The watchmen spun on their heels and the armar shouted, “There he is! Renaer Neverember, hold! We have a—! After them!”
The broader avenues like Julthoon Street, Calamastyr Lane, and Swords Street glowed brightly in the moonlight due to the diligence of the Dungsweepers’ Guild and a lighter shade of cobblestones used on the major roadways all across Waterdeep. As the two men dashed across a carriage’s path, they heard their pursuers curses at their path being blocked by that same vehicle soon after.
Renaer kept quiet as the opulent and well-tended buildings of Sea Ward receded. Faxhal was already past the temple to Amaunator, its pink marble courtyard walls glistening with frost and icicles. Looming ahead were the more utilitarian domiciles and row buildings of Castle Ward, though there were exceptions to the common buildings, like the gargoyle-infested Charistor looming three stories tall over the intersection with Swords Street, or the squat white stone of Jhurlan’s Jewels with its quaint Old Cormyrean wall merlons atop its roof at Tchozal’s Race.
“We’d better split up,” Renaer said to Faxhal.
“Last one to Argupt’s buys for the night,” Faxhal replied, whispering so as not to lead their pursuers to their final destination. “I’ll head east up the Walk—you lead some south!”
Both men turned south down Swords Street at full speed, laughing as their pursuers howled their plans aloud. “Head over to the Street of Silks and head them off at Keltarn!”
The two friends pointed ahead and firmed up their plan. Faxhal shouldered an uneven stack of crates stacked alongside the mouth of Elvarren’s Lane as he passed. The moldering boxes teetered and fell behind him into the paths of the Watch and a few passersby.
The two saluted each other, and Faxhal whirled off to the east, turning left and racing up Zelphar’s Walk. Renaer expected him to run up to Armin’s Cut and swing back up to Tchozal’s Race to lead a few of the Watch in circles.
Renaer slowed his pace slightly, nearly allowing two young members of the Watch to come within ten paces of him. Reaching into his pocket, he readied his weapons as his ominous target loomed out of the darkness.
Blackstaff Tower seemed to make the night around it darker. No torches lit its windows, nor did any brighten the dark steel and stone of the curtain wall around its courtyard. Renaer raced past the gate, admiring the metalworked roses and staves that entwined the metal bars. Looking over his right shoulder to make sure they were within range, Renaer tossed a handful of stones at the gates to Blackstaff Tower and immediately doubled his speed, leaving his chasers behind. Suddenly, the night lit up, a sea green glow emanating from the metal gates into the surrounding street. The woman and man slowed, appearing to run but moving only at a snail’s pace. Renaer smiled but shook his fascination away and kept running. “I wasn’t sure that was going to work. First time I’ve ever used Blackstaff Tower’s spell defenses against anyone.”
Renaer dashed left, heading east up Tharleon Street. The Flagon Dragon Inn’s three stories dominated that corner, the stone dragons at the base of the walls all gouting fire. He waved at the two dragon-helmed guards at the door as he ran past, and both returned the wave. He’d have to drag Torlyn back here again soon—he liked this place, even if it did cater more to those of less-than-noble class. Renaer jogged into the Silkanth’s Cut, ducking behind Rarknal’s Whitesmiths and running up the outer stairs leading to the rooftop garden on the adjoining building.
Renaer never slowed his pace and continued to run up to and past the roof’s edge, launching himself toward the clothesline that angled over the eastern arc of the cut. He grabbed it and used his momentum to swing himself further up and onto the parapet of a row house. Keeping up his pace, he ran across that roof as well, leaping over the low wall that marked where that building abutted the next. As he ran east across that roof, he headed toward the stone arches that arced over Hoy’s Skip below. Since the Spellplague, many of the row buildings had arches to support the buildings.
Renaer deftly ran over the arch as if it were a dry street instead of the ice-rimed bridge it was. He continued south, vaulting over or climbing above the abutment walls among the buildings lining the Street of Silks. When he stopped, dropping into the shadows next to an overlarge chimney, he could look across the street and beyond to see into the well-lit windows of the Smiling Siren festhall.
Renaer waited. The young Lord Neverember heard the Watch stumble past him on the street below, their armar chewing out the new recruits and barking orders. Looking down, Renaer knew he’d run many a scamper with this armar, the bald patch on his head exposing a familiar birthmark.
The balding armar’s voice traveled in the crisp winter air. “No, he’s not a Shar-worshipper to draw shadows around him! You’re just incompetent! Now look down to Keltarn and see if he’s heading east. He likes to take Cymbril’s Walk, not the Prowl, because the taverns along there like him. We’ll head up to Bazaar and investigate parts east. If we don’t find him by the Street of Bells, we regroup at the Singing Sword and …” The words grew muffled as they moved out of Renaer’s hearing range.
Renaer smiled, then something tapped him on the shoulder and he felt his stomach lurch. He turned and found himself facing the tabard of a barrel-chested Watch valabrar standing less than an arm’s reach from him, a watchman’s rod in hand. In Selûne’s pale light, Renaer stood, and said, “At least it was you and not Ralnarth. Well, Officer Varbrent? Am I a prisoner?”
The grizzled older man rubbed his salt-and-peppered beard with the end of the rod, smiling slightly at Renaer. “Nah, but you’re getting almost predictable, lad. You’ve come here twice before. You don’t scout too well ahead of yourself or you’d have noticed me waiting here for you. Slow night?”
“Slow enough. I didn’t find any other things to lead them toward.”
“Like those smugglers the other night? Ralnarth caught a good reward there, he did.”
“And we both know he doesn’t deserve the promotion, Morrath. He’s a bully with coin and a noble name behind him, that’s all!”
“Aye, lad, but he’s connected in the right places, so he moves up the ladder. Besides, for his faults, he serves a purpose.”
Renaer smirked at the Watch captain. “Someone for you to laugh about back at barracks?”
Morrath snorted and said, “No. He’s vain, so his uncle’s money gets him and his Watchmen better equipment, but ultimately that’s only good for the city. Don’t worry—we both know why he’s got his recruits chasin’ you. That’ll die down in another day or so, assuming you and your friends stay out of his nose. Kahlem won’t bring things to the notice of your father. Not while I’m about.”
“Thanks, Morrath,” Renaer said, clapping the watchman on the shoulder.
“Boy, your rat-scampers are handy for training the young ’uns or punishing those who’ve o’erstepped their places. I just wish you or your friends would join the Watch to train them directly. You’d be a farsight better officer than Ralnarth.”
Renaer winked and said, “You can’t afford me, Morrath.”
“Well,” Morrath said, “can’t blame a man for trying. Just keep yourself from trouble, boy.”
Renaer and Morrath both clambered down a stone rose trellis from their rooftop perch. Renaer dropped the last few feet, landing in a crouch onto Swords Street again.
“Do you want to share a carriage?” Renaer asked, but when he turned in Morrath’s direction, the man had disappeared. “Well met, Morrath. Have to learn that one some time.”
Renaer stepped out of the shadows at the mouth of Scarlet’s Well and flagged down a carriage. The single horse and its young driver both started from his sudden appearance. He didn’t blame them, for the area was known to be haunted, albeit by a harmless woman’s spirit still weeping bloody tears for her lost love. The boy got over his fear quickly when he saw the quartet of taols Renaer held up. The boy reached eagerly, but Renaer closed his hand around all but one of the square coins. “The rest are yours if you get me quietly to the G
rinning Lion in less than two songs.”
The boy nodded enthusiastically as Renaer slipped inside the carriage. Renaer found no comfort inside, as the matted cushions provided little relief from the hard bench or lurching ride.
Renaer enjoyed the chases with the Watch, but he bristled when the law enforcers—including his father the Open Lord—flaunted power over him and others. Dagult and Kahlem Ralnarth’s abuses of authority showed the people that the Watch did not work always for the greater good of the city—just the whims of officers or the Lords. Worst of all, he didn’t know what his father wanted, other than obedience and for Renaer to only act within the limited confines of Dagult’s imagination. Renaer heard his father’s words often enough—“You’re a dupe, a wastrel, and you’re throwing money away at every church across the city! I won’t have my son waste his life!”
Renaer whispered, almost in prayer, “I want more for my father and for Waterdeep. This used to be a city where dreams came true and gods walked the cobbles. Now, the grime of commerce and greed covers everything, including the once-shining helms of the Lords. The Crown of the North still rules all commerce and politics, but it can’t remotely claim to be the City of Splendors. This city needs heroes to bring back its life and luster. But gods know if I have it in me to be one.”
Many hours later, Renaer crept quietly up the stairs to his rooms, a task not terribly difficult given the stone steps and carpets. He expected to be alone, but lights still blazed beneath the door to his father’s study.
“The man is the Open Lord,” Renaer muttered. “Why in the gods’ names doesn’t he use his offices at the palace?”
Despite his aggravation at the delay in sleep, Renaer smiled. He discovered years ago that he learned more when folk didn’t know there were others within earshot. He slipped silently into his room, closed the door, and stripped for bed. Folding his clothes neatly on a side dresser, he shivered from the cold despite the small fire in the fireplace near his bed. Renaer burrowed beneath the furs and quilts, all the while keeping an ear cocked to the voices carried through the chimney shared with the next room’s fireplace.
“We’ve not learned nearly enough, Dagult.” Renaer didn’t know this thin reedy voice, nor did he like what the man had to say. “She is as stubborn as her master was.”
“We know the Blackstaffs have always had access to unknown magic,” another unrecognized voice said. “I got her talking about the masked Lords of the past, but she would not say how they controlled them.”
The thin-voiced one said, “The secret of long years, of course, is the most profitable of secrets we could glean from her. I always suspected they bargained with elves or dwarves for those secrets.”
“Three tendays! That’s what you told me! And it’s been seven!” Dagult slammed his hand down on a table. Renaer knew his father’s temper well, and Dagult’s roar meant he was frustrated but not yet angry. That’s when he’d get very quiet. “You claimed I would have the Overlord’s Helm to help me uncover my fellow Lords’ secrets. That is what you claimed would make this gambit worth it! Well?”
The second voice joined in again. “We can’t get her to focus. She’s been mad ever since—”
“Focus?” Dagult snapped. “What do you think you have Granek for?”
The thin-voiced man coughed and said, “Yes, well, his methods are—”
“Only slightly more successful than your magic, apparently,” Dagult said. “Now, when are you going to deliver what you promised? You’ve already received far more reward than what you’ve delivered in return, but I’m still prepared to bring you into the fold, should you gain results before the solstice.”
Just who was Dagult conspiring with here? Renaer wondered. He never put more on the table unless he could hang someone with the other end of the deal. And to deal with wizards …
“We shall celebrate together before another tenday passes, milord Neverember,” the reedy voice replied. “The three of us shall free the city from the Blackstaff’s interference for the first time in two centuries—or at least ensure the Blackstaff is aligned in full with the Open Lord’s policies.”
Renaer heard the door open, and the men wandered out of his earshot. He saw three shadows pass his doorway, and one returned back to Dagult’s office. Renaer heard the thud and hiss of another log being tossed on Dagult’s fire grate. The bluster and volume had dropped away, and the cold quiet tone chilled Renaer despite the fire and the furs. “Just make damned sure that this never soils my hearth, wizards, or you’ll find out I’ve more power than even your wizards’ guild can muster.”
Dawn nearly reached his windows before Renaer fell into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 2
It’s a trip neither pretty nor pleasant, but delve the sewers if you truly want to learn what goes on in Waterdeep.
Orlar Sarluk, Down the Drain:
A Life in the Guild of Cellarers and Plumbers,
the Year of the Worm (1356 DR)
9 NIGHTAL, YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Laraelra Harsard knew she needed help and needed it quickly.
She looked over the assembled crowds milling around Heroes’ Garden. Over the past few decades, each ward seemed to adopt its own unofficial gathering places for swords for hire, where Caravan Court, the White Bull, and Virgin’s Square once sufficed for mercenary hiring. The snow-covered hillocks of the garden were already soiled from foot traffic, even though it was barely past sunup. Laraelra wove her way around the statues of heroes of Waterdeep’s past. Scanning the crowds, she noticed someone had knocked the right foot off of Lhestyn’s statue. Above a skinny man in black leathers, the outstretched stone arms of Lords Oth Ranerl, Tanar Hunabar, and Cyrin Kormallis held only broken blades or sword pommels. Laraelra moved deeper into the Heroes’ Garden, searching for strong-backed hirelings but only finding jokesters had stolen the head of Rarkul Ulmaster for the fifth time that year.
If more people respected what it takes to work stone, Laraelra thought, they’d not be so quick to ruin it.
Laraelra had dressed for the weather and the task ahead of her. Her heavy woolen cloak covered her oiled leather tunic, pants, and her sealskin boots—necessities for mucking about the sewers. The black color of her clothes made her seem even paler in the morning cold. Despite her thick garments, Laraelra hugged herself to stay warm. As she rounded the back-to-back statues of Mirt the Merciless and Durnan the Wanderer, she patted their knees and thought, Milords, help me find men of your mettle before it’s too late. Then she spotted the largest group of sellswords in the Garden—or more properly, they spotted her.
“Right here, Milady Harsard!” A stylish young bravo rushed ahead of the pack, his spotless purple cloak flaring behind him. He swept off his large feathered hat and bowed before her.
Behind him thundered a muscled tree stump of a young braggart, his first beard coming in thin patches and barely covering his pimples. “Ignore that fool. I’m your man, Laraelra!” To prove his point, he kicked the bowing man over on his way to intercept Laraelra.
“Hardly,” she replied, striding past with a twitch of one arched eyebrow. Laraelra pulled her cloak closer to ward off the breeze and the light snow on it. Scanning the crowd, she looked for men at least her height, then winnowed down candidates by how strong or capable they seemed.
Finally, she approached one man leaning against the statue of some centaur hero. The contented young man was more interested in his roll of sausage and onion than in catching her eye. Blond hair avalanched across his shoulders and brow. Until she got close to him, Laraelra did not see the few days’ growth of pale blond beard on his face. When she stopped in front of him, the man was in mid-bite, though he smiled close-mouthed at her around the steaming food.
“You’ll do,” Laraelra said, “assuming you can focus on a task as much as your meal.”
She smiled as the man hurriedly chewed, swallowed, and then choked and coughed in surprise. He stood two hands taller than Laraelra, his shoulders twice h
ers, and his arms were as large as her legs. Strapped to his back was a greataxe, much-abused but serviceable, like the dagger pommels she saw in his boots. Despite the cold, his cloak was open, exposing well-worn leather armor over a broad chest.
She pressed three silver pieces into his hand and said, “You’ll get that much every bell you have to accompany me today, if that’s acceptable to you.”
The man nodded and coughed a few more times while he tucked the coins into his boot.
Laraelra motioned for him to follow, then turned her back and headed for the copse of trees at the southern end of the Heroes’ Garden. “You’ll want to finish that before we enter the sewers, I wager.”
She half-expected him to stop walking once she mentioned the sewers, but the young man gamely followed her without hesitation.
Laraelra extracted a ring of keys from her belt pouch as she approached the stone hut that covered a sewer shaft among the trees. After she unlocked the access shaft and cracked the door, she turned to her companion. “In case you didn’t know, I am Laraelra Harsard. And you are … ?”
A broad, beaming smile spread over the man’s massive jaw. “Meloon Wardragon, at your service, mistress. What’ll need doing this morning?”
Laraelra grabbed a torch off the wall inside the access hut, and lit it as she talked. “I am investigating a problem for the Cellarers and Plumbers’ Guild down in the sewers. I simply need you in case anything or anyone tries anything untoward.” She raised her eyebrows as she looked Meloon up and down. “You’ll be a snug fit in some of the tunnels, so you might want to unbelt that axe of yours ahead of time. Never hurts to be prepared, after all.”
Meloon nodded and pulled his axe free while Laraelra descended the rung ladder in the floor shaft.
“Just curious, mistress, but why choose me when all those other swords wanted your attention?” Meloon asked. He wrinkled his nose a bit at the overwhelming smell wafting up the shaft, but sighed and took a few deep breaths to acclimate himself to the odor.
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