Waterdeep: Blackstaff Tower by Steven Schend

In the future of Waterdeep, the current holder of the Blackstaff is Samark Dhanzscul. But while he is powerful in magic, he is not quite as Paranoid as the original Blackstaff, Khelben Arunsun, and on a trip to Visit the tomb of Khelben with his lover and heir, Vajra Safahr, he is disarmed by men who take Vajra prisoner, and she is used to make him lower his quard. They then proceed to slay him.

But merely killing a Blackstaff doesn't automatically mean you can wield the staff. No, it is more complicated than that, and the killers, Khondar "Ten-Rings" Naomal and his son, Centiv, need to get information from Vajrha. She has been wounded in their attack, and they take her prisoner and back to Waterdeep. Centiv, a master of Illusions, makes himself look like Samark while his father turns Vajrha over to torturers to make her spill the secrets of her former lover.

But her screams are overheard by Larelra Harsard, the daughter of the head of the guild that oversees the sewer, and a sellsword she has hired to protect her for the morning, Meloon Wardragon. They can hear her being questioned from the sewer and the screams she makes in reply, but cannot get to her. But Larelra knows who owns the house in question, and it is Renaer Neverember, the son of the Open Lord of Waterdeep. He and his father own many properties in Waterdeep, and Renaer runs the business of renting his father's properties.

They go to him demanding to know who is renting the house, and he finds that the deed and two of the keys to the property are missing from his records. He, Larelra and Meloon charge into the building after they tell him that a woman is being tortured in the sub-basements of the house, but they are summarily thrown out by the supposed new owner of the Property, Samark "The Blackstaff". When they insist on trying to see the sub-basements, he has them thrown forcibly out of the house, but now Renaer is incensed as well, and is able to lead them to their target via another house he owns in the same area.

There, they discover two women being tortured, and rescue both of them. While the first woman can barely walk, the second is Vajra, and she has passed out. But even after she comes to, she isn't making sense, and shortly passes out again. Discovered by the men in the house, they flee back to Renaer's house and are pursued by the watch and must take flight through a magical gate to the country house of Renaer's grandfather, where they meet a friend of Renaer's, and a son of his cook, Osco Salibuck, a halfling, who has been stuck in the house since he passed through the portal to escape his mother's nagging. Soon, he too is embroiled in the mystery of Vajhra.

Back in Waterdeep, Khondar and Centiv go forward with their plan for Khondar to become the heir and inheritor of the Blackstaff and its power. Putting around rumors that it was Renaer and his friends who slew Vajrha, they kill the other woman, who had betrayed the group to the Watch after she was rescued, for she was an associate of theirs, and throw an illusion spell on the body to make her look like Vajrha, and continue to search for the items needed to enter Blackstaff Tower. For Khondar believes that the power of the Blackstaff is being wrongly used and should be used to improve Waterdeep for the better, like getting rid of the races he believes are undesireable... anything other than human, say.

Handicapped by Vajrha's strange spells and the appearance that they are going up against the Blackstaff himself, the group must find a way to expose Khondar and his son Centiv for who they are, and install Vajrha as the new Blackstaff before Khondar canensure his scheme ends successfully. But with seemingly the entire city now against them as murders, do they have any hope of succeeding? Has any hope of heroism in Waterdeep died, or will it finally be time for a band of new heroes to rise up and take the place of the merchant-rulers that have taken over as the Hidden Lords and Open Lord of Waterdeep?

Well, I had thought that Khelben and his consort Laeral were "The Chosen of Mystra" and were effectively immortal. Certainly much longer-lived than normal humans. And yet, only a couple hundred years later, he is gone, along with Laeral, their child, grandchild and so on. But aside from that quibble (and where is Elminster in all this... I can't see him not sticking his nose in to meddle if he's still around!), this was a fine adventure story.

Things may have really changed in Waterdeep and commerce leaders become the Lords of the City rather than adventurers with stout hearts, but there are those still willing to stick their heads up to be counted and their necks out to help when someone is in trouble. Each character in the story is given their area of expertise and their own chance to shine, especially later on in Blackstaff Tower when Vajrha must seize the power of the Blackstaff for her own. She may be the heir by the decree of her former lover Samark, and bear the mark of the heir, but she still must battle to be worthy of bearing the Blackstaff.

This is another fine book in the tradition of former books about the Forgotten Realms, following up on Steven Schend's other book, "Blackstaff". While it isn't quite a continuation of the earlier novel, not with so many years passing between that one and this, it is definitely a sequel, and just as good. Recommended.