Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

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 excellent 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.

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.