Blackstaff Tower

by Steven E. Schend

  The translucent white-green field completely encased the tower and all its subsequent magical fields, coalescing from top to bottom like a snowdrift built in reverse. It closed completely around and beneath the talons of the stone griffon atop the tower. The field shimmered and faded to near-invisibility. The populace watched as the wolves flew sunward around the tower, seeking the traitor Ten-Rings.

  Khondar heard the howls, and he heard the claws scrabbling against all the other magical fields. The two wolves clawed their way past the first two barriers through the tears the barbarian’s plummeting escape had created. But rather than close with him directly, the wolves each dodged into the spaces between the barriers, harassing and howling at Khondar with only air and energy between them.

  Khondar tried to fly straight out, using the tears in the outer barriers to escape, but the fields slowed him, as if he flew through thickening syrup. The tears sealed before he could leave. He lunged toward the fallen Meloon Wardragon, only to see Renaer Neverember and Eiruk Weskur drag the barbarian back to safety. Ten-Rings slammed face-first into the second barrier. He tried to concentrate, but the increased howling distracted him.

  Ten-Rings concentrated on his bracers and tried to will his spell-storing ring to him, but no transfer happened.

  That Blackstaff bitch found a way to disrupt the Jhaarnnan Hands? Impossible!

  He imagined more tortures he would visit on her. Now that Meloon had taken Azuredge away, the wolves closed on him.

  Khondar flew up from the base of the tower, using one of his rings to call up an earth elemental from the courtyard stones at the base of the tower. One of the wolves simply grew in size and savaged it to rubble in less than a breath. The second wolf swooped up and ate Ahghairon’s Amulet. That barrier slammed shut again with a thunderclap, and Khondar realized to his horror that the barriers that penned him in meant nothing to the wolves. They dived through the tower itself if their paths took them that way. The first wolf flew above and gobbled up the wand floating in the third barrier. When the wand snapped in two in its jaws, the sound echoed, as if it were a century-old phandar falling in a storm.

  The howling wolves flew three passes while Khondar flew one circuit up and around the tower, and one last thunderclap told him one of them had removed Ahghairon’s Ring from the fields.

  Ten-Rings slipped up to the top of the tower and unleashed a chain of lightning bolts, engulfing both creatures, but the energy served only to make the wolves seem even more solid. One wolf bit and slashed at Khondar as it flew past, dislodging the bracer he wore on his left wrist and swallowing it whole. The wizard did not initially feel his wounds, but soon screamed in pain as he realized it had stripped flesh from his arm along with the bracer. He pulled his wounded arm in close and readied a spell with his undamaged hand.

  “I’m Ahghairon’s heir! You things should be hunting down my enemies!”

  Khondar “Ten-Rings” Naomal unleashed a dazzling flurry of colored orbs from his right palm, the iridescent blasts from the orbs temporarily scattering the image of one wolf. The second wolf slipped around the tower and came up from below the wizard. It clamped its jaws down on his extended right hand and chewed. The wizard screamed and pulled his arm back. All he retrieved from the wolf’s jaws was half his bloodied sleeve and his muscle-clad bones. No bracer, no skin, and no rings. Khondar’s last coherent thought as he descended into madness was—I’ll need that skin more than they will … for spell components.

  The cloud of white and green energy drifted around the tower, slowly becoming a spectral wolf again by its third circuit. It chased Ten-Rings four full orbits around the tower before it snapped its jaws closed over his left hand, stripping it of flesh and rings. Khondar blasted the wolf’s head off, as many green missiles crackled off his skeletal right hand, but again, the green-white cloud drifted away slowly, lupine features growing back together slowly. The other wolf attacked from behind, snatched Ten-Rings up in his jaws, and worried him left and right, tearing his cloak off his shoulders and rending his tunic to tatters before letting him fly. Khondar fled.

  Items clattered onto the cold, snow-covered stones at Vajra, Laraelra, and Osco’s feet. The bracer she’d seen Khondar wear, along with a handful of rings, appeared, covered in blood.

  “They started with the left hand and arm, I see,” Vajra said, dispassionately.

  “You mean … those wolves … ?” Laraelra asked, swallowing hard and gagging as more bloody bits arrived to stain the rapidly falling snow. Laraelra staggered over to the tower’s edge and retched. She wiped a hand across her mouth, then pulled at the trap door atop the tower. It opened easily, and she said, “I can’t watch this. I’m sorry.”

  Osco kept his stomach from rebelling, but he too retched when steaming remnants of Ten-Rings’s gore-soaked tunic and breeches landed with wet splats atop the pile around the Jhaarnnan Hands. He followed Laraelra into the tower, casting a sad eye back toward Vajra. “You coming?” he asked.

  The Blackstaff shook her head without turning.

  The Black Hunt delivers what it brings to ground, Vajra recalled reading, but she never realized that the wolves and the Black Hunt magic would be involved when she set her spells into motion. The bloody rain of rent garments continued, followed by the clang of the second bracer and the tinkling of five metallic rings. Vajra steeled herself and swallowed, whispering, “The Blackstaff is as hard as stone.”

  She thanked Auril silently for the heavy snow that now swirled around, as it helped blanket and deaden the strong smell of spilled blood.

  Inside her head, Khelben’s voice said softly, Birth and death always come with blood. Waterdeep has seen a traitor’s death and a Blackstaff’s birth—and perhaps more still.

  Some mothers dragged their fascinated and bloodthirsty children away, while other Waterdhavians pushed forward or joined the crowd to watch the gory display. People cheered as the wolves clamped onto opposing limbs and pulled. The only things hindering people’s views of the carnage were the constantly changing flight of the chase and the onset of winter’s first blizzard.

  Renaer, Eiruk, and Meloon smiled grimly when Khondar’s eyes locked on each of theirs in succession as he passed by while flying from his tormentors. The wizard’s brief pause allowed a wolf to catch him again and rend the last rings from his left hand—along with the rest of its flesh. The young Lord Neverember, Meloon Wardragon, and Eiruk Weskur were among the few folk who remained in place, watching this spectacle wordlessly. They were also among the very few who did not begin taking wagers as to which body part would be next to be damaged. They simply waited to see that justice was done. By the time the wolves charged in opposite directions to tear the body of Khondar “Ten-Rings” Naomal in twain, glow-globes shed light down on the snow gathered deep across their shoulders.

  EPILOGUE

  For Waterdeep to remain the City of Splendors, it needs heroes and folk of valor to carry her banners higher than commerce or politics. Splendor is not a right but a privilege, and one that must be earned by courage, not bought by coin nor conjured by magic.

  Aleena Paladinstar, Of Fathers, Faiths, and Fortunes,

  Year of the Hidden Harp (1403 DR)

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

  The light of Selûne and her Tears reflected off a fresh snowfall as the private carriage dashed past Ahghairon’s Tower.

  “Ugh,” Lady Nharaen Wands said. “I can’t stand that new horror the wizards unleashed.” She looked away, pulling her mink-lined hood closer to shield her eyes, but Lord Torlyn Wands could not tear his eyes away.

  The now-skeletal remains of Khondar “Ten-Rings” Naomal continue to fly within the spell barriers around the tower, his skull ever turning to spot his pursuers. Also within the barriers lurked two spectral wolves, ever giving chase. Torlyn smiled grimly as the wolves flew in opposite directions around the tower, only to have Khondar’s skeleton explode as the wolves tore him in two different directions at once. Lord Wands knew that the skel
eton would reform and the chase would be on again—forever a warning to those who sought to abuse Waterdeep’s past and its magic.

  A good sign for our times, Torlyn thought. The past watches and warns us always, and we can’t ignore it. Still, we have to keep moving forward—and perhaps we’ll be deserving of the gifts of the past in the hopes of a brighter future.

  A short time later, the carriage halted at Roarke House, and Torlyn said, “This is my stop, sister. You go on and enjoy the Gralleth ball. If our business gets concluded early enough, Renaer and I will be along.”

  “Can’t I come with you, Brother?” Nhaeran asked. “With Hurnal being found dead, are you sure it’s safe for either of us tonight?”

  “We’re both safe. Our cousin died because of his own dealings with Khondar Naomal. Even if the old wizard hadn’t killed him to get at the Blackstaff, Lord Thongolir and his men might have done so rather than just reporting their finding his body.” Torlyn smiled, and his reassuring touch on her arm calmed his younger sister. “So go to this feast with a light heart, but don’t expect me before highmoon.”

  “I shall have to set up a number of ladies with whom you can dance when you arrive, Brother,” Nhaeran teased.

  Torlyn shut the carriage door and shook his head as he approached the door and knocked.

  Madrak, Renaer’s halfling butler opened the door and waved him in, smiling. “A pleasure to see you again, Lord Wands. This way, please.”

  Renaer watched from above as Torlyn, the last of his eight guests, arrived. He smiled and finished adjusting his new tunic and jacket before he headed downstairs to the dining hall. According to Madrak, the early arrivals had quickly guessed who had summoned them here to Roarke House, given the presence of the halfling servants and cook staff from Neverember Hall. Still, as requested, all the hin begged off providing any more details when asked by simply replying, “The master will tell you when he’s ready.”

  Renaer entered the room, and Madrak and the three other halfling servants withdrew, closing the doors behind them. Renaer strode to the head of the table and raised a goblet, toasting all.

  “Friends, good health, good deeds, and good fortune to us, those we hold dear, and our city!” He looked on each of them and was glad all were now healthy and healed from their recent adventures.

  After the nine of them drained their goblets and filled them again, Renaer strode to the sideboard and pulled a long chest out of the lowest drawer. “I asked you all here tonight—at the sight of our foe’s failings—to thank you all for your help in these past tendays and to beg one more indulgence on my part.” He placed the large box at his end of the table, opening it and withdrawing its contents one by one.

  He passed each of them a small box, which opened to reveal a gold signet ring marked with a crescent moon and a star. “Look inside them as well,” Renaer said. Inside the band, beneath the signet, a smooth garnet glinted in the light.

  Osco snorted. “What’s all this?”

  “I want you all to join me in restoring the city to what it should be—the City of Splendors. We need to be heroes like those who used to fill this city. We need to bring hope and honor and trust back to the streets.”

  “And we need rings for this?” Eiruk Weskur asked. “One would think after Khondar’s fall, you’d not want anything to do with rings for a while.”

  “Not particularly, no,” Renaer said, “but I wanted a badge or symbol of some kind for us. When I had those rings made, I was thinking I might try and restore the Moonstars, who were former Harpers and personal agents of the Blackstaff.”

  With that, every other head in the room turned to Vajra, whose silver-shod Blackstaff rested upright of its own volition next to her chair. She finished what she was eating and wiped her mouth.

  “You’re not personal agents of mine,” Vajra said. “That was more than a century ago. I’m happy enough to call you friends and staunch allies. Nor am I a leader of folk—at least, not yet. Know that while Renaer and I talked about this, I am not the driving force behind the idea—Renaer is—though you’re all welcome to use the name of the Tel’Teukiira. I know those who came before you would be honored. I will happily work with you, but my responsibilities force me to remain apart from your group for now.”

  “I remember most of them Moonstars dying at the Stump Bog fighting some group of vampires or something,” said Harug Shield-sunder. “Year of the Fallen Friends or something.”

  Parlek Lateriff said, “That’s right. Many did. But not all. The most significant change from that battle was the death of Tsarra, the second Blackstaff. The Tel’Teukiira are a dubious group to follow, Renaer, with a less-than-charmed legacy left behind.”

  “Why not be the Red Sashes?” Osco piped up. “Isn’t that where you were going with the hidden red gem, Ren?”

  The only response he got from Renaer was a sly smile as he lifted his goblet to his lips.

  Torlyn Wands snorted and said, “Depending on whom you ask, the Sashes were either the agents of a rogue Lord, a lawless band of brigands who thwarted the Watch from ever changing Dock Ward, and even some who claimed they were demons hiding in the city and slaying those who dared try and send them back to their home planes.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be linked to that!” Meloon said, slamming his mug down. “What’s all this about linking us to some old group long-dead? Not all of us have our heads stuck as much in the past as you do, Renaer.”

  “I’m hardly stuck in the past,” Renaer said, placing his goblet back down quietly as he got up. “It’s more about honoring the past efforts of those who kept Waterdeep a good … nay, a great place. But above all, it’s not the name we call ourselves as much as that we acknowledge the past while forging a new way for the future. Change is all around us, and it’s inevitable. I just want us to make the city change for the better, whether we use old names or new.”

  “Count the Wands as allies in secret,” Torlyn said. “I for one love the idea of aiming for a better city—one filled with heroes and magic like my ancestors built, rather than the one the Spellplague did, full of mistrust and fear. Old Maskar would have loved this.”

  “I’ll do it,” Laraelra said, “provided we can honor Vharem and Faxhal with posthumous membership in this group of ours.”

  “Already done, but thank you for bringing them up, Elra.” Renaer paced around the long table, touching her shoulder as he passed. He raised his goblet and said, “To Vharem Kuthcutter and Faxhal Xoram, to lives of friendship and honor, and to fighting for what is right and true. May the gods smile on all who thrive or fall while pursuing such lives.”

  Everyone drained their goblets and mugs and Renaer began again.

  “Vharem and Faxhal are both interred in a tomb Harug and I converted from one of the storerooms in that hall of doors beneath us. Their sarcophagi each bear the crescent moon and star. That’s why I want to use Roarke House as a base for this group. I don’t want this place to only be half-remembered as a house of a traitor. I want it to hint at but not confirm that our group is indeed here.”

  “But if you want us to be heroes and inspire folk, why operate in secret?” Osco asked. “Other than to keep your cards close to the vest?”

  Again, Renaer’s only answer was a sly grin.

  “Mirt’s Mysteries,” Vajra giggled. “Well done, Renaer. We approve.”

  Harug also grinned beneath an ale-foam-soaked moustache.

  Meloon looked at Vajra and Renaer, and said, “Huh? What’s she talking about?”

  Parlek smiled as he said, “It’s an old idea of the Lords, attributed to Mirt the Moneylender, from whom all the modern usurers take their name. ‘If you want people to talk about things in Waterdeep, suggest that folk keep it a secret. It’ll be on everyone’s lips without your ever having to utter a word.’”

  Eiruk and Meloon started talking over each other, soon joined by Elra and Osco and Harug. Only Parlek, Vajra, Torlyn, and Renaer kept their council as everyone fought over what to call themse
lves and why. They argued long into the night, never deciding on their group’s name, nor attending any solstice ball, but cementing friendships that would last years. Renaer had no doubt that these comrades would help him foster new changes. He looked forward to seeing increased valor and bravery on the mean streets of Waterdeep for the first time in a long time.

  GLOSSARY

  Armar—Second officer’s rank in the Watch (equal to a sergeant) Aumanator—God of the sun, dawn, light

  Aumarr—Fourth officer’s rank in the Guard (equal to a captain)

  Castle Ward—the heart of the city, home to governmental buildings (the Palace, Castle Waterdeep)

  City of the Dead—walled cemetery for the city against its eastern cliffs

  Civilar—Generic term for officers above armar-rank and below senior commanders

  Crown of the North—Waterdeep’s common title/honorific (since the Spellplague)

  Daern—Dwarven term for “familiar”

  Delvarin’s Daubles—Dwarven term for “digger’s treasure” (ala “finders-keepers”)

  Dock Ward—the southernmost and oldest ward on land, filled with warehouses and danger

  Downshadow—the undercity that was once the uppermost levels of Undermountain (the city’s dungeon)

  Field Ward—the ward between North Trollwall and the new city walls, home to many demihumans

  Guard—the bodyguard and external army/guard for the City and Palace, supplementary to the Watch

  Hin—racial name that halflings call themselves

  Mistshore—the former naval harbor filled with wrecks and debris, now a dangerous floating slum

  Mountainside—north/northeast faces of Mount Waterdeep, homes for those of rising fortune & the rich

  North Ward—the northwestern ward filled with nobles, Waterdeep’s “old money” neighborhood