The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [152]
This whole affair was becoming damnably expensive. His recent adventures in Tethyr had strained his coffers, and he'd lost two valuable properties this tenday. There must be an end to this, and soon.
Elaith watched intently as the Kelemvorite knelt by the body, held out her hands, palms-down, and chanted an eerily tuneful prayer.
A faintly shimmering cloud rose from the corpse, swiftly taking on the shape of the dwarf-but whole, showing no signs of the injuries inflicted on him over the last few days.
The apparition stared at the priestess with contempt and then glared at Elaith impatiently. "Well? Get on with it. I got places to go, friends to meet, tankards to drain."
"Three questions," the Skullsister intoned, as if she hadn't heard the spirit. "The Lord of the Dead grants me the power to hold you until three questions are answered fully and truthfully."
The ghostly dwarf snorted. "Ask away."
The priestess looked to her employer.
"Who laid this stonework?" Elaith snapped. The priestess echoed his words exactly.
The spirit sneered at that.
"I told you I knew not. Use truth more often, Slyboots, an' you might know the sound of it." The apparition seemed to grow a little fainter. "Stones well-trimmed and tight-fitted, not half-bad work. It'll hold a good long time. Not up to dwarf standards, of course, but close as Tall Folk are likely to get. Done by either folk newcome to Waterdeep-stoneworkers I never heard of-or Varandros Dyre. One or 'tother."
Elaith bit back a curse. Witless humans, endangering their own properties-and infinitely worse, his as well! "If the tunnel's sound, what brought the building down?"
The dwarven spirit's reply was swift and firm. "This digging's too close to one of Ahghairon's old wards. There's a warren of sewers under this city, and under that levels upon levels of caverns and dungeons and what-have-you. D'you think Waterdeep stands on that anthill thanks to human 'stonecraft'? Bah!" The ghostly form was noticeably fainter now.
It was Elaith's turn to sneer. Stonecraft? Hardly. Ahghairon? Well, perhaps the human had renewed or augmented the high magic he'd found, left behind from Aelinthaldaar. That was what kept half of Waterdeep from tumbling into the depths… A remembrance of his long-ago fosterage rose unbidden to mind. A particularly creative nurse once brought to the royal nursery a wonderfully complex toy made of hard-spun sugar in rainbow hues. As she told a tale about a powerful human wizard whose spells bored through the depths beneath his city seeking gold, the children had taken turns breaking off and eating bits of candy, until the toy collapsed into fragments-a lesson, of course, about the fragility of magic and the dangers inherent in hasty greed.
That game had fixed the tale in his memory so firmly that Elaith still saw it clearly, all these years later. He'd known enough to break off small bits, not pieces that were part of the supports, but little Amnestria, her sapphire hair a curly halo around a face sticky from the treat, had known less restraint. Her sweet tooth, impatient nature, and grasping little hands had brought the sweet wonder down in short order.
Firmly banishing that memory, Elaith spread out the map of Waterdeep's underground passages on the tunnel floor. Taking quill and ink from a belt-pouch, he addressed the dwarven spirit for the third and final time.
"Where are the wards of the wizard Ahghairon? Fully describe the locations and natures of all that are known to you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The High House of Roaringhorn was even noisier than usual that morn. Fortunately, Beldar's stout bedchamber door muffled sounds, reducing the tumult to a steady murmur spiked with occasional incoherent outbursts.
Lying in bed staring at his familiar sculpted and painted ceiling, Beldar pondered the probable cause. Perhaps Thann ships had brought a score of fine black stallions from Amn, resulting in a sudden drop in stud fees for