a hand to help Khelben the rest of the way in. The Blackstaff's hand looked strong and rough, but it felt very delicate to Raegar's touch. He felt a strange sensation as he helped the wizard inside the tower's guardroom. Khelben drew his hand away from Raegar and got up, holding his staff parallel to the floor rather than using it for support. Nameless flew into the tower, landed on the pile of rubble, and promptly shook as much water off his wings and fur as he could. Raegar said, 'Something's not right about you, Blackstaff. You're acting far more daintily than your usual stomp and swagger. And since she's also on my mind, when is your lovely apprentice joining us? You said she'd be with us, and her familiar is here, so where is she?' 'The ways of wizards always look strange.
Tsarra is nearby, not that that's any of your concern right now.'
Khelben looked around and pressed his ear to the door. 'Well, your method of getting us in was inventive but also noisy. So much for surprise. Let's prepare you.' Khelben's fingers traced a quick symbol in the air before he rested his hand on Raegar's shoulder. A shimmer of green energy flowed over Raegar's wet cloak and body, and he felt a slight tingle as the magic spread across him. 'Thank you, sir. Feels a little different than the defenses Damlath used to grant me, but every bit helps,' Raegar said, swinging his sword arm and watching the telltale glimmers the motion left behind. 'You're welcome. Now, let me go ahead of you,' Khelben said, as he dumped his sodden overcloak on the floor. 'Glad you don't want the man who's never been here before in the lead,' Raegar snorted. 'Don't make me regret gifting you with that sword, Stoneblade. Stay sharp, now.' The Blackstaff glowered back at him then turned toward the tressym and stared at it. Nameless slipped through the door as soon as Khelben opened it. The door opened onto the tight tower stairwell. Khelben pressed a hand to the stairs overhead and furrowed his brow. Nameless stuck his head back around the bend in the stairs and growled lightly before disappearing again.
Raegar noticed the ring on Khelben's hand glowed, the red gem pulsing and going dark as Khelben opened his eyes. 'I've dispelled the warning spells he put on the stairs, but we're still going to have to be fast about this, Stoneblade. Don't be thrown by whatever you see, but wait to attack on my signal.' Khelben said, staring at Raegar. The thief nodded but shook off an odd feeling as he looked into the man's hazel eyes. The two men crept up the stairwell, catching up to the tressym.
Khelben knelt for a second to touch the creature between its shoulder blades, and Raegar saw the green shimmer envelop Nameless with magical protection as well. The three of them moved quickly up the stairs into the tower's top chamber. 'Wait. One more spell each.' Khelben held the tressym and Raegar back a moment. He touched the tressym first, and after his ring flared a moment, the tressym vanished from sight.
Khelben reached for Raegar, who held up his hands. 'Just a minute, Blackstaff.' He pulled both his daggers from their boot sheathes. He tucked one in his belt, held the other in his left hand, and drew the short sword in his right. Both men cringed as the flames flickered to life. 'Hyarac,' Khelben whispered. 'That mutes the light of the blade.' Raegar whispered, 'Hyarac,' and the blade's flames snuffed out. As he turned, Khelben's hand clapped on his shoulder. Within a breath, Raegar too was invisible. 'Thanks for waiting until I had things in hand before doing that,' Raegar said, looking around at empty air. Khelben's whisper came from behind him: 'You and the tressym are far more adept at walking silently than I, which makes me the stalking horse. Slip into the upper chamber and wait for your chance. You'll know it when you see it, but don't waste the surprise until we know his defenses are weakened.' They moved forward, Raegar silently praying as he climbed the darkened stairwell toward the flickering blue-white lights up above. 'Oghma, Lord of Knowledge, hear my prayer. Make my passing a whisper with your blessing. Make me a secret, so that I may share what I learn beyond this moment. Thus may I strike vengeance against one who abused your servants.' Raegar felt calm and an image flashed through his mind of Oghma's statue from the Font. The three invisible intruders exited the stairs, all silent as tombs. Magic rasped across the air throughout the room as opaque black shards rang sharply against lime green razors of magic. The constant swirl and eddy of conflicting currents danced upon the air, and nearly distracted Raegar from the powerful sight above that-the pyramidal walls awash in blue lightning bolts, a blinding cluster of energy at the pyramid's corners and peak. Despite the fury outside unleashed by that energy, only a clash of long-held hatreds made any noise within the chamber. The two dead persons in the room, however, were neither silent nor inactive. 'By all that's holy, I'll see you destroyed, Priamon!' The translucent woman who stood directly in their path didn't block the view of the room. She hovered slightly off the floor, only the vaguest hints of an ochre gown and long floor-length russet hair outlining her existence. The only things solid about her existence were her spells. Raegar looked through her to scan the rest of the room. The chamber was, by Raegar's eye, ten paces across and its octagonal walls made it nearly circular. The walls sloped in as they rose, two walls each flattening together to seat the crystalline pyramid. The room culminated in the lightning-soaked peak. Though the room was now lit by the lightning and the clashing magic, each of the eight walls of the room bore a torch. From its many tables and bookshelves Raegar assumed it was a workroom or study. All were shoved or toppled out of place, their contents scattered on the carpet-covered stone floor, apparently cleared by the spell battle in the room's center. There was Raegar's enemy at the room's core-the lich Priamon 'Frostrune' Rakesk. His green robes swirled among the fury of spells, the hood fallen back from his near-fleshless skull.
The inhuman creature's spellcasting rose above the noise, and blue energy blasted at Syndra Wands, only to crystallize in the air against her shields before crumbling in sheets of frozen vapor. Raegar moved to his left, hugging the walls and keeping his eyes glued to the lich.
He ached to throw the short sword at him, followed by his two throwing daggers, but he knew to wait. Raegar smiled as Syndra wove her green magic into a flock of woodpeckers. The magical constructs settled onto an invisible barrier around Frostrune and they began poking small holes in his magical protections. Raegar had never been so close to a major spell battle; Damlath had often used magic to get them as far away from them as possible. It was fascinating, horrifying, and sobering all at once. Raegar wondered if the air always felt so pressurized during a spell battle, as if the space itself recoiled from spells or pushed against them. He noticed a few fallen books shift on the far side of the room as the invisible Blackstaff made his way around the room's perimeter. Is he trying to get noticed? Raegar thought, then he saw Khelben slowly become visible. Frostrune dissolved the flock of birds on his shields just as Khelben completed his casting and came fully into view. Flames coalesced into a ball of fire that bounced around the lich, setting fire to the areas all around him but leaving him untouched. 'Blackstaff, you should have struck to kill outright,' the lich said. 'I'll not leave you the chance to cast another ineffective spell. Say good-bye to your granddaughter a second time.' 'Hardly!' Syndra yelled, and to Raegar's ears, the voices sounded as if they were underwater. Despite the smoke from the fires at the room's center, Raegar managed to keep from coughing and giving away his position. The ghostly sorceress and the lich cast furiously fast spells, and while power built up at their fingertips in green and blue energies, both fizzled out without effect. He'd seen Damlath do enough counterspells to understand each had cancelled out the other's spell. 'Khelben,' Syndra yelled, 'he's got Isyllmyth's Bracer!' Khelben stood in an odd position, his left hand holding his blackstaff perpendicular to the floor, rather than aiming it at Frostrune. His right hand was back by his shoulder, which seemed odd to Raegar until he heard the hum of a bowstring. The air shimmered around Khelben and the illusion melted away, revealing Tsarra holding her short bow and reaching back for another arrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
30 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
As Tsarra let the arrow fly, she yelled, 'Now!' and hoped both the tressym and the thief would know what to do. Her arrow hit the lich's shields, lit up the magic, and pulled it and a successive shield beneath it in its wake, forcing the magic of the shields to twist and stab into the impact point of the arrow. Frostrune screamed as the arrow caught him squarely in the chest, and he rocked back on his heels from the impact. Raegar's invisibility shimmered to an end as he yelled, 'Hyarac!' and threw his flaming short sword at the lich. The blade stuck Rakesk squarely in his right thigh, scorching his robes.
As the lich tried to pull the sword from his leg, the flames leaped up and consumed the blade. The lich growled in frustration as flames remained on his robes. Fires leaped from Raegar's palm, and the sword returned to his grasp! Tsarra sent to Khelben, I hope you've healed up enough to stand, old man. Nameless carried the Anyllan's bottle in his mouth, and he stayed invisible as he silently flew behind the lich.
The ceramic bottle on the necklace shattered when Nameless reached his destination and bit down on it. A
