Marek smiled down at Willem and said, “What could you have done? Hmm… let me think. To begin with, you could have poisoned his drink.”
Willem shook his head. Spittle dropped in a long, stringy line from his lower lip. He put the glass to his mouth and drank some, but poured the rest of the brandy on the floor.
“You could have rendered him helpless,” Marek went on. “And once he was unable to move, the poison making his muscles go rigid and unresponsive, you could have done anything you wanted to him. He would have been entirely under your power, yours to do with as you wished.”
Willem slumped forward and fell onto the floor without changing from the hunched, sitting position he was in. His head bounced and scraped along the canvas tarp.
“I expected so much from you,” Marek said.
Willem looked up at him, blinked, his eyes confused at first. His lips twitched, but he couldn’t speak.
Marek took a deep, rattling breath and smiled. His face flushed, and his heart began to race.
“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, Willem. That must be awful-terrible. I can only imagine____________________ ”
Willem blinked at him again and fear replaced the confusion in a wave that made his pupils dilate.
Marek, reluctant to turn away, stepped back to a side table and opened a long, hinged wooden box. Inside was the sword Phyrea had brought him. The wavy blade glimmered in the candlelight. Marek bit his bottom lip and held his breath as he lifted the flamberge out of the velvet-lined box with all the reverence the exquisite weapon deserved.
When he went back to look down at Willem, the sword in his hand with the blade tipped down until it almost touched the floor, Marek thought he saw Willem shake his head. But the poison wouldn’t allow him even that scant gesture. Marek thought perhaps he sensed so strongly Willem’s powerful desire to make at least that tiny, futile gesture that he simply imagined the movement. Willem’s eyes pleaded for mercy.
Marek dropped to his knee, one creaking, popping joint at a time. His generously-proportioned body was unac- customed to sitting on the floor and when his full weight settled onto his knees, they burned in response.
He looked Willem in the eyes, and with his free hand he brushed the hair from the younger man’s forehead.
“Pretty Willem,” he whispered in a mocking rendition of what he thought “soothing” might sound like. “Everything will be all right. You wanted this, didn’t you? You told me you did. You told me you envied them. You said you wanted to be one of them.”
Marek shifted his weight to hover closer and closer over Willem’s face. The younger man’s mouth hung open, and the tip of his tongue protruded just the tiniest fraction of an inch
“Willem, my dear, dear, sweet boy,” Marek whispered, “please believe me that if I thought there was any way to avoid this____________________ ”
Willem’s eyes widened as Marek moved closer still, then the Thayan couldn’t see his eyes anymore. His lips met Willem’s and closed around them. The tip of his tongue darted in, and though Willem was unable to return the kiss, at least he couldn’t back away. The poison made him appear deadstiff and unresponsivebut Willem was still very much alive, warm and breathing.
Marek took his lips away from Willem’s and punctured the helpless Cormyrean’s skin with the tip of the sword.
Only his eyes responded at first. Marek knew that Willem could feel every inch of the f lamberge’s cruel blade winding its way ever so slowly from just to the right of his belly button, up under his ribs. Then Willem’s breaths started to come faster, and ever more shallow. Marek guided the blade to the middle of Willem’s chest in hope of avoiding either lung. Willem panteda rapid succession of gasps that were almost all exhale, and no inhale. Tears streamed from his twitching eyes.
Marek shushed him and pressed harder with the sword. It took all his strength and skill to slide the long blade into Willem’s fast-beating heart. He could feel the firm resistance of the thick muscle, and the blade jerked in his grip in time with its beating.
When it finally did pierce his heart, blood poured freely down the length of the blade and oozed out of the wound in his stomach. His eyes bulged, and for a moment Marek thought they might pop. Instead they relaxed, but they didn’t close. He let go of the sword hilt, leaving the flamberge sheathed in Willem’s body.
Marek let out a long, slow breath in time with Willem Korvan’s last exhale. He smiled down into the face of the dead man and smiled.
“Shhh,” he hissed. “That’s a good boy.”
66
29 Nightal, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) The Temple of the Delicate Chaos, Innarlith
Marek stepped out of the dimension door onto a rough flagstone floor that shifted under his weight. He staggered, his hands out to his sides, and almost fell. The stone bobbed on something that might have been water, but was too thick. The effect was the same as floating, but the movement was slower.
As the spell effect dissipated behind him his eyes began to adjust to the dim light from torches set in iron sconces on the tiled walls. The tiles had apparently been salvaged from wherever tiles could be salvaged from. Few were the same size, and almost none of them were of matching colors. The effect might have been pleasing had they been arranged with the care and vision of an artist, but it was no mosaic, just a random jumble of shapes and colors.
Marek stepped to another flagstone, riding the slow undulation under his feet, growing more secure with the uncertain footing. The flagstones did indeed float in some thick, gelatinous medium. Marek swallowed to settle his stomach. His first few steps had disturbed many of the stones around him so that the floor rose and fell in waves throughout the chamber.
The room itself was a circle that Marek judged to be a hundred feet in diameter. The torches were not set at even intervals around the circumference so there were bright spots, and places where the shadows were deep as night. He got the distinct feeling that somethingmore than one somethingwatched him from the shadows, so he quickly ran through a spell.
Blinking, he refocused his eyes, and a bluish cast descended over the room. The shadows were peeled back when he set his attention on them, and indeed strange creatures that might have been insects or lizards stared at him, following his every move with twitching antennae, darting forked tongues, and bulging compound eyes.
Another spell, and blue-green fire flickered over his body, covering his robes in a glowing sheen that would give the creatures a painful surprise should they choose to attempt to do him harm.
“That won’t be necessary,” Wenefir said from behind him.
Marek knew better than to try to turn around too fast on the undulating floor, so instead he took his time, planting his feet with care.
“Well, better safe than breakfast,” Marek said, stalling.
Wenefir laughed a little and stood with his hands clasped in front of him. He wore breeches of billowing purple silk but was naked from the waist up. Folds of hairless fat drooped off him, and Marek was reminded of why he so rarely went shirtless himself. His smile was cautious, suspicious, and set to turn at the slightest provocation.
“I was surprised to see you step into this place so easily,” Wenefir said. “Well done, Master Rymiit.”
“I can show you how to ward against dimensional intrusion,” Marek replied.
“For a price, of course?”
“I’m sure we can come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement,” said Marek.
“And yet I’m sure that you had a very different purpose in mind when you made the decision to invade the sanctity of Cyric’s holy shrine this morning.”
Marek dipped into as deep a bow as his girth and the floating floor would allow him, and said, “Indeed, my good friend. I suppose it would be safe to consider this a social call.”
“This is not a salon, Master Rymiit, but a holy place,” said Wenefir, but Marek could tell the man was curious to hear what he’d come to say.