The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [135]
He, a noble of Waterdeep, had robbed a commoner. He'd struck a woman. By any lights, these were not the deeds of a man destined to be a death-defying hero!
You are something more than you were… and something less.
The Dathran's words haunted Beldar as he trudged up the steps into a future that had never looked so uncertain.
* * * * *
"Ah… Master Dyre?"
Varandros Dyre glanced up sharply. "I'm starting to dread news unlooked-for," he growled, letting fall a sheaf of building plans onto his littered desk. "What is it this time?"
The man at his office door was a senior framer who'd been with Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings from the early days. A calm, capable worker, Jaerovan was first hand of his own crew for nigh a decade and well worthy of that trust, a man of prudence and few words. It took much to bring any expression at all onto Jaerovan's old boot-leather face, a face that, just now, looked very grim.
Varandros lifted an eyebrow. "Well? Out with it, man!"
"Another building's down. One of ours."
Dyre's mouth dropped open.
"On Redcloak Lane," Jaerovan added, before the guildmaster could snap the inevitable question. "The one Marlus was-"
Varandros Dyre went as white as winter snow. His fist crashed down onto his desk so hard that the massive piece of furniture shook, with just a hint of splintering lacing the thunderous boom of his blow.
Then Dyre was moving, snatching up the swordcane Jaerovan had only seen him carry twice before and striding for the door like a storm wind. The framer hastily got out of the way.
As he strode past, Dyre snapped, "Have your men spread word to all my workers: Be sharp of eye and fleet of foot, for this may not be the last message the Lords of Waterdeep send this day!"
Jaerovan gaped at the Shark's swiftly departing back. "The Lords-?"
"This is a blade meant for my guts," Varandros Dyre muttered to himself as he hastened down the street, leaving his doors standing wide open in his wake and servants scuttling to close them.
"They'll have my house down next! My lasses to an inn… my oddcoin chest removed to safety… then muster the New Day. And buy a good sword!"
* * * * *
A dozen dockworkers, stripped to the waist and deeply browned by long labors under the suns of many summers, tossed bales of Moonshae linen and wool into waiting carts, swinging the heavy bundles as easily as a street juggler tosses matched balls. With every bale, they sent rumors flying though the air with the same practiced ease.
"Crashed right down into the street, it did! Took old Amphalus and his oxcart, beasts and all, and left 'em bloody paste on the cobbles! They're hawking pieces of what's left in the Redcloak Rest and the taverns all down Gut Alley!"
"Can't Dyre's men lay two blocks together straight? Or is he crooked enough to skimp on stones or deep pilings?"
"Neither, they're saying! 'Tis the Lords, setting their men to work with picks-and conjured gnawing things, too!-to dig out the pilings and bring everything down! For daring to say we should all know who's behind every mask and how they vote! They're going to ruin him!"
"Aye, and crush the rest of us! Stupid dolt, can't he see they wear masks for a reason? The gods don't make enough gold to let us pay the bribes we'd all have to, once everyone knew who every Lord was, to get 'em all to rule our way-and outbid every other jack in Waterdeep, who'd be payin' just as hard to buy votes into fallin' their way! Serves him right, I say!"
"Oh, does it now? What of the rest of us, who happen to be trading inside a building he worked on a dozen summers back or just passing it by on the street below when the Lords decide to work a little justice on him? What did we do to be smashed down alongside him?"
"Grew up in Waterdeep, What! Got on with earning coins like greedy little packrats, an' never looked up to challenge those ruling the roost! So now the Lords hold it their right to go on doing just as they please, an' slapping down anyone who dares to question! We've done it, jacks, all of us! So have we the spine, I wonder, to stand up now an' undo