Whisper of Waves

50

17 Tarsakh, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

The sculpture was called “Small Evil Deity Crouches in the Running Stream, Mindful of Its Breathing.” To Willem it looked like a twisted bit of metal fastened to a plank of polished cherry wood. He didn’t know much of the blacksmith’s art but could imagine that its graceful curves might have been difficult to fashion had the metal-it looked like iron-started out straight. Still, he had the sneaking suspicion it had been formed by accident, perhaps as a result of a foundry spill or other minor mishap.

“It’s extraordinary,” Phyrea said.

She stared at it with her deep, penetrating gaze. His attention drawn to her, Willem could no longer see the sculpture.

“It is you who are extraordinary, Phyrea,” Willem said, but the girl didn’t hear him.

At the same time Willem had spoken, the gallery owner’s too-loud, too-gregarious voice boomed, “It’s come all the way from exotic Kozakura to delight the lady’s eye, and we can only hope, fill her home with its subtle beauty for decades to come.”

Phyrea smiled and gushed, exploding in a girlish way that seemed unlike her.

“Oh, Luthness,” she said, “I adore it. I simply adore it. Your taste is impeccable.”

“I shall buy it for you,” Willem said, and still neither of them heard.

“Phyrea, my love,” the gallery owner, Luthness, gushed in return, “do tell me you came with your father.”

“No,” Phyrea said with a disingenuous pout. “I can’t drag him to anything of real culture, the old boar.”

“Really, darling,” Luthness cackled, leaning in close and winking, taking Phyrea by the hand. “You’re so bad it’s positively-”

“I’ll buy it,” Willem repeated, in a voice so loud it stopped not only the sycophantic art dealer but Phyrea and half the wall-to-wall crowd that had come to the gallery opening in their tracks. Willem cleared his throat and added, “For the lady.”

After a moment of shock, Luthness beamed again, dropped Phyrea’s hand, and groped after Willem’s. Willem backed away, not intentionally trying to insult the man, but not wanting to hold his hand either.

“Outstanding, my dear sir, outstanding!” Luthness went on. “A man of such taste. Such taste!”

“Really, Willem,” Phyrea said, and Willem thought she looked and sounded sincerely surprised. “That’s not necessary.”

“Oh, but it is,” Luthness cut in, defending his sale. “A woman of your beauty and taste should have a hundred eager suitors filling your life with gifts of beauty and value!”

“How much is it?” Willem asked.

“Ah, right to the business at hand, then,” Luthness replied with a wink. “All the way from far, far Kozakura, crafted by Akira Tanaka, the finest sculptor of his ancient culture, and steeped in the traditions of the Celestial Ea-”

“Tell him,” Phyrea interrupted.

Luthness appeared all too happy for the interruption, offered Phyrea a conspiratorial wink, leaned in close to Willem, and whispered, “Forty-five thousand, sir.”

Willem blinked. He tried but couldn’t stop blinking. He began to sweat.

“Really, Willem,” Phyrea said, her voice going cold. “You don’t have that kind of gold. Stop being silly.”

“My good sir,” Luthness said. “Was it something I said?”

“Forty-five thousand?” Willem asked, then cleared his throat. “Gold?”

“The coin of the realm, sir, yes,” Luthness replied.

“Willem,” Phyrea huffed. “We’re leaving.”

Luthness kept his eyes locked on Willem, though it was obviously difficult for him not to turn on Phyrea, even violently.

“Very well,” Willem said. “Have it sent to the lady’s home.”

Phyrea rolled her eyes, annoyed, but Willem was sure he saw some hint that she was impressed.

“Well done, sir,” Luthness said, and Willem thought the man might actually drool. “Well done indeed.”

“Have you sold any others?” Phyrea asked.

Willem’s mind raced. He could get his hands on forty-five thousand gold pieces, but it wouldn’t be easy. It would be everything. Everything and more. He couldn’t really do it, but he had to. He had to.

“Yes, dear,” Luthness said. “A slightly larger piece by the same artist to Master Marek Rymut, the Thayan wizard of renown.”

Phyrea shrugged that off, but the mention of Rymut’s name set Willem’s mind reeling anew. Halina’s uncle had bought a sculpture by the same artist. Rymut was known for his good taste, but then there were the speeches, the not-so-subtle leanings in favor of the peasantry against the senate and the aristocracy. He was the one man everyone told him he should meet, especially Halina who was still Willem’s fiancee, and he was the one man Willem most feared. Not because of any physical threat-by all accounts Marek Rymut was more woman than man, soft and effete-but because if they met, and if Willem charmed him the way he’d charmed the master builder and his circle of senators, Rymut would surely consent to the marriage, and Willem would have to marry Halina, and Phyrea … beautiful, impossible Phyrea, the master builder’s daughter …

Luthness touched him on the elbow and Willem jumped.

“A tenday then?” the art dealer asked.

“What?” Willem responded, flustered. “I’m sorry?”

“The balance of the forty-five thousand?” Luthness replied. “A tenday from now, sir?”

“Yes,” Willem said without thinking. “By all means.”

Phyrea was gone.

Willem scanned the crowd but saw no trace of her.

“The young lady took her leave of us, my good sir,” Luthness told him, then nudged him toward the door. “Senator Meykhati!” he exclaimed, breaking off from Willem and sweeping into the crowd. “I insist that you embrace me at once!”

Willem got out of the gallery as fast as he could and burst into the warm night air trying to look in every direction at the same time.

“That was stupid,” Phyrea said. She stood leaning against the wall of the gallery building, adrape in imported silk, diamonds sparkling in the light of a street lamp. To Willem she looked like the most beautiful, most expensive streetwalker on the entire whirling globe of Abeir-Toril. “You’re stupid.”

“You admired it,” he said, not daring to approach any closer. “I wanted to buy it for you.”

“Why?” she asked, and the look she gave him was fit perhaps for a cockroach crawling across a buffet table. “What does your forty-five thousand buy you? Me? My body?”

“No, I-” Willem started to say.

“No, you,” she mocked him. “I’m not your whore, Cormyrean, not for forty-five thousand gold or for that ridiculous strip of metal. ‘Small Evil Deity’ my arse. You are a moron.”

“I’m paying for it,” he said, forcing himself to stand at his full height. He was delighted by how strong his voice sounded but terrified that she could see how badly he was sweating. “It will be delivered to you. Do with it as you will.”

“My father pays you too much,” she sneered, then stepped away from the wall, turned her back on him, and started to walk away.

“Phyrea,” he said, and she stopped, looking over her shoulder at him.

Her long black hair came free of the diamond diadem she wore, and it fell across her face, her perfect cheek and the corner of her big, bright eye, and Willem’s heart seemed to stop in his chest. The shape of her made the Kozakuran sculpture he’d just leveraged his entire life for all the more ridiculous.

“If you tell me you love me,” she said, her voice only just above a whisper, “I will kill you where you stand.”

Willem’s heart started up again and despite his spinning head, he crossed the distance to her in three long, fast strides. She turned to him and he took her in his arms. His hands at her waist, he could feel the warmth of her skin under the expensive silk. She moved just a little bit into him and he bent to kiss her.

She went rigid in his hands, so stiff she might have been one of Luthness’s overpriced statues. He tried to kiss her anyway, but his lips met only resistance-her mouth tightly closed, her lips pulled in. She didn’t fight him or push him away. She didn’t breathe or move at all. She was as if carved from stone.

With a sigh he let go of her and stepped away.

“There,” she said, “was that worth forty-five thousand gold pieces?”

He stared at her, unable to speak, for as long as she wanted to continue to torture him, then she turned her back and walked away.

When she was too far away to hear he whispered to her, “Who do I have to kill, Phyrea? What do I have to buy? Where do I have to go?”

His mind blank, he stood there a while longer, then asked again, “Who do I have to kill?”