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

  A great wall of tentacle swept beneath him. His cheek scraped the bossed ceiling. A chandelier surged by. Then he saw it again, that great black circle, that deep, deep darkness.

  The eye of Aetheric.

  Noph kicked out away from the mage-king’s face and dropped into a small side eddy.

  He plunged. Down, down. Whirlpool. It emptied water through a doorway and down. It emptied him. Water rushed in a choppy cascade down, down, down. Tumble tumble turn, down. Spiral stairs cracked his knees. Torches glowed lurid before they snuffed, and down, down.

  The stair went black. Chaos. Blunt blows. Panicked roar.

  And down.

  A great roar came from behind the paladins, from the very palace of the mage-king. The battle stilled for a moment as every eye lifted skyward. Stars were suddenly falling from the heavens. Huge chunks of firmament whistled down in a terrific rain.

  “The Day of Tyr,” gasped Miltiades, breathless. “The end of time. The Coming of Justice.” Suddenly oblivious to the foes before him, he dropped to one knee.

  The other paladins did likewise. Their heads bowed down just as a massive boulder of masoned stone bounced over them and struck the gaping fiends below. The rock splattered the first few beasts. Then it rolled down the stairs, grinding demons to grist.

  “Do you see?” Miltiades cried, elated. “ ‘And my hammer shall smite the nations of darkness and grind them into bitter meal.’ ”

  The bowed heads lifted, just in time for them all to witness the next onslaught. A massive flood vaulted over them. It bore in its churning belly the twisted, broken bodies of more fiends. They soared by overhead in a cascade of blood and water.

  “ ‘And I shall cast them down from on high, as the blacksmith casts down the burrs of iron that cling to his new-forged hammer. They shall fall from the heavens on this, my day, that all peoples of every land will know that the hammer of justice descends.’ ” As Miltiades spoke these words, a spray of water and blood swept over them. The bodies of fiends plunged down all around.

  Kern cried out, “How could we have doubted you, Tyr? How could we have listened to the profanities of a tentacled beast instead of the precepts of justice?” He turned to the silver warrior. “There is no Fallen Temple. There is only the True Temple—only we, the faithful of Tyr! Let us rescue Eidola, and save Doegan!”

  The ground trembled.

  The skies split open.

  The rain of fiends faltered and ceased.

  The wheels of Tyr’s chariot roared thunder.

  Kern and Miltiades turned toward the sound, toward the coming of Tyr in glory. What they saw was not Tyr, though, but his enormous, bleeding apotheosis.

  Aetheric III dragged himself up from the broken dome of his palace. His hands seized and smashed turrets. His tentacles coiled and recoiled in slug paths of steaming slime. His throat, so long filled with poison, roared.

  “Doegan, behold your god!”

  Chapter 9

  Conspiracy

  Noph awoke in the dark palace dungeon. He slouched against a wall of stone, water covering him to his chest. He could smell the sullen ash of doused torches, and could hear the gentle drip of wet ceilings. He saw little. The only light in the place sifted faintly down from the spiral stairs at either end of the corridor.

  “Ingrar?” he muttered stupidly. His voice was raw. Coughing spastically, Noph spat out salty foam. “Is anyone else alive down here?”

  A woman’s voice came from a nearby cell. “Who’s there? Who is it?”

  More water rattled in Noph’s lungs. “Who are you?”

  “I am Eidola Neverwinter,” said the woman.

  Noph struggled to his feet. “I’m coming. I’m coming.” He steadied himself on a wall, then lumbered along the flooded corridor. “I’ve got to find a key.” He dragged the toe of his boot, searching for—

  With a splash, he tripped atop a guard’s body. Noph struggled to one side and felt for a ring of keys. Finding it, he ripped it free from the man’s belt.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

  Noph reached the cell door where he had heard the voice and started fitting key after key into the slot. His hands jangled excitedly.

  The lady is within. I will rescue her, he thought. Another voice stirred in the back of his mind. What if Entreri is right? What if she is an agent of the Unseen? What if she is a monster?

  A key clicked. The cell door swung open. Noph gulped and stepped into the breach. With an effort he quashed his doubts. Surely the paladins were right. Surely Khelben would not have given them this commission if he’d had any doubts of Eidola’s bona fides.

  In the deep darkness, he could see little. Then he felt a warm wave of relief wash over him. On the far wall, he made out a feminine outline—long hair plastered to thin shoulders, a curve of hips, lean but strong legs. The woman’s arms were held out to either side by massive shackles bolted into the wall, and her legs, submerged in the fetid flow of Aetheric’s shattered tank, were bound together by a broad band of iron.

  “I’m Kastonoph Nesher,” Noph said stupidly. To make matters worse, he realized he was bowing. “Your husb—your groo—Piergeiron sent me.”

  “Thank the gods,” the lady replied. Her voice was as raw as his. “Get me loose!”

  “Right,” Noph said, glad she had given him a bit of direction. He stepped forward, keys jingling in his hand. “You wouldn’t know which of these keys—”

  “Just hurry,” the lady implored.

  “Right,” Noph replied again. He edged up to her, selected a key, felt the bond on her right arm until he located the slot, and tried it. No good. The key was too large. He tried the next. It slid in, but didn’t engage the lock.

  “Kastonoph?” she said.

  “Yes?” he replied, startled.

  “I was just trying to remember your name.”

  “My friends call me Noph.” He continued with the keys. “Ah, got the first one!” He flung back the shackle.

  Eidola’s arm dropped loosely free. She let out a hiss of pain. “Lift it! Lift it!”

  “Lift what?”

  “My arm! Now!”

  Noph fumbled in the dark. His hand brushed the lady’s side, smooth and warm in the harsh coldness. He found her arm and raised it.

  “Ah, that’s better,” she gasped out. “I’ve been this way for days. We’ll have to ease them down slowly. In the meantime, try the same key on the other lock.”

  “Yes, milady.” Still holding her free arm up, Noph stretched across her body to the other shackle. He couldn’t quiet reach.

  “This is a dungeon, not a boudoir. Touch me if you have to!”

  Noph drew a deep breath and leaned against her. The key slid into the shaft—thank Tyr, and the lock clicked. Noph hurriedly flipped open the shackle.

  “Up! Up! Lift it!” she growled as her left arm fell.

  Noph caught the limb and lifted it. “There—how’s that?”

  “Better,” she whispered, panting.

  “Um, Lady Eidola, I’m going to need to lower your arms to get your legs free.”

  He could sense her jaw clenching. “All right. Slowly—slowly—lower my arms to rest on your shoulders.”

  Noph nodded. He felt himself blush. What would Piergeiron say to see his young protégé pressed against his bride like this, lowering her arms into an embrace? Noph took a step back and drew the lady’s arms inward and down. She groaned and arched against him, her limbs trembling. At last, her arms rested on his shoulders.

  “All right. That wasn’t so bad,” the lady sighed. “Now, just as slowly, kneel down to open the shackle on my legs.”

  “Yes.”

  Stiffly, Noph slid down into the cold, black waters. Eidola’s arms dragged along his descending shoulders, and she moaned. The flood lapped at her knees. He could see her wavering reflection in the water, caught and shattered by ripples and waves into a thousand Eidolas. Noph settled beside her feet and allowed himself a huff of air.

  Get hol
d of yourself, he thought. What’s wrong with you?

  The cold felt good on his feverish body. He reached beneath the chill surface, ran his hand from her delicate feet to her ankle and onto the first gentle rise of her calf. The stout iron casement was just above. Still clutching the key that had released her hands, he found the slot and slid the metal rod gently in. A click answered the turn of the key, and the iron shackle swung open.

  “You’re free!” he said.

  Clutching his head now, Eidola tried to step from the wall. Something at her midsection tugged. “Damn. That’s right. There’s one more restraint—this wretched chastity belt.”

  “Chastity belt?” Noph sputtered. “Of all the barbaric—Surely Piergeiron hadn’t fitted you with—”

  “No, not him. My captors. What good is a kidnapped virgin unless she remains one?”

  “B-But why do you want m-me to remove your ch-ch-chas-?”

  “Calm down,” Eidola replied. “It’s enspelled to keep me from running away, from disobeying my captors. The buckles are in back.”

  Dutifully, Noph rose from the black flood. His clothes clung uncomfortably against him.

  “Hurry up!” Eidola begged.

  Noph reached around the lady’s warm, smooth hips and just inside her outer shift. He gently felt along her spine for the buckles of her belt.

  “Your fingers are cold,” she said.

  “I’m trying to hurry,” Noph replied.

  He found the buckles and breathed a nervous sigh. Numb fingers worked at the leather. The first strap popped loose, flinging up a fingerful of water. Noph startled, almost hollering. As he fiddled with the next two buckles, he tried to make conversation. “You know, I used to be a paladin. Now I’m a pirate.”

  Eidola’s voice was chilly. “Why would a pirate want to rescue me?”

  “Oh, the others don’t. They want to kill you. They think you’re an agent of the Unseen.”

  “And what if I am?”

  His cold fingers paused, the last buckle of the belt halfway undone.

  The golden lasso, he thought. The lasso of truth. It will show what you really are.

  A splash came in the hall, interrupting his thoughts. Then another splash, and another.

  “Hurry,” she whispered. “It’s Lord Garkim!”

  Noph drew his hand away from her hips and reached for the lasso. He undid the catch and felt the loops drop into his hand.

  “Hurry!” she breathed.

  He slipped the lasso over her head… and everything changed.

  Lady Eidola was gone.

  In her place was a scale-skinned gray beast with large, empty eyes.

  A greater doppelgänger.

  Next moment, she was a convulsing crocodile.

  The monster’s scaly midsection burst the final buckle, and the crocodile fell on Noph. Its teeth flashed in the darkness and fastened on his chest. With a terrific splash, it dragged him down beneath the icy murk.

  Interlude

  Condemnation

  I’m mesmerized by your warm, warm flesh, cold monstrosity beneath.

  You’re the third lady… there was Aleena Paladinstar she is spirit, an angel hello, Aleena… there was Sharessa No-Angel a creature of flesh carnal… there is you, infernal woman demonspawn.

  You’re all the same; I’m mesmerized by you… powerful, elegant, mysterious, unattainable… all the same.

  You can’t be held… no man, not even a kidnapper, can hold you… can’t be held… no fingers, no claws, nothing in all of creation not even a golden, unerring lasso… you can’t be held… I can’t hold you… are killing me for trying… your teeth meet between my ribs… hello, Teeth.

  You hear something… where are those nice warm teeth now where is your muscle-back… I drift in cold ink… you are done with me you held me and are done… I am dead already.

  I have not climbed the stormy tops… I have not slain a dozen foes… I have not slain even you… maybe they will still shoehorn me into the dinghy and toss the comet-torch to flare up and say there goes another piece of the great pirate Blackfingers Ralingor… because after all I’ve now had just about everything that was soft in me torn away.

  Chapter 10

  Divergence

  We did not hear it with our own ears, bleeding above our ruined palace as we crushed fiends in our tentacles.

  We did not see it with our own eyes, reaching where our flesh could not to slay with spell and thought among the teeming demons.

  We heard and saw it with our lower mind, our animal mind. We knew it not so much by sound and sight but by smell, knew the goodness and badness of it.

  This was how the destroyers of Doegan met again.

  Their second convergence was in every way the opposite of their first. They met not in a morning-bright plaza, but in a night-dark dungeon. Only Trandon’s pendant lit the way for the paladins, and for the pirates only makeshift torches, casting a feverish glow across the groin vaults. The two groups did not arrive slowly, either, one party on either side of a pristine fountain; they spilled into the dungeon from opposite staircases, glimpsed each other and rushed together. They met and fought before an open cell door, their hammers and cutlasses crashing against each other to prevent entry to their foes. And on either side of the fray the groups were minus a man. The paladins had lost the young convert Noph, and the pirates had lost the old veteran, Anvil.

  The only thing that had remained the same was that both sides still sought the Lady Eidola, one for rescue and the other for murder.

  Great Miltiades, champion of virtue, battled haft to hilt with agile Entreri, champion of vice. Sword and warhammer clashed against one another, sending showers of sparks hissing into the water that rose to their knees.

  “Give way, Entreri,” snarled Miltiades. “You will not prevail here. You shall have to slay every last one of us before you lay a hand upon Lady Eidola.”

  “If you insist,” Entreri returned, jabbing inward with his sword and nicking the great warrior’s neck.

  Miltiades answered the attack with a thunderous blow to the assassin’s chest, driving him back.

  Their seconds, Shar and Kern, fought beside them.

  Shar’s blade and wit were as sharp as ever. “Well, Kern, from the moment we met, you’ve been trying to get me to a dark, secluded spot. I’m glad you brought, your love hammer.”

  Kern’s response came with a swing of his mighty maul. “If I had my way, Lady, I’d have rescued you from the darkness. It is you who are devoted to dirt and dank.”

  “Whether we do it dirty or clean, we’re still doing it!”

  The others—Jacob and Trandon on one side, and Rings, Belgin, and Ingrar on the other—were shut out of the fight. They stood at the ready in knee-deep water.

  Steel rang on silver, iron on gold. Swords carved crescents of shadow into the crumbling walls of stone. Hammers flung up jeweled spray.

  In the midst of this graceful deadliness came an un­gainly sound—a half-drowned shout, a clumsy splash, and the sharp slap of something muscular diving be­neath the waves.

  Hammer and sword faltered for a moment. In the tangled web of light from talisman and torches, the foes saw something black and swift dart into the watery space between them. It trailed a golden cord.

  Miltiades and Entreri more than glimpsed the scaly bulk of the crocodile; they felt it. The creature lashed Entreri’s feet from under him, and the assassin sprawled backward into the muck; it rammed Miltiades’s legs, and he fell. Paladin and pirate landed side by side and sat up to see the black monster shoot through the water to the base of the stairs.

  In the blink of an eye, the scaly beast transformed into a black-furred mastiff with a golden leash. It bounded up the stairs and out of sight.

  A gurgling shout came again from the cell, “That’s her! Eidola! The doppelgänger!”

  Trandon splashed to the cell door. The glaring jewel showed a bloody young man leaning against the far wall. “It’s Noph!” Even as he said it, the jew
el on his neck began to fade. He glanced at the dark stairway. “She’s getting away!”

  Miltiades rose, magnificent in his streaming armor. His face was a fiery red in the torchlight. “How can it be? That was not Eidola!”

  Trandon responded, “Look at this fading jewel. Who else could it be?”

  Miltiades grew furious in the dawning realization. “For this we have come? To rescue a monster? Follow me, any who wish to do justice on that creature’s head!” He shouldered his hammer and charged down the hall, uncaring whether anyone followed.

  Jacob was just steps behind the mighty paladin.

  Kern glanced after his comrades, sloshed to the cell, and looked in at Noph. His face was grave. “That boy will need a paladin’s touch if he is to live.”

  Trandon, beside him, clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get to it, before the jewel goes out completely.” They entered the watery cell.

  Entreri narrowly watched the paladin’s company di­vide. Half rushed off to slay the creature they had come to rescue. The other half remained to—to what? To save a companion they had rejected? Or did they have some­thing else in mind, perhaps the acquisition of a great, arcane artifact?

  The bloodforge.

  In a low growl, Entreri said, “Rings, Belgin, go after the doppelgänger. Join the damned paladins if you must, but make sure one of you slays her. We want our reward.”

  The dwarf and the sharper looked dubiously at their employer. Rings’s nostrils flared. “What are the rest of you going to do?”

  “We’ve a companion to aid—” his voice dropped to a hiss “—and an even greater treasure to secure. Now, get gone!”

  It was as quick as that. The archenemies that had converged moments before diverged again, now as al­lies. Miltiades, Jacob, Rings, and Belgin would pursue the doppelgänger to the end of Faerûn, if need be, and slay her. Meanwhile, Entreri, Shar, Ingrar, Trandon, and Kern would minister to Noph and seek the unspoken cause of all this folly—the bloodforge of Doegan.

  As Rings and Belgin rushed up the stairs after them quarry, Kern and Trandon knelt within the cell and laid hands on Noph. The boy had been ripped to shreds. His chest was a mass of holes.