The City of Splendors

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A high horn-call rang out from the magnificent turrets and spires of Piergeiron's Palace. Lark listened as the short, ascending melody echoed off Mount Waterdeep once, twice… and thrice.

Folk in Waterdeep thought nothing of those echoes, but people familiar with mountains found it strange that echoes could bounce from a single small peak. She'd said as much on the long-ago day when she'd ridden into the city with Texter. The paladin had told her magic aided the echoes to amplify signal horn-calls.

Lark quickened her pace, striding briskly through the familiar bustle of Trades Ward. Arriving early for her shift, and working hard before her expected time, would win approval.

The carvers at the Maelstrom's Notch were deft at butter-seared seafood, and their superb table was making the inn very popular. Extra hands were needed to serve the later evening meals, after most lodgers had eaten and set off in search of fiery drink and festhalls, and a weary army of hungry guildsmen arrived to dine after a long day's work.

She was fortunate to have found a place; ill repute had a habit of clinging to a girl like a damp cloak, and her rare moment of temper had cost Lark her last position and several days' wages: the cost of the tray she'd dented over Beldar Roaringhorn's hard head.

Bah. Swaggering Lord Redcloak was worth not another thought. Those horncalls, now… everyone knew they were messages for those who knew how to read them. Who sent those notes soaring out into the evening, and to whom? Had she just heard gladsome tidings or a warning?

Once it would never have occurred to her to wonder. She cared little about what great folk did or whose backside warmed which throne. What mattered was honest work and the quiet, respectable life it could earn. Master Dyre's fair wage, bolstered by the coins this serving work brought, would in time buy a small shop with a few rooms above it she could call her own. To be her own mistress… her one desire. Her dream.

That dream burned as bright as ever, but Texter, the man who'd put her on a path toward it, had also opened her eyes to other things. In this city, those who listened could hear secrets in tavern tunes, vendors' calls, even twilight hornsong. Lark absently hummed the horncall as she walked.

"Larksong in the evening," murmured a melodious voice, so close to her ear that she could feel warm breath. "To whom are you preparing to sing, my little brown bird?"

Lark whirled, as startled as if her own shadow had tapped her shoulder and asked her the time of day.

Elaith Craulnober gave her a faintly amused smile and glided forward a step to reclaim the distance she'd hastily put between them. "If I wasn't aware of your sterling character, I'd suspect you of being troubled by a guilty conscience." His voice was gently mocking.

Lark swallowed. "You-startled me."

"You did seem rather lost in thought. Care to unburden yourself to a sympathetic listener?"

She gave him a glare. "Why? Know you of one?"

Silver brows rose. "The kitten has claws. How very… tiresome."

The Serpent's dark reputation tempered Lark's next words. "A lord as important as yourself has many demands on his time," she murmured, careful not to sound mocking. "Pray tell me how I can serve you."

Craulnober nodded at the nearest shop: Andemar the Apothecary, who greeted passing Waterdeep with a fancifully carved arch-topped door flanked by large windows set with many small, diamond-shaped panes.

Lark opened that door and stepped into a pleasant-smelling room crowded with gleaming vials and fragrant hanging bunches of drying herbs. Andemar's welcoming smile froze as he recognized Lark's companion.

Elaith waved a dismissal, and the shopkeeper's head bobbed in frantic assent as he scuttled into his back room, closing its door firmly behind him.

The elf swiveled open the domed top of a silver stud on a dagger-sheath that adorned his inner left wrist. In the revealed hollow was a tiny blue bead, which he tipped into his palm. He passed his other hand over it, fingers flashing in a swift, complex pattern.

The bead promptly expanded into a soft blue haze that drifted smoothly around them both, surrounding them like mist glowing about a lantern.

"Speak freely; none can now hear. The message you delivered was extremely interesting. I desire to know everything you can tell me about the activities of the New Day."

"Activities?" Lark sniffed. "Precious little, thus far. Just grand scheming and bluster."

"The battle in Dock Ward was mere 'bluster?' Dyre's men started it."

Lark's eyes widened. "I–I know nothing of that."

"No? Three young women were seen there, one of them a little brown bird with a green ribbon on her arm."

Lark frowned. "Yes, I was there, but by happenstance! I was with my mistresses, who had cause to pass one of their father's worksites."

Elaith's eyes were bright with disbelief, and he seemed somehow to glide nearer without actually moving at all.

"Wait," Lark blurted, cold fear rising. "I–I think I see how the brawl began! Some of Master Dyre's trustyhands frequent a quaff house just where the fighting broke out, and they hold a grudge against several young lords."

"Helmfast, Hawkwinter, Jardeth, and Roaringhorn," Elaith murmured. "What inspired that particular flock of peacocks to strut through oh-so-common Dock Ward?"

"They'd a debt to settle with my Master Dyre, and they seem taken with his daughters. Both are young and pretty."

"So this settling of grievances befell when blind chance met young love?"

"I believe so, though 'love' is putting it a bit high. Lord Helmfast's skirt-sniffing around Mistress Naoni, much luck may he enjoy."

"And it just so happened that Lord Piergeiron chose that moment, of all the unfolding season, to wander along that particular street of Dock Ward?"

Lark drew a long, shuddering breath. "I know nothing of the Open Lord's doings, beyond brisk tavern-talk of his death-and that's nothing new."

"He was wounded, and carried to Mirt's Mansion. No more is known."

"Not even by the Lords?"

Elaith smiled thinly. "The Masked Lords must, of necessity, keep many secrets."

True that might be, but Lark's interest lay in matters closer to home. "From what I've seen and heard, I can't believe Master Dyre had any part in what befell Lord Piergeiron. He only desires the Lords to renounce secrecy and be accountable to all."

"Varandros Dyre is not so lacking in initiative as you claim, but on this particular matter I'm inclined to agree. These young noblemen, however, warrant closer scrutiny."

Lark was too astonished to quell her burst of scornful laughter.

"Scoff less quickly," Elaith murmured, sniffing some herbs approvingly. "The skill exhibited by the most foolish of our nobles when it comes to keeping secrets would astonish you."

"A remarkable young man," Mrelder said, concluding his recital of Korvaun Helmfast's virtues-all of them boldly invented for this occasion.

Mrelder had arbitrarily chosen the youngest Lord Helmfast as Lord Piergeiron's successor. With so little time to accomplish his impossible task, he'd been forced to consider the most familiar candidates. A few discreet questions had won him the names of the young noblemen in this morning's brawl, and he'd spent the afternoon finding and observing three of the four. Lord Helmfast's visit to Mirt's Mansion had sealed the matter.

He'd never be able to persuade his father that the scribbler Taeros Hawkwinter could be anybody's choice for the next Open Lord, and Starragar Jardeth was the sort of blustering, haughty, hot-headed noble the minstrels lampooned. The Helmfast lordling's golden good looks, his skill with a blade-Mrelder recalled the swirl of glittering blue as Korvaun cut his way through the fray, and his calm, considered speech: these echoed qualities of the Lord Piergeiron. When Mrelder was done with the Helmfast heir, he'd wield some of Piergeiron's powers, too-enough, hopefully, to convince Golskyn.

Thus far, his father seemed far from convinced. "So this paragon of virtue-whom I've not failed to notice you've yet to name-was seen coming from a moneylender? Is being short of coin, in your eyes, a mark of lordliness?"

"This Mirt wields much power in Waterdeep," Mrelder insisted. "Recall the fat bearded man the Watchmen were carrying with such haste they nearly ran us down? That was Mirt. When talk turns to the hidden Lords, Mirt's name is always spoken: everyone in the city 'knows' he's a Lord. Why else would Lord Piergeiron be carried to his mansion?"

"Mansion?" Golskyn's manner brightened. "He's wealthy, this Mirt?"

Mrelder knew well his father's preoccupation with wealth. The priest had amassed a fortune, and considered accumulated wealth one mark of a leader.

"Mirt's Mansion is a city landmark. They say he captained a mercenary company in his youth, and some insist he owned a pirate fleet! His pillaging obviously proved highly profitable."

His father nodded approvingly. A good part of Golskyn's fortune had been acquired the same way.

"So your young noble was summoned to Mirt's Mansion shortly after the wounded First Lord was taken there… yes, things may well stand as you say. Fighting prowess, his fellow lordlings look to him… and he has money."

Heavy footfalls echoed down the hall, approaching in cadence. Golskyn frowned at the open door.

"He wears a cloak woven from gemstones magically spun into thread," Mrelder added hastily, concerned he might lose his father's attention.

Golskyn turned to his son, grunting, "As to that, he'd be better off putting his coins to less vain uses. A wise man, in a city such as this, would put his coins into investments."

"That, good sir, is my intention," announced a cultured male voice.

The priest turned slowly back to face the doorway, every inch a holy patriarch.

In the doorway stood two mongrelmen, flanking a richly dressed young man. One made a swift gesture that made Golskyn's eyes widen.

"Gemweave cloak," the priest murmured. "Tall, fit, handsome, well-spoken-yes, he's much as you said, and he desires to join the Amalgamation! You failed to mention he'd been wounded in the fray outside our doors, but then, so was Lord Piergeiron, who's said to be a peerless fighter. You've done well, my son. Very well indeed."

Mrelder shut his gaping jaw with an audible click.

Later, he'd worry about how this young noble had so swiftly discovered what and where the Amalgamation was. Yes, he'd worry very much indeed, but just now…

"Lord Unity," he said grandly, "may I present Beldar Roaringhorn, a Lord of Waterdeep."

Lord Roaringhorn inclined his head to Golskyn in a small but adequately respectful bow. "I'm honored to meet so great a necromancer."

"I'm only a sorcerer, and a minor one at that," Mrelder said hastily, seeing his father's face turn stormy. Nothing angered Golskyn of the Gods more than being mistaken for a wizard of any sort. "Yet I'm often mistaken for a necromancer because folk misunderstand the natures of those with whom I associate. My father, Lord Unity of the Amalgamation Temple, is a great and holy man, a priest who speaks for gods whose names cannot be shaped by human tongues. The mongrelmen and those granted monstrous enhancements through the grace of these gods revere and follow Lord Unity."

Beldar Roaringhorn bowed again. "An honor. I hope you'll not think me irreverent when I say I'm willing to pay a small fortune to receive a graft similar to the one beneath Lord Unity's eyepatch."

Golskyn greeted these words with a dry, grating chuckle that might have held derision, admiration, genuine humor, or all three.

"Incorporating any graft is difficult," Mrelder warned, "and if your first graft is a beholder's eye, you'll have little chance of surviving."

Golskyn raised a hand. "Let us not judge hastily. The request is not unreasonable. A great lord's heir should prove himself strong."

"Then let me prove myself indeed," Beldar replied, saying nothing of his distance from ever becoming the Lord Roaringhorn. "Am I correct in assuming a graft must come from a living creature?"

"You are," said Golskyn, acquiring a small and approving smile.

"I'll bring you a living beholder. Let it be both proof and payment."

'Agreed."

Beldar Roaringhorn bowed again, more deeply, and then turned and strode from the room.

"Capturing a beholder alive's no easy thing," Golskyn murmured, staring at the empty-of-noble doorway. "If he succeeds, we'll know Lord Piergeiron chose well."

"And if he fails," Mrelder added hastily, "I know who the second successor is!"

It would seem Korvaun Helmfast was destined for greatness after all!

"Lord Roaringhorn!" Old Dandalus was as jovial as ever. "It's been some time, aye? Be welcome!"

Beldar gave the shopkeeper a wry smile. All noble lads flirted with disgusting monstrous trophies-taloned this and tentacled that-at a certain age, if only to make young noble lasses shriek at revels, wherefore Beldar Roaringhorn had been to the Old Xoblob Shop many times before. At every visit Dandalus greeted him with the same words, even if his previous visit had been but a tenday earlier.

Dandalus 'Fire-Eye' Ruell was bearded, balding, big-nosed, and bigger-bellied. He looked no different than he had the first time Beldar had wandered into this shop as a boy, eyes shining with the wonder of the Dathran's vision.

Beldar's gaze wandered around the shop, which was both familiar and ever-changing. The shelves were crammed with greenish jars of pickled, staring eyes and less identifiable remains, and hung with a scaly forest of tentacles and serpentine bodies spell-treated to keep them supple. All around Beldar were thousands upon thousands of strange "monster bits." Twenty men could be hiding in all this carrion-tangle and him none the wiser.

No. Dandalus had his smallest finger raised in the signal that meant "We are alone." Beldar glanced quickly up at the shop's infamous beholder, looming over him like a watchful shadow, and then looked away, managing not to shudder.

"Thanks for your good cheer, Dandalus," he said, choosing his words carefully, "and your discretion."

The proprietor of the Old Xoblob Shop leaned forward over his glass countertop, ignoring the tray of jutting fangs just beneath it, and murmured, "In that, Lord Beldar, you can trust absolutely. I hold my tongue, and not even the Blackstaff himself can pry secrets from me. As for why he can't, well, that's one of the very secrets I guard. There's no profit in this line of business if I flap my jaws, nor much of a personal future, if you take my meaning."

Beldar nodded. "Straight to it, then: I need directions to the nearest beholders' den you know of and advice on how to enter it without swiftly greeting my own death." He tapped his chest to let Dandalus hear the stony jostling of gems in his innermost purse, to signify that he could pay well.

"A moonstone for my words," the shopkeeper murmured, "and two more for this."

Reaching several layers down under the counter, he drew forth something that almost fit his palm: a brooch of smooth-polished hemispheres of unfamiliar gemstone, each cut to display a staring-eye image: a large central orb surrounded by ten smaller ones. This signified a beholder, obviously, but "A safe passage token," Dandalus explained. "Worn at throat or brow, it tells eye tyrants you're a willing minion of one of their kind-an agent of proven loyalty."

"Ah. Wear it or die?"

"Indeed. Beholders, plural, you said; is this what you truly meant? A 'wild' den, or the lair of just one?"

Beldar swallowed, nightmarish images flooding his mind, and then pulled firmly on the fine chain that brought his gem-purse into view and started shaking out moonstones. "A wild den shared by several beholders. Is it far?"

"In the Rat Hills," Dandalus said merrily, waving southwards. "Now heed: Despite what the sages and all their books tell you, the powers of their eyes vary from beholder to beholder-you'll not always be facing the same magics. That goes double for beholder-kin, and that's what this particular lair is full of: there're gauth and some of the little floating ones about as big as our heads, too. You'll not be finding many pureblood eye tyrants sharing lairs-and none at all that I know the way to, no matter how many moonstones you throw at me."

Beldar looked up and saw the glint in the old shopkeeper's eyes.

Clearly the thought of a ruby-cloaked noble tramping about the Rat Hills-small peaks made up of centuries of Waterdhavian garbage-was vastly amusing to him. Likewise the vision of a lone swordsman in a den of beholder-kin.

Well, perhaps there was some grim humor in it, but didn't most adventures have far more to do with grime than glory? Even a paladin in shining armor betimes must dash into bushes and hastily unbuckle to answer needs of the body; did that make his quest any less noble?

This was his quest, a firm stride closer to seizing his destiny. If it took him into the Rat Hills, then by the gods, to the Rat Hills he'd go.

"Problems, lad?"

"This is all one huge jest for you, isn't it?"

Dandalus leaned close. "Beldar, my lad," he replied, as if he was a god or a king or the Lord of the oldest, haughtiest noble house of Waterdeep, "life is one huge jest."

Beldar smiled in reply. 'Twould be the act of a fool to dispute with Dandalus. Rumor insisted the beast parts filling the shop around him would, upon the old man's command, animate and combine into horrors hitherto unknown to Faerun. The Roaringhorn might be preparing to walk into a beholders' den, but he wasn't entirely moon-mad!

Golskyn reached for a decanter. "Will you scry young Lord Roaringhorn to learn where he finds his eye tyrant-or how he knows of one?"

"Certainly, if I can do so without drawing the attention of the Palace wizards who often scry him," Mrelder lied. Roaringhorn was doomed; his time would be far better spent learning all about Korvaun Helmfast.

"Should we then be arming for the fight of our lives on the heels of these mages watching him, when they come here to treat with us?" Golskyn asked silkily, suddenly looming over his son.

"No, Father. Your wards stand undisturbed-as you're well aware-and I've been very careful to cloak myself from them. Very careful."

Of course, there was the small matter of the two spies who'd been following him, but Golskyn needn't know about that. They were dead, and the mongrelman who'd slain them would take full responsibility, thanks to Mrelder's first attempt at controlling an Amalgamation minion by casting a spell he'd crafted at another creature's monstrous grafts. Successfully, at last! After all, he didn't want his first victim to be "Lord Piergeiron's heir!"

"You answer well," his father replied, pouring himself a much larger drink than usual. "You're learning at last. Whenever possible, stand firm when pushed."

Beldar crept cautiously through the tunnel, moving by the soft glows of fungi on the walls and some vivid green radiances rising from small pools of slime that seemed to be creeping along the rocks ever so slowly. Despite such… plants?… the air was as damply unpleasant as a wet cloak, but its mustiness was vastly better than the choking reek of the Rat Hills. Better even than the foul stench of the deadwagon that had brought him here, bouncing along with the carcasses of an ancient mule and several one-eyed dogs, and now stood awaiting his return at the fading end of a trail.

Trails amid soaring mountains of trash! Who-or what-might find reason to visit this desolate place often enough to make a trail?

The glows were growing few, and the soft darkness deeper. Target or not, 'twas time to unshutter his lantern.

"That's far enough, doomed meat," a soft, liquid voice said almost tenderly, from very close by Beldar's left ear.

Beldar clapped his swordhilt, but resisted the urge to whirl around. He was a dead man if they wanted him so, despite all the little Roaringhorn family magics he was wearing and no matter which direction he faced.

The inky darkness all around him seemed to shrink and dwindle, receding with the suddenness of powerful magic to reveal some sort of ancient, long-abandoned cellar, its walls furred with mold he'd been smelling for some time now, and its floor visibly damp.

For all Beldar cared, it could have been walled and roofed entirely with nude, imploringly beckoning noble lasses; he could only stare in mute terror at dozens-dozens! — of beholders. He did not need to turn to know they were floating all around him. A swarm of miniature eye tyrants drifted like lazy fish amid the larger dooms.

The largest beholder-kin was floating right in front of him. It had a gaping, skull-like socket where its central eye should have been and was surrounded by floating, slowly orbiting glowing gems, and what looked like ornate scepters that winked and glowed softly. Its great jaws, bristling with jagged fangs, were twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile.

Flanking this beholder mage was another horrific creature, of the sort sages called a "death kiss." Around its baleful red eye writhed not eyestalks but ten eyeless tentacles like taloned fingers that lazily opened long slit-like jaws from time to time.

Several of the surrounding beholders were smaller and had only six eyestalks each. Dandalus had said beholder eye-magics varied from one eye tyrant to another in nature as well as strength, and some eye tyrants weren't nearly as powerful as the fearsome reputation legend gave them, but standing alone gazing upon so many gently writhing eyestalks and so many malicious stares, Beldar Roaringhorn knew better.

The smallest one here can slay me at will.

"I come not to harm," he rasped, finding his mouth and throat suddenly dry, "but to warn and seek advice."

"Are you alone?" the beholder mage demanded, "Do you know spells?"

A sudden crushing force blossomed inside Beldar's head, leaving him gasping and numbed, barely able to think or move. He struggled, thick-tongued, to answer… and then, as suddenly as it had come, the awful invasion ended.

"You stagger under the weight of magics you know not how to use," the beholder hissed contemptuously. "Speak now, ere we slay you. You offer poor sport."

Beldar took a deep breath, reminding himself of the Dathran's prophecy, and said, "I come from the city of Waterdeep, where a man now dwells who seeks to 'improve' himself by grafting claws and tails and other body parts of wild beasts-monsters-to himself. He's done so successfully at least a tencount of times, winning new limbs and organs that live and thrive, obeying him as if they were his own. They now are his own."

"And this concerns us how?" the eye tyrant mage sneered, though the glows encircling it brightened and its surviving eyes flashed in evident excitement.

"This man keeps one of his eyes hidden behind a cloth patch," Beldar replied, "to keep other humans from seeing it's been replaced with… an eye from a beholder."

A hiss went up all around Beldar that was almost a roar, drool-wet and furious. Eyes flashed, eyestalks writhed like angry snakes, and a dozen beams and bolts of deadliness stabbed at the quaking human from all sides.

All of them vanished in amber glows that brightened until Beldar could see a soft aura all around him. His skin tingled painfully, and he bit back a moan of fear.

"Soil yourself not, human," the beholder mage said coldly. "That was but a simple truth-test. I'd not have believed your tale, else. You spoke truth and so live yet, but this blasphemer, this human who dares to butcher our kind, must die-swiftly and knowing one of us is his slayer!"

Eager babble filled the cellar in an instant-and ceased, knife-sudden, as amber radiance blazed anew about the beholder mage.

One of its eyestalks curled to tap thoughtfully at its fanged mouth in an oddly human gesture. "Dealing death to this blasphemer would be a pleasure to everyone here, but one of us has a prior claim. Who sent you here, human, to tell us this?"

"No one." Beldar tapped the badge Dandalus had sold him, the device that marked him as a man in thrall to a beholder. "There is no one now," he added meaningfully.

"I see. Your master was slain by this human."

That hissing voice was not quite questioning. In case a truth-magic remained in the soft amber glow, Beldar said, "I decided to come here-alone-and parted with valuable gemstones to learn the way."

"You earn my protection already," the great beholder said, turning to face him fully, almost as if its blind, empty eyesocket could still see. "Are you willing to do more?"

"I am your servant," Beldar replied with dignity, knowing no other sane answer.

"Then one of us shall accompany you back to Waterdeep."

Though Beldar saw no gesture nor word pass among the floating horrors, one of the gauths-if he remembered the Roaringhorn library bestiary correctly-drifted forward to hang just above and in front of him. Before he could look at it properly, it began to circle him as if surveying a roast boar for a tasty-looking place to start devouring.

"You shall lead Alanxan without delay to this man, that his death may be accomplished without arousing the city's defenders, attracting undue attention, or leading this arm of our vengeance into any traps. Failure to do this, Beldar Roaringhorn-oh, yes, human, I read all I want of your mind in our brief contact-and not only will you die in long torment, but so shall all your friends and kin. Perhaps every so-called noble house of Waterdeep needs one of us commanding it."

"I thought you loathed…" Beldar stopped, realizing nothing he might say could be well received.

"We do. Save as cowering slaves to fetch, enact our wills, and provide us with entertainment. Yet with your ridiculous airs, you prancing humans entertain and even amuse-some of the time."

"A-a deathwagon waits to carry me back into Waterdeep," Beldar almost gabbled. "It has, uh, grim cause to travel every street of the city, so Alanxan can be safely brought to the back door of the, ah, blasphemer's abode, if, of course, this meets with your approval!"

"It will serve. Go."

Beldar bowed, turned, and strode hastily back out of the lair, eagerly seeking the stomach-churning reek of rotten garbage. The gauth drifted behind him, its largest eye half-closed but its others trained on him, as if anticipating betrayal at any moment.

The Roaringhorn allowed himself a grim smile. As the creature was expecting treachery, it would be ill-bred of him to disappoint it!