Lies of Light

63

22 Nightal, the Yearof the Banner (1368 DR) The Shining Sea, Seventy Miles North of Lushpool

They had been at sea for twenty-nine days, and in all that time Phyrea had not heard a single word uttered by anyone who wasn’t physically presentand alive. She spoke almost exclusively with Pristoleph. The crew went about their duties, rarely if ever seen from the sections of the ship reserved for she and the vessel’s master. She’d only ever been on one ship she thought was nearly a match to Pristoleph’s impressive Determined, and that was the strange ship that Devorast had made for the woman from Shou Lung.

They were impressive because they were unlike anything she’d seen before, and were reflections of the geniuses behind them, but that was where any comparison ended.

Determined was one of the biggest ship’s she’d ever seen, and she was dedicated to only one purpose: the recreation of her master. Friends of Phyrea’s father owned sailboats and yachts of all sorts, but none of them approached Determined in sheer size and luxury. It was as though a wing of Pristal Towers, gilded appointments and all, had been set afloat.

Phyrea climbed the stairs to the sun deck, as had become her habit after a light lunch in the salon with Pristoleph. High above the main deck, the sun deck was hidden from the sight of the crew. Though open to the tropical sun and fragrant breezes of the Shining Sea, it was entirely private.

Her favorite chaise had already been turned to face the sun by a butler she rarely saw, but who’s effect she felt throughout the dayevery day. She dropped her silk robe to the deck planks and stretched, naked, basking in the warmth of the sun. She brushed a hand slowly down her flat stomach and could already feel the sun heating her skin. She’d taken on a deep, rich color, and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t believe the change. Gone were the bags under her eyes, the haunted, faraway look, the exhausted, defeated droop of her shoulders.

She heard footsteps climbing the stairs and was so confident that it was Pristoleph that she didn’t cover herself, or even turn around. She sat, stretching, on the padded chaise and closed her eyes, tipping her face up to the warm sun. She imagined she could feel the perfect blue sky, unmarred by even the tiniest wisp of a cloud, soaking into her pores to nourish her in a way no food ever could.

“You are the most beautiful woman on the face of Toril,” Pristoleph said.

He sat in a deck chair next to her, and she looked at him and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said.

They had repeated the same words every day for the past twenty, and it had become another in a parade of simple comforts.

“Are we really on our way back?” she asked.

“We’ll be at harbor in Innarlith as soon as three or four days from now.”

Phyrea sighed.

“Are you disappointed?” Pristoleph asked.

“No,” she replied. “I knew that eventually we would have to go home. All this last month, though, I’ve wondered why I’ve traveled so little in my life. My father’s coin could have carried me to Waterdeep and back a hundred times, but I never really went any farther than our country estate.”

She took a deep breath and sighed. She didn’t want to think about Berrywilde, and the ghosts she seemed to have finally left behind.

“I take Determined out at least one month in every twelve,” Pristoleph said, though he’d told her the same many times before. “It never ceases to amaze me what getting away from the city can do for me, especially this time of year when the rain, the dark clouds, are so oppressive.”

“Oppressive…” she repeated, carefully considering the word. “It is. It is oppressive. I wonder if people there… if people would be better, would treat each other better, if the sun shined more often, and the Lake of Steam smelled like this sea and not the stinking innards of the Underdark.”

“You know what I think about that,” he replied. “People are people, and the weather might make you tired, or affect your mood, but ultimately what ails Innarlith goes deeper than too many rainy days.”

“But people there hate each other,” she said. “I know. I’m one of them. I’ve done hateful things, over and overthings to degrade myself and others. Here, under this perfect sky, I can’t imagine what made me such a misanthrope.”

“Everyone is an altruist on a tropical afternoon,” he said. “When you have to fight for a piece of a pie that can only be cut into so many pieces, you do what has to be done.”

She sighed and said, “I wish I’d stopped at what I had to do, sometimes.”

He shrugged that off, but still she could tell he thought about it.

“Still, I can’t help thinking people would be better to each other if they all had a month like this every year,” Phyrea thought aloud.

“I have a month like this every year,” Pristoleph said, “and I’m an unconscionable bastard.”

Phyrea laughed, and Pristoleph joined her. She kept laughing until tears streamed from her eyes. Eventually they both took deep breaths, and finally sat, smiling, in silence for a while.

“Well,” Phyrea said at last, “I’ll try to overlook that side of you.”

“That’s the best any man can ask from a woman,” Pristoleph replied. “Is it?”

“No,” he answered without pause. “The best a man can ask is lovetrue love, if there is such a thing.” “There is,” she whispered.

“And if I thought you felt that way about me I wouldn’t be a bastard anymore.”

“Oh,” she joked, “I doubt that one thing has anything to do with the other.”

She did love him, but not the same way she loved Ivar Devorast. To Phyrea, Pristoleph and she were like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in twenty years, but who fit back into a familiar, comforting groove the second they’d reacquainted.

“When we return,” she said. “I’ll bring my things and stay with you?”

“Of course,” he said.

“I can’t imagine living in such a beautiful place, surrounded by all that… beauty.”

“Your father is no pauper, Phyrea,” he reminded her. “Of course not, but…”

“It’s important, I think, to surround yourself with the best of everything.”

“Why?” she asked. “To impress?”

“No,” he replied. “To remind me that the works of man are superior to the works of nature.”

Phyrea smiled at that and nodded.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

She listened, but all she could hear was the crack and pop of the wind in the sails, the creak of the rigging, and the gentle sound of the shallow waves against the hullthe sounds of the sea.

“Do you?” Pristoleph asked again.

She shook her head.

“The whisper of waves…” he said.

Phyrea nodded and was about to ask him what he meant, but instead she listened again. She could hear it, but only because she didn’t hear the voices telling her to do things, asking her to murder herself. She wondered what else she’d missed under the weight of those voices.

“I do,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye with one finger.

“What does it say to you?”

“Nothing at all,” she said, “and that’s fine with me. I’d rather hear the waves whisper of nothing, than suffer through the lies of light.”