Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

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 had 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.

"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."