Blackstaff Tower

CHAPTER 6

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

Jaraelra gasped as Faxhal almost flipped backward. Her signal of true danger was the spray of blood arcing past her own shoulder. She looked down at Faxhal's fallen body in disbelief, the mixture of annoyance and amusement he triggered in her already shifting to horror.

"Down!" Meloon ripped his axe out of its harness, swinging it up into his hands.

Vharem grabbed Faxhal by the collar and pulled him out «f the way. By the time Vharem had his friend behind the door near Renaer, Faxhal had stopped moving and his eyes were open and blank. Renaer pulled out a potion vial from his pouch and looked at Vharem, pleading. Vharem shook his head and reached down to close their friend s eyes. Laraelra couldn't hear everything he said, but she did catch "… farewell, little fox."

Laraelra shouted out a spell, and blue light rippled out of her, clearing the darkness from the corridor. They faced two men in Watch garb, one kneeling and holding a spent crossbow while next to him an older man with an eye patch waited with a sword and shield. Behind them both stood Samark "Blackstaff" Dhanzscul, the gem atop his staff flaring red.

Samark waved his hand and red bolts flew from his fingers. Two slammed into Meloon's broad chest, and he grunted but held his ground. Three more arced at Laraelra but skittered around her, feeling like lightning-charged rain on her skin, before they launched themselves back at the Blackstaff.

Laraelra focused, despite the distraction of the Blackstaff’s spell, and cast another spell of her own. She pulled up an amber energy that crackled among her fingers until she pointed at Samark and said, "Drialrokh!"

That bolt hit its target unerringly-his throat. Laraelra smiled as she watched color drain from the already-pale face of the Black-staff when he realized he could not speak. The wizard turned and ran, to the surprise and anger of his two guards. The eye-patched one stepped forward, yelling, "Get that crossbow restrung or draw your blade, boy! They'll not be much bother for us, e'en without hisself."

"Meloon?" Laraelra shouted as she stepped back and to the side of the opening.

Meloon jumped into the corridor, swinging his axe wide with both hands, forcing the corridor's two guardians to shuffle back a bit from the door. "Hope I'm bothersome enough, one-eye."

The older man grumbled and spat in Meloon's path, but he and his companion backed up farther from the swinging axe.

Laraelra looked down at Faxhal, caught both Vharem and Renaer's eyes, and whispered, "Avenge him."

Renaer's reached into his wide sleeves and pulled a dagger from each one.

Vharem drew a short sword out of his belt and whispered to Renaer, "Didn't think we'd need these, but thanks for the loan."

The sorceress looked up and saw the younger guard raising his spanned crossbow. She concentrated, waved her hand, and the crossbow quarrel flipped out of the stock just as he pulled the trigger.

Renaer dived and rolled in a somersault, staying low but moving forward. Vharem stepped into the corridor's opening after Renaer, holding a dart in one hand and a short sword in the other. Renaer stopped in a crouch before the guard, adding the momentum of his roll to his two thrown daggers. One missed, sailing past the guard's shoulder, but the second one hit him in his hand, forcing him to drop the crossbow. The guard kicked out at Renaer with little effect. Vharem let his dart fly and hit the young guard in the thigh. He stayed back behind Renaer and Meloon, who parried the older man's blade with his axe.

"You've had good teachers if you're not taking the first swing at me, boy," the gravel-voiced man said to Meloon. "Too bad you gave up your only advantage." The older man stabbed his long sword forward and Meloon brought his axe up, making the blade scrape along his mail shirt instead of piercing it. Meloon countered by swinging the double-bladed axe back down toward the man's side. The older man brought around a shield, and the loud clash of weapon and shield filled the corridor.

Laraelra stood back at the corridor's opening, harnessing her anger at letting the Blackstaff escape as she thrust quicksilver-colored missiles at the two guards. She willed one upon each of them, and the young guard fell over with a choked cry.

"You little traitors'll pay for that," the man grunted, as he stabbed again at the dodging Meloon. "You have no idea what you've stumbled into."

The man backed up the corridor, his features masked in hatred. Meloon pressed forward, and Laraelra could not see his face.

"Granek Ruskelver, I remember you," Renaer said. "You were drummed out of the Watch last year for accepting bribes and conduct unbecoming a Watchman."

Granek flinched, looked down briefly at Renaer, and his singular eye shot him a look of revulsion. "You got no idea how this city really is, rich boy. You'll find out what happens when you trip over the plans of the mighty. I did my job well for Ten-Rings, and no young sellsword's gonna drop me!" Granek swung hard and fast at

Meloon, who brought his arm up. The sword scored a long, wound along his left forearm, crossing two thick white scars from some previous battles. When Meloon shoved his axe up to force the blade away, the sword's point stabbed into the mortar in the wall.

Granek's eyes widened as he tugged to free his weapon, and Meloon brought the axe down hard on Granek's overextended right leg. Granek screamed as he fell to the ground, clutching the stump of his leg and groaning. After a few moments, he passed out.

Meloon whispered, "I'm still striding. How about you?"

Steven E. Schend

Blackstaff Tower

Renaer stood, noting he and Meloon had both been sprayed with Granek's blood from his leg wound, and blood already covered the floor. Vharem shoved his way past both of them, muttering, "Want to get that wizard before he can cast on anyone again."

Laraelra yelled, "Vharem, no! Don't be a fool!" I don't think Renaer could handle another death tonight, she thought. I don't think I could either.

Meloon reached out for him and grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling Vharem short. "Don't let Faxhal's death make you run to your own."

Vharem shot Meloon a look mixed with anger and grief, then shrugged off Meloon's grip, only to find Renaer blocking his path.

"Don't lose your head," Renaer said, his eyes welling with tears. "We will get that wizard, but I don't want to lose another friend tonight. We're here to save someone, not lose everyone."

"Caution is good," Laraelra said, "but we do have to hurry. That spell I hit the Blackstaff with won't last long. I can try it again, but he may have some defenses up against it now. Our best bet is to find and save that woman. We'll avenge Faxhal another night."

"I'll take point. I'm a bit tougher than the rest of you," Meloon said. He kneeled by the fallen young Watchman and ripped off his sleeve, then wrapped his bloodied forearm in one scrap of cloth and wiped off his axe blade with the rest.

Laraelra moved closer and helped him wrap his makeshift bandage around his forearm. She whispered, "Thank you, Meloon. If he'd run on ahead…"

"I know," he muttered. "Seen it happen before."

"Don't think that you won't get paid," Laraelra said, "just because we're becoming friends. You'll be compensated as agreed this morning." She put the finishing touches on the bandage and pulled it tight, then smiled at the blond bear of a man.

He returned her smile and said, "Friendships are better currency anyway." From his crouch, he grabbed the empty crossbow off the floor and stood. "Well, what's the plan, Renaer?"

"All we know about the end of this corridor," Renaer said, "is on my maps and notes-and the fact that we've a very angry archmage, or someone powerful enough to impersonate him. I want to get to the bottom of this, but I don't want to die."

"We are not leaving without killing him!" Vharem choked. "Don't let Faxhal's death mean nothing!"

"He meant as much to me as to you," Renaer said, "but I'm not willing to risk our lives. We can go back and I can hire many more sellswords-" -

"And he'll have us arrested for trying to attack the Blackstaff," Laraelra said, "the Watchful Order, or some other trumped-up charge. And he'll have this area so well protected we'll never get in again or find out who they were torturing or why. We have to do this now, Renaer, risks and all. Let's find the woman we came to save-that is what Faxhal died for."

The four looked at each other, nodded, and Renaer said, "Very well. Our secret corridor-which they discovered somehow- exits behind a privy. We should turn left and into a corridor lined with doors."

Vharem lined up behind Meloon, leaving Renaer and Laraelra to cover their backs. As the others moved forward, Laraelra felt something touch her foot. She looked down to see a very weak and trembling Granek, whose lone eye locked on hers. "Help…," he pleaded.

Renaer stepped over and said, "Even before tonight, Granek, before your lackey killed my friend, you deserved this death. Alone, in the dark, no one to mourn you."

Renaer kicked the man's grasp loose from Laraelra's boot and moved away, taking the lantern with him.

Shadows falling on his form, Granek pleaded with Laraelra, "Lass, mercy."

Laraelra hugged herself, staring at Renaer's back, but she understood his cold anger, remembering her own when she heard his words earlier. She looked Granek in the eye and said, "Nay, before the gods, torturers deserve no mercy. Ask it of Kelemvor when you see him." She snapped her cloak tight around her as she turned to follow Renaer.

They moved quickly and found Meloon and Vharem stopped by the opened secret door, the privy seat still attached to it and turned to one side.

"What's the problem?" Renaer asked.

"No pit," Meloon said, his brow furrowed. He dropped the crossbow and kicked it across the floor, only to watch it disappear through apparently solid stone and clatter loudly as it fell down a shaft. "Hmph. Neat trick, that."

"How did you know that was there?" Laraelra asked.

Meloon grinned. "Saw the seat and knew someone had to have dug one. You dig those enough times, you remember how much work is hidden beneath a lot of dung." He knelt, grabbed a loose rock and scratched an X at the near side of the pit. He reached back and said, "Lend a hand, please." He grabbed Vharem's forearm to keep from falling into the hidden shaft and then leaned forward, closing his eyes and tapping ahead with the rock in his hand. When he touched solid rock again instead of illusion, he scratched an X there as well, and said, "Haul me back, Vharem, and then everybody, jump past the second mark!"

He got to his feet, took his axe in both hands, and jumped across easily. The rest of the group followed suit. As Renaer landed, a woman's harsh screams rang out around the corner.

The quartet ran around the corner into a slim corridor, two doors lining each side of it. The screams seemed to come from the one on the far right. Meloon starred forward, but Vharem bolted ahead of all of them. He ran to the door, reached for the handle, and his hand passed through the illusion. He stumbled forward, off-balance, and Vharem's world went red as fire exploded all around him. The blast knocked him off his feet and threw him back down the corridor. His sword, dislodged from his left hand, bounced across the hall and hit the opposite door. This too exploded in a blast of flame and heat, but Vharem was already down and the explosion passed over him. With the explosion came another shriek from beyond the door.

"Vharem!" Renaer yelled, and he rushed to the fallen man.

His leathers and hair all smoking, Vharem tried to talk but just coughed. Much of his long brown hair fell away in singed clumps, and his face and hands were blistered, but he fought to stand again.

Renaer dragged him back against the wall and away from the doorways, saying "Rest here, friend. Catch your breath."

Vharem winced as he flexed his fingers and watched thick, blackened flakes of his skin crack off his hand.

Renaer pulled out a small vial from his belt. "Drink, V." He poured the contents of the vial over his friend's cracked and soot-stained lips, and the cracks instantly healed. The worst blistering on Vharem's face and hands subsided and returned to his normal skin tone. Even his hair began to regrow.

"Wow," Vharem said, looking at Renaer and then the vial. "Who knew healing draughts tasted like clover honey, mint, and zzar all in one?"

"Don'tget used to them," Renaer said. "They're more expensive than your usual bar tab for a tenday."

"Didn't you need that for whoever was down here?" Vharem asked as Renaer helped him to his feet. "Help her get back on her feet?"

"I've one left," Renaer said. "Besides, you needed it more. I don't want to lose another friend tonight." Renaer opened his mouth to say more, and then simply hugged Vharem and asked, "Elra? Meloon? Find anything?"

"Look at the marks on the floor," Meloon said. "It's weird that the blasts stay in the doorway and never slip inside the door. They're also not wooden doors, see?" Meloon shrugged toward the farthest doorway Vharem had approached, and the wooden door was now a prison door of metal bars and naught else.

Laraelra's concentration showed her the world she loved-the world of magic. She looked at Renaer, her eyes filled with a sea of stars, then she looked intently at the corridor, the doors, and the floor. "I'm seeing magic all around here. The-remnants of the spells Vharem triggered match. the auras on those two other doors." She pointed at the doors they had all run past, one on each side of the passageway. "I'm also seeing some lingering but powerful magic. I think it's an illusion of some kind. It's dotting around here, as if it's-"

"Footprints?" Renaer asked.

"Exactly," she replied, snapping her fingers. "You're right, Renaer. Whoever's posing as the Blackstaff only wears his shape. If nothing else, I think he's gone, as the trail heads up the passage and turns."

"Help me!" A voice cried through the first left-hand door.

Laraelra snapped her head in the door's direction, her concentration shattered. She held up her hand and waved everyone away from the door, then tossed some pebbles at the door. The illusory door exploded with flaming fury, but no one stood in its path. Renaer and Vharem found it was a locked wooden door, just like it seemed. The pair kicked it twice before the lock broke and the door swung inward, scraping against the stone floor.

Inside the room, a young woman lay spread-eagled and strapped to a table, blades and other torture implements on the tables around her. Her long red hair matted on the table or to her head with sweat and blood. The gown she wore was reduced to tattered rags, and her feet were visibly injured within iron boots with ankle screws. She saw her three saviors at the door and whimpered, "Please! Get me out of here before he comes back!"

Vharem and Renaer rushed forward, pulling at the blood-soaked leather straps and unscrewing the iron boots. Laraelra wove a minor magic to repair the woman's tattered gown. The woman gasped, "Don't know what they wanted, but they kept hitting me! And my feet! Oh blessed Ilmater, my feet!" She wailed as Laraelra and Vharem removed the boots, but her black-and-blue flesh hardly resembled feet at all, given how many bones were shattered in them.

Vharem asked, "What's your name?"

"Charrar," she replied. "I'm a dancer at the Ten Bells on Brondar's Way."

"What did they want with you?" Laraelra asked.

"I don't know!" Charrar said, but whimpered slightly when Vharem picked her up off the table. "They just kept hurting me, and the Blackstaff just stood there smiling!"

Laraelra started to ask, When did they bring you here? but stopped herself. Something didn't smell right here, though the stench of blood was real enough.

Renaer reached into his belt pouch and said, "I've got something that may help."

"Hang on, Renaer," Laraelra said, resting her hand on his forearm and another over the cork-stoppered ceramic tube he held. "Wait, in case someone has lethal injuries, hmm?" She looked around the room and asked, "Where's Meloon?"

A loud, piercing scream came from out in the hall, and Meloon stuck his head in the room to say, "Elra, come look over here. I hear the screaming, but there's nothing here. It's really irritating… and repetitive."

Laraelra walked to the doorway, but as she passed Renaer, she arched her eyebrows at him, her back to Charrar. His eyes widened, but he nodded.

Laraelra exited that room and breathed deeply, then coughed. I don't know what's worse, she thought, the smell of blood in there or of singed Vharem out here.

She crossed the corridor where Meloon stood, angry. "I ran down that way while you checked the room. That bastard sealed off the corridor leading out of here with stone. I couldn't find a door, even though I saw scratches where a door scraped the floor for years."

"That's probably an illusion of a solid wall," Laraelra said, "if not a conjured wall itself."

"Did I mention how much I hate illusions?"

"So which room again?" Laraelra asked. As if on'cue, the scream pierced the air again. Obviously coming from the room on the far right. "You're right. Really irritating." She shared a smirk with Meloon as they approached the room, and Laraelra concentrated, summoning her ability to see magic. The prison-bar door stood partially open from Vharem's disturbing it, and Laraelra looked at the threshold. "There's an illusion set right inside the door." She tapped her toe lightly on the blue-gray puddle of magic, and the screams ended abruptly. Her eyes widened, and she peered intently at the far corner of the room. "This room is clean. No other magic in play that I can see."

"Are you sure?" Meloon asked. He tried to push past her and look in the room himself. He had to stoop, since the doorway was low, and bumped into Laraelra as she turned to leave, knocking her off balance.

She tumbled into the room and said, "Watch it, you-" and fell flat on her back, banging her hip and an elbow. However, before the pain ended her spell, she saw a large gray-silver field of magic above the door. "Meloon-there!"

"What?" Meloon reached down to help her up, and a blood drop plopped onto his outstretched arm. He turned and looked up, just inside the doorway, but he saw nothing. Another blood drop appeared out of thin air and fell onto his shoulder.

"Something's hidden there," Laraelra said, then pointed. "Look at those iron rings in the walls. See if there's a hammock up there. I think it's been made invisible, and it's hiding something inside it."

Meloon poked upward with his left hand. He felt rough cloth and something heavier above that. He pushed harder and heard a low moan. Meloon started feeling around the edges of the invisible cloth, as the woman inside moaned in a foreign language.

"You know what she's saying?" he asked. He found an edge to the invisible cloth. He pulled it open, finding a bloodied and dirtied dark-skinned woman with very short black hair and multiple wounds all over her body. Her eyes were open and staring, but instead of regular pupils, her eyes were dark orbs filled with crackles of red energy. "Whoa."

"Renaer?" Laraelra yelled out into the corridor. "We've got another one here! And she needs help more than Charrar! Hurry!"

Laraelra wanted a closer look at the woman, but if she was right about this, they were in a far worse game than they knew.

Meloon stretched the invisible fabric of the hammock out of the way and rolled the wounded woman down into his arms. As she moved, a chorus of voices-men's and women's both- screamed in pain.

"Sehlne preserve her, she definitely needs this more," Renaer said, as he arrived to see the dagger protruding from the woman's stomach. "Hold her, Meloon."

Renaer held her head up, poured the potion into her mouth, and pulled the dagger free. Her body spasmed in reaction to the pain, but the belly wound closed up, as did the lesser wounds on her face and body. She began breathing easier, and her eyes flickered open briefly, but they remained storm-clouded orbs of black. Renaer looked up at Meloon, who just shrugged, but Laraelra pressed in behind them.

"Don't you recognize her?" she asked.

Renaer nodded, but the others shook their heads.

"That's Vajra Safahr-the Blackstaffs lover!" Laraelra said. She didn't want to say more until she knew for certain, but she had the nagging suspicion that Ten-Rings and his associate were trying to steal the power of the Blackstaff-and she wondered how long the illusion-wearer had posed as Samark. Her thoughts were interrupted by Vharem carrying Charrar out into the hall toward them.

"He tortured her too?" Charrar said. "I heard others being tortured down here, but not her." She clung to Vharem, who minded not one bit, and then said, "Get me out of here before he comes back again!"

"Good idea," Renaer said, and he took Vajra into his arms. "Meloon, Elra, see if there's any other way out. Charrar, I'm sorry, but I've no more healing potions. We'll have to carry both of you out of here."

Charrar nodded, but then tearfully put her head down on Vharem's shoulder and sobbed. Vharem held her closer just enough to ease his short sword back into its scabbard.

"What are you doing?" Renaer snapped. "You might need that!"

"And how are we going to fight if we're each carrying someone?" Vharem said. "If we go back the way we came, we can at least block off some passages and hole up until we can all move better. We know what's back there already."

"Yeah," Renaer said, his eyes dropping, "but it's the things we don't expect that kill us."

"The alleged Blackstaff sealed the corridor with some spells or illusions," Laraelra said. "We'll have to go back the way we came."

"What about Faxhal?" Vharem asked, his eyes pleading with Renaer.

"Later," Renaer said, his face cold and impassive. "We'll come back to bury him and mourn later. For now, let's move."

"How do you know where we are, Elra?" Meloon's whisper echoed in the sewer pipes.

"Can't tell you guild secrets," Laraelra replied, as she spotted the keystone in the archway over the intersection. This led into one of the secondary sewer lines beneath the city, and that rune told her they were heading north again. She was trying to get them back to the surface shaft at Heroes' Garden she and Meloon had used that morning. "Hear those picks? That means there're cellarers at work." She motioned for him to turn left, and they saw another light other than the lantern that she held.

Two figures looked up, startled, when the lantern's light came into their tunnel. Laraelra smiled as the familiar gruff voice of Harug called out, "Who delves? Cry out or face blades!"

"Less noise, old daern," Laraelra said. "It's Elra and friends."

When they, met up, she moved ahead of Meloon to clasp forearms with both dwarves, thankful to see more friendly faces. It was obvious to Laraelra the dwarves had spent the past day clearing the channel and reshoring the wall.

She looked closely at their work. "Nice secret door you seem to be installing here, Harug." When he scowled at that, she whispered, "It'll be our secret, old daern. Father needs not know."

Harug gripped her forearm and muttered to her in his native Dwarvish, "Lass, be careful. Best not take this shaft up to the garden. There be folk waiting for ye up there. They don't talk like no Watch I ever seen. Fools forget voices carry down this way as well. Take the next one west up to Shank Alley. That'll leave them like ores waiting for a gopher that's left its hole."

Laraelra nodded, then turned as Dorn clapped hands with Meloon. "Dorn Strongcroft pays his debts with friendship!" He spit into his hand and held it out for Meloon to shake, which he did. The young dwarf's eyes widened as he saw the man's weapon. "When that axe needs some work, you come see me cousin in Fields Ward. Ask for the Strongcroft smithy and mention my name. They'll steer ye arights."

"Ow!" Charrar's voice echoed loudly in the subterranean tunnel. She continued her complaints as Vharem approached with her in his arms. "Vharem, aren't we getting out of the sewers soon? I don't like it here!"

Laraelra wasn't sure Charrar could make more noise if she tried, and she watched the woman, wondering what didn't settle in her mind about her. She put her finger to her mouth and signaledfor silence. Then she motioned for them to follow, and they inched past Harug and Dorn.

Laraelra let Meloon lead and, as she half-expected, Charrar pointed at the access ladder leading up and yelled, "Hey! There's a Laraelra clapped a hand over her mouth and glared. She whispered, "Someone's lying in wait for us up there, so we're going this way. Now keep quiet."

Charrar's eyes narrowed, and she slowly nodded.

When they did finally begin clambering up another surface shaft a while later, Laraelra went first and shoved the sewer shaft cover aside as quietly as she could. Next, Charrar clung to Vharem's neck as he climbed, whimpering as she bumped against each iron rung of the ladder. Meloon climbed up and lowered down a rope. Renaer, the last to leave the sewers, waited while the others reeled the unconscious Vajra up with a makeshift harness on the rope. Laraelra pretended to watch Vharem and Meloon stretching their arms and shoulders out, but she remained watchful of the sulking Charrar, who perched on some crates behind them.

Charrar shifted her position and shoved a barrel to make her perch wider. Two empty crates clattered down into the alley. She flinched away and bumped her left foot into another barrel. She let out a scream and clutched her leg, whimpering.

"Shut it, woman!" Vharem snapped. "You'll draw every cut-purse and Watchman in earshot!"

Dawn was just breaking across the sky, and Laraela could see where she was. Between the smell of fish guts and one particularly gruesome demon's head painted on the back of the tallest building in the center of the alley, she figured out their location. "We're in Shank Alley. That sign faces out on Morningstar Way for the Demondraught tavern."

"If you say so," Meloon said. He turned toward Renaer. "Hey, you're probably tired, and I'm not. I'll carry Vajra for a while." He had hauled her up by rope and held her in the crook of one arm as he coiled the rope up with his other hand. His axe lay on the cobbles beside them.

Renaer shook his head. "No, but thanks. I'll carry her, in case we have to run. I can keep up with you even while carrying her. I'd rather you were ready for anyth-"

"Drop all weapons- and surrender!" The shout came from the alley's mouth to the west of them.

"Like that?" Laraelra asked.