Death Masks

by Ed Greenwood

  “Me, too,” Lady Kothont announced flatly, staring hard into her husband’s eyes. “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER 23

  We Go Down Again

  Fire sears and blood will stain

  And death to all who dare complain

  For there is pain beyond all pain

  When together we go down again.

  —Hobgoblin curse-chant of the North quoted in Volo’s Guide to the Frozenfar by Volothamp Geddarm, first published in the Year of the Wave

  “AH, THERE YE ARE!” ELMINSTER THRUST A GOBLET AND A BUNCH OF grapes into Laeral’s hands before she could do more than roll her eyes. “Much has been happening while ye’ve been off Open Lording, Laer!”

  “Do tell,” Laeral sighed, sinking into her chair. Well, at least he hadn’t said “gallivanting” and left her needing to hit him. The stacks waiting on her desk had indeed grown higher. “A fire, yes? Couldn’t help but smell it, on my way here.”

  El waved a dismissive hand. “Someone disposing of evidence. Someone who murdered five guildmasters who were waiting to complain to ye. And an unfortunate courtier who attended them.”

  “Oh,” Laeral said, discovering a sudden desire to drain the goblet in her hand. She gave in to it.

  “I cast what spells I dared to on Drayth’s blood,” El went on, “but must tell ye I really couldn’t manage much in the way of tracing. I believe the Warden died in his office, and his body was carried down into what was formerly Downshadow, where it seems to have been devoured by something—but the results could be read differently.”

  Laeral sighed. “I trust your reading, El. What’s become of Mirt? I left him signing things here. It doesn’t look like he kept at it very long after I departed. Perhaps long enough to finish his tankard, by the looks of it.”

  “Wore himself out fighting the fire. Got quite parched. He’s doing damage to a keg right now. Should be back here shortly. Did manage his own height in documents signed, lass; don’t be too hard on him. So, what’s left?”

  Waved a hand at the towering stacks. “The paperwork is unending, El; the boring but vital requisitions and orders and arrangements that are the daily running of the city.”

  “Lass, lass, don’t ye have rooms full of clerks to see to such things?”

  “Yes, but Neverember had his own people in supervisory positions, and they left with him; lords, guildmasters, courtiers, and everyone else are all saying the Palace spending is out of control, and corrupt, and coins are going missing as if they’re being poured into the sewers at every flush of the garderobes—”

  “Given the reputed location of the legendary Xanathar, Laer, that may indeed be where all the coins are going.”

  “—and I can’t possibly even begin to investigate all of it if I don’t read and sign things myself! If shearing the taxes of citizens is the only thing I end up doing, I’ll have achieved more than most Open Lords!”

  “Aye, I’ll grant ye that. So, now, endless the work may be, but let me sit down and help ye through some small part of it; reason out thy decisions by talking them through, hey? So, what’s most pressing? That’s not routine payroll and the like?”

  Laeral sighed. “Well … contracts to be awarded for the full dredging and cleanup of the ashes of Mistshore, so that end of the harbor can be cleaned up and a new dry docks built for the use of the refounded navy.”

  She slipped a folder full of parchment out of the stack, and tossed it to him.

  “Also, the Griffon Cavalry. Procuring mounts. Their breeding, stabling, training, and doctoring—who is to do all of these things? Whom should I consult with, that the city may have the best but none of its foes end up privy to our internal security arrangements?”

  “The Open Lord leads the Masked Lords,” El quoted the maxim gently, wagging a finger at her.

  Laeral frowned at him. “Well, of course the—oh.”

  “Oh, indeed.”

  Laeral’s eyes narrowed. “Despite the glee Cazondur will feel at being handed a chance to meddle in and enrich himself with, well, everything … I need to consult with the Masked Lords, not just to get their advice but also their buy-in on all of these matters.”

  “Or they’ll just defeat ye when it comes to voting,” El pointed out.

  Laeral nodded wearily. “Arguably, both matters can be seen as within the Open Lord’s purview, being as they pertain to the defense of the city … but some of Cazondur’s little cabal have already made comments, across the Council table, about defense of the city provisions only being valid when Waterdeep is at war or there’s a clear threat of attack.”

  “And so?”

  Mirt chose that moment, perhaps unwisely, to lurch affably into the room, the inevitable tankard in one hand and a plate of roast bustard in the other. “Vintage fire wine!” he said happily, and then, catching Laeral’s expression, added, “Well, someone had to search the cellars! What better place to start a fire, if you wanted to really hit the Lords where it hurts?”

  “I must apologize to you both,” Laeral said smoothly, “for treating you now as glorified message-lads, but I find myself in sudden need of your, ah, diplomatic skills. Mirt, El, please hasten to all the Lords—the surviving originals and the new—to privately tell each of them to assemble at the Palace two afternoons hence, for a meeting to vote on important defense initiatives.”

  Mirt looked down at his gently steaming bustard, and then back up at her. “Ah, that’s a command?”

  Laeral gave him a small smile, and then took it away again. “It is.”

  Mirt blinked at her for a moment. Then he scooped up most of the hot meat with his fingers, thrust it all into his mouth, chewed hard, cooled the obvious pain this caused with a great swig of fire wine, swallowed mightily, and made for the door, trailing long loud gasps. “On my way. El, which of the dol—er, Lords d’you want to go see?”

  • • •

  NIGHT HAD JUST fallen at last, and with it, Drake and Tasheene had departed the attic. Zaraela settled herself on an old crate by the window that looked the easiest to get open, the dart gun on the floor beside her cocked and ready.

  She was cautiously easing the crumbling old window open, prying with the blade of her belt dagger, when there came a slight, swift sound from just behind her.

  Zaraela flung herself off the crate and away, snatching at the hand crossbow as she passed it—but a slender and very strong hand intercepted her wrist, a moment before its owner kicked the blowgun away. Its bolt thudded hard into the base of a nearby roof beam.

  Zaraela spat out a curse and tried vainly to claw whoever it was—a masked, shapely woman who didn’t look familiar at all but who wore a tiny pendant that was … the symbol of Asmodeus?

  Then she was too busy stiffening as slimy tentacles invaded her mouth, ears, and nostrils from behind, choking her as they slid inward.

  With easy strength they swung her head around. The last thing Zaraela saw was the glistening mauve face of a mind flayer, right in front of her nose. She couldn’t see its mouth, if it had one, but somehow she could tell it was smiling.

  Or felt like smiling. Gloating …

  Well met. The tone of that thought in her head, was pleasant. And somehow conveyed that the name of its owner was Suthool. I require what you know of Lord Cazondur.

  And then the pleasantness fell away like a dark curtain, and surging up to choke her mind in a red, roaring wave of bubbles, black oblivion came.

  • • •

  “WELL MET, SHWEET stuff! Yoo look schmott as well as boo-boo-boofull!”

  The reeling man’s breath reeked of cheap ale. Tasheene grimaced as she fended off his vaguely pawing hands. Why did the gods arrange sheer coincidences so this drunk had to wander into her alley?

  And as she wondered that, hissing in exasperation, sudden fire came roaring out of the Stravandar house, blowing out a window with its fury, flames and sparks clawing at the night.

  Out came her handbow as she danced back from the drunkard—and she watched his fa
ce go from amiably slack to alert in an instant, and his hands go from fumbling to grabby—but she put her first bolt through his jaw and neck from point-blank range, and down he went, barely having time to look shocked. Another hrasting Harper, no doubt.

  By the time Tasheene had recocked and reloaded, the first people were fleeing from her side of the house—its back or east face. It had three doors, but apparently only one was easily opened or gotten to, because everyone poured out of it. Tasheene knelt, aimed carefully, and shot bodyguard after servant down as they came through the doorway, until she was out of bolts.

  They were still coming, so she was just scrambling to her feet and drawing a dagger when Drake appeared out of nowhere, grabbed her knife hand before she could get that weapon clear of its sheath, and hustled her away.

  “But we can’t go!” she protested. “He’ll have our lives if we fail—”

  “We haven’t,” he said curtly. “I just killed Masked Lord Stravandar, unless she can somehow go on living with a poisoned crossbow bolt right through one eye. Come on! There are more Watch patrols converging on us than I’ve any liking for!”

  “Poisoned? Did you give me any poisoned bolts?”

  “No,” he replied. “They’re not safe unless you know you have them. What if you dropped one, then picked it up and tested its point with a fingertip?”

  “Yes,” a voice asked crisply, from just ahead. “What if you did that?”

  Its young owner swung a sword hard at Drake, with both hands. He had a taller companion, half a running stride behind, who snapped, “ ’Ware, Jess!” and launched his own slash.

  Drake parried the first sword expertly, ducked under the second blade and tripped its wielder, and burst past the two—only to find four Watch guards charging out of the night.

  Before Tasheene could do much of anything—beyond kick the shorter young attacker’s shin and cause him to crash down atop his fallen partner—Drake erupted into the Watch guards, hurling two daggers as he went, then slashing faces with another.

  The Watch guards toppled like so many empty wine decanters, burying the first pair of attackers. “Faer!” one of the pinned men gasped, struggling vainly under the weight of the heap. “Faer?”

  Drake swiftly retrieved his daggers as Tasheene rushed up to him. “Poisoned?”

  “Of course,” he snapped. “Now we go down again.” He took her arm and dragged her into a dark alley.

  “Down? As in Downshadow?”

  “Yes. Poison’s all used up now until I can treat these blades again.”

  They heard the rising thunder of many fast-approaching hobnailed booted feet, and Drake hurriedly tore open Tasheene’s bodice and buried his face in it.

  “Act like a willing playpretty,” he growled down her front, and Tasheene just had time to wrap her arms around his head and utter a pleased but obviously false laugh before a Watch patrol came rushing out of the night, heading for the heaped bodies of their colleagues.

  The moment they were past, Drake tugged on Tasheene’s arm and they ran.

  • • •

  “SHE KNEW ALMOST nothing.”

  The voice from Suthool’s speaking stone clearly held a sigh. “Other than that Cazondur mistrusts the young noblewoman Tasheene Melshimber, who is murdering Masked Lords for him. On the other hand, I now know far more than I care to about the spiteful feuds and investments of this one, and her nine most hated rivals. Nine, and still so young. A life ruled by spite. It made her brain taste as sour as that of a wrinkled old villain.”

  “When they find her, they’ll know how she died,” Belvarra pointed out. “The hollow skull you can see into through empty eye sockets is a dead giveaway, even to fools like the Watch.”

  The mind flayer shrugged. “I like to keep the populace of large cities remembering and fearing my kind. It’s … useful.”

  • • •

  EVEN ENSCONCED IN her office deep in the Tower of the Order, the Lady Master hated moments like this. Which was one of the reasons, Vajra knew, she’d asked Vajra the Blackstaff to stand beside her as witness and magical bodyguard.

  Before the Lady Master’s desk stood the Order member she’d summoned to her office for an accounting: Malryn Lavalander, one of the most powerful wizards she knew of. A man who could turn her into several kinds of croaking frog with ease, and who was seething under her questions right now.

  Vajra took one look at Bowgentra Summertaen’s face, and then looked away. She could read the Lady Master just as well as Lavalander could: Right now, Bowgentra Summertaen was feeling sick. She hated controversy such as this. Yet these things had to be asked, and her membership in the Watchful Order, let alone her tenure as Master, would have been short-lived indeed if she’d shirked this duty. Bowgentra feared that the Blackstaff herself—if not Lady Silverhand, at the Palace—would have seen to that. So even as she cringed inwardly, her discomfort clear on her face, she forged on.

  Did he have anything to do with the casting of an illusory raiding dragon over the city? Just what was his involvement in current city politics? Was he covertly working with any Hidden Lord? Or cabal of nobles?

  It was her second such interview of the day—earlier, she’d had it out with Vaerentevor Qasmult—and it was going just about as well as the earlier one.

  “Know this, Lady Master,” Lavalander snarled, his cold composure breaking at last, “I am innocent of casting that dragon illusion or for that matter of any involvement at all in the current politics of our city, beyond seeking sponsors among wealthy private Waterdhavian entrepreneurs for my spell experimentations. I was unaware that it was any sort of crime—and I am certain it is not against the rules of our Order—for me or they to seek ways in which my new magic can be used for our mutual profit.”

  “Saer Lavalander, it is my duty—”

  “So it is, but that does not make me any less furious at being suspected of such irresponsible spellcasting! So this is what you truly think of me! Dangerous Lavalander, building himself into a tyrant—we’d better stop him, before his boots grow too small for him!”

  Then his eyes narrowed, and he stalked toward Bowgentra. “This is because of the murders, isn’t it? Masked Lords and guildmasters, so swift an assembly of the dead, and you fear I’m mixed up in it and that you’ll be next! Don’t you? Well, Lady Master, let me tell you how revolted I am by your craven suspicion! Your envy of my achievements! Your anger at my growing popularity! You fear I’ll try to wrest the Order from you, don’t you? Hah! That for the high regard of the Order! I’ve bigger and better things to do than sit in an office and wag disapproving fingers at every energetic practitioner of the arcane in Waterdeep! Content yourself with such small-minded service, but stand out of my way! I am doing important work, ground-breaking work, mastering magic that shall have Mystra herself take notice of me! And if you dare to try to discipline me or spread untruths about my—”

  And that, Vajra decided, was far more than quite enough.

  As Lavalander advanced around the edge of Bowgentra’s desk, wagging one threatening finger, she stepped forward to smoothly interpose what was left of the Blackstaff between that finger and Bowgentra Summertaen’s nose.

  The dark fragment flared into an angry glow.

  Lavalander froze and fell silent in one trembling instant as he eyed it. Then his gaze lifted, so he could give Vajra a look of contempt.

  “Guardian hound,” he snapped.

  “Rude blustering fool,” she replied serenely, allowing a match for his contempt to wash over her face for a fleeting moment.

  And then she smiled almost fondly and added, “Your point is made. We have been mistaken in our suspicions of you, and apologize. Unreservedly. Now be gone.”

  Glowering, Lavalander stepped back. Slowly and deliberately, not retreating in fear.

  Bowgentra added quietly, “We apologize, Saer Lavalander, and suspect you no longer.”

  He looked at her, then withdrew another step and gave Vajra another glare.

  “
Be gone,” she repeated gently, and as he met her gaze with a hard stare and stood where he was, silence falling and then starting to stretch, she added impishly, “Mystra awaits.”

  With a wordless snarl and a whirl of robes, he turned and stormed out.

  “I believe he’s innocent, and genuinely astonished that we thought him involved,” Vajra said gently, as the echoes of the slammed door faded.

  “I read him the same way,” the Lady Master agreed. “As with Qasmult. So if not either of them,” she mused aloud, “then—who?”

  Vajra shrugged. “Where’s Glenmaur? I expected him to stand with you in this, too.”

  Bowgentra gave a shrug of her own in reply. “He has much to do these last few days, preparing protective Order guards to watch over the new Hidden Lords, and—”

  The door that had closed behind Lavalander swung open without knock or fanfare, and Imindur Glenmaur hastened into the room.

  “I saw Malryn Lavalander storming out of here with a face like thunder,” he said, eyebrows high. “What happened? What did I miss?”

  • • •

  IT WAS ANOTHER bright morning as Elminster and Mirt strode side by side into the innermost chambers of the Palace. The courtiers opened doors at their approach now, Mirt noticed. Progress.

  As they came into the room where Laeral had feasted and met with the assembled Hidden Lords of the city, with its great arc of a table, El sniffed the air. “Oil?”

  “Are they oiling the Lordsmoot floor again?” Mirt asked, only half a breath behind. “Was there a cut-price sale on oil, or some such?”

  Laeral, who’d spread her paperwork out along the table in a thus-far-successful attempt to get organized and speed her signing and deciding, looked up and gave them both a smile. “It seems to be something the Palace staff love to do.”

  Then she saw their grim faces, and sighed. “What now?”

  “Hidden Lord Ieirmeera Stravandar was murdered last night,” Elminster told her.

  “And the remaining original Masked Lords and the just-voted-in new ones have all heard about it,” Mirt added, “and are all keeping to the strongest refuges they can find, every last one of them. Surrounded by their bodyguards.”