Blackstaff (26 page)

As Khelben and Tsarra silently conversed, the sharntaur slowed its rearing and pawing at the air with alternating hooves and its strange tri-arms. It settled down and stared at the globe that hovered in the air before it. Eyes again peppered the creature’s surface to reflect the energies of the globe. It reached out, and its skin glowed in response as well. Its claws dissolved as it touched the globe, its tri-arm melting into a normal centaur’s hand, albeit obsidian-skinned. Once both hands embraced the globe, its energy leeched into the sharntaur’s skin and body, forming constellations of winking purple and blue stars among the blackness of its shape.

Tsarra found herself speaking in concert with Khelben, finally understanding the obscure Elvish dialect as the two said,
“Remember and return redeemed and readied. We shall await you at Faertelmiir.”

Tsarra didn’t quite know what she was referring to, but the certainty of it never wavered in her or Khelben’s minds. She looked down at her mentor, who she helped settle onto his back, his wound still a massive hollow where his hip and side should be. The only evidence revealing his incredible pain was his shallow and rapid breathing. He smiled at her.

Don’t miss this, Tsarra. Watch the sharn, not me
.

The sharntaur, its silhouetted form fully centauran save for its glistening black skin, bowed to Khelben and Tsarra from its waist. It also wove a number of hand signals and gestures as it bowed in Sandrew’s direction as well. The priest returned a number of the gestures and bowed. The sharntaur crouched then leaped high into the air, which elicited a chorus of screams and gasps as it appeared to leap for Sandrew and the statue. Instead, it disappeared into a nimbus of purple lights at the apogee of its leap.

Tsarra looked down at Khelben again, surprised to find tears of joy rimming both their eyes.

Khelben whispered, “You feel it, don’t you? Even if you’re not fully aware of it all, part of you knows what’s to come and rejoices at it. Remember that when things get bleak. It will help you through harder days than this one. Now, prepare to bear the endgame that is upon us. I’m sorry I did not prepare you better—I thought I had more time. So many things undone, unsaid.”

Tsarra felt a flash of warning in her head along with the loud growl of Nameless as he flew down to protect her. The tressym landed on her left shoulder as the priest and their opponent stepped close to them.

His eyes not on them, Sandrew muttered a few words in prayer, and a glow emanated from his hands. He spread his arms in arcs overhead, and the glow settled into a radiant hemisphere around the quintet.

“There,” said the priest. “Oghma loves to share knowledge, but he also knows when to keep secrets from prying eyes and ears.”

“Glad to see that prayer book I gave you for the founding has seen good use,” Khelben said then coughed violently, expelling small amounts of blood and smoke from his mouth. Tsarra felt his embarrassment over his seeming weakness, though he seemed to have some concerns toward his continued health.

“Lord Arunsun?” Sandrew the Wise asked as he kneeled down opposite Tsarra on the other side of Khelben. “Thank you for saving my temple from destruction, milord archmage. May I heal your suffering?” Sandrew’s clean-shaven face was both young and ancient at the same time, as his unwrinkled brow and umber-colored eyes seemed to hold the insight of ages.

“No, thank you, Loremaster High. It looks worse than it is. That matter is well in hand.” Khelben nodded, though Tsarra noticed his face had returned to its usual stony facade, revealing no more than absolutely necessary. “The scrolls will unfurl in due time, old friend. For now, introduce
us to our erstwhile foe. I believe we all have met briefly, though names were not exchanged.”

Tsarra found herself unable to look away from the young man who locked eyes with her rather than submit to Khelben’s interrogation. While his loose-necked crimson shirt and black leather breeches still bore the marks and stains of a few recent battles, the man himself was clean and whole, his dark brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. His youngish face had a close-trimmed full beard. Tsarra was distracted by his eyes—slate gray with highlights of blue, like eclipsed marble—until he averted them to look at and offer a palm toward Nameless, who had been growling loudly.

The tressym sniffed warily, his head bobbing to get a better range of scent about the man, and Tsarra felt her familiar’s reactions—an odd stream of emotions from surprise, hatred, curiosity, disgust, amusement, jealousy, contempt, and confusion. Nameless began meowing loudly, which Tsarra understood as
“Stinks of longdeadnots and marsh and stone. Didn’t smell that before through sparksmell and fearstink. Like his scent, and he knows not to risk scratching my ears. He still goodforyou matefriend maybe? He huntercurious but also smellfury and wantflightfight like me.”

Tsarra picked up her scimitar and said, “He says you smell of undead, and that makes me distrust you immediately. Despite your open approach toward him, my friend knows you’re furious at something and really want to be elsewhere.”

“Undead, you say? Thank you, Nameless, for that information.” Khelben’s irritation was obvious in his snapped query. “Well, boy? Can you account for your actions? Tell us for whom you work.” His voice never wavered, but Tsarra could feel his strength waning, and his breathing grew labored.

The man’s eyes widened, and he looked frantically at Tsarra, Khelben, and Sandrew, mouthing words mutely. He grimaced and seemed to scream, but no sound came from him other than the rustle and creak of clothing and the rush of air from his mouth.

Sandrew’s hands glowed as he touched the man on the throat, but an attempt to speak after that only produced a rasp. Sandrew looked down and said, “I’m afraid we can learn precious little, Blackstaff. He has been rendered mute by the forces that turned him against his own church.”

Tsarra asked, “So he’s a lay worshiper of Oghma?”

“Aye, lass,” Sandrew said. “This is Raegar Stoneblade. He first came to us as a stonecutter during the Font’s construction, but he has since joined us as a devout worshiper as well.”

Khelben asked, “Is that why he’s been spying on my tower and students?”

Sandrew’s eyes widened, and he spun toward Raegar. “Not by my authority, Blackstaff. Betimes the Font will have seekers pry secrets and lore from those unwilling to share openly, but you and yours have always been friends to us. It appears I have not been as diligent as I might have been over loremasters who may have approved such mischief. Is that the case, Raegar?”

Raegar nodded and gesticulated wildly, trying to pantomime his point, but Khelben began a violent coughing fit, and his shaking reopened his wound. Blood gushed over the floor, and Tsarra felt Khelben weaken, then go silent. His eyes fluttered and closed.

“Khelben?” she asked, kneeling in the blood and putting her hand to his neck to find no heartbeat beneath her hand.
Khelben!

T
sarra’s heart leaped into her throat as she whispered once more, “Khelben? You can’t be—”

Khelben’s eyes snapped open, and his body shook with a violent spasm of coughs. More blood poured onto the floor, but silver flames flickered to life and seared the wound shut once more, an acrid stream of smoke rising from Khelben’s shattered hip.

Eltargrim’s Bones, this hurts
. Khelben looked at Tsarra with eyes drained of energy, before he said, “Out of time. We need him and what he knows.” Khelben’s eyes closed for a moment, and Tsarra felt him scream angrily inside, though that emotion never made it to his face. “Tsarra, take him to the tower. Ask my wife to attend to the boy’s tongue. She should mindspider him if she has to, but I hope it won’t come to that.”

Raegar clenched his jaw, and his knuckles
whitened but he relaxed when Nameless growled at him and drew attention to him. He nodded to Khelben and Sandrew, but Tsarra noticed his face still blanched.

“You’ll not punish him, Blackstaff? I sense he has been a pawn and deserves no reprimand beyond helping right what he has wronged,” Sandrew said. “I cannot openly acknowledge what he does for my church, but I can vow that his heart is a good one and his skills and actions do not overshadow that.”

“Punishment is far from my mind, Sandrew,” Khelben gasped, “save to let him help us visit it upon the one who wronged all of us. Now, time is short for us all. We must away.”

“Are you certain you don’t want healing?”

“Too many gods’ magic affects me already to accept one more right now, Lorekeeper. I have my own remedies, thank you. There’s no need to carry me, either of you.” Khelben glared at both Tsarra and Raegar who had moved to either side of him. He sent to Tsarra,
Back away, as both of us can’t use this magic and I need you to be my hands for a while. Look to your intuition for guidance, in case I don’t respond for a while
.

Khelben’s blue eyes lit up with silver and gold as he whispered a spell. Gold shimmered in the necklace he wore, a tiny tapered bottle. As he finished, his form dissolved into a golden mist, shrank, and seeped into the bottle. A necklace alone rested on the bloodstained marble floor. Tsarra and more than a few onlookers gasped with his disappearance.

Sandrew the Wise smiled and said, “An Anyllan’s bottle. I read about these ancient elven devices, but I never thought I’d see one that still worked. Khelben should be safe to heal slowly inside there.”

Tsarra stooped to pick up the necklace off the floor and place it around her own neck. She sent out tentatively,
Khelben?

Khelben’s mental voice wavered.
Need sleep to save my energy. Go to the tower, and both of you talk to Syndra.
She knows what’s to be done, and Raegar knows who is to blame. Be respectful, but hurry. Know I am sorry for this burden forced upon you. I can no longer carry it alone
.

Tsarra flinched despite herself, but with the visions and what she’d learned in the past day, she knew why they had to face the undead.
Stop worrying. You’ve trained me well enough. Sleep and I’ll do what I can in the meantime
.

“You three and Khelben brought much trouble to my temple.” Sandrew the Wise looked sternly at all of them. “I trust that when we meet again that I may have a suitable explanation for this disruption—” he glanced upward toward Oghma’s empty fist, deprived of its scroll—“and desecration.”

On that last word, Raegar’s shoulders slumped, and he knelt by the priest, bowing his head for forgiveness. Sandrew’s hand hesitated but settled on the man’s head in benediction.

Tsarra, Raegar, and Sandrew realized the circle of angry people had pressed close around them, just outside the glowing hemisphere set by the priest.

“Khelben insists on utmost speed, but I’m afraid your priests don’t look all to willing to let us go quickly.”

“What else would you expect, girl?” Sandrew said. “There are many here who wish the guards would clap you both in irons. Run now and get you away so I may cool tempers, but vow before Oghma that you will return and explain all this.”

“What little I know, Lorekeeper, I’ll share with you. I promise that everything you saw today leads to the betterment of the Realms.”

Tsarra turned to Raegar, and said, “You are going ahead of me, and we’re running at best pace to Blackstaff Tower. Try to lose me, and my familiar will be the first to correct you, followed by my spells or arrows.” Tsarra jerked her thumb up at Nameless, who bared his teeth.

Raegar rolled his eyes and nodded. The three of them darted through the glowing energy. Their movement
startled most from their path, and they flew or ran through the temple doors and into the streets.

Behind them, Sandrew cleared his throat and snapped his fingers both to dispel the sound-blocking hemisphere and to draw the attention of the crowd. “Oghma wills their secrets remain their own for now, brethren. Return to your lore and lives, and the Binder may or may not reveal what enigmas he sees fit.” He whispered to himself, “And may what magic you work be as good as you claim.…”

“That should do it. What say you now, handsome rogue?” Laeral’s merry eyes looked into Raegar’s from beneath a heavy silver helm, its forehead adorned with three stripes of sapphires.

Raegar knew whatever that lich had done bound him no longer. He inhaled, and “Thank you” sounded in both his head and throat. He smiled broadly and stretched his arms and shoulders.

“I don’t know what you did.” Raegar took the heavy helm from his brow and set it on the sidetable next to him. “I don’t feel anything crawling around inside my head any more. Thank you, ladies, for that.”

“Enough. Under whose control were you? Answer me, Stoneblade!” Tsarra had been pacing the room and snapped her head around. Raegar watched the arc of auburn curls more than the angry look on her face.

“I never got a name,” Raegar said, and Tsarra growled in anger, pacing around the chairs in which he and Laeral sat. Raegar watched her a moment then looked back at Laeral when he said, “By the gods. How anyone can get anything accomplished around so much distracting beauty is beyond me.”