Whisper of Waves

69

1 Marpenoth, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

It had been almost a month since the first transformation, and Marek had barely spent a few hours outside the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen. He’d transformed enough of the black firedrakes to get a few dozen of them started building a permanent structure there, and he and Insithryllax began spending a bit more time in Innarlith, gathering supplies, and the gold necessary to buy materials for the construction. The firedrakes learned fast-faster than Marek had expected-and the Red Wizard was delighted.

As they walked the streets of the Second Quarter, Insithryllax in his human form of course, Marek enjoyed the late summer sunshine and the feeling of a full purse.

“I would like to stay here longer this time,” the disguised black dragon said, “perhaps leave the city and fly. It’s been a long time since I’ve really taken wing and just flown miles and miles for days on end. I used to do that when I was younger over the Endless Wastes east of Thay.”

“I can’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do that,” Marek said, his attention half on the dragon and half on the shoes lined up in the window of a shop they passed, “though the firedrakes still need guidance. You are their master, you know, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I think you should start acting like it.”

Insithryllax looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. Marek knew he should be intimidated, but he wasn’t.

“You’ve spent too much time on these black firedrakes of yours,” the dragon said.

Insithryllax stopped to look into the shop of a weapon-smith. The weapons on display were largely ornamental, generally useless.

“I’ve sold this man a dozen magic blades in the past tenday,” Marek said to the dragon. “He’s sold them all and pesters me for more.”

“So? I thought you were getting regular deliveries from your masters in Bezantur. Sell him more.”

Marek chuckled and began walking again. He spotted a familiar face-a young senator’s wife he’d heard was hiding a love child from a previous dalliance-and nodded politely to her as she passed.

“Supply and demand, my friend,” Marek said.

The dragon shrugged, uninterested in further explanation.

“You may be right, though,” Marek admitted, talking as much to himself then as to the dragon. “The black firedrakes have demanded much of my attention of late, and yes, I was sent here to establish a trade in magic items imported, secretly, from Thay. I was charged with establishing buyers, developing a market, eliminating competitors, and so on, but the firedrakes … The firedrakes were my own. My idea, my creation. I don’t know; I suppose I let the idea of them get the better of me.”

Insithryllax smiled and Marek grimaced.

“Don’t be smug, my friend,” the Red Wizard said. “It’s unbecoming of a great wyrm.”

A woman passing by on the street paused and cocked an eye at them. She’d heard Marek call his companion a “great wyrm” but couldn’t possibly have taken him seriously. She scoffed at them and moved on down the street. The exchange made Insithryllax smile anew.

“And the eels?” the dragon prodded.

Marek sighed and said, “One day, Insithryllax, I could find myself annoyed with you.”

He ignored the baleful gaze from the disguised dragon. Though he would never admit it, he relied on Insithryllax for so much, not the least of which was some grounding in reality, a check of his ambitions. The black dragon could be tempestuous, disrespectful, and impatient, but his wisdom was undeniable.

“Are you without mistakes, my friend?” Marek asked. Seeing the look Insithryllax gave him, Marek said, “Never mind.”

“I didn’t think of you as the type to let someone walk away like that.”

Marek shrugged and said, “It was my fault. The eels were powerful creatures possessed of great fierceness and a wonderful natural weapon with that lovely lightning of theirs, but they were inexperienced. They were used to picking off those bloated grubs or whatever fish swim that lake with them. The Cormyrean and his friends fought back, and with some intelligence, I might add. In the end, I suppose, all that business was more a test for the eels than it was an attempt to eliminate the competition.”

Insithryllax shook his head.

Marek clapped him on the shoulder and said, “The woman went back to Shou Lung, and the Cormyrean was ruined in any case. Why kill him when he can be left to suffer? He revealed the weaknesses of the eels, too. I’m still working on that one.”

“What will you do?” asked the dragon. “Make them intelligent like the firedrakes?”

“Actually, I-”

The dragon silenced him with a warning hand on his wrist. The words to an utterly inappropriate offensive spell came to Marek’s mind. He looked at Insithryllax and followed his eyes to the street corner ahead and to their right.

“What is it?” Marek whispered, looking down at the cobblestones in front of him. He’d seen a man on the corner looking at them. “The man?”

“The beggar,” Insithryllax said under his breath.

The man on the corner, the man who was staring at them, could have been described as a beggar. His blond hair-unusual in Innarlith, where more people were of swarthy Chondathan descent-was a mess, and his clothes were torn and dirty. The fine citizens of the Second Quarter gave the man a wide berth as they passed him, no few of them looking down their noses with open contempt for the beggar.

“He’s been following us,” the dragon said out of the side of his mouth so only Marek could hear. “He’s been keeping ahead of us but stopping from time to time to make sure we’re still behind him.”

“Who is he?”

“You don’t know?”

Marek started to consider which of the defensive spells in his repertoire to cast first.

Insithryllax said, “We’ll turn at the next alley.”

Marek sneaked a glance at the man, who smiled at them as if about to call out a friendly hello. Then the beggar spun and dived for the corner of a building.

“Insith-” was all Marek got out before the force of the explosion took all the air from his lungs.

He snapped his eyes shut, but still the light was so bright it burned arcs of violet smears across his vision. His feet came up off the ground and he could feel Insithryllax embrace him roughly. The two of them flew through the air-Marek couldn’t tell how high or how far. What felt like glass and nails rained all around him, hitting him from all sides at once. They hit the rough cobblestones and Marek’s head bounced on the pavement. Insithryllax fell on top of him, and if Marek had had a breath left in his lungs the impact would have knocked it out. All around them was a stifling heat that Marek knew should have roasted him.

The fire around them burned itself out in the space of a heartbeat and despite the sound of glass falling all around them, Marek opened his eyes.

The dragon stepped back away from him. Marek saw scales shining like black patent leather in the smoke-diffused sunlight.

“Insithryllax, no-” Marek coughed out.

“Die Thayan!” a wild voice shrieked amid the coughs and sobs of people who’d been caught on the edge of the blast. “Die Red-”

Insithryllax growled, and it was a great wyrm’s voice. Marek grabbed his bulging, expanding arm, and squeezed.

“Insithryllax,” he said, his voice stern and commanding, despite the fact that he was struggling to stand. He was scorched and literally smoking. Broken glass and splinters adorned his torn robe. He looked a fright. “Insithryllax. Do not reveal yourself, my friend.”

“Hold!” a gruff voice shouted from somewhere down the street.

Insithryllax’s arm shrank back to its human size and he ran after the blond man.

Marek rubbed the dust from his eyes with the back of his hand and finally got a view of the street corner. The building they’d been passing was vacant, and Marek thought he should remember what used to be there, but he couldn’t just then. The blond man ran down the cross street, three city watchmen following close on his heels. The strange beggar ran with a bit of a limp-he might even just then have caught a piece of glass in the leg-so the watchmen easily ran him to ground.

“Death to foreign-” the blond beggar screamed before he was punched into reeling silence by one of the watchmen.

Insithryllax approached more slowly while the watchmen subdued then shackled the delirious beggar.

Marek caught up to the dragon with some difficulty and told him, “You’d best be on your way, old friend. People might have seen you.”

They both looked around, but no one seemed to be too interested in Insithryllax. Those who weren’t concerned with their own minor injuries-surprisingly enough Marek saw only the odd scrape and bruise-watched as the beggar was dragged to his feet, his wrists and ankles in chains.

“Don’t be long,” Insithryllax said, then he slipped into an alley and was gone.

The watchmen dragged the weakly struggling man with them.

“Guards,” Marek said, then had to stop to cough.

“Master Rymut,” one of the watchmen said.

Marek met the blond man’s gaze. Blood oozed from his nose and he appeared on the verge of passing out, but he looked Marek in the eye.

“Thayan …” the man moaned. The way he said it, the word sounded like an accusation.

“Do you know this man?” the watchman asked Marek.

“No,” Marek replied, but there was something vaguely familiar about the beggar’s face. He looked at the would-be assassin and asked, “Who are you? What is your name, boy?”

“Sur …” the blond man said. “My name is Surero. The name of your assassin.”

Marek sighed. He couldn’t place the name. The man went limp in the guards’ arms.

“Why was he trying to murder you, Master Rymut?” the lead watchman asked.

Marek shrugged and said, “I couldn’t possibly guess. It’s outrageous, really.”

“Well,” the watchman said with a sneer of contempt for the unconscious assassin, “he’ll swing for sure. Don’t you worry about a thing, now.”

“No,” Marek said, taking all three watchmen and no few bystanders by surprise. “No, he didn’t kill me, after all. There’s no reason to kill him. This man obviously has had some difficult times of late. If he caused that explosion to kill me, who has never done anything but help the good people of my adoptive city, well … lock him up, for his own safety at least, but see that he doesn’t hang.”

Marek sifted through his purse and drew out three platinum pieces. He handed them over to the lead watchman and said, “For you and your men, for the service you provide us all.”

The watchmen all looked as if they could have been knocked over with a feather, but they took Marek’s coin-as much as they’d see in months from their paltry salaries.

“Why did he do it?” the watchman asked as his comrades dragged the man off to the ransar’s dungeon.

Marek could think of a dozen reasons even though he couldn’t remember who the man was, exactly. If the would-be assassin was summarily executed, Marek might never know who he was and why he’d acted so boldly.

The watchman still expected an answer, though, so Marek said, “Difficult times, Constable. Difficult times.”