move,
haunting the entire Palace of Waterdeep. That would be considerably more interesting.
That is, if my body decays. I’m no mage, but I suspect the spell Khelben cast a tenday ago, bursts
of brimstone and blue wildfire crawling all over my skin, somehow preserved me. That’d be just
my luck. There’s little fun in haunting a casket; no wonder ghosts get peevish.
Ah, here’s proof of my suspicions: a dwarven smith. Hello, goodsir! Not that you can hear me.
Your name, fellow? Hornbeak Goldglimmer? Hammerhead Nailwhacker? Dullasrocks Stinkbreath?
And what have you there? A set of measuring rods, a pair of fat-nibbed quills, and a rolled-up set
of plans for
for a glass-covered coffin? Lovely.
Get your thumb away from my eyes! Ge-aughh, darkness again!
That’s the most frustrating thing about being dead. Whenever one of my eyelids shrinks back
enough to let me see what’s going on, somebody slides them closed. They’ll probably sew them
shut one of these days.
What good’ll a glass-topped coffin be then?
Chapter 1
Death Comes for the Open Lord
Four young acolytes solemnly lit their tapers.
Piergeiron is dead. Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, sighed in defeat as
the trumpets, glauren, longhorns, and drums began their solemn dirge. It was chilly where he sat,
on a bench of polished marble in the balcony of the palace chapel. The stone was cold and hard
after the dark-stained wooden pews. The whole chapel had turned cold and hard. It had died
along with its lord.
I can scarce believe, after all these years, that he’s truly gone.
Yet there he lay, in a gleaming casket of gold and glass, master-work by the best crafters in all
the Sword Coast. Cold and beautiful and dead. Sages said beauty and truth were the same thing.
If that was so, the Open Lord, arrayed in silks and wools, gold and gems, was beautifully and truly
dead.
Interesting, thought Khelben, watching four acolytes and four candles drift in stately procession up
the chapel aisle, that beauty and truth are so coldly meaningless without life.
Shaleen, so long dead and long mourned, lay in her own coffin beside her husband. The Lord
Mage himself had exhumed and restored her body to beauty. Khelben Arunsun could make her
whole and beautiful again, but without the aid and approval of Holy Mystra, he could not give her
life. And with Shaleen, as with so many others, Mystra had given him only her holy silence. In the
days and years to come, Piergeiron and his bride would lie side by side in the center of the chapel.
Khelben sighed again. His breath ghosted in the chill air, rising past fresh-painted plaster to
disappear among polished ribs of white marble. Yes, the chapel was beautiful in its gold, silver,
and limestone, aglow with bejeweled chandeliers. Its aisles lay like brushed snow under white
carpets from Shou Lung, stretching past ranks of bleached oak panels, reaching up between each
pillar to round windows of gem-studded stained glass. Once more, the Eye of Ao stared out in
radiant perfection from the greatest window above the gathered throng. The artisans had done
well. Damnably well.
Khelben had ordered the chapel refurbished to delay this funeral, the official proclamation of
Piergeiron’s death. It would take months, he’d thought, to haul away the cracked and
fire-blackened pews, the sword-scarred panels of mahogany, the shards of shattered stained
glass, bloodstained rugs and twisted, ruined lanterns. It would take longer still to replace them all.
Until the chapel stood bright and complete once more, the Lord Mage could hold off the hordes of
glint-toothed nobles and finger-cracking guildmasters hoping to personally replace their dead Open
Lord.
But here it was, a month hence, and the work was finished.
The nobles and guildmasters had done well
aye, damnably well.
They sat below, crowding the pews: nobles,
haunting the entire Palace of Waterdeep. That would be considerably more interesting.
That is, if my body decays. I’m no mage, but I suspect the spell Khelben cast a tenday ago, bursts
of brimstone and blue wildfire crawling all over my skin, somehow preserved me. That’d be just
my luck. There’s little fun in haunting a casket; no wonder ghosts get peevish.
Ah, here’s proof of my suspicions: a dwarven smith. Hello, goodsir! Not that you can hear me.
Your name, fellow? Hornbeak Goldglimmer? Hammerhead Nailwhacker? Dullasrocks Stinkbreath?
And what have you there? A set of measuring rods, a pair of fat-nibbed quills, and a rolled-up set
of plans for
for a glass-covered coffin? Lovely.
Get your thumb away from my eyes! Ge-aughh, darkness again!
That’s the most frustrating thing about being dead. Whenever one of my eyelids shrinks back
enough to let me see what’s going on, somebody slides them closed. They’ll probably sew them
shut one of these days.
What good’ll a glass-topped coffin be then?
Chapter 1
Death Comes for the Open Lord
Four young acolytes solemnly lit their tapers.
Piergeiron is dead. Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep, sighed in defeat as
the trumpets, glauren, longhorns, and drums began their solemn dirge. It was chilly where he sat,
on a bench of polished marble in the balcony of the palace chapel. The stone was cold and hard
after the dark-stained wooden pews. The whole chapel had turned cold and hard. It had died
along with its lord.
I can scarce believe, after all these years, that he’s truly gone.
Yet there he lay, in a gleaming casket of gold and glass, master-work by the best crafters in all
the Sword Coast. Cold and beautiful and dead. Sages said beauty and truth were the same thing.
If that was so, the Open Lord, arrayed in silks and wools, gold and gems, was beautifully and truly
dead.
Interesting, thought Khelben, watching four acolytes and four candles drift in stately procession up
the chapel aisle, that beauty and truth are so coldly meaningless without life.
Shaleen, so long dead and long mourned, lay in her own coffin beside her husband. The Lord
Mage himself had exhumed and restored her body to beauty. Khelben Arunsun could make her
whole and beautiful again, but without the aid and approval of Holy Mystra, he could not give her
life. And with Shaleen, as with so many others, Mystra had given him only her holy silence. In the
days and years to come, Piergeiron and his bride would lie side by side in the center of the chapel.
Khelben sighed again. His breath ghosted in the chill air, rising past fresh-painted plaster to
disappear among polished ribs of white marble. Yes, the chapel was beautiful in its gold, silver,
and limestone, aglow with bejeweled chandeliers. Its aisles lay like brushed snow under white
carpets from Shou Lung, stretching past ranks of bleached oak panels, reaching up between each
pillar to round windows of gem-studded stained glass. Once more, the Eye of Ao stared out in
radiant perfection from the greatest window above the gathered throng. The artisans had done
well. Damnably well.
Khelben had ordered the chapel refurbished to delay this funeral, the official proclamation of
Piergeiron’s death. It would take months, he’d thought, to haul away the cracked and
fire-blackened pews, the sword-scarred panels of mahogany, the shards of shattered stained
glass, bloodstained rugs and twisted, ruined lanterns. It would take longer still to replace them all.
Until the chapel stood bright and complete once more, the Lord Mage could hold off the hordes of
glint-toothed nobles and finger-cracking guildmasters hoping to personally replace their dead Open
Lord.
But here it was, a month hence, and the work was finished.
The nobles and guildmasters had done well
aye, damnably well.
They sat below, crowding the pews: nobles,
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