Blackstaff

CHAPTER TWELVE

29 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Ashemmi smiled then spoke in Common. "Her face alone speaks volumes, evae'n. The Blackstaff has finally identified us for his precious apprentice." "Khelben? How can we possibly ally with them?"

Tsarra gripped Maornathil's pommel with white knuckles, staring at her mentor in shocked disbelief. Khelben remained silent. Nameless shared Tsarra's emotions, and his back bristled with anger. He landed on a table near Tsarra, loudly hissing at the couple and making himself as threatening as possible, wings fully flared open. "Khelben?" Tsarra asked, not wanting to meet the mocking eyes of Sememmon or Ashemmi.

"What is going on here? How do we know this situation here isn't his-"

Sememmon laughed. "Honestly, girl, if you believe every rumor you've heard about me, you'd best be prepared to swallow every falsehood the masses bandy about regarding your glowering tutor here." "At least she's not one of those who thinks all elves must hide their passions and bottle their emotions." Ashemmi said, staring Tsarra in the eyes.

"The most useful thing a wizard can learn from another's familiar is their true emotional state. Even the most intelligent animals tend to reflect how their masters feel." "That's enough, all of you," Khelben snapped. "This is neither the time nor place for this discussion. We shall all meet again two nights hence at the agreed-upon site. You gave him the item I made you?" Sememmon nodded and said, "Yes, the wand now lies in his grasp. Enamored of Shoon artifacts, that one is, and he wears one of them openly-the Duel-Ring of Ghuraxx, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not. Given how few Northerners bother with knowledge of the south, he stands out like soot on snow. I could not penetrate his disguise, but it is painfully obvious he cloaks himself in illusion. With patience, one can easily notice such things, don't you think, little half-elf?" Tsarra answered Sememmon's affected smile with a glower, punctuated by the deep growl and lashing tail of Nameless, who flexed his full claws as a warning. Sememmon only rolled his eyes upward and sighed. "This Damlath stinks of undeath, not that any of you-save perhaps the tressym-could smell it," Ashemmi added.

"Either he's a necromancer seeking more power or he's undead himself and passing as a live human." Undead? Khelben? Tsarra sent, her temper rising again. You owe mePatience! Your temper is fraying the edges of my own, apprentice. Explanations are due once we are alone. Now be still. Khelben's sending startled Tsarra by its forcefulness, but his face did not betray the least shift in emotion or attention off the two former Darkholden. "That fact has been known to me for a time,"

Khelben said. "Now, we must all be off before more questions than answers arise from our presence here." Sememmon sketched a bow, and Ashemmi nodded at both Khelben and Tsarra. The wizards' hands cast spells, and the pair of them disappeared. The air imploded behind them with a slight whoosh of air and a soft thump. Khelben looked around, shaking his head sadly. His eye caught Tsarra looking at him harshly, and he said, "My dear, that temper will force a quick death of you, should you not tame it. I know you have many questions, but like many things in a wizard's or sorcerer's life, they must wait until their proper time in the casting." He stepped outside of the ruined inn and onto the grass and Tsarra followed. Nameless, however, busied himself with some fallen plates of food.

The trio arrived in the entry chamber of Blackstaff Tower, startling a few younger apprentices who bowed and ran up the stairs.

Khelben shed his cloak and placed it in the wardrobe. He and Tsarra kept silent, sending between themselves while Tsarra doffed her cloak as well. Now what did we learn from our questioning of Spider and Ryssa? That eyewitnesses are poor judges as to what happens in a spell duel? Tsarra offered. True, but hardly helpful. Spider saw a wizard in a cloak and leathern cape cast a massive lightning spell upon the count that punched a hole through the front wall simply to reach him.

Does that sound like a normal spell? While they conversed mentally, Khelben, Tsarra, and Nameless mounted the main stairs of the tower.

Tsarra watched Khelben for cues, but he said no command words and touched no stones. Thus, they remained in the physical tower and merely walked to the guest level. No-it sounds like what happened to us, Tsarra sent. That might explain why Ryssa believed the count attacked some courier with lightning just for being in their way.

Perhaps her judgment was biased toward the younger man, a malady common among tavern girls. Still, the majority of the inn's destruction came when the bolts came together and arced skyward, just as happened here. At least I could help with the reconstruction efforts. Do you always travel with rubies the size of a small child's fist, master? Tsarra let a wry grin spread across her face, dashed by Khelben's unchanging mien. Only when I expect collateral damage-thus, far too often. Still, Mystra blessed us with at least one person in Rassalantar who could learn the magic to mend the inn before too long.

How-why were we in Rassalantar, Master? That's more than two days of riding north of the city! The last thing I remember was turning onto Selduth Street toward Turnback Court. It appears that Danthra's unpredictable visions are still active, and you succumbed to one of them, Khelben replied. Apparently, you lock onto a related memory of mine and it overwhelms you for a time. While you walked through my past, we were summoned by contingency magic I granted Gamalon. When he went off to Tethyr, I gave him an item a few years ago and an oath to answer its call. Strange how Mystra works, isn't it? The boy survives the entire Reclamation Wars, but fate calls on me now when we are well embroiled in other problems. I could not ignore the ring's summons, nor could I leave you insensate in your visions on the street. Thus, you and I traveled to the Sleeping Dragon Inn, met your first sharn, and returned here. What do the sharn have to do with this? Or the lightning bolts? Is this realizing one of Alaudo's prophecies to match the year's name? "Later for those answers," Khelben said, as they approached one of the guest chamber doors. "We must look in on a wounded friend and kinsman." "Can't he wait until you give me some answers? I thought we were in a hurry!" Tsarra grabbed her mentor by the shoulder and held him back from touching the door. Once she felt her anger rising, she knew she couldn't stop her next words. "You can't keep me in the dark here, Khelben. My life is tied to this as well, just like the injured man in there. I feel like I've died twice in less than a full day with no real answers from you. Tell me what's going on. What happened last night? Answer me!" Khelben glared at her.

To her credit, Tsarra squared her shoulders and did not budge, unlike other recipients of what many believed was a spell called "the Blackstaff's Baleful Glower." The moment stretched for eternity until Khelben exhaled softly, his eyes and face relaxing. "'Tend to one's wounded, for one never knows from whence the next attack comes.'

Forgive me, girl. I forget we too are wounded as much as his excellency in there." He looked up and away and said, "Laeral, see to Gamalon. We're in my library." Khelben's eyes wandered a moment as Laeral apparently responded, but Tsarra did not hear the reply. The archmage's eyes darted back to Tsarra. "Now, come along, if you would have your answers. Just remember that you asked for this information, and know that the burden to carry it may prove heavier than you realize." Khelben walked up the stairs of the tower with Tsarra in step behind him. He reached back and touched her shoulder with his right hand, and his left hand traced a pattern on the mortar of the stone stairwell. "Yuhiurlemn," he whispered. Tsarra felt the familiar whoosh in her stomach as they accessed a level of the tower she had never visited. They continued a few steps upward, and Tsarra smiled.

Khelben removed his hand as he said, "You've never seen my true library, have you? You're only my eighth apprentice to see this chamber. Truth be told, I think Elminster visits this place more often than I get the chance to do so." Unlike the usual levels of the tower, the library remained one open room all the way around with no intervening walls, the only interruption of the floor being the stairwell. Against the wall opposite their landing was a massive fireplace, the logs blazing instantly at the snap of Khelben's fingers. Four overstuffed chairs arced in front of the fire, each with its own footstool, side table, and a softly glowing globe that hovered overhead. When Tsarra and Khelben stepped onto the granite floor, two globes increased in brightness and floated over to hover a few feet above their left shoulders. The tressym angrily took flight and batted at the globe to keep it away from his mistress, but it remained tantalizingly out of his reach. Everywhere else she looked, Tsarra saw floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls, with shelves intermittently jutting out perpendicular to the walls between two other bookshelves to allow more shelf space. On the ends of those shelves were glass cabinets holding curios, glowing objects, crystals, and other items. She realized she'd caught her breath, and as she inhaled again, the scent of light dust and the tiniest hint of mildew proved comforting to her. Even though she was a half-elf, she had never seen an elven library other than what few books and records her mother kept. She wondered if the fabled Lost Library of Cormanthyr looked something like Khelben's. At rough count, Tsarra guessed there were at least fifty bookshelves and more than a dozen cabinets of priceless books and artifacts within the chamber. She saw books chained to the shelves, two full shelves of massive tomes bound in white dragon hide that chilled her even from a distance, and a set of books with wings on the covers, thwarted from flight by the light chains that anchored them to their shelf. Tsarra's eyes followed the fluttering books then spotted what might be Khelben's library guardians-golden statues standing in niches near the ceiling, looking like elf archers, dwarf crossbowmen, or even one golden bugbear shouldering a massive axe. She wondered about the magic used to animate the statues. Khelben walked around to the left of the stairwell, tapping the globe slightly to increase its light. Tsarra followed at a distance, her eyes distracted by seven huge spindles of crystal levitating inside the glass cabinets and large incunabula lying on open shelves. The writing looked only vaguely familiar.

Behind the stairwell and opposite the fireplace was a long row of work tables covered in large disheveled piles of manuscripts, scrolls, and massive tomes. "The events of the past day took me by surprise, not so much unexpected as they were unraveling in an uncontrolled manner. My dreams have also been occupied of late with portents from Mystra, though in my haste, I have misinterpreted some of them." Khelben spoke with his back to Tsarra as he rooted among the piles, seeking various sheaves of parchment and books. "Ah! Of course. There it is." Khelben pulled a slim green leather folio from one of the piles and held the book out to Tsarra. She found an empty spot on the table and set the book down, opening to its title page. "'Rhaelnar's Guide to Legacies Lost, Volume the First, of which there are to be Volumes Four,'" she read aloud. " 'A gift to our most esteemed Warlord Laroun to commemorate the completion of the great Castle of Waterdeep and to honor a new legacy founded on this eighth day of Ches in the Year of the Bent Coin.'" She looked up and asked, "Why haven't I heard of this book before?" "It's a rare tome, and I have the pleasure of owning both volumes-'tis the most complete set outside of the Vault of the Sages. Rhaelnar died before ever completing the third volume, let alone the fourth. I have the notebook of his incomplete third volume as well." "What did you do? Steal it from the castle's library when you were a lord?" Tsarra asked. Her only answer was an upraised eyebrow immediately obscured by a flash of flame from one finger as Khelben lit a pipe. He gestured, the finger still ablaze, for her to continue reading aloud. "'This be the accounting of lands and lords, lights and loves, luminaries and legacies, all lost to the sands of time. Herein I shall unveil many mysteries lost from histories, though not in the order of the stars or by geography. Nay, of these matters I shall speak in the orders that my patrons demand them. Thus, Volume the First contains the heritages known and lost from those human realms of Jhaamdath and the Shoon Imperium.'" Tsarra turned the page, shaking her head. "This fellow is more long-winded than Kappiyan Fluyrmaster." "Pray, continue silently and spare yourself needless tortures. He belabors endlessly on the trinkets and trysts of many a noblewoman before he gets to anything of substance. The information you need is at the mark," Khelben said, his nose buried in three other tomes that floated in the air before him. Tsarra touched the small face painted onto the silk strip jutting out above the pages toward the end of the book. The face puffed its cheeks and blew, making the pages rustle briskly until the book opened at the marked place. She smiled at the panting, caricatured face then began reading "The Screed of the Scroll."