by Ed Greenwood
All the next winter, as the howling winds piled up snow deep and cold outside, the Blades sat before fires, sharpened their swords, and told restless tales of what bright deeds they’d done and what brighter things they would do when summer came again. Apart from them, the young sorceress studied.
Her eyes grew deep set and heavy lidded, and her body ever more gaunt. She squinted as she went about and used few words, her wits distant and confused—for all the world as if the spells baffled her. Yet she could conjure fires in rooms that the winter had chilled and light for them all to see by without enduring the smoke of fires and candles or the work of chopping firewood.
The Blades learned to keep out of her way, for their every plan brought from her an earnest torrent of moral questions: “Should we slay such a man? Is it right?” or “But what has the dragon done to us? Would it not be more prudent to leave it in peace?”
Winter passed, and the Blades took to the road again—and fell afoul of the Bright Shields, an arrogant and widely known band of lawless adventurers. They fought in the streets of Baerlith, and the dreams of several Blades died there. Elmara pleaded with the two Bright Shields mages who stood against her not to fight, but to share their spells, “laying the glories of magic before all.”
The two mages laughed their derision, and hurled slaying spells—but the wizard of the Blades was no longer there. She reappeared behind the two and struck them down with the hilt of a dagger she held. Then she wept when the other Blades, over her protests, cut their throats while they lay senseless. “But they could have taught me so much!” the maid wailed. “And where is the honor in slaying those who lie asleep?”
Yet at the end of that day, the Bright Shields were no more, and the Blades took coins, armor, horses, and all for their own. Their sorceress found herself the owner of boots and belts and rings and rods and more that glowed with the deep blue of enchantments. She couldn’t wait to use them but dared not try to wield most of them—yet. The Blades might think her a sorceress, but she was a priestess of Mystra, with no better magecraft than an eager but untutored apprentice … and having seen their hot tempers, she did not reveal this truth.
And so it went as the long hot summer passed. The Blades rode from triumph to triumph, saddlebags bulging with coins, throwing what riches they couldn’t carry liberally into the laps of willing ladies wherever they went—all but their dark and serious sorceress, who kept apart, spending her nights wrestling with spells rather than wenches.
Then came the day Tarthe found a merchant’s account of a trip across the high hills north of Ong Wood, and of a vale where griffons flew out of a lone keep and drove his band away. They were collared griffons, their breasts bearing shields with the mark of Ondil of the Many Spells.
That excited moment of decision, when they had all leaped at the thought of plundering the Floating Tower, seemed long ago now as they tethered their horses in the shadow of its grim and silent bulk.
Torthe turned to the fierce-eyed woman with the wand. The sun gleamed on the warrior’s broad, armored shoulders and danced in his curling, reddish hair and beard. He looked like a lion among men, every inch the proud leader of a famous adventuring band.
“Well, mage?” Tarthe waved one gauntleted hand at the tower floating above them.
Elmara nodded in reply, stepped forward, and made the circling gesture that meant fall back to give her space for a spell. She tossed a long, heavy coil of rope to the turf between her feet.
Her hands dipped to one of the vials at her belt, flicked back its stopper, and tipped it, then deftly restoppered it while holding some of its powder in one cupped hand. A few gestures, a long murmured incantation as the powder was cast aloft, and some lightning-fast work with a strip of parchment—twisting it in the still-falling powder—and the coil of rope on the ground stirred. As the young mage stepped back, the rope rose from the ground like a snake, wavered, and then began to climb steadily, straight up.
Elmara watched it calmly. When the rope ceased to move, hanging motionless and upright in the air, she made a “keep back” gesture and went to the saddles for a second coil of rope. Wearing the coil about her shoulders, she climbed the first rope, slowly and clumsily, making several Blades shake their heads or grin with amusement, and came at last to the top of the rope. Curled around it by the crook of one elbow and the crossed grip of her booted feet, she calmly opened another vial, tapped a drop of something from it, and blew it from her palm while gesturing with the other hand.
Nothing seemed to occur—but when the sorceress stepped off the rope to stand on empty air, it was clear that an unseen platform hung there. It sank a trifle under her boots, but Elmara calmly laid the coil of rope on it and began her first spell over again.
When she was done, the second rope stretched straight up through the air, into the darkness of the riven, floorless chamber at the bottom of the hanging keep. The wizardess spared no breath on any words, but looked down at her fellow Blades as she traced a wide circle with her hands, showing them the limits of the platform. Then she turned, and without another look back, began her slow, awkward climb again.
Sudden lightnings flashed in the air around the wizard, and she slid hastily down the rope, hugging it in pain. She hung there a long time, motionless, while the anxious Blades called up to her. Though she made no reply, she seemed unhurt when at last she stretched forth her arms again and cast something that made the lightnings blaze and crackle, then fade away.
She climbed on, into the darkness of the lowest chamber. Just before disappearing into its gaping gloom, she turned on the rope and beckoned once.
“Right, Blades!” Tarthe was climbing swiftly up the rope while his eager bellow was still echoing around them.
The lean warrior beside the rope shrugged, spat on his hands, and followed. The hard-eyed priest of Tempus elbowed his way past the others in his haste to be next on the rope. The thieves and warriors shrugged and gave way, then calmly took their turns. So did the stout priest of Tyche, his mace dangling at his belt as he puffed and heaved his way up.
The youngest warrior checked his cocked and loaded crossbows again and sat down among the tethered horses. He watched them calmly cropping all the grass and weeds they could reach, and spat thoughtfully off into the dark hollows below, whence came the faint tinkling of running water. More than once he stared up at the ropes above him, straight as iron rods, but his orders were clear. Which is more than many an armsman can say, he thought, and settled down for a long wait.
“Look ye!” The rough whisper held awe and wonder aplenty; even the veteran Blades had not seen the likes of this in their adventures before. Time had touched the tower, but it seemed enchantments held wind, cold, and damp at bay in some places. At the end of a crumbling passage whose very roof blocks fell at his cautious tread, a Blade might step through a curtain of magical gloom into glory.
One room was carpeted in red velvet: a dancing floor ringed with sparkling hanging curtains crafted of gems threaded onto fine wire. Another held smooth whitestone statues, perfectly lifelike in their size and detail and depicting beautiful human maidens with wings arching from their shoulders. Some were speaking statues, who greeted all intruders with soft, sighing voices, uttering poetry a thousand years dead.
“Such shouldst be my only joy, to behold thee, but yet mine eyes see the sun and the moon and cannot but compare them to thee … and thou art the brightest ennobled star of my seeing.…”
“Look to find me no more, where silent towers stare down upon the stars, trapped in still pools of dark water …”
“What is this but the mist-dreams of bold faerie, wherein nothing is as it seems and all that one can touch, and kiss, are but dreams?”
Marveling, the Blades stalked among them, careful to touch nothing, as the endless, repetitious sighing of the unfeeling voices echoed all around them. “Gods,” even the unshakable Tarthe was heard to mutter, “to see such beauty …”
“And not to be able to take it with us
,” one of the thieves murmured, voice deep with loss and longing. For once, the priests felt as he did, or so their nods and awestruck gawking said, if their mouths did not.
The room beyond the chamber of speaking statues was dark but lit by a rainbow of tiny, glittering lights—sparks of many hues that darted and soared about the chamber like schooling fish, a riot of swirling emerald and gold and ruby that never went out.
Lightning, they all thought, and hung back. Tarthe finally said, “Gralkyn … your foray, I fear.”
One of the thieves sighed eloquently and set about the long process of divesting himself of every item of metal, from the dozen or so lockpicks behind his ears and elsewhere on his person to the small forest of blades tucked and slid into boots, under clothes, and into nearly every hollow in his slim, almost bony body. When he was done, he stood almost naked. He swallowed, once, said to Tarthe, “This is a very large thing you owe me,” and strode forward on catlike feet into the midst of the lights.
They reacted immediately, darting away like frightened minnows and then circling about, faster and faster, until they rushed in on him from all sides with frightening speed, clung—the watching Blades saw Gralkyn wriggle, as if tickled by many unseen hands—and cloaked him in glittering lights.
He looked like an emperor robed all in gems, and stared down at himself in wonder for a time before he said, “Right. Well … who’s next?”
The other thief, Ithym, came into the chamber hesitantly, but the lights did not move from around Gralkyn, and nothing else seemed to happen. Sighing out a tensely held breath of his own, Ithym glided over to his fellow thief and stretched out a hand toward the lights, but then drew it back. Gralkyn nodded at the wisdom of this.
Ithym went on into the far, dim regions of the room and moved about in soft silence for a time before returning far enough for them to see him trace a square in the air: there was a door beyond.
Tarthe took out his cloak, raked all Gralkyn’s discarded metal in it, bundled it onto his shoulder, and strode into the room next, sword drawn. Instantly some of the lights drifted away from the thief in an inquisitive stream, heading for the tall warrior in full armor. The tensely watching Blades saw sudden sweat on Tarthe’s forehead as he strode toward the second thief. The lights swirled around Tarthe as buzzing flies survey a walking man … and then returned slowly to Gralkyn.
The warrior shook his head in relief, and they heard him whisper hoarsely, “Now, Ithym—where’s this door?”
A few scufflings later his voice floated back to them out of the gloom. “Hither, all! The way beyond looks clear!”
Cautiously, one by one, the other Blades hurried or edged past Gralkyn, until at last only the thief in his cloak of lights was left in the room. He walked calmly up to the door, peered through it, and saw the Blades standing anxiously in a little corridor that led into a large, dim, open space beyond. “Back, all of you!” Gralkyn said. “Get well away—right out of the passage! I’m coming through!”
The others obeyed, but waited at the far end of the hall, watching. Gralkyn sprinted toward the door, dived through it, and hit the stone floor hard. As he passed through the opening, the lights halted, as if held by an invisible wall, so he was stripped of all of them. After a moment, he got to his knees and crawled as fast as he could out of the passage. Only then did he look back, at a smooth wall of twinkling lights, solidly filling the doorway.
“Are ye … well?” The words were out of Elmara’s mouth before she thought about the prudence of asking.
Gralkyn rubbed at his shoulders. “I … know not. Everything seems aright … now that the tingling’s stopped.” He was flexing thoughtful fingers when Ithym shrugged, drew a slim dagger from his belt, and flung it at the doorful of floating lights. There was a vicious crackle of tiny lightnings, so bright they all drew their heads back and grunted in pain, and the weapon was gone. There was nothing left to strike the floor. When they could see clearly again, the lights were still filling the doorway, forming a smooth, unbroken barrier.
Tarthe looked at it sourly. “Well,” he said, “that’s no way back as I’d care to try. So … forward.”
They all turned and looked about. They stood on a balcony that curved slightly as if on the inside of a vast circle. The waist-high stone railing in front of them opened on to nothingness. Vast, open darkness. They peered along the walls, and could dimly see other balconies nearby—some higher, some lower … all of them empty.
Tarthe shrugged. “Well, mage?”
Elmara raised an eyebrow. “Do ye seek my counsel, or a spell?”
“Can you conjure a sphere of light and sail it out into this?” He waved an arm at the great darkness before them, being careful not to extend it beyond the rail.
Elmara nodded. “I can,” she said quietly, “but should I? This has the feeling of—something waiting. A trap, belike, awaiting my spell to set it off.”
Tarthe sighed. “We’re in a wizard’s tower! Of course there’re hanging spells and traps all about … and of course we invite danger by working magic here! You think none of us realize that?”
Elmara shrugged. “I … strong magic is all about us in webs. I know not what will befall if I disturb it. I want all of ye to be aware of this and be not unprepared to leap aside if … the worst comes down on us. So I ask ye again: should I?”
Tarthe exploded. “Why these endless questions about what is right and should you do thus or so? You’ve got the power—use it! When d’you ever hear other mages asking if hurling a spell is to the liking of those around?”
“Not often enough,” one of the other warriors murmured, and Tarthe wheeled around to give him a flat glare.
The warrior shrugged and spread empty hands. “Eh, Tarthe,” he protested, “I but speak my view of the world.”
“Hmmph,” Tarthe grunted. “Take care that someone does not alter your view of the world for you—forcefully, and mayhap working on what you view with, not what you see.”
“Well enough,” Elmara said, raising her hands. “I will give ye light. Be it on thy head, Tarthe, if the result be not pleasant. Stand ye back.”
She took something small and glowing from a pouch at her belt, held it up, and muttered over it. It seemed to bubble and grow in her fingers, and she spread them to let it rise up and hang in front of her face, spinning, shaping itself into a sphere of pulsing, ever-growing light. Its flickering radiance gave the mage’s sharp-nosed, intent face a brooding appearance.
When the sphere was as large as her head and hung bright and steady, Elmara bent her gaze on it. Obediently it moved away from her, gliding soundlessly through the air, out from the balcony into the darkness beyond. As it went, the darkness parted before it like a tattered curtain, showing them the true size of the vast chamber. Even before it reached the far wall of the great spherical room, other radiances not of Elmara’s making appeared, here and there in the air before them, brightening and growing until the Blades could all see their surroundings. Balconies like their own lined the curving wall on all sides, save where darkness lingered above and below. The spherical space within was huge—much larger across than Ondil’s tower was on the outside.
“Gods!” one of the warriors gasped.
The priest beside him murmured, “Holy Tyche, be with us.”
Four spheres of hitherto dark, slowly brightening radiance floated in the center of the huge chamber. Three of these globes were as tall as two men, and one other, smaller globe hung between them.
The nearest globe held a motionless dragon, its vast bulk coiled up to fit within the radiance, its red scales clear to their gaze. It seemed asleep, yet its eyes were open. It looked strong, healthy, proud—and waiting. The most distant globe held a being they’d heard of in tales: a robed, manlike figure whose skin was a glistening purple, whose eyes were featureless white orbs, and whose mouth was a forest of squid tentacles. It, too, hung motionless in its radiance, standing upright in emptiness, its empty hands having one finger less than their own.
A mind flayer! The third globe was partially hidden behind the dragon’s bulk … but the Blades could see enough to bring the cold, sword-biting taste of fear strongly into all their mouths at last. The globe’s dark occupant was a creature whose spherical body was inset with one huge eye and a fanged mouth, and fringed with many snakelike eyestalks: a beholder. Its dread kin were said to rule over many small realms east of Calimshan, each eye tyrant treating all beings who dwelt or came into its territory as its slaves.
Elmara’s gaze, however, was drawn to the fourth, smaller globe. In its depths hung a large book held open by two disembodied, skeletal human hands. When Elmara narrowed her eyes against the bright blue glare—everything in this place was magical, making her magesight almost useless—she could see bright webs linking the four globes and wavering between both skeletal hands and the tome. They must be animated guardians, those bones … as well as the three monsters.
“So do we turn away from our greatest challenge and live, or go after that book and die gloriously?” Ithym’s voice was wry.
“What use is a book?” one of the warriors replied with loud fear.
“Aye,” the other agreed. “Just what Faerûn needs—more deadly spells for mages to play with.”
“How so?” Gralkyn put in. “Yon book might be prayers to a god, or filled with writings that lead to treasure, or …”
The warrior Dlartarnan gave him a sour look. “I know a spellbook when I see one,” he grunted.
“I did not ride all this way,” Tarthe said crisply, “to turn back now—if there is a way back that won’t kill us all. I also have no desire to ride back into that last inn empty handed and have all the tankard-drainers there think us a pack of cowards who did nothing but ride out, eat a few rabbits in the wilderness, and ride home again, our untested blades rusting in their sheaths.”
“That’s the spirit—” Ithym agreed, then added in a stage whisper “—that’ll get us all killed.”
“Enough!” Elmara said. “We’re here now and face two choices: either we try to find another way onward, or we fight these things, for be in no doubt: all of those globes are spell-linked to the book, and those bone-hands too.”
