Neither Selune nor her tears were visible above the mountains, but a window of stars shone down from a cloudless sky. The wind stirred the ash leaves, but his form felt nothing but the pain of his illness. He longed to smell the air, feel the breeze.
Soon, he reminded himself.
Vhostym knew that a single, twisting pass behind him was the only nonmagical means of entering or exiting the vale. He knew too that mages and priests in service to Cyric kept the pass hidden with illusions and spell traps to protect the vale's secret-a tower hidden within the ash trees. Vhostym could mark the tower from where he stood only because he knew where to look.
The windowless, square spire of gray stone stood in the center of the vale, near the brook, barely visible through the trees. The crenellated top, silhouetted in the starlight, looked like a mouthful of broken teeth. Four soldiers armed with glaives and armored in mail stood watch on the ground before the temple. They were all human, so Vhostym assumed they must have some magical device that allowed them to see in the dark.
A raised drawbridge lay flat against the tower's face. The drawbridge did not rest at ground level, but about a troll's height up the wall. Vhostym knew that the double doors behind the drawbridge opened onto the second floor of the tower.
Vhostym floated forward through the trees, toward the tower, an invisible harbinger of doom. Nothing visible on the tower's exterior bespoke its dark purpose but Vhostym knew it to be a temple of Cyric the Dark Sun, one of two towers built in hidden vales in the Small Teeth, a mountain range that made up the southern border of Amn. Though a distance of a few leagues separated the two temples, a secret underground tunnel wormed under the mountains to link them.
The Towers of the Eternal Eclipse, the worshipers called them. Vhostym found the name ironic and appropriate.
Decades ago Vhostym had scoured Faerun for the material he would need, along with the Weave Tap, to complete his greatest spell-a peculiar type of stone that fell from the heavens. The stone had a latent property-the ability to amplify arcane power cast through it.
One of Vhostym's divinations had at last located a large deposit of the stone in the Small Teeth, in the form of Cyric's temple. Further magical inquiries had determined the origin of the stone. Millennia before, a small rock with this special property had blazed a path of fire across the sky and smashed into the mountains, exposing a seam of granite. The impact pulverized the otherworldly rock and left a crater in the mountains, but the heat and pressure of the impact had transferred the stone's properties into the local granite. Later, a sect of Banites-the original builders of the temple-had quarried the stone to build their towers. The temple was later taken over after the Time of Troubles by the Cyricists. Neither the Banites nor the Cyricists ever learned of the amplifying properties of the stone.
For months after learning the nature and history of the towers, Vhostym scried them repeatedly. He had memorized their interiors, their defenses. He knew the locations of the warding glyphs and spell traps that guarded some of the towers' interior doors. He knew the number and nature of those who garrisoned each spire: roughly fivescore soldiers, a dozen priests, and a handful of mages. The High Priest of Cyric who reigned over the towers, one Blackwill Akhmelere, occupied the eastern tower this night, so he would be spared.
No one in the western tower would live more than another hour.
Vhostym cast a long series of protective spells. When he finished, an array of invisible magical wards sheathed his person. Unless they could be dispelled-and no one within the tower had the power to counter Vhostym's dweomers-he was virtually invulnerable to harm from either weapons or spells.
The most powerful of the defensive wards would not last long, however, so speed would be his ally. He removed a root from his pouch, chewed it, swallowed, and recited another spell. When he finished, his spectral body felt energized, faster.
He was ready to begin. Vhostym started forward.
A sudden call went up from the guards before the tower and he stopped his advance. The guards scrambled aside as the sound of a winch mechanism carried through the valley and the drawbridge started to lower. In moments, the drawbridge's edge was flat on the ground, forming a ramp from ground level to the elevated double doors. The twin iron slabs of the temple doors swung open, torchlight poured out, and a group of twenty sword-armed and mail-armored soldiers trooped down the drawbridge.
All of them wore the hard looks of experienced fighters. Each bore a longbow and stuffed field pack over his shoulders. A short-haired, dark-eyed priest in plate armor led them, trailed by a boy who steered a mule loaded with field gear. The priest bore a black staff capped with an opal. The opal radiated a soft, red light that allowed the humans to see, but would not itself be easy to see from a distance. The red light highlighted the priest's breastplate to reveal an enameled image: a white, jawless skull, the symbol of Cyric the Mad. The gate guards bowed their heads as the priest stalked down the drawbridge and passed them. Waving his staff, the priest offered them Cyric's blessing.
A raiding party, Vhostym guessed.
He knew the Cyricists often raided the merchant caravans that braved the mountain paths between Amn and Tethyr. Sometimes they raided for food and supplies, other times they raided only to murder or take captives for later sacrifice.
The double doors closed behind the raiding party and the drawbridge clicked its way back up.
The ringing of the raiders' mail and the stomp of their boots sounded loudly in the night as they picked their way through the trees. The priest gazed about alertly as he walked but his eyes passed over Vhostym without hesitation. The party walked along the path near Vhostym and marched on toward the pass. Within moments, the night swallowed them and their red light.
Vhostym stared after them, pondering the capriciousness of the multiverse. Had the patrol been scheduled to move out only a quarter hour later, it never would have left at all. Vhostym was reminded again of the utter randomness, the absolute meaninglessness of the multiverse. He might have wished that existence had a greater purpose but he knew better and refused to deceive himself. It simply was. Of course, an existence without external purpose was also an existence without boundaries, at least for one of Vhostym's power. The reminder spurred him to action.
He turned back to the tower and spoke aloud a word of power.
Time stopped, at least subjectively. The world froze, except for Vhostym.
The spell would last only a short while, but he could cast it again if necessary.
Taking his pouch of enchanted emeralds in hand, he spoke a stanza of arcane words and teleported into the first floor entry hall of the tower. Torchlight lit the room but the brightness did not trouble Vhostym's incorporeal form. Two soldiers and one of the temple's wizards stood within, frozen between breaths. The drawbridge winches stood in alcoves to either side. Two closed wooden doors awaited in the opposite wall.
Without hesitating, Vhostym dropped one of the emeralds on the floor-the gem took corporeal form when he released it-and spoke a command word. At his utterance, the jewel shattered into a rain of shards and left in its wake a green glow that encompassed the entirety of the entry hall and extended through the wooden doors. The abjuration embodied in the glow restricted any form of extradimensional magical travel, including teleportation, into it or out of it.
Vhostym's hastening spell augmented the already-rapid flight granted him by his spectral form and he passed rapidly through the wooden doors. A wide stairway led down. Murals depicting the Dark Sun stained the walls. The corridor linked with several rooms as well as the watch stations set in each corner of the tower. Vhostym dropped a gem, and another, until a green glow covered the entire first floor. He noted the location of those within as he moved-the guards armed with long bows at the watch stations; the servants asleep in their beds.