Conspiracy tddts-6

by J. Robert King

  "What part was it for you, Belgin?" asked Noph.

  The gambler hissed a sigh. "I don't know what organ you'd call it, but it's the part that used to feel surprise, awe, wonder-the part that responds when you confront something bigger than you could've imagined. I'm not surprised by anything, now. You could rip off your skin and emerge a crocodile, and in the middle of biting off my head, I'd think, 'Hmm, the boy turned out to be a crocodile.'"

  "What about the rest of you?" Noph asked.

  "My eyes," Ingrar remarked with a strange calm. "Though I feel I've gained something in the bargain. I can't see the surface of things anymore, but I sense what lies beneath. For instance, Belgin, you're thinking you'll go sharping tonight, and you've got a marked deck of cards in your pocket, the crowns up your sleeves; Noph, you're aching for our dear Shadow. You're not thinking she's a cobra, but she is, so you might want to take your hand off her thigh."

  Noph complied, blushing, and shifted away from Shar. He noticed Belgin looked just as uncomfortable.

  "How'd you know?" the sharper asked. "Some kind of psionic-"

  "I used my other senses. Your marked deck still smells like mackerel from the night you won the fishing boat. And your sleeves have been dragging."

  Belgin crossed flowing silks over his chest. "How would a clever fellow like you feel about joining me at the table tonight?"

  "Certainly," Ingrar replied. "As for the rest of you, it's smells, mostly. You know how they say an animal can smell fear? Well, I can smell just about every emotion coming from you."

  "What about me?" asked Rings. "What am I thinking?"

  "You're thinking youH have another ale."

  In the midst of the ensuing laughter, Rings waved a stout hand to the waiter, calling for a final round. Entreri stared hard at Ingrar. "Andl?" he said softly. "Do you know what I'm thinking?"

  Ingrar turned his blind eyes toward the assassin, his face troubled. "I… I think so. No, no, I don't," he amended hastily.

  Sharessa's face soured. "Well, what's been ripped out of me would have to have been my heart. It got shredded early on. I'd not have survived with it."

  Noph and Entreri both cast sidelong glances at the beautiful woman.

  Rings spoke up. "Back there in the forest, I lost my conscience. Always before, there was a split second pause before I killed. Among the fiends, I learned to kill by reflex."

  "What about you, Master Entreri?" asked Noph. The assassin did not look at any of them. He merely stared ahead, into the empty spaces between swaying fronds. "Long before I met any of you, perhaps before some of you were born, I murdered my own soul." He smiled painfully. "It's been a much smoother journey since." After a deep breath, the assassin asked, "And, what about you, Kastonoph Nesher? What will you lose?"

  "I'll cut off my ear this very night to become part of Captain Blackfingers Ralingor!" Noph enthused, but his comrades only sighed and shook their heads.

  The waiter arrived with the last round of drinks and set them, careful not to spill, before the patrons.

  "Now that the confessions and confabulations are finished," Entreri said, "I have some business to discuss-among those whom I've hired. Noph, if you don't mind?"

  The young man looked injured. "But I'm one of you." "Are you pledged to slay Lady Eidola, like the rest of us?"

  Noph hung his head. His bangs drooped over his eyes. Without touching his drink, he stood and strode out to the street.

  "We've told you of our secret past," Shar said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "What about yours, Master Entreri?"

  The little man gazed levelly at her. "What is there to tell? I am an assassin. I enjoy my work, and excel at it. Many of the famous persons who have disappeared or turned up dead in the past years have been my work."

  "We guessed that much from what the paladin said at the fountain," Shar retorted. "But we still don't know anything about you."

  "If you know that much, you know everything you need to know about me," said Entreri, his voice hushed but no less emphatic. "More information will take some… effort on your part." He stared significantly at the woman. "Now, there has been a slight change of plan. To find Lady Eidola, we need to find the bloodforge of Doegan."

  "What are you talking about?" sputtered Rings, a native of this land.

  "I am talking about conspiracy, my stout fellow. My employer told me that Eidola was kidnapped by a bloodforge-conjured army and that she is held here in Doegan. Someone with access to Doegan's bloodforge must hold her. Find the bloodforge, and we find the lady.

  "You've no idea what you say," Rings hissed. "The bloodforge is the heart of Doegan's military might. It is the best guarded weapon in the arsenal!"

  "And I am the greatest assassin in Faerun, and you are my handpicked strike force."

  "I'm in," said Ingrar immediately. "And before you decide a blind man can't do you any good on this mission, let me advise you not to drink this last round. It has been poisoned." As the others drew hands away from their flagons, the blind pirate said, "It's not actually a poison, but a sleep agent. I imagine the owner of this place plans to turn us over to the mage-king's forces."

  The assassin gave the blind man a frank stare, then nodded. "Thanks for the warning." With a flick of his wrist, Entreri flung outward a batch of tiny white pills, one of which fell, bubbling, into each drink. Then he hoisted his own flagon and drank it to the dregs. "Don't worry: one of those pills could purify a whole lake."

  The others were wary. Ingrar sniffed his drink, seemed mildly impressed, and drained it. After that, the others followed suit, each setting down his or her empty flagon with the words, "I'm in."

  Rings downed his own drink, pledged his loyalty, and then, for good measure, downed Noph's, too.

  Interlude

  Concupiscence

  I'm mesmerized by you.

  I can't help it. I know I should be solemn as we carry the old dead mercenary out to the dock, but you're right in front of me. You're right against me. You're holding his thigh, and I'm holding his knee, and you're leaning hard against me.. my heart. It got shredded early on…

  What a bitter fate, if you stopped loving just before I started.

  Now I know why he was called Anvil: he's as heavy as one. Still, if he'd been light, you'd not be pressed up against me now, as we stagger past the crates and up the splintery dock.

  There's the dinghy, ahead. The small waves of the harbor slap against its gunwales. It's a narrow, long boat, what they build down here, and I'm thinking well need a shoehorn to get Anvil into it. I'm also thinking you must need a shoehorn to slip into those pants.

  You were crawling all over me through lunch. In-grar's told me you're using me to get at Entreri, but I think you really do like me. And what's not to like? Maybe once I've climbed the rigging and killed a dozen foes, 111 be able to tear my heart out and give it to you and teach you to love again.

  Listen to me. A day ago I would have pledged my loyalty to Aleena Paladinstar. Now it's you, Sharessa Stag-wood. You're opposites, but the same-mysterious, unattainable, untame.

  It's a strain to hold Anvil this way, low and over the edge of the dock. Loose oh three. Damn! I did it on two. I'm losing hold, anyway. The others drop him, and you almost follow him, over into the drink. I grab you and pull you back. For a second, you're clinging tight to me, and I'm glad.

  "Get away from her, boy!" It is Entreri, the assassin. He yanks you back. You seem startled, dismayed. He's jealous and… angry that he's jealous.

  Then you break away from him, too. You can't be held. You stand apart from us, hands on your hips, and watch as the others pile oil-soaked wood around Anvil's head and feet and stuff it between his body and his arms. On top of it all, they lay out a rag of tarp, and Anvil's sword. Then, with a grunt, Rings shoves the dinghy out from the dock.

  The boat glides, dark and silent, away from us, out of the wind shadow of the dock and into the higher waves of the seaward breeze. It's quickly beyond my throwing arm, and then twice that f
ar. The assassin stoops down, lights a torch, and wings the thing out over the bay. The fiery brand plummets like a shooting star and fire flares up.

  "Farewell to a part of Captain Blackfingers Ralin-gor," Ring says solemnly.

  As I stand there among you and the others, the rest of the captain, I think how fine it will be to be a pirate, too.

  Who knows? You might even trust me with your shoehorn.

  Chapter 5

  Conchology

  Lord Ikavi Garkim looked up from the interrogation. The man seated before him had been trembling and sobbing, spewing out an endless string of half-truths and untruths, never approaching the fact his mind shouted: the pirates had eaten like kings at this very pub just yesterday.

  "If spies had been here, I would have poisoned them-"

  "All right. Shut up," Garkim interrupted with a chopping movement of his hand.

  There was something else beckoning to him, an odor on the wind. It smelled like a beached leviathan, the stench of something once hidden in black brine but now exposed to sun and air. It was an odor of death.

  The mage-king. Always, Aetheric remained in contact with his right-hand man, as though Garkim were but another stone golem. Sometimes he could feel the mage-king gazing out through his own eyes, speaking through his own mouth. But almost never did Aetheric send his summons this way, a pungent and piteous scent. It was as though the mage-king himself were poisoned and dying.

  Garkim released the barkeep's shoulder, only then realizing he had grabbed hold of it. He stepped toward the door, though the motion was more a stagger. Whatever black humors coursed, paralyzing, through the mage-king coursed through Garkim, as well.

  He has made me, Garkim realized. His death would unmake me, just as surely.

  The clatter of an overturned plant stand broke into Garkim's reverie. He stumbled out the door, calling to the proprietor: "I go now. The mage-king is finished with you." He turned and shambled away.

  Behind him, the man's piteous laments only increased, as though Garkim had just pronounced a death sentence. If the mage-king truly were poisoned, it would be a death sentence for all Doegan…

  The palace. It was there, just there, above the rankling horizon of adobe and timbers. It was visible from every alley and court of the city. If only his legs would carry him that far.

  Garkim knew this city-every shop window and alleyway and secret door-but it suddenly seemed alien to him. It was not a city anymore-not his city-but an endless maze of mud and dun. Garkim moved along the street as if in a dream. The midday sun was gray despite the clear sky.

  The city usually knew him, too. Today, though, it recoiled from him. It knew something was terribly wrong. Mar and Ffolk alike disappeared in the lane before him, draining into whatever niches presented themselves. Hovels leaned away from the staggering lord. Bleached awnings hung dead still in the dread air. Even the mud street sucked in its belly as though shying beneath a creeping scorpion.

  What could it be? Was the mage-king dying? Had his body endured the final assault from the bloodforge? Had the paladins returned with some cursed hammer of Tyr that could smash through the wall of the mage-king's abode?

  If the mage-king fell, all Doegan would fall.

  He could hear nothing. Lips moved in the shadows of drawn curtains, wagon wheels tumbled hastily out of sight, but he could hear not a whisper. There was only a strange, omnipresent groan, as of the world itself rolling over in restless sleep.

  The city fell away in ten thousand numb steps and at last, suddenly, Garkim staggered into the blue shadow of the palace.

  He crossed the stair bridge above the dry moat and bulled his way past the gate guards who had stepped in to bar his way. There was a touch of Aetheric's own strength in this melancholy that had settled over Lord Garkim; one of the guards went down clutching cracked ribs, and the other was knocked unconscious by an errant elbow.

  Seeing what had happened to the first guards, the second pair let Garkim through without requesting a password. He took no notice of them. They were like roaches clinging to the curved belly of the tunnel he walked. The very stones were warped by the Mage-King's deep, horrific sorrow.

  How could the guards not sense it? How could they be so oblivious to this recursive dread?

  The curvature seemed greater with each step, until individual stones stretched in eerie shapes around Garkim. It was as though he were walking within a glass globe. The world outside was bent into utter absurdity. His eyes could not tell him whether he stood in the crescent hallway before the audience chamber or on the highest parapet atop the tower. But he didn't need eyes. The same putrid imperative that gagged his gills told him which direction to walk.

  Curved glimpses of windows and sunlit stones receded behind him like water down a drain. A vast cold blackness loomed up. The audience chamber. In silence, he was swallowed.

  Come farther, Garkim. Come farther.

  He did. In the void, he glimpsed a tiny form, wriggling with thousands of dim fingers. A sea anemone. The creature's tendrils stretched outward into worms, into thin tentacles, into encircling bands of wet muscle. Still Garkim continued. The coiling, ropy lines thickened, slowly squeezing out the darkness, the air. In two more steps, the ever-grasping creature encompassed the whole of creation.

  One last step, and Garkim stopped. In that final movement, the infinite intertwined tentacles resolved into smooth, clean flesh. Human flesh. A man. Aetheric III. He floated in darkness before Garkim, a huge muscled man with dense golden curls atop his head, piercing blue eyes, a nose slightly curled like the beak of a sea hawk, and sad-edged lips. His naked skin was as golden as his hair. This was how he wanted Garkim to see him.

  Beautiful. Tragic. Glorious. Powerful.

  It is time for you to know our mind, Ikavi Garkim.

  Unsure what else to do, face to face with the mortal image of his master, Garkim knelt and bowed his head. "As you wish, Mage-King Aetheric. Speak, and I will know."

  The rich voice filled his mind, consumed him with its words.

  We brought Lady Eidola here. It was no other. Not Waterdhavian nobles. Not the Fallen Temple. Not the Unseen. It was we. We used our bloodforge to conjure warriors and gate them into the chapel of Piergeiron's Palace.

  A chill ran down Garkim's spine. It dismayed him that he had not even guessed this.

  There is much more you do not know about us, little one. Some of it we tell you now.

  In an effort to silence his thoughts, Garkim asked, "Why? Why did you kidnap Lady Eidola?"

  We kidnapped her for this, very hour. The hour of our deliverance-or our demise. Have you not seen how our people are ill, languishing beneath this oppressive contagion?

  "I have more than seen, Your Highness," Garkim replied, peeling down the edges of his collar. "I, too, am infected, though I have not yet grown weak, like the others."

  The disease is brought on by the bloodforge. You knew that. The disease first attacked only us. We have, these many decades, absorbed all the twisting evil of the bloodforge into our own body, so saving our people.

  "Praise be to thee, Your Highness."

  But it is too much now. The bloodforge has grown ravenous. It has eaten holes through us, and its terrible teeth gnash outward upon our people. Its poisons creep into their blood, slowing them, filling them with fever, transforming their flesh. We know what it does to them, to you, for already it did these things to us.

  "We have spoken of this already, my king," Garkim said. "I know what has brought the Gray Malaise, and what has, for that matter, brought the very armies of hell to batter our gates. I know that only with the bloodforge can we fight the tanar'ri, though its very use makes us weaker." He had grown as pale as a sea slug. "So, then, why use the bloodforge to steal away Eidola of Neverwinter? Did not that only worsen the artifact's cravings, and bring more fiends?"

  It was meant to bring us new armies to fight our old foes. It brought us paladins and pirates.

  As long as Eidola of Neverwinter rema
ined in my dungeons, beneath this very tank, more warriors would have arrived in these lands, armies of them. They would have fought the fiend war for us. In time, the fiends would have been slaughtered. Then we would have relaxed our defenses, and the bloodforge would once more have grown quiet. Such was my plan.

  "What has gone wrong?"

  The Paladinson has fallen into a deep coma. Were he awake, he would have mustered the greatest fleet in Faerun to come here in search of his lost bride. They would have come and fought fiends for us and driven them all back to the Abyss. Instead, the loveless mage Khelben Blackstaff has sent only one small group, whose number was nearly halved before they even arrived- two dead, and Paladinstar remaining to tend her father. Now even the foolish youth Kastonoph has left them. We cannot throw back the fiends with such pitiful numbers as these. The Blackstaff does not prize his master's bride as he ought.

  "But surely when these paladins fail, the Blackstaff will send this fleet you speak of-"

  We have not time to wait for these Tyr-kissers to fail. The fiends have found another route into the city, through a deep and ancient labyrinth of dwarf tunnels. To close all of them off would require a use of the bloodforge that would be instantly lethal for every creature in Doegan. The fiends will find their way into the city, and soon.

  You will muster all of our forces and array them to protect the palace. Already our energies are so strained that we cannot keep track of these paladins and pirates. They are the least of our worries, inconsequential now. They are nothing beside these armies of fiends.

  The fiends will not reach you, Highness." You guard not us, but the bloodforge. If it is lost, all is lost. We ourselves will fight to our death to defend it. "When will the fiends arrive, Highness?" Before dusk, tomorrow.

  "Then this truly is the hour of our deliverance, or our demise."

  There was something unutterably mournful in the mind of the mage-king, the sort of sweet, quiet, bitter reflection of a monarch dying even as his warriors won the war. It is the apocalypse. If the bloodforge is stolen, it will be gained at the price of our own life, of your life, Ikavi, and that of every citizen in Doegan.