by Ed Greenwood
“They gave me only a question about merchants, by way of answer,” said Vajra stiffly, “and would say no more. I informed them that this city was not undefended, that their intrusion was neither welcome nor lawful, and that they must depart or be attacked. They turned to mist and refused to speak to me or confront me, so I rushed back here.”
“Then I advise you to rush to Blackstaff Tower and seek calm,” Laeral said heavily, “While I go and see the giants myself. If I call for help—or return not, by highsun—come running, but until then, please do not muster the Watch or the Order or anyone else. Gather a few friends among the Order and discuss possible battle plans if you must, but don’t raise the alarm and ready everyone for war.”
Vajra looked back at her unhappily.
“What?” Laeral asked, more gently. “You disagree with me, yes …”
“It’s not that,” Vajra whispered. “It’s … I don’t have any friends in the Order, if you must know.”
And she whirled around and strode out of the room, the door banging in her wake.
Laeral sighed, muttered, “Color me unsurprised,” under her breath, and ran to where Palace magic was cast. She’d need a rod of absorption and wings of flying, at least …
• • •
THE SLOW AND patient rhythm of dripping water echoed strangely in this lightless backwater of the sewers, punctuating the harsh and hissing words of Undercommon. The Xanathar, like most beholders, had an unpleasantly fluid voice, like a human’s oily with phlegm, and the mind flayer’s speaking stone lent the Suthool’s silently-thought replies a distinctive snide, nasal whistling drone.
“His plot lacks subtlety,” the beholder observed. “Perhaps he believes himself unassailable.”
“From what I’ve heard come from his lips, I agree,” the illithid thought. “So we let him proceed unhindered?”
“We do. His bumblings will alarm the city and distract Watch and Palace attention from my awakening of Skullport—and from the Zhentarim. As they make the last and necessarily unsubtle moves to establish their dominance over certain nobles and guilds.”
“The Lady Silverhand can hardly ignore a string of murders among her fellow Lords,” the mind flayer cautioned.
“Of course not, Suthool, but Cazondur is so politically powerful that he just may be untouchable. If his wizardly allies can stand up to Laeral, we may see some impressive carnage among the ranks of the Lords before he’s stopped.”
“Hired mages withstand a Chosen of Mystra? Does Waterdeep truly harbor archwizards stronger than one of the Seven? That I’ve never noticed?”
“It has long been my secret belief,” the large and crookedly smiling beholder replied, “that most of the so-called Chosen, including Laeral, are bluffers rather than truly mighty spellhurlers.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So,” the Xanathar said dryly, “do I.”
“I can advance your causes best if I understand you fully,” the illithid ventured cautiously. “The Zhentarim won’t be the Zhentarim if they don’t lash out at you, and probably sooner rather than later.”
“An assessment with which I concur,” the eye tyrant replied. “Yet I seek to encourage the Zhentarim for now. My own success over the longer term currently depends, I believe, on what humans like to call ‘fading into the background.’ In my case, behind a new layer of public enemies in Waterdeep: Cazondur and his fledgling organization, and behind them, the Zhentarim. Our zealous new Open Lord can occupy herself making war on them. By helping the Zhentarim now, I’ll learn who is a Zhent agent and what they’re all up to.”
“And if they grow too strong to tolerate Cazondur—or you?”
“Their skirmishes with Laeral will weaken them, and keep her busy so she doesn’t continue to work her way through my agents. So when the inevitable clashes come between my operatives and the Zhents, the Zhentarim will be much weaker than they would be otherwise.”
“So you would most want me to assist in this how, exactly?”
“Bring the bodies of Cazondur’s victims to me—every last smear of them, blood and all. Whenever that’s not possible, all traces are to be burned or washed away beyond finding.”
“Taking to a little necromancy?”
“No, preventing it. The slain Lords must disappear forever, so they cannot return from the dead. Neither the Zhents nor Laeral may be above bringing back those who’ll be their puppets. Bring them to where I can—”
The beholder rose and turned with alarming speed. A ray shot out from one of its eyestalks at what its bulk had hitherto been hiding: a cage with a naked and cowering man inside it.
In a mere sighing moment, the cage and its contents were a slumping pile of gray dust.
“—serve them thus. That Palace courtier was foolish enough to betray me to the Zhentarim.”
“The lesson is not lost on me” Suthool made his speaking stone say calmly.
“Of course not,” the Xanathar smiled. “For now, you and Belvarra encourage and aid Cazondur—who is showing signs of being capable and not merely malicious—and let us see what a toll he can take before he meets his doom. While my agents lie low, and enjoy the entertainment.”
• • •
“I SHOULD BEGIN,” Laeral said calmly, “by apologizing for the aggressiveness of the guardian mage who visited you earlier. I am not here for a fight. I’m here because my duty as Open Lord of Waterdeep compels me to seek reassurance as to the reasons for your presence.”
Six wary columns of mist had surrounded her, and the largest now coalesced into a muscular manlike leviathan, barefoot and in robes, his hair and tufted eyebrows as silver as her own. He was empty handed, and did not look angry.
“Burruld am I, master of this castle,” he said gravely. “We know of you, Chosen of Mystra, and we court no dispute with you or with your city. Let me show you why we are here, for words are often empty, and almost as often disbelieved.”
The columns of mist led the way through an open archway. Ushering her to precede him like any high house doorjack, the cloud giant followed.
He conducted her through a room and around a corner into a large chamber where what looked like Burruld’s family—a giantess, a younger giant, and two young giantesses—were all hard at work.
What looked like long-barreled telescopes sloped down and out through ports in the walls. As Laeral watched one of the young giantesses drew one back to make an adjustment to a metal frame around its maw. It emitted a thin beam of light. In the center of the room was a table that would have had room enough for a small Dock Ward city block to stand on it, and the other giants were writing down what the Open Lord could tell were triangulating measurements, and then carefully drawing features on a vast map in the making that underlay the parchments littered across the table. She peered hard, while trying not to seem to be doing so.
The precise location and extent of Mount Waterdeep and the shape of the nearby shoreline seemed to be their chief interest, not the buildings and streets of the city. At least yet. Burruld was watching her closely.
“You’re seeking something,” Laeral said. “What?”
“You have your secrets of state, and we have ours,” the giant replied gravely. “We obey the commands of King Skyvald, and are here at his behest.”
Laeral faced him and said quietly, “As Open Lord of Waterdeep, I defend Waterdeep. I must know what you seek.”
“We seek who, not what: Princess Irie, the daughter of King Skyvald. So we would be most grateful, Open Lord Laeral Silverhand, if you would tell us: Are there any storm giantesses—or beings who might well be disguised storm giantesses, free or captive—in your city?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. And I see—or others see for me—many things.”
“Our gratitude would deepen, Lady, if you did pass on to us even a hint of such a sighting if one should come to your ears ere we depart.”
“I can and shall do that,” Laeral declared. “So, as we’re being candid, when might that depa
rture be?”
“When our maps are done. Less than a tenday. We shall freely furnish you with a copy of our completed map of your city.”
“Such a thing might be valuable to anyone planning to attack Waterdeep,” Laeral observed softly.
“Were we planning an assault, we would have struck swift and hard upon our arrival, not given Waterdeep’s defenders time to muster. Nor have we need of sly trickery, when by force of arms we could prevail. So rest assured we shall not attack, nor knowingly aid anyone planning hostilities. Our maps are not sold, nor are they given or bartered to those not of our kind.”
“Reports have come to me of a giant-crewed ship seen ramming and sinking merchant cogs off Mintarn,” Laeral said, even more softly. “So you will understand my wariness regarding mapmaking.”
“Any good ruler is wary of many things, yet I assure you no cloud giant would be sailing a ship upon the waves, when we can keep to the air. Had that ship sails rimed with frost?”
“I take your point.”
Burruld extended a long and heavily muscled arm in the direction of the harbor. “We’ve seen recurring building fires along the northern shore of your inner harbor. Perhaps, in lieu of docking fees, we could help with that?”
“How so?”
“Weather magic. Precisely applied.”
Laeral regarded him thoughtfully. “The permanently moored ships—Mistshore—are done burning. Most burned to the waterline, and the underwater hulks will have to be cleared away before they start drifting about the harbor below the waves and become real hazards to shipping—but a good soaking rain on the Dock Ward adjoining where Mistshore was wouldn’t come amiss. Several roofs have smoldered and then flared up, and more may well follow.”
“Just a day’s worth, then,” the cloud giant offered.
Laeral gave him a smile. “Be welcome, then.”
She sliced her own palm with the small fingernail of her other hand that she always kept clipped to a sharp point, and as a drop of blood welled up, she extended that hand, for the traditional forearm-clasp of trusting giants.
Burruld smiled back at her, and did the same. His grasp was firm.
CHAPTER 5
Lording It Over a City of Vipers
I’d rather brave the fiercest storms, shipwreck, fire, treachery, and serpents of the sea than be a fancy-booted ruler ashore, lording it over a city of vipers, foulstinking and false.
—Declaration of the pirate “Wise Knight” reported in Black Blades at Sunset: Ten Years a Pirate by Vardrella “Bloodmaiden” Blawdul, published in the Year of the Wrathful Eye
“IF ANYTHING—THE SLIGHTEST HINT—OF GIANTS, OR DISGUISED giants, a giantess in particular, and she may be disguised or a captive or both, reaches your ears, I want you to inform me at once,” Laeral instructed the two senior courtiers. They nodded, bowed, and smoothly withdrew.
Parting as they went, to avoid bumping into a rotund and far less dapper figure.
“Merry morningfeast, Laer!” it greeted her cheerfully, lurching into the room.
Laeral gave him a grin. Well, some people in this Palace this morning had no shame.
“Sleep well?” she teased, passing him the platter of crispy-fried boar thin-slice, to stop him just upending it onto the waiting plate in front of him.
Mirt chuckled. “I had the best pillows … if only some inquisitive person hadn’t come along and opened the closet door and let a cold draft in.” He gave her a meaningful look—and upended the contents of the thin-slice platter onto his plate.
“You prefer the morningfeast of rampant champions, I see,” she remarked tartly, handing him the platter of soft-steamed goose egg golden eyes to see what he’d do with it. He calmly upended it atop his steaming heap of boar, then peered around the table.
“There a sudden shortage of ale in this city?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Laeral told him dryly, pulling the bell-pull that would bring a servant. A manservant, thank the gods.
“Fetch the Lord Mirt whatever drinkables he wants,” she said gently, a mere moment later. Mist on the harbor, the man must have been hovering just outside the doorway! To eavesdrop, most likely.
“Yer darkest ale, five tall tankards of it—and full, mind—and then clear off, so me and the Lady Silverhand can be private.” Mirt then added a leer, and the words, “If you take my meaning.”
Laeral kept her face carefully expressionless, and hoped she wasn’t blushing in the slightest, as the servant shot her a startled glance. With a firm look she directed him toward the cellar, then turned her attention to the senior Lord of Waterdeep.
Playing the boor all too well he might be this morning, but she had invited him.
“So,” he growled across the table, as he borrowed the soup ladle to scoop up four golden eyes at once, “you’ve probably figured out by now that Elminster gave me orders to stick close to you. To rush to yer aid if need be, and play the swaggering bodyguard when you had need of such, and be yer fetch and carry scut to keep you from poking yer own nose into real danger—down back alleys in Dock Ward, fer instance. I think you need the likes of me like you need extra toes, but any ruler can use extra feet and hands and eyes to handle all the claptrap, even if it’s just to toss half the paperwork sent your way into the nearest fire! So, Laeral, throw me out if you’ve a mind to, but you’d be wiser to put me to use. I can pen a mean ‘thrust yer dagger up yer own’ letter, and I’m pretty good at harassing folk—like, say, anyone who tries to stalk you.”
Laeral opened her mouth to reply, and then paused, fascinated, to watch Mirt tilt the ladle and slide all four golden eyes into his mouth at once. For one horrible moment she thought he was going to tilt his head back and let the round half-fried eggs slide right down his gullet whole, but instead he forced them out into his cheeks, bit down, and acquired a dreamy look of bliss … that faded as he thrust out his hand for a tall tankard of ale to rinse his mouth and throat out, and discovered there wasn’t one. The servant hadn’t returned with any ale yet.
He swallowed with an effort, plunged a hand into the deepest pile of thin-slice on his platter, plucked up dripping roast boar into a ball, shoved it into his mouth, and started to chew, saying through it—Laeral winced as grease sprayed everywhere—“There is a shortage of ale in the Deep, must be. Or that lazy-haunch has gotten lost on his way back from the nearest keg.”
“I daresay,” Laeral agreed. “A tragedy, to be sure. And Mirt, throwing you anywhere was very far from my mind. I need you to be my bodyguard and envoy and harasser of those I want harassed. So I thank you, and you are welcome here in the Palace—and your mansion remains, so far as I am concerned, your own. You’ll find I didn’t do much more than bathe a time or two, and hang up all of those clothes you saw. And by all means take rooms here—but really, if you must bring ladies to share a bed with you, make it a bed, and not a closet floor! Have a care for their backs. And yours, for that matter.”
“Ah. Aye. I’ll do that. We were … rather tipsy and in some haste, when the ah, mood overtook us both at the same opportune moment, if you take my meaning.”
“I do,” Laeral assured him fondly. “And you didn’t break any furniture or upset any of the guards or servants, so I’ve no complaints. She found her way out again, I trust?”
Mirt nodded. “Was a little upset with me for costing her what she might have made fer the rest of the night. But she was asleep before me—needed it badly, the poor lass.” He scooped up six golden eyes at once this time, and again Laeral paused to watch in utter fascination. Would nothing choke the man?
Mirt caught her watching, gave her a broad—and golden—grin, and informed her, “I have been known to dive into vats of food, here in the Palace kitchens back in Piergeiron’s day, and just eat what I could reach. Cut out the middle-jack, so to speak.” He caught up a good fistful of glistening-with-grease thin-slice and waved it at her like a king wagging a disapproving scepter, and added, “But enough about me. Surely my sins are old news to you by
now. If I’m to help you in even the most paltry way, I should know what yer up to just now—the meaningful crises of yer Lordship, as opposed to all the signing and diplomatic empty tongue wagging and saluting and waving. So spill.”
Laeral gave him a real smile, then paused as the servant bustled in with the requested five tall tankards and a chilled tall flask of sandraetha for her. She thanked the man soundlessly for remembering her preferences from two mornings earlier, and then saluted Mirt with her first glass of the pale blue wine. “I shall. The latest little crisis that’s landed in my lap came literally out of the blue, yestereve. Just the other side of Mount Waterdeep, a cloud giant’s castle has appeared—hovering due west of Harborwatch Tower, about two bowshots out to sea. So now we have fearful sailors refusing to sail past it, which means we have angry shippers and ship-owners demanding the Watchful Order see off the giant.”
“Ah, aye,” Mirt said dryly—or as dryly as anyone could say anything, around a ball of wadded-up thin-slice as large as his fist, “we both know how well the Watchful Order likes to be told what to do—by Open Lords as much as angry just plain citizens. ’Tis obviously time to refound the Griffon Cavalry, what with raiding dragons flying down into the Deep, and now this.”
Laeral was unable to keep the twinkle entirely out of her eyes as she pounced. “That,” she said crisply, “is a great idea! Mirt, I’m so glad you’ve volunteered to refound the Griffon Cavalry! You’re perfectly suited to ride roughshod over all who’ll—”
She got that far before Mirt’s increasingly thunderous protests of “No! No! Oh, no, oh no! A thousand times, No!” drowned her out.
She regarded him with a sweet smile on her face as he reeled in his seat, visibly dismayed—and then consoled himself by running his ladle the length of his platter and dredging up a dripping heap of mingled thin-slice and golden eyes, shoveling it all into his mouth in one titanic mess, then snatching up and downing an entire tall tankard in one long pull that sluiced his mouthful down inside.