Satisfied with her preparations, Midnight performed the worldwalk incantation. A tremendous surge of magical energy rushed through her body, tiring her. Still, it was nothing alarming—or even surprising, considering the power of the magic she was summoning.
A shimmering disk of force appeared. Midnight found herself wishing that she could see what lay on the other side, but there was no time for idle contemplation. Next, she summoned the incantation for telekinesis, then performed it with the tablet as the target. An instant later, in response to her probe, the tablet slipped out of its supports and rose an inch into the air.
Without wasting any more time, Midnight willed the tablet to come to her. It moved slowly at first, then began picking up speed, and was soon streaking in her direction. Though the mage could hear nothing above the cries of the Faithless in the wall, Midnight imagined a wild chorus of surprised yells and outraged bellows spreading through the boroughs around the castle. If anybody was looking toward the tablet, they could not fail to notice that Myrkul’s trophy was being stolen.
As if to confirm Midnight’s suspicions, something rose into view from the other side of the wall. Huge, batlike wings sprouted from its fat feathered body. With its multifaceted eyes and protruding fangs, the creature’s head looked like a cross between a vampire’s and a fly’s.
The tablet arrived and Midnight caught it. Immediately, she felt magic so powerful she could detect it without a spell. Something was wrong, for the other tablet had no magical aura at all. The magic-user suspected Myrkul had placed a ward or sigil directly on the artifact.
But it hardly mattered at the moment. A dozen more denizens had risen behind the first, and a hundred more forms were approaching from the other side of the keep’s bone-white tower. Midnight did not have time to pause for a close examination of the Tablet of Fate.
She stepped into the disk and found herself running up a short corridor of light. The last time she had cast the worldwalk spell, the mage had simply stepped through the disk and appeared on the Fugue Plain. There had been no tunnel. The mage began to fear she had spoiled Elminster’s spell by tinkering with it.
Then, thirty feet ahead, Midnight saw a wall of water covering the end of the corridor, as though she was running up the inside of a well. Remembering how she had altered the incantation so the portal would seek the access well to Waterdeep, the mage realized the worldwalk had worked exactly as specified. On the other side of the water lay Toril.
Midnight ran the rest of the way up the tunnel and stopped next to the wall of water. She turned around and tried to close the portal.
The shimmering disk remained in place, and the bat-winged denizen from Bone Castle entered the other end of the corridor. Midnight tried again to close the portal, and again she failed.
The creature smiled, baring its wicked fangs. “It won’t work,” the creature hissed, its voice like the sound of metal scraping stone. “Wherever the tablet goes, we go.”
Two more of the monster’s fellows flew into the portal.
“How?” Midnight gasped.
“It doesn’t matter,” the bat-winged creature said. “Give the tablet back.”
Then Midnight understood. The magic she detected on the tablet was one of Myrkul’s fiendish traps. He had made it impossible for anyone stealing it to escape his guards. The Lord of the Dead could have used variations on hold portal, dispel magic, gate, passwall, and a number of other spells to make the tablet a homing beacon for his minions.
Exactly how he had done it was unimportant, though. What did matter was that when Midnight took the tablet to Waterdeep, she would unleash Myrkul’s hordes—the tablet would hold the gate open for the denizens and draw them through. She couldn’t let that happen any more than she could return the tablet to the Lord of the Dead’s vassals.
Midnight realized she had to block the corridor, and the perfect incantation for doing so came to her. It was a prismatic sphere, a globe of scintillating colors that the denizens would never penetrate. While they clawed and scratched at its exterior, she would be tucked safely inside.
“Last chance, woman,” the bat-winged denizen said, starting up the corridor. “There’s no escape.”
“That’s what you think,” Midnight replied.
She performed the incantation. An instant later, a shimmering sphere encased her, at the same time blocking access to Waterdeep.
Midnight’s body felt like it was on fire, and her head hurt so badly she could barely think. Within the space of a few minutes, the mage had cast two of the most powerful spells known to mages anywhere. The effort had taken its toll on her body. It didn’t really matter, however. The mage was safe as long as the prismatic sphere held out. And in Midnight’s case, that could be a long time.
15
City of Splendors
After breaking free of the ice and spending a long night next to a small fire, Kelemvor had left the High Moor and walked to the caravan road on his frozen feet. At the roadside, he had stopped and built a roaring fire, then sat down to wait for the blaze to attract help.
While his feet thawed, Kelemvor had puzzled over what to do. Midnight had fallen into the underground stream, and he had no idea what had become of her after that. But it had seemed that the mage’s chances of survival were as great as his own, especially if she had called on her magic. Therefore, the fighter had decided to assume she was alive.
Still, Kelemvor had had no idea what Midnight might do. She might have tried to recover the tablet from the zombies, if she even knew that it had been lost. If not, the mage would have tried to go to the Realm of the Dead to recover the other tablet. There had also been the possibility that Midnight thought he was dead, in which case Kelemvor had not had the faintest idea what she would do.
The warrior had quickly realized he could not predict Midnight’s actions. The only thing he knew for sure was that she would eventually go to Waterdeep.
After reaching that conclusion, the fighter had considered trying to recover the tablet from the zombies. But, alone, without a weapon and disabled by frostbite, there would have been no chance of success. Besides, given the way the undead had pursued the tablet, Kelemvor had suspected the zombies were no longer at Dragonspear Castle. They had probably already fled toward their master, and the warrior had not had the vaguest idea where he might be hiding.
In the end, he had decided to go to Waterdeep. There, he would wait for Midnight. If she did not show up, he would recruit help and start out in search of the tablet and his lover.
Fortunately, the fighter had finished his plans before his feet thawed. When sensation had returned, it had been impossible for the fighter to think of anything but pain. He had felt as though he’d stepped into a vat of boiling water, and the torment had continued unabated for twenty-four hours.
A company of ten fast-moving riders had come by in the middle of the warrior’s agony. They had loaned Kelemvor a spare horse and invited him to accompany them to Waterdeep.
A day and a half later, they had come across the remains of the Roosting Gryphon Inn. For no apparent reason, the inhabitants had been slaughtered. The company had puzzled over this until a rider found the proprietor’s bloodless body. Immediately, the merchants had attributed the carnage to a vampire. But Kelemvor had voiced a suspicion that the attackers were the same zombies that had fallen upon his company at Dragonspear Castle.