Lies of Light

18

11 Kytkorn, the Yearofthe Sword (1365 DR) The Chamber of Law and Civility, Innarlith

Willem Korvan wasn’t drunk, but he had been drinking. He’d come straight from the inn where he’d been with Halina. He still smelled of heror at least he feared he did, but it was the smell of the wine he feared most. The air inside the giant chamber that served as a meeting rooma sort of templefor the senate of Innarlith was dry and hot. Though it was many dozens of times the size of the room in the inn, he felt more closed in by the senate chamber. He found it more difficult to breathe there.

“Do you think it a waste of your time, my boy,” the master builder said, “if I tell you again how proud I am of you?”

Willem couldn’t answer, so he shook his head.

But I can’t believe this, he told himself. She can’t be the one I end up with. My mother is right. Marek Rymiit is right. They’re all right. Halina is wrong.

“You’ve done well these past months, Willem,” Inthelph droned on. “We are all very happy with youall your generous patrons.”

He thought of a dozen sycophantic replies to that but spoke none of them. He couldn’t muster the energy to push that much air out of his lungs.

“But you should also know that I expect more of you than a vote in these chambers,” Inthelph went on.

His voice made Willem’s skin crawl. The master builder spoke to him in paternal tones, and Willem wanted nothing more than to strike out. He couldn’t gather the strength to speak to him, but he felt sure he could snap the old man’s neck in the blink of an eye. They were alone in the chamber, after all. It would be a simple enough thing to concoct a storya tragic fall, almost silly really, that such a great man might trip on a stair and fall just so as to break his neck. No one would question, would they? Would they take the master builder’s still corpse to a priest and inquire of his departed soul? Would Inthelph accuse Willem from beyond the grave? It was the sort of thing one had to consider, though they never did that with Khonsu…"

“Though you’re a senator now you’re still a very talented young man, and the city needs your talents, perhaps now more than ever.”

But then the old man was wrong, wasn’t he? Willem had no talentnone at allsave the talent for impressing easily impressed old men and shy, bookish foreign women. He couldn’t build anything. He couldn’t leave a legacy, or a mark on the world. But he could kiss withered old arse with the best of them. Willem desperately craved more wine, or something stronger.

“I just simply deplore the notion that any serious program of public works should proceed without your involvement. It’s a disservice to the city, the ransar, and the people of Innarlitha grave disservice indeed.”

Willem tried to sigh, but had no strength to do it, so he just sat there trying to keep a picture of Devorast’s canal from forming in his head. They both knew that that was what the master builder was talking about. But apparently only Willem knew that there was no way in all Nine screaming bloody Hells that he would be able to build it. Willem couldn’t even really imagine the thing. He understood the basic concept of course: Build a trench from the shore of the Lake of Steam to the bank of the Nagaflow and somehow fill it with water to form a man-made river. But it was such a long way, and would have to be so deep.

“I’m sure you know that the ransar will soon enough discover the sort of man your old friend Ivar Devorast is, after all. That foolit’s Tymora’s most fickle whimsy that the man has avoided his unfortunate patron’s wrath this long. I mean, honestly…”

Maybe, Willem thought, this ransar is not as stupid as you or I. Maybe he understands that though Devorast was no one’s idea of a sparkling conversationalist, he was perhaps the only human being on the whole of spinning Toril that might ever have even conceived of the thing, let alone was in possession of the skills necessary to see it done. If the master builder insisted that Willem finish the canal, he would have to do it, and he would have to fail.

“But that’s all just fancy now, isn’t it? We’ll let it be as it may, yes?”

Yes, yes, yes, Willem thought. Let it be. Let it be damned with the both of them to the endless Abyss. Willem rubbed his face, and an image of Halina came unbidden to his mind’s eye. She lay naked on the bed in the inn where he’d left her. She smiled at him in that way she had of smiling at him that made him not want to kill himself.

“Really, Willem, I worry about you. You don’t look all together well. Please tell me you’ve been sleeping. It’s sleep that is the finest tonic for any man’s body and soul. You’ve earned some rest, at least until you are called upon to finish some endeavor or another for your dear adopted home.”

Rest? Sleep? With Halina, yes, two or three days out of every ten. The rest of the time he couldn’t sleep. No half dozen bottles of wine could make him pass out, even. All. he did was sit at home in the dark and think, the sound of his mother’s snoring wafting through the strangely unfamiliar halls of his townhouse. That sound reminded him of his childhood, and was just barely enough to keep him from opening his veins in the wee hours before dawn, but the house he’d bought was no home for him.

“Perhaps you need a diversion, or better yet, a family. You know my feelings on this, Willem, and I think Phyrea’s coming around. In fact, I know for a fact she is. By the Merchantfriend’s jingling purse, my boy, I’ve long considered you a sona part of the family already. Marry Phyrea, Willem, and let’s make that truly the case, eh?”

Marry Phyrea? The thought made his head spin more than the wine or the memory of the softness of Halina’s skin. Phyrea had shown him nothing but scathing contempt, and her mouth-breathing old imbecile of a father thought that she was “coming around?” Her disdain was something Willem carried around with him like other men carried knives. It had become a comfortable part of him. Marry Phyrea? He had a better chance of wedding Chauntea herself in a grand ceremony in the Great Mother’s Garden.

“I suppose you’ve heard the things she’s been saying about you. My daughter has become quite the devotee of

Senator Willem Korvan. She’s mentioned you to the ransar himselfto all the finest people. She’s sung your praises to Marek Rymiit, and even to some visiting celestial from Shou Lung… you’ve met him, haven’t you? The tall, willowy one that looks even more like an elf than the rest of his kind. She’s made you something of a cause. All the wives are gossiping. They’ve sussed out her motives and I swear the wives of half the senators in Innarlith have already bought their dresses for the wedding.”

The master builder was too stupid to have invented that. It must be true. But how? Why? How cold it possibly serve Phyrea to turn her opinion of him so sharply that she would even bother to criticize him in the higher social circles, let alone praise him. But the master builder couldn’t be making it up. And what of Halina?

“Oh, gods…” Willem muttered, his gorge rising in his throat.

“Goodness gracious, Willem,” Inthelph cooed, putting a dry, bony hand on his back. “You aren’t well, are you?”

“I’m fine,” he managed to say. “I’m just…”

The master builder laugheda cackling, old man’s laughand said, “My daughter can have that effect on men, can’t she?”

Willem nodded once then emptied his stomach onto the floor of the senate chamber.