The abduction ddt-1

by J. Robert King

  The Open Lord ducked back, then lunged, landing a second attack.

  "I thought I would regret having to kill you," the warrior hissed in pain, "But I will not regret it at all."

  The cell door proved rotten around its barred window. A repeated series of kicks to the bars at last tore them free of the spongy wood. The iron dropped to the ground and rattled loudly.

  Now, Noph needed merely to wriggle through… After a lot of shimmying, a few select curses, and one moment of panic when he was stuck halfway in and halfway out, Noph won free of the door and rolled out onto his shoulders. He let out a blast of air as he landed.

  "Better my shoulders than my head," he muttered.

  The reborn hero stood and brushed himself off. He took a deep breath. "Time for some true valor."

  With that thought, Noph strode to the dim, winding stairs and climbed upward, toward the screaming above.

  This dungeon is deep, he thought, breathless. The steps seem to wind forever. It didn't take half as long to be dragged down here… of course, other legs did that work.

  After his fourth circuit of the stairs. Noph saw a light above. The roar of battle had redoubled. By his sixth circuit, he reached a round doorway. Noph darted through it into a hallway. He halted, panting.

  Which way to the sanctuary?

  After a moment of indecision, he followed the echoing cries down the hall. In no time, he had reached the narthex.

  Ahead of him, a shimmering curtain of darkness stretched across the doorway. A few nobles staggered out, their hands groping blindly forward. When they entered the light, the folk blinked in astonishment before gathering their wits and darting away from the sanctuary as quickly as they could.

  Bring them out. That's what a hero would do here. Lead the people from the darkness into the light. One more deep breath, and into the crowded chaos he plunged.

  Khelben writhed beneath an agonizing weight. It had fallen upon him just when the shadow warriors appeared. It had fallen with the very weight of the palace itself.

  He had seen only the flare of candles, figures taking shape out of flames. Then, as the warriors became flesh and leapt to the floor, the terrific crushing blackness had fallen atop the Lord Mage of Waterdeep.

  He gasped, air seeping damnably slowly into and out of his lungs. He struggled to hold to consciousness, all his spells lost beneath numb fingers.

  Whatever magic had brought these warriors here, it was ancient-a sorcery that could shatter worlds.

  Noph had made numerous forays into the wheeling black chaos of the sanctuary. Because of his efforts, hundreds of guests had fled to safety. Their battered rescuer did not even waste time watching them flee but rushed back for more souls.

  It was dangerous work in that unnatural darkness. Each time Noph grappled a given guest, he was paid back with a royal pummelling. In a battle at midnight, saviours and slayers are hard to distinguish. In payment for his assistance, Noph had received two black eyes and a broken nose, as well as bruises and scratches ail over his body.

  Once he had wrestled a guest into the light, though, it was a different story. Some were almost penitent. A few even apologized, or kissed him on the very cheek they had previously punched. All of them, though, quickly turned about and pelted for the nearest exit.

  Noph returned to the sanctuary. Plunging back into the darkness felt much like diving into a cold sea where sailors drowned amid frenzied sharks.

  This time, though, when his hand caught hold of a woman's arm, she shouted out with an unmistakable Calashite burr, "Let go of me!" '

  "Ah," he replied. "Music to my ears."

  With newfound energy, Noph wrestled the woman into a headlock-he imagined her still with a lizard head-and hauled her kicking and screaming into the light.

  Instead of letting her go, he dragged her onward, and down the steps of a very deep dungeon.

  Unsure where the warrior's blade would strike next, Piergeiron countered with a wide sweep of his own. Steel edges rang against each other. Piergeiron twisted Halcyon, entangling the man's weapon. He struggled to fling the sword to ground, but the shadow figure held the pommel tight. Blades slid and scraped, pushing off to one side.

  Piergeiron stepped up next to the warrior and stomped on his foot The shock and pain jarred the man's hand loose. Piergeiron twisted his foe's sword free and flung it to the ground. Then he kicked the warrior's good leg out from under him and swung Halcyon to bear on the man's throat.

  "Surrender, all of you, and I will spare this one," Piergeiron commanded.

  Laughter came from the circle of warriors around. "Go ahead and kill him. Its your right, and we never liked him anyway"

  “I will fight every last one of you" Piergeiron warned. "I will slay every last one of you."

  More laughter. "Open Lord, if your soul can see so well, why don't you take a look around?”

  He did, sensing the ring of warriors, twenty strong, on all sides of him. "So you have us surrounded. If you were men of honour, you would come one at a time to fight me."

  "Maybe you can see us with those paladin eyes of yours," jeered one of the warriors. "Maybe you can sense the presence of evil all around you, but what about the presence of good? What about your bride? Where might she be?"

  Piergeiron whirled, his hand out. "Eidola? Where are you?"

  There came no response except the guffaws of the warriors.

  "Where is she? What have you done?"

  The shadow warriors were withdrawing, their circle widening around Piergeiron. The Open Lord charged the nearest one, skewering him with his sword. As the man fell dead beneath him, Piergeiron pulled Halcyon free and rushed onward. He stumbled over a fallen bench and the bodies beneath it.

  The warriors continued to retreat, picking their way through the wreckage of the sanctuary. Piergeiron thrashed forward a few steps more, but was dragged down again by smashed wood and groaning forms. The invaders had reached the far walls of the chamber. Each turned and stood, stationed before the ensconced candles. Their bodies suddenly leapt up, forming six-foot high flames.

  Piergeiron shielded his eyes from die sudden light, as did the remaining stragglers and dying victims in the ruined chapel. Then, with a pop, the candle flames shrank inward and disappeared. Darkness again settled over the smouldering ruins of midnight.

  Chapter 7

  For Worse

  "Anything yet?" asked Piergeiron. He leaned against a wall of Khelben's laboratories and watched the slow dripping of the mage's Kara-Turian water clock. Aside from requesting updates, Piergeiron could well have been a statue.

  "I said five more minutes " Khelben noted testily. The Lord Mage was stooped over a pile of books that were sprawled open atop each other.

  "It has been four minutes thirty-eight seconds." the Open Lord noted dully.

  "I said five minutes." Khelben repeated.

  Piergeiron said no more, still pressed against the cold stone wall.

  In the remaining twenty-two seconds, Khelben flipped me pages of several tomes, consulting charts and tables. When ten seconds were left, he looked up irately at his friend. With an off-handed flick of his wrist, Khelben cast a slow spell upon the water clock. Its constant gurgling slowed until it was nearly stopped. There was no reason to slow Piergeiron as well. The man could not be slower and still live.

  Khelben sighed, and worked another two hours. When he was done, he dispelled his enchantment.

  Piergeiron blinked. "Ah, five minutes."

  "Here it is," replied Khelben. "I've been searching ancient texts for references to spells or artifacts characterized by their dweomer draw. What crushed me to the ground was a sorcery of great magnitude."

  "And?" Piergeiron asked listlessly.

  "I found three possible artifacts, two of which were unlikely due to the-"

  "And, which one?" Piergeiron asked.

  "A Bloodforge. It was a Bloodforge that created that army."

  "What is a-"

  "It's an artifact of great a
ntiquity, a device that can form armies out of min air."

  "Each candle was a Bloodforge?" asked Piergeiron.

  The mage shook his head in consideration. "No, but each was linked to a Bloodforge somehow. They allowed the forged warriors to gate into the palace and back out again." He cleared his throat. "As far as I know, the only place where Bloodforges are found is the Utter East."

  "The Utter East?"

  The mage nodded. "The candles confirm it. They were an engagement present sent to Eidola from an unknown benefactor, who suggested their use in the wedding. Though the giver is unknown, the crate in which the candles came is stamped with border seals that stretch from Waterdeep all the way down to the Utter East."

  "Even if I have to travel the whole world, I will find her" said Piergeiron wearily.

  "And what of Waterdeep when you are gone? What of the trade route and all the other programs you have worked so hard to implement?" Khelben pointed out. "Running out across half the world is a job for the young, Piergeiron. For those with nothing better to do. Send someone else."

  "How could I?" the Open Lord muttered. "How could I trust Eidola to anyone else?"

  "Are you so arrogant as to think you are the greatest warrior in Faerun?"

  Piergeiron looked chagrined.

  Khelben went on, "And isn't trust something that has set you in good stead until now?"

  Piergeiron dropped his head toward his chest and slowly nodded.

  The Blackstaff stood at the door to Piergetron's drawing room. His knuckles rapped lightly on the frame.

  "Open Lord, I have brought him, as you requested."

  From the plush darkness of woolen carpets and velvet drapes came a faint summons. "Come in."

  The wizard silently drew back the door and, with a smooth wave of a hand, gestured the lad forward.

  Noph had looked better, certainly. Both his eyes were black, his nose had been set with sticks and torn cloth, and his lip was split in two places. He favoured one leg as he came in, a crutch jammed under his arm. Though Noph had publicly abnegated his nobility and subsequently been disowned by his father, he still carried himself with the bearing of a nobleman as he bowed deeply before the Open Lord.

  No, not the bearing of a nobleman, but that of a hero.

  Piergeiron's own wounds were in interior spaces. Though the body that slumped in the chair before Noph was the same well-dressed and athletic figure as before, Piergeiron's eyes were as dark and empty as the burned out Eye of Ao.

  "Ahem," Khelben said, standing there beside the lad. "Open Lord, remember, you wanted to see him?"

  "Yes," replied Piergeiron. He offered no more comment.

  Khelben's black brows drew down, and he prompted, "Something about rewarding his heroism… Beyond releasing him from the dungeon…"

  "Yes."

  The master mage turned toward the tattered lad. "The Open Lord is in need of your service, Kastonoph. He needs men he can trust, especially now."

  Noph nodded humbly. "I could use the work-"

  "It's more than just trustworthiness. If it weren't for you, the crossbow would have gone off as those rogue mariners had planned, and we would have had no idea who had done it"

  "I can start right away-“ Noph said.

  "You single-handedly foiled a guild plot against Lady Eidola. You caught the ringleader, squeezed a confession from her, and rounded up the others-not to mention the scrap of cloth that was the chief evidence against the second-in-command. If it wasn't for you, we would have thought the assassins from the mariners guild were in league with the dopplegangers or the agents from the Utter East. You and you alone solved the one mystery that has been solved here-"

  Noph wore a wondering look as he studied the Lord Mage's face. "If your concern is money, I wouldn't need more than bed and board-"

  "Damn it, son-you're making this only more difficult," snapped Khelben. His eyebrows thickened like twin storm clouds. "I am not accustomed to being a messenger boy for the Open Lord, or anyone-"

  "What the Blackstaff is trying and failing to say," interrupted Piergeiron quietly, "is that I owe you a deep apology. I placed my trust in you once, and it was well placed. I should not have doubted you"

  Noph coloured, unsure how to respond to the apology of the Open Lord of Waterdeep. He waved a dismissive hand. "Bygones." "And not only do I and all Waterdeep owe you a debt of gratitude, but we have further need of your heroism. We yet do not know what the dopplegangers had plotted, or for whom they worked. And we have no idea yet who those shadow warriors were, where exactly they came from, and where they took Eido-" The Open Lord's voice, until then a thready whisper, was choked away into silence.

  "He wants you to aid a group of paladins we are gathering to rescue his bride," Kbelben supplied. "Would you be interested in such an appointment?"

  Something of Noph's former spirit returned. "I go to watch" Postlude Wrong Side of the Mirror

  Oh, to sleep…

  It is all I want to do.

  This weariness is the sort mat denies sleep.

  Perhaps if I slept, I could keep the dust of my pulverized world from filtering down through my eyes and mind and into my very soul. Perhaps if I slept, I would be letting go like the very dust itself. After all, what once bound all to all is gone now. Everything solid melts into air.

  Shaleen, it is as if you died again.

  What has happened to me, to the Open Lord of Waterdeep?

  What once bound all to all?

  Oh, to sleep…

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