The City of Splendors

by Ed Greenwood

  So large was that room that it should not have been able to fit inside the neighborhood, let alone the slender girth of Blackstaff Tower—yet most of it was occupied by a gigantic stone head that any Waterdhavian would know at a glance as belonging to one of the Walking Statues of Waterdeep. Mirt knew Khelben was “bringing them all in” this month to augment their enchantments, but couldn’t identify any of the strangeness in the air around the head as more than just “powerful magic.”

  There were glowing golden lines of force, now drifting slowly to the floor. Along and above some of them were elaborate runes and words, written in flowing script on the empty air, and here and there Mirt could even see tiny gemstones and winking motes of light orbiting a few of the sigils. It looked like hours of work to him … and by the expression adorning the Blackstaff’s face, probably was.

  From somewhere down near her boots the guard-prentice found her voice. It emerged quavering dangerously, but quite loud enough. “S-sorry, Lord Master. I bring Elminster, who craves audience with you.”

  The exhaustion, loss, and rage warring on Khelben’s face twisted into something like incredulity. “That’s not Elminster! Idiot lass! He’s not nearly so handsome!”

  The apprentice recoiled from her master’s anger but glanced helplessly at the fat, spiderweb-covered bulk of Mirt. Her face changed. She struggled again for a moment, as if she was going to choke anew, and then burst into helpless giggles.

  With the last of his great web of spells crashing soundlessly to the floor behind him, Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun clasped his hands behind his back, gave his helpless apprentice a disgusted look, and swung his glare back to Mirt.

  “Well, whatever do you want?”

  Mrelder nodded thanks to the wench as she set down the latest round of ale.

  The dozen men in the booth with him—apprentices, daycoin-men, and hireswords, strangers all—took up the tankards and drank deeply.

  His offer of a free highsun meal with drink had bought him their time, and a few sly hints about a rich, fat, easily plucked pigeon of a merchant had won their close attention.

  The theft he was hiring them for was pure fancy, of course. The men in the booth would probably always wonder how the plot had unraveled but would have no doubts about the fate of the man who’d hired them—or rather, the man whose face Mrelder currently wore. That unfortunate would be found dead in an alley before nightfall. Golskyn’s mongrelmen would make sure of it.

  Mrelder set down his tankard and tried not to be seen scratching. His father’s spells had reattached his arm, but the fingers always felt numb, now, and the rest of it itched damnably. “Our time draws to a close. Questions?”

  “What of the Watch?” asked a sell-sword.

  The disguised sorcerer put on a grim face. “Greater concerns ride them than what we offer.”

  Uneasy glances were exchanged. “There’s trouble in the city?”

  “Trouble enough,” Mrelder told them. “ ’Tis whispered Lord Piergeiron’s passed into the Halls of Tempus.”

  “The Open Lord, dead?” someone gasped incredulously.

  His neighbor gave him a sharp elbow. “How else d’ye get there, fool? And when the answer comes, try not to shout it quite so loud!”

  “Aye,” Mrelder said in a grim whisper. “The Lords’re keeping it secret. Until they let it be known, I’d be taking it as a favor if you’d keep it secret too.”

  Every one of the dozen grunted agreement, but every last one of them drained their tankards in haste and looked to him for dismissal. Mrelder doubted their eagerness to depart came from any desire to return to work. He waved them away, hiding his smile with his ale.

  By day’s end, Dock Ward would be buzzing with the rumor of Piergeiron’s death.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A trio of revel-bound matrons bustled past Lark, their feathered cloaks aswirl in the evening breeze. Self-satisfied confidence wafted from them like perfume—never mind that they resembled a gaggle of fattened geese. Lark batted away an errant feather and fought down a moment of panic.

  “Gods going sideways,” she murmured under her breath. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

  Stars twinkled over elegant Sea Ward, and the night air was turning cool. Lark had surreptitiously tossed her old cloak over one of the ornamental spires adorning a grand railing two blocks back, and the breeze ghosting past her bared shoulders made her shiver.

  She suppressed an urge to tug at the low-cut bodice. Faendra’s gown was absent from much of her upperworks and clung to her hips as if it was dripping wet. Lark had never stepped out of doors in such scant garb, nor, for that matter, had her mother. This was a strange city, to be sure, where fine ladies showed the world more flesh than Luskan’s dockside whores!

  But then, Lark thought cynically, judging by the gems on lavish display around her, these noblewomen got a better price for their … wares.

  Jewels sparkled in the night as women—and men, for that matter—alighted from gilded coaches. They swept down the street toward Westwind Villa in a grand promenade to the strains of hired minstrelsy.

  Strolling with them but feeling very alone, Lark kept her head high and looked at no one. The gazes of the villa guards, standing silently in their dark finery on every step, felt heavy and suspicious. She reminded herself not to look too closely at them as she ascended the broad white marble steps. Nobles seldom noticed those who served.

  Don’t hurry. Hold your gown up as if you’re used to doing it, and DON’T HURRY. Only a few steps more.

  At the head of the stair, tall and many-paneled doors stood open to reveal golden light and revelry beyond. She could hear the announcements now over a rising hubbub of chatter and mirth.

  “Lord and Lady Gauntyl,” the doorwarden declaimed haughtily. Everyone ascended another step. She was the only one climbing the steps alone. Lark swallowed hard.

  “Lord and Lady Thongolir,” the warden said grandly.

  Another step. Lark reminded herself that the Texter had thought she was worth the price of her freedom and good enough to serve him still, in the small, secret way hidden beneath her belt, inside her gown.

  “Lord Ulboth Tchazzam, and the Lone Lady Carina Tchazzam,” the doorwarden announced, his voice rolling out into the vast, growing din of revelry. Ah. They’d be brother and sister, not a couple.

  One of the guards on the topmost step was peering at her suspiciously. Oh, Lady Luck, be with me now!

  Lark forced herself to raise her chin a trifle more and kept her eyes cool and the faint half-smile she’d learned so long ago on her lips.

  “Lord and Lady Manthar.”

  Then she was on the top step, and the doorwarden was giving her a faint frown.

  She turned her head just far enough to give him her half-smile and murmured, “Lady Evenmoon, of the Evenmoons of Tashluta.” That should be far enough away that she wouldn’t have to fear dozens of Tashlutans loudly proclaiming her an impostor, and it certainly sounded better than: A tavern wench from Luskan, daughter of a dockside trull, in a borrowed gown.

  There was a moment of silence as the doorwarden traded glances with two men in lace-wristed finery inside the great door—men a head taller than most.

  Oh, gods! Should she’ve said “I am expected,” or mentioned Craulnober’s name? Should she—

  “Lady Evenmoon, of the Evenmoons of Tashluta,” the doorwarden proclaimed, raising his grand voice just a trifle to give it a thread of excitement: A guest from afar!

  A few heads turned amid the glittering chaos of elegant men and women standing talking amid deftly drifting servants with trays of tallglasses, but the overall din continued unabated.

  Lady Lark Evenmoon of Tashluta let fall the hem of her gown with an elegant flick of her wrist and strode forward across gleaming emptiness toward those suddenly much needed drinks as haughtily and as gracefully as if she’d been doing it all her life.

  “Korvaun’s coming, surely?” frowned Beldar, surveying the glitte
ring throng.

  “He sent a servant with his regrets. Family business, apparently,” Taeros murmured. “An odd excuse for a younger son whose proper business is carousing with his friends and tempting his parents to disown him. I’ve been threatened with that very fate thrice this tenday.”

  “Only thrice?” Beldar struck a pose and examined his fingernails as haughtily as an undefeated swordmaster. “Then my record, goodsir, stands.”

  Taeros smirked. “I’ll continue my quest to unseat you, of course, but if our Korvaun continues to display such unseemly responsibility, he may take himself out of the fray entirely.”

  “Tragic,” Malark declaimed, on the edge of mock tears. “Simply tragic. Just the three of us then.” He rolled his eyes. “How shall we console our lonely selves?”

  “In the usual manner, I expect,” Beldar observed dryly. “Now remember, my gallant Gemcloaks: utter nothing about our host that you’d not say to his face. He’s doubtless using one of those spells that lets you hear your name spoken, what words are said with it, and any reply.”

  Malark’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ll curse him inwardly then. What’s he throwing this hurlygowns-prance for, anyway? To show us all he has spare coins enough to rent a villa just for a fling? Or to remind us all what jaded lowlife dogs we all are, that he can jerk the leash and we’ll come running in hopes we’ll see the infamous Serpent do something infamous?”

  “My guess,” Taeros Hawkwinter told the backs of his fingers confidentially, as he inspected them for missed blotches of ink, “is that the far-traveled Lord Craulnober wants to show himself once more on the social ramparts of Waterdeep, to remind the, ah, darkest such ramparts that should they feel the need to hire someone to do something a little shady, he’s … right here. Handy, as it were.”

  “Chatoyant,” Beldar said grandly. “Simply chatoyant. Let’s make our grand entrance before all the best wine’s gone.”

  “So of course I told him to get on his horse and ride right back to Myratma—and take his hairy-rumped harem with him, too!”

  Men guffawed and wheezed, and women tittered far too loudly and threw their heads back to let the conjured glowflames catch the full dazzle of the gems dripping from their earlobes and around their throats. Lark deftly slid her shoulder out from under an idly reaching hand.

  “By Tempus, you take the maiden, Braerard! Fancy some dirt-neck from Tethyr thinking he can just ride through our gates and start acting as if he owned the place! Does he think we give two thin nibs if he calls himself a ‘duke,’ or some such? They’ll be rolling in here calling themselves ‘emperors,’ next!”

  Lark smiled absently at nothing at all and drifted on, trying not to look as if she was in any haste. More than one servant had already given her a puzzled look—as if they’d seen her before but couldn’t quite place where. In Waterdeep, that could lead to a cry of “thief.” She certainly wasn’t the first person to come to a revel uninvited for purposes other than dancing and boasting.

  Sun on the Mountain, but these old men thought well themselves! Judging by all the red faces and quivering jowls and—and wattles, most of them seemed to have mastered eating long ago, but judging from their vapid, vainglorious chatter, not much else.

  Their gossip was a trifle more interesting than servants’ talk, but of course that was because she wasn’t familiar with most of the names and little catch-phrases yet. It didn’t sound much subtler or grander than the boastful backstairs talk she was accustomed to.

  “Brokengulf?” someone roared drunkenly. “Is that you?”

  “Aye, what’s left of me!” came the equally sodden response.

  That jest, Lark thought sourly, was nearly as old as the man using it.

  Come to think on it, there weren’t a lot of young nobles here, beyond a few girls trailing their mothers around like pale-faced, gem-drenched lapdogs. As yet Lark had seen no sign of the handsome Elaith Craulnober—or any elves for that matter, moon or otherwise.

  Suddenly Lark froze. Across a glittering expanse of flashing, winking gemstones displayed by women who apparently believed no one should be seen in public wearing less than half her own weight in gaudy jewelry, she saw three of the Gemcloaks absently taking tallglasses and crowns of smoked mussels off passing platters as they strolled together. They looked uniformly bored.

  In that boredom lay danger; they’d be looking around for something to amuse themselves. Lark faded a few steps to the left to hide herself behind someone, and so brought herself into the lee of two red-faced, bristle-mustached old patriarchs in full spittle-spraying career. Lost in their jovial roarings, they were both clutching huge goblets in each hand and flicking flash-snuff rings all too often. Through the resulting threads of smoke they peered at her, leered in unison, and reached out together (transferring their goblets to one hand with a deftness that bespoke long practice), intent upon fondling the newcomer.

  Lark stepped out of reach, seized with a wild urge to snatch those four goblets, empty them over the dyed and powdered coiffures of their owners, and then use the massive metal cups to do a little fondling of her own—hard, and where it would hurt.

  The two promptly forgot her. “Scared?” one of them bellowed. “By Bane, sir, we were! Guides didn’t last two breaths before they were off like spring rabbits, shrieking like a lot of gels seeing Piergeiron in the baths! Second night out, and us left alone, with all our food and kit gone with ’em! That’s when we found the tracks, of course! And the blood!”

  “Dragon?”

  “Dragons. Three of ’em, at least! Big ones. Talons as long as my arm, and—”

  Someone was grinning at her around a dragonslaying elbow. Lark blinked and then swallowed again.

  It was the redbearded Lord Kothont. Malark, that was his name. His eyes were shining almost as brightly as his emerald cloak.

  “Well, well! You do look familiar, Lady—?”

  “Battle-axe,” Lark told him smoothly. “Old Lady Battle-axe.”

  Malark’s eyes twinkled. “Am I to take it that both edges of your tongue are as sharp as the weapon you refer to?”

  “You may take it elsewhere, my lord,” Lark told the back of her hand airily. “I give you fair warning—I’ve been told betimes that my knee is as sharp and as swift as any weapon you might care to name.”

  “Ho ho!” Malark chuckled, genuinely amused. “I take great care in naming my weapons, to be sure, but I like even more the names friendly ladies give them.”

  Lark gave him a very direct stare and murmured, “So go to your friendly ladies and collect some new names. I fear you’ll acquire nothing so useful from me.” She let him see a twinkle in her gaze to go with her bright and brittle smile to leave him nothing to flare into anger over.

  Yet it seemed Lord Kothont was far from anger. He saluted her with something that might have been admiration in his eyes and cocked his head to give her an almost fond smile. “You offer rare sport, My Lady Battle-axe. I look forward to renewing our converse at revels to come—many of them, I hope—yet it seems your desires lie elsewhere this night.”

  “You should presume nothing as to my desires,” she said coolly. “They are not one whit as obvious as you deem them to be.”

  She lifted her chin and stared him down, prompted by a surge of pride beyond anything she’d known before. She would not run from this man or any other. It was essential that she stand her ground, that it would be he who moved away.

  Malark laughed almost as if he knew that too, gave her a wave of his hand, and strolled off—leaving Lark suddenly aware of two bloodshot, rather frowning gazes.

  “You’re not Lady Battle-axe,” Old Dragonslayer said accusingly. “Rode her back in oh-six. Impudent young wetbottom.”

  The two old warriors then turned their backs on her, leaving Lark wondering if they meant she was impudent—which seemed most likely—or Lady Battle-axe had been, back in oh-six. 1306? Gods above!

  Suddenly in great need of a drink, Lark headed for the nearest platter. The li
veried, carefully expressionless servant bearing it would have orders to circle back to wherever the pouring-pantry was when less than a fifth of the drinkables were left, and his load was approaching that now.

  Her progress was halted abruptly by a familiar, dark-eyed gaze. Beldar Roaringhorn had lifted his head from the excited gabble of a green-haired matron—Sune look away, WHERE do these women get such dyes? Or the blind idiocy to think such hues flatter them?—to stare right at her.

  She froze for a moment, and then realized she dare not show such a reaction. She forced herself to stroll casually forward and claim a glass from the tray. Sipping at the wine, Lark stole a glance at the Roaringhorn lordling. Yes, he was still looking her way.

  So was Lord Hawkwinter—Taeros—standing at Beldar’s shoulder, but Lark realized their regard held nothing more threatening than mild interest. There was no hint of recognition on either face, even though Beldar had met her twice before, under circumstances she considered memorable.

  She let out a small sigh of relief. They were probably among the legions of nobles who didn’t look closely at female servants who weren’t thrusting bared charms under their noses. As a “noble guest,” she was apparently worthy of closer scrutiny. Moreover, she was their age, and if no buxom beauty, a “stranger from afar” offered some small novelty.

  Despite her tense nervousness, Lark understood their boredom. If this was what nobles did at revels, ’twas hardly better than the interminable orations of the worst opinionated windbag merchants who came around the shops—and those men at least had work to do that would eventually call them away, and their blustering and whinings with them.

  Malark Kothont was well on his way back to rejoin his friends, and Lark decided it would be very much for the best if she was no longer in view when he reached them. Any comment about the young lass with the delightfully sharp tongue would draw attention she’d rather avoid.