"I was monitoring the battle in Shadowdale as best I could. When that debased form of Lady Mystra appeared in the temple, it became clear to me that we gods cannot be destroyed, but merely dispersed." Lord Myrkul smiled. "And so, when your avatar was destroyed, I tracked one of the shards of your being into the Border Ethereal and started searching for the others there as well." The God of the Dead tilted his head slightly and tried to look into the obsidian statue. "Are you quite whole now?"
Yes, Myrkul, I'm fine. Do you understand what you've done? The voice inside Myrkul's head was growing loud again, and the God of the Dead winced at the noise. You've crossed into the Planes! You've beaten Lord Ao! We have escaped from the Realms, and now we can go home and claim our true power! The eyes on the statue were wide with excitement.
"No, Lord Bane, I'm afraid we cannot. I was ready to give up when I discovered that you had been blown into the ether. I thought that Lord Ao had blocked all the existing planes from us." Myrkul rubbed his rotting chin with a bony hand. "I was wrong."
Wrong?
"Yes," Myrkul sighed. "As my high priest pointed out, none of the gods live in the Border Ethereal, so Ao had no reason to stop us from entering it. Of course, with magic being so unstable, three of my wizards died trying to locate all the fragments of your being and send me here to recover them." The God of the Dead bowed slightly, and all the vertebrae in his back cracked. "But I could not let you suffer here."
Please, Myrkul, spare me your flattery. After all, you need me to force my way into the heavens so you can follow.
Myrkul scowled. For a moment, he considered journeying farther into the Border Ethereal and dropping the statue into the Deep Ethereal, a place of swirling colors and mighty vortices. Bane would never make it back to the Realms — or his home — from there. But the thought lasted only a second.
Bane was right. Myrkul did need him. But not because the God of the Dead lacked courage or initiative. Myrkul wanted the God of Strife to lead the assault on the heavens because it was very dangerous, and it wouldn't do at all for the God of the Dead to be destroyed.
So Myrkul grinned obsequiously and again gave a slight bow to the obsidian statue. "Of course you are correct, Lord Bane. Let us exit this place so that we may find you a new avatar and proceed with your plans."
How will we return to the Realms?
"It seems that magic is more stable outside the Prime Material Plane. I should be able to cast a spell to send us home without error." The God of the Dead held the statue close to his face and smiled once more, so wide this time that the decaying skin at the sides of his mouth tore slightly. "I only await your command."
II
The mystical wards that Elminster had placed throughout the Twisted Tower had begun to fail the night the Temple of Lathander was destroyed. The passageways within the tower that were cloaked to appear as part of the walls sometimes revealed themselves as open doorways, and during the first day after the Battle of Shadowdale, people passed through them without incident. By that night, however, an unwitting guardsman walked into one of the openings and was killed as the break in the wall sealed up by itself, trapping him within.
Outside the tower, the torches lit by blue-white eldritch fires either smoldered dimly or blazed with a light that blinded any who dared to look directly at them. Any attempts to remove the torches met with failure, since mortal hands merely passed through the torches as if they weren't there.
The mists that engulfed the upper levels of the tower were meant to stop any prying mystical eyes, but their nature had changed, too. Now the mists swirling around the tower caused a continuous, ear-piercing shriek. The shutters in the upper levels had been closed and heavily boarded over in an attempt to block out the noise.
Dressed completely in black, Cyric ignored the shriek as he stood in the trees at the far end of the tower's stables. Though it was night, the thief could see the guard who stood before the northeast entrance to the tower, near the kitchen. During his last night in Mourngrym's home, on the day Midnight and Adon had been arrested, Cyric had made a detailed study of the tower's defenses. Plying a disgruntled guardsman with gold and liquor, the thief had learned all he needed about the tower's secrets to formulate his plan.
A half dozen guards were always posted at the main entrance, while other soldiers patrolled the tower's perimeter. Security at the Ashaba bridge stations had been relaxed, since most of the bridge's length lay in ruins at the bottom of the river. The guard Cyric had bribed stood alone on the west bank of the river, but when the time came, he would be at the northernmost end of the bridge, investigating a "minor disturbance" that Cyric left to the guard's imagination.
The only other guards who had been posted near the boathouse were inside the tower, looking out from time to time through spy holes to verify that the quiet of the night held no hidden dangers. The workmen who sometimes prowled the boatyard long into the night had been ordered home to their families, so that they might be properly rested when they attended the execution of Elminster's murderers in the morning.
Inside the tower, a large number of Mourngrym's men had been assigned that night to the upper levels, to guard their liege. The magical wards that normally protected the dalelord were unstable. Worse still, the trial had raised concern about the whereabouts of Lord Bane, and Mourngrym was troubled over the welfare of his wife and child should the Black Lord seek revenge against him.
Cyric was certain that the lower levels of the tower, where Midnight and Adon were being held until their execution the next morning, would be occupied by quite a few guards, too. But Cyric was prepared to assault the Twisted Tower. He was armed with a pair of daggers, a hand axe, several lengths of blackened rope, a small black cylinder, and the skills that only training by the Thieves' Guild in Zhentil Keep could foster.
The light from the torches lining the tower wall suddenly flared intensely, and a series of brilliant flashes lit the streets. A string of curses erupted from a guardsman. His back pressed against the trunk of nearby tree, Cyric forced his breath slowly from his lungs as he waited for the lights to flicker and fail. He had been in full view of the rear guard when the torches flared.
The guard, a young blond man who reminded Cyric of Adon, rubbed his eyes. Silently hurrying for the cover of the stables, Cyric glimpsed a pair of eyes in the stable and tensed, but he did not break his stride. He sighed with relief when the huge whites of the eyes merely revealed a pony that had wandered to the doorway.
"Here, now!" a deep, age-withered voice called. "You come back here!"
The pony pranced closer to the stable door, and the footsteps of the stablemaster sounded inside the building. Cyric unsheathed one of his daggers, angled to his left, and doubled up into a crouch, ready to spring at the man and silence him before he could raise an alarm. Another voice cried out abruptly as the guard from the rear entrance turned the corner.
"Manxtrum! You've got a runaway, it seems," the guard shouted. "Better get a tighter rein on your charges!"
The man from the stables walked past the pony and stood at the doorway, oblivious to the dark figure who crouched in the shadows a few yards to his right. Cyric was not facing the guard, and the thief couldn't tell if he'd been spotted. He didn't dare to turn around, but since no one had cried out yet, he assumed neither the guard nor the stablemaster had seen him.
"Ah, this little beauty is the one Mourngrym promised to your daughter last week," Manxtrum said. "Care to come over and take a look?" Cyric gripped his dagger more tightly.
"Can't now," the guard said. "Perhaps after my shift."