Though he still had a key in his pocket, when he got to the door and found it locked, he pushed against it, broke that latch, too, and stepped inside.
He looked around at his own foyer and was staggered by a sense of familiarity, but he couldn’t put a name to any of the objects there. He had no recollection of where he’d found the little silver things or the ceramic things, or the flat representations of things that hung on the walls.
He stepped in, tracking in mud and horse manure from the streets. He smelled it, but it didn’t matter.
A noise from upstairs drew his eyes to the ceiling. He took a step into the house then dragged his other foot behind it, and the door slammed closed. The sound didn’t startle him. He took a few more steps into the house, moving for the parlor. He stopped at the foot of the stairs when he head more soundssomeone moving around from above.
“Willem?” a familiar voice called.
Willem looked up the stairs. It was a woman. Someone he knew.
“Willem, my dear,” the voice came back. “Is that you?”
He opened his mouth to respond but had lost, at least for the nonce, the ability to speak. It was something that came and went. What issued from his throat was a dry rattle.
“Willem?” the woman repeated.
Willem could feel the fear in her voice, could smell it in her even from up the stairs. He staggered another step to the bottom of the stairs and waited.
She took two steps down and called his name again. She paused, waiting for an answer, and when she got none she stepped down one more. Willem could see her foot, bare and at the end of a fat, stumplike ankle. Candlelight flickered on the steps.
“I have a dagger,” she said, her voice quaking, “and I know how to use it.”
Willem stepped back, clearing the foot of the stairs, and watched the feet take two more steps down. She bent to look at him, perhaps seeing his shadow, perhaps merely sensing his presence at the bottom of the stairs. He saw the silver candlestick in her hand.
She had to take one more step down to see him, and just as she lifted her foot, Willem lunged.
Her grabbed the thick, fleshy ankle and pulled. Though she was heavy, Willem was strong, and the woman’s feet flew out from under her. She hit the stairs hard on her back and her nightgown flipped up to cover her face as she tumbled down the steps like an overstuffed sack of flour.
Something made Willem step back and he started when his back touched a wall.
Squealing like the terrified pig she was, the woman squirmed about on the floor, pulled her nightclothes from her face, and sat up, the candlestick still in her hand. The candle had fallen out and extinguished itself in its own tumble down the stairs. She held the candlestick in front of her like a weapon to ward him off. She had no dagger, but Willem had known that was a lie the moment she’d said it.
Their eyes met. The woman screamed in horror. Willem recognized her and a word came to him: Mother.
She rolled on the floor, trying to get away from him when he bent toward her. He tried to speak to her, but couldn’t. She screamed and screamed and the sound rattled in Willem’s ears, then echoed in his head. He didn’t like the sound. The sound was bad, and he wanted it to stop.
Willem grabbed his mother by the back of her head, his fingers twisting her hair. He pulled her head up and mouthed the word “Mother,” but she couldn’t see his lips. She screamed even louder, so loudly that Willem had to close his eyes, though that didn’t actually do anything to make the noise stop. He smashed her face against the floor and the scream was momentarily combined with a wet crack, then she quieted to a moaning, sickly sound that made Willem’s dead flesh crawl, so he smashed her face down again.
Her body convulsed and her legs kicked out. He drove her face once more into the ever-increasing puddle of hot, sticky blood and broken teeth. She kicked one more time then was still.
He let go of her head and stepped back. His right knee gave out and he fell, then scrambled back on his hands, fetching up against the door.
He opened his mouth to scream, but when he did his eyes fell on the corpse of his mother and he heard the sound of her blood, dripping at first then pouring over the lip of the single step that led into the parlor.
A barely-audible rattle escaped his wide-opened mouth.
He climbed to his feet, using the wall to steady him, and burst out the front door. The street outside was quiet, and he soon found the cold embrace of a dark alley. There he clawed at the brick wall and tried to think about what he’d just done. He tried to weep, but quickly forgot why, and instead just clamped his teeth shut and shook his head.
There’s another, he thought. There was a better one.
A betterwhat? He didn’t know. He staggered away, not even conscious that his lips mouthed the name “Halina.”
54
19 Tarsakh, the Yearof Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Pristal Towers, Innarlith
Had Wenefir not thought to cast a spell to protect him from the ravages of heat and fire, he likely would have been dead after his first few breaths in Pristoleph’s private chamber. The braziers had all been piled high with wood, and torches blazed so bright and hot on sconces all along the walls that the already black stone behind them was beginning to melt.
And in the center of that furnace stood Pristoleph, his strange red hair replaced by a crown of dancing, sizzling flame. His eyes blazed yellow and smoke began to billow from his robes.
“Ransar,” Wenefir called, feeling he had to shout over the roar of the flames. “Pristolephhow long have you been in here?”
Pristoleph looked at him and shook his head, making the flames on his scalp quiver.
Wenefir swallowed and looked away, terrified by the genasi’s fiery gaze.
“Ransar,” he said. “Please. Let me help you. What is it you require?”
“What is it I require?” the ransar shot back, and though he didn’t want to look, Wenefir thought flames shot from his mouth and smoke puffed from his nostrils. “What is it I require?”
The heat grew so intense that even Wenefir’s Cyric-granted spells began to fail him.
“Please, Pristoleph,” he said. “You’ll burn the place down. For the Mad God’s sake, please.”
Pristoleph took a deep breath and the flames died down a littleas if he’d drawn them into his lungs.
“Better,” Wenefir said, risking a smile. “Thank you.”
“I don’t suppose you can explain what happened while I was away,” the ransar said, his eyes losing some of their fire but none of their intensity.
Wenefir swallowed again and said, “You left Willem Korvan in charge. I”
“I left no one in charge, Seneschal,” Pristoleph interrupted. “Devorast trusted Korvan. That was his mistake. I trusted the Thayan, and that was mine. Tell me, Wenefir, my oldest friend, which was the greater mistake?”
“Perhaps neither,” Wenefir chanced.
A spark of yellow darted through Pristoleph’s eyes when he said, “The nerve of them.”
“It was a risk on their part, indeed,” Wenefir concurred. “But perhaps there was no real effort to undermine your authority.”
“Undermining Devorast undermines me,” said the ransar.
“As you have said, Ransar, but consider this,” Wenefir said. “Korvan, Kurtsson, and Aikiko were trying to help. Perhaps there was a difference of… vision, but”
“Damn it, Wenefir!” Pristoleph shouted, and all of the fires burst hotter and bigger to punctuate it before moderating once more. “There can be only one vision.”
Not fully understanding, Wenefir replied, “But surely you agree that Devorast could never have finished something so great on his own.”
Shaking his head, Pristoleph said, “Something so great can only be done by one man alone.”
Wenefir, his eyes narrow and his brow furrowed, shook his head.