"Father, no! Don't leave me!"
"O-ho, someone's fallen into another web of yours, old man."
The voice took Centiv by surprise, its lilting tone arising very near him but without a person attached to it. A light green fog rolled down the stairwell, and Centiv thought he heard a low growling like a wolfpack on the hunt. A tendril of fog slipped ahead and touched the illusory robes Centiv wore as the Blackstaff.
"That form is not yours, boy," said a harsh whisper.
Centiv recognized it as Samark's voice. The illusion he wore of
Samark's form shattered. Centiv stood with his own form and face in the humble blue robes of a Watchful Order mage.
"Congratulations, little illusion-weaver. You and your sire are the first unwelcomes to darken the doorstep of Blackstaff Tower in more than a score of years." Another deeper voice he didn't recognize. It was a man's voice, spoken from the air before him. As he stared, Centiv saw a face coalesce in the green fog-an angry face clean-shaven save for dark sideburns, and long dark hair that swept past shoulders barely manifesting out of the mist. Other beings partly or fully phased out of the fog, their bodies alternating between translucent fog and seemingly solid features. Within a breath, Centiv found himself being watched by multiple fog-forms.
"We've been bored without playthings," said a lissome half-elf with dark hair and a shock of light green at her temples. She whispered into his ear, wrapping her fog-self around his body afid teasing his face with a kiss as cold as. the night air outside. "No offense, Sammy, but he's prettier without your face on him. Reminds me of one of the Estelmers from times long gone."
"He's not one of your conquests, Kyri. He's a shapestealer, an intruder, and a traitor to Waterdeep. It simply remains to be decided how he shall be punished." The voice, far away from Centiv, drew his attention to an older woman kneeling on the stairs and drawing a bow on him. He wove a shield in the air before him but hardly expected that to do more than delay things.
"I'm not a traitor!" Centiv shouted, and he turned to follow his father's example by fleeing-only to find all but the patch of floor on which he stood to be less than solid. In every direction he tried to move, the stones either tipped and floated off like loose stones as light as feathers or dissipated as illusions. The tautness in Centiv's stomach wrenched another knot tighter. He leaped for what appeared to be the outside Wall-only to collide with the same solid spot on which he was now trapped.
"The pack has been hungry since the Night of the Black Hunt more than two-score years gone," said the male half-elf, his open robes exposing a lightly haired chest of wiry muscle beset with a multitude of sigil tattoos. "Set them loose on him perhaps?"
"Ashemmon speaks true. The pack is hungry." Centiv started as the first face he saw returned at his shoulder, speaking directly into his ears. "And we know what you visited upon our heir, false one."
"I did nothing!" Centiv howled. "It was Father and Granek!"
"Every Blackstaff and heir is tied to this tower," said the darkest, deepest voice. "What you did to Vajra is inexcusable… and inhuman." Samark's face, almost white in anger, wisped before Centiv's eyes. "Your lack of moral courage had you stand by while others did her ill. That brands you villain, Centiv Naomal. If I still had a body, I'd share some of her pain with you."
As Samark spoke, the stones on which Centiv stood rolled up and clamped hard around his feet. He screamed as bones in his feet ground together, and he fell backward, his feet still imprisoned.
"Oh wait," Samark said softly. "I can share something."
"We are none of us powerless, limited though we are to the tower," said the deepest voice. "We are merely limited until our heir can rise to the fore and face off our second hapless victim."
"Victim?" Centiv asked, panting hard in panic and in pain as the stones continued to press on his ankles and feet. His leather boots began to rip at the stones' edges and blood appeared there. Centiv swallowed. "My father betrayed me and fled!"
"Some of us are familiar with that," the first voice muttered.
The mists wrapped more thickly around the half-prone man. The tattooed half-elf knelt by his face but did not face Centiv. It spoke toward the voice and said, "Krehlan, you let that anger go a half-century ago. You and Khelben made your peace." He then turned back to Centiv and said, "The incantations your sire used allow you to penetrate the walls of the tower. What they also do is set into motion contingencies laid long ago by Arun's Son and Tsarra Autumnfire."
The bow-wielding shade on the stairs said, "You and your father fell into a trap for those who would abuse the Blackstaffs power. The lens only works truly for the one marked by Sarael's tomb. It was neither you, weaver of lies, nor your sire."
"No, Tsarra," Samark's ghost said. "Whose trust did Khondar betray, Centiv? Who found the lens and the scrolls?"
"Weskur? Marked how?" Centiv's attention ricocheted about the room as all the shades began talking rapidly. "Why him? Why not me?"
Steven E. Schend
Blackstaff Tower
A disembodied voice glowered all around him. "What I hid in Sarael's tomb could only be retrieved by one who respected others above the self. And he would be marked invisibly with this." Bright green phosphors laced in the air before Centiv's eyes to create the webwork of lines in Khelben's wizard mark.
"So another is marked as heir," Krehlan said. "Why is he not here with you?"
"It's obvious," Ashemmon said. "They betrayed the heir in their greed. They found what they wanted and ignored the signs. They walked the wrong path. As Ten-Rings cast certain spells on himself alone, those spells now compel him to complete his unwitting new course."
"Whatever his previous motivations, he must seek out keys that will pierce the veils around Ahghairon's Tower." The deepest voice manifested a face larger than all the other phantoms. Centiv recognized it from several statues and paintings. He faced the shade of Khelben Arunsun, the first Blackstaff, and he was angry.
"The secrets there are far more dangerous than those here," Kyriani's shade said. "I'm glad we're left a plaything, myself." The dark-haired half-elf materialized atop the prone Centiv, and the stones beneath him pulled at his robes, ripping them and exposing his chest.
"Do you think there's a chance he might actually succeed and harness some of Ahghairon's magics?" Tsarra's shade said.
Samark's shade shook his head. "They have the books I'd planned to show Vajra to teach her more about those very fieldsMelkar's journal and Alsidda's Tome give him more than enough information on how to penetrate the magic around it, if not Ahghairon's Tower itself."
"Tymora always leaves a chance. He may pierce the initial veils, given the power we sensed in him, though how far only chance knows for certain."
"But entering those fields is a capital offense!" Centiv shouted. "He'll be killed!"
"If the Watch is up to its mettle as in times past," Ashemmon's voice mused, "aye."
"Indeed," whispered the shade of Khelben Arunsun.
With that, all the shades dissipated into mist again, though Khelben's dark eyes remained locked and glaring on Centiv for long moments after the rest of his spectral form was gone. His voice made Centiv shudder to the core of his being.
"There still remains the matter of what to do with you, little illusion-caster. No doubt it shall be uncomfortable at best."
CHAPTER 12
The Spellplague-warped Pellamcopse remains tainted after decades. Its mutated guardian and the denizens of the wood protect their home fiercely, but the Blackstaff tells us the Pellamcopse Haunt, in his own way, protects Waterdeep as well.