by Mel Odom
"Of course."
"Thanks." Baylee tossed the coin purse over to her, then turned his attention back to the model he was reassembling. "Feel free to have them get you anything you'd like as well. But I recommend this plate."
Cordyan sent for a watch officer and bade him go to the Emerald Lantern. Hardly had he gone when Baylee called for her.
"I think I have it," the ranger said.
"Have what?" Cordyan crossed the room, stepping over loose debris and blackened boards.
"Where Golsway's interests lay," Baylee said, "if not exactly what he was searching for."
Cordyan studied the mound of grass-green papier mache piled on the floor in front of Baylee. "And what do you think it is?"
" Where it is," Baylee reiterated. "You've heard of the Greycloak Hills?"
"Of course." Cordyan was intrigued. The Greycloak Hills were a known destination for adventuring bands.
"In years past," Baylee said, making a final adjustment to some of the papier mache pieces he'd fit together, "the Greycloak Hills were called the Tomb Hills. Tombs from the Fallen Kingdom were spread throughout those hills. Many valuable artifacts were found there. Golsway and I went on three major expeditions to the area. Never did we return empty-handed."
Cordyan surveyed the model he'd assembled. "How do you know this wasn't an old representation of one of those excavation sites?"
"Because we never found anything in the Greycloak Hills that Golsway would have put on exhibition," Baylee answered.
"And this is new?" she asked.
"I've never seen it here."
"You believe that Golsway was interested in a new dig site in the Greycloak Hills?" Calebaan asked.
"No." The ranger pointed out identifying landmarks. "This is a very old one, one of the very first. More than a hundred years back, the exact year is open to some conjecture, an adventuring party under the leadership of Bulwgar Helmm journeyed there and discovered enough in treasure to help open the floodgates of tomb raiders that slipped into the area."
"You believe that Golsway discovered something that had been missed in the earlier excavation?" Cordyan asked.
"That fits this scenario." Baylee shifted, trying to find a place that fit him more comfortably.
Cordyan understood his motivation. She was tired of staying inside the house, wearied from standing so much in one spot. And she'd not been hunkered over the little pieces of models for hours.
"Those early excavations were purely cursory," Baylee said. "Groups charged into the area and took what they could find. A number of hidden areas were missed."
"You didn't find Golsway's journal, did you?"
Baylee shook his head. "You've been with me the whole time. Did you see me find it?"
"No." Cordyan stared at the model, willing it to make sense. Only it sat there. "I need to be better convinced of the authenticity of your claim."
"All right. In the north ward, you'll find a mapmaker," Baylee said. "His name is Yassit Daggle. For a price, you can persuade him to come here with his topographical maps and confirm what I'm showing you. This section of the Greycloak Hills is quite distinctive to someone who's been there."
Cordyan glanced at Calebaan, silently seeking his advice.
"I know of Daggle," the watch wizard said.
"If his fee is a consideration," Baylee put in, "I'll gladly pay it myself."
"No," Cordyan replied. "The coffers of Waterdeep and the Watch are not so shallow that they cannot cover a mapmaker's expense."
"Good. I'll need him here, and whatever latest maps of the area he might have to make a better guess about what Golsway was after."
"The elves from Evereska have taken over the lands of the Greycloak Hills of late," Calebaan said. "There is much speculation that they have discovered sources of magic, and perhaps even treasures, that have not yet been found."
"Everyone connected with this has displayed a vast resource of magic," Baylee said quietly.
Cordyan held her own counsel. The conclusions the ranger offered fit the circumstances. She looked into Baylee's jade green gaze. "It will take time to find the truth."
"Maybe more than you realize," Calebaan said. 'The elves dwelling in the Greycloak Hills these days are very territorial."
The watch officer who had been sent to the Emerald Lantern returned carrying a large basket and a wine flask. He placed the food and wine on a nearby table. "The cook wishes for you to enjoy your repast," the man said. "And wishes for you to drop in on him as time presents itself."
Baylee crossed the room to the table. When he lifted the lid on the basket, Cordyan smelled the aroma of the food. "Would the two of you care to join me?" the ranger asked. "Enough was sent."
Cordyan shook her head, trying to keep distance between herself and the ranger. Over the last days of travel, keeping that distance had been hard. Baylee was a friendly man, and despite the present situation, generally of good humor. And his travels around all of Faerun made him an interesting conversationalist.
"If you really don't mind," Calebaan said, "I might nibble on a few things."
"Please help yourself." Baylee pulled the wine flask up and turned it so he could read the label. He smiled in appreciation. Tau must have been in a generous mood today." He showed Calebaan the label.
"A very good year," the watch wizard agreed.
Baylee held out his hands, showing the dirt and the grime from reassembling the model pieces. "I'm going to wash up and come right back." He left the room, going up the stairs.
Calebaan rummaged in the basket, bringing out a large buttered shrimp. He bit into it, then made a growl of approval. "You should really try this."
Cordyan felt irritated at her friend, which let her know exactly how tired she was. "No, thank you." She stared hard at the model. "Do you believe him? About the Greycloak Hills?"
"I can find no reason not to." Calebaan searched in the basket still further and emerged triumphant with a cube of beef that still showed a little pink. "Why? What do you think?"
"What I think," Cordyan said, "is that Baylee Arnvold would make an excellent card player." She rubbed the back of her neck, wishing her eyelids did not feel so heavy. As she rotated her neck, she noticed the azmyth bat no longer clung to the ceiling. "Where is Xuxa?"
"Who?"
Cordyan gazed around the room, noting the open window leading out to the balcony. "The bat," she explained. Where she had spent time with Baylee, Calebaan had spent most of his time with Ciwa Cthulad.
Calebaan put the beef into his mouth as he glanced at the ceiling. "It was there."
"Not any more." With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Cordyan ran up the stairs to the privy there. The door was locked from the inside when she arrived. She pounded on the door. "Baylee."
The other watch officers clearing debris looked at her as it she'd lost her mind.
But there was no answer from the other side of the door.
Cordyan drew her foot back and smashed it against the jamb. The door popped open at once. When she stepped inside, she spotted the open window on the other side of the room. She crossed over to it and looked out. Even though Fannt Golsway's house was sequestered to an extent, many streets ran by it.
She didn't see Baylee Arnvold on any of them.
Your departure from the house isn't going to be appreciated, Xuxa said.
Baylee ran through the streets of the Sea Ward. It felt good to be out, back in the town where he'd been raised. There was a scent blowing in from the Sea of Swords that he'd missed these last months.
I couldn't stay there, and you know that. He slowed his pace as he neared the more populated sections of the city.
Whether Golsway left a message for you or not, Xuxa pointed out, your credibility with the watch is going to be invalidated.
Anger flashed through Baylee, but he knew it wasn't really directed at Xuxa. She was stating the things he needed to be thinking about while he pursued his goal.
If I had told the
watch about the message drop Golsway had shown me those years ago, the whole of Waterdeep would have known by nightfall. Golsway gave his life for this secret, whatever it is. I'm not going to be responsible for it getting out.
I know. But what if you are wrong and Golsway left no message for you?
Baylee was quiet for a time, still using a long-legged stride. Only two more streets in front of him, he spotted Hakamme's blacksmith shop. Hakamme also had horses and a full kit, for a price.
I don't know, Baylee finally answered. First, I need to know if there is a note.
Cordyan got her men organized quickly, splitting them up into groups. Luckily, some of the men had horses nearby. She heard about the purchase Baylee Arnvold had made at Hakamme's only moments after it happened. The blacksmith was reluctant to give the information, but when he found out he was speaking to a lieutenant of the watch, he gave the answers quickly enough.
Seated on her borrowed mount, Cordyan wheeled about. All the blacksmith had was the general direction Baylee had taken: further into the heart of Waterdeep.
"He has a destination," Calebaan said. "Does Golsway have any other holdings in Waterdeep?"
Cordyan shook her head. "None that we've found."
"What about the law-reader Golsway used?"
"Senior Civilar Closl has already talked to him. There was nothing he could tell us."
"Could or would? Mayhap he's only awaiting Baylee's arrival to turn over whatever properties he was charged with handling for the old mage after his death."
Cordyan conceded that it was a good point. She called to one of the other riders and sent him spurring his mount away. She was angry with herself. She should have known not to trust the ranger.
But to further complicate matters, Ciwa Cthulad had also disappeared from the house.
Baylee tied his newly acquired horse in front of Nalkie's Ale and Bitters. He spoke a few soothing words to the gray dappled gelding, easing its mind. He could tell from the way it moved under him that it had picked up on his anxiety.
Nalkie's was down in the dock ward, and fully half of the building hung out over Waterdeep Harbor. With space around the dock area being at a premium, old Nalkie had been offered several times what the building and the business were worth over the years, but had repeatedly declined to sell. Part of it was because he enjoyed the men his establishment brought in, usually sea-faring men and adventurers.
The other part was because men like Fannt Golsway chipped in with an annual stipend to make running the business more worthwhile. Men who were going to get things done without being in the public eye needed a place where they could meet men who dwelt in shadows. No one knew exactly how much Nalkie brought in on an average year. To hear Nalkie tell it, though, every year he'd just missed ending up in the Lords' Court for not paying his taxes.
Baylee kept Xuxa hidden under his cloak, feeling her body pressed against his. The road in front of the tavern was narrow and treacherous. Stores fronted each other in a horseshoe bend. A pocket of trees separated Nalkie's from a clothier's next to it, and the trees reached all the way down the hillside to the ocean. The tide had worn the rocks smooth over the years, creating distinct borders within the stone.
A fountain occupied the center of the horseshoe space. Baylee knew none of the original work orders for the fountain remained; nothing that would tie Fannt Golsway's name to the building of the fountain.
Huge and round, it depended on pressured aqueducts from the groundwater from the heart of Waterdeep to keep the merry splashes dancing in the sunlight. The statue of a zaratan filled the center of the fountain amid the spraying water. On a much smaller scale than the giant turtle, the statue still held an island on its back, the peaks of the mountains reaching up.
Baylee sat near the head of the zaratan. No one else was about, although most of the shops held customers.
You'll never have a better opportunity, Xuxa coaxed.
With a feeling of trepidation, Baylee counted three stones down from the lip of the fountain. The one he selected didn't look any different than any of the others. He pressed inward, but the stone didn't move. For a moment, he thought that he'd been wrong, that Golsway had sealed the hiding spot and that the last words he'd remember with the old mage would be ones spoken in anger.
Then the stone sunk in a few inches with a smooth click like bones rubbing against each other.
Placing his fingers against the surface, Baylee pressed and twisted, and the stone slid even further back. He reached down into the hollow and brought up a small metal flask that had an ornate stopper. The flask was almost circular in shape, slightly smaller than his closed fist, covered with intricate runes.
He drew his hand out, then pressed against the stone twice. The stone clicked into place.
Holding the flask, he ran his finger against the surface. There was no dust. It had been placed there recently. He smiled, surrounded by the city he'd grown up in, the city he probably would have died in without Golsway's help, and the city he surely would never have seen the extent of if it hadn't been for the old mage.
"One last toast," he said. Then he walked across to Nalkie's.
17
"A table in the back?"
"Yes," Baylee said. "And I don't want to be disturbed."
"Of course." The waiter, a young man with a foppish attitude but a well-worn dagger hilt, walked toward the rear of Nalkie's.
Baylee followed, noting with surprise that it seemed nothing had changed in the time that he'd been gone. But then, remembering, he didn't think anything had changed at all since the time Golsway first brought him into the tavern.
Wood dominated the decor, but none of it was fancy or showed an artful hand. The floor fit together neatly, but did not have a shine. The tables held carved initials as well as burn marks from pipes. Lanterns hung over the table, but they were brass function-als with stubby candles instead of oil.
In spite of Nalkie's spendthrift ways, the larder was well provisioned and all of his cooks knew their way around the kitchen.
Baylee took the booth in the back. The sides concealed him from any other tavern patrons. For the moment only a handful were in the front section of the building. He gave his order to the waiter, ordering a glass of water for the moment.
He gazed out at the view over Waterdeep Harbor. White sails cleaved the green sea and the blue sky on both sides of the breakwater. Sitting there, in the booth he'd shared so many times with Golsway and the people they'd talked with over the years, the ache of the old mage's passing filled the ranger. He said a quiet prayer to Mielikki that he never forget the love he had for the old man no matter how rough the times had gotten.
Xuxa struggled against Baylee's arm, pushing to get out from under his cloak. Freed, she crawled under the table and clung upside down. No one saw her.
The waiter returned with the water and a recitation of the menu.
Baylee ordered an entree of swordfish and vegetables because he knew he needed something to eat He wished he'd dared show up at the Emerald Lantern and get another plate from Tau Grimsby, but he guessed that the tavern would be one of the first places Lieutenant of the Watch Cordyan Tsald would check for him.
She is a very intelligent woman, Xuxa put in, as I've told you over these last few days.
Do we have to talk about this now? Baylee asked as the waiter walked away. He felt the resistance in the azmyth bat's mind and readied himself for it.
No.
Good. Baylee sipped the water, tasting the clean bite of it. Then he took the silver flask from his pocket. His fingers only shook slightly as he unstoppered it. In his hands, he felt the antiquity of the flask. Then he spoke the command word he and Golsway had agreed upon years ago, the name of the foul-mannered donkey Baylee had had to ride down into the valley in the Storm Horn Mountains when the ranger had been only twelve.
Instantly, Fannt Golsway sat across the table from him. The old mage had a pipe in his mouth. From the posing going on, Baylee knew Golsway ha
d conducted the spell in front of a mirror, getting himself set. Pipe smoke wreathed his head.
"Well, my boy," Golsway said, "I'm here and you're there, which means I'm dead and you're not."
The words, spoken in the no-nonsense way Golsway preferred in his dealings, brought a lump to Baylee's throat. He wanted to speak to Golsway, let the old mage know everything that had been in his heart and in his head these last few days. But he couldn't. The nature of the spell, however, required that he could interact only in a limited fashion. The vision dancing in Baylee's head also was not visible to anyone else, even if they walked up on him. The exchange of thoughts went on rapidly, much faster than real time.
Golsway smoked on his pipe again. "I can't say that I can quite imagine what it must be like to be dead. Curious, I suppose, because there may be limitless possibilities to explore. And in the afterlife, maybe all the mysteries of what has gone on before will finally be explored to my satisfaction. I doubt that, but one can hope."
Baylee laughed, but tears warmed the sides of his eyes.
"Baylee," Golsway said, "you don't know how many times I've filled up this bottle of thought for you over the years. So I'm not going to wax eloquent on whatever I may think of the afterlife. I just hope it's not boring."
"A good wish," Baylee said. "I hope it's true for you."
"Before I get into the why and wherefore of my death, at least as I can reconstruct it while sitting here and it hasn't happened yet, I want to talk of something else." The old mage's face softened. "We've been estranged of late, dear boy, and I wish that had not happened between us."
"Nor I," Baylee said.
"However, that would be as foolish as wishing geese didn't fly south in the winter." Golsway's memory held a coal to his pipe, sucking the pipeweed into renewed life. "You grew up, and you wanted your own life. There's no fault in that. I wanted to hang onto you. There's no fault in that. Know that wherever you went, Baylee, my thoughts were with you."
Remember his words, Xuxa encouraged. Knowing Golsway as you did, you know those weren't easy words for him. He hated admitting he wanted anyone around.