Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

Wheeling as she got to her feet, Krystarn ran to the end of the bookcase. She looked up on the balcony again and spotted Shallowsoul urging his undead minions on. She gathered her mystical energies, summoning her spell, unfolding it clearly in her head, then she threw it at the lich. Lightning bolts danced from her fingertips, streaking for Shallowsoul.

As expected, the lich blocked the brunt of the attack. The lightning bolts pealed thunder as they slid off Shallowsoul's shield and touched the stacks of books beside him. The paper of the books immediately caught fire, blazing high. It bothered Krystarn to see the damage being done to the books, possibly irreplaceable knowledge being destroyed once and for all, but not nearly as much as it caused consternation in the lich.

Shallowsoul screamed loud and long, and turned his attention to the burning books.

Krystarn looked about the library, seeing the hobgoblins still warring with the risen dead. Slowly and steadily, the hobgoblin army was being decimated.

"Sorceress," Chomack rumbled. "We are dying."

Krystarn faced the chieftain, seeing blood painted across his terrible features. "You'll raise another army, Taker of Dragon's Teeth. After this battle, you'll be known far and wide. Hobgoblins seeking a leader to help them wrest their fortunes from others will flock to you."

Chomack didn't appear content with her announcement, but he didn't attack either.

"Gather your men," Krystarn said. "We're going to go up further into the library."

"We should escape."

Krystarn pointed back the way they had come. "The dimensional door we used to get here has been wiped away. I can't open another that way. We'll have to kill the lich if we can, and find another way out if we can't."

"Where's the white eh?" the hobgoblin chieftain demanded. "He helped you open the door the first time. He can help you open it again."

"If you find him, let me know."

Chomack growled, then turned and neatly sliced the head from the shoulders of a dead woman approaching him from behind. "He's run off then?"

"I don't know." Krystarn looked back the way she'd come when Shallowsoul had launched his magical attack. Beetles swarmed the hobgoblins and the undead in the area. The hobgoblins fared the best, suffering only from the bites while the undead became feasting grounds for the beetles.

"He's nowhere to be found. He set you up."

Krystarn believed that was the truth as well. She glanced up at the lich, who was hastily casting spells and summoning some of the undead to control the fires. Three of the undead seeking to beat out the flames with their bare hands caught fire themselves, becoming walking torches that spread the threat of loss.

"Get your men," Krystarn repeated. "Now!"

Chomack called to his trumpeters, who blew the rally call. The battles broke off as the hobgoblin forces sank back toward their chieftain.

Krystarn summoned another spell, then hit the advancing line of undead with the mystic energy. A sheet of fire twenty feet tall formed between the uneven line of hobgoblins and undead. Controlled by their master's wishes, the undead kept coming forward, immolating themselves on the fire barrier. They twisted and turned away, burning bright.

"You're going to die a horrible death, drow!" Shallowsoul promised over the roar of the blaze.

"After you," Krystarn shot back as she raced out of the room. A narrow flight of stairs took them up scarcely three feet, but it opened onto another room. This room was squat and oval in shape. Light from the flaming corpses and burning books threw garish shadows into the room. Smoke rushed into the empty space in great, gray clouds.

Krystarn looked through the three passages open to her, trying to choose the path that would be more valuable for looting. And hoping that there was a way of escape. She cursed the baelnorn for running out on them.

Light flickered from a balcony above her. At first, the draw believed it was a reflection from the fires behind her. Then she saw the light overhead move smoothly along and disappear.

"We are not alone in the library," Chomack said.

"No." Krystarn searched the twisting spiral staircases until she spotted the one that took her up to the level where she saw the light. The baelnorn had helped her enter the library, possibly he had done the same for Baylee Arnvold. He could have made a deal with the human ranger. Of anyone in the caverns, Scoontiphp would most know what secrets the library held. She changed her course to the spiral stairway. "Follow me."

Chomack and his warriors pounded after her. She no longer feared their loyalty. None of them could get out of the library without her.

"Something's burning." Cthulad drew in a deep breath.

Baylee silently agreed, and the thought sent a chill through him. All the priceless works of art and knowledge in the library could be at risk. He hesitated at the next staircase the baelnorn plunged up.

No, Xuxa advised. Whatever threat there is to the library, the lich will act against. Including us. And he will be better equipped to handle those threats than you are.

Overcoming his urge to return and trace the smell of smoke, Baylee closed the distance between himself and Scoontiphp. He heard men praying to their gods behind him, and realized that even he had been repeating the prayer for the Mielikki's grace.

"How much further?" Baylee asked.

"Not far," the baelnorn answered.

"Have you been here before?"

"No. Never to this part of the library."

"You've been in the library before?"

"Of course. Shallowsoul has always been a threat. And he has been trying to recover the items that went down on Chalice of the Crowns. Not all of them would have been destroyed by the brine and the long years. You found that for him, which was something he hadn't counted on. It was the last tie holding him to this plane."

Baylee swung his head, taking in the rooms they passed as they ran down one of the stone hallways. The library honeycombed the underground, deeply entrenched in the bedrock. He caught tantalizing glimpses of displays of the past: vases, pottery, clothing, and armor. And more books than he thought he'd ever see in his life, even more volumes than were gathered in Candlekeep.

He followed Scoontiphp to the right and ran into a large room. Grabbing the lantern hanging from his armor, he flashed it around the room. The ceiling was forty or fifty feet over his head, reached by spiral stairs that whirled around the room. Everywhere he looked were more shelves.

In the center of the room, the lantern light flashed from the swirl of gems caught up in an invisible maelstrom. Baylee walked toward the whirlwind of sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds, almost hypnotized by their beauty and motion. They moved incredibly fast, their orbits changing constantly.

"This is it," the baelnorn said. "The center of the spell Shallow-soul has woven to take him from this plane to the next."

"Are you sure he can take all of this?" Baylee gestured toward the shelves and the rooms. "He can't possibly-"

"He's more powerful than you could ever imagine," Scoontiphp said.

"But if he's killed," Calebaan said, coming up to join them, his eyes captured by the swirl of gems, "all of this will remain behind."

The baelnorn faced the wizard. "If it can be managed."

"Getting the phylactery will give us an upper hand," Cordyan said.

"It's not that easy." The baelnorn moved closer to the bejeweled whirlwind.

"Where is it?" Baylee asked.

Before the baelnorn could answer, some of the watch members shouted out an alarm.

The draw, Xuxa warned from somewhere overhead.

"Form up ranks!" Cordyan bawled lustily, the coin in her sword's hilt shining. The members of the watch scattered across the room, seeking shelter behind the free standing shelves of books.