It was at that moment, of course, that the dirge ended. In the sudden echoing hush, the private protests of the twins became all too public. "When we tell Mamma-"
Awe brought them to silence as a white-robed priest of Ao drifted across the dais, hands spread in benevolent greeting. A grim expression of collective sorrow and solemnity filled his fleshy face. Reflected candlelight glowed from his bald pate. He reached the front of the dais and halted, his raiment swaying magnificently around him.
"Come, ye mighty! Come, ye small! Come all peoples, elf and human, dwarf, halfling, and gnome! Come to gather and behold! Behold what grim truth is upon us!" The priest gestured at the two bodies lying in state before him. His eyes lit on the canted candles stuck to the glass, but his voice rolled on steadily, "Behold the end for us all!"
The priest gestured with both arms, tragedy leaking grandly into his voice. "See that heart, large enough to hold whole realms in its compass, large enough to seat the soul of this immeasurable man! Now it holds neither lands nor souls nor even blood, but nothing at all. And that breast, broad enough to breathe life into all the world, languishes now in eternal rest. Without him Faerun suffocates."
The acolytes were glaring uncomfortably at the Open Lord's chest. Why is it that if you stare at a dead body hard enough, it looks like it's breathing?
"See those fingers lying in repose, fingers that wielded pens and grasped swords, firm and sure digits of flesh and blood that cast down walls and lifted up children. See them now, still as stone."
The eyes of the congregation shifted to those folded hands. Perhaps it was the dance and play of candlelight atop the glass, or the vivid words of the priest, but more than a few watchers thought they saw fingers "still as stone" twitch. A silent thrill shivered through the crowd.
Halting in momentary fear, the priest recovered and went on. "See those very eyes that were wont to gaze upon vast Waterdeep in all its splendor, and the Sword Coast beyond, that look now down the halls of. eternal memory, as they shall forever more!"
A crease became visible across the eyelids, as if the corpse strained to draw them open. Were it not for the delicate stitchery of the funerary priests, the Open Lord might have, it almost seemed, gazed back at the crowd gathered to honor his passing.
"Our friend, our comrade, our leader…" The priest of Ao let his grand words roll down the chapel, casting an uncertain glance at the lord's casket once more. "Our Piergeiron Paladinson, the Open Lord of Waterdeep, at last is dead."
He hung his head, and the congregation hung theirs with him, looking up as the white-robed priest lifted his voice with fresh energy. "Consider his mouth, which once proclaimed law and justice to we, his people! Lips which once opened in acceptance of this woman, Shaleen, as his bride. A mouth that will nevermore open again, to guide and reass-"
Said mouth suddenly opened in a roar of terror and loss that, albeit muffled by air-tight glass, shook the chapel to its foundations. "No!"
Piergeiron's corpse sat up, whacking its head against the glass. The Open Lord fell back only momentarily onto the richly embroidered velvet before lifting those still-as-stone hands to punch awkwardly at the curved glass confining him.
"Truly he is dead!" the priest shouted, stumbling back from the horrific sight. He repeated his declaration loudly, as if hoping to convince the corpse of its demise. "Truly he is dead!"
"Truly he is alive!" someone bellowed from the balcony.
Heads snapped up, but the balcony no longer held he who'd spoken. Once more Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun was sailing above the heads of the cringing congregation in a flurry of black wool. Someone shrieked.
Khelben descended like a magnificent storm cloud, huge and unstoppable. Lightning seemed to dash from his furious brows. "Fools! Piergeiron lives! Open the coffin! Bring pry bars, augers and saws! Where are the crafters? Bring them here! Open that coffin!"
Khelben landed beside Madieron. The man-giant's fists were crashing like twin hammers on the glass of the Open Lord's casket; it boomed like a thunderous war drum. Piergeiron's own fists were answering, blow for blow, from within the case.
"It's no good!" Khelben shouted to Madieron, peeling the grieving giant back from the coffin by main strength. "Yon glass is hard as diamonds-impenetrable! We've got to pop the bolts!"
Craftsmen were scurrying up the aisle now, their rugged wooden toolboxes odd against the ceremonial garb they'd been given for the funeral. Horns sounded as Watch officers summoned men to run far and fast in search of tools, all the tools that could be found in the ward and beyond!
"How many bolts are there?" Khelben snarled, his eyes fairly spitting sparks.
"Fifteen hundred," a smith gulped, looking away from that fiery gaze.
"Well, drill, man! Air holes- hurry!"
As men crouched beside the coffin and lifted their tools to the task, Madieron let out a howl of despair and hammered the glass again.
"Stop!" Khelben shouted. "Give them room! You'd have to weigh ten times as much as you do to have a chance of breaking through."
Madieron stared for a frustrated moment at the mage, tears standing in his eyes. Then he let out a roar that rang around the chapel, and rushed off through the stunned crowd.
Pry bars bit along the side of the casket. Men groaned, and metal creaked. A golden bolt popped, and then another. Men and dwarves crawled forward on their elbows under those wielding the bars, to crank large drills hard and as fast. Curls of gold sheered away from whirling bits and fell. Sweat beaded hands and foreheads. More bolts popped. Auger bits gnawed and dug.
All the while that hands gripped and wrenched at the outside of the casket, the Open Lord's hands pounded against the inside. His breath had quickly frosted over the glass. Insistent fingers scratched long trails in the condensation, but each puff of the dead man's breath filled in these frantic marks.
"Faster," growled Khelben, his fingers weaving a spell. The pumping arms of gasping, groaning workmen became a sudden blur. Five more bolts. Ten more. Drill bits were smoking in their holes as gold melted away. With a sharp crack, one auger snapped. Its wielder fell back, stunned, and was flung aside like a doll by a furious figure in black robes. " Faster!" the Lord Mage bellowed. "He's dying in there!"
Hooves clattered abruptly at the rear of the chapel. Heads snapped around as Madieron charged into view astride a massive plow horse. The hooves of the great beast struck sparks from the chapel floor as it thundered through the citizenry, parting merchants and nobles in their finery as a shark parts a school of fish. One lady was too slow to leap clear, but the Champion of Waterdeep hauled expertly on the reins, and the gigantic beast reared. Its shaggy forehooves beat ominously at the air. Anxious hands plucked the moaning woman from under the very shadow of the horse, as Madieron, eyes blazing, urged it into a gallop, straight at the casket of the Open Lord.
With a sigh, Khelben stepped aside, slapping the shoulders of the frantically working crafters to get them out of the way, as the juggernaut came pelting down the aisle. Men scrambled, tools ringing on the stones.
Madieron rode clatteringly to the dais, pulling the horse up severely at the last. The massive animal reared again, its hooves lashing the air between the chandeliers. Madieron crowded his mount against the coffin, and those hooves dropped on the glass like twin mauls. "Impenetrable" glass cracked and shattered. The Champion hauled on the reins, spinning the horse around.
Piergeiron's own fists finished the job, punching glass aside in a scintillating shower of knife-edged pieces. Madieron leapt from his saddle through the flying shards, to lift Piergeiron from the riven casket.
"No!" the Open Lord cried again, his voice raw. "No!"
Bleeding and glistening with slivers of glass, Madieron bore Piergeiron to the aisle floor and laid him down. "You're all right," the giant said awkwardly. "You're free. You're alive."
"But she's not," Piergeiron gasped, clutching Sunderstone's tunic. His eyelids strained at their stitches. "She's dead!"
Madiero
n glanced at Shaleen's glass-topped casket. "Who? Who's dead?"
"Eidola," replied the Open Lord. He coughed, blood spattering cracked lips. "I pursued her across Faerun, and beyond… through all of time. I pursued her through life, unto death."
Madieron looked up beseechingly to the Blackstaff. Khelben crouched beside the fallen lord of Waterdeep and said, "You've had a long sleep… a short death. You've dreamed."
Piergeiron shook his head, shards of glass and drops of blood raining to the stone floor. "No. I did not dream this. She's dead. Somewhere beneath our feet, she's died."
"Don't speak," urged the Blackstaff.
"I will speak," Piergeiron snarled. "I must speak, or it'll all fade and be forgotten like a dream. It wasn't a dream!"
He struggled to sit up in Madeiron's arms. "I was dead. I've traveled the places of the dead. I've walked other worlds, and journeyed through mirror mazes to find Eidola and bring her back. I've fought tanar'ri and climbed the world tree and plunged into Lethe's waters of forgetfulness; they still cling to me. If I don't tell what befell me now, I'll nevermore remember."
Khelben raised his head to glare at the armsmen, merchants, and nobles crowding around. "I need priests- now! — to heal this man. Are there any tailors or seamstresses here? Someone with a sure hand? The Open Lord needs the stitches out of his eyelids! The rest of you, back! Officers, see to it!"
The Lord Mage leaned back over Piergeiron, shielding the wounded man against any dart or hurled dagger that might forestall the return of the Open Lord to his throne. "Let them tend you, and tell all the stories you wish. Wherever you have been, welcome home, friend."
As folk in their finery scurried to obey Khelben's orders, Piergeiron Paladinson smiled and started to speak.
He surfaced in a deep wood, leaving behind cold, still water. But he was dry, and no water stood nearby, only damp leaf mold. Somewhere beneath it, perhaps, was the deep, eternal darkness he'd ascended through… limitless depths inhabited only by the souls of the dead.
I am dead, he told himself plainly. I am dead.
There were airy dreams of elsewhere: a palace perched above a restless sea, waves as white and loud as clashing swords. Their clamor mingled with bards' songs that wove truth out of thin air. He saw again masked lords and darting daggers, a thousand shadowed conspiracies, saw bright banners fluttering, and heard armsmen shouting a name in jubilant unison-a name also shaped by the hostile lips of those conspirators. A name that belonged to him. Piergeiron. It sounded like some sort of falcon.
Something more came back to him then, lone, shining, and beautiful… a soul that sang his name, high and pure.
What was her name? It was gone with her. She was gone.
He stood alone, in this wood. It was real; the rest were but fading tatters of forgetfulness. It all meant nothing now. The cloak of scars and sorrows, woven in life to encrust and mottle old souls, making them distinct from all others, was gone. He was PierHe was a falcon. Nay, he was a Paladin.
Paladin looked about.
This was a verdant place. Trees soared to join earth and endless sky. Vines spiraled across ancient bark, leaves catching scraps of light lancing down from above. Birds coursed in silent lines among the trees. The musk of growing things hung strong in the air. The forest quivered with the tremendous murmur of the world growing. Growing.
Then, slashing through all, came a round, mournful cry, a call long unanswered and despairing. Paladin felt the longing in its haunting wail.
She. There had been a name for her in the world of contingencies and consciousness, but here she had no name save Desire, or Heart's Desire, or Broken Heart, or just… Heart.
The sound of Heart in her hopelessness sent deep sorrow through Paladin. He turned toward the song. It came from there, high above.
He was facing the greatest tree of all, its massive gnarled bole as wide as a mountain. It was the tree, whose roots plunged down through the deeps and (somehow he knew this) beyond, into and out of and through a thousand worlds. It was the tree whose crown cracked the blue shell of arching sky and whose branches held aloft a great diamond as large as worlds. The world tree. A tree that bound worlds together and was worlds altogether. The call came from its crown.
He walked to the tree that loomed like a mountain. It took days. Dreams of otherwhere-dead bodies and cold cellars and crafters with hammers and measuring tapes-intruded. He drifted down into them, and surfaced again after not a blink of time. When at last he reached the tree, he climbed.
There were whole worlds in its bark, hidden in the brown terrain of ragged mountain ridges and deep valleys. Paladin climbed tirelessly and quickly. He clambered away from strange stinging and swarming creatures who dwelt in some of the valleys, and he learned to avoid their villages but otherwise pressed on as straight as he could.
He fell thrice, and died each time, surfacing again in the strange world of gold-gilded caskets and mourning men. But what is death to a dead man? Always he resurfaced to climb on.
The fourth time he fell, Paladin fell up the tree. Its diamond crown loomed, and Paladin plunged toward it, watching brown ridges race past. The crown grew ever larger. The bark of the tree became slick black skin, and the boughs branched into massive tentacles. Where once there had been leaves, now there were suction cups, broad and oozing, gripping the great diamond. Large as worlds, the gem glittered with the tiny gleams of pinprick stars and wandering moons.
This was no world tree, but something darker and deadlier. A world in itself, huge and alive, or-no, a creature that wished to be a world. Its thousand limbs in their dark and mighty magnificence clutched the glowing diamond.
He looked at that awesome stone. It drew him up. The lady hung unseen within it, crushed on all sides by titanic, yet balanced, forces. She sang out from its bright depths.
Paladin would save her.
He was suddenly there, beside the diamond, a cage within a cage. In it, entrapped, was Heart, who called to him.
Now he saw how the stone had held so powerful and beautiful a creature as Heart captive so long: the diamond was no clear crystal, but a hall of mirrors. Reflections, semblances, illusions; the most potent of magics in a world of truth. A labyrinth of lies and deceptions, receding into endless illusions that worked with eye and mind to betray body and soul.
Truth is, in the end, powerless against dazzle and shine.
The mournful throb of Heart came distantly from within.
Mirrors can be broken. Paladin drew steel. He would smash his way into the maze and carve a path inward to Heart.
The luminous mirror before him bore his own determined features. He shattered them and stepped into the slanted space beyond. Angled planes all around gave back his appearance.
The first few reflections showed Paladin as he was, only subtly reversed. His sword arm was switched, his forward knee had been traded for the trailing one. Others held images even farther from…
Paladin gritted his teeth and swung. A delicate magic can slay if it reverses thoughts until self and purpose are lost. Ten images of swordsmen struck in unison.
The world shattered. Another passage opened. Paladin stepped through.
The mirrors he now faced showed him the snout and tusks of a boar, black lashes and snakelike, slit-pupiled eyes, a blood-gorged cockscomb and wattle. He looked like a monster. He was a monster. Monsters must die.
"You fall first," he snarled in sudden rage, and clung to what he was, naming himself aloud as he swung shattering steel. Shards boiled away before him like smoke, and suddenly that unreal and trivial world where his body lay dead swam back, overwhelming all else. Snarling silently to muster his will, he returned, seeking the cry of Heart.
Paladin strode deeper into the diamond. The next mirror held a reflection that moved like him, but had cruel eyes and olive skin-and a sword arm whose flesh gave way to bare bone. Paladin remembered this man from the world he'd left but could give him no name.
He lifted his arm. Bare bones moved in uni
son. "I'm no assassin," Paladin said fiercely, and heard the eerie reflection make the same resolve, the silver-slim words mocking.
"I fight for what is right. I slay for freedom." Paladin and Assassin spoke those words together. Lie and truth lay together, indistinguishable from one another. The diamond's power was deepening with each new chamber. It pressed viciously on head and heart.
Heart. Paladin's lips set in a thin line, and his blade flashed out. Assassin cracked. He stared for a moment in surprise, bony sword arm uplifted, before the cloven mirror gave way and slid tinkling to the floor.
Deeper. Up and in. Heart drew him on.
A young man's face confronted him next, full of hope, honest and determined and inexcusably innocent. Paladin swung his blade without hesitation.
It met not chill glass and uncaring silver but soft flesh. The man sobbed, staggered, and fell forward.
A real man? Another warrior seeking Heart? A comrade!
Heart's own sorrow bled into the moan that came from Paladin. He set a hand to the young man's bleeding side.
This one, too, had a name, lost in the wash of truth and illusion. He was in Paladin's mind nothing more or less than Hero. Paladin's touch closed the weeping wound. Hero rose. No apology or explanation needed to be spoken; Hero understood. Paladin drew and offered his dagger. It was accepted with the ghost of a smile. Side by side, they went on through the silvered maze.
Another young warrior appeared in a mirror, the youthful semblance of Paladin himself.
"I am Jacob. I will battle beside you."
The words bore such earnest weight that Hero motioned Jacob to step from the glass and walk shoulder to shoulder with them.
The fighter emerged. Reflected flesh became momentarily scaly, tentacular, before swimming into solid human flesh! A lie garbed in borrowed shape. Paladin's blade sundered the emerging shapeshifter, dropping him in a thousand shards of ringing glass.
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