CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Raegar, Gamalon, and the tressym stood silent. The only noises around them were the wind, pattering rain, and the occasional crack of lightning and thunder. Nameless crept between Raegar's feet in an effort to put something between the rain and him, and Raegar looked down at him. "Five tendays of watching the tower and little beyond the norm happens," Raegar sighed. "The past two days, on the other hand, have had more activity than I've seen in a year. Is this normal?"
Raegar directed his question at the creature at his feet, whose response was simply a bored yawn and what might have been a chuckle, if Raegar knew more about tressym. "Did that blasted mage leave again without tellin' me?" All three males whirled around at the woman's yell, but they didn't see Syndra. A dusk wood rod set with a row of diamonds and sheathed at head and foot in bright-steel floated in the air at the top of the stairs. It swung itself forcefully, dislodging a few loose bricks from where the pyramid had been torn off the tower.
Nearby also hovered an intricately carved silver bracer covered in metallic holly with rubies for berries. "Hrast! We need to-" "-keep our heads, yes, I agree," Gamalon finished her sentence. "On that note, could you become visible?" A copper-colored mist congealed around the rod and solidified into Syndra Wands, the silver bracer on her right forearm. Her face was still stolid but she was a striking half-elf woman with floor-length russet hair, a form-fitting ochre gown flattering her every ample curve. Raegar found himself wondering how Tsarra would look in a gown like that, as Syndra and she were very much alike aside from the arrow-straight hair on the woman before him.
"Your stare flatters, lad, but it's not me ye're seein', is it? It's that livin' girl with the Blackstaff you're lustin' after." Syndra laughed, floating around the red-shirted man. "Oh, for a solid body for just an evenin' with ye…" She leaned in and kissed him, running her hands along his body. Every point of contact felt as if Raegar were rubbing against ice-cold silk. Stranger still, a trail of mist led from her to the rod. Nameless sniffed it and ruffled his feathers in response. "Oh, I know ye don't like its smell, cat. I've just never cleaned it off. Vowed when I first joined with it that I'd only wipe that blood off on the Frostrunt's corpse." Syndra smacked one fist into her palm, and the rod mimicked a swing in response. "So you're in this for revenge alone? What manner of undead are you?"
Gamalon asked. She raised an eyebrow, placed her hands on her hips and squared her shoulders in front of him. "His Excellency the Count of Spellshire and he's not rememberin' an ally? For shame. That injury must've scrambled your wits. We've met, ye and I." Syndra winked at the one-eyed wizard whose look of astonishment forced Raegar to bite back a snicker. She paced around him, nodding, and said, "A right smart robe, though not for Waterdeep in winter-ah. Loved those rings of warmth when I had need of them. Ye're in better shape than when last we worked together. Khelben loaned me to that centaur friend of yours when we spent a few tendays occupyin' that wee hamlet of Trailstone against the Amnian troops." "Forgive me, milady. Well met again." Gamalon bowed his head and shoulders to her, spreading his arms wide. "Apology accepted." "Forgive me, Syndra, but where did that bracer come from? I thought you mentioned the Frostrune claimed Isyllmyth's Bracer." "And after he'd killed me once to get at it, ye think we'd be daft enow to let him find it so easily again? The Frostrunt's got a forgery, which is good, seein' as he's done the same with a few other artifacts we thought safe. Nay, he'll be able to do some of what he plans, but he'll hardly be able to do what he hopes.
Even without it, the pyramid gives him enough power to be a right menace." Gamalon said, "All right, then. We need to be off at best speed to the High Moor-an area I know not well enough to teleport into. You?" The apparition shook her head and said, "Not my style. All right-chat later. If Khelben was right about you and yer staff there, one-eye, you can handle the transportation, then?" Gamalon nodded and added, "Provided you'll not mind the wear and tear on your home."
Syndra shrugged and said, "Served me well a long time, but we both saw this coming. If this does what I think, it'll be worth it to relocate." She turned and gestured to Raegar. "Come on, tight-pants.
Ye've got to help me prep the tower while the count gets us movin'."
Raegar stared at her a moment then turned back to see Gamalon cast a shimmering dome over the exposed top of the tower, waves of magic pulsing from the end of his staff. The older man gripped the staff with both hands and slammed the foot of the staff hard onto the stone floor. Magic leached into the stones and began to spread. "Hey!"
Raegar was shoved from behind, and he turned to see the floating rod gesture menacingly. Syndra's voice came from both the rod and behind him as it said, "Let's get movin', friend!" Raegar put his hands up and began walking toward the phantom Syndra and the stairs. The tressym shook his coat and wings and meowed happily to Gamalon for keeping the rain off of them. "What is he doing, exactly?" Raegar asked, as Syndra led him down two levels and into a library. It was a small room, fitting the tower's compact nature, but it was neatly packed with books on every available space. The lore-seeker in Raegar started scanning the books, but Syndra said, "Carefully move each shelf out from the wall and toward the center of the room. Don't knock any books off." As Raegar fell to it, Syndra's spirit floated over the large square rug at the center of the room. Arcane symbols on the rug glowed when she moved over them. After she finished one circuit around the pattern, the whole rug glowed, and with a slight smell of burning sage, burned itself and its symbols into the floor. She gestured him forward, and Raegar shoved the first shelf onto the pattern. She gestured for Raegar to step back and said, "Sheivah-nom!" The shelf sank into the floor quickly and easily, and she cocked her head at the other bookshelves while smiling at Raegar. "Again, please." Raegar put his shoulder into the next, larger shelf. "So are you ever going to answer my question?" he asked, then grunted as he finally shoved the shelf onto the pattern. Syndra repeated her command word to send the shelf wherever she was sending it. "Not until we're properly introduced, lad. I am the all-too-incorporeal Lady Syndra Wands, servant of Mystra and most hated foe of Priamon Rakesk. What are ye called?" Raegar moved another shelf onto the pattern before wiping his brow on his sleeve and bowing. "Raegar Stoneblade, at your service, apparently. I'm in this for revenge, too. That tluiner killed my best friend." "Pleased to meet ye, and know that he'll do more than that if ye let him, lad. Vengeful prat, that one," Syndra said, curtseying before him. "Of course, ye're not in it for revenge. I've seen the looks ye shot at the other redheaded half-elf. Pretty, but those curls must drive her insane." Raegar stopped dead in his tracks and it dawned on him. "No. Just me. More the fool that I let her go." "Oh, let her, my spells! That one does what she needs do, not what some swaggering male 'lets' her do," Syndra scolded Raegar. "Still, now that ye've untangled some of why ye're on this adventure again, mayhap ye'll make some better choices." Raegar kept quiet and moved what Syndra pointed at. After a while, as he pulled two large trunks onto the pattern, he asked, "Why are we doing this right now? Where is this stuff going?" "Portable transdimensional room. Didn't want to lose all of my books or things if it gets ugly. Now be careful with that looking glass-it's been in my family for four hundred years without a scratch…" Syndra started gesturing smaller, lighter objects onto the pattern to send them on their way. Raegar shook his head. The more questions he asked of wizards and sorcerers, the more riddles he got.