Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

"Is there another riddle?" Calebaan demanded.

Baylee shone his lantern into the recessed area. For an unexplained reason, most of it failed to reach the end of the tunnel. He picked up a rock and threw it. The rock never hit the other end of the tunnel.

"It's a dimensional door," Cthulad said. "But where does it go?" Baylee was on the verge of suggesting there was only one way to find out, when a spectral voice came from behind the party. 'To the library, of course. Where else would it go?" Baylee swung the lantern to the left, lighting the figure standing there.

The lantern's glow robbed the cloak of its shadows, revealing the features of the being wrapped within. He was tall and striking, and probably would have been thought of as handsome in his days when life was still within him. Seeing the shriveled skin and glowing white eyes, Baylee had no doubt that the man before him was dead. Pointed elven ears stood out at the sides of his head, "Who are you?" the ranger asked, bringing his long sword to the ready.

"I am Nevft Scoontiphp, a baelnorn charged with protecting the crypts of my family. Those crypts are now endangered by the lich you seek." The creature regarded Baylee with its colorless gaze.

"What lich?" Baylee was aware that Cordyan had spread her men out behind him, their weapons at the ready.

"The library caretaker," Scoontiphp replied in his eerie voice. "He calls himself Folgrim Shallowsoul these days. His mortal name is long forgotten, even by himself, I believe."

Xuxa? Baylee prompted.

His intentions are honorable, the azmyth bat replied.

Baylee knew about baelnorns from his studies of old elven legends, but he'd never met one. Nor had he met anyone who had. "Why do you show yourself to us?" he asked. He'd always heard they were solitary creatures who didn't like anyone outside of the family they protected to see them.

"Because there is no one else who will rise up against Shallow-soul." A cold smile twisted the dead lips. "I even entertained ideas of supporting the draw woman's bid for power over the lich, but she wouldn't have me,"

"What drow woman?" Baylee asked.

"Krystarn Fellhammer. She believes that her goddess, Lloth, Queen of Spiders, led her to Shallowsoul and placed her in his control so that she might learn from the great library Glitterwing had assembled." The baelnorn turned his head toward the tunnel with the dimensional door. "She pursues the lich now as well. Shallowsoul has been so intent on killing first Fannt Golsway, then yourself, that he has missed much of what she is doing. She's assembled an army of hobgoblins here in these caverns and is now breaking into the library."

"How do you know this?" Cthulad demanded.

The baelnorn flicked his dead gaze over to the old ranger. "Because I am there as well."

Baylee remembered then that a baelnorn possessed the power to project an image across a distance. But that story had never been confirmed. Until now.

"Why should we trust you?" Cordyan asked.

"You shouldn't," Scoontiphp replied. "Because I seek to serve my own ends."

"Here as well as with the drow?" Cthulad asked.

The baelnorn nodded. "Else why would I be in either place? I would gladly not suffer humans set foot in these caverns. I've killed dozens over the years who would not heed my warnings when they neared the crypts of my family. And I've killed other manner of men and near-men."

"Then why are you here?" Baylee asked.

"Because Shallowsoul must be stopped," Scoontiphp answered. "If that is possible. Even now, it may already be too late. He seeks to move the library, to shift from this plane into the astral plane itself. There, amid the floating rocks and bodies of dead gods, he feels he will be safe from any more interlopers. And there will be less chance of anyone coming to take the library. If he succeeds, the vacuum left by the library's absence will be horrendous. Perhaps all of the underground will be destroyed. The library is very big."

What do you want from us? Xuxa asked.

"In another part of these caverns," Scoontiphp said, "I am helping Krystarn Fellhammer gain entrance to the library. She will attempt to steal as many books as she can, and in doing so, she will set off a number of alarms the lich has in place in the library. That will provide a diversion for you for a time. Maybe even enough time to succeed."

"Succeed at what?" Cordyan asked.

The baelnorn fixed her with his dead gaze. "Weren't you listening? Shallowsoul is a lich. As such, he will have a phylactery."

"I don't know what that is," the civilar replied.

"It's a container," Baylee said automatically. "When a lich is created, it also creates a phylactery to hold its life essence. That way if the body is destroyed, it can be reborn in some manner."

"Exactly," the baelnorn replied. "I'm glad you understand the situation. You'll also understand that we do not have much time. Krystarn Fellhammer and her hobgoblin army will be through the dimensional door she's been using to get into the library in the next few minutes. If you wait for very much longer, your chances of success are virtually non-existent."

"Maybe they'll be more non-existent if we go with you," Cordyan said.

"That's for you to decide. In truth, you are all humans, and I could care less if you all die in this endeavor. Myth Drannor and its environs should never have had to suffer the presence of humans, dwarves, or any of the other barbarian species that came into the City of Songs and drew her down." The baelnorn turned to the dimensional door at the end of the tunnel. "But I'm going. The only chance I see that you have is in finding the phylactery while Shallowsoul is engaged in keeping the library from being plundered by Krystarn's hobgoblin horde." Without another word, Scoontiphp ran into the dimensional door and promptly disappeared.

Baylee held up the lantern, making sure the baelnorn was gone. He took a fresh grip on the long sword and started forward.

"Wait," Cordyan said. "You aren't just going to walk through that after him, are you?"

Baylee looked at her, not believing she didn't feel the same excitement he did at venturing into the library. "Walking is safer than running, and I feel like running." He turned and kept going.

"Right behind you, lad," Cthulad said.

Calebaan came as well.

Baylee stepped into the dimensional door, watching how his leg abruptly truncated as it moved on into the next plane ahead of him. Still, he could feel it. And the air in the next room felt colder than even the breezes cycling through the caverns. He heard Cordyan naming men to guard the tunnel while they were gone.

Then he passed through the dimensional door, and for a time, he knew nothing.

In front of Krystarn Fellhammer, the dimensional door continued to flutter and spark, not quite opening and staying open. She grew aware of a presence at her side. Her attention strayed from the crystal ball she focused through, angry at the interruption.

"You'll never get through that on your own," Nevft Scoontiphp said as he stepped through the nearby wall.

"Did you come to gloat, ghost?" Krystarn asked sarcastically. "If so, perhaps we should see how much pain you can endure before you turn and run." She held up the morning star.

"I came to help you."

Krystarn studied the baelnorn's milk-white features, as fine-boned as her own face but with wrinkled skin instead of the smooth flesh she carried. "In what way?"

"To help you open that dimensional door."

"And what do you get out of it?"

Another earthquake shivered through the hallway like a snake dying of a broken back. Scoontiphp stood in the hallway, totally unmoved by the action though Krystarn was thrown from her feet along with the hobgoblin warriors standing in lines behind her.