The Lost Library of Cormanthyr (33 page)

It was an hour or so before dawn, the sky just beginning to lighten in the east, slate gray clouds speared through by pink threads of the rising sun. The northern wind brought a warmer breeze that fought the chill of the sea that soaked up into them.

“The flag at the back,” Cthulad said, peering through a collapsible spyglass he retrieved from his kit, “is Waterdhavian.”

Baylee’s heart lifted at that. He and Cthulad had shared watch during the night, both of them wisely taking what sleep they could against the morning’s activities. But he was anxious to get back on the trail again.

It is Cordyan Tsald, Xuxa announced when she returned.

Sitting back in the bow, Baylee altered his course for the cog. A few minutes later, he and Cthulad scrambled up the rope ladder sailors above cast down.

Cordyan met Baylee at the top of the railing. “You and I,” she stated clearly and distinctly, “are going to have a long talk. And you’re going to have to be very convincing to keep me from throwing you into chains.” Her anger was unquestionable.

Unable to contain his excitement once he had a ship under his feet again, Baylee said, “We need to go talk to the captain.”

“Why?” Cordyan demanded. His behavior evidently caught her off guard, because she was a half-step late in catching up to him as he started for the steering section.

“To set a new course,” Baylee replied. He ran up the steps leading to the steering section.

“What new course?”

“An attempt to overtake Uziraff,” Baylee answered.

Baylee told the story over a plentiful morningfeast from the ship’s galley. Fresh fruits and cooked meats that hadn’t yet had to be heavily salted festooned the plates. The ranger took his meal at a table set up on the prow deck of the ship. Tsunami Dancer cleaved the water cleanly, racing for Mintarn.

Cthulad and Xuxa also chimed in. The watch lieutenant and wizard sat in silence, absorbing as much of the story as they could.

“This was an elven ship from Myth Drannor?” Calebaan asked in disbelief at one point. “You can prove this?”

“She was called Chalice of the Crowns,” Baylee answered. “Charged with transporting one of the great libraries near Myth Drannor to Evermeet.”

“I’ve never heard of such a ship,” Calebaan said, “and I’ve studied much of Myth Drannor.”

“She was headed up by Gyynyth Skyreach,” Baylee went on.

Calebaan shook his head. “Another name I’ve not heard of.”

“Skyreach was the granddaughter of Faimcir Glitterwing.”

Calebaan leaned forward, obviously interested. “Ah, now that name I’ve heard of. She was in charge of this vessel?”

“I found her logbook.”

“Intact?”

Baylee nodded. He intended to tell them everything before it was over. But not at the moment. At the moment, he wanted to find Uziraff.

Four hours later, they found what remained of Windchaser. The boat was a battered hulk listing in the water. Her sails and rigging rose and fell lifelessly on the ocean surface.

Baylee recognized the stress fractures running through the cog’s mast and sides. The whales had returned to finish what they had started.

The captain of Tsunami Dancer put the ship to anchor cautiously, and had men up in the crow’s nest to keep lookout. They organized a search for any survivors, but only found dead men in the swirled tangle of broken planking.

Baylee used the second potion he’d bought from the apothecary to search the ocean floor one hundred sixty feet below. He only found three dead men caught in the knotted length of the anchor line.

None of the treasure remained.

“What do we do now?” Cordyan asked as he climbed back aboard Tsunami Dancer. “The trail apparently ends here.”

Baylee shook the water out of his eyes. “It doesn’t,” he said. “We’ll pick it up again in Candlekeep.”

“How do you figure that?” Calebaan asked.

Baylee took out the special bag from his bag of holding. “Uziraff didn’t know about this,” he said grimly. He took out a piece of paper from his journal and scribbled a hasty note on it. He put the note into the bag, then closed it. When he opened it, the bag was empty.

“Where did it go?” Cordyan asked.

“Candlekeep?” Calebaan asked.

Baylee nodded. “I’ve got a friend at Candlekeep. Innesdav, an acolyte there, gave me this bag when I was still a teen traveling with Golsway. He took the time during one of my visits there to read some of the journals Golsway had instructed me to fill at certain sites I’d had interests in. Innesdav liked my writing, told me I had a keen eye for putting information down on paper in a way that allowed people to sense it for themselves. He said the bag was a gift, and that I should use it to send him my journals as I filled them, or special papers that I wanted him to see.” He looked out at the stricken ship. “Uziraff didn’t know about the logbook.”

“And now the logbook’s at Candlekeep?” Cthulad asked.

Baylee nodded. “Unless something went very wrong.”

“Do you know what’s in it?” Calebaan asked.

“Maps,” the ranger replied. “It looked like Skyreach had written down the location of the lost library of Faimcir Glitterwing in her notes, but I didn’t have time to study it further.”

“Then your treasure chase is still on,” Cordyan said.

Baylee nodded. “As soon as I get to Candlekeep. I’m not going to let it slip away. Golsway gave his life to get this far.”

“Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?” Baylee asked. He stood in the prow of Tsunami Dancer days later, looking up at the rocky volcanic crag where the citadel sat. Candlekeep boasted many towers that stabbed straight up at the blue sky.

“Yes,” Cordyan answered. “I’ve only heard stories about it. I’ve never actually seen it before.”

“Well, today you’ll get a closer view of it,” Baylee said, “than most everyone on Faerun. Provided Innesdav got my note.” He peered at the dock at the bottom of the crag. The rock was volcanic and black, reaching down into the green of the Sea of Swords. It made it harder to see the group of acolytes gathered near the small docks in their black robes.

Calebaan came up beside them, clinging to the rigging as the ship sailed through the choppy water of the tiny harbor. “I’ve only been here once myself, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Xuxa dropped from the rigging above and took wing, speeding across the water. Innesdav is there, she cried joyfully.

Minutes later, Tsunami Dancer put into the harbor. The black robed acolytes tied the ship to the mooring anchors while the sailors unlimbered the boarding platform. It thumped solidly onto the dock.

“Baylee,” one of the acolytes yelled from the crowd, “it is good to see you again.”

The ranger’s heart sped up as he spotted his old friend. He bounded down the boarding platform and seized the man by the upper arms. Innesdav returned the grip, the old man’s strength still surprisingly strong. “And it is good to see you again, old friend,” Baylee said.

“I thought perhaps you would be here yesterday.”

“Blame the wind,” the ranger said, feeling of higher spirits than he had since finding out about Golsway’s death.

Innesdav was a half-head taller than Baylee, but thin as a post, almost looking like a scarecrow instead of a man. He pushed his cowl back, a smile on his wrinkled face. “It has been so long, young warrior.”

“The years pass so fleetingly,” Baylee agreed. Besides Golsway, Innesdav was the other important figure in the ranger’s life. Where the old mage had been a stern disciplinarian, Innesdav had been the doting uncle, always there with a gift or a piece of candy when Golsway wasn’t looking. And in those years when Golsway was most active at Candlekeep, Innesdav had provided a vast tutelage of his own, bringing to Baylee’s attention fantastic stories told just for the sheer wonder and amazement of it.

“You have sent me a very interesting, if abbreviated library, my boy.”

“They arrived?” Baylee asked as the acolyte dropped his arm across the back of the ranger’s shoulders and guided him up the carved stone stairway that curled up around the uneven face of the crag to the citadel that waited on top.

“Oh yes, they arrived.” Innesdav laughed. “I must admit to some frantic consternation when gallons of seawater seemed to be pouring into that old closet we set up to receive your journals. For the first few moments, I thought you’d been drowned somewhere and this was going to be the first notice I received of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Baylee said. “I couldn’t tell if any water was going through with the books.”

“Yes, and plenty of it. I mopped for hours. After I looked at those books, of course.” Innesdav held up a hand and Xuxa flew down and grabbed the little finger of his hand. “Ah, Xuxa, and how have you been?”

Running for our lives, up against foes that we have not yet named, the azmyth bat replied, pursued and harried by the Waterdhavian Watch, and chasing after what could potentially be one of the greatest finds ever made.

“That,” Innesdav said, “sounds almost like the accounting you gave me the last time you came here.”

Xuxa chirped in amused agreement.

Baylee reflected on that event, trying to place the time in his mind. “That was when we found Tchazzar’s scroll, which outlined how the smaller kingdoms of Chessenta united and what the trade agreements were supposed to be.”

“Exactly,” Innesdav nodded. “That scroll was supposed to have been writ in the blood of the men who agreed to it. And the man who could produce it would have controlled the lineage of those kingdoms and possibly been able to step into a ready-made country ripe for the taking. If the person seizing the scroll was a good enough mage.”

Baylee nodded. The story had been told for decades since the fall of unified Chessenta. But Golsway had uncovered new knowledge that had led them on a merry chase to the scroll they recovered. It now resided in Candlekeep for security reasons. There were some who said that the ghosts of the men who’d signed the document could be summoned back from the beyond to wreak vengeance on the men who’d sundered the realm they’d put together.

“Did you ever discover if the scroll Golsway and I found was truly the Tchazzar Scroll?” the ranger asked.

“We checked as much as we were able. It certainly looks like it. But there is only one sure way to tell, and no one here is going to allow that to happen.”

They met in one of the many outbuildings that were as close to Candlekeep as any outsider was ever allowed. A terraced rock garden surrounded the building, dotted with numerous trees and stone benches. Natural springs ran through the rocks and across the landscaped areas.

Baylee felt at home there, relaxed in spite of the last few days and what still lay ahead, almost at peace because of the security he felt there. He sat across from Innesdav and beside Cordyan, too aware of her and too aware also that she was female.

Calebaan and Cthulad sat on another bench, the latter puffing contentedly on a pipe.

You should have been thinking more along those lines on the voyage to Candlekeep, Xuxa said.

Quiet, Baylee admonished. The junior civilar shifted beside him, and he wondered if the azmyth bat had included Cordyan in their silent communication.

“You were right about the logbook,” Innesdav said. “It does contain maps of Glitterwing’s library.”

Baylee’s attention centered immediately on the acolyte’s words. “In Myth Drannor?”

“Not in Myth Drannor proper,” Innesdav went on. “In a forest north of Mistledale. You are familiar with Mistledale?”

“That is a big forest,” Baylee said.

“It is actually nearer the Standing Stone than it is Mistledale, I believe.”

Baylee shook his head, thinking through the logistics of such an expedition. “If the library is underground, it could take years to find it. Surely there’s a way to cut the search down. Have you read the logbook?”

“We’re working on it,” Innesdav said. “We believe the written language Skyreach chose was deliberately obscure. You have to remember, her grandfather schooled her.”

“I didn’t know,” Baylee said. “I know very little of her.”

“Well,” the acolyte went on, “let me say that in the matter of his granddaughter, the apple fell not far from the tree. She was every bit as bright, every bit as driven, as her grandfather.”

“What language is it?” Calebaan asked. “I’m quite good at languages myself.”

“This one is long dead,” Innesdav replied. “And to make matters even more complicated, Skyreach evidently created a code all her own as well with it.”

Calebaan nodded. “Then I shall wish your people well with it.”

“There is something else,” Innesdav went on. “Here in Candlekeep, we have the means to open a dimensional door to the woods near Mistledale where you can find the library.” He focused his gaze on Baylee. “I have talked to Ulraunt about the possibility of sending you there. But it would be on the behest of Candlekeep, and anything you may find would become the property of Candlekeep.”

Baylee thought about the offer. He’d known when sending the books through to Innesdav that Ulraunt, the Keeper of the Tomes, would demand an entrance to the bounty that might be forthcoming. “Would I be given an opportunity to study whatever we find at a later time?”

Innesdav spread his hand. “Of course. Since I’ve known you, you’ve had an eternal invitation to this place. Should you succeed in finding this lost library, you could stay here the rest of your life studying if you chose.”

Most people, Baylee knew, didn’t get to stay at Candlekeep for more than ten days.

“It is a generous offer,” Innesdav said.

And more than that, Xuxa said. If you found this library and it is as big as you say it is, where else would be better to keep it than here?

“Wait,” Cordyan said, letting Baylee know the azmyth bat had projected her thoughts to everyone there, “what of Waterdeep? I represent some strong interests in these issues.”

“The Lords of Waterdeep, you mean?” Innesdav asked. His quiet voice seemed barely louder than the bubbling of the streams.

“I mean Lord Piergeiron in particular,” the civilar said. “He personally funded the ship and the men who have chased after Baylee Arnvold. If it had not been for us—”