“Praise be to the Dancer in the Glades,” Salatis said, his eyes closed, his right hand covering a pendant that hung on a gold chain around his neck.
“The Lady of the Woods blesses us,” T’juyu replied.
He looked at her with surprise that quickly turned into an almost comical, boyish delight. He smiled and his hand came away from the pendant: a golden acorn about the size of his thumb. The ransar sighed and looked up into the sky, once more devoid of stars, and heavy with the threat of rain.
“I bring you a disappointing report,” T’juyu said.
“Disappointing for you,” he asked, trying to be clever but only irritating her, “or disappointing for me?”
“For both of us,” she replied quickly, so that his cleverness wouldn’t have time to take hold. “I failed.”
He sighed again, and T’juyu grimaced at the smell of his breath. She wanted to stand but made herself stay seated next to him. He sat on her left, so she drew the throwing knife from her right boot with her right hand, holding it in her palm, against the side of the bench. Salatis didn’t look down but continued to stare into the empty blackness of the night sky. If he was disappointed enough in her failure to try to kill her, she would defend herself.
“There’s more,” she said.
“Did you fail entirely?” he asked. “It was to be both of themthe wife too.”
“They both live,” she said.
“Are you disappointed in yourself?” he asked.
T’juyu shook her head. She hadn’t really ever had a stake in the death of that one senator and his wife. She had come to Innarlith for reasons of her own, but that commission, from the ransar no less, brought her closer in to the humans’ city and their barbaric leaders. Still, it rankled her that the woman had awakened before she died. It bothered her that the senator had come in when he did. And she was still confused by the fire…
“I will take that as a yes,” he said, apparently not having seen her shake her head.
It was T’juyu’s turn to sigh.
“There will be other opportunities,” he said.
“You are tired,” T’juyu said, looking at the side of his face, at the deep lines around his eyes and mouth, the white in the stubble of his beard. “I am sorry.”
She knew that last didn’t sound as sincere as it should have, but the ransar didn’t seem to mind.
“It’s a strange thing, disappointment,” he said as though speaking to the night itself and not just to her. “It comes to you in the most unexpected guises and at the most inopportune times. It is unpredictable. Unpredictable…”
T’juyu looked away from him. He was babbling and there was something about his demeanor that disturbed her greatly. She had very little direct experience with humans, but she had seen their works often enough: strange vehicles dragged by servile animals, vessels afloat on the seas and rivers, and cities that sprawled over acre after acre of land cleared by a dizzying variety of tools. Surely no species could have achieved all those things with such unstable and preoccupied minds. Salatis must have been unusual in that regard.
“I bring other news,” she said.
“News other than your failure?”
“I will not expect to be paid,” she said, growing angrier.
He shook his head and waved her off.
“He is building an army,” she said.
The ransar sighed and looked at her, his eyes drooping and red.
“An army?” he asked. “I knew it. I had… heard that.”
“It is a sizable force,” T’juyu said.
“Big enough, do you think, to threaten me?” he asked. “Big enough to overthrow me?”
“I don’t know for certain, but it… it is a sizable force, and they are preparing for something.”
“The defense of the southern approaches?” he said, and it took her a heartbeat or two to decide he was joking. He smiled a weary smile and said, “I knew that. I suspected that.”
“What will you do?”
“I will fight him,” he said, though she’d never heard a less enthusiastic proclamation. “I still command the black firedrakes. I still command the city, the loyalty of the senate…?”
That last had the unmistakable sound of a question. T’juyu realized he didn’t know who to trust, or what he truly controlled, if anything.
“You’re tired,” she whispered, replacing the throwing knife in her boot with only the smallest degree of stealth, because only the smallest degree was necessary.
The ransar shook his head.
“Shall I try again?” she asked.
He shrugged and though she waited far longer than she wanted to, he didn’t say anything else. Finally, she stood, gave him a shallow bow that he ignored, and walked away. For all she knew, Salatis spent the rest of the night sitting on that bench, staring at nothing, a tired old man too beaten to realize just how beaten he was.
T’juyu left the palace with the distinct impression that she had chosen the wrong side.
13
8 Eleint, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR) First Quarter, Innarlith
How is it possible that you haven’t changed at all?” Surero asked.
Devorast glanced at the alchemist, shrugged, then looked down when a Shou sailor set his canvas bag down on the planks next to him. The young man bowed and scurried back up the gangplank to the deck of the ceramic ship.
“It’s been a mess since you’ve been gone,” Surero went on. “People are saying there’s going to be another in our long line of civil wars.”
“That can’t have anything to do with my having been gone,” Devorast said.
Surero didn’t realize he was joking at first, so rare a thing that was with Devorast. He smiled as Devorast picked up his bag and turned to look back at the ship. Ran Ai Yu stood at the rail and held up a hand. Devorast returned the gesture, turned back, and started to walk. Glancing back a few times at the Shou merchant captain, who continued to stare at Devorast’s receding back, Surero fell into step beside him.
“She isn’t coming?” Surero asked.
“She’s moving on up the Sword Coast to trade.”
As they walked the length of the long pier, Devorast looked at the ships tied up along the way. Surero watched his critical gaze run up the masts and follow the length of their rails. Ahead of them, a gang of stevedores unloaded barrels from a groaning old coaster while the crew hooted at them from the rail. The smell of decayed flesh, intermingled with the sulfurous stench of the Lake of Steam assailed them as they walked, and Devorast slowed. Surero took his arm to keep him moving at pace.
“Zombies,” the alchemist said, “courtesy of the Red Wizards of Thay.”
Devorast didn’t react with the same sort of horrified fascination most people did when they first encountered the new breed of dockhands. Still, it was plain enough in his expression that he didn’t approve.
“It’s worse,” Surero told him. He found it difficult to go on. He didn’t want to say it, but he knew Devorast needed to know. “They’re building the canal, too.”
The sigh that came from Devorast was one of the most frightening sounds Surero had ever heard. He shivered as they passed the zombie work gang. None of the undead creatures paused in their slow, methodical work to notice them. Both men put hands to their faces, covering their noses as they passed.
“They’re still working on it,” Devorast said. “I’m surprised.”
Surero could tell he was disappointed as well.
“Salatis has made speeches about it,” said the alchemist. “He said all the right things then put the whole project in the hands of a fool named Horemkensi. Do you know him?”
Devorast shook his head. They left the zombie longshoremen behind.
“Accidents…” Surero started, then just shook his head. “It’s been a long time.”
“I was told that you were brewing beer,” Devorast said, and Surero was surprised to see him smiling.