The City of Splendors

CHAPTER FIVE

"I don't understand." Faendra shook her red-gold curls in puzzlement as she thumped the dasher emphatically into the butter churn. "Father may be hard, but he's fair. It's not like him to condemn a man for the cut of his cloak."

Naoni glanced up from the piecrust she was crimping. "Father has no love for the noble houses. Best you remember that before you sigh over highnosed redbearded rogues."

"I'd much rather laugh than sigh, and Malark Kothont's a merry fellow. Though I suppose some girls," Faendra said slyly, "might prefer Korvaun Helmfast's golden hair and courtly manner."

Naoni felt her cheeks grow warm. Faendra's smile broadened into a grin, and Naoni hastened to speak of something else. "What if Father's right-if the Lords are all nobles and control the sewers and the thugs who lurk there? That puts Father's New Day squarely between the highest and the lowliest, and that's as dangerous as…"

"Pissing into lightning?" Lark suggested.

Naoni's chuckle was weak. "Father won't listen to us, and his friends are too cowed by his temper or dazzled by their New Day dreams. I–I don't know what to do."

"There's one who might," Lark said slowly, pushing the simmering stewpot back to a cooler spot on the stove and turning to face her mistresses. "Know you of Texter, the paladin?"

The Dyre girls exchanged glances, then shook their heads.

"He's that rarest of things: a good man. He… helped me, once." Lark's words came haltingly, not with her usual tart-tongued confidence. Naoni smiled encouragement.

"He travels, helping folk wherever he goes, seeking news of importance for Waterdeep. He speaks to the Lords."

The leisurely thumping of the butter churn halted abruptly as Faendra threw up her hands in exasperation. "Yes, of course we must tell him all! Let's bring the Lords right to Father's door and save them the trouble of discovering his foolishness on their own!"

"I said he speaks to the Lords," Lark said quietly. "Texter knows how to keep a secret. I trust him, and I can say that about no other man."

Naoni frowned. She'd never met a paladin, but everyone knew they were upright men, holy warriors who could not break their stern codes without losing the blessing of their god and their own powers into the bargain. Moreover, Lark had good sense, and never before had she spoken so well of any man.

"You can talk to this Texter, and he'll advise you?"

"He travels much, but messages can be got to him. There's a hidden place in the Westwind Villa in Sea Ward."

Faendra tugged off the soft gloves she wore to keep churning from roughening her hands. "I know that place! The great hall there can hold half the nobles in the city-and will, at a grand revel morrow-night!"

Naoni raised an eyebrow. "And you learned this how?"

Her sister grinned. "A tiny shop on Sails Street sells ladies' cast-offs; betimes I talk to the maids bringing the gowns in."

"Stolen?" Naoni demanded, aghast.

"Rest easy! Some high ladies give their old gowns to their maids-as if the girls have any place to wear them! Fine stuff, nevertheless, that can be pulled apart and made over. I'll show you."

Faendra flitted from the room and in short order returned, bearing an armful of rich green.

"Off with your kirtle and shift, Lark," she ordered. "The bodice is too slim-cut for me, but it should fit you well enough. It goes on thus, this side to the front."

The maid sighed but peeled off her clothes and reached for the dress. Sliding it on, she checked to make sure her ribbon was still in place around her left arm and looked inquiringly at Faendra. "Where's the rest of it?"

The younger Dyre sister laughed merrily as she came forward to tighten the side-lacings and smooth the neckline into place. "This is all there is! No sleeves, you see, and the back's supposed to be open to the waist. It fits the hips snugly, but the skirt will flare out full when you turn. 'Tis meant for dancing."

Naoni stared in wonderment. "This is your design, Faen? Your work?"

Her sister nodded happily. "I've always been handy with a needle, and making over a gown's more pleasant work than hemming linens. Giandra the dressmaker stocks ready clothes for ladies who haven't time to order them made. She's already bought two of my gowns and will happily take more."

Looking as surprised as Naoni, Lark started to slip off the gown.

"Wait!" Faendra commanded, clapping her hands excitedly. "You can wear this to the revel at Westwind! You can go as a grand lady, and leave your message for Texter!"

"I've a better idea," Lark said dryly. "I'll go to Sea Ward after my work here is done and ask at the Westwind if they're hiring extra servants. For the big revels, they usually do."

"Why be a servant when you can go as a lady?"

A stubborn expression crossed Lark's face. "I don't like pretending to be other than I am."

Naoni put a hand on Faendra's arm to still her, and said, "I quite agree, but I overheard Master Whaelshod talking with my father and learned the Westwind changed hands recently. It now belongs to Elaith Craulnober, a rather sinister elf better known to the city as 'the Serpent.' He's been away from Waterdeep for a few seasons."

She leaned forward and murmured, "Master Whaelshod said this elf had a secret partnership with Lady Thann. She died two moons past, and Craulnober's returned to sort out his affairs." Naoni looked from Lark to her sister. "Their ah, connection's not widely known; you'd do best to keep this quiet."

Faendra's eyes grew round. "I've heard about the Serpent. This is the company your paladin keeps?"

Lark shrugged. "Not from choice, I'll warrant. In Waterdeep a man may choose his friend, but not the Lords who rule."

"Surely not! You don't think…"

"As I said, some of the Lords are no better than they have to be. Mayhap the elf is among them; who can say? All I know is that someone in the Westwind can get messages to Texter, or perhaps my notes are carried by magic, untouched by any hands but Texter's and mine."

"You must wear the gown," Naoni said softly, "and attend as a noble lady from afar. You'll get in more easily with less scrutiny. Elaith Craulnober's far more likely to be particular about his servants than his guests."

The maid sniffed. "As he's inviting nobility, that goes without saying."

As he stepped out of the midst of the comforting bulk of the House Helmfast bodyguards, Korvaun Helmfast felt suddenly alone.

Mirt's Mansion loomed before him like a scowling fortress, all dark, stern stone save for a cascade of green to his right, where its gardens climbed a rocky shoulder of Mount Waterdeep.

Straight before Korvaun, down an avenue formed by two rows of rune-spangled warding pillars thrice his height, the mansion's grand stair began. At its head the moneylender's guards were waiting for him. Four of them, standing impassively in full plate armor, two on each side of the broad black double doors, heavy-gauntleted arms folded across their chests.

Korvaun raised one eyebrow at the motionless full-face helms above him-or rather, at the complete lack of eye slits or visor openings in those unbroken, gleaming metal ovals. How did they see? Or were they but statues?

Seabirds squawked in the none-too-fresh breeze coming off the harbor, and his eyebrow rose still farther. If they were statues, what kept the bird-dung off them?

He took a stride forward. As he did so, the guards moved too, gliding a step sideways and putting hands on swordhilts, all in precise unison and utter silence.

Ah. Illusions or helmed horrors. My, but moneylenders were doing well in Waterdeep, these days.

"So," he asked, taking another step, "is there a password?"

The doors emitted a gentle feminine chuckle… or no: there was a sudden, ghostly shimmering in the air just in front of the doors, and the silvery shadow of a tall, gracefully slender lady-for Korvaun had measured folk at a glance for years, and this woman could be no less than a lady-suddenly stood before him. He could see the four impassive guards through her, and in fact she was protruding through them. Korvaun watched tiny blue motes of light, like sparks turned the hue of moonlight, dance along the line where ghost-shadow met gleaming blue armor, and noticed her flowing gown did not ripple in response to the harbor breeze but to some other, unfelt wind of its own. A ghost wind.

"Well met, Lady Ghost Wind," he said, in as friendly and respectful a voice as he could manage. Thanks to several maiden aunts, Korvaun Helmfast could sound very respectful when he needed to. "My name is Korvaun Helmfast, and I seek audience with Mirt, commonly called the Moneylender."

The ghostly lady smiled. "Ghost Wind is a better name than some have given me." She looked down the stair past Korvaun at his waiting bodyguard. "I trust you don't intend to bring all of your bullyblades inside our doors."

Korvaun bowed to her, turned, and made a certain signal. "You trust rightly, Lady. I'll proceed alone."

"Then be welcome. What you'll feel on the threshold within is no attack but a probing. Ascend the stair, and Mirt will doubtless find you."

She winked into nothingness even before her words ended. The helmed horrors stepped back to their former positions as the doors beyond them parted and drew inward, revealing a cavernous forehall beyond.

"Impressive, I'll grant," Korvaun murmured, as he crossed the threshold.

The lofty-domed forehall of Mirt's Mansion was smaller and far less ornate than most nobles' abodes, and far more welcoming. Free of clutter and ornate adornment, it didn't strive to impress the eye, yet everything was well-made. It was not a showplace but a home, of someone wealthy and pleasure-loving and yet no-nonsense.

Another eight helmed horrors awaited Korvaun, four on either side this time. As he stepped forward, he felt the probing the ghostly lady had warned him about, like a tingling haze in the air. He was suddenly surrounded by blue smoke so thin he could barely see it, and so acrawl with power that he was shuddering.

The youngest Lord Helmfast hesitated as radiances flickered and grew stronger all around him, and his hands and face went numb. He decided to walk on. What sort of probing was this? The surging tinglings coiled most strongly around the rings on his fingers and the slender sword he wore, but seemed to ignore his dagger. Most curious.

Then it was all gone, fallen away as if it had never been, and he was passing between the motionless helmed horrors and traversing empty flagstones toward the stair. Before him, massive turned wooden posts like the deck-bollards of a great ship held up stairs as finely made as the flights in any villa or mansion he'd ever seen, but far plainer.

Faint kitchen noises-and now a waft of cooking, too-came from behind some of the doors he was leaving behind as he ascended, but he still saw no sign of a living person.

Some folk of Waterdeep spoke of Mirt's Mansion as a sort of vast prison or series of bloodstained torture chambers, where folk who'd been unwise or desperate enough to fall into his clutches screamed out their pain as he cut what he was owed out of their flesh. Others held that it was as gray and drab and graspingly humorless as any moneylender must be, and still others…

Had obviously never been here, any of them. None had walked along a thick blue fine-weave rug as long as any Waterdhavian noble villa might boast, in a white-walled passage whose sides curved up and around overhead in a smooth, unbroken arch. Korvaun strode softly along it, past several closed doors: broad, plain-plank affairs rather than the gaudily carved entries of snarling lion faces and suchlike favored by most rising-coin merchants. He was heading for what must be a solar ahead, where the passage opened out, sunlight streamed down from above, and plants flowered in profusion.

Fine plants, some in hanging baskets. Dodging amongst them was a fat, puffing man in flopping boots and seaman's breeches held up by both braces and the broadest belt Korvaun had ever seen. But then, he'd seen very few bellies that bulged and strained above and over belts with quite the quivering enthusiasm Mirt's did.

Just now, the infamous moneylender was watering his plants with a shower of sweat as he stamped, parried, and scrambled. Mirt was grunting and wheezing like a tired cart-ox as he fenced with a petite lady in dark leathers, whose hair danced behind her like the mane of a proud horse.

My, what a beauty! Korvaun watched her in open admiration and found his gaze drawn to the quickening skirl and clash of blades as Mirt groaned, sputtered, and cursed his way right out of view, driving his lovely opponent back through the greenery.

There followed a sudden lionlike roar of dismay and a tinkling of merry feminine laughter. Korvaun followed the sounds into the warm, damp air of the solar.

Both combatants were regarding him with interest before he could even draw breath to speak. Rings on their fingers glowed in sudden readiness. Korvaun tried a smile.

"I… offer no menace to you or to any in this fair house. I'm Korvaun Helmfast of House Helmfast, here to crave audience on matters of business with the famous Mirt the Moneylender."

Mirt grunted, wiped one fat-fingered hand across his brow, and leaned on his sword as if it was a dung-spade. Korvaun managed not to wince.

"A flatterer, eh? Ye must be desperate."

Korvaun found himself at a loss for words. Well, that was quick.

"I've some need for coin, yes," he managed, uncomfortably aware of dancing mirth in the woman's eyes, "yet I've come here rather than just emptying the nearest family coffer because I find myself also in need of some advice."

The shaggy-mustached head lifted from its hard-breathing rest on the pommel of the sword, its owner frowning in sudden interest. "Well, now. Have ye, indeed?"

A hand like a gnarled, hairy-knuckled shovel waved Korvaun toward a door.

"Rest yerself in there, my young friend, an' we'll sport together awhile. Asper will find us something to drink-something unpoisoned, I hope."

Asper gave him a dazzling smile, tossed her blade onto a cushion, and dived head-first down a hitherto-hidden slide. The broad leaves of a sea-mist flower, large enough to conceal several such floor openings, danced in her wake.

Aware of Mirt's scrutiny, Korvaun repressed the urge to shake his head in bemusement as he went to the indicated door. Unlike a noble villa, indeed. The man most of Waterdeep called the Old Wolf fell into step behind him.

"So, young Helmfast, how's your mother these days?"

Gods, but she was beautiful. Not in the overpainted, gilded, exquisitely coiffed manner of noble matrons, nor yet in the slyly wanton lushness of the best tavern dancers, but… like a graceful wisp of a temple dancer, yet with something of the imp about her, too, in her dark leathers.

Asper gave Korvaun a smile that made him blush as she handed him a decanter to match the one she'd given Mirt, stopper and all, and trotted out of the room, unstrapping and unbuckling as she went.

"She's gone down to the pool to bathe, an' there's no one else this end of the house," Mirt grunted, from where he was lounging in an old wreck of a chair with his feet up on a matching ruin of a footstool. He waved Korvaun to more catastrophes of furniture. "So speak freely. An' soon."

Korvaun lowered himself gingerly onto a decrepit chair. It creaked, but held firm. "Goodsir, I'm here because I need to settle a debt we-I've just incurred, to a certain Master Stone-"

"Nay, nay, tell me nothing, young lord! I needn't know an' don't want to know, for I cannot tell excited Guardsmen or dogs of the Watch what you've never spoken of. Besides, I know all about your little swordsclang with Varandros Dyre, an'-"

"You do?" Korvaun blurted, too astonished to stop himself.

Keen old eyes met his from under bristling brows. "Tymora keep ye, is each new generation born blind? As ye strut about the city, young cockerel, has it never occurred to ye that your every spit and belch an' casual insult is marked, an' remembered, an' told about to someone else?"

"What? By who?"

"By whom, lad, by whom. Ye don't want to sound unlettered. How d'ye think street urchins earn coppers enough for a daily gnaw-bun, hey? By running an' telling some merchant ye're strolling down his lane, or some gossip-monger who wants to Know All, an' resell some of it for brighter coin… or some creditor, that ye've wandered within reach at last."

Mirt swallowed most of the contents of his decanter at a single gulp without apparent effect and growled, "Yet ye spoke of having coin enough not to need my hand a-clutching at your purse, or if it falls empty, something else ye keep dangling rather near it."

Korvaun frowned. "I really came here for advice," he said quietly. Lifting his decanter, he peered into its depths, and his frown deepened.

"Drink," Mirt bade gruffly. "'Tis fine. Nothing but the finest horsepiss do we serve young noble visitors wise enough to know how dunderheaded they are! I grow older and thirstier by the breath, so out with it, lad: what troubles ye?"

Korvaun grimaced. "Dyre's furious with us. He said all of us reach a time when consequences can no longer be laughed away, and that his friends-all the merchants and shopkeepers of the city-would be watching us. He made it sound like the city was two steps away from rising to butcher all nobles!"

Mirt took a swig from his decanter, sighed in appreciation, and asked it, "Did he, now? How unusually candid of him. Ye should be grateful he managed to speak so bluntly, instead of trailing off into cursing the way most of us coarse lowborn do. I hope ye remembered more of his words than just that much."

Korvaun found that his mouth had fallen open. Uncomfortably aware of the weight of the Old Wolf's gaze, Korvaun murmured, "I'd never considered before that the commoners might get angry at, well, the way of things."

Mirt's gaze turned mocking, and Korvaun found himself burning with embarrassment.

"I mean, at what we young nobles have always done-pranks and swordplay and jollity. The common folk always just seemed to-"

"Get out of the way as best they could, an' otherwise just stand and take it?"

"Well, yes. Exactly. And yet I see it, now: they're right to be furious. We smash what they can ill afford to lose, and our jests mock them even when we don't mean to… and yet most of the time we do."

Mirt nodded. "The road to being deeply loved, no?"

"No," Korvaun agreed a little grimly, and drank.

Liquid fire promptly ran up his nose as well as down his gullet, and left him sputtering.

The Old Wolf chuckled, deftly plucked the decanter from failing Helmfast hands, and dealt Korvaun a slap on the back that would have led to prompt face-first disaster if he hadn't also raised the knuckles of his decanter-holding hand like a wall in front of Korvaun's chest.

Korvaun wiped away tears and croaked, "What is this… stuff?"

"Firebelly. 'Tis all the rage in the pirate ports, an' goes well with the strongest cheese. Makes your breath sweet, clears out the pipes-as ye've found-an' is very good for ye."

Through still-watery eyes Korvaun found Mirt grinning at him, and gasped, "Are you drinking it, too?"

"Of course I am, ye silly man; I have some professional ethics. So it's dawned on ye at last that the common folk of our fair city might be discontented an' have cause to be. An' now?"

"An uprising would be terrible. It must be forestalled, and you… are of common birth, wise to the streets, and yet are… well, widely rumored to be-"

Mirt's eyes were bright and steady, offering no aid at all, and Korvaun wallowed in blushing embarrassment for a breath or two ere he managed to blurt: "-a Lord of Waterdeep!"

"Well, now. Rumors can be such ugly things, can they not?"

"So can truths," Korvaun told him quietly. "Nobles learn that much, at least. Even when secrets…" He paused, wondering just how to say what was in his thoughts.

"Are such fun, an' the game that all your elders are playing?" Mirt asked, his voice very dry.

Their gazes met squarely. After a moment, Korvaun nodded.

"Merchants are no different from nobles when it comes to secrets," the Old Wolf said gruffly, reaching down behind his chair to bring up a second decanter. "'Tis just that more of our secrets are about money. Nobles have more idle time to play at pride an' betrayal, but your biggest, sharpest secrets are all about coins, too. Inheritance, hidden debts, obligations, trade-ties gone wrong; all of that."

"All of that," Korvaun agreed. "So what should be done-no, what can I do-to take the commoners a step back from their anger?"

Mirt unstoppered his new decanter, sniffed it, and asked the stopper curiously, "Why should ye do anything?"

"Well, if we nobles are the cause, we must be the ones to make amends, and it seems fairly clearly that we are the cause."

"Ye've taken the first stride already, young lord: ye've admitted that, an' seen Waterdeep differently because of it. Now, if ye could bring your young friends around to the same view…"

"I'll do that!" Korvaun said with sudden fire. "I'll go and tell-"

"No," Mirt growled, "ye'll not."

The youngest Lord Helmfast blinked at him. "Whyever not?"

"No one ever convinced a hot-headed young noble of anything-at least, not one who still keeps his brains in his codpiece an' hasn't yet had his teeth handed back to him by the world-by talking to him. Ye rush in with your jaw flapping, an' they'll listen an' think poor Korvaun's gone straight into gods-mazed idiocy, an' can safely be ridiculed or humored but either way ignored. Events have to bring your fellow lordlings around to seeing this for themselves."

"'Events'? Like a city-wide riot?"

The retort brought a slow smile to Mirt's lips. "No, that'd make them see foes to stick their fancy blades through. I was thinking more the sort of 'hard lesson' events that knock sense into us all, events that sometimes-just sometimes, mind ye-can be nudged into happening by, well, by a young nobleman who's almost half as clever as he thinks he is. The sort of events that your mother an' every other woman her age learned long ago."

Korvaun frowned. "I beg your-?"

"Nay, ye do nothing of the kind. Ye look for a challenge, if ye beg my pardon or anything else in that tone. Stop thinking with your pride for just a breath an' see what I'm saying: now, don't all the noble ladies ye know, young and old, arrange things to make their menfolk or brothers or sons react in some way they'd like? Get angry an' insist on something, mayhap? Or regard some matter as touching the honor of the House, an' thus demanding the opposite response from them than they'd said they'd give, a little earlier?"

Korvaun nodded. "I see," he said, and did. "Yes."

"Good. The gods smile on us both this day," Mirt said briskly. "Now, how many coins d'ye want?"

"I know not, yet. Master Dyre said he'd send us an accounting."

"An' ye can send word to me, an' I'll have coins or tradebars or both ready here for your hands-your hands, mind, not some servant or fellow lordling-to claim."

Mirt's second decanter was almost empty. Korvaun regarded him in some amazement. He was fat, yes, but this firebelly stuff! The man should be slurring his words at least by now! Korvaun started to stammer thanks.

One large and hairy hand shot out in a silencing wave. "'Tis the least I can do to help such a rare breed: a noble who sees the city so clearly an' cares about what meets his eyes. Yet I can do something more, an' believe I will. If Waterdeep needed ye, would ye answer the call?"

Korvaun blinked. "But of course-"

That large, silencing hand worked its power again. "If I asked ye to do a service-large or small, perilous or seemingly silly-for our city, would ye? Dropping all else an' with no thought of fame nor reward?"

The youngest Lord Helmfast met the old moneylender's gaze squarely and said quietly, "Yes. This I swear."

"Good. Fix in your memory, then, two words: 'searchingstar' and 'stormbird.' Got them?"

"I-searchingstar? "

"Aye, and stormbird."

Korvaun nodded.

"Good," the Old Wolf said again. "Now remember also this: if a stranger says 'searchingstar' to ye, ye're to get yourself here as fast as your legs can bring you an' say 'searchingstar' to whoever answers the door. If some stranger instead says 'stormbird' to ye, do the same-but bring whatever friend ye've confided in."

"Friend? You suggest I'd confide in-"

Mirt made a rude sound. "However hard ye swear to the contrary, here an' now, ye'll tell a friend all about this. Young, excited lads always do."

"I-"

Mirt's hand went up again. "Spare me your protests, but mind ye tell someone who can hold his tongue, or ye'll discover the hard way that I've never seen ye before, an' this little chat never happened."

Korvaun nodded. "I quite understand."

"There's something else ye should know, wise young noble, something to tell ye not to always trust in what ye see."

Mirt brought something else up from behind his battered chair: something small enough to fit in his palm. It gleamed, yet bent easily in Mirt's stubby fingers-but slipped back into its former shape as he shifted his grip. It looked like a miniature shield, with a flat top and sides but a rounded bottom, or at least it did until Mirt turned it the other way up and held it forth. Leather thongs dangled from it, making it now look more like an eyepatch than anything else.

"This," Mirt said simply, "is a slipshield. Touch it."

"A what?"

"A little secret of the city. Touch it."

Hesitantly, Korvaun did as he was bid. It felt… hard. Like wood, solid and smooth, neither hot nor cold.

Mirt had muttered something, and now drew back, fastened the thongs loosely around his arm, pushed the little shield against his arm with one finger, and murmured something else Korvaun couldn't hear.

The Old Wolf's features melted, blurred-and Korvaun was looking at himself.

"Aren't I handsome?" his own voice asked him. "Give a young noble a kiss? No? Look down at your hands."

Korvaun did so-and discovered to his horror that they were hairy and knobby-knuckled, with stubby fingers and calluses. They were the hands that had waved him to silence and hefted decanters. Mirt's hands.

He looked up at his double, but its shape was blurring, and his own hands were, too. Then the image of Korvaun was gone, and the stout, shaggy old moneylender was holding the little shield in his hand and grinning at him. Korvaun quickly looked down. His own hands were back, too. So the slipshield was a device that let two men trade shapes.

"Let that be the secret I'll test your keeping of," Mirt said as he dropped the shield into Korvaun's palm. "Now be off with ye, before your bodyguards reluctantly decide something's happened to ye and they'd better start earning their pay. Back on the streets with ye, an' back to getting rich. From the day ye pick up my coins, ye've a year to pay me back."

Korvaun discovered his mouth was still agape. He closed it hastily to stammer his thanks.

Mirt snorted and showed him to the door, slapping the unfinished firebelly decanter into his hand. "A gift. Ye'll be needing it, Lord Helmfast."

Korvaun managed a smile. "You speak with conviction. Are you a seer?"

The moneylender snorted. "Ye're tryin' to do the right thing, lad. D'ye think to be the first man who won't be punished for it?"

Mirt sneezed again and slashed aside another black, clinging armful of cobwebs. Well, 'twasn't as if this tunnel got used every day. The lantern in his hand was getting uncomfortably warm, so he must be almost there by now.

Aye, there 'twas. And at least he wasn't making this trip at the dead puffing run, with some disaster or other rocking the city above him. 'Twas good some of the young noble pups were finally showing signs of taking up the mantle of responsibility. At last. At far too long and bleeding last.

And wonder of the gods, if young Helmfast wasn't actually seeing for himself that the common folk had true cause for complaint!

Mirt passed his hand along the wall at ankle height, and was rewarded with a momentary glow. Aye, right here.

He trailed his fingertips up the rough stone to the familiar knobs, curled his palm around one of them in such a way that his fingertips pressed onto the stones in spread array, and a door-sized oval of wall abruptly swung inward, revealing faint blue gloom beyond.

Mirt stepped through, to be greeted by the sound of a young lass choking.

The duty apprentice was seated at the usual desk, with a glow-stone resting on the pages of what might be a spellbook but then again might just be a heaving-bosoms chapbook. She'd dropped both book and stone in haste as the opening of the seldom-used secret door startled her, and grabbed for a ready wand beneath the still-bouncing book.

That wild grab had forced her to hastily swing her feet down from their perch on the far end of the desk, and her fashionable boots had brained her backup-who was now slumping senseless to the floor. So much for Tower guardroom rules about the backup sentinel watching from no closer than the far doorway.

Mirt put away his growing grin and set down his lantern as it became clear the tangle-haired young mage was in real trouble. The wand shook in her hand, and she was making strange gargling, mewing sounds as she spat out too little of a hot-mussels-and-gravy bun.

Mirt could lurch forward with surprising speed when he had to, and in a trice he'd snatched the wand from her trembling hand and flung it aside, then come around the desk and laid hold of one booted ankle. Thankfully these slender, high pointy-toed jobs didn't come off all that easily, so he could do this:

He hauled hard, put a foot on her stool, pushed off as if he was starting to climb a steep stair-and the choking apprentice was suddenly upside down.

Her fashionable skirts fell away to reveal old petticoats with holes in them and a stained undersash that wasn't much cleaner than Mirt's own customary clout. Her face promptly changed from trying to turn blue to also trying to blush crimson at the same time.

The Old Wolf shook the lass once, vigorously, then thumped her on the back hard enough to make her limbs bounce and flail like a rag doll's.

"This'll clear your pipes!" he announced heartily, watching hot mussels, gravy, and half-chewed bread shoot past his boots. Before she could even begin to sob for breath, he threw her up into the air, caught her waist in both hands, and spun her upright like a wheel.

She was taller and more gangly than Asper, and Mirt got an unintentional elbow in his face for his pains, but in another moment she was coughing and crying all over her desk, with Mirt resting one hand on her flank to keep her standing.

It took her some time to recover her breath, and Mirt passed it by reading her book-it was a heaving-bosoms affair, by Sharess! — aloud.

"'The bruising strength of his grip made her gasp, and even as she twisted furiously away, cursing her silks for their lack of handy daggers, she knew she'd been dangerously-possibly fatally-wrong about him.'

'"A moment later, her fingers found what they'd been straining for… and a moment after that, he knew it too.'"

Mirt chuckled. "Ho-ho, but this is ripe stuff!" He thumbed a few pages, ate the discarded end of her bun with lip-smacking enjoyment, then glanced at still-heaving shoulders and asked, "Are ye all right yet, lass?"

"M-my… my…" She was still fighting for breath and turning to face him slowly, hands far from her belt dagger-or the one strapped to her ankle that Mirt's rough medicine had just revealed.

"Wand? 'Tis under my boot-and staying there, until ye settle down."

"Who are you?"

Mirt grinned at what he could see of the tear-streaked face through all the hair. "Call me Elminster-and get me Laeral straightaway, aye?"

Large, dark eyes goggled at him as frantic fingers dragged hair out of the way, then the still-raw voice that went with them managed to stammer, "The L–Lady Laeral is, uh, elsewhere at the moment."

"Then," Mirt growled grandly, "I suppose Old Windbag-Khelben, to ye-will have to do."

A strange expression crossed the guard-prentice's face as mirth rose to join anger and embarrassment. Abruptly she gasped, "Stay here!" and rushed out of the room, looking even more like she was struggling not to laugh.

Mirt waited for her to look back and then disappear around the first bend of the ascending stair. Then he set off after her. He knew where she was almost certainly heading.

A short but wheezing journey later, they arrived more or less together at a certain door, where the guard-prentice gave Mirt an angry, helpless glare, and whispered something to its latch, almost as if she was kissing it.

The door clicked and moved a little, as if a lock had been released, and the apprentice quickly stepped forward, whirling to slam it shut again-and discovered that the fat stranger had somehow crossed three paces of passage and got not just his foot, but an entire leg through the door in her wake, and there was just no way she was going to be able to get it closed.

The rest of Mirt followed his bold leg into the chamber, favoring her with a fond grin. "Shouldn't ye be getting back to your post?"

The mage drew herself up to say something really blistering-and someone else said an oath for her, a long and heartfelt string of obscenities that owed so much to spell-inferences and references to wizards long dead that its heat was quite lost in its own bewildering grandeur.

"I love ye, too," Mirt replied affably, as the Lord Mage of Waterdeep came toward them like a thundercloud, with the chaos of collapsing spells singing and lashing across the vast chamber behind him like wildly whipping mooring ropes flung by a storm-ropes that glowed and spat showers of sparks and flung lightnings, that is.

So large was that room that it should not have been able to fit inside the neighborhood, let alone the slender girth of Blackstaff Tower-yet most of it was occupied by a gigantic stone head that any Waterdhavian would know at a glance as belonging to one of the Walking Statues of Waterdeep. Mirt knew Khelben was "bringing them all in" this month to augment their enchantments, but couldn't identify any of the strangeness in the air around the head as more than just "powerful magic."

There were glowing golden lines of force, now drifting slowly to the floor. Along and above some of them were elaborate runes and words, written in flowing script on the empty air, and here and there Mirt could even see tiny gemstones and winking motes of light orbiting a few of the sigils. It looked like hours of work to him… and by the expression adorning the Blackstaff's face, probably was.

From somewhere down near her boots the guard-prentice found her voice. It emerged quavering dangerously, but quite loud enough. "S-sorry, Lord Master. I bring Elminster, who craves audience with you."

The exhaustion, loss, and rage warring on Khelben's face twisted into something like incredulity. "That's not Elminster! Idiot lass! He's not nearly so handsome!"

The apprentice recoiled from her master's anger but glanced helplessly at the fat, spiderweb-covered bulk of Mirt. Her face changed. She struggled again for a moment, as if she was going to choke anew, and then burst into helpless giggles.

With the last of his great web of spells crashing soundlessly to the floor behind him, Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun clasped his hands behind his back, gave his helpless apprentice a disgusted look, and swung his glare back to Mirt.

"Well, whatever do you want?"

Mrelder nodded thanks to the wench as she set down the latest round of ale.

The dozen men in the booth with him-apprentices, daycoin-men, and hireswords, strangers all-took up the tankards and drank deeply.

His offer of a free highsun meal with drink had bought him their time, and a few sly hints about a rich, fat, easily plucked pigeon of a merchant had won their close attention.

The theft he was hiring them for was pure fancy, of course. The men in the booth would probably always wonder how the plot had unraveled but would have no doubts about the fate of the man who'd hired them-or rather, the man whose face Mrelder currently wore. That unfortunate would be found dead in an alley before nightfall. Golskyn's mongrelmen would make sure of it.

Mrelder set down his tankard and tried not to be seen scratching. His father's spells had reattached his arm, but the fingers always felt numb, now, and the rest of it itched damnably. "Our time draws to a close. Questions?"

"What of the Watch?" asked a sell-sword.

The disguised sorcerer put on a grim face. "Greater concerns ride them than what we offer."

Uneasy glances were exchanged. "There's trouble in the city?"

"Trouble enough," Mrelder told them. "'Tis whispered Lord Piergeiron's passed into the Halls of Tempus."

"The Open Lord, dead?" someone gasped incredulously.

His neighbor gave him a sharp elbow. "How else d'ye get there, fool? And when the answer comes, try not to shout it quite so loud!"

"Aye," Mrelder said in a grim whisper. "The Lords're keeping it secret. Until they let it be known, I'd be taking it as a favor if you'd keep it secret too."

Every one of the dozen grunted agreement, but every last one of them drained their tankards in haste and looked to him for dismissal. Mrelder doubted their eagerness to depart came from any desire to return to work. He waved them away, hiding his smile with his ale.

By day's end, Dock Ward would be buzzing with the rumor of Piergeiron's death.