“We will discuss, and we will decide,” she said. “You will abide.”
“I’m not in the habit of abiding,” Devorast said, “but I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Svayyah eyed him, and he stared back. She felt no fear in him, and his words echoed the thoughts she heard from his mind half a breath before he spoke. He really believed he was going to succeed in his scheme and that the naja’ssara would be cooperative partners.
Svayyah was growing increasingly convinced that he was right, so she checked again to make sure he was exerting no magical control over her. He wasn’t.
“What of the others?” she asked. “Have you spoken of this with the other interested parties? Those who would stand to gain or lose from the reality of this thing?”
Devorast shrugged and said, “I will take that as it comes, I suppose.”
“Now you’re just being naive, Devorast,” Svayyah warned him. “You mean to build a canal to join the Lake of Steam to the Nagaflow, which feeds into the Nagawater, which eventually empties into the Vilhon Reach. Nothing like this has ever been done before. You may have interested the naja’ssara, but what of, say, the Thayans?”
“The Thayans?” Devorast asked.
“Yes,” she taunted him, “the Thayans-the realm of wizards who travel through the Weave and who’ve been known to sell access to their portals? This canal could bite into that, no?”
Devorast shrugged. He really didn’t care.
“Cormyr might be on your side, but what of the sahuagin?” she asked.
“The sahuagin?”
“You know what a sahuagin is?” she asked, and Devorast nodded. “Then you know they’re not to be trifled with. The Inner Sea is acrawl with them, and there’s another race, deeper down, one we’re not sure your kind even knows of.”
“What are you suggesting?” he asked, and she thought he might be starting to get annoyed.
“What will the druids in Turmish think?” Svayyah went on. “Who will control the northern end of the canal? Your ransar will hold the southern end, perhaps, but what of the mouth of the Nagaflow at the Vilhon Reach? We don’t bother with those waters, but your fellows in Arrabar just might.”
Devorast shrugged.
“How is it that you get your goods, you humans, from the east to the west now, without this canal-with no navigable waterway between, say, Impiltur and Waterdeep?”
He looked surprised.
“As we said, Devorast, we’re not a dumb animal. We have ears and a mind. We’ve heard of Waterdeep.”
Devorast offered a smile and nod of apology and Svayyah returned the smile despite herself. She fought back the temptation to rest her cheek on the outside of the bubble, but she had the sudden urge to get closer to him.
She shook her long, serpentine body so hard the bubble bounced in the murky water, almost knocking Devorast off his feet.
“All right, all right,” he said, steadying himself on the bottom of the spherical bubble. “Caravans. They carry goods, sometimes across the great desert Anauroch even, in caravans.”
“Slow, tedious, walking on legs on the ground?” Svayyah said.
“Precisely.”
“You will need to do a lot of talking,” Svayyah said. “You will need to build a strong coalition. You will have to keep your friends close and at the very least know who your enemies are. Whoever operates those caravans will not appreciate those same items moving instead aboard a ship that, even passing through the Nagawater and the Lake of Steam, will surely get to the Sword Coast faster than some ox cart. One thing we know about you humans, one thing that makes you predictable, is that you will kill each other over gold. You will do anything for gold.”
Devorast shook his head as if he disagreed with her and said, “You’re right, but that doesn’t interest me. I’m not building this canal to drive some caravanner out of business. I’m not doing it to profit any merchant captain or to empower the ransar of Innarlith, whom I don’t even know.”
“Then why?” Svayyah said with a laugh in her voice. “This will take you years. It could take the rest of your paltry existence in this world to finish a canal that will have to stretch, what, fifty miles-?”
“Forty,” he corrected.
“Forty,” she repeated with ice in her voice. “Over hard, hilly land that belongs to the ransar and not you. If you have no thought of trade and commerce, then why build it? Why even consider it?”
“Because it’s never been done before,” he said. “As far as I know, no one in Faerun has even considered it.”
Svayyah stared at him for a dense moment that weighed heavily on them both.
“There are few humans like you, Devorast,” the water naga said.
“No,” he said with the confidence of a Ssa’Naja, “there is no one like me.”
46
Midsummer, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)
SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH
The Midsummer Festival and another party.
Willem Korvan stood on a wide belvedere lined with statuary, which overlooked the harbor and the dark expanse of the Lake of Steam. The night was clear and the crescent of Selune, followed by her Trail of Tears, rose through a sea of stars. The lights of the city and the stars reflected in the calm water made Willem feel as if there was no world under his feet, just endless night sky on all sides of him.
He had never felt more alone in his life.
“There you are, my boy,” Inthelph said, causing Willem to jump.
His skin gone cold even in the hot summer air, Willem turned to greet the master builder with a nod and saw that his mother had come looking for him too. Behind them rose the lofty towers of the ransar’s palace.
“Really, my dear,” his mother said. “Are you out here all alone?”
“Just admiring the city lights,” he said.
My boy? My dear? As if they owned him.
He tried not to cringe outwardly when they stood at the railing with him, one on either side as if flanking him, trapping him.
“I was just telling your mother about the new project,” said the master builder.
“He was,” Thurene said. “It sounds terribly exciting.”
Willem turned to look behind them to the cluster of needle-like towers that rose above the low buildings of the city like a copse of trees in a field of grass.
“The Palace of Many Spires,” Willem said, his voice so quiet it was barely above a whisper.
“The home of the ransar himself,” the master builder added, his voice almost as quiet, reverent where Willem’s was simply frightened. “It will be the crowning jewel in my career, if not my life.”
“Surely the latter would be the birth of your lovely daughter,” Thurene prodded.
Willem closed his eyes and stood stiffly withstanding the uncomfortable moment.
The master builder at last cleared his throat and said, “Of course, madam. In my career, then, to be sure.”
“But it’s already such a pretty building,” said Thurene.
“And it will be prettier still when your son and I are through with it, Madam Korvan,” Inthelph replied. “The ransar has asked that I provide another spire, one taller and more graceful than any other. It will house visiting dignitaries from realms near and far. It will help make Innarlith a city-state of importance to all of Faerun.”
Willem had heard Inthelph and other senators say that before, but he didn’t understand it. How could a spire make anything like that degree of difference? It was more busy work. It would occupy the master builder’s time and energy, then it would occupy the treasury and a small army of workers. In the end, it would likely sit empty most of the time, but when it was all done, the ransar would be able to tell everyone that he had built it, and how glorious it was. In the end they would have been doing something other than going to parties and ceremonies and balls and talking, talking, talking to the same small group of people.