The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [95]
Judging by their scales, clumps of fur, and odd limbs-talons, scales, claws and the like-most of them were mongrelmen.
A few of the bathers, including the old man, seemed different. They looked to be pureblood humans who'd been deliberately mutilated to acquire monstrous limbs and features.
The old man was quite possibly the strangest creature Beldar had ever seen. One of his eyes had been replaced with a glowing red orb. A pair of tentacles grew from his torso, which was armored with many-colored scales. A snake coiled around his forearm, seeming to grow directly out of his wrist.
There were other oddities, too, but Beldar's stunned mind could not make sense of them all, much less catalogue them.
He looked at the other bathers who'd probably been born human. Even the most normal-seeming, a youngish man with dust-colored hair, had an odd-colored glass orb where one of his eyes should have been.
A servant came into the room, bearing a tray. His words, not passed on by the scrying magic, seemed to displease the old man.
A thin bolt of crimson light flashed from his glowing eye. The servant staggered back, staring stupidly at a black-edged, smoking hole that had suddenly appeared in-or rather, through-his forearm. The other bathers glanced at the wounded man but made no comment, as if this was no unusual occurrence.
"Eye of the beholder," murmured the necromancer, awe adding richness to her papery voice. "Skin of the yuan-ti, poison of the adder…"
She went on at some length, but Beldar was no longer listening to anything but his own tumbling thoughts.
He'd sworn vengeance against a villain who, through some fell magic, had augmented himself with the powers of monsters. Beldar had heard of monster cults, and both sorcerers and clerics who worshiped strange gods, but he'd never heard of people becoming monsters, piece by living piece.
Such foes were beyond him, and Beldar Roaringhorn knew it.
His despair was short-lived, for another of the Dathran's prophecies came vividly to mind: His path to greatness would begin when he mingled with monsters.
Beldar had tried to forget those words since that night in the Luskan tavern, tried to consign them to the crypt of lost opportunities. Now they sang through his mind as he gripped the scrying bowl with white-knuckled hands, studying the fading image as if it was a missive from the gods.
Never once had he contemplated such a path, or seen this possibility in the old witch's words.
Mingling with monsters… yes.
* * * * *
As twilight stole across the city, the harbor horns rang out, telling all that the massive harbormouth chains were being raised. Lamplighters hastened along the streets to fill and trim lamps, and three Gemcloaks strode the streets of Sea Ward, cloaks of amber, blue and black glimmering behind them.
"You've inquired at all the houses of healing?" Starragar demanded. "All the temples?"
Korvaun nodded grimly. "Not even the Roaringhorns have seen Beldar since you two parted from him. He's not sought healing."
"Which probably means he can't. He's too vain to want a scar." Starragar sighed thoughtfully. "Have you checked the jails?"
Taeros snorted. "While you're listing rosy options, why not the corpse haulers?"
The youngest Lord Jardeth grimaced, as if chiding himself for this oversight. "Most likely he went seeking revenge; that's why I suggested the lockups, yet-"
"Such thoughts occurred to me, too," said Korvaun, "and I inquired. No, he wasn't arrested."
"Which brings us back to scouring taverns, clubs, and festhalls. For what remedy remains to him, but to get harbor-spewing drunk?"
Taeros sighed. Even the finest boots start to chafe when one pounds the cobbles all night.
Right ahead stood The Gelded Griffon, a new festhall popular with rising-coin dandies who had the wealth but not the cachet of the nobility. Ordinarily the Gemcloaks would never deign to step inside,