The Diamond tddts-9

by J. Robert King

  The Diamond

  ( The DOuble Diamond Triangle Saga - 9 )

  J. Robert King

  Ed Greenwood

  J. Robert King, Ed Greenwood

  The Diamond

  Prelude

  Rumination and Ruination

  What a nuisance, death. No one's polite to a dead man… even if the departed is the Open Lord of Waterdeep.

  A few manservants'd get the boot if Holy Tyr's justice had aught to say about it. They hoist me like a grainsack, drop me into coffins to check the fit, knock my head against any cornice or filigree that presents itself, leave me lying however I land, and never deign to straighten garments gathered at my knees or wadded up at my back.

  On the second day of my demise, I was hung in the meat cellar with the rest of the perishables. Simon the stablehand happened along to pilfer some cheese, and took the opportunity to pose me provocatively with a three-foot-long Sembian sausage. If I hadn't once been a mischievous lad myself, I'd have him hanged like High Forest venison. If I'd not been mischievous… and weren't now as dead as Bane the Accursed.

  I must be dead. Even Khelben thinks so. No breath. No pulse. Yet I can sense everything going on around me. I'm haunting my own corpse! Once it decays, perhaps my ghost will be able to move, haunting the entire Palace of Waterdeep. That would be considerably more interesting.

  That is, if my body decays. I'm no mage, but I suspect the spell Khelben cast a tenday ago, bursts of brimstone and blue wildfire crawling all over my skin, somehow preserved me. That'd be just my luck. There's little fun in haunting a casket; no wonder ghosts get peevish.

  Ah, here's proof of my suspicions: a dwarven smith. Hello, goodsir! Not that you can hear me. Your name, fellow? Hornbeak Goldglimmer? Hammerhead Nailwhacker? Dullasrocks Stinkbreath? And what have you there? A set of measuring rods, a pair of fat-nibbed quills, and a rolled-up set of plans for… for a glass-covered coffin? Lovely.

  Get your thumb away from my eyes! Ge-aughh, darkness again!

  That's the most frustrating thing about being dead. Whenever one of my eyelids shrinks back enough to let me see what's going on, somebody slides them closed. They'll probably sew them shut one of these days.

  What good'll a glass-topped coffin be then?

  Chapter 1

  Death Comes for the Open Lord

  Four young acolytes solemnly lit their tapers.

  Piergeiron is dead. Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, sighed in defeat as the trumpets, glauren, longhorns, and drums began their solemn dirge. It was chilly where he sat, on a bench of polished marble in the balcony of the palace chapel. The stone was cold and hard after the dark-stained wooden pews. The whole chapel had turned cold and hard. It had died along with its lord.

  I can scarce believe, after all these years, that he's truly gone.

  Yet there he lay, in a gleaming casket of gold and glass, master-work by the best crafters in all the Sword Coast. Cold and beautiful and dead. Sages said beauty and truth were the same thing. If that was so, the Open Lord, arrayed in silks and wools, gold and gems, was beautifully and truly dead.

  Interesting, thought Khelben, watching four acolytes and four candles drift in stately procession up the chapel aisle, that beauty and truth are so coldly meaningless without life.

  Shaleen, so long dead and long mourned, lay in her own coffin beside her husband. The Lord Mage himself had exhumed and restored her body to beauty. Khelben Arunsun could make her whole and beautiful again, but without the aid and approval of Holy Mystra, he could not give her life. And with Shaleen, as with so many others, Mystra had given him only her holy silence. In the days and years to come, Piergeiron and his bride would lie side by side in the center of the chapel.

  Khelben sighed again. His breath ghosted in the chill air, rising past fresh-painted plaster to disappear among polished ribs of white marble. Yes, the chapel was beautiful in its gold, silver, and limestone, aglow with bejeweled chandeliers. Its aisles lay like brushed snow under white carpets from Shou Lung, stretching past ranks of bleached oak panels, reaching up between each pillar to round windows of gem-studded stained glass. Once more, the Eye of Ao stared out in radiant perfection from the greatest window above the gathered throng. The artisans had done well. Damnably well.

  Khelben had ordered the chapel refurbished to delay this funeral, the official proclamation of Piergeiron's death. It would take months, he'd thought, to haul away the cracked and fire-blackened pews, the sword-scarred panels of mahogany, the shards of shattered stained glass, bloodstained rugs and twisted, ruined lanterns. It would take longer still to replace them all. Until the chapel stood bright and complete once more, the Lord Mage could hold off the hordes of glint-toothed nobles and finger-cracking guildmasters hoping to personally replace their dead Open Lord.

  But here it was, a month hence, and the work was finished.

  The nobles and guildmasters had done well… aye, damnably well.

  They sat below, crowding the pews: nobles, guild-masters, magistrates, diplomats, secret lords and not-so-secret lords, senior guards: the best and brightest of Waterdeep. A gleaming, glittering forest of ermined shoulders, diamond necklines, high-coiffed hair, waxed mustaches, peacock feathers, whalebone stays, and features held just so by toning salves, minor magics, and even tiny clips and hidden strands of silk. The best and brightest.

  Khelben had spent more than enough time among them to glimpse the monsters behind these masks.

  Lasker Nesher was here, lord of an illicit logging empire. He was one of the most vocal contenders for the Open Lord's seat, stirring the rabble of Waterdeep with speeches that were half truth and all theater. Lasker had personally provided the bleached oak panels, rails, and bosses for the chapel "and other important palace rooms, out of love for the great Piergeiron." It was strange, indeed, that all the milled, polished wood came bearing inexpert spells of clairvoyance and clairaudience. Khelben hadn't removed the clumsy enchantments, but instead had overlaid them with spells that twisted all images and sounds into things menacing. Perhaps that's why the loving Lasker Nesher sat blinking between two new bodyguards, starched collar wilting against his clammy neck.

  Then there were the Brothers Boarskyr. Loudly devastated by the disappearance of their kin Eidola of Neverwinter, the pair of oafs had used the misfortune as an excuse to move more or less permanently into the palace. While they awaited news of their cousin, they ravaged the palace stores of beef, sweetmeats, pork, and venison, and drank aisle after aisle of Piergeiron's private wine cellar. Both gained another pound each day they remained. The Lord Mage had grudgingly provided enchanted saddles so the Boarskyrs wouldn't break the backs of any more palace horses. Khelben wished he could send the two back to their rickety bridge and let it collapse beneath their combined enormity.

  Plenty of other monsters sat in those pews, men and women as duplicitous and murderous as Eidola herself. Khelben was glad she hadn't returned and hoped she never would.

  Not all the mourners here were monsters, the Lord Mage reminded himself. He watched a young boy light a candle flanking the raised dais where the caskets stood. Beside the boy hulked the man-giant Madieron Sunderstone, hair drooping in sorrow around his lowered face. Madieron had taken his master's death worse than most. As cheerful, powerful, and loyal as a sheepdog, Madieron had guarded Piergeiron from swords and shafts aplenty. But this last attack had been nothing he could fight, or, it seemed, even understand. The man had sat beside the gold and glass casket from the moment the Open Lord was interred there. Khelben wondered if, like a faithful guard dog, Sunderstone would sit beside it until he died of a broken heart. If there was such a thing as a true heart, Madieron had one.

  And what abou
t Captain of the Guard Rulathon? The intense young man glared in amazed shame at the coffin. He had shouldered the whole burden of the recent troubles in Waterdeep, blaming himself for shapeshifters, the Unseen, and rampant conspiracies. It was clear the captain's honor would not recover from this blow-unless Piergeiron himself rose from the casket to forgive him.

  The dwarven goldsmith had really outdone himself with those caskets. Their gold sheathings were elegant sculptures. At the four corners of the dais the smith had fashioned four tall golden candlesticks, overtopping the plainer rows of commoners' candles. Atop these man-high ornate gold giants, stout candles now sputtered to life, as the acolytes drew reverently back.

  Where had the smith gotten all that gold on such short notice?

  The candles suddenly flared, each blazing six feet high. In the sudden roar of light and heat, four menacing shapes formed… warriors! They leapt in flaming unison from their conflagrations, dropping to the floor in the midst of the astonished throng.

  "Not again," hissed the Blackstaff. Scowling grimly, he rose from his bench, taking to the air with a gesture. Where wisps of nobles' breath had circled undisturbed in marble-vaulted air, the great, black-draped figure of Khelben now hung. Hung and then swooped, his sable cloak dragging unceremoniously across bald pates and careful coiffures. Mantled in swirling magic, he rushed down on the four warriors like a striking hawk.

  In the discordant, dying fall of glauren and trumpets, half of Waterdeep heard him growl, " Don't use gold from bewitched candlesticks!"

  As though these words were a call to arms, the chapel burst into furious motion. Captain Rulathon and men of the Watch flooded up the aisles as the congregation recoiled from the caskets, streaming toward the doors. Many of the hurriedly departing had barely survived the first onslaught of fire warriors a month ago. That had been a wedding; who could guess what dread mayhem was coming to this funeral?

  Into the chaos of charging Watchmen and cowering nobles Khelben descended, alighting in a whirl of black cloth and magely fury just before the caskets.

  A seasoned-looking warrior in gilded armor was the closest flame-borne intruder to the Lord Mage. His warhammer flashed out.

  Lightning cracked from Khelben's fingertips. The weapon spun free of the warrior's hand and clanged, hissing and scorched, to the new carpets.

  Another warrior-a scrappy-looking young fighter, this one-reached a hand for Khelben's throat, something bright and sharp swinging up beyond his shoulder for a fatal blow. There was a sound like broken, falling icicles, and the fighter froze. His hand hung rigid in the air, just shy of Khelben's throat.

  The Lord Mage spared no glance for the stilled man. He was dodging the third warrior, a leather-garbed man hauling hard on a scourge. With a wave of wriggling fingers, Khelben awakened the gold filigree of Piergeiron's casket. Sculpted vines on its flanks came suddenly to life, whirling out to entrap the man in a tangle of living gold.

  The fourth warrior, an olive-skinned rogue, was caught in the arms of Madieron, who'd roused himself from his despair, face white with fury, to take a captive. The invader had gone slack in Sunderstone's grip, a sword dangling whitely to one side.

  No, not a blade-an arm bone. The man's left arm was bare bones from the elbow down. The rest of him Khelben recognized.

  Startled, he hissed the man's name aloud: "Artemis Entreri!"

  Perhaps it was not the right thing to say in the presence of terrified nobles. Fresh shrieks came from the crowd, and they shied back with more frantic scramblings over pews, like cattle who've smelt the slaughterhouse maul.

  Rulathon and the Watch surrounded the caskets and those who battled about them. Trained not to interfere with the Blackstaff, the Watchmen stood at the ready, trying to look menacing and capable.

  Khelben drew in a deep breath. Black eyebrows bristled above steely eyes. He stared at the gold-armored warrior. "Kern?" The man stood stunned, shaking his lightning-struck hand.

  The mage glanced next at the young fighter, frozen in place. "Noph?" With a wave of his hand Khelben dispelled the binding that held Noph and sent the golden vines retreating from the third man.

  "Trandon?" It had been shackles, not a scourge, that Trandon had swung. "You certainly know how to make an entrance," Khelben growled, inwardly glad for any delay in the funeral. Their conversation, now that lightnings were not in play, seemed to have caught the attention of many mourners before they'd quite reached the doors. Damn them. "What are you doing here?" The Lord Mage's tone was irritable.

  Noph's reply was equally blunt. "Just where exactly are we?"

  "The Palace of Piergeiron Paladinson," snapped Khelben, "in the chapel. At the funeral of the Open Lord."

  Noph swayed, and a sick look passed over his face. "We're too late then."

  "We come from far Doegan," Kern put in, "from the company of paladins sent to rescue Eidola from her kidnappers. We've seen a king slain and a fiend war fought-"

  "'Fiend war'?" gasped someone in the crowd. One rotund baroness staggered in a magnificent faint, flattening a knot of nobles behind her.

  Khelben nodded. "I've sensed much, and suspected more-but reports are best given away from tenderand overeager-ears." He gestured for Kern and Noph to follow him, and for the Watch to bring Trandon and Entreri.

  A snide voice rose above the excited whisperings of the crowd: "Hold, Lord Mage. This is just the sort of nonsense we've put up with for the past month."

  Khelben did not trouble to hide his grimace. Lasker Nesher might have been Noph's father-but he had also become a one-man political pox on Waterdeep.

  "You say the Open Lord is dead," Lasker said, looking to see that the crowd was listening, "and then that he isn't. You delay the funeral and meanwhile rule in the stead of the Paladinson. You know of fiend wars in the south-and the gods alone know what else-and tell not one of us, and now you seek to keep secret the first real report we have about Eidola of Neverwinter?"

  The chapel had gone quiet save for the satiny echoes of Nesher's voice. Waterdeep listened-intently.

  "And who are we?" Nesher continued, his voice rising to become its own trumpet. "The lords and merchants, guildsmen and nobles of this fair city! We are the Magisters and the Watch, and all folk who've labored on at our posts though our bright leader is dead and a dread mageling has stepped in to hold power indefinitely. We're not 'tender ears.' We are the people! Piergeiron's people! The people of Waterdeep!"

  There were shouts of agreement. Nesher's eyes flashed. "We have a right to know what's happening, not only in the back rooms of our palace or in the streets of our city, but in the lands all over our world!"

  A general cheer rang out. "Do not spare us this news, Lord Mage: let the paladins tell their tale!"

  Nesher has rallied them again, Khelben thought. No, duped is a better word. He has the power to lead them, cheering, off a cliff.

  The Blackstaff halted Kern and Noph, gave them a half bow, and with a wave of his hand toward Nesher, said calmly, "A general report of your activities is requested." The metallic glare from beneath his brows made it clear the two had best be truthful but discreet.

  The gathered eyes of Waterdeep turned to the golden paladin, the apparent hero of the hour.

  It was Noph, though, who spoke first. "Well, we started right here in the palace: Kern, Miltiades, Jacob, Trandon, Aleena Paladinstar," he smiled in remembrance, "and a few others… Paladins, mostly, and me. We sought the fastest route to the Utter East, from whence, Khelben told us, Eidola's kidnappers had come. As it turned out, that route was right under our feet." He stamped on the polished floor.

  "In Undermountain," Kern explained, lifting a disapproving eyebrow at Noph's casual manner. "Ironically, this force of great virtue was led first to a city of great vice-wicked Skullport. 'Tis forever the burden of great men to confront and contend against the powers of darkness. Let evil know that, even to survive, it must forever wrestle great men-"

  "Some women can pin evil right well, too-Aleena for one," Nop
h put in. There was laughter from the crowd.

  Glowering, Kern continued, "In Undermountain, we lost the first of our men, Harloon, to the fell attack of an ettin-"

  "Due to my own stupidity," Noph interjected, suddenly solemn.

  "Continue," Khelben growled. "And one at a time." Noph took up the tale. "We found a portal to the Utter East," he said, "but it was crawling with fiends. We fought past most of them to reach it, but had the gods own bitter time trying to get the thing open as we fought one fiend after another. We opened it in the end. Aleena stayed behind to close it forever."

  He glanced around the room, looking for the conspicuously absent lady paladin. A gentle blush crept from his collar. "I hoped we could see-I mean, I could… uh, that she'd made if out all right."

  Impatiently, Kern brushed aside the younger man and continued. "We arrived in a land equally embattled by fiends, a realm clutched in the tyrannical tentacles of King Aetheric III, Lord of the Bloodforge!"

  The awed sensation he'd intended this pronouncement to evoke was destroyed by chortles over the accidental alliteration of "tyrannical tentacles."

  Ruffled, the paladin snapped, "Aetheric was a twisted monstrosity, a giant whose lower body had been transformed by the bloodforge into the grasping tentacles of a squid."

  No mirth followed this description. "The more he used the bloodforge to create armies," Kern said in tones of doom, "the more twisted he became, and the more fiends he drew to his land!"

  Noph took up the story again. "You've Aetheric to thank for those shadow warriors who came here and busted up the place. They kidnapped Eidola. Aetheric sent them, figuring we'd send fleets of ships and armies of men to Doegan. He wanted to use them as fresh troops to fight his fiend war for him."

  "Instead of sending great armies to rescue the bride of the Open Lord, though," Kern said with satisfaction, "we sent only a small company of paladins."