Lies of Light (13 page)

Hrothgar cast about for something—anything—he could use as a weapon. All he found was a rock, no bigger or more threatening than the one poor Dharmun had come up with, but then Devorast had used it to distract the thing, hadn’t he?

Devorast swung the axe and cut the creature deep at the base of its neck. It growled and backed up, and black acid sprayed form its nose.

It whirled back at Devorast, it’s jaws wide, and Hrothgar threw the rock as hard as he could.

As a child, back in his home mines of the Great Rift, Hrothgar had thrown a lot of rocks. They’d set up elaborate games of skill and chance around the act of throwing a rock. He hadn’t done it in a long time—adult dwarves don’t throw rocks—but his body remembered.

The rock went down its throat.

The creature backed up again, twisting its neck, and made a terrible strangling sound that Hrothgar knew he would hear again in his happiest nightmares. Smoke

billowed out from the corners of its mouth.

Devorast scrambled away from it, the axe still in his hands. Hrothgar set his jaw, closed his eyes, and got at least to his knees. Not sure what he could do in his current condition, he crawled forward—and his palm came down on the familiar handle of his hammer.

“Ah,” he breathed, then gasped, “there you are.”

Using the hammer to support himself, the dwarf stood. Devorast stood next to him. They looked at each other and smiled though they both panted like dogs. Hrothgar hefted his hammer, and Devorast put the axe up on his shoulder.

The choking, struggling dragon-thing seemed to have forgotten all about them. They strode in with care,, but killed it with relish.

24_

9Eleint, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) The Nagaflow Keep

I didn’t expect to have to wait,” the tall Cormyrean Ayesunder Truesilver said with obvious impatience. “I don’t suppose you have some idea when he’ll be back?”

Hrothgar shrugged, and thought fast. He looked south, in the direction Devorast had gone and said, “I don’t want to give the warden false hopes. Devorast could be away another day or so. It’ll depend on how far afield the blasted creature fled.”

The Cormyrean sighed and followed the dwarfs gaze out to the flat southern horizon. Hrothgar watched him, and saw his eyes pick up and follow the line of stakes with the thin red ribbons tied to them. The parade of tiny flags stretched in two parallel, perfectly straight lines, as far south as the eye could see—past the horizon.

“How often does this happen?” asked the Cormyrean.

The dwarf turned to face the man. Behind him rose the Nagaflow Keep, standing strong in the hot summer

air. Hrothgar had to push back the flood of memories that struck him every time he laid eyes on the keep.

“These are still wild lands,” Hrothgar said.

Truesilver glanced behind him at the fortress and said with a smile, “It’s an impressive fortification. Quite new by the look of it.”

“Being a part of its construction is one of the great joys—one of the great honors of my life.”

“And it, too, was built by Devorast?”

“It’s his genius behind it, aye,” the dwarf said. “But there was some politics around it… it was finished by someone else, but to Devorast’s specifications.”

Truesilver nodded and narrowed his eyes. Hrothgar had to look away—he didn’t like the way the human examined him.

“Can it really be done?” asked the Cormyrean.

“The canal?” Hrothgar asked. When the human nodded, he continued, “By Moradin’s sparking hammer, yes.”

“You have considerable confidence in this man.”

“When he sets out to do something, he does it,” the dwarf replied.

“High praise from any dwarf,” the Cormyrean observed. “Your accent is strange to me. You aren’t from the North.”

“The Great Rift,” Hrothgar said, looking the human in the eye again. “Can I ask you, sir, why you’re here?”

The human had come with a letter of introduction from Ransar Osorkon and half a dozen armed guards in leather armor and steel breastplates emblazoned with a stylized dragon. His guards wore bowl-shaped helms and carried odd hook-shaped polearms Hrothgar couldn’t place a name to. Truesilver had a well-crafted long sword at his belt. He had the air and manner of someone important, and Hrothgar knew they needed all the friends they could get, even friends from as far away as the Forest Kingdom.

“I have been sent by His Majesty King Azoun the Fourth to assess the feasibility of this canal and report back to the Cormyrean nobility,” he explained. “As you can

imagine, a watercourse to connect the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Great Sea, the Sword Coast, and all points west, would be quite a boon to the shipping trade out of my home city of Marsember.”

Hrothgar nodded and said, “Indeed. That’s one of the things that drives us to complete the damned thing.”

Truesilver chuckled, and though Hrothgar didn’t usually like it when humans laughed at him, he found himself smiling back at the man.

“Tell me, though,” Truesilver asked, his manner shifting quickly from jovial to earnest, “why did he go out there himself? Surely your—or, well, the ransar has sent soldiers to protect the workers and the work site. Why would the master builder himself go chasing off after some wandering monster?”

“Well, first off Ivar Devorast is surely a master builder, but he’s not the Master Builder of Innarlith,” Hrothgar corrected. He tried to resist a sneer at the mention of the idiot Inthelph’s title, and once again his eyes were drawn to the great keep—great in spite of Inthelph’s efforts to the contrary. “But the only answer I have to your question is I haven’t the foggiest idea in boisterous Dwarfhome why Devorast thinks he’s got to fight off every giant frog or baby dragon that happens by us, but he does. It’s kinda the way he is. I’ve heard humans call it ‘hands on.’”

Ayesunder Truesilver laughed, and Hrothgar felt compelled to join him.

“A man after my own heart,” the Cormyrean said. “I’ve been accused of the same sin myself.”

They laughed a bit more, then there was a pause in the conversation that made Hrothgar shuffle his feet. He didn’t know what or whom to look at.

“I don’t want to take any more of your time than necessary,” Truesilver said, “but one more question: I was told that Devorast had something to do with a ship built in Innarlith that was meant for the Royal Navy of Cormyr.”

“Aye,” was all the dwarf wanted to say.

“The ship was called Everwind, and she broke apart in the portal that was to deliver her to the Vilhon Reach.” “Aye, it did at that.”

“Not to press you on a subject that seems uncomfortable for you, but it was explained to me that the ship was built too large for the portal,” said the Cormyrean. “If that’s the case, and Ivar Devorast was at least in part responsible for that disaster, how can I give my king any assurance that a similar fate won’t befall this much grander, more complex undertaking?”

Hrothgar let a breath hiss out through his nose and steadied his temper before answering, “I heard it told a different way, sir.”

“Do tell.”

“The ship wasn’t too big for the magical portal, or whatever you call it. The portal was made too small for the ship, and made that way on purpose, by someone who didn’t want that ship to get to the Vilhon Reach in one piece. The ship itself was sound, and I have no doubt it would have pleased your king, and yourself. Men like Devorast have enemies, Warden.”

Hrothgar made himself stop there, but he held the man’s eyes for a long moment. He got the feeling soon enough that the Cormyrean understood the gravity of what he was trying to say.

“Well, then…” the man started, but trailed off when his attention was drawn away to the southwest. “Is that him?”

Hrothgar turned and saw a man crest the top of a low hill some hundred yards or so away. Long red hair blew in the hot summer wind, and Hrothgar knew the walk well.

“Aye,” the dwarf said with a long, relieved sigh, “that’ll be Ivar Devorast.”

Truesilver set off to meet Devorast, and Hrothgar scurried to keep up with him, wincing a little at the lingering pain from the injuries that had slowed him down for a long and trying month. His muscles loosened up as he went,

though, and soon they stood face to face with Devorast, who dragged behind him, lashed with ropes, the carcass of another of the strange black dragon-creatures. Two of the ransar’s men who’d gone with him followed behind, each dragging a makeshift litter on which two more of their comrades lay. One of the soldiers on the litters was dead, melted beyond recognition. The other was burned badly and quivered in unrelenting agony. The men who bore their litters bled from cuts Hrothgar could tell came from both tooth and claw. Devorast appeared dirty, soaked with sweat and spattered with blood, but otherwise uninjured.

Truesilver motioned his men forward and though the Innarlan soldiers were confused by the presence of a troop of Cormyrean Purple Dragon regulars, they were grateful for the help. When the dead and wounded were on their way to the keep, Hrothgar made his introductions.

“Ivar Devorast,” he said, “this here’s Ayesunder Truesilver, Warden of the Port of… what city was it, sir?”

“Marsember,” Truesilver answered, holding out a hand.

Devorast took the Cormyrean’s hand in the human manner—briefly—and said, “Warden, welcome to the Naga Plains.”

The Cormyrean nodded at the dead monster and asked, “What is that thing? I’ve never seen the like.”

Devorast dropped the rope from around his shoulders and stepped away from the carcass. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s not the first one we’ve had to kill.”

“Dangerous work,” Hrothgar added.

“Any work worth doing generally is,” said Truesilver. “So I understand that you’re Cormyrean yourself.”

“I was born and raised in Marsember,” Devorast replied.

“Ah, well, then greetings from home,” the warden said with a smile that Devorast failed to return.

“The warden was telling me that he was sent by the

king of Cormyr himself to report on the canal,” Hrothgar cut in, hoping to forestall any uncomfortable exchange between the two men. Devorast wasn’t one to pine for home, but Hrothgar was smart enough to have identified Ayesunder Truesilver as an important ally, and sometimes Devorast’s manner….

“That’s correct,” the warden of the port said. “His majesty has taken a personal interest in your endeavor.”

Devorast had no reaction to that. Some more of the ransar’s soldiers had approached and Devorast waved them forward. “Take this to the keep. We should have it examined. I’d like to know what it is and where it came from.”

Hrothgar watched Truesilver watch the ransar’s men take charge of the dead dragon-thing. A smile threatened the edges of the Cormyrean’s mouth.

“Maybe we should go back to the keep, too, eh?” the dwarf suggested. “Talk over this canal business over an ale or two, so the warden can report back to his king that he’ll have a sea route to Waterdeep in his lifetime.”

Devorast nodded, and Ayesunder Truesilver grinned and said, “Yes, let’s. I’ll drink to that.”

When the two humans started walking to the keep, Hrothgar breathed a sigh of relief.

25_

Higharvestide, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith

due to increasing civil unrest.’” Ransar Osorkon read from his own decree.

“Really, Ransar,” one of the last of his hangers-on sighed, “there’s no use in reading it over and over again.”

“Indeed, my lord,” said Kolviss, another of Osorkon’s dwindling supply of toadies. “Thensumkon is right. You did the right thing.”

They stared at him with their wet, dull, puppy eyes,

and Osorkon had to look away. He sat at his desk behind a bigger than normal stack of unsigned parchment with his head in his hands.

“Well, Tlaet?” the ransar asked when he thought the silence had dragged on long enough.

“Oh, Ransar, of course I agree!” Tlaet beamed, probably concurring with a point from the day before.

“And then there were three,” Osorkon whispered.

“Ransar?” Thensumkon prompted.

Osorkon didn’t answer, didn’t even look at the bloated, sweaty advisor. Instead he looked at the wide double doors that were the only way in or out of his office. He’d contemplated having a secret door installed, but then none of the other ransars before him had done that—at least if they had it remained a secret. He’d never found one, and he’d looked. There was only one way into the ransar’s office, and only one way out.

“That’s fitting,” he whispered to himself.

“Fitting, Ransar?” Kolviss asked. He smiled and revealed a silver tooth. His hair was greasy, and Osorkon could smell him even from six paces away—and he didn’t smell good. “Do tell us what’s on your mind.”

Osorkon sighed and said, “I was just thinking that I used to have six bodyguards.”

All three of his dim-witted “advisors” turned to look at the doors. On either side of the stout oaken portal, barred with a steel pole it took three men to lift, was a single guard. They stood stiff and at attention, and they were good men who’d been with Osorkon for a long time. For more than a tenday they’d been the only ones to report for duty.

“Did you order a reduction in your personal staff, my lord?” asked Tlaet.

“No, Tlaet, I didn’t,” he said.

“Well, then, who did?” the idiot Tlaet asked.

“Well, you piercer-brained spore-farm, if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it was Marek Rymiit.”

“Ransar?” Thensumkon asked.

“Oh,” Tlaet interjected, “there he is now.”

Osorkon, confused, looked up and followed his boot-lick’s empty gaze to one of the twenty crystal balls that still adorned his private sanctum. Over the past two months they’d one by one gone black until only two still glowed with the image of a distant locale. It had been about that long since he’d seen or heard from one of his staff of mages, so there was no one to tell him why they’d stopped working, and no one to make them work again.

One of the crystal balls was locked on a top-down view of Senator Salatis’s seat in the senate chambers. The second showed Osorkon’s outer office, empty since he’d sent his secretary home to hide in her house while dockworkers and tradesmen clashed in the street, drunkenly beating each other up in lieu of organized holiday festivities.