Blackstaff

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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

The three of them walked quickly to the doors of the Eightower, only to find them shimmering with an opalescent gray field of energy.

Khelben frowned then looked up, shielding his eyes from the rain with his hand. "Would you mind a spell that would allow you to climb the walls like a spider?" Khelben asked. "I'd as soon avoid wasting spells to bypass this barrier." "Fine by me, Blackstaff. If not for that lich stealing my last pair of boots, I could do that myself." Khelben cast the spell and Raegar jumped up, his hands and boots sticking to the stone walls like glue. "I'll assume you have some way to get us inside once we're above the main floor?" the rogue said as he started climbing the rain-slick tower. "Yes, Stoneblade. Now hurry up."

Khelben flourished his hand and slowly rose into the air. Despite the winds, he levitated straight upward and outpaced Raegar's climb.

"Show-off," Raegar muttered under his breath. He thought he heard a strange purr come from the tressym, but the noise failed beneath the crash of lightning. Raegar tensed and waited for the thunder to end, but instead it subsided into a constant rumble. Looking up, he saw no end to the lightning bolts coming from the pyramid. The two of them stopped at the last arrow slit beneath the pyramid. The smell of burnt air was strong, and lightning relentlessly crackled from the pyramid's top, linking the tower to the thunderheads above the City of Splendors. Smaller lightning bolts splintered off the pillar of energy and crackled toward Mount Waterdeep and the taller spires across the city. Three brave griffon-riders swooped from the clouds toward the tower, narrowly avoiding the stray bolts. "Lord Arunsun! Our attempts to dispel this lightning have failed. Do you have any orders?" Raegar barely heard the rain-soaked Guard captain over the wind and thunder.

Khelben yelled, "Back away, now!" "But sir-" the captain's protest was cut short by the crackle of lightning, and the energy slammed into the griffon's wing, knocking it and its rider into a screaming spiral toward the ground. "Blast it!" Khelben shouted as he cast a quick spell that slowed the griffon's fall. The other guards guided their griffons down to aid their comrade just as two women flew from around the other side of the tower. Raegar had seen both of them in recent days coming in and from Blackstaff Tower-Carolyas Idogyr and Maliantor, former students of Khelben and current members of Force Gray. "What do you need, sir?" The redheaded half-elf was impatient, like another half-elf Raegar found himself thinking about more and more often. Where was Tsarra? The darker-skinned and black-haired Maliantor said nothing, instead casting a spell above them. "Ah, good." Khelben looked at her and said, "Go retrieve your uncle Gamalon from my tower. His vengeance is at hand." Carolyas's surprise was evident on her face, but she immediately flew in a straight arc toward the top of Blackstaff Tower. Raegar had a hard time keeping an eye on the white-clad wizardess and keep his grip on the wall. Magic or not, his muscles ached from the climb and clinging to the tower. He looked at his perch, one foot in the wider well at the bottom of an arrow slit, examining the stonework. He ran his fingers along the mortar and picked at it with his fingernails until his attention was drawn away by Khelben's yell. Khelben looked up at Maliantor and shouted, "Mali!

We need you here!" Both men watched her complete a spell, which created a pulsing ring of colored energy. Maliantor looped around the tower and zipped between Khelben and Raegar. Lightning, which once flashed perilously close, went harmlessly into the spell-ring or up into the clouds. "An interesting spell, Maliantor All-Seeing. What do you call it?" "It's still unnamed, but I suppose 'nyth barrier' will do for now." The black-tressed woman, Raegar noticed, was untouched by the rain, a transparent field of magic keeping all the water off of her. "What did you need, old man?" "A passwall, if you would. I need to conserve spells for the moment." "Sorry, Khelben. In accord with your message yestermorn, I prepared for lightning, not stone."

Khelben's jaw dropped. Raegar's and Maliantor's eyes all widened in surprise. In a heartbeat, Khelben's usual stony face returned. Raegar cleared his throat and said, "How strong is that sword you loaned me, Blackstaff?" "Two balors couldn't break it fighting over it," Khelben replied. "Why?" "Just get some spell ready that can hit it with some force," Raegar shouted over a gust of wind. He shifted his perch sideways and down on the tower, drawing the sword. The orange flames came to life on the short sword and resisted the rain. Raegar looked back at the two levitating wizards and said, "Once this is set, hit the pommel with whatever force you can." He eyed the stonework one last time before he stabbed the short sword's point into the mortar just beneath the round hole at the arrow slit's bottom. Maliantor completed a spell, and a massive hand grew from her palm, mimicking her finger movements but soon becoming as large as she was tall. She shoved her own arm forward, and the giant hand hit the sword's pommel.

The sword vanished into the stone wall, and the stone blocks around it also tumbled. A few more blocks above the breach fell from place, their supporting stones gone, leaving a hole three feet wide. Raegar looked back at them, winked, and blew a kiss toward Maliantor, then clambered in through the hole. "Shoddy work, isn't it?" he joked as he began pulling stone blocks from the blade. "Well, you're coming, aren't you?" Khelben stood on the air, staring at Raegar with an irritated look. "Warn all others away from here and keep us from being interrupted by outsiders," he told his apprentice. "We're tackling the problem from within." Khelben reached out with his blackstaff and pulled himself into the hole, even though Raegar could see the staff didn't hook onto anything. Raegar held out a hand to help Khelben the rest of the way in. The Blackstaff's hand looked strong and rough, but it felt very delicate to Raegar's touch. He felt a strange sensation as he helped the wizard inside the tower's guardroom. Khelben drew his hand away from Raegar and got up, holding his staff parallel to the floor rather than using it for support. Nameless flew into the tower, landed on the pile of rubble, and promptly shook as much water off his wings and fur as he could. Raegar said, "Something's not right about you, Blackstaff. You're acting far more daintily than your usual stomp and swagger. And since she's also on my mind, when is your lovely apprentice joining us? You said she'd be with us, and her familiar is here, so where is she?" "The ways of wizards always look strange.

Tsarra is nearby, not that that's any of your concern right now."

Khelben looked around and pressed his ear to the door. "Well, your method of getting us in was inventive but also noisy. So much for surprise. Let's prepare you." Khelben's fingers traced a quick symbol in the air before he rested his hand on Raegar's shoulder. A shimmer of green energy flowed over Raegar's wet cloak and body, and he felt a slight tingle as the magic spread across him. "Thank you, sir. Feels a little different than the defenses Damlath used to grant me, but every bit helps," Raegar said, swinging his sword arm and watching the telltale glimmers the motion left behind. "You're welcome. Now, let me go ahead of you," Khelben said, as he dumped his sodden overcloak on the floor. "Glad you don't want the man who's never been here before in the lead," Raegar snorted. "Don't make me regret gifting you with that sword, Stoneblade. Stay sharp, now." The Blackstaff glowered back at him then turned toward the tressym and stared at it. Nameless slipped through the door as soon as Khelben opened it. The door opened onto the tight tower stairwell. Khelben pressed a hand to the stairs overhead and furrowed his brow. Nameless stuck his head back around the bend in the stairs and growled lightly before disappearing again.

Raegar noticed the ring on Khelben's hand glowed, the red gem pulsing and going dark as Khelben opened his eyes. "I've dispelled the warning spells he put on the stairs, but we're still going to have to be fast about this, Stoneblade. Don't be thrown by whatever you see, but wait to attack on my signal." Khelben said, staring at Raegar. The thief nodded but shook off an odd feeling as he looked into the man's hazel eyes. The two men crept up the stairwell, catching up to the tressym.

Khelben knelt for a second to touch the creature between its shoulder blades, and Raegar saw the green shimmer envelop Nameless with magical protection as well. The three of them moved quickly up the stairs into the tower's top chamber. "Wait. One more spell each." Khelben held the tressym and Raegar back a moment. He touched the tressym first, and after his ring flared a moment, the tressym vanished from sight.

Khelben reached for Raegar, who held up his hands. "Just a minute, Blackstaff." He pulled both his daggers from their boot sheathes. He tucked one in his belt, held the other in his left hand, and drew the short sword in his right. Both men cringed as the flames flickered to life. "Hyarac," Khelben whispered. "That mutes the light of the blade." Raegar whispered, "Hyarac," and the blade's flames snuffed out. As he turned, Khelben's hand clapped on his shoulder. Within a breath, Raegar too was invisible. "Thanks for waiting until I had things in hand before doing that," Raegar said, looking around at empty air. Khelben's whisper came from behind him: "You and the tressym are far more adept at walking silently than I, which makes me the stalking horse. Slip into the upper chamber and wait for your chance. You'll know it when you see it, but don't waste the surprise until we know his defenses are weakened." They moved forward, Raegar silently praying as he climbed the darkened stairwell toward the flickering blue-white lights up above. "Oghma, Lord of Knowledge, hear my prayer. Make my passing a whisper with your blessing. Make me a secret, so that I may share what I learn beyond this moment. Thus may I strike vengeance against one who abused your servants." Raegar felt calm and an image flashed through his mind of Oghma's statue from the Font. The three invisible intruders exited the stairs, all silent as tombs. Magic rasped across the air throughout the room as opaque black shards rang sharply against lime green razors of magic. The constant swirl and eddy of conflicting currents danced upon the air, and nearly distracted Raegar from the powerful sight above that-the pyramidal walls awash in blue lightning bolts, a blinding cluster of energy at the pyramid's corners and peak. Despite the fury outside unleashed by that energy, only a clash of long-held hatreds made any noise within the chamber. The two dead persons in the room, however, were neither silent nor inactive. "By all that's holy, I'll see you destroyed, Priamon!" The translucent woman who stood directly in their path didn't block the view of the room. She hovered slightly off the floor, only the vaguest hints of an ochre gown and long floor-length russet hair outlining her existence. The only things solid about her existence were her spells. Raegar looked through her to scan the rest of the room. The chamber was, by Raegar's eye, ten paces across and its octagonal walls made it nearly circular. The walls sloped in as they rose, two walls each flattening together to seat the crystalline pyramid. The room culminated in the lightning-soaked peak. Though the room was now lit by the lightning and the clashing magic, each of the eight walls of the room bore a torch. From its many tables and bookshelves Raegar assumed it was a workroom or study. All were shoved or toppled out of place, their contents scattered on the carpet-covered stone floor, apparently cleared by the spell battle in the room's center. There was Raegar's enemy at the room's core-the lich Priamon "Frostrune" Rakesk. His green robes swirled among the fury of spells, the hood fallen back from his near-fleshless skull.

The inhuman creature's spellcasting rose above the noise, and blue energy blasted at Syndra Wands, only to crystallize in the air against her shields before crumbling in sheets of frozen vapor. Raegar moved to his left, hugging the walls and keeping his eyes glued to the lich.

He ached to throw the short sword at him, followed by his two throwing daggers, but he knew to wait. Raegar smiled as Syndra wove her green magic into a flock of woodpeckers. The magical constructs settled onto an invisible barrier around Frostrune and they began poking small holes in his magical protections. Raegar had never been so close to a major spell battle; Damlath had often used magic to get them as far away from them as possible. It was fascinating, horrifying, and sobering all at once. Raegar wondered if the air always felt so pressurized during a spell battle, as if the space itself recoiled from spells or pushed against them. He noticed a few fallen books shift on the far side of the room as the invisible Blackstaff made his way around the room's perimeter. Is he trying to get noticed? Raegar thought, then he saw Khelben slowly become visible. Frostrune dissolved the flock of birds on his shields just as Khelben completed his casting and came fully into view. Flames coalesced into a ball of fire that bounced around the lich, setting fire to the areas all around him but leaving him untouched. "Blackstaff, you should have struck to kill outright," the lich said. "I'll not leave you the chance to cast another ineffective spell. Say good-bye to your granddaughter a second time." "Hardly!" Syndra yelled, and to Raegar's ears, the voices sounded as if they were underwater. Despite the smoke from the fires at the room's center, Raegar managed to keep from coughing and giving away his position. The ghostly sorceress and the lich cast furiously fast spells, and while power built up at their fingertips in green and blue energies, both fizzled out without effect. He'd seen Damlath do enough counterspells to understand each had cancelled out the other's spell. "Khelben," Syndra yelled, "he's got Isyllmyth's Bracer!" Khelben stood in an odd position, his left hand holding his blackstaff perpendicular to the floor, rather than aiming it at Frostrune. His right hand was back by his shoulder, which seemed odd to Raegar until he heard the hum of a bowstring. The air shimmered around Khelben and the illusion melted away, revealing Tsarra holding her short bow and reaching back for another arrow.