Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [77]
He howled and shrank back but couldn't get out of the guardian's reach without sacrificing the large part of his body that he'd poured into making the spike. Though he was retracting that spike as fast as he dared, the undead thing was riding on it, refusing to let go, and eating away at it steadily.
Balatar son of Alcarga had never felt such agony before, nor had he felt the cold clutch of real fear. He collapsed, shaking, and Taernil looked at him in disgust. Then he met the gaze of the third cloaked Malaugrym and snarled, "Come on! If we tarry here to help him, the whole tower'll be roused and come down on us. Through this door!"
Jarthree stared at him, then down at Balatar, and then lifted her head and nodded, shedding the last of the dignified white beard and stately dignity of a master mage of Neverwinter. She frowned as they went through the door together, leaving a sobbing Balatar to his fate. He began to shriek and curse them as they went, and Jarthree jerked her head back at the noise and complained, "I thought doomguards couldn't do that."
"It's not a doomguard. More a watchghost, I think." Taernil frowned as the curses behind them died into incoherent moans, and then shrugged and grew two tentacled arms to probe ahead of him as he crossed a darkened parlor-where a trio of driftglobes helpfully brightened into soft life and then faded again as they hurried past-pulled open another door, and mounted a circular stone stair. "There're probably other strange things ahead of us," he added helpfully. "Besides Khelben, I mean."
At the sound of that name, something thrummed nearby, something just above them. They hurried around a bend, ascending, and saw what it was.
The stone pillar that formed the heart of the stair broke off cleanly beside a certain glowing stone step, and resumed again perhaps eight feet higher. In the cylindrical gap that should not have existed (without the staircase collapsing!) floated a vertical black staff. It was covered with runes and gnarly protuberances studded with small silver glyphs and inset metal studs. Tiny lights winked here and there down its sinister length. Its power hung heavy and silent around it. The very air tingled.
"The Blackstaff!" Jarthree's exclamation was a hoarse whisper of longing, and without thinking she reached forth an impossibly long, growing arm to seize the ebon-hued staff.
Taernil's tentacles struck her arm roughly aside. "Are you mad? It might burn you to nothing or call Khelben to itself if touched by anyone but him! Don't you know how suspicion-crazed human wizards are?"
"I know how suspicion-crazed Malaugrym mages are," Jarthree replied, with the first smile Taernil had ever seen on her lips.
He shook his head. "Then you know you shouldn't touch it. Don't… just don't." He advanced cautiously and added, "We'd better not touch this step, either. It might awaken anything."
Jarthree sighed. "We're here to slay Khelben if we can, remember? Stop shying away from mere traps and shadows." Her tone was cold and scornful. She sounded almost bored.
Taernil looked back at her sharply, his lips thinning. "These 'traps and shadows,' as you term them, could trammel us just long enough for Khelben to call on any number of friends and guardians. Milhvar's precious cloak didn't save Balatar from the first undead he met with. I don't trust it to make us immune to everything the Blackstaff can throw at us!"
Jarthree waved a dismissive hand. "I merely meant that we'll do best if we strike quickly and keep moving. These are only mortal mages. They can't possibly be as powerful as Milhvar, or-"
"Oh, no? Then how did just one of them kill so many kin that Dhalgrave kept us out of Faerun for centuries?" And with those grim words Taernil launched himself up the last few stairs and into the