Death Masks

by Ed Greenwood

  Jalester looked around wildly, saw Laeral lying on the floor, and rushed to her. “Lady!” he sobbed. “Lady, can you help? Faer is—is—”

  Laeral could barely lift her hand, but she managed to put her fingers on Jalester’s nearest boot. She tried to stroke it soothingly, as it was all she could reach.

  “Jalester,” she managed to say, “I can’t help. No one can. Faer is … gone.”

  Jalester threw back his head and howled.

  “Nnnnooooo!” he screamed, and raced to his fallen sword and snatched it up and pounced on the feebly writhing mind flayer and hacked and hewed.

  Until someone stout came wheezing through the dying flames to take the sword from his hands and guide him to Laeral’s chair at the ravaged great table.

  “Easy, lad,” Mirt rumbled. “Easy, now.”

  Then he stiffened and growled in sudden pain, as the bloody thing on the floor behind him lashed out at his mind.

  Anger kindled in Laeral, and she tried to gather Weave-energy enough to slap at the mind flayer, but couldn’t, reeling under new pain.

  Suddenly Elminster was awake at the back of her mind again, and smiling. Steady, he thought at her, and gave her the anchor she needed.

  It hurt—Mystra bleed, but it hurt!—yet Laeral grimly took hold of the Weave, clawing energy from it like a child with broken fingers trying to retrieve so many scattered and fallen wet grapes, and gathered that power, Mystra’s pain rising with it but El tugging at it, drawing it into himself so she could go on.

  And Laeral took that power, set to spinning in front of her, made it catch flame, and sent it around the Lordsmoot, fearful Waterdhavians scrambling out of its way, to drink in the last of the flames that Cazondur had caused, snuffing them by taking them in.

  And when the much larger sphere trembled above her with its gathered fire, Laeral shaped it into a lance and plunged it into Suthool’s mind.

  And then watched, feeling only grim satisfaction, as the hacked and bleeding mind flayer demonstrated that its kind could drool their witlessness, too.

  It seemed to her a very long time before the boldest of the many apprehensive Watch guards in the room dared to step forward and take the illithid into custody.

  • • •

  BELVARRA COULDN’T SEE where they took Suthool. Her tears were nigh blinding her as she tried to go on staring into the crystal ball.

  “Suthool,” she moaned. “If they spare you, I’ll—I’ll!”

  Furiously she wiped at her eyes, then peered into the crystal again, but it was no use. She could see no sign of Suthool.

  She shook her head, and whispered to the empty air, “Suthool, I need you.”

  Then she drew in a deep breath, stared at the ceiling, and fought for calm and an end to her weeping.

  It came gratifyingly soon, and Belvarra stared into her crystal hall again, and watched men and women stream out of the Lordsmoot to carry out the Open Lord’s commands.

  With a sigh, she turned away.

  “Suthool,” she vowed fiercely to the empty air, “I shall free you, somehow. And arrange a spell-disguise sufficient for you to pass for human, so we can safely remain in Waterdeep. And continue to influence its future. As Asmodeus still wants me to do.”

  And as she spoke those words, the air darkened around her, and the symbol of Asmodeus upon her breast burned like fire, then seared like ice, before a single word slid out of it, in a purring voice more amusedly malevolent than her own most vamping efforts.

  And that word was: “Yes.”

  • • •

  THE LORDSMOOT WAS suddenly full of Watchful Order mages, and more Watch guards, and they were firmly clearing the room.

  Everyone hastened out, or was carried out, Cazondur’s loyalists among the Palace staff surrendering their crossbows as stern-faced Watch guards surrounded them. Only a few fled, and they didn’t get far.

  “Drink this, lad,” Mirt said awkwardly, slapping a flask into Jalester’s hands. The empty-faced, dejected young man obeyed without thinking, and nearly choked on the fiery contents, but then drank until the flask was empty.

  So he missed Laeral embracing the drooling Dunblade like a lover, wrapping her arms and legs around him and clinging to him.

  Ye get to keep my body, El told her, so long as ye steady me into this one.

  “You haven’t taken very good care of it,” she said aloud, disapprovingly, but she anchored him with care, despite the pain still throbbing away within her.

  And the next thing Jalester knew, his lover was putting comforting arms around him, and saying in Dunblade’s own voice, “Lad, thy Dunblade is dead, but I’ll be thy friend in his place.”

  Jalester recoiled. “Elminster?”

  “Aye. And before ye go all outraged, know that I’ve done far worse than this.”

  Jalester opened his mouth, but said nothing, because he didn’t know what to say. Two strong but gentle and kind minds were sliding into his, trying to soothe and comfort.

  Lady, I’m ashamed, he thought feebly, when he recognized Laeral in his head.

  She chuckled. Don’t be.

  Then he recognized Elminster, who promptly handed him a memory of Dunblade laughing and telling a dirty joke that left him afloat in fresh grief.

  Out of which he asked, inanely, “What was in that flask Mirt gave me?”

  Ye want more? Not a good idea.

  “Elminster,” Jalester asked with sudden anger, “when do I get to decide what’s a good idea for me? Hmm?”

  Elminster and Laeral both laughed, inside his head, plunging him into more happiness than he’d ever felt before.

  Ye’re going to be all right, lad, Elminster told him firmly. And I’ll walk with ye for as long as ye need me to be there.

  Jalester drew in a deep breath. “That’ll be … acceptable,” he replied, “I suppose.”

  • • •

  STRONG ARMS WENT around Tasheene, and folded her against a chest that didn’t smell pristine, that was fat and hairy, and that contained lungs that wheezed.

  “See? My chest is big enough for two lasses to cry down, and not quite drown me,” Mirt rumbled. Tasheene pulled back from him enough to look around, and saw that a smudged-faced Dock Ward wench was almost shoulder-to-shoulder with her against Mirt. Whoever this was had been crying, too.

  “Ravva,” said this imp of the streets. “Who’re you?”

  “Tasheene,” Tasheene replied, through her tears. “The Lady Tasheene Melshimber.”

  “And I,” Mirt announced, “am Mirt, the oldest living Lord of Waterdeep. Aye, that Mirt.”

  “I … I …” Part of Tasheene instinctively wanted to pull herself free and announce that she had an important engagement and couldn’t tarry a moment longer … but another part of her decided that she had nowhere she wanted to go. At all. She might as well stay here, in the only comforting arms that were on offer.

  “Hey, now, lasses,” Mirt said gently, “the two of you can come home with me and rest by a good fire and shut the world out until you’re ready to face it again. I’ve a fair library and a good wine cellar and not a bad kitchen.”

  “You do?” Tasheene asked, wiping her eyes. Turning inside Mirt’s encircling arm, she managed to point across the Lordsmoot at Laeral. “I thought she took over Mirt’s Mansion.”

  “She did,” Mirt confirmed, and held up a key. “But I’ve just taken over Braethan Cazondur’s mansion.”

  Tasheene stared at him in disbelief—and then, despite herself, started to laugh. “Come,” Mirt told her, holding her tight. “I’ll have the Watch deliver yer man’s body to the temple of Tymora.” And then he reached out and corralled a sniffing Ravva back into a three-way embrace and added, “And Waratra, too. We’ll see them both raised from the dead, or properly interred, with all reverence, as if they were nobility.”

  Both women looked at him, and then burst into fresh tears, and hugged him hard.

  • • •

  LAERAL DREW HERSELF up.

 
; Time to play Open Lord to the hilt.

  She surveyed the Lordsmoot, and started issuing crisp commands to every Watchful Order mage and Watchguard and Palace courtier she could see.

  To the courtiers and Watch guards, “Assemble the Lords of Waterdeep here, as speedily as they can be found and politely brought. Tell them all what happened and that the threat is over. When they arrive, we shall confer.”

  Then, to the mages, “Go and fetch the wizards Glenmaur and Qasmult to attest to their part in Cazondur’s schemes. They shall then be turned over to the Black Robes for sentencing, rather any Lord of the city doing anything high-handed by attempting to punish them.”

  Then Laeral looked to the guildmasters and nobles she could see watching from the doorways, and added, “Saers and ladies, I have a request of all of you, too. I desire this assembly to be attended by all guildmasters and nobles who desire to be there, so everything shall be done in their hearing. This city belongs to all of us; it should be governed before all of us who desire to watch and listen, henceforth.”

  It seemed as if every noble and guildmaster there murmured approvingly.

  “Everyone who is not going somewhere to carry out these orders of mine,” Laeral added, “and everyone who does go, and completes a task and returns, please go to the feasting hall. I’ll have food prepared for you and served to you there. Please go now, for I find that I need some privacy to grieve with my friends.”

  • • •

  MIRT LOOKED AT the bed where Ravva and Tasheene were now snoring lightly, and then at the sideboard with its forest of decanters, and lifted one hairy eyebrow. “So, lass, what d’you call this room?”

  “One of my more private Palace chambers,” Laeral replied. “Old goat.”

  “Compliments, compliments,” Mirt chuckled, “and I was just about to thank you, too.”

  Laeral gave him a grin, and hugged him. “You just did. And being as you let young Jalester empty your flask, have a drink. These are all safe—what I gave your two new lady-loves came from this compartment down here. Everything in it brings on sleep.”

  “So the Open Lord has a store of drugged wine ready, in case of need? Well, well, my estimation of Dagult Neverember has just gone up a notch. Thank you, Lady.”

  “I thought you might not want two grieving women hanging off your arms when you first set foot in Cazondur’s house,” Laeral said dryly. “He’s been hiring adventurers; you might need both arms free to wield weapons.”

  “Ah. Good point. I’ll just take some of my friends with me, and come back for the sleeping lasses. When we’ve got the bodies dragged out and the blood mopped up—that sort of thing.”

  “That sort of thing,” Laeral agreed dryly.

  As Mirt clapped her on the back and then lurched away, she turned to Vajra, who’d been waiting silently and patiently all this time, and embraced her.

  “And so it ends well—for now,” Vajra said, giving the Open Lord of Waterdeep an uncertain smile. “Despite all my blunders, and attacks on you and Elminster. Are you—am I … Blackstaff no more?”

  She looked down at the fragment of Blackstaff in her hand, and reluctantly turned it and offered it, handle to the fore, to Laeral.

  Who took it—and handed it right back to her.

  “I think we can work together,” Laeral said softly. “Khelben was my rescuer and my lover and my other half, in the best sense of that term, before he was taken from me. Vajra, I know the burden you bear, and I approve of the way you apply yourself to that duty. Let us be friends. Let there be trust between us.”

  And she spat on her hand and held it out, fingers open to grip Vajra’s forearm.

  The Blackstaff smiled at her. It was a wavering and uncertain smile at first, then brightened. She spat on her own hand, and took Laeral’s forearm eagerly.

  Laeral smiled back at her, silver tresses rising restlessly about her shoulders, and silver flames glinting briefly in her eyes.

  And suddenly there was an unseen smile in the room with them, so large that it faded beyond the walls and enveloped them both in a silent wave of good feeling. Mystra, too, was pleased.

  And Vajra almost went to her knees, shot through with the greatest thrill she’d ever felt, and an awe that was like a silver wave, as she saw the full splendor of the Weave all around her for the first time, just for an instant, flowing tirelessly … endlessly …

  Laeral’s arms went around her as tenderly as a mother’s, and held her until her legs were steady again, and her sight cleared.

  “Oh … my,” Vajra said shakily.

  “So many people use the word ‘wonderful’ so casually,” Laeral murmured. “We, though … we know what wonderful truly is.”

  • • •

  “THERE,” EL SAID with slightly weary satisfaction, flexing his fingers in the wake of his spellcasting.

  He peered down at the still forms of Tasheene, Jalester, and Ravva before turning to Mirt to tell him, “They’ll stay asleep until I awaken them. So we can have them safely carried to bedchambers here in the Palace to be bathed and put to bed by those Palace servants we trust. No need to try to storm Cazondur’s mansion this night. By morning, news of his demise will be all over the city, and I daresay his hired adventurers will have slipped away and found new employers and thought up fanciful stories about how they never had all that much to do with him in the first place.”

  Mirt frowned at El, then relaxed with a sigh, nodded, and clapped him on the back. “Aye, that’s the best way, I suppose.”

  Then the two of them turned to watch Vajra leave. Standing tall and proud again, staff in hand.

  Laeral came wearily to them, still scorched and with her clothes half burnt off her.

  She, Mirt, and Elminster all exchanged looks, and then with one accord slumped into some chairs.

  And sighed.

  “I recall that the Palace has a peerless wine cellar,” Elminster commented, after a moment. “And I believe the time is right for us to make a handsome dent in it.”

  Laeral winced. “It’s wine, not armor. Precision, precision.”

  “Indeed,” Mirt rumbled. “Dreadful dent would be a better choice of words. I feel more like doing something dreadful.”

  “More appropriate verbiage for you, I’ll grant,” Laeral agreed.

  “Tell ye what,” El offered. “If ye just sit there, Mirt’ll go raid the cellar, and I’ll get the Palace servants to fill us the big bath with nice warm water.”

  “The big bath?”

  “In the endmost guest apartment,” El informed her, “there’s a bath with walls sculpted like lounging chairs, that’s big enough for six to relax in, or four to frolic in.”

  Laeral rolled her eyes. “I had no idea this Palace ran to such hedonistic appointments, but confess myself unsurprised that you would know of its existence.”

  “Know of? Laer, who d’ye think designed it, and had it put in?”

  Laeral chuckled. “Of course you did. Silly me. So, how’d you get it past Piergeiron?”

  “Slyly,” El informed her serenely.

  “So, the way we manage most of our victories,” Laeral agreed. “Slyly.”

  From the empty air in their midst came the merry laughter of Dove and Syluné.

  •