“What is your name?” demanded Piergeiron, stepping slowly forward. “Who hired you? When did you start? What is your name?”
Eidola did not even await a reply, lunging with the fiery brand.
The torch arced toward upraised hands that became talons, with claws as long as scythe blades. Those claws caught the burning brand and held it. The maid’s smooth throat transformed into a long, plate-covered thing with hard shells and thick black hairs sprouting from it. The woman’s young face changed into the hoary-jowled head of a greater jackal. Her livery split to reveal a canine body.
“A shapeshifter!” cried Piergeiron. He drew his ornamental long sword, Halcyon, snapping the peace-strings with a mighty yank, and dived between the beast and his bride.
The gnoll-creature raked Piergeiron with its brutal claws. Razor-tipped nails shrieked across silver armor and sent showers of sparks to the floor. A talon snagged on his armor and tore free.
The creature began a howl of rage. Piergeiron thrust with Halcyon. The beast spun away. A jab that would have split its heart lanced its side instead.
The thing began to transform again. Its shaggy feet became cloven hooves, its legs the haunches of a goat, its belly bald and red….
Though the transformation swept over the creature in a flash, Piergeiron struck again before the change was complete. His sword whirled through changing flesh and sliced into the monster’s dark heart. Blood as black as ink shot forward, and the beast, in mid-transformation, crumpled.
As it fell, Piergeiron drew forth his ornamental long sword. The blood in the filigreed etchings hissed like acid. Beyond the smoking blade, the monster lay still upon the floor.
Piergeiron knelt beside the thing, his sword yet at the ready as he checked it for breath.
“It’s dead,” he announced solemnly.
Piergeiron’s bodyguard loped up behind Eidola and skidded to a halt. He puffed aside his jagged bangs and stared at the bride and groom, their hair wild and their faces streaming sweat. Then he glanced at the slain beast before them. Madieron turned as white as an albino rabbit.
Up behind him came two more guards, startled and breathless. “What is it?” gasped one.
“Malaugrym, or so I guess,” said Piergeiron. “The Ones Who Watch. Shapeshifters from beyond Faerûn. They think this world their chessboard. They’ve brought down many rulers with ruses less devious than—" He suddenly stopped in choked realization. He turned toward his bride and embraced her. “You’re safe. That… that thing must have been stalking you when the apprentice startled it. It must have thought he was casting a spell on it, perhaps stripping away the disguise.”
Eidola lowered her torch so that it shed light on her dress. She stared ruefully at the stain.
“Guard this body,” Piergeiron said to Madieron. “You two, find the Blackstaff and Sandrew the Wise. They’ll want to check it over.” He took his bride by the arm and gestured down the hall. “Shall we?”
Eidola nodded, and together the pair strolled away, as though walking from a sunny picnic in a park.
The two older guards turned knowing glances on the bodyguard. “It’s a shame, you guarding this dead thing when you should be guarding the Open Lord.”
Madieron flushed beneath his haystack of hair. He managed a half-shrug. “My orders.” The corpse seemed to be slowly changing shape, shrinking and turning gray.
A friendly hand clapped onto Madieron’s side. “Tell you what. I’ll go get the Blackstaff and Sandrew, Harl here will guard the corpse, and you can get back to duty. The Open Lord shouldn’t be unprotected, what with monsters like this roaming the palace.”
Ever concerned about Piergeiron’s safety, Madieron blinked in obvious relief, shrugged again, and rushed away after Piergeiron.
Smiling sarcastically, one of the guards waved the lumbering warrior away. By the time he disappeared around the corner, the waving hand had become a claw….
Chapter 2
Masquerades
He saw the maidservant flinch as the young wizard cast a spell, saw Eidola and Piergeiron follow the shapeshifter and battle it, saw the two guards form their hands into claws and drag the body to the nearest jakes.
And there was more, much more.
Peering past the half-closed door, Noph saw the guards fully transform into crablike things. Their eyes rose on stalks above their horny skulls and their bodies became hard and bristly. With their pinchers, they quickly shredded the body. They ate what they could—muscle and gristle and brain. The rest, they fed down the jakes, into the infamous sewers of Waterdeep. Noph imagined he could hear the masticating jaws of even nastier things below.
That was when he climbed up into the rafters.
Now, the monsters transformed again, into two different-looking guards. The men effetely dabbed the last spots of sizzling blood from their uniforms. In smug satisfaction, they nodded to each other and walked back toward the party, strolling beneath the spot where Noph crouched.
This noble wedding wasn’t so boring after all.
Noph waited until the beasts were long gone before he tried to get down. Though he tried to imitate the silent grace of a cat, one leg cuff caught on a nail, and he did a complete flip before crashing to the floor. He was on his feet again before he knew if he could stand, and looked quickly up and down the hall. The shapeshifting guards were nowhere to be seen, and no one else was about. He stood straight and brushed himself off, well pleased despite the fall.
The sting of pride had quickly given place to the tingle of anticipation. Mystery! Adventure! Paladins and princesses and clawed villains!
He’d been lucky so far, happening upon the culprits in the midst of their crimes. Now, though, the trail had gone cold. Where should he go next to unravel this mystery?
Follow the money. That’s what his father had always advised. For Laskar Nesher, the money had led to disreputable lumber deals. For shapeshifters, the money would lead to… the city treasury? No, someone wanting to get to the treasury would have posed as a guard, not as a maidservant. The only reason to masquerade as a maidservant was to get close to Eidola.
Yes, Eidola, but why?
Some Waterdhavians thought her a bad match for Piergeiron. Some even felt the Open Lord should be removed from office due to his lack of judgment. After all, the bedchamber is more persuasive than the council chamber. By marrying Piergeiron, this mystery woman could wield untold power over the city.
There were whispers of a price laid on her head.
That’s it! Assassins! They’d infiltrated the ranks of the servants and the guards!
No, Noph thought a moment later. As appealing as it was to think of noble assassins, a shot from afar could kill more easily and safely than a monster disguised as a chambermaid. Besides, as guards and servants, the shape-changing creatures have had many other opportunities to kill Eidola and haven’t done so.
They must want something else, Noph thought, and must need to get close to Eidola to get it…. But why?
Follow the money, Noph repeated to himself.
The much-touted trade route to Kara-Tur—now there was some money to be followed. Noph’s father had said that final approval of the route depended on Eidola. The last holdouts against the pact were kin of Eidola, and they would sign only after she had married the Open Lord. If the marriage were prevented, the pact would not be complete. Then, the nobles and guilds would retain the economic dynasties they had worked so hard to build. That’s where the money led, to the nobles and guilds.
“Ah, Father,” Noph said to himself, “I’d not expected to find your kind among the monsters tonight.”
Dusting off his hands, Noph set off for the banquet hall. At long last, he was interested in talking with his father’s friends.
When he arrived in the feast hall, he approached a band of guildmasters who stood in the middle of the bustle, arrogantly smoking Maztican cigars and politely calling each other fools. The half-drunk merchants seemed engaged in a contest to see who could be t
he most boisterous, obstreperous, and opinionated. They made easy targets for an amateur eavesdropper.
“…whole thing feels rushed, that’s all. A mystery woman from Nowhere—”
“Not Nowhere, but Neverwinter.”
Just as I said, from Nowhere, and a hasty wedding and a hasty trade pact all rolled together—”
“That explains the haste: the Open Lord and Miss Mystery must have rolled together.”
“—in which case all you can expect is a quick ceremony meant to cover for whatever bastards come crawling out of the woodwork, and by bastards I mean those damned Kara-Turian dragon-lovers—”
Noph moved away from that cluster. The man holding court there was a drunken braggart, who greedily gulped down misinformation and vomited it back as vintage lies. There was no treason in his empty bluster, but also no truth.
To one side of the hall, standing aloof from the gossiping horde, Noph saw a circle of paladins, clad in glittering silver chain mail. In awe he recognized among them Kern, a mighty warrior despite his youth, and Miltiades, once un-dead but now again among the living. Noph formally saluted the group and passed on.
Noph approached another group. He drifted nearby and turned about as if admiring some particular beauty. This conversation had a very different tenor:
“—not at all like it was. What is the point of overland trade? The oceans have been charted to Kara-Tur and beyond. We’ve felled enough forests to give us a matchless fleet and now we don’t want to use any of the ships? I don’t understand.”
“Think how we feel, Mate. You’re a landlubber—sure it’s your money that sets sails on our rigs and gets us where we go, but if you’re out coin, think what we’re out. Out a living, that’s what. Used to be that seamen had a hard life, sure, but now, no life at all.”
“Yes, which is why I thought, why wait? Why wait for a politician to pave the way—no pun intended. We’ve got all we need, just not official sanction. I thought, perhaps, to make five of our merchant ships into warships, send them down to grab the right bits of land—the capes and so forth—capture them, put up outposts, and there you have a water trade route….”
Noph drifted away. These people were planning business, not treason. Certainly, it might be a fine line between the two, but Noph doubted these men were in league with regicidal traitors.
“—during the ball…. The crossbow is already in place…. I’ve said too much already…. No, we shouldn’t be seen speaking… wait until we’re masked—”
Noph paused, pretending to check the sole of his boot for something stuck to it. He listened a bit more.
The speaker was a woman, standing in the shadow behind a large, potted palm. Her voice had a strange burr that Noph had never heard before—something vaguely Calashite. He could see little of her appearance—only that she was of extraordinary height, with lean shoulders and a graceful figure.
Abruptly, she moved away from the palm, toward the great dance hall where the ball would be held. Noph watched the sway of her red dress for a moment before remembering to put his boot down and follow.
By the time Piergeiron had returned to the celebration—after discovering the disappearance of the shapeshifter’s body—dinner was finished and the dancing had begun.
It was a masquerade.
Eidola herself had planned the masked ball, saying she wanted to dance with the groom without courting bad luck by seeing him before the ceremony.
The costumes were designed to provide complete anonymity. At the entrance to the ballroom, a curtain had been strung to make a dressing area between curtain and doors. One by one, the guests entered the changing area, donned loose gray robes over their clothes, and were fitted with full-head masks. The masks were grotesque—hawks, toads, dragons, bugbears, dwarves, elves, humans, gnomes—and they took their forms from all the creatures of Faerûn.
By wearing these masks, the guests were, Eidola said, transformed into every manner of creature in the world. They became emissaries from Faerûn to the wedding couple, gathered to bless a marriage that would bring peace and prosperity to all creatures.
Such were the bride’s lofty justifications of this masquerade. In truth, as each guest pushed back the double doors and joined the flocks of other grotesque beasts in the ballroom, the masks did not create a peaceable kingdom so much as an exotic jungle.
Piergeiron and Madieron stood in the dark dressing space outside the ballroom. All around them were small stands holding the heads of mammoths and pixies, treants and tigers. Their ghoulish grins made the Open Lord shiver.
Piergeiron was a straightforward man, and he didn’t go much for elaborate charades. On the other hand, he had had no hope of prevailing over Eidola when it came to wedding arrangements.
Out of a dark corner of the dressing space, a bald-headed attendant slid toward Piergeiron. He pulled a gray robe over the groom’s shoulders and the hilt of his sword. Piergeiron bristled. With assassins about, it was folly to let his sword get so fouled.
To add insult to injury, the costumer next appeared with an especially repellent mask for him to wear.
“A rat?” Piergeiron asked regretfully.
The clothier’s bulbous head nodded eagerly on his skinny neck. “A Waterdhavian Sewer Rat. They are tenacious creatures. Brave. Almost noble… in their way.”
Piergeiron stared at the glassy black eyes of the mask, the boars’ teeth set in its maw, the mossy felt and pantomimed garbage dangling between those teeth…. “Isn’t there something more suitable?”
The clothier reached up to set the mask in place. “The point of a masquerade is to be what you are not.”
Piergeiron stoically suffered the placement of the rodent head over his own. When it was situated, he hesitantly asked, “How do I look?”
“Perfectly ratty,” the man replied. “And what do you think of Madieron?”
Piergeiron looked up at his eight-foot-tall bodyguard and saw the fey smirk of a pixie.
The Open Lord broke into laughter. Madieron, unamused, unceremoniously thrust the man toward the double doors.
The Open Lord stumbled through the doors. The ballroom beyond gleamed with crystal chandeliers and moldings of gold. Masked dancers swirled across the floor in a two-step pavane. The ensemble of rebecs and fifes played a familiar dance cadence, though the tones they produced were twisted in the new Sembian fashion. Measured harmonies continually devolved into chaotic dissonances.
Still trying to catch his balance, Piergeiron took two full strides before stopping dead within the sweeping arm of the pavane. He felt as if he had stumbled onto a clockwork carousel. There he stood, frozen amidst radiant motion. The procession of creatures was dazzling—beholders, wraiths, lions, lizard men, griffons, owls, horses, camels, basilisks…. Staring at their shifting multitude, whirling in the dance, Piergeiron grew dizzy.
He dropped to one knee, struggling to see something familiar. Wasn’t this his palace? It felt as though he had stumbled through a portal to some deviant jungle. Or perhaps, a madman’s mind.
Hadn’t Eidola planned this all?
His eyes found no relief. The pillars that lined the hall glowed with an ill green light that made them look like the ancient boles of green-sapped trees. Their acanthus-leaf tops and the riot of carved plaster across the ceiling became a dense canopy of foliage. The candles of the chandeliers glowed in pendulous bunches of exotic fruit. They sent up crazings of smoke, soot in place of pollen. Piergeiron wondered where these deadly spores would take root.
The touch of a hand—a feminine hand—drew the Open Lord from his crouch and set him into motion among the others.
Despite his dizziness, Piergeiron’s feet fell into the duple rhythm of the pavane. He held the hand of the woman, an eel-headed thing, and swayed toward her and away from her.
“So, handsome,” the eel said through her gill slits, “when’s a charming rat like you going to get married?”
“Very soon, now,” he replied, stepping sideways.
&nbs
p; He let go of her hand and clasped that of another. This woman was a tall leopard. She moved expertly in the dance.
“Is it you, Eidola?” Piergeiron asked.
“Perhaps, Open Lord,” the leopard replied enigmatically. “Perhaps.”
He pulled away from her, too. His feet moved faultlessly in the two-step pattern as he circled the room. Sleepwalking. That was what this was. While part of his mind wandered freely, another part, accompanied by his feet, staggered and stumbled, carrying him deeper into nightmare.
Somehow it made sense. The guests were beasts. These monstrous semblances were the faces of their inner selves. Friend and foe alike, they were monsters.
Foes. What foolishness? Shapechanging malaugrym, back-stabbing nobles, plotting guildmasters. As he glided past ogre, beaver, and brownie, Piergeiron wondered if he had a single friend in all the room.
Eidola. She was here somewhere…. He would find her.
A pig-headed woman took his hand. No, she was too short and unsure to be Eidola. Next came a puffy fat matron with the head of a hornet. A skeleton, an orc, a fly; a will-o’-the-wisp, a squid, a rooster; a dog, halfling, monkey, tick…. Beneath those gray robes moved a multitude of female arms—these too fleshy, these too lean, these too weak, too hairy, too mottled….
Beneath the gold-gilded chandeliers, the details of the masks drifted down robes and arms and legs. Fur, warts, whiskers, rashes, scars, stains, tumors. Every detail of the beasts came alive. They were real. Grotesque creatures glided beside each other in a bizarre menagerie. Alien, hypnotic, menacing, graceful….
A tall, yak-headed woman took his hand. Her doelike brown eyes blinked realistically behind a thin mask of black felt. Her stubbled lips glistened with costume drool. The woman’s movements were so lithe within the costume that Piergeiron felt suddenly sure it was Eidola.
A deep-throated purr came from the mask. “I wish I had known sooner how exquisitely you dance, Lord. You’d not have had a free night in the past year.”
Ah, this was his lady love at last. “How about a kiss for the groom?” Piergeiron asked, regaining some of his old spirit.
Forgotten Realms - [Double Diamond Triangle Saga 01] - The Abduction Page 2
