Beldar nodded. "Straight to it, then: I need directions to the nearest beholders' den you know of and advice on how to enter it without swiftly greeting my own death." He tapped his chest to let Dandalus hear the stony jostling of gems in his innermost purse, to signify that he could pay well.

"A moonstone for my words," the shopkeeper murmured, "and two more for this."

Reaching several layers down under the counter, he drew forth something that almost fit his palm: a brooch of smooth-polished hemispheres of unfamiliar gemstone, each cut to display a staring-eye image: a large central orb surrounded by ten smaller ones. This signified a beholder, obviously, but "A safe passage token," Dandalus explained. "Worn at throat or brow, it tells eye tyrants you're a willing minion of one of their kind-an agent of proven loyalty."

"Ah. Wear it or die?"

"Indeed. Beholders, plural, you said; is this what you truly meant? A 'wild' den, or the lair of just one?"

Beldar swallowed, nightmarish images flooding his mind, and then pulled firmly on the fine chain that brought his gem-purse into view and started shaking out moonstones. "A wild den shared by several beholders. Is it far?"

"In the Rat Hills," Dandalus said merrily, waving southwards. "Now heed: Despite what the sages and all their books tell you, the powers of their eyes vary from beholder to beholder-you'll not always be facing the same magics. That goes double for beholder-kin, and that's what this particular lair is full of: there're gauth and some of the little floating ones about as big as our heads, too. You'll not be finding many pureblood eye tyrants sharing lairs-and none at all that I know the way to, no matter how many moonstones you throw at me."

Beldar looked up and saw the glint in the old shopkeeper's eyes.

Clearly the thought of a ruby-cloaked noble tramping about the Rat Hills-small peaks made up of centuries of Waterdhavian garbage-was vastly amusing to him. Likewise the vision of a lone swordsman in a den of beholder-kin.

Well, perhaps there was some grim humor in it, but didn't most adventures have far more to do with grime than glory? Even a paladin in shining armor betimes must dash into bushes and hastily unbuckle to answer needs of the body; did that make his quest any less noble?

This was his quest, a firm stride closer to seizing his destiny. If it took him into the Rat Hills, then by the gods, to the Rat Hills he'd go.

"Problems, lad?"

"This is all one huge jest for you, isn't it?"

Dandalus leaned close. "Beldar, my lad," he replied, as if he was a god or a king or the Lord of the oldest, haughtiest noble house of Waterdeep, "life is one huge jest."

Beldar smiled in reply. 'Twould be the act of a fool to dispute with Dandalus. Rumor insisted the beast parts filling the shop around him would, upon the old man's command, animate and combine into horrors hitherto unknown to Faerun. The Roaringhorn might be preparing to walk into a beholders' den, but he wasn't entirely moon-mad!

Golskyn reached for a decanter. "Will you scry young Lord Roaringhorn to learn where he finds his eye tyrant-or how he knows of one?"

"Certainly, if I can do so without drawing the attention of the Palace wizards who often scry him," Mrelder lied. Roaringhorn was doomed; his time would be far better spent learning all about Korvaun Helmfast.

"Should we then be arming for the fight of our lives on the heels of these mages watching him, when they come here to treat with us?" Golskyn asked silkily, suddenly looming over his son.

"No, Father. Your wards stand undisturbed-as you're well aware-and I've been very careful to cloak myself from them. Very careful."

Of course, there was the small matter of the two spies who'd been following him, but Golskyn needn't know about that. They were dead, and the mongrelman who'd slain them would take full responsibility, thanks to Mrelder's first attempt at controlling an Amalgamation minion by casting a spell he'd crafted at another creature's monstrous grafts. Successfully, at last! After all, he didn't want his first victim to be "Lord Piergeiron's heir!"

"You answer well," his father replied, pouring himself a much larger drink than usual. "You're learning at last. Whenever possible, stand firm when pushed."

Beldar crept cautiously through the tunnel, moving by the soft glows of fungi on the walls and some vivid green radiances rising from small pools of slime that seemed to be creeping along the rocks ever so slowly. Despite such… plants?… the air was as damply unpleasant as a wet cloak, but its mustiness was vastly better than the choking reek of the Rat Hills. Better even than the foul stench of the deadwagon that had brought him here, bouncing along with the carcasses of an ancient mule and several one-eyed dogs, and now stood awaiting his return at the fading end of a trail.

Trails amid soaring mountains of trash! Who-or what-might find reason to visit this desolate place often enough to make a trail?

The glows were growing few, and the soft darkness deeper. Target or not, 'twas time to unshutter his lantern.

"That's far enough, doomed meat," a soft, liquid voice said almost tenderly, from very close by Beldar's left ear.

Beldar clapped his swordhilt, but resisted the urge to whirl around. He was a dead man if they wanted him so, despite all the little Roaringhorn family magics he was wearing and no matter which direction he faced.

The inky darkness all around him seemed to shrink and dwindle, receding with the suddenness of powerful magic to reveal some sort of ancient, long-abandoned cellar, its walls furred with mold he'd been smelling for some time now, and its floor visibly damp.

For all Beldar cared, it could have been walled and roofed entirely with nude, imploringly beckoning noble lasses; he could only stare in mute terror at dozens-dozens!-of beholders. He did not need to turn to know they were floating all around him. A swarm of miniature eye tyrants drifted like lazy fish amid the larger dooms.

The largest beholder-kin was floating right in front of him. It had a gaping, skull-like socket where its central eye should have been and was surrounded by floating, slowly orbiting glowing gems, and what looked like ornate scepters that winked and glowed softly. Its great jaws, bristling with jagged fangs, were twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile.

Flanking this beholder mage was another horrific creature, of the sort sages called a "death kiss." Around its baleful red eye writhed not eyestalks but ten eyeless tentacles like taloned fingers that lazily opened long slit-like jaws from time to time.

Several of the surrounding beholders were smaller and had only six eyestalks each. Dandalus had said beholder eye-magics varied from one eye tyrant to another in nature as well as strength, and some eye tyrants weren't nearly as powerful as the fearsome reputation legend gave them, but standing alone gazing upon so many gently writhing eyestalks and so many malicious stares, Beldar Roaringhorn knew better.

The smallest one here can slay me at will.

"I come not to harm," he rasped, finding his mouth and throat suddenly dry, "but to warn and seek advice."

"Are you alone?" the beholder mage demanded, "Do you know spells?"

A sudden crushing force blossomed inside Beldar's head, leaving him gasping and numbed, barely able to think or move. He struggled, thick-tongued, to answer… and then, as suddenly as it had come, the awful invasion ended.

"You stagger under the weight of magics you know not how to use," the beholder hissed contemptuously. "Speak now, ere we slay you. You offer poor sport."