Tantras (44 page)

The fighter mumbled something rude about the old mage, but Midnight spoke before Elminster had a chance to reply. “So how do we get to the tablet, then?” the raven-haired mage asked. “If we teleported or even opened a gate-“

The sage threw his hands into the air. “Far too dangerous,” he snapped. “With the instability in the weave, ye might find thyself a mile beneath the earth or somewhere beyond the reach of the sky. Ye might even find thyself halfway across the Realms, in a place like Waterdeep… but then, ye’ll be going there soon enough anyway.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Waterdeep in the last few days,” Adon said angrily. “Why do you think we’ll go there soon?”

Midnight’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. You mentioned Waterdeep when we were in the market, too. Why?”

Elminster thought it over then looked at the mage. “Ye can get to the second tablet through the City of the Dead, next to Waterdeep,” the old sage sighed. “I learned this from… reliable sources during my time in the Planes. But whether or not ye are worthy of the task of retrieving both tablets-“

Kelemvor punched the rickety wall that stood a few feet away from him. “No!” he cried then looked to Midnight. “We’re not going to go chasing after the other tablet, too. We’re getting nothing in return for this. Let the old wizard get the artifact himself.”

“Still the mercenary, aren’t ye, Kelemvor,” Elminster snapped. “If it’s a reward ye seek-“

“Don’t talk to me of reward,” Kelemvor shouted. “Now that my curse is gone, I can take other things into consideration - like Midnight’s welfare and our future together. Besides, even if I was interested in making a pact, you’d be the last being in Faerun I’d deal with. You reneged on our last agreement.”

“I was indisposed,” Elminster grumbled. “If ye could have waited for me to return instead of striking a bargain with the Black Lord, perhaps I would be more impressed with thy words.”

“We’ll search for the other Tablet of Fate, too,” Midnight said softly, then put her hand on Kelemvor’s arm. “But only because it’s our duty and our choice. I refuse to be a pawn any longer.”

Torm’s words about duty and friendship echoed in Adon’s mind as he moved forward and said, “We should wait a few days before we try to retrieve the tablet. Let them think we’ve left the city. Then we can get the artifact in the temple and head toward Waterdeep.”

“But that still doesn’t settle how we’re going to get the Tablet of Fate from the temple’s vault… if that’s where it’s being kept,” Kelemvor said, and the heroes started their argument all over again.

They were still debating about how to retrieve the tablet when the shouting began outside. The heroes stepped out of the small, ramshackle building and saw that the entire city had suddenly been engulfed in chaos. Worshipers of Torm, wearing pendants or patches with the god’s symbol, flooded from their homes as news of the deity’s summons spread.

Adon grabbed a messenger and asked what was going on. The scarred man’s face was pale when he returned to the heroes to report. “It’s Torm,” the cleric told them, his voice quavering. “He’s asking his faithful to come to the temple. He needs their help to fight Lord Bane, who’s coming from Scardale even as we speak.”

The heroes quickly set off toward the Temple of Torm. As they traveled through the city, they found the streets littered with bodies, though none of the corpses carried wounds of any sort. Supernatural winds ripped through the city, dragging strange, sky-blue vapors in the direction of the temple. Man-sized wraiths walked or flew toward the golden spires in the distance.

“Look there!” Kelemvor said, and pointed to a young man at the other end of the street who fell to his knees. The man was dressed in the robes of a Tormish priest, and he shouted, “For Torm’s eternal glory!” before he dropped to the ground. A burst of sky-blue flame rose from his body, then took to the unnatural winds.

“We’d best gather a few mounts and hurry to the temple,” Elminster suggested and pointed toward a stable. The stable boy and the owner lay in the street, dead. The heroes took four horses and set off down the twisting streets as quickly as they dared.

As they looked toward the spires of the citadel and the temple that stood beyond it, Midnight and her allies glimpsed an impossible sight. A golden-skinned giant with the head of a lion towered over the temple. The strange winds flowed toward the monster, and the sky-blue lights that had once been the soul energies of Torm’s worshipers were absorbed into his body. The lion-headed giant turned from the temple and looked toward Tantras’s north shore, beyond the ridge of hills and the wall that protected the city.

“It’s Torm!” Elminster cried, reigning in his mount. ‘He’s created a new avatar to use in his fight with Bane.”

“We’d best get to the temple before the battle starts,” Midnight told the old sage. “If Torm loses, Bane will certainly recover the tablet.” The mage kicked her horse into motion again and clattered off down the street.

In minutes, Midnight, Kelemvor, Adon, and Elminster passed the citadel and dismounted before the main gates of Torm’s temple. All three sets of gates lay wide open. The guards had vanished from their posts. The gatehouses were ominously empty. The silence inside the temple was frightening, too, and a dire contrast to the constant sounds of chanting and worship that Adon and Elminster had both described. And as the heroes expected, corpses lined the halls.

“They’ve given their lives for Torm,” Adon said softly. “Just like the others we saw in the streets.” The cleric shook his head and ushered the party toward Tenwealth’s chamber.

“If there’s a vault in the temple,” the cleric noted as they walked, “there will probably be a door to it in the high priest’s quarters.”

But as Adon reached the door to Tenwealth’s room, a guard called out from behind the heroes. “You there! Where do you think you’re going?”

“Go ahead,” Elminster hissed. “I’ll take care of this dolt. Ye just look for the vault.”

Midnight stopped to protest, but Kelemvor grabbed her and pulled her into Tenwealth’s room. Adon slammed the door closed behind the fighter. “Quickly,” the scarred man said. “Look for a secret door.”

Midnight and her allies could hear Elminster’s laughter, along with the guard’s, as they searched. Then there was silence in the hallway. Midnight went to open the door, but Kelemvor pulled her back. “Just find the door,” he grumbled. Then you can worry about the old man.”

“But there’s no doorway here,” Adon cried at last, exasperated.

“None that we can see, anyway,” Kelemvor noted sourly as be sat down in front of the door to the hallway.

Midnight put down the bag containing her spellbook and looked around the sparse cell. “You’re right. Why should we think Tenwealth put the door in plain sight? It’s probably hidden by magic!”

The fighter stood up quickly, and the heroes circled the room, rapping on the walls. Finally, Kelemvor found a hollow section in the center of one of the walls. “I’d say there’s a doorway right here.”

Midnight and Adon examined the wall. The cleric frowned and shook his head, but the mage wasn’t discouraged so easily. “I think a sequester spell has been used to hide the doorway,” she said. “But how are we going to know for certain?”

Midnight knew that the only answer was another spell, but the thought of using magic, even a simple incantation, frightened her terribly. Ever since the Temple of Lathander, Midnight had been terrified that the next spell she cast would injure someone… or even kill one of her friends. As she turned the problem over in her mind, though, the mage remembered Mystra’s final words to her at the Battle of Shadowdale.

Use the power I gave you.

Midnight sighed and hung her head. “Get as close to the door as you can. Both of you.” She walked to the section of the wall Kelemvor had pointed to.

“Don’t do this,” the fighter pleaded. “You don’t know what could happen.”

“I’ll never know unless I try,” Midnight replied. “Besides, we didn’t come all this way to give up now.”

The mage recited the spell to detect magic. A blue-white pattern of energy shot from Midnight’s hands and struck the wall. For a moment, nothing happened then the wall began to shudder. Shards of mystical energy exploded from the hidden doorway, cutting harmlessly through the heroes’ bodies, and pure white daggers of light flashed into Midnight’s right eye. As suddenly as it had started, the shower of light ended.

Midnight stood in front of the door, trembling. “I think I can see it,” she gasped, wavering on her feet. “I see the door to the vault.”

But the image the mage saw was strange, as if two different pictures had been placed, one over the other. If she kept both eyes open, Midnight saw this confusing blur. However, the mage’s vision cleared when she closed her right eye. Then she saw things normally. She looked at the wall and saw only stone and paint.

When Midnight closed her left eye and looked only through the orb that had been struck by the daggers of light, she could see the secret door clearly. In fact, through this eye, physical objects like the floor or the wall or even her friends appeared as ghostly gray shadows. Only the magic of the sequester spell seemed distinct or tangible.

Kelemvor took a step toward his lover. “Wait for Elminster to come back!”

“No, Kel,” Adon said softly as he grabbed the fighter. “It’s up to Midnight now. There’s nothing we can do.”

“It is a sequester spell that prevents us from seeing the door,” Midnight noted, holding a hand over her left eye. Her voice was low and distant, as if she had just awoken from a dream. The mage shivered. “I think I can open it now.”

The mage reached for the wall. Kelemvor and Adon saw a doorway suddenly appear in the wall, then open. Pale light flooded from the large room the heroes saw through the secret entrance.

“I see a lot of magical traps in there,” Midnight noted dreamily. “Tenwealth has been very busy.” The mage stepped into the vault’s antechamber.

Before anyone could react, the door slammed closed behind her.

The antechamber was a small room, no more than ten feet wide and ten feet long, lit by four bright globes that hung in the corners. Midnight covered her right eye for a moment and looked around. There wasn’t much for the mage to see, at least not with her left eye. The room was completely barren, save for a huge mosaic of Torm’s gauntlet embedded in the north wall and a large diamond-shaped trap door in the center of the floor.

When Midnight looked out into the room with her right eye, though, she saw a vast web of spells hanging over the trap door and snaking around the room. The spells hung like strands of silk from the ceiling and walls, intertwined and pulsing. The mage followed the weave and pattern of a few of the simpler spells, for the wards all seemed to have slightly varying colors, and she easily identified a few of them.

Tenwealth had ordered a number of spells to be placed on the door to protect whatever was hidden there from thieves. One ward raised an alarm if the door was opened. Another caused a cloud of fog to appear, which would blanket the room and obscure vision. A third spell was meant to keep the trap door magically locked. But when Midnight looked at the wizard lock spell through her right eye, she smiled. Written in the weave of the magic was Tenwealth’s password.

She followed the pattern of the wizard lock spell for a moment, just to make sure that it wasn’t backed up by another spell. The mage then discovered that a few of the other wards, including the alarm and cloud of fog spells, had actually been linked with the wizard lock. Midnight realized that the password might disable the handful of spells that were connected to the lock - or set them all off.

And not all the wards Tenwealth had placed on the trap door were as harmless as an alarm spell. Midnight recognized the pattern of a spell meant to deafen the person who tripped it. Another set off a fire trap, causing a burst of flame to shoot from the door. Worst of all, there was a feeblemind spell attached to the lock. If this was set off, it could wipe a spellcaster’s mind clear, lowering his or her intelligence to that of a moronic child until another powerful spell was cast to heal the wizard’s mind.

The secret door from Tenwealth’s chamber opened again, and Elminster poked his white-bearded head into the antechamber. “What do ye think ye’re doing? I said ye should find the door, not open it!”

As the old sage started to step into the room, Midnight saw the weave of a few of the spells tighten. “No,” the raven-haired mage cried. “Elminster, don’t come in here. You’ll set off Tenwealth’s traps!”

Elminster froze and looked around the room. “What traps? I don’t see any traps!” he sputtered.

“They’re magical wards. I can see them hanging over the trap door,” Midnight said without taking her eyes off the web of spells. “Somehow, I can see the spells themselves.”

Elminster arched a bushy eyebrow and ran a hand slowly through his long, white beard. “Ye can see the spells, ye say? Can ye dispel them?”

Midnight swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “But I’m going to try.” The mage paused for a moment then added, “And I think you should wait in Tenwealth’s chamber, with the door closed. If something happens and a spell… misfires, Kelemvor and Adon will need your help to get the tablets.”

“Can’t we do something?” Kelemvor cried from the priest’s room.

Midnight heard Elminster sigh. “She’s right,” the old sage said solemnly. “There’s nothing for us to do but wait.”

Kelemvor was cursing, and Midnight could picture him stomping around Tenwealth’s room. Adon, on the other hand, stood quietly by the door. “Good luck,” the scarred cleric said softly. Then Elminster backed away from the secret door and Midnight heard it close.

My luck’s been pretty good with magic so far, the mage sighed to herself. None of the spells I’ve cast since magic became unstable have backfired too badly. I haven’t accidentally tossed a lightning bolt at a friend or lost an arm because of a spell misfiring. Not yet, anyway.

The raven-haired mage took a deep breath and spoke the words that Tenwealth had set to disarm the wizard lock. “Duty above all.”

The web of spells tightened and quivered. The golden weave of the wizard lock spell glowed brightly for an instant, then the spell was gone. Most of the other wards disappeared, too. After the strands had stopped flaring and vanishing, two spells still hung over the entrance to the vault.