by Mark Anthony
“Wait just a minute, friend,” said a grizzled man who leaned over the edge of the well, blocking him. “You know Durnan’s toll. One gold piece to go down, and one to come up. That’s the rule.”
With his free hand, Jardis clutched at the purse at his belt. His fingers found torn, empty leather. He looked up in terror. “I’ve lost it all. But I can get more! Please, I—”
The grizzled man stared down at him with cold eyes. “Cut the rope,” he ordered.
“No!” Jardis cried in horror.
A knife flashed. The rope parted. A scream ripped itself from Jardis’s throat as he plummeted downward.
But we were supposed to be heroes!
His scream ended as he plunged into the roiling sea of slavering rats.
* * * * *
So this is how the rabble lives, Lord Darien Thal thought in vaguely fascinated disgust.
From his table in the shadowed corner of the Yawning Portal, he gazed with heavy-lidded green eyes at the crowd that filled the smoky tavern. A great shout went up from the throng gathered around the stone-ringed well in the center of the common room. Gold changed hands, and the gamblers grumbled or gloated as best suited their luck.
Apparently some poor idiot had just met his demise in the dungeon below. No doubt the fool had been ill-equipped and ill-prepared to meet the perils that lurked in the labyrinth beneath Mount Waterdeep. Why couldn’t these commoners understand that venturing into Undermountain was a sport best left to the nobility? But no, it was ever the compulsion of the poor to ape the wealthy. And if they had to throw away their lives in the process—well, they were meager enough, so what did it matter?
With his left hand, Darien raised the dented pewter goblet that a serving maid had plunked down before him. His nose wrinkled in distaste. This swill passed for wine? He thrust the goblet back down, then noticed a ruffle of purple velvet peeking out from beneath the heavy black cloak in which he had wrapped himself. Hastily, he tucked the bit of velvet back beneath the cloak, then adjusted the deep hood that concealed his visage. It would not do to be revealed as a member of one of Waterdeep’s noble families. Commoners would be too wary to speak to a lord. And speaking with the inn’s coarse clientele was exactly what Darien needed to do this night. A curious excitement coursed through him. There was always a certain lurid thrill to slumming.
A black beetle scuttled before him across the knife-scarred wooden table. Darien withdrew his right arm from beneath his cloak. The arm ended, not in a hand, but in a cap of polished steel that fit over the stump of his wrist. It was cylindrical in shape, without mark or adornment, save for a single slit on the end.
Darien called it the Device.
He considered his choices for a brief moment, then nodded to himself. The stiletto would do. With a click, a wickedly thin blade sprang from the slit in the Device. In one swift motion, Darien lashed out and skewered the beetle. He raised the blade, staring in fascination at the insect wriggling on the point. Its vain struggle made him think of the hapless commoners who sought glory in the depths below—fighting on when they were already dead.
With a sigh, Darien flung the beetle into a corner. Retracting the stiletto, he concealed the Device beneath his cloak once more. He supposed he was being too hard on these poor people. They had little enough to brighten their drab lives. Why begrudge them what small entertainments they could find? Certainly Undermountain was more than vast enough for nobles and commoners alike.
It was only in recent years that venturing into the depths beneath Mount Waterdeep had become a fashionable—if perilous—sport. Yet it was well-known that the maze was far older than Waterdeep itself. Over the centuries, countless tales had been spun about the city beneath the city, though most were half-truths liberally sprinkled with falsehoods: outlandish tales of imprisoned dragons, monsters of metal, and subterranean forests impossibly bathed in bright sunlight. Still, nearly all the stories agreed on one point, and Darien supposed there must be some degree of truth to it—that the labyrinth now known as Undermountain was created by the mad wizard Halaster over a thousand years ago.
No one knew from whence had come the one called Halaster. A few tales whispered in passing the name Netheril, the dread empire of sorcerers that legends told lay buried beneath the shifting sands of the Great Desert Anauroch. When Halaster had first come here, he found Waterdeep no more than a rude fishing village huddled by a natural harbor. Ignoring the villagers, the wizard ascended the slopes of Mount Waterdeep, and on a rocky shoulder he built a tower for himself, that he might continue his arcane studies away from all distraction. Yet—and here the tales agreed once more—the solitude of the tower was not enough.
Whether compelled by magic, madness, or some burning secrecy, in time Halaster began to delve into the mountain beneath his tower. As the years passed, he dug ever downward, excavating vast chambers in which to work his magical experiments. Some say that as he went he struck delvings deeper and more ancient yet—the tunnels of dark elves and dwarves. From these he drove the drow and duergar, and claimed the tunnels for his own. Eventually, Halaster abandoned his tower, and the uppermost levels of his labyrinth as well. Deeper and deeper he went, driven by his secret needs, until he passed from all knowledge. Soon, hordes of dire, nameless creatures crawled out of the cold and lightless Underdark to haunt the empty corridors and chambers that the mad wizard had left behind.
In later centuries, as Waterdeep grew from lowly village to teeming City of Splendors, it pressed against the rocky shoulders of Mount Waterdeep. Eventually, those who haunted the sewers beneath the city found places where the maze of foul waterways came in contact with Halaster’s delvings. Knowledge of this fact soon spread among elements of the city’s underworld. Thus the upper halls of Undermountain became a refuge for bands of criminals and cults dedicated to evil and forbidden gods. When the hidden Lords of Waterdeep finally assumed control of the city a century ago, most of these sinister organizations were rooted out and destroyed. After that, Undermountain was left to brood in its own silent darkness.
That is, until Durnan the Wanderer ventured below.
Durnan was the first to descend into Undermountain in recent times and return bearing tales of wonder and the riches to prove them. Seven times Durnan journeyed beneath Mount Waterdeep, and seven times he returned triumphant. At last he retired from the adventuring life and built his inn, the Yawning Portal, right over the entrance into Undermountain he had discovered. Some whispered that it was upon this very spot that the tower of Halaster once stood.
All that was nearly twenty years ago. Now Durnan was a gruff innkeeper, not a hero. Yet he kept the Well of Entry ever open. Would-be heroes came from all over Faerûn to pay one gold coin and take their chances in the maze below. A few of them found wealth and fame. Most of them found death. Either way, lucre changed hands in the tavern above as bets concerning the adventurers’ fates were settled.
Nor were common freebooters the only ones drawn by the sport of Undermountain. Of course, not the least member of the nobility would be so gauche as to pay to use Durnan’s public entryway. Many nobles had constructed their own private entrances into the labyrinth, and the rest curried their favor. To the nobility of Waterdeep, venturing into Undermountain to hunt trophies of kobold or goblin was no different than the manner in which country lords rode into their greenwoods in search of hart or stag. Always the nobles went in large, well-armed parties and ventured down only well-known passageways. There was little true danger in these excursions. It was an expensive and stylish game, and that was all.
In contempt, Darien eyed a scruffy band of adventurers sitting at a nearby table, making drunken plans for their own descent down the Well of Entry. It was a game to them, too—though one with far greater rewards if they succeeded, and far deadlier consequences if they failed. Yet Darien needed to find one to whom Undermountain was not merely a game. He had to find one who could brave the deadly depths like no other had before.
It was time to start ask
ing questions.
Rising, he moved slowly through the firelit common room, making certain he stayed fully concealed within his cloak and hood. Few gave him a second look. Travelers in disguise were hardly an unusual sight at the Inn of the Yawning Portal. Sitting alone in a corner was a bent-nosed man in a travel-stained leather jerkin. He looked like a suitable candidate. Darien hesitated only a moment, then swiftly sat down opposite him.
Bent-Nose looked up, his beady eyes hazy with drink. “What in the Abyss do you want?”
“Your advice,” Darien replied smoothly from the shadows of his hood.
The other man grunted in surprise. Clearly this was not a request he received often.
“You see, I have lost something,” Darien continued in a low voice. “Something of great value to me.”
At this, interest flickered across Bent-Nose’s weathered face. “How valuable?”
“Very.”
Bent-Nose scratched his scraggly beard. “And I suppose you’re looking for someone who can find it for you.”
From the purse beneath his cloak, Darien withdrew a gleaming gold coin and placed it on the table. The man eyed the coin greedily.
“Actually,” Darien replied affably, “I already know where this thing of import happens to be. So the task is all the simpler. I only need someone who can venture there and retrieve it.”
The other man’s hand inched across the table toward the gold coin. “And just where might that be?”
Darien spoke a single, quiet word.
“Undermountain.”
Bent-Nose’s hand began to tremble. Hastily he snatched it back.
“I can be of no help to you, stranger,” he gasped hoarsely. “I’ll not go back down there.” His eyes went distant with remembered fear. “Do you hear me? I’ll not go down there again!”
Darien watched the trembling man with a mixture of pity and curiosity. He had seen something below, something to break a man’s will and send him seeking forgetfulness in drink. Something horrible. The pathetic wretch.
“Fear not, friend,” Darien said in disdainful mirth. “I would hardly ask you to undertake this task for me.” He tapped the gold piece with a finger. “But tell me—who shall I send on this crucial errand? Are any of these worth the price?” He gestured subtly toward the various roadworn freebooters and adventurers who filled the inn.
A strangled laugh escaped the other man’s throat. “Those fools? Bah! None of them are worth the coin Durnan charges them to go down below. They’ll come back mad and penniless. If they come back at all.” His voice dropped to a mysterious whisper. “No, there’s only one who might help you, stranger. Only one who could go down into a place like that, find what he’s looking for, and come out … whole. But you’ll not get him.”
Darien pushed the coin across the table. His voice resonated with intensity.
“Tell me.”
For a long moment Bent-Nose eyed the gold piece and his empty ale pot in turn. At last he reached out his still-shaking hand and closed it around the coin. Within the shadows of his hood, Darien smiled. He leaned forward to hear the other man’s whispered words.
* * * * *
As the hours wore toward midnight, Darien moved through the inn, swathed in his disguise, approaching others who he thought might be compelled, with a gold coin or a pot of ale, to speak. They were more than plentiful. He asked each the same question. Who, better than any other, might go deep into Undermountain and find what he was charged to seek? Many names were given in answer. Some were heroes who had never existed other than in legends. Others were sots who at present snored drunkenly in a corner of the inn. Neither were of any use to Darien. However, there was one name that was repeated again and again in awed voices.
Artek the Knife.
Darien had heard of the scoundrel before. Artek Ar’talen, known also as the Knife, had once been Waterdeep’s most famous and elusive criminal. He had preyed most often upon the nobility, which made him all the more abhorrent in Darien’s eyes, if not those of the common folk. It was said that there was no tower so high, no vault so secure, and no crypt so deep that Artek the Knife could not penetrate it and rob it clean. That made him the perfect candidate for Darien’s task. There was only one complication. Artek the Knife had mysteriously vanished over a year ago.
At last Darien found one who knew why.
“The city watch finally caught him,” the woman said, quaffing the ale Darien had bought her. By her leather garb and the myriad knives at her hip, she styled herself some sort of rogue. “I guess Artek wasn’t as slippery as the stories claimed. The Magisters have him locked up in their prison.” She clenched a hand into a fist. “And he can rot in there forever!”
“Let me guess,” Darien replied musingly. “Ar’talen enlisted your help in a robbery, promising to cut you in on the take, only to disappear with all the loot.”
Anger twisted her face, and by this he knew he had hit close to the mark.
“He won’t do you any good either,” she spat. “The Magisters will never let you near him.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain,” Darien purred. “I am rather accustomed to getting what I want.”
Just then a burly freebooter careened drunkenly into Darien. The noble swore hotly, but the man only lurched onward to join several compatriots at a nearby table. Darien turned back to the woman to see that her eyes had narrowed in sudden suspicion. Too late he noticed the silken ruffle now revealed where his cloak had been knocked aside.
She grabbed the cloak, ripping it away. Even to one who did not know his identity, his high forehead and striking features clearly marked him a noble, as did his long coat of rich purple velvet and his ruffled shirt of silvery silk. The rogue hissed the words like venom.
“A nobleman.”
Instantly, a deathly silence settled over the common room. All eyes turned toward Darien. Inwardly he cursed the insolent woman.
“I have no quarrel with you,” he said coolly. Yet, he added to himself.
She drew dangerously close to him. “No? Well, I have one with you—you and all your kind. I was only a child at the time, but I will never forget the day a nobleman cast my family into the street. He took everything we owned. Then he had my parents hauled away by the city watch. They were thrown into prison, and they died there. I remember standing in the gutter, crying. I didn’t understand what was happening. And do you know what the nobleman said? ‘Do forgive me.’ ” She shook with seething fury. “As if that could bring my parents back!”
Darien stared at her flatly. “You must understand, my dear,” he said in a bored voice. “A lord can hardly be expected to indulge a tenant who fails to pay his rent. You see, if one allows but a single maggot into his meat, he will soon find it putrid with flies.”
For a frozen moment, the woman stared at him in pale-faced rage. Then she reached for one of the curved knives at her belt. But Darien was faster and raised his right arm. Three barbed steel prongs sprang from the end of the Device. They spun rapidly, emitting a high-pitched whine. With a fluid, casual motion, Darien stepped forward and thrust the whirling prongs deep into the rogue’s gut. He let them spin there a moment, then withdrew his arm. With a click, the blood-smeared barbs slid back into the Device.
Her eyes wide with shock, the rogue sank to the floor. There she writhed in soundless agony as she slowly died. Just as the insect had on the end of the Device. With a fey smile, Darien whispered, “Do forgive me.”
He spun on a boot heel and strode through the silent common room toward the tavern’s door. The rabble made no move to stop him. They didn’t dare. And it did not matter that his disguise had been revealed. He had already gotten everything he needed.
“So you have managed to land yourself in prison, Artek Ar’talen,” he murmured to himself. “Well, that is a small enough problem. For me, if not for you.”
Laughing softly, Lord Darien Thal stepped out into the balmy spring night.
Heir to Darkness
What a f
ool he had been to think that he could truly change.
With your fingers, trace every crack and crevice in the walls of your prison cell. A dampness may signify weakened mortar, a puff of air an opening beyond. Notice how insects and other vermin come and go. Their paths may lead you to freedom, my son.
He had thought it would be such an easy thing, like shedding an old cloak to don one of new cloth. After all, he didn’t choose this course for his life. Since childhood, he had simply known nothing else. For a time it had seemed enough, though not because of the gold coins pilfered from velvet-lined purses, or the rings slipped from slender noble fingers, or the jewels spirited from guarded stone vaults. Money had always been the least of the rewards of his nightly work. Far more intoxicating had been the thrill. It flowed through his body like fine wine as he stole through darkened windows, crept down shadowed streets, or strode boldly across brilliant candlelit ballrooms toward his next unwitting quarry.
Dissatisfaction had come upon him so gradually that for a long time he had scarcely noticed it. Even after the thrill of the hunt had dulled into boredom, habit had propelled him onward. It wasn’t until he was nearly captured that he understood how reckless he had become.
One moonlit night he had strolled along the silent avenues of Waterdeep’s City of the Dead, wearing the expensive silken robes he had just lifted from a recently deceased nobleman. Only when the hue and cry sounded on the air did he realize that he had not even bothered to conceal himself as he walked. Struck by sudden terror, he had cowered in the embrace of a decomposing corpse in a half-filled grave as the City Watch ran past. He had escaped them, for the moment. Yet he knew it was only a matter of time before he grew so careless that even he could not elude the Watch when the alarm sounded.
