The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [77]
"Then you've no cause to object," Taeros pointed out, reasonably enough.
The curly-haired halfling studied Korvaun for a long moment. "She's not here," he said slowly, "but there is something within that you should see."
Taeros peered into the dimness beyond the doorway. "What is this place?"
"The Warrens, home to most Small Folk in Waterdeep," the hin replied. "Take a torch."
The nobles traded looks, shrugged, lit a torch each, and followed their guide.
"This tunnel's cobbled," Taeros muttered, stamping his boot.
"Used to be a street. You Tall Folk kept building up and up 'til this level got forgotten. Through here."
The hin led the Gemcloaks into a small room where seven well-armed halflings lounged at small tables, drinking and dicing. They came to sudden, silent alertness at the sight of the humans.
"I need to show them something in Mistress Dyre's safe-box," said their guide.
One of the guards went to a wall and busied herself with a complicated set of locks as two others stood like a wall to block the visitors' view of what she did.
When the door swung open, their guide ushered the nobles into the low-vaulted cellar beyond. Selecting a metal box from shelves of seemingly identical boxes, he took a single sheet of parchment from it and handed the page to Korvaun. "You're the one who's needing to see this."
The young noble read silently. Something like sorrow stole into his eyes, and he silently handed the parchment back.
"You'll not be coming back," the hin said. It wasn't quite a question.
"No," Korvaun agreed quietly. Nodding his thanks to the halfling, he strode quickly from the room.
Taeros hastened after his friend, curiosity aflame, yet Korvaun was silent until they were out of the Warrens and blinking in the bright light of approaching highsun.
Then he said two words: "Thank you."
A black Hawkwinter eyebrow lifted in inquiry.
Korvaun smiled faintly. "For not asking. I can only imagine what that silence cost you."
Taeros draped an arm about his friend's shoulders. "No sacrifice too great for friendship," he said grandly. "Besides, when all's known, won't it make a grand broadsheet ballad?"
"I'd not do that, were I you-not for fear of my wrath, but of unseen Small Folk blades."
The Hawkwinter chuckled but cast a quick glance into the alley shadows all around. He'd never before thought to check small places for lurking danger. Waterdeep held far more than his life, much less his fancies, had thus far revealed.
Deep waters, indeed!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
One of the things that made the library Taeros Hawkwinter's favorite room in all Hawkwinter House-gods strike that, in all Waterdeep and the wider world beyond-was that it had a door that locked.
He set that lock now and turned to regard the principal reason this was his favorite place, "the refuge of my soul," as he'd declared it grandly to himself one summer evening years ago: his books. Rows and rows of them, precious tomes that had cost more than he'd ever in his life spend on gems or clothing, no matter how often fashions changed.
Taeros ran a hand caressingly across the gilded, tooled, familiar spines of his treasures-tales of great men and women, of heroic deeds and glorious quests, the very fire, heart, and glory of what it was to be human. To matter.
Here was Aldimer's Histories of the Heroes, and there The Glory of the Dragon, Danchas the Scribe's glowing history of Azoun IV of Cormyr.
The Purple Dragon. Dead now, swept away in fittingly heroic sacrifice, dying in battle to save his realm, hewing down a dragon on a blood-drenched field.
What wouldn't he give to serve a man such as Azoun! Oh, not a king, but a leader whose name men murmured in genuine awe, a man so loved that those who wore his colors would unhesitatingly throw their lives away in his cause. To see that fierce loyalty like a flame in their eyes, to hear your lord's name chanted because the very sound of it bolstered courage and gave a sense of purpose.
Now, more than ever, Waterdeep needed such