“You’ve been busy,” Noph noted noncommittally.
A light kindled in Lasker’s eyes. “I’ve won the support of ten merchants and three guilds. I’ve made speeches in every public square that matters. You heard me this afternoon! And unbeknownst to my rivals, I’ve struck an agreement with the Brothers Boarskyr: I’ll get my bridge, and they’ll get free High Forest lumber for ten years. Once the elves know what’s hit them, the Kara-Turan trade route’ll be open, with the weight of all Waterdeep behind the deal! D’you see? I’ve accomplished in one month what Piergeiron couldn’t in a whole year!”
With a calmness he no longer felt, Noph asked, “What does this have to do with me?”
“I want to share it all with you,” Lasker hissed, waving a clenched fist. “You are, after all, my son and my heir! I want you at my side. We’d be an irresistible pair: powerful merchant and young hero. Your presence would ensure power and fortune for our family.”
Noph nodded. “You’ve all the underhanded expertise, and I the honest face people trust,” he snorted. “In case you haven’t noticed, Father, I’ve changed over the past month, too. I’ve traveled farther than you have in your whole life; I’ve been where there are no shadows at midday because the sun is right overhead. I’ve fought doppelgängers and squid lords, creatures that make your brand of evil as squalid as it is chronic. I’ve drunk with pirates and crossed swords with tanar’ri, and returned to tell of it. You said it yourself: I’m a hero. Why would a hero ever join you?”
Lasker’s mouth set. “So, you’ve saved all Waterdeep from a plague of monsters and conjured armies. Congratulations.” He sketched a mock bow. “What has it gotten you? The dungeons, serving common guard duty! Where’s your estate? Your riches? Your influence? You saved all Waterdeep but own none of it!” The merchant waved a dismissive hand.
“With me,” he said, the light in his eyes again, “you’ll have all those things. Come back to the family. All it’ll take is a public apology, asking to be received back.”
“What?” Noph asked, astonished.
“You publicly humiliated the house of Nesher,” his father explained, “and you will publicly remove that humiliation.”
“I wouldn’t join you,” Noph said slowly, “even if you apologized to me—and not only to me, but to all of Waterdeep!”
As the young hero’s last few shouted words echoed around them, his father’s face grew sour. “My son, the great, self-righteous hero!” He sighed contemptuously, and then asked, “What good is it to be a hero if you lack any plan to make the public pay you benefits for your heroism? Eh?”
Noph shook his head. How could a man—and not just any man his father!—be this base? Wasn’t—
“If I might ejaculate something between you—” a voice rumbled from nearby.
Noph had thought this end of the dungeon was empty. He looked through the open doorway at the cell across the corridor. Jostling at its bars were the unlovely faces of the Brothers Boarskyr.
Noph sighed. “Father, I believe your partners in cri—politics—have something to add.”
“Thank you positively, young Hastacough,” Becil Boarskyr bellowed, clearing his throat.
“Kastonoph.”
“Right, Kastratoff. Listen well to your father’s patronizing speech. Your sire’s only trying to become a sire with a capital’s,’ if you know what I’m hinting at around the bush. That would make you a sire with a lowly’s’ at first, but soon enough, once your sire kicks off, he’ll leave it in your posterior.”
“Posterity,” Lasker attempted a correction.
“How’s about I have a look at your sword?” Bullard asked.
“This is a private conversation,” Noph said flatly.
“Not to fiddle about with another man’s privates,” replied Becil, “but our enterprise has got its smarmy speaker (that’s your progenital pater, there beside you), and two libertarian spenddrifts (that’s ours truly), and now all we need is a hero’s face to kiss the babies and shake the hands of men and ply his silvered tongue in every passing lady’s behalf—”
“Arrgh! It’s useless!” Lasker screamed, tossing his hands into the air and stalking away down the corridor.
Noph smiled at the two idiots. “I never thought I’d say this to you, but… thanks.”
Bullard nodded. “I never thought I’d say this, neither, but how’s about a look at your sword?”
The younger and elder scions of House Nesher had scarce turned a corner in search of a cell when there was a great rush of black wool and imperious gestures along the passage. The whirlwind resolved itself into Khelben the Blackstaff even before the armsmen got their weapons out. A raised magely eyebrow sent the few drawn weapons hastily back into their sheaths.
“Gather round, all of you,” he said. “Aye, those in the jakes, too.”
The dungeon was suddenly alive with shuffling feet and nervously attentive armsmen crowding around the mage.
Khelben looked around. “Is that all of you, at last? Good. The spells I’m about to cast on you are complex and costly; I don’t want to have to repeat a single one of them.”
A final guard rushed up to join the group, hands darting beneath his belt where shirttails flapped.
Khelben gave him a glare, and then turned his head to favor all of the other armsmen with it. “Any of you been under a stoneskin spell before?” There were a few nods. “’Tis pretty simple; makes your skin as tough as stone. It’ll turn arrows, daggers, swords, and the like. It should keep you from hurting each other down here tonight. I’m casting it now.”
In the silence that followed, the armsmen stared at a small pebble rolling hypnotically between Khelben’s fingers as the wizard shaped gestures in the air. With a sudden pop and a hiss, the stone collapsed into gray ash, and tracers of smoke whirled out from the mage’s fingers to smite each guard between the eyes.
The silence held until Khelben spoke again. “This second enchantment will enable you to fight as a unit, for once.” Khelben made two quick gestures, uttering a word that sounded both old and cruel. “You’ll share an only slightly unpleasant dream, but in the end, you get to be heroes.” Twenty-some guards stared back at him in silent confusion.
Khelben saw their expressions, shrugged, and made another gesture. “You needn’t be upset by any of this. In fact, you’ll forget all about our little conversation—and that I was even here. I’m completely invisible to you until highsun tomorrow. You can’t even remember my name until then. If you see me before that time, you see nothing at all. Understand?”
Helmed heads nodded in unison, and Khelben smiled grimly. “Back to work!” he barked. “You’ve a pair of condemned men to guard!”
Midnight was fast approaching, yet still no Lord Mage. Noph sat alone on a bench well down the passage from the cells. Only five hours remained before sunrise and a double execution. Where was the Blackstaff?
For that matter, what good would his warding magics be now? If Entreri and Trandon hadn’t tried to escape yet, they wouldn’t.
“’Ware!” a Watchman shouted. Noph blinked. A gangly, redheaded armsman stood outside Entreri’s cell, struggling to free his sword from its scabbard. “The assassin’s loose! He’s picked the lock with his fingerbones!”
Boots pounded on flagstones. Noph joined the general rush. Armored shoulders and helmed heads jostled in the passage ahead. Blades slid and rang from their sheaths, glinting in the lantern light. Noph shouldered forward through the press of guards, peering to see what was happening by the cells.
The redheaded guard’s sword grated out at last, aided by a muttered curse. Its owner promptly lunged at the cell door, thrusting the blade between its bars to the hilt. If Entreri were there, he’d be skewered. The guard’s hand, arm, and shoulder—suddenly thinner than they should be—followed his sword through the window. Steel clanged on stone. The guard hissed in pain and snatched his arm back into view. The sword was no longer in it.
“He bit me,” the armsman growled, c
lutching his wrist.
“Now he’s got a blade, dolt!” someone shouted. The hurrying guards reached the cell door, and stopped suddenly, those in front shrinking back from something Noph couldn’t see. He charged on into his packed fellows. There were stumbles, grunts, and the skirl of metal-clad elbows and knuckles on unyielding stone. Struggling to keep his footing, Noph peered ahead.
A strange fight was in progress. The gangly guard ducked as if a sword swept the air above his head, but Noph saw no blade nor attacker. Springing desperately aside, the red-haired armsman barreled into two other guards, and all three sprawled along the passage wall.
A lithe guard leapt over this pile of armsmen to the cell door, his sword dancing in intricate thrusts and parries before him. “Clever with a blade, Entreri?” the guard taunted. “Aren’t you more familiar with dagger thrusts into kidneys from behind?” He lunged twice more before dodging away from an unseen blow.
Something massive and invisible slammed into the guard’s head with a sickeningly damp crack. He toppled like a piece of lumber, stiff and uncaring.
“Watch that door!” someone shouted. “He’s killed a man with a door!”
“Watch that sword!” another guard snarled.
“Watch that bony hand!”
“Back! Back! Give me room to fight!” bellowed a hulking guard at the head of the crowd. He swung a spiky mace once, twice, and then with a roar he charged, seeming to think he was backing someone up against the wall. Noph could see no one. The giant swung his mace, growling, and then yelped and stumbled back, trampling two men behind him.
“Fire! Fire! He’ll burn us all!”
“Water! Bring water!”
“Not water, for an oil fire! Bring sand!”
“Damned lanterns! What was wrong with good old torches, I’d like to know?”
Ahead of Noph, the guards were jammed solidly, metal shoulders shrieking against each other. Those in front flung up their hands before their eyes as if shielding themselves from blinding light, yet the passage stood as dim as before. There was no smoke, heat, or light—no fire.
Noph struggled to squeeze through the packed ranks, hauling on shoulders and crying, “Way! Make way!”
“Let him through,” one guard cried. “He’s got sand!”
“Hurry, Noph!” another called. “Entreri’s almost got the sorcerer’s cell open!”
Noph at last won free of the press of bodies, stumbling out into the clear area before the cells.
“What’re you doing? You’ll burn alive!” came a shout from behind him.
Noph ignored it, striding straight to Entreri’s cell. Its door was closed and locked, and within the assassin still lay unconscious on the straw. Noph peered through the window of Trandon’s cell. The sorcerer stood just inside the bars, gazing quizzically out at him.
Noph turned to the other guards. “What’s the matter with all of you?”
“Get out of there, Noph—save yourself! They can’t get past us all!”
“You’re right,” Noph replied, bewildered. “They’re still in their—”
A new commotion erupted. The three nearest guards, in the front rank, swung their swords at empty air, faces tense and blades whistling. Steel fangs sliced and thrust, but met no enemy metal. The three battling guards grunted with effort, shouting, “Back to your cell, assassin!”
“You can’t defeat all three of us!”
“If you want out of this dungeon, you’ll have to kill me fir—Aughh! Cruel stroke!” The speaker’s sword clattered to the stones. Clapping a hand to his neck, he crashed heavily into the wall. “Oh, unkind cut,” he gasped, and slowly brought his fingers back to gaze at them in magnificent pathos. They were none too clean, Noph saw, but bare.
“Blood so bright,” the guard groaned. “My blood! To be shed, if shed it I must, in bright meadows, not in a dungeon drear. Ahhh, I am slain… Oh, to die so deep and dark…”
As the ‘slain’ man declaimed, his two fellows fought all the harder. Sweat streamed down their faces as they plied their blades, but Noph could still see and hear no foe. He went to them, taking care to stay out of sword range. “Who are you fighting?”
“Stab him from behind, Noph!”
“Stab who from behind?”
“We’ve got him trapped between us!”
“I see no one,” Noph told them. “You’re battling some sort of illusion.”
“…Oh, the dusky shore,” the guard against the wall moaned. “Swept by winds of sorrow, heedless beneath the feet of those who pass, forgotten by the living. I come to you now, Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead, borne upon the dark tides of mine own lifeblood…”
“You’re not dying,” Noph said in disgust. “You’re not even hurt!”
“Slay him, Noph! Strike now, while his sword is bound by mine!”
“Too late! ’Ware the fell mage!”
“Thunder and lightning!”
“Fireballs—they burst so bright! ’Ware more magic!”
“How can we stand against this?”
“Gods take your wits!” Noph shouted. “Nobody’s attacking you!”
“…at least they’ll say of me: he died defending great Waterdeep. Died fighting valiantly, brought low by the vicious blade of a dastardly man. The bards will sing, down the years, of my all-too-rapid end…”
At last the jammed armsmen were on the move. Those at the rear retreated, white-faced and flinching. Those in the middle flailed about, tumbling with each imagined blast of arcane fire or sorcerous lightning. Those in the fore slumped down in faints or succumbed to illusory injuries. Noph stood in the center of the supposed conflagration, and shook his head in amazement. At his feet a guard gasped, “I’m coming, Mamma, at last. This is it.”
Noph stalked to Trandon’s cell. The tall mage stood within, innocent amusement on his features. “All right, Trandon,” Noph said sourly, “Is this your mass delusion spell?”
Trandon shook his head. “I wish it were, but this sort of magic is beyond me. Moreover, if you can tear your attention away from all these wretched thespians, you might notice I am still locked up.”
“Well,” Noph growled, looking at Entreri still unconscious on his straw, “it’s sorcery from somewhere.”
Trailing shouts, groans, and threats, the battle was retreating down the passage, leaving only Noph to watch the prisoners. The young hero looked from the battling guards to one cell, and then to the other, and let out a sigh.
As if the exhalation had been a cue, a figure in flapping black robes surged around the corner. Noph whirled, sword coming up. “Halt!”
Khelben Arunsun looked up at the sword tip. The tune he’d been humming stopped abruptly, and his mustache quirked in surprise. “Kastonoph! What are you doing here?”
Noph lowered his sword. “Lord Mage, thank the gods you’ve come! Someone’s enchanted the whole garrison! I’m the only one not affected. They’re down there; they think they’re fighting Entreri and Trandon, though as you can see…” He gestured at the closed cell doors.
“Yes,” the archmage agreed, keys jangling as he raised them from his belt. “Worry not about the guardsmen. None will be truly injured. They’ll fight bravely, and the spy and the assassin will be slain. No offense, Trandon.”
“None taken,” the tall mage replied levelly.
“Slain?” Noph asked.
“Fireball. These underways and cells are too small for fireballs, especially the augmented one you’ll cast, Trandon. It backfires on you, burning you and Entreri to piles of ash.” Khelben fitted a key to the lock on the wizard’s door, turned it, and swung it wide, adding, “You really must be more careful.”
“It won’t happen again,” Trandon said calmly, stepping from the cell.
Noph raised his sword. “Wait—what’s this?”
Khelben raised an eyebrow. “A jailbreak.”
The sword flashed from one mage to the other, and back again. “I can’t allow that,” Noph snapped. “I’m the only guard left, and I’m
sworn to keep these prisoners in their cells until dawn. Back in with you, Trandon!”
“Oh, come now, Noph.” Khelben’s voice was almost paternal. “He doesn’t deserve to die in the morning, does he?”
“No, I was going to talk to you about that. But a jailbreak?”
“Desperate times, lad; d’you honestly believe he’ll get justice from the Magisters and Watch, come morning?”
“No, but… you’re the Lord Mage. You’re supposed to protect Waterdeep, to serve the city loyally. And I’m supposedly one of the heroes of Doegan. Some hero I’ll be if I let Trandon just slip away.”
Khelben looked grim. He pushed aside Noph’s sword to lay a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “In the end, Kastonoph, the true hero is not someone who clings blindly to what he’s decided is true, but someone who, despite a thousand assaults and the uncertainty of standing in the midst of chaos, acts always to help rather than to hurt. Real heroes are not hidebound moralists seeking always to be righteous. True heroes are committed pragmatists who do what must be done for the good of all. Unless you release this man now, you—knowing what you do of his innocence and Waterdeep’s judgment—will be his murderer.”
Silence fell. Noph’s gaze swung thoughtfully from his blade to one motionless mage, then to the other, and back. Eventually he lowered his blade and sheathed it, bowing to Trandon. Slowly he said, “It has been an honor fighting beside you.”
“I feel a similar honor,” replied the mage, “to have fought at your side.”
“Good, then,” Khelben said briskly, sliding a key into the lock of Entreri’s cell.
Noph’s head snapped around. “Him, too? I don’t know if it’s right he should die, but… he is an assassin, and he did plan to kill Eidola.”
Khelben turned the key. The lock clicked. He swung the door open and stepped into the cell, shrugging. “Yes and yes, but I thought it would be bad form to let him die, given that I’m the one who hired him.”
“You? You hired him to kill Eidola?”
“She is a greater doppelgänger,” Khelben murmured as he bent over the assassin, “or didn’t you know that?”
Forgotten Realms - [Double Diamond Triangle Saga 09] - The Diamond Page 3