The Diamond (5 page)

“All right, Trandon,” Noph said sourly, “Is this your mass delusion spell?”

Trandon shook his head. “I wish it were, but this sort of magic is beyond me. Moreover, if you can

tear your attention away from all these wretched thespians, you might notice I am still locked up.”

“Well,” Noph growled, looking at Entreri still unconscious on his straw, “it’s sorcery from

somewhere.”

Trailing shouts, groans, and threats, the battle was retreating down the passage, leaving only

Noph to watch the prisoners. The young hero looked from the battling guards to one cell, and then

to the other, and let out a sigh.

As if the exhalation had been a cue, a figure in flapping black robes surged around the corner.

Noph whirled, sword coming up. “Halt!”

Khelben Arunsun looked up at the sword tip. The tune he’d been humming stopped abruptly, and

his mustache quirked in surprise. “Kastonoph! What are you doing here?”

Noph lowered his sword. “Lord Mage, thank the gods you’ve come! Someone’s enchanted the

whole garrison! I’m the only one not affected. They’re down there; they think they’re fighting

Entreri and Trandon, though as you can see

” He gestured at the closed cell doors.

“Yes,” the archmage agreed, keys jangling as he raised them from his belt. “Worry not about the

guardsmen. None will be truly injured. They’ll fight bravely, and the spy and the assassin will be

slain. No offense, Trandon.”

“None taken,” the tall mage replied levelly.

“Slain?” Noph asked.

“Fireball. These underways and cells are too small for fireballs, especially the augmented one you’ll

cast, Trandon. It backfires on you, burning you and Entreri to piles of ash.” Khelben fitted a key to

the lock on the wizard’s door, turned it, and swung it wide, adding, “You really must be more

careful.”

“It won’t happen again,” Trandon said calmly, stepping from the cell.

Noph raised his sword. “Wait—what’s this?”

Khelben raised an eyebrow. “A jailbreak.”

The sword flashed from one mage to the other, and back again. “I can’t allow that,” Noph

snapped. “I’m the only guard left, and I’m sworn to keep these prisoners in their cells until dawn.

Back in with you, Trandon!”

“Oh, come now, Noph.” Khelben’s voice was almost paternal. “He doesn’t deserve to die in the

morning, does he?”

“No, I was going to talk to you about that. But a jailbreak?”

“Desperate times, lad; d’you honestly believe he’ll get justice from the Magisters and Watch, come

morning?”

“No, but

you’re the Lord Mage. You’re supposed to protect Waterdeep, to serve the city loyally.

And I’m supposedly one of the heroes of Doegan. Some hero I’ll be if I let Trandon just slip

away.”

Khelben looked grim. He pushed aside Noph’s sword to lay a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“In the end, Kastonoph, the true hero is not someone who clings blindly to what he’s decided is

true, but someone who, despite a thousand assaults and the uncertainty of standing in the midst

of chaos, acts always to help rather than to hurt. Real heroes are not hidebound moralists seeking

always to be righteous. True heroes are committed pragmatists who do what must be done for

the good of all. Unless you release this man now, you—knowing what you do of his innocence and

Waterdeep’s judgment—will be his murderer.”

Silence fell. Noph’s gaze swung thoughtfully from his blade to one motionless mage, then to the

other, and back. Eventually he lowered his blade and sheathed it, bowing to Trandon. Slowly he

said, “It has been an honor fighting beside you.”

“I feel a similar honor,” replied the mage, “to have fought at your side.”

“Good, then,” Khelben said briskly, sliding a key into the lock of Entreri’s cell.

Noph’s head snapped around. “Him, too? I don’t know if it’s right he should die, but

he is an

assassin, and he did plan to kill Eidola.”

Khelben turned the key. The lock clicked. He swung the door open and stepped into the cell,

shrugging. “Yes and yes, but I thought it would be bad form to let him die, given that I’m the one

who hired him.”

“You? You hired him to kill Eidola?”

“She is a greater doppelganger,” Khelben murmured as he bent over the assassin, “or didn’t you

know that?”

For a moment, it was all Noph could do to yammer incoherently. “You mean you knew? You? You

knew who—what—she was before sending us out to get her back? That she wasn’t a helpless

maiden but an evil monster?” His voice was as high and shrill as a hurt child’s. Noph lowered it an

octave and asked accusingly, “You risked all our lives sending us to rescue a monster?”

“I was hoping Entreri would reach her before you did.” Khelben looked gravely at the unconscious

man. “He’s near death, but I know a priest who can make him whole—even restore his arm. That

was part of our agreement: no death or lasting injuries.”

The Lord Mage scooped up Entreri in his arms and carried him to the door. “This whole business

of Eidola worked out,” he told Noph as he shouldered through the cell doorway. “You figured out

what she was. You survived. And you’re a hero now.”

Feeling puzzled and deceived, Waterdeep’s hero followed the archmage into the passage and

came to a halt as the Lord Mage mounted the stairs with his burden, Trandon of Cormyr on his

heels. “I don’t feel like a hero!” Noph shouted after them. “I feel like a gods-damned traitor!”

The Lord Mage did not even turn as he replied, “It’s a common complaint among true heroes.”

Interlude

Dream and Delirium

At first I was pleased to discover that dead men dream. What other diversion is there for a soul

haunting its own everlasting corpse? It provides some respite from a humdrum existence of lying

about in cold cellars, counting each new mote of dust as it, with excruciating deliberation, settles

out of the air and onto one’s nose.

In place of the palace cellar, there is a deep wood: tall, ancient trees like columns, pierced

betimes by long, slanting banners of light. There is a deep pool, still and clear, where fish lurk and

drift in silvery silence and cold. There is the green and unmistakable smell of verdant life.

What better place to spend the off-hours of afterlife?

So I thought.

Until I heard the long, distant, beautiful, mourning song of the white dove, lost beyond the pool

and forest and marching mountains. Until it drew me, and I knew it was the plaintive cry of my

irrecoverable love. Until I realized this was not, perhaps, a dream, but the haunted lands of the

dead, the places where souls ever pursue and never catch what they have lost.

It is better by far to count the settling dust.

Death Comes Again for the Open Lord

It was funeral time. The trumpets, glauren and longhorns wailed their dirge, embroidered by the

heartrending cries of mourners, both private and professional. The restored chapel gleamed in

newness and teemed with dignitaries, every corner crammed with close-packed citizens.

Khelben sat on the same balcony bench as before. Madieron Sunderstone once again slumped like

a sheep dog beside the glass-topped casket. Captain Rulathon occupied the same place of honor

from which, by gestures and secret signs, he commanded the gathered Watchmen. Nothing had

changed, despite the return of two warriors from the Utter East, the attempted escape and

subsequent death of two traitors, and the report that Eidola had not yet been rescued. Nothing

save golden baskets filled with flowers, resplendent where gold candlesticks enspelled by the

Doegan bloodforge had been neatly sawed away.

Unfortunately, no one had told the acolytes. They were only paces away from the caskets when

they realized there were no candles to light. The first of the four boys, a freckled redhead who

looked at once impish and solemn in his flowing white robe, paused only a moment before

continuing to his corner of the funeral dais. There, as his companions found their places, he

discreetly pawed among the flowers, seeking a holder for his taper. The black-haired acolyte

across from him took the motion to mean that they were supposed to light the flowers. This was

harder than one might suspect, since the white sunroods and merestars were still dewy from the

morning mist. He succeeded only in getting a wisp of black smoke to curl up from one sprig of

fern.

The last two boys, blond twins and kin to Madieron, had by simultaneous inspiration begun

dribbling wax onto the glass casket preparatory to sticking their candles to it. Piergeiron’s grieving

bodyguard sat within easy reach of both, but was too lost in sorrow to take notice. It wasn’t until

the red wax of one of their perched candles snaked down beside Madieron’s face—cooling just

fast enough to trap a lock of his hair against the glass—that the man lifted his head. His scalp lost

the sudden tug of war for the lock of hair. He growled something to the boys, and his great

armspan allowed him to deliver simultaneous cuffs to their heads.

It was at that moment, of course, that the dirge ended. In the sudden echoing hush, the private

protests of the twins became all too public. “When we tell Mamma—”

Awe brought them to silence as a white-robed priest of Ao drifted across the dais, hands spread in

benevolent greeting. A grim expression of collective sorrow and solemnity filled his fleshy face.

Reflected candlelight glowed from his bald pate. He reached the front of the dais and halted, his

raiment swaying magnificently around him.

“Come, ye mighty! Come, ye small! Come all peoples, elf and human, dwarf, halfling, and gnome!

Come to gather and behold! Behold what grim truth is upon us!” The priest gestured at the two

bodies lying in state before him. His eyes lit on the canted candles stuck to the glass, but his voice

rolled on steadily, “Behold the end for us all!”

The priest gestured with both arms, tragedy leaking grandly into his voice. “See that heart, large

enough to hold whole realms in its compass, large enough to seat the soul of this immeasurable

man! Now it holds neither lands nor souls nor even blood, but nothing at all. And that breast,

broad enough to breathe life into all the world, languishes now in eternal rest. Without him Faerűn

suffocates.”

The acolytes were glaring uncomfortably at the Open Lord’s chest. Why is it that if you stare at a

dead body hard enough, it looks like it’s breathing?

“See those fingers lying in repose, fingers that wielded pens and grasped swords, firm and sure

digits of flesh and blood that cast down walls and lifted up children. See them now, still as stone.”

The eyes of the congregation shifted to those folded hands. Perhaps it was the dance and play of

candlelight atop the glass, or the vivid words of the priest, but more than a few watchers thought

they saw fingers “still as stone” twitch. A silent thrill shivered through the crowd.

Halting in momentary fear, the priest recovered and went on. “See those very eyes that were

wont to gaze upon vast Waterdeep in all its splendor, and the Sword Coast beyond, that look now

down the halls of. eternal memory, as they shall forever more!”

A crease became visible across the eyelids, as if the corpse strained to draw them open. Were it

not for the delicate stitchery of the funerary priests, the Open Lord might have, it almost seemed,

gazed back at the crowd gathered to honor his passing.

“Our friend, our comrade, our leader

” The priest of Ao let his grand words roll down the chapel,

casting an uncertain glance at the lord’s casket once more. “Our Piergeiron Paladinson, the Open

Lord of Waterdeep, at last is dead.”

He hung his head, and the congregation hung theirs with him, looking up as the white-robed priest

lifted his voice with fresh energy. “Consider his mouth, which once proclaimed law and justice to

we, his people! Lips which once opened in acceptance of this woman, Shaleen, as his bride. A

mouth that will nevermore open again, to guide and reass—”

Said mouth suddenly opened in a roar of terror and loss that, albeit muffled by air-tight glass,

shook the chapel to its foundations. “No!”

Piergeiron’s corpse sat up, whacking its head against the glass. The Open Lord fell back only

momentarily onto the richly embroidered velvet before lifting those still-as-stone hands to punch

awkwardly at the curved glass confining him.

“Truly he is dead!” the priest shouted, stumbling back from the horrific sight. He repeated his

declaration loudly, as if hoping to convince the corpse of its demise. “Truly he is dead!”

“Truly he is alive!” someone bellowed from the balcony.

Heads snapped up, but the balcony no longer held he who’d spoken. Once more Khelben