The City of Splendors

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

For the first time in his life, Taeros Hawkwinter held vigil for dawn. All night he'd paced the mooncast shadows outside the City of the Dead, praying to every god he knew to hasten the coming of morning, and dreading what dawn might reveal. The stern line of Guardsmen had been unmoved by his pleadings and use of the Hawkwinter name. Scores of times he'd cursed himself for noticing Varandros Dyre striding out of that inn. If they hadn't found Faendra to ask her where her sister had gone, Korvaun would never have gone sprinting off to find his Naoni, and Enough. 'Twas done, as surely as Malark's entombment, the gods save us all.

Taeros wasn't alone in his fearful restlessness. A throng had gathered outside every gate of the cemetery, anxious to learn the fates of friends and loved ones locked within-or to reclaim the dead and dying who were only too visible through the high iron gates. A veritable army of Guardsmen, Watchmen, and Watchful Order magists grimly barred passage, unmoved by threats, brandished blades, and sobbing pleadings alike.

Throughout the night several frantic folk had tried to scale the walls, only to be hurled off by warding magics. Others had wept helplessly as they recognized a familiar voice, inside the walls, raised in terror or pain. The cries soon died away, leaving only ominous silence, and still the citizens waited, shivering in the chill grey damp of the night-mists.

At last the darkness started to lighten, and men started to call, "In! In!"

Others took up the cry, and it quickly rose into a chant. Taeros stood nose to nose with the Guardsman who'd firmly denied him several times and saw the man's eyes change as someone spoke inside his head.

The officer turned and said curtly, "Open the gates."

Binding spells wavered and sighed away, locks were undone and great bars hurled aside, and the great iron gates swept silently open. With a collective sigh, the waiting throng streamed inside.

Taeros jostled with dozens of robed priests and heard the rattling progress of many haulcarts behind him. The carters would convey the known dead to their grieving families and haul the unclaimed to The Last Bath in South Ward, the grim house where unknown dead were laid out in hopes someone would miss them and come looking. Taeros prayed silently that this day wouldn't include a trip there to seek Korvaun Helmfast among those ever-quiet faces.

He pushed his way through the growing thunder-rumble of carts, looking this way and that for some sign of his friend. Heartsick, he saw nothing, nothing… no gleam of blue gemweave amid the sprawled bodies.

And then, in the far tree- and tomb-studded distance, above the heads of the milling crowd of searchers, he caught sight of disheveled fair hair. Korvaun was taller than most-it could be…

Taeros broke into a run, dodging and darting.

Yes! Korvaun alive, by all the Watching Gods! And beside him, both clinging to and supporting the rather bedraggled Lord Helmfast, was a slender, flame-haired lass who could only be Naoni Dyre.

Relief flooded the Hawkwinter. Laughter welling out of him, he raced forward and threw his arms around them, and the three clung together, laughing and crying, as carts rumbled by and others wept.

Finally, starving for air, Taeros pulled away. "Thanks be to Torm for friends too bloody stubborn to die!"

A shadow passed over Korvaun's face, and Taeros winced. For what were the ghosts that so swarmingly haunted the Deadrest, but folk too stubborn to die?

"Do you count me among your friends, then, Lord Taeros?" Naoni Dyre asked quietly. "On such short acquaintance, and me a common-born lass?"

Her stare told the Hawkwinter that his answer really mattered to her. Glib phrases rose readily to his tongue-and there stopped. Taeros blinked, realizing that what he was about to say was simple truth.

"Strangely enough, I do," he marveled.

Before he could chastise himself for that slip of the tongue, both of his friends, the old and the new, burst into laughter.

Taeros heard the high, wild edge to Naoni's mirth and told her quickly, "Let's begone from here. I saw not your father nor sister outside the gates, but in all candor, I wasn't looking for them."

"Nor would you have found them. Father told us not to expect him in at all last night-New Day work, I've no doubt-and I took his room, so I could sleep while Faen slipped out to a revel. She's probably not back even yet, and neither of them knows I came here. But they'll soon find me missing, and worry."

"I've a coach waiting, if you can walk four streets west."

Relief and gratitude shone on Naoni's face, making her look like a lamp lit from within, and Taeros wondered why he'd ever thought her plain.

The three lost no time in departing the City of the Dead. Handcarts laden with corpses were already rumbling past. Naoni winced as an arm slid off its chest to sway and dangle, but Taeros gazed at smeared lip-paint on the dead man's face and said softly, "I'll wager that one never thought, hurrying to an afternoon tryst, that he was rushing to his grave."

"Few think of their own deaths until they lie dying," Korvaun replied. He looked down at Naoni with the future in his eyes and added, "Much less what comes after. I'd never had reason to do so myself, ere last night."

Taeros stiffened in enlightenment. First Roldo, now Korvaun! With Malark gone and Beldar so troublingly preoccupied, he'd soon be reduced to drinking and wenching with just Starragar. And Lord Starragar Jardeth was certain to wed young, for what better way to maintain his customary ill spirits?

Leaving him alone, with his books and inkpots.

Another handcart rumbled past, bearing a lone dead man. It was followed by a sobbing, staggering woman. Taeros winced. Well, there was alone and then there was alone.

"Nao! Naoni!" The frantic whisper resumed, and so did the rattling of the heavy bolt.

Striding through cheering merchants to take his place at the gleaming table where citizens could confer publicly with the Lords of Waterdeep-all of them unmasked and rising to applaud his entrance-Varandros Dyre frowned. That sounded like Faendra, and what would she be doing here, whispering for her sister in all this tumult?

"Naoni Dyre, wake up! If you don't get up and out of here soon, Father'll be back, and then what-"

Varandros Dyre was suddenly receiving applause from no one, and the glossy carved chair under his hands was… the smooth-worn lip of the inn bed, and he was blinking at the door as its bolt rattled again.

"Naoni!"

Not bothering with his breeches-the knee-length inn nightshirt would do-Dyre rolled out of bed, shot the bolt, and pawed the bolt open.

Faendra staggered back, wide-eyed. "Father!"

"What, lass?"

His youngest daughter peered past him frantically. "She's not here!"

"Naoni? Why would she be here? Out with it! Where is she?"

"I… I don't know!" Faendra looked ready to cry. "I thought she was in here! S-she-"

Fear closed iron fingers around Dyre's throat. There'd been some sort of brawl in the City of the Dead last night, with the Watch and half the Guard called out! What if Naoni'd been there? She went betimes to put flowers on…

Gods, what if she'd somehow still been inside when they closed the gates at nightfall?

"No!" he growled fiercely, "She's a stubborn lass, and houseproud to a fault. Most likely she went back to the house for some of her spinning and stayed to work, trusting she could keep it standing if the Lords came a-calling by… well, by sheer pride."

The trembling beginnings of a smile touched Faendra's worried face. "Yes, that sounds like Naoni. We must go and make sure!"

"Aye." Varandros Dyre looked at his younger daughter, so pale, dark hollows hooding her eyes. Her mother had looked just so, when the fever'd begun… "I'll hire a carriage."

She winced. "If it's all the same to you, Father, I'd rather walk."

It was past full dawn as Lark hurried down the street. She was late for work two days running, and Master Dyre wasn't one to dismiss that.

Her misadventure with Beldar Roaringhorn had kept her from her duties for too long, yesterday; by the time she'd reached the Dyres' it was locked and empty. Her employers must have been making their worksite rounds, and with the fire out and no food ready to hand, they'd likely take their evening meal out, perhaps even at the Notch.

So she'd gone to serve there at her appointed time, planning to arrive at the Dyres' very early the next morn, but her cheek was so bruised from Lord Roaringhorn's blow that she looked frightful. She'd lingered too long at her mirror trying to cover the damage with tinted unguent lent by a sympathetic highcoin lass at the rooming house.

Her face felt stiff and strange under the unfamiliar paint, but she strode through the Dyres' kitchen garden with her usual swift step. To her surprise, the buttery door was still locked. The kitchen door, the front entrance: locked tight, all. No smoke rose from the chimney, and no sounds came from within.

A strong hand descended on her shoulder and spun her around to face Her grim-faced master, with tearful Faendra at his side, her gaze fixed on the chimney.

Lark's heart sank. Every morning, Naoni rose before dawn to stoke the kitchen fire. By now she'd have a pot of broth or spiced cider simmering, and morningfeast would be bubbling and sizzling. The cold chimney proclaimed all too loudly that the mistress of hearth was absent.

Master Dyre's eyes were flint-hard. "Where's Naoni?"

Lark shook her head, swallowing. "I know not. The house's locked up tighter than a Calishite harem."

The rattle of an approaching coach rose behind them, and the hooves of its horses were slowing. Everyone turned.

They were in time to see Lord Korvaun Helmfast leap out, even before the coach had quite stopped.

Varandros Dyre stared in disbelief. The noble's blue gemcloak was gone, and his fine clothes were stiff with dried blood. As the horses snorted and pawed, Korvaun reached up to help someone alight from the coach-and Naoni Dyre's slender form and bright head suddenly filled its door.

Varandros Dyre growled something wordless and took a step forward, but by then Faendra had flung herself past him with a cry and thrown her arms around her sister, bursting into tears.

Naoni soothed her, murmuring reassurances and stroking her sister's hair as they rocked together in Faendra's tight embrace.

As Lord Taeros Hawkwinter emerged from the coach, Korvaun bowed to the glowering guildmaster. "Your daughter's unharmed, Master Dyre. I apologize for my rough appearance. We shared the misfortune of being locked inside the City of the Dead at nightfall, along with scores of others."

Varandros Dyre swallowed, swayed, went pale, and then blazed crimson again, all in a single breath. "She was locked in the Deadrest all night? With the likes of you?"

Korvaun's lips thinned, but his voice stayed calm, even respectful. "Something turned the usual crowd of mourners into a slaying mob; so fierce was the fighting that it threatened to spill out into the streets. Even the Guard and Watch together lacked time and swords enough to quell the fray before nightfall and… were forced into a hard decision. Many folk didn't survive; we're among the fortunate few."

Naoni gently slipped out of Faendra's arms and went to her father, who was now staring at her as if she were one of the Deadrest ghosts.

"Lord Helmfast came to my rescue," she told him, "saving me first from a man who tried to…" Her voice failed, but she drew in a deep breath and went on. "Then he fought for me against a band of armed men who attacked us in their madness. We… took refuge in one of the tombs. Korv-Lord Helmfast had a blessed talisman that kept the roaming spirits safely from us throughout the night. And he gave me this."

She pulled a fine dagger from her belt and held it up. Its sharp, clean blade glinted in the morning light.

"Lord Helmfast bade me use it if I felt he in any way threatened my honor. As you can see, I had no cause."

Varandros Dyre looked at Naoni's fierce face, at the bright-bladed dagger, and then back at the young noble. "It would seem," he said slowly, "I must again thank you for protecting my daughter."

Korvaun bowed again. "It was my pleasure as well as my duty, goodsir," he said quietly. "If it please you, might your daughters and I have a few private words with your maidservant? We're concerned about a friend of mine and believe she may know something helpful."

"Aye, that's always the way of it when trouble befalls. All the day long, folk'll be seeking each other out." Dyre seemed to shake himself and added briskly, "I should be off to see how many workmen remain to me."

Faendra caught at his sleeve. "Should we stay here, Father? Or go back to the inn?"

The guildmaster sighed heavily. "There's no truly safe place in this world, lass, and I'd rather have you both home than tossed about by mobs and spirits. I'll have some of my men bring your things back here." He started to stride off down the street, and then turned and gave Korvaun a nod that was almost a bow.

Leaving Lark facing several cool, measuring gazes.

She turned to Korvaun. "If your friend's named Roaringhorn, I'm not the one to guide you."

"Who better?" Faendra snapped. "Yestermorn, you and Lord Roaringhorn lingered in the club after we left. Since you didn't return here to see to highsunfeast and the cheesemaking, as you'd said you would, I'm thinking you might indeed have some notion of what befell him."

"None whatsoever. We exchanged words, yes, and that delayed me. When I got here, you'd all left already-for an inn, apparently."

Naoni frowned. "We should have left a note, but Father was in such a hurry…"

"Another building fell," Faendra explained. "The worksite on Redcloak Lane."

Lark winced, seeing quite well why Master Dyre had hauled away his daughters with such haste.

"You know nothing of Beldar?" pressed Taeros Hawkwinter. "We've not seen him since we departed the club."

Lark didn't have to feign anger. "I know not where he is, nor do I care!"

Plucking forth her ready-cloth from its belt pouch, she swiped most of the unguent from her cheek. Lifting her chin, she stared defiantly at Taeros and let him read what he would from her bruised face.

His expression grew grim. "Beldar?"

Lark nodded.

"Are you… otherwise unharmed?"

"I am, though I think you'll find your friend somewhat the worse for wear."

Korvaun sighed. "Beldar's not been himself of late. We're all grieving over Malark, but…"

"When it seemed you went off with him…" Naoni murmured.

"After all that talk about Elaith Craulnober," Faendra added tearfully, and then threw her arms around the maid. "Oh, Lark, I'm so sorry!"

"It… matters not," Lark replied, patting her younger mistress awkwardly on the back before disentangling herself from the embrace. "You were right to be cautious. I take no offense, and only hope your minds are at ease."

Faendra nodded happily, but Naoni… glowed.

Lark looked at that smiling face. Then her elder mistress moved her hand, and Lark saw the glint of gold on one finger.

Gods above! No good can come of this. She glanced at Korvaun, and what she saw there did not put her mind at ease.

"One matter remains unresolved," Korvaun said carefully. "It appears Lord Hawkwinter here has lost a silver charm on a neck-chain. Lark, know you anything of this?"

Lark's heart beat a little faster, but she knew nothing showed on her face. No lass raised on the Luskan docks escaped accusations, and when death or maiming could reward a guilty face, one learned fast.

Looking at all of the watchful faces, she decided to cleave close to the truth. There was no knowing what magic trinkets the lords might carry, and if she was caught in a lie…

"After you all left in such haste, I found such a thing, fallen on the stair-snowflake and hawk." Then she told them rueful truth. "It didn't occur to me until now that the design meant 'Hawkwinter.'"

"Where is it now?" Taeros demanded, with far more interest than one might expect from a wealthy nobleman over a simple silver charm.

Lark faced him squarely. "Lord Roaringhorn had lingered in the room, so I asked him to help me learn more about the charm. He took me to an old woman, a mage or priestess of some sort who tried to read its secrets. If you're concerned about losing valuable magic, Lord Hawkwinter, be at ease. The charm has none that she could find."

Taeros sighed in exasperation. "Did it not occur to you to simply ask who among us might have dropped the charm?"

Lark risked a lie. "Of course. I asked Lord Roaringhorn."

The nobles exchanged frowns. "He'd not know," Taeros mused, "but why'd he take it to some witch-woman or other, rather than simply follow us and ask?"

"That was my idea," Lark said. "Serving in taverns, I've seen such charms before. Some men give them as gifts-to girls whose virtue might otherwise be unassailable."

Everyone stared at her.

Lark shrugged. "Such things happen."

"Not among the Gemcloaks, I assure you," Korvaun said firmly.

"What became of the charm?" Taeros asked.

"Lord Roaringhorn was… acting strangely. He talked of The Serpent liking such things. We struggled, and he seized my belt-bag. I got it back from him and fled. What became of him after, I cannot say, but the charm's no longer in my belt-bag."

That was true enough. The charm now rode in a small cloth bag sewn firmly to her shift and hidden beneath her kirtle. If the two lordlings concluded the charm was in Lord Roaringhorn's possession, all the better. He'd deny it, but the frowns on their faces suggested they might now be as disinclined to believe his words as those of a maidservant.

Still, there was little sense courting discovery. Touching a finger to her bruised cheek, Lark turned to Naoni. "By your leave, Mistress, I'd like to use this morn to tend to personal matters."

Naoni promptly proffered her smallcoin-purse. "Take this and see a healer."

Lark backed away, putting her hands behind her. "I can't take your coins for so trifling a hurt! I need rest, nothing more."

Her mistress's smile was weary. "As do we all. Take the day, or two if you see fit."

"This is all fine and well," Taeros murmured in a tone that suggested it was anything but, "yet it serves nothing in retrieving the charm."

"Perhaps," said Korvaun slowly, "there's a way it could be traced…"

Lark bobbed a curtsey and hurried off, Lord Helmfast's words speeding her step.

If magic could track the charm, better the hunt end at Elaith Craulnober's door than at her own!

Varandros Dyre set aside another many-times-amended chart of the sewers and rubbed his eyes wearily. His daughters sporting with wastrel nobles-sneering emptyheads who knew best how to insult people and break things-buildings crashing down and taking good men to their deaths, and now he'd drawn the baleful eye of the Lords of Waterdeep.

Laughing at him behind their masks, preening as they plotted to reach out and smash down one more man who'd been fool enough to stand up to them.

Yet how was a man to make honest coin-in Waterdeep, too, gods cry all? This wasn't Thay or Calimshan or Zhentil Keep! Here the guilds were a man's shield against tyrannical clerks or spiteful Lords-weren't they?

Or was it all a game, and every hard-working merchant of Waterdeep a dupe left to scramble like an ant, as his "betters" sneered down at him?

If they reached out to crush him, as a man swats a stinging fly, what would befall Naoni and Faendra? Who'd stand with them, against… oh, gods.

Who but those nobles: Helmfast, Hawkwinter and the rest? Men who wanted but two things from his daughters, their charms and their coins-and would be gone the moment they'd snatched both.

"Tymora keep me alive," Varandros muttered under his breath.

"Father?" Naoni's voice was sharp with concern.

Dyre's head jerked up. How'd she opened the door without him hearing?

Both of his daughters were standing before him, Faendra bearing a tray holding three tankards of steaming mulled cider. Aye, three, not just his own.. Varandros frowned. "Yes?"

"Are you… well?"

"Well enough." He glanced at the tankards. "You've something to discuss with me?"

"Yes," Faendra told him firmly. Dyre snatched away a pile of building plans as she lowered the tray. Naoni was already moving two chairs to face him across his desk.

"Father, Faendra and I have eyes and ears," Naoni began. "We can't help but notice when things go awry."

"I'm doing well enough," Dyre said gruffly. "When was the last time either of you lacked for anything you needed, or the little fripperies you fancy?"

Naoni grimaced. "This isn't about pretty gowns and trinkets, Father. We're not children. I haven't been a child since my twelfth winter."

The double-edged truth of that struck deep. "Sit then," Dyre growled, "and speak."

The girls sat in smooth unison, gray eyes and blue regarding him gravely.

"You're worried about the Lords of Waterdeep," Naoni said bluntly, "and thinking they're behind the building collapses. You think they're targeting you and your friends in the New Day."

His eyes narrowed. "What know you of the New Day?"

"I heard it shouted like a battle cry as the City of the Dead went mad," she told him. "I saw people die with 'New Day' on their lips. By highsun, not more than a handful of folk in Waterdeep won't have heard of the New Day."

"And these worries are eating at you, Father," Faendra put in, lifting a tankard. "Time and again you stare at yon cellar and sewer maps, thinking the Lords are tunneling under-"

"Yes, yes," Varandros snapped. "So I do! And what affair-"

"Is it of ours?" Naoni broke in. The cold ring of sudden steel in her voice cut through her father's bluster, leaving him gaping at her in silence. "Faendra and I might not actually put mallet to stone, but we manage your home and offices, offer hospitality to your guild friends, run your errands, visit your worksites-and bury your workmen. Why don't you ever confide in us, when there's so little we don't already know? Speak to us."

"And hear our advice," Faendra put in, the quaver in her voice betraying her nervousness. Varandros rounded on her out of long habit; pounce on any weakness in negotiations, and press it "You always told us a prudent man enters no tunnel alone," Naoni declared. She tapped the sewer plans. "Yet that's what you're planning, yes? If you're right about the Lords, they'll be waiting… and you'll die."

"And if you take a crew down without a city contract," Faendra added, looking at the ceiling as if trying to remember her lines and say them precisely, "they'll know, and others will notice-and one way or the other, the Lords will have to move against you."

Varandros Dyre drew in a deep breath and reached for his tankard with a hand that was not quite steady. Then he set it down again, untouched.

"So, now," he said heavily, "you lay out my choices as clearly as I see them myself. Yes, I see those same roads before me. So, now, your advice?"

Naoni stared straight into his eyes and said softly, "You need men to go down into the tunnels with you, men whose status will be your armor and shield. Noblemen."

"Not your-"

He bit off his own snarl to stare at both of his daughters. Mayhap there was something to that notion…

"The Lords Helmfast, Hawkwinter, Jardeth, and Thongolir," said Faendra, "men of proven honor, Father."

"Men of powerful houses," Naoni pressed. "The Lords would have to want you very badly indeed to risk angering so many nobles."

"One of those young lords is the heir of his house," Varandros mused. "Two more aren't far behind. The Lords would hesitate to spill blood so blue." He frowned again. "But what if they're the very Lords who're after me? Or are working for them?"

Faendra hissed in exasperation, but Naoni made a slashing gesture to cut her off. A familiar gesture. His own. Varandros blinked as sudden affection rose in him. Suddenly his serene, quiet elder daughter was not so unknowable as she'd always seemed.

"If they're what you fear, then you're right where you are now, Father, except that they'll be standing within your reach, if you… dare to try that way."

"You were going to say if I was foolish enough to try that way, weren't you?" he asked quietly.

She nodded, meeting his gaze squarely, then raised her chin and said, "Yes, because you would be."

Varandros gave her a crooked smile. He sat back, his tankard warm in his hands, and told the ceiling huskily, "Thank you, gods, for giving me two daughters such as these."

He sipped soothing cider and then asked, "Can you bring your young nobles here? Or would it better if I went to meet them?"

The Dyre girls exchanged surprised glances.

"Well, ah…" Naoni began.

"We hadn't reckoned on getting this far so swiftly, Father," Faendra said sheepishly. "We'd expected to be wearing that cider by now."

Varandros Dyre stared at her for a moment and then bellowed with laughter. His roars of mirth echoed back to him off the ceiling, louder than he'd laughed in many a year.

After a moment, with a hesitation and uncertainty that made him suddenly want to weep-gods, were they that afraid of him? — Naoni and Faendra Dyre started to laugh, too.

Elaith Craulnober stalked through the tunnel, his mood darkening with every stride. It boasted a dry floor, fine stonework, and an arched stone ceiling high enough to allow his little band to walk upright, but it was still a sewer. Worse, it was a new sewer, so new that it wasn't on the most recent maps.

He turned to face the two roughblades dragging the dwarf. Their captive's just-broken legs trailed limply, and his gray beard was matted with dried blood, none of which had dimmed the defiance in his rheumy old eyes. Nor did the dagger Elaith drew from a wrist sheath.

"Who ordered this work?" the Serpent demanded, waving his fang in a sweeping circle at the tunnel all around.

Battered and swollen lips cracked into a sneer. "Bunch of stinkin' drow. Said they knew yer mother real well."

"Very amusing." The elf looked at his men. "Kill him."

Knives flashed, and the dwarf who'd for years been Waterdeep's most knowledgeable tunnel builder thudded unceremoniously to the stones.

"Heavy bastard," one of the slayers observed, cleaning his knife on his victim's tunic. "Not much for talking, though."

"Indeed," Elaith agreed. The dwarf had been his "guest" for some days now, and in all that time had adamantly refused to say a useful word about recent activities beneath the city streets.

No matter. Living or dead, they all talked in time. Elaith nodded to the pale woman in black and purple at the rear of their small procession. The symbol of the god of the dead, the Bone-hand clutching golden scales, was emblazoned on her tabard in glittering thread-perhaps the gem-spun thread now creating an uproar in Waterdhavian fashion, and clear proof he was paying this priestess far too much.

This whole affair was becoming damnably expensive. His recent adventures in Tethyr had strained his coffers, and he'd lost two valuable properties this tenday. There must be an end to this, and soon.

Elaith watched intently as the Kelemvorite knelt by the body, held out her hands, palms-down, and chanted an eerily tuneful prayer.

A faintly shimmering cloud rose from the corpse, swiftly taking on the shape of the dwarf-but whole, showing no signs of the injuries inflicted on him over the last few days.

The apparition stared at the priestess with contempt and then glared at Elaith impatiently. "Well? Get on with it. I got places to go, friends to meet, tankards to drain."

"Three questions," the Skullsister intoned, as if she hadn't heard the spirit. "The Lord of the Dead grants me the power to hold you until three questions are answered fully and truthfully."

The ghostly dwarf snorted. "Ask away."

The priestess looked to her employer.

"Who laid this stonework?" Elaith snapped. The priestess echoed his words exactly.

The spirit sneered at that.

"I told you I knew not. Use truth more often, Slyboots, an' you might know the sound of it." The apparition seemed to grow a little fainter. "Stones well-trimmed and tight-fitted, not half-bad work. It'll hold a good long time. Not up to dwarf standards, of course, but close as Tall Folk are likely to get. Done by either folk newcome to Waterdeep-stoneworkers I never heard of-or Varandros Dyre. One or 'tother."

Elaith bit back a curse. Witless humans, endangering their own properties-and infinitely worse, his as well! "If the tunnel's sound, what brought the building down?"

The dwarven spirit's reply was swift and firm. "This digging's too close to one of Ahghairon's old wards. There's a warren of sewers under this city, and under that levels upon levels of caverns and dungeons and what-have-you. D'you think Waterdeep stands on that anthill thanks to human 'stonecraft'? Bah!" The ghostly form was noticeably fainter now.

It was Elaith's turn to sneer. Stonecraft? Hardly. Ahghairon? Well, perhaps the human had renewed or augmented the high magic he'd found, left behind from Aelinthaldaar. That was what kept half of Waterdeep from tumbling into the depths… A remembrance of his long-ago fosterage rose unbidden to mind. A particularly creative nurse once brought to the royal nursery a wonderfully complex toy made of hard-spun sugar in rainbow hues. As she told a tale about a powerful human wizard whose spells bored through the depths beneath his city seeking gold, the children had taken turns breaking off and eating bits of candy, until the toy collapsed into fragments-a lesson, of course, about the fragility of magic and the dangers inherent in hasty greed.

That game had fixed the tale in his memory so firmly that Elaith still saw it clearly, all these years later. He'd known enough to break off small bits, not pieces that were part of the supports, but little Amnestria, her sapphire hair a curly halo around a face sticky from the treat, had known less restraint. Her sweet tooth, impatient nature, and grasping little hands had brought the sweet wonder down in short order.

Firmly banishing that memory, Elaith spread out the map of Waterdeep's underground passages on the tunnel floor. Taking quill and ink from a belt-pouch, he addressed the dwarven spirit for the third and final time.

"Where are the wards of the wizard Ahghairon? Fully describe the locations and natures of all that are known to you."