The look on her face when they stopped before the Dathran's skullgate was all Beldar could have desired. It turned to open fear when the front four "teeth" swung inward to reveal the way on.

"Well met again, Lord Roaringhorn," the dry and familiar voice came from the darkness beyond. "I see you are something more than you were… and something less. Come in, the maid first."

Beldar waved Lark forward. She clenched her teeth, climbed through the opening-and promptly squeaked in surprise at the touch of the warding magics.

Beldar joined her. The old witch was standing with her black Rashemaar mask in her hand and her keen blue eyes bent on Lark. "Welcome, child. I sense in you a great longing to know. Tell Dathran what you seek."

Lark handed over the charm. The Dathran passed it from one wizened hand to the other.

"Stolen," she announced, her voice devoid of judgment. "More than that, I cannot tell."

Lark swallowed. "Is there… magic about it?"

Dathran closed her eyes, and her face took on the expression of one who listens to distant voices. "None," she said slowly.

"So you can tell me nothing about it."

"Only that you fear the use that might be made of it and need not, yet. Perhaps I can tell something of its history, if that would ease your mind."

When Lark nodded, the woman began to chant. A soft, humming haze gathered around the charm but faded at the end of the incantation.

Dathran handed it back. "I learned one word, nothing more: slipshield. Holds that any meaning for you?"

Lark shook her head and slipped the charm into the bag at her belt. "No, but I thank you for trying."

A high-pitched chuckle came from the gargoyle-like figure perched on the mantel. Lark caught her breath as the small gray form she'd thought a mere carving flapped batlike wings and showed its fangs in a leer.

"You needn't thank her," the imp mocked. "You have to pay her."

Beldar handed over a palmful of coins and ushered Lark out of the Dathran's lair. When they emerged from the skullgate, he seized her arm and spun her around to face him.

"What's this about? From whom did you steal this, and why did you think it might be magic?"

Lark tugged free and stepped back, lifting her chin defiantly. "You keep your secrets, Lord Roaringhorn, and I'll keep mine."

Beldar's first inclination was to let the matter go; after all, what cared he about a silver trinket? Yet a dark, hissing murmur in the back of his mind wanted the charm.

Without another thought he seized the bag at her belt and tugged sharply. Its strings broke, Lark lunged for it-and he backhanded her across the face.

She reeled, face showing none of the astonishment Beldar himself felt. Before he could offer a word of apology, she hauled up her skirts in obvious preparation for a groin-high kick.

He sidestepped into a crouch to shield the Roaringhorn family jewels-and astonishingly, the lass punched his face, hard.

Blast! He dropped the bag to clutch his bleeding nose. Lark snatched up her property and raced away up the stairs, as nimble as a sewer rat.

Two high-pitched, evil chuckles arose behind the skull-wall, but for once Beldar's thoughts were not of his own humiliation.

He, a noble of Waterdeep, had robbed a commoner. He'd struck a woman. By any lights, these were not the deeds of a man destined to be a death-defying hero!

You are something more than you were… and something less.

The Dathran's words haunted Beldar as he trudged up the steps into a future that had never looked so uncertain.

"Ah… Master Dyre?"

Varandros Dyre glanced up sharply. "I'm starting to dread news unlooked-for," he growled, letting fall a sheaf of building plans onto his littered desk. "What is it this time?"

The man at his office door was a senior framer who'd been with Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings from the early days. A calm, capable worker, Jaerovan was first hand of his own crew for nigh a decade and well worthy of that trust, a man of prudence and few words. It took much to bring any expression at all onto Jaerovan's old boot-leather face, a face that, just now, looked very grim.

Varandros lifted an eyebrow. "Well? Out with it, man!"

"Another building's down. One of ours."

Dyre's mouth dropped open.

"On Redcloak Lane," Jaerovan added, before the guildmaster could snap the inevitable question. "The one Marlus was-"

Varandros Dyre went as white as winter snow. His fist crashed down onto his desk so hard that the massive piece of furniture shook, with just a hint of splintering lacing the thunderous boom of his blow.

Then Dyre was moving, snatching up the swordcane Jaerovan had only seen him carry twice before and striding for the door like a storm wind. The framer hastily got out of the way.

As he strode past, Dyre snapped, "Have your men spread word to all my workers: Be sharp of eye and fleet of foot, for this may not be the last message the Lords of Waterdeep send this day!"

Jaerovan gaped at the Shark's swiftly departing back. "The Lords-?"

"This is a blade meant for my guts," Varandros Dyre muttered to himself as he hastened down the street, leaving his doors standing wide open in his wake and servants scuttling to close them.

"They'll have my house down next! My lasses to an inn… my oddcoin chest removed to safety… then muster the New Day. And buy a good sword!"

A dozen dockworkers, stripped to the waist and deeply browned by long labors under the suns of many summers, tossed bales of Moonshae linen and wool into waiting carts, swinging the heavy bundles as easily as a street juggler tosses matched balls. With every bale, they sent rumors flying though the air with the same practiced ease.

"Crashed right down into the street, it did! Took old Amphalus and his oxcart, beasts and all, and left 'em bloody paste on the cobbles! They're hawking pieces of what's left in the Redcloak Rest and the taverns all down Gut Alley!"

"Can't Dyre's men lay two blocks together straight? Or is he crooked enough to skimp on stones or deep pilings?"

"Neither, they're saying! 'Tis the Lords, setting their men to work with picks-and conjured gnawing things, too!-to dig out the pilings and bring everything down! For daring to say we should all know who's behind every mask and how they vote! They're going to ruin him!"

"Aye, and crush the rest of us! Stupid dolt, can't he see they wear masks for a reason? The gods don't make enough gold to let us pay the bribes we'd all have to, once everyone knew who every Lord was, to get 'em all to rule our way-and outbid every other jack in Waterdeep, who'd be payin' just as hard to buy votes into fallin' their way! Serves him right, I say!"

"Oh, does it now? What of the rest of us, who happen to be trading inside a building he worked on a dozen summers back or just passing it by on the street below when the Lords decide to work a little justice on him? What did we do to be smashed down alongside him?"

"Grew up in Waterdeep, What! Got on with earning coins like greedy little packrats, an' never looked up to challenge those ruling the roost! So now the Lords hold it their right to go on doing just as they please, an' slapping down anyone who dares to question! We've done it, jacks, all of us! So have we the spine, I wonder, to stand up now an' undo it?"

"How?"

"By standing forth an' dragging down a few men in masks, that's how! Or stringing up Old Lord Fancyboots, the only Lord we all know!"

"I thought he was already dead!"

"So 'tis said, time and again, but have we ever seen a corpse, hey? That strutting paladinspawn has more lives than a troll! My sister Hermienka works the laundry in the Castle, an' she seen him yestermorn, stalking about bigger than life."