Scream of Stone

51

17 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Sorms (1374 DR) The Canal Site

Pristoleph stood when Devorast opened his eyes. His heart raced and he almost choked on a sip of the cheap local wine he’d found in the tent.

“Surero…” Devorast said, his voice thin and raspy.

Pristoleph shook his head and Devorast closed his eyes. The genasi stood there, looking away, for a long moment while his friend relived the alchemist’s death. Pristoleph had to know more.

“What was it that killed him?” he asked. “What was it that infected you?”

“Infected…?”

“You were half dead when a work gang got to the tent,” Pristoleph explained. “Surero had been murdered, and you lay dying from some kind of disease. It was as though you were rotting alive, just… deteriorating.”

Devorast shook his head and closed his eyes.

“The men said they saw someone run from the tent,” Pristoleph continued. “They described some kind of cloying smell, but didn’t see the man.”

“It was Willem.”

Pristoleph hissed with surprise. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the room as though searching for something, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.

“How could that be?” asked Pristoleph. “The priestess from the Sisterhood of Pastorals said it was a disease associated with”

“It was Willem,” Devorast interrupted. He struggled to sit up, but Pristoleph held out a calming hand and he lay back down on the narrow, sweat-soaked cot.

“I’m beginning to understand something,” Pristoleph said, and waited for Devorast to look at him before he went on. “I saw something at the Thayan Enclave once, some kind of undead creature. Marek Rymiit made it, but he said it was for him, that itwasn’t for sale. It wasn’t a zombie, like the dockworkers, but… something else. I don’t know what.”

Devorast closed his eyes and looked away.

“I think,” Pristoleph whispered, “that everything I feared has come to pass.”