Taeros stared at what his friend was holding: A blood-smeared scrap of emerald green gemweave, cloth that in all Waterdeep, only Malark Kothont could have been wearing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The first rumble and roar brought Golskyn from his bed, coverlets flying. He hurried to the window of their upper room and gazed up into the midnight sky, his uncovered eye searching the stars with open longing.
"A dragon's heart," he said wistfully. "Now that would be a true test of a man's strength!"
Mrelder stumbled to his father's side, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His thoughts were not of dragon flight, nor the wondrous challenge of capturing, dismembering, and incorporating that greatest of creatures. He thought instead of the city all around and the folk who dwelt in it. Fresh rumblings drew his gaze.
"A building's fallen!" He pointed. "Look, there: Dust rising. Flames now, too."
Golskyn peered. "Dragonfire?" he asked hopefully, not ready to relinquish his fond hope.
"No dragons," his son murmured.
Mrelder thought he might know the cause of the collapse. The mongrelmen had tunneled thereabouts to link to the cellars of another of Golskyn's buildings. Lord Unity wasn't the only priest of monstrous gods in Waterdeep, but he was new to Waterdhavians, and undeniably impressive. Folk were flocking to his hidden rituals, and the traffic beneath Waterdeep's streets was rapidly increasing. If one foundation had been so weakened, what else might soon fall?
Once the rubble was cleared, that tunnel would be discovered, and then The sharp, suspicious glare of his father's uncovered eye suddenly blocked Mrelder's view.
"You know something of this," Golskyn snapped. It was not a question.
Mrelder's thoughts raced. Nothing less than a solution would serve; Golskyn had no patience for unsolved problems.
"Well?"
A map of the city sewers came suddenly to mind, and with it his answer.
"I had the mongrelmen undermine yon building's foundation," Mrelder lied. Golskyn scowled, and his son added hastily, "Their work runs very close to a long established sewer-run. It'll be short work to breach what's between them and use the dirt and stone to block off one end of our passage, keeping it secret."
"And the other end?"
"Leads to an old warehouse, half-full of the rubble of our diggings."
Golskyn's scowl remained. "I like this not. Too high a risk."
"How so? Investigation will show only that someone's extending tunnels. Most Waterdhavians believe the Lords control the tunnels, so the Lords'll be blamed. The more troubles Lord Piergeiron must answer for, the more frequently he'll be out among the people-and the more opportunities we'll have to lay hands on the Guardian's Gorget."
"And this warehouse?"
A genuine smile spread across Mrelder's face. "I won it at dice-no coin changed hands, no papers-from an old, retired merchant. He had no family, and, ahem, died suddenly. Shortly after our game."
"He'd no parts worth keeping, I'll warrant," Golskyn muttered predictably, in his usual response to news of death, dismemberment, or murder.
"Alas, none. Heirs and mourners: None again. If anyone wonders who owns the warehouse, the law's clear: as he had no heirs, it's now city property. Another finger pointing at the Lords."
Lord Unity's scowl was gone. "You've given this hard thought."
Mrelder nodded. "Once the 'why' of this collapse is known, citizens'll be ready enough to blame tunneling for other downfalls."
"There are other buildings down?"
"Not yet." Mrelder smiled. "Before dawn, another building will fall. Far from here, so no hint of suspicion comes to our doors."
Golskyn actually smiled. "Your sorcery will cause this?"
Mrelder bowed.
The priest squinted at the sky. "You'd best get on with it, my son. Dawn is but three bells away."
My son. Mrelder turned away to hide his blushing smile. He'd never thought to hear those words spoken so casually, much less with something approaching pride. He'd felt such happiness only once before, but then it had been Lord Piergeiron who'd looked on him with warmth and called him friend.
The sorcerer put that fond memory firmly out of his mind and strode across the room to his clothes. It was time to go out and spread dissent and destruction in Lord Piergeiron's Waterdeep.
The guards on the Palace steps gave Mrelder hard, steady stares, but let him pass.
The guards inside challenged him, and no wonder. The mists weren't off the harbor yet; it was early indeed to have honest business at the Palace.
However, it seemed the polite note he'd sent Piergeiron yestereve, mentioning his own arrival in Waterdeep and inquiring after the First Lord's health, had done its work well. Merely giving his name had the guards nodding respectfully and waving him toward a servant in a fine tabard.
"The First Lord bids you welcome and wishes Waterdeep had more friends of your mettle," that man said approvingly, as he waved Mrelder smoothly through a door that looked like most of the others in that long, lofty hall.
Morningfeast for Piergeiron was evidently a hearty serve-yourself affair. Steam was rising from platters on a sideboard, where about a dozen grandly dressed, important looking men with serious, frowning faces were forking sausages and smoked silverfin into wooden bowls, and plucking boiled eggs out of a sea of spiced butter. They looked as if they were expecting grim doom to strike them down before highsun, and had little desire to meet it with empty bellies.
The First Lord looked up from a stack of papers a clerk had just put in front of him, smiled broadly, and waved Mrelder to the sideboard.
Mrelder grinned back. Whatever his father's intended dooms for Waterdeep or anyone who stood in his way-and the First Lord of Waterdeep could hardly help but do that-he found it impossible to dislike this man.
"We can talk soon," Piergeiron promised, taking a quill the clerk was already holding out to him.
The son of Lord Unity joined the men at the sideboard, who all gave him silent "And you are-?" frowns. He found himself nose to nose with sleepy-eyed City Guard officers, a few softly gliding courtiers, and several grumpy looking Watchful Order wizards.
Mrelder's stomach rumbled. Several of the guardsmen were heaping their bowls to precarious heights, so he didn't stint in filling his own, ere he sat with the others at the long table. He had the far end from Piergeiron, of course, but as he dug into fried mushrooms dripping with some sort of sauce and gratefully received a drinking-jack of warmed zzar from a deft servant, he gathered from the speed with which the others were eating that they'd soon be out the doors to their duties.
So it proved, and Mrelder was just sitting back from his last few sausages with a sigh of contentment-gods of Amalgamation, it'd been years since he'd eaten this well! — when the oldest-looking wizard sat down right beside him and asked quietly, "And you are-?"
"Mrelder. I-"
"Fought beside the Lord Piergeiron in defense of the city, and are his personal friend, yes," the wizard said smoothly, his dark old eyes keen and bright. "Perhaps I should have added the words, 'here for' to my question, thus: And you are here for-?"
"Ah, to thank the Lord for his advice, and tell him I found my father, just as he suggested. And to give him a gift."
"Aha. What sort of a gift?" Two rings on the wizard's fingers winked into life.
Mrelder had expected this but put a puzzled frown on his face as he dug into his belt pouch. Retrieving the small copper coin he and two Amalgamation acolytes had done so much hasty work on, he put it on the table.
The mage peered at it suspiciously. Its origins were evident if one examined it closely enough, but it now had the shape of a small copper shield bearing, in an arc, the words: "All Perils Defeated."