“A year,” Devorast replied.
“A year…” Willem mouthed the word again and puzzled over how foreign it sounded to him.
“What do you want here, Willem?”
Willem sighed and looked up into the clear blue sky. He rocked back on his feet just the tiniest bit, and his face flushed.
“Step back,” Devorast said.
Willem took a step backward from the edge, then another, then he turned and walked past Devorast.
“I don’t know what’s happened to me,” Willem said. “I know I look bad. I know that… something is wrong. I think I’ve done things that are wrong.”
“You did what you chose to do,” Devorast said.
Willem nodded, though he didn’t agree. He couldn’t believe that. He had done what he was told to do.
“Can I help you, Ivar?” Willem said. “Will you let me help you finish it?”
“As?”
“As?” Willem asked.
Devorast didn’t answer, and Willem paced in a slow circle for a long moment while he considered the meaning of that one little word.
“You decide what as,” Willem said. “I’m not the master builder. I’m only a senator anymoreand even that in name only. Should you ask me to dig a hole I’ll dig it. Ask me to carry stone or cut lumber, I’ll do it. Let me do something. Give me something to do that will leave something behind to”
Willem stopped talking because he didn’t know what he was saying anymore. He didn’t understand himself.
“As?” Willem said. “As a parasite. Let me help you as a less than sensate thing that lives on the blood and flakes of dead skin from”
He stopped again.
“You told me that you were my enemy once,” Devorast said. “You warned me to carry a weapon.”
“I’ve done and said worse than that” Willem replied. He looked at Devorast and was just as relieved that he saw no compassion in the man’s face as he was to see no anger. “I can fall to my knees, if you like. I can grovel.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Devorast said with the barest hint of a smile.
Willem nodded and laughed in a way that didn’t feel as good as before, but made him feel tired.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Devorast replied, “I’ll think about it.”
Willem nodded, looked at the ground, and smiled. He looked up at Devorast, who was looking at his canal, and Willem grinned wider. A tear rolled down his cheek, and it felt good.
38
17 Eleasias, the Yearof Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) Pristal Towers, Innarlith
Phyrea didn’t realize she touched her own chest when she said to the woman, “Your brooch is beautiful.”
The woman smiled in a way that made Phyrea feel at once embarrassed and delighted. She had to look away.
“Thank you, Lady,” the woman said in a voice so devoid of guile it was like a salve to Phyrea’s ears. She’d spent so much of her life among the aristocracy of Innarlith that anything that wasn’t a hateful lie seemed like music. “It is the symbol of my faith.”
Phyrea smiled, feeling like a little girl.
“And what is it precisely that I can do for you, Sister?” Pristoleph asked.” ‘Sister’ is the proper form of address, I hope.”
He motioned the woman to a seat around a grand table. The dining salon, like many of the rooms in the cavernous expanse of Pristal Towers, was like a museum of artifacts and antiquities from all corners of Toril. They only dined there with visiting dignitaries, foreign merchants, and other people Pristoleph wanted to impress.
The woman smiled as she slid into one of the high-backed chairs. Over the gentle hiss of her flowing white silk robes she said, “I am known as ‘Mother,’ but you may address me as you wish, Ransar.”
” ‘Mother’ it is, then,” Phyrea said, shooting a stern glance Pristoleph’s way. He returned the expression with a little grin and they too sat. “Welcome to our home.”
“Thank you,” said the high priestess, first to Phyrea, then Pristoleph. “I’m afraid, Ransar, that we must discuss a matter of some delicacy.”
Phyrea watched her husband and saw that Pristoleph knew full well what the high priestess had come to say. He nodded and Phyrea saw that the woman could see the same.
“For many years,” the woman said, “the Sisterhood of Pastorals has stood outside the civil politics of the city-state. For decades, even. But events occasionally force us to do otherwise.”
“And some such event has occurred?” Pristoleph asked.
Phyrea’s skin crawled.
You like the brooch, the little girl said. Phyrea resisted the urge to turn and look behind her. Instead, she kept her eyes glued on the high priestess, staring at her evenly. The woman glanced at her as she spoke, and Phyrea hoped the woman would see the little girl made of lavender light standing behind her. Take it. You should have it if you want it.
“I fear that that is indeed the case, yes, Ransar,” the high priestess said. “Two of our number went missing twelve days ago.”
Pristoleph seemed surprised to hear thatsincerely surprised.
What do you call two Chauntean priestesses at the bottom of the Lake of Steam? the little girl snarled.
“Their bodies were found, burned and mutilated, the day before last, floating in the Lake of Steam,” the woman said, and Phyrea could sense the pain it caused her to say those words, but she could not read it in her calm, steady voice.
A good start, the little girl said, and she started to laugh.
The sound made Phyrea’s skin crawl, and when the other ghosts joined in, she had to hold her arms close to her body to keep from shivering. The high priestess looked at her, sensing something was wrong, but Phyrea just looked away.
Pristoleph shook his head, his strange red-orange hair reacting in a way that was somehow unexpected. It only rarely moved with his head the way another person’s might. His brows knitted in concern, and for a moment Phyrea thought he was legitimately upset by the high priestess’s news.
“That’s inexcusable, Mother,” the ransar said. “Please tell me what I might be able to do to bring to justice the manor beastresponsible for this outrage.”
The woman tipped her head in a sort of bow, but Phyrea didn’t think she accepted Pristoleph’s concern as sincere.
It is a beautiful piece, the old woman said, her voice grating the inside of Phyrea’s skull. 7s that a rose?
Phyrea looked at the brooch again. It was a red rose formed from rubies and emeralds over stalks of wheat very elegantly carved of pure gold. It fastened a shimmering silk cape around the woman’s incongruously broad shoulders.
Careful, now, the man with the scar whispered to her. She won’t be an easy kill. Not that you shouldn’t try.
“Ransar,” the woman said, looking Pristoleph in the eye without the slightest trace of doubt or weakness, “I must be frank with you.”
“Of course,” Pristoleph replied.
The high priestess was about to speak when a servant entered the’ room with a platinum-chased silver tray of cheeses and sweet breads. The three of them sat in silence while another servant poured tea and placed small
