Scream of Stone

22

3 Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith

"Oh… oh, Ransar…” the alchemist babbled as he was hustled into the lavish sitting room by one of Pristoleph’s black firedrakes. “Please, my lord, oh, please allow me to explain. I beg you. I didn’t think… I mean, I didn’t realize… I don’t know…”

He doesn’t know what he’s defending himself against, Pristoleph thought, rolling his eyes.

The black-armored soldier let go of Harkhuf’s arm and the alchemist dropped to his knees, his green-stained hands shaking and scrabbling at the fine Calishite rug. He was dressed in dingy gray undergarments and a tattered weathercloak. His face was sweating and great brown stains showed under his arms. From the state of his hair and the redness in his eyes it was obvious that the black firedrakes had roused him from a sound sleep. It was well after middark after all.

“Calm yourself,” Pristoleph said, but the groveling man hardly seemed to hear him.

“Harkhuf, really,” Marek Rymiit scolded, almost as though Harkhuf were his own unruly child.

It was only then that Harkhuf seemed to notice that the Red Wizard was in the room. He scrambled to his feet and crossed to where Marek sat and Pristoleph could see his knees bending ever more with each step.

“There is no need to bow to me, Harkhuf my friend,” the Thayan said, and Pristoleph imagined his next words might have been: “At least not in the presence of the ransar,” but the Red Wizard left that unsaid.

“Sit down, man,” Pristoleph said, taking a seat himself on a particularly garish, massive wingback easy chair of Waterdhavian design.

Harkhuf took two steps on weak knees and collapsed on a foot stool in front of Marek, looking for all accounts like a dog caught soiling his master’s rug.

“I assume we had to wake you, this evening?” Pristoleph said.

“Oh, oh, no, Ransar, no, not at all. Not at all,” the alchemist replied around a hissing, toadying laugh that made Pristoleph’s skin crawl. Marek rolled his eyes behind the alchemist’s head.

“Since you were sleeping,” Pristoleph pressed on, “I will assume you have not yet heard of the death of Senator Horemkensi.”

“The… what?” Harkhuf said. If it was possible for his face to get any whiter, it did just then. “The what… of… who? Who died?”

“You heard him,” Marek said.

Harkhuf tried to look at both of them at the same time and appeared almost more regretful of having sat between them than he was of the word of his master’s death.

“How?” he asked in a voice as small as a little girl’s.

“He was murdered,” Pristoleph said.

“Poisoned,” Marek added.

“No,” Harkhuf whispered, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “Oh, blessed Azuth, you can’t possibly believe that I had anything” He threw himself to the floor, pushing the foot stool toward a startled Red Wizard, and commenced a most unseemly groveling. “Oh, Ransar, I beg you. I beg you to hear my defense. I was not even there when it happened. I know nothing of poisons. I know even less of poisons than I do of smokepowder. I would never… I would never…”

“Will you please calm yourself,” Pristoleph said. “And get up off the floor.”

Harkhuf did as he was told, hurrying to a small chair in the corner of the parlor, where he sat with his green hands at his sides. He was having a great deal of difficulty breathing.

“By the gods,” Marek said, “you’ll pass out.”

“No one here is accusing you of anything,” Pristoleph said.

That stopped Harkhuf breathing all together.

“Breathe,” the Red Wizard urged.

Harkhuf took a deep breath and nodded. He blinked and for a moment Pristoleph thought he was about to pass out, but finally he managed to gather himselfat least enough to remain conscious.

“It was the Zhentarim,” the alchemist said.

Pristoleph looked at the Thayan and met his eyes.

“The Black Network?” Marek asked.

“Yes,” the alchemist said, though he shook his head at the same time. “It was the merchant’s council of Turmish, then. Yes?”

“Do you?” Pristoleph started to ask.

“The caravanners!” the alchemist exclaimed. “Our own caravanners… they’ve opposed construction of the canal all along!”

“So, you’re guessing,” Marek said with a dark, perturbed look.

“I was hoping you could tell me more,” Pristoleph said with a sigh. “The two of you seemed close. And together you’ve made remarkable progress, or so I’ve been told.”

“Yes,” the alchemist said, looking down at the rug between his unshod feet. “I haven’t the slightest clue as to how or why, my lord, but we have made exceptional progress.”

“Whatever do you mean, you have no clue how or why?” asked Marek.

“I’m terrible, my lords,” the alchemist said to both the ransar and the Red Wizard. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m doing. By my own count I’ve killed two hundred men… more, maybe… and all that with smokepowder still left over from Surero. When I told the men to make some more they looked at me in a way that made it plain they had no idea where to begin, and yet within a tenday, the supplies were almost entirely restocked.”

Again Pristoleph traded a look with Marek.

“You mean you haven’t been?”

“Doing much at all, Ransar,” Harkhuf admitted. “Please, Master Rymiit… I should be discharged. I am incompetent and I have failed you over and over and over again.”

“And now,” Pristoleph grumbled, “the senator who’s been covering for you is dead, and you’re afraid whoever killed him will come after you next.”

“Master Rymiit,” Harkhuf said, a little drool beginning to drip from his quivering lower lip. “Something is happening to the zombies. Every so often some of them disappear. They just… aren’t there anymore. We… I have no idea what’s become of them.”

An angry scowl darkened the Red Wizard’s face even more, and Pristoleph found his pulse beginning to race. The other two men looked up at him and blinked, and he realized he’d inadvertently raised the temperature in the room enough for them to notice. He calmed himself, but it took a while for the room to cool.

Marek took the hint, though, and calmed himself as well. Harkhuf was one of Marek’s — men, at least after a fashion, and the Red Wizard was not someone a man like

Harkhuf should ever disappoint. Pristoleph hoped only for a little more information from the alchemist, then he’d do what ransars often did: turn a blind eye while Marek Rymiit did what he thought was best.

“I don’t want to go back up there,” Harkhuf said. “I beg you not to compel me to do so. I beg you both.”

“You will go where your ransar commands you to go,” Marek warned.

“It was not Horemkensi, then,” Pristoleph said, “who was responsible for the increase in productivity.”

Harkhuf shook his head and replied, “It could have been, but…”

“But?” the Thayan prompted.

“But only over the past couple months I began to notice that when he gave an order, it looked as though the men meant to carry it out, but often went off and did something else entirely. It was as though they knew he was wrong, and to a man knew what to do instead.”

“Or someone else was telling them what to do,” Pristoleph said.

Harkhuf replied, “All I know is it wasn’t me.”