The wizard held a hand above the badge. A third ring kindled into life, and he gave Mrelder an unfriendly look. Taking up a fork left behind in someone's bowl, he carefully turned the little shield over and read aloud its obverse: "To the Open Lord of Waterdeep, in deepest respect, from admirers at Candlekeep."
"Fine folk, all! Well met, friend Mrelder!"
The sorcerer sprang up to greet his host. Piergeiron, it seemed, could move as silently as a cat when he wanted to. They grasped sword-forearms, in the greeting of one trusted warrior to another.
"You found your father?"
Gods, he remembered!
Mrelder found himself grinning widely. "Yes, Lord, and I wanted to thank you in person for your advice. We're reconciled."
In our own manner, at least.
"Good! Good! So what's got Tarthus here so suspicious?"
"I–I'm afraid I was bold enough, Lord, to bring you a gift, on behalf of all who came from Candlekeep to fight for you that day. We'd be honored-"
"As will I!" Piergeiron said heartily.
"There're no spells on it, Lord," the mage murmured, "but prudence demands…"
"Of course, of course."
Mrelder carefully kept all trace of a smile off his face. Not a spell, but a spell focus, by which Mrelder, who'd so painstakingly engraved the cruder of the two messages it bore, could with a swift spell of his own easily track Piergeiron's whereabouts.
The Open Lord took up the shield and admired it with pure, simple pleasure. "All Perils Defeated, eh? I wish I could measure up to that. Still, let it be my goal and be ever with me." He turned it in his palm. "Made from a copper piece. Clever." He fixed Mrelder with that disconcertingly direct gaze and said simply, "Thank you. This is a princely gift."
Mrelder knew he was blushing. Boldly, before he lost his nerve and the chance, he stood up, took the little badge from the Open Lord of Waterdeep, and went down the table to where Piergeiron's war-helm sat, holding down stacks of papers still awaiting the Paladin's signature.
Slipping the point of the shield firmly under the edge of the brow-guard that surmounted the helm's eye-slits, he settled it in place, centered over the nose guard. "There!"
Piergeiron grinned again. "Now, that I shall be proud to wear." His grin faded. "Though hopefully not soon. Waterdeep enjoys a hard-won peace."
Mrelder put the helm down carefully and came back down the table, aware of the wizard's thoughtful scrutiny. Tarthus had doubtless noticed the spell of binding Mrelder had cast on the shield earlier, to keep it affixed wherever it was put. No matter: There was no magic more harmless.
"Peace is always my hope, too," the young sorcerer said quietly, "yet strangely, Lord, the mood in the city now seems darker than when folk were fighting beasts from the sea. If I may speak bluntly: I've been in cities in the South where unrest was strong, and this has the same feel."
Piergeiron nodded. "You see and speak truth, lad." He strode back down the table, frowning. "Waterdhavians work together against clear peril," he added slowly, "but not in times of prosperity."
Mrelder spread his hands. "Why not remind citizens that in the thrust and parry of trade, Waterdeep is in one sense always at war? Some folk only see a battle when blades are bared and blood flows."
Tarthus was frowning at Mrelder now, too. "What sort of reminder?"
Keeping his eyes on Piergeiron, Mrelder waved at the war-helm.
"Put on your armor. Be seen only clad in battle-steel, sword at your side, awakening not fear but remembrances of victories and sacrifices-a rebuke to those distracted by foolish trifles and an reminder to all of the precious cost of what they enjoy."
"You," Piergeiron replied slowly, "are a lad no longer, but well on your way to being a graybearded sage."
He strode to where he could snatch up his helm and did so, smiling at its gleaming curves. "I've always preferred honest battle-steel, even with its heat and discomfort, to walking about in whatever foppish nonsense is currently in fashion."
Mrelder nodded. "Folk know you in your armor, and it's probably best if you're seen and recognized all over the city. I heard more than a little unhappy talk in Dock Ward this morn that you were dead or gone from Waterdeep, and tax collectors were inventing their own orders and charges in your name." He spread his hands. "We of Candlekeep have a proverb: If a thing is said often enough, fools aplenty will believe it to be true."
The First Lord and his wizard exchanged a quick glance. "Graybeard indeed," murmured Piergeiron.
Tarthus drew his cloak around himself. The wind on the high balcony was, as usual, as cold as a knife blade. Piergeiron had stopped looking at the new badge on his helm at last, and was gazing out over the city. The wizard kept silent, waiting for what he knew would come.
"Well, Tarthus?"
"Some things the lad kept from you. I doubt his meeting with his father went as well as he wanted you to believe."
Piergeiron sighed. "Hardly unusual, I'm afraid, and tells us nothing sinister about young Mrelder. So they're saying I'm dead again, are they?"
Tarthus had been the Open Lord's spell-guard for a long time, but he was still a senior Watchful Order member and kept himself well informed. "Though it seemed a rather heavy-handed urging on the lad's part, he spoke truth. They are saying you're dead down on the docks, and of course, that all manner of villains and impostors are signing your name to decrees and running the city just as they see fit."
Piergeiron's smile was wintry. "Who would these villains and impostors be?"
"We of the Castle. Every last belted noble in every last mansion and crypt in the city. The secret cabal of wizards who've ruled Waterdeep these past three eons. Dragons using spells to take the faces of humans. A legion comprised solely of Elminster's bastard offspring. Take thy pick."
The Open Lord of Waterdeep sighed and clapped his war-helm onto his head. "None of those, thanks. Let's go find my armor, and you can check it for sinister spells, too."
"Of course, Lord," the wizard replied calmly. "Someone may have cast some since I last checked it, yestermorn."
The door thudded sullenly against the wall of Varandros Dyre's new meeting chamber, and a sleepy-eyed Karrak Lhamphur lurched into the room.
"You're late," Jarago Whaelshod growled. "My working day begins three bells before dawn, not one."
"Work a little harder, so as to enjoy the successes I have," Karrak Lhamphur flung back, "and you can sleep in just as late as I do!"
Whaelshod grumbled wordlessly, turned his heavy-lidded gaze to their host, and barked, "Well? We had to wait until this sluggard got here for what, exactly?"
Varandros Dyre looked less than bright-eyed himself this morning. "Two buildings collapsed last night," he said grimly.
Lhamphur frowned. "You're blaming those on the Lords and nobles? I doubt they even know what holds buildings up, let alone what makes them fall down! That's why they hire the likes of us, no?"
"They didn't hire me to dig tunnels that aren't on my maps," Dyre snapped back, "and how else d'you think the collapses occurred? Both buildings fell into something."
"Like a pit that shouldn't have been there," Hasmur Ghaunt put in nervously.
Dorn Imdrael drank the last of his steaming broth and waved his tankard. "Thanks for this, Var. It's hard for a man to think on an empty stomach."
Turning to Whaelshod and Lhamphur, he pointedly eyed their still full mugs and asked quietly, "Who else could pay for a tunnel without the rest of us knowing about it? Or do the digging, without all the city gossiping about it? There's a warehouse by the docks full of dirt up to the rafters. Doubtless it's where someone stored what they dug out of a secret tunnel-and I can't believe the Watch and the Guard and the Watchful Order are all such idiots they don't notice when something like that's going on. No, Var's right: the Lords are to blame for this."