Death Masks

by Ed Greenwood

  “Ah, splendid girl,” Elminster said delightedly. “Such timing.”

  And he settled Laeral into the best chair, handed her a chapbook entitled Wonders Of A Wanton, and said, “I particularly recommend Chapter Three. When a bed in fervent use starts sliding down a flight of stairs. Most amusing.”

  “El,” Laeral asked, finding her wits and voice at last, “did you know that attack was coming?”

  “An attack, to be sure. That particular one, and its timing, not at all. Hence my tardy arrival. Though I’m still faster than Watch guards on duty, I haven’t failed to notice. Once they’ve all cleared out, I’ll have to see to preparing your study—and the Open Lord’s audience chamber, too—with plenty of things rigged to fall on people.”

  “Fall on people?” Laeral queried, rolling her eyes.

  “When ye pull on cords, either by directly pulling their ends, or by means of a mage hand. Come to think of it, did I ever teach thee weave fingers?”

  “No,” Laeral told him, “you did not. What is a ‘weave fingers’?”

  “A Weave effect. Works like seven simultaneous mage hands. Ye can turn a stocked-shelves storeroom into volleys of missiles to bludgeon foes.”

  “That might be handy,” Laeral said cautiously. “Later.”

  “Agreed,” said Elminster, pouring tea. “First we’d best consider who just tried to kill ye—or to be more precise, who hired the louts who just tried to kill ye.”

  “Someone who wants me gone?” Laeral asked with bright sarcasm.

  “Or someone who wants the Open Lordship vacant, and the incumbent’s inconvenient ties to powerful Chosen of Mystra allies gone with her,” El responded.

  “Agreed,” Laeral replied, her mimicry precise. “My point was and is that there are so many possible ‘someones’ that even your welcome precision leaves us with more than—to pluck a fanciful number out of the air—a hundred thousand possibles.”

  “Have some tea,” Elminster suggested.

  “However, granting that whoever’s behind the murders of the five Hidden Lords slain thus far may not be the same person who wants me gone—though it’s tempting to equate the two—I believe it will be more useful for us, and more helpful for Waterdeep, if we try to narrow down our hunt for that particular villain.”

  Elminster nodded, so Laeral leaned forward, picked up the untidy stack of chapbooks, and set them back down on the table one by one as she announced names.

  “Here, then, the Lords slain—and we must, I’m afraid, add ‘so far.’ ” She laid the first book on the table.

  “Nammandus Gorlar. Slain four nights ago, in the street beside his house, just before he arrived home.”

  The second book joined the first, neatly atop it.

  “Then fell Avner Ravelmark. Slain in his own stables, three nights back.”

  The third book made the stack higher.

  “Followed by Barkeld Haelinghorse, two nights ago, on an upper floor of his own home. Head still missing.”

  A fourth book joined the mounting edifice.

  “Ondreth Tolvur at Nandartowers, last night. Body still missing, but there’s enough talk among the nobles about him being fed to the sewers—rolled into a carpet, and there is a carpet missing that the Nandars aren’t pleased about—that I don’t think he’s in hiding, or kidnapped, or enjoying some other ‘will resurface when he wants to’ fate.”

  A fifth chapbook crowned the stack. “And just before the attack on me you so helpfully interrupted, I received word that Oszbur Malankar was found drowned in his fishpond, locked in the arms of another man. They’d apparently been struggling with each other.”

  “And that other man is—?”

  Laeral shrugged. “We’re still finding out. Not a noble, or anyone known to the Watch. And earlier today, six Lords—Voskur, Hrimmrel, Haelhand, Heirlarpost, Maremthur, and Cazondur—came to me to have my blessing for six candidates to put forward for the four vacancies.”

  “And these likely Lords-to-be are?”

  Laeral spread her fingers and counted them off, one by one.

  “Daerrask Querreth, a seemingly tireless veteran investor and shipping fleet owner. Zuzeena Qeldur, known to some as ‘Lady Sharptongue’; she owns almost a score of shops all across the city—a wide array of emporia selling everything from lingerie to cheese. Halark Tarncrown, a wealthy independent merchant and investor; quiet, dignified, handsome sort. Cadraethe Haulhenarr, a forceful widow who since her husband’s death has gotten out of breeding horses and selling livestock and become a successful nonguild maker of staircases and ornamental shelving in the city. Zereth Keltaerond, an investor and moneylender of Calishite heritage and trade connections. Oh, and Perengal Yuskalaunt, a rather unlovely but unfailingly polite shipping fleet owner—and no friend to Querreth.”

  Elminster regarded her over the last of his tea. “I know ye, lass. Thy tone makes it clear ye have suspicions regarding this little exercise of behind-doors decision-making, of six Lords for all the rest.”

  “I do,” Laeral confirmed gravely. “Although they made a show of all proposing names and voting on them, they did so in a way that would have suggested to just about anyone with two wits to bundle together that at least two of those Lords, Heirlarpost and Cazondur, had discussed matters beforehand. And that Cazondur had more or less scripted the meeting and picked most, if not all, of the names put forward as candidates.”

  El nodded. “So if he’s not our murderous mastermind, we need to find out just who is either friends with all of these proposed new Lords—or has a hold over all of them.”

  “My, that’ll be a swift and easy job, for Chosen who can mind-read every person in all Waterdeep in a trice,” Laeral observed sarcastically.

  And they chuckled in rueful unison.

  Just as the door banged open and a certain stout former moneylender came wheezing in, hurrying and with his sword half-drawn. “They’re all excited, down front,” Mirt huffed. “Has there been violence? Did I miss anything?”

  Laeral and Elminster exchanged looks, and burst into laughter.

  • • •

  CUTHBARREL LOOKED AROUND the tower room. “You should get this fixed, before it all cracks right along here—and the whole works just collapses down into your grounds below.”

  Tasheene realized it was the first time either of her co-conspirators had been in the disused northwestern tower in proper daylight.

  She shrugged. “I’ve no particular attachment to this tower. Or Seashield Hall itself, for that matter. It’s always been empty, used for storage and the wrack of my father’s passing enthusiasms.”

  Cuthbarrel gave her a shrug right back. “But you’re the family heir, and this’ll be worth a lot less as a ruin than it is now. And cost much to rebuild, whereas a crew of masons, and half a tenday …”

  “But what need hath Lady Tasheene Melshimber, the only living child of Lord Harlond and Lady Andraethra Melshimber, of money?” Zaraela asked the ceiling mockingly. “Mere coin means less than nothing to the young beauty of Melshimber House!”

  “You have no idea, dear,” Tasheene murmured coldly, and had the satisfaction of seeing Zaraela stiffen.

  Yet they were meeting, with Drake standing lookout two turns of the stair below, to plan their next murder, not to play at being catty. So Tasheene hastened to get to the business at hand before Zaraela’s tongue could work fresh mischief.

  “Our chosen victim,” she announced, “is the Masked Lord Dathanscza Meiril.”

  Cuthbarrel’s eyes narrowed. “The half-elf sorceress?”

  Meiril had become very wealthy in less than a decade, making and selling prefabricated stained glass windows and delicately scented tapestries and window-draperies to match. She’d risen so fast and done so well that she was hated by the guilds. “She’s a Hidden Lord, then? So that’s how she got so rich, so quickly.” The guildmaster smiled. “This will be a pleasure.”

  Tasheene smiled back. “She’s to be slain at her workshop tonight, when she’ll
be working alone, in the wee hours.”

  Cuthbarrel frowned. “ ‘To be’? Now, lass, hear me! When we started this, you gave us the impression we were hatching this together—all of this removing the cankers that infest the rule of our city. We were equals. Yet from the first, you’ve chosen our victims. At first, it seemed we were going after those you’d watched and prepared for the most. But for these last three, it seems you don’t know beforehand whom we’re taking down, yet once you have a target, it is that lord and no other we slay. So tell me now: is someone else selecting the lords we slay for you? Are we slaughtering our way down someone else’s list?”

  Tasheene took care not to answer too swiftly, yet not to seem to hesitate, as she leaned forward to look closely into his face, and, eyes steady on his, say firmly, “No, Cuth. I have my spies—Drake, whom you’ve all seen, is one of them—and they continually bring me word of what this or that Masked Lord has said or done. I have my ‘dark list’ of those whose votes and opinions and deeds in private life make them ripe for removal, and my spies work tirelessly to narrow down who those dark lords really are, behind their masks. Once I know who a given lord is—for hear me well: I will not be party to murdering innocent Waterdhavians in error—I ask my spies to find out all we can of their routines, of where they may be found, and when they are most vulnerable or may most easily be reached without it being too public. And when I feel I am ready—and only then—we move against them. With that said, obviously once the Hidden Lords realize someone is killing them in earnest, so to speak, they’ll arm up and defend themselves accordingly. So as we’ve now started and word is spreading, the faster we can take down the easy targets, the better.”

  Cuthbarrel nodded slowly. “I believe you, and I’m sorry I doubted you. I … forgive me, but I expect nobles to manipulate the rest of us, and you are of noble birth.”

  “Cuth,” Zaraela put in, “all humans manipulate; it’s what we do.”

  She rolled her hips, struck a provocative pose, then looked a silent question at him: Yes? Agree?

  The guildmaster nodded a little grimly, and Tasheene decided to sweep on as if nothing had happened.

  “Now,” she said briskly, placing a scroll that had been tacked flat to a board on the table in their midst, “here’s the filed guild floor plan of Meiril’s workshop. She may, of course, have altered interior walls and doorways since it was built; I’ve heard tell she wasn’t happy with the durthdra—that’s a dumbwaiter, Zara—size and location, for one thing. But we do know she works alone, and will almost certainly be hereabouts, where she …”

  • • •

  THE STEEL SHADOWS were wont to take their highsunfeast or the newly fashionable “latesun” light afternoon meal at the Bountiful Boar eatery on Horn Street, and as Jalester had apprised Elminster of this, he wasn’t all that surprised to see the wizard shamble in, stroll straight to a back table, and murmur an order for wine to a table maid.

  When it arrived—with two goblets, which meant he’d planned this, the old rogue—he beckoned Jalester over with a wave and a smile.

  The young adventurer shrugged. His fellow Shadows were still out seeking employment, so why not enjoy some free wine?

  “Well met,” he said with a smile, accepting a goblet. “I hope you aren’t going to quiz me about the moot Lady Haventree presided over—because I tell you frankly, I soon lost track of the few names I did learn.”

  “Nay, I’m not nearly that cruel, lad,” Elminster replied wryly. “Ye’re a long way from Shadowdale, and I wanted ye to get a feel for those who wield power in the city, not just those in the shops and streets. Right now, I confess I want to know something simpler, yet perhaps harder. I desire to know what ye want to do here in Waterdeep. Make a living as an adventurer hired out to someone, aye, but if it can be anyone, for anything, where does thy heart lie? And are the other Steel Shadows similarly inclined? Can ye speak for them? If they disagree with ye, is it likely to lead to thy fellowship splitting asunder? And if so, are ye prepared for that? Will there be rancor?”

  Jalester flung up a hand against the flood of questions, and protested, “Here, now! Give me time to think!”

  But even as those words left his mouth, he heard the front doors of the Boar’s dining room squeal open and familiar voices jesting and chattering.

  His fellow Shadows had returned—and once again, as had happened so often before, life hadn’t given him time to think.

  CHAPTER 11

  Easy Coin, and Trouble

  Yet when peace reigns and men grow fat and proud

  And sneering and lazy and ever more loud

  Then do the rumors leap up and start to bubble

  And men talk of dark conspiracies, easy coin, and trouble.

  —The Rolling Road of the Wayfarer, a ballad by the bard Belathra Baerlow, published in the Year of Silent Shadows

  “HOY, JALESS! HARD DAY’S DRINKING ALREADY, I SEE! WHO’S THIS OLD dog with the fearsome beard?”

  The Steel Shadows were loud, young, and swaggering—and by their voices, looking for trouble. Jalester saw Elminster put a blandly polite smile on his face and winced. He looked a silent question at the old man, who gave him a slow nod. So as Nelvor, the swiftest wit among the Shadows, loomed up over the table, Jalester said, “This, my Shadows, is the famous wizard Elminster. The Sage of our own dear Shadowdale.”

  His introduction was greeted with instant and open disbelief. Out of the howls of derision, Nelvor practically leered into Elminster’s face as he told Jalester, “Oh, I’m sure he told you he was Elminster, but has he blasted any dragons out of the sky, yet? Or revealed his true form? Elminster stands nine feet tall, and has wands strapped to every finger, and his codpiece flashes warningly out in front of him to tell all women to beware his five foot long—”

  “Nelvor,” Jalester interrupted firmly, “leave off. It’s less than wise to be so casually rude to anyone in Waterdeep; they’re all too hrasted likely to be someone powerful. We’re not in Shadowdale now!”

  “I’ll say!” Eraskyn, the larger warrior of the Shadows agreed. “And I for one am never going back there! Not now I’ve tasted the pleasures of the City of Splendors! Do you know they have literally hundreds of taverns here, and most of them try to have cellars with contents that differ from other drinking houses nearby? And that’s just the throatslake! Why, I had some fried sea squid last night that’s far and away the best thing I’ve ever tasted! Simply—”

  “Some of us, Eraskyn, think of more than our bellies,” Nelvor said sourly.

  “Oh, I think of more than food, Nelvor,” Eraskyn growled back. “I ponder how in blazes we’re going to go on paying for it all, and how we can’t get work because you can’t keep your clever tongue still for an instant and must needle this possible patron and deride that one, and—”

  Nelvor whirled around to deck Eraskyn with one swift punch, but the larger warrior had obviously been expecting such a response, and deftly caught hold of the swinging fist in one hand, pulled—and the off-balance Nelvor went sprawling.

  He bobbed back up from among toppled chairs in an instant, cursing and clawing at his belt dagger. Only to shie back in astonished fright at a disembodied human skull that was suddenly floating nose to nose with him, hovering in midair as it whispered, “Not in the Boar! Oh, no! No, no, no! Not unless ye want thy manhood sliced off right this instant, friend Nelvor!”

  Dumbfounded, Nelvor staggered back as the skull pressed forward, empty eye sockets like two black and bottomless pits scarcely a finger width away … and slowly became aware of the startled curses of his fellow Shadows as they stared at the floating thing.

  “Who—?” He asked, shaken. And then his eyes lit upon Elminster, who had a goblet of wine raised in front of his face but wasn’t drinking.

  Nelvor’s eyes narrowed. “You,” he said accusingly.

  The old white-bearded wizard smiled merrily. “Me.”

  “I’ll—” Nelvor began furiously, but the skull whispered lovingly
in his ear, “Ye will, sailor? Ye will? Oh, I’ve waited so long!”

  Eraskyn barked out sudden laughter, and a moment later most of the rest of the Boar was roaring with mirth.

  Nelvor spluttered wordless anger and went for his dagger again, but Elminster put his smile away, and shook his head. “Not in the Boar, Nelvor of Shadowdale. Or I’ll stop playing with illusions of skulls and turn to stronger magic. As the lad said, ye’re in Waterdeep now; take heed, and master thy temper.”

  “Your mother coupled with a snake, and coin changed hands,” Nelvor hissed. “Probably half a bitten copper.”

  Elminster lofted an eyebrow. “That the best ye’ve got, Nelvor? Ye’ve been away from Shadowdale too long, I deem.”

  Nelvor gave him a glare and then transferred it to Jalester and snapped, “Jaless, get away from that man!”

  Jalester blinked. “And you became my mother when, Nelvor?”

  “Come away from him!” Nelvor roared—only to find his fellow Shadows Eraskyn and Dunblade stepping into his path, faces flat and unfriendly.

  “That’s enough, Nelvor,” Faerrel Dunblade snapped.

  “More than enough,” Eraskyn growled.

  They stepped forward, slowly and menacingly, and Nelvor was forced to give ground. He leaned out to peer past them and wag an accusatory finger at Elminster.

  “You did this, old man!”

  “Did what?” the old wizard asked mildly.

  “What?” the skull burbled in Nelvor’s ear—and he spun around with a snarl of pure fury that was almost a shriek and clawed at … empty air.

  The skull was gone, and his wild clawings had him overbalanced. He crashed down into a luckily vacant chair, and more laughter rose on all sides.