Waterdeep: Avatar Series, Book III (The Avatar Series 3) by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786961641
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2011-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

A flickering ocher flame. A candle stuck in a bottle in the center of a wooden table, its wood, gray and cracked and as dry as tinder. A flimsy, unpadded chair in a dark, wet room hidden in the sewers of Waterdeep.

This was what his glory had come to.

Ao would pay, Myrkul swore. The Lord of the Dead did not enjoy modesty in accommodation, he did not enjoy hiding from mortals, and he most certainly did not enjoy being confined to the Realms. For all these indignities, Ao—and Helm—would pay.

But he had to be careful. The Lord of the Dead had seen what came of carelessness. Tantras had been a disaster, and it had only been through his foresight that Myrkul had not suffered the same fate as Bane. He was in the realm of mortals now. In a certain sense he was mortal, for now he could perish—as Bane and Mystra and Torm had perished.

Imagine, the Ruler of the Dead dying. The thought would have made Myrkul laugh, had it not been so unnerving.

No, it would not do to go meeting rivals head-to-head. He had to remain hidden, where enemies could not find him, where they had no reason to suspect his presence. He had to work through agents, to plot out intricate plans and alternate contingencies, as he had concerning Midnight and the Tablets of Fate.

It would have been a simple matter to kill the dark-haired magic-user and take the tablet she held. The Lord of the Dead had agents and priests all over the land, and no one could survive the unrelenting series of attacks he could bring to bear. But then his followers would have had to deliver the tablet to him in Waterdeep, and none were as capable a deliveryperson as Midnight.

Of course, Myrkul had no intention of letting the woman keep the tablet. He would not feel secure until both Tablets of Fate were in his hands. Indirectly, that was why he had not ordered the magic-user’s death. He needed her to go to Bone Castle and recover the second tablet, too.

The Lord of the Dead had plans within plans, and they all depended on the woman. Bhaal had simply wanted to capture Midnight’s entire company, then use her friends as hostages to force her to recover the second tablet. But so far, Midnight had displayed an alarming fortitude, and Myrkul believed she would easily thwart such crude methods of persuasion. It was wiser to trick her into doing his will, to make her think that retrieving the second tablet was her idea. To accomplish this, Bhaal had captured her, then let her “trick” him into revealing the second tablet’s hiding place.

Even this plan had a weakness, and the Lord of the Dead was not blind to it. Once the woman had both tablets, she could easily return them to Helm. To prevent that, Myrkul had instructed Bhaal to let her escape near Dragonspear Castle once she knew about the castle’s hidden entrance to the Realm of the Dead.

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