Waterdeep

by Troy Denning

  Cyric wrenched his arm free, then laid the edge of his blade against the halfling’s neck. “You’re mad!” he hissed.

  Sneakabout resisted a powerful urge to grab the weapon. At the moment, the halfling was completely at Cyric’s mercy and knew it. “Give me my sword,” he begged.

  As the thief began to comprehend the reason for Sneakabout’s mad attack, a cruel smile creased his lips. “As long as I have this, you’ll never stop hounding me, will you?”

  The halfling started to lie, but realized there was no point in it. Even if Cyric was foolish enough to believe him, Sneakabout would only have to hunt the thief down again. “You shouldn’t have taken it,” the halfling said, making a feeble grab for his sword.

  “Oh, yes, I should have,” Cyric answered. He pulled the blade across Sneakabout’s throat.

  On top of the cliff, the three companions did not hear Sneakabout’s gurgle. They simply saw a small form plummet soundlessly into the darkness at the bottom of the cliff.

  For several moments, Midnight, Adon, and Kelemvor remained in motionless shock, unable to believe the halfling was gone. Then, as Cyric resumed his descent, Midnight tried to call Sneakabout’s name. A strangled gasp was all that escaped her lips.

  Not so for Kelemvor. “Cyric!” he roared.

  The thief looked up and saw the fighter raising his sword to cut the rope. Fortunately, he had been prepared for something like this. As Kelemvor brought his blade down, Cyric grabbed hold of the cliff’s face.

  Adon saw the rope fall, but Cyric’s silhouette simply disappeared against the cliff’s face. “We’d better leave immediately,” the scarred cleric murmured. “Cyric’s still alive … and I don’t think he intends to keep his word.”

  The afternoon had come and gone and still the task remained uncompleted. Outside High Horn’s inner gatehouse, a dozen Cormyrian soldiers were struggling with pulleys and ropes to raise Bhaal and his amber prison off the ground. Earlier that day, the masons had mortared support posts into the wall, high over the gate. The soldiers were attempting to hoist Bhaal onto those support posts and fasten him there as a trophy.

  In the fading light of dusk, Lord Commander Kae Deverell paced back and forth outside the gatehouse, a parchment scroll crushed in his fist. The crest of the Purple Dragon, King Azoun’s royal seal, still clung to the scroll’s edge where the lord commander had broken the wax. Deverell slapped the parchment against his leg, as if venting his frustration would speed the work.

  The message from Suzail had come at noon: Lord High Marshal Duke Bhereu riding to High Horn to investigate drunkenness and sagging morale. Especially in this time of crisis, such behavior must be avoided. Take his recommendations as my wishes. Hope this message finds the weather fair. His Majesty King Azoun IV.

  “Drunkenness and sagging morale!” Deverell hissed to himself. “We’ll see about that.”

  The lord commander had a plan to convince Duke Bhereu the king was misinformed. That was why his soldiers were hanging the Lord of Murder over the gatehouse. When Bhereu entered High Horn, the high marshal would have to look Bhaal right in the eye. The duke would have no choice except to inquire about the trophy. When Deverell explained what it was, Bhereu would be forced to report that matters were well in hand at High Horn. After all, drunks and cowards did not capture gods.

  The breeze came up, bringing with it a chill rain. Deverell looked into the wind and saw a bank of swarthy clouds coming toward the fortress. The watch would have a cold night.

  The lord commander turned to Pell Beresford, captain of the night watch. “I’m expected at dinner. See that the amber is raised and secured.”

  Pulling his hood over his head, Pell looked toward the storm. “If I may, sir, it might be wiser to leave the thing down until morning. The wind could give it a battering.”

  Deverell also looked toward the storm, but he shook his head. “I want it in place when the sun rises. You’ll just have to be sure it’s well secured.”

  The lord commander left without further comment. He did not notice his subordinate’s eyes burning with resentment, nor Bhaal’s hand, the only part of the avatar that protruded from the amber, closing into a fist.

  “As you wish, sir,” the watch captain hissed.

  Pell had to admit his anxiety was not for the amber alone. As far as he was concerned, the blob was no prize to be displayed. The creature inside, along with Deverell’s drunkenness, had cost the lives of many good men.

  If the incident had been isolated, Beresford would not have found it so disturbing. But, often as not, the captain stayed on duty long past dawn because the lord commander had kept the day officers carousing into the morning hours. Pell had yet to see Deverell lucid, or even sober, at morning repast. Having his post offered to a halfling—of all things—had been the last straw.

  So the captain had dispatched a rider to Suzail and lodged a formal complaint. He had not expected the king to send the lord high marshal to investigate, but Pell knew his grievance had not been the first against Deverell. Whatever the reason, though, Duke Bhereu was due tomorrow—and if that grotesque amber was not hanging above the inner gate as “proof” of Kae Deverell’s competence, Pell would be just as happy.

  Nevertheless, Deverell had issued a direct order, and Beresford was too good an officer to disobey. As though it had been his own idea, Pell set about hanging the amber. Without Deverell’s presence to make the men nervous, the captain completed the task within the hour.

  Beresford spent the rest of the night huddled deep within his cloak, methodically making the rounds, keeping the men alert and at their posts. The captain passed beneath Bhaal a dozen times, pausing each time to inspect the trophy’s moorings and make sure it remained secure in the heavy wind. Pell even posted two men beneath the amber blob, just in case the wind tore it loose.

  In the dark, however, Beresford and his guards failed to notice that the Lord of Murder was using his free hand to fray the rope that held him in place. By the time the night wind blew itself out and false dawn’s gray light appeared behind the eastern peaks, only a strand held Bhaal’s prison in place.

  Pell stood along the western wall, enjoying his favorite hour of the watch. The night air would grow no more biting, and the castle was as still and as quiet as a snow bank, only the crisp coughs and whispers of the men echoing from the cold stones. It was a peaceful time, a time when a man could turn his thoughts to breakfast and a warm bed.

  But a loud crash told the watch captain that he would not enjoy that luxury this morning. Beresford turned to his page and said, “Rouse Lord Deverell and tell him his trophy has fallen.” Pell started toward Bhaal’s prison immediately. He needed no report to know what had happened.

  What the captain found at the gate was far worse than he had expected. In the middle of the entrance, the amber lay broken and empty. The two sentries posted beneath it were dead, the cobblestones red and slick. Two more men kneeled in the blood, picking up pieces of the amber like children who had overturned their mother’s favorite vase.

  “Where’s Bhaal?” Pell demanded, kicking at the amber fragments.

  The sentries stood. “Not here, sir,” said one.

  “I see that,” the captain answered, waving his hand at Bhaal’s shattered prison.

  “He was gone when we arrived,” explained the second sentry, still holding a handful of fragments.

  Pell’s heart sank. He could not understand how the avatar had survived his imprisonment, but now was not the time to ponder the question. “Sound the alarm. Wake and arm every man—”

  Beresford’s page came running out of the gate. “Bhaal, sir! He’s in Lord Deverell’s chamber!”

  Without another word, Pell and the sentries ran for the keep, charging up the central staircase in less than a minute. When they reached the top floor, the captain shoved open the lord commander’s door and rushed into the apartment, his sword drawn.

  A dozen guards stood in a circle, their halberds lowered and pointed at a motionl
ess form. Beresford pushed into the circle. A gaunt, lifeless body lay on the floor. The tattoos on the corpse’s head left no doubt that this had been the man trapped in the amber. But the fire had left his eyes, and he no longer looked even remotely menacing. Pell had no doubt his soul had long since departed.

  “Who killed him?” the captain demanded.

  “Nobody,” answered the page. “That’s how I found him.”

  Pell looked up. “Where’s Lord Deverell?”

  The page’s eyes roamed the chamber as if searching it. Finally, he answered. “Gone, milord.”

  Kelemvor took another step, stumbled, and sent a rock bounding down the mountainside. The warrior took a deep breath, jerked his pony along by its reins, then stepped forward again. His skull throbbed with a terrible headache.

  Hoping to keep his thoughts focused on something besides the pain in his head, Kelemvor thought back over the last few days. After Sneakabout’s death, he, Midnight, and Adon had continued up Yellow Snake Pass. Two days later, the companions had encountered a huge curtain of black nothingness. The curtain was not physical. Rather, it was simply a boundary beyond which they could not see.

  Unfortunately, the barrier had stretched clear across the canyon, precluding any hope of slipping around it. The trio had debated the curtain’s nature for several minutes, finally concluding it was either the residue of a misfired spell or one of the chaotic phenomena plaguing the Realms. Whatever the curtain’s origin, no one had been anxious to step inside it. Adon had picked up a stick and pushed it into the blackness. When he withdrew it, the part that had been inside the curtain had vanished.

  The company had decided not to risk entering. Instead, Kelemvor had pointed out a small, recently blazed trail leading up the south wall of the canyon. The companions had followed the trail, hoping that whoever had laid it knew his way through the Sunset Mountains. That had been one and half days ago, three and half days since Sneakabout’s death.

  The trail had quickly started up a steep scarp of jumbled stones and rosy dirt, becoming the chain of zigzags upon which Kelemvor now struggled. Every step ended with his foot sinking into sand or shifting unsteadily on a loose stone. A dozen yards above, the slope ended in a saddle slung between two jagged peaks. Only blue sky showed beyond, but Kelemvor took no comfort from that fact. Too many times, he had crested a similar saddle only to find another looming in the distance.

  An icy wind gusted over the ridge and stung his face. The warrior paused for a rest. Just breathing took effort, and the effort made his head hurt even more. Two hundred steps behind Kelemvor, Adon was slowly working his way up the trail. A thousand steps beyond him, Midnight rested where the trail switched back on itself. To avoid kicking rocks down on one another, Kelemvor had recommended the climbers keep some distance between them. Midnight was taking the suggestion to an extreme.

  Below Midnight and to the left, Kelemvor could still see the black curtain that had forced them off the pass. To the right, the main canyon snaked its way back to the Tun Plain. The distance was less than thirty miles in a straight line, but more than twice that far following the trails that wormed along the valley floor. A carpet of pine trees stretched from the plain to the base of the slope, but ended there and came no higher.

  Kelemvor had no doubt that Cyric and his Zhentilar were somewhere down there, following at their best pace. What would have surprised the warrior, had he been able to see them, were the forty halflings near the entrance of the canyon. Sixty miles outside of Darkhold, one of their scouts had stumbled across Cyric’s trail, and the men from Black Oaks had turned north in pursuit. They had just found Sneakabout’s body, and, puzzled as they were by what had befallen him, were now certain they were on the right trail.

  Oblivious to the halflings, Kelemvor turned his gaze to the terrain upon which he stood. Nearby, tiny white flowers grew out of lumps of fine grass resembling bread mold. Here and there, pale green lichens clung to the largest of the rust-red rocks. No other plants could endure the rigorous climate, and the barren environment made the fighter feel disheartened and isolated.

  “Come on, Adon,” Kelemvor called, hoping that offering encouragement would make him feel better, too. “We’re bound to reach the top sooner or later.”

  “Later,” came Adon’s strained reply.

  Kelemvor shivered and resumed climbing. He had broken into a sweat during the hard climb, and the wind chilled him. The warrior thought of putting on the winter clothes Deverell’s quartermaster had provided, but decided against it. More clothes would only make him sweat more.

  The mountainside was a cold and solitary place, and the warrior could not help but regret that he was risking his life there. When the trio had begun their journey to Waterdeep, the mission had seemed compelling enough. Now, with Sneakabout gone and the trouble between him and Midnight, Kelemvor felt like a mercenary again.

  His anger with Midnight colored his mood, and he knew it. Twice, Cyric had been in his grasp, and twice the mage had freed the thief. The fighter couldn’t understand why she was so blind to Cyric’s treachery.

  Kelemvor’s love for Midnight only made matters worse. When she had saved the thief, the warrior had felt she was betraying him. He knew that there was nothing between Cyric and Midnight to cause his jealousy, but that knowledge provided little comfort.

  The fighter had tried to explain away his fury a hundred times. Midnight had not seen Cyric slipping from one camp to another as a spy during Arabel’s Knightsbridge Affair, and did not know how treacherous he could be. The naive magic-user truly believed the thief was possessed of a noble character and would help them.

  “This had better be the top,” Adon called. “I’ve lost my stomach for climbing.”

  “Perhaps you’d rather try the curtain,” Kelemvor returned, waving his hand at the black screen that still blocked the valley.

  Adon paused and looked down, as if contemplating the warrior’s suggestion. Finally, he said, “Don’t tempt me.”

  Kelemvor chuckled, then took one more step. His foot found solid purchase. A steady, stiff wind pushed at his chest with force enough to make standing difficult. The warrior looked up and found himself on top of the little ridge. Ahead, the mountain range dropped steadily away. He had reached the top.

  The trail followed the other side of the saddle down to a sharp ridge. This ridge ran straight ahead for about fifteen miles, like the spine of some huge book, until it joined a small chain of needle-tipped peaks. At the top of the ridge, the trail split. The best-used trail ran to the left, leading down into a basin of lush green grass. It eventually disappeared into a heavily forested canyon that twisted in a westerly direction into a distant grassland.

  The other trail descended the right wall of the spiny ridge, eventually touching the shore of a small mountain lake. From there, the path ran along the edge of the violet-blue water to an outlet, then followed a river into a steep-walled gorge to the northwest.

  After taking in the view, Kelemvor turned and waved to Adon. The warrior’s load no longer seemed heavy, and his dreary mood faded as though he were drinking Lord Deverell’s fine ale again.

  “This is the top!” he yelled.

  Adon looked up and shrugged, then held his hand to his ear. Kelemvor couldn’t raise his voice above the wind, so he made an arcing motion, pointed down the other side of the pass, then raised his arms in a sign of triumph.

  Adon immediately perked up, then began tugging his pony’s reins in an effort to speed up his ascent. Kelemvor would have signaled to Midnight too, but she had fallen so far behind he feared he would discourage her.

  A few minutes later, Adon reached the summit, scrambling on his hands and knees.

  “Are we finally at the top?” the cleric gasped. He was so winded he could not lift his head to look.

  “See for yourself,” Kelemvor replied.

  After catching his breath, Adon stood and peered down on the lake. The view lifted his spirits, as it had Kelemvor’s. “We’re there! T
he journey’s downhill from here!”

  Looking back to Midnight, Kelemvor asked, “How’s she doing?”

  Adon turned, suddenly feeling morose. “Sneakabout’s death still grieves her.”

  Kelemvor gave his pony’s reins to Adon, then started back down the trail. The cleric quickly placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “No.”

  “But she’s tired!” Kelemvor objected, turning to face the cleric. “And I’m strong enough to carry her.”

  “She doesn’t want help,” Adon replied. Two hours ago, he had offered to take her pony’s reins. The magic-user had threatened to change him into a crow.

  Kelemvor glanced back at Midnight’s slow-moving form. “It’s time we spoke.”

  “I agree!” Adon exclaimed, relieved that the warrior had finally overcome his stubbornness. “But let her finish the climb alone. Now isn’t the time to imply she can’t carry her weight.”

  Kelemvor was not inclined to agree. “Five minutes ago, I’d have given my sword to somebody who’d carry me up the pass. I don’t think she’d take it wrong.”

  The cleric shook his head. “Trust me. Climbing gives you time to think. Despite the cramps in your legs, the pounding in your ears, and the fog in your head, climbing promotes thought.”

  The fighter frowned. In him, it promoted nothing but a pounding headache. “It does?”

  “Yes,” Adon insisted. He released the warrior’s shoulder. “While I was struggling up the trail, a few things occurred to me. Midnight saved Cyric, then Cyric killed Sneakabout. If you were her, wouldn’t you feel responsible?”

  “Of course I would,” Kelemvor responded quickly. “And I told her—” He stopped in midsentence, recalling the bitter argument that had followed Sneakabout’s death.

  “Exactly!” Adon said, nodding. “What did she say?”

  “It didn’t make any sense,” Kelemvor replied defensively. “She said it was our fault that Sneakabout had died. She said Cyric came to talk and we attacked him.” The warrior frowned. “You’re not saying she was right?”