by Ed Greenwood
A moment later, they were startled by an unexpected sound. The novice Watchguard was helplessly sniggering.
CHAPTER 16
Death Lists Grow So Swiftly Dated
What’s that, Lord? A list? Those to be eliminated?
Unwise it is, to write down so clearly
What is so damning evidence against us
And besides, I recall a besetting flaw:
Death lists grow so swiftly dated.
—Ulgund the Slayer, in Act I, Scene I, of the play A Dozen Daggers For The Duke by Selvar Brulwrath, Playwright of Memnon, first performed in the Year of the Prince
FROM THE START, TASHEENE HAD HARBORED A BAD FEELING ABOUT this. Make that a worse than usual bad feeling.
Of all the Masked Lords, Khaliira Arhond lived closest to the Palace, so they’d have to manage this quickly to get it done at all— and her husband was more than likely home.
Tasheene wasn’t clear on where they’d take Khaliira’s daughter Naelvala right after they snatched her; the Deep wasn’t a city whose streets were unpatrolled at night, or deserted. They would be seen, and quite likely stopped, even if they didn’t see a Watch patrol—and the gods would have to line up to do battle for them, for no Watch patrol to happen by.
Increasingly, she was certain Antler wanted her killed or caught. But why? How did that help his cause?
He’d never sounded like someone who hated her.
Oh, well. Enough dark speculation. She was a little too busy right now, trying to get herself killed.
Stringing lines from the chimneys of an adjacent house, she and Drake had leaped to the roof of the Arhond tallhouse, but the thuds of their boots grounding on its shakes had been heard in the house below.
Couldn’t be helped, so speed would have to carry the day. Before the Watch had shouted and come running, to pound on the doors of the house down below trying to rouse the household, Drake had gone over the roof-edge on his line to drop down beside an upper window and gain a way in.
Only to find himself peering at an angry man—Khaliira’s husband Jhorun, for all the coins in Waterdeep—standing in the room inside, glaring out into the night with fists clenched, rather than a frightened daughter.
So Drake had come right back up the line and told Tasheene curtly that they were getting out of here.
And swung his line around the Arhond chimney so he could use it to return to the roof they’d come here from.
Not that the Watch guards below were obligingly blind or deaf. So they were now pounding on the doors of that tallhouse, too.
Drake peered down, then looked back at her and snapped, “This way.”
Tasheene obeyed without the slightest irritation at being ordered about. She knew she shouldn’t, but she trusted this man, and his neck was under the same sword just now.
In the end, they had to leap five rooftops in succession to get themselves low enough to risk dropping to the ground—via the roof of a delivery wagon, parked for the night hard by the wall of their current perch.
It was spongy-rotten in places, and when they slammed down on it, their boots tore through. Yet the cross-trusses were sturdy enough that it groaned rather than collapsing under them, and as the fastest Watch guards raced around the corner to intercept them, Drake was able to time his leap and pounce on the first, battering the man to the ground and probably breaking his neck in so doing.
Tasheene was still plunging to the cobbles as her partner bounded to his feet and daggered the second and third Watch guards—leap and slash, leap and slash. Small cuts across noses and cheeks, but the men reeled and started to stagger. Sometimes, poison seemed a godsend.
Gasping for breath, Drake looked at her, she nodded a panting acknowledgment, and they ran.
• • •
MIRT PEERED INTO the night-gloom, hearing the Watch guards thunder off in pursuit of the thieves better than he could see them. Five—no, six—houses distant now, and getting farther fast …
With a helpless sigh, he turned to give the novice Watchguard a look, to see if he could get away from the young man somehow—only to gape.
The young Watchguard was down on the cobbles, squirming and silenced, his uniform tunic half off over his head and being tied there, and his breeches down to his ankles and strapped there with his own belt. The swarming, grinning trio of lasses had already relieved him of truncheon, shortsword, dagger, horn, and—Waratra snatching it triumphantly—badge.
“Trophy time,” Ravva chuckled, reaching for the man’s clout, but at that moment a stain erupted across it, and she snatched her hand away in disgust.
Drella and Waratra were already looking up at Mirt. “Come on,” they hissed at him, between giggles, then rose with the lithe swiftness that was gone for his old knees forever, grabbed his hand, and towed him off down the street.
• • •
JALESTER BLINKED AGAIN at the Open Lord of Waterdeep. This close up, she evoked awe. The Lady Laeral’s hair really was as silver as brightly polished coins and as alive as a forest of snakes, and when you looked into her eyes, she was beautiful.
So this was what it felt like, to feel dazed.
He and Dunblade had talked with her, and she’d been kind and motherly yet as brisk as Shadowdale’s militia commander—and she’d employed them on the spot.
She’d opened a panel in the polished wooden wall behind her that he’d never have thought would open, to tease open some bags on shelves within, and scoop out and hand them both advance pay—in gold coins, yet!—and the same enchanted little metal badge that all Watch guards wore.
“Hold this,” Laeral had commanded, “and stand still as I draw blood.” And out of the moving forest of her hair had come a tiny sharp dagger, wielded by her tresses, to prick their fingers.
“Touch the badge with your blood,” Laeral had told them, and he and Dunblade had done so, staring down at it: a cast metal shield bearing the arms of Waterdeep that was of one piece with a sword and truncheon crossed behind the shield and projecting at angles out from around its edges.
Laeral had touched the badges, too, with a sort of baton, and that contact had brought a weird, thrilling tingling that washed down Jalester’s arm and through him, making the back of his throat tickle. She’d murmured something under her breath that sounded like flowing liquid, almost Elvish, then ordered quietly, “State your full names, aloud and solemnly.”
After they’d done so, she’d withdrawn the baton and taken the tingling with it, then stepped back and said, “Jalester, touch Dunblade’s badge.”
When he’d cautiously done that, the badge had imparted a weaker tingling shock to his finger as it had announced Faerrel’s name in a thinner echo of Dunblade’s own voice. His badge did the same when Laeral waved at Dunblade to touch it.
“Welcome to the Watch, gentlesaers,” Laeral had told them then, “and to your first mission—which I very much hope won’t also be your last.”
“Velvet-tongued diplomacy, to be sure, Laer,” an amused Elminster had said, but the Open Lord had given him a look and replied sharply, “They deserve honesty, El.”
She’d already told the two former Steel Shadows that their task was to help uncover who was murdering Lords of Waterdeep—and if those killers were working for someone, who.
“I’ll be there to help ye when I can,” Elminster offered, “but I must warn ye that such times may not amount to much—”
He broke off abruptly to roar, in quite different tones. It was the voice of Mordenkainen, babbling nonsense at the top of his lungs. In full spate, El reeled, grimaced at them—was gone, leaving behind only empty air.
“Archmages lead interesting lives, as you can see,” Laeral told her two newest Watch guards, as she turned back to her papers on the great table, plucked forth two identical sheets, and proffered them.
Jalester found himself looking at a handwritten list of names. In two groups: thirteen, then a space, and below that, seven more.
“The current Lords, and the new on
es?” he guessed aloud.
Lady Silverhand nodded. “The seven new ones haven’t yet even been informed of their elevation—officially, at least. By tradition, I’m supposed to send a guard from the Watch with an envoy to them, and invite them to the Palace. They can refuse their lordship, so no one is told the reason for the invitation until they’re within these walls, though very few Waterdhavians are dullards.”
“So they’re targets only to someone who was at the meeting at which they were voted in,” Jalester interpreted.
The Open Lord nodded. “The elder thirteen stand in most risk.”
“Thirteen,” Jalester echoed, letting his dismay show. “How can two of us cover thirteen? Even if we want to split up, which I certainly don’t.”
Laeral nodded again. “I don’t want that, either. Going alone when you can have a trusted armed companion to watch your back is seldom a wise or sane tactic.”
“So,” Dunblade asked, “moving as one, we must watch over thirteen?”
Laeral smiled sadly. “Do nothing for a night or two, and I’ll not be surprised if that thirteen has been pruned down somewhat. Someone certainly seems in a great hurry.”
• • •
IT WAS THE custom of many Hidden Lords of Waterdeep to keep a Mask-helm concealed at their homes and use another that was stored in the Palace when meeting there, so they need not walk the streets in regalia that told every eye that here walked a Lord of the City.
Tonight, neither Lord Braethan Cazondur nor Belgantur Haelhand, as they strode homewards north up The Street of Silks, looked like anything more than citizens—very wealthy citizens, that is, who could afford sizable bodyguards and saw the need for such.
Cazondur’s face wore its usual slight smile, and his thoughts were his own, but if the truth were to be told, he was very much looking forward to his own chair by the fire, in his favorite room, behind his own black and gleaming front door. Which greeted all Waterdeep on west-front Seawatch Street, seven doors down from Diamond Street, in Sea Ward.
A mansion he intended to keep, even after he was installed at the Palace. Or would it be best to always have a dupe on the Open Lord’s throne, and rule from behind it? He’d always thought so, but—
“Cazondur!” It was Haelhand, flanking him as they strolled up the street, each surrounded by his own ring of gleaming-armored bodyguards. After that hail, the metalmonger Lord veered Cazondur’s way, which brought the two lines of bodyguards together. They’d already been warily eyeing each other, and now Cazondur’s men reached for weapons and drew together to block Haelhand’s advance.
“Give way,” he ordered quietly, “and let Saer Haelhand reach me.”
They parted as smoothly as his strict training had made him expect they would, and in a trice he and the red-faced mountain of a man were face to face.
“Yes, Belgantur?” he asked affably, despite the worried frown he could see on Haelhand’s face.
“Noticed you chatting with some of the Palace servants,” the former swordsmith rumbled, “and hoped I’d have a chance to talk to you on our way home. I’m beginning to have my suspicions about these killings.”
“Oh? What sort of suspicions?”
“Well, err, ah, look here, Braethan; Haelinghorse and Tolvur were your creditors, and Gwelt and Malankar your chief rivals in the local trade in chains and wire. You haven’t hired anyone to settle scores, have you? Because I’d hate to think—”
Cazondur clasped the metalmonger Lord’s hand and shook it heartily, keeping firm hold as the ring he’d just turned on his finger and unhooded jabbed Haelhand deeply with its poisoned fang. Not that anyone could see it, through their joined hands.
“I hate it when you think, too, Belgantur,” he murmured, still shaking hands with enthusiasm. “It makes for such unpleasant complications, truly it does, and—”
Belgantur Haelhand acquired a look of staring disbelief, stumbled, stiffened—and then pitched forward onto his face on the cobbles.
He was a mountain of a man, and went down with a crash that seemed to shake the street.
“Oh, dear!” Cazondur exclaimed in loud distress, his deep voice booming. “Call the Watch! Heartstop—I just knew his heart would give out, one of these days! Such a big man, carrying so much weight around! Call the Watch!”
His bodyguards took up that cry, and some of Haelhand’s men caught sight of a distant patrol and started running toward it.
Cazondur’s own men pulled him away from the body, and ringed their employer with drawn swords, facing out in all directions as if expecting The Street of Silks to erupt in menacing assailants.
As Braethan Cazondur shook his head and said sadly, “Such a loss. He was a good man. Pity Waterdeep doesn’t hold more like him. Truly a pity.”
• • •
“JUST HOW,” TASHEENE wasted breath she really couldn’t spare to ask aloud, “are we going to shake these Watch guards?”
Drake made no reply. He just kept running, and she put her head down and devoted herself to sprinting after him.
Watch horns were blowing behind them, and Watch guards were still shouting and pelting down street after alley, no matter how many times Drake changed direction.
He did that again right now, ducking through a door so abruptly that Tasheene almost missed seeing which one, in this dark alley of open doors with the hubbub of drinkers chattering and laughing and singing spilling out of each one.
After him she went, past a snatch of hearth light and swinging lamps and loud merriment and down a lightless narrow wooden stair with a rough tree trunk for a railing, into unlit depths where Tasheene fetched up against Drake’s braced arm so suddenly she had all the wind driven out of her, and reeled, feeling sick and weak.
“Steady,” Drake murmured, taking her by the shoulders. “Just refrain from falling down the shaft, and come this way.”
He dragged her in the dark, as she struggled to breathe, and bumped her bodily down three worn stone steps into damper, more aromatic stone surroundings. They were in a cellar somewhere, and Drake planted her against a rough wall with one hand while he felt for something with the other.
Tasheene slid down that wall despite his firm hand, but before she could sit on her haunches he plucked her upright again and whirled her around and through whatever door he’d opened, onto a stone ramp sloping downwards in pitch darkness.
His hands went around her waist now, slowing her stumbles as he guided her down the ramp. She panted and gasped and threw her head back against his shoulder to gulp in more air, trying to get her breath back to normal. By the time she managed it they were on a level floor again, smooth stone she could feel rather than see, and Drake had slipped one arm around her waist to keep her in one place while he fumbled with another door—it sounded like an old wooden one, this time, with a peg on a chain dropped through a hasp to keep it shut.
He swung her right against him to get her through it—the way was very narrow—and Tasheene took the opportunity to whisper in his ear, “Where are you taking us?”
“Downshadow,” he said tersely—and then his hands tightened on her like iron, as she flinched and tried to draw back.
As he’d obviously known she would, even though she hadn’t much hope of finding the way back up to the street. Even if she’d wanted to fall into the angry arms of the Watch.
“Darleth,” she protested, her whisper going fierce, “the plague!”
“Is overblown,” he said firmly. “Our visit will be brief. Just long enough for us to reach a safe way back up I know.”
Tasheene sighed. “I’m in your hands.”
He chuckled, and kissed her ear. “I know.”
Tasheene tried to slap him, but he moved and it turned into more of a punch. “None of that,” he warned. “Makes too much noise. Slow, now. Let your eyes adjust.”
He took her hand, as if they were children exploring a darkened house, and led her cautiously forward.
Down yet another ramp, into cool stone surroundings
Tasheene slowly realized she could just see.
“Downshadow,” Drake confirmed, putting his lips right to her ear to breathe that word.
Stone rooms ahead, one giving into another through high archways. She could see that much, because some of the ceilings were glowing very dimly. There was no sign of any of the glowing globes Downshadow was supposed to be lit by, but perhaps they’d been taken away for use in the city above. The ceiling-glows looked like failing enchantments to her.
Drake was stalking, moving as stealthily as if they were invading a house he knew people were awake in.
Something moved ahead. Swift, furtive, down low by the floor. A rat.
The loudest thing Tasheene could hear was her own breathing; Drake was being very quiet.
Something moved close to her, on the wall. It was—
A spider larger than one of her hands. Mottled gray-white, with long brown legs. Stalking down the wall like a hunter, stopping to rear up with two questing legs as if they were eyestalks, or could smell.
Tasheene drew back from it warily; she’d heard tales of leaping arachnids that could spit poison, not just bite. But after a moment the spider continued down the wall, heading away from her.
They moved on as quietly as any thief out to steal. Drake reached an archway on their left, peered into the room beyond, and then entered it, towing Tasheene gently with him.
Something moved boldly across the floor of a distant room, three archways away—something snakelike, and long. Very long.
Rats scampered past, hastily taking themselves elsewhere. That distant room the snake had passed through was far more brightly lit than where they were, and by that radiance Tasheene could look this way and that around them.
There were ceiling collapses in several rooms. And lots of dust and cobwebs. Aside from the scuttling spiders, rats, and that snake, Downshadow seemed deserted.
Drake stopped, looking this way and that through rows of successive archways. Tasheene took advantage of his halt to lean close and mutter in his ear, “Do you know where you’re going?”