Whisper of Waves

12

15 Eleint, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

The nursery was an assault on the senses.

Marek Rymut had begun to dread his infrequent visits there, though it was he who had built the place. Well, to be entirely accurate, he hadn’t built it but found it. The space had been there for a very long time. A long-disbanded guild of thieves had used it as a place to hide and squabble over loot, then it was used as a wine cellar for some wealthy merchant to indulge his dilettante’s fantasies of culture and good taste. Pirates moved in for a year or so after that, doing much the same as the thieves had, but entering more often through the dreary, slime-covered water that washed in from the drainage tunnel and spilled into the Lake of Steam. Then it was used as a prison during some minor border skirmish against a nearby city-state Marek had never heard of. Through the decades it went on like that, with no one bothering to scrape the mold off the walls or sweep the dust from the floor.

When Marek found it, he had trouble at first believing that it was a man-made structure and not a natural cavern so thick was the dust and debris. He hired some men to clean it out, paid them not to speak of it, then paid others to intimidate them into keeping that promise and even briefly considered having all of them killed. Then that wasn’t really necessary, was it? Anyone who really wanted to know would know, and most everyone else wouldn’t care. He’d have to do what he always did, which was trust that he had more, better friends in Innarlith than any of his enemies did.

All those thoughts were pushed from his mind when his foot found the bottom step and he turned into the great vaulted chamber under the streets of Innarlith. The smell got to him first, even though he had been careful to place a fine silk handkerchief over his mouth and nose before he was halfway down the seemingly endless staircase from the sewer above.

The smell was a combination of blood, sulfur, charred flesh, burned hair, and things even less pleasant. There was no way a human could pick out each of those smells separately, so all he could do was withstand the force of the combination. What all those things created when put together was a unique odor all its own and one Marek could only call “the nursery.”

He put his hand on the wall and it felt warm. The air was thick with humidity and so hot Marek began to sweat from his forearms along with all the usual places. He didn’t like the way that felt and couldn’t wait to get out of there for at least that reason. A bath and clean clothes seemed like the most valuable things in the world just then. He stepped into the room on legs made unsure by a vibration that rattled the ancient flagstones under his feet. The dragon was moving.

“Ah, Marek Rymut,” the bass voice trundled through the heavy air.

Marek smiled despite his discomfort and said, “Insithryllax, my friend. You’re well?”

The sound of the dragon’s laugh was like distant thunder crawling at him from the horizon. He’d long ago stopped being scared by the sound and had come to relish the feeling it elicited in his chest.

“I’ve had a glass poured for you,” said the dragon.

Marek followed the great wyrm’s gaze to a fine crystal wine glass sitting on the floor next to a matching decanter. The Red Wizard had never seen the set before and found that fact unsettling but only passingly so. Insithryllax wasn’t his prisoner, and the dragon was well-versed at taking human form.

“What is it?” Marek asked, bending to take up the glass. He set his nose onto the rim and pulled in a long noseful. “Sembian. A fine old cask.”

“Do you think so?” asked the dragon.

Marek took a small sip of the wine before asking, “Is this a trick?”

There was that rumbling laugh again then Insithryllax said, “It’s not Sembian, but it’s made from Sembian grapes. Would you believe it was bottled right here in Innarlith?”

“No,” Marek answered.

“And yet it was.”

Marek took another sip, impressed by the wine’s subtle melange of flavors. He hadn’t heard that Innarlith-Innarlith of all places-had begun making fine wine.

“Something to keep an eye on,” he told himself, then regarded the dragon. “You appear tired. Tell me I’m not overtaxing you.”

Instead of saying “No,” the dragon just laughed.

Marek met the wyrm’s eyes finally and he stopped laughing. The beast had gotten even bigger, if that was possible, in the twenty-three years of their acquaintance. The spells Marek had used to enthrall the dragon had long since faded. They stayed together the last decade because they both wanted to. They had become friends, allies, cohorts, compatriots, and both of them knew that the other could turn on him in a second and certainly would in time, but until then they would help each other, protect each other, and keep each other’s secrets. Lesser mortals would have called them friends.

The dragon was surrounded by a dozen smaller creatures similar to himself. The other monsters had the heads and general shape of a dragon, and the jagged, batlike wings, but only two legs. Their eyes, though fierce and dangerous, didn’t burn with quite the same malignant intelligence as Insithryllax’s.

“The food has been coming regularly,” the black dragon said, nudging one of the firedrakes away with the tip of one massive wing. The lesser wyrm scurried off in a scrabble of claws on stone. “I get out from time to time, and the firedrakes have been … accommodating.”

“Are they laying?” Marek asked. “If not, this is all in-”

“Twenty so far,” the dragon interrupted. “I think they’ll start to hatch soon. Since these … ladies aren’t exactly blacks, I can’t say how long they’ll need to gestate, but they smell healthy and the firedrakes care for them as if they’re viable.”

Marek’s heart raced.

“I thought you’d find that to your liking,” said Insithryllax.

“If there is anything you need,” the Red Wizard said, “you need only ask.”

“I’ll submit a list,” said the dragon, “but in the meantime, perhaps just an answer to a question.”

“That can be the most valuable commodity of all,” Marek joked.

“These … things …”

“Black firedrakes,” Marek said, the words slipping off his tongue in a most pleasurable way.

“What are your intentions for them?”

“Feeling paternal, are we?” Marek teased.

The black dragon sniffed and shook another of the red-scaled firedrakes off his haunches.

“They’re to be a gift,” Marek finally answered.

“A gift …” the dragon said, puzzling over Marek’s choice of words. “A gift for whom?”

Marek Rymut took another sip of the promising wine, laughed, and said, “Whoever can help me the most, my friend. Whoever can help me the most.”