“I thought Manshoon was yesterday’s tyrant,” Handreth muttered, “and some Lord Bellander or other is kinging it now, here in the keep.”
His sister shook her head. “Folk in the streets believe that, and about half the merchants; the rest of us have wits enough to know Bellander’s coup was staged by Manshoon himself. He’s enthroned Bellander to be the target of those enraged by the new taxes and what’s done by all swordsmen now making the lord’s rule-Manshoon’s rule, in truth-a thing of teeth, offering instant obedience or death. Bellander’s a handsome, lecherous fool whose brains are about up to the task of outwitting yonder bowl of flower petals.”
“Ah.” Handreth nodded. “I’m familiar with the tactic; Waterdeep has seen it work a time or three, too.”
Ayantha took up her lash, cracked it in the air, and brought it crashing down across the table. Handreth deftly plucked up his goblet before any wine could spill from it.
“We all know Manshoon’s up to something, and that he will move fast when he strikes,” she announced, lashing the table again as the door opened and an impassive servant brought more wine, unbidden. She held silence until the servant withdrew, then struck the new decanter of wine aside, to shatter on the floor untasted.
Handreth nodded approvingly, and she inclined her head and went on.
“We just don’t know yet what he’ll do. All the spies we can pay-and keep alive, once we start paying them- tell us Fzoul, who speaks for Bane in this city, is still far too furious with the First Purring Lord to aid him in any way, though they’ll end up working together eventually… and the beholders have told him bluntly, at least once, that he’s on his own for now. My thinking is that they want to see if he can really establish rule over the city before they spend any more effort backing him.”
She sipped the last from her goblet, set it down, and added, “Yet that just ensures he will do something; he has to prove himself, and soon, before all the lords he outraged at council manage to kill him off or just fill his platter with so many plots, coups, and small swindles and treacheries that he’ll have no time to do anything but fight them off. So far, he’s divided his time between summoning keep lords and merchants to private talks whereat he gently threatens them, training his ever-growing bands of ruthless warriors and magelings behind wards no one can penetrate, and spending days in seclusion, no doubt crafting dastardly new spells. We keep expecting his spellchamber door to open, and golems as tall as castle towers, and undead dragons with sixteen grafted-on heads to come bursting out and lay waste to the keep… but thus far, only he comes strolling out.”
Silence fell.
Ayantha lifted an eyebrow. “Have I frightened you into scuttling back to the City of Splendors yet, Brother?”
Handreth smiled slowly, and his eyes began to glow red.
At the sight of that, the darklash hissed and stiffened, arching away from him in her chair.
Then she brought her lash around with vicious skill, letting the wizard taste it, right across his face.
His smile never changed.
“This,” he told her, as her lash suddenly twisted in her hands, its strands leaping to coil around her neck and throttle her-then just as swiftly drop away, leaving her reeling in her seat, coughing and gagging, “sounds like fun.”
The Spellchamber Door Opens
A tall, slender, darkly handsome man sat alone at the head of a long, polished table, his fingers clasped together under his chin. He was thinking, behind the faint half smile on his face that betrayed nothing.
In order to truly rule Zhentil Keep-not just lord it over the council-it would be necessary to break the power of the richest and most influential city merchants. Not to mention the hired wizards working for them.
The nobles he had already conquered, or could destroy at will. He just needed them to refrain from mustering arms against him and banding together while he dealt with the merchants.
The waylords. The sixteen men who could sway or cow all the other merchants and shopkeepers of the keep.
The sixteen who could not be throttled by surrounding their mansions and warehouses, and ruling the streets with sword and fist. The merchants whose mansions held Zhentil’s Darkways, long-established magical gates linking those proud houses with certain mansions in Sembia. Allowing these sixteen to shuttle warriors, craftworkers, goods, and coins back and forth at will and in secret. Advantages that had won them all Sembian investments and Sembian backers whose aid they could easily call upon.
So “waylord” was a good name for them, even if only the Zhentarim called them by that name, or knew the sources of their power. To most citizens, they were merely the powerful merchants who dominated city life; folk to befriend and deal fairly with, who it was very unwise to make enemies of unless departing the city swiftly, never to return, and able to run far and fast. Sixteen men who shared a secret, but were a loose, often-feuding group, not a cabal or guild.
Yet true lords of the keep, for all that. Sixteen citizens who could quietly bring armies into the city without having to fight past the city walls or disembark at the docks.
They threatened the rule of anyone who sat on a throne in Zhentil Keep by their very existence. So they must die, and soon. The Zhentarim must seize and command their portals.
He had known this for years, but only now were his spells ready. Only now could he strike.
It was merely a matter of not putting a foot wrong in his swift, well-planned advance.
“If there is to be a Lord of the Darkways,” Manshoon told the empty air around him, “let it be me.”
He smiled at how much information he’d gathered by impersonating the wizard he’d just slain, Handreth Imbreth. Darklash Ayantha had screamed long and loud, and had proved every bit as tough as he’d expected. She should still be alive to scream for him a last time or two, when he was done here.
He reached out and pulled the cord that would tell his servants to open the doors and let his three most trusted underlings into the room.
Waylords, Waylords Everywhere
“He wants to know all you can call to mind of the waylords, so start thinking,” Sneel said unpleasantly.
Kelgoran glowered. One day, Lorkus Sneel would take a step too far…
“Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking the Brotherhood’s warriors are dullards,” Cadathen warned Sneel, as calmly as if he’d been discussing unchanging weather.
“I don’t,” Manshoon’s most accomplished spy replied coldly and flatly.
“Very well then,” the wizard Manshoon trusted most-because, they all knew, his Art was far too feeble to challenge the master’s-replied affably, “don’t make the mistake of treating them as if they are. It will only turn to bite you, when you’ll least be able to afford that.”
“Spare me your granddam’s advice,” Sneel hissed. He turned to face the warrior again. “Well?”
Ornthen Kelgoran was a veteran of many skirmishes in Thar and beyond, a hardened warrior who had become wise to the ways of the crowded stone city of Zhentil Keep, and who was Manshoon’s best slayer of those who crossed him. He smiled. “Well, what?”
Sneel sighed. “Don’t be-”
“A dullard? Sneel, your arrogance is only surpassed by your inability to judge others. A serious failing in a spy, I’d say.”
Before Sneel could reply, the warrior swept out one brawny forearm in a florid herald’s gesture, a violent movement that made the spy flinch.
Kelgoran chuckled and began to declaim. “Most important among the waylords-those the rest will follow-are five men.”
He held up one hairy finger. “Srabbast Dorloun, a dealer in textiles and footwear, and a greedy, coldly calm, burly mountain of a man. I know little of his hired wizard, Tanthar of Selgaunt, beyond an impressive reputation: scruples, powerful magic, widely traveled.”
A second finger rose. “The importer of smoked meats and fine wines, Besnar Calagaunt, who reminds me very much of you, Sneel. Thin, apt to sneer-but unlike you, handsome and elegant. Unmarried, too, and a scourge of the ladies-but a devout follower of Loviatar who lives and works with two young priestesses of the pain goddess, Darklash Ayantha and Painclaw Jessanna. I expect he’s covered with scars, under all those silken jerkins.”
A third finger joined the other two. “Fantharl Halamaun, perhaps the wealthiest of the lot. He can afford two wizards of reputation: Ardroth Thauntan of Chessenta, and a handsome, mustache-twirling Tethyrian who styles himself Valandro the Mysterious and defends himself with three swords that fly around under his command. You can be sure the master pays special attention to him.”
