The Abduction (8 page)

“What is a—”

“It’s an artifact of great antiquity, a device that can form armies out of min air.”

“Each candle was a Bloodforge?” asked Piergeiron.

The mage shook his head in consideration. “No, but each was linked to a Bloodforge somehow. They allowed the forged warriors to gate into the palace and back out again.” He cleared his throat. “As far as I know, the only place where Bloodforges are found is the Utter East.”

“The Utter East?”

The mage nodded. “The candles confirm it. They were an engagement present sent to Eidola from an unknown benefactor, who suggested their use in the wedding. Though the giver is unknown, the crate in which the candles came is stamped with border seals that stretch from Waterdeep all the way down to the Utter East.”

“Even if I have to travel the whole world, I will find her” said Piergeiron wearily.

“And what of Waterdeep when you are gone? What of the trade route and all the other programs you have worked so hard to implement?” Khelben pointed out. “Running out across half the world is a job for the young, Piergeiron. For those with nothing better to do. Send someone else.”

“How could I?” the Open Lord muttered. “How could I trust Eidola to anyone else?”

“Are you so arrogant as to think you are the greatest warrior in Faerun?”

Piergeiron looked chagrined.

Khelben went on, “And isn’t trust something that has set you in good stead until now?”

Piergeiron dropped his head toward his chest and slowly nodded.

The Blackstaff stood at the door to Piergetron’s drawing room. His knuckles rapped lightly on the frame.

“Open Lord, I have brought him, as you requested.”

From the plush darkness of woolen carpets and velvet drapes came a faint summons. “Come in.”

The wizard silently drew back the door and, with a smooth wave of a hand, gestured the lad forward.

Noph had looked better, certainly. Both his eyes were black, his nose had been set with sticks and torn cloth, and his lip was split in two places. He favoured one leg as he came in, a crutch jammed under his arm. Though Noph had publicly abnegated his nobility and subsequently been disowned by his father, he still carried himself with the bearing of a nobleman as he bowed deeply before the Open Lord.

No, not the bearing of a nobleman, but that of a hero.

Piergeiron’s own wounds were in interior spaces. Though the body that slumped in the chair before Noph was the same well-dressed and athletic figure as before, Piergeiron’s eyes were as dark and empty as the burned out Eye of Ao.

“Ahem,” Khelben said, standing there beside the lad. “Open Lord, remember, you wanted to see him?”

“Yes,” replied Piergeiron. He offered no more comment.

Khelben’s black brows drew down, and he prompted, “Something about rewarding his heroism…. Beyond releasing him from the dungeon….”

“Yes.”

The master mage turned toward the tattered lad. “The Open Lord is in need of your service, Kastonoph. He needs men he can trust, especially now.”

Noph nodded humbly. “I could use the work—”

“It’s more than just trustworthiness. If it weren’t for you, the crossbow would have gone off as those rogue mariners had planned, and we would have had no idea who had done it”

“I can start right away—“ Noph said.

“You single-handedly foiled a guild plot against Lady Eidola. You caught the ringleader, squeezed a confession from her, and rounded up the others—not to mention the scrap of cloth that was the chief evidence against the secondin-command. If it wasn’t for you, we would have thought the assassins from the mariners guild were in league with the dopplegangers or the agents from the Utter East. You and you alone solved the one mystery that has been solved here—”

Noph wore a wondering look as he studied the Lord Mage’s face. “If your concern is money, I wouldn’t need more than bed and board—”

“Damn it, son—you’re making this only more difficult,” snapped Khelben. His eyebrows thickened like twin storm clouds. “I am not accustomed to being a messenger boy for the Open Lord, or anyone—”

“What the Blackstaff is trying and failing to say,” interrupted

Piergeiron quietly, “is that I owe you a deep apology.

I placed my trust in you once, and it was well placed.

I should not have doubted you”

Noph coloured, unsure how to respond to the apology of the Open Lord of Waterdeep. He waved a dismissive hand. “Bygones.”

“And not only do I and all Waterdeep owe you a debt of gratitude, but we have further need of your heroism. We yet do not know what the dopplegangers had plotted, or for whom they worked. And we have no idea yet who those shadow warriors were, where exactly they came from, and where they took Eido—” The Open Lord’s voice, until then a thready whisper, was choked away into silence.

“He wants you to aid a group of paladins we are gathering to rescue his bride,” Kbelben supplied. “Would you be interested in such an appointment?”

Something of Noph’s former spirit returned. “I go to watch”

Postlude Wrong Side of the Mirror

Oh, to sleep….

It is all I want to do.

This weariness is the sort mat denies sleep.

Perhaps if I slept, I could keep the dust of my pulverized world from filtering down through my eyes and mind and into my very soul. Perhaps if I slept, I would be letting go like the very dust itself. After all, what once bound all to all is gone now. Everything solid melts into air.

Shaleen, it is as if you died again. What has happened to me, to the Open Lord of Waterdeep?

What once bound all to all?

Oh, to sleep….