The Diamond - J. Robert King [3]
Into the chaos of charging Watchmen and cowering nobles Khelben descended, alighting in a whirl of black cloth and magely fury just before the caskets.
A seasoned-looking warrior in gilded armor was the closest flame-borne intruder to the Lord Mage. His warhammer flashed out.
Lightning cracked from Khelben's fingertips. The weapon spun free of the warrior's hand and clanged, hissing and scorched, to the new carpets.
Another warrior-a scrappy-looking young fighter, this one-reached a hand for Khelben's throat, something bright and sharp swinging up beyond his shoulder for a fatal blow. There was a sound like broken, falling icicles, and the fighter froze. His hand hung rigid in the air, just shy of Khelben's throat.
The Lord Mage spared no glance for the stilled man. He was dodging the third warrior, a leather-garbed man hauling hard on a scourge. With a wave of wriggling fingers, Khelben awakened the gold filigree of Piergeiron's casket. Sculpted vines on its flanks came suddenly to life, whirling out to entrap the man in a tangle of living gold.
The fourth warrior, an olive-skinned rogue, was caught in the arms of Madieron, who'd roused himself from his despair, face white with fury, to take a captive. The invader had gone slack in Sunderstone's grip, a sword dangling whitely to one side.
No, not a blade-an arm bone. The man's left arm was bare bones from the elbow down. The rest of him Khelben recognized.
Startled, he hissed the man's name aloud: "Artemis Entreri!"
Perhaps it was not the right thing to say in the presence of terrified nobles. Fresh shrieks came from the crowd, and they shied back with more frantic scramblings over pews, like cattle who've smelt the slaughterhouse maul.
Rulathon and the Watch surrounded the caskets and those who battled about them. Trained not to interfere with the Blackstaff, the Watchmen stood at the ready, trying to look menacing and capable.
Khelben drew in a deep breath. Black eyebrows bristled above steely eyes. He stared at the gold-armored warrior. "Kern?" The man stood stunned, shaking his lightning-struck hand.
The mage glanced next at the young fighter, frozen in place. "Noph?" With a wave of his hand Khelben dispelled the binding that held Noph and sent the golden vines retreating from the third man.
"Trandon?" It had been shackles, not a scourge, that Trandon had swung. "You certainly know how to make an entrance," Khelben growled, inwardly glad for any delay in the funeral. Their conversation, now that lightnings were not in play, seemed to have caught the attention of many mourners before they'd quite reached the doors. Damn them. "What are you doing here?" The Lord Mage's tone was irritable.
Noph's reply was equally blunt. "Just where exactly are we?"
"The Palace of Piergeiron Paladinson," snapped Khelben, "in the chapel. At the funeral of the Open Lord."
Noph swayed, and a sick look passed over his face. "We're too late then."
"We come from far Doegan," Kern put in, "from the company of paladins sent to rescue Eidola from her kidnappers. We've seen a king slain and a fiend war fought-"
"'Fiend war'?" gasped someone in the crowd. One rotund baroness staggered in a magnificent faint, flattening a knot of nobles behind her.
Khelben nodded. "I've sensed much, and suspected more-but reports are best given away from tender-and overeager-ears." He gestured for Kern and Noph to follow him, and for the Watch to bring Trandon and Entreri.
A snide voice rose above the excited whisperings of the crowd: "Hold, Lord Mage. This is just the sort of nonsense we've put up with for the past month."
Khelben did not trouble to hide his grimace. Lasker Nesher might have been Noph's father-but he had also become a one-man political pox on Waterdeep.
"You say the Open Lord is dead," Lasker said, looking to see that the crowd was listening, "and then that he isn't. You delay the funeral and meanwhile rule in the stead of the Paladinson. You know of fiend wars in the south-and