Authors: Philip Athans
“Ah, Marek Rymiit,” the bass voice trundled through the heavy air.
Marek smiled despite his discomfort and said, “Insithryllax, my friend. You’re well?”
The sound of the dragon’s laugh was like distant thunder crawling at him from the horizon. He’d long ago stopped being scared by the sound and had come to relish the feeling it elicited in his chest.
“I’ve had a glass poured for you,” said the dragon.
Marek followed the great wyrm’s gaze to a fine crystal wine glass sitting on the floor next to a matching decanter. The Red Wizard had never seen the set before
and found that fact unsettling but only passingly so. Insithryllax wasn’t his prisoner, and the dragon was well-versed at taking human form.
“What is it?” Marek asked, bending to take up the glass. He set his nose onto the rim and pulled in a long noseful. “Sembian. A fine old cask.”
“Do you think so?” asked the dragon.
Marek took a small sip of the wine before asking, “Is this a trick?”
There was that rumbling laugh again then Insithryllax said, “It’s not Sembian, but it’s made from Sembian grapes. Would you believe it was bottled right here in Innarlith?”
“No,” Marek answered.
“And yet it was.”
Marek took another sip, impressed by the wine’s subtle melange of flavors. He hadn’t heard that InnarlithInnarlith of all placeshad begun making fine wine.
“Something to keep an eye on,” he told himself, then regarded the dragon. “You appear tired. Tell me I’m not overtaxing you.”
Instead of saying “No,” the dragon just laughed.
Marek met the wyrm’s eyes finally and he stopped laughing. The beast had gotten even bigger, if that was possible, in the twenty-three years of their acquaintance. The spells Marek had used to enthrall the dragon had long since faded. They stayed together the last decade because they both wanted to. They had become friends, allies, cohorts, compatriots, and both of them knew that the other could turn on him in a second and certainly would in time, but until then they would help each other, protect each other, and keep each other’s secrets. Lesser mortals would have called them friends.
The dragon was surrounded by a dozen smaller creatures similar to himself. The other monsters had the heads and general shape of a dragon, and the jagged, batlike
wings, but only two legs. Their eyes, though fierce and dangerous, didn’t burn with quite the same malignant intelligence as Insithryllax’s.
“The food has been coming regularly,” the black dragon said, nudging one of the firedrakes away with the tip of one massive wing. The lesser wyrm scurried off in a scrabble of claws on stone. “I get out from time to time, and the firedrakes have been… accommodating.”
“Are they laying?” Marek asked. “If not, this is all in-“
“Twenty so far,” the dragon interrupted. “I think they’ll start to hatch soon. Since these … ladies aren’t exactly blacks, I can’t say how long they’ll need to ges-tate, but they smell healthy and the firedrakes care for them as if they’re viable.”
Marek’s heart raced.
“I thought you’d find that to your liking,” said Insithryllax.
“If there is anything you need,” the Red Wizard said, “you need only ask.”
“I’ll submit a list,” said the dragon, “but in the meantime, perhaps just an answer to a question.”
“That can be the most valuable commodity of all,” Marek joked.
“These… things…”
“Black firedrakes,” Marek said, the words slipping off his tongue in a most pleasurable way.
“What are your intentions for them?”
“Feeling paternal, are we?” Marek teased.
The black dragon sniffed and shook another of the red-scaled firedrakes off his haunches.
“They’re to be a gift,” Marek finally answered.
“A gift…” the dragon said, puzzling over Marek’s choice of words. “A gift for whom?”
Marek Rymiit took another sip of the promising wine, laughed, and said, “Whoever can help me the most, my friend. Whoever can help me the most.”
3 Marpenoth, the Year of Shadows (1358DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
The smell of richly oiled wood mixed so well with the aroma of the food and wine that Willem thought it almost musical. It was just as that word came to his mind that real music began to play, drawing his eye to the musicians who had gathered in the corner. He recognized the tune as a minuet popular four or five years ago in Cormyr, the work of a better known Cormyrean composer whose name escaped Willem for the moment.
“Ulien,” Inthelph said from behind him.
Willem turned even as a chill ran down his spine and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Surely the master builder hadn’t actually read his mind.
“That’s correct, isn’t it?” the older man asked, seemingly taken aback by what must have been an odd, disturbed look on his young charge’s face. “The Cormyrean composer.”
“Yes,” Willem said, recovering himself. “Indeed. He is quite well known in Cormyr and a favorite of the Court, or so I’m told.”
Inthelph smiled and nodded, taking a deep breath. The master builder radiated such an air of contentment and self-confidence Willem thought he could have warmed his hands over the man.
“I must thank you for your gracious invitation, Master Builder,” Willem said. “Your home remains the most extraordinary…” He let his voice trail off so that Inthelph would think the room had struck him speechless.
Indeed, Willem had been to few homes more impressive. The place dripped of the goldbar after bar of itthat must have gone into the place. By Cormyrean standards, it would have been considered an adequate
hunting lodge by the most wealthy of the Court. Where King Azoun might have marble, Inthelph had wood, but wood cut from the finest hardwood trees in Faerun and polished to such a luster it nearly took Willem’s breath away. Stained in colors meant to dazzle, the effect was one of being inside a rainbow made of wood.
The furnishings were of equal quality and the lighting a mix of natural and magical designed to bring out not only the richness of the woodwork but of its owner as well. The three hundred or more guests at what Inthelph had called “a small gathering of friends” in the engraved invitation all glowed in the rarified air, their skin taking on the richness of their surroundings.
“There is someone I was hoping to introduce you to, Willem,” said the master builder.
“Indeed, sir?” Willem asked.
“Yes. His name is Marek Rymiit, and I think he’s someone you should know, or more appropriately, he’s someone who should know you.”
He’d heard the name Marek Rymiit before, of course, and by all accounts he was indeed someone Willem should add to his list of contacts and patrons. Rymiit was well known as a source of magic items, a spellcaster for hire, and an experienced and capable consultant in all things related to the Weave. Magic could be more valuable than gold and could mean the difference between success and failure, life and death, for anyone with ambition.
“Well, sir,” Willem said, “I’m at your disposal.”
Before Inthelph could go on, a middle-aged woman whom Willem only vaguely recognized took the master builder gently by the elbow and greeted him with a shallow curtsey and an even more shallow smile.
“Ah, my dear,” Inthelph said returning the woman’s curtsey with a little nod.
The two began trading banalities and Willem found himself utterly hung out to dry. He suppressed the beginnings of a feeling that might have turned into indignation,
anger, or something else inappropriate and instead stepped back a few steps and turnedinto the face of a woman who was walking quickly behind him.
They both recoiled from the near collision, eliciting only cursory glances from the partygoers around them. There were a few stuttered apologies, furtive glances, only passing the other’s gaze, and they stepped away from each other, he with boot heel clacking on the polished wood floor, her in a rustle of skirts and a toss of an errant strand of hair.
Before Willem could voice a suitable apology, he finally really saw her.
She was young, but Willem couldn’t say how young. Her body, hidden as it was in the formal skirts and fold after fold of silk and satin, was difficult to make out but she reflected a sense of slimness devoid of athleticism. Her pale face with its prominent cheekbones and slightly too-sunken eyes was one that in a woman of her youth would be called “homely” but would surely turn to “handsome” by her fortieth year. Her eyes blazed blue, and one of them peeked at him from behind that errant strand of chestnut hair, long and straight, with just the hint of a curl at the very last quarter inch. She smelled of rose oil and her thin lips were brushed with just a wisp of red. Her hands, as pale as her face, were tiny, ending in thin fingers that came almost to points at the tips, fingernails well manicured but not painted.
“Do please accept my apologies, miss,” Willem said finally, hoping his voice didn’t sound as reedy and trivial to her as it had to himself.
She smiled at him, and for just the briefest moment it was a smile of such warm sincerity that Willem was all but knocked over by it. He felt the curve of her lips, and the sparkle that passed like a shooting star in her eyes, in the deepest bottom of his heart.
Then her smile faded to one of polite graciousness, and Willem wanted to take a step away from her but didn’t.
“May I introduce myself?” he asked her, his voice finally sounding like his own.
She cleared her throatnot a dainty sound, Willem was surprised to enjoyand said, “If that is your custom, sir.”
Her voice wouldn’t have sounded like music to anyone else’s ears but Willem’s.
“Willem Korvan,” a man’s voice said, startling both Willem and the girl.
Willem had to consciously refocus his eyes, forcing them away from the girl and to the man in military regalia who had appeared as if by some translocational magic at his left elbow.
“There you are,” the officer went on. Willem finally recognized him as Thenmun, a minor but quickly rising lieutenant who had been recently assigned to aid in the reconstruction of the wall. The lieutenant had apparently been told by someone in authority precisely what had led to his predecessor’s reassignment and since then he had done an admirable job of avoiding the master builder’s wrath or Willem’s.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Willem said, grasping right forearms with the man as was the custom in Innarlith. “Here I am”
“Ah,” said the young officer, “do you two know each other?”
“No,” Willem answered before the girl could. “I’m afraid we have not been properly introduced.”
The girl smiled at him again, showing only a half-second of that true smileenough to cause Willem’s palms to sweat.
“Well, then, please allow me,” said Thenmun. “Miss Halina Sverdej, this is Master Willem Korvan, late of the kingdom of Cormyr.”
Thankfully, it was not custom for men and women only just introduced to take hands, so instead she curtsied again.
Willem nodded and said, “Miss Sverdej, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, Master Korvan,” she said. “Please, call me Willem.” The girl blushed but smiled.
“Well, then,” Lieutenant Thenmun said, grinning as well, “I’ll leave you two alone.”
The officer gave Willem a secretive leer, his back carefully placed to Halina, and withdrew.
“You are from Cormyr,” Halina said.
“I am,” he replied, then chanced: “Your accent is … pleasing. I would guess that you are a stranger here yourself?”
“I am,” she replied. “I have come from Thay to live with my uncle.”
“Have you’ve been here long?”
She shook her head as the minuet came to a close, and they paused to participate in the quiet smattering of applause that followed.
Before the musicians began to play again, Willem said, “Then I hope you will allow me to introduce you to the city I have come to call home.”
Her answer was a smile that almost caused Willem Korvan’s heart to break apart in his chest.
14___
13 Marpenoth, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR) Second Quarter, Innarlith
A. copper for your thoughts,” she whispered, snuggling closer to him, if such were possible, her leg sliding up along his and her arm circling tighter so that she wound around him like a snake.
Her skin was as soft as her smile, as gentle as her manner, and as intoxicating to Willem as the finest wine.
In the tenday since they’d met, they had seen each other four times and all four times had ended up in Willem’s bed. Though it wasn’t discussed and would
have been frowned upon in the most polite circles, it wasn’t uncommon. They were young, after all, and life was short.
“We’re young, after all,” Willem whispered in response, “and life is short.”
She giggled, and the series of little exhales tickled his neck. He turned his head and kissed her.
“Is that all?” she asked, her voice so quiet he felt it against his lips more than heard it with his ears.
He shook his head and she looked so deeply into his eyes all he could do was speak.
“I’m afraid,” he said.
She shook her head, closed her eyes, and dug her forehead into his shoulder. He traced a circle on her shoulder, raising gooseflesh for a moment, then eliciting a sigh from her.
“I am,” he went on, “and why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re good at what you do,” she whispered into his neck, then the tip of her tonguenot warm but hotflicked against him, sending a thrill through his body he didn’t try to mask.
“Am I?” he asked, his mind refusing to follow his body into the pure physical bliss he knew she could bring to him. “I’m not so certain.”
“The master builder seems to trust you,” she replied.
“How can he not? All I do is agree with him. That and do all the work he’s been tasked by the ransar to do himself. He’s claimed credit for enough of what I’ve brought to this project and others that should he dismiss me he would have to explain my mistakes as his own. If he could even identify them as mistakes.”
“You don’t enjoy your work?” she asked, then kissed his neck, her lips as hot as her tongue.
“I do,” he admitted. “I do very much, but sometimes… often… occasionally, anyway, I don’t feel up to it.”