The big man bowed again. "I am gratified."
"And perhaps curious?" the priest asked slyly. He removed the patch, revealing a bulging crimson orb. His mismatched gaze swept the room and settled on a small table set with a light welcoming meaclass="underline" fresh bread, a cold joint, a bowl of summer berries and a smaller bowl of clotted cream.
"Fresh jam would be a pleasant addition," Golskyn commented. The red orb glowed-and a thin crimson beam erupted from his eye.
A flash more fleeting than lightning erupted from the berries and left them at a seething boil.
Hoth exclaimed in delight. His cloak parted as the three pairs of arms that had been folded neatly across his chest and belly rose to applaud.
"You've achieved remarkable control," he said proudly.
"It was hard-won. Mastering a beholder's eye is no easy task." Golskyn turned to Mrelder. "Hear me welclass="underline" what you propose will be nearly as difficult."
"I'm ready," his son insisted.
"So you've said, time and again. How many times should precious seed be sewn in soil too weak to see it sprout?"
Rage rose in Mrelder, almost choking him. He turned away quickly to hide his anger and made the movement into a doffing of his cloak. A hunchbacked mongrelman whose warty, toadlike head was topped by an improbable pair of fox ears stepped out of a doorway and padded silently forward to take the garment.
"Before you dismiss my notion, Father," he said, "come see the sahuagin." Stepping into an archway that pierced a very thick wall, Mrelder pressed the right two stones and swung open the door hidden in one side of the arch.
Wordlessly Hoth held out a lit lantern. Mrelder took it with a nod of thanks and led the way down a steep stair. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and stone.
The descending way soon started to spiral, going as deep as two buildings atop each other, until it ended in a room that had lain dark and forgotten beneath the rooming house and, more than likely, several buildings earlier.
It was dark no longer. Hanging lanterns glimmered in a chamber large enough for more than twenty men to dwell in spacious comfort. A dozen mongrelmen awaited them, wearing the dark cloaks of acolytes of the Amalgamation.
Their reverent gazes followed Lord Unity as he strode slowly around the room, expressionlessly examining cages, metal-topped tables, shelves of weapons and tools and racked glass vials, and even small floor-drains underfoot that emptied into yet deeper places.
"We found this while digging the tunnel from Redcloak Lane," Mrelder said proudly. "There are two ways in: the stair we've just taken and a tunnel yonder. I trust it will serve you and Hoth well for the holy work ahead." Slapping the nearest wall, he added, "Private and defensible, these walls are more than three feet thick, of solid stone, with the streets of Waterdeep a long way above our heads."
Which means, he thought silently, no one will be able to hear the screams.
Golskyn turned. "As yet," he remarked almost idly, "I see no sahuagin."
Mrelder entered the tunnel and stepped into an alcove, lifting his lantern to light up a large raised cistern capped with iron bars. "At least twenty feet deep. Water storage, perhaps; this place was built as a hidden refuge."
Golskyn strolled over to take a closer look.
"'Ware, Father," Mrelder murmured.
As he spoke, four thick, green-scaled arms thrust up through the bars at Lord Unity's face, talons flexing to seize and rend. The old priest flung himself to the floor, rolling away with surprising agility.
He came up smiling. "A live sahuagin! Who'd have thought it possible?"
Mrelder bit back the urge to sarcastically thank his father for having such confidence in him and instead asked, "Shall we harvest the limb?"
Golskyn nodded.
Mrelder signaled to a ready trio of mongrelmen. One took a pinkfin from a large bucket, and another hefted a heavy chain, threaded through a metal ring in the ceiling directly over the cistern, that ended in a barbed hook. With deft brutality the first mongrelman transfixed the fish with the hook, and raised this squirming, dripping bait for all to see.
His two fellow acolytes faced each other across the cistern, each holding a docker's reach-claw: a metal rod ending in two open, claw-like metal pincers, fitted with a trigger-wire that controlled a spring holding the pincers open.
"Ingenious," Golskyn murmured, seeing what they meant to do. "Begin."
The cloaked acolytes started to chant. The strange result was more akin to nightmares than bardcraft, half-spoken and half-sung over a jagged, ever-changing rhythm.
Hoth drew his sword and extended it, long and slender, toward the chanting mongrelmen.
Then Golskyn began to sing, a thin thread of melody that twined around the chant, goading it to a higher pitch and intensity. Like foul incense it rose, prayers to gods whose names Mrelder still did not know.
Slowly Hoth's sword began to glow, not with heat but with a cruel, pale light: divine magic. Mrelder nodded to the acolytes by the cistern.
The mongrelman who'd baited the hook hauled on the chain, lowering the dying pinkfin to dangle over the iron bars, gasping and writhing.
The taloned hands lunged for the fish.
The mongrelmen flanking the cistern moved just as swiftly. A pair of triggers snapped, and iron claws clanged shut around sahuagin wrists.
Its hissing, snarling bellow of rage was almost lost in the swelling chant. Still singing, all the acolytes rushed forward to haul on one reach-claw, pulling one sahuagin arm well up through the bars. Tugging and singing, they managed to pull it flat against the iron grate. The manacled sahuagin thrashed and struggled but was overmatched.
Hoth strode close, glowing sword lifted on high. He hefted it, two of his hands on the hilt and one on each crosspiece, his thews rippling-and then brought the blade down.
Scales, flesh, and bone were shorn through as if they were so much butter, and the arm bounced on the stone floor, severed above the elbow. The cleanly sliced stump vanished back through the bars, and a bubbling wail of agony trailed away into the unseen waters.
Mrelder was already peeling off his tunic. He lay down quickly on one of the tables, extending his arm. Strong hands held it firmly in place as he closed his eyes and composed himself, silently reciting the mind-chant an old monk of Candlekeep had taught him.
It was working. He was drifting… down… deeper and darker, all sound fading. He was only dimly aware of the continuing chant now…
He'd spent hours practicing this, hoping that if his mind was settled just so, his body might accept the new limb.
White-hot pain exploded in Mrelder's skull like a fireball, dashing his wits and will to screaming froth in the void, tatters that writhed, faded… and were lost in the deepening, silent darkness.
Varandros Dyre leaned across his gleaming desk and snapped, "Be welcome!" with a fire in his eyes that betokened no good for someone.
All the men taking chairs in this unfamiliar upper office wondered just who Dyre held such ill will toward, and hoped they'd not be caught standing too close to whoever it was when the old Shark struck.
Dyre noticed Karrak Lhamphur eyeing the nearest of the small, gleaming forest of decanters on the curving table before the arc of guest-seats, and waved at it grandly. "Drink, friends!"
Lhamphur and Dorn Imdrael shot him similarly suspicious glances, but it was Lhamphur who spoke up. "What's the occasion, Var? And why here, in such secrecy, instead of at your grand little citadel on Nethpranter's Street? Something you don't want your 'prentices to hear?" He glanced around curiously. "What is this place, anyway? A new venture you want our coins for?"
The Shark's eyes flashed, and-just for a moment-the room sang with tension as every guest awaited the expected explosion.