Blackstaff (36 page)

Khelben moved quickly to her side, grabbing her arm and pinning a badge on her tunic beneath her cloak. Alustriel took his other arm, and the three of them walked them toward the stone wall. Khelben said, “Acris,” and instantly they were awash in sunshine.

Tsarra blinked and held her hand up to shield it from the sun, and Khelben swore under his breath.

Tsarra asked, “Khelben, where—” She looked out over a small, overgrown graveyard on a hillside overlooking the sea. Waves crashed far below at the bottom of a cliff.

“Wrightsvale. A village a slow day’s walk northwest of Starmantle. No time to visit, as we’re already running out of time, if I read that sun right.” Khelben tightened his grip on Tsarra’s and Alustriel’s arms, backed them both up a few steps before walking toward a split and ruined gravestone, and said, “Seamar.”

The trio arrived in an outdoor mausoleum. Unlike the previous tomb, it held recessed biers in all four walls and a large sarcophagus in the center. Tsarra scanned the names of those buried there—Seamar Ruthyl, Adaram Ruthyl, Caras Ruthyl, and Wyrick and Nura Ruthyl—and recognized not a one, nor did any dates adorn the biers.

Alustriel noticed Tsarra’s investigations and explained. “Impilturans rarely date their graves, Tsarra. They count on historians to track all that, either royal or family scribes. It has something to do with keeping demons from taking on old shapes and forms, but I’ve never made a study of it.”

The sun beamed through the tiny windows at the top of the walls, their directions suggesting it was near highsun where they were. Swearing as he floated upward, Khelben traced a complex sigil over two walls and the ceiling in the upper corner. The sigil flashed a green color, and Khelben tapped it twice with his blackstaff. Beside her, Tsarra felt the central sarcophagus of Wyrick and Nura slide backward without a sound. Looking down, she found a stairwell leading down into a chamber that was growing with light.

Alustriel asked, “So who are we supposed to meet here? You never mentioned there was a chamber beneath this before, but I’ve only ever used Adaram’s coffin to dispose of more problematic things.”

Tsarra asked, “Why there?”

Alustriel smiled and replied, “Khelben built this mausoleum for himself as a hiding place and a way to dispose of evil artifacts he dredged from Serôs—the Inner Sea. Adaram’s bier was specifically built around a stable dead magic zone, making it perfect for that purpose. He’s buried standing up on one end of that, which is why his bier is longer than the others.” Alustriel strode forward toward the stairs, but Khelben’s blackstaff whipped around to block her.

“It’s not safe yet. I’ll call you down,” he snapped. Khelben walked down the stairs, using the wall and his staff for support. He stopped in front of a torch burning with silver flames, looked back up at Tsarra, and said, “I’m sorry, lass.” He shoved his left hand into the torch’s flame to set his own hand alight with silver fire.

Tsarra fell to her knees, clutching her left hand and gasping from the sudden pain. She could feel the magical fires burning both of them, until he gripped the unlit torch at the bottom of the stairs and lit it, placing the silver flames on the torch. Once that torch flickered to life, Tsarra’s pain ended, and she and Alustriel watched five different fields of magic dissipate. Khelben motioned them down, and he moved into the chamber.

Tsarra and Alustriel descended the stairs to face two stone biers, atop which were two forms. On the left hand side was an ancient sun elf, bald, with delicate Elvish sigils tattooed around his temples and down his neck. An orange gem glinted on his forehead. Khelben finished a complex casting and waved his hand over the man’s face.

“
Rejhar amreh tolaer
,” Khelben chanted, and the gold elf’s eyes flickered and opened. He stared up into the Blackstaff’s eyes without saying a word, but his gem flared with amber fires. His eyes spat the same color flames directly up into Khelben’s eyes, and within a moment, the Blackstaff’s back stiffened, his gaze darting to Tsarra then to the shelves at the back of the room.

After a moment, Khelben helped the old elf sit up as he introduced him. “Alustriel, Tsarra, meet Ualair the Silent, keeper of Uvaeren’s Secrets and master of the N’Vaelahr of Myth Drannor. Beside us is his protégé and an unsung hero of Myth Drannor, Rhymallos the Hidden Eye.”

Khelben pulled the covering off the adjacent bier to reveal the insectoid form of a demonic mezzoloth. Khelben and Ualair held up their hands for peace as Alustriel and Tsarra stepped back.

The orange gem flared on Ualair’s brow, and Tsarra heard a soft voice in her head. The ancient elf’s expressions matched the sendings his
selu’kiira
projected.
Peace and light laughter to you beautiful girls. Rhymallos took this form to infiltrate the Army of Darkness, and he has slept here alongside me for many centuries as we awaited the last stage of the Pentad’s plans. He deserves to be restored and remembered. I merely do my part to help undo my failures of the past
.

Tsarra knew of the legends surrounding the great mute Grand Mage of Myth Drannor, and she fell to one knee. “You do me too much honor,
teless
. I am unworthy to hear you speak.”

Tsarra realized the power and dangers involved in Khelben’s work, if such were the people he was gathering for a ritual.

Ualair’s kind voice came in a sending and a touch to her shoulder.
Rise, child, and fret not. My silence is merely physical and one of necessity
. His wrinkled hand raised her chin to look at him, and she saw the jagged white scar across his throat that robbed him of his voice. He had one last comment for her, and he sent,
Do not believe yourself unworthy, girl. Your role in this is vastly more important than mine, and mayhap people shall speak as highly of you in days to come as they seem to speak of my meager contributions to the Art
. Ualair’s smile brought tears to Tsarra’s eyes, as he reminded her of her long-gone grandfather.

“What about your friend, Rhymallos? Why doesn’t he move?”

He is under different enchantments that allow him peaceful and painless slumber yet. He shall be awakened only when we truly need him to be. That time is not yet. Look now to him who was Nameless. He needs you now
.

Ualair looked toward Khelben, then back at Tsarra, and finally over to Alustriel. While his gem kept flashing, Ualair’s attention was on Alustriel alone.

Khelben hovered over a table in the back of the room, casting spells onto something. He sent to her,
I have a gift here for you, Tsarra. It has been a long time in coming
.

Tsarra approached, and Khelben brought out a jet-black recurved short bow and placed it in her hands.

Tsarra sent,
Thank you, Master. Does it have a name?
She could feel tremendous power in the duskwood bow and in what appeared to be a silver bowstring.

Not as such. I made it about two hundred years ago, but it’s never been drawn. It’s a simple thing—it allows any arrow fired from it to penetrate magical shields as if the arrows were blackstaves
.

That will prove useful against our foe to come, for certain. Still, why give this to me now? I know that ritual is later today, but what’s your sudden hurry?

I’ve added a few spells to the bow that should help in the coming day. Ualair is connected to this plan on many levels, as he’s one of its architects, along with a number of
my tutors—the ones they now call the Seven Wizards of Myth Drannor
.

Yes, and?

Five others sleep as he did, though more openly and in disguise. The Five who Sleep are integral to the Pentad’s plan to restore the high mages’ city of Faertelmiir
.

Tsarra finally understood Khelben’s haste and anger as she said aloud, “The Five who Sleep are Malavar’s Grasp?”

“Yes, and in his ignorance, Priamon Rakesk may well kill them … and doom everyone on the Sword Coast!”

T
sarra threw off her cloak and adjusted how her quiver lay across her back. She took up the new bow and slung it around her shoulder. She opened her hand to take the three blue and one green crystalline arrows Khelben handed to her.

She asked, “These are arrows like those you gave me at the tower?”

“No,” Khelben said, as he threw open cabinets and growled in frustration. “Those were new spells I was testing. These are designed to damage undead more than the living. Your bow should help you penetrate Priamon’s defenses. And remember—that green-glass arrow you save until I expressly tell you to use it.”

Tsarra added the arrows to her quiver alongside her regular arrows. Khelben spent a few moments grunting as he opened and closed boxes, searching
for something. Finally, he pulled open a drawer and sighed with relief as he pulled out a small black bottle. He uncorked it and a slight flash of silver magic shimmered on the stopper as he put that down and motioned her closer.

He began to tip the bottle and said, “All right, Tsarra—we’re going to jump through this portal.” He poured the black liquid in a circle on the floor. “We’ll travel through the sharn to the focal point of our problem. You’ll have to distract and fight Priamon for a short time while I get the Five awake and to relative safety. I’ll fire two spells to help you, but you’ll be on your own after that. Ready?”

“Ready.” Tsarra turned back to bid Alustriel and Ualair good-bye, but they were deep in conversation over the still-prone body of Rhymallos. Tsarra looked back at Khelben, who had continued pouring black liquid into the circle while chanting. The entire circle was jet black, and as the final drop fell from the bottle and Khelben’s chant ended, familiar purple sparks erupted in its depths. Khelben joined hands with Tsarra, and the two of them leaped into the circle and jumped out into a dark, rainy environment filled with ear-shattering thunder.

Khelben, Tsarra, the undead one activates the Mormhaor’sykerylor! The pain returns! You must stop him!
a voice boomed through the darkness.

All around them were the blasted plains of the High Moor, here and there dotted with pools of blackness that could either be dark water or sharnstuff, as was the black puddle from which they had emerged.

In the distance, Priamon stood silhouetted between them and the lightning-wrapped pyramid. The pyramid hovered point down just above the top of the five stone plinths. Lightning crackled and blasted away at the plinths and the heath beneath them. Meanwhile, Frostrune spun other spells that focused the lightning bolts, keeping the worst fury of the storms focused within Malavar’s Grasp. The wind commiserated with the pain of the ground and rock. Overhead, the sky crawled with lightning burrowing through the clouds and lancing both up and down from ground and sky.

Tsarra looked for cover, only to be disappointed at the stunted scrub that counted as foliage in the High Moor. Khelben tapped her on the shoulder and motioned her forward. Tsarra soon realized the rain was doing more than just getting them wet. Her leathers were starting to steam, as if the rain were acid.

Strange that it doesn’t have the same effect on flesh, she thought.

They moved quickly across the moor, Tsarra and Khelben both readying spells. The only benefit of the storms was in covering their approach. Once they were within fifty paces, Khelben summoned a massive energy hand into being around Priamon, and it squeezed, shattering magical fields and defenses around him.

The hand shimmered and disappeared, and Khelben said, “Now!”

Tsarra summoned up a spell that used all her anger and hatred toward undead and focused it with precision. It always left the odd taste of pickles in her mouth when she cast it. Five pulses of white light exploded from her right hand and quickly arced toward the lich. Two of them glanced off the large metal plate and harness the creature wore, but the remainder struck him in the head, arm, and leg. Priamon’s howls of anger and pain told them they’d made an impact. He lashed back with a massive fireball of cold energies, but Khelben cancelled its effects.

As Tsarra dashed in an arc around Priamon, she saw Khelben fire a green bolt of energy that struck Priamon squarely in the face but did no damage. The lich started a new spell, but she fired an arrow at him. That too struck him squarely, and he seemed surprised to find an arrow lodged in his chest. Had his heart mattered to him, that shot would have killed him.

“Bothersome gnats!” Priamon howled at them. “The powers I awaken here shall destroy all who stand in my path. I’ll collect enough magic from your corpses to train upon the Rune. Those who don’t stand with me shall fall. And first among them is you, Blackstaff!” Rather than attack, the
lich wove a new defensive spell around himself.

Tsarra, I need to stop that pyramid for now. Do what you can to buy me time, but don’t throw your life away!

Khelben flew off toward Malavar’s Grasp, and Tsarra quickly thought of eating dewmelons and spitting out the seeds. In response, green pulses spat from her fingers and zipped at Frostrune, only to bounce ineffectively against his shields.

“Little girl,” Frostrune mocked, “never dare to fight your betters.”

The lich’s claws blasted a shuddering beam of cold, arcane energy, and Tsarra could feel the air around her freeze. She dived to one side, avoiding the worst of it, but she landed hard on frost-rimed ground and ice-covered puddles. The glass arrow she had nocked and readied shattered when she fell forward. At least I didn’t break the bow, she thought.

Tsarra jumped up and ran in an arc, from the frozen area and away from Khelben. Luckily, she’d irritated the lich enough that he kept his attention on her.

Khelben! Any chance
now
is the time to use that green arrow? Or even to tell me what good it will do?

No, it’s not the time! It can strike more effectively later, not now
.

I hope I’m alive and warm enough to use it by then
.

Tsarra fired off one quick arrow to dispel Priamon’s new defense and followed it up by summoning more white energy. The arrow dispelled his defensive spell, and her bolt of living energy wrung another howl from the lich.