“Why?”
“The city burns,” Wenefir said. “It’s the ransar responsibility to keep Innarlith safe, not to watch it burn from atop a tower.”
Pristoleph’s eyes smoldered at that, and he could see Wenefir struggle not to turn and run.
“Surely you haven’t climbed all this way,” Wenefir went on, sweating, “from the middens where we first met to the fortune and power you’ve amassed, simply to let it burn around you. Not for the sake of a canal, and certainly not for the sake of one man.”
Pristoleph sighed and said, “And still you don’t understand. You of all people should, Wenefir. Nothing worth doing is done for the sake of or by anyone but one man. It is men, it is their will alone, that shapes our world.”
“There are gods,” Wenefir argued, “who would disagree.”
“Men,” Pristoleph replied, “by any other name.”
The priest bristled but held his tongue.
“Your message has been delivered,” Pristoleph said, turning his back on the priest to stare down at the angry fires below. “Good day.”
The wemics edged closer, but Wenefir didn’t wait for them to take him by the arms. He turned on his heel and walked down the stairs, the wemic guards close behind. When their footsteps faded away, Second Chief Gahrzig stepped closer.
“Is it wise, Ransar,” said the wemic, “to let him go?”
“No,” Pristoleph said. “No, it isn’t. But let him go anyway. No matter what he does, that man will not die by my hand.”
64
20 Mirtul, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Chamber of Law and Civility, Innarlith
I think we can all agree that the present ransar’has brought all of this on himself,” Senator Asheru said, his voice clipped and hollow, resonating in his chest as though he shouted up from the bottom of a deep well. “Worse, that he brought this on us all.”
Marek Rymiit nodded along with the other small group of senators gathered in one of the many private parlors in the labyrinthine cellars of the Chamber of Law and Civility. Warded against magical eavesdropping and arcane forms of egress, the room was meant to be a safe place for committees and quorums to gather and discuss the business of the city-state. The parlor in which Marek sat had become something of a war room.
“Senator Asheru is of course correct,” Sitre agreed. Her voice had grown deep and rough with age, and her hands, lined with veins, showed brown spots. Her once beautiful face, though still handsome, was deeply lined, her skin gone thin and pale. “Can he not see the damage this standoff is wreaking on his own city?”
Asheru harrumphed and said, “Apparently not.”
Marek smiled at Asheru and considered the senator. A middle-aged man with long black hair he certainly dyed to mask the gray, his gray-green eyes shone with intelligence and perhaps a spell or two that allowed him to see in ways that mundane humans could not. Asheru had been, before the Thayan Enclave had come to Innarlith, the head of an underground college of wizards, and the chief supplier of spell components, scrolls, and other arcane paraphernalia. The speed with which he abandoned all that to Marek, for a few new spells and a seat on some senate committee he’d had his eyes on, still boggled the Thayan’s mind.
“Though it falls well outside my purview as Ambassador from the Court of Cormyr,” Tia Harriman interjected, “I must say I agree with you both.” The Cormyrean ambassador still wore her hair tinted a garish shade of purple that only made her pale skin, as old and as weathered as Sitre’s, less attractive. “For my part, and on behalf of Their Majesties, King Azoun the Fifth and the Steel Regent, I wished only to see the canal completed. Should it have employed some teleportation magic was not relevant. That it was destroyed, is.”
The fact that Marek bribed her with magic that was making her younger by the day, and Meykhati provided a stipend of gold that more than tripled what her king paid his ambassadors had something to do with her being there as well.
Alas, Marek thought, at least one Cormyrean can be bought outright.
Meykhati poured himself another glass of wine and shook his head, clicking his tongue in time with the gesture, then said, “It will cost plenty to rebuild the city. One of my own storehouses on the quayside burns even as we speak, and it is loaded from floor to ceiling with Tethyrian grain.”
“We have all suffered losses,” Nyla said, her teeth clenched in rage.
“And all that work,” Aikiko complained. “All that time.”
Marek offered a smile and a calming gesture to them all and said, “My friends, please. We have been over this too many times already. The city burns because one man, Ransar Pristoleph, holds one other man, Ivar Devorast, above not only the senate, but above all the people of Innarlithnay, the city-state herself.”
“That much we know,” Meykhati interjected. “But how to bring him down? That’s what we must decide, once and for all.”
“Bring him down?” Marek asked, not letting his anger at the interruption show. “Or bring him back into the fold?”
“He’s brought those bestial barbarians into the city to kill good Innarlans,” Nyla argued. “That alone should have him marched to the gallows.”
Sitre and Meykhati nodded their agreement, but Asheru and Aikiko looked to Marek for their lead.
“The city burns,” said the Thayan, “but it still stands. This building, protected by my magic and others’” and he paused to nod at Asheru, who beamed in response”still stands, and will continue to stand. The city walls hold firm, and no outside eneniy lays siege or otherwise appears to be taking advantage of Innarlith’s moment of weakness.” No other realm but Thay, Marek silently reminded himself. “There have been fires and isolated looting, but most of us are safe in the Second Quarter. The reserves of food, gold, and magic hold firm, and remain largely in our hands. Buildings can be rebuilt, and if history has taught us anything it’s that peasants breed. The Fourth Quarter slums will be shoulder to shoulder with human refuse again soon enough.”
“If,” said Meykhati, “we stop it from getting any worse.”
“But Pristoleph won’t even come down from his tower to speak with us,” Aikiko said.
“And his fortress is as secure as ours,” Asheru reminded them. It had been Asheru who had provided much of Pristal Towers’s magical defenses, before Marek had arrived in Innarlith, and though he knew the secrets of many of them, they all know that there were moremore than either Asheru or Marek could defeat. “Sbmehow, he must be smoked out.”
“Perhaps a poor choice of words,” Meykhati said, “but I agree with the spirit of it. We must increase the pressure on him, even lay siege to that bloody palace of his. We must drive his wemics out of the city, and kill Pristoleph. It’s time Innarlith had a new ransar.”
“And that ransar should be Master Rymiit,” Aikiko said.
Though he tried, Meykhati couldn’t quite avoid the scowl he shot at her before he set his surprise aside. He didn’t look Marek in the eye, but they both knew who Meykhati imagined the next ransar to be.
“I second that,” Asheru said.
The others looked at each other, sipped their wine, picked at the seams of their clothing, and otherwise avoided speaking up.
“I set that aside,” Marek said. “I came here from my faraway home to trade, not to establish myself as your master. I serve the people of Innarlith by serving the interests of your fellow travelers in Thay.”
“Well put, Master Rymiit,” Meykhati said and they exchanged a look deep in meaning.
Marek knew then that Meykhati would never brook a foreigner as ransar. The Thayan thought it fortunate indeedfor Meykhatithat he hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t want to be ransar. It didn’t pay.
“We have the votes in the senate to simply make that happen,” Asheru said. “If not Master Rymiit then some otherany other, but Pristoleph. We can name our new ransar, and Pristoleph will be nothing more than the outlaw he’s proven himself to be.”