The City of Splendors

by Ed Greenwood

  Nalys had worked here at the Silks! Shaking her as if she were a dusty mop rather than a regal-looking woman, Varandros snarled, “Where’s that lead?”

  The screaming and the thunderous shakings were almost deafening now, but Nalys put her mouth to his ear and gasped, “The winecellars—and below that, the sewers!”

  Dyre snarled something incoherent and furious and started racing through the crowd again, towing her along helplessly in his wake. Dust was falling in great drifts, now, and small fragments of ceiling were clattering down here and there. Everywhere, people were running, running …

  Boom. BOOM.

  With a sudden, shattering roar, chunks of curved stone—ceiling-vaultings!—plummeted down to shatter on the hall floor.

  “No!” Dyre roared, snatching up Nalys and starting to really run, lurching and pelting along. “No! Not my daughters!”

  Then all was darkness and a flood of tumbling stone, and Varandros Dyre was dashed to the floor, dead or senseless. Nalys tumbled helplessly across spilled wine and shattered glass, seeing a pleasure-lass she vaguely knew beheaded in an instant by more falling stone. The headless body toppled and was promptly half-buried … and then, though the shakings went on, the ceiling-falls abruptly stopped.

  Nalys suspected that if she could somehow sweep aside all this choking dust and look up, she’d be seeing the star-filled night sky now, but she couldn’t manage to do much more than roll over and wipe her streaming eyes and look along the floor in the direction they’d been hurrying, before … before …

  Bodies were lying crumpled everywhere on it, amid scattered shards of stone. Not much had really fallen, it seemed, but folk were fleeing wildly, everywhere, and shouting from the walls—from the doors!—that they couldn’t get out.

  There were Dyre’s daughters, looking terrified but standing unharmed, with the Gemcloaks holding them firmly. As Nalys watched, the young nobles drew their swords in flashing unison.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  BOOM. BOOM.

  Every thunderous impact made the Gemcloaks and their ladies sway, now, and cracks were opening here and there in the formerly flawless marble underfoot.

  Naoni Dyre clutched the dagger Korvaun had given her in the City of the Dead and went a little pale as she saw Taeros calmly draw two smaller knives from his boots and pass one hilt-first to Faendra, who clutched it so hard her knuckles went white, and the other to Lark, who hefted it thoughtfully.

  “Delopae?” Starragar snapped. “Are you—?”

  “I’m fine, Lord Jardeth,” the tall Melshimber noblewoman replied briskly, momentarily lifting her gown to reveal a total lack of undergarments—and a high-thigh sheath from which she calmly drew a dagger of wicked length.

  Letting her skirts fall again, she hefted it and added, “Just fine, and ready to take care of myself—or rather, of all the rats Waterdeep may choose to send against me!”

  “Oh,” Taeros chuckled, as he as Korvaun watched a distant Beldar Roaringhorn salute them with drawn sword and then race into the winecellars, “our fair City of Splendors seldom has a shortage of those!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘Tarry,” Korvaun told Taeros firmly. “Beldar and his allies will tend to business below. Our task is to hold the portal if the fight goes badly, and keep the foe from gaining the hall.”

  “The roof is falling! The ROOF! Get out of the hall!”

  “How the tluin d’you expect me to do that? The tluining doors are jammed! Just look at those splinters!”

  BOOM.

  “Go ’tother way, you fool! Up through there, into the feasting hall! Haven’t you ever been here before?”

  “No, Lord Anteos, I’ve not! Unlike some, I try to remain faithful to my wife!”

  BOOM.

  “Oh? So who’s this on your arm, then, Brokengulf? Your long-lost daughter? In that dress? Ah, nice brighthelms, by the way, lass!”

  BOOM.

  The highcoin-lass in question had never much liked the blustering Lord Anteos or his glowerings of open disdain as he bruisingly handled her or her fellow lasses on his frequent visits to the Silks, so she contented herself with replying, “Why, thank you, discerning Lord!” as she plucked his ornate codpiece aside and lifted her leg in a whole-hearted kick up into the region thus revealed.

  BOOM.

  As the Purple Silks shook and shuddered around them, Lord Anteos emitted a chirp that might have impressed a giant canary and crashed to the floor, eyes bulging.

  “And for your information, Anteos,” the highcoin-lass told the agonized noble, as she tucked her charms back into the dress, “Lord Brokengulf hired me to dance with him this night—just dance! The gown tore when the ceiling came down and he tried to shield me—which is far more than you’d have done!”

  BOOM.

  “Ah—hem—yes,” Brokengulf ventured hesitantly. “Shall we go into the feasting hall? I don’t much like the look of what’s left of yon ceiling, and …”

  His hired escort gave him a bright smile and her arm. “I’d be delighted to accompany you into the feasting hall, Lord Brokengulf. Though we may have to go elsewhere to dance, after all.”

  “I—ah—yes!” the old noble agreed awkwardly, hurrying her away through the roiling dust as fresh fragments fell.

  BOOM.

  Not far away, in the midst of the Gemcloaks as they hastened over against a wall, Faendra was gasping, her voice on the tremulous edge of tears, “Can we get out? What’s causing that? We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  BOOM.

  “We all die sooner or later,” Phandelopae Melshimber snapped, “but I’ll be able to do so in much greater ease if you’d still your tongue for a breath or two! Let the men think!”

  “Why the men?” Lark asked, her voice as sharp as the knife in her hand.

  “Because they’ve probably been here before, Sweetness, and if they’re like my kin, they’ll know a few back ways out, that’s why!”

  BOOM.

  “That’s being caused by something striking the ground.” Korvaun Helmfast peered into the dust that was all but hiding the rest of the hall from them now. “Something very large and heavy. And I’m afraid I know what it is. Beldar was right, and there’s—”

  “There’s light yonder!” Roldo shouted, pointing. “That’s the feasting hall. Let’s get there! Now!”

  BOOM. BOOM.

  “Oh, I like that not,” Starragar muttered, as they started to move along the wall, rubble shifting underfoot. “Whatever’s causing that, ’tis getting worse.”

  BOOM.

  BOOM. BOOM.

  “Or there’s more of whatever’s causing it,” Roldo offered, kicking fallen stone aside. “Some sound very close and others farther off.”

  “Come on,” Starragar snapped. “The rest of the ceiling in here could come down any time.”

  BOOM. BOOM.

  There was a shrieking, splintering crash somewhere overhead, and stones rained down in a thunderous torrent that thankfully shattered the floor into bouncing shards in a far corner of the vast hall.

  BOOM.

  “Where’d all the armed servants run off to?” Phandelopae asked. “And Beldar—what’s he doing?”

  “He’s down in the sewers right now,” Korvaun told her, “with all of Elaith’s agents—the servants—fighting off some men who’re trying to turn themselves into monsters and replace Piergeiron with a puppet Open Lord of their own right here this night. They intend to take over the city.”

  “Blast,” Phandelopae swore. “I would have left this useless gown at home and brought my blades, if I’d known we were going to be—”

  Lark opened her mouth to say something really rude and then closed it again and said nothing.

  BOOM.

  Korvaun, who was in the lead with Taeros just a stride behind him, staggered over some loose rubble and through the arch into a sudden bright absence of dust.

  It was like stepping through a curtain.

  Into bedla
m.

  On one side was all dust, falling stone and slumped bodies, and on the other: a grand hall free of dust and roof-falls but filled with a wild revel in full riot under the brilliant illumination of huge hanging glowlamps.

  They halted at the entrance, staring around in disbelief.

  “Behold Waterdeep gone mad!” murmured Roldo.

  “Mind-magic,” Taeros muttered. “It has to be.”

  The continuing thudding shook this new and only slightly smaller chamber, but their thunders were muffled and almost lost entirely in the din of all the shrieking, shouting, and crashing.

  The Gemcloaks and their ladies stared around at three—no, four!—tiers of open, sculpt-fronted galleries rising to a lofty ceiling, surrounding rows and rows of glittering tables set with food and adorned with bubbling fountains of drink. The bell-like chiming of thousands of rattling tallglasses arranged around the fountains alone was hard on the ears.

  In all directions, red-faced nobles and wealthy merchants were furiously wrestling with each other, monocles a-steam and jowls quivering. Some were waving toylike ceremonial swords at foes, and others were furiously chasing folk with evident intent to slay—at least as much as the intent of someone huffing and puffing and bellowing incoherently could be discerned.

  There was no sign of Elaith Craulnober, but through an archway at the far end of the hall they could see the golden glimmer of a strong ward-spell, with the shadowy figures of Piergeiron, Madeiron Sunderstone, the wizard Tarthus, and a stout and ruffled someone who was probably Mirt the Moneylender just visible within it. Three of those four were standing and watching the chaos, but Piergeiron seemed to be slumped over in Madeiron’s arms, senseless or worse.

  Among the tables piled high with food and the fountains bubbling with sparkling drink, every noble seemed to be thinking—and shouting—that their various personal foes were attacking. They bellowed to absent bodyguards to rally around. If any message-magics were carrying these commands to distant ears, no one had yet responded.

  Not that there was any shortage of violence. Some snarling carters, greengrocers, and carpenters were gleefully slugging noble teeth out of noble jaws and settling old scores with each other, as others scooped and gobbled handfuls of food, weirdly oblivious to the mayhem.

  As Naoni and Faendra exchanged incredulous glances, someone running along a gallery leaped over its rail with a despairing cry. A bright, pursuing swordblade jabbed the air just behind his running legs.

  Wailing, he plunged down through a glowlamp, which burst apart, scattering its magical radiance like a great shower of sparks, to crash onto a high-piled platter of sliced meat, and slither floorward in a greasy slide of meat, jelly, limply senseless noble, and ornamental rings of diced fruit.

  Someone else shrieked in pain from the next gallery up, and a sword—with a severed hand still clutching it—spun out of the gallery-shadows, whirling down to its own smaller but still violent landing somewhere in the feast-spread.

  Women could be heard sobbing and shrieking from under tables, and others were fleeing wildly around the hall—pursued, in many cases, by determined men.

  “Lord Brokengulf, and Lady,” Korvaun politely greeted the nearest noble, an astonished-looking older man who was shaking his head as he peered about, clasping a needle-like ceremonial sword uncertainly in one hand and the waist of a statuesque lady in the other. “Have you any idea what’s caused … all this?”

  “None at all, m’boy,” Brokengulf snapped through lips that were thin with disapproval. “Folk seem to have taken leave of their senses, hey?”

  As the quiverings and tremblings of the hall grew more frequent and severe, setting the glowlamps to swaying wildly, more folk shrieked and ran. A few strides from the Gemcloaks, a pair of gray-haired nobles faced off against each other with belt daggers, waving steel and shouting, until someone wearing a large sword thrust right through his body came hurtling over the edge of the nearest gallery to land in a loose-limbed crash atop a cart-sized platter of roast darfeather fowl in gravy.

  The resulting splash blinded both nobles with gravy-spatterings that reached as far as the overlarge bodices of their wives, who were cowering under different nearby tables, watching.

  Here and there about the galleries and under the tables were servants who hadn’t joined in the rush to the cellars—maids and jacks evidently not in Elaith’s pay—and they were all watching bright-eyed and grinning or applauding as the madness unfolded.

  A roaring guildmaster—Azoulin Wolfwind of the Stationers—bounded up onto a table and proclaimed himself more than willing to sword any man within the walls who dared to challenge him, the first bellow of a rant that ended abruptly when someone shoved a halfling-sized flowerpot off a gallery railing above.

  Wolfwind’s heavy-as-a-grainsack collapse took down the table he was standing on, too, causing it to split in half.

  Korvaun said briskly, “I know not what fell magic is causing this, but form a ring of steel, Gemcloaks. No one eat or drink anything—this madness might be born of a drug or poison.”

  “Gods, that’s my father,” Taeros gasped suddenly. “What’s he—oh, Sweet Harbor, they’re all here! All our parents; they all got invitations, didn’t they?”

  “And were told attendance would be considered their demonstration of loyalty to the Lords of Waterdeep,” Roldo said, “or so said the invitation the Thongolirs received.”

  “I wonder,” Korvaun murmured, “just who sent those invitations.”

  “Of course the beast-madness won’t last forever,” Golskyn told his son with an unlovely smile. “The spell’s starting to fade now … which should just give us time to find our next Lord and let the lad save the day. Hurry, before those Watchful Order fools realize something’s wrong inside their precious strong-ward and know the Paladinson no longer commands the Statues!”

  Mrelder listed to this spate of nonsense in grim silence. Did his father think Piergeiron’s guards credited the First Lord with this destruction? Had Golskyn forgotten Piergeiron no longer had the Gorget? Or was he utterly beyond clear thought?

  The priest chuckled, strode a few restless paces, and then wheeled around to cry, “Move, boy! Move! Deepnight falls, Midsummer’s here, and our day is come at last!”

  Then Lord Unity threw back his head and laughed wildly. His mirth was loud, long … and utterly insane.

  Mrelder kept his face expressionless, trying not to shiver.

  The hall shook under ever-louder impacts, sending more flowerpots toppling from the galleries in a deadly rain. Many revelers were cowering under tables now or lying dead or senseless.

  “This avails nothing,” Starragar snapped. “Let’s go hunt beastmen—after we find a way out of the hall and get the ladies to safety.”

  “No!” Four angry women cried as one.

  “We’re in this with you,” Naoni added, “until the end for us all, if that’s what the gods grant.”

  “Naoni,” Korvaun said gently, “I don’t think—”

  “Precisely. If you did, you’d not speak such foolishness. Why would I want to be anywhere in all the city but beside you right now?”

  Unexpectedly, it was Starragar who laughed and replied, “Why, indeed?”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Taeros muttered. “The longer this goes on, the more of our kin will get hurt—or worse.”

  The thunderous shakings were heavy enough now to throw some of the guests in the hall off their feet, and one of the drinks-fountains toppled over with a mighty crash. Starragar winced.

  “That’s a lot of good gullet-fire wasted,” he murmured. “Whoever these beastmen are, they—Watching Gods Above, what’s that?”

  From the gallery just above them came an approaching series of heavy crashes, as if something wooden and very large was bouncing down stairs, toward—

  “Come on!” Delopae snapped, bursting between Korvaun and Taeros and racing to the nearest ascending stair. Ornate wrought-iron clawed at her gown as she whirled
around its spiral, and she impatiently tore herself free and ran on, the others at her heels.

  They burst up onto a gallery littered with bodies lying slumped in dark pools of blood just in time to see what was descending so ponderously toward them: a wardrobe the size and height of four armored men abreast, its corners already battered to splinters, that was rolling and crashing its way down an openwork stair from the floor above.

  The shudderings of the impacts outside the Purple Silks were magnified up on the galleries—the floors flexed visibly, and pillars and walls swayed. The Gemcloaks exchanged worried looks, spreading apart to let the wardrobe crash past, and Roldo spun around to shout down into the hall below, “Get back! Get out of the way!”

  The wardrobe gained the bottom of the metal-shod stairs and sprang down onto the gallery with a crash that drove it deep into buckling floorboards—and buried it there, its ornate doors shattering and springing open.

  Out through the greatsword-sized splinters and wood-shards spilled two limp, senseless bodies. The noble lass in the fine gown who was on the top of that ardent embrace was whimpering softly—but the gore-drenched, half-collapsed head of the lad in servants’ livery beneath her lolled loosely, broken and forever silenced.

  Faendra retched and turned hastily away—to find herself in the path of a tall, lurching nobleman who was feeling his way along the shuddering gallery, sword drawn and patrician face pinched with anger and disapproval.

  “Young Helmfast and Hawkwinter, I see,” he snarled, as he came closer. “Can’t you striding young codpieces put your doxies behind you for even one night? Must you bring them here, to so soil our salute to Lord Piergeiron?”

  He pointed with his sword at Faendra, and then at Naoni and Lark beyond her.

  Taeros Hawkwinter stepped in front of them, gently striking aside that ornamental rapier with his own blade. “Lord Dezlentyr,” he said firmly, “you are as mistaken as you are rude. I must demand a full apology, upon this instant, or your honor is forfeit.”