by Ed Greenwood
Mrelder shook his head. No, they had applauded his decision to apply himself to the study of sahuagin. After a year, when he’d declared his intent to fare forth to gather tales of sahuagin attacks and compile information about their magic and methods, the First Reader had given his personal approval and even modest funding. No, these doubts were his fancies, no more.
He lifted his torch high. To his astonishment, its flickering light fell on a fresh oval of solid stone wall. The tunnel was gone!
Mrelder rushed around the well to feel and then pound the stones—large, solid blocks, each so tightly fitted to its neighbor that he doubted a dainty lady’s dagger could slip between them.
Mrelder stared around the well house in stunned disbelief and then turned, rushed up the stairs, and ran back through the worksite until he could catch the sleeve of a passing worker.
It was the carpenter, who blinked at the ferocity of Mrelder’s question: “What happened to the well house?”
The carpenter frowned. “Dyre oversaw that rebuilding himself. The stonework should be tighter’n a dwarf moneylender.”
“It is, in fact, too tight,” Mrelder snapped.
The carpenter looked incredulous, so he invented quickly: “I plan to sell well-aged cheeses. They require a cool, damp place to ripen.”
The man’s face cleared. “Well, that’s fine, then. You’ll have a big root cellar yonder when we’re done.” He glanced swiftly about and then leaned close and murmured, “There was a tunnel in yon well house leading to gods-only know. ’Tis good fortune for you Master Dyre closed it off. What was found there, you don’t want to have come a’calling.”
Mrelder’s heart thudded. He slipped a silver coin from his purse, turning his hand discreetly to show it to the carpenter alone. “A prudent man knows the dangers he avoids as well as those he faces.”
“ ’Twas a token,” the man said softly, his eyes on the coin. “From Those Who Watch, whose noses you don’t want poking into your affairs.”
“The token was black,” Mrelder said softly, and the carpenter nodded.
Mrelder managed a smile and held out his hand. “My thanks for your help.” They shook, and the silver changed palms.
With that, Mrelder waved farewell and strode away. On his return to Candlekeep a year ago, he’d sought in vain for the little black helm Piergeiron had given him, and in the end concluded it must have held some magic and so had been stripped from him by the defenses of the gate.
It seemed he’d dropped the charm in the well-tunnel, and the workers had taken it as a warning from the First Lord to keep away.
What to do now? Requesting the tunnel be re-opened might establish him as a man with ties to … well, to those whose noses were best kept out of common folks’ business. That sort of reputation would draw attention he could ill afford.
By now it was bright morning, and the streets were filling quickly. Mrelder walked briskly, dodging the inevitable creaking hand-carts and sleepy-eyed, shuffling dockers as he made for the house he and his father were to share.
Golskyn had pointed out, sensibly enough, that they’d need more than one base in the city. For several tendays now his father’s followers—mongrelmen who served the priest with hound-like devotion—had been busily connecting divers lodgings and storehouses with new tunnels. Most who served Golskyn couldn’t walk any city openly and so had become well versed in the lore of dark places, including tunneling and hiding all traces of such work.
Mrelder would send some of them to Redcloak Lane when the harbor fogs rolled in and full darkness came to begin a tunnel between the root cellar the carpenter had pointed out and the stone passage where the tiny sahuagin lay waiting.
Thinking of what was to come, Mrelder felt himself smiling. The sahuagin would regain its formidable size and find itself joining a certain young sorcerer in a new war.
More accurately, selected parts of the sahuagin would join with Mrelder.
“No work ever got done,” Varandros Dyre growled at the two apprentices scurrying at his heels, “by a man who spends more time on his arse than his feet. That’s why we go from site to site, afoot so the lads don’t see us coming three streets off! And mark me, young Jivin, our little visits are why Dyre’s Fine Walls and Dwellings can afford to hire the likes of you and Baraezym here—and why I, the gods help me, can afford the fine gowns my daughters so like to wear.”
Dyre shouldered through the thickening crowds at the mouth of Redcloak Lane, clearing a path for his two ‘prentices like a hard-driven coach. Not much stood in Varandros Dyre’s path. The sheer energy of the man was enough to sweep aside obstacles and draw eyes to him.
Not that he was a pleasure to behold. Gray-haired and sharp of glance, Dyre had the sun-weathered hide and battered fingers of the Master Stoneworker he was, and his nose was so large that Baraezym, his older apprentice, had once described it as “the snout of a shark.” Those words came into Jivin’s mind whenever he glanced at his master, leaving him on the verge of grinning.
Jivin’s life was hardly one of ease, but much could be learned from such a master. Building after building had been raised from the rubble of last year’s fighting under the Dyre banner, and Baraezym and Jivin knew very well Varandros had taken them on because he needed men who could write, count coins and see approaching menaces and swindles, not trustyhands who could lay stones and hammer pegs and nails with keen-eyed skill. He already owned scores of those.
Baraezym and Jivin knew something else: Dyre was smarter than he liked to appear and had been testing them with deliberate ledger errors and casually “forgotten” coins left in coffers here and strongboxes there. He’d been watching to see if they’d keep even a single copper nib for themselves.
Like a storm wind or Mount Waterdeep, Varandros Dyre loomed up fierce and unyielding. Just now, he’d lifted his snout sharply to gaze down the crowded street, toward the distant scaffolding that was their destination.
“What boar-buttock-brained idiot braced that mess?” he snapped, rounding on them as if his two apprentices were personally responsible for the sloppy lashings. Without waiting for replies, he whirled around and set off at a speed that forced them to trot to keep up.
“Baraezym!” he growled, over his shoulder. “Tell Jivin what’s wrong with that scaffolding!”
The older apprentice peered. “Uh, broken boards … loose lashings.” He frowned. “It looks almost as if it fell down, or came close to, then got dragged back up into place with ropes and braced with a few boards. Everything’s …”
Baraezym flung up both hands, as if his fingers could snatch the words he wanted from empty air. He succeeded only in knocking a hat off the head of a hurrying sailor on his right and unintentionally slapping the cheek of a heavily cloaked woman on his left.
The sailor cursed as he leaned and snatched his hat out of the air before it could fall and be lost. The woman spun around to lessen the force of Baraezym’s blow and said huskily, “Hey, there! I charge good coin for that, y’know!”
Baraezym’s stammered apologies were lost in his own hurried pursuit of his master, and in Dyre’s fiercely approving, “Exactly! Yon work’s sagged and been hauled back into place, rather than rebuilt properly! Oh, heads are going to roll!”
The master of Dyre’s Fine Walls and Dwellings stopped dead in mid-stride, so suddenly that Jivin nearly slammed into him. The Shark was staring up, but barely had time to gape before broken boards came tumbling down through the air. Trailing a startled shout, a workman plunged after them.
From high above Redcloak Lane the man fell, mallet tumbling, and disappeared behind the crowd filling the street with their hand-carts and shoulder-perched baskets.
The crash and clatter was surprisingly loud, and heads turned all over Redcloak Lane. Varandros Dyre was already racing through the gawkers, spitting a stream of unfinished, crowded-atop-each-other curses. When he fetched up against a close-harnessed team of three mules, it was the mules that were brought to a rocking halt.
They burst free of the press of bodies to find Dyre in the midst of a ring of workers, grimly promising a groaning man at their feet his healing would be paid for, every last shard and dragon of it. The man smiled, nodded, and promptly slipped into senselessness.
Varandros Dyre looked up with a black storm brewing in his eyes. He gave the grizzle-bearded carpenter a glare that should have spat lightning.
“D’you call that scaffolding, Marlus? For once I trust you to raise woodworks alone, just once, and you—”
“ ’Twas nobles again!” a worker burst out. “Young louts with bright cloaks and blades! Playing at being swordsmen! They had our works that side right down, an’ chased us with swords and tried to burn the place down, too! This side just slumped ‘n’ hung, and we spent so much time getting the other up again …”
Dyre’s eyes never left those of the carpenter. “Is this true?” he asked quietly.
Marlus nodded, his own anger red and clear on his face. “Every word! Glue ruined, boards broken, everything thrown down, and they laughed at us and tried to sword us, like we were little goblins running about for their amusement!”
Jivin waited almost eagerly for the explosion. The Shark was, he thought, more terrifying when he was calm and quiet.
“And the Watch? Did they happen along, perchance?”
“They did,” Marlus said heavily, “and broke it up. If they hadn’t, we’d never have got the fires out.”
“And they took our happy noble lads where?”
“Nowhere,” another worker said sourly. “They let ’em all go. Oh, the Watchcaptain was as cold as winter ice, but they went free, for all that.”
“I see,” Dyre murmured, strolling forward into the building site as if idly enjoying a walk across a flower-meadow. Hands clasped behind his back, he ambled through shavings, scorch-marks, and hastily restacked lumber.
“Mark me, Jivin,” he said softly and suddenly, never turning to check if his younger apprentice was right behind him or seeming to care that a ring of men were moving as if glued to his shoulders, intent on his every breath. “Mark me: this is the last time a pack of noble pups will sport with my hard-working men. Young idiots, too coin-heavy to work and too stupid and bone-idle to think of worthwhile spendings of their time … so they work mischief with Varandros Dyre, and cost me coin. Oh yes, this is enough, and more than enough.”
Baraezym and Jivin exchanged unhappy glances, silently and instantly agreed on one thing: they feared this dangerously calm and quiet Varandros Dyre far more than the loudly authoritarian one.
Dyre’s boot struck against something sharp amid the shavings. He bent and plucked up a slender, finely made dagger. Its pommel was shaped like a spear point transfixing a star, and on both sides of the spear-blade was a complicated monogram of curlicues and interlaced letters.
Varandros Dyre was neither herald nor calligrapher, but he was a master at looking past fancy trimmings to what lay beneath. “M-K,” he murmured, and raised both of his eyebrows as he looked slowly around at his silent, gathered workers. “This belongs to none of you, I trust?”
There was a general rumble of denial, but it was hardly necessary. No one among them could afford so costly a weapon, and none were foolish enough to carry a dagger that could have tumbled from the pages of some fancy tome of heraldry. The shaped hilt was clearly adapted from the proud device of some house or other.
And proud houses could be traced.
Varandros Dyre smiled, slowly and unpleasantly. For the very first time in his life, Jivin did not envy the nobility.
CHAPTER THREE
‘It goes against my sacred beliefs,” Golskyn said sternly, “to waste good money and evil monsters.”
Wrapped in his long, deep-hooded cloak, the old priest was striding along the docks at a pace Mrelder, though taller, was hard-pressed to match. His father had stepped off a ship from Chult only a few breaths ago but had already found a dozen ways to express disdain for Mrelder’s plans.
“There’ll be no waste!” the younger man protested. “I’ve studied sahuagin for over a year and read all the known lore. I’ve been trying spells—”
“Trying spells!” the priest echoed scornfully. “Better you should approach the most fearful gods known to man and monster and in holy fervor demand what you desire.”
“I’m no priest!”
“As well I know! You had to be a wizard, mucking about with bat dung and bad poetry!”
The young man repressed a sigh. “No wizard, either. I’m a sorcerer, Father.”
“The whim of the gods at your birthing, nothing to boast about. A man is what he makes of himself, and you are still no different from the boy who turned tail and fled ten years ago!”
Mrelder looked around for something—other than his own shortcomings—that might capture Golskyn’s attention. “Look, Father! See yon colossus standing sentry on the mountain? ’Tis one of the famous Walking Statues of Waterdeep. When I was last here, it looked like a gigantic man. In honor of the victory over the sahuagin and as a warning to other would-be invaders, Waterdeep’s archmage re-fashioned it into a sahuagin.”
The priest nodded approvingly. “Man into monster. Perhaps I might find common cause with this archmage of yours.”
Golskyn and Khelben Arunsun together. The thought left Mrelder unsure whether to laugh or shudder.
Spying the guild badge he’d been looking for, he hailed a passing carter and gave instructions for his father’s strongchests to be delivered to their house.
The former rooming house wasn’t far off. It had been secretly purchased by the Amalgamation Temple almost a year ago, after Mrelder had convinced Golskyn to turn his attention to the fabled City of Splendors. Several Temple followers had been living there for months preparing for this day.
His father set off after the cart without another word, leaving his son to hasten behind. The dockside streets were their usual crowded chaos, but Golskyn dodged as adroitly as any seasoned Dock Warder, his hood moving like the beak of a crow as he peered this way and that. Mrelder had no need to look inside it to know that his father’s face would be as calm and set as old stone.
Mrelder often wondered what Lord Unity of the Amalgamation was thinking behind that stonelike mask. It was unlikely to be anything gentle, caring, or merciful. His father never had time to waste on such weaknesses.
The last of the strongchests was vanishing inside the rooming house as they arrived. A tall man, close-wrapped in a cloak, barred their way at the door. He was unremarkable but for the breadth of his shoulders and the girth of his chest; when he squared himself, he almost filled the doorway.
This sentinel gave Golskyn and Mrelder a glance, and his eyes, of a gray so pale it was almost silver, took on a reverent gleam. Quickly ushering them in, he shut and barred the door and then bowed low to Golskyn.
“Lord Unity,” he murmured, “we’ve long awaited your arrival. You’re well, I trust? ”
“I am better,” Golskyn said meaningfully. Sweeping back his hood, he touched the black patch covering his left eye. “You have learned well, Hoth. Your work is excellent. The grafts were a great success, as always.” He gave Mrelder a sidelong glance and added, “With minor exceptions.”
The big man bowed again. “I am gratified.”
“And perhaps curious?” the priest asked slyly. He removed the patch, revealing a bulging crimson orb. His mismatched gaze swept the room and settled on a small table set with a light welcoming meal: fresh bread, a cold joint, a bowl of summer berries and a smaller bowl of clotted cream.
“Fresh jam would be a pleasant addition,” Golskyn commented. The red orb glowed—and a thin crimson beam erupted from his eye.
A flash more fleeting than lightning erupted from the berries and left th
em at a seething boil.
Hoth exclaimed in delight. His cloak parted as the three pairs of arms that had been folded neatly across his chest and belly rose to applaud.
“You’ve achieved remarkable control,” he said proudly.
“It was hard-won. Mastering a beholder’s eye is no easy task.” Golskyn turned to Mrelder. “Hear me well: what you propose will be nearly as difficult.”
“I’m ready,” his son insisted.
“So you’ve said, time and again. How many times should precious seed be sewn in soil too weak to see it sprout?”
Rage rose in Mrelder, almost choking him. He turned away quickly to hide his anger and made the movement into a doffing of his cloak. A hunchbacked mongrelman whose warty, toadlike head was topped by an improbable pair of fox ears stepped out of a doorway and padded silently forward to take the garment.
“Before you dismiss my notion, Father,” he said, “come see the sahuagin.” Stepping into an archway that pierced a very thick wall, Mrelder pressed the right two stones and swung open the door hidden in one side of the arch.
Wordlessly Hoth held out a lit lantern. Mrelder took it with a nod of thanks and led the way down a steep stair. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and stone.
The descending way soon started to spiral, going as deep as two buildings atop each other, until it ended in a room that had lain dark and forgotten beneath the rooming house and, more than likely, several buildings earlier.
It was dark no longer. Hanging lanterns glimmered in a chamber large enough for more than twenty men to dwell in spacious comfort. A dozen mongrelmen awaited them, wearing the dark cloaks of acolytes of the Amalgamation.
Their reverent gazes followed Lord Unity as he strode slowly around the room, expressionlessly examining cages, metal-topped tables, shelves of weapons and tools and racked glass vials, and even small floor-drains underfoot that emptied into yet deeper places.
“We found this while digging the tunnel from Redcloak Lane,” Mrelder said proudly. “There are two ways in: the stair we’ve just taken and a tunnel yonder. I trust it will serve you and Hoth well for the holy work ahead.” Slapping the nearest wall, he added, “Private and defensible, these walls are more than three feet thick, of solid stone, with the streets of Waterdeep a long way above our heads.”