The City of Splendors

by Ed Greenwood

  My son. Mrelder turned away to hide his blushing smile. He’d never thought to hear those words spoken so casually, much less with something approaching pride. He’d felt such happiness only once before, but then it had been Lord Piergeiron who’d looked on him with warmth and called him friend.

  The sorcerer put that fond memory firmly out of his mind and strode across the room to his clothes. It was time to go out and spread dissent and destruction in Lord Piergeiron’s Waterdeep.

  The guards on the Palace steps gave Mrelder hard, steady stares, but let him pass.

  The guards inside challenged him, and no wonder. The mists weren’t off the harbor yet; it was early indeed to have honest business at the Palace.

  However, it seemed the polite note he’d sent Piergeiron yestereve, mentioning his own arrival in Waterdeep and inquiring after the First Lord’s health, had done its work well. Merely giving his name had the guards nodding respectfully and waving him toward a servant in a fine tabard.

  “The First Lord bids you welcome and wishes Waterdeep had more friends of your mettle,” that man said approvingly, as he waved Mrelder smoothly through a door that looked like most of the others in that long, lofty hall.

  Morningfeast for Piergeiron was evidently a hearty serve-yourself affair. Steam was rising from platters on a sideboard, where about a dozen grandly dressed, important looking men with serious, frowning faces were forking sausages and smoked silverfin into wooden bowls, and plucking boiled eggs out of a sea of spiced butter. They looked as if they were expecting grim doom to strike them down before highsun, and had little desire to meet it with empty bellies.

  The First Lord looked up from a stack of papers a clerk had just put in front of him, smiled broadly, and waved Mrelder to the sideboard.

  Mredler grinned back. Whatever his father’s intended dooms for Waterdeep or anyone who stood in his way—and the First Lord of Waterdeep could hardly help but do that—he found it impossible to dislike this man.

  “We can talk soon,” Piergeiron promised, taking a quill the clerk was already holding out to him.

  The son of Lord Unity joined the men at the sideboard, who all gave him silent “And you are—?” frowns. He found himself nose to nose with sleepy-eyed City Guard officers, a few softly gliding courtiers, and several grumpy looking Watchful Order wizards.

  Mrelder’s stomach rumbled. Several of the guardsmen were heaping their bowls to precarious heights, so he didn’t stint in filling his own, ere he sat with the others at the long table. He had the far end from Piergeiron, of course, but as he dug into fried mushrooms dripping with some sort of sauce and gratefully received a drinking-jack of warmed zzar from a deft servant, he gathered from the speed with which the others were eating that they’d soon be out the doors to their duties.

  So it proved, and Mrelder was just sitting back from his last few sausages with a sigh of contentment—gods of Amalgamation, it’d been years since he’d eaten this well!—when the oldest-looking wizard sat down right beside him and asked quietly, “And you are—?”

  “Mrelder. I—”

  “Fought beside the Lord Piergeiron in defense of the city, and are his personal friend, yes,” the wizard said smoothly, his dark old eyes keen and bright. “Perhaps I should have added the words, ‘here for’ to my question, thus: And you are here for—?”

  “Ah, to thank the Lord for his advice, and tell him I found my father, just as he suggested. And to give him a gift.”

  “Aha. What sort of a gift?” Two rings on the wizard’s fingers winked into life.

  Mrelder had expected this but put a puzzled frown on his face as he dug into his belt pouch. Retrieving the small copper coin he and two Amalgamation acolytes had done so much hasty work on, he put it on the table.

  The mage peered at it suspiciously. Its origins were evident if one examined it closely enough, but it now had the shape of a small copper shield bearing, in an arc, the words: “All Perils Defeated.”

  The wizard held a hand above the badge. A third ring kindled into life, and he gave Mrelder an unfriendly look. Taking up a fork left behind in someone’s bowl, he carefully turned the little shield over and read aloud its obverse: “To the Open Lord of Waterdeep, in deepest respect, from admirers at Candlekeep.”

  “Fine folk, all! Well met, friend Mrelder!”

  The sorcerer sprang up to greet his host. Piergeiron, it seemed, could move as silently as a cat when he wanted to. They grasped sword-forearms, in the greeting of one trusted warrior to another.

  “You found your father?”

  Gods, he remembered!

  Mrelder found himself grinning widely. “Yes, Lord, and I wanted to thank you in person for your advice. We’re reconciled.”

  In our own manner, at least.

  “Good! Good! So what’s got Tarthus here so suspicious?”

  “I—I’m afraid I was bold enough, Lord, to bring you a gift, on behalf of all who came from Candlekeep to fight for you that day. We’d be honored—”

  “As will I!” Piergeiron said heartily.

  “There’re no spells on it, Lord,” the mage murmured, “but prudence demands …”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Mrelder carefully kept all trace of a smile off his face. Not a spell, but a spell focus, by which Mrelder, who’d so painstakingly engraved the cruder of the two messages it bore, could with a swift spell of his own easily track Piergeiron’s whereabouts.

  The Open Lord took up the shield and admired it with pure, simple pleasure. “All Perils Defeated, eh? I wish I could measure up to that. Still, let it be my goal and be ever with me.” He turned it in his palm. “Made from a copper piece. Clever.” He fixed Mrelder with that disconcertingly direct gaze and said simply, “Thank you. This is a princely gift.”

  Mrelder knew he was blushing. Boldly, before he lost his nerve and the chance, he stood up, took the little badge from the Open Lord of Waterdeep, and went down the table to where Piergeiron’s war-helm sat, holding down stacks of papers still awaiting the Paladin’s signature.

  Slipping the point of the shield firmly under the edge of the brow-guard that surmounted the helm’s eye-slits, he settled it in place, centered over the nose guard. “There!”

  Piergeiron grinned again. “Now, that I shall be proud to wear.” His grin faded. “Though hopefully not soon. Waterdeep enjoys a hard-won peace.”

  Mrelder put the helm down carefully and came back down the table, aware of the wizard’s thoughtful scrutiny. Tarthus had doubtless noticed the spell of binding Mrelder had cast on the shield earlier, to keep it affixed wherever it was put. No matter: There was no magic more harmless.

  “Peace is always my hope, too,” the young sorcerer said quietly, “yet strangely, Lord, the mood in the city now seems darker than when folk were fighting beasts from the sea. If I may speak bluntly: I’ve been in cities in the South where unrest was strong, and this has the same feel.”

  Piergeiron nodded. “You see and speak truth, lad.” He strode back down the table, frowning. “Waterdhavians work together against clear peril,” he added slowly, “but not in times of prosperity.”

  Mrelder spread his hands. “Why not remind citizens that in the thrust and parry of trade, Waterdeep is in one sense always at war? Some folk only see a battle when blades are bared and blood flows.”

  Tarthus was frowning at Mrelder now, too. “What sort of reminder?”

  Keeping his eyes on Piergeiron, Mrelder waved at the war-helm.

  “Put on your armor. Be seen only clad in battle-steel, sword at your side, awakening not fear but remembrances of victories and sacrifices—a rebuke to those distracted by foolish trifles and an reminder to all of the precious cost of what they enjoy.”

  “You,” Piergeiron replied slowly, “are a lad no longer, but well on your way to being a graybearded sage.”

  He strode to where he could snatch up his helm and did so, smiling at its gleaming curves. “I’ve always preferred honest battle-steel, even with its he
at and discomfort, to walking about in whatever foppish nonsense is currently in fashion.”

  Mrelder nodded. “Folk know you in your armor, and it’s probably best if you’re seen and recognized all over the city. I heard more than a little unhappy talk in Dock Ward this morn that you were dead or gone from Waterdeep, and tax collectors were inventing their own orders and charges in your name.” He spread his hands. “We of Candlekeep have a proverb: If a thing is said often enough, fools aplenty will believe it to be true.”

  The First Lord and his wizard exchanged a quick glance. “Graybeard indeed,” murmured Piergeiron.

  Tarthus drew his cloak around himself. The wind on the high balcony was, as usual, as cold as a knife blade. Piergeiron had stopped looking at the new badge on his helm at last, and was gazing out over the city. The wizard kept silent, waiting for what he knew would come.

  “Well, Tarthus?”

  “Some things the lad kept from you. I doubt his meeting with his father went as well as he wanted you to believe.”

  Piergeiron sighed. “Hardly unusual, I’m afraid, and tells us nothing sinister about young Mrelder. So they’re saying I’m dead again, are they?”

  Tarthus had been the Open Lord’s spell-guard for a long time, but he was still a senior Watchful Order member and kept himself well informed. “Though it seemed a rather heavy-handed urging on the lad’s part, he spoke truth. They are saying you’re dead down on the docks, and of course, that all manner of villains and impostors are signing your name to decrees and running the city just as they see fit.”

  Piergeiron’s smile was wintry. “Who would these villains and impostors be?”

  “We of the Castle. Every last belted noble in every last mansion and crypt in the city. The secret cabal of wizards who’ve ruled Waterdeep these past three eons. Dragons using spells to take the faces of humans. A legion comprised solely of Elminster’s bastard offspring. Take thy pick.”

  The Open Lord of Waterdeep sighed and clapped his war-helm onto his head. “None of those, thanks. Let’s go find my armor, and you can check it for sinister spells, too.”

  “Of course, Lord,” the wizard replied calmly. “Someone may have cast some since I last checked it, yestermorn.”

  The door thudded sullenly against the wall of Varandros Dyre’s new meeting chamber, and a sleepy-eyed Karrak Lhamphur lurched into the room.

  “You’re late,” Jarago Whaelshod growled. “My working day begins three bells before dawn, not one.”

  “Work a little harder, so as to enjoy the successes I have,” Karrak Lhamphur flung back, “and you can sleep in just as late as I do!”

  Whaelshod grumbled wordlessly, turned his heavy-lidded gaze to their host, and barked, “Well? We had to wait until this sluggard got here for what, exactly?”

  Varandros Dyre looked less than bright-eyed himself this morning. “Two buildings collapsed last night,” he said grimly.

  Lhamphur frowned. “You’re blaming those on the Lords and nobles? I doubt they even know what holds buildings up, let alone what makes them fall down! That’s why they hire the likes of us, no?”

  “They didn’t hire me to dig tunnels that aren’t on my maps,” Dyre snapped back, “and how else d’you think the collapses occurred? Both buildings fell into something.”

  “Like a pit that shouldn’t have been there,” Hasmur Ghaunt put in nervously.

  Dorn Imdrael drank the last of his steaming broth and waved his tankard. “Thanks for this, Var. It’s hard for a man to think on an empty stomach.”

  Turning to Whaelshod and Lhamphur, he pointedly eyed their still full mugs and asked quietly, “Who else could pay for a tunnel without the rest of us knowing about it? Or do the digging, without all the city gossiping about it? There’s a warehouse by the docks full of dirt up to the rafters. Doubtless it’s where someone stored what they dug out of a secret tunnel—and I can’t believe the Watch and the Guard and the Watchful Order are all such idiots they don’t notice when something like that’s going on. No, Var’s right: the Lords are to blame for this.”

  “Well said,” Ghaunt agreed hastily, looking at Varandros.

  Dyre bared teeth in what might have been a smile. “Thank you, Dorn. I say again: we must learn who wears the Lords’ masks … and one way or another, see that the real incompetents among them get replaced.”

  “ ‘One way or another’?” Imdrael echoed. “Var, we must be very careful. Even if we do nothing that makes anyone decide to put a blade through us, we’d be wise to remember that old saying about toes.”

  Jarago Whaelshod scowled, in no mood to play games this morning. “What old saying?”

  “Be careful which toes you step on now, lest they be connected to the arse you must kiss on the morrow.”

  Karrak Lhamphur waved away those words with an impatient hand. “How exactly do we set about learning who’s a Lord?”

  “Watch over Mirt’s Mansion from now on, to see just who comes and goes, because …”

  “I know!” Hasmur interrupted excitedly. “Because everyone knows Mirt’s a Lord!”

  Naoni silently closed the well-oiled door, turned her key in its lock with slow, exacting care, and sat down with Faendra and Lark around the broth pot. A warm, rich-smelling mist was rising from it in the chill of approaching dawn, but they left their mugs untouched, staring at each other with identical looks of dismay.

  “And so it starts,” she whispered. “Father’s striding right down the path that can take them all to their deaths.”

  “And us with them,” Lark said quietly.

  Faendra turned wide eyes on them both and asked forlornly, “So what do we do?”

  Naoni rose and began to pace, her thoughts flying. “Hasmur Ghaunt’s the one to work on. The others are much too clever. We leave them be until we’ve learned things from Ghaunt that we can ‘let slip’ to make the others think Father’s brought us into his confidence. Your task, Faen!”

  Her sister smiled sweetly, lashes fluttering over guileless blue eyes. “Dear Hasmur,” she murmured. “So very wise, so handsome—”

  “Don’t fluster him overmuch,” Lark warned, “or the poor man won’t be able to stammer a word. We need to know, as things unfold, just how far each of them is willing to go.”

  Boots thundered faintly down the stairs within, and Lark hissed, “Lean back and look sleepy!”

  They barely had time to do so ere the lock rattled and the door grated open. Jarago Whaelshod glared out suspiciously. Seeing naught but three sleepy girls huddled in their cloaks, he nodded in grim satisfaction and strode out and away down the street without a word.

  Lhamphur and Imdrael were hardly slower, though both returned their tankards with murmured thanks.

  Then Hasmur Ghaunt was blinking out at the brightening dawn. Alone. The girls exchanged glances.

  Naoni quickly slipped past Master Ghaunt and up the stairs to forestall her father’s departure for a few breaths, and Lark knelt to tend the fire. Faendra stepped to Hasmur Ghaunt’s side with an understanding smile and murmured, “I know how upsetting this must be for a man as wise as you.”

  Ghaunt blinked at her, then blushed at the thought such a lovely young lass would know something about him. Had she—no, surely not—said “wise”? He cleared his throat. “ ‘This’?”

  “This business with the Lords,” Faendra said, eyes demurely downcast. “You’ve always been the most understanding of Father’s friends. I know he trusts you more than anyone else in the New Day.”

  Her gaze lifted to Ghaunt’s face as it drained of color. “New—? How—?” he croaked.

  Faendra patted his arm, then took it and walked him a little away from the doors, snuggling against him. Trembling against her soft warmth, Hasmur Ghaunt made the mistake of looking into her blue, blue eyes and was lost.

  “Father tells us everything, since Mother died,” Faendra told him a little sadly. “I know he was worried that Whaelshod and Lhamphur didn’t believe him. Did he tell you why he thinks the Lo
rds are watching him?”

  Master Ghaunt blinked. “Y-yes. He showed us all.”

  “Showed you?”

  Faendra raised her eyebrows and turned her face to his in mute appeal, and Hasmur Ghaunt blushed vividly and stammered, “Y-you’re right: Jarago pressed him to say why he’s so sure the Lords are watching him, and Var—uh, your father, showed us a little charm he found in a tunnel near one of his worksites: A Black Helm token, of the sort Lord Piergeiron passes out as marks of his favor!”

  “In a tunnel,” Faendra echoed soothingly, looking very serious.

  “Aye—yes—err—ah, a tunnel your father swore wasn’t on any map he, a master stonemason, has access to, so …”

  “So it must be one of the secret tunnels the Lords use to keep an eye on honest men like you and Father,” Faendra breathed, her wide eyes very close to Ghaunt’s.

  He trembled in her grasp like a rabbit on the verge of fleeing. Then there was a familiar roar from behind them both, and Master Hasmur Ghaunt tore free with a high-pitched stammer of apologies and fled, gone down the street in a scampering instant.

  “Stop teasing the man, Faen!” Varandros Dyre growled, stamping up to his favorite daughter. “You’ve been making men blush like lasses since your twelfth winter, but Ghaunt has work to do, and ’tisn’t seemly, a daughter of mine reducing a grown man to gabbling, in a public street!”

  “Father,” Faendra said reproachfully. “That’s hardly fair! Master Ghaunt’s like an uncle to us. He’s the only one who has time for our jokes, and he’s polite when we—”

  “Yes, yes,” her father agreed curtly. “Now get in there and clean the place up! Mind you bar the door and keep behind it, and have the place spotless before highsun; I’ll send some of my men then to escort you home. You’re not to go traipsing around on your own. What with footpads and wandering nobles, this ward isn’t safe for young gels to be flouncing through unguarded!”

  Faendra knew when it was time to meekly agree—whatever her actual intentions might be—and give her father a quick hug and kiss. This was one such time.