Forgotten Realms - [Double Diamond Triangle Saga 06] - Conspiracy Read online

  Kern pointed toward a cluster of two-story adobe hovels ahead. Thin jags of black smoke rose from behind the lodgepole rafters. “There. It’s coming from there.”

  Miltiades nodded and gestured to the other paladins to gather up beside him. “We go. Weapons out.” He strode at an angry half-run toward the ragged black doorway of the nearest building.

  Kern, Trandon, and Jacob followed.

  The heat of exertion was stoked by that of fury. To impugn the holy name of Tyr was bad enough, but to do so with such despicable ceremonies as this? To flaunt all that was right and good by sinking teeth into a corpse and…

  The realization came to him out of the very wind, and it struck with all the horrible weight of truth. Eidola. That was why they had taken her. To parade her through some atrocious ceremony, slay her atop an altar desecrated with their sacrifices, and consume her. Cannibals often ate the brains, livers, and hearts of their victims, hoping to gain wisdom, strength, and courage. These cultists, though, sought not the vitality of one warrior woman, but of a whole city—of all Waterdeep.

  What justice for monsters such as these?

  Miltiades charged through the gaping doorway, into a small, dark, cluttered room, bulging with woven mats and crumpled sheets, chipped cups and a pitcher half-full of something red, a tangle of rope and a vacant chair. “Tyr’s hammer! She was held captive here last night,” Miltiades muttered to himself as he strode through the room. “Tied to that chair, and drained of her very blood, in that pitcher.”

  From a dark doorway at the back of the chamber came another whiff of burning flesh. The smoke brought with it a low chant—a multitude of Mar voices joined in a deep unison. The scissoring click of teeth and tongues made the song grate, ghastly and diabolical, in Miltiades’s ears.

  Even now, in the lot behind this house, the Fallen Temple is burning her to death, Miltiades thought.

  He stomped through the dark doorway into another room, this one with a mean table lined with low candle stubs. He had no time to inspect the object—no doubt a sacrificial altar—for through a pair of double doors, he glimpsed the courtyard, and the scene of monstrous desecration in it.

  Some twenty dark-robed Mar stood in a circle around a stack of wood, upon which lay Eidola, in silver breastplate and flowing gown. Her face, darkened by the sun of this hostile place, was twisted in an expression of agony, and her hands curled in tight fists to her chest. Her legs, too, were drawn up beneath the flowing gown, as if she had died in racking pain.

  Yes, she was dead, for not a muscle moved on that pile of wood. She was dead, or soon would be. Already, the flames ringed her round in a wall five feet high.

  With a righteous roar, Miltiades flung back the double doors and emerged at a run into the courtyard. He swung his hammer in an arc that would pulverize two of the robed heads and splatter them against a third. The wicked celebrants fell back before his onslaught. The silver hammerhead only grazed a shoulder, but that slight contact alone was enough to send the worshiper sprawling.

  Not pausing to finish off this foe, Miltiades leapt through the searing wall of fire that surrounded Eidola. He landed beside her in the blazing inferno, snatched her from the smoldering pallet, and wrapped his vast arms around her. Then, his own tabard and cape blazing, Miltiades vaulted through the fire and landed in a crouch beyond. Ignoring the flash of his hair, singing away across his scalp, Miltiades gently laid Eidola down on a verge of grass. He then stood, flung off his burning livery, and hoisted his hammer.

  Kern, Trandon, and Jacob had emerged behind him. With hammer, staff, and sword, they had corralled the cultists in a frightened mob at one corner of the courtyard. Miltiades strode toward them and swung his smoking maul ominously overhead.

  “Who is your master!” he roared. “I will slay only him. But if you conceal from me his whereabouts, I will slay each of you in turn!”

  A small-framed Mar, eyes raging in his middle-aged face, said, “Who are you? What right have you to do this?”

  “Are you the leader of these… these infidels?” Miltiades asked, leveling his hammer at the man.

  “I am head of this household, and I demand by what right you—”

  “By what right?” Miltiades shouted as he drew himself to his full height before the man. “By what right? By the right of justice. By the right of honor and decency. By the authority of Piergeiron Paladinson of Waterdeep and Emperor Aetheric III of Doegan—”

  “These rulers give you the right to barge into our funeral service, break my nephew’s shoulder with that hammer of yours, rip my mother from her pyre, and threaten to kill us all?” the man replied, incredulous.

  Miltiades’s lips drew up in a sneer, “It is too late for your lies. You have slain Lady Eidola of Neverwinter, and for that you will pay in blood.”

  “What? Slain whom?”

  A staying hand fell upon Miltiades’s shoulder, and he whirled in anger, almost striking Kern with his hammer. The golden paladin did not shy back, only saying softly, “Look. He’s right. Look at the body. That woman is Mar. She’s old. She’s not Eidola.”

  Face red from sun and exertion and burns, Miltiades stared at the body he had rescued from the pyre. Kern was right. She was Mar, a withered crone. “B-But how do we know this is a funeral,” Miltiades hissed to Kern, “and not a cannibalistic ritual?”

  Kern’s voice was barely a whisper. “There would have been nothing left of her to eat. Let’s go, Miltiades. We need rest. We can search more tomorrow. We need rest.”

  “Yes,” the silver knight said heavily. He took a staggering step away from the Mar, gaping behind him. “Yes. I’m weary to the bone.”

  “Wait. What of my family? What of my wounded nephew, and my dishonored mother?” the Mar man called after the retreating knights. “What justice is there for us? What justice for the Mar?”

  Chapter 4

  Confabulation

  No longer in tatters, Artemis Entreri, Shar, her new plaything, Noph, and the band of pirates settled in beside the garden pool of a local tavern.

  Prior to their arrival, they had “requisitioned” a loaded clothesline behind a noble estate. Now the whole crew was dressed in the fine, flowing clothes favored by the natives of Eldrinpar. After changing, they sought a safe tavern where they could rest and eat. The first two places, hung with huge signs and overflowing with patrons, were vetoed by Ingrar. He said they smelled metallic, like death.

  They all had had enough death for one day.

  The tavern where they ended up looked, on the outside, like nothing at all. Its walls were flaking adobe, its windows draped with tattered curtains. It seemed more a collection of slumping hovels than a safe house. Still, Ingrar swore by the aroma of the place—comfortable coolness beneath ragged eaves. He was right. Venturing through a vacant outer room, the company came to a fine establishment, patronized exclusively by elite Mar.

  While any pub in the Heartlands would center around a hearth, this cafe centered on an open-air courtyard that held a tranquil pool. The eaves over the pool were high and broad, providing shade and secrecy from the eyes of flying things. The walls were more window than wall, letting restless sea winds shift among the beams.

  The pool was a kind of urban oasis, edged in azure tile and surrounded by swaying palms and trailing vines. Tables were hidden among the dense growth so that patrons had a sense of seclusion. The secret cafe was, in a word, inviting.

  The owner, at first, was not. The light-skinned pirates and white-skinned Noph made him very nervous. Ffolk rarely came to this secret spot, and never in the company of Mar. For some moments after their arrival, the owner flitted around like a catbird hosting cats. When his initial panic wore off, he decided to treat these guests like royalty. Dangerous royalty. They were seated at the best table, promised the finest ales and the fattest cuts of meat, and told it all was on the house. The pirates greedily accepted.

  Seated in the cool shade of a gently breathing palm, the battle-torn company was finally at ease. As
they drank the first round of thin, sharp-edged ale, they began to feel downright talkative. Noph, seated between voluptuous Shar and algid Entreri, was the most talkative of all.

  “What was that fellow’s name? The one with all the scars? The one we hid in the crate, dockside?”

  The faces of the pirates grew grave.

  Shar leaned heavily back in her seat and folded arms over her chest. A warm fragrance came from her and wafted around Noph. “His name was Anvil—well, really Jolloth Burbuck. He was a veteran of many battles. A stalwart seaman. A good friend.”

  The faces around the table were long. Even Entreri wore a tired look.

  Noph ventured, “Then doesn’t he deserve a decent burial?”

  “Tonight,” Shar said. Her eyes turned on Noph as though she were hurt by his insinuation. “We’ll go back to the dock and bury him at sea.” Her look hardened. “More important, we’ll kill that Jacob fellow for him. Only then will he really rest.”

  “You know, when my best friend Harloon died—” Noph paused, biting his lip “—the paladins wanted to just leave him lying on the bank of the river, beside a dead ettin.”

  “Typical,” snorted the dwarf, Rings. “They’ve no love for anybody. They’re too busy being good.”

  “I’m glad to be rid of them,” Noph said, lifting the sloshing dregs of his first-ever ale. The ruddy faces of the pirates around him warmed, and he took it as encouragement. “A bunch of primps, so worried they might sully a sleeve they never get around to being really noble.”

  “You’re preaching to the converted, boy,” Rings responded, not unkindly.

  “Prancing paladins,” Belgin said bitterly. He was a rakishly classy man, his clothes a cut above the rest of the party’s. “Paladins’re stiff where a body’s supposed to be loose, and loose where a body’s supposed to be stiff. Unnatural creatures.” He punctuated his soliloquy with a deft movement of one hand, weaving his napkin through the tines of his fork.

  “Exactly!” Noph enthused. “Hypocrites!”

  “Not us,” Belgin said, a sardonic smile on his face. With a snap of his fingers, the Sharker made the napkin slide from the fork and disappear into a silken sleeve. “We tell you ahead of time we’re cheats and liars and scoundrels.”

  “So, how did you reach Eldrinpar?” Noph asked. “Surely you’ve got some swashbuckling tales.”

  Ingrar said, “Tales seem less thrilling when you’ve lived through them.” He gestured at his blind eyes.

  “Well, I had some adventures on the way,” Noph said. “We fought our way through Undermountain—the realm of Halaster the Mad Mage—and then had to defeat an army of fiends to get to a portal, and then came face to face with the mage-king of Doegan, a creature that—”

  “You want a story?” interrupted Shar. The sorrow was gone from her, and she leaned enticingly against Noph. He was surprised how warm and, well, flexible her leather tunic felt. “You want to know how we got here? You want a story to end all stories?”

  “Well, at least a story to end my story,” Noph said, blushing.

  The others laughed, except for Entreri, who scowled at the young man. Shar noticed. She moved a thin arm snakelike along Noph’s chest.

  “All right, but be warned: We’re cheats and scoundrels and liars,” she purred. “Believe the particulars to your peril.”

  The word “peril” had never sounded so good. “I’m—I’m game.”

  “Yes, you are.” Shar laughed lightly and cast a glance across Noph at the assassin. She idly stroked the blond fuzz that lined the young man’s chin. “It all began with a fellow named Orim Redbeard, captain of the Black Dragon. He had taken a disliking to us Sharkers—”

  “Sharkers?” Noph squeaked as he felt a certain presence beneath the table. He cleared his throat. “Wh-Who are the Sharkers?”

  “Us. Crew members of the Kissing Shark, fabled ship of Blackfingers Ralingor. Redbeard had lots of reasons to hate us. First among them, though, was that we knew his beard was really white and only dyed with a mix of rust and milk.”

  “Your leaving him at the altar might have been another reason,” added Rings dryly.

  “Shut up. I’m telling this story,” Shar advised. “Now, whatever his reasons, Redbeard was after Blackfingers and the Kissing Shark. He couldn’t catch us, though. We can be… quite slippery when wet.”

  Noph gulped at that. “G-Go on.”

  Shar twined a finger through Noph’s hair, but she was gazing directly at Entreri. “Some men are threatened by things they can’t hold onto. Some try anything to keep their distance. Redbeard hired a sorcerer—a tiny twig of a man. What was his name? Winebreath Anglebutt?”

  “Windborn Axlegrease?”

  “Wimprod Antibody?”

  “Something like that. Anyway, this Warthog Antfarm ran us aground near Tenteeth Point. The hull—six-inches of oak and hard as steel—was staved on the first spit of land and hooked by the second. Then the storm set to chewing us to pieces. And if that weren’t enough, in comes Redbeard and his Black Dragon, and his mage holds them offshore—Redbeard wasn’t seaman enough to do it in that storm—and they launched flaming ballistae at us.”

  “Fire arrows,” broke in Entreri. “They were only fire arrows, of the very sort they used against the Morning Bird.”

  “A man such as you shouldn’t quibble about size, Artemis,” Shar replied elegantly, sneering past Noph. “These were ballistae if they weren’t comets sent from Tempus himself. You don’t know. You weren’t there.”

  “I was,” Entreri replied, as softly as before. “I watched as the seven of you survivors climbed to shore.”

  “You what?”

  “Didn’t you fight back?” interrupted Noph.

  Shar managed to look both offended and stumped. “Fight back?” She glanced quickly to her comrades. “Sure, we fought back, didn’t we? Belgin, tell the boy how we fought back.”

  “Well,” he said, considering, “Shar, here, has a secret weapon… an exceptional secret weapon—”

  “She’s inflatable,” Rings supplied in a rush.

  Shar glared at the dwarf.

  “Inflatable?” Noph wondered aloud, staring.

  Shar’s irritation turned on him.

  “Yes, indeed,” Rings gabbled. “Saved us all from drowning. We just held onto Shar and floated from the burning Shark.”

  “My word,” said Noph, still staring.

  “And that’s not the half of it,” Belgin continued. “She became large enough to catch wind, and carried us on a collision course with the Black Dragon.”

  Noph looked up at last. “What about the ballistae? Didn’t they keep shooting ballistae at you?”

  “Too frightened, my boy,” Belgin said smoothly. “By this time Shar was enormous, you understand. Any pirate who saw her attacking his ship would think he was being boarded by Umberlee the Bitch Queen, herself.”

  “And Redbeard being a virgin and all—” Rings added.

  “A virgin?”

  “The man had no more keel than a dinghy,” Ingrar added with such calm aplomb he seemed almost mournful.

  “I, on the other hand, supplied the raft of us with a right impressive keel,” Belgin boasted.

  “A daggerboard, if you ask me,” Rings replied.

  “And you would know, sinking like an anchor,” Belgin sneered. “Dwarves, you’ll find, son, float like stones—and are just as dense.”

  “What did you do when you reached the Black Dragon?” Noph asked, looking with new admiration at Shar.

  Her initial consternation was giving way to amusement. Flicking a smile toward Artemis, who irritably endured it all, Shar leaned her legendary weapons against Noph and said, “I crushed them!”

  Noph recoiled slightly, his eyes wide. “A virgin pirate, crushed in the bosoms of Umberlee!” he croaked out in amazement. “That sure is some swash and buckle!”

  This final naive comment was too much for any of them, and the pirates exploded with laughter, lifting their flagons in
a salute.

  Noph scratched his head. “You killed Captain Redbeard and his whole crew and sank his ship when Shar inflated herself?”

  The Sharkers nodded, struggling to stifle their mirth.

  “Of course not,” said Entreri irritably. “The only ship destroyed that night was the Kissing Shark, the only thing inflated was this ridiculous story, and the only crew slain were the Sharkers, with seven liars swimming ashore.”

  Noph blushed at the reprimand. “Seven? That’s you four, plus Anvil, and two others. Who were the other two?”

  The pirates’ countenances lost their mirth. There was silence for a moment. Then Belgin said, “Well, there was Brindra, a good comrade of all of us, whom we lost battling a fiend beyond the city walls. And there was Kurthe. He was killed by this man, here, in fair combat.” He stared hard at the impassive face of Entreri for a moment, then turned back to Noph. “Kurthe was a Konigheimer, big and tough, and had it in his head he was our leader. Master Entreri disagreed.”

  “What about your captain—Captain Blackfingers?” asked Noph. “Did he die, too?”

  “No—well, yes. It’s hard to say,” Belgin hedged, hiding his expression behind the lifted flagon. “I’d not be surprised if the captain made a return, here, sometime soon.”

  “You might as well tell him,” said Ingrar. “Master Entreri has taken Kurthe’s place, and maybe this lad can take the place of Anvil or Brindra. If not, the captain is as good as dead, anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Entreri coldly.

  Belgin blinked. He glanced soberly at his comrades and gestured to them. “We, such as we are, are Captain Blackfingers Ralingor.”

  “What?” asked Noph. “All of you, together?”

  “We seven,” Ingrar said, and the others nodded. “A kind of joint-stock company.”

  Noph was now thoroughly confused. “You mean there never was any Captain Blackfingers? You made him up?”