Scream of Stone

63

10 Mirtul, the Yearof Lightning Storms (1374 Dffl Pristal Towers, Innarlith

A cloud of greasy black smoke brushed against the outside of the glass and Pristoleph breathed deeply of its pungent odor. A humansomeone fully human at any ratewould have choked and gagged, even with the glass between him and the smoke, but Pristoleph’s lungs, which had as much in common with his elemental father’s as his human mother’s, took in the smoke with something bordering on relish.

“Your city burns, Ransar,” Wenefir said.

The sound of his former confidante’s voice rankled him, and he could feel his hair stir and warm. He closed his hands into hot fists, but kept his consciousness away from the torches that burned in the sunlit chamber.

He could see Wenefira vague outline of him, anyway-reflected in the glass. He was flanked by two wemics who nervously pawed at the floor, their eyes locked on the priest.

“Ransar?” Wenefir asked.

Pristoleph took a deep breath that he hoped would let Wenefir know that he would answer in his own time.

The tower room fell silent, save for the fidgeting wemics, and Pristoleph’s eyes darted from fire to fire. Below him the Fourth Quarter burned. Not all of it, but enough of it to send ragged refugees streaming into the Third Quarter or out the eastern gate. He was too high up to see the gangs of watchmen alternately helping and harrying them. The peasants of the Fourth Quarter had precious little to steal, but word had come to him of rape and murder, of humiliations extreme and petty.

“It doesn’t take much, does it?” Pristoleph asked.

“Ransar?” Wenefir replied.

“To set people on their neighbors,” the ransar went on. “It doesn’t take much to turn men into beasts, brothers into enemies…”

“I’m not so sure of that,” the priest answered.

Pristoleph turned to face him, an eyebrow raised. Wenefir wilted almost imperceptibly under his gaze, but managed to stand straight andalmostlook him in the eye.

“Terrible events and powerful forces conspired to bring this chaos to the streets of the city-state,” Wenefir said.

“Was that it?” Pristoleph joked, a forced lightness in his voice that he couldn’t possibly have felt at that moment. “Or was it terrible forces and powerful events?”

“As you wish, Ransar,” Wenefir replied with a smirk.

“Neither,” Pristoleph said, all traces of gaiety fled from his voice and his manner. “Men made smoke rise over Innarlith. And perhaps one god.”

“Tread lightly on that path,” Wenefir warned, “if at all, Ransar.”

The wemics beside him stiffened and sniffed at the threat. Second Chief Gahrzig came up the stairs as if on cue and scowled at the former seneschal.

“Make one move to work your magic, priest,” the mercenary leader threatened, “and I’ll drop you where you stand.”

Wenefir glanced at the wemic and Pristoleph could tell the priest believed him.

“He won’t require an order from me to do so, my old friend,” Pristoleph added.

Wenefir said, “Understood, Ransar, but I have not come here to ensorcell you.”

“I think I know why you’ve come here,” said Pristoleph.

“Believe what you will of me, Pristoleph,” Wenefir said, and the ransar couldn’t help but notice something of his old friend, that weak little boy he’d saved from a short life on the streets, in the sound of his voice, “but know that I hold this city dear. It is my home. I do my god’s work here.”

Pristoleph couldn’t help but smile at that. “You’ve taught me enough of your god’s ways over the years, you know. This” and he jerked his head in the direction of another plume of smoke that blew past the window”is precisely the sort of work your god values the most.”

“Be that as it may,” the Cyricist said, too quickly, “I come to offer advice.”

“You have been discharged,” the ransar reminded him. “You no longer serve the city-state, as my seneschal or in any other capacity.”

“Then take this as advice from a friend, Pristoleph. Take it as a warning from an enemy, if you must, but heed it. Heed me.”

The wemics tensed again and Gahrzig drew steel. Pristoleph glanced at the wemic chieftain, but the second chiefs eyes stayed on Wenefir.

“Speak,” Pristoleph said.

“The senate is against you,” said Wenefir. “What few allies you had have either turned or been killed. Blood runs in the streets, fires rage in the Second Quarter, too, now, and none of them will long stand for that.”

“They know how to stop this,” Pristoleph said.

“And so do you.”

Pristoleph took a deep breath and said, “So now you’ll tell me to surrender to Marek Rymiit. You’ll advise that I gift this city to a Thayan invader to sell on the cheap to his Red Wizards back home?”

Wenefir sighed, and Pristoleph could tell the priest didn’t have to fake the exhaustion written so plainly on his face. “Hear their demandsthe senate’s demands, not the Thayan’s.”

“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.”