And so it went as the long hot summer pa.s.sed. The Blades rode from triumph to triumph, saddlebags bulging with coins, throwing what riches they couldn't carry liberally into the laps of willing ladies wherever they went-all but their dark and serious sorceress, who kept apart, spending her nights wrestling with spells rather than wenches.

Then came the day Tarthe found a merchant's account of a trip across the high hills north of Ong Wood, and of a vale where griffons flew out of a lone keep and drove his band away. They were collared griffons, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s bearing shields with the mark of Ondil of the Many Spells.

That excited moment of decision, when they had all leapt at the thought of plundering the Floating Tower, seemed long ago now as they tethered their horses in the shadow of its grim and silent bulk.

Tarthe turned to the fierce-eyed woman with the wand. The sun gleamed on the warrior's broad, armored shoulders and danced in his curling, reddish hair and beard. He looked like a lion among men, every inch the proud leader of a famous adventuring band.

"Well, mage?" Tarthe waved one gauntleted hand at the tower floating above them.

Elmara nodded in reply, stepped forward, and made the circling gesture that meant fall back to give her s.p.a.ce for a spell. She tossed a long, heavy coil of rope to the turf between her feet.

Her hands dipped to one of the vials at her belt, flicked back its stopper, and tipped it, then deftly restoppered it while holding some of its powder in one cupped hand. A few gestures, a long murmured incantation as the powder was cast aloft, and some lightning-fast work with a strip of parchment-twisting it in the still-falling powder-and the coil of rope on the ground stirred. As the young mage stepped back, the rope rose from the ground like a snake, wavered, and then began to climb steadily, straight up.

Elmara watched it calmly. When the rope ceased to move, hanging motionless and upright in the air, she made a "keep back" gesture and went to the saddles for a second coil of rope. Wearing the coil about her shoulders, she climbed the first rope, slowly and clumsily, making several Blades shake their heads or grin with amus.e.m.e.nt, and came at last to the top of the rope. Curled around it by the crook of one elbow and the crossed grip of her booted feet, she calmly opened another vial, tapped a drop of something from it, and blew it from her palm while gesturing with the other hand.

Nothing seemed to occur-but when the sorceress stepped off the rope to stand on empty air, it was clear that an unseen platform hung there. It sank a trifle under her boots, but Elmara calmly laid the coil of rope on it and began her first spell over again.

When she was done, the second rope stretched straight up through the air, into the darkness of the riven, floorless chamber at the bottom of the hanging keep. The wizardess spared no breath on any words, but looked down at her fellow Blades as she traced a wide circle with her hands, showing them the limits of the platform. Then she turned, and without another look back, began her slow, awkward climb again.

Sudden lightnings flashed in the air around the wizard, and she slid hastily down the rope, hugging it in pain. She hung there a long time, motionless, while the anxious Blades called up to her. Though she made no reply, she seemed unhurt when at last she stretched forth her arms again and cast something that made the lightnings blaze and crackle, then fade away.

She climbed on, into the darkness of the lowest chamber. Just before disappearing into its gaping gloom, she turned on the rope and beckoned once.

"Right, Blades!" Tarthe was climbing swiftly up the rope while his eager bellow was still echoing around them.

The lean warrior beside the rope shrugged, spat on his hands, and followed. The hard-eyed priest of Tempus elbowed his way past the others in his haste to be next on the rope. The thieves and warriors shrugged and gave way, then calmly took their turns. So did the stout priest of Tyche, his mace dangling at his belt as he puffed and heaved his way up.

The youngest warrior checked his c.o.c.ked and loaded crossbows again and sat down among the tethered horses. He watched them calmly cropping all the gra.s.s and weeds they could reach, and spat thoughtfully off into the dark hollows below, whence came the faint tinkling of running water. More than once he stared up at the ropes above him, straight as iron rods, but his orders were clear. Which is more than many an armsman can say, he thought, and settled down for a long wait.

"Look ye!" The rough whisper held awe and wonder aplenty; even the veteran Blades had not seen the likes of this in their adventures before. Time had touched the tower, but it seemed enchantments held wind, cold, and damp at bay in some places. At the end of a crumbling pa.s.sage whose very roof-blocks fell at his cautious tread, a Blade might step through a curtain of magical gloom into glory.

One room was carpeted in red velvet: a dancing-floor ringed with sparkling hanging curtains crafted of gems threaded onto fine wire. Another held smooth whitestone statues, perfectly lifelike in their size and detail and depicting beautiful human maidens with wings arching from their shoulders. Some were speaking statues, who greeted all intruders with soft, sighing voices, uttering poetry a thousand years dead.

"Such shouldst be my only joy, to behold thee, but yet mine eyes see the sun and the moon and cannot but compare them to thee... and thou art the brightest enn.o.bled star of my seeing...."

"Look to find me no more, where silent towers stare down upon the stars, trapped in still pools of dark water...."

"What is this but the mist-dreams of bold faerie, wherein nothing is as it seems and all that one can touch, and kiss, are but dreams?"

Marveling, the Blades stalked among them, careful to touch nothing, as the endless, repet.i.tious sighing of the unfeeling voices echoed all around them. "G.o.ds," even the unshakable Tarthe was heard to mutter, "to see such beauty ..."

"And not to be able to take it with us," one of the thieves murmured, voice deep with loss and longing. For once, the priests felt as he did, or so their nods and awestruck gawking said, if their mouths did not.

The room beyond the chamber of speaking statues was dark but lit by a rainbow of tiny, glittering lights-sparks of many hues that darted and soared about the chamber like schooling fish, a riot of swirling emerald and gold and ruby that never went out.

Lightning, they all thought, and hung back. Tarthe finally said, "Gralkyn ... your foray, I fear."

One of the thieves sighed eloquently and set about the long process of divesting himself of every item of metal, from the dozen or so lockpicks behind his ears and elsewhere on his person to the small forest of blades tucked and slid into boots, under clothes, and into nearly every hollow in his slim, almost bony body. When he was done, he stood almost naked. He swallowed, once, said to Tarthe, "This is a very large thing you owe me," and strode forward on catlike feet into the midst of the lights.

They reacted immediately, darting away like frightened minnows and then circling about, faster and faster, until they rushed in on him from all sides with frightening speed, clung- the watching Blades saw Gralkyn wriggle, as if tickled by many unseen hands-and cloaked him in glittering lights.

He looked like an emperor robed all in gems, and stared down at himself in wonder for a time before he said, "Right. Well. . . who's next?"

The other thief, Ithym, came into the chamber hesitantly, but the lights did not move from around Gralkyn, and nothing else seemed to happen. Sighing out a tensely held breath of his own, Ithym glided over to his fellow thief and stretched out a hand toward the lights, but then drew it back. Gralkyn nodded at the wisdom of this.

Ithym went on into the far, dim regions of the room and moved about in soft silence for a time before returning far enough for them to see him trace a square in the air: there was a door beyond.

Tarthe took out his cloak, raked all Gralkyn's discarded metal in it, bundled it onto his shoulder, and strode into the room next, sword drawn. Instantly some of the lights drifted away from the thief in an inquisitive stream, heading for the tall warrior in full armor. The tensely watching Blades saw sudden sweat on Tarthe's forehead as he strode toward the second thief. The lights swirled around Tarthe as buzzing flies survey a walking man ... and then returned slowly to Gralkyn.

The warrior shook his head in relief, and they heard him whisper hoa.r.s.ely, "Now, Ithym-where's this door?"

A few scufflings later his voice floated back to them out of the gloom. "Hither, all! The way beyond looks clear!"

Cautiously, one by one, the other Blades hurried or edged past Gralkyn, until at last only the thief in his cloak of lights was left in the room. He walked calmly up to the door, peered through it, and saw the Blades standing anxiously in a little corridor that led into a large, dim, open s.p.a.ce beyond. "Back, all of you!" Gralkyn said. "Get well away-right out of the pa.s.sage! I'm coming through!"

The others obeyed, but waited at the far end of the hall, watching. Gralkyn sprinted toward the door, dived through it, and hit the stone floor hard. As he pa.s.sed through the opening, the lights halted, as if held by an invisible wall, so he was stripped of all of them. After a moment, he got to his knees and crawled as fast as he could out of the pa.s.sage. Only then did he look back, at a smooth wall of twinkling lights, solidly filling the doorway.

"Are ye ... well?" The words were out of Elmara's mouth before she thought about the prudence of asking.

Gralkyn rubbed at his shoulders. "I... know not. Everything seems aright... now that the tingling's stopped." He was flexing thoughtful fingers when Ithym shrugged, drew a slim dagger from his belt, and flung it at the doorful of floating lights. There was a vicious crackle of tiny lightnings, so bright they all drew their heads back and grunted in pain, and the weapon was gone. There was nothing left to strike the floor. When they could see clearly again, the lights were still filling the doorway, forming a smooth, unbroken barrier.

Tarthe looked at it sourly. "Well," he said, "that's no way back as I'd care to try. So ... forward."

They all turned and looked about. They stood on a balcony that curved slightly as if on the inside of a vast circle. The waist-high stone railing in front of them opened on to nothingness. Vast, open darkness. They peered along the walls, and could dimly see other balconies nearby-some higher, some lower . . . all of them empty.

Tarthe shrugged. "Well, mage?"

Elmara raised an eyebrow. "Do ye seek my counsel, or a spell?"

"Can you conjure a sphere of light and sail it out into this?" He waved an arm at the great darkness before them, being careful not to extend it beyond the rail.

Elmara nodded. "I can," she said quietly, "but should I? This has the feeling of-something waiting. A trap, belike, awaiting my spell to set it off."

Tarthe sighed. "We're in a wizard's tower! Of course there're hanging spells and traps all about. . . and of course we invite danger by working magic here! You think none of us realize that?"

Elmara shrugged. "I... strong magic is all about us in webs.

I know not what will befall if I disturb it. I want all of ye to be aware of this and be not unprepared to leap aside if... the worst comes down on us. So I ask ye again: should I?"

Tarthe exploded. "Why these endless questions about what is right and should you do thus or so? You've got the power-use it! When d'you ever hear other mages asking if hurling a spell is to the liking of those around?"

"Not often enough," one of the other warriors murmured, and Tarthe wheeled around to give him a flat glare.

The warrior shrugged and spread empty hands. "Eh, Tarthe," he protested, "I but speak my view of the world."

"Hmmph," Tarthe grunted. "Take care that someone does not alter your view of the world for you-forcefully, and mayhap working on what you view with, not what you see."

"Well enough," Elmara said, raising her hands. "I will give ye light. Be it on thy head, Tarthe, if the result be not pleasant. Stand ye back."

She took something small and glowing from a pouch at her belt, held it up, and muttered over it. It seemed to bubble and grow in her fingers, and she spread them to let it rise up and hang in front of her face, spinning, shaping itself into a sphere of pulsing, ever-growing light. Its flickering radiance gave the mage's sharp-nosed, intent face a brooding appearance.

When the sphere was as large as her head and hung bright and steady, Elmara bent her gaze on it. Obediently it moved away from her, gliding soundlessly through the air, out from the balcony into the darkness beyond. As it went, the darkness parted before it like a tattered curtain, showing them the true size of the vast chamber. Even before it reached the far wall of the great spherical room, other radiances not of Elmara's making appeared, here and there in the air before them, brightening and growing until the Blades could all see their surroundings. Balconies like their own lined the curving wall on all sides, save where darkness lingered above and below. The spherical s.p.a.ce within was huge-much larger across than Ondil's tower was on the outside.

"G.o.ds!" one of the warriors gasped.

The priest beside him murmured, "Holy Tyche, be with us."

Four spheres of hitherto dark, slowly brightening radiance floated in the center of the huge chamber. Three of these globes were as tall as two men, and one other, smaller globe hung between them.

The nearest globe held a motionless dragon, its vast bulk coiled up to fit within the radiance, its red scales clear to their gaze. It seemed asleep, yet its eyes were open. It looked strong, healthy, proud-and waiting. The most distant globe held a being they'd heard of in tales: a robed, manlike figure whose skin was a glistening purple, whose eyes were featureless white orbs, and whose mouth was a forest of squid tentacles. It, too, hung motionless in its radiance, standing upright in emptiness, its empty hands having one finger less than their own. A mind flayer! The third globe was partially hidden behind the dragon's bulk... but the Blades could see enough to bring the cold, sword-biting taste of fear strongly into all their mouths at last. The globe's dark occupant was a creature whose spherical body was inset with one huge eye and a fanged mouth, and fringed with many snakelike eyestalks: a beholder. Its dread kin were said to rule over many small realms east of Calimshan, each eye tyrant treating all beings who dwelt or came into its territory as its slaves.

Elmara's gaze, however, was drawn to the fourth, smaller globe. In its depths hung a large book held open by two disembodied, skeletal human hands. When Elmara narrowed her eyes against the bright blue glare-everything in this place was magical, making her mage-sight almost useless-she could see bright webs linking the four globes and wavering between both skeletal hands and the tome. They must be animated guardians, those bones ... as well as the three monsters.

"So do we turn away from our greatest challenge and live, or go after that book and die gloriously?" Ithym's voice was wry.

"What use is a book?" one of the warriors replied with loud fear.

"Aye," the other agreed. "Just what Faerun needs-more deadly spells for mages to play with."

"How so?" Gralkyn put in. "Yon book might be prayers to a G.o.d, or filled with writings that lead to treasure, or..."

The warrior Dlartarnan gave him a sour look. "I know a spell-book when I see one," he grunted.

"I did not ride all this way," Tarthe said crisply, "to turn back now-if there is a way back that won't kill us all. I also have no desire to ride back into that last inn empty-handed and have all the tankard-drainers there think us a pack of cowards who did nothing but ride out, eat a few rabbits in the wilderness, and ride home again, our untested blades rusting in their sheaths."

"That's the spirit-" Ithym agreed, then added in a stage whisper "-that'll get us all killed."

"Enough!" Elmara said. "We're here now and face two choices: either we try to find another way onward, or we fight these things, for be in no doubt: all of those globes are spell-linked to the book, and those bone-hands, too."

"One death is imminent," the warrior Tharp said in his deep, seldom-heard voice. "The other we can look for later."

One of the priests held up his holy symbol. "Tyche bids the brave and true to chance glory," the Hand of Tyche said sharply.

"Tempus expects adventurers to embrace battle, not slip away when strong foes threaten," agreed the Sword of Tempus. The priests exchanged glances and grim grins as they readied weapons.

The thief Gralkyn sighed. "I knew riding with two battle-mad priests would bring us trouble, in depth and at speed."

"And disappointment came not to you," Tarthe said, "for which you gave much thanks. So you are now at peace, ready to speak of strategies against these globed beasts and not weasel words to try to get out of facing them!"

There was a little silence as the Blades smiled mirthlessly at each other or displayed looks of unconcern, all trying-in vain- to hide the fear in their eyes.

Elmara spoke into that quiet tension. "We are in the house of a mage, and as a worshiper of Mystra, I am closest among us to the mantle of wizardry. It is right that I make the first attack"- she swallowed, and they saw she was trembling with excitement and fear-"as I am the most likely of us to prevail against. . . what we face."

"What are ye, Elmara-the Magister in fool form, perhaps, or the Sorcerer Supreme of all Calimshan, out for a lark? Or are ye really just the soft-witted idiot ye sound to be?" Dlartarnan asked sourly.

"Hold hard, now," Tarthe said warningly. "This is no time for dispute!"

"When I'm dead," the warrior returned darkly, "it'll be just a blade-thrust or six too late for me to enjoy one last dispute. . . . I'd just as soon enjoy it now."

"Soft-witted idiot I may be," Elmara told him pleasantly, "but sit on thy fear long enough to think . . . and ye can't help but agree that however ill my efforts befall, they are still the best road we can set foot upon."

Several Blades protested at once-and then as one, their voices fell silent. Grim faces looked out at the globes, back at the trembling young mage, and then back at the globes again.

" 'Tis madness," Tarthe said at last, "but 'tis just as surely our best hope."

Troubled silence answered him; he raised his voice a little, and asked, "Does anyone here deny this? Or speak against it?"

In the hanging silence after these words, Ithym gave a little shake of his head. As if this had been a signal, the two priests shook their heads together-and one by one, the others followed, Dlartarnan last.

Elmara looked around. "We are agreed, then?" The Blades stared at her in silence until she added, "Well enough; I need every man here to have ready all the weapons he can hurl afar- but to loose nothing until I give word, whate'er befalls."

She waved them to one end of the balcony while she went to the other. "I must cast some spells," she said. "Someone keep an eye on those lights behind us and tell me if my work draws them hence."

She stamped and shuffled and murmured for a long time, casting powders into the air, drawing many small objects from various places in her clothing, and from sheaths beneath garments and in and about her well-worn boots.

In wary silence, the Blades watched the young mage trace small signs in the air; each glowed briefly and then faded as she traced the next. Radiances washed over the young mage and then were gone, and though her intent, earnest expression never changed, both she and her companions-at-arms noticed that with each new spell she worked, the four silent globes hanging so menacingly near pulsed and grew brighter. The lights in the doorway winked and drifted around each other, ever faster, but made no move to spill out into the pa.s.sage.

At last El bent to her boots and drew forth six straight, smooth lengths of wood. She held two end-to-end so their slightly bulbous tips touched, deftly twisted and pushed, and they became one. In like manner she added length to length, until she held a k.n.o.bbed staff as tall as she was.

She shook it as if half expecting pieces to fall off, but all held firm. Then she brandished it against an imaginary foe. Dlartarnan snorted; it looked like a toy.

Elmara leaned the toy staff against the balcony rail and came toward them, rubbing her hands thoughtfully. "I'm about ready," she said, casting a keen look at the waiting globes. Her hands trembled slightly.

"We gathered that," Ithym said.

Tarthe nodded, smiling thinly. "Mind telling us just what spells you've worked ... before all the bloodletting begins?"

"I've not much time to chatter; the magics don't last over-long," Elmara replied, "but know ye all: I can fly, flames will harm me not-even dragonfire, though I doubt the mage who wrote the spell had ever faced it when he made his claim-and spells hurled my way will come back upon the sender."

"You can do all that?" Tharp's voice was thoughtful.

"Not every day," Elmara replied. "The spells are woven into a dwaeodem."

"How nice," Gralkyn said with light, lilting sarcasm. "That explains everything ... now I can go to my deathbed content."

"The spells are linked in a shield about me," Elmara replied softly. "Its creation took the sacrifice of an enchanted item of power-and it drains the life from me, slowly but inescapably, more the longer I hold it."

"Then enough idle talk," Tarthe said sharply. "Lead us into battle, mage."

Elmara nodded, swallowed, ducked her head just as a helmed warrior does to pull down his visor before a charge-the warriors exchanged looks and smiled-caught up her staff, and scrambled up onto the balcony rail.

Then she leapt off into s.p.a.ce-and plunged from view.

The Blades exchanged grim looks and leaned forward over the rail. Far below, Elmara was gliding, arms outstretched, across the chamber, tilting her body as if testing the air. Her flight pulled sharply upward a scant hand's-breadth in front of a balcony, and she began to soar toward them. Her face was white and set; they saw her swallow and begin to look green even as she released her staff and moved her hands in intricate pa.s.ses and finger-link-ings. The staff flew along beside her, mirroring her slight shifts of direction as Elmara rose up the far side of the chamber, working a spell. She seemed to cast it twice ... and drifted to a halt facing them, arms spread above her head, two ghostly circles of radiance flickering about her hands. Then they saw but did not hear her mouth a word that made the chamber itself quiver-and the radiances rushed outward from her hands and vanished.

The four spheres in the center of the s.p.a.ce began to move. The Blades watched, warily raising weapons as the globes of light glided around the chamber-and the beings within them stirred. As if awakened from a long sleep, they turned to look about. One of the Blades whispered a heartfelt curse. The thieves ducked low behind the balcony rail, peering at their crazed comrade hanging in the air, hands moving again as she cast yet another spell.