Conspiracy (3 page)

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.”

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 Waterdeep.

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.

Not pausing to finish off this foe, Miltiades leapt through the searing wall of fire that surrounded Eidola. He landed beside her in the blazing inferno, snatched her from the smoldering pallet, and wrapped his vast arms around her. Then, his own tabard and cape blazing, Miltiades vaulted through the fire and landed in a crouch beyond. Ignoring the flash of his hair, singing away across his scalp, Miltiades gently laid Eidola down on a verge of grass. He then stood, flung off his burning livery, and hoisted his hammer.

Kern, Trandon, and Jacob had emerged behind him. With hammer, staff, and sword, they had corralled the cultists in a frightened mob at one corner of the courtyard.

Miltiades strode toward them and swung his smoking maul ominously overhead.

“Who is your master!” he roared. “I will slay only him. But if you conceal from me his whereabouts, I will slay each of you in turn!”

A small-framed Mar, eyes raging in his middle-aged face, said, “Who are you? What right have you to do this?”

“Are you the leader of these … these infidels?” Miltiades asked, leveling his hammer at the man.

“I am head of this household, and I demand by what right you—”

“By what right?” Miltiades shouted as he drew himself to his full height before the man. “By what right? By the right of justice. By the right of honor and decency. By the authority of Piergeiron Paladinson of Waterdeep and Emperor Aetheric III of Doegan—”

“These rulers give you the right to barge into our funeral service, break my nephew’s shoulder with that hammer of yours, rip my mother from her pyre, and threaten to kill us all?” the man replied, incredulous.

Miltiades’s lips drew up in a sneer, “It is too late for your lies. You have slain Lady Eidola of Neverwinter, and for that you will pay in blood.”

“What? Slain whom?”

A staying hand fell upon Miltiades’s shoulder, and he whirled in anger, almost striking Kern with his hammer. The golden paladin did not shy back, only saying softly, “Look. He’s right. Look at the body. That woman is Mar. She’s old. She’s not Eidola.”

Face red from sun and exertion and burns, Miltiades stared at the body he had rescued from the pyre. Kern was right. She was Mar, a withered crone. “B-But how do we know this is a funeral,” Miltiades hissed to Kern, “and not a cannibalistic ritual?”

Kern’s voice was barely a whisper. “There would have been nothing left of her to eat. Let’s go, Miltiades. We need rest. We can search more tomorrow. We need rest.”

“Yes,” the silver knight said heavily. He took a staggering step away from the Mar, gaping behind him. “Yes. I’m weary to the bone.”

“Wait. What of my family? What of my wounded nephew, and my dishonored mother?” the Mar man called after the retreating knights. “What justice is there for us? What justice for the Mar?”

No longer in tatters, Artemis Entreri, Shar, her new plaything, Noph, and the band of pirates settled in beside the garden pool of a local tavern.

Prior to their arrival, they had “requisitioned” a loaded clothesline behind a noble estate. Now the whole crew was dressed in the fine, flowing clothes favored by the natives of Eldrinpar. After changing, they sought a safe tavern where they could rest and eat. The first two places, hung with huge signs and overflowing with patrons, were vetoed by Ingrar. He said they smelled metallic, like death.

They all had had enough death for one day.

The tavern where they ended up looked, on the outside, like nothing at all. Its walls were flaking adobe, its windows draped with tattered curtains. It seemed more a collection of slumping hovels than a safe house. Still, Ingrar swore by the aroma of the place—comfortable coolness beneath ragged eaves. He was right. Venturing through a vacant outer room, the company came to a fine establishment, patronized exclusively by elite Mar.

While any pub in the Heartlands would center around a hearth, this cafe centered on an open-air courtyard that held a tranquil pool. The eaves over the pool were high and broad, providing shade and secrecy from the eyes of flying things. The walls were more window than wall, letting restless sea winds shift among the beams.

The pool was a kind of urban oasis, edged in azure tile and surrounded by swaying palms and trailing vines. Tables were hidden among the dense growth so that patrons had a sense of seclusion. The secret cafe was, in a word, inviting.

The owner, at first, was not. The light-skinned pirates and white-skinned Noph made him very nervous. Ffolk rarely came to this secret spot, and never in the company of Mar. For some moments after their arrival, the owner flitted around like a catbird hosting cats. When his initial panic wore off, he decided to treat these guests like royalty. Dangerous royalty. They were seated at the best table, promised the finest ales and the fattest cuts of meat, and told it all was on the house. The pirates greedily accepted.

Seated in the cool shade of a gently breathing palm, the battle-torn company was finally at ease. As they drank the first round of thin, sharp-edged ale, they began to feel downright talkative. Noph, seated between voluptuous Shar and algid Entreri, was the most talkative of all.

“What was that fellow’s name? The one with all the scars? The one we hid in the crate, dockside?”

The faces of the pirates grew grave.

Shar leaned heavily back in her seat and folded arms over her chest. A warm fragrance came from her and wafted around Noph. “His name was Anvil—well, really Jolloth Burbuck. He was a veteran of many battles. A stalwart seaman. A good friend.”

The faces around the table were long. Even Entreri wore a tired look.

Noph ventured, “Then doesn’t he deserve a decent burial?”

“Tonight,” Shar said. Her eyes turned on Noph as though she were hurt by his insinuation. “Well go back to the dock and bury him at sea.” Her look hardened. “More important, we’ll kill that Jacob fellow for him. Only then will he really rest.”

“You know, when my best friend Harloon died—” Noph paused, biting his lip “—the paladins wanted to just leave him lying on the bank of the river, beside a dead ettin.”

“Typical,” snorted the dwarf, Rings. “They’ve no love for anybody. They’re too busy being good.”