Scream of Stone

37

17 Eleasias, the Yearof Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) The Canal Site

"How long has it been?” Willem asked.

Ivar Devorast looked at himlooked him in the eye. Willem didn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Though it was never easy to read Devorast’s expression, Willem was sure he finally could. It was confusion Willem saw in his old friend’s face. The look was what would come before, “Are you well? Have you been ill? What has happened to you?” But Devorast didn’t say any of those things.

“Six years,” he answered instead.

Willem nodded, puzzled over that length of time. He couldn’t decide if six years seemed like too long, or not long enough.

“I wonder sometimes,” Willem said, “if it was evenme who met you all those years ago, in school. Did you really let a room from my mother? Did we really come here, and…?”

Devorast didn’t answer. He never answered questions like that, rhetorical questions, questions from the verge of panic.

Willem tipped his face up into the hot wind. The clear blue sky left the sun unfiltered and Willem felt as though he’d stepped into a blast furnace. The light hurt his eyes. He was sweating, and he hated sweating.

“What brings you here?” Devorast asked him.

Willem closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. He wanted to answer, but he couldn’t form a thought much less the words. He looked over at Devorast, who stood, still as always, and waited for an answer.

Willem smiled and said, “That’s what I must have looked like, all those times I stood there, waiting for you to answer, waiting for anything from you but the least you could give.”

Devorast stood and waited, and that made Willem laugh.

“I haven’t laughed in a long time,” he said to himself, then stepped to the lip of the stone-lined trench.

He stopped with his toes barely a quarter of an inch from the edge. Below him was a sheer drop to the bottom of the canal. The section was finished, and Willem’s eyes followed its sharp contours. It was straighter than anything so big had any right to be. The blocks fit together perfectly.

“How deep is it?” Willem asked. The wind took his voice and he was afraid Devorast didn’t hear him.

“Thirty feet,” Devorast said.

“It seems deeper,” Willem said, still looking down. “You’ve made startling progress, Ivar, really. How far are you from finishing?”

“A year,” Devorast replied.

“A year…” Willem mouthed the word again and puzzled over how foreign it sounded to him.

“What do you want here, Willem?”

Willem sighed and looked up into the clear blue sky. He rocked back on his feet just the tiniest bit, and his face flushed.

“Step back,” Devorast said.

Willem took a step backward from the edge, then another, then he turned and walked past Devorast.

“I don’t know what’s happened to me,” Willem said. “I know I look bad. I know that… something is wrong. I think I’ve done things that are wrong.”

“You did what you chose to do,” Devorast said.

Willem nodded, though he didn’t agree. He couldn’t believe that. He had done what he was told to do.

“Can I help you, Ivar?” Willem said. “Will you let me help you finish it?”

“As?”

“As?” Willem asked.

Devorast didn’t answer, and Willem paced in a slow circle for a long moment while he considered the meaning of that one little word.

“You decide what as,” Willem said. “I’m not the master builder. I’m only a senator anymoreand even that in name only. Should you ask me to dig a hole I’ll dig it. Ask me to carry stone or cut lumber, I’ll do it. Let me do something. Give me something to do that will leave something behind to”

Willem stopped talking because he didn’t know what he was saying anymore. He didn’t understand himself.

“As?” Willem said. “As a parasite. Let me help you as a less than sensate thing that lives on the blood and flakes of dead skin from”

He stopped again.

“You told me that you were my enemy once,” Devorast said. “You warned me to carry a weapon.”

“I’ve done and said worse than that” Willem replied. He looked at Devorast and was just as relieved that he saw no compassion in the man’s face as he was to see no anger. “I can fall to my knees, if you like. I can grovel.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Devorast said with the barest hint of a smile.

Willem nodded and laughed in a way that didn’t feel as good as before, but made him feel tired.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Devorast replied, “I’ll think about it.”

Willem nodded, looked at the ground, and smiled. He looked up at Devorast, who was looking at his canal, and Willem grinned wider. A tear rolled down his cheek, and it felt good.