"I know, Father." Centiv said. "But given that sigils on the covers match, perhaps this can help us with the book." Centiv unwrapped the kid leather to reveal a hand-sized lens of clear amber crystal.
Khondar snatched the crystal away from Centiv with a growl and held the crystal over the first page of the tome. Through the lens, the page swam as usual, but after a moment, both could see the letters stop shimmering and settle into place. Better still, the letters reformed into Common, and both men read the title.
Lore and Awareness of the Dark Archmage's Acolytes: On the Assumption of Power as the Blackstaff or the Blackstaffs Heir.
Beneath the title page were five signatures-Khelben Arunsun, Tsarra Chaadren, KyrianiAgrivar, Krehlan Arunsun, and Ashemmon ofRhymanthiin-and their wizard marks after them.
Laughing loudly, Khondar threw an arm around Centiv's shoulders, a move from which his son initially flinched before smiling at the show of paternal pride.
"You've done it!" Khondar said. "You've found the way we can make the Blackstaffs power our own! Now if we can just make sure that Tethyrian bitch stays out of the way…"
"In a way, I did so earlier today…" Centiv's flush of pride deepened as he thought about the report his agent Charrar brought to him the previous dawn. While he bristled at the costs in lives and gold, Centiv was grateful he had had to silence only one agent instead of six to cover his tracks. He marveled at the luck Renaer and his friends seemed to have. They had very nearly caught him, all thanks to that skinny witch's muting spell. Before this was over, Centiv knew he had to rip the secret of that spell from her, both to resist it and to exploit it. With that spell, he might even force his father to acknowledge him as an equal…
Dagrol, the Watch armar, entered Shank Alley along with an accompanying wizard of the Watchful Order, both of them with their staves at the ready. The five other Watchmen were either in
Ail the alley already or at either end, keeping folk from entering and disturbing the scene. Dagrol approached his firstblade and asked, "Who found her, Barlak?"
"He did," the watchman pointed at a young boy taller than Dagrol. Despite the cold, the boy wore no shirt beneath his apron, and his muscles showed Dagrol he was used to hauling around loads of heavy fish. "His name's Karel."
"Talk to him, would you?" Dagrol asked the wizard at his side, who nodded and walked away. "Where's the victim?"
Dagrol's impatience was well-known by his patrol, and the young man nodded up the alley to the left. Dagrol found his best vigilant assessing the scene. Tasmia looked up at him, gray eyes somber and haunted.
The body lay tucked against the rough rear exterior of the Filleted Filliar hearthouse. The woman's body had been shoved roughly behind and beneath large stacks of discarded garbage, fish guts, and other assorted offal. Her body was a mass of welts, scars, and wounds, but Dagrol's eyes fell on two wounds in particular.
A dagger jutted out of her right eye, and a short sword had been driven up beneath her ribs and directly into her heart. The blades were ornately decorated along the hilts.
"You ever seen work like that before?" Dagrol asked Tasmia, who knelt beside the body.
"The killing blows, yeah," Tasmia said. "Standard moves to make sure someone's definitely dead, despite all other wounds. Overly showy blades are all the rage right now among the rich, too. The details on that basket-hilt sword, though, give up our suspect right away."
"Who is it?"
"Well, those arms-the bear's claw atop a diamond, all atop a field with three stripes from dexter to sinister-belong to the Neverembers. Unless you think the Open Lord's killing women in alleys these days, I'd say we need to find young Renaer Neverember.
And we'd better do it quickly." Tasmia pulled a rough woolen blanket over the body, and whispered a quick prayer. "Selune keep her soul safe from the predators that claimed this body."
"Aye." Dagrol nodded, sighing deeply. "Anybody else recognize her?"
"Just me, Dag," Tasmia said as she stood, brushing mud off her leathers. "She's Vajra Safahr, lover and heir of the Archmage of the City. If we want justice served, we'd better arrest Renaer and any accomplices before the Blackstaff finds them."
"Gods help us if that happens." Dagrol shuddered. "If he's like his mentor Ashemmon at all, we'll need a lot more gravediggers."
CHAPTER 9
No one ever knew what happened to old Varad Brandarth. Many said he went mad. I knew he was mad before the Spellplague, so it couldn't have been that. I suspect he had one or three hidden safeholds of which only he knew.
Elchor Serison, Sorcery amp; Trust, Year of the Silent Bell (1435 DR)
10 Nightal, Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)
Renaer stepped into darkness. His footsteps echoed loudly. "Kamatar," he said, and fires flared to life in the two hearths on opposite sides of the room.
Vajra stirred in his arms and opened her eyes. Renaer flinched as he saw her eyes waver between the red-black maelstrom orbs and normal eyes of different colored irises. She grimaced, creasing her brow, and her eyes briefly focused into almond-shaped eyes of deep mahogany brown.
"Where am I holding me wait aren't you no a friend carry a vampire's victim?" she said.
Vharem appeared behind them, followed by Laraelra and Meloon. All of them stumbled slightly when they apparated.
Vajra, whose attention shifted quickly to look over the new arrivals. "I don't know…" Vajra tapped Renaer on his shoulder and pointed down with her eyes.
"Welcome to Varadras, milady Safahr, everyone," Renaer said, setting her on her feet. Renaer noticed the others looking around the room, but the skies beyond the windows were dark, and snow and ice covered much of their openings. Renaer said, "Palnethar," and torches flared ro life on each wall and inside a long hallway leading out of it. Cobwebs covered many surfaces and corners, and the chamber warmed now only due to the presence of the hearthfires.
"Neat trick, Renaer," Vharem said. "You never told us you were studying wizardry."
"Varad taught you don't know where how we'll survive when you are mage?" Vajra said, and while she rambled, she approached and touched Renaer, her fingers glowing with magic. "No he casts not words for any safehouse fine for now don't trust it calm down among friends." Renaer heard her voice change inflections and pitch as she spoke. Her eyes shifted as well, flitting between different colors and shades of gray, brown, green, purple, and a dark blue. Still, she stood steadily, looking around the room and smiling.
"You knew Varad?" Renaer asked.
Vajra's only response was an arched eyebrow and a nod of her head toward Vharem.
Renaer remembered how frustrating it was to talk to wizards who liked their secrets. "She's right, if I understood her correctly," her said. "I'm not a wizard, but I've been studying up on this place and my ancestor who built it three generations ago. He set a lot of magic in place, and most remained stable despite the Spellplague. Mostly, Varadras is just a place to get away. My father has no way of finding me here. The manor house is invisible to those outside of it unless you approach within a certain range."
"So where are we?" Meloon asked. He stood at the nearest window, scraping away some ice and rubbing a window clear. "I only see a lot of trees around us. We're not in Waterdeep?"
"We're about a hundred miles due west of Beliard, the town near the Stone Bridge," Renaer said. While he spoke, he led his friends down the hallway, and more torches lit up as they approached, those in the distant entry chamber snuffing themselves accordingly.
Renaer led them past three doors before he stopped, opened a broad pair of double doors, and said, "Dornethar."
Inside that chamber, fires flared to life on three hearths and on six torches set high on the walls. The group entered a carpeted study with shelved books lining the walls. Unlike the other chambers festooned with cobwebs, this room was pristine and cold, though warming quickly. A massive desk of dark wood loomed to the right of the main fireplace, its surface disturbed only by a gleaming ball of dark red cryst
al and a massive tome lying open.
The five of them rushed toward the hearths opposite or flanking the doors to warm themselves. Vajra, who had followed the group with Laraelra guiding her like a child, rushed over to the right, approached the shelves behind the desk, and pushed in a single tome. Without a sound, the shelves swung inward, revealing a secret passage, and Vajra disappeared into the darkness, chuckling.
"Where does that go, Renaer?" Laraelra asked.
They all moved toward the secret door. Laraelra slammed the set of books she carried on the desk as she passed it, heading into the dark room. She muttered a short series of magical syllables, and her fingernails took on a blue glow as she walked.
"I don't know!" Renaer said. "I didn't even know that was there. It's not mentioned in any of the notes or plans." He repeated the words "palnethar" and "dornethar," but no torches sputtered to life inside the passage.
Laraelra finished casting a spell, and a blue glow filled the room. The small windowless chamber lay revealed as a wine cellar, racks of bottles lining the back and side walls and the left-hand long wall left empty to allow passage without disturbing the bottles. Many racks were empty along the right, but the back wall still held nearly its full complement of bottles.
Vajra stood at the center of the wine cellar holding a bottle of wine and blowing off its mantle of dusty webs. She laughed and said, "Varad kept his best never been here how'd she do never mind we must oh bother let's just drink it no share it not for dining keep clear head." She kept muttering and arguing with herself so that she didn't resist when Vharem eased the bottle out of her grasp.
When he looked at the bottle Vharem's eyebrows rose and he whistled a low unbelieving tone. "Renaer, this single bottle's probably worth a tenday's worth of tavern jaunts! The Surrilan vineyards died out in the drought seventeen summers back-and this bottle's more than eighty years old!"
"So that's good wine, then?" Meloon asked, reaching for another bottle.
"Some of the best," Renaer replied. "Vajra, how did you know this was here?"
The dusky woman smiled, her eyes flitting from purple to gray to blue to sea green. "Varad Brandarth was… a good student… faithful friend. Stingy with his wine…" She reached up for another bottle and wiped the dust and webs off on Laraelra's robes before the sorceress could stop her. She smiled and said, "Pikar Salibuck introduced us. Many secrets shared… best was this." She waved an arm around to indicate the room. "Gods, we tried…"
As Vajra whirled with her arms outstretched, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed. Laraelra grabbed enough of her sleeve to slow her before her head slammed into the stone floor, and Vharem made a mad dive to catch the falling bottle of wine. Laraelra shot him a look as she tried to settle the unconscious wizard onto the ground.
Vharem shrugged and said, "What? You had her, and we can't have her rolling around on shards of glass or soaking in priceless wine."
Meloon lifted Vajra and headed with the others back to the study. Renaer kept looking around at the contours of the room, nodding to himself, and examining the bookshelf-door and its triggering book.
"Care to explain all that?" Meloon asked as he placed Vajra on a long divan in front of the small hearth on the eastern wall.
"Varad Brandarth and Pikar Salibuck were both wizards of some note decades past," Renaer said. "They had a friend and mentor in common across the years-the Blackstaff, or at least one of them anyway. I think Vajra is possessed or has some memories of the previous Blackstaffs."
"Just realized that?" Laraelra said.
Renaer opened his mouth to respond, and then exhaled loudly and forced his hands to relax at his sides. "We're all on edge with everything that's happened, and we've had no sleep or food. Fellows, let's leave the ladies here while we find some food to go with this wine." Renaer set a bottle down on a side table, and wrestled the other two from Vharem's grip.
Laraelra sighed and said, "You're right. We all need some rest. Then with a brighter day, we can approach this with clear heads. Maybe remember things we're forgetting now. Renaer, I-"
"Offer apologies by watching her?" Renaer said, nodding at Vajra. "Thank you. Stay warm while we go forage some more food."
Meloon grabbed a few furs off the pile he'd dumped in a corner, and gave two to Laraelra and draped another over Vajra.
"Pikar was Madrak's father, by the way." Renaer said, over his shoulder. "When I was a child, I heard loads of stories that are in few histories about the hin sorcerer of Blackstaff Tower. I'll have Madrak share some of them later."
Renaer led Meloon and Vharem out of the room and closed the double-doors. The three men all shivered as they left the warm chamber for the chilly corridor. Renaer led them to the end of the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and into a large kitchen area. Renaer stayed silent, so the hearth fires did not flare up, icy downdrafts alone disturbing the cobwebs at the chimney. Meloon looked out the kitchen windows, only to see the swirl of heavily falling snow. They walked through a large pantry and down another short flight of stairs into a root cellar filled with dried herbs and bushels of potatoes and such.
"Awfully big place, Renaer." Meloon whistled. "Who did you say lived here?"
"Varad Brandarth, my grandfather's uncle. He was a wizard and one of Khelben the Blackstaffs last students. This place he kept secret from most of his family. My mother discovered the hidden portals leading to it almost thirty years ago. Varadras was empty for more than forty years after Varad died until Mother found it."
"And old Dagult doesn't know about this?" Vharem said. "Seems a piece of property he'd love to get his hands on."
"Mother always thought of this as her secret place," Renaer said, "and she shared it with me alone. Apparently, she found Varad's hidden journals by accident her nineteenth winter, and she hid here whenever she needed. Even though she held few secrets from Dagult, she never told him everything about her family or its holdings. He has never heard of this place. Nor will he."
The young lord led them through the root cellar, tossing an empty bushel at Vharem and then launching a dozen potatoes and half as many onions at him to collect in it.
"So your mother was a wizard?" Meloon asked.
"No," Renaer said as he examined a ring of dried apples before setting it back on its hook. "Neither one of us could read his spell-books, but his journals are mundane and readable. They recorded most of the words that activate magic around the manor. Even you could activate them if you knew the words."
The trio now entered one room with three archways off of it, all stone walls and ground whereas the root cellar had a bare dirt floor. Their breath clouded the air around them, as it was only slightly warmer in here than outside in the blizzard. Renaer opened one jar the size of his head and sniffed. "Hmph. If we take this up with us, the honey should thaw out by the fire. Good stuff too. Varad kept bees here, and his honey was among the few trade goods that supplemented his stipend from the family coffers."
"If all this was here, why did I need to bring food along?" Vharem complained as he examined a few large crocks of pickles.
"The only stuff Madrak and I keep here are things that won't spoil easily," Renaer said. "Unless you wanted to eat only dried meat, honey, and pickled vegetables, what we brought with us should help keep us fed for a day or so until we return to the city."
"Why wait a day?" Meloon asked. "I think Vajra needs some help."
"I think it's something to do with the Blackstaffs power, not her health. We'll have to ask her when she revives."
"Let me guess," Vharem said. "The portal that got us here only works once a day?"
"Close enough," Renaer said. "Besides, Meloon and Vajra are the only ones who've actually gotten any sleep. We need to eat, rest, and then we'll plan our return."
Meloon smiled and said, "Hey, that's a good idea." He reached up and grabbed a large cured ham covered in dusty white mold. "Let's eat this too, then."
Renaer paused as he entered the farthest larder
and said, "Wait a moment. Something's been here since I was here a few months back."
"Probably just a rat or three." Vharem snorted. "Not even wizardry can keep those things out if there's food to be had."
"Bigger than a rat, and I don't know of vermin that stack things to reach high cupboards," Renaer said, nodding toward a haphazard column of boxes atop a chair in one corner.
Meloon looked close at the disturbed dust on the floor and said, "Big feet, too."
"Thanks." A dry laugh answered them from the shadows.
The trio launched into action. Meloon whirled, his axe in his hands. Vharem whipped out his newest short sword on loan from Neverember Hall. Renaer flicked a dagger into each hand and yelled the word "Ronetbar!"n response, the very air in the room took on an amber glow, illuminating every corner and leaving no shadows in which to hide.
Lying atop one of the high cupboards and peering down at them was a young halfling, now grinning. The hin's bushy sideburns were a chestnut brown, like the curly hair on his head, and he dressed in black, which had helped him hide from them in the dark. Silver rings glinted in his left nostril and earlobe. He rolled onto his back and giggled, swinging his feet down off the high cupboard on which he lay.
"Well, if the gods aren't chuckling!" the halfling said between bites of a raw potato. "Hiya, Renaer, Vharem! Whatchaguys doing here? Who's the big blond axeman? Anybody got any tinder to start a fire? I'm freezing."
The double-doors to the study opened, and a halfling stumbled through them, followed by Renaer, who shoved him forward. Vharem and Meloon, each laden with food, followed.
"Everyone, meet Ellial's son and Madrak's grandson, Osco Salibuck."
Osco recovered from his stumble, cartwheeled across the remainder of the room, and landed easily on a footrest by the fire at the center of the southern wall. The hin gleefully rubbed his hands and buttocks, standing to absorb more warmth from the fire and sighing with pleasure. "Haven't been warm for three days, thank Brandobaris for this," he muttered, and then turned back to the group. "You used to be nicer to me, Ren, when we were the same height," He raised his eyebrows when he noticed Laraelra and Vajra stirring on the divans across the room. He slicked his hair back and jerked his thumb toward Renaer. "We grew up together, you know, and I could tell you stories about him. Why, when he was five-"
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