“There you are,” Pristoleph said, his voice as soft as the look in his eyes. His hair waved like fire on his scalp, and the warmth of his hand in hers drove off the chill touch of death. “There you are.”
She turned her head, doing her best to ignore the pain that accompanied any movement at all. She lay on her back on a narrow bed set against the rough brick wall of a room no bigger than one of the smaller closets in Berrywilde or Pristal Towers. No artwork adorned the walls, but there was a window with cobalt blue glass that bathed the room in a cool, suppressed light. A candle burned on a short chest of drawers, backlighting Pristoleph, who sat at her bedside on a stool.
“What happened?” she asked, but even then the memories flooded back. “The canal,” she rasped before Pristoleph could answer.
“Destroyed,” he told her, but she knew that. She’d seen it happen and had nearly been destroyed with it. “How?” she asked.
“Devorast and that alchemist of his,” Pristoleph answered, and she shook her head. She didn’t care how the canal had been destroyed, she wanted to know how she’d lived, but as he went on she realized it didn’t matter. “He was afraid that it was going to be completed by someone else, that his vision was to be perverted by the Thayan and his cronies.”
“Ivar?” she whispered, and a tear came unbidden to the corner of her eye.
Pristoleph sagged a little, in the face and in the body, and his hair looked less like fire.
“He’s alive,” her husband said. “He brought you here. Devorast and the dwarf.”
Phyrea tried to nod.
“He saved me?” she said. It didn’t seem possiblehadn’t she gone there to save him? Or had she gone there to die with him?
Pristoleph nodded and said, “Why, Phyrea? I thought you safe at Berrywilde.”
She shook her head in an effort to tell him that she didn’t know why, and that she wasn’t safe at Berrywilde, at any rate.
“Was he right?” she rasped.
“Devorast?” asked Pristoleph. “About the canal?”
She nodded.
“No,” he said with stern self-confidence. “The city is divided. That much is true. I’ve turned the black firedrakes out of Pristal Towers for fear that they might betray me in favor of Rymiit. I have it on good authority that it was the Thayan that created themor brought them here from whatever dark corner of the Realms he found them in. But I have the wemics, and I still control most of the militarythe men at Firesteap Citadel and the Nagaflow Keep. The city watch is doing just thatwatching, but doing little else. Fires are burning down parts of the Fourth Quarter, despite the rain.”
Phyrea didn’t understand any of that at first. She shook her head, wincing at the pain.
“Ivar?” she asked.
“He’s safe,” Pristoleph said, and he appeared reluctant to speak. “He’s in Pristal Towers. He’s talked of Shou Lunggoing there again, for good this time.”
Phyrea shook her head and sobbed though it hurt her to do so.
“I love you,” Pristoleph said. “Had you died I would have given this wretched city to the Thayan and been done with it, but you lived, so I will hold it for you. I will give it to you, along with everything I have. I will kill myself here and now if the gods require my life in exchange for yours, but know this.” He paused, swallowed, gathered himself. “If you take him into your bed or go with him to his I will kill you both.”
Phyrea closed her eyes and cried.
62
6 Mirtul, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
Willem Korvan ate his mother’s corpse, little by little, over the course of seventeen days, not because he required sustenance, but out of some dimly-felt sense of necessity.
Marek Rymiit could feel the undead thing’s need and confusion the second he stepped into the house. It hit him just as squarely, though not quite as hard, as the stench. The smell of the rotting carcass of Thurene Korvan mixed with the dried-meat and spice smell of her son. Throughout was the tang of disease.
“Willem,” the Thayan whispered, “you poor dear.”
The creature cowered at the sight of the Red Wizard who’d created it, its dull, glassy eyes devoid of any trace of the vibrant if confused young man that had once inhabited that flesh. Willem’s refined good looks had been replaced by desiccated tissue and bulging joints, his skin like a leather cloak left on the street for a year of sun, wind, and rain.
It opened its mouth but didn’t speak. Marek’s skin crawled at the sound that came forth from it, and he cast another spell to insure his own safety. He was confident enough in the magic that gave him complete control of what was left of the creature’s will, but there were mitigating circumstances that made the wizard uneasy.
“It’s been a long time, Willem,” he said to the cowering creature.
The thing responded to Marek’s voice but showed no trace of recognition either for the Thayan or for the sound of his own name. But then it wasn’t hisitsname anymore. The creature that cowered in the corner, one foot tangled in the grisly ribcage of Willem Korvan’s mother, had no name. It didn’t need one. It had no will of its own, not really, because it didn’t need that either.
“I am sorry,” Marek told the thing, and he didn’t lie. He didn’t have to. “There are any number of other paths I wish both our lives had taken. You were beautiful, Willem, and I could have loved youif you could have loved me. But you wanted more than that, and I suppose so did I.”
The creature rolled its eyes and clacked its teeth togetherconfused, awaiting an order.
“I didn’t want to make a monster out of you, you know,” said the Thayan.
One of the monster’s arms twitched.
“But I have, haven’t I?” Marek concluded. “And I’ve set a task for you. One you have yet to complete.”
The undead thing drew its knee up to its chest, pulling the body of its mother with it. The torso came away from the limbs, the cartilage and ligaments having long since been chewed through. A fresh wave of rotting stink washed over Marek and he gagged despite himself.
“Rise,” Marek said when he’d composed himself.
Its foot still tangled in the ribs, slipping against the tattered strips of rotten flesh that dangled from the graying bones, it rose to its feet with some difficulty. Its foot finally came free and it stood slumped to one side as though the slightest breath would topple it.
“But it won’t,” Marek whispered to himself.
It would take more than thatmuch more than thatto defeat his creation. Though it looked wasted and weak, Marek knew that the creature Willem had become was possessed of strength no human could match. It could be destroyed, but not easilynot easily at all.
“You have huddled long enough, my boy,” Marek said, his voice clear and commanding, echoing in the dead space, the horrid little charnel house that Willem’s home had become. “The war has begun. You will serve now as you have before.”
The creature’s head tipped to one sidea death rattle more than a gesture.
“You still have Ivar Devorast to kill,” Marek said.
The monster’s leg shook and it lurched half a step forward. The Thayan held his ground.
“Ivar Devorast,” he said, “among others.”
63
10 Mirtul, the Yearof Lightning Storms (1374 Dffl Pristal Towers, Innarlith
