The City of Splendors

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Taeros sighed. "The slipshield's gone." Asper stiffened. He added hastily, "We think we know who has it."

Shapely eyebrows rose. "So get it back."

Korvaun winced. "That may be difficult. We believe it's now in the hands of Elaith Craulnober."

It was Asper's turn to wince. "I see. I quite see."

Her tone was dry and light, but her smile was wry, and concern stood in her eyes. "By and large, we leave the Serpent be. He conducts himself carefully, with an eye to not threatening governance of the city overmuch-and were we to eliminate him, the struggle to take his place would inevitably cause much bloodshed."

"We didn't come here to beg aid," Korvaun said quietly. "We consider this matter our responsibility, but if Taeros and I are to have any hopes of recovering the slipshield, we'll need help. To get it, I need you to relax my vow of silence, so I may share this secret with my lady. Naoni Dyre's a sorceress whose gift is to spin anything into thread. She does business with a gnome weaver in the Warrens, spinning precious stones into this." He patted his glittering cloak.

"A young woman carrying such treasures needs guarding. The halflings of the Warrens are as good as watchblades come, and have some swift fingers among them. The best hands to recover the slipshield are those of a thief. Am I right?"

"About most things, I'd wager," Korvaun murmured.

Her grin was impish. "Been talking to Mirt, have you? Lord Helmfast, you may tell your lady about the slipshield, swearing her first to the same oaths that bind you. I leave its recovery to you. Send swift word if the Serpent does anything… significant."

"Lady, we shall," Taeros replied. "Assuming, of course, we're still alive to do so."

Korvaun and Naoni stood together in the moonlight, gazing up into the Moon Sphere with unseeing eyes.

At least a score of laughing, chattering revelers floated in its softly glowing haze. On the balcony overhanging it, a pair of well-oiled young tradesmen were playing tickle-slap with an equally inebriated lass. She bubbled false protests and delighted giggles as they tipped her over the rail, skirts flashing, into the globe. She plunged into the iridescent haze like a sea-diver, righted herself, and joined an ongoing, languorous midair dance.

"I can't believe this," Naoni murmured. "Never once has Lark stolen from us-not so much as a honey cake! Why would she lie about Lord Hawkwinter's charm?"

"She spoke truth, just not the whole truth. Betimes what's left unsaid means more than what's uttered."

Naoni gnawed on her lip. "I know of some suitable halflings. If you've coin enough, let's go hire them right now-one to follow Lark, the other Beldar."

"I do, and thank you. 'Tis vital we retrieve the slipshield before anyone learns its secrets."

Naoni set off at a brisk pace, and Korvaun fell into step beside her. After a few strides, she said wistfully, "I hope you're wrong about Lark."

"So do I," he replied.

And while we're hoping, he thought grimly, let's hope all of Waterdeep's wrong about Elaith Craulnober.

Returning to The High House of Roaringhorn in his dirty, bloodied state had been surprisingly easy, once Beldar decided to swagger along with his sword half-drawn and his hand on its hilt. He'd greeted the curious stares of Watchmen and Roaringhorn servants alike with nods and grimly satisfied smiles, and passed on his way leaving them whispering and wondering.

In fact, life was surprisingly easy, he concluded grimly, when expectations were low. Men like him were a source of gossip and inconvenience. Fortunately, it was the nature of humankind that folk enjoyed the former sufficiently to consider the latter a fair price for their entertainment. The Watch would make inquiries into duels fought that night, and the House servants would inform the steward that some sort of financial amends would likely need to be made on the morrow. In short, business as bloody usual.

By the time Beldar reached his room, his head was throbbing, and the burning in his new eye made him long to tear it from his head. He ached all over, and no wonder. Each garment he shed revealed new bruises.

Gazing regretfully at his ever-handy decanters, Beldar went to one end of the sideboard, unlocked the hidden compartment there, and downed a healing potion.

It snatched away his headache in the time it took him to pad to his waiting bath. Ah, a long, warm soak! Sorbras was worth every last shiny dragon the Roaringhorns paid him…

The waters did nothing to ease his mind nor banish his restlessness, and Beldar lingered only long enough to scrub himself clean. Dripping his way back to his bedchamber, he found his bed far less inviting than he'd expected.

Bone-deep exhausted he might be, but something within him was driving him on; he had to be out there again, in the night.

Seeking… danger, perhaps. Well, hadn't Roaringhorns been famous battle-lions of old, and was he not a Roaringhorn? No battle was ever won, and no lands ruled, by a man languidly counting his bruises in a scented bath.

He'd need boots on his feet for the streets and something above them more suitable than an open-fronted, swirling chamber-robe.

Beldar padded barefoot to his robing-rooms.

He had no spell-spurning talisman to replace the one the half-dragon had destroyed, but he refilled his gem-pouch and selected his grandes "dashing yet refined bladesman of action" garb. Crimson shirt, breeches fashioned of red and black, black tunic… the eyepatches he'd ordered had been delivered, and Beldar selected one that bore a stylized lightning bolt across its darkness. Dashingly overbold, but it suited his mood.

His gemcloak was as bright and unwrinkled as if he'd never worn it. Beldar settled it around his shoulders in all its ruby splendor. Folk were beginning to know him in the streets by its striking hue; the notoriety he'd long sought was his at last.

Yet notoriety was a poor substitute for destiny. Small wonder he'd snatched so eagerly at the first chance at fulfilling the Dathran's prophecy. He touched his eyepatch lightly; yes, he'd quite literally 'mingled himself with monsters.' The Dathran had promised such a mingling would be the beginning of his path to greatness. She'd also said he'd be a deathless warrior and a leader of men.

Beldar smiled grimly at his reflection in the tall robing room mirrors-a smile that froze when a grim thought smote him: The Dathran had said nothing about the sort of men he'd lead nor the nature of his great and unknown destiny. Did not scoundrels require leaders more than honest men? Had he taken his first step to lordship over rogues and villains?

Frowning, he swept down the back stairs and out into the street. He knew not what he sought, aside from trouble. He'd welcome another chance at that half-dragon-or Hoth, for that matter. And this time, he'd fight his own battle!

"I am Beldar Roaringhorn," he proclaimed in a self-mocking murmur as he turned a corner, hand on hilt, "and 'twere best, m'lord, if you feared me."

A Watchman lounging in the lee of a greathouse gate-pillar waiting for a certain personage to obligingly step out of that gate to be arrested, overheard that murmur, and rolled his eyes before carefully not smiling. Young idiot.

He would have been more than surprised to know that for all his grandly carefree air, Beldar Roaringhorn agreed with his assessment.

Not knowing this, the Watchman had to settle for being surprised to notice a halfling in leathers the hue of mottled gray stone-and with hair to match-stroll along the street after Beldar, pausing briefly here and there to admire carved faces on pillars and grand ornaments on iron gates, but glancing repeatedly at the young noble.

A bit old and small for a cudgel-thief. Ah, but perhaps the elder Roaringhorns had hired a "vigilant eye" to see where their young lance went and what he got up to… yes, that must be it.

It must be pleasant to have coins to waste on such matters. Heh, if he came into gold, he'd find better uses for it! Fine horses, hunting hounds, perhaps a lodge on the verges of Ardeepforest where he'd guest friends for days a-hunt and nights of loud, laughing revelry. Warm fires, games of dice and cards, plenty of sizzling roasts and cold ale to wash them down with-and pretty lasses to serve it all, aye!

He went on thinking such thoughts long after his memories of Beldar Roaringhorn's passage faded.

Sun or starlight, Waterdeep never slept. Beldar's aimless stroll had taken him into Castle Ward and past the Palace, where the hurrying throngs were always thickest. The streets were busier than usual, but as he turned into Sea Ward, he looked back, as was his wont, to admire the lamplit Palace, standing forth proudly from the rocky flank of Mount Waterdeep.

Descending its magnificent stone, his gaze fell upon a small, gray-clad figure. Nothing unusual about an aging halfling walking a street in Waterdeep; as Taeros never failed to observe, they were scarcely in short supply.

Ha ha. Yet when he turned a corner nigh Myarvan the Minstrel's gaudy mansion, glanced idly back again, and saw the same halfling, Beldar grew thoughtful.

He knew no hin personally-not beyond nodding and handing coins to those who worked in shops he frequented. Beldar was obviously armed and just as obviously young and strong, so no skulk-thief would think him easy prey.

Easily spotted, yes, and thus easily known. Moreover, known to the gossips of Waterdeep as an idle young blade, not the Roaringhorn heir, and hence worth no ransom, nor likely to be carrying serious coin. So this was a spy rather than a thief… but for whom? Who had reason to follow Beldar Roaringhorn?

Who but Golskyn of the Gods and his surly son?

Hmmm. The most likely culprits, yes, but they'd hire no halpfling. Their sneak-eyes would be a human with some beast claw or tail hidden under-cloak.

Well, he'd take an unusual route and so make certain this was a spy.

Beldar turned onto one of the paths-stairs, actually-cut into the flank of the mountain, ascending to the City wall. Too narrow and windswept to be used by the Guard, who had their own tunnels inside the mountain, safe from winter sleet and summer storms, this sparsely lamplit way was mostly used by folk desiring to hold long conversations in relative privacy, such as shady traders and lovers. Thankfully, there seemed to be a shortage of both at the moment.

Perhaps a hundred steps up, Beldar stopped and looked back. The small gray figure was right behind him, hurrying now that concealment was impossible.

Beldar came back down the steps to meet his shadow. "You have business with me?"

The halfling's reply was to hurl a small cloth bag at Beldar's face-a bag that flew open as it came, spilling sand in a flurry intended to blind. Beldar leaped up and back, catching his heel on the next step and almost falling as he came down hard.

A second bag was already bursting blindingly across his gaze, its onrushing hurler behind it.

Beldar raced a few steps higher, whirled as he snatched down his eyepatch-and glared at the hin.

The running halfling faltered. Beldar drew his sword from its scabbard and took another careful step up and back, his eyes never leaving the halfling's face.

That face wore a deepening horror now, staring back at him with eyes going wild. Suddenly, the hin whirled to flee.

Beldar flung his sword under the blur of gray boots, and the little spy crashed to the steps, bouncing with a loud gasp.

Beldar sprang down the stair like a hungry wind. Before the hin could roll to its feet, the Roaringhorn seized a gray shoulder, clawed the winded spy over, and glared into the sharp-nosed, paling face.

A small hand tried to snatch at a belt-dagger, but Beldar was ready for that and slapped it away, hard.

Winds rose around them as the man and the halfling stared into each other's eyes-Beldar smiling grimly as the hungry warmth arose in him… and the halfling sagging into slack-jawed darkness as Beldar's beholder eye worked its wounding magic.

"Who are you working for?" Beldar snarled, pinning the spy against the steps and thrusting his head forward until their noses were almost touching. "What were you after? My life?"

"N-nay," the dying halfling whispered. "Something you stole, high and mighty lorrrr…"

That last word became a gurgling rattle, and the flickering light in those doomed eyes faded.

Leaving Beldar Roaringhorn holding a dead halfling on the side of Mount Waterdeep in a cold, rising breeze-and uncomfortably aware of the City Guard lookouts somewhere above and behind him and the watching city spread out below.

Stunned, Beldar cradled the body of the hin as if comforting a chilled friend.

He'd just murdered someone. In the space of a few breaths. A stranger, who didn't seem to be carrying anything more than two daggers-just small knives, for all their wicked sharpness. Someone trying to recover something he, Beldar, had stolen?

That made no sense. The gauth whose eye he now possessed was dead, sliced into dozens of bloody cantels to yield up eyes and innards to the Amalgamation. Beyond that, Beldar couldn't think of anything he'd taken, beyond a few kisses at the Slow Cheese, before…

Before everything had fallen, and Malark had died.

Beldar shivered and thrust the halfling away from him. Head lolling, the body started to topple. In sudden horror Beldar caught hold of it and arranged it hastily in a lounging position on the steps. The head lolled over again.

He put it back in a reasonably lifelike pose, and it slowly lolled to one side. Again.

Sickened, Beldar stood up, fetched his fallen sword, and hurried on up the steps, trembling in revulsion. He'd just done murder.

So swiftly, so easily.

"Gods," he whispered aloud to the wind, "what have I become?"

Behind and below him was a city full of mages and priests who could snatch secrets from the newly dead, Watchmen who arrested murdering young lords, and black-robed Magisters who pronounced sentence with the full force of Waterdeep's laws…

As he came up onto the City wall-deserted here, with no guardpost near-Beldar realized he'd been whispering his question over and over.

He clapped a hand to his beholder eye. It was magical-and all too powerful: Its wounding magic could slay. An appendage of his, now, and not the other way around.

Right?

It felt warm, and-though he knew this was impossible-larger than his entire head. Hastily Beldar slipped his eyepatch up into place.

The world seemed to shift slightly, some of the color going out of it. Beldar stumbled, reeled, and muttered, "What in the name of all the Watching Gods is happening to me?"

He strode a few paces, passing a dark dome beyond the battlements: the top of the great stone head of one of the Walking Statues of Waterdeep. It stood in its niche below the wall-walk, staring blindly out to sea.

Staring blindly. Beldar almost envied it.

Something warm and dangerous stirred behind his eyepatch. The dead hin would soon be found; he must get down off this wall in all haste.

No, that was craven… unworthy. He'd done what he'd done, and must face the consequences.

But a fierce voice rose within him, filling his head and spilling out of his mouth. "Move," Beldar muttered. "Get you gone, idiot! Move!

Just ahead, the next Walking Statue stirred.

Beldar's heart jumped. The Guard had seen his crime! They were causing the Statue to turn and smash him, right here!

"Turn around, blast it all!" he snarled. Must run…

The Statue turned and settled back into its niche.

Beldar gaped.

Staring at it in bewilderment, he found himself wondering just what it was that looked different about this Statue.

Oh. This was the Sahuagin Statue.

He'd see its cruel, monstrous stone face more clearly if it turned a bit that way…

Obediently, with a few grating sounds as it brushed against the mountainside, the titanic stone sahuagin turned to show him its profile.

For a long time Beldar Roaringhorn stood as still as the Statues along the wall he stood on, as the wind whistled past and chilled him thoroughly.

He'd become someone important, after all. The voice commanding the Walking Statues of Waterdeep was coming from his own mind.