Blackstaff Tower

CHAPTER 4

9 Nightal, Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

Khondar surveyed the intruders carefully. He recognized the one at the forefront. Khondar maintained his neutral face, but bristled inwardly at the surprise intrusion. "Renaer Neverember, would you care to explain your presence here? Have you taken to hiding from the Watch here now?"

Renaer spread his arms wide and bowed to both him and the Blackstaff. "I apologize for our intrusion, Guildsenior Naomal. My clients asked to see Roarke House, but there seems to be some confusion as to its current status for tenants."

"I am its current tenant, as of the tenday last. I have a copy of the signed deed upstairs."

Renaer arched an eyebrow at that and said, "I handle all Brandarth and Neverember holdings within the city. And yet, you and I have never spoken aside from pleasantries at parties more than five months ago. Apparently someone on my staff failed to tell me about this transaction."

"Apparently." Khondar disliked this boy more with every breath, since he remained calm and unreadable. Khondar ramped his temper down by focusing on Renaer's companions. The woman he had seen before, but he could not place her face or gaunt form. What made him seethe was the lack of respect for him in her scowl. Beside her, the young blond bear-of-a-man twitched with nervous energy, ready to fight anyone, but he seemed held in check with her hand. Khondar tired of the pretense and asked, "Do you need to see the deed to believe me, lad?"

The Blackstaff interrupted, "My time is short. Surely explanations can wait another time?" He stamped his trademark staff upon the stone floor, its silver-shod end ringing dully. "I'm sure these young people have other matters to which they can attend."

The larger man stepped forward. "No we don't! We need to know-"

The woman stopped him by slipping into his path.

"— if there's anything we can do to make your new home more comfortable?" said Renaer. He turned on his heels, showing Khondar his back as he swept his arms at the walls. "Would you like, perhaps, a few bottles of a lovely Farlindell Red from Tethyr's Purple Hills for these racks? As an apology for our interruption?"

"The only apology we shall need, young Neverember," Khondar said, "is the keys by which you entered this house, followed by your swift exit."

"We have a few questions yet, milord," Renaer said. "My friends Ararna and Pellarm were hoping to purchase this or another house in the same general area. They want assurances that there are no problems with either neighbors or the infrastructure. They don't believe me, as I'm trying to sell them property, but perhaps you could offer a more objective opinion."

Renaer's companions flinched when he said their names aloud, and Khondar knew that Renaer had given them false identities.

"You try my patience, all of you." Khondar sighed. "Such questions will wait for another time, if at all. If you insist on remaining trespassers, the Watch shall be summoned."

"Fine!" said Pellarm. "Maybe they can find out who you're torturing and where you've hidden her!"

Khondar froze, though the Blackstaff s outrage was apparent as he howled at the warrior. "Boy, you delay two archmages in important work with foul accusations! Where is evidence to back your claim?"

"Only what we heard from the street." Pellarm shrugged. "We heard horrific screaming as we walked by-and I for one don't ignore pleas for help."

Khondar smiled mirthlessly as he watched the boy spin his poor lies. He seemed ignorant of just how close to the lion's maw he put his head. "You're obviously new to the city, Pellarm. I'll not waste our time relaying all the sordid ghosts that haunt this and other nearby neighborhoods. That is why we're all in my all-too-empty cellar with neither woman nor tortures at hand." Khondar stepped off the stairs and into the cellar, motioning back toward the stairs. "Now, while I'll happily receive new neighbors at a later date, the Blackstaff s time today is more precious even than mine. Please, remove yourselves"

"Again, my apologies, milord," Renaer said, and he backed up toward the stairs, taking each of his friends by their elbows. "When would be a good time to call again?"

"Enough!" the Blackstaff shouted, his patience at an end. He swept his staff in an arc and his other hand wove a pattern in the air. A haze of colors shimmered into existence on the stairs next to the three young people. Renaer and Pellarm both stared fixedly at it, fascinated at its shifting color weave.

The alleged Ararna shook her head and glared at the Blackstaff. "The Watch shall hear of this!"

"Hardly," Khondar said as he finished his gestures and snapped his fingers to get the woman's attention. They locked eyes and his dominating enchantment burrowed into her mind. You cannot communicate anything you've seen here. Follow your friends and do not come back to this house. Khondar enjoyed this spell's usefulness in dominating people for days or whole tendays and wiping their memories of its use later. Before he let the spell lapse entirely, he'd find out what she really knew and why they were here, but now was not the time.

As the Blackstaff willed his own iridescent illusion up the stairs, the two young men followed it without hesitation. While the woman had initially struggled against the magic, she followed them as ordered.

After a few moments, the Blackstaff returned to the cellars and said, "I'm sorry if I acted out of turn. Too many questions."

"It got them out of here, and that's all that matters to me right now," Khondar replied. "If the woman hadn't resisted your spell, I'd not have had to waste one on her. Still, should we need to, I can influence her and keep watch on her activities over the next tenday or more."

"Well, not one person blinked as the pattern led them out onto the alley and headed toward Trollkill Street," the Blackstaff said. "I've put an arcane lock on the front door so we won't be disturbed easily now. I'll set up other defenses later."

"They should have been in place already," Khondar said, turning away from his son. "Let's get to work, then."

Samark flinched, looked back upstairs, and then asked, "Shouldn't we ensure they don't talk to anyone? Or at least find out what they know for certain?"

"They may actually prove useful. She cannot say anything due to my spell's enchantment. As for Renaer, his well-known habits for avoiding responsibility and his reluctance to implicate his father should keep him quiet as well. The sellsword… well, who's going to believe a sellsword over the Blackstaff and the Watchful Order?"

The Blackstaff s eyes shifted to gray as he spoke, "True, but they could cause problems-like they did here. There's no way they could have heard her, Father." His form wavered, then solidified into Centiv's younger leather-clad form. The pale, balding face melted into one far younger with a full head and beard of chestnut-colored hair.

"Well, they heard something, Centiv, and it led them here," Khondar said. "Just open the door, while I figure out what to do next."

Centiv approached the wall and opened the rack-door as Renaer had earlier. His ring flashed bright blue, and when he pushed the rock in the wall, a door recessed into the wall, exposing a well-lit spiral stair leading down.

"I have enough friends and influence to turn the public's trust against them before they can interfere," Khondar said as they descended. "They've played into our hands perfectly. After all, many saw them come here, while we enter and exit invisibly. Should anything get exposed, they're the ones caught on the hook. Dagult will most likely protect his son from the worst of it, which makes the brunt of it fall on that skinny girl and her barbarian friend. Either way, it forces all parties to cover for us, should anything leak out."

"I know I've seen that scrawny woman before, but I can't place her," Centiv said. "She's not a member of our guild, though perhaps she should be, given her resistance to my spell."

"What she should be is grateful I chose to waste that domination spell on her instead of blasting her and her meddlesome friends to ashes." Khondar punched his fist into his other palm. "Now we lose another day before I can get answers!"

Centiv said, "Then that's another day in which we find more folk to rally to our cause-freeing knowledge for the guild from the grasping hands of private mages like the Blackstaff."

"Yes, yes, of course," Ten-Rings said, as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. The chamber they entered was merely another nondescript cellar by all appearances. The elder nodded to his son, who used the staff he carried to tap three stones in succession at one corner of the ceiling. In response, a secret door slid open, the walls and floor unfolding into yet another secret stair. Screams pierced the air.

"That's the only part I hate." Centiv shuddered. "I know we're doing all this for the city's good, but do we really need to torture her to get the answers we need?"

"Unfortunately, we do, lad." Khondar sighed. "Samark and all the Blackstaffs keep secrets they should share with the guilds, the "Lords, and others. It's how they maintain their mystique, their stranglehold on power-they keep their secrets, even when it harms the City around them.

"We do this only because this woman, like too many, would rather maintain the way things have always been done." Ten-Rings sneered. "She wants our fair city to stay under the control of the money-grubbing merchant classes and foreign interests. Wizard rulers would never allow Sembian shades to infiltrate the palace. We'll restore things to right, son. We will. We'll clean up this city. All we need are the keys to the tower and its magic. The sooner that outlander bitch gives them up, the sooner her pain will end."

Ten-Rings exited the stair into a tiny chamber only as wide as a staff's length. Set into the wall facing them was a small niche holding a handful of tomes and beneath it a number of vials in a wooden box. He snatched up a vial as he stormed through the open doorway to the left of the stair. A pair of doors lined the hallway on both sides, and all the noise came from the nearest room on Khondar's right.

The woman lay strapped to a rough wooden table, bound spread-eagled with each hand and foot bound to a corner of the table. Her clothes were whole, though rent to expose her limbs and her midriff. Blood dripped or dried on nearly every exposed bit of skin. A large metal clamp encircled her right knee, bending it unnaturally to one side. Obscene black bruising and bleeding around a clamp at her left hip showed that her interrogator had also shattered that bone in his ministrations. Numerous cuts along her arms, legs, and stomach had long since scabbed over. Her face held half-healed bruises days old, and her lower lip was a mass of scabs. She lay senseless, breathing heavily but irregularly, and her eyes were closed. Her short dark hair lay matted to her head with sweat and grime. Blood-both dried and otherwisecoated the table beneath her.

The man standing over her shoved a dirty rag into the pulsing wound on her left forearm as he withdrew a nail, sighing as he did so.

"Has she told you anything, Granek?" Khondar asked, and the man whirled around. Granek was short, stripped to the waist, and covered with hair, dirt, and blood. His graying hair hung loose and long, its receding hairline making it look like his hair slipped to the back of his head. The eye patch over his right eye failed to cover the two scars that crossed his forehead, temple, and upper cheek. He dropped the nail and hammer onto a side table and wiped the blood from his hands onto a rough leather apron and breeches he wore. Granek shook his head and went to a water bucket, raising the dipper to his lips.

"The lass has spirit, aye," Granek said after wiping his mouth with his forearm. "As we'd planned, she had two days to heal before we went at her again this morning. All she's given me are screams and a few insults directed at me mam. Oh, and a few for you as well, Khondar."

"Address him as Guildmaster, dog!" Centiv snapped "Show some respect!"

Granek glared at the younger man and said, "You need me, and I still need to be paid. Gold gets you my respect, as I've done more for you than you've for me. Besides, we're all out on the plank together here. Show some manners yourself, lad."

Centiv's fingers crackled with energy and he began mouthing a spell, but Ten-Rings rested a hand over his fingers and said, "Enough. You should not be so easily baited." He then turned his attention to Granek, and said, "And you should not presume to be more important than you are, hireling, or you shall find out how adept I am at doing magically what you do mechanically. Now, give her this, so we might talk." He handed the vial through the bars to Granek, who snatched it away with anger.

Granek stalked to the woman's side, muttering, "Waste of a good potion, ask me." He opened her mouth, but stopped as Ten-Rings cleared his throat.

"Maybe you should remove the clamps to allow her to heal?" said Ten-Rings. "We already know how well she screams, and don't need to hear it for this discussion."

Granek frowned and tucked the vial into a pouch. He removed the clamp from her left hip, and she groaned. Even Centiv shuddered as Granek removed the knee clamp and her leg moved like its bones were no more than gravel in a bag. Granek retrieved the vial and poured its contents into her mouth, manipulating her throat to force her to swallow. He then pulled the rag out of her forearm, which made blood flow freely again.

Within moments, the blood stopped flowing and the woman's old and new bruises faded beneath her dark skin. She shed the scab on her lip as-that wound healed, and her hip and knee returned to their normal positions. Her indigo-colored eyes darted open and she snapped her head up to stare at Granek, then beyond the bars at Centiv and Ten-Rings.

"Does that feel better, Vajra?" said Granek.

"I'd thank you for healing me, but I know you don't do it for my sake. We've danced this dance before, Khondar," Vajra said. "I won't give you the knowledge you seek."

Ten-Rings sighed and said, "To think you came to this city to join my guild-"

"Your guild?" she laughed. "Does the Watchful Order know they're your personal servants?"

"Better that than lackeys of the Blackstaff," he said.

Centiv added, "Or whores of the same."

"Centiv"-Vajra shook her head-"so much power stunted by sycophantic adulation. Thirty years here and still no life without Father?"

Centiv's knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists.

"You wizards are all the same-all talk, no action," Granek said. He leaned onto Vajra's recently healed knee, and she inhaled sharply and grimaced. Granek cackled. "Just 'cause you're healed don't mean you're healthy. So tell us what we want to know. Tell us how to enter Blackstaff Tower safely."

She opened cobalt blue eyes and stared past Granek at Khondar. "Ye only need courage and a Blackstaff. Dare ye pick one up?"

"Tell me what the books are for," Ten-Rings said, "and we'll stop the pain. Grant us entry into the tower, and we'll end this once and for all."

Vajra laughed a deep laugh, and then opened wine purple eyes to stare at Centiv. "Why did your father bring you here from Sundabar, Centiv? Did he need a scribe? Or were you just his only child to swallow every lie?"

"Keep this up and you'll part with your life, Vajra Safahr," Ten-Rings whispered. "We saw the Blackstaffs death give you an influx of power. Who's to say that power won't transfer to one of us upon your death?"

"We've been threatened by worse than fools like you who conjure enemies whenever he's denied any desire," Vajra said, glaring at him with sea green eyes. "The enemies you've always seen-from Sundabar to Athkatla to Waterdeep-were all your own fear or your own incompetence. Now, you tell yourselves you do this for Waterdeep. You delude yourselves. You do it for yourselves alone. The power you seek you neither deserve nor understand. Your teachers weep in the afterlife for your failures."

Granek growled and struck Vajra hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. As she fought to breathe, he said to Ten-Rings, "I'll get more answers out of her and tell you later. You'd best go, as all you three do is trade insults."

Khondar shook his head and punched his palm in anger. Centiv stalked out of the dungeon, through the entry chamber, and through the other door past the stairwell leading up. When en

Ten-Rings caught up to him at the end of the long hallway, the two of them stared at the Duskstaff, which hovered a foot off the floor in the center of the circular chamber

"It took a lot of magic to bring this here," Centiv said, "but with some illusions and Cral's ring, I can make it seem like I'm carrying it. We could take it to the tower and see if that truly does get us in. Beyond that, I'm sure the two of us can handle whatever the tower throws at us. It's obvious she doesn't deserve the powers hidden away in there."

"I've no doubt, Son," Khondar said, "but patience. She has secrets yet to be slipped, and I'd rather not face that tower without knowing we'll easily exit again. I'll not walk into a trap laid by Samark or one of his predecessors. We've wasted too much time. Go wander a bit and be sure to be seen as Samark. I have a guild meeting to attend. Do make sure the house and these cellars are properly warded this time."