Blackstaff

by Steven E. Schend

  “What is the spell’s range?” Khelben asked, his fingers steepled before his lips.

  “Less than an armspan, sir. I limited it, as this is a spell for study, not combat.”

  Khelben nodded his approval then rose. He seemed lost in thought but waved his hand for her to move along. Oblivious to how he was distracting her, the archmage moved behind Tsarra and placed his gnarled staff against the outer wall, leaning it against one of the bookshelves.

  As he returned to his seat, he explained, “Best I get any other magical items from your sight, lest they disrupt the casting. Please continue, but go slowly so our sorcerous friend—” Khelben gestured toward Tsarra—“may record the nuances of the casting.”

  Danthra coughed nervously, took a drink of water, and resumed. “The older an item is, the longer the casting can take to divine all its properties, but unlike the common identify spell, this can root out all of an item’s abilities with enough time. If an item is made of many different materials, that may slow the effects as well, since the magic will take the caster through all the information on all components. Again, depending on the time spent casting and concentrating, this spell could potentially show you where an item’s metal was shaped, forged, or perhaps even where the ore was mined for it.”

  Khelben interrupted her. “Intriguing, young lady, and certainly research of some merit. Be warned that the item before you could take days to reveal all its secrets, but it should suit for this test. Begin your casting, for theory can only get you so much of my praise.”

  Danthra nodded and breathed deeply to center herself. She took a handful of incense—“This is purified olibanus resin”—and dropped it into a small brazier at the table’s center, its sweet smoke wreathing her and the table’s contents. She traced mystical movements in the air within the incense smoke and around the belt. Danthra drew one finger in a perimeter around the belt and brazier, and the smoke stayed within that boundary thereafter. She then picked up a small pouch and said “This is powdered ivory and pearl mixed together.” She poured the powder into her palm, intoned her incantations, and dusted the item with the powder in her hand. The dust undulated within the incense smoke before settling in a light layer upon the item. After a number of incantations, the dust glowed a variety of colors, all reflected in the smoke and the eyes of the entranced caster.

  Danthra’s voice dropped an octave due to deep concentration and relaxation. “The belt is made of platinum, steel, gold, and beljurels, all of different ages and constructed at different times. This item’s primary purpose is defense both physical and mystical. It augments physical armor with magical defenses but cannot aid other mystical defenses. It can add lightning’s touch to one weapon wielded by its wearer.” With each revelation and comment, the dust and the smoke sparkled and one color among the many dissipated.

  Still deep in her spell trance, Danthra’s brow creased in confusion then surprise, and she smiled. “This belt has held other dweomers and other powers … other names. The dominant magic is no more than three centuries old, and the stones were enchanted centuries before that … cut even longer centuries ago.”

  Tsarra’s nose itched due to the incense, and she scratched while Danthra paused in her monologue. While the cloying sweet smoke prevailed, Tsarra caught another scent—the smell of air after a lightning strike. Tsarra’s thoughts were interrupted as Danthra began again, her words coming at a swifter pace.

  “Zelphar Arunsun changed this belt. He added the buckle, repaired its scale.…”

  Tsarra looked over at Khelben, but their master reacted not at all to the name of his long-dead father.

  Danthra continued, “A half-elf warrior wore this belt last, eleven decades ago. His name was Dakath of Nesmé, and he died wearing it. His squire brought it to Blackstaff Tower and delivered it unto Zelphar.… His family knew it as the Shield Belt of Storms.… A dark wizard crafted the weapon scales with a dwarf centuries before.”

  Danthra touched nine of the individual scales across the belt as she spoke. “Ryttal Ghalmrin forged the metals, and Theod Darkwhisper laid in the enchantment of weapons … they twisted an older magic to bond their work to the belt.… Seven warriors wore it in lands cold across many years.”

  Tsarra stretched her cramped hand and refreshed the ink on the quill. Danthra remained in her spell trance, concentrating for long moments. Khelben looked at Tsarra, glanced down at the parchment, and looked back toward Danthra without a word. The sharp smell of lightning’s wake remained with Tsarra. She noticed the belt was sparkling even more brightly, shooting off sparks that bounced off the spell boundary hemming in the incense smoke.

  “Must be part of the spell,” Tsarra mused, as she reached for another sheet of parchment.

  Danthra flinched and her brow knotted again in frustration. “The belt was filled with darkness … spiders crawling … drow held this for some time … muted the light it once held … this belt was made for elves in sunshine.… It was the—ow!”

  Danthra’s concentration broke when a stream of sparks and crackles came from the belt, striking her and arcing past her to Khelben’s gnarled staff. Tsarra noticed that it too crackled with blue energy. She put her quill down, staring in wonder at Danthra and the two items.

  Danthra looked up, shaken from her spell trance. “Master?”

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Khelben lunged from his chair toward the table and yelled, “Down, both of you!”

  Tsarra saw brilliant blue crackles coalesce around the belt and the staff. She felt paralyzed as the energy engulfed them all.

  She and her chair were both launched from the floor. She saw fear and confusion in Danthra’s eyes, but only anger in the glare of their mentor. The wall behind them exploded inward. Tsarra felt as if she were sinking in a whirlpool then suddenly jerked skyward, and she heard lightning filling the air above a soul-rending scream.

  Energy crackled all around them, making their bodies jerk spasmodically before it bolted upward, lightning stabbing the crystalline sky. Wracked with pain, Tsarra lay where she fell, staring through the ragged hole in the tower and outer courtyard wall. In the middle of Swords Street, Tsarra saw the young man she met earlier that morning. He was down, clutching a short sword, smoke and blue sparks surrounding it. The only details she could make out were his dark, close-trimmed beard, ponytail, red shirt, and three golden diamond designs set into the blade of his sword. Her sight darkened around those diamonds, the three glints of gold playing with blue lightning as she lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  28 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms

  (1374 DR)

  The rogue had walked by Blackstaff Tower nine times in the past four days. His encounter earlier with Tsarra and her apprentices was only his second time being seen by denizens of the tower, both times of his design. Raegar looked for hidden doors in its courtyard walls, though to any watching he appeared only to wander among the wagons and carts scattered around the streets. In late autumn, the guilds, Guard, and Watch turned blind eyes to the many foreign vendors who spread carts beyond the Market, anxious to unload the last of their wares before leaving the city and returning to their homes for the coming winter. A bundle of southern traders crowded Marlar’s Lane and Tharleon Street, providing Raegar with ample distractions. As he dickered with an Amnian weaver over the price of a traveler’s cloak, he felt a tingle on his hip where his sword rested—the new short sword Damlath had given him only a few tendays ago.

  Raegar broke off negotiations with the trader and moved in his planned path across the street and close to the wall surrounding Khelben’s tower. He expected to walk across the front, then turn at the southeast corner to urinate in the midden behind Jhrual’s Dance, the festhall adjacent to the tower. But the sword’s tingling increased with each step. Raegar wanted to stop before it got worse, but a noble’s carriage barreled down Swords Street, forcing him and other pedestrians to the roadsides. Raegar’s right hip brushed up against the outer gate
of Blackstaff Tower’s curtain wall. The gate’s intricate ironwork—its bars shaped into a mixture of wands, staves, and vines of metal—unleashed an explosion of magic on contact. The sword shattered its own scabbard with a blast of lightning that did the same to the gate and part of the wall. Raegar bent down to pick up the fallen sword but hesitated as the sword stood up, balanced on its pommel, and crackled with energy. At the same time, bolts of lightning blew away the wall at the base of the tower. Those bolts zeroed in on the sword, unifying and launching skyward from it as a massive lightning strike. The energy and booming thunder threw Raegar and his weapon into the street.

  Ears still ringing, Raegar quickly grabbed the fallen blade as thunder echoed down the street. He stared at the three gold diamonds emblazoned into the blade, wondering what might have happened if he’d held onto the sword.

  “So much for subtlety,” he muttered.

  All around him, people yelled and pointed at him or stared upward at the path the lightning took. Others still stared at the uncharacteristic holes in the defenses of Blackstaff Tower. Raegar also looked through the hole in the wall, straining to see what secrets he could glean from this distance. All he saw through the settling dust was an injured woman in a gray woolen dress lying on the floor, staring at him with deep hazel eyes—Tsarra Chaadren, the half-elf who had caught his eye earlier. Until she fell unconscious, Raegar froze in place, kneeling as the magic and dust swirled around him. Once he shook his head clear, he slipped the short sword into the torch loop on his belt and got to his feet.

  The thief looked across Swords Street, and his stomach sank. He stared directly into the face of the Blackstaff as the archmage staggered from the smoking crater in his tower. Break into Blackstaff Tower and plunder its secrets? Raegar thought. Good idea, if done discreetly. Face its master? Better idea to leave quickly.

  Raegar used the magical ring on his left hand to wrap the street in a shroud of fog. As always, the ring allowed him to see through it, and he slipped backward to the edge of the cloud and behind the Tavern of the Flagon Dragon. Whispering thanks to Tymora, he watched Khelben and realized the archmage was too stunned to notice much, let alone note him and his part in the chaos. Raegar heard someone yelling across the alley.

  He had rented rooms for the past two months at Sapphire House, an expensive rooming house across Swords Street from Blackstaff Tower. The speaker was a neighbor—Kemarn, a professed scribe buying materials for a wizards’ consortium outside of Nesmé. He showed his true colors boldly, as he hissed, “The tower is breached, men, and the Blackstaff is wounded! Take them both! That sword shall be mine!”

  Kemarn pointed at the tower, but his attentions were on the fog.

  Raegar had met many wizards before and found most to be arrogant, over-reaching, and convinced beyond all reason of the rightness of their causes. He stayed cautious, as he knew he was a target. Even if he didn’t know his sword’s capabilities, the thief knew that anything that could make a hole in Blackstaff Tower was something every power-mad fool in the North would want.

  Raegar thickened the fog, filling Swords Street with it to keep from being found too soon. Panicked vendors abandoned their carts, and even the natives backed away from the fog and the troubles that once again enveloped their city’s archmage. Raegar climbed up the side of the tavern and hid among the roof eaves to watch and wait.

  Let’s see how this plays out before I get an explanation from Damlath, he thought.

  The Blackstaff slumped against the shattered gate, his robes scorched and smoldering. Kemarn cast an intricate spell from his third floor balcony above the fog cloud. Raegar watched four jet-black wolves leap from the mists in the wizard’s hands, growing as they descended until they were much larger than normal wolves. The massive beasts loped across the street, undeterred by the fog, and surrounded the wounded Blackstaff

  Sudden movement from above drew Raegar’s attention to two young men flying down from the tower’s roof. He pulled himself a little closer under the eaves as the older one shouted, “Duty patrol to the wall! Tower under attack!” The younger one’s hands twisted in casting, and the fog cloud dissipated. He spotted Kemarn across the way and pointed a wand directly at him. A green ray struck the balcony, but the wizard no longer stood upon it.

  Raegar smiled ruefully as he heard the roof above him creak. Kemarn had blinked to the back slope of the tavern’s roof, just out of sight of the tower’s defenders. Raegar pulled a small mirror from his belt pouch and held it carefully to watch what the wizard did without revealing his presence there.

  His grin increased as he overheard Kemarn mutter, “Where did that man and his sword go?”

  On the tower wall, the apprentices skillfully dispatched two of the fiendish wolves.

  I don’t know what those wands are, Raegar thought, but I want one.

  The other wolves bowled Khelben over, biting and clawing at his robes and outstretched arms. Raegar found himself almost feeling sorry for the archmage, who seemed incapable of defending himself at the moment. From his vantage point, Raegar could also see a few figures moving among the tower’s shadows. Even without the fog, he knew they would not be seen by the two apprentices, who were distracted by the danger threatening their master. Raegar followed their progress along the northern wall away from the gate and the battle there to slip into the northwestern shadows. Raegar smiled as more apprentices—two young women and a halfling male—appeared atop the wall with wands at the ready. In seconds, they used their wands to dispel the summoned wolves. The halfling leaped off the wall to land by the Blackstaff in a defensive crouch.

  Blackstaff Tower’s students are well trained to respond to trouble, Raegar thought. Too bad their master seems incapable of living up to his reputation today.

  The thief’s attention returned overhead when Kemarn began casting a spell. From his robes, he drew a red, fist-sized globe, which glowed for a moment then blinked out of existence. The tower’s young defenders yelled. A red haze grew around the shattered gate and the two figures there. Raegar shuddered at the writhing mists filled with teeth, eyes, and grasping claws—a nishruu. The halfling used his wand quickly, but its purplish ray melted into the nishruu’s growing scarlet mists, its claws and teeth happily pulling the magic apart and into itself. The eater-of-magic engulfed Khelben and his apprentice, swiftly wrenching magic and life from them. The stunned archmage grunted, and his young aide screamed in pain under the assault, as the monster ripped magic from their minds and bodies.

  The elder boy shouted orders easily heard from Raegar’s vantage point.

  “Triam, be sure that no one’s trying to breach the walls from other sides. Send up a signal if there is. Jalarra, Sarshel, destroy that thing before it gets into the tower! Pikar, do what you can from there!”

  The trio blasted the creature beneath them. The nishruu drank up the magic, its floating mouths smacking disembodied lips with sounds that reminded Raegar of gutting and cleaning a hog. The nishruu growled as the halfling slashed with two glowing daggers. The blades reduced some maws and hands to mist, only to have them reform in other places.

  The nishruu moved over the fallen wizards and drifted toward the tower, which was a vastly more powerful source of magic than any wielders in or around it. Khelben had collapsed, but Pikar still slashed away at the creature’s tendrils and teeth, yelling in anger and pain, “Keep it from the tower!”

  In swift response, Sarshel gestured, and a mist rose at the breach in the tower itself. By the time the nishruu reached it, the opening was sealed by a wall of solid ice.

  Two more apprentices joined the others atop the wall in the blink of an eye—gold elves both.

  “Foolish humans—don’t feed that thing magic! That’s all it eats!” The female’s voice dripped with disdain toward the others.

  “Watch and learn, n’tel’quess. This rod of absorption should kill it, Maeralya,” the male said proudly, “and the master will know which students of his deserve his praise.”

 
; Raegar had tailed a number of wandering apprentices of the Tower over the past tenday. He had seen that haughty gold elf before—Fhaornik. The elf threw the magical rod into the nishruu, and it appeared to burst one of its floating eyes as it entered with a muddy splash … and the mist continued forward, stretching thinly as if torn between feeding more on Khelben’s internal magic or the powerful forces in the stones of the tower.

  Fhaornik sputtered, “But—that’s supposed to kill it on contact!” His face bronzed in fury and embarrassment.

  At the same time, Triam yelled from behind the tower, “Elkord! Back here! Someone’s climbed the wall!

  The tall Tethyrian shouted back, “I’m coming!” He turned to the four standing near him and snapped, “Sarshel, get to the library and find out what kills this thing. Jalarra, go find Laeral. You two,” he barked at the two elves, “slow it down or get Khelben and Pikar from it!”

  Elkord flew over the courtyard and around the tower to help his young student. Fhaornik and Maeralya both readied quarterstaves aglow with magical auras and leaped into the red mists. Raegar heard them both muttering angrily in Elvish, but while he didn’t understand the language, he knew they resented being shown up by human and halfling alike. The two women both said something too low for Raegar to hear, and they teleported off of the wall.

  Pikar Salibuck was a very young halfling, and he fascinated Raegar the most. While spying on the apprentices, Raegar heard that Pikar’s father had lost his life working for the Blackstaff. Pikar was among the rarest of hin to be able to touch the Weave, and Khelben took him in as recompense for his father’s sacrifice. Raegar watched as the strong halfling grabbed the Blackstaff under his arms and dragged him toward the sundered gate as quickly as his short legs allowed.

  The smoky tendrils of the nishruu stretched to reach them, but it relinquished its grip to wrap its mists around the tower. As Pikar pulled the unconscious archmage toward the street, argent flames flashed around Khelben and blazed through the tower. Pikar fell back, screaming, and Khelben’s form spasmed as the fires seared away bits of the nishruu and destroyed the ice wall that sealed the tower as well.