Devorast turned his attention back to the silver piece.
“Really, Ivar,” Willem went on, “shall I leave you so you can sleep it off? You must be exhausted.”
“I’ll live,” Devorast said, his laugh fading away, “and I’ll do it.”
Willem nodded and immediately started to think of an excuse to leave.
“Have you met him?” Devorast asked.
Willem widened his eyes in hopes of a clarification, but when he realized they were sitting in the dark, and Devorast’s attention was on the coin, he said, “Met whom?”
“The ransar.”
“Osorkon?” Willem replied. “Yes, I have, more than once, at formal functions. State functions and such. I attended his Midsummer revel, in fact.”
“I’ve been looking at this silver piece,” Devorast said. “It must be new, because it’s minted with a picture of him.”
“I’ve seen them,” Willem said, all at once overwhelmed with curiosity. “It’s a reasonable likeness, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
It was hard to tell in the dark room, but Willem thought Devorast nodded.
“I can front you a few gold, Ivar, if-”
“That’s not it,” Devorast interrupted. “I was just wondering, honestly, about this man: the Ransar of Innarlith. Here’s a man who, by his own strength of will, has his likeness stamped into every coin in the realm.”
“Azoun was no different,” Will said.
“No, he wasn’t. Still, I can’t make myself understand how a man can do that. How a man can crave and keep power over other men.”
“Please, Ivar,” said Willem, “I’ve never met a man, the ransar included, less inclined to that sort of hubris than you. If anything about our relative positions in Innarlith strikes me as strange at all it is that you’re not the ransar yet yourself.”
“I never wanted to be the ransar,” Devorast said, and Willem thought he sounded sincere. “I never want to be ransar.”
Willem waited through a seemingly interminable stretch of drip drip drip, but Devorast never finished that thought.
Finally, Willem stood and drew a small leather pouch from an inside pocket of his cloak. He dropped the pouch on a little shelf and the clink of coins echoed in the darkness.
“An advance,” Willem said. “I will come back again in a tenday’s time with the ransar’s specifications.”
Devorast didn’t respond.
Willem took one last look around the little space and said, “Well, then, I guess that’s good-”
He saw Devorast’s weatherworn old portfolio sitting on the only dry space left on the floor. It was stuffed with parchment, sheets crammed in so that it would no longer even come close to closing.
“Working on something?” Willem asked.
“Yes,” Devorast answered, filling that one short word with such a sense of finality that Willem didn’t bother pursuing it.
“Well, then,” Willem said. “Good evening, Ivar.”
He opened the door, paused for Devorast to respond, but after a silent moment, he stepped through the door and onto the stinking, dirty waterfront. He went straight home and slept better than he had in months.
48
4 Alturiak, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)
SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH
Marek turned the skull over in his hands and looked at the teeth.
“This one should have eaten more vegetables,” he said. “He died with the most unfortunate set of teeth.”
“What do you want here, Thayan?” Thadat asked.
Marek set the skull down on the cluttered work table and replied, “Can’t one practitioner of the Art pay a friendly visit to another without some nefarious purpose in mind?”
“No,” the haggard wizard replied.
Thadat was a man of slight build. Shorter than Marek and considerably thinner, he wasn’t physically intimidating in any way, but Marek knew he was an accomplished spellcaster and that made him dangerous. His suite of rooms in a fine inn on the edge of the Second Quarter were full of half-unpacked crates and already cluttered with all the obvious accoutrements of a wizard. Marek recognized a few of them as useful spell foci, but the vast majority were of no use-no use for anything but creating a false credibility in the eyes of visiting dilletantes.
“I was surprised to hear that you had made this move,” Marek said, scanning the work table for more interesting artifacts. “This is not the finest inn, but it is in the Second Quarter. Quite a step up for you, isn’t it?”
“I have been working hard,” Thadat said. “I don’t remember hearing that I had to ask you for permission to rent rooms.”
“Oh, you don’t need my permission for that,” Marek replied, picking up a glass jar in which was contained a dead bat, preserved in some kind of clear blue liquid. The bat’s face was frozen in a wide-mouthed, needle-fanged scream. “This is ghastly.”
“Precisely,” Thadat said, reaching out to take the jar from Marek’s hand.
Marek pulled away and looked down his nose at the smaller man, making it clear that Thadat was not to touch him.
“I didn’t come here to discuss your living arrangements,” Marek said, “if you’d prefer to dispense with the niceties we can move on to the business at hand.”
“Yes,” Thadat replied, staring daggers at Marek, “let’s do that. I know something of the extent of the powers at your command, Rymut, but you should know I’m not a spellcaster to be trifled with either. If you’ve come here to intimidate-”
“Oh, come now,” Marek interrupted. “Don’t be crass.”
He set the jar of pickled bat down on the table and clasped his hands behind his back.
“I will have to ask you to keep your hands visible to me at all times while you’re in my home, sir,” Thadat insisted.
With a grin and a flourish, Marek put his hands up and at his sides, waving them around like a croupier quitting a knucklebones table.
“I’ve made myself clear to you, I think, Rymut. I’d prefer it if we didn’t encounter each other again.”
Marek’s face reddened a bit, but he didn’t lash out and kill Thadat. He turned back to the table and picked up a clove of garlic. Thadat had written a little poem on the side of the garlic in a tiny but clear hand.
“Draconic,” Marek said.
“Put that down,” Thadat commanded, but Marek ignored him.
“‘Dan de dan de dan ne zhee,’” Marek read aloud.
“‘Chaznur durro shizzlin dul aele asruzhaeldi. Ulliandrol durro klaya aele sheel al leernall. Realnakfloor durro shoke aele aesaldrindur. Lomridnelle verith al almindure fleezhae. Gahn dool aesdnur de quinlek gloesh.’”
“Be careful, there,” Thadat warned.
“‘One and one and one is three,’” Marek translated. “‘Fear that trembles up my spine. Pain that turns my cries to screams. Despair that breaks my spirit line. Surrender truth to desperate dreams. Set your soul and body free.’”
Thadat stepped back, looked away, and began to sweat.
“Planning to turn yourself into a vampire, Thadat?” Marek asked. “Surely not a lich.”
“That is no business of yours, Rymut,” the other wizard said, “and you should know not to trifle with a thing like that. Please, put it down.”
With a great flourish Marek set the clove of garlic back down on the work table.
“Now, go,” Thadat said.
Marek made no move to go, but said, “Tell me why I’m here.”
“To threaten me,” Thadat responded without hesitation. “You’ve come here to intimidate me into joining your little club.”
Marek’s jaw clenched and his hands became fists. Thadat stepped back farther, kicking over a pile of musty old books on the floor behind him.
“I serve no master, Rymut.”
“So, then,” Marek said, “that’s why I’m here. You see, I have given up on you, Thadat. You are a talented practitioner. I understand it’s rings you’re specializing in now. Is that correct?”
“There is plenty of gold to go around in Innarlith,” Thadat said. “Leave me my customers, leave me my rings, and I’ll leave you your …”