while maintaining his invisibility. In the distance he could see the Celestial Stairway, its changing aspects a beacon in the sky that drove him onward, and would eventually take him home. Beside the stairway he could see the brightly lit Temple of Lathander. One combatant had been notoriously absent throughout the battle and Bane suddenly realized the logical place for his adversary to hide.
'Elminster,' Bane said and laughed. 'I would have given you more credit.'
A human approached, wielding a sword.
Mourngrym.
How delightful it would be to carry the head of the lord of Shadowdale upon his belt as he opened his arms in greeting to the hated sage. Bane dropped his invisibility and laughed as Mourngrym stopped just before the Black Lord, startled by Bane's sudden appearance. Bane crushed Mourngrym's sword in his taloned hand as Mourngrym swung at him, then reached down to claim his prize.
Suddenly another man appeared and pulled Mourngrym from the Black Lord's grasp. Bane ripped open the second man's chest.
'Hawksguard!' Mourngrym shouted as the older man fell to the ground.
Bane was about to kill the stunned dalelord when he caught sight of the Celestial Stairway.
It was burning, set ablaze by blue-white eldritch fires.
The humans all but forgotten, Bane used the power of the dead to take to the cold night air. Bane drew close to the Temple of Lathander. The temple, molded in the form of a phoenix, was releasing a flow of bluish white fires that assaulted the stairway like a dragon spewing forth its fiery breath. The stairway crackled with the eldritch flames, and Bane watched with horror as the changing aspects became a heated blur that the eyes of his avatar could no longer bear to look upon.
The flesh of the Black Lord was engulfed in an amber haze as the continuous flow of souls ripped through his form, strengthening the god until his power reached levels he had only tasted for fleeting instants in the dungeons of Castle Kilgrave. Knowledge of countless spells and the power to cast them at will, without the physical components usually necessary, coursed through the Black Lord. He was almost a god again.
I can destroy this place, Bane thought. I can raze it to its foundations and slay all who dare stand against me.
He looked back to the Celestial Stairway and flew as close as he dared, then hovered in midair and watched as his way back to the Planes melted away. There was nothing he could do to stop the destruction of the stairway; his plans to retake the Planes had been thwarted. Elminster had dared to stand against the Black Lord and now the old sage would pay.
Bane descended to the temple and studied it for a moment. He did not dare to enter through the passages that released the mystical fires. That would certainly destroy his avatar. And when he checked the doors and windows, Bane found they had been fortified by a spell of some sort. To break the magical ward would certainly alert Elminster to his presence.
Then Bane saw a window that had been left unguarded, and he rose to it tentatively, expecting Elminster's gaze to meet his when he looked into it. But no one was there. Bane passed through the bright stream of light that flowed from the window without harm, and he found himself standing in the bedroom of a high priest of Lathander. At his feet, Bane noticed a book with the words 'Diary of Faith' embroidered on its cover. The Black Lord crouched and picked up the leather-bound journal.
When Bane read the words on the final page, he could not stop laughing. Only when he heard the sound of voices directly below did he drop the book and stop laughing. Casting a glassee spell, Bane looked at the floor, then through the wood planks and supports that separated him from the sage.
He saw Elminster casting a spell. The mage looked exhausted, as if he had been working on this spell for the entire night. Swirling mist whirled in all directions. The magic-user and the cleric who had interfered with Bane's plans in Castle Kilgrave were here; the failure of his assassins to report had steeled him for this knowledge, and somehow he was made quite happy by this turn of events. To the Black Lord, there was nothing sweeter than taking the lives of his enemies with his own hands.
The cleric was busy rifling through ancient tomes, locating spells for the dark-haired magic-user to study. Occasionally Elminster would address the magic-user, and she would recite one of the spells she had learned.
And when the woman mage repeated the spells, they worked, even without components! Bane stared at the woman, then saw the star pendant, the symbol of Mystra, around her neck. Each time she cast a spell, tiny strands of energy played across the pendant and disappeared when the spell was finished.
She must have some of Mystra's power in that trinket, Bane thought. I must have it for my assault on Helm and Ao.
Bane considered how best to take the old sage by surprise, but there was no spell he could think of to accomplish his goal. Refusing to be daunted, Bane lay face-down upon the floor and used his stolen power to make his form insubstantial. Then he slowly drifted into the floor until his face protruded from the other side very slightly, and followed the ceiling until it met with the wall nearest Elminster. The Black Lord then drifted down the wall, keeping his prey in view at all times. Finally, when he stood no more than six paces behind Elminster, Bane pushed away from the cover of the wall and advanced on the sage, talons extended.
By the time the dark-haired magic-user noticed Bane's presence, the Black Lord's talons were only inches away from Elminster's throat.
The sage of Shadowdale was lost in the private world of the spells he was casting. He felt the great powers he was releasing flow from the magical weave around Faerun, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that a section of the temple's floor had vanished as planned. A rift had been opened by his conjurings — a rift that was lined by a swirling mist that flashed with a power he had summoned only once before, and then when he was much younger. In those days, when he was only one hundred and forty, he believed himself to be immortal. Now, as Elminster looked down into the rift, he was frightened just a bit by the forces that he had brought into the Realms to combat the Black Lord.
The old sage was shocked from his conjuring by Midnight's cry. He looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the fiery eyes of the God of Strife as his talons descended toward him. Elminster spoke a word of power, and Bane was thrown back by an incredible force. The Black Lord struck the wall he had emerged from.
A horrible screech came from the rift in the floor, and Elminster turned to see that his spell of summoning had gone awry when Bane attacked. The thing that had come to him instead of the eye of eternity was unknown to the old sage, and that frightened him very much.
'Midnight!' Elminster cried. 'You must try a spell of containment!' There was no time to wait for a reply, as Bane moved forward against the aged sage again. Elminster released a blinding flash of blue-white lightning that ensnared the dark god in a nearly endless series of traps. The Black Lord screamed in rage and used his power to cut away at the eldritch bonds.
Elminster recoiled as a searing bolt of amber flame tore through him. He countered the spell, but he could sense the dark god growing in power, his spells replenished almost as quickly as they were cast. The great sage could afford no such luxury. Every incantation took its toll, until finally the God of Strife began to drive him back into the swirling mist of the rift.
Bane pressed the advantage, calling into play the forces he had reserved to unleash on Helm. Unspeakable energies flowed through the dark god, and he felt incredible pain as his mortal avatar struggled to maintain its form and focus the great powers. Bane would feed the sage to the creature that had been summoned, then he would use the creature to devour the God of Guardians and great Ao himself. Bane would have to remind himself to ask Myrkul to deliver his thanks to the sage in the land of the dead.
Suddenly a blue-white bolt unlike anything Bane had ever felt before cut through him, sending him flying back and away from the sage. He looked up and saw the dark-haired magic-user standing at the other side of the room, her hands moving as she intoned another spell.
Bane laughed. 'You may have part of Mystra's power, girl, but you are not a goddess.' Then the God of Strife lashed out with a bolt of energy that knocked Midnight across the room. Bane stood up and prepared to kill the mage. Then he heard the horrible rumbling from the rift, and knew that whatever Elminster had summoned had arrived.
When the God of Strife turned and saw the thing from the rift, his avatar's heart nearly stopped beating.
'Mystra,' Bane said slowly.
But the being before him shared little with the ethereal goddess he had enslaved and tortured in Castle
