“M-Master Rymiit…”
“Never fear,” said Marek.
Salatis tried to run when Insithryllax reeled down to land on the hill next to them. Marek took the senator by the arm and held him. He could feel the tall man shake, and his skin was clammy and cold. The dirt shuddered under the dragon’s considerable weight when it came to ground, and Salatis almost fell to his knees.
“Stand,” Marek commanded. “This is Insithryllax. Though he will never be your subject, I would like for him to consider you an equal in the months and years ahead of us. Isn’t that as we discussed, Insithryllax?”
Marek knew that the sound the black dragon made just then was a laugh, but Salatis surely assumed it was a growl.
“Insithryllax,” the senator said, his voice shaking only a little less than his body.
“Ransar,” the wyrm rumbled.
Salatis gasped and Marek sighed.
“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it,” said the Red Wizard.
“What do you mean?” Salatis asked. “Lady Doom has held me in the embrace of the barbs of her 111 Fortune. I am not the ransar.”
“You haven’t told him?” the black dragon asked.
“Not yet,” said the Red Wizard. “I wanted him to see first. After all, I’m not giving him the Palace of Many Spires, only the means to gain it for himself.”
“You’re giving me…?” Salatis began.
“Really, Salatis,” Marek said, “if you’re going to be the ransar you’ll eventually have to complete a thought. I know it’s a lot to take in, my friend, but it’s happening, I assure you. You’re here, on a plane of existence of my own creation, and what you see before you are creatures made by my hand, with the indispensable assistance of my dear friend the black wyrm Insithryllax. They are the black firedrakes, and I give them to you.”
Salatis shook his head and muttered, “I fear the Maid of Misfortune. I beg her to ignore me.”
“Oh, please, Senator. Your mistress may have her way with us from time to time, but I assure you we petty mortals make our own luck. And it was neither Beshaba nor her sister who brought me to you.”
“What can I do with these things?” the senator asked.
“The black firedrakes? Well, if you insist on getting ahead of ourselves, let’s discuss precisely that. They were created, by me, from the cross-breading of ordinary firedrakes captured from the northern shores of the Lake of
Steam with my boon companion Insithryllax. He proved to be a hearty source of fatherly essence”the dragon took a bow”and the black firedrakes were born. After some months of nurturing, some half dozen or so began to exhibit unusually high functionality. I have put them in command of units of various sizes, though I admit that military organization is of little interest to me, so you may want to reorganize them to fit your own needs. You will be able to do so at your whim.”
“My whim…” Salatis said, perhaps just trying to get used to the idea.
“Indeed,” Marek said. “My gift to you.”
“An army of dragon-men?” asked the senator. “To invade Innarlith?”
“Well…” Marek replied. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”
The senator watched the firedrakes move around each other in silence. Some were in human form, some in the their natural shapes. He seemed equally interested in both, which Marek took as a good sign.
“Why me?” Salatis asked.
“I could give you any number of false answers, Senator,” Marek said, “but I shan’t. Suffice it to say that you have been recruited.”
The black dragon’s laugh rumbled through the stale air and was met with shrieks and calls from the surrounding firedrakes. Marek could see Salatis’s skin crawl, but the hint of a smile played at the edges of the tall man’s lips.
“You will command the firedrakes,” Marek explained. “I will continue to control the tradesmen.”
“The tradesmen?” said the senator, turning finally to look at Marek. “It’s you, then? No one even suspects that.”
Marek sketched a sarcastic bow and equally insincere smile, and said, “The comfort of the aristocracy has always been in the hands of the common man, Senator. Control their comforts, and you control them. Control them, and you control the city.”
“And you control the city?”
Marek laughed at that and said, “Only the parts of it that interest me, Senator. For the rest, I will depend on you.” “What of Osorkon?”
Again, the black dragon laughed. Marek caught the senator glancing at the wyrm, fear heavy in his gaze.
“I suspect that you’ll have one of the black firedrakes kill and eat him,” Marek answered. “Anyway, that’s what I would do. But first things first. I will give you the black firedrakes so that you can be ransar, and in return I will expect what favors from you I might choose to request. You will deny not a single one of those requests, nor shall you pause before seeing to their completion. Otherwise, the city-state is yours to do with as you wish.”
“What favors-?”
“What he wishes,” the dragon grumbled. “When he wishes it.”
Salatis swallowed hard, almost choked.
“I will require from you only a single word answer, Senator Salatis,” Marek said.
Without pause Salatis asked, “And if I refuse? I will never leave this strange little world of yours alive, will I?”
Marek took a deep breath, locked his eyes on Salatis’s, and said, “Since time is a luxury that neither of us can squander on trivialities, we’ll let that be as it may for now. I will have your answer.”
Salatis swallowed again, looked out over the army of transformed monsters, and said, “Beshaba guide me.”
Marek smiled, and studied the tall man. Salatis was afraid, but that passed in a few breaths to be replaced by a look Marek had seen too often in men like Salatis. It was a lust for power that transcended all sense of proportion. It was the drive that made empires rise and fall, and rise and fall, over and over and over again for millennium after millennium.
“This business with religion,” Marek said. “It could be of use in controlling the people, of course, but from henceforth you will set it aside when you speak with me. You will hold sway over the black firedrakes for as long as I have your loyalty. The moment I feel I no longer have thatwhether you’ve given it over to another man, or some god or goddessyou will no longer hold sway over the beating of your heart or the breath in your lungs, much less the firedrakes. Remember this gift and who gave it to you, or I will send Insithryllax to see you, and he will send you to the embrace of whatever Power is forgiving enough to take your disloyal soul into its embrace.
“Are you, or are you not, my ransar?”
Marek listened for one word, and heard it.
“Yes, I am your ransar,” Salatis answered with an almost drunken grin.
My ransar, Marek thought. The ficklest daughter of Tyche will have to look elsewhere for hers.
20
16 Kythorn, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) Third Quarter, Innarlith
Willem watched Phyrea wander through the merchants’ stalls for most of the afternoon. He was able to breathe, after a time, only to the rhythm of her footsteps and the graceful sway of her narrow hips. She wore a cloak of shimmering silk and carried a parasol of black lace. He hadn’t recognized her at first because of the parasol. It was an aristocratic lady’s affectation that was beneath her, especially with the thin, high overcast tempering the direct rays of the sun.
“How much?” she asked a vendor.
The man studied the boot she held up to him, glanced at her foot, and seemed at a loss for words. Willem slid past a woman who had stopped to admire a spray of cheap pewter jewelry laid out on a blanket on the street so that he could get a better look. He ignored the look of impatience the woman shot his way, even when her face softened and she smiled at him, trying to catch his eye.