Durnan tied the rope off, then the company followed Gower into the steep passage. The dwarf waited at the bottom, a condescending smirk on his face. The corridor had emerged in cathedral-like room so large the torches did not light the ceiling or the far side. The glowing, white spectres of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people were drifting aimlessly about the cavern.
“The Pool of Loss is over there,” Gower said, pointing toward the middle of the room. “But there’s something strange going on.”
“What are those?” Kelemvor asked, nodding at the strange silhouettes.
Elminster did not bother to answer. His attention was fixed on the shimmering dome of scintillating lights that Gower had pointed to.
Blackstaff looked at Elminster. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yes,” Elminster said, returning Blackstaff’s gaze.
They both looked back to the dome.
“What? What are you thinking?” Kelemvor demanded, poking his head between the two wizards.
As usual, the mages did not answer, but they both suspected that the shimmering globe was a prismatic sphere, one of the most powerful defensive spells a magic-user could cast. They were trying to figure out what it was doing down here.
An instant later, again without saying anything, they started toward the dome. Durnan, Gower, and Kelemvor followed, though Durnan and Gower were much less apprehensive than Kelemvor. They had worked with Blackstaff before and were confident that if it was important for them to know something, he would tell them.
When the company reached the dome, they saw that it sat within a small stone-walled pool. It appeared to be a sphere with the bottom half hidden from view. The fit was so precise that there was not the slightest gap between the stone wall and the shimmering globe. The sphere continually flashed in a pattern of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, as though it were a striped ball spinning on its axis.
The mages circled the well for several more minutes, inspecting the dome first closely, then from farther away. Finally, Blackstaff asked, “What do you make of it?”
Elminster frowned and turned to Kelemvor. “Could this be Midnight’s work?”
The fighter shrugged. He had no idea what the globe was or whether Midnight could have created it or not. “All I can tell you is that she was growing more powerful all the time. She once—” He searched for the word the mage had used to describe plucking them from one place and depositing them in another. “She once ‘teleported’ four of us halfway from Boareskyr Bridge to Dragonspear Castle.”
Elminster’s eyes widened. “She did?”
“Then she could have cast this,” Blackstaff concluded.
Inside the sphere, Midnight had been resting for hours. The magic-user was recovering from performing the worldwalk and prismatic sphere incantations in quick succession. She was completely unaware that help had arrived. The deafening screams and howls of a thousand enraged denizens were drowning out the voices of Elminster and company.
Fortunately, noise was the only thing that had entered the globe. Several denizens had flung themselves against the sphere or tried to assail it with spells. Each time, Midnight had heard a cry of pain or anger as the sphere directed an attack back at its originator.
As long as the sphere remained up, both Midnight and the Realms were safe from the denizens. But the spell would expire soon, and the mage feared it would take most of the strength she had recovered to recast it. While this would keep her safe and the denizens out of the Realms for a little while longer, it was only a short-term solution.
And Midnight did not dare leave the sphere until she countered Myrkul’s trap. Until then, the tablet had to stay inside the sphere. Otherwise, she could be creating a passageway for the denizens between Myrkul’s realm and wherever she went.
Then, with a start, the mage realized she could use a permanency incantation to indefinitely prolong the prismatic sphere. The gestures and words came to mind easily. It would be as wearing as renewing the sphere, but at least it only had to be done once.
With a sigh, Midnight performed the incantation. The effort drained her, but not completely. Within eight hours or so, she would have the strength to overcome the magic Myrkul had placed on the tablet.
Back outside the sphere, Kelemvor and the other four rescuers were still puzzled.
“These things don’t last forever,” Blackstaff was saying. “And if Midnight cast it, she’s probably around here somewhere.”
“Yes—undoubtedly inside,” Elminster said. “That’s what prismatic spheres are designed for.”
“She’s inside that thing?” Kelemvor exclaimed. He started toward it, but Durnan quickly restrained him.
“No, my friend,” Durnan said. “If you touch it, you won’t be fit to feed to the dogs.”
“Then how do we get her out?” Kelemvor cried.
“Perhaps we don’t want to,” Elminster sighed, running a hand through his beard. “The mage who casts a prismatic sphere can enter or leave at will. If Midnight is inside, there’s a reason.”
“Then what do we do?” Kelemvor demanded.
“We let her know we’re here,” Blackstaff said. “When I count to three, let’s all shout her name.”
Their shout might have worked, if not for the cacophony of denizens’ screams on the side of the sphere facing Myrkul’s city. As it was, however, their voices were lost in the maelstrom of noise, and Midnight never knew her name had been called.
Next, the company tried throwing things into the sphere: bits of clothes, stones, rings. Nothing got through. More often than not, the sphere hurled the items back at whoever had thrown them. Blackstaff even tried to penetrate the globe with a telepathy spell, but it either misfired or the sphere repelled it. The bearded mage was stunned into dumfounded shock for twenty minutes. Kelemvor found Blackstaff’s silence a welcome respite from the wizard’s condescending manner.
“Well, Elminster, what do we do now?” Kelemvor asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We wait,” Elminster replied. “The thing will fall after an hour or two.”
So they sat down to wait. Eventually, a few soul spectres drifted over and idly gossiped with Elminster and Blackstaff, but Kelemvor, Durnan, and Gower superstitiously avoided speaking with the dead. Several times, one of the silhouettes found itself unable to resist the call of the Pool and tried to enter despite the sphere. In each instance, it was repelled or disappeared in a white flash.
Four hours later, Blackstaff stood. “This is ridiculous! Nobody can keep a prismatic sphere up this long!”
“Apparently Midnight can,” Elminster observed.
“I’m going to dismantle it!” Blackstaff declared.
“That might not be wise,” the elder mage replied. “Even if ye cast all the spells without a misfire, we dare not risk eliminating the sphere without knowledge of why she cast it.”
“You can dismantle the sphere?” Kelemvor asked. He stood and rushed to Blackstaff’s side.
“Yes,” Elminster explained. “It’s a most complicated and tedious procedure.”
“Tell me about it,” Kelemvor demanded. Like Blackstaff, he was tired of waiting.
“Very well,” Elminster sighed. “It appears we have nothing better to do at the moment. A prismatic sphere is in reality seven magical spheres, each providing a defense against different attacks.”
“To dismantle one,” Blackstaff interrupted, “you must cast a cone of cold to destroy the red sphere, which defends against mundane missiles like arrows, spears—”
“And rocks with messages on them!” Kelemvor finished.
“Precisely,” Blackstaff said. “Next, you must use a gust of wind to—”