The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [22]
"'Twas a token," the man said softly, his eyes on the coin. "From Those Who Watch, whose noses you don't want poking into your affairs."
"The token was black," Mrelder said softly, and the carpenter nodded.
Mrelder managed a smile and held out his hand. "My thanks for your help." They shook, and the silver changed palms.
With that, Mrelder waved farewell and strode away. On his return to Candlekeep a year ago, he'd sought in vain for the little black helm Piergeiron had given him, and in the end concluded it must have held some magic and so had been stripped from him by the defenses of the gate.
It seemed he'd dropped the charm in the well-tunnel, and the workers had taken it as a warning from the First Lord to keep away.
What to do now? Requesting the tunnel be re-opened might establish him as a man with ties to… well, to those whose noses were best kept out of common folks' business. That sort of reputation would draw attention he could ill afford.
By now it was bright morning, and the streets were filling quickly. Mrelder walked briskly, dodging the inevitable creaking hand-carts and sleepy-eyed, shuffling dockers as he made for the house he and his father were to share.
Golskyn had pointed out, sensibly enough, that they'd need more than one base in the city. For several tendays now his father's followers-mongrelmen who served the priest with hound-like devotion-had been busily connecting divers lodgings and storehouses with new tunnels. Most who served Golskyn couldn't walk any city openly and so had become well versed in the lore of dark places, including tunneling and hiding all traces of such work.
Mrelder would send some of them to Redcloak Lane when the harbor fogs rolled in and full darkness came to begin a tunnel between the root cellar the carpenter had pointed out and the stone passage where the tiny sahuagin lay waiting.
Thinking of what was to come, Mrelder felt himself smiling.
The sahuagin would regain its formidable size and find itself joining a certain young sorcerer in a new war.
More accurately, selected parts of the sahuagin would join with Mrelder.
* * * * *
"No work ever got done," Varandros Dyre growled at the two apprentices scurrying at his heels, "by a man who spends more time on his arse than his feet. That's why we go from site to site, afoot so the lads don't see us coming three streets off! And mark me, young Jivin, our little visits are why Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings can afford to hire the likes of you and Baraezym here-and why I, the gods help me, can afford the fine gowns my daughters so like to wear."
Dyre shouldered through the thickening crowds at the mouth of Redcloak Lane, clearing a path for his two 'prentices like a hard-driven coach. Not much stood in Varandros Dyre's path. The sheer energy of the man was enough to sweep aside obstacles and draw eyes to him.
Not that he was a pleasure to behold. Gray-haired and sharp of glance, Dyre had the sun-weathered hide and battered fingers of the Master Stoneworker he was, and his nose was so large that Baraezym, his older apprentice, had once described it as "the snout of a shark." Those words came into Jivin's mind whenever he glanced at his master, leaving him on the verge of grinning.
Jivin's life was hardly one of ease, but much could be learned from such a master. Building after building had been raised from the rubble of last year's fighting under the Dyre banner, and Baraezym and Jivin knew very well Varandros had taken them on because he needed men who could write, count coins and see approaching menaces and swindles, not trustyhands who could lay stones and hammer pegs and nails with keen-eyed skill. He already owned scores of those.
Baraezym and Jivin knew something else: Dyre was smarter than he liked to appear and had been testing them with deliberate ledger errors and casually "forgotten" coins left in coffers here and strongboxes there. He'd been watching to see if they'd keep