For a moment, it was all Noph could do to yammer incoherently. “You mean you knew? You? You knew who—what—she was before sending us out to get her back? That she wasn’t a helpless maiden but an evil monster?” His voice was as high and shrill as a hurt child’s. Noph lowered it an octave and asked accusingly, “You risked all our lives sending us to rescue a monster?”
“I was hoping Entreri would reach her before you did.” Khelben looked gravely at the unconscious man. “He’s near death, but I know a priest who can make him whole—even restore his arm. That was part of our agreement: no death or lasting injuries.”
The Lord Mage scooped up Entreri in his arms and carried him to the door. “This whole business of Eidola worked out,” he told Noph as he shouldered through the cell doorway. “You figured out what she was. You survived. And you’re a hero now.”
Feeling puzzled and deceived, Waterdeep’s hero followed the archmage into the passage and came to a halt as the Lord Mage mounted the stairs with his burden, Trandon of Cormyr on his heels. “I don’t feel like a hero!” Noph shouted after them. “I feel like a gods-damned traitor!”
The Lord Mage did not even turn as he replied, “It’s a common complaint among true heroes.”
Interlude
Dream and Delirium
At first I was pleased to discover that dead men dream. What other diversion is there for a soul haunting its own everlasting corpse? It provides some respite from a humdrum existence of lying about in cold cellars, counting each new mote of dust as it, with excruciating deliberation, settles out of the air and onto one’s nose.
In place of the palace cellar, there is a deep wood: tall, ancient trees like columns, pierced betimes by long, slanting banners of light. There is a deep pool, still and clear, where fish lurk and drift in silvery silence and cold. There is the green and unmistakable smell of verdant life.
What better place to spend the off-hours of afterlife?
So I thought.
Until I heard the long, distant, beautiful, mourning song of the white dove, lost beyond the pool and forest and marching mountains. Until it drew me, and I knew it was the plaintive cry of my irrecoverable love. Until I realized this was not, perhaps, a dream, but the haunted lands of the dead, the places where souls ever pursue and never catch what they have lost.
It is better by far to count the settling dust.
Chapter 3
Death Comes Again for the Open Lord
It was funeral time. The trumpets, glauren and longhorns wailed their dirge, embroidered by the heartrending cries of mourners, both private and professional. The restored chapel gleamed in newness and teemed with dignitaries, every corner crammed with close-packed citizens.
Khelben sat on the same balcony bench as before. Madieron Sunderstone once again slumped like a sheep dog beside the glass-topped casket. Captain Rulathon occupied the same place of honor from which, by gestures and secret signs, he commanded the gathered Watchmen. Nothing had changed, despite the return of two warriors from the Utter East, the attempted escape and subsequent death of two traitors, and the report that Eidola had not yet been rescued. Nothing save golden baskets filled with flowers, resplendent where gold candlesticks enspelled by the Doegan bloodforge had been neatly sawed away.
Unfortunately, no one had told the acolytes. They were only paces away from the caskets when they realized there were no candles to light. The first of the four boys, a freckled redhead who looked at once impish and solemn in his flowing white robe, paused only a moment before continuing to his corner of the funeral dais. There, as his companions found their places, he discreetly pawed among the flowers, seeking a holder for his taper. The black-haired acolyte across from him took the motion to mean that they were supposed to light the flowers. This was harder than one might suspect, since the white sunroods and merestars were still dewy from the morning mist. He succeeded only in getting a wisp of black smoke to curl up from one sprig of fern.
The last two boys, blond twins and kin to Madieron, had by simultaneous inspiration begun dribbling wax onto the glass casket preparatory to sticking their candles to it. Piergeiron’s grieving bodyguard sat within easy reach of both, but was too lost in sorrow to take notice. It wasn’t until the red wax of one of their perched candles snaked down beside Madieron’s face—cooling just fast enough to trap a lock of his hair against the glass—that the man lifted his head. His scalp lost the sudden tug of war for the lock of hair. He growled something to the boys, and his great armspan allowed him to deliver simultaneous cuffs to their heads.
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 Kim. 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 Faerûn 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 its 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!”
“Tru
ly 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!”
Madieron 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 Faerûn, 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 Pier—He 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 world’s 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.
Forgotten Realms - [Double Diamond Triangle Saga 09] - The Diamond Page 4
