"You
are sure?" Szass Tam asked, expecting confirmation.
"Of
course. The Emperor has left Undermountain. Both he and Halaster yet
live."
"And he still knows nothing of our plans?"
"Need
you ask? I have done my part, Tam. It is whether you are capable of
doing yours that I doubt."
"The Rashemi?" Szass Tam
chuckled. "They pose no threat, even with their new allies."
"Do
not underestimate them! The grey hunters are relentless!"
"As
are the Rashemi, but they are too few to make any difference. I am
dealing with it personally. The Emperor should be your main
concern."
"The Emperor is not on our very doorstep! Halaster
has set him on a futile chase. The Rashemi are the immediate
threat."
"You are too afraid. Immediate they may be, but they
are in no position to threaten Thaymount. Even in a worst-case
scenario, we shall be finished long before they could strike against
us."
Szass Tam sighed and dismissed the vision. It was a good
enough alliance, and he had more confidence in him than in the
zulkirs he'd bargained with, but nevertheless, he was not entirely
satisfactory. Putting these thoughts aside, he summoned up the second
ally he needed to speak to.
"Yaphyll. You have news?"
"Yes,
most revered. It would be easier to show you in person, if I
may?"
Szass Tam considered for a moment. It was acceptable. He
chanted a few words of a teleportation spell and the surrounds
resolved themselves into Yaphyll's laboratory. The zulkir of
divination had prepared a summoning circle, traced out in diamond
dust. Yaphyll bowed to Tam and began chanting herself. Eldritch
flames assembled in the circle's centre. In the midst of their
crackling two dark slits of eyes presented themselves.
Who
calls upon Lord Nasdrubaal of the five hundred and thirty fifth?
it spoke.
Neither answered the question. Both were experienced
enough wizards to know of the power implicit in names, and that they
should not speak theirs in a demon lord's presence.
"Most
revered, this demon was recently summoned by the drow of
Menzoberranzan, and banished shortly thereafter. The circumstances of
that banishment involve our mutual enemies."
"Explain,"
Szass Tam said, addressing the demon.
You
will know soon enough,,
it sniggered. You
have been blinded by your focus on the Emperor. Do you think he came
alone? His primarchs stir in the west. Your tharchs will be laid to
waste!
Yaphyll
made a series of sharp gestures.
It
was Sanguinius,
the demon said, smarting with pain. The
drow are in uproar. He will emerge into the sunlit lands soon. You
have not accounted for this, have you?
"No
one else knows this?" Tam asked.
"Of course, most
revered."
The demon laughed again. Go
on, lay your plans… you cannot control what I failed to. I shall be
glad to be on another plane when your efforts collapse.
"Is
there more?"
"Not of substance. This 'Sanguinius' was
captured by the drow, escaped, and slew this demon when the drow
summoned it in a bid to match him. Presumably he would seek to return
to the Emperor."
"This is a problem, Yaphyll. You will monitor
Sanguinius' actions and continue to report them to me. Under no
circumstances inform our guests."
You
would not be so deluded as to believe Sanguinius is the only agent of
the Emperor in Faerun, would you?
Though a mere set of eyes in a flame had a limited range of
expression, Nasdrubaal nonetheless carried off extreme smugness.
Yaphyll gestured again, inflicting further pain on the demon
lord.
No,
I think not,
it said. I
have said my piece. Your struggles will be amusing to watch.
The
flame started fading out, and though Yaphyll made frantic efforts to
reinforce the summoning, she could not prevent the demon's
departure.
"Other agents?" Tam queried.
The zulkir of
divination stammered out a handful of excuses. If their knowledge of
the interlopers was incomplete…
"No matter," Szass Tam said
sharply. "Focus on Sanguinius. I shall investigate this
myself."
_______________________________________________________________________________
Piergeiron
cast an angry gaze across the body of lords. They all knew what had
happened, of course, and at least one of them was responsible.
Someone had apparently thought it was a good idea to arrest the
stranger, the one with no place in the Weave, by force. Piergeiron's
agents had seen him leave the Yawning Portal, and doubtless the
others too had had their spies present. Thus they all saw that when a
Red Wizard and what appeared, to the naked eye, to be an
olive-skinned mercenary in battered armour, left the inn they ran
straight into a substantial detachment of the City Guard – not
the Watch – supervised by a Masked Lord in full regalia.
"We
are all fortunate he chose to come willingly," Piergeiron
scowled.
"Need I remind you all that we still don't know what
we're dealing with? Whoever or whatever that person is, he's
clearly powerful enough that Khelben Arunsun was afraid of him.
Arresting him was foolhardy at best. Our duty is to provide for the
safety of the city first and foremost, for those of you that have
evidently forgotten."
He made no attempt to hide his anger. The
Lords of Waterdeep were supposed to provide a united front to the
city; he could not undo what had been done. There would have to be
punishments, in time, but for now, he, and they, had no choice but to
go along with it.
"What's done is done," one lord ventured.
"What are we to do now?"
"What is known of the man?"
"He
calls himself Nicos," another answered. "He also had the temerity
to point out that he had broken no laws of Waterdeep, civil or
religious."
"And we will not detain a man who has committed no
crime," Piergeiron emphasised. "We are not tyrants."
"Of
course," responded another lord, waving a placating hand. "But as
you have so kindly pointed out, our duty is to Waterdeep first and
foremost, and he is a potential threat."
"He refused to speak
to the City Guard," one said. Piergeiron noted that each lord was
avoiding saying too much, to avoid the suspicion that they had been
the one to arrest him.
"Nothing at all," the same lord
continued. "We know little more than when we started, and all
immediate divinations turned up short. He requested to speak with
this council."
"We cannot grant this! First Khelben, now this
stranger? We are not to be bullied like some jury!"
"What else
would you have us do? Sit here and wait forever? As the Open Lord
says, we cannot hold him indefinitely. What are we to do, if not
grant his audience?"
"My colleague is correct! We must grant
this audience!"
Despite some grumbling, the majority were in
favour of speaking to the stranger. Piergeiron took some comfort in
that they were at least still that sane.
Nicos was brought in
then, slowly. He was accompanied by two of the City Guard, but it was
obvious to Piergeiron that they were there only because he allowed
it. Nicos did not carry himself with any fear or timidity. On the
contrary, he stood erect and regarded each lord openly.
"You
have questions," he said. "Ask, and I may answer."
The lords
began with dull, conventional questions. His name, homeland, business
in Waterdeep, and so on. In each case, he gave plausible if
unremarkable answers. Nicos was not, in itself, an unusual name, nor
was it particularly odd that a displaced mercenary from the Lake of
Steam should find himself looking for work in Waterdeep, nor that he
should sign on with a Red Wizard interested in looting Undermountain.
His answers didn't active the zone of truth he was standing in
either, but considering the earlier failures of divination to
discover the truth, Piergeiron didn't put much stock in
that.
"Interesting," Piergeiron said. "Unfortunately, you're
also lying. My fellow lords may have tiptoed around the point, but we
all know –"
"Yes. You do," interrupted Nicos. "But what
are you going to do about it?"
"Surely you understand that we
are obligated to consider the welfare of this city –"
"As
well you should. A leader should do no less, but knowing the answer
to that question would not enable you to protect Waterdeep any
better. I assure you, I do not mean to harm your domain. Help me
finish my business and I will be gone."
"Business?"
Piergeiron's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Laeral and
Khelben. Where are they?"
The lords were taken aback at so blunt
a demand, though most retained a measure of composure, aided by their
enchanted masks.
"You may have some time to consider your
options," Nicos said, as if he was being
generous.
_______________________________________________________________________________
It was only the second day of the march, and Aravilar was already in awe of Sanguinius. Not that he hadn't been previously, of course, but while knowing someone had toppled Narbondel was frightening, there was something infinitely more terrifying about seeing them in combat up close. Without their winged giant, he doubted they'd have made it half as far as they had, but despite his admitted respect for Sanguinius, Aravilar was still perplexed by a few things.
The angel stood over a gutted kua-toa, sword clenched in a white-knuckled fist. This was not the first time the aquatic fiends had attacked the ex-slaves, and each time, Sanguinius slew those that approached him with no apparent effort. Yet each time, he also failed to fight those that didn't attack him. Sanguinius was an invincible whirlwind of destruction among the kua-toa that obstructed his path, but the rest of the column apparently had to fend for themselves. It wasn't that Sanguinius ignored the other kua-toa, as such. On the contrary, he would stop and watch the others fighting with an imperceptibly distant expression.
Aravilar grunted, thrusting a short drow spear into a drooling kua-toa. The monster gurgled in pain and sought to snatch the spear's haft, but Aravilar had extracted it before the kua-toa came around. Another slave leapt forth, hacking at the kua-toa with a curved sword, and it went down. Aravilar had no time to thank him, as he was too busy protecting himself from the next enemy. He spun the spear in his hands, taking a few paces back to put some distance between him and the second kua-toa. When the kua-toa was distracted, driving his spear into the human with the curved blade, Aravilar was able to step forth and put it down with a quick jab towards its neck. Panting, he saw that the battle was over. This had been a small raid, but another three slaves were dead.
Aravilar
approached Sanguinius, making no attempt to conceal his anger. It
seemed he was the only slave who could talk to the giant, for
whatever reason, and Sanguinius had the elf teaching him about
Faerun.
"How can you just keep standing there?!" Aravilar
said, fury mitigated only by the clear strength of the primarch.
"You
could have killed all those monsters! But you keep watching, doing
nothing! Three more are dead this time, and why? What possible excuse
could you have?"
Sanguinius released his grip on his sword,
sending it crashing to the ground, and Aravilar suddenly noticed that
the giant was breathing hard.
"Two reasons," he said slowly,
unclenching his teeth.
"First of all, I am not a nanny. My
purpose is not to shield them, and you, from every misfortune you may
encounter. I said the journey would be hard, and I did not lie. You
will stand on your own two feet or you will die. I will not carry
you."
"But that's selfish!" Aravilar objected. "Where
does it stop? Will you not help anyone?"
"Helping?"
Sanguinius asked. "It would hurt them far more if I was their
shield. I have seen this time and time again. Men want saviours. More
than anything, they want a perfect leader who will vanquish evil and
save them from all personal responsibility. I am not that leader."
A
beat passed; then, Sanguinius continued.
"Perhaps I was once.
There was a time when I would have charged in and saved them all.
Every action has consequences, though. That path led to the Great
Betrayal. Entire planetary populations, billions upon billions of
people, swore loyalty to the lords of Chaos. Why do you think that
was?"
Aravilar wilted under Sanguinius' gaze. "I… I don't
know what you're talking about, but… there are always people
willing to follow evil, aren't there?"
"No. That wasn't
it. You can't blame their natures, say 'but those people, they
were evil, we're
not like that'. All they did was follow their leaders. Horus,
Lorgar, Fulgrim, Alpharius… even us, the supposed loyalists. We
slew their enemies, made them part of our Imperium, and banished
their fears. They didn't fight for their freedom. We did. And when
we were corrupted, they followed us, because we had taught them no
better."
Sanguinius was getting angry again.
"That was our
– and my – failure. We were the primarchs, the sons of the
Emperor, born of his flesh to conquer the galaxy in his name. Don't
you see? We were supposed to be better
than them! Perfect lords for a perfect Imperium! By the end, we
believed it too, and we didn't ask people to question. It was meant
to be a quest for truth, you see. We brought the Imperial Truth to
the myriad peoples of the galaxy, so that they could be enlightened
and become part of a greater humanity. But a greater humanity must be
made of greater humans, and somewhere that was forgotten, and the
Crusade became about us and our ambitions. We competed with each
other. Russ and the Lion, Rogal and Perturabo, Roboute and Alpharius…
even I and Angron. Truth, uplifting the humans we saved, none of that
mattered any more. We bred mindless sheep to follow us, and like
sheep, they did. Billions marched into damnation because we'd
taught them we were gods, that it was better to obey us than to
question us."
Sanguinius looked Aravilar straight in the
eye.
"That
is why they must learn to stand for themselves. You wanted me to help
them? I will. I will be their saviour, and I will teach them to rise
above themselves."
"… and the second reason?" Aravilar
whispered.
"I might lose myself again. None of you would
survive."
With that, Sanguinius tucked his wings in close and
disappeared into the dark passages of the
Underdark.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Nicos is silent. His body sits in a cell underneath Waterdeep, but his thoughts are far off. He meditates on what he has learned. He stretches out with delicate tendrils of psychic force, looking at this Weave. It is different, he can tell now. He realises now he had been blinded to its nature by its emptiness. He had been so fixated on the disappearance of Chaos that he had failed to see what else had changed. It has been such a long time since he had tasted the Warp free of the oily taint of Chaos that he could barely recognise it.
He stretches further, parting its strands as gently as he knows how. There are no emotions, no souls, no presences hiding within… but wait, perhaps there is. From a great distance he hears a voice, and knows it is that of this realm's mistress. The goddess of magic. He expects her to plead, as did Halaster, but she does not. Nicos' presence reaches hers, and for a moment their minds mesh.
Then they separate, and Nicos knows. She is the Weave and she rules it, and would go to any length to protect it. That is why she has reached out to him. He is, for her, the lesser evil. Who? Who is the greater threat? Who has made all of this happen? he calls, but the moment is gone. He reaches out again, flailing his psychic might, but he cannot find her again. There is something else interfering. He narrows his mind and seeks to find the source.
There
is a sudden flash, and Nicos' eyes snap open. A robed figure has
collapsed in front of him.
"Are-are you all right?" Khalia
asks, the last sparks of energy from her spell dissipating. Nicos
does not answer immediately. He is irritated at having his
concentration broken by something so unimportant as an assassin. He
kneels and pulls back the assassin's hood, revealing a shaved and
tattooed head.
"A friend of your master's?" he asks.
"What
– no!" Khalia replies emphatically. "Druxus Rhym has no need to
kill you. This must be some other zulkir's agent!"
"And yet
he managed to infiltrate these dungeons," Nicos continues. "He
must have had help, must he not?"
"You mean a lord of
Waterdeep?" Khalia says, ticking down the possibilities. "Certainly
getting a Thayan assassin into the lords' dungeons would require
inside help. Some alliance, then, crossing the continent?"
And
centred on me.
Nicos
leaves the corpse and walks to the cell door.
"Guard," he says
with authority. "Get me the Open Lord."
The guard gapes and
moves to protest, but Nicos simply points at the dead assassin.
"O-of
course," he stammers, "right away," and rushes off.
"So,"
Nicos resumes, turning back to Khalia. "I think we can safely say
the Watch isn't in on this. He was invisible, presumably?"
The
Red Wizard nods her assent. "That's odd," she says, "because
these cells ought to have antimagic fields cast on them. I should
never have been able to cast the spell that killed him either. You'd
need considerable influence to get the field taken down."
"A
lord."
"A lord," Khalia confirms.
The clatter of
footsteps signified the return of the guard.
"He is
fast, isn't he?" Nicos murmurs.
Piergeiron arrived with the
guard, took in the situation at a glance, and said something most
unpaladinlike.
"Are you done considering?" Nicos asks.
"Damn
it, I never thought they'd be this
stupid…" Piergeiron grimaces. "All right, we've been
compromised. Get both of them out of here, we'll have to keep them
somewhere else."
"It's too late. You know this," Nicos
states flatly. "There is at least one traitor among the lords.
There is nowhere you can put me. I shall ask you again, where can I
find Laeral and Khelben?"
"You will not make demands of me,"
the Paladinson retorts, but is cut off before he can proceed
further.
"You can't guarantee my safety or that of the wizard.
We have committed no crime, and you know full well it is only a
matter of time before this escalates again. Think of the city, Open
Lord."
Piergeiron says nothing, and Nicos presses on.
"You
do not understand me, and men fear what they do not understand. But I
had heard paladins were immune to fear. Will you condemn a man who
has done you no wrong, out of fear, or will you have faith that I
have not lied to you?"
Nicos tenses. This may not be enough, but
he has better. He wishes to hurry, though.
"…they're both
gone. The Blackstaff Tower is empty and no one's seen them for
days. That's not unusual, but it's not like Arunsun to keep his
nose out of a crisis. I'm sorry."
The door clicks open and
Nicos exits.
"Take heart, Open Lord. I will be gone and
Waterdeep will be safe. You have done right."
"I can't
guarantee you'll have long before the others discover you're
gone. Get out of the city as quickly as you can."
Nicos thanks
Piergeiron as he runs. He's glad he didn't have to force them.
