'I never thought love could overpower me,' Vajra whispered. 'It's a more demanding magic than any Art I'd known. It drove me to his side, and he fled, thinking it improper. Samark was like me.'
'How so?'
'We were both so afraid at first. We ignored it, and you know how it is when you don't answer love's call.'
'Afraid not, deaf.' Kyriani giggled. 'I never resisted.' She winked, and Vajra found herself both blushing and slightly jealous of the woman.
Vajra fell silent, searching her head and heart for the key to reconcile these fragments of herself. Samark's ghost winked out from the divan where he and her other self lay. He reappeared before her, his robes and composure restored. He reached out, and his cold touch ruffled the short hair on the nape of her neck. 'Still questioning, my heart?' he asked.
She looked into his green eyes, remembering them as the sea green they were during his life, and she wept.
'I regret what happened to you in our name, love,' he said.
Vajra's head snapped up at his words and she gasped. 'No, you don't.'
Samark and Kyriani suddenly floated free of any platforms, and all of them began to shift around the chamber.
Vajra kept her eyes on Samark and spoke with confidence. 'You said it after we finally admitted our love. 'Only regret what is left undone, what is left unsaid. Regretting what has happened that cannot be changed is wasted energy.' Stop questioning and just accept-that was my test.' As she spoke, she relaxed. Taking a deep breath and wiping away the tears on her cheeks, Vajra chuckled. 'The answer's been so simple and in front of me so long.' She concentrated, snapped her fingers, and a Blackstaff shod with silver on both ends appeared in her hands. 'Even the heir can summon a simple Blackstaff.'
Vajra looked over the room and saw all the sides of herself drifting near and far. She resolved to change that.
'I'm ready now.' She closed her eyes, resting her forehead on the staff, and whispered. 'I am Vajra, daughter of Tamik al Tamik el Safahr, paladin proud, and Parama yr Manshaka, mother beloved. I accept the gifts with which I was born, the Art in my blood as sorcerer. I am Vajra, apprentice to Mynda and the Princess Zandra, the Court Vizeras of my homeland, and I am worthy of their praise and teachings. I am Vajra, heir and lover of the Blackstaff Samark Dhanzscul, and our love and our magic completed me. I am Vajra, I am worthy, and I am unified.'
Vajra opened her eyes to find her other images missing and the entry chamber gone. She now stood in the private library of the Blackstaff, though she focused little on the books surrounding her. She looked upon the true Blackstaff, no longer hidden in its smoked-glass cabinet but floating free before the massive fireplace. The true Blackstaff was a massive entity of rune-inscribed dusk-wood, made black by years of use, melded with veins of silvet metal rune-carved. Atop the staff was a large axe head in the shape of a snarling wolf s head, its eyes aglow with green magic.
Drawn on the flagstones beneath the true Blackstaff wete six circles, all aglow with runes and magic. Each circle held the silvery wizard mark or sigil of each Blackstaff before her, and each of them hovered above their marks, staring at her. Vajra had met all but the last and eldest in her three years at Blackstaff Tower, but the first Blackstaff usually only manifested by locking doors or appearing as forbidding eyes whenever she sought to explore more of the tower than he thought wise. Today, she faced every spirit of the tower. She quailed inside, but breathed deep and steadied herself. She would face these spirits-in chronological order, from the most recent at the outer circle to the oldest Blackstaff at the center.
Khelben spoke, his bass voice thundering. 'When the Black-staff was forged, it was made by the will of my father, myself, and our goddess. Since that time, the assumption of the true Blackstaff has gained its rituals. Step forward, make your claims, and be the Blackstaff, if you so dare.'
'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?' asked Samark, his kindly smile muted for the seriousness of the iitual.
'I claim it by responsibility, for no one stands as the Black-staff', and Waterdeep needs one to stand for Art, for order, and for good.'
With her answer, the shade gestured, and the outermost circle around the staff disappeated, allowing Vajra to step closer to it.
'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?' asked the shade of Ashemmon.
'I claim it by inheritance, for I am the last heir.'
'No, child, you are not. Another has been recruited.'
Vajra stopped, the litany in her head disrupted. She stared at Ashemmon's shade in disbelief, then searched her memory. She nodded and smiled. 'It's Eiruk, isn't it? Even with Khelben possessing me, we all felt it when he touched us-Khelben's mark is on him.'
'Aye, lass, good deduction. He may be your heir, should you choose, though he himself is yet unaware of his potential and his gift.'
Vajra hesitated, then said, 'He is a good friend, but his feelings tun deeper for me than mine do for him. Until I can face that more evenly'-Vajra cast her eyes back at Samark's ghost-'let us leave Eiruk in peace. The Blackstaff needs less passion and more thought at present.'
Ashemmon's shade began again. 'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?'
'The Blackstaff before me bound me to this power, this tower, and this time and place.'
Again, the ghost gestured and the circle barring her from moving closer disappeared.
'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?' said the image of Krehlan.
'I claim it by power, having been born of Art with sorcery in my veins.'
Another circle gone.
'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?' said Kyriani's spirit.
'I claim it by knowledge, having learned of magic at the feet of the Grand Wizard of Tethyr's Crown, the Court Vizera and my aunt, Mynda Gyrfalcon-Thann.'
Kyri winked at her as she skipped around the circle, the magical barrier dissipating with each playful step.
'By what tight do you claim the Blackstaff?' asked the ghost of Tsarra Chaadren.
'I claim it by love, having earned the trust and heart of Samark, the Blackstaff before me.'
'By what right do you claim the Blackstaff?' came the stern question from Khelben, the greatest and oldest of the Blackstaffs.
'I claim it by pain, having enduted much in its setvice, having lost friends and lover.'
Khelben smiled grimly. 'Girl, you have not yet known hurt or loss.'
With that forbidding omen, Khelben swept his hand around, and the final barrier between Vajra and the true Blackstaff was gone. Vajra was sure she heard the wolf s head on the staff snarl a warning at her, but her heart pounded in her ears now.
All six of the Blackstaff spirits hovered near, creating a new circle around Vajra and the staff. They joined hands to seal the circle behind her. When they all linked, the floor pulsed with silver and green energy, filling the room with light.
Taking a deep breath, Vajra said, 'I, Vajra Safahr, take up this burden willingly, humbly, and with all I was, am, and ever will be.'
Her right hand closed about the metal-and-wood amalgam. It felt warm and inviting. The only sensation she felt was a centering, a grounding, as much of her tension slipped down through her body and into the stones beneath her. She shuddered as she expected some explosion of power when she touched it, but she felt nothing new other than a reduced pressure in her head.
She looked at Samark and Khelben, who stood together, surprised. Samark's shade said, 'Darling, you've been carrying the full power and knowledge of the Blackstaffs within you for months. It came to you when I died, as it does to the Blackstaffs heir. Alas, since you didn't come to the tower and touch this staff to ground that power, it wreaked havoc with your mind. For that, I'm so sorry. Our spirits remain here in these stones, available for counsel and help, but never to walk the city again.'
'You mean I was as powerful as any of you all the time I was
Ten-Rings's captive?' Vajra felt her temper rise, but let it go when Kyriani raised her hands before her.
