To the thief’s right, Midnight also stepped forward. She did not feel very threatening. Her arms quivered with fear for her lover’s life, and the mage was so exhausted it might prove impossible to lift her hands for an incantation.
“Don’t be foolish,” Cyric snarled. “Drop your weapons or I’ll slit Kel’s throat.”
“You’ll do it anyway,” Adon replied. “At least you’ll die, too.”
The cleric raised the mace over his head, but Midnight shook her head. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“The same thing I’ve always wanted,” Cyric replied. “The Tablets of Fate.”
“So you can become a god,” Midnight mocked. “Ao will never make a god of a thief and a murderer.”
Cyric burst out laughing. “Why not?” he asked. “This is the same overlord who created Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul!”
Midnight frowned. It had never occurred to her that Ao might be an evil god or one who did not care about good or evil. However, that didn’t matter at the moment. She stepped back, summoning a magic missile incantation.
“He dies!” Cyric screamed, recognizing the look of concentration in Midnight’s eyes. “The tablets, now!”
Midnight looked at Adon. “Let him have them,” she said, dropping her hands to her sides.
“No!” Kelemvor exclaimed. “He’ll kill me anyway.”
The fighter started to rise, and Midnight knew Cyric would strike. Midnight’s only hope of saving her lover lay with her magic. She quickly performed an incantation, pointing her fingers at the thief.
Twenty golden bolts flashed from her fingers—then missed their target and arced away into Waterdeep. An instant later, the ground rumbled. Twenty different buildings shot into the heavens, leaving long plumes of golden flame in their wakes.
Midnight’s knees buckled and her head began to swim. She stumbled backward two steps, but did not allow herself to fall. Her magic had failed her.
The misfired incantation astonished the men, but only for an instant. “Bad luck,” Cyric sneered. He turned his attention back to Kelemvor, who was rising to his knees.
Adon stepped forward, swinging his mace. Cyric’s anger changed to fear. Kelemvor had forced him into a mistake. The thief swung his right leg up and thrust his heel into Adon’s ribs, using the bloodstained hole in the cleric’s shirt as a target. His foot connected with a satisfying thump.
The cleric bellowed in agony and dropped his mace and the tablets, then doubled over and collapsed. His lungs burned with each breath, and he felt as though another arrow had pierced his ribs.
Kelemvor lunged, hoping to topple Cyric before the thief regained his balance from kicking Adon. But Cyric anticipated the attack and sidestepped the lunge easily. As the fighter flew past, the thief stepped around behind him.
Cyric could not help smiling. From his position, and with both Adon and Midnight all but helpless, he could easily wound the warrior, yet spare his life. Instead, the thief thrust his sword into Kelemvor’s back, putting all his weight behind it, burying the blade as deep as possible.
As Cyric plunged his weapon into the fighter’s back, Midnight saw that the wound did not bleed, and that the sword was drinking her lover’s blood. A sick, guilty anger came over her. Screaming in rage and anguish, the mage pulled her dagger and found the strength to charge.
The fighter felt his life draining away. “Ariel,” he whispered through the pain. As his vision blurred, Kelemvor Lyonsbane wondered if, perhaps, he’d done enough good in the short time he was without his curse to be remembered as a hero. Then he died.
At the same time, Adon tried to stand. However, his body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to. When he pressed against the roof, his arms simply quivered and jets of agony shot through his torso.
Cyric calmly pulled his sword out of Kelemvor’s back and turned to meet Midnight’s attack. He blocked the magic-user’s wild stab, knocking the dagger from her hand and sending it off the tower. Turning his parry into an attack, the thief dropped his blade beneath the mage’s arm and lunged.
But Midnight was quicker than Cyric expected. She sidestepped his attack, then raked her fingernails across his face. The mage had forgotten about the denizens, the tablets, and even her own life. At the moment, all she wanted was to make Cyric pay for killing Kelemvor.
The hawk-nosed man screamed, then knocked Midnight down with a powerful kick. She landed flat on her back six feet away. The thief’s face stung, and he could feel blood dripping down his cheek. “You hurt me!” he snarled, more astonished than angry.
“I’ll kill you,” she said, standing up. Her words were calm and even.
“I don’t think so.” Moving so quickly and so smoothly that Midnight did not see the blow coming, the thief rushed forward and drove his sword into her abdomen.
Midnight felt a sharp pain, as if Cyric had kicked her again, and her breath left her lungs. She looked down and saw the sword hilt protruding from a gash in her robe, the thief’s hand still wrapped around it. Her intestines began to burn, then the sword began sucking her life away. Too shocked to resist, the magic-user clutched at the hilt and tried to pull it out.
Cyric pushed, keeping the blade imbedded in the wound. “Just a few seconds longer,” he said, “and you’ll be with Kelemvor.”
Midnight began to feel detached from her body, as though she and it were separated by miles.
“I won’t die,” she hissed.
“Won’t you?” Cyric asked, twisting the blade.
“No!” Midnight cried.
She released the sword, then straightened three fingers and jammed them into the thief’s throat as hard as she could. The strike nearly smashed his larynx. Choking and gasping, he stumbled away, pulling the sword out of the mage’s body.
Midnight collapsed into a sitting position. She held her hands over her wound, which had begun to bleed.
Cyric swallowed and cleared his throat several times, attempting to restore the normal passage of air. Finally, he lifted his sword and started toward Midnight again. “For that, you die in pain,” he gasped.
Barely capable of focusing on the thief, Midnight raised a hand and pointed it at him. She tried to summon an incantation that would kill him, but the pain in her stomach clouded her head and she could not think clearly. Her mind simply filled with a jumble of nonsensical words and meaningless gestures.
Just then, a fierce round of battle cries came up from Swords Street. Watching Midnight over his shoulder, Cyric went to the edge of the tower to see what had happened. Just a hundred yards from the base of Blackstaff’s home, the Company of the Manticore and the 5th Watch Regiment were engaged in a confused, whirling melee with Myrkul’s horde. Human and denizen bodies alike lay stacked two and three deep, and blood ran down the gutters in streams. The buildings lining the street were scorched and half-destroyed from the desperate magic that wizards had flung into battle without regard to misfires or precision.
As Cyric watched, a group of denizens broke through the line. Five mages directed spells at them, resulting in a spray of colors, an unexpected rain shower, and two miniature tornadoes. But one of the spells went off correctly, and a fireball engulfed Myrkul’s warriors. To Cyric’s surprise, the magic reduced the denizens to charred lumps. A dozen of Waterdeep’s soldiers gave a rousing cheer, then rushed over to seal the gap the attackers had been trying to exploit.
And from what Cyric could see from the tower, the battle was going badly for the denizens all across the city.
The battle was turning, though Cyric could not see the reason. In fact, Elminster had finally reached the other side of the Pool of Loss and closed the portal. The loss of contact with Hades was demoralizing the denizens. It was also weakening much of their invulnerability to spells, fire, and weapons, which was due to magic emanating from Myrkul’s realm.