"Perhaps the tunnel repairer moved away," Naoni sighed, "or died; dwarves are long-lived, not immortal."

"Perhaps," Faendra sniffed, "the folk at the rooming house were lying to us!"

Lark chuckled at the girl's indignant tone. "Of course they were, but that might have nothing at all to do with Buckblade. Some people lie for no better reason than to keep in practice."

"Mayhap we were given the wrong address in the first place," Naoni said-and then stopped abruptly and threw up her hand in warning.

The others looked along her pointing finger, down the street ahead, where men were spilling out of doorways and rushing at each other. There were shouts and the flash of swords. There were far more familiar flashes, too: bright gemweave cloaks!

Lark rolled her eyes. "Watching Gods above, are those men everywhere?"

"Perhaps they're following you, sister," Faendra teased, staring in fascination at toppling handcarts and clattering blades.

Lark laid firm hands on Dyre elbows. "We don't want to be here, mistresses," she warned, even as loud crashings erupted behind them.

The three whirled around and found themselves staring at more Watchmen than they'd ever seen together before. Forty or more hard-faced lawmen were hastily dragging handcarts and carriages together to form a barrier.

"Excuse me," Lark called, dragging Naoni and Faendra forward, "but-"

"Sit you down out the way and keep silent, lasses!" a Watch armar barked back. "There'll be no getting past us this way!"

Watchmen were hurriedly scaling the barrier and taking up positions in front of it, as others came trotting out of alley mouths, drawing blades as they came.

The street fight swirled closer, and Lark sat down. Faendra swiftly followed, leaving Naoni standing uncertainly, turning this way and that as she sought escape.

"We can't flee," she concluded reluctantly, and crouched down just as a Watchman sprinted past.

"Why do these things always have to happen on my watch?" he growled. "Why can't they have their brawls…"

His voice was lost in the rising clangs and cries of men trying to butcher other men, as the three crouching women watched the battle come reeling to meet them.

A man whose face was a mask of blood hurried toward them out of the fray, ruby-red cloak billowing behind him. He'd been cut across the forehead and was running blindly, cursing fervently yet slowly, as if amazed.

So much blood… so much blood…

His wounds didn't hurt all that much, but Lord Beldar Roaringhorn felt empty and betrayed, as if-as if the gods had been lying to him all along, and the world was very different from how he'd thought it worked.

Scores-nay, hundreds-of fights he'd been in, his blade sending men reeling, and he'd never been cut before. Never. Wasn't he invulnerable to such things, at least until his promised destiny was achieved?

His wounding had been so hideously swift and easy. Just like Malark, under those falling beams…

Watchmen were moving to intercept the young noble, snapping, "You, goodsir! You! Stop! Stand! The Watch commands you! Halt where you are!"

The youngest Lord Roaringhorn wiped at his streaming forehead with the back of his hand and stumbled onward as the three women gawked up at him.

He reeled on the littered cobbles as a Watchman came at him-and was suddenly looming above the three lasses.

Lark made a sudden, wordless sound and rose to flee, and Beldar slashed out blindly at the sound, cutting only empty air as Faendra shrieked. He lunged, slipped, and came crashing into Lark.

They fell heavily to the cobbles together, Beldar a sagging, dead weight. Two Watchmen sprinted over, blades reaching down.

"Away!" Lark shouted at them, as fiercely as any warrior. "Get your steel away!"

As the two officers stared down at her uncertainly, she waved down her blood-streaked front at the man whose surprisingly heavy body was sprawled across her lap, and snapped, "Can't you see he offers no threat?"

"Some sort of lord," one Watchman said to the other. They traded quick, satisfied smiles.

"So dawns the New Day," Naoni whispered to Faendra, her gray eyes wide with horror. "Gods above, what has Father started?"

Mrelder leaned back against the bolted door and stared down at what gleamed in his grasp: The Guardian's Gorget. This small metal plate enabled the First Lord of Waterdeep to command the Walking Statues. Little was publicly known about it-few thought it more than mere "show" armor-but Mrelder's life-long fascination with Waterdeep had led him to many of her secrets. He'd sought out and memorized every scrap of Waterdhavian lore in all Candlekeep.

"What wait you for?" snapped Golskyn.

"I'm holding history in my hands," the sorcerer murmured, eyes fixed almost reverently on the Open Lord's crest. "This touched royalty, as surely as has any king's crown or warsword."

"You're holding the future in your hands," his father snarled, "and it's time you realized your role in shaping it. What is a king but an accident of birth and blood? True men become, powerful tyrants take. All your life you've yearned for this city-if you're my true son, you'll stretch out your hands and take what you desire!"

Mrelder nodded and put the surprisingly heavy gorget around his neck. Closing his eyes, he sought for the calm that would let him attune himself to it.

Instantly vivid fire flashed through his mind: a path of golden light. He was swept along it at incredible speed, through thick woods. Suddenly a smoothly rounded black tower loomed up before him, and a spectral voice demanded the password.

Of course. No man, not even Piergeiron, would wield such power without safeguards. The Open Lord and Khelben Arunsun were fast friends; of course the archmage watched Piergeiron's back.

The archmage watched…

With dawning horror, Mrelder realized there was a burning in the back of his mind, the shadow of a strong-and growing-presence. An alien will blossomed in his head, like a glowing web of power. A small, bright tendril twisted from it, questing deeper, closer…

Gods above! He'd drawn the attention of the Lord Mage of Waterdeep!

And he was mind-linked to the Blackstaff!

Mrelder tore the metal off with desperate hands and flung it away. It was still in the air when he hurled the most powerful detachment spell he knew at it, a magic crafted to break the hold of a scrying device and turn its power back upon the seeker.

The gorget flared into brilliant red flame an instant before it crashed into the wall, searing right through a tapestry and biting into the stone beyond. Then it rebounded and fell, leaving dusty wool smoking in its wake.

Golskyn pounced on the smoldering tapestry, tore it down, and emptied two ewers of water over it. The stench of wet, burnt wool filled the room.

His son paid little heed. Mrelder crouched over the fallen gorget. It seemed whole and unharmed, its flame gone.

He touched it with a cautious fingertip. It was already cool.

Warily he picked it up. There was no lingering sense of the seeking magic.

Strong hands seized his collar and dragged him to his feet.

Before he could draw breath, Golskyn slammed him against the wall so hard that Mrelder's vision swam. The gorget fell from his numbed fingers.

His father leaned close, hands at Mrelder's throat and face contorted with rage. "Fool!" he snarled. "I should have let this wretched city burn and you with it!"