Conspiracy tddts-6

by J. Robert King

  Noph, meanwhile, had at last surmounted the slippery, roaring fountain. Clinging with one hand to an up-flung tentacle, he reached the statue's neck and began lifting the lasso free. Until now the spraying water had masked the shouts and hidden the glint of swords. His lasso came loose and coiled in his hand.

  But what to do?

  The lasso. It did not err. It caught anything he desired. He could rope the leader of the brigands.

  Noph flung the rope up. It whistled coyly overhead. The golden loop widened above the fountain. White spray shot past it as it grew. One more circle, and Noph would fling the lariat to snare the leader of the cutthroats and save the day!

  Unless… unless she were their leader.

  He gaped at her. The pirate woman moved with the sinuous seduction of a serpent. Mystery beyond comprehension. Noph had never seen so vibrant a creature.

  Every part of her was tightly and perfectly arranged. Curves appeared where they should, and flat spots in their places, too. She was muscular and soft in divine proportions. She could, from any visible distance, make a young man faint.

  Noph almost obliged. He felt himself sliding back along the tentacle. His vision closed to a dark tunnel whose terminus was the deadly beauty. Noph lurched, catching himself. Blood dissolved the shadows at the edges of his sight.

  During his blackout, the lasso had flown.

  His shaky gaze traced along the now-taut line. The cutthroat leader struggled impotently at the end of the golden lasso. So, too, did Miltiades. Noph had snared both.

  It was the end of the convergence. The fighting faltered and stopped. The fighters gazed at their captured commanders. Noph shivered atop our effigy.

  It was the end of the convergence, and the beginning of the end for Doegan.

  We heard and saw it all.

  Chapter2

  Confession

  "You worthless, whining whelp! You spoiled, slow-witted stripling. I knew you would be trouble from the moment I laid eyes on your overstuffed pack bulging over your understaffed brain! And trouble is all you have been this entire journey!"

  The tirade came from Miltiades, who struggled in the embrace of Entreri, both of whom were squeezed near suffocation by Noph's golden lasso. The fight was over. Still, the bloodstained leaders tried to continue it. The best they could do was strike each other lightly in the back of the head.

  "So what if you foiled an assassination plot? So what if you rounded up the conspirators in Waterdeep? So what if you slew a golem creature in our chambers? Lady Eidola is still kidnapped. With you along, I doubt she will ever be rescued!" Miltiades shouted, his voice echoing through the plaza.

  The others-paladins and pirates-stood side-by-side and gaped at the furious warrior.

  Noph, ignoring the insults, shouted to the leader of the cutthroats, "Who are you?"

  The little man looked up. Though his eyes were defiant, his mouth produced the words, "I am Artemis Entreri, master assassin, and bane of the Sword Coast"

  Noph gulped.

  The pirates gaped in astonishment.

  The paladins tightened holds on their weapons.

  Only Kern, Miltiades, and Entreri seemed unsurprised.

  "Why is an assassin of the north stirring up trouble here in the Utter East?"

  With the same grudging glare, Entreri spoke again. His lips moved slowly, distorting the words. "I have come to find Eidola Neverwinter-kin of Boarskyr and bride of Piergeiron Paladinson-come to find her and kill her."

  That news shocked even Kern and Miltiades.

  "Release me, imbecile boy," Miltiades suggested. "I must fight this man to the death, here and now!"

  "Wait," called Trandon. "Noph, I suspect your lasso does more than bind. It has our two leaders under some sort of enchantment. They seem incapable of hiding the truth from us. Noph, don't release them until the assassin tells us all."

  Noph nodded seriously, tightening his grip.

  Trandon approached the roped pair. His quarter-staff thumped dully against the cobbles as he leaned on it, wizardlike. "Tell us, Artemis Entreri, who hired you?"

  "I do not know," the assassin replied, a look of triumph in his eyes. "I know only that the masked figure claimed to be a Lord of Waterdeep, a friend of Piergeiron's-and that he paid a handsome advance for the work."

  Trandon nodded. "Why would a friend of Piergeiron's want the Open Lord's bride to be slain?"

  Entreri's face clenched, pale with effort, but the magical power of the lasso was inexorable. "He said she was an agent of the Unseen."

  Miltiades stiffened. He stared fiercely into the assassin's eyes. "The Unseen? Eidola consorting with tentacled horrors and black-hearted monsters? Impossible!"

  "Yet that is what my employer said," replied Entreri.

  "And you were a fool to believe him. If Eidola worked for the Unseen, she could have slain Piergeiron long ago. What was she waiting for?"

  "The wedding," Noph blurted. The others looked up at him, and he sheepishly continued. "She could do more harm to Waterdeep as Lady Paladinson than as a mere assassin, couldn't she? She could control everything through him. After the trade pact, her reach would extend all the way to Kara-Tur."

  Noph had not known what he was going to say until the words tumbled out, but they seemed right. The trade pact. That's what this whole nasty business came down to. Half the people in Waterdeep wanted to prevent it and the other half to control it. But what would anyone in the Utter East care about an overland route that didn't pass within a thousand miles of…?

  Again, a flash of insight. These tiny countries needed trade, they needed mercenaries to fight their battles, they needed wealth and power. All of it could be given them by a route that was half land and half sea. Ships would dock right here, in this steamy seaport, and their loads would be transferred to elephants for the overland leg. Returning caravans would stop in Eldrinpar to transfer their cargoes to ships. Doegan could tax items going and coming.

  That was why Eidola had been kidnapped, Noph thought bitterly. For cash. Cold hard cash.

  While Noph ruminated, Trandon continued to question the assassin. But he learned nothing more of the man's mission or his employer. The only further fact that emerged was that Entreri had hired the pirates, straggling survivors of a shipwreck, for a chest of gold coins apiece.

  "What if your employer is no friend of Piergeiron's?" Noph broke in. "What if Eidola is an innocent woman, not an agent of evil?"

  "I don't care about whom I kill or whom I kill for. The only thing I care about is whether I get paid. If I don't, whom I kill and whom I kill for become the same person."

  "Let me out of this Tyr-blasted rope, Noph," Miltiades groused, "before your clumsiness kills me as it killed Harloon!"

  Noph winced. For a moment the world around him disappeared. The tan cobbles softened and melted to form a face-the face of Harloon, whose life had bought Noph from death, and whose death had granted him the golden lasso he now held.

  Except that the rope looked red. Everything suddenly looked red. The white sprays of water had turned to bloody crimson.

  Noph shivered, blinking, but the stain remained. He looked down at the sanguine fountain. Captain Jander Turbalt's body bobbed in the water, one of Entreri's daggers jutting from his head.

  I betrayed Harloon, Noph thought bitterly. He stared at the captain's gushing head. That's who I am, right there. A traitor.

  "Let me loose, you immature imbecile!" Miltiades demanded. "How can I baby-sit you if you've got me all tied up?"

  He sounds just like Father, Noph thought angrily. I traveled half the world to escape my father, but he's still here. This preening, self-important, unappreciative paladin has become my father. Noph couldn't bear the thought of spending another moment with him, and his shoulders stiffened in sudden resolve.

  "I'll let you both go on one condition," he said. He climbed steadily down the bloody statue. "That you, Miltiades, let Master Entreri and his crew slip away with their wounded and dead into the city."


  "What?" Miltiades demanded of Noph. "You would let these black-hearted brigands go, though you know they seek to kill the very lady you are sworn to rescue?"

  As Noph climbed down the slippery slope, he said, "That was your oath, not mine." He reached the bloody pool at the base of the fountain, and sloshed purposefully through it, drawing the rope tight all the while. "Besides, as you said, you'd probably never rescue her with me along."

  Miltiades's eyes shown as with battle fury. "You are quitting our band? How dare you? You will not survive an hour alone in this city!"

  An arm was on Noph's shoulders, a slender and strong arm, and he was whirled forcefully around into a hot embrace. The she-pirate Shar kissed him long and full on the lips. She drew her head back, staring with promise in her eyes and laughing scornfully. "You may not survive the hour, my luscious little lad, but I've got arms you can die in." She tossed a grin toward the pair of roped leaders, both of whom looked equally mortified. "The kid's coming with me. Call him a spoiled little spoil of war. And don't get too jealous, Entreri. He just saved your skin. I'm simply returning the favor." She bent closer to the dark little man and hissed so only he could hear, "You've kept enough secrets from us. Perhaps now I'll start making some secrets of my own." She swung her eyes back to the boy and gave him a delicious smile.

  Noph turned his hurt gaze away from his erstwhile mentor and toward the brazen, voluptuous she-pirate. "I'm one of you, now."

  The paladin's eyes strayed to the tatter-clothed and sensuous woman. "Agreed. Go with them. You deserve each other. As for you, Entreri, I will slay you another time."

  % %*

  Into the bloodstained Plaza of the Mage-King came the most feared man in Eldrinpar, followed by forty of his picked men.

  Perhaps a year ago, Ikavi Garkim would have brought only twenty men, but now, every last soldier of Doegan's native forces was weak with the Gray Malaise. The city's priests had failed to find a cure, and those infected grew slowly, agonizingly worse. Already hundreds of civilians had died from it, and the malaise was beginning to cripple the army.

  Even Garkim, King Aetheric's right-hand man, felt the prickling itch beneath his collar, the sluggishness of his feet, and the chronic headaches. He would not coddle himself, though. A telepath, a matchless warrior, and a Mar, Garkim held Eldrinpar together. Morning sunlight shone from his keen eyes and black hair, drawn back in a tight skein. He looked anything but ill. He cut a commanding figure, bearing the full authority of his master-and his master's bloodforge.

  Garkim halted his weary troops, and he studied the scene.

  Blood was everywhere. The statue of Aetheric-which peasants thought to be merely a man wrestling a kraken-was painted in blood. Who had died here, and why? The Mar had reported a riot among outlanders, but surely Miltiades and his paladins would not riot, and what other outlanders had come to Eldrinpar since the siege of the fiends?

  "Fan out. Search the surrounding hovels* Garkim commanded his troops, dressed in the light leather armor of battle. He flung his arm out, pointing at the bloodstains. The sun glared like lightning from the lining of his cloak. "There and there. Find out what happened to the bodies."

  As his soldiers complied, images flooded into Garkim's mind… a man as small and sharp as a stiletto… another as huge and powerful as a two-handed sword… a woman of mystery… a disguised mage… a young man with a heart the size of Faerun…

  Noph. The boy. So, Miltiades and his paladins had been here, had fought someone. Garkim could glimpse seafarers… privateers. But who led them? Ah, it was that small stiletto of a man, with a mind as poisonous as any Garkim had ever encountered. The presence of that mind in his own only intensified his migraine. What lay within the man's thoughts was too dark, too violent to be easily perceived. But there was something here of murder-no, of assassination. Not the mage-king, but a lady of high station. Eidola. The woman for whom the paladins were searching. And there was something else-something about the heart of Doegan…

  That was all. Garkim could stand no more. His head felt as though it were splitting beneath a cording wedge.

  "Do not bother to question witnesses."

  The voice that spoke was an unmistakable one, like the basso rumble of a sounding whale or the depthless churning of the sea. Usually Aetheric III spoke directly into Garkim's mind; this time, the Thorass words came from outside, from nearby.

  "We heard and saw it all."

  Garkim spun, just in time to see the lips of the bloody statue close. He glared up at the stone figure, utterly still above him. Another of Aetheric's damned golems. The king could see through thousands of eyes in this city.

  As if in confirmation, the statue's lips opened again. "We heard and saw it all."

  Chapter 3

  Contradiction

  Sweating beneath the midday sun, Miltiades and his three companions marched down a roadway of glaring adobe and staring Mar. Other Ffolk who ventured into these slums might not venture out again, but these four were well armed, and clearly insane. That fact was obvious not just from their plate armor and sunburned faces, but also from the questions they asked:

  "Have you seen any false followers of the true god Tyr?"

  It was a nonsense question, though none of the Mar would tell them so. Instead, they merely shook their heads and averted their eyes.

  Miltiades huffed irritably. He regretted everything that had happened today, everything since the fountain- the battle, the slain pirate, the stalemate, the truths he had told to young Noph. It seemed odd that he, a paladin, could regret uttering the truth, but he could not remember his words without wincing.

  But worse than all these setbacks was the task that loomed before him: hunt down the terrorist core of the Fallen Temple and pry Eidola from their heretical grasp.

  The Fallen Temple. The Fallen of Tyr. Miltiades could imagine no more onerous task than confronting the foul apostates of his own god.

  Not just apostates. Violent revolutionaries, political terrorists

  … cannibals. Garkim had warned them of the depravities of those they sought. He had told even of following the stink of smoldering flesh to the house where he had been raised, to discover a band of cultists around a spitted and roasting foe. How could followers of Tyr-the one-handed, blind-eyed god of Justice- have fallen so far?

  "What's this?" Kern asked. His pace slowed, and he sniffed dubiously at the air. There was a sickly-sweet stench on the wind. "Burning flesh?"

  "Yes," Miltiades replied. He drew forth his hammer. "It smells like the pyres of Phlan, the burning grounds."

  "Didn't Garkim say the worshipers of the Fallen Temple-?"

  "Ate human flesh, yes," Miltiades said grimly. The words tangled chokingly in the rank breeze. "I had hoped we might convert some of these blasphemers, but what justice is there for those who eat the dead? Perhaps only that they, themselves, die."

  Kern pointed toward a cluster of two-story adobe hovels ahead. Thin jags of black smoke rose from behind the lodgepole rafters. "There. It's coming from there."

  Miltiades nodded and gestured to the other paladins to gather up beside him. "We go. Weapons out." He strode at an angry half-run toward the ragged black doorway of the nearest building.

  Kern, Trandon, and Jacob followed.

  The heat of exertion was stoked by that of fury. To impugn the holy name of Tyr was bad enough, but to do so with such despicable ceremonies as this? To flaunt all that was right and good by sinking teeth into a corpse and…

  The realization came to him out of the very wind, and it struck with all the horrible weight of truth. Eidola. That was why they had taken her. To parade her through some atrocious ceremony, slay her atop an altar desecrated with their sacrifices, and consume her. Cannibals often ate the brains, livers, and hearts of their victims, hoping to gain wisdom, strength, and courage. These cultists, though, sought not the vitality of one warrior woman, but of a whole city-of all Water-deep.

  What justice for monsters such as these? />
  Miltiades charged through the gaping doorway, into a small, dark, cluttered room, bulging with woven mats and crumpled sheets, chipped cups and a pitcher half-full of something red, a tangle of rope and a vacant chair. "Tyr's hammer! She was held captive here last night," Miltiades muttered to himself as he strode through the room. "Tied to that chair, and drained of her very blood, in that pitcher."

  From a dark doorway at the back of the chamber came another whiff of burning flesh. The smoke brought with it a low chant-a multitude of Mar voices joined in a deep unison. The scissoring click of teeth and tongues made the song grate, ghastly and diabolical, in Miltiades's ears.

  Even now, in the lot behind this house, the Fallen Temple is burning her to death, Miltiades thought.

  He stomped through the dark doorway into another room, this one with a mean table lined with low candle stubs. He had no time to inspect the object-no doubt a sacrificial altar-for through a pair of double doors, he glimpsed the courtyard, and the scene of monstrous desecration in it.

  Some twenty dark-robed Mar stood in ajiircle around a stack of wood, upon which lay Eidola, in silver breastplate and flowing gown. Her face, darkened by the sun of this hostile place, was twisted in an expression of agony, and her hands curled in tight fists to her chest. Her legs, too, were drawn up beneath the flowing gown, as if she had died in racking pain.

  Yes, she was dead, for not a muscle moved on that pile of wood. She was dead, or soon would be. Already, the flames ringed her round in a wall five feet high.

  With a righteous roar, Miltiades flung back the double doors and emerged at a run into the courtyard. He swung his hammer in an arc that would pulverize two of the robed heads and splatter them against a third. The wicked celebrants fell back before his onslaught. The silver hammerhead only grazed a shoulder, but that slight contact alone was enough to send the worshiper sprawling.