"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 said gently, "Take a moment. Gather your thoughts."
Miltiades took one swallow and set his cup aside. "I led the group seeking Eidola. We pursued her from the dungeon beneath the palace of Aetheric III, even, as I'm told by Kastonoph, as the squid lord struggled in his death throes."
The young man nodded confirmation, brushing the crumbs of a biscuit from his lips.
"He's also told me you know of your bride's true nature. Is this correct?" Miltiades asked stiffly.
Piergeiron winced. "Tell me again, so all is out in the open."
"Well, this comes as no surprise to the Lord Mage or your daughter," Miltiades said heavily. "Your supposed bride was in truth a greater doppelganger, an agent of the Unseen who aimed to rule Waterdeep not only from your bed, but through your mind. She'd been created, I know not how, in the image of your dead wife, Shaleen, and empowered, through subtle magics, to take hold of your mind. I am not surprised her abduction sent you into a coma, so powerful was her hold on you. I'm only surprised it didn't kill you."
"It did kill me," Piergeiron corrected. "I descended into death to follow her… to bring her back." He set down his teacup, gaze suddenly distant. "She was no illusion. I pursued someone real, powerful, brilliant and true. The presence I found there flung me out of death, back into life. That was no doppelganger."
"Ah, yes," Miltiades replied. "In any case, Eidola was among the most powerful weapons of the Unseen, a creature meant to spread their influence throughout Faerun. There must be others such as her about."
"In fact, through your efforts and my own, their ranks have been thinned in the past month," Khelben noted. "Aleena and I have been doing more than brewing tea."
Miltiades gave the Lord Mage a dark look. "I'd like to know why you two waited so long. Aleena told me you both knew the truth about Eidola before the wedding. Why didn't you stop her then?"
"She was a fine piece of work," Khelben replied. "Dangerous, yes, but less so than those who created her. If we'd destroyed Eidola, her creators would have made another creature to infiltrate the palace, and done a better job of it. We needed her alive to trace her makers, which I've done." There was unmistakable finality in his voice.
The Lord Mage set down his teacup and added, "Until then I'd fitted her with a girdle of righteousness, binding her actions."
"I-ahem-am the one who removed the belt in the mage-king's dungeon," Noph volunteered, redness creeping up his neck. "I thought it was a… that is, she implied… er, I still thought she was a woman of honor, you see, and what more ignominious torment is there for such a one as… well, a chastity belt?"
Eyebrows lifted around the room. Hiding a smile, Khelben came to Noph's rescue. "Another decision that turned out to be right. By removing the belt, you revealed at last what Eidola really was and almost lost your life demonstrating it. The belt had served its purpose by then; once Eidola was abducted, I hired an assassin to track her down in the Utter East and kill her. The best such blade in all Faerun."
"Too bad he failed," Miltiades said disdainfully.
Khelben shrugged. "No matter; he's dead. And where he failed, you succeeded. You ended up killing the woman you were sworn to rescue."
"Yes," Miltiades replied, despite himself. Scowling, he reached into a bag at his belt, and drew forth the slender hand of a woman, severed mid-forearm. It was rigid, bleached of all color, and clutched a gigantic diamond.
Sudden stillness governed the room. Miltiades bore the hand to the Open Lord's bedside. "Eidola is well and truly dead. I brought this back as proof. We've not been able, by means muscular or magical, to tear the gem from her grasp. The gem holds her soul. Fearing the Unseen might use it to create Eidola again, we bring it to you for Khelben to deal with."
Vapor from Piergeiron's teacup spun lazily around the lord as he gently took Eidola's hand in his own. For a moment, gazing at the thing, he seemed to see the grasping octopodal tree of his dream.
"You say what she was, and I believe you. Her mind spell nearly killed me, and yet…" He turned the grisly trophy over and over in his grasp. "I cannot shake the sense that what I met in the world of the dead was no false lady… no malicious trickery."
The change in his face was so subtle that no one there could have ascribed it to a shifting crease or a widening pupil. But all of them felt the silent agony underlying it. Piergeiron drew in a long, shuddering breath, and said, "To me, she was not a monster. To the people of Waterdeep, she was none other than my bride. She's gone, so what does it matter what she really was? To me, to the people, let her remain a vision of good."
Miltiades gazed down at his boots, clearly shocked and not knowing what to say. Rings and Belgin stood in respectful silence. Aleena looked at Khelben, back beside his kettle. Noph's eyes met the Open Lord's, and in the young hero's gaze dawned understanding and admiration.
"Hold," Khelben said gently. "Before this gem-bearing hand can be laid to rest, the soul within must be dispersed. I anticipated the truth of this diamond. There's only one sort of gem a doppelganger would cling to so strongly."
He took the severed hand from Piergeiron and held it up, his eyes glinting back its reflected light. "Now that we've all had at least a sip of the tea I brewed-a pleasant drink and protection against soul possession-it should be safe to discover just what Eidola might have to say for herself."
The company fell back to give the wizard room. A wide-eyed Miltiades lifted his now-cool cup and downed it to the dregs.
Khelben's hand began an intricate dance in the air about the jewel. Purple and green mists trailed his fingers with each arcane gesture. Then dark and menacing words came from his lips. Mists swirled around the stone. The incantation sounded again by itself, the words seeming to echo with the vicious barbed edges of ancient evils brought into the light of a new day.
Up from the mists swirled a cloud of smoke that shivered, rippled, and became a feminine face, eyes closed, high cheekbones almost too beautiful.
"Shaleen!" Piergeiron gasped in sudden hope.
The vision's eyes opened. Her pupils were vermilion slits, glowing with hatred. "All you wanted was me, Piergeiron. All I wanted was all you had. We could have done very well for each other."
"Begone, vile beast!" Khelben growled. "Let only the memory of your outward virtue remain!"
In the moment before Eidola's soul dissipated forever into the bright morning breeze, her humanity melted away. A gray-skinned, dull-eyed, wholly inhuman something stared hatefully at them all.
J. Robert King Ed Greenwood
The Diamond
Interlude
Musing and Madness
I'm no longer dead, but on some level I must be mad.
Mad with loss, first for my Shaleen, and now for my Eidola. It's the privilege, perhaps the responsibility, of survivors, especially mad survivors, to remember the dead always, to reassemble them not out of trivial facts but eternal verities.
If we must all die-and we must, of that I'm sure-at least let what remains of us in the hearts and hopes and dreams of friends be what was best and brightest. Death can have the rest.