Scream of Stone

50

16 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Canal Site

Willem hadn’t moved the tent, as had become customary, to the end of the great trench. He couldn’t see the portal arch from the tent, and the sound of the bursting smokepowder was subdued enough by the distance that he didn’t jump out of his skin every time one went off. And he was far away from the men who looked at him with accusatory glares and grumbled behind his back.

He sat at the drawing table and stared down at one of Ivar Devorast’s drawings, a plan for a section of the canal that would never be built. Overwhelmed by a draining melancholy, all he could do was stare at it. He was thirsty but couldn’t face the complex and draining task of pouring a glass of water from a pitcher that was just out of reach on another table. When the tent flap rustled and someone stepped in, Willem didn’t turn around.

“You had to know I was coming back,” Ivar Devorast said.

Willem’s shoulders sagged and a pressure pushed on his chest so that he could barely force his lungs to take in air. The tip of his tongue cracked, his mouth was so dry, and he tasted blood. The incessant pain of his teeth flared and he closed his eyes to fight back a tear.

“Willem,” Devorast said.

Willem opened his mouthbut not to speak. He couldn’t breathe.

“I should have given you some way to contact me,” Devorast said, stepping closer.

Willem managed to say, “I would have… used it.” “Why, Willem?” Devorast asked.

Willem shook his head and gasped in a breath that seemed to lodge in his throat. A stabbing pain struck his knee and his shoulders pressed down even farther. He felt as though he were being crushed into the damp ground.

“I couldn’t stop them,” Willem said. His voice was so low, so weak, he could hardly hear it himself. “He compelled”

Willem’s throat closed and he gagged. He wanted to tell Devorast everything. He wanted to tell him that Marek Rymiit had in some way magically compelled him to accept Aikiko and Kurtsson’s “help” in finishing the canal. He wanted to tell Devorast he had no choice, that he was just a pawn, as always, of more powerful men, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t force the words from his mouth.

“Did you come here to kill me?” Willem whispered.

Devorast stepped closer and Willem tensed, certain he would feel a blade pierce the flesh of his quivering back and still his heart. He couldn’t decide if that would be such a bad thing at all. His heart beat too fast, and a dull pain spread through his chest like water spilled from a barrel.

“It was my fault,” Devorast said.

Willem shook his head.

“It was,” Devorast. went on. “I was gone too long.” “You…” Willem choked out, “should not have… trusted me.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted anyone. I should have understood that I have too many enemies to leave for five months or more.”

Willem nodded, and though he couldn’t remember breathing in, he managed to rasp, “You should have been able to trust me.”

Willem waited for Devorast to answer, but there was only silence in the tent behind him. A sharp pain in his head made him close his eyes.

“Ivar?” Willem whispered. “You can’t forgive me.”

Willem’s jaw clenched of its own accord and the agony of his teeth grinding together made him tilt off the stool to sprawl on the floor. He was dimly aware of Devorast stepping forward to help him, then stepping away when he spun into a crouch, his hands in front of him, his fingers bent to claw at the air.

“Willem,” Devorast said. “You’re not well.”

Willem’s head exploded in a shower of liquid agony and the skin on his face tightened, stretching his dry lips into a cracking, painful grimace.

“Pity?” Willem choked out.

He looked up, and with dim, dull vision, saw Devorast’s smug, vile, hated face looking at him with condescending pitylooking at him as though Willem were a troubled child who’d done wrong, but couldn’t be blamed because he didn’t know any better.

Willem rose to his feet, and as he did the pain dropped away, like a tree sheds it leaves in the autumn. By the time he stood to his full height, he was rid of it all, the pain, the shame, the guiltall of it. And it had been replaced by a single thought, a singular, burning desire.

From a tiny, walled-off portion of his conscious mind Willem knew he wasn’t breathing, and could feel that his heart had stopped in his chest. But that was just the smallest part of him, a part too small to stop the rest, and the rest wanted only to killto kill Ivar Devorast.

Willem lurched forward, both hands up to grasp Devorast’s throat, but the man turned to the side just in time and Willem, overbalanced, staggered past him.

“Willem,” Devorast said. “Stop it.”

With a feral growl Willem spun and lashed out with a backhand that caught Devorast on the shoulder. It was a weak blow, but it sent Devorast, arms flailing, into the drawing table. Wood cracked and splintered and parchment tore and crumpled as Devorast crashed to the ground.

Willem bent at the waist and twisted, which made something inside him crack and tear, and he grabbed Devorast by his threadbare black vest. Ignoring the sounds of his own body creaking, only half aware of his own pain, Willem lifted Devorast off the ground.

Devorast hit his wrists then tried to dig his fingernails into Willem’s forearms, but Willem ignored the sensation that a living human might describe as “pain.” He threw Devorast to the ground. When he hit, the air went out of his lungs in a loud grunt that Willem found at once satisfying and disturbing.

He didn’t want to kill Ivar Devorast. He had to. He didn’t want it to be a long, protracted, painful death, but it would be.

Devorast crawled away from him as Willem lurched forward.

“Willem,” Devorast gasped, “what’s… happened to you?”

Though Willem wanted to answer, he couldn’t. He didn’t know what had happened to him, and he didn’t want Devorast to know anyway.

“Die,” Willem barked outhis voice so shredded and guttural the word was hardly recognizable.

Devorast staggered to his feet and turned to run out of the tent, but Willem lashed at him with his left fist-pulling the punch at just the last instantand knocked Devorast once more to the ground. He knew that if he’d hit him as hard as he could he would have killed him, and as he tried to understand why he’d spared the life of the man he was absolutely compelled to kill, the last trace of question, the last morsel of will, fled him.

He screamed out his rageblind, remorseless, unfetteredat the writhing form of his victim, and he stepped forward.

The tent opened and someone stood in front of Willem.

“Surerono!” Devorast gasped.

Willem didn’t recognize the intruder. He saw a face-eyes wide, mouth openand a body, but that was all. It wasn’t a person, not a man with a soul and a history, but a thing between Willem and Devorast, and he couldn’t have anything between him and Devorast.

Willem lashed out, and there was no last-instant tempering of the blow, no reprieve for the unknown victim that should have known better than to step between him and his kill.

Surero’s head exploded from the force of Willem’s blow. The dry-skinned fist shattered teeth, drove the alchemist’s mouth open, and continued on through flesh, bone, brain, and sinew to burst out the other side drenched in blood and saliva.

“No!” Devorast shouted. “Willem!”

Willem stumbled backward, avoiding the headless corpse and blinking from the spray of blood driven up from the alchemist’s still-beating heart.

The alchemist.

Willem grunted and blinkedhe’d killed… who? Surero.

And that little closed off corner of his consciousness opened just enough, just barely enough, for him to realize what he’d done. That little corner spoke then to the rest of his dead mind and he knew on every level still available to him that he’d killed the wrong man.

Willem took control of his body for one step, then another, and he was out of the tent and running.