprised.” “He wasn’t paid?”
“Oh, he was paid,” said Pristoleph. “He just doesn’t like you.”
Devorast scowled. “What could that matter?”
“To me?” Pristoleph replied. “Nothing at all, but the Thayan is a bit… odd. He has to like you, or at least he has to think you like him.”
“Then I will have to make do without the rest,” said Devorast.
“For the nonce, yes, I suppose, but don’t give up hope entirely. He may hate you, but he likesno, he lovesgold. I’ll make sure your needs are met, as we agreed.”
Devorast made to stand, but Pristoleph waved him down.
“Please,” said the ransar. “I have very few people to talk to. I think these stacks of parchment are driving me mad. Phyrea seems to hear voices I can’t while mine goes entirely unnoticed. Wenefir has this god of his now, though he still plays the faithful lieutenant. The rest of them I hardly knowuseful sycophants, I suppose, but nothing more. I’m starved for someone to talk to.”
“As the ransar,” Devorast said with the hint of a smile, “couldn’t you just order someone to talk to you?”
“When I said they were useful sycophants, I meant that they are no more to me than tools. It would be like you having a conversation with one of your shovels.”
“My shovel serves me, at least.”
“And these men serve me,” said the ransar. “The city-state is hale and hearty and safe. We have no enemies. The streets are reasonably peaceful.”
“Does that mean you have succeeded?” Devorast asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Pristoleph replied. “All that could turn on a silver piece. When you wield power over other men, you’re never successful, because you’re never finished.”
“I’ve been getting through to you after all,” Devorast said, and the two men shared a rare and precious laugh.
34
17 Tarsakh, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) The Thayan Enclave, Innarlith
'It was Halina,” Marek said, his head heavy on his neck, his shoulders drooping. “It was my own niece, after all.”
“I’ll melt her flesh off her bones,” Insithryllax said in a voice even deeper, even more potent than normal. “I’ll dissolve her. I’ll liquefy her.”
They walked side by side in the courtyard of the evergrowing cluster of buildings, and Marek stopped short. Insithryllax continued another few steps then whirled on the Red Wizard. The dragon wore his human guise, but when he turned, Marek was startled by his eyes, which had gone entirely black. The dragon’s forehead furrowed and his jaw tightened into a trembling grimace.
Marek smiled, but at the same time had to clench his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
“Is there something else amiss, my friend?” the wizard asked. “You seem”
Insithryllax turned away, and Marek wincedpeople didn’t turn their backs on him often, and the Red Wizard didn’t like it.
“How can you stand it?” the dragon grumbled.
“Insithryllax, what’s come over you?”
The dark-skinned man flexed his hands and his fingers stretched into horrible, elongated talons.
“Insithryllax,” Marek said, stepping closer behind him with some reluctance. “Remember yourself, my friend.”
The disguised dragon’s right hand shrank to its human form, but his left remained spindly and capped with razor-edged claws. A sound came from him that was something between human speech and the thunderous roar of a great wyrm.
A young wizard stepped out from one of the doors that opened onto the courtyard. She had been in Innarlith less than a month, having come from Thay to learn alchemy and make minor potions and ointments for the Third Quarter tradesmen. Marek didn’t remember her name. When she saw Insithryllax, she stopped, her eyes wide. She could see something Marek couldn’t Insithryllax’s faceand her reaction froze the blood in Marek’s veins.
“This isn’t like you,” Marek said. “Calm yourself. Now.”
Insithryllax turned his head and glanced back over his shoulder. Marek gasped at the sight of his twisted features. The transformation was blurring him, combining the human with the draconic to create a hellish mask of black menace.
“How can you stand it?” the wyrm said. “Your own flesh, a girl you took into your home, who had nowhere else to go and burdened you with her foolishness… and now she destroys something you worked to create? How can you not roar your rage to the skies? How can you not take wing, to drive her down before you and reduce her to paste?”
“Well,” Marek offered, “what’s a few zombies between an uncle and his favorite niece?”
