“You stand before Blackstaff Tower,” she announced formally, then added curiously, “I don’t recall seeing any of you before. Were you apprentices of the master?”
“Yes,” Jhessail lied boldly. “Please take us to him.”
The young woman looked them over slowly, a slight frown on her face, and nodded. “Ascend and enter-but be aware that whoever’s scrying you will see nothing once you pass these doors. If you desire to communicate anything to them, do so now.”
“Scrying? We’re being watched?” Semoor snapped.
As the woman started to nod, Jhessail spread her hands with a flourish. “ ’Tis worse than I’d thought,” she whispered melodramatically. “Hurry!”
The Swords hastened up the steps. As the doorguard-apprentice stepped smoothly back out of reach, wands ready in both hands, the doors opened by themselves.
Boldly, Jhessail and Pennae together stepped into waiting darkness.
Chapter 27
For what have you gained, if you win fame, titles, riches, and high regard-and lose yourself?
Horaundoon of the Zhentarim cursed.
As the Swords entered Blackstaff Tower, his scrying was blocked. Its dark doors seemingly shut out everything.
He plucked a wand from a drawer, leaned over the scrying orb, and whispered the spell that would steal power from it-and fed the surge of magic to his scrying.
Blackstaff Tower remained a dark and solid wall to his scrutiny-but the doorguard’s eyes narrowed.
Frowning, she sketched a circle in the air with her forefinger, raising one of her wands into it.
Hurriedly Horaundoon passed a hand over his orb, and departed the chamber that held it.
The explosion at his heels flung him across a passage, made the very floors and ceilings sway and shudder, and left him coughing in dust and clutching his head, his ears ringing from its roar.
He regained his feet and strode along the hall, hissing curses.
Only to stop, stunned anew. Reeling, he fell to his knees, clawing at his head this time and making the hargaunt chime in furious discordance.
It felt as if someone had just reached a fist into his head and torn something out. The mindworm link was simply-gone.
The Swords blinked again. They could see nothing inside Blackstaff Tower but impenetrable darkness, with a faintly glowing flagstone path running away into it.
Running a longer way, it seemed, than it should have been able to stretch, given the size of the tower… or at least, the size the tower had seemed on the outside.
Pennae held up her glowstone. Its faint radiance was strong enough to show her itself-just-but shone nothing on the gloom all around them.
They stood tense, a darker menace settling on the backs of their necks: a strong, constant feeling of being watched.
“Naed,” Pennae whispered. “Jhess, lead on.”
“Me?”
“ ’Twas your idea, lass, this marching right into the tower of the Blackstaff himself.”
“But-”
“ I’ll lead,” Florin said, stepping around them. “Keep your feet on the path, and don’t reach out into the dark.”
They watched him walk away from them. After only a few strides, he vanished, becoming part of the great darkness. All they could see of him were moving occlusions of the flagstones.
“Come,” Islif ordered the others, setting off after Florin. “Holy men, don’t go casting any spells.”
They all walked the path, and soon enough came to Florin, standing on a small cluster of glowing flagstones. In front of him, the path ended, and steps climbed on, each one floating alone in an apparent void.
Frowning, Pennae climbed the lowest step and cautiously reached out to either side-only to draw back her hands. “Cold, hard stone,” she murmured, “but I can’t see it.” She ran her hand over the hard nothingness to her right, seeing how far it extended-and then jerked her hand back with a hiss. Something small and unseen had bitten her, warningly.
“What is it?” Florin asked.
Pennae shook her head. “Just climb,” she said, “and keep your hands in close.”
They climbed.
The stair ended in darkness: a level, smooth stair stretching away they knew not how far. Cautiously Pennae advanced, tapping with her toes to make sure solid stone awaited her next step. “Keep still,” she snapped over her shoulder. “ Don’t go wandering.”
She took another two cautious steps-and suddenly, silently, without any fuss at all, vivid brightness sprang into being around her knees.
She was standing knee-deep in emerald green, dun brown, dark blue, and white-flecked gray: a glowing, incredibly lifelike map of Faerun floating in the room all around her. It seemed as if she were a striding colossus, standing at the heart of… the High Forest, with Waterdeep just here and Cormyr over there, Suzail a tiny glittering on its coast, and Arabel…
“Gods above us,” Florin murmured in wonder. All of the Swords were gawking at the splendor around them, walking with slow caution yet disturbing nothing with their movements.
“So, you are-?”
The voice was old, dry, calm, and male. It seemed to come from all around them.
They looked about uncertainly, still seeing only darkness where there should be walls and ceiling.
Florin cleared his throat. “I am Florin Falconhand, unseen sir, an-”
“I know who you are, all of you. I should have spoken more precisely; what have you become, you six? A destructive whirlwind that at least knows what it destroys, as it blunders across Faerun? Or-wonder of wonders-a wind of destruction that begins to care about what it shatters?”
The Swords of Eveningstar looked at each other.
The voice spoke again. “Perhaps that’s too much to hope, yet. Well, then: let me at least aim you, if you’re the sort of weapon biddable to being aimed. How would you like to be wealthy lordlets and ladies of a beautiful backwoods dale, with a castle to call your own?”
Pennae drew in a deep breath. Here’s where we get slain. “What’s the catch?”
There was a chuckle, and the map faded around them-light stealing into the room to replace it, showing them no walls nor ceiling, but a faint, featureless glow.
Standing in it was a stout, burly shouldered man, muscled and vigorous, whose robes were as black as the staff in his hand. His bristling brows and unruly hair were black, his close-cropped beard was black but with a white tuft down its center, and the face above his raven-dark mustache was craggy and stern.
“Blackstaff am I,” he said. “Welcome to Blackstaff Tower, Swords of Eveningstar. I’ve heard good things of you.”
“Really?” Islif asked, startled into speech. “Who the Nine Hells from?”
Khelben laughed-a dry, rusty sound, as if mirth seldom burst from this particular wizard. “Surprising sources,” was all he said, when his laughter ended.
Florin eyed him, waiting for him to say more.
Khelben merely met the forester’s gaze and smiled.
Silence fell and stretched.
And stretched.
Finally Semoor sighed and said, “So tell us more of this lordlets and ladies offer… and as Pennae asked, the downside to it. We know full welclass="underline" there always is one.”
Khelben nodded-and there was suddenly a pendant floating in the air in front of Florin’s nose.
An oddly twisted thing, hanging from a chain that floated in the air as if around a phantom neck.
“Behold the Pendant of Ashaba.”
The Swords gazed at it in silence.
“The lordship of Shadowdale,” the Blackstaff added. “Yours, if you’ll take it. Meaningless, if you go not to Shadowdale, to the Twisted Tower of Ashaba that stands empty, and assert it. One of you can be Lord of Shadowdale-before the gods, one of the prettiest places I’ve ever laid eyes on, verdant farms walled in by a great greenwood, on the main trade road between the Moonsea and Cormyr. Your fortunes are made, if you but take it.”