Death Masks

by Ed Greenwood

  And there are some odd reports from the Underdark, too, Dove said. Of a weakening—and lots of fluctuations—in the Faerzress.

  What?

  You asked. Dove’s mind-voice sounded tart. And we have less Realms-shaking news, too, from Amarune and her Arclath and Storm.

  They’re still in Cormyr?

  And Sembia, and the Dales. Working hard to establish new cordiality among Cormyrean commoners and nobility, and alliances between Cormyr and Sembia, and between Cormyr and the elves of Semberholme under the Coronal.

  That’s a life work!

  Perhaps many lives, if things go wrong. Syluné was demonstrating that she could sound tart, too. But Storm has a direct warning for you, Laer.

  The next mind-voice riding the Weave was deeper, richer, and familiar: Storm herself. Well met, sister!

  Storm! How are you?

  I live. And learn, collecting more bruises in the process. Yet before we get lost in pleasantries, there’s something you should know without delay. At least one Thultanthan survivor, a nasty young arcanist named Gwelt, was seen a day ago by a Harper whose eyes I trust, slipping through a gate in a ruined and forgotten keep in the Northdark Woods, near its northeastern edge. A gate that leads to just one place: behind a particular crypt in the City of the Dead, here in Waterdeep.

  Laeral was wearily amused. All of the world’s troublemakers seem to find the need to visit the City of Splendors sooner or later. I just wish they weren’t all feeling the need to do it right now. My platter’s full already, and they’re causing traffic jams.

  And then a thought struck her, and she asked sharply, Gwelt, did you say? One of our murdered lords was named Ammasker Gwelt. I wonder if there’s a connection …

  Quite likely, Storm replied. Isn’t there usually? I think it’s the gods spinning fun for us all.

  More fun, Laeral sighed wryly. But of course.

  • • •

  “HOLD!”

  Jalester shook his head. Was he ever going to get into the Palace unchallenged? You’d think—oh. Of course. El’s spellspun disguises. The duty mages could see the magic, and know the likenesses weren’t real.

  Elminster and Mirt had come to halts, holding their captives, who chose that moment to struggle—but subsided promptly as Mirt rammed an elbow into the gut of his, and Elminster’s cowered as the stern-faced Watchful Order mages cast a dispelling that looked and sounded far grander and dreadful than it needed to have been over them all.

  Watch officers were already stepping forward to take them into custody, but they stopped abruptly as the nondescript men turned into Elminster, Mirt, and two young men who were now brandishing Watch badges.

  “These two,” El told the Watch guards, before they could say anything, “were spreading rumors about the Open Lord being a murderess.”

  “Oho,” the eldest Watch officer replied, through an impressive but graying mustache. “We have three of those in custody already. They’re being questioned with the aid of the Order, here, and some tongue-loosening herbal concoctions, to try to find out who’s behind the rumor spreading. The Watch is happy to take these two off your hands and treat them the same way.”

  “No torture?” El asked sharply.

  “None. Tortured prisoners tell you whatever they think will make you stop their pain; it may or may not be reliable.”

  “Then we relinquish them.”

  The senior officer waved his hand, and his fellow Watch guards hustled the fearful captives away. Then he jerked his head at Elminster, signaling his desire to talk to him alone. They took a few paces aside, and he muttered, “Lord Elminster, I’m Guardsword Melroas Tharendar, and I like what I’ve seen of our new Open Lord. So if it helps, we’ve learned this much: In all cases, the rumor-spreaders were hired by a man with one ear. Tall, muscular, and bald; scarred face, broken nose, and one ear sliced right off. He’s known to the Watch—that is, we don’t know his real name and origins, but in the streets of the city, this last six years or more, he’s gone by the name of Lastalan Shrikegulk.”

  “Thank ye,” Elminster told the guardsword, and meant it. “We go to find the Open Lord right now.”

  He led the way deeper into the Palace, seeking Laeral but finding no sign of her. The Lordsmoot chamber was deserted—and reeked of yet another treatment of floor-oil—and every servant and courtier they spoke to had no idea of the current whereabouts of the Lady Silverhand.

  Frowning, El tried to recall the most private spellcasting chambers, Mirt making suggestions to help him, and the four went from one to another until they found a locked one. They pounded on its door.

  “Yes?” Laeral replied through it. Her voice sounded thin and tired.

  “Open up, lass,” El told her kindly. “Put aside all the wild young lads ye have in there with ye, and let’s talk business. As in, the latest troubles of ruling this pestilent cesspit of ambitious, coin-clawing creatures from all over Faerûn—and beyond.”

  “Wild young lads?” Laeral was smiling as she opened the door, but she looked not just alone but weak and wan. “Wrong room!”

  “Ah, well, ’twouldn’t be the first time for that, now, would it?” El asked dryly.

  “I can find you such a room,” Mirt offered helpfully.

  Laeral looked amused as she replied graciously, “Out of the throes of temptation, I find that I must decline.”

  “Laer, a man by the name of Lastalan Shrikegulk might be hiring the men spreading rumors about ye. How would ye feel if I tried to, ah, make contact with the Xanathar to try to learn his whereabouts?”

  “Shrikegulk?” Mirt waved a dismissive hand. “Hold hard, there, Mightyspells! I’ve a faster way of finding lowlifes in this city than trying to find and negotiate with an eye tyrant—and one that’ll cost us much less, too!”

  “Thy three lasses? You’ll shorten their lives for them, ye will.”

  Mirt shrugged. “We none of us know if we’ll see tomorrow. The gods spin fun for us all, remember?”

  He lurched away, saying over his shoulder, “Don’t get up to anything interesting while I’m gone.” And then he spun around, pointed at Laeral, and added, “You could get her food, drink, and a bed—even if Chosen don’t sleep, she could use a rest!”

  Dunblade looked at Laeral. “You don’t sleep?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Some hot food might be nice. And when Mirt gets back, sit him down and get him to sign more documents for me. In a room far enough away from me that I’m spared both his jests and the oaths that tend to erupt out of him when he’s unwise enough to read what he’s signing.”

  • • •

  MIRT STRODE OUT onto the front steps of the Palace, planted his hands on his hips, executed a slow bump-and-grind to the astonishment of the door guards, and whistled a loud trio of descending notes.

  Almost instantly a head appeared in an upstairs window of a nearby expensive club, and gave him a disgusted look. It was Ravva, and by her dress, she was working—or at least posing—as a maid.

  Mirt beckoned her with an imperious finger. She made a different sort of gesture with her fingers, that ended in a point down at a spot in the street below. Mirt nodded and headed for it. Ravva soon joined him.

  “You’re about as subtle as a Slut Street harlot, fat man,” she reproved him, as she took his arm and marched him toward the nearest alley, “and I ought to know.”

  Mirt shrugged. “In this matter, the time for subtlety is past.” Drella and Waratra were waiting in the alley, and the three lasses quickly surrounded him.

  “If anyone comes close,” Ravva asked him, “we’re negotiating prices for slap-and-tickle, right?”

  “Right,” Mirt agreed. “Now, if I was wanting to find a bald, one-eared man calling himself Lastalan Shrikegulk in this city, today rather than a tenday from now, and, ah, detain him, where would I be likely to find him?”

  “Oh, him,” Waratra said scornfully. “One of the ‘I’m tougher than anyone, and oh so sinister’ sort. A trifle smarter and mor
e diplomatic than most of them, but not really much more than a blackmailing thug.”

  “He usually hangs out in Dock Ward,” Ravva put in. “Upstairs—”

  “In a gambling den and moneylender’s on Nag Street called Tarstroun’s,” Drella interrupted. “He and five other equally unsavory citizens share a rented upstairs room there. He sleeps there when he isn’t off elsewhere, though I doubt he has any official domicile to the tax collectors.”

  “We’ll go see if he’s there now. If he is, one of us will come back here and tell one of the door guards your new boots are ready. They’ll believe that.”

  “And what’s wrong with my boots?”

  By way of reply Mirt received three withering looks, and then with merry giggles the three lasses set off down the alley, leaving him to return to the Palace alone.

  “Uh, if it’s ladies you’re seeking …” one of the door guards began.

  Mirt handed the man one of the withering looks he’d just received, and lurched his way back inside.

  • • •

  THE CELLAR WAS very dark, and the adventurers gathered there were wary. They eyed the mouths of various unlit passages that led to unknown destinations, and one kept a striker-flint poised above the dried leaves clipped to the wick of a waiting lantern, in case anything happened to the lone lit one.

  Their host, Cazondur by name, was a landlord to some of them. He was standing well back of the table on which the scraggle-bearded leader of the adventurers was counting gold coins.

  And was down to the last few, now, slowing and frowning.

  “Seventy one dragons,” Scragglebeard announced finally, starting to sweep them back into the leather drawstring bag they’d come out of. “I’ve counted them twice.”

  “Yes. Seventy-one. You’ll all find one coin extra in your advance pay,” Cazondur told them all. “It’s my way of making sure no one feels cheated because this coin is worn thin, or that one is misshapen. Remember, thrice that each will be yours when the task is done.”

  He stood aside, to point at a stack of identical flat wooden cases with rope handles behind him.

  Each adventurer went and took one.

  “These’re standard light fowling bolts?” Scragglebeard asked.

  Cazondur nodded. “Except for the poison. Don’t be tempted to fingertest the points.”

  “That would be bad,” the leader of the adventurers agreed, and Cazondur waved farewell and ducked down a lightless side passage, using his glowstone to turn a corner and step through a secret door before even a racing adventurer could hope to see where he’d gone. A little prudence came never amiss.

  It wouldn’t do to have louts like these blundering into his trapped lair. They might trigger the falling wall before it claimed its intended victim, and ruin everything.

  After all, he only had one more in reserve. Trapped lairs were getting expensive, these days.

  • • •

  RUMORS HAD RACED across the city about the body of a shapely woman found with an empty, eyeless skull. The morbidly curious and those seeking a missing loved one or debtor were flocking to see the remains laid out in one of the wall-tower Watchposts, into which the Watch were inviting the public in hopes of identifying the corpse.

  Tasheene and Drake had recognized Zaraela, all right, though they’d neglected to inform the Watch guards standing over what was left of her on its bed of melting blocks of ice of their recognition.

  Now they were back out of the wall-tower, and well away from it down a handy alley. Tasheene cast a look back and ahead and then up, to see if anyone was watching from a roof or window.

  Finding no one, she dared to ask, “What did that to her?”

  “Mind flayer,” Drake muttered. “Or so the Watch guards were saying, when they thought no mere citizen could overhear. They’re wondering where it’s hiding in the city.”

  “A mind flayer?” Tasheene didn’t bother to try to hide her terror. “We’re going to die,” she hissed, “and soon!”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he muttered, looking up and down the alley and walking a little faster.

  “Antler did this,” Tasheene whispered. “He had Zaraela killed because her usefulness to him was over. And that’s just what he’ll do to us.”

  “It’s time for you to tell me more about Antler.”

  “A man who wants to root out corruption at the Palace. He has a slow, deep voice. He’s the one I’ve been taking orders from, to kill Masked Lords, and he promised to make me one when the killing was done. At first it seemed the right way to finally strike down the corrupt and decadent, the grasping commoners and self-serving nobles who’ve always ruled the city, but now … now …”

  “It’s gone too far.”

  “Much too far. Waterdeep is in an uproar. I thought we’d be purging this city, but we’re destroying it.”

  “We’re killing Hidden Lords Cazondur doesn’t control, so he can replace them with Lords he can control,” Drake said flatly. “He’s trying to become the Tyrant of Waterdeep.”

  “Cazondur? Who’s—?”

  “Braethan Cazondur. He’s your ‘Antler.’ He’s a Masked Lord himself, and a moneylender, investor, and a landlord in every ward of the city. A proper ruthless coin-mountain, and always has been. Some say he strangled his father to get hold of the family wealth and businesses.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Drake shrugged and smiled. “I’m a spy, and a good one. He’s been paying me to spy for him for some time now.”

  “To spy on me?”

  “To spy on everyone. A wise would-be tyrant trusts no one. He’s set at least six other spies on me.”

  “At least six?”

  Drake shrugged again. “Six times I’ve been able to take down a watcher following me, when I thought there were no witnesses. He’s probably hired a seventh by now. I know he’s been hiring wizards. He’s closing in on the Open Lord now.”

  “Unsurprising, but how do you know that, for sure?”

  “Good spies stay alive longer by spying on their employers.”

  “So we’re being watched right now by this seventh.”

  “Almost certainly. And probably by an eighth—and they likely have someone watching both of them, too.”

  Tasheene drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and left her guiding dreams behind her. “So we have to take disguises, then get to the Palace somehow to warn the Open Lord, before he takes her down—or us.”

  Drake nodded, took her hand, and started to run.

  They rushed down the alley together. Tasheene was just starting to get winded from the pace when he tugged hard on her hand, dragging her into a precipitous fall on her face in the ever-present refuse. A crossbow bolt promptly whistled past her head to shiver against a wall not far beyond.

  “This way,” he hissed, rolling sideways to the wall. He pulled her through a door into the kitchen of an eatery.

  Tasheene endured a brief confusion of steam, sizzling aromas that were far more pleasant than she now smelled thanks to the alley, and startled cooks, before Drake plunged her down a dark, foul-smelling stair.

  Into utter darkness, a faint smell of mildew, and dank chill. After they’d felt their way through a room, there was another flight of stone steps, taking them even deeper.

  “Where are we—?”

  “Downshadow,” Drake muttered.

  Tasheene rolled her eyes. “Again.”

  • • •

  VAJRA DREW IN a shuddering breath. Mystra, but this was hard.

  Khelben had been a Chosen and an archwizard of experience and accomplishment who’d dwelt in Waterdeep longer than any other Sworn of Mystra. Reading patterns and disturbances in the Weave across the city must have been second nature to him. He’d used the Blackstaff to focus his Weave-reading so often that something of how to do that had been imprinted and fused into the staff itself.

  Which was the only thing making this possible for her at all. The surviving fragment of the Black
staff hung in midair, drifting gently to and fro as the Weave coursed around it, visible as eerie surging and swirling threads in this spellchamber of Blackstaff Tower. Vajra stood facing the dark relic, gazing at it but trying to see through it, because that seemed to work best for sharpening and holding her mind to meld with it.

  Weave-reading was a more raw process than her training, a matter of guiding rushing power rather than crafting tiny hooks and containments for such energies, which is what spellwork was. She wasn’t just learning as she went, by trial and mostly error, she was having to wrestle with the looming dark presence of the staff in her mind, wrestling with the Blackstaff to turn it to her will—and at the same time avoid yielding to its ways of doing things, which courted falling under its influence again.

  Wiping sweat from her face—Watching Gods, but she was dripping!—she grimly went in again. She was the Blackstaff now, she was the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, and she would prevail.

  It was becoming easier, and with deepening control she could read the Weave more clearly, following its flows without becoming as confused as she’d been earlier.

  Yet she still wasn’t learning much that was useful, for too much was going on across the Deep in the way of castings, which flared up like briefly blinding stars to blot out her mind-gaze, time and again. The spellwork seemed to be mainly Watchful Order mages working magic for noble and wealthy clients all over Sea Ward and North Ward, and minor castings at that, but small lamps can still blind or burn when there are a lot of them gathered in a small—

  Bam. Baram. Baram-blam-blam.

  Those deep drumbeats rolled and echoed, but her ears told her that they were both sharper and lesser than her mind did, thanks to warning intentions of the various casters who’d woven the rich web of enchantments through Blackstaff Tower. Short, sharp raps rather than deep boomings.

  Someone was knocking on the doors of Blackstaff Tower.

  Vajra broke off her concentration on the Weave, irritated at the interruption, and used the same magic of the Tower that had disturbed her work to see who was at her door.

  Two men and two women, faces all familiar. She knew none of them well, but recognized them; three guildmasters—Andral Thaerendral of the Surveyors’, Map & Chart-makers’ Guild; Belren Xorandur of the Coopers’ Guild; and Felmaera Undrenneth of the Council of Farmer-Grocers—and standing motionless in their restless midst like a flagstaff, the matriarch of a noble house, Lady Hamaleiya Zulpair. By their body language, there were neither two couples nor all that were at ease in each other’s presence.