The City of Splendors

by Ed Greenwood

Beldar frowned. “I’ll take you, and fight beside you as best I can, but you must understand that I’m not in full control of my actions. I might be forced to betray you.”

  The elf shrugged. “As long as you don’t expect a similar confession from me, we’re agreed.”

  Beldar’s lips twitched.

  Elaith smiled back. “Is there anything else I should know about you? ”

  “Yes,” the youngest Lord Roaringhorn said grimly. “I require your promise that you’ll kill me if I become a threat to innocent folk.”

  Elven eyebrows rose. “For a moment,” Elaith said dryly, “I feared you might ask me to do something unpleasant.”

  The ringing in Beldar’s ears became deafening … and then faded. He swam up out of darkness and pain to find himself staring into the mismatched eyes of Golskyn’s son.

  “He’s awake,” Mrelder announced flatly.

  Golskyn of the Gods bustled over, wild-eyed. Tentacles emerged from beneath his robes, curled about Beldar’s waist and arms, and yanked the noble upright.

  “Stand, as befitting Piergeiron’s heir,” the old man thundered.

  Beldar looked inquiringly at Mrelder, who seemed the saner of the two.

  “You’ve been granted an improvement because Lord Unity desires to place a puppet of the Amalgamation on the First Lord’s throne,” Mrelder said flatly. “As you’ve guessed, you won’t be able to speak of this to anyone. You’ve already seen what results from any attempt to have the magic traced or the eye removed.”

  “This one betrayal will be pardoned,” Golskyn added, “but the next will not. You destiny will soon be upon you. The gods have shown me the best time and place: Midsummer night, at the Purple Silks revel.” Tentacles reared menacingly. “Accept this destiny, here and now, or it will pass to another. Do you take my meaning?”

  The noble managed a nod. The priest dismissed him with a wave of tentacles, and Beldar all but ran from the building.

  This one betrayal, the mad priest had said. What had happened? Where was Elaith Craulnober? Had the Amalgamation managed to slay the justly feared Serpent?

  Beldar frowned, dodging through the street crowds. The shop wasn’t far ahead …

  He vaguely remembered Elaith casting a spell on him that hadn’t seemed to do anything but dull his thinking. Had it hidden his recollection of their agreement? Was The Serpent lurking, watching the monster-lovers right now?

  There’d been no battle, as far as he could recall, no grand confrontation between Elaith and Golskyn—and no sign of the half-dragon … or his recycled limbs.

  Beldar winced and shook his head. First Lord of Waterdeep? Never in all his grandest fancies had he envisioned such a future, yet this ghastly parody of his dreams wasn’t even slightly tempting.

  In a dark tunnel, Elaith wiped blood from his blade and rose, his inquiries complete. It had taken more time than he’d expected to cut the truth from the massive, six-armed man who’d fought Tincheron, but it was good news.

  Tincheron hadn’t fallen into the hands of the Amalgamation, but escaped into the sewers. Golskyn’s cultists were searching for him, but so now were Elaith’s agents; they should find the half-dragon first.

  Which meant Beldar Roaringhorn’s tormentors would outlive this day after all. Lord Unity’s spells and servitors were astonishingly strong: It had taken most of Elaith’s ready magic just to shield himself from the mad priest’s wards and seeking-spells.

  The Serpent grimaced as he sheathed his sword. No triumph, but a clean escape.

  He shrugged. Now that Tincheron’s safety was no longer an immediate concern, it would be wasteful to slay any potentially useful players just yet—especially when they had such interesting abilities and ambitions.

  Elaith smiled. Coins and power were nice, but increasingly he preferred something else: entertainment.

  And whatever befell, the Amalgamation couldn’t fail to offer that.

  There were only two customers in the Old Xoblob Shop. A pair of boys of about thirteen winters were sniggering over their anticipations of how a lass would shriek when fanged rat skulls sprouted from her Midsummer flowers. Beldar sent the lads a glare that sent them hastening out of the shop.

  Dandalus gave Beldar a level look. “Scaring off paying customers?”

  In reply, Beldar pointed at the stuffed and mounted beholder overhead. “How’d you kill Xoblob?”

  Dandalus stroked his chin. “Well now, it’s been years … haven’t minstrels sung a song or two about it?”

  “I need truth, not tavern-tales! Is there a way to destroy a single eye without slaying the creature?”

  “Aye, but you know the saying: if you’re going to sword a king, best kill him in one thrust. Beholders are much the same.”

  Beldar turned his head so as not to wound the shopkeeper and tore off his eyepatch.

  Dandalus regarded him in silence for a long time ere replying, “Aye, there’s a potion that might do what you’re after. Be warned: It’ll burn like black dragon venom, and there’s no certainty the beholder will survive his blinding.”

  “Understood,” Beldar said crisply. “How much?”

  Dandalus reached under the counter and produced a small crimson vial. “No charge. You’ve been a good customer.”

  Beldar’s smile was wry. Such an elegant farewell.

  Elaith Craulnober watched Beldar depart then turned from his hiding place among the jars of monster bits and pickled curiosities lining the shelf and slipped back through the crevice in the wall behind. Mouse-size made it easy to enter and leave many a building.

  In the adjacent alley his tiny form expanded, flowing like smoke into his normal size. He nodded to a pair of burly laborers loitering nearby, and they pushed away from the wall they’d been leaning on and ambled off, following Lord Roaringhorn until the next team took over. Folk Elaith had followed were seldom aware of their watchers.

  Beldar Roaringhorn was growing steadily more interesting. At first he’d been no more than the easiest route to reclaiming the slipshields held by the Gemcloaks, but now …

  He had tried to kill a certain notorious Serpent, but then most men—to say nothing of many elves—would do the same if given half a chance. And he was strong enough in mind and body to fight off the mind-numbing spell Elaith had cast in hope of breaking Golskyn’s hold, and to be seeking his own death right now, to win free of his Amalgamation servitude—another stupid but noble human gesture.

  It might still prove necessary to eliminate him, but Elaith liked to take the measure of those who crossed his path. Beldar Roaringhorn would be, at the very least, an interesting diversion.

  First he had to keep the young fool from killing himself.

  “Lord Roaringhorn,” he called.

  Beldar turned slowly to face him, his uncovered eye burning with cold fire. “I’ve heard elves measure time differently than men do, but is it common to wait until after a battle is over to honor an alliance?”

  Elaith let the insult pass. “Your right arm—how fares the wound you took in the tunnels?”

  The Roaringhorn stared at him for a long moment before reaching into the ornamental slashing of his upper sleeve to explore a shallow cut. His expression suggested he was just now feeling the sting of that injury.

  “When? How …?”

  “Let’s start with ‘who’ and ‘why,’ shall we? I dealt that scratch with a blade poisoned to numb into immobility. You seemed determined to kill me at the time, so it seemed a prudent tactic. Remember you nothing of the fray?”

  “I led you to the Amalgation,” Beldar said slowly. “Through the tunnels, to take them by surprise.”

  “As we did, though they were not nearly as surprised as I’d have liked. The spell I cast on you wasn’t equal to your will—”

  “Which in turn, fell before Golskyn’s magic,” Beldar remembered bitterly. After a frowning moment, he asked, “How fares the half-dragon?”

  “He’s back among friends. How fares your eye? You seemed in consi
derable pain.”

  The Roaringhorn smile was grim. “A faint shadow of things to come.”

  “The potion,” Elaith said flatly, drawing a gasp of surprise from the noble. “A brave notion, but somewhat premature. Better to uncover all the mad priest’s designs and shatter them and him together.”

  The lordling’s face emptied of expression. “I’ll think on your words, and I thank you for your council.” He turned away.

  Elaith glided forward to smoothly the noble’s sleeve, and said quietly, “If you require assistance, you need look no further.”

  Eye to eye, they studied each other for a long moment.

  “Your word on it?” Beldar asked, just as quietly. “I swear upon my honor as a Lord of Evermeet.” Elaith grew a wry smile. “And, apparently, of Waterdeep as well!”

  Every noble house employed errand-runners, but Korvaun Helmfast was surprised, to say the least, to see the steward of Helmfast Hall—a man of such years that he was white-haired to the tips of his downdagger mustache—come puffing up to proffer a small, neatly folded square of parchment. Gilt-edged, which meant the writer of the note was noble.

  “What’s this, Thamdros?”

  “The Lord Roaringhorn impressed me with the urgency of his missive,” the steward wheezed, “and urged me to deliver it myself.”

  “Urged you?”

  “With a sapphire, Lord. The smallest such I’ve yet seen, but it must have been worth a good hundred dragons. I refused it of course, my Lord.”

  The steward’s mustache fairly quivered with indignation. No honorable servant would accept such a gift from a noble not of his household, for doing so implied he wasn’t adequately paid—or worse, that he was untrustworthy. Thamdros was clearly offended by this breach of etiquette, and Korvaun promptly committed another: he clasped the old man’s shoulder as one close friend might reassure another.

  “Lord Roaringhorn knows your measure as well as I do, and I promise you he meant no offense. He was counting on your integrity to relay something he dared not entrust to paper. He knew you’d report his behavior to me, letting me know without dire words that matters are not as they should be.”

  The steward’s face cleared, and he bowed. “Thank you, Lord.”

  Korvaun broke Beldar’s seal, unfolded the note, and read: Meet me within two bells at Tamsrin’s? Firm friendship always. Beldar’s rune was scrawled below. Shaky handwriting, obviously scribbled in haste.

  What now? Tamsrin’s Thirst was as bright and busy a wine-and-chat bower as North Ward offered—far too crowded for conspiracies or dirty work. Too noisy and too plagued by the preeningly self-important for Korvaun’s taste, but like everyone who dwelt north of Waterdeep Way, he knew where it was.

  “Trouble, Lord?” Thamdros dared to ask.

  Korvaun held out the note. It might be wise to have someone know his whereabouts.

  “An invitation to wine and idle chat?” The old steward was indignant.

  Korvaun smiled. “That I don’t believe for a moment. I’d best go see what’s on Lord Roaringhorn’s mind. Perhaps this most important matter is happy news rather than grave. He might even have fallen prey to a lady’s charms at last.”

  “If so,” Thamdros observed sourly, “you’d do better to hasten to the lady’s door and attempt to bring her to her senses.” He promptly purpled in shame, clearly regretting that the words had ever left his mouth.

  His jaw dropped open when Korvaun gave him a wide grin.

  “Better yet, I’ll introduce her to Lord Jardeth’s new ladylove. Perhaps the gods will smile on two otherwise doomed ladies and bring them to their collective senses.”

  The aged steward emitted a swift, hard wheezing that might have been laughter. Korvaun waited long enough to be sure Thamdros wasn’t choking or plunging into a fit and then broke into a run, dashing to answer Beldar’s summons.

  He smiled wistfully. Just as in our days of yore.

  Just as things should be. Korvaun knew his friends were now looking his way for leadership, but in his mind, that mantle and a certain red gemcloak would ever be one and the same.

  Tamsrin’s was as crowded as always, both with chattering revelers and with all manner of ferns and hanging floral vines, dappled with sunlight falling through glass roof-tiles. Amid all the delighted shrieks and tipsy laughter, two men could have bellowed treason back and forth at each other without being overheard.

  Silent gestures summoned wine, whereupon Beldar and Korvaun sipped, clinked glasses in salute, and bent their heads together over the table, sliding the inevitable basket of hot onion bread out of the way.

  Before Korvaun could speak, Beldar tilted his glass of foaming firemint, inspecting its contents as if he’d never before tasted one of his favorite wines. A dollop of foam fell to the table. He swiped it flat, and casually began to draw in it with a forefinger.

  Korvaun’s eyes narrowed.

  Beldar smiled a little sadly. “No fell magic. I’m still the Roarer who’s led us all into …”

  “So much trouble,” Korvaun finished dryly, as Beldar realized where his own words were going and let them trail off.

  “Yes, but let’s permit the, ah, unfortunate wagers of yestertimes be forgotten, shall we? Those horses might not have won, but some of them made excellent glue!”

  Beldar went on to another weak jest, but Korvaun barely heard it. He was watching a Roaringhorn forefinger wandering idly through the puddle—and realizing what it was doing.

  Sometimes boyhood codes can come in useful. Beldar chuckled loudly at his own joke, and Korvaun joined in with a grin, lifting his gaze long enough to give Beldar the slightest of nods. Then he raised his glass again, to make anyone watching think he was saluting the jest, and glanced down once more.

  “New eye under patch. Controlling me.” Beldar’s hand waved idly across the foamy puddle, sweeping away his writing.

  “Hah! I’ve got one for you!” Korvaun announced delightedly, and leaned even closer. Nose to nose with Beldar and very curious as to what was lurking under the eyepatch so close to him, he murmured, “Who? ”

  “I can’t say,” Beldar said with a wide, false grin, “and I mean that quite literally: I cannot shape the right words.”

  As he spoke, he drew their private runes for, “They’re seeking next Piergeiron.”

  Korvaun reached for his own tallglass, deliberately jostling it so that some spilled onto the table. “We’re going to need more wine soon,” he said loudly, quickly finger-writing, “Piergeiron ALIVE. Healing well!”

  Beldar sat back, slapping the table as if Korvaun had said something uproariously funny. “So I’ve heard, but who knows what to believe these days?”

  “You’ll hear even better tales at the Purple Silks revel,” Korvaun said, trying to impart some important information of his own. “Everyone’ll be there, even—”

  “No, no, no!” Beldar interrupted loudly and delightedly, waving his hands in a wild caricature of a gossiping housewife. “Don’t tell me!”

  Then he leaned closer, offering his ear in broad parody of that delighted gossip, and wrote, “Say nothing. Being listened to.”

  “WHO listen?” Korvaun wrote as he whispered some meaningless scandal. “Whence came eye? Wizard?”

  Beldar roared with laughter and wrote: “No. Beholder.”

  Korvaun felt his face change. He forced the horror from his eyes and levity into his voice. “What news of Roaringhorn acquisitions?” It was a standing joke that Beldar’s elder male kin almost daily bought horses or small city shops—or tried to buy beautiful women. Yet even as he spoke, Korvaun winced. “Roaringhorn acquisitions,” indeed!

  Beldar’s smile went wry. “My esteemed cousin acquired three this morn, I’m told, each crossing the finish line first. Impressive, until one heeds the gossip of disgruntled fillies claiming the future Roaringhorn patriarch confuses racing grounds with bedchambers.”

  “Far be it from us to spread gossip,” Korvaun responded archly, lifting his tallglass.r />
  “Far indeed.”

  They clinked glasses in an ironic toast, not incidentally spilling more foam, and sipped again.

  Suddenly Beldar touched his eyepatch, and his face cleared. “They’re gone for the moment, gods be praised,” he muttered. “Doubtless driven off in sheer disgust. Now heed: I may not have time to repeat this.”

  Korvaun leaned close. “Speak!”

  “Come to the revel, Gemcloaks all, ready for trouble: Real weapons, not fancy show-blades. Expect to fight men with monster claws and tentacles and such, two score or more, led by a mad priest who wants to put his own thrall on Piergeiron’s throne: Me—did I not say he was mad? His son’s a sorcerer, and they can move the Walking Statues to do their bidding. Through me.”

  “Marvelous,” Korvaun replied loudly, slapping the table and sitting back as a serving lass saw the state of their glasses and hastened up with fresh wine. “Simply splendid!”

  When she was gone, he hissed, “Beldar, we should tell the Palace at once! Piergeiron plans to attend the revel!”

  “Tell them what? That I’m hearing voices? I’m sure they’ll drop everything to listen to an idle young blade so stupid he’d allow his own right eye to be cut out of his head and a beholder eye enspelled into its place! Something that’s strictly illegal, according to magisters’ case-law, by the way. Did I mention that?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose I also failed to mention the halfling I killed last night, when the eye was controlling me.”

  Korvaun stared at his friend. “Surely a mage or priest could prove your words true—and break this hold over you.”

  Beldar shook his head. “I’ve tried. A onetime witch of Rashemen lies dead not far from here, as does a barber whose only fault was greed. I’ll not be responsible for more deaths. This is my fate, and I must put it right.”

  “We’ll stand beside you, of course! Yet twoscore monster-men! What can our four swords—five if you can stand with us—do against such foes?”

  “Little, but perhaps we can offer our assistance to someone with more experience in such matters.”