The murk settled over a two block area. Wherever it touched, plants withered and people fell to the ground choking. Whether they were built of stone or wood, the buildings turned to dust and collapsed, and even the streets themselves crumbled. Within moments, two square blocks of Waterdeep had been turned into a desolate, brown waste.
Midnight sank to her knees, shivering with exhaustion and remorse. Hundreds of people had died when Myrkul’s essence settled on them. She could not help feeling responsible for their deaths.
Somebody walked up behind her.
“I had to destroy Myrkul,” she whispered, still staring at the poisoned area. “What else could I have done?”
“Nothing else,” answered a familiar voice. “You cannot be blamed for saving the Realms.”
Midnight stood and, ignoring the wave of dizziness that rushed over her, turned around. “Adon!” she cried.
17
Cyric
Cyric stopped just inside the stairwell and concealed himself in the shadows. The overhead trap door opened onto a circular roof, where several people were talking. Though the voices were muffled, he suspected that two of them belonged to Kelemvor and Midnight. The thief had watched them follow Myrkul into the tower.
Cautiously, Cyric went up the stairs and looked out onto the roof. Elminster was picking up one of the Tablets if Fate and putting it into the saddlebags Kelemvor and company had been using as a carrying case since Tantras. The thief could not believe who was standing next to Midnight. “Adon!” he hissed, his voice barely audible.
I thought you killed him? his sword said, the words forming within his mind.
“So did I,” Cyric whispered.
The thief frowned and shook his head. He had seen the arrow sink into Adon’s ribs with his own eyes, then watched the cleric tumble into a dark cavern. It hardly seemed possible that the scarred cleric was alive.
Your old friends have an uncanny knack for survival, the red-hued sword observed.
“I know,” Cyric replied. “It’s beginning to irritate me.”
Midnight was more surprised than Cyric to see Adon. “You’re alive!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around the cleric. The magic-user was still too fatigued to be standing on her own, however, and her knees buckled.
Adon dropped his mace, caught the mage, and gently lowered her to a seated position. “Are you well?”
Midnight nodded wearily. “Yes—just fatigued.”
Kelemvor joined them and cradled Midnight’s head in his lap. “This business has taken its toll on her,” he said.
“I’ll be fine,” Midnight replied. “I need rest, that’s all. Now what happened to you, Adon?”
“I don’t really know. After Cyric’s arrow hit me, I fell into an underground stream and was carried away. The next thing I remember is waking up in the care of a gnome named Shalto Haslett—he claimed I’d been clogging up his well.”
“How did you get to Waterdeep?” Kelemvor asked, remembering his own harrowing journey. “You couldn’t have healed quickly enough to walk.”
“Shalto had a crow carry a message to Waterdeep. Then somebody named Blackstaff sent a griffon for me.”
“Blackstaff!” Kelemvor and Midnight said simultaneously.
“I wonder how long Elminster has known you’re alive?” Midnight asked, glancing toward the ancient sage.
“And why he didn’t tell us?” Kelemvor added.
Adon shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. All I know is that I’m glad I arrived when I did.”
Elminster approached, the saddlebags in his hands. Both Midnight and Kelemvor turned to the wizard and angrily began asking their questions, but no words came out of their mouths. Myrkul’s silence spell still clung to the sage, deadening the sound of the pair’s voices. But from their irritated expressions and the gestures directed at Adon, Elminster could guess what they wanted to know.
He and Blackstaff had decided not to tell Kelemvor and Midnight of their companion’s survival for good reason. The wizards had not wanted to distract the pair from the task at hand. Shako’s message had only said that Adon was alive and needed transport to Waterdeep. Without knowing what condition the cleric was in, the wizards had not wanted to raise Midnight’s and Kelemvor’s hopes.
Elminster tried to explain these things via gestures, but only succeeded in confusing and angering the fighter and the mage further. Finally, he simply shrugged his shoulders and looked away.
To his alarm, he saw that his work was not yet over. Myrkul’s denizens did not seem to have noticed the destruction of their lord, and were still savaging the troops in the Dock Ward. Elminster gave the saddlebags to Adon, then turned to Midnight and went through the somatic motions for a dispel magic spell.
Midnight quickly understood what Elminster wanted. But, despite wanting to hear why he had not told them about Adon’s survival, she was hesitant to call on her powers again. The fatigued mage was loath to risk the danger of a another misfired spell. Besides, she was still weak and feared that casting the incantation would drain what little remained of her strength. Midnight shook her head.
Elminster urgently pointed toward the south.
Midnight and the others turned. The battle had drawn closer. The city was burning as far north as Piergeiron’s Palace. Between Blackstaff’s tower and the palace, a hundred separate battles raged in the sky. The combats were graceful, looping things that seemed to move in slow motion. The dark specks circled each other, trying to climb higher than their opponents one moment, then swooped down to attack in the next. Midnight could tell Waterdeep’s guardsmen from Myrkul’s denizens only by the size of the griffons.
Every now and then, a speck plummeted out of the sky and disappeared into the maelstrom in the streets below. On the ground, the battle had progressed much farther north. Midnight could clearly see companies of black-armored guardsmen and green-armored watchmen lined up to make a stand along Selduth Street, which ran east and west. In front of their lines, approaching along the north-south running avenues, were thousands of the grotesque denizens common to the Fugue Plain in Hades. As the denizen horde moved northward, it drove before it the battered and bloodied remnants of dozens of guard companies that had already thrown themselves against the swarm.
Every now and then, some mage within the defending ranks would loose a fireball or hail storm at the advancing denizens. As often as not, the spell misfired, coating the streets with snow or showering the magic-user’s own ranks with sparks and flame. Even when a spell did work, it seldom affected the denizens. Magic missiles bounced off their chests harmlessly, and lightning bolts simply dissipated into the advancing throng with no effect.
Realizing Waterdeep had little hope of repelling the denizens unless something changed, Midnight motioned for Elminster to stand away so she could speak. Then she performed the incantation to dispel the magic on the old sage. Immediately, a wave of fatigue shot through her body and her vision darkened. Midnight collapsed, trembling, into Kelemvor’s arms, then slipped into unconsciousness.
Kelemvor clutched her close to his body. “Wake up,” he whispered. “Please, wake up.”
Adon knelt and touched his fingers to Midnight’s throat. “Her heartbeat is still strong,” he noted softly.
Kelemvor slipped Midnight into Adon’s arms, then stood and went over to Elminster. “What did you make her do?” he demanded.