The City of Splendors c-2

by Ed Greenwood

  Beldar leaned over the basin, letting the dark drops fall into the water. Light promptly began to rise toward the surface, like a glowfish rising from the depths of a cave pool. The water roiled briefly, then smoothed, a vivid picture forming: a roadside smithy, the South Gate of Waterdeep rising close behind it, where a leather-aproned man was tapping a new shoe onto a carthorse hoof. The man's face was familiar, and the sign over his forge-wagon read "The Lucky Horseshoe."

  All of Tymora's luck, Beldar thought grimly, would not be enough to keep him alive. "And the instigators?"

  The necromancer bowed her head, spread her hands over the bowl, and rocked gently back and forth. Dreading what he might see, Beldar dropped his gaze to the bowl again.

  In the scene now floating in those depths, an elderly man was lowering himself into a vast tub of steaming water, a tiled indoor pool that already held several other men. This was common enough in a city of public baths, but there was nothing common about the bathers.

  Judging by their scales, clumps of fur, and odd limbs-talons, scales, claws and the like-most of them were mongrelmen.

  A few of the bathers, including the old man, seemed different. They looked to be pureblood humans who'd been deliberately mutilated to acquire monstrous limbs and features.

  The old man was quite possibly the strangest creature Beldar had ever seen. One of his eyes had been replaced with a glowing red orb. A pair of tentacles grew from his torso, which was armored with many-colored scales. A snake coiled around his forearm, seeming to grow directly out of his wrist.

  There were other oddities, too, but Beldar's stunned mind could not make sense of them all, much less catalogue them.

  He looked at the other bathers who'd probably been born human. Even the most normal-seeming, a youngish man with dust-colored hair, had an odd-colored glass orb where one of his eyes should have been.

  A servant came into the room, bearing a tray. His words, not passed on by the scrying magic, seemed to displease the old man.

  A thin bolt of crimson light flashed from his glowing eye. The servant staggered back, staring stupidly at a black-edged, smoking hole that had suddenly appeared in-or rather, through-his forearm. The other bathers glanced at the wounded man but made no comment, as if this was no unusual occurrence.

  "Eye of the beholder," murmured the necromancer, awe adding richness to her papery voice. "Skin of the yuan-ti, poison of the adder…"

  She went on at some length, but Beldar was no longer listening to anything but his own tumbling thoughts.

  He'd sworn vengeance against a villain who, through some fell magic, had augmented himself with the powers of monsters. Beldar had heard of monster cults, and both sorcerers and clerics who worshiped strange gods, but he'd never heard of people becoming monsters, piece by living piece.

  Such foes were beyond him, and Beldar Roaringhorn knew it.

  His despair was short-lived, for another of the Dathran's prophecies came vividly to mind: His path to greatness would begin when he mingled with monsters.

  Beldar had tried to forget those words since that night in the Luskan tavern, tried to consign them to the crypt of lost opportunities. Now they sang through his mind as he gripped the scrying bowl with white-knuckled hands, studying the fading image as if it was a missive from the gods.

  Never once had he contemplated such a path, or seen this possibility in the old witch's words.

  Mingling with monsters… yes.

  As twilight stole across the city, the harbor horns rang out, telling all that the massive harbormouth chains were being raised. Lamplighters hastened along the streets to fill and trim lamps, and three Gemcloaks strode the streets of Sea Ward, cloaks of amber, blue and black glimmering behind them.

  "You've inquired at all the houses of healing?" Starragar demanded. "All the temples?"

  Korvaun nodded grimly. "Not even the Roaringhorns have seen Beldar since you two parted from him. He's not sought healing."

  "Which probably means he can't. He's too vain to want a scar." Starragar sighed thoughtfully. "Have you checked the jails?"

  Taeros snorted. "While you're listing rosy options, why not the corpse haulers?"

  The youngest Lord Jardeth grimaced, as if chiding himself for this oversight. "Most likely he went seeking revenge; that's why I suggested the lockups, yet-"

  "Such thoughts occurred to me, too," said Korvaun, "and I inquired. No, he wasn't arrested."

  "Which brings us back to scouring taverns, clubs, and festhalls. For what remedy remains to him, but to get harbor-spewing drunk?"

  Taeros sighed. Even the finest boots start to chafe when one pounds the cobbles all night.

  Right ahead stood The Gelded Griffon, a new festhall popular with rising-coin dandies who had the wealth but not the cachet of the nobility. Ordinarily the Gemcloaks would never deign to step inside, which was precisely why Taeros had thought it should be their twenty-third place to search. They nodded to the doorkeeper, who was already bowing low, and swept inside.

  Korvaun dropped a few coins into obviously delighted hands, received the news they'd all been hoping for, and the trio of Gemcloaks traded grins and headed for the indicated row of curtained booths along the back of the dimly lit hall.

  A burly, stern-faced man in a Griffon-badge tunic was standing guard to ensure privacy, but when Korvaun dropped a dragon into his palm, the guard pointedly strolled away. Still watching him go with a cynical grin, Taeros gently parted the curtains of the first booth.

  There sat Beldar… or what was left of him.

  Bloodshot Roaringhorn eyes looked up. "Sit down," their owner ordered thickly, "before you fall down. You're weaving like saplings in a storm, all four of you."

  The three sober Gemcloaks exchanged glances, and slid into the booth. "We've been looking everywhere for you," Taeros told him. "What in the Nine bloody Hells have you been doing?"

  Beldar raised a tankard as large as his own head. "Seeking ovlib… libbynon…"

  "Oblivion?" Starragar offered helpfully.

  An emphatic, slightly wobbling Roaringhorn finger pointed at his dark-cloaked friend, as if celebrating a correct response. "And looking for the man who cut me," he added with sudden, grim clarity.

  Korvaun leaned forward. "Beldar, I understand your desire to even scores, but please reconsider any hasty vengeance. This morning's trouble was no fault of ours, but if reprisals follow, the Magisters will blame us and won't be lenient in their judgments."

  A sputtering snort was Beldar's only response.

  Starragar rolled his eyes and refilled their friend's monstrous tankard from a tall, moisture cloaked metal ale jug. Beldar's third, judging by its two toppled companions.

  "He can barely hold his eyes open," Starragar murmured, meeting Korvaun's incredulous stare. "Let him drink himself into slumber, and the night will pass without bloodshed."

  After a moment, Korvaun nodded reluctantly.

  The three sober Gemcloaks sat with their friend, quietly trading jests they'd heard many times before, until Beldar's sagging head dropped onto the seat-cushion Taeros had thoughtfully placed on the table. When the gentle snores began, they eased out of the booth and gave another coin to the guard with instructions that henceforth no one was to disturb the Lord Roaringhorn's privacy.

  When his friends' quiet footfalls had faded, Beldar hauled himself more-or-less upright. His usual impulse was to scoffingly dismiss Korvaun's cautions, but those last words had set Beldar to thinking.

  Dimly he clung to one phrase, as if it was a flaming sword in his hand on a dark night, a lone lifeline on a storm-drenched deck, a… the Hells with it! He must not forget it: hasty vengeance.

  Korvaun was quite right. He, Beldar, had come to that same conclusion, right? Hadn't he spurned vengeance immediately at hand and resolved to undertake long years' work… to make real the possibilities glimpsed in the necromancer's scrying bowl?

  The scrying bowl.

  Memories flooded back and with them the grim path he'd
seen, whereupon Beldar remembered why he'd come here to drink.

  Much pain lay ahead of him: pain, and shunning from kin and the Watch and… mere shopkeepers and beggars in the street.

  Yet why not walk that road, when he could gain so much?

  He would never be The Roaringhorn, patriarch of the clan. If the street battle was anything to go by, he'd never even be much of a warrior. His friends no longer looked to him as their leader; their devoted gazes were shifting from him to Taeros or Korvaun. Soon he'd have nothing. Be nothing.

  Unless.

  Unless he found a way to be stronger-and seize his destiny.

  Beldar used the table to find balance enough to stagger out of the booth.

  "Call me a coach," he growled, pressing yet another coin into the delighted booth-guard's hand. "I need to be at a certain bathhouse in Dock Ward. Now."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mrelder studied the gleaming helm on the table. In his imagination, its empty eyes were watching Golskyn's pacing with faintly amused curiosity. He wished he could regard his father with the same shining detachment.

  Suddenly Golskyn stopped. Mrelder tried not to shrink back as the priest leaned in close and snapped, "Again your sorcery fails us! It doesn't seem good for much-not that the mages I've known fare much better. I'd cast you aside as worthless, right now, if I hadn't made a grave error myself."

  Mrelder knew just what casting aside meant. His life was balanced on the proverbial sword edge-and it was a very sharp sword. He hardly dared ask about this "grave error," but his father obviously expected him to. No matter, as long as the man who so grandly called himself Lord Unity didn't conclude his son would never be able to use the Gorget.

  Mrelder thought he saw another way, a mere glimmer thus far… but there was no time to think now, not with his father glaring at him.

  "Error, Father? We have the Gorget, with no Watch yet pounding on our door…"

  "And that was my mistake," Golskyn said almost triumphantly. "Magical baubles can be traced and in the end are but tools, usable in only a few set ways. More reliable than weak and treacherous men, yes, but I know how to move men to my bidding. We should have grabbed Piergeiron, not this scrap of metal!"

  "But Father, they'd have torn Dock Ward apart trying to find him!"

  "Torn Dock Ward apart! Exactly! With a few Walking Statues, perhaps? Hah! Why control this or that stone man when you can control the one who commands them and the entire CITY?"

  Golskyn's shout echoed around the room, and Mrelder winced.

  "We could barely drag him; we'd never have got him in here without fighting off a dozen Watchmen! He's out of our reach, now, carried away-"

  "Aye, carried off dead. Or possibly dead. More than possibly, if you send the right spell after him, and Waterdeep thinks him dead already! With sufficient strife in the streets, and if our magic from afar can keep him drooling or maimed long enough, no matter what healings are cast, the other Lords will be forced to choose and present his successor."

  Golskyn drew lips back from teeth in an unlovely smile. "Such a man, chosen in haste, is hardly likely to be one so strong in faith. He's far more likely to be everyone's 'second choice,' in other words, a ready tool."

  This was a very long chain of hopes and suppositions, but Mrelder knew better than to say so. When his father was like this, 'twas best "You," Golskyn hissed, leaning in again until his nose was almost touching Mrelder's, "will find this man for me. You can redeem yourself by identifying him and delivering him into my power. Bring me the next Open Lord of Waterdeep!"

  Mrelder felt Piergeiron's helm being slapped into his hands. He'd not even noticed Golskyn snatching it up.

  He stared into the fiery eye so close to his, swallowed, and managed to say, "I'll set to work. Right now."

  Whirling around, he almost fled from the room.

  He had just time to put a soft, cruel smile on his face before he flung open the door-and met the inevitable measuring gazes of several Amalgamation believers who'd been listening. By the misshapen gods! Why didn't Golskyn graft dogs' ears onto the lot of them? At least then they could eavesdrop at a distance!

  Hurrying down the stairs, Mrelder made for the rear door. The back alley was far less likely to be full of bodies and Watch officers looking for handy persons to blame for them. He hefted Piergeiron's helm, and shook his head.

  His father was getting worse.

  All his life he'd been awed by Golskyn's shrewd eye for truths and seeing how things really worked, and how the priest could move men to his bidding. Even if there'd been no gods his father could call on and no Amalgamation, Golskyn could go far and rise high on wits and judgment alone. No, strike that: on his ruthlessness, too. But somewhere along the line, the priest's single-mindedness had become obsession.

  Finally Mrelder faced a truth he had long known: He was never going to win Golskyn's respect. And strangely enough, he no longer craved it. A small part of Mrelder still ached for his father's approval, but he was ready to move on.

  There were things to be learned from Golskyn. The deft cleaving between and through foes. The knowing what was going on behind the masks, the sneering at laws and conventions that bound others… that was the way to power and achievement.

  It would be his way, and this grasping, brawling, coin-rich city of Waterdeep would be his home, this city he was coming to know so well. Before he was done, Mrelder would end up covertly controlling Lords and laws from the shadows.

  But his father had stepped over the parapets of prudence long ago and just now clearly flung himself off the battlements of sanity. There'd be nothing safe and subtle about Golskyn of the Gods from now on. Mrelder had mastered enough Waterdhavian history to know that men who were boldly ambitious but neither safe nor subtle seldom lasted long.

  And Mrelder intended to last a long time indeed.

  Ordinarily, Korvaun Helmfast would have been hugely enjoying himself. After all, 'twas no accident all the assistants in The Right Foot were stunningly beautiful, dressed in elegantly revealing garb, and obviously enjoyed flirting.

  What strange madness had prompted him to enter this place? Malark was dead, Beldar off drinking himself blind, and his own sword still warm with the blood of the men who'd died on it. He had set himself to discovering why buildings were collapsing. But it was one thing to fervently promise action, and quite another to think of some way to successfully start going about it! The buildings were rubble now, and it wasn't as if their stones were going to talk… or was it? Could the right spell…

  Tasleena pouted at his frown and ran teasing hands up his thigh. "My Lord Helmfast," she breathed, "do I displease you that much? Should you… punish me, perhaps?"

  The fop next to Korvaun, a wealthy merchant who could only dream of nobility, given that his wreck of a face and grasping ways would bar him from ever successfully wooing any noble lass Korvaun could think of, grinned at Tasleena's sally.

  So did the amply bosomed young lass who knelt at the man's feet, assisting him into mauve, lace-trimmed thigh boots that would've looked overdone on a lady dancer.

  The Right Foot deliberately employed beautiful female assistants to entice male purchasers to pay inflated prices for showy footwear. Moreover, Korvaun liked Tasleena. She was fun, liked jests, and in days past had enjoyed a little skindance now and then without expecting marriage or wanting to cling. The boots she was proffering now were splendid supple black thigh-high affairs, too. It was just that…

  All of this could be smashed if Waterdeep went the wrong way, and he'd never forgive himself if he did nothing about it.

  Korvaun managed to smile down at Tasleena-she winked, of course-and then was further distracted when the foppish merchant lost his balance and hopped awkwardly, almost putting one mauve spike-heel into the magnificent cleavage, glowing with moonstone dust, on display below him.

  Ondeema-that was her name-captured his foot expertly and leaned forward, moondust and all, to force the man back against the leaning-bar a
nd restore his balance, murmuring, "They are a trifle high, aren't they? Perhaps something more… substantial. To match you, milord…"

  The merchant agreed breathlessly. Watching the man's hungrily bulging eyes, as he stared down his leg to where Ondeema was pressed against him, Korvaun judged that he'd agree to just about anything, right now. Tasleena's sly smile told all Waterdeep she thought so too.

  Ondeema suddenly stiffened, frowned, and then nodded as if in answer to something unheard. Letting fall the man's foot abruptly, she rose in a whirl of high-slit skirts and leaned over as if to kiss Korvaun's ear.

  A moment later, Lord Helmfast was stunned to hear her softly murmur a lone word to him: "Stormbird."

  He stared at her for a moment, gaping like a fish-and then stepped right out of the fashionable footwear Tasleena was sliding up his leg, yanked on his own boot, and strode out of the shop.

  Those left behind in The Right Foot saw him grab protective hold of his stylish sword and break into a run the moment he'd cleared the shop door.

  Tasleena and the merchant stared after the departed Lord Helmfast in utter astonishment. When he'd vanished, they had no one left to stare at except Ondeema, who merely gave them a serene smile and silence.

  "Wha-what did you say to him?" the merchant demanded at last.

  "I merely reminded him of what my four brothers said would happen next time he followed me home from the shop, milord," Ondeema replied sweetly, fixing the fop with large and twinkling eyes. "Now, where were we?"

  Find and control Piergeiron's successor. An order delivered as offhandedly as one might say, "Bring me a plate of herring and eggs."

  Mrelder shook his head in disbelief. As if Waterdeep lacked a Khelben Arunsun, or a Laeral, or an entire gods-cursed Watchful Order, to say nothing of priests high and mighty who'd be able to detect a magically controlled Open Lord or a spell-disguised impostor in his place. They'd know, all right.