The City of Splendors

by Ed Greenwood

  Beldar. Beldar Roaringhorn, who’d always been at the fore in the Gemcloaks’ adventures, and in settling their disputes. He’d never become “the” Lord Roaringhorn unless at least three cousins died first, but his kin weren’t blind to his gifts. They’d noticed his quick wits and swift tongue and set him to studying law, the better to aid them in dancing around it. Beldar, of course, had excelled, and when inclined, he could argue a Black Robe to a standstill.

  Beldar must be Waterdeep’s tall man in armor! He was as strong of arm as he was keen of wit, the best blade among the Gemcloaks, and a skilled rider. The Roaringhorns bred racehorses and battle steeds, and Beldar had learned to ride almost before he could walk. Taeros could easily picture him in a high saddle, swinging a blood-drenched sword and bellowing Waterdeep’s greatness in the thick of battle …

  He was handsome, too, with an infectious energy and a gift for the grand gesture, and there was something more. Since boyhood, he’d carried himself with the confidence of one destined for great things. Because Beldar believed that, so did his friends. In time, so might others.

  Belief was a powerful thing. Enough of it could turn a demon into a god. Of course, a man who lacked the gifts and personal discipline to support a lofty opinion of himself was no more than a buffoon, but Beldar had that discipline. He listened to his friends, and if those friends included wise Korvaun and—ahem—one Taeros …

  Yes! There was no time to waste. So much had slipped away already …

  Taeros whirled from his beloved books and made for the door. He hit the stairs like a racing gale, cloak streaming behind him, and was out the front doors before the doorguards could do more than gape.

  Once through the front gates, he really started to hurry.

  No less than three Watch patrols hailed Taeros Hawkwinter during his sprint down Whaelgond Way, for a lone running man in North Ward is unlikely to be anyone other than a thief. Yet it seemed his bright amber cloak was becoming known by sight; a senior officer striding out of a side-street curtly ordered off their heavy-booted pursuit—allowing Taeros to fetch up, panting and red-faced, at the Helmfast gates.

  Thankfully, the splendidly armored guards there knew him, too, and let him stagger inside without a word … which was good, because Taeros was damned if he could find breath enough to produce one.

  In similar manner he gained entrance through the front doors, where his ruffled state and limp—his knee was afire again, despite all the healing potions he’d swallowed—goaded a servant into scurrying ahead, as Taeros discovered when Korvaun came down the stairs at a frowning trot to meet him.

  The hard-panting flower of the Hawkwinters pointed up the stairs in the direction of Korvaun’s rooms, and Korvaun took that arm and helped Taeros ascend.

  Broad steps tiled in swirling sea-waves of blue and green seemed to rush past, and then they were in the upper hall. Edwind Helmfast, Korvaun’s eldest brother, strolled out of the gilded doors of the Great Solar, a chart in one hand and a large goblet in the other, and greeted them with a disapproving sneer.

  Too winded to speak, Taeros managed to give the Helmfast heir a pitying look and was rewarded by utter bafflement dawning on the Young Captain’s face.

  Korvaun saw that and turned his head away to favor a marble bust of old Lathaland Helmfast with a grin. The founder of the house had been sculpted with a grim, lopsided smile, and that did not change as the two friends swept past together, and into Korvaun’s rooms.

  Korvaun slammed shut his door and whirled around. “What news? War? Castle Waterdeep’s fallen over? The Lords’ve all been unmasked as Mother Amaltha’s pleasure-girls? What?”

  The winded Hawkwinter swallowed hard and gasped, “They’re saying Piergeiron’s dead!”

  Korvaun nodded. “Every tenday, it seems. Is this talk gaining ground?”

  Taeros nodded, still fighting for breath, and sank into a chair. “Half the city’s saying so!”

  The youngest Lord Helmfast headed for the decanters on his sideboard. “That’s bad. Is anyone speaking out against these rumors? ”

  Taeros waved his hands in a “who knows?” gesture. “Probably, but against truth, rumor spreads faster, dies harder, and is usually far more interesting.”

  Korvaun turned with a frown, decanter in hand. “And reminds us of the obvious: Piergeiron will not outlive every rumor. Some dark day, that rumor will be true.”

  “Yes!” Taeros gasped. “Wherefore I ran here! If enough citizens can be made to think about such things, we’ve the best chance we’ll ever have to change things in Waterdeep! Make the Lords unmask, at least.”

  “How are we going to manage that, without violence? I can’t imagine they’ll want to reveal themselves, or that, if we try to force change with shouts and crowds and fists in the streets, the drunks and thieves and troublemakers won’t swiftly make sure the whole city explodes into swords and blood. We’ll have shops smashed, folk murdered, and the Watch and the Guard called out. Jails and blood and very hard feelings, fences broken that might not be mended for lifetimes …”

  Taeros stared back at his friend, his red face going white to the lips, and eagerly took and drained an offered goblet. Korvaun calmly filled it again.

  Taeros stared down into it. “So for the good of the city,” he asked it bitterly, “we should just sit and do nothing as the Lords choose someone else to sit in the Palace, and everything goes on as before?”

  Korvaun shook his head. “No, I didn’t say that. I pointed out peril right before us and wondered why unmasking the Lords matters so much. Convince me.”

  “Who proclaims our laws?”

  “Piergeiron, of course.”

  “Right. Who writes and decides them?”

  “The Lords of Waterdeep, Piergeiron and …”

  “And the gods alone know how many masked Lords, yes. And who chooses them?”

  Korvaun chuckled. “I know not—no one does. That is, the Masked Lords choose their own, ah, reinforcements.”

  “Aha, and who administers the laws?”

  “The Watch, and the Magisters decide guilt.”

  Taeros waved his goblet. “Who does the Watch report to? How are the Magisters chosen?”

  “They report to Piergeiron, ultimately, and I believe he appoints the Black Robes, too.”

  “Just so. How’s the Open Lord chosen?”

  Korvaun frowned. “Strangely enough, I’ve no idea.”

  “Precisely!” snapped Taeros, slamming his fist down on a sidetable. “The most powerful man in Waterdeep, and no one knows just who gave him that power or who else decides things for this city. Piergeiron’s worthy and just—few dispute that—but who’s to say the one who follows him will be anything of the kind? He’ll be the choice of the Lords, of course, but who are they? Why’re we so willing to trust in what’s kept secret from us? Who’s to say we’re not obeying the whims of liches? Or the very hissing sahuagin we thought we hurled back from our walls? Why—”

  There was a commotion outside Korvaun’s closed door: Booted feet coming swiftly closer. Then the door opened precipitously and one of the house doorjacks thrust his head in and blurted, “Pray pardon the interruption, Lords, but you have a visi—”

  A long arm jerked the man back out of sight, trailing a startled “Eeeep!”

  The owner of that arm swept into the room, face set in dark anger.

  Beldar Roaringhorn sported an impressive bruise on his jaw, and there was fire in his eyes as he kicked the door shut, causing a muffled groan and thump from its far side. Taeros swallowed anxiously as Beldar strode forward.

  To meet Korvaun’s gaze squarely, and snap, “Pray accept my apologies for … last night. The fault was mine; I shouldn’t run around disparaging servants, no matter what foolishness they offer me. What I said darkened the memory of poor Malark. Your anger was just. Pray, let it be forgotten between us.”

  “Let it be forgotten,” Korvaun agreed, stepping forward to offer Beldar a goblet.

  The youngest Lord
Roaringhorn took and drained it. “Fine stuff, and sorely needed!” He set it down with a thunk. “Now, to business.”

  Korvaun poured himself a goblet. “Taeros came to me a-fire, and now you. What fuels your flame? All this talk of Piergeiron’s death?”

  “That and more. The city’s roused worse than I’ve ever seen it. Even when scaly things were slithering up out of the harbor and folk were trembling in their beds, Waterdeep stood together. Now the city feels like … like an alley-full of roughblades spoiling for a fight, eyeing you just before the first of them pulls his knife.”

  “And Malark’s dead,” Taeros said softly, seeing what lay beneath his friend’s anger.

  A ruby-red cloak swirled glimmeringly as Beldar whirled around. “Yes, hrast it,” he snarled. “Dead, just like that! Gone from us when—when it should never have happened! He had years left to joke and prance and—years!”

  Korvaun deftly replaced Beldar’s empty goblet with a full one. “Tell us more.”

  “More?” Beldar snapped. “This isn’t enough?”

  “Humor me,” Korvaun replied, his voice mild but firm.

  Beldar stared at him, breathing hard, then sipped from his goblet, swallowed, and growled, “The old Open Lord may just be gone at last, so Malark’s passing is forgotten in an instant … and the shopkeepers and dockers are snarling at us as both the cause and all that’s bad and wrong about Waterdeep … and blast me if I can find the words to refute them, with my own mother, Mratchetta bloody Roaringhorn, sitting there in her pearl-and-gold bedchamber right now shouting at her maidservants and everyone else within reach, to get out and scour every last jeweler in the city—just so she can find out how many sapphires Alys Jardeth has had fitted into her new upcomb, so she can have more!”

  The rivalry between Alys Jardeth and Mratchetta Roaringhorn was well known, and a traditional source of sardonic amusement among the Gemcloaks, but it took few wits to see Beldar was deeply upset —and not about upcombs.

  “That would be those tiara-trellis things the ladies use to make their hair stand up like a rooster’s comb, yes?” Taeros asked quietly, to fill the furious silence.

  Beldar nodded as he drained his goblet again, somehow managing not to choke in doing so.

  “Beldar,” Korvaun said quietly, “be fair to your mother. She’s grown up knowing she’s but a cousin of the Lords Roaringhorn, and that even if neither of them marry and produce heirs, they’ve a younger brother who probably will. Moreover, with nigh a dozen strong, capable male Roaringhorns striding the halls of your High House, and—forgive me—her neither the most beautiful nor the most capable noble lady in Waterdeep, with no head for business nor easy hostess graces, what does life offer her but frivolous pursuits?”

  Beldar Roaringhorn looked up with murder in his eye, and for a moment Taeros wondered if he was going to lose one friend to a burial crypt or perhaps his own life through getting between the two of them … but then the leader of the Gemcloaks set down his empty goblet on the nearest bright-polished sidetable with exaggerated care, drew a deep breath, and whispered, “You … see clearly and speak truly, Korvaun. I thank you for that. As you say, how could my mother be otherwise?”

  He strode to Korvaun’s windows and asked the city outside grimly, “How can any of Waterdeep’s nobility be otherwise? So all of us fine nobles stand blind to the anger in the streets or dismiss it as the usual grumblings of the underclasses.”

  He made a fist and drew his arm sharply up as if to smash his hand down on a handy table that wasn’t there, and then burst out, “Why can’t folk just know their place?”

  Taeros and Korvaun exchanged glances. It was the youngest Lord Helmfast who ventured to say quietly, “So we stand here concerned but uncertain of how to proceed. I suggest we go see Mirt the Moneylender and ask his advice. After all, he’s a merchant of Dock Ward, and—”

  “As everyone knows,” Beldar said wearily, “he’s a Lord of Waterdeep. But come now, Korvaun—advice? Even assuming the truth of that old rumor, what wisdom can fall from the mouth of that puffing, strutting old pirate?”

  “You might be surprised,” Korvaun said quietly. “I was.”

  For a long moment his two friends stared at him. Taeros found his voice first. “You have much to tell us.”

  “On the way to Mirt’s Mansion,” Beldar added, striding to the door. Taeros and Korvaun hurried in his wake, cloaks swirling.

  They found Starragar Jardeth in his favorite gambling house. The Eagleshield brothers, both still bearing evidence of their recent battle on Starragar’s behalf, threw down their cards and urged him to join his fellow Gemcloaks. A carriage ride and a brisk walk later, Taeros was beginning to understand why.

  Starragar was besmitten. Every woman they passed gave him fresh reason to praise his lady’s charms. This lass had a form almost as lithe as Phandelopae Melshimber, and that one’s face, though lovely enough, wasn’t half so fair. Yonder spill of dark hair echoed hers, but wasn’t near so long and lustrous …

  Taeros would never have thought it possible, but it was almost a relief when they entered Dock Ward, and Starragar’s rhapsodies gave way to his usual litany of complaints.

  Beldar strode on ahead, oblivious to his friend’s grumbling, leaving Taeros and Korvaun to keep Starragar’s incendiary comments from sending sparks into all-too-ready tinder.

  “Gods above!” Starragar snarled as the Gemcloaks dodged around another pair of apparently abandoned handcarts. “Don’t these lowlife idiots know this is supposed to be a street? ”

  They were still a lane or three away from Mirt’s Mansion, on a busy street that reeked of fish guts. It was all cobbles and puddles and hurrying folk, most of whom were carrying crates or kegs or wheeling creaking carts.

  Right in front of them, a fat, puffing little man tipped his delivery handcart upright, kicked its axle-prop down, and pulled free a wheel-pin and the wheel it held in one smooth, expert movement. Unlocking the iron cage that held the goods on his cart, he took one wooden delivery box from among a dozen, hung wheel and pin on their hooks, slammed and locked the cage down over everything and trotted into a shop to make a delivery, all as swiftly as an angry nobleman might draw his sword.

  Starragar stared at this deft dance in astonishment, then started to look as if he might just be that proverbial angry nobleman. Taeros and Korvaun hissed “Come on!” in urgent unison and hustled him past, around a larger cart piled high with wet, noisome crates of eels, and between another pair of handcarts.

  “This is how coins flow in our city,” Korvaun murmured. “Deliver fast, yes? When you call for fresh wine, you expect it at your door before next dining, right?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “But nothing. The man locks his goods and wheel. That strut on the cage makes sure the prop can’t be kicked over by some prankster. The only way he can suffer theft while he’s gone is if enough beefy lads together lift and carry the thing, which would hardly be worth the effort.”

  “All right,” Starragar snapped, pointing at a large conveyance pulled by sweating men, that was just drawing to a halt, “but what’s that? ”

  “Rental carriage. Shuttered, so it’s someone who doesn’t want the whole city to know they’re coming down here—see? Lady Sultlue!”

  Starragar whistled. “So it’s true, she does—”

  His attention was caught by a clumsily painted signboard, nailed askew over a door.

  “Gamelder’s Quaffhouse?” he asked incredulously, peering at the barred-window, ramshackle warehouse beside him. “This is what passes for a tavern in Dock Ward?”

  He surveyed sagging roof and blackened boards with an open sneer. “I wouldn’t deign to spew my guts in a place like this! Fancy downing a drink that’s been poured in such squalor! Why, there’re prob—”

  “We’re almost at the moneylender’s,” Taeros said loudly, taking Starragar’s arm and peering through gaps in the broken window-boards behind the bars, at unfriendly faces—with bad teeth—gla
ring out at them. “If we hurry—”

  “It looks like a fire-damaged warehouse,” Korvaun put in hastily, taking Starragar’s other elbow and steering him away, “because it is a fire-damaged warehouse. If rented out as a tavern, the rent just might make coin enough to pay for a new warehouse, see? There’re many such taverns this end of the city. Now—”

  Starragar growled, shook off their hands, and strode on down the littered street, muttering.

  Too late.

  The quaffhouse door banged open, and a dozen sailors charged out, fists and bottles flying. Korvaun had to dive desperately over the nearest handcart to avoid losing his life right there and then.

  Taeros sprang away, trying to draw his sword and shouting a warning. Beldar whirled around, saw the onrushing sailors, and grinned with what Taeros, stumbling on the cobbles as women and barefoot boys shrieked all around him in excitement, could only describe as “savage glee.”

  Starragar, too, seemed pleased, and drew his blade with a flourish. “For honor, for glory, for Phandelopae!” he howled.

  In the time it took Taeros to roll his eyes, his view of Lords Jardeth and Roaringhorn was lost behind dozens of burly, dirty sailors. Right behind them came some calloused laborers whose grinning faces were familiar.

  Taeros Hawkwinter had last seen them in a worksite on Redcloak Lane, dodging among boards and scaffolding.

  “Oh, Lady Luck, kiss all Gemcloaks now,” he whispered fervently.

  “Aye, Marlus is better’n most,” a trustyhand growled, thumping his chipped mug down on the windowsill to join his elbows. “I know crews as never gets a day off and don’t see coin enough to drink even in a place like this!”

  “Hey, now!” one of the burly, hard-faced men behind the bar called angrily. “You want fancy lasses, you go up the street and pay three nibs for brew with a lot more water in it than this!”

  “Aye,” a sailor called back, from beside the trustyhands who worked for Marlus the carpenter, “but there, they don’t use the water ye’ve scaled the fish into.”