Death Masks

by Ed Greenwood

  Up to the loose wall-panel at the back of the ladies’ jakes, then out and up the narrow dark stair into the taproom—as crowded and noisy as usual—where she took three steps and was out the back door into Tail Alley, a loop of narrow and muddy cartway off Cat Alley, that smelled—as it always did—of rotting fish and mildew. A few stars could be seen overhead, through the clinging yet still light city mist, as she came out into Castle Ward.

  She walked north with her heart low and cold within her. The man who was calling himself Antler probably had just the two mindstones. One protecting him personally and the other used to protect candidates for the Lords. She’d known enough not to even obliquely ask or try to find out who he would put forward to be the newest Hidden Lords of Waterdeep. If she ever came to know too much, too soon, he’d ruthlessly eliminate her.

  Despite his promise, the first time they’d met. That once a dozen Masked Lords of his choosing were in place, she’d be the thirteenth.

  “Hah,” she whispered. “The jest’s on me, isn’t it?”

  For the first time, Tasheene Melshimber admitted to herself what she’d begun to suspect days ago: that she wouldn’t live long enough to ever wear the Mask.

  • • •

  IN THE DARKNESS, Laeral padded barefoot from door to door of the little room one more time. Just to be sure.

  Locked, all of them, and the heavy desk dragged over against the one secret panel she couldn’t secure.

  Dealing with her fellow Lords was tiring—most of the nine she’d dealt with tonight were nasty, pushy people, and she had far too many centuries of dealing with far, far too many of those—and she wanted a break from their little hostilities. Some time to rest, and banish her weariness, and sink into the Weave and be comforted.

  She barely felt her feet leave the floor. Her hair was already unfolding through the air around her, the silver tresses like so many pleased serpents curling into aimlessly drifting lassitude …

  Deeper, deeper, the Weave becoming visible around her as the familiar pulsing, rippling blue-white glow suffusing everything … a glow that suddenly whirled up bright and strong where it shouldn’t have, startling her and jolting her out of her gathering reverie into blinking, barely ready alarm.

  Feet thudding back down onto the floor, Laeral snatched up the most combat-useful of the magic items she’d divested herself of to ride the Weave, and steeled herself to meet whatever trouble was arriving so unexpectedly, even now spinning its own gate out of nothing at all, an oval that grew and grew as it advanced out of nowhere into the far corner of the room.

  Silver hair suddenly swirled out of that blue-white whirling oval, darting to meet and mingle with her own, and she found herself looking into the large, dancing silver-blue eyes of—

  “Storm!”

  “Well met, Laer!” Storm embraced and kissed her affectionately, warm and strong and sleekly muscled, smelling of forest loam and green growing things and fresh outdoor breezes. Her lips tasted of apple tea.

  “Ah, sister,” Laeral said delightedly, “I am happy to see you!” And she meant it, but meant every bit as much the foreboding and suspicion in what she asked in her next breath, “And what brings you here, to me, in the dark heart of a night?”

  “Well, ’tis certainly not the décor,” Storm said lightly, whirling them both to the chairs Laeral had shoved to the walls, even as she plucked those seats forth and together with her tresses. “There are nicer rooms in this big cold pile of a Palace, you know!”

  “Yes, but none handy to my offices, that I can make secure when I commune with the Weave,” Laeral explained, as they sat down side by side. Storm plucked two apples out of her bodice and offered her sister one. Laeral bit into it delightedly.

  “It occurred to me,” Storm explained, “that you might be feeling a little lonely. Abandoned, even. And our El is usually more reliable than that, so I feel you’re owed an explanation for his abrupt and extended absences. I’m hoping the one we both serve will soon realize her new habit of keeping secrets is folly, but in the meantime …”

  Around a mouthful of sweet and juicy Shadowdale apple, Laeral replied, “In the meantime, you’re going to tell me what El is up to!”

  “Indeed. Know then that Elminster is busy looking after a mindburned mage we’ve both heard of—Mordenkainen of Oerth—and nursing him back to what you might call mental health. Mordenkainen is doing most of the healing himself, but has to be protected from himself, whenever it all gets to be too much and he flares up wild again. Alustriel and I have been using the Weave to try to help restore his mind, but the man was left barking insane, and the work is exhausting and quite difficult—as we weren’t familiar with the personal intricacies of his deep and powerful mind before he got so damaged, and must be very careful not to change him into a different person as we seek to mend him.”

  “And El is shielding you and protecting Mordenkainen—and everyone from Mordenkainen—at the same time. He might have told me,” Laeral said dryly.

  Storm shrugged. “Mystra did not deem it needful that you know. Now she does.”

  Laeral knew the smile that rose to her lips then was rather grim. “So Our Lady has become as paranoid as most mortals?”

  “Evidently.” Storm’s voice was decidedly dry. “Someone still merrily murdering Masked Lords of Waterdeep?”

  “Yes. Merrily, indeed.”

  “Well, enjoy the entertainment. Can’t say as I’ve ever wanted to tarry in this city overlong. Something about corruption so rife its reek overwhelms the stenches of death and greed.”

  “Don’t slam any gates on your way out,” Laeral replied. “I like it here.”

  “If ever you need a hide hold, or just a break,” Storm said softly, “you know the way to my kitchen.” And a strand of her hair caressed Laeral’s cheek fondly as she strode away across the room and a gate whirled up in front of her, bright and swift. She let it take her.

  Laeral smiled as it winked out, taking Storm with it—but that smile became a frown in an instant as something beside her retained the glow of the gate, where there should have been no such radiance.

  It was … a small filigree-work adamantine sphere on the seat where Storm had been. Her sister must have left it behind. A sphere that had two tiny rough pebbles inside it.

  It was not here by accident; Storm did not misplace things in her wake. Ever.

  So, why …?

  Rather than touch it, Laeral used the Weave to reach out and probe it … slowly and very warily.

  And found herself meeting the minds of her sisters Dove and Syluné, each bound to a pebble.

  Hi, Laer!

  Well met, Sister!

  Laeral laughed aloud in happy astonishment, and greeted her sisters mind to mind, their thoughts flashing back and forth like voices bubbling through the Weave.

  All wizards are crazy, Dove thought, present company very much included.

  “Such compliments!” Laeral exclaimed. “You’ll turn my head!”

  What? Syluné’s tease was sharp-edged. Your head still can be turned, after Khelben? Well, this is strong magic! So how goes ruling Waterdeep, thus far?

  “Not as well as I’d hoped,” Laeral said aloud, ruefully, “but better than I’d expected.”

  Meaning you’re still alive, and the city isn’t under siege or riven by civil war. Yet.

  “Ouch,” Laeral replied. “You are a witch, Luné!”

  Got to live up to the title. When your body’s gone, without your reputation, you’re nothing.

  “So Storm brought you both here to—what? Keep me company?”

  Storm was commanded by Mystra to bring us here to help you; Our Lady knows you’ll have need of us.

  “I see. Forgive me, but I’ve not yet become a Weave rider, so tell me … what exactly can you two do?”

  Syluné sent a smile through the Weave. We can fly about, but are intangible, so we can carry nothing more solid than drops of fine liquid, and we can appear as whatever seeming we desire, thoug
h you can see through us and we look rather eerie.

  As if we were ghosts or wraiths or specters, Dove put in.

  We see and hear and speak, Syluné mindspoke again, and point and gesture, and become visible and invisible at will, but we can’t go far from our pebbles, or leave them for long.

  So, Dove took over, we can serve you—briefly—as short-range spies and envoys, going where you can’t. Though we’ve discovered most magical barriers can keep us at bay.

  “Nevertheless,” Laeral said aloud, “that will be very useful. And far more than that, I won’t feel so utterly and desolately alone.”

  You miss him, don’t you? Syluné did not have to use Khelben’s name for all three of them to know who was being spoken of.

  Laeral nodded, suddenly close to tears. “He was Waterdeep. Everywhere I turn, every single gods-be-damned thing I look at—he’s there. Looking stern, or smiling, or being imperious—whatever he was doing when we were last in that place, or holding whatever it is or one like it, or … he was so strong. So dominant. My hero.” She turned away abruptly, and started to pace. Her whisper, when it came, was so quiet it might not have been audible, without her sisters hearing it through the Weave. “And I am lost without him.”

  Sister, Syluné, said firmly, I was his secret confidant. His confessor, if you will. What El likes to call the backup keeper of his secrets—command words, hiding places—in case anything happened to you before he fell. And he told me things he didn’t dare tell anyone else. Including things about you. So let me break one confidence he placed in me, now that he is gone. Laeral, he was lost without you.

  Laeral spun around again, and let them see how wet her face was, as the tears leaked out in a silent waterfall to run down and drip off her chin. “I …” Her lips trembled, and she swallowed salt tears, drew in a deep shuddering breath, and tried again. “I know this. Yet somehow, it makes me feel no stronger. There will never be another Khelben.”

  I’d cry if I were you right now, Dove thought at her in bitingly dry tones. You mourn Khelben, and have to make do with … Mirt the Moneylender? Hah! Crying is the least I would do! Tell me, is he a twentieth-measure as good a lover as he thinks he is? A sixtieth?

  Laeral snorted, choked on tears, and burst out laughing despite herself. “And how would I know how good a lover he is, Sister? I do have my minimum standards, you know!”

  Usually male, vaguely human, and more or less alive. Dove’s thought was sardonic. Have I covered it?

  Laeral burst into helpless laughter, throwing her head back and shouting her mirth at the ceiling.

  She was still laughing when someone tried one of the doors, and a moment later someone else tried another. Violently.

  “Lady Silverhand?” came the anxious muffled cry of a maid, through the first door.

  “Lord Laeral?” Talen Telfeather called, through the second.

  Laeral collapsed in giggles, and thought fiercely at her sisters, Stay invisible and silent, now! as she hastened to go and let her seneschal in.

  To his frowning face and drawn blade she announced merrily, “All wizards are crazy. Have no fears for me; I am alone, unharmed, and unthreatened. Merely gripped with glee.”

  Even before she turned away to go and let the maid in, Telfeather said reproachfully, “Lady, you’ve been crying. You must tell me what is wrong.” His face turned grimmer. “And you must tell me the truth.”

  “The truth, Seneschal,” she replied firmly over her shoulder, as she gave the maid a smile and ushered her in, “is that I miss my dead husband very much. And will, no doubt, continue to do so, whenever stray thoughts make me remember him.”

  Oh, is that our collective nickname now? Dove asked, in her mind. The Stray Thoughts?

  Has a ring to it, Syluné agreed, and Laeral had to smother a fresh splutter of laughter.

  Ere she drew herself up and addressed the maid and the seneschal sternly, “And if you’re wondering as to my sanity, don’t, thank you very much. I am no more madwits right now than I was when I was asked to be Open Lord of this city, and accepted the honor. And the burden. Memories of my husband, Khelben Arunsun the Blackstaff, rise to mind everywhere I turn here in Waterdeep, so I’m going to cry—and laugh like a banshee, betimes, too—again. Because I am human.”

  “Lady,” the seneschal said gravely, “I’ve never doubted it.” He bowed, backed to the door she’d let him in by, and withdrew, closing it behind him.

  The maid went to one of the small decorative panels in the nearest wall, opened it to reveal a small storage cupboard Laeral had found and investigated several days back, plucked forth a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and offered it. “Lady, if there’s anything you need, just ring for us.”

  “Thank you, Amaelra,” Laeral said warmly, taking the handkerchief. The maid looked startled that Laeral knew her name, but pleased, too, as she nodded and departed through her door.

  Laeral closed and locked it, then made sure Telfeather’s door was also locked once more.

  And then, handkerchief in hand, she went and sat down on the chair to have a good long talk with her sisters. She was so pleased by their company that she felt she could truly relax and trade jests, for the first time since she’d arrived in Waterdeep.

  And stars above the harbor, did she have a lot of joking and trading sharp barbs and gossiping like a young girl to catch up on!

  • • •

  JALESTER DODGED INTO an alleyway he’d never intended to set boot in—and by the time he was halfway along it, the faint and stealthy footsteps behind him did, too.

  That settled it. He was being followed.

  By more than one person, judging by how many footfalls he’d heard. More like six. No, at least six.

  They were trying to keep quiet, but he’d grown up a Silvermane, and had spent years listening from upper windows of the Old Skull to the sounds of travelers approaching in twilight or after dark, trying to gauge how many there were, and if the noises hinted at anything unusual, that meant he should raise an alarm.

  He should probably raise one now, but it was the chill tail end of night, in an unfamiliar part of North Ward—and now he knew just how Waterdhavians felt when they grumbled that Watch patrols were hrasted everywhere when you didn’t want them, but couldn’t be sighted or hailed to save your skin when you did want them.

  He’d been walking for what seemed a very long time now, since he’d slipped out of that rented room at Swordshire House, heading south for his bed at the Castlegate, as dawn stole up on a city that was probably as quiet as Waterdeep ever got.

  He’d departed the Nandar revel in the company of a weavingly drunken but gallant and somewhat handsome old noble, Lord Weverell Zun—the wastrel younger brother of the Lord Lungarl Zun who headed that house, Jalester gathered—who had obvious designs upon his person. Yet Wever seemed far kinder and gentler than the persistent Lord Dresdark Kormallis, who seemed to be gathering a bevy of beauties of both genders to engage in some sort of sweaty team bed-sport, and the repulsive Gingerwhiskers, who kept unexpectedly reappearing and leering at him.

  Wever had taken him to a hastily rented room in a new and rather spartan North Ward inn, Swordshire House, and the moment its door had closed behind them, had pawed at him for a few chortlingly clumsy moments—and then collapsed headfirst onto the bed, alone. Old Zun was snoring the moment his short, stout, and prodigiously side-whiskered body had finished its facedown bouncing and settled to rest, so Jalester had quietly dressed again and slipped away from him and the inn.

  The alley came out into a cross street, and although it continued on the far side as an even narrower dark cleft between the outside-stair-adorned backs of buildings, he turned onto the street and headed west. He urgently wanted wider and better-lit surroundings where there might be a hrasted Watch patrol he could take refuge among.

  His pursuers were moving faster now, not worrying so much about keeping quiet. Closing in on him.

  And there were more than six of them. Maybe as many as
ten.

  Jalester started to quick-walk, not quite trotting but walking with what would seem comical haste to any disinterested observer. It would be a clear signal to his pursuers that he knew they were there, and he wondered what they’d do. Already he was sidestepping abruptly from time to time, to somewhat lower the chances of a crossbow bolt easily finding the back of his neck or the midst of his shoulder blades. Somewhat.

  The cross street met with a larger north–south street, and he turned south and started to run.

  And all too soon, pounding along with his breath starting to come in gasps, he heard the thunder of boots in his wake—a thunder that was quickly growing louder. They were overtaking him.

  Jalester risked a look back over his shoulder. Tall and long-limbed adventurers unarmored but with sheaths and scabbards bouncing at every belt and cruel grins spreading across faces as they saw his own expression. Ten grins.

  Where were the gods-be-damned Watch patrols?

  Not a blade drawn yet, but those unlovely smiles had been clear enough. They were coming to kill, these ten men he’d never met before. So … hired by someone, but who? Who gave a stlarn about one outlander, an adventurer from a distant Dale with no reputation at all?

  Another two blocks, and the Castlegate couldn’t be far off now. Yet with still no Watch patrols in sight, and nothing and no one at all to be seen but some early delivery wagons with rag-bound wheels to muffle their rumblings, the inn he sought might as well have been clear across the Sea of Swords from here.

  He was quite likely going to die.

  Soon and painfully, being as it was ten to one and his foes looked neither naïve nor careless, but advanced as a team, maintaining an easy formation without seeming to think much about it.

  He was badly outnumbered, and only in chapbooks did heroes miraculously escape alive from back alley skirmishes. Not that he dared duck into another alley, as none he’d seen around here were halfway narrow enough to prevent these grinning slayers from surrounding him. He’d probably not last much more than two quick breaths or so.