Tantras Read online

  The Lyonsbane family was cursed.

  Long ago, one of Kelemvor’s ancestors had abandoned a powerful mage during a battle, choosing instead to strike out after a treasure. The mage’s dying curse made it impossible for the Lyonsbanes to do anything for less than altruistic reasons. However, over time, the curse reversed itself. Now a Lyonsbane could not do anything except what was in his own best interest. To aid another, he must receive a reward. Kelemvor had no choice but to become a hardened mercenary—or turn into a monster until he killed someone!

  I wonder what activated the curse this time? Cyric thought as he crept through the underbrush.

  The panther was lying down, licking the blood from its claws, when Cyric entered the small clearing. The torn body of the Zhentish archer was stretched out in front of the animal. As soon as the panther saw Cyric, it tensed, started to rise, and bared its perfect, white teeth in a savage snarl. Cyric leveled his sword defensively and backed up a cautious step.

  “It’s Cyric, Kel! Stay back! Don’t make me hurt you.”

  The panther growled deep in its throat and crouched, as if it were about to pounce. Cyric continued to back up slowly until he felt a large oak behind him. Grimly he prepared to run the panther through if it leaped at him. The panther appeared ready to pounce at any instant, but instead it suddenly became very still, then threw back its head and gave a high, piercing yowl.

  As Cyric watched, the panther’s fur rippled spasmodically. The beast spread its jaws wide, wider than should have been possible. Two hands, covered with gore, reached out from inside the creature, grabbed its jaws, and forced them even wider. There was a sickening tearing sound, and suddenly the panther’s body, starting at the mouth, split in half. The animal half dropped to the ground and instantly started to disintegrate.

  A shivering, naked, manlike creature collapsed on the ground beside the pile of disintegrating animal flesh, where the panther had crouched only seconds before. Cyric stood frozen in awe. Though he had witnessed Kelemvor’s transformation from panther to man once before, in Tilverton, the thief was both fascinated and revulsed by the spectacle. He found it impossible to turn away. Soon the shape on the ground became thoroughly human.

  “Who—who did I kill this time?” Kelemvor asked softly. He tried to lift himself off the ground, but he was too weak.

  “A Zhentish soldier. The dalesmen will thank you for it later.” Cyric removed his cloak and wrapped it around Kelemvor’s shoulders. “What caused you to change, Kel?”

  “Elminster,” Kelemvor said, shaking his head weakly. “He promised to remove the curse if I fought for Shadowdale in the battle. But if Elminster’s dead, I can’t receive my payment.” The fighter glanced at the body of the Zhentish archer and shuddered. “I’m just glad it wasn’t one of the dalesmen.”

  “Why? The dalesmen are no different from the Zhentish.” Cyric scowled at the fighter. “Do you know what I just saw? I saw Forester, that big oaf who fought with me at the bridge, slit the throat of a helpless, wounded Zhentilar rather than take him prisoner.”

  “Remember, this is war, Cyric.” The fighter flexed his arms. Finding his strength returned, Kelemvor pushed himself up from the ground. “You can’t expect the dalesmen to tie up troops caring for the wounded of their enemies. Besides, the Zhentish started this. It serves them right.”

  “And does it serve Midnight and Adon right to be locked up in the Twisted Tower, waiting for the dalesmen to find them guilty of Elminster’s murder?” Cyric snapped. “You and I know that they didn’t kill that old man. It was probably Bane’s avatar or a misfired spell. But the villagers need someone to blame, so they’ll undoubtedly find our friends guilty.”

  “That’s not true! Lord Mourngrym will give them a fair trial. Justice will be served.”

  Cyric stood in shocked silence for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost a growl. “Mourngrym will give the dalesmen exactly what they want. The justice served here will be the same as that given at the executions in Bane’s temple in Zhentil Keep.”

  Kelemvor turned away from the thief and started toward the bushes. “I need to find my clothes and my armor. Are you coming?”

  As the fighter disappeared into the underbrush, Cyric swore softly. Clearly Kelemvor had been fooled by the facade of law and truth the dalesmen had erected for themselves. “I’ll just have to deal with this alone,” the thief vowed to himself as he marched off after the fighter.

  There were depths to the darkness surrounding Midnight that she feared to explore. The room was perfectly black. It might have been a storage area at one time, or perhaps a large closet. The momentary glimpse that the magic-user had been given of the tiny cell when she and Adon were first locked away had revealed very little. The light from the torch their jailer held hadn’t seemed to illuminate the room, and Midnight now wondered if the ceiling, walls, and floor of the cell had been painted black to keep her disoriented.

  She’d been bound and gagged to prevent her from casting any spells, but the dalesmen had neglected to blindfold her. She had a horrible feeling of total isolation in the pitch-dark room. Only the sound of Adon’s breathing reminded Midnight that she was not alone in the cell.

  The network of ropes around the magic-user held her arms behind her back and bound her legs together tightly. Her wrists and ankles had been tied, too, and her fingers awkwardly touched the heels of her feet. Lying with her face pressed half against the floor was the only position that was remotely comfortable. At least it allowed her an occasional hour or so of sleep. Even then, though, pain constantly shot through her body.

  After the first few hours in the black room, the magic-user’s initial panic began to subside, only to be replaced by a numbing fear. Was it possible that she had been forgotten and left there to die? Again and again, she attempted to scream, but her muffled cries yielded no response. Occasionally she heard Adon shift in the darkness. Midnight wondered if the cleric was awake. He had said nothing since they were taken prisoner at the ruined Temple of Lathander. The mage knew the cleric hadn’t been gagged. If he didn’t speak, it was probably because he was unconscious or in shock.

  As Midnight thought of all that had happened to her and her friends since they had left Arabel less than a month ago, she wondered why she hadn’t gone into shock, too. First Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, had entrusted her with a shard of power in the form of a pendant. Then the gods had been thrown out of the Planes because of the theft of the two Tablets of Fate—ancient artifacts that listed the names of all the gods and their spheres of influence. Next Midnight had gone with Kelemvor, Cyric, Adon, and the goddess’s intended avatar to save Mystra from Lord Bane, the God of Strife.

  When they rescued Mystra, the goddess took back the power she had given to Midnight and tried to enter the Planes using a Celestial Stairway. The stairway, like many others throughout the Realms, was actually a path to the Planes, a direct link from the world to the homes of the gods. But before Mystra could climb the stairway and reach her home in Nirvana, Lord Helm, the God of Guardians, had stopped her.

  Though Mystra tried to defeat Helm, the god would not allow her to pass into the Planes without the Tablets of Fate. And because Helm still had much of his godly power, he was able to stop the fallen goddess easily. In the end, Mystra had been killed, but not before she returned the pendant to Midnight, along with instructions to seek out Elminster in Shadowdale and find the lost Tablets of Fate before the Realms suffered even more damage.

  While traveling through the chaos-ridden lands of Faerun, Midnight and her companions had been brought together as friends. The magic-user had gained Kelemvor as a lover, and Cyric and Adon as close allies. She had been lucky until now, although she felt she was a mere pawn in the conflicts of the gods, she had lost nothing. Not like Adon.

  For clerics, the crisis in Faerun after the night of Arrival had been especially trying. Priests found that they could cast spells only if they were within a mile of their deity. Worse still, they saw t
heir deities take on flesh and blood to survive. Now the gods had all the limitations of a mortal frame. But Adon seemed to accept all this as the will of the gods.

  Until the day the heroes left Tilverton.

  On that day, a worshiper of Gond had attacked Adon with a knife and slashed him savagely across the face. Because Midnight and her allies needed to escape into the desolate area around the Shadow Gap in order to lose the mob that followed them out of Tilverton, they could not take the unconscious cleric to a healer. An ugly scar formed on Adon’s face. Some might have considered this a mark of glory. Adon, however, was a worshiper of Lady Sune, the Goddess of Beauty.

  Suddenly Adon felt as if he had been abandoned by Sune, as if he had done something terribly wrong and deserved to be punished. The once-joyful young cleric grew morose and sullen. Midnight had hoped that helping to save the Dales from the armies of Zhentil Keep would help Adon recover his spirit, but the incidents at the Temple of Lathander, when Elminster and Midnight battled Lord Bane, only deepened the cleric’s depression.

  And unless I can find a way to prove that it was Bane—not Adon and I—who killed Elminster, Midnight thought, things could get a lot worse for both of us.

  Midnight reviewed the battle at the temple over and over again in her mind, examining each minute detail. She knew there had to be some way to prove that she and Adon had not killed the great sage, but she simply couldn’t discover it.

  She heard a noise at the door: the sound of keys rattling on a chain. The heavy door swung open, and Midnight was forced to squeeze her eyes shut as the bright flame from a torch nearly blinded her.

  “Get them out.” The voice was deep and resonant, but tinged with pain. “And be careful.”

  Midnight felt strong hands upon her, and she forced her eyes open. Guardsmen had grabbed her from either side. A powerful figure stood in the doorway, a torch held in one hand, a walking stick crowned with a small silver dragon’s skull in the other.

  “She’s shaking,” one of the guards said as they lifted Midnight from the floor. A muffled cry of agony rang out from the magic-user, and the guards hesitated.

  “What do you expect?” the man in the doorway snapped. “You’ve trussed her up like an animal. Her limbs are sore.”

  As they dragged Midnight forward, her legs scraping along the floor, the bruised and scarred face of the aging warrior came fully into view. She did not recognize the older man, though she was immediately struck by his sharp blue eyes. He frowned slightly as Midnight was dragged past him.

  The mage saw four other guardsmen in the hallway. Two of them entered the black room and retrieved Adon. Then the prisoners were taken past a row of barred cells, through a narrow hallway, and into the cavernous expanse of an outer chamber, where a table and three chairs had been set up.

  “Remove the gag,” the older man said as he helped the guards to position Midnight in a large wooden chair.

  “But she’s a powerful magic-user! Remember, she killed Elminster with her powers,” a short, blond guard snapped as he backed away from Midnight. The other guards reached for their weapons. Adon simply stood where the guards had left him, a blank look on his face.

  The older man grimaced. His blue eyes sparked with anger. “Has she been fed or given water?”

  “No,” the blond guard mumbled. “The risks—”

  “The risks will be mine,” the older man growled. He walked out from behind the chair and looked into the dark-haired woman’s eyes. “She knows that I’m here to help her.”

  Suspicious glances passed between the guards.

  “Do it now!” the older man bellowed. He clutched at the back of the chair as the strain of raising his voice took its toll, and he started to cough uncontrollably. Despite his impressive stature, the man was obviously recovering from a traumatic illness.

  The guards removed Midnight’s gag, and she opened her mouth wide, gulping in mouthfuls of air. “Water … water, please,” Midnight croaked, her throat completely raw. The older man nodded, and a guard brought her a ladle full of cool water.

  “Cut the bonds on her legs” the blue-eyed man ordered. “She can’t cast spells with her feet. Besides, I want her to walk to the trial.” The order was obeyed without hesitation, and Midnight relaxed noticeably as circulation began to return to her legs and feet.

  “I am Thurbal,” the older man said as Adon was seated next to Midnight. “I’m captain of the guard. It is important that you pay attention to my every word. In less than an hour, these men will lead you through the Twisted Tower to the audience chambers of Lord Mourngrym, our liege. There you will be tried for the murder of Elminster the sage.

  “You must tell me all you can about the events leading up to the death of the mage. I need to know everything if I am to give you a proper defense.” Thurbal gripped the dragon skull of his walking stick as if he were fighting off a wave of pain.

  “Why are you helping us?” Midnight asked, curious.

  “I was wounded on a mission to Zhentil Keep and lay deep in a healing sleep for most of the time you’ve been in the dale. Because of this, Mourngrym is convinced that I will be fair and impartial in this matter.”

  “But Elminster was your friend,” Midnight said. Her gaze drifted to Adon, who sat staring at the wall behind Thurbal, his eyes glazed, his skin pale and taut.

  “Elminster was more than just my friend,” Thurbal replied. “He was a friend to all the Dales and everyone who loves freedom and knowledge in Faerun. Anyone who knew him would testify to that. That Could prove to be unfortunate for you. Time is short. You must tell me your side of the story.”

  For the next hour, Midnight recounted the details of her involvement with the elderly sage. She focused on the events that led up to Elminster’s death in the Temple of Lathander, of course, but the true story of her involvement with the mage had begun when Mystra gave her the shard of power to safeguard.

  Midnight closed her eyes as she recalled Bane’s attack on the Temple of Lathander. “Elminster tried to summon a powerful force from another plane to deal with Bane,” she began. “But the spell went awry. The rift he opened allowed Mystra—or more precisely, a fragment of Mystra’s essence—to escape from the magical weave around Faerun.”

  “But I thought you said Mystra died back at Castle Kilgrave in Cormyr?” Thurbal asked.

  “Yes, that’s right. But when Helm destroyed her avatar, her energy must have been absorbed by the weave. She was more like a magic elemental when she appeared … a force rather than a person.” Midnight let her head loll back to relieve the tension from her neck before continuing.

  “But even Mystra couldn’t save Elminster from Bane. The Black Lord forced Elminster into the rift before he was destroyed. Adon and I tried to save him, but we couldn’t.” Midnight opened her eyes once more and found Thurbal staring at the cleric.

  “Well, Adon,” the older man said, “what have you to say? Did you try to save Elminster?”

  Adon had remained completely still as Midnight related the story of Bane’s attack on the temple. The cleric sat with his hands bound tightly together, resting on his lap. Occasionally Adon would reach up to cover the scar on his face, but a guard would quickly push his hands back down. When Thurbal addressed Adon, the cleric slowly turned to look at the captain and simply stared at him, glassy-eyed and silent.

  Thurbal shook his head and ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. “His silence certainly won’t help us during the trial,” he said. “Can’t you get him to talk?”

  Midnight looked at the young cleric. The man she saw before her was hardly the cleric she had met in Arabel. Adon’s face was pale, and his light brown hair was a mess, something he never would have tolerated before he was wounded. The most disturbing thing to Midnight, however, was the lifelessness in his once-shining green eyes. “No,” she sighed softly. “It’s probably best if I do all the talking.”

  “Very well,” Thurbal said. He rose from the table and nodded to a guardsman who had moved
behind the magic-user. The guard replaced the gag just as Midnight attempted a cry of protest. “I’m sorry,” Thurbal said, “but I have my orders. The town fears your powers, and Lord Mourngrym refuses to allow the possibility that you will create havoc at the trial with your spells.”

  The prisoners were taken up the stairway of the Twisted Tower. They passed through a stone arch and stood on aching legs in the central corridor of the tower as Thurbal conferred with one of his guards. The corridor led from the main entrance and traversed two thirds of the tower’s length; its width was so great that five people could have walked side by side without difficulty.

  Just then the door to Mourngrym’s audience chamber burst open, and a chorus of outraged protests erupted from within. The prisoners were taken through the audience chamber with a show of force that brought cheers from the massive crowd gathered in the makeshift courtroom. Despite the thick stone walls of the fortress, the sounds of the outraged villagers outside added to the pandemonium. Chaos threatened to overtake the proceedings.

  A dais lay at the head of the room, and Lord Mourngrym stood at the center of the platform, a small lectern before him. Dalesmen of noble blood were seated behind him. The ruler of the dales clutched the edges of the lectern until his knuckles grew white as the prisoners were prodded up the narrow stairs and deposited before him. Thurbal followed the prisoners and took his place at Mourngrym’s left.

  Storm Silverhand, the famous female bard and adventurer, stepped forward from the crowd and moved to Mourngrym’s right. Light from the open shutters and the few torches scattered around the room reflected in her silver-hued hair, and hatred flashed in her blue-gray eyes. Storm and Sharantyr, a ranger with the Knights of Myth Drannor, had discovered Midnight and Adon lying unhurt outside the shattered Temple of Lathander. They also had discovered the fragments of a body that must have been Elminster’s, along with cloth from his robe and pages from one of the sage’s spellbooks.