"I have Krehlan's rings, you have the. Duskstaff, and we each have a key," Ten-Rings said, reaching into his cloak and removing a large parcel. "We should be safe from immediate defenses. Once we've breached the tower, we simply have to find the true Blackstaff and claim its power for our own. Do we have appropriate cover?"
"For all anyone knows or perceives," Centiv bragged, "you and the Blackstaff have taken to walking a circuit or two around the tower, talking low between ourselves, since I addressed Rorden Jarlon. Should anyone bother to try and listen in, we are currently discussing rumors and gossip among the Watchful Order. That illusion should give us about half a bell's worth of cover and also cloak our physical presence and voices. It ends with the two of us entering the tower anyway, so we won't be seen in two places at once."
"Good planning, Son," Khondar said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Here are two spells you must cast on the walls, while
I work on our protections." He handed him a scroll tube with two scrolls, both slightly heavy from the gem-encrusted sigils and heavy metallic inks. In turn, he opened a tube of his own, withdrawing the first of numerous scrolls. The two wizards intoned the phrases from the scrolls, and wisps of smoke rose from the vellum as the sigils disappeared. While cloaked from outside view, the two wizards' forms and the tower wall before them glistened with magic sparks of a variety of colors. Eventually, the sparkles stopped whirling around them and shimmered into translucent fields of blue-green energy. When that happened, Khondar cast his fourth spell, the scroll consumed itself in white smoke, and the stones and mortar glowed with the same energy-as did the two keys that hung on cords around their necks. He nodded, and the two men stepped forward into the walls of Blackstaff Tower.
Khondar stood just inside the wall he'd just passed through and smiled. He'd expected much of the interior of Blackstaff Tower, and this did not disappoint. Instead of a common stone tower with defensive spells flaring to life, this was special. The walls became lost amid a sea of floating stones and random architecture, from flagstones to arches and statues to doors floating free in a dark night lit from behind, as if they now floated among the Tears of Selune trailing behind the moon. The only stable feature here was a set of stone steps spiraling up into the night, though no mortar or stones lay between each successive step.
Khondar and the illusory Blackstaff each stood upon a patch of solid flagstone floor, but while they entered within a hand-span of each other, they now stood more than a man's height apart, and Khondar actually had to look up and behind himself to spot Centiv. When he did so, he also saw something coming out of what appeared to be a bright red nebula.
"Son, watch out!"
A blast of red energy slammed into Centiv's back, but his aura held firm and the energy ricocheted off to blast some of the stairwell free. A giant hand made of lightning reached around from behind him and wrapped its crackling fingers around him. While a portion of his protections burned up and the pressure was enough to keep Ten-Rings from using his spells, the aura held. Centiv spat out a spell at the hand, making it fizzle out.
"Thank you," Ten-Rings said, and he returned his attention to his bracers, clasping each with the opposite hand. The gems glowed as he thought about his rings that gave him the ability to move objects from afar and the ability to control the elements. He smiled as the rings blinked into view on his hands, replacing Krehlan's shield rings. Khondar hadn't been sure the transfer would happen inside Black-staff Tower, but the proper rings gleamed on his index fingers. He used their magic to move his stone platform well away from Centiv and toward one of the few patches of wall still floating near them. Once in motion, he withdrew one more scroll from his sleeve and read it.
Centiv tried to disperse any and all illusions around himself, but he still floated aimlessly in a night sky. All his actions managed to do were to set his platform to spinning him upside-down. Centiv noticed Khondar moved farther from him, and asked, "Father, where are you going?"
Centiv's control over the Duskstaff faltered, and the Duskstaff rocketed off the platform away from him. Centiv tried to grab at the staff, but he did not leap off of his only solid perch. The Duskstaff, free of any control, flew straight through a black tear in space and disappeared. His voice quailed as he shouted, "Father, I've lost the Duskstaff!"
Khondar ignored Centiv and continued reading from the scroll and waving one hand in an involved casting.
Centiv tried to dispell the illusions again. "Father! I can't dispel any of this-they're not illusions!"
As both mages wove spells of dispelling frantically into the void, rips appeared in the air around them. Out of the rifts flew a wild snarl of translucent blue imps and a shriek of glowing red gargoyles. The creatures descended upon the two wizards' platforms and attacked their protective magic auras-the gargoyles vomiting fire, the imps spitting ice. Just as the attackers reached Khondar, two silver pulses expanded in the air around him and dissipated like smoke rings. Khondar heard the creatures jabbering but could not understand them.
"The shields are holding!" Centiv yelled. He drew a wand from his belt, blasted a gargoyle with orange missiles. "I thought you said the spells would make the tower accept us! These things are speaking Elvish, saying, 'Neither bears the mark. Neither is an heir true!' What went wrong?"
"Don't you have any stronger spells, boy?" Khondar asked, his aura filled with the white smoke of the consumed scroll he had cast. He waved his hands, and white light shimmered around every imp and gargoyle around him. Many froze in place, and with their wings no longer beating, they fell into the void around him or clattered, paralyzed, on the stone platform where he stood. Khondar smiled-until he saw more opponents flowing out of the void.
Centiv snapped his fingers through a quick spell and he and his stone platform appeared in eight different places, hovering at different angles. As the imps and gargoyles spat and clawed their way past the illusory Blackstaffs, two wands flew down the stairs, leaving trails of silver sparkles in their wakes. Weaving paths through the fray, the wands settled into the hands of Ten-Rings.
"Your mirror images will only delay them so long," Khondar said. "You've always relied too much on the misdirection and tricks of your illusions. Time you learned and used real spells, like a real man!"
"Those illusions helped keep you alive and safe and in power at the Watchful Order!" Centiv shouted, as a translucent gargoyle shattered against the blue shield. "They were good enough when you needed them! At least I've never had to rely on items, like you and your rings! And my lies were only spells, not actual treason to guild or city!"
"Everything I've done has been for Waterdeep!" Khondar said, brandishing the wands. "I'll supplant Dagult and return Waterdeep to the proper rule of proper wizards!"
Khondar waved, and the blue shields that wrapped him unfurled and became a wall that shoved all the confining imps off of him and his stone platform. He gestured with his opposite hand, the sapphire on the ring glowing coldly. The corded key around Centiv's neck drew taught and snapped, and the key flew into Khondar's palm.
Khondar looked at Centiv, smiled coldly, and said, "Prove yourself now. Tame Blackstaff Tower, boy! If you can, we'll rule as Open Lord and Blackstaff. If you cannot, you're no son of mine!"
With that, Khondar wrapped the two wands and the key in his cloak and stepped back through the wall of the tower.
Centiv's shout of "No!" fell upon silent stone.
His anger at his father's betrayal vanished as Centiv realized he was alone. The translucent gargoyles and imps all turned to him. and smiled. They became more transparent until all had disappeared. The strange void in which Centiv floated began to shrink as the stones assembled and came together as a chamber. There were still holes in many places, and Centiv himself stood as if the eastern wall were the floor, but it appeared to be a standard chamber.