The Diamond (2 page)

gesture. Where wisps of nobles’ breath had circled undisturbed in marble-vaulted air, the great,

black-draped figure of Khelben now hung. Hung and then swooped, his sable cloak dragging

unceremoniously across bald pates and careful coiffures. Mantled in swirling magic, he rushed

down on the four warriors like a striking hawk.

In the discordant, dying fall of glauren and trumpets, half of Waterdeep heard him growl, “Don’t

use gold from bewitched candlesticks!”

As though these words were a call to arms, the chapel burst into furious motion. Captain Rulathon

and men of the Watch flooded up the aisles as the congregation recoiled from the caskets,

streaming toward the doors. Many of the hurriedly departing had barely survived the first

onslaught of fire warriors a month ago. That had been a wedding; who could guess what dread

mayhem was coming to this funeral?

Into the chaos of charging Watchmen and cowering nobles Khelben descended, alighting in a whirl

of black cloth and magely fury just before the caskets.

A seasoned-looking warrior in gilded armor was the closest flame-borne intruder to the Lord Mage.

His warhammer flashed out.

Lightning cracked from Khelben’s fingertips. The weapon spun free of the warrior’s hand and

clanged, hissing and scorched, to the new carpets.

Another warrior—a scrappy-looking young fighter, this one—reached a hand for Khelben’s throat,

something bright and sharp swinging up beyond his shoulder for a fatal blow. There was a sound

like broken, falling icicles, and the fighter froze. His hand hung rigid in the air, just shy of Khelben’s

throat.

The Lord Mage spared no glance for the stilled man. He was dodging the third warrior, a leather-garbed man hauling hard on a scourge. With a wave of wriggling fingers, Khelben awakened the

gold filigree of Piergeiron’s casket. Sculpted vines on its flanks came suddenly to life, whirling out

to entrap the man in a tangle of living gold.

The fourth warrior, an olive-skinned rogue, was caught in the arms of Madieron, who’d roused

himself from his despair, face white with fury, to take a captive. The invader had gone slack in

Sunderstone’s grip, a sword dangling whitely to one side.

No, not a blade—an arm bone. The man’s left arm was bare bones from the elbow down. The rest

of him Khelben recognized.

Startled, he hissed the man’s name aloud: “Artemis Entreri!”

Perhaps it was not the right thing to say in the presence of terrified nobles. Fresh shrieks came

from the crowd, and they shied back with more frantic scramblings over pews, like cattle who’ve

smelt the slaughterhouse maul.

Rulathon and the Watch surrounded the caskets and those who battled about them. Trained not to

interfere with the Blackstaff, the Watchmen stood at the ready, trying to look menacing and

capable.

Khelben drew in a deep breath. Black eyebrows bristled above steely eyes. He stared at the

gold-armored warrior. “Kern?” The man stood stunned, shaking his lightning-struck hand.

The mage glanced next at the young fighter, frozen in place. “Noph?” With a wave of his hand

Khelben dispelled the binding that held Noph and sent the golden vines retreating from the third

man.

“Trandon?” It had been shackles, not a scourge, that Trandon had swung. “You certainly know

how to make an entrance,” Khelben growled, inwardly glad for any delay in the funeral. Their

conversation, now that lightnings were not in play, seemed to have caught the attention of many

mourners before they’d quite reached the doors. Damn them. “What are you doing here?” The

Lord Mage’s tone was irritable.

Noph’s reply was equally blunt. “Just where exactly are we?”

“The Palace of Piergeiron Paladinson,” snapped Khelben, “in the chapel. At the funeral of the Open

Lord.”

Noph swayed, and a sick look passed over his face. “We’re too late then.”

“We come from far Doegan,” Kern put in, “from the company of paladins sent to rescue Eidola

from her kidnappers. We’ve seen a king slain and a fiend war fought—”

“‘Fiend war’?” gasped someone in the crowd. One rotund baroness staggered in a magnificent

faint, flattening a knot of nobles behind her.

Khelben nodded. “I’ve sensed much, and suspected more—but reports are best given away from

tender—and overeager—ears.” He gestured for Kern and Noph to follow him, and for the Watch

to bring Trandon and Entreri.

A snide voice rose above the excited whisperings of the crowd: “Hold, Lord Mage. This is just the

sort of nonsense we’ve put up with for the past month.”

Khelben did not trouble to hide his grimace. Lasker Nesher might have been Noph’s father—but he

had also become a one-man political pox on Waterdeep.

“You say the Open Lord is dead,” Lasker said, looking to see that the crowd was listening, “and

then that he isn’t. You delay the funeral and meanwhile rule in the stead of the Paladinson. You

know of fiend wars in the south—and the gods alone know what else—and tell not one of us, and

now you seek to keep secret the first real report we have about Eidola of Neverwinter?”

The chapel had gone quiet save for the satiny echoes of Nesher’s voice. Waterdeep listened

—intently.

“And who are we?” Nesher continued, his voice rising to become its own trumpet. “The lords and

merchants, guildsmen and nobles of this fair city! We are the Magisters and the Watch, and all

folk who’ve labored on at our posts though our bright leader is dead and a dread mageling has

stepped in to hold power indefinitely. We’re not ‘tender ears.’ We are the people! Piergeiron’s

people! The people of Waterdeep!”

There were shouts of agreement. Nesher’s eyes flashed. “We have a right to know what’s

happening, not only in the back rooms of our palace or in the streets of our city, but in the lands

all over our world!”

A general cheer rang out. “Do not spare us this news, Lord Mage: let the paladins tell their tale!”

Nesher has rallied them again, Khelben thought. No, duped is a better word. He has the power to

lead them, cheering, off a cliff.

The Blackstaff halted Kern and Noph, gave them a half bow, and with a wave of his hand toward

Nesher, said calmly, “A general report of your activities is requested.” The metallic glare from

beneath his brows made it clear the two had best be truthful but discreet.

The gathered eyes of Waterdeep turned to the golden paladin, the apparent hero of the hour.

It was Noph, though, who spoke first. “Well, we started right here in the palace: Kern, Miltiades,

Jacob, Trandon, Aleena Paladinstar,” he smiled in remembrance, “and a few others

Paladins,

mostly, and me. We sought the fastest route to the Utter East, from whence, Khelben told us,

Eidola’s kidnappers had come. As it turned out, that route was right under our feet.” He stamped

on the polished floor.

“In Undermountain,” Kern explained, lifting a disapproving eyebrow at Noph’s casual manner.

“Ironically, this force of great virtue was led first to a city of great vice—wicked Skullport. ‘Tis

forever the burden of great men to confront and contend against the powers of darkness. Let evil

know that, even to survive, it must forever wrestle great men—”

“Some women can pin evil right well, too—Aleena for one,” Noph put in. There was laughter from

the crowd.

Glowering, Kern continued, “In Undermountain, we lost the first of our men, Harloon, to the fell

attack of an ettin—”

“Due to my own stupidity,” Noph interjected, suddenly solemn.

“Continue,” Khelben growled. “And one at a time.” Noph took up the tale. “We found a portal to

the Utter East,” he said, “but it was crawling with fiends. We fought past most of them to reach it,

but had the gods own bitter time trying to get the thing open as we fought one fiend after

another. We opened it in the end. Aleena stayed behind to close it forever.”

He glanced around the room, looking for the conspicuously absent lady paladin. A gentle blush

crept from his collar. “I hoped we could see—I mean, I could

uh, that she’d made if out all

right.”

Impatiently, Kern brushed aside the younger man and continued. “We arrived in a land equally

embattled by fiends, a realm clutched in the tyrannical tentacles of King Aetheric III, Lord of the

Bloodforge!”

The awed sensation he’d intended this pronouncement to evoke was destroyed by chortles over

the accidental alliteration of “tyrannical tentacles.”

Ruffled, the paladin snapped, “Aetheric was a twisted monstrosity, a giant whose lower body had

been transformed by the bloodforge into the grasping tentacles of a squid.”

No mirth followed this description. “The more he used the bloodforge to create armies,” Kern said

in tones of doom, “the more twisted he became, and the more fiends he drew to his land!”

Noph took up the story again. “You’ve Aetheric to thank for those shadow warriors who came

here and busted up the place. They kidnapped Eidola. Aetheric sent them, figuring we’d send

fleets of ships and armies of men to Doegan. He wanted to use them as fresh troops to fight his

fiend war for him.”

“Instead of sending great armies to rescue the bride of the Open Lord, though,” Kern said with

satisfaction, “we sent only a small company of paladins.”

“We certainly showed him the depths of our regard,” said Lasker Nesher, bitterly. The listeners

dropped their heads, chastened that they’d valued Piergeiron’s bride so little.

Kern snapped, “We chose a small strike team instead of an army because this crucial task

required a small, delicate tool.”

Khelben rolled his eyes. Kern’s diplomacy was certainly no delicate tool. The eyes of the crowd

turned from the golden warrior to a more ragged, common hero.

“Hosts of fiends overran the city,” Noph said. “In the fighting, King Aetheric broke free of his dark

pool. He slithered to the top of his palace and fought there like a god from the Time of Troubles!

He killed friends in their thousands before he died from the fresh air—see, he breathed poisonous

salt water, not air!”

He leaned forward in remembered excitement, and the crowd leaned with him. “With Aetheric

dead,” Noph added, “the city was helpless. Fiends were all over the place, while we were trapped

in the dungeons of the palace. Worse yet, the bloodforge was unguarded!”

Kern gestured toward Entreri. “The assassin Artemis Entreri, scourge of Justice everywhere, was

among those who tried to gain control of the foul forge, hoping, no doubt, to sell it to the highest

bidder. Instead, the flesh of his left arm was scorched away, leaving only bare bone

a fitting

punishment for ever-grasping avarice. Be warned, though: his fingers of bone are as deft as his

fingers of flesh have ever been!”

In the silence that followed, Khelben thoughtfully stroked his black beard. “Where are the other

paladins from your party? Dead? And where is Eidola?”

“Some are dead,” Noph said regretfully. “Some are pursuing Eidola; we don’t know where she’s

led them.”

“‘Led them’?” interrupted Lasker Nesher. He glared at his disowned son. “What nonsense is this?

Since when does a kidnap victim run from her rescuers?”

Khelben’s look was keen and level, his eyes testing Noph’s response.

The young man rose to his father’s challenge. “Not all of us were rescuers, Father. This

assassin”—he gestured toward Entreri—”led a party of pirates, natives of the Utter East, to slay

Eidola. She knew folk were out to kill her. Of course she ran; you would have, too. In the

confusion of a fiend war, it’s easy enough to mistake a friend for a foe. I’m certain once Miltiades

catches her, though, everything will be set right.”

“Eidola is alive!” the Brothers Boarskyr shouted in gleeful unison. Becil, the more verbal of the two,

waded forward through the mob, his half-wit brother capering in his wake. “Which means she’s

inheritable to the Throne of King Pallidson!” he roared, “And we’re her most conjugal relations,

now that the king’s reclining in the slumberous arms of the bucket he just kicked

“

Khelben shook his head, motioning them to silence.

The gesture was too subtle for the likes of Becil and Bullard.

“

And if she’s become mortified of late, due to the felicitous aptitudes of eternal wherewithal and

so forth, the throne is destined to languish beneath our collective posteriors into perpetuous

posterity—”

“First,” Khelben roared, “Piergeiron is not king, but Open Lord. Second, he has no throne. And

third, the funerary rites are not completed, and therefore he is not officially dead. As for Eidola,

she was never officially married to the Open Lord, and even if she were, the office of Open Lord is