The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [178]
Varandros Dyre was extraordinarily uncomfortable in his hired finery-Gods above, why did these collars have to itch so?-and too hot besides… and this din was deafening.
Yet the drinks were free and potent-firewine, by the Altar, the best that had ever raged down his gullet!-he'd never tasted smallmeats so fine, and Nalys was even more beautiful than he'd paid her to be. Quite the actress she was being, too, looking and sounding the part of a fine lady. None of the overloud haughtiness of the real noblewomen he'd observed here thus far. His daughters would doubtless be disapproving, but blast it, a man has to-
His gaze, roving across the noisy tumult filling the vast, crowded hall, fixed upon a distant face.
And froze with a gut-dropping lurch.
Naoni! His Naoni, looking as serenely noble and as beautiful as-as any ten women here, by all the Watching Gods! And there-aye, his little Faen was right beside her, standing in a little cluster of the Gemcloaks. Faendra might have been her mother, come back to life, and Varandros felt his throat tightening.
Oh, Ilyndeira, if only you'd lived to see this…
He could not stop looking at his daughters. In, yes, in awe. When had they turned so beautiful?
Someone stepped into the way of his stare, pointing. "Who's that yonder-the incontinent dragon?"
"Lord Tesper? No, couldn't be! What a costume!"
"I know the lady with him, I do, but can't quite… well, we'll know at the unmasking."
"Yes! How soon-?"
The floor beneath the chatterers trembled briefly, and someone let out a startled shriek. Dyre frowned. Well, at least the disturbance had shifted them out of the way, so he could look at Naoni and Faendra again, but… this was a big building; it would take a lot to make it shiver so. A spell?
There was another brief, heavy shuddering, soundless but strong enough to make someone drop a platter and evoke several screams.
"What by the Nine Hells-?" a shipwright snapped, nearby, as the chatter turned to voices rising in alarm and query.
Up on the stage, Piergeiron had stepped back, looking even more pale, and Madeiron and the mage were on their feet, peering around watchfully. Magic started to twinkle in the air all around them, and Elaith stepped quickly away from it.
Varandros Dyre didn't see what was happening on the stage and could have cared less. His daughters were over there, and something was very wrong, and-and Nalys was plucking at his arm and murmuring, "Varandros? This is-not right, is it?"
"No," Dyre snarled unnecessarily, as the tremors acquired sound-a ponderous, heavy thudding-and rhythm. Boom. Boom. Again, and again, for all the world as if Mount Waterdeep had decided to get up and start walking nearer… and nearer…
"They're trying to kill us all!" the shipwright shouted, before Dyre could. Folk were screaming all over the hall now, and running this way and that. Grandly garbed men were cursing and peering around wildly, more than one spectacularly gowned woman was swooning theatrically, and servants all over the hall were turning and peering at the stage.
Varandros started across the hall toward his daughters, towing Nalys in a grip so hard that she gasped in pain, but she hurried with him rather than protesting.
He found himself looking at Elaith Craulnober, who'd just sipped some wine and lowered his tallglass unconcernedly. As the rhythmic, growing thunderings got louder and tapestries and hanging lamps started to sway, the Serpent looked up and out across the crowd, smiled, then nodded, slowly and deliberately.
Right in front of Dyre, a servant cast aside his tray of tall-glasses with a spectacular crash, tugged at the gold shoulder-braids of his jackcoat… and drew forth a wicked-looking shortsword. Bending to draw a matching dagger from his boot, the platter-jack straightened with sharp warsteel in both hands and strode across