The Diamond

Prelude

What a nuisance, death. No one's polite to a dead man… even if the departed is the Open Lord of Waterdeep.

A few manservants'd get the boot if Holy Tyr's justice had aught to say about it. They hoist me like a grainsack, drop me into coffins to check the fit, knock my head against any cornice or filigree that presents itself, leave me lying however I land, and never deign to straighten garments gathered at my knees or wadded up at my back.

On the second day of my demise, I was hung in the meat cellar with the rest of the perishables. Simon the stablehand happened along to pilfer some cheese, and took the opportunity to pose me provocatively with a three-foot-long Sembian sausage. If I hadn't once been a mischievous lad myself, I'd have him hanged like High Forest venison. If I'd not been mischievous… and weren't now as dead as Bane the Accursed.

I must be dead. Even Khelben thinks so. No breath. No pulse. Yet I can sense everything going on around me. I'm haunting my own corpse! Once it decays, perhaps my ghost will be able to move, haunting the entire Palace of Waterdeep. That would be considerably more interesting.

That is, if my body decays. I'm no mage, but I suspect the spell Khelben cast a tenday ago, bursts of brimstone and blue wildfire crawling all over my skin, somehow preserved me. That'd be just my luck. There's little fun in haunting a casket; no wonder ghosts get peevish.

Ah, here's proof of my suspicions: a dwarven smith. Hello, goodsir! Not that you can hear me. Your name, fellow? Hornbeak Goldglimmer? Hammerhead Nailwhacker? Dullasrocks Stinkbreath? And what have you there? A set of measuring rods, a pair of fat-nibbed quills, and a rolled-up set of plans for… for a glass-covered coffin? Lovely.

Get your thumb away from my eyes! Ge-aughh, darkness again!

That's the most frustrating thing about being dead. Whenever one of my eyelids shrinks back enough to let me see what's going on, somebody slides them closed. They'll probably sew them shut one of these days.

What good'll a glass-topped coffin be then?