by Mel Odom
"Getting back to the murder at hand, so to speak," the old mage said. "If I've come to a questionable end, then I must point you in a direction. Assuming that I didn't get killed by some stripling in a tavern when I was deep in my cups. Or simply passed away from old age, the Lady forbid."
Baylee waited, amazed at how healthy the old mage looked. Crawling through the burned remains of the house, the images that had filled his mind were terrible, twisted and blackened.
"I'm sure that this all goes back to a new expedition I've been planning," Golsway went on. "I've been awaiting a few more pieces to come into my hands. I've already prepared some messages to go out for you to call you home-if you are willing. Mayhap one of them has already reached you and that's why you are in Water-deep now." The old mage's thought-induced image paused. The familiar twinkle fired in his eyes. "This could well be the big one, Baylee. The one I've been waiting all my life on."
Baylee felt all the old excitement that Golsway's tales and stories could make rise in him fill him to the brim. "Myth Drannor!" he whispered.
"This all begins near the fall of Myth Drannor," Golsway said. "You're aware of my interest in the area. But it has been so hunted over, so infested with beasts and creatures so deadly to man that I consider it foolishness to simply wander in and hope for the best" He shrugged. "Still, in my younger days, I'd journeyed there a few times. I found nothing that wasn't picked over or nearly worthless."
Baylee waited, captivated.
"Back in those days, even before the Army of Darkness descended on the City of Songs and the final battles were fought, some of the elves had started arranging for the flight of the elves to Evermeet."
Anxiety chafed at Baylee, but he knew Golsway would only tell the story the way he wanted to.
"One of these men was a wood elf named Faimcir Glitterwing. He was one of those who reluctantly went along with Coronal Eltar-grim's decision to open the gates of Myth Drannor to the humans and dwarves, and others. Glitterwing was related to the Irithyl family, but was in no way close for the contention of being Coronal. He had been a hero in the Crown against Scepter Wars, and fell in one of them. But during that time, Glitterwing built a huge library, a library that rivaled even the greatest of libraries ever assembled by the elves. A library, by all accounts that I have seen, that rivaled what is maintained at Candlekeep."
Baylee tried to imagine what such a library would hold. Magic, for certain, because the elves always had an interest in the arcane. But the histories, the geographies, the biographies and hopefully autobiographies, the stories of lands now dead and barely remembered, all those would be in there as well.
And more. By the Lady of the Forest, how much more could there possibly be?
"When it became apparent," Golsway's image said, "that Myth Drannor was doomed to fall and the mythal could not keep the hordes of evil out, Glitterwing's heirs sought to move the library to Evermeet. The task fell to Gyynyth Skyreach, Glitterwing's granddaughter. Both of Faimcir's sons had been killed in the Crown against Scepter Wars. Skyreach was every bit her grandfather's blood and temperament, according to the records I've read. But to move all the library at once would have taken a huge fleet."
Baylee's imagination fired at once, seeing the elves cutting across the Trackless Sea, the ships heavily laden with the library. But knowing about the library wouldn't do him any good. Nor would it have gotten Golsway excited. The library would have been out of reach in Evermeet.
"Skyreach had only started moving the library when the Army of Darkness swarmed over Myth Drannor, beating the City of Songs down to her knees. Skyreach herself was aboard a ship, leading a fleet toward Evermeet She didn't reach her destination."
Baylee waited with his breath held. A ship or ships had washed up on the shores somewhere around the Moonshaes and hadn't been discovered in hundreds of years. The possibility was staggering.
"I've researched this particular piece of information for decades," Golsway said. "A piece of gossip here, a thread of a tale there. But nothing seemed to add up. Nothing, at least, until a pictograph detailing Glitterwing's family's part in the Flight of the Elves was recovered. Uziraff Fireblade found the pictograph and sent it to me. I paid him a small fortune for it because he knew some of its worth, but not all. I'd planned on dealing with him myself because I know he and you don't get along very well." The old mage sighed. "Well, evidently that's not going to happen. So you'll have to make new plans."
Baylee's mind was already working.
"You're sure this is him?"
Tweent looked at the man sitting at the far end of Nalkie's. "There is no mistake," he said.
Zyzll, his cousin, looked at him and shook his head. They sat in a booth across the room and at the other end. "There can be no mistakes," Zyzll said. "The drow woman who hired us for this thing said she would have our heads if we failed. I believe she means it."
Tweent glanced at his cousin with disdain. "I can't believe you think of failure at a time when one of our greatest successes lies within our hands."
"Don't look at me that way," Zyzll complained.
Tweent touched his features, running his fingers along them and wondering what look his cousin referred to. The face was only hours old, and the newly absorbed memories danced around in his head like live things. "It's hard to look at you any other way."
They were dopplegangers, young by their standards, but still used to killing others to use for their identities. The faces they wore now belonged to two sailors they'd found late last night while stumbling back to their ship after a trip down the Street of Red Lanterns. Both wore dock clothing and carried a multitude of daggers. Zyzll carried a cutlass and Tweent carried a boat hook.
"The female drow paid us half the agreed upon price in gold coins," Tweent said. "When we meet her again tonight, wearing this man's face, she'll pay us the balance."
Zyzll frowned. "I don't trust her."
"She's a drow," Tweent said. "Don't trust her. She won't be offended. In fact, she may feel quite honored." He smiled. Trying out a new face's emotional range was one of the greatest things about having a new body.
"Suppose we kill him here and now," Zyzll asked, "and we go to meet the drow tonight but she doesn't show?"
"Don't forget," Tweent said. "Once we kill this man, we'll know most of what he knows. It could be well know enough to find her and make her pay."
"Perhaps." Zyzll cut his eyes toward the human in the booth. "There is something else, though."
Tweent raised his eyebrows. It was a favorite thing of his no matter what face he wore. "What?"
"We've not yet decided who gets to become this man."
Producing one of the shiny new gold coins paid them by the drow, Tweent spun it high into the air. "Call it then, cousin."
"Baylee, if you breathe a word of this to anyone, you're going to be buried in would-be adventurers seeking a quick fortune."
The ranger knew the thought-specter of his old mentor was exactly right.
"You will find Uziraff Fireblade at one of his usual haunts in the Moonshaes," Golsway said. "He knows nothing of the elven ships that went down in the ocean somewhere near where the pictograph was found. He did not give me the location or the circumstance of how it was recovered. I did not want to tip my hand too early. But when you show up on his doorstep, he's going to know."
I have never liked that man, Xuxa said, making an unpleasant clucking noise. She had tapped into the thought bottle's contents through her telepathic link to Baylee's own mind.
Baylee only half-listened to the azmyth bat. In his mind he was already planning his meeting with Fireblade. He had no love for the man either, and was surprised that Golsway had even had anything to do with him. Uziraff Fireblade was a full-time pirate and part-time archeologist, learning just enough to let him know when he could demand extra money for the return of an object he "found." Golsway had worked with the man in the past, but had never enjoyed the experience. Fireblade was a braggart, but he was an excellen
t swordsman with the twin cutlasses he carried.
"The trail won't end there if you follow it carefully enough," Golsway said. "But if it does, I'm sure what you can recover from the wreck will more than pay for itself. My only hope is that some of the books will survive in some form after all these years of being on the ocean floor."
Baylee hoped so too. The thought of it almost made him too excited to sit there.
"And now," Golsway said, "it is time for me to go. But before I do, I wish you Mystra's favors in this endeavor or in any other that you choose to undertake. Take care, my son, and know that if I can, I shall watch over you."
Golsway's final words echoed in Baylee's ears as the old mage faded from his view. He sat back in the booth, gazing at the silver flask in his hand.
The waiter brought his meal to the table, and he ate with more appetite than he expected. The pain over the loss of Golsway warred in him with the excitement of the elven ship sitting on the ocean floor awaiting his arrival.
The first thing we're going to need to do, Baylee told Xuxa, is find a ship heading for the Moonshaes.
In these waters, the azmyth bat responded, that will be easy enough. Trade ships go back and forth all the time. Money and supplies are another matter.
Baylee finished his plate and pushed it away. He nursed the single glass of wine he'd taken with the big meal. I’ll go see Madonld, Golsway's law-reader. If Golsway intended for me to make this expedition, he'd have left money for me. He gazed out at the green sea, wondering if he could book passage on a ship sailing this afternoon. He didn't relish the idea of getting back out on the ocean. Even the short trip up the Sword Coast had tested his compatibility with sitting inert on a ship.
He left money on the table for the meal and the wine, including a large tip that would mark him as one of the men who frequented Nalkie's. The tip would ensure that no one would remember seeing him in the establishment later, in case Cordyan Tsald and her men from the watch came looking. He took Xuxa back under his cloak.
Outside in the noon air, with a breeze coming in from the sea, everything smelled crisper, cleaner. He felt good, ready to be adventuring. Then he heard boot leather scrape on the road behind him.
We've been followed. Xuxa leapt from under Baylee's cloak, taking wing and darting around him.
Baylee said nothing as he turned to confront the two sailors that stepped down from Nalkie's porch behind him. He thought at first that he'd been mistaken, too paranoid for his own good. Then he spotted the weapons in their hands.
18
Enter.
Krystarn Fellhammer stepped through the wall and into the library. The fifteen drow left in her command stood in rank behind her, dropping out of view as the dimensional door spell eclipsed.
She felt tense as she went through the library stacks on either side of her, drawn by Folgrim Shallowsoul's voice in her head. The stacks towered over her head in this wing of the great library, the spines and jackets crafted in fine woods and showing great artistry. She badly wanted to take one down, imagining how fine the wood grain must feel, only guessing at what it might contain.
“Two of the agents you recruited in Waterdeep have found Baylee Arnvold." The lich's physical voice sounded gravely and happy.
Krystarn's stress did not alleviate. She knew the lich hadn't called her into the library for a celebration. She took the next turn to the left, then walked up the circular stairs to the next floor landing.
Shallowsoul stood in a cul-de-sac of walls and windows that overlooked the section of the library Krystarn had just walked through. "There is a problem, however." He gestured to the crystal ball on the short, narrow table before him where a book lay open atop a half dozen other books. The open one possessed a striking amethyst cover that looked cut from a huge, flawless stone. All of the pages appeared to have been cut from the same stone, sliced extremely thin. The writing was engraved on each page, complete with pictures.
That's good." Krystarn ignored the small figures in the crystal ball on the table, concentrating on the loose stack of books, drawn into the puzzle of what the lich might be researching.
"No," Shallowsoul snapped, "it isn't." He closed the amethyst book, then draped his robes over the collection of books.
Krystarn shifted her gaze to the crystal ball. "Why?"
"I need him alive."
"Until now, you've needed him dead." Krystarn met the lich's gaze more bravely than she had in the past. Since the battle with the skeleton warriors, Shallowsoul had only seen her once. And then only to take from her the personal items she'd stolen from each of the agents she had hired in Waterdeep to look out for Baylee Arnvold.
"Things have changed." The lich waved to the crystal ball. "The spell I had placed upon this ball's tracking abilities let me know as soon as one of your lackeys had found the ranger."
Krystarn had not known such a spell was possible. Scrying usually only entailed looking for, or at, a subject by the viewer, not having the ball do the work. Even more astounding was Shal-lowsoul's claim that the ball could track more than one subject. She had employed nearly two dozen spies to search for Baylee Arnvold.
"When I knew they had found him," the lich went on, "I watched them. He had with him a silver flask which I believe to be a bottle of thought."
Krystarn was familiar with the magical item. "Who's?"
"I don't know. But this ranger has no one else with him, so I assume it's from someone who knows about the library."
"Fannt Golsway."
"Yes," Shallowsoul answered. "It would make sense that he would leave a message for his protege."
Krystarn peered more deeply into the crystal ball. "What would you have me do?" She did not recognize the two men closing in on Baylee Arnvold, having to take for granted that they were indeed men she'd employed.
"Speak to the doppleganger filth you have tracking the ranger. Tell them he is to be left alive."
"How?" The fact that they were dopplegangers limited the names to a list of six.
"They will hear you." Shallowsoul touched the ball with a talon.
An amber glow clouded the glass, but didn't dim the clarity of the image.
The lich's instruction let Krystarn know the crystal ball was evidently one of Moredlin's, able to transmit sound from the viewed location to the scryer, and from the scryer to the viewed location. She leaned forward, her breath fogging the amber-tinted crystal.
Xuxa took to wing at once and swooped toward one of the approaching sailors. The man's cutlass whistled by only inches from the azmyth bat.
Baylee dodged a blow from the viciously twisted boat hook the other man held. The ranger stepped to the side, looking for a means of escape.
The sailor with the boat hook reset himself and came again. His movements were precise and measured. Evidently he was a skilled fighter and no neophyte to actual battle. Baylee blocked the blow, slapping the back of his wrist against the man's weapon forearm and using his strength and leverage to keep the arm from descending. The ranger threw a bunched fist into the sailor's face, snapping his head back.
For a moment, the sailor's face seemed to wobble, and the ears grew longer. He staggered back, his free hand across his nose and eyes.
Baylee recognized the long ears and twisted features for what they were. He had fought dopplegangers before. Xuxa.
I have seen, the azmyth bat replied. They are all foul, cowardly creatures.
But in nowise less dangerous, Baylee pointed out. He gave ground before the doppleganger as it came at him again. Xuxa tried to keep the second one occupied, and to get close enough to use her own unique powers to end that part of the battle. But her attacks took glide time to maneuver. As soon as she broke off, the second doppleganger joined the first in attacking Baylee.
Without warning, a feminine voice spoke from the very air around them. "Keep the ranger alive," she said, "or you'll know my wrath."
"Alive?" the one with the cutlass argued. "But that was not the bargain."
&nb
sp; "The bargain has changed. Surely you, of anyone, would understand change."
Baylee believed he recognized the voice as belonging to the drow woman. They had tracked him. The pursuit had not ended.
"It is all right, Zyzll," the other doppleganger with the boat hook said. "She only needs him alive. Not of a whole piece. We'll still take his arms and legs. And if need be," he held up the cruel boat hook, "we can take his eyes as well."
Seizing the moment, Baylee turned and fled. His action caught the dopplegangers by surprise, and he gained three good strides on them before they took up pursuit. The ranger headed for his mount tied up in front of Nalkie's. He came up from behind it at a dead run, used his hands on its rump to vault up, then landed with his feet on the saddle. He took one step as the horse shifted in surprise, and leaped onto the solid wood awning over the tavern, hoping that it would hold his weight. He ran the length of it, away from the sea and deeper into the shops.
A glance over his shoulder showed him that Xuxa winged toward him. The two dopplegangers raced after him as well. One of them rippled, the arms and legs stretching as it grew two feet taller than it had been. At its new height, it easily grabbed the edge of the eaves over Nalkie's and hauled itself up.
The eaves vibrated beneath Baylee's feet as the creature dropped onto the awning. The doppleganger with the boat hook followed along on the street below.
Baylee ran, quickly as he could, leaping over the open gaps between the awnings. A handful of shopkeepers and their patrons came out to watch, not daring to get too close. But Baylee knew the watch would be called, and with them would be Cordyan Tsald.
The line of buildings ended only a short distance ahead, leaving only the street or the alley behind the buildings. Baylee vaulted the low roof overhang of a leather-worker's business and ran for the back of the building.
At the end of the roof, he took one glance down and spotted the trash heap behind the seamstress's shop. He dropped into discarded fabric, breaking his fall, then clawed his way out. The footsteps on the roof above crashed, sounding close. With its greater stride, the doppleganger pursuing him across the rooftops gained ground.