Richard Baker - The City of Ravens

In a few minutes he had his information: Gerard had made his last Guild payment in the month of Eleasias, Year of the Sword. For twelve months the Guild had recorded his failure to pay, closing out his membership in Eleint of the Year of the Staff. On a hunch, Jack examined the minutes of that month's Guild Council meeting… and there he found that the Council had ordered the wizard Durezil Nightcloak to attend to Gerard's tower and dispose of the missing wizard's affairs in order to recover the missing dues.

"How very generous of them," Jack said with a smile.

Suffused with the delightful taste of success, he replaced the old record and helped himself to the most recent, searching for a record of Durezil's listed address or Guild status. He flipped quickly through the pages, whistling merrily.

Until he found the entry reading: Durezil Nightcloak, Initiate of the First Circle. Deceased as of the Fourth day of Alturiak, Year of the Unstrung Harp. Reported mauled to death by hungry trolls and subsequently devoured. Membership account closed by order of Meritheus, Assistant Secretary for Rolls of Membership, on the Ninth day of Mirtul, Year of the Unstrung Harp.

"Dead? How inconsiderate of him!" Jack muttered. "How spiteful to live five full years from the day he dealt with Gerard's effects, only to die a year before I had need of his services! What kind of a man would do such a thing?"

None of the other wizards on hand deigned to answer, although Jack received a few black looks. He replaced the book on the shelf and stood there a moment, thinking hard about his next move. He might have to look into where Durezil had gone off to before getting killed, perhaps he'd kept the Sarkonagael when he handled Gerard's final arrangements. He tugged on his finger-thin edging of beard, studying the shelves in front of him with a blank look.

"Oh, no! Not you!"

Jack blinked and looked up. There, not a yard away, stood Zandria, her arms full of heavy scrolls. The beautiful mage scowled, fury descending over her features in a mere moment.

"This is the private library of the High House of Magic," she hissed. "How dare you creep in here to paw through these tomes! The unmitigated gall of it!"

"My dear lady Zandria," Jack said, raising one hand to forestall her tirade, "I have just this morning become a member of this esteemed Guild. I am a scholar and a practitioner of the Art, just as you are. We are peers and professionals; your outburst is unseemly."

"You are no peer of mine!" Zandria said angrily. "You are here with some larcenous scheme in mind, I am certain of it! When I get to the bottom of it, I promise you, you'll wish you had never crossed my path!"

Jack smiled and plucked the topmost scroll from Zandria's arms. "What have you got here? Maybe I can be of some assistance." He studied it with some interest.

"Get your hands off that!" Zandria snapped. She dropped her armful of books and scrolls on the nearest table and wheeled on Jack, snatching the scroll out of his hands. "Your juvenile stunts don't amuse me in the least. I will see to your removal at once!" She replaced the scroll on top of the pile and marched off to the librarian. She began to harangue the woman in an angry whisper, frequently pointing at Jack.

Jack watched in idle interest for a few moments. Zandria apparently managed to convince the librarian that his presence deserved some further investigation, and with a scowl in his direction, the woman rose from her desk and led Zandria out into the hall. He gloated privately, imagining Zandria's delicious frustration when she discovered that he had every right to be in the Guild library-and then his eyes fell on the stack of research Zandria had left on the table. "Ah, I might be able to help you after all." He laughed to himself.

With a confident air he sat down at the desk and efficiently rifled through the titles and texts the adventuring mage had left behind. "What have we here?" Dwarf Runes and Marks. A Survey of Crypts and Sarcophagi. Ciphers and Codes. A Study of Tombs. Winemaking and Vintners. Eralme's Encyclopedia of Eastern Vintages. A few dozen letters. A handful of mercantile books recording hundreds of transactions. "Quite a little mystery," Jack observed, "apparently involving a dead dwarf or wine maker-that Cedrizarun fellow she questioned Ontrodes about, I suspect."

Jack leaned back and set his slippered feet on the table, doffing his fez and staring into it absently as he considered the riddle. He knew Zandria's kind; the city of Raven's Bluff was full of them, bold and certain adventurers searching for monsters to slay, wrongs to be put right, and treasures to be found. A Red Wizard of Thay, utterly confident in her abilities, desperately interested in seemingly random topics linked only by the name of Cedrizarun, a deceased dwarven master distiller. Either Zandria was a liquor aficionado of epic proportions, or she was on the trail of some wonderful and richly rewarding adventure.

What Jack didn't know about the pursuit of wealth wasn't worth knowing. "She'll need my assistance, no doubt of it," he concluded. He returned his attention to Zandria's stack of books and uncapped one of the scroll tubes, emptying its contents onto the table. It was a piece of new parchment smeared with a carefully rendered charcoal rubbing, sandwiched between pieces of waxed paper. He rolled it out on the table and studied it.

The rubbing showed a detailed carving or relief from some unknown source. A smiling sun-face looked down on a vineyard, bordered by an elaborate scrollwork of curling leaves. In the center was stamped a dwarven mark that Jack didn't recognize. And, in a banner across the bottom, a string of impenetrable dwarven runes was carved. Fortunately, someone had taken the time to record a translation in a different hand beneath the dwarven writing:

"Other hands must take up my work

Other eyes my works behold

At the center of all the thirty-seventh

Girdled by the leaves of autumn

Mark carefully the summer staircase and climb it clockwise thrice

Order emerges from chaos; the answer made clear."

"What an obtuse riddle," Jack muttered. He found a piece of blank parchment and set it over the top of the charcoal rubbing; then he worked an old spell he knew. Under the soft chaotic energies of Jack's sorcery, the blank parchment began to darken and smudge, taking on every detail of the rubbing exactly as it appeared in Zandria's parchment. Whistling under his breath, Jack folded the new copy and stuffed it into his robe. Then he picked up the scroll tube and started to replace the mage's rubbing.

"Put that down at once!"

Zandria stood in the doorway, Meritheus and the librarian at her side. She raised her hands to work some spell of great destructive potential, but the two Guild wizards restrained her in a panic.

"Please, my lady, the books!" the librarian cried.

"You must respect the sanctity of our fellowship!" Meritheus added. "Guild members do not engage in spell-slinging within these walls."

"Bugger the Guild!" Zandria shrieked. "He's been rooting through my books! If you don't want me to incinerate him in your precious library, you'd better get him out of here this very minute!"

Meritheus looked at Jack. "Master Delgath, it is now well past noon. If you please, affiliate members must confine their visits to the library to the morning hours."

"The Dread Delgath does not care for your petty rules and bylaws," Jack replied, "but in the interests of fostering good relations with his lesser fellows, he shall now absent himself from the premises." He paused and then added, "He also wishes for you to look into the rude behavior of one Zandria, who has offered the Dread Delgath nothing but contempt and suspicion despite his earnest efforts to assist her."

"The Dread Delgath would be well advised not to press his luck," Meritheus observed dryly.