“Pity?” Willem choked out.
He looked up, and with dim, dull vision, saw Devorast’s smug, vile, hated face looking at him with condescending pitylooking at him as though Willem were a troubled child who’d done wrong, but couldn’t be blamed because he didn’t know any better.
Willem rose to his feet, and as he did the pain dropped away, like a tree sheds it leaves in the autumn. By the time he stood to his full height, he was rid of it all, the pain, the shame, the guiltall of it. And it had been replaced by a single thought, a singular, burning desire.
From a tiny, walled-off portion of his conscious mind Willem knew he wasn’t breathing, and could feel that his heart had stopped in his chest. But that was just the smallest part of him, a part too small to stop the rest, and the rest wanted only to killto kill Ivar Devorast.
Willem lurched forward, both hands up to grasp Devorast’s throat, but the man turned to the side just in time and Willem, overbalanced, staggered past him.
“Willem,” Devorast said. “Stop it.”
With a feral growl Willem spun and lashed out with a backhand that caught Devorast on the shoulder. It was a weak blow, but it sent Devorast, arms flailing, into the drawing table. Wood cracked and splintered and parchment tore and crumpled as Devorast crashed to the ground.
Willem bent at the waist and twisted, which made something inside him crack and tear, and he grabbed Devorast by his threadbare black vest. Ignoring the sounds of his own body creaking, only half aware of his own pain, Willem lifted Devorast off the ground.
Devorast hit his wrists then tried to dig his fingernails into Willem’s forearms, but Willem ignored the sensation that a living human might describe as “pain.” He threw Devorast to the ground. When he hit, the air went out of his lungs in a loud grunt that Willem found at once satisfying and disturbing.
He didn’t want to kill Ivar Devorast. He had to. He didn’t want it to be a long, protracted, painful death, but it would be.
Devorast crawled away from him as Willem lurched forward.
“Willem,” Devorast gasped, “what’s… happened to you?”
Though Willem wanted to answer, he couldn’t. He didn’t know what had happened to him, and he didn’t want Devorast to know anyway.
“Die,” Willem barked outhis voice so shredded and guttural the word was hardly recognizable.
Devorast staggered to his feet and turned to run out of the tent, but Willem lashed at him with his left fist-pulling the punch at just the last instantand knocked Devorast once more to the ground. He knew that if he’d hit him as hard as he could he would have killed him, and as he tried to understand why he’d spared the life of the man he was absolutely compelled to kill, the last trace of question, the last morsel of will, fled him.
He screamed out his rageblind, remorseless, unfetteredat the writhing form of his victim, and he stepped forward.
The tent opened and someone stood in front of Willem.
“Surerono!” Devorast gasped.
Willem didn’t recognize the intruder. He saw a face-eyes wide, mouth openand a body, but that was all. It wasn’t a person, not a man with a soul and a history, but a thing between Willem and Devorast, and he couldn’t have anything between him and Devorast.
Willem lashed out, and there was no last-instant tempering of the blow, no reprieve for the unknown victim that should have known better than to step between him and his kill.
Surero’s head exploded from the force of Willem’s blow. The dry-skinned fist shattered teeth, drove the alchemist’s mouth open, and continued on through flesh, bone, brain, and sinew to burst out the other side drenched in blood and saliva.
“No!” Devorast shouted. “Willem!”
Willem stumbled backward, avoiding the headless corpse and blinking from the spray of blood driven up from the alchemist’s still-beating heart.
The alchemist.
Willem grunted and blinkedhe’d killed… who? Surero.
And that little closed off corner of his consciousness opened just enough, just barely enough, for him to realize what he’d done. That little corner spoke then to the rest of his dead mind and he knew on every level still available to him that he’d killed the wrong man.
Willem took control of his body for one step, then another, and he was out of the tent and running.
51
17 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Sorms (1374 DR) The Canal Site
Pristoleph stood when Devorast opened his eyes. His heart raced and he almost choked on a sip of the cheap local wine he’d found in the tent.
“Surero…” Devorast said, his voice thin and raspy.
Pristoleph shook his head and Devorast closed his eyes. The genasi stood there, looking away, for a long moment while his friend relived the alchemist’s death. Pristoleph had to know more.
“What was it that killed him?” he asked. “What was it that infected you?”
“Infected…?”
“You were half dead when a work gang got to the tent,” Pristoleph explained. “Surero had been murdered, and you lay dying from some kind of disease. It was as though you were rotting alive, just… deteriorating.”
Devorast shook his head and closed his eyes.
“The men said they saw someone run from the tent,” Pristoleph continued. “They described some kind of cloying smell, but didn’t see the man.”
“It was Willem.”
Pristoleph hissed with surprise. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the room as though searching for something, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.
“How could that be?” asked Pristoleph. “The priestess from the Sisterhood of Pastorals said it was a disease associated with”
“It was Willem,” Devorast interrupted. He struggled to sit up, but Pristoleph held out a calming hand and he lay back down on the narrow, sweat-soaked cot.
“I’m beginning to understand something,” Pristoleph said, and waited for Devorast to look at him before he went on. “I saw something at the Thayan Enclave once, some kind of undead creature. Marek Rymiit made it, but he said it was for him, that itwasn’t for sale. It wasn’t a zombie, like the dockworkers, but… something else. I don’t know what.”
Devorast closed his eyes and looked away.
“I think,” Pristoleph whispered, “that everything I feared has come to pass.”
52
18 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Nagawater
When Svayyah’s right hand broke the surface of the water, she turned it palm up. From below, Devorast’s rough but fascinating features appeared blurred and shifting, and even with eyes accustomed to seeking prey from the safety of the river, she couldn’t quite tell if the human was happy or sad. The fact that he’d come to the Nagawater, to the place they had agreed on as a rendezvous point, didn’t bode well, though. Ivar Devorast didn’t generally visit her with good news. Unless…
He took her hand and Svayyah suppressed a thrilled shudder. Though the man was surely senthissa’ssaa teacher worthy of emulatinghe was human, a lesser being, nonetheless.
Devorast slipped into the water and shivered. When Svayyah finished her spell she touched his cheek. His eyes and the set of his jaw showed the same reluctance he’d always had with the effects of the spell, he opened his mouth, and cautiously at first, drew in a breath of the frigid water. His body lurched and he coughed out a stream of bubbles, which made Svayyah smile. His second breath was better received by lungs that had finally been purged of air. She looked him in the eye and he remained still while she cast a second spellone that would allow him to speak.
With the air out of his lungs, he was at least a bit less buoyant. When she took him by the hand and whipped her great serpentine body behind her, she had only to expend a bit more effort than normal to carry him down with her to the murky river bottom.
Neither of them spoke as she continued to carry him along, kicking up sediment behind her and scattering the green and brown fish in front of her. A giant frog kicked up a cloud of black mud, startled by the naga’s approach, and spared her a frightened glance as it swam at speed to avoid her. Svayyah looked around and remembered a sunken log and a collection of rocks that formed the shape of an arrow. She would come back later, when she was at leisure, to devour the frog.