Blackstaff Tower

by Steven E. Schend

  Centiv bristled, as Khondar had kept him busy with other errands, collecting spell components and preparations for tonight’s work. The elder Naomal had locked up the book, keeping what it said secret from him. He trusted his father not to steer them wrong, but he ached to have that knowledge for himself. Then he could prove his worth to his father and to everyone. “Father,” he asked, “of what else did the book talk about? Do we need more magic prepared than those scrolls provide?”

  “Of course we will, fool!” Khondar snapped without taking his eyes off the key he rotated in his hands, looking at it from all angles in the late afternoon sun. “We must go back to the Towers of the Order and meditate, then memorize our strongest spells. The scrolls and keys will gain us entry to the tower, but we shall have to win the Blackstaff ourselves.”

  “But I thought the keys—”

  “Khelben Arunsun and his successor Tsarra Chaadren were the last to allow a door on Blackstaff Tower. Since their deaths, none but the Blackstaff, his or her heir, or their chosen guests have entered the tower. Part of that is due to its lacking a door. The keys allow us safe passage through the outermost defenses and make us seem to be heirs to the tower. When used in concert with the scrolls, the keys allow us to unlock other secrets that might normally trap intruders.”

  “Couldn’t we use the Duskstaff we already have? We know we can move that with Ncral’s Ring. Having a weapon crafted by the Blackstaff might come in handy.”

  “Very good, Centiv, and well planned. As it will support your disguise as Samark, I was going to suggest that very thing. After all, we can’t teleport inside the curtain wall around the tower, and the book suggested we would need a staff to open the gate. I assume that, should we take it into the tower, we can use it to sense for sympathetic enchantments and track those to the Blackstaff’s seat of power.”

  “So all we need do now is wait for the fall of night and then we breach Blackstaff Tower, to claim its power for ourselves?”

  “Yes, my son,” Khondar said, looking away from the keys for the first time to focus on Centiv. “And with the power of the Blackstaff and this guild behind us, we should be able to force the Lords into working with us to help restore a more proper order in Waterdeep.”

  CHAPTER 11

  That old wizard could escape a noose simply by making the hangman disbelieve his head were attached to his neck proper-like! Varad Brandarth weren’t called the Shifter for naught, though he never snaked out of his debts neither—unlike some magic-workers I might mention …

  Jorkens of Waterdeep, Journal VII,

  Year of Silent Shadows (1436 DR)

  10 NIGHTAL, YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  I don’t want to get too close. Marael said she’d heard that Blackstaff Tower drives folk mad who’re not supposed to be there.”

  “I heard it eats the souls of folk who touch it without protection.”

  “My mother always said Blackstaff Tower stayed strong because of all the ghosts in it.”

  “Well, you know that if Blackstaff Tower ever falls, so goes the City, right?”

  The whispers and rumors flew fast among the Watchmen posted that morning and afternoon around Blackstaff Tower’s walls. For the first time in recent memory, the Watch stood guard over one of Waterdeep’s oldest landmarks.

  “We’ve been standing out here all day. Why’re we here again?”

  “You didn’t hear? The old man’s foreign consort turned up dead!”

  “Are we supposed to watch for anyone skulking around the place? Or just guard it?”

  “I dunno. I’m not the civilar! I could go for an eel pie right now.”

  “Stop talking about food. You’re making me hungry!”

  “So if the Blackstaff’s so powerful and this place is powerful, what’re we doing here?”

  “Jarlon promised the Watchful Order the favor of guarding this place, and he’s ordered us here. That’s all I know.”

  “Since when does the Watch work for the wizards of the Watchful Order?”

  “Since Ten-Rings and Jarlon learned to scratch each other’s back, that’s when.”

  “Stifle it! Here’s comes Jarlon. And look who’s with him.”

  “Rorden or no, he looks like a kid begging for a toy from those old men.”

  “Better not let him hear you say that.”

  Jarlon, the Watch rorden, walked up the street, and the young Watch officer motioned the guards to let them through the gates. The cordon parted without a word, allowing him, Samark the Blackstaff, and Khondar “Ten-Rings” Naomal to approach. Samark tipped the Duskstaff forward and touched the gates. A ringing sound resonated through the gates, and the ironwork writhed and twisted, the iron rosebushes and staves shifting out of the way to unlock and open the gates. The ringing stopped, and only the slightest of protesting groans accompanied the sound of the gate’s hinges.

  Once they passed through the open gates and were inside the curtain wall, both men turned to face the Watch. Samark addressed the guard captain. “Thank you, Rorden Jarlon. We appreciate your men’s vigilance. Thank you all for keeping watch over my tower from those who attacked my heir during my absence. Now, you may disperse, as your services are surely needed elsewhere.”

  The watch commander nodded, then shouted, “Stand down, men! Convene back at the Tharelon Street post!”

  The two dozen men and women of the Watch did not linger, though a few muttered as they fell out of formation. Not a one cast another look back at the forbidding stone wall or tower that they would all swear made them feel colder than the chill winds did.

  The two wizards stood stock still until the street around the tower’s wall was empty. The gates closed and locked, the ironwork reweaving its tangled rose briars across the bars and lock. Only then did the two men turn and walk to the tower.

  Khondar forced himself to breathe deeply, keeping his excitement to himself. He’d dreamed of making Blackstaff Tower his for decades, and his dream was at hand—as was the constant reminder of the one who’d stolen his dream. “It still makes me shudder how well you ape that bastard Samark in tone and voice,” Ten-Rings said softly.

  “Well it’s easier than trying to duplicating some of his spells,” Centiv whispered. “Now are you sure we have the proper precautions?”

  “I have Krehlan’s rings, you have the Duskstaff, and we each have a key,” Ten-Rings said, reaching into his cloak and removing a large parcel. “We should be safe from immediate defenses. Once we’ve breached the tower, we simply have to find the true Blackstaff and claim its power for our own. Do we have appropriate cover?”

  “For all anyone knows or perceives,” Centiv bragged, “you and the Blackstaff have taken to walking a circuit or two around the tower, talking low between ourselves, since I addressed Rorden Jarlon. Should anyone bother to try and listen in, we are currently discussing rumors and gossip among the Watchful Order. That illusion should give us about half a bell’s worth of cover and also cloak our physical presence and voices. It ends with the two of us entering the tower anyway, so we won’t be seen in two places at once.”

  “Good planning, Son,” Khondar said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Here are two spells you must cast on the walls, while I work on our protections.” He handed him a scroll tube with two scrolls, both slightly heavy from the gem-encrusted sigils and heavy metallic inks. In turn, he opened a tube of his own, withdrawing the first of numerous scrolls. The two wizards intoned the phrases from the scrolls, and wisps of smoke rose from the vellum as the sigils disappeared. While cloaked from outside view, the two wizards’ forms and the tower wall before them glistened with magic sparks of a variety of colors. Eventually, the sparkles stopped whirling around them and shimmered into translucent fields of blue-green energy. When that happened, Khondar cast his fourth spell, the scroll consumed itself in white smoke, and the stones and mortar glowed with the same energy—as did the two keys that hung on cords around their necks. He nodded, and the two men stepped forward into the
walls of Blackstaff Tower.

  Khondar stood just inside the wall he’d just passed through and smiled. He’d expected much of the interior of Blackstaff Tower, and this did not disappoint. Instead of a common stone tower with defensive spells flaring to life, this was special. The walls became lost amid a sea of floating stones and random architecture, from flagstones to arches and statues to doors floating free in a dark night lit from behind, as if they now floated among the Tears of Selûne trailing behind the moon. The only stable feature here was a set of stone steps spiraling up into the night, though no mortar or stones lay between each successive step.

  Khondar and the illusory Blackstaff each stood upon a patch of solid flagstone floor, but while they entered within a hand-span of each other, they now stood more than a man’s height apart, and Khondar actually had to look up and behind himself to spot Centiv. When he did so, he also saw something coming out of what appeared to be a bright red nebula.

  “Son, watch out!”

  A blast of red energy slammed into Centiv’s back, but his aura held firm and the energy ricocheted off to blast some of the stairwell free. A giant hand made of lightning reached around from behind him and wrapped its crackling fingers around him. While a portion of his protections burned up and the pressure was enough to keep Ten-Rings from using his spells, the aura held. Centiv spat out a spell at the hand, making it fizzle out.

  “Thank you,” Ten-Rings said, and he returned his attention to his bracers, clasping each with the opposite hand. The gems glowed as he thought about his rings that gave him the ability to move objects from afar and the ability to control the elements. He smiled as the rings blinked into view on his hands, replacing Krehlan’s shield rings. Khondar hadn’t been sure the transfer would happen inside Blackstaff Tower, but the proper rings gleamed on his index fingers. He used their magic to move his stone platform well away from Centiv and toward one of the few patches of wall still floating near them. Once in motion, he withdrew one more scroll from his sleeve and read it.

  Centiv tried to disperse any and all illusions around himself, but he still floated aimlessly in a night sky. All his actions managed to do were to set his platform to spinning him upside-down. Centiv noticed Khondar moved farther from him, and asked, “Father, where are you going?”

  Centiv’s control over the Duskstaff faltered, and the Duskstaff rocketed off the platform away from him. Centiv tried to grab at the staff, but he did not leap off of his only solid perch. The Duskstaff, free of any control, flew straight through a black tear in space and disappeared. His voice quailed as he shouted, “Father, I’ve lost the Duskstaff!”

  Khondar ignored Centiv and continued reading from the scroll and waving one hand in an involved casting.

  Centiv tried to dispell the illusions again. “Father! I can’t dispel any of this—they’re not illusions!”

  As both mages wove spells of dispelling frantically into the void, rips appeared in the air around them. Out of the rifts flew a wild snarl of translucent blue imps and a shriek of glowing red gargoyles. The creatures descended upon the two wizards’ platforms and attacked their protective magic auras—the gargoyles vomiting fire, the imps spitting ice. Just as the attackers reached Khondar, two silver pulses expanded in the air around him and dissipated like smoke rings. Khondar heard the creatures jabbering but could not understand them.

  “The shields are holding!” Centiv yelled. He drew a wand from his belt, blasted a gargoyle with orange missiles. “I thought you said the spells would make the tower accept us! These things are speaking Elvish, saying, ‘Neither bears the mark. Neither is an heir true!’ What went wrong?”

  “Don’t you have any stronger spells, boy?” Khondar asked, his aura filled with the white smoke of the consumed scroll he had cast. He waved his hands, and white light shimmered around every imp and gargoyle around him. Many froze in place, and with their wings no longer beating, they fell into the void around him or clattered, paralyzed, on the stone platform where he stood. Khondar smiled—until he saw more opponents flowing out of the void.

  Centiv snapped his fingers through a quick spell and he and his stone platform appeared in eight different places, hovering at different angles. As the imps and gargoyles spat and clawed their way past the illusory Blackstaffs, two wands flew down the stairs, leaving trails of silver sparkles in their wakes. Weaving paths through the fray, the wands settled into the hands of Ten-Rings.

  “Your mirror images will only delay them so long,” Khondar said. “You’ve always relied too much on the misdirection and tricks of your illusions. Time you learned and used real spells, like a real man!”

  “Those illusions helped keep you alive and safe and in power at the Watchful Order!” Centiv shouted, as a translucent gargoyle shattered against the blue shield. “They were good enough when you needed them! At least I’ve never had to rely on items, like you and your rings! And my lies were only spells, not actual treason to guild or city!”

  “Everything I’ve done has been for Waterdeep!” Khondar said, brandishing the wands. “I’ll supplant Dagult and return Waterdeep to the proper rule of proper wizards!”

  Khondar waved, and the blue shields that wrapped him unfurled and became a wall that shoved all the confining imps off of him and his stone platform. He gestured with his opposite hand, the sapphire on the ring glowing coldly. The corded key around Centiv’s neck drew taught and snapped, and the key flew into Khondar’s palm.

  Khondar looked at Centiv, smiled coldly, and said, “Prove yourself now. Tame Blackstaff Tower, boy! If you can, we’ll rule as Open Lord and Blackstaff. If you cannot, you’re no son of mine!”

  With that, Khondar wrapped the two wands and the key in his cloak and stepped back through the wall of the tower.

  Centiv’s shout of “No!” fell upon silent stone.

  His anger at his father’s betrayal vanished as Centiv realized he was alone. The translucent gargoyles and imps all turned to him and smiled. They became more transparent until all had disappeared. The strange void in which Centiv floated began to shrink as the stones assembled and came together as a chamber. There were still holes in many places, and Centiv himself stood as if the eastern wall were the floor, but it appeared to be a standard chamber.

  “Father, no! Don’t leave me!”

  “O-ho, someone’s fallen into another web of yours, old man.”

  The voice took Centiv by surprise, its lilting tone arising very near him but without a person attached to it. A light green fog rolled down the stairwell, and Centiv thought he heard a low growling like a wolfpack on the hunt. A tendril of fog slipped ahead and touched the illusory robes Centiv wore as the Blackstaff.

  “That form is not yours, boy,” said a harsh whisper.

  Centiv recognized it as Samark’s voice. The illusion he wore of Samark’s form shattered. Centiv stood with his own form and face in the humble blue robes of a Watchful Order mage.

  “Congratulations, little illusion-weaver. You and your sire are the first unwelcomes to darken the doorstep of Blackstaff Tower in more than a score of years.” Another deeper voice he didn’t recognize. It was a man’s voice, spoken from the air before him. As he stared, Centiv saw a face coalesce in the green fog—an angry face clean-shaven save for dark sideburns, and long dark hair that swept past shoulders barely manifesting out of the mist. Other beings partly or fully phased out of the fog, their bodies alternating between translucent fog and seemingly solid features. Within a breath, Centiv found himself being watched by multiple fog-forms.

  “We’ve been bored without playthings,” said a lissome halfelf with dark hair and a shock of light green at her temples. She whispered into his ear, wrapping her fog-self around his body and teasing his face with a kiss as cold as the night air outside. “No offense, Sammy, but he’s prettier without your face on him. Reminds me of one of the Estelmers from times long gone.”

  “He’s not one of your conquests, Kyri. He’s a shapestealer, an intruder, and a traitor to Waterdeep.
It simply remains to be decided how he shall be punished.” The voice, far away from Centiv, drew his attention to an older woman kneeling on the stairs and drawing a bow on him. He wove a shield in the air before him but hardly expected that to do more than delay things.

  “I’m not a traitor!” Centiv shouted, and he turned to follow his father’s example by fleeing—only to find all but the patch of floor on which he stood to be less than solid. In every direction he tried to move, the stones either tipped and floated off like loose stones as light as feathers or dissipated as illusions. The tautness in Centiv’s stomach wrenched another knot tighter. He leaped for what appeared to be the outside wall—only to collide with the same solid spot on which he was now trapped.

  “The pack has been hungry since the Night of the Black Hunt more than two-score years gone,” said the male half-elf, his open robes exposing a lightly haired chest of wiry muscle beset with a multitude of sigil tattoos. “Set them loose on him perhaps?”

  “Ashemmon speaks true. The pack is hungry.” Centiv started as the first face he saw returned at his shoulder, speaking directly into his ears. “And we know what you visited upon our heir, false one.”

  “I did nothing!” Centiv howled. “It was Father and Granek!”

  “Every Blackstaff and heir is tied to this tower,” said the darkest, deepest voice. “What you did to Vajra is inexcusable … and inhuman.” Samark’s face, almost white in anger, wisped before Centiv’s eyes. “Your lack of moral courage had you stand by while others did her ill. That brands you villain, Centiv Naomal. If I still had a body, I’d share some of her pain with you.”

  As Samark spoke, the stones on which Centiv stood rolled up and clamped hard around his feet. He screamed as bones in his feet ground together, and he fell backward, his feet still imprisoned.

  “Oh wait,” Samark said softly. “I can share something.”

  “We are none of us powerless, limited though we are to the tower,” said the deepest voice. “We are merely limited until our heir can rise to the fore and face off our second hapless victim.”