Scream of Stone w-3 Read online

  “Are they undead?” another woman asked. “They look normal enough to me, though they could bathe, couldn’t they?”

  Surero took a deep breath and held it. Word of the zombie workers had trickled into Innarlith. Rumors turned into an open secret and then a simmering debate. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on the use of animated corpses for manual labor, but no one was willing to take a stand either way. The only concession Surero was conscious of was that the zombies were kept away from the viewing stand. He could tell that a good portion of the spectators were disappointed by that. They came to see death in all its forms.

  The men began to drop the kegs into the too-shallow holes, and Surero knew the people who had come to the viewing stand that day would see more death and destruction than they’d bargained for. He considered trying to do something, but he felt paralyzed. His legs refused to carry him off the wooden steps of the viewing stand. He couldn’t draw in a breath deep enough to shout a warning. He wasn’t sure if his inaction came from fear or resignation. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Not with Devorast gone and Marek Rymut still ensconced in Innarlan society. He didn’t know how much tolerance anyone might have for him. He brewed beer and was good at it. He made a reasonable living. He tried to forget the canal, but he couldn’t. He tried to stay away from it, but he’d made the trip to the viewing stand in the overcrowded coaches with the rest of the impotent onlookers time and again, every time left horrified by what he saw, every time more aware of how much farther away from Devorast’s careful attention to detail Horemkensi had allowed things to get.

  Even his considerable skill as an alchemist wasn’t enough to attract Horemkensi’s attention to Surero. He’d been replaced by Horemkensi’s own man, an alchemist who had early on thrown in his lot with the Thayan. The alchemist’s name was Harkhuf, and when Surero had first encountered him some years before, he was nothing but a minor seller of even more minor potions-healing draughts and snake oils-to the tradesmen of the Third Quarter. Surero had often joked that Harkhuf’s greatest achievement as an alchemist was when he stained his fingers green-an accident that had left him permanently marked but otherwise unharmed. Harkhuf wasn’t even good enough at his trade to have blown his fingers off, which is what would have happened if the concoction had done what he was hoping it would do.

  And that was the man Horemkensi trusted to place Surero’s smokepowder. No wonder the crowds had grown bigger and more bloodthirsty.

  Someone shouted orders. Surero didn’t recognize his voice. It wasn’t Harkhuf. Surero briefly held out hope that one of the foremen-one of the men he’d trained himself-had realized that the holes were too shallow and was putting a stop to it, but that wasn’t the case. The smokepowder had been placed and the man was simply warning the workers to step back as he lit the fuse.

  Surero bobbed from side to side to see around the heads of the people in front of him. He watched the workers walk too slowly away from the holes. He couldn’t see or hear the fuse from where he stood, and again all he could do was hope that it hadn’t yet been lit. The men stopped far too short of the safe margin Surero had worked out in his head.

  The alchemist sucked in a breath and held it. The dandy with the fur muff looked at him with wide, expectant eyes, and Surero turned away from him. He thought again that he should scream out a warning, but he knew it would do no good. If the fuse was already lit, it was too late. If it wasn’t, his would have only been one more voice from the viewing stand-a sound all the canal builders had long since learned to ignore.

  Before he could decide which god to pray to that he was wrong, the first of the kegs erupted in a rumble. The hiss of dirt and rocks in the air masked the excited gasps and nervous laughs of the spectators. The next went off, followed immediately by the third. Surero kept his eyes glued to the last in the line, the one closest to the group of workers and their cart.

  Too late the men realized they were too close. They must have instinctively gauged the size of the previous explosions and matched that to the distance they stood from the last hole. They turned and started to run. When the last keg exploded, a wave of dirt and loose stones, broken by the force of the explosion, tore into them. They were lost in the earthy brown cloud, their screams barely audible over the deafening thunder of the blast.

  The crowd at the viewing stand held its breath, then sighed as one, disappointed that the very cloud that caused the bloody deaths of the innocent men blocked their view of the carnage. They couldn’t see stones driven through flesh and bone to explode out of dying bodies in a shower of blood.

  One woman had the audacity to scream. The sound was theatrical and insincere, and Surero wondered how long she’d practiced it. He heard a man laugh, and the gorge rose in his throat. He closed his eyes and turned away, bumping into someone. He was shoved and almost tripped, scolded and berated, as he pushed his way off the viewing stand. Surero didn’t turn to see the dead men that littered the edge of the great trench. He pressed his hands tightly over his ears to block out the sound of the people laughing and talking in excited, loud whispers. He fled not only from the bloodshed and stupidity, but from the dense air of satisfaction that hung over the viewing stand.

  4

  6 Hammer, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

  PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH

  The woman sat on the floor, her legs splayed under her, a simple silk dressing gown pooled around her. She wept, tears streaming down her face, her muted sobs echoing in Phyrea’s head. The woman, made of violet light, didn’t look at Phyrea, didn’t seem to notice her at all.

  Her baby died, the old woman said, her voice coming from nowhere.

  “I know,” Phyrea whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  She got no response to that. The woman continued to cry, and Phyrea knew she had been crying for a long time, for years, even decades, and that she would never stop. The world would end to the sound of her despair.

  Phyrea took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She thought about taking a sip of the wine she’d poured herself, but she couldn’t will her hand to pick up the tallglass. The sound of the door opening behind her didn’t startle her. She knew who it was.

  “Phyrea?” Pristoleph whispered. “Do you sleep, my love?”

  Her chest tightened. A wave of sadness always washed over her when he called her that. She felt a tear well up in the corner of her right eye, but it didn’t fall. It hung there as if waiting for something.

  There’s no reason to be like her, the old woman whispered in her head.

  “Phyrea?” Pristoleph whispered in her ear.

  She reached a hand up and touched his face. She hadn’t realized he’d come so close. He sighed when her palm met the too-hot skin of his cheek. She had stopped being surprised by how hot he felt, as though he suffered from a perpetual fever. She’d asked him about it many times and he’d avoided the subject skillfully at first, then bluntly, and finally she stopped asking.

  “Were you sleeping?” he asked, his lips brushing her ear.

  She shook her head just enough to tell him she wasn’t, but not enough to brush him off. Still he pulled away. The ghost’s sobbing continued unabated, so Phyrea didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t like to see Pristoleph and the ghosts at the same time. She didn’t want them to belong together.

  He sat next to her on the silk-upholstered Zakharan divan. His weight made her lean toward him, and she ended up pressed against his shoulder. She sighed, surprising herself with the sound of it, as though she had already resigned herself to the reality of what he’d come to tell her, though she had no idea what that might be. He stiffened, and in response all her fears washed away until she was left feeling limp and exhausted.

  “Your father is dead,” Pristoleph told her. “I’m sorry.”

  Phyrea took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “He was murdered,” Pristoleph went on.

  Phyrea opened her eyes and the woman was still there, still crying, but making no sound.
r />   He won’t be coming with us, the man with the Z-shaped scar on his face said from somewhere high above her. You won’t see him again. He was killed for no reason, and in the end he didn’t want to live.

  “Shut up,” Phyrea said, her voice squeaking in her tight throat.

  “Phyrea, I-” Pristoleph started.

  “No,” she whispered, silencing him.

  Movement to her right caught her attention and she glanced over to see the little girl standing next to the sideboard, her hand poised over a crystal vase in which sat one yellow rose-her father’s favorite flower.

  “What kind of man has a favorite flower?” she whispered.

  Pristoleph didn’t answer.

  “What was the point?” she asked, her voice louder.

  “Politics, probably,” Pristoleph said. “Coin, favors … an old grudge.”

  The little girl was angry and she swatted at the vase. It fell from the side table and shattered on the marble floor. Pristoleph jumped, startled, but Phyrea didn’t move. She kept her eyes locked on the little girl.

  “What was that?” Pristoleph asked, but Phyrea didn’t answer him.

  “He left you, didn’t he?” she whispered to the girl.

  The expression of bitter rage faltered on the ghost’s translucent features, but the anger didn’t diminish.

  “Phyrea?” Pristoleph asked. She thought he grew hotter then, almost hot enough to burn her. “What did you say? What do you mean?”

  “There will have to be a funeral,” she said. “He was the master builder.”

  “The ransar will arrange it,” Pristoleph said.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “You should.”

  She nodded as the little girl faded into thin air. The crying woman’s sobs went with her.

  “I will not let his murderer go unpunished,” Pristoleph assured her, but Phyrea didn’t care.

  She didn’t even have the energy to shrug him off, let alone tell him not to bother.

  5

  1 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

  THE CASCADE OF COINS, INNARLITH

  Still in mourning, Phyrea wore black to her wedding. She hadn’t carefully considered the choice, and Pristoleph had shown no sign that he cared. When he looked at her in the coach on the way to the temple of Waukeen, he had looked at her eyes. The softness, the longing, the love she saw in his gaze had warmed her and chilled her at the same time. She felt safe in his presence. Safer, anyway, than when she was alone with the ghosts.

  Rain came down in nearly horizontal sheets, driven by a fierce wind off the Lake of Steam. The horses faltered several times, and Phyrea held on to the arm of the coach’s velvet bench for fear that the conveyance would be sent over on its side by the frequent, violent gusts.

  One of the high priests met them just inside the temple doors. Phyrea didn’t know his name, but she recognized his face. Flanked by a quartet of acolytes in robes of shimmering silk, the priest was draped in thread-of-gold, even finer silk, and a variety of fur that Phyrea couldn’t immediately identify. His wide, pale face betrayed a reluctance no bride wants to see on her wedding day.

  “My dear Senator,” the priest said, tipping his chin down in the barest suggestion of a bow. “No guests have arrived.”

  “There will be no guests,” Pristoleph said, his flat voice inviting no response.

  “But surely a man of your-” the priest began.

  “Do you require guests?” Pristoleph interrupted.

  The priest looked down at the marble-tiled floor and Phyrea could tell he was disappointed. He had hoped that a lack of wedding guests would put an end to the affair.

  “This has all been arranged,” Pristoleph went on. “It has been paid for. Shall we go in?”

  “Of course,” the priest acquiesced.

  Phyrea wiped a drip of rainwater off her temple with one fingertip and leaned in closer to her groom. The warmth that always radiated from Pristoleph soothed her.

  A sudden gust of wind rattled the tall, arched window, its intricate panes of stained glass creaked in their gilded frames. All eyes glanced up at it, all of them afraid, if not certain, that the glass would buckle and shatter, but it didn’t.

  “Perhaps …” the priest began, then shook his head, uncertain what to say.

  “Lead on,” Pristoleph told him, his voice heavy with impatience.

  He won’t marry you, the man with the scar told Phyrea. She knew he stood behind her, and that only she could see him, and she was surprised that Waukeen would allow his unholy presence in her temple. He’s afraid of you. But I think there are other reasons.

  She shook her head and let herself be led deeper into the temple. They followed the priest, who walked slower than a man being marched to the gallows. The wind battered the stained glass windows all around them, seeming to come from all sides at once. The opulent interior was lit by fewer candles than Phyrea knew was typical. Gold, silver, and platinum gleamed in the dim candlelight. Though Pristoleph was as warm as ever, Phyrea shivered.

  “Perhaps …” the priest started again. He came to a sudden stop, and two of the acolytes bumped into each other. A nervous shuffling of feet followed.

  “Speak, priest,” Pristoleph all but growled.

  He won’t do it, the ghost whispered. He can’t.

  “This is a bad day,” the priest said. Phyrea looked at him, but her eyes were drawn to the acolytes. All four of them stared at the ground, refusing to look at the priest or each other. A tear dripped from the eye of one-a girl barely in her teens. “We have had a … a loss, here.”

  Pristoleph stiffened and Phyrea put her hand on his arm, the heat under her palm uncomfortable but not yet painful. He was getting warmer. From the corner of her eye she could see Pristoleph’s strange red hair begin to dance on his head. The priest wouldn’t look at him.

  “One of our own was-” the priest started, but stopped when the girl sobbed, loud and sudden. Phyrea startled at the sound of it, so like the woman who appeared to her as an image of violet light, and of impenetrable sadness.

  The girl turned and scampered away, and the priest didn’t stop her.

  “We are to be married,” Pristoleph insisted. “Today.”

  The priest couldn’t seem to be able to make up his mind if he wanted to nod or shake his head, so he just stood there and quivered.

  Pristoleph shifted and Phyrea stepped away from him to avoid his elbow. He pulled a small leather pouch from under his rapidly-drying weathercloak, reached his hand in, and came out with a fistful of gold coins. He threw the gleaming disks at the priest’s feet. The priest startled away from the loud, sharp, echoing clatter as the coins seemed to shatter on the marble. The windows shook again, and something hit the outside wall hard enough to startle Phyrea and all of the Waukeenar. But not Pristoleph.

  “This is not …” the priest mumbled.

  Pristoleph threw another fistful of gold coins at his feet-more than the little pouch should have been able to contain.

  “Please, Senator …”

  Another shower of coins. The three remaining acolytes all stepped back as one.

  “You will wed us now, and in the name of your goddess,” Pristoleph said, and even from a step away Phyrea could feel the heat blazing from him. The acolytes were scared, and so was the priest. “Speak the words, even if your goddess doesn’t hear.”

  The priest gasped. Two of the remaining acolytes turned and ran deeper into the gloom of the massive vaulted chamber. The last of the young priests in training stepped closer to the senator, his eyes bulging with outrage.

  The priest held out a hand, gently pushing his student back from the burning groom, and said, “Chose your words carefully in the house of the Merchant’s Friend, Senator Pristoleph.”

  The corner of Pristoleph’s mouth curled up in a dangerous smile and he threw yet another handful of coins at the priest’s feet.

  The Waukeenar nodded and said, “Please hold hands.”

  Ph
yrea ignored the protests of at least two of the ghosts that had followed her, and she didn’t look at the priest’s face, which was a mask of resignation, fear, and exhaustion. Pristoleph’s hands burned hers and she cringed at the pain but didn’t pull away. He cooled a little as the priest began his prayers.

  Words, the man with the scar whispered. Hollow words to a goddess in hiding.

  Phyrea shook her head. She didn’t care if Waukeen was alive or dead, didn’t care how much gold had bought her wedding, and paid no mind to the unnatural boiling heat of the man-if he was a man-she was swearing her life to.

  When the priest spoke his last words and the two of them were man and wife, the giant stained glass window imploded, burst by the fury of the air around them. The acolyte screamed, Pristoleph shrugged, and the priest began to cry.

  Pristoleph and Phyrea turned and went back to their coach with the wind whipping rain and shards of glass all around them, their boots crunching broken pieces under their feet, and the sound of the wailing cries of the holy men harmonizing with the moans of the angry wind.

  An interesting start, the old woman said, and as they walked out into the driving winter rain, Phyrea saw the violet ghost laughing on the steps of the once-glorious temple.

  6

  1 Alturiak, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

  PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH

  His touch was hot, but not uncomfortably so. Phyrea’s body responded in a much more sincere way than her mind. She did her best not to think but to let her body merge with his. She took on his rhythm, almost as though her heartbeat came into perfect synchronization with his. He moaned, and she responded with a gasp. He squeezed her tighter and she bent beneath him like a tree making way for the wind.

  They writhed in the rich satin- and silk-covered goose-down. Sweat rolled from her skin and his seemed to drink it in. His heat warmed her, fed her, made her safe.

  She didn’t listen to the woman crying over the still form of her only child. She ignored the chuckles of the old hag. She didn’t let the little girl’s growled outrage stop her. She gave herself to Pristoleph in a way that made the man with the scar on his face shake his head. The little boy with the missing arm screamed filth at them both but she paid him no heed. Instead she gave herself to her husband in a way she’d only allowed one man before him.