The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [98]
There were things to be learned from Golskyn. The deft cleaving between and through foes. The knowing what was going on behind the masks, the sneering at laws and conventions that bound others… that was the way to power and achievement.
It would be his way, and this grasping, brawling, coin-rich city of Waterdeep would be his home, this city he was coming to know so well. Before he was done, Mrelder would end up covertly controlling Lords and laws from the shadows.
But his father had stepped over the parapets of prudence long ago and just now clearly flung himself off the battlements of sanity. There'd be nothing safe and subtle about Golskyn of the Gods from now on. Mrelder had mastered enough Waterdhavian history to know that men who were boldly ambitious but neither safe nor subtle seldom lasted long.
And Mrelder intended to last a long time indeed.
* * * * *
Ordinarily, Korvaun Helmfast would have been hugely enjoying himself. After all, 'twas no accident all the assistants in The Right Foot were stunningly beautiful, dressed in elegantly revealing garb, and obviously enjoyed flirting.
What strange madness had prompted him to enter this place? Malark was dead, Beldar off drinking himself blind, and his own sword still warm with the blood of the men who'd died on it. He had set himself to discovering why buildings were collapsing. But it was one thing to fervently promise action, and quite another to think of some way to successfully start going about it! The buildings were rubble now, and it wasn't as if their stones were going to talk… or was it? Could the right spell…
Tasleena pouted at his frown and ran teasing hands up his thigh. "My Lord Helmfast," she breathed, "do I displease you that much? Should you… punish me, perhaps?"
The fop next to Korvaun, a wealthy merchant who could only dream of nobility, given that his wreck of a face and grasping ways would bar him from ever successfully wooing any noble lass Korvaun could think of, grinned at Tasleena's sally.
So did the amply bosomed young lass who knelt at the man's feet, assisting him into mauve, lace-trimmed thigh boots that would've looked overdone on a lady dancer.
The Right Foot deliberately employed beautiful female assistants to entice male purchasers to pay inflated prices for showy footwear. Moreover, Korvaun liked Tasleena. She was fun, liked jests, and in days past had enjoyed a little skindance now and then without expecting marriage or wanting to cling. The boots she was proffering now were splendid supple black thigh-high affairs, too. It was just that…
All of this could be smashed if Waterdeep went the wrong way, and he'd never forgive himself if he did nothing about it.
Korvaun managed to smile down at Tasleena-she winked, of course-and then was further distracted when the foppish merchant lost his balance and hopped awkwardly, almost putting one mauve spike-heel into the magnificent cleavage, glowing with moonstone dust, on display below him.
Ondeema-that was her name-captured his foot expertly and leaned forward, moondust and all, to force the man back against the leaning-bar and restore his balance, murmuring, "They are a trifle high, aren't they? Perhaps something more… substantial. To match you, milord…"
The merchant agreed breathlessly. Watching the man's hungrily bulging eyes, as he stared down his leg to where Ondeema was pressed against him, Korvaun judged that he'd agree to just about anything, right now. Tasleena's sly smile told all Waterdeep she thought so too.
Ondeema suddenly stiffened, frowned, and then nodded as if in answer to something unheard. Letting fall the man's foot abruptly, she rose in a whirl of high-slit skirts and leaned over as if to kiss Korvaun's ear.
A moment later, Lord Helmfast was stunned to hear her softly murmur a lone word to him: "Stormbird."
He stared at her for a moment, gaping like a fish-and then stepped right out of the fashionable footwear Tasleena was sliding