Lies of Light

41

8 Alturiak, the Yearof the Shield (1367 DR) The Chamber of Law and Civility

Willem Korvan wondered how long it had been.

How long had it been since he’d sat in the same room as Ivar Devorast?

His red hair as long and stringy, his simple peasant’s clothes as unkempt, his eyes as cold and unintimidated as ever, Devorast sat quietly in a hard ladderback chair in the middle of the semicircular hearing chamber. Off in the east wing of the Chamber of Law and Civility, it was the largest of the hearing rooms, it’s round outer wall lined with tall windows of cobalt blue glass. With the dull winter light coming in through the blue glass Willem thought everyone looked sickworse than that, they looked dead. He felt as though he sat in a room full of ghosts.

Even Devorast looked spectral and sick, and Willem had never seen him look like that. As the people who didn’t know himdidn’t know the least thing about himrailed against him or heaped him with praise he just sat there, showing not even a trace of interest.

Willem sat in one of a row of chairs behind the senior senators who had called the hearing at the request of the ransar. At times, Meykhati’s back blocked his view of the assembly, but he could always see Devorast.

Having found out only the night before that he would be part of the hearing, Willem had gone out and gotten drunk, then had gone home and gotten more drunk. In the morning he drank a little more, and drank on his way to the hearing.

“Senator Korvan?” Salatis said, his voice booming, loud and angry.

Willem winced. His throat was tight and his mouth dry. Everyone was looking at him. He didn’t try to stand.

“I’ve known Ivar Devorast,” Willem said, “for a long, long, long, long, long time. A very long time longer than anyone else here.” He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands, which he kept on his knees so they wouldn’t shake so much. “That’s how long I’ve known him.”

“And?” the ransar prompted, irritated, his face turning red.

“And if that’s what he said then that’s what…” Not sure at all what he was trying to say, Willem stopped talking.

“Senator,” Meykhati asked, “are you quite all right?”

Willem shook his head and replied, “I’m fine.”

“With all due respect,” someone Willem didn’t know said, “is this man intoxicated?”

“Please, Ambassador,” Salatis scolded. He stood from where he sat atop a raised daisalways a dais, Willem thoughtand banged a gavel on the little desk in front of him. The blue windows were behind him and the whole room had the strange effect of a reverse amphitheater. The senators were arrayed in a semicircle with various witnesses seated in straight rows on the other side of the room, and Devorast seated in the center as though he were a scrap of territory over which two armies had gathered to fight. “We have certain rules of order here that I hope you will respect.”

The man stood, bowed to the ransar, and said, “And are there rules that concern whether or not a drunk can testify in a hearing like this?”

“This isn’t Arrabar, Ambassador Verhenden,” Salatis grumbled. “Until I decide otherwise, we will hear Senator Korvan.”

“Verhenden,” Willem said. “I’ve heard of you. Fael, right? Fael Verhenden, the ambassador from Arrabar. You’re right, your excellency. You’re entirely and completely and completely right about the fact that I’m completely drunk.”

A disturbed murmur rattled through the room, and Willem laughed at them, the fools.

Salatis called the meeting to order again, and Willem said, “He’ll build it if you let him, but he’ll build it for himself. I can tell you that. This bastard… this man doesn’t care about Innarlith any more than he cared about Cormyr, and he sure as Tymora flips a. coin doesn’t give the south end of a northbound rat about the city of stinking Arrabar.”

“I beg your pardon,” the ambassador huffed.

“That’s enough, Willem!” Meykhati hissed at him.

Willem shook his head and closed his eyes. The room spun. He couldn’t focus on anything, so he just listened instead.

“Ransar,” Meykhati said, “please accept my apology for — Senator Korvan, who has suffered some at the careless hands of Ivar Devorast, apparently since they were both children.”

Willem shook his head and asked in a loud voice, “Have I? I have suffered how at his hands? How did he suffer me? How…?”

“This is telling, Ransar,” Meykhati went on. “Here is Devorast’s countryman and friend, and under his influence, what has become of a young man with an outstanding career and by all accounts a fine, sophisticated mind?”

“Have you ever said the word ‘forgiveness’ and actually meant it, Ambassador?” Willem asked, his eyes still closed. “I drank when I knew I had to come here because he forgives me. I think he forgives me. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. I think you have to care about someone to forgive him, don’t you? Care just a little?”

“I’m sure you’re quite right,” said the ambassador from Arrabar.

Salatis banged his gavel in response.

“I’m not afraid of him,” Willem said. “I’m afraid of what I am compared to him.”

“Willem,” Meykhati barked, “be still.”

“Let him speak,” a man who’s voice Willem didn’t recognize cut in.

“Sit down, alchemist,” Salatis all but screamed. “You should still be in the dungeons, not out making these concoctions of yours that are perhaps the most dangerous part of this insane project.”

“What I make is only dangerous when it’s used by assassins sent by”

“SiZerace/”Salatis screamed. “I will have order, or I will clear the room.”

There was a moment of shifting chairs and scuff ling feet, and Willem chuckled. His stomach turned, and his face flushed.

“We have heard from Warden Truesilver of Cormyr, Ambassador Verhenden of Arrabar, and Mistress Ran Ai Yu of Shou Lung,” the ransar said. “The only other person herethe only one who was born and raised in Innarlith who seems inclined to support Ivar Devorast is a failed alchemist and would-be assassin who should be marching this instant to the gallows but for the forgiveness of Master Rymiit. And then there was the testimony we’ve heard from our very own senators Meykhati, Nyla, and Djeserka; and Master Rymut’s man the esteemed wizard Kurtsson. Who am I to believe?”

Willem rubbed his eyes and opened them. He looked at Devorast, and his blurred vision made his old “friend” appear less hard, less intractable, softer.

“Answer me, Devorast,” Salatis demanded.

“Believe what you will,” Devorast replied. His voice made Willem’s skin crawl.

There was a long silence that made the air in the room seem too heavy to breathe. Willem couldn’t breathe, anyway. He scanned the room and his eyes fell on the face of Senator Pristoleph. Beside him stood his man, the soft and effeminate Wenefir. Willem was taken by the look on Pristoleph’s face, the cold regard focused on Devorast.

“That’s no answer,” the ransar said to Devorast.

Pristoleph smiled as though he didn’t agree with Salatis.

“I want to get on with my work,” Devorast said. “Will you leave me alone to do that?”

The ransar stared him down for a long time while most of the people in the room squirmed in their seats. Devorast waited without barely taking a breath.. Pristoleph turned and walked out of the room, Wenefir in tow. That made Willem smile, but he didn’t know why. Then he was afraid he was about to vomit.

“No,” the ransar said.