The Diamond (9 page)

“He’s also told me you know of your bride’s true nature. Is this correct?” Miltiades asked stiffly.

Piergeiron winced. “Tell me again, so all is out in the open.”

“Well, this comes as no surprise to the Lord Mage or your daughter,” Miltiades said heavily. “Your

supposed bride was in truth a greater doppelganger, an agent of the Unseen who aimed to rule

Waterdeep not only from your bed, but through your mind. She’d been created, I know not how,

in the image of your dead wife, Shaleen, and empowered, through subtle magics, to take hold of

your mind. I am not surprised her abduction sent you into a coma, so powerful was her hold on

you. I’m only surprised it didn’t kill you.”

“It did kill me,” Piergeiron corrected. “I descended into death to follow her

to bring her back.”

He set down his teacup, gaze suddenly distant. “She was no illusion. I pursued someone real,

powerful, brilliant and true. The presence I found there flung me out of death, back into life. That

was no doppelganger.”

“Ah, yes,” Miltiades replied. “In any case, Eidola was among the most powerful weapons of the

Unseen, a creature meant to spread their influence throughout Faerűn. There must be others such

as her about.”

“In fact, through your efforts and my own, their ranks have been thinned in the past month,”

Khelben noted. “Aleena and I have been doing more than brewing tea.”

Miltiades gave the Lord Mage a dark look. “I’d like to know why you two waited so long. Aleena

told me you both knew the truth about Eidola before the wedding. Why didn’t you stop her then?”

“She was a fine piece of work,” Khelben replied. “Dangerous, yes, but less so than those who

created her. If we’d destroyed Eidola, her creators would have made another creature to infiltrate

the palace, and done a better job of it. We needed her alive to trace her makers, which I’ve

done.” There was unmistakable finality in his voice.

The Lord Mage set down his teacup and added, “Until then I’d fitted her with a girdle of

righteousness, binding her actions.”

“I—ahem—am the one who removed the belt in the mage-king’s dungeon,” Noph volunteered,

redness creeping up his neck. “I thought it was a

that is, she implied

er, I still thought she was

a woman of honor, you see, and what more ignominious torment is there for such a one as

well,

a chastity belt?”

Eyebrows lifted around the room. Hiding a smile, Khelben came to Noph’s rescue. “Another

decision that turned out to be right. By removing the belt, you revealed at last what Eidola really

was and almost lost your life demonstrating it. The belt had served its purpose by then; once

Eidola was abducted, I hired an assassin to track her down in the Utter East and kill her. The best

such blade in all Faerűn.”

“Too bad he failed,” Miltiades said disdainfully.

Khelben shrugged. “No matter; he’s dead. And where he failed, you succeeded. You ended up

killing the woman you were sworn to rescue.”

“Yes,” Miltiades replied, despite himself. Scowling, he reached into a bag at his belt, and drew

forth the slender hand of a woman, severed mid-forearm. It was rigid, bleached of all color, and

clutched a gigantic diamond.

Sudden stillness governed the room. Miltiades bore the hand to the Open Lord’s bedside. “Eidola is

well and truly dead. I brought this back as proof. We’ve not been able, by means muscular or

magical, to tear the gem from her grasp. The gem holds her soul. Fearing the Unseen might use it

to create Eidola again, we bring it to you for Khelben to deal with.”

Vapor from Piergeiron’s teacup spun lazily around the lord as he gently took Eidola’s hand in his

own. For a moment, gazing at the thing, he seemed to see the grasping octopodal tree of his

dream.

“You say what she was, and I believe you. Her mind spell nearly killed me, and yet

” He turned

the grisly trophy over and over in his grasp. “I cannot shake the sense that what I met in the

world of the dead was no false lady

no malicious trickery.”

The change in his face was so subtle that no one there could have ascribed it to a shifting crease

or a widening pupil. But all of them felt the silent agony underlying it. Piergeiron drew in a long,

shuddering breath, and said, “To me, she was not a monster. To the people of Waterdeep, she

was none other than my bride. She’s gone, so what does it matter what she really was? To me, to

the people, let her remain a vision of good.”

Miltiades gazed down at his boots, clearly shocked and not knowing what to say. Rings and Belgin

stood in respectful silence. Aleena looked at Khelben, back beside his kettle. Noph’s eyes met the

Open Lord’s, and in the young hero’s gaze dawned understanding and admiration.

“Hold,” Khelben said gently. “Before this gem-bearing hand can be laid to rest, the soul within

must be dispersed. I anticipated the truth of this diamond. There’s only one sort of gem a

doppelganger would cling to so strongly.”

He took the severed hand from Piergeiron and held it up, his eyes glinting back its reflected light.

“Now that we’ve all had at least a sip of the tea I brewed—a pleasant drink and protection against

soul possession—it should be safe to discover just what Eidola might have to say for herself.”

The company fell back to give the wizard room. A wide-eyed Miltiades lifted his now-cool cup and

downed it to the dregs.

Khelben’s hand began an intricate dance in the air about the jewel. Purple and green mists trailed

his fingers with each arcane gesture. Then dark and menacing words came from his lips. Mists

swirled around the stone. The incantation sounded again by itself, the words seeming to echo with

the vicious barbed edges of ancient evils brought into the light of a new day.

Up from the mists swirled a cloud of smoke that shivered, rippled, and became a feminine face,

eyes closed, high cheekbones almost too beautiful.

“Shaleen!” Piergeiron gasped in sudden hope.

The vision’s eyes opened. Her pupils were vermilion slits, glowing with hatred. “All you wanted was

me, Piergeiron. All I wanted was all you had. We could have done very well for each other.”

“Begone, vile beast!” Khelben growled. “Let only the memory of your outward virtue remain!”

In the moment before Eidola’s soul dissipated forever into the bright morning breeze, her

humanity melted away. A gray-skinned, dull-eyed, wholly inhuman something stared hatefully at

them all.

Interlude

Musing and Madness

I’m no longer dead, but on some level I must be mad.

Mad with loss, first for my Shaleen, and now for my Eidola. It’s the privilege, perhaps the

responsibility, of survivors, especially mad survivors, to remember the dead always, to reassemble

them not out of trivial facts but eternal verities.

If we must all die—and we must, of that I’m sure—at least let what remains of us in the hearts

and hopes and dreams of friends be what was best and brightest. Death can have the rest.

Perhaps I am mad, Miltiades, but let me mourn. Perhaps I am heroic, Noph, but do not

overindulge me. Perhaps I am both mad and heroic, for what are humans but those who know

they’ll die and go on living, madly heroic? Whatever I am does not matter. Whatever she was does

not matter. Judge if you wish and come to your own conclusions, Water deep. I ask one thing

only

Mourn with me.

Having Met the Open Lord on Two Previous Occasions,

Death Drops by for One Last Visit,

Delivers a Housewarming Gift, and

Heads Off to Other Engagements

Khelben watched from his all-too-accustomed spot in the balcony of the renovated chapel. There

were solemn acolytes, of course, and glauren and all groaning their way through yet another

dirge. This rendition of the funeral march, the third in one week, at last captured the true spirit of

the music. Ponderous. Torpid. Grating. Bilious. Not merely lifeless but verging on putrific.

Khelben wouldn’t have attended, but he had to support his luckless friend Piergeiron in his time of

greatest need. He was also on hand to prevent Lasker Nesher from using the chance to

grandstand. He would not have come, save that he knew what would inevitably follow.

The rest of Waterdeep had turned out eagerly, almost hungrily. To them, this was the funeral of a

princess. Already, gossip had piled tale upon idle tale, building Eidola up into tragic proportions.

Folk who had never seen, let alone met, her fell upon each others’ shoulders in sobbing grief.

More had been spent on flowers in two days than had been spent on shipbuilding in the past two

years. The chapel was a veritable garden of white and green, all destined tomorrow to be as dead

as the woman they were meant for.

Piergeiron had been right. After all the confusion of the last month, the people needed to mourn,

wanted to mourn. So did the Open Lord. Even Khelben felt reluctantly moved by the common

sorrow, the grand whelming of heart-pouring loss.

Into the midst of solemn flowers and weeping witnesses came the once-dead Open Lord. Mighty

in bright-polished armor, Piergeiron moved with slow reverence up the aisle, bearing a discreetly

folded silken cloth that held the hand of his mortal bride.

In the quivering light of the chandeliers, he looked old, wan, and utterly alone. He moved in time

to the death march, dignifying its overwrought strains with his patient stride. Khelben suddenly

saw how acutely important this was to Piergeiron. He straightened in his seat.

The Open Lord’s demeanor had the same effect on the rest of the congregation. He moved slowly

forward, a tiny boat drifting past waves that could easily swamp or overturn it. Eyes turned first to

the bundle the man held, and then to his face, and last to the floor.

After a last agonized refrain of the dirge, the Open Lord reached Shaleen’s gold and glass casket.

The music ended, echoing into silence. Not a breath stirred the air. The white-robed priest of Ao

waited, eulogy in hand.

No one coughed. No one could be heard to breathe. Piergeiron stood a long while gazing down at

the magically restored body of his first love, Shaleen. Her casket had been moved to the center of

the funeral dais. Atop it rested a small case of gold and glass, fashioned in the same style as the

larger box. This case lay open.

With great reverence, Piergeiron laid the bundle gently into the case. He drew back the silk and

arranged it carefully around the hand and the diamond it clutched. Then, with a sigh, he fitted the

glass cover down atop the case and turned the lock screws at the corners.

He lifted watery eyes to the priest of Ao, who inhaled deeply to begin his eulogy.

Then it happened. The diamond, bright already between the elegant fingers of Lady Eidola, grew

brighter still. It was as though the facets within it were being aligned to focus the light they

reflected. Folk gasped as the radiance built swiftly to a lantern-bright blaze. Eidola’s fingers,

suddenly scaly and black against the glorious gem, caught fire and flared away to ash. Then the

silk ignited in a flash that was almost unnoticeable beside the brilliant glow of the gem.

Piergeiron could do nothing but stand in dumbfounded astonishment, gazing at the starlike stone.

Then he fell back, faint, into arms clad in black wool. The Blackstaff was behind him, having made

his usual descent from the balcony. The mage was whispering into Piergeiron’s ear: “

no need to

fear. I’d suspected as much. Why would Eidola have a soul-stone at all, unless it contained the

very creature upon whom she was modeled? Eidola is gone forever, but another soul is

emerging

“

The fire was so hot now that it was melting the gold base of the small casket.

“

used this soul-gem to create Eidola. This, now, isn’t her soul, but that of the woman after

whom she was fashioned

“

Gold drops rained down from the case into the casket of Shaleen, forming a hot puddle between

her feet.

“

they did it again. Yon candle sconces on the casket must be forged from the candlesticks that

brought the bloodforge warriors here. They must’ve melted them down again—trust

Waterdhavians—and made the coffer for the hand from some of it. It’s a conduit for the soul in

the gem. The soul has sensed its own body

“

The gem tumbled through the hole it had melted, falling into the puddle of liquid metal. There, it

flared so bright that even Khelben fell back, dragging Piergeiron with him. Shaleen’s casket

became opaquely brilliant. All assembled Waterdeep winced away from it. Then just as suddenly

the casket went black.

Piergeiron pulled free of the Lord Mage and stumbled to the foot of the coffin. He saw hands