The Diamond

Chapter 1

Four young acolytes solemnly lit their tapers.

Piergeiron is dead. Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, sighed in defeat as the trumpets, glauren, longhorns, and drums began their solemn dirge. It was chilly where he sat, on a bench of polished marble in the balcony of the palace chapel. The stone was cold and hard after the dark-stained wooden pews. The whole chapel had turned cold and hard. It had died along with its lord.

I can scarce believe, after all these years, that he's truly gone.

Yet there he lay, in a gleaming casket of gold and glass, master-work by the best crafters in all the Sword Coast. Cold and beautiful and dead. Sages said beauty and truth were the same thing. If that was so, the Open Lord, arrayed in silks and wools, gold and gems, was beautifully and truly dead.

Interesting, thought Khelben, watching four acolytes and four candles drift in stately procession up the chapel aisle, that beauty and truth are so coldly meaningless without life.

Shaleen, so long dead and long mourned, lay in her own coffin beside her husband. The Lord Mage himself had exhumed and restored her body to beauty. Khelben Arunsun could make her whole and beautiful again, but without the aid and approval of Holy Mystra, he could not give her life. And with Shaleen, as with so many others, Mystra had given him only her holy silence. In the days and years to come, Piergeiron and his bride would lie side by side in the center of the chapel.

Khelben sighed again. His breath ghosted in the chill air, rising past fresh-painted plaster to disappear among polished ribs of white marble. Yes, the chapel was beautiful in its gold, silver, and limestone, aglow with bejeweled chandeliers. Its aisles lay like brushed snow under white carpets from Shou Lung, stretching past ranks of bleached oak panels, reaching up between each pillar to round windows of gem-studded stained glass. Once more, the Eye of Ao stared out in radiant perfection from the greatest window above the gathered throng. The artisans had done well. Damnably well.

Khelben had ordered the chapel refurbished to delay this funeral, the official proclamation of Piergeiron's death. It would take months, he'd thought, to haul away the cracked and fire-blackened pews, the sword-scarred panels of mahogany, the shards of shattered stained glass, bloodstained rugs and twisted, ruined lanterns. It would take longer still to replace them all. Until the chapel stood bright and complete once more, the Lord Mage could hold off the hordes of glint-toothed nobles and finger-cracking guildmasters hoping to personally replace their dead Open Lord.

But here it was, a month hence, and the work was finished.

The nobles and guildmasters had done well… aye, damnably well.

They sat below, crowding the pews: nobles, guild-masters, magistrates, diplomats, secret lords and not-so-secret lords, senior guards: the best and brightest of Waterdeep. A gleaming, glittering forest of ermined shoulders, diamond necklines, high-coiffed hair, waxed mustaches, peacock feathers, whalebone stays, and features held just so by toning salves, minor magics, and even tiny clips and hidden strands of silk. The best and brightest.

Khelben had spent more than enough time among them to glimpse the monsters behind these masks.

Lasker Nesher was here, lord of an illicit logging empire. He was one of the most vocal contenders for the Open Lord's seat, stirring the rabble of Waterdeep with speeches that were half truth and all theater. Lasker had personally provided the bleached oak panels, rails, and bosses for the chapel "and other important palace rooms, out of love for the great Piergeiron." It was strange, indeed, that all the milled, polished wood came bearing inexpert spells of clairvoyance and clairaudience. Khelben hadn't removed the clumsy enchantments, but instead had overlaid them with spells that twisted all images and sounds into things menacing. Perhaps that's why the loving Lasker Nesher sat blinking between two new bodyguards, starched collar wilting against his clammy neck.

Then there were the Brothers Boarskyr. Loudly devastated by the disappearance of their kin Eidola of Neverwinter, the pair of oafs had used the misfortune as an excuse to move more or less permanently into the palace. While they awaited news of their cousin, they ravaged the palace stores of beef, sweetmeats, pork, and venison, and drank aisle after aisle of Piergeiron's private wine cellar. Both gained another pound each day they remained. The Lord Mage had grudgingly provided enchanted saddles so the Boarskyrs wouldn't break the backs of any more palace horses. Khelben wished he could send the two back to their rickety bridge and let it collapse beneath their combined enormity.

Plenty of other monsters sat in those pews, men and women as duplicitous and murderous as Eidola herself. Khelben was glad she hadn't returned and hoped she never would.

Not all the mourners here were monsters, the Lord Mage reminded himself. He watched a young boy light a candle flanking the raised dais where the caskets stood. Beside the boy hulked the man-giant Madieron Sunderstone, hair drooping in sorrow around his lowered face. Madieron had taken his master's death worse than most. As cheerful, powerful, and loyal as a sheepdog, Madieron had guarded Piergeiron from swords and shafts aplenty. But this last attack had been nothing he could fight, or, it seemed, even understand. The man had sat beside the gold and glass casket from the moment the Open Lord was interred there. Khelben wondered if, like a faithful guard dog, Sunderstone would sit beside it until he died of a broken heart. If there was such a thing as a true heart, Madieron had one.

And what about Captain of the Guard Rulathon? The intense young man glared in amazed shame at the coffin. He had shouldered the whole burden of the recent troubles in Waterdeep, blaming himself for shapeshifters, the Unseen, and rampant conspiracies. It was clear the captain's honor would not recover from this blow-unless Piergeiron himself rose from the casket to forgive him.

The dwarven goldsmith had really outdone himself with those caskets. Their gold sheathings were elegant sculptures. At the four corners of the dais the smith had fashioned four tall golden candlesticks, overtopping the plainer rows of commoners' candles. Atop these man-high ornate gold giants, stout candles now sputtered to life, as the acolytes drew reverently back.

Where had the smith gotten all that gold on such short notice?

The candles suddenly flared, each blazing six feet high. In the sudden roar of light and heat, four menacing shapes formed… warriors! They leapt in flaming unison from their conflagrations, dropping to the floor in the midst of the astonished throng.

"Not again," hissed the Blackstaff. Scowling grimly, he rose from his bench, taking to the air with a gesture. Where wisps of nobles' breath had circled undisturbed in marble-vaulted air, the great, black-draped figure of Khelben now hung. Hung and then swooped, his sable cloak dragging unceremoniously across bald pates and careful coiffures. Mantled in swirling magic, he rushed down on the four warriors like a striking hawk.

In the discordant, dying fall of glauren and trumpets, half of Waterdeep heard him growl, " Don't use gold from bewitched candlesticks!"

As though these words were a call to arms, the chapel burst into furious motion. Captain Rulathon and men of the Watch flooded up the aisles as the congregation recoiled from the caskets, streaming toward the doors. Many of the hurriedly departing had barely survived the first onslaught of fire warriors a month ago. That had been a wedding; who could guess what dread mayhem was coming to this funeral?

Into the chaos of charging Watchmen and cowering nobles Khelben descended, alighting in a whirl of black cloth and magely fury just before the caskets.

A seasoned-looking warrior in gilded armor was the closest flame-borne intruder to the Lord Mage. His warhammer flashed out.

Lightning cracked from Khelben's fingertips. The weapon spun free of the warrior's hand and clanged, hissing and scorched, to the new carpets.

Another warrior-a scrappy-looking young fighter, this one-reached a hand for Khelben's throat, something bright and sharp swinging up beyond his shoulder for a fatal blow. There was a sound like broken, falling icicles, and the fighter froze. His hand hung rigid in the air, just shy of Khelben's throat.

The Lord Mage spared no glance for the stilled man. He was dodging the third warrior, a leather-garbed man hauling hard on a scourge. With a wave of wriggling fingers, Khelben awakened the gold filigree of Piergeiron's casket. Sculpted vines on its flanks came suddenly to life, whirling out to entrap the man in a tangle of living gold.

The fourth warrior, an olive-skinned rogue, was caught in the arms of Madieron, who'd roused himself from his despair, face white with fury, to take a captive. The invader had gone slack in Sunderstone's grip, a sword dangling whitely to one side.

No, not a blade-an arm bone. The man's left arm was bare bones from the elbow down. The rest of him Khelben recognized.

Startled, he hissed the man's name aloud: "Artemis Entreri!"

Perhaps it was not the right thing to say in the presence of terrified nobles. Fresh shrieks came from the crowd, and they shied back with more frantic scramblings over pews, like cattle who've smelt the slaughterhouse maul.

Rulathon and the Watch surrounded the caskets and those who battled about them. Trained not to interfere with the Blackstaff, the Watchmen stood at the ready, trying to look menacing and capable.

Khelben drew in a deep breath. Black eyebrows bristled above steely eyes. He stared at the gold-armored warrior. "Kern?" The man stood stunned, shaking his lightning-struck hand.

The mage glanced next at the young fighter, frozen in place. "Noph?" With a wave of his hand Khelben dispelled the binding that held Noph and sent the golden vines retreating from the third man.

"Trandon?" It had been shackles, not a scourge, that Trandon had swung. "You certainly know how to make an entrance," Khelben growled, inwardly glad for any delay in the funeral. Their conversation, now that lightnings were not in play, seemed to have caught the attention of many mourners before they'd quite reached the doors. Damn them. "What are you doing here?" The Lord Mage's tone was irritable.

Noph's reply was equally blunt. "Just where exactly are we?"

"The Palace of Piergeiron Paladinson," snapped Khelben, "in the chapel. At the funeral of the Open Lord."

Noph swayed, and a sick look passed over his face. "We're too late then."

"We come from far Doegan," Kern put in, "from the company of paladins sent to rescue Eidola from her kidnappers. We've seen a king slain and a fiend war fought-"

"'Fiend war'?" gasped someone in the crowd. One rotund baroness staggered in a magnificent faint, flattening a knot of nobles behind her.

Khelben nodded. "I've sensed much, and suspected more-but reports are best given away from tenderand overeager-ears." He gestured for Kern and Noph to follow him, and for the Watch to bring Trandon and Entreri.

A snide voice rose above the excited whisperings of the crowd: "Hold, Lord Mage. This is just the sort of nonsense we've put up with for the past month."

Khelben did not trouble to hide his grimace. Lasker Nesher might have been Noph's father-but he had also become a one-man political pox on Waterdeep.

"You say the Open Lord is dead," Lasker said, looking to see that the crowd was listening, "and then that he isn't. You delay the funeral and meanwhile rule in the stead of the Paladinson. You know of fiend wars in the south-and the gods alone know what else-and tell not one of us, and now you seek to keep secret the first real report we have about Eidola of Neverwinter?"

The chapel had gone quiet save for the satiny echoes of Nesher's voice. Waterdeep listened-intently.

"And who are we?" Nesher continued, his voice rising to become its own trumpet. "The lords and merchants, guildsmen and nobles of this fair city! We are the Magisters and the Watch, and all folk who've labored on at our posts though our bright leader is dead and a dread mageling has stepped in to hold power indefinitely. We're not 'tender ears.' We are the people! Piergeiron's people! The people of Waterdeep!"

There were shouts of agreement. Nesher's eyes flashed. "We have a right to know what's happening, not only in the back rooms of our palace or in the streets of our city, but in the lands all over our world!"

A general cheer rang out. "Do not spare us this news, Lord Mage: let the paladins tell their tale!"

Nesher has rallied them again, Khelben thought. No, duped is a better word. He has the power to lead them, cheering, off a cliff.

The Blackstaff halted Kern and Noph, gave them a half bow, and with a wave of his hand toward Nesher, said calmly, "A general report of your activities is requested." The metallic glare from beneath his brows made it clear the two had best be truthful but discreet.

The gathered eyes of Waterdeep turned to the golden paladin, the apparent hero of the hour.

It was Noph, though, who spoke first. "Well, we started right here in the palace: Kern, Miltiades, Jacob, Trandon, Aleena Paladinstar," he smiled in remembrance, "and a few others… Paladins, mostly, and me. We sought the fastest route to the Utter East, from whence, Khelben told us, Eidola's kidnappers had come. As it turned out, that route was right under our feet." He stamped on the polished floor.

"In Undermountain," Kern explained, lifting a disapproving eyebrow at Noph's casual manner. "Ironically, this force of great virtue was led first to a city of great vice-wicked Skullport. 'Tis forever the burden of great men to confront and contend against the powers of darkness. Let evil know that, even to survive, it must forever wrestle great men-"

"Some women can pin evil right well, too-Aleena for one," Noph put in. There was laughter from the crowd.

Glowering, Kern continued, "In Undermountain, we lost the first of our men, Harloon, to the fell attack of an ettin-"

"Due to my own stupidity," Noph interjected, suddenly solemn.

"Continue," Khelben growled. "And one at a time." Noph took up the tale. "We found a portal to the Utter East," he said, "but it was crawling with fiends. We fought past most of them to reach it, but had the gods own bitter time trying to get the thing open as we fought one fiend after another. We opened it in the end. Aleena stayed behind to close it forever."

He glanced around the room, looking for the conspicuously absent lady paladin. A gentle blush crept from his collar. "I hoped we could see-I mean, I could… uh, that she'd made if out all right."

Impatiently, Kern brushed aside the younger man and continued. "We arrived in a land equally embattled by fiends, a realm clutched in the tyrannical tentacles of King Aetheric III, Lord of the Bloodforge!"

The awed sensation he'd intended this pronouncement to evoke was destroyed by chortles over the accidental alliteration of "tyrannical tentacles."

Ruffled, the paladin snapped, "Aetheric was a twisted monstrosity, a giant whose lower body had been transformed by the bloodforge into the grasping tentacles of a squid."

No mirth followed this description. "The more he used the bloodforge to create armies," Kern said in tones of doom, "the more twisted he became, and the more fiends he drew to his land!"

Noph took up the story again. "You've Aetheric to thank for those shadow warriors who came here and busted up the place. They kidnapped Eidola. Aetheric sent them, figuring we'd send fleets of ships and armies of men to Doegan. He wanted to use them as fresh troops to fight his fiend war for him."

"Instead of sending great armies to rescue the bride of the Open Lord, though," Kern said with satisfaction, "we sent only a small company of paladins."

"We certainly showed him the depths of our regard," said Lasker Nesher, bitterly. The listeners dropped their heads, chastened that they'd valued Piergeiron's bride so little.

Kern snapped, "We chose a small strike team instead of an army because this crucial task required a small, delicate tool."

Khelben rolled his eyes. Kern's diplomacy was certainly no delicate tool. The eyes of the crowd turned from the golden warrior to a more ragged, common hero.

"Hosts of fiends overran the city," Noph said. "In the fighting, King Aetheric broke free of his dark pool. He slithered to the top of his palace and fought there like a god from the Time of Troubles! He killed friends in their thousands before he died from the fresh air-see, he breathed poisonous salt water, not air!"

He leaned forward in remembered excitement, and the crowd leaned with him. "With Aetheric dead," Noph added, "the city was helpless. Fiends were all over the place, while we were trapped in the dungeons of the palace. Worse yet, the bloodforge was unguarded!"

Kern gestured toward Entreri. "The assassin Artemis Entreri, scourge of Justice everywhere, was among those who tried to gain control of the foul forge, hoping, no doubt, to sell it to the highest bidder. Instead, the flesh of his left arm was scorched away, leaving only bare bone… a fitting punishment for ever-grasping avarice. Be warned, though: his fingers of bone are as deft as his fingers of flesh have ever been!"

In the silence that followed, Khelben thoughtfully stroked his black beard. "Where are the other paladins from your party? Dead? And where is Eidola?"

"Some are dead," Noph said regretfully. "Some are pursuing Eidola; we don't know where she's led them."

"'Led them'?" interrupted Lasker Nesher. He glared at his disowned son. "What nonsense is this? Since when does a kidnap victim run from her rescuers?"

Khelben's look was keen and level, his eyes testing Noph's response.

The young man rose to his father's challenge. "Not all of us were rescuers, Father. This assassin"-he gestured toward Entreri" led a party of pirates, natives of the Utter East, to slay Eidola. She knew folk were out to kill her. Of course she ran; you would have, too. In the confusion of a fiend war, it's easy enough to mistake a friend for a foe. I'm certain once Miltiades catches her, though, everything will be set right."

"Eidola is alive!" the Brothers Boarskyr shouted in gleeful unison. Becil, the more verbal of the two, waded forward through the mob, his half-wit brother capering in his wake. "Which means she's inheritable to the Throne of King Pallidson!" he roared, "And we're her most conjugal relations, now that the king's reclining in the slumberous arms of the bucket he just kicked…"

Khelben shook his head, motioning them to silence.

The gesture was too subtle for the likes of Becil and Bullard.

"… And if she's become mortified of late, due to the felicitous aptitudes of eternal wherewithal and so forth, the throne is destined to languish beneath our collective posteriors into perpetuous posterity-"

"First," Khelben roared, "Piergeiron is not king, but Open Lord. Second, he has no throne. And third, the funerary rites are not completed, and therefore he is not officially dead. As for Eidola, she was never officially married to the Open Lord, and even if she were, the office of Open Lord is not hereditary-and even if it were, it wouldn't be passed to shirttail relations!"

Blinking at the volume and fury of this sudden outburst, Becil and Bullard glanced down at their shirt-tails, which flapped about their waists, and tucked them before striding on.

"Well," Becil returned smoothly, "we are entitled to certain entitlements due to the titular title of our cousin as regards her impending matrimony to this impending deadman, especially if she herself is found to be in a status symbol wanting of breath and other indications of livingness."

It was not Khelben's breath that was steaming now. "I'm under the impression your quarters this last month were more than lavish," he said almost silkily, "to say nothing of the food and drink granted you. Now I've rather more appropriate accommodations in mind. Captain Rulathon, I believe you're well acquainted with the fine facilities in the deepest parts of the palace?"

The watch captain nodded happily, hooking an arm through Becil's. "Come with me, sir. You'll get everything coming to you."

Bullard crowded forward, hand reaching toward Rulathon's belt. "How's about I've a look at your sword, hey?"

The response was immediate. Four Watchmen intervened with such speed that even Bullard was unaware exactly when and how he was knocked cold. This event also passed the notice of Becil, along with most of the crowd, since unconsciousness did not dramatically change Bullard's intellectual carriage.

As the two numbskulls (one quite literally) were assisted in their departure, the mood of the crowd grew dark. Waterdeep had been through a lot in the past month. If the Open Lord's bride wasn't safe in Piergeiron's Palace on her wedding day, no one was safe anywhere. There'd been talk of dopplegangers, guild conspirators, shadow warriors, assassins, pirates, and squid lords-and not just talk. All of these villains were involved in recent troubles, but none were the greatest, deepest threat. So what then? If these were only surface distractions, what dastardly foes lurked behind them all?

Guilds had closed their doors. Merchants had hired muscle. Guards were ordered to kill first and let the resurrection men ask questions later. Disaffected young nobles spoke fashionably of ending their lives, though none yet had.

The city cowered beneath an occupying army, invisible and unnamed. Unseen foes were poised to pillage, slaughter, and burn. And while Waterdeep lay at the mercy of these foes, her leader lay at the mercy of death itself. In his stead ruled a secretive, ill-tempered archmage known to have dabbled in every wicked thing to happen since the Godswar-and during that darkest of times, and before! A ruler not elected or appointed, though no one had yet quite dared to point this out to him.

Now, at long last, here was a foe one could see. Artemis Entreri. An assassin! More than that-an assassin sent to slay Eidola! An avaricious butcher, who turned from his bloody task to capture a weapon of unspeakable evil. A man whose hand and arm were now skeletal-half man, half monster!

At last, here was a face to despise and spit upon, a body to gibbet and display on the gates of the city he'd so terrorized. It didn't matter that he hadn't killed Eidola, nor that he hadn't been involved in any crimes in Waterdeep itself. When a scapegoat is sought, anything with small white horns and a goatee will do.

It was Lasker Nesher who gave voice to this long-pent fury. He climbed atop a bench, clutched the lapels of his mourning coat, and drew in a deep breath. All eyes turned to him-and when he spoke, his voice boiled forth with all the ferocity of steam escaping a vat of boiling acid.

"So here is one of our tormentors!" He flung his hand down to point at the assassin. Many in the crowd leaned and peered to see the dangling form. "Here is a man in league with monsters. Here is a man who thinks he can hold a whole city hostage. And not just a city. The city! Waterdeep. Jewel of the North-greatest jewel of all Faerun!"

The roar of response was immediate and explosive.

"Are we not Waterdhavians? Are we not Waterdeep?"

The cheers were edged in anger. "Look at us all. We are of Waterdeep: nobles, merchants and guildsmen, freemen and servants! We are the arms and minds and voice of all Waterdeep!"

Nesher turned slowly to gather all eyes before his hand swept down to point again. "Here are the Watch and armsmen of the Guard, charged with protecting us all from enemies within or without. What say you: is this assassin friend or enemy?"

From the armsmen scattered through the crowd came a ragged consensus, "Enemy. Aye, a foe."

"And here are the Magisters, charged with trying, convicting, and sentencing those accused of attacking the folk of Waterdeep. What say you, Magisters? Is this man a menace to us?"

Again, the grudging reply, "Aye."

Nesher grinned, victory gleaming in his eyes. "And here is the Open Lord, the one man in all Waterdeep who alone holds the power to commute a sentence. What say you, Piergeiron Paladinson? Speak, if you would commute the sentence of death laid upon this man!"

The Open Lord was silent in his casket of glass.

After a tense moment of waiting, hoping somehow that the still form of the paladin would rise and speak, the crowd shouted its support.

Lasker Nesher cried out, "Guards, bear this man to the dungeon to await hanging, drawing, and quartering at the break of day!"

Into the roar that followed, Khelben cried, "When did the jewel of Faerun come to be run by mob justice?"

Nesher rounded on him, eyes smug in his deceitful face. " You're not Open Lord, mage. As you yourself contend, Piergeiron remains Open Lord until declared dead. Until then, only he can commute the sentence of the Magisters!"

He pointed to Trandon, who had stood silently chained though it all. "And what; of this other one?" he cried hungrily. "What is his crime?"

Noph and Kern traded reluctant glances.

"Tell us," Nesher commanded. "Tell the people of Waterdeep, or face their judgment yourselves!"

"He posed as a paladin, that's all," Noph said. "Though he's as worthy of the title as I am."

"'Posed as a paladin'?" crowed Nesher. "What is he really?"

When neither Noph or Kern would elaborate, Trandon himself said, "I'm a wizard. A War Wizard."

"A spy!" shouted Nesher. "A Cormyrean spy. An agent of Azoun in our midst. Treason! Let him die with the assassin. All in favor?"

The restored chapel-white marble, bleached oak, glowing gold, and all-shook with the thunderous voice of the mob. "Aye!"

"Away with them both! And in the morning, let us cheer again when their bodies are riven and piked in our midst!"

It seemed that only Khelben, Kern, and Noph did not cheer.