Whisper of Waves

PART 1
1

Mirtul, the Year of the Striking Hawk (1326 DR)

THE CITY OF NETHJET, THAY

We don’t reach like that now, Mari,” his mother reminded in a tight voice.

Marek Rymut drew his hand back from the cup but not all the way. He looked at his mother and inched his hand back a little more, then a bit more. When the side of her thin lips twitched up the littlest bit, he smiled and began to reach for the teacup again but ever so much more slowly.

His mother greeted the slow, deliberate, unobtrusive reach with a satisfied smile that disappeared when he drew the teacup too quickly to his lips. Something about the look on her face as he sipped the too-sweet tea sent a thrill tickling his skin. Taking almost a full minute to set the teacup on the saucer then another minute to place them both on the tablecloth in front of him was her reward for sitting through his offensive gesture.

“My pretty Mari,” she whispered.

Marek felt his breath stop in his throat. He didn’t like it when she called him Mari, but she never called him anything else.

He took another sip of the tea, then tipped the cup over and poured the rest onto the table in front of him. For the longest time there was no sound. They didn’t look at each other. Both sets of eyes stayed firmly on the spilled tea.

“Stand up, baby,” his mother said, her voice betraying not a trace of emotion. “You don’t want that getting on your dress.”

Marek stood and stepped away from the table. No sooner had he moved his knee away than the tea began to drip then pour off the edge of the tabletop.

His mother stepped around the table, avoiding the spilled tea, and looked down at him. She didn’t bother giving him a disapproving look.

“My pretty Mari,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “How old are you now?”

“Eleven,” Marek said.

She nodded in response and reached out, slowly, to smooth down the ruffled collar of his simple lace gown.

“Who are we waiting for?” he asked.

Her brow wrinkled, accentuating the fine lines around her eyes. Strands of white were intertwined with her jet black hair. Her nose was too big and her eyes too small. He knew that because she’d told him so.

It seemed as if she was about to speak when a servant entered the room. His mother’s eyes followed the uniformed maid, but her head never moved. The girl stepped with the jerky quickness of someone in fear of her life. Marek didn’t understand why. He’d never seen his mother kill one of the servants.

As the maid hurried to clean the spilled tea from the floor then began to gather up the soaked tablecloth, Marek asked his mother, “Why hasn’t Father been home in six years?”

A clatter of fine porcelain-the maid was fortunate it didn’t break-followed the question like a punctuation mark. Marek looked at her, but his mother didn’t.

“Has it been six years?” his mother asked.

He nodded. The maid had the cups on the tray and carefully, slowly, lifted it from the table and set it on the floor, never looking up from her task.

“Your father is an important man,” she explained for precisely the eighty-third time since Marek started keeping count. “If he has been away for six years, it’s because he is tending to the family business.”

“Where?” he asked, going through the motions even though he knew what she was going to say.

“He is in Eltabbar,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

The maid folded the tea-stained tablecloth into a bundle against her stomach then set it on the floor next to the tray.

“All of this requires …” Marek’s mother started to say.

The maid produced a fresh tablecloth from somewhere and spread it over the table in a single fluid, silent motion.

“Look around you, Mari dear,” his mother said.

Marek did as he was told. His eyes played across the ornate furniture, most of it upholstered in silk, some gilded, others with jewels inlaid into the polished, rare hardwoods. The walls were freshly painted every three months, and the art was replaced at the same interval. The floor was marble and so perfectly buffed he could see his reflection in it. The scent of the spilled tea had given way to the ever-present lavender. His mother liked lavender.

The maid replaced the tray on the table and scurried out.

“He stays away in Eltabbar,” Marek said, “so we can live here.”

His mother drew in a breath so big it made her seem taller, then she let it out over the course of ten heartbeats and said, “That’s right.”

Marek nodded, though he really didn’t understand.

They looked at each other for a while, then their eyes shifted to the big double doors when a gong sounded from beyond them.

His mother started breathing more shallowly and her eyes darted over his face and body, taking in every last detail in less than a second.

“Your lips,” she whispered, using the tip of her little finger to smooth the edge of his mouth, which she’d outlined herself that morning with a pleasing shade of red.

“Who’s here?” he asked, knowing full well what the gong signified.

She seemed afraid to answer but was trying, when the doors opened. A man stepped into the room before the butler, who had opened the doors, had a chance to finish saying, “The Zulkir Kavor, milady.”

The man who walked into the room looked at no one but Marek. That in itself was unsettling-Marek was only eleven, and his mother was standing right there-but there was more. The man who’d been announced as Zulkir Kavor was the tallest man Marek had even seen. His gathered robes shimmered in the lamplit chamber and hung on the man’s broad, solid form in layer after layer of linen, silk, and leather. His forearms, wrapped in some kind of soft, thin hide fastened at the wrists with carved, jewel-encrusted gold bands, were thick and powerful. His heavy boots made sounds like thunder that echoed against the polished marble floor.

“Zulkir,” Marek’s mother said, “you honor us.”

The zulkir didn’t even glance at her. His eyes-dark brown, almost black-bore into Marek’s and the boy felt a cool sheen of sweat break out on his neck and back. Gooseflesh rose on the undersides of his arms.

The zulkir’s eyes burned from under a pronounced brow and over equally defined cheekbones. His mouth was set in a stern frown that was neither sad nor disapproving. His head was shaved, and not a single speck of stubble was evident on its surface.

“Rymut,” the man said. His voice, like his footsteps, rumbled in the air like thunder. “The boy?”

Marek found himself nodding, though he knew the question was intended for his mother, who cleared her throat before saying, “Yes, Zulkir.”

Marek was dressed and made up like a girl. His skin crawled under the zulkir’s gaze.

“Will you …?” his mother whispered.

“The decision has already been made,” said Kavor. “I wanted but to stand in his presence once to be certain.”

“And are you?” Marek asked, knowing he risked much by speaking at all, but not sure what exactly it was he was risking. “Certain?”

The man didn’t smile, and Marek wasn’t even sure why he thought he might, but he did nod.

“What’s that on your head?” Marek asked.

“Mari!” his mother hissed.

The man almost smiled when he replied, “You will find out.”

On his bald head was a drawing that looked at first like a random scattering of squares and triangles. The more Marek stared at it, the zulkir not moving, the more the blue-black shapes took on the form of a dragon’s head, its jaws agape and its fangs dripping with deadly venom.

Without another word, Zulkir Kavor turned and walked out.

When the door closed behind him, Marek looked up at his mother. A tear traced a path down her right cheek.

“You’re going to be going away now,” she said, her voice breaking and tight. She smiled. “You’re going to honor our family by being a Red Wizard.”

Marek didn’t know what that was, but if it made him anything like Zulkir Kavor, he couldn’t wait to start.