The Lost Library of Cormanthyr (12 page)

The woman nodded. “As I said, Senior Civilar Closl, the master was a very generous man.”

Closl almost smiled. In most circles, Golsway had been known as a very hard and demanding man. His research, when presented, was flawless. His lessons, when executed, were poetry.

“Tell me about last night,” the senior civilar suggested. “You prepared the eveningfeast before you left. What time did you leave?”

“Just after moonrise,” she answered.

“I’m told that was later than usual.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I prepared my own eveningfeast for my children earlier, then came back to prepare the master’s. He was entertaining, you see.”

“I understand that was a rare occasion.”

“True.”

“Who was he entertaining?” Closl asked. There was still the body in the drawing room burned beyond recognition to be explained, though the senior civilar had some ideas.

“Thonsyl Keraqt, the merchant.”

“Do you know what business he had with Golsway?”

“No. The master had his business, and I never pried into it.”

Closl talked for a while longer, going over the evening until he was sure he had everything the woman knew. There were no clues, nothing to suggest who had killed the men. After only a little while longer, he released her from his questioning.

She was almost to the door leading back into the house when he called for her attention.

“What can you tell me about Baylee Arnvold, dame?” he asked.

“Only that he would never have anything to do with this,” she replied without hesitation. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It’s been brought to my attention that there was a falling out between them in the past year.”

“Ten months ago,” the woman replied, her eyes sparking fire. “And I would like to know whose tongue has been wagging so loosely.”

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal that. Those who talk to me have my confidence.”

“Then please take a message back to that person for me that they should respectfully find some other way to spend their time than passing on idle gossip.”

“I’ll consider that, should the information prove false or misleading.”

“The falling out you refer to,” the woman explained, “was nothing more than a boy growing to manhood, despite his father’s best wishes.”

Closl studied the woman. “I’d never heard that Baylee was the old mage’s son.”

“He wasn’t, by blood,” Dame Qhyst replied, “but in every other way that mattered, that was their relationship. Even the master didn’t see it till months after Baylee had left this house. And a sad awakening it was, too, because by then the master had let too much time pass to be comfortable patching the rift between them himself. And Baylee, you can be sure, is on the prideful side himself. Youth can be such a detriment.”

“How well do you know this young man?” Closl asked.

“Well enough that you are asking me questions about him, Senior Civilar Closl. If you didn’t trust my answers, you should not have asked.”

Closl laid an apologetic hand over his heart and bowed his head. “Forgive me, Dame Qhyst, for I meant no offense. Of course you are right.”

“If I can be of any further help, please let me know.” She turned and nearly ran over the man standing suddenly and quietly in the doorway. “Oh, excuse me, Lord Piergeiron! I didn’t know you were there!” She backed away hurriedly and curtsied very low.

Closl straightened his own stance, coming instantly to attention.

“My fault, dame,” the Commander of the Watch of Waterdeep said. “I should have spoken up. Please continue on your way and know that no ill favor on my part has been garnered.”

The woman curtsied again, excusing herself, and disappeared into the house.

Piergeiron Paladinson strode into the garden, looking striking in his watch armor and colors. He was tall and graceful, much as his father had been. He gazed about the garden, then looked at his senior civilar. “This is a right and proper muddle of affairs.”

“Yes sir,” Closl responded, feeling like the whole arrangement had suddenly gotten many times worse than he thought it was going to be if Piergeiron himself was going to get involved in the murder investigation.

“Do we have any ideas about who did this?”

“Someone quite capable in the field of spellcasting, or someone armed with a magical weapon of some force.”

Piergeiron shook his head. “I knew that from the moment I found out it was Golsway who was killed. I knew that man as one of my teachers, as hard a taskmaster as a man would ever want to meet.”

“There’s not much else, sir,” Closl said. “Golsway didn’t have much in the way of friends.”

“There was always Keraqt,” the warden said. “Though I never knew what Golsway liked about the old pirate.”

“Sir, Keraqt was the other victim.”

Piergeiron looked surprised. “Well, rest his soul in peace then. If not friends, what of enemies?”

“Someone who could do this?”

“You’ll be working from a short list, then.”

Closl knew he wasn’t being let off the hook. “The people you’re suggesting, sir, well, we’ll be trampling on some blue blood toes to get the answers we’re looking for.”

“I know, and you’ll ask those questions on my order. If there are any who give you trouble, tell them I’ll free up my schedule to question them myself. I will have the answers for this.” Piergeiron looked out over the city. “Waterdeep stays with constant rumors and outright lies crossing her from one end to the other every day. I’ll not have this help feed the grist for that if I can help it.”

Closl said nothing, but he knew even the answers they found would only create more half-truths in their wake. “Yes sir. If I may, I’d like to suggest another route in this investigation.”

Piergeiron looked at his senior civilar.

“Baylee Arnvold,” Closl said. “I would send a watch team to find him.”

“Would you know where to look? He’s been gone from this city for months.”

“I think I might. Baylee is a ranger. I’ve a nephew who is a ranger. Young Varin has regaled us from time to time with tales of forgatherings. Festivals of a sort where rangers meet to discuss their trade and sharpen their skills. In a few days hence, the Glass Eye Concourse, one of the biggest of such meetings, is going to be held. It’s possible that Baylee will be there, or at least someone who knows him.”

“You want to send a watch team from Waterdeep there?”

“With your permission.”

Piergeiron stroked his chin as he considered the option. After a moment, he nodded. “Make it so, senior civilar. Whatever aid you need from me, consider it done.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And let me know what your people turn up.”

“Of course. You’ll be the next man to know after me.” Closl watched as the lord walked away, deep in thought. The watch senior civilar sighed heavily, looking back at the house. He knew what Piergeiron’s deepest fear was even though the noble had not spoke of it: that Golsway’s death really was part of one of the many plots that began every day in Waterdeep instead of a separate act.

The senior civilar shook his head, imagining the power that had run rampant inside the house. And as skilled as the murderer or murderers were, he feared for any man that tried to take them in for the crime.

Krystarn Fellhammer stared angrily into the darkness that stretched ahead of her. The underground passage twisted and turned and fell away down into the earth. The smell of decay filled the thick air around her. She kept her morning star in her fist. The battle with Fannt Golsway had left her more drained than she would have liked to admit.

She peered down over the crest of the hill she stepped out onto. She thought she knew where she was, but the chain of caverns was huge. If she was at the location she thought, she had more than an hour’s walk ahead of her. The teleport spell on the gem she’d been given had not worked as completely as she’d been told it would, or Shallowsoul had deliberately lied to her about where she would return in the subterranean lairs.

Having been raised in Menzoberranzan for the first forty-three years of her life, where a dozen acts of treachery could be committed before morningfeast—sometimes within her own family—being lied to came as no surprise. It only meant that even with the recent turn of events she hadn’t maneuvered herself into the bargaining position she’d planned to with Shallowsoul.

The complete lack of light in the caverns didn’t bother her either. The lights back at Golsway’s home had hurt her eyes. Drow vision was capable of seeing the heat of a living body, or even the subtle changes in temperature from rock to wall to rodent. She navigated the path through the broken rock with ease. Mice and rats scurried before her, finally packing together enough that they dared try to rush her and bring her down.

She read their predatory thoughts easily, then twisted the silver band on her left ring finger and said the activation phrase. The spell filled her and she directed it at the gathering of rats.

The wall of telekinetic force slammed into the vermin, knocking their bodies back against the cavern wall. The ones that weren’t killed outright died when they struck the wall in a series of meaty smacks. Twisted, broken corpses littered the rocks and uneven terrain.

Krystarn smiled to herself. Every death viewed, even the small ones, were worth watching. She would remember Fannt Golsway’s passing for a long time with joy. Her only regret was that there had been no time to savor it before being yanked out of the house, no time for the torture that could have been the prelude.

All around her were the dead of Myth Drannor. Some of them had been buried by the cataclysmic forces that had brought the City of Songs down so many years ago. Others had been hauled underground by the remnants of the Army of Darkness that had overwhelmed Myth Drannor. Gnolls and hook horrors and other flesh-eaters had joined up in the forces that had ripped the city to shreds.

Not many knew of the wide-spread system of pocket caverns that existed under the grounds where Myth Drannor and other cities had been. The ones that did know of the subterranean areas were not aware of the connecting tunnels that were often times disguised by corrupted and diseased bits of the mythal that had been laid to protect the city. The leftover magic forces these days were fickle things, choosing when and how to work, and often on whom.

She continued walking for a time, content in the darkness and the old death in a way that she hadn’t been settled in the Underdark. She preferred the solitude, even though it lessened the number of potential victims. Each victim she did choose, however, she was able to devote all of her energies to, Lloth willing.

A cacophony of cluttering and squeaking and sometimes challenging growls kept her company as she passed through narrow valleys that had been riven in the land, and through the remnants of dungeons and houses that had fallen in the battle. The only things she feared in the subterranean world beneath the corpse of Myth Drannor were the Phaerimm, the Sharn, and the baatezu. Only those stood a true chance against the magic forces she controlled. And those she knew how to avoid.

She walked into a large cavern that she identified immediately.

Turning, she reached into the bag of holding at her waist and took out a pair of climbing claws that would cling to the rock better than her hands would. She put another set on, strapping them on over her boots.

Lean and limber, she scaled the side of the cavern with ease. Her piwafwi caused her to blend in with the shadows even as she moved. From a distance, she knew she would only be detected as an occasional ripple of movement, if at all.

At the top of the wall she put her climbing gear away and located the trail she’d been looking for. The path was scarcely two feet wide. She had to turn sideways to ease through the rift splitting solid rock. Sixty feet further on, the rift widened into another cavern.

She knew Shallowsoul couldn’t have been hoping to get her lost. In the four years she’d been down in the caverns with Shallowsoul, she’d explored much of the surrounding territory. She knew her way around the areas here. So she wondered what Shallowsoul’s intentions might have been. Second-guessing someone skilled in treachery was second nature to the drow, but Shallowsoul’s psychology added in the mercurial element of madness and paranoia. It was frustrating that one who had so much of what she wanted also came so powerful.

Voices below her caught Krystarn’s attention.

She froze in the opening and listened. They were still too far away for her to hear properly. Taking up her hand crossbow in her free hand, she crept to the ridge in front of her. The tip of the quarrel in the pistol was coated with poison, guaranteeing no human-sized survivors.

From the coloring of the ruby glow in front of her, the drow knew that someone had a fire going below. She peered over the edge.

A group of hobgoblins sat around a cookfire. Krystarn did a quick accounting, finding there were more than forty of them in all. Nearly half of those were male warriors. The rest were divided almost equally between females and children. She shifted, getting ready to creep even closer till she could hear them.

“You’re still doing his bidding, aren’t you?” a voice said at her side.

Krystarn leaped to her feet, the morning star and the hand crossbow at the ready. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted the figure in front of her. “Shouldn’t you be off rattling chains and haunting your crypt like a good little ghost?” she asked sarcastically.

The being drew himself up to his full height. Obviously of elven blood, he wore raiment fit for a king. He looked far too pale to be healthy, even for a Moon Elf. “You know very well I am no ghost,” he declared haughtily. “I am a baelnorn, sworn and loyal protector of my family’s wealth and power.”

“An annoyance by any other name.”

The baelnorn pursed his lips, the pride suffusing him coloring even his undead face. “You know that I have no respect for you, drow. Your kind were never welcome in fair Myth Drannor, even when the city opened its arms to the humans and dwarves.”

“Then allow me to pass in peace, ghost. I know that you won’t offer me any harm as long as I don’t try to unlock your family’s crypts or the secrets they left hidden behind when they fled before the Army of Darkness. And I have no intention of trying. I have found the treasure I seek.”