Free The Diamond by J. Robert King

rubble.
     
    When the shaking ended and the echoes faded, dust hung thick in the antechamber. The passage
     
    was closed by rubble. Noph rolled stiffly off the pile, looking grimly at the fire-blackened flesh
    below his wrists. He’d be a match for Entreri, now, but missing two hands instead of one.
     
    There was much coughing. Miltiades and Aleena rose, and after some grunting moments, the
    dwarf Rings and the moon-faced sharper Belgin followed.
     
    The latter squinted at Noph. “A long shot, youngling, but a gamble that paid off.” His was the
    voice that had implored Noph through the doorway.
     
    Noph did not reply. Bloodied and battered, he slumped beside the lantern. In its light, his figure
    seemed sculpted in gold.
     
    “Noph?” growled Miltiades, coughing. “I should have known you’d be alive to rescue us like this.”
     
    *
     
    Piergeiron’s quarters were far from the dark and dusty grave of the ogre. Bright and filled with a
    sea breeze, looking out at the clear blue air above Waterdeep, the chambers seemed as high as
    golden griffons and white stacks of cloud. Outside one set of tall windows, the Sea of Swords
    glimmered with morning sunlight. Past another sprawled Waterdeep in all its splendor, roofs of red
    and green tiles glowing like rubies and emeralds in the sun.
     
    The company, too, was an improvement on headless ogres. Noph and the four who’d stumbled
    through the door had been bathed, bandaged, and healed. Noph’s new hands tingled from time to
    time; he’d been restored by the same priest who’d given Entreri his arm back.
     
    The palace healers had given the heroes loose white robes, similar to those of Piergeiron. They all
    looked like monks, or devout priests, fitting in this place of white marble and silver trim. Only
    Khelben wore black. That, too, seemed right. He was black thunder to Piergeiron’s white lightning.
     
    Now both listened to a silver paladin. “—Unwise in the extreme, I’d say, for a young man charged
    with guarding the dungeon to open it to attack from Undermountain.”
     
    “Yes, Miltiades,” the Blackstaff soothed patiently. While the others hovered in an uncertain circle
    around the Open Lord’s sickbed, Khelben lurked by one of the windows, his attention on a bronze
    kettle perched in a quietly hissing brazier. “Yet if he hadn’t, you’d all be dead now, correct?”
     
    The warrior seemed irritated. “Better we die than let ogres into the palace to kill the Open Lord.”
     
    “I’ve been dead before,” Piergeiron noted wryly. He drew in a deep breath of tea-scented air. “I’ll
    be dead again, too.”
     
    “Better that none but an ogre die,” Khelben added. His deft hands slipped into a window seat and
    drew forth teacups. “Noph made a decision. An heroic decision, and in the end the right one.”
     
    Belgin nodded agreement. “Sometimes you’ve got to place your bets and roll the dice.”
     
    Miltiades steamed, a human counterpart to Khelben’s kettle. “That wall of rubble won’t keep them
    back for long. The security of the palace—”
     
    “Is being taken care of,” snapped Khelben. “Have the courtesy not to pillory the man who saved
     
    your life.”
     
    “Enough,” Piergeiron said wearily. “I called for a report, not an argument.”
     
    Miltiades visibly caught hold of his temper. “Yes,” he said. “Well, the company of paladins was
    necessarily parted in the dungeons of King Aetheric III. Half our folk, my comrade Kern among
    them, remained behind to heal young Kastonoph and to seek out and destroy the bloodforge. I
    understand they succeeded in the former, but not the latter.”
     
    Khelben was suddenly at the paladin’s side, a cup of tea steaming in his grasp. “And did you
    succeed in your task, to rescue Eidola? Tea?”
     
    Flustered, Miltiades took the cup. “Yes, thank you. I mean, no, we didn’t. But we found out
    the
    rescue was not
    that is—”
     
    Sipping from his own cup, Piergeiron