The Abduction (3 page)

The clothier reached up to set the mask in place. “The point of a masquerade is to be what you are not.”

Piergeiron stoically suffered the placement of the rodent head over his own. When it was situated, he hesitantly asked, “How do I look?”

“Perfectly ratty,” the man replied. “And what do you think of Madieron?”

Piergeiron looked up at his eight-foot-tall bodyguard and saw the fey smirk of a pixie.

The Open Lord broke into laughter. Madieron, unamused, unceremoniously thrust the man toward the double doors.

The Open Lord stumbled through the doors. The ballroom beyond gleamed with crystal chandeliers and mouldings of gold. Masked dancers swirled across the floor in a twostep pavane. The ensemble of rebecs and fifes played a familiar dance cadence, though the tones they produced were twisted in the new Sembian fashion. Measured harmonies continually devolved into chaotic dissonances.

Still trying to catch his balance, Piergeiron took two full strides before stopping dead within the sweeping arm of the pavane. He felt as if he had stumbled onto a clockwork carousel. There he stood, frozen amidst radiant motion. The procession of creatures was dazzling—beholders, wraiths, lions, lizard men, griffons, owls, horses, camels, basilisks…. Staring at their shifting multitude, whirling in the dance, Piergeiron grew dizzy.

He dropped to one knee, struggling to see something familiar. Wasn’t this his palace? It felt as though he had stumbled through a portal to some deviant jungle. Or perhaps. a madman’s mind.

Hadn’t Eidola planned this all?

His eyes found no relief. The pillars that lined the hall glowed with an ill green fight that made them look like the ancient boles of green-sapped trees. Their acanthus-leaf tops and the riot of carved plaster across the ceiling became a dense canopy of foliage. The candles of the chandeliers glowed in pendulous bunches of exotic fruit. They sent up crazings of smoke, soot in place of pollen. Piergeiron wondered where these deadly spores would take root.

The touch of a hand—a feminine hand—drew the Open Lord from his crouch and set him into motion among the others.

Despite his dizziness, Piergeiron’s feet fell into the duple rhythm of the pavane. He held the hand of the woman, an eel-headed thing, and swayed toward her and away from her,

“So, handsome,” the eel said through her gill slits, “when’s a charming rat like you going to get married?” “Very soon, now,” be replied, stepping sideways.

He let go of her hand and clasped that of another. This woman was a tall leopard. She moved expertly in the dance.

“Is it you, Eidola?” Piergeiron asked.

“Perhaps, Open Lord,” the leopard replied enigmatically. “Perhaps.”

He pulled away from her, too. His feet moved faultlessly in the twostep pattern as he circled the room. Sleepwalking. That was what this was. While part of his mind wandered freely, another part, accompanied by his feet, staggered and stumbled, carrying him deeper into nightmare.

Somehow it made sense. The guests were beasts. These monstrous semblances were the faces of their inner selves. Friend and foe alike, they were monsters. Foes. What foolishness? Shapechanging malaugrym, back-stabbing nobles, plotting guildmasters. As he glided past ogre, beaver, and brownie, Piergeiron wondered if he had a single friend in all the room. Eidola. She was here somewhere…. He would find her.

A pig-headed woman took his hand. No, she was too short and unsure to be Eidola. Next came a puffy fat matron with the head of a hornet. A skeleton, an orc, a fly; a will-o’-the-wisp, a squid, a rooster, a dog, halfling, monkey, tick…. Beneath those grey robes moved a multitude of female arms—these too fleshy, these too lean, these too weak. too hairy, too mottled….

Beneath the gold-gilded chandeliers, the details of the masks drifted down robes and arms and legs. Fur, warts, whiskers, rashes, scars, stains, tumours. Every detail of the beasts came alive. They were real. Grotesque creatures glided beside each other in a bizarre menagerie. Alien, hypnotic, menacing, graceful….

A tall, yak-headed woman took his hand. Her doelike brown eyes blinked realistically behind a thin mask of black felt Her stubbled lips glistened with costume droolThe woman’s movements were so lithe within the costume that Piergeiron felt suddenly sure it was Eidola.

A deep-throated purr came from the mask. “I wish I had known sooner how exquisitely you dance, Lord. You’d not have had a free night in the past year.”

Ah, this was his lady love at last. “How about a kiss for the groom?” Piergeiron asked, regaining some of his old spirit.

The yak-woman’s eyes opened wide at the invitation and she ducked her head down. A long yak tongue emerged from between the creature’s stumpy yellow teeth and licked wetly across the rat’s face.

Piergeiron recoiled. The woman’s head was no mask.1 She was a Zakharan yak-woman, wearing only a small black mask as her costume. She was a real beast,

The Open Lord staggered away from her, gracelessly breaking contact. He glanced dizzily around; nearly half, the creatures in this horrific zoo wore small eye masks. Perhaps they, too, were real. Perhaps every last fang, whisker, and horn in the place belonged to real gnolls and wyverns, drakes and sphinxes. Perhaps the staggering, stumbling Open Lord had stepped through the wrong doorway, and this was an infernal and endless dancer through the Abyss.

He drifted as if drunk. The dance churned around him. The deadly whirlpool of monsters flung him one way, then another, shouldering him up and dragging him down,…

And then, Eidolas hand found his.

“It’s you,” said the rat-headed paladin.

“At last.” came the sharp reply from the lizardheaded woman. “What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?”

Piergeiron shook his head, and his whiskers rattled against boar’s teeth. “I’m just flustered. That business with the maidservant and all, and now this dance….”

“Shake it off.” Eidola responded. “The maidservant situation was a huge bungle, and it’s over. We’ve got to move ahead. We’ve got to be ready for midnight.”

“Yes,” Piergeiron said, still stumbling. “I’ll try, but even being near you flusters me.”

“Let’s get out of this,” she suggested. She led him in the dance toward one corner. “The others are waiting.”

Piergeiron laughed once, vaguely, searching for some meaning in her words. His misgivings deepened.

Eidola’s strong hand pulled him past a gaggle of geese and a line of appraising canines, through a pillared arch, and to a dark cluster of masked creatures.

A sheep turned toward them as they joined the group. ‘It’s about time you two arrived. You’d think you wanted to dance the night away and leave the real danger to the rest of us.”

“Shut up. We’re here. What news?” snapped the lizardheaded Eidola.

“Nothing new,” said the sheep. “The imposter disappeared before the bodyguards could do anything about it. Piergeiron’s acting as if nothing’s happened, and the ceremony proceeds apace.”

“Good.” said the lizard. Only then did Piergeiron notice the odd, Calishite burr in her voice.

This was not his bride. This was the leader of a group of conspirators.

Still holding Piergeiron’s hand, the woman pushed past the sheep. In one insistent motion, she drew Piergeiron after her and shaped the other six into a circle. She directed the Open Lord into the centre of the ring and said, “Listen, now.” To the rat, she commanded harshly, “Report”

The others leaned toward the sewer rat and turned ears of wire mesh and papier-mache his way. He muttered, “Well, there isn’t much.”

“If there isn’t much, tell it fast,” the woman snapped. “You’re wasting time.”

He coughed. Masquerading as a noisome rat was difficult enough for the paladin. Doing so when he knew the present company thought him to be someone else was nearly intolerable. But doing all these things and lying atop it all would be too much.

Still, this was a conspiracy. Perhaps he could learn what they were up to by playing along. He would not lie. He would only stall…

“Everything’s in place,” he said evasively.

The woman’s scowl was apparent in her voice. “It’s been in place for a tenday, now. Surely you have more than that”

Piergeiron ventured, “The Open Lord suspects something”

“Damn,” said the sheep. “I knew it.”

“How much does he suspect,” the lizard pressed.

“He knows there is a conspiracy.”

“Damn, damn,” the sheep said. “The whole thing.”

“Shut up,” the woman advised. “Not the whole thing. Not even the beginning. Of course he knows that much, After the whole fiasco with the maidservant, even the Thickskull could figure out that Eidola was in danger. But what does he know about us, about our plot? What specifics?”

“What specifics?” asked Piergeiron hopefully.

“Who is conspiring. Does he know who, and what the plan is?”

“Who?” Piergeiron replied, knowing he was against the wall

“Us, you idiot,” snapped the sheep.

“Well, he suspects you, for one,” Piergeiron responded to the sheep. “He is planning to tell the guards to keep an eye on you.”

“Damn, damn, damn!” growled the sheep.

“That’s it, then,” the woman said. “Terr, you’re com promised, Check your head at the door and get out of Waterdeep before dawn.”

“There’s more,” Piergeiron ventured, trying to keep the group together. He hoped to steer the conspirators toward a smaller, less-public place, where he could corner them and force them to remove their masks. “But not here. There are too many listening ears….”

“Like these?” the sheep asked, dragging a smallish tiger into the circle. “I thought he’d been listening.” He yanked off the head mask to reveal Noph of the family Nesher. The thin nobleman struggled uselessly in the rogue’s implacable grip. “Ah, a rich-boy fink. I’ll take him with me, slip a knife between his ribs, and dump him in the sewer.”

In a rush of hand-stitched fur and grey robe, Piergeiron flung off his costume and was Open Lord once more. Mended peace strings snapped as he drew the long sword. The knight rose to his full, impressive stature and brandished Halcyon threateningly overhead.

“Release young Noph and drop to your knees!” the Open Lord commanded.

The sheep flung the lad into the belly of Piergeiron and darted for the door.

Piergeiron caught Noph in his free arm and meanwhile swung Halcyon down to block the man’s path. The sheep did not stop; nor did the blade. Where they met, sword cleaved through muscle and gut to bone.

In the sudden spray of gore, Piergeiron drew back.

The lizard woman was already gone, as were four of her comrades. Noph flung a hand out to snag the fleeting robe of the last. His fingers caught fabric, not the grey robe but the hem of a red shawl beneath. The conspirator ripped free, unstoppable, and in a single step disappeared among the boiling crowd. Noph suddenly was released from the paladin’s grasp. He staggered, falling to his knees and tightly clutching the clue in his hand.

Piergeiron knelt beside the slain man, and both were shadowed beneath Madieron, who had appeared out of nowhere. The pixie held back a garnering crowd.

Piergeiron pulled the sheep’s head mask from the dead man. He gazed down at a white, hair-lipped visage with blond curls and a hawkish nose.

“Terrance Decamber—undersecretary to the Master Mariner’s Guild.” said Piergeiron heavily.

Chapter 3 A Meeting with the Lads

With shapeshifters at large in the castle and nobles and guildmasters plotting on all sides, Piergeiron could confide in very few, Eidola reduced the possible ranks even farther. She routinely balked at Piergeiron’s overprotectiveness, and even now she would certainly forbid him to enlist the aid of others.

But enlist he would. She did not need to know of her defenders until she needed their defence—which might be soon enough.

First, of course, was the inimitable Blackstaff. Khelben was no shapeshifting imposter; the Lord Mage of Waterdeep had a way of dispensing with imitators. He had already been aiding in security; his cursory scans at the gates had turned up plenty of weapons and minor magics. Now Khelben sought much greater and subtler sorceries, the sorts of elaborate wards that usually go undetected.

Such protections might hide a shapechanger, or a whole platoon of them. The Lord Mage was even now combing the crowd of guests, servants, and guards.

Next came Madieron Sunderstone. Most shapeshifters could not imitate creatures his size. Even to try, they would have to overcome the blond-haired man-mountain—no small feat. Besides, the man’s combination of dull wits and deep wisdom would defy duplication. Rergeiron was confident that the Madieron who had greeted him in his apartments this morning was the same man who stood by him now—and would stay at his side until he met Eidola at the altar.

Then, there was Captain Rulathon, Piergeiron’s secondin-command of the city watch. This black mustachioed warrior was no imitation, either, for Khelben himself had teleported him in for the briefing. His expertise at subtle reconnaissance was matched only by his knowledge of the folk of Waterdeep. Few impostors could sneak past him.

And, last—Noph Nesher. No shapeshifter would have thought to take his form, and the noble youth had already proved his worth. He had eavesdropped on various conspirators and had gathered the first hard evidence—a bit of fabric torn from one of them.

Piergeiron, Madieron, Rulathon. and Noph met in a small vestibule off the palace kitchens. It was just the sort of unfinished and unwelcoming space that often hatched conspiracies, whispered plans that would shake continents.

Rulathon listened closely, his black hair flaring wildly about his intent face. Noph tried to look equally focused, though a thin film of sweat glistened on his white brow. Madieron’s expression was ponderous and a bit vacant amid the dark and rough-hewn rafters.

The Open Lord recounted what he had learned from the conspirators. “There is treason in it. It is no simple matter of impersonating a maid or whispers in the corners. It is a kidnapping plot, or assassination, or some such. And as yet, I still do not know who precisely is behind it all. At best, the shapeshifters are chaotic creatures working on their own, and Decamber was acting outside the orders of the mariners. At worst, these conspiracies might reach deep into the ranks of Waterdeep’s nobles and guilds.”