"Should we then be arming for the fight of our lives on the heels of these mages watching him, when they come here to treat with us?" Golskyn asked silkily, suddenly looming over his son.
"No, Father. Your wards stand undisturbed-as you're well aware-and I've been very careful to cloak myself from them. Very careful."
Of course, there was the small matter of the two spies who'd been following him, but Golskyn needn't know about that. They were dead, and the mongrelman who'd slain them would take full responsibility, thanks to Mrelder's first attempt at controlling an Amalgamation minion by casting a spell he'd crafted at another creature's monstrous grafts. Successfully, at last! After all, he didn't want his first victim to be "Lord Piergeiron's heir!"
"You answer well," his father replied, pouring himself a much larger drink than usual. "You're learning at last. Whenever possible, stand firm when pushed."
Beldar crept cautiously through the tunnel, moving by the soft glows of fungi on the walls and some vivid green radiances rising from small pools of slime that seemed to be creeping along the rocks ever so slowly. Despite such… plants?… the air was as damply unpleasant as a wet cloak, but its mustiness was vastly better than the choking reek of the Rat Hills. Better even than the foul stench of the deadwagon that had brought him here, bouncing along with the carcasses of an ancient mule and several one-eyed dogs, and now stood awaiting his return at the fading end of a trail.
Trails amid soaring mountains of trash! Who-or what-might find reason to visit this desolate place often enough to make a trail?
The glows were growing few, and the soft darkness deeper. Target or not, 'twas time to unshutter his lantern.
"That's far enough, doomed meat," a soft, liquid voice said almost tenderly, from very close by Beldar's left ear.
Beldar clapped his swordhilt, but resisted the urge to whirl around. He was a dead man if they wanted him so, despite all the little Roaringhorn family magics he was wearing and no matter which direction he faced.
The inky darkness all around him seemed to shrink and dwindle, receding with the suddenness of powerful magic to reveal some sort of ancient, long-abandoned cellar, its walls furred with mold he'd been smelling for some time now, and its floor visibly damp.
For all Beldar cared, it could have been walled and roofed entirely with nude, imploringly beckoning noble lasses; he could only stare in mute terror at dozens-dozens! — of beholders. He did not need to turn to know they were floating all around him. A swarm of miniature eye tyrants drifted like lazy fish amid the larger dooms.
The largest beholder-kin was floating right in front of him. It had a gaping, skull-like socket where its central eye should have been and was surrounded by floating, slowly orbiting glowing gems, and what looked like ornate scepters that winked and glowed softly. Its great jaws, bristling with jagged fangs, were twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile.
Flanking this beholder mage was another horrific creature, of the sort sages called a "death kiss." Around its baleful red eye writhed not eyestalks but ten eyeless tentacles like taloned fingers that lazily opened long slit-like jaws from time to time.
Several of the surrounding beholders were smaller and had only six eyestalks each. Dandalus had said beholder eye-magics varied from one eye tyrant to another in nature as well as strength, and some eye tyrants weren't nearly as powerful as the fearsome reputation legend gave them, but standing alone gazing upon so many gently writhing eyestalks and so many malicious stares, Beldar Roaringhorn knew better.
The smallest one here can slay me at will.
"I come not to harm," he rasped, finding his mouth and throat suddenly dry, "but to warn and seek advice."
"Are you alone?" the beholder mage demanded, "Do you know spells?"
A sudden crushing force blossomed inside Beldar's head, leaving him gasping and numbed, barely able to think or move. He struggled, thick-tongued, to answer… and then, as suddenly as it had come, the awful invasion ended.
"You stagger under the weight of magics you know not how to use," the beholder hissed contemptuously. "Speak now, ere we slay you. You offer poor sport."
Beldar took a deep breath, reminding himself of the Dathran's prophecy, and said, "I come from the city of Waterdeep, where a man now dwells who seeks to 'improve' himself by grafting claws and tails and other body parts of wild beasts-monsters-to himself. He's done so successfully at least a tencount of times, winning new limbs and organs that live and thrive, obeying him as if they were his own. They now are his own."
"And this concerns us how?" the eye tyrant mage sneered, though the glows encircling it brightened and its surviving eyes flashed in evident excitement.
"This man keeps one of his eyes hidden behind a cloth patch," Beldar replied, "to keep other humans from seeing it's been replaced with… an eye from a beholder."
A hiss went up all around Beldar that was almost a roar, drool-wet and furious. Eyes flashed, eyestalks writhed like angry snakes, and a dozen beams and bolts of deadliness stabbed at the quaking human from all sides.
All of them vanished in amber glows that brightened until Beldar could see a soft aura all around him. His skin tingled painfully, and he bit back a moan of fear.
"Soil yourself not, human," the beholder mage said coldly. "That was but a simple truth-test. I'd not have believed your tale, else. You spoke truth and so live yet, but this blasphemer, this human who dares to butcher our kind, must die-swiftly and knowing one of us is his slayer!"
Eager babble filled the cellar in an instant-and ceased, knife-sudden, as amber radiance blazed anew about the beholder mage.
One of its eyestalks curled to tap thoughtfully at its fanged mouth in an oddly human gesture. "Dealing death to this blasphemer would be a pleasure to everyone here, but one of us has a prior claim. Who sent you here, human, to tell us this?"
"No one." Beldar tapped the badge Dandalus had sold him, the device that marked him as a man in thrall to a beholder. "There is no one now," he added meaningfully.
"I see. Your master was slain by this human."
That hissing voice was not quite questioning. In case a truth-magic remained in the soft amber glow, Beldar said, "I decided to come here-alone-and parted with valuable gemstones to learn the way."
"You earn my protection already," the great beholder said, turning to face him fully, almost as if its blind, empty eyesocket could still see. "Are you willing to do more?"
"I am your servant," Beldar replied with dignity, knowing no other sane answer.
"Then one of us shall accompany you back to Waterdeep."
Though Beldar saw no gesture nor word pass among the floating horrors, one of the gauths-if he remembered the Roaringhorn library bestiary correctly-drifted forward to hang just above and in front of him. Before he could look at it properly, it began to circle him as if surveying a roast boar for a tasty-looking place to start devouring.
"You shall lead Alanxan without delay to this man, that his death may be accomplished without arousing the city's defenders, attracting undue attention, or leading this arm of our vengeance into any traps. Failure to do this, Beldar Roaringhorn-oh, yes, human, I read all I want of your mind in our brief contact-and not only will you die in long torment, but so shall all your friends and kin. Perhaps every so-called noble house of Waterdeep needs one of us commanding it."
"I thought you loathed…" Beldar stopped, realizing nothing he might say could be well received.
"We do. Save as cowering slaves to fetch, enact our wills, and provide us with entertainment. Yet with your ridiculous airs, you prancing humans entertain and even amuse-some of the time."
"A-a deathwagon waits to carry me back into Waterdeep," Beldar almost gabbled. "It has, uh, grim cause to travel every street of the city, so Alanxan can be safely brought to the back door of the, ah, blasphemer's abode, if, of course, this meets with your approval!"