by Mel Odom
The ranger, a woman in her late fifties dressed all in forest green and touching the head of the great panther at her side, shook her head. “And why would you be thanking me? This is a party, isn’t it? Not some functionary in a noble’s court.” She turned and walked away. The panther hesitated only a moment, its tail twitching reflexively as it covered the ranger’s back. Its deep green eyes regarded Cordyan steadily. Then it turned and padded away.
Cordyan let out a sigh of relief. Personally, she loved animals. But the abundance of them at the concourse was staggering. She glanced around to get her bearings again, and spotted the axe throwing contest. Cinching her sword over her hip more comfortably, she looked to her left and saw the two members of the watch who worked in tandem with her.
Signaling her intent, she indicated where they were going and to remain back away from her. She had already drawn more attention than she wanted to with all of her questions about Baylee Arnvold.
She walked toward the axe throwing competition, guessing that she wouldn’t find the ranger there, either. The rangers were hiding Baylee because he was one of their own, she understood that, but if he was somehow responsible for what had happened to Fannt Golsway more than a tenday ago, she didn’t think that would be so. Granted, there were outlaws among the rangers, but none who were outright.
As she passed through the concourse grounds, she was aware of the men’s heads who turned to watch her pass. Five and a half feet tall and slender, not having seen twenty-five winters yet, she carried herself well. Her chestnut colored hair ended at her shoulders and flipped in toward her neck, a proud mane that caught the firelight and burned copper. Her traveling leathers were worn but serviceable. She wore riding leathers over her breeches, and left her arms bare with the patched leather tunic. Her boots had low-cut heels so she could navigate broken terrain better. Her left hand closed automatically around the long sword at her side to hold it in place. Secreted in a number of pouches throughout all her traveling clothes, she carried a number of leaf-bladed darts. Dagger handles thrust up from her boots.
Find Baylee Arnvold and bring him back to Waterdeep for questioning.
That had been Captain Tirdan Closl’s orders to her. Cordyan had been greatly surprised that the Watch was being empowered to go so far to bring someone back. It was no secret that the Watch extended their reach from the city upon occasion, but coming to the forgathering was the farthest she had ever heard of.
Nearly thirty men and women ringed the competition area. Lanterns hung from trees along a path nearly twenty feet long. Competitors stood at one end of the twenty foot distance and threw their favorite axes at the target at the other end, a tree trunk hewn and laying on its side. The target was almost three feet across. Innumerable scars cut into the tree trunk already. A silver piece gleamed in the center of the target, but no one had hit it yet.
The current ranger at the line drew back and let fly with a camp axe. The axe flipped end over end, then smacked into the target with a loud, meaty thunk. The handle quivered for a moment from the force.
A ragged cheer went up from a handful of the watchers, while others groaned. It had come closest to the small target.
Approaching one of the cheerers, thinking the man might be more inclined to answer favorably while winning, Cordyan said, “I’m looking for Baylee Arnvold.”
“When you find him,” the man said, “tell him Rasnip says ‘well met,’ and he owes me a drink.” He turned back to the competition, clapping as the next contestant stepped to the line.
Cordyan looked up at the trees and curbed her anger. A host of birds and climbing things stared back at her from the branches, their eyes amber, orange, and red from the lantern light. Senior Civilar Closl should have known this would be a fruitless mission. However, after hearing how Golsway’s body had been found, she supposed there was no choice. Baylee Arnvold was the only lead the Watch had. She sighed. “What does it take to step to the line and compete?” she asked.
Rasnip looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve evidently got a willing heart. Have you a keen eye and a strong arm to go with it?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
The newest contestant made the throw with the axe, further away from the center than the last contestant had been. More cheering and groaning followed.
“Then it will cost you a silver piece,” the ranger said.
Cordyan reached into her belt pouch and took out a silver coin. She flipped it at the ranger, who snatched it from the air with practiced ease.
Rasnip moved forward. “Hold up. We have a new contestant.” He looked at Cordyan. “What is your name?”
“Cordyan,” she answered, moving to the line.
“Cordyan of where?”
“Waterdeep.”
“And you are a ranger?” Rasnip asked.
“No.” Cordyan knew the group at the forgathering had already guessed that. However, they didn’t know her true nature. “I’ll have to borrow an axe.”
Several rangers laughed at the request. “She doesn’t have her own axe?”
“Going to throw with someone else’s?”
“I’m willing to make a wager on this,” a man cried. “Does anyone want to try to take my money?”
A young man with a feathered cap stepped from the crowd and handed Cordyan a weathered hatchet. “It might not look like much because I’ve put it to ill use over the years, but it’s a trusty weapon.”
Cordyan took the hatchet. She ran her fingers along the smooth handle. It didn’t have a practiced finish, rather it was probably accomplished by rubbing a rough stone against it till the present finish was achieved. The head had a few nicks that a whetstone hadn’t been able to remove.
Some of the rangers guffawed at the condition of the borrowed piece of equipment, believing it to place Cordyan in even more dire straits. The young ranger blushed, evidently embarrassed by his own offering.
“That hatchet didn’t do young Turloc any favors,” someone said. “He’s already had his attempt at the prize.”
Cordyan took her stand at the throwing line and concentrated on the target, marking it in her mind. “And what is the prize?”
“What is the purse so far?” Rasnip asked.
“There have been eighty-two misses so far,” a woman called out. “It’s the ill lighting and the wine.”
“That means there’s eighty-two silvers to be won,” Rasnip answered.
Cordyan let out a breath and shrugged, using the movement to disguise the act of removing two of the leaf-bladed throwing darts from her tunic. Around her, the rangers fell silent. With a smoothness born of long practice, she threw the hatchet.
The weapon flipped exactly three times. True to the young ranger’s word, the hatchet was expertly weighted for throwing. On the final revolution, the axe blade came around hard and bisected the silver coin. Partially held by whatever was used to hold the coin in place, the halves dropped to either side.
In an eye blink, Cordyan threw the darts. No one knew they were there until they embedded in the tree trunk. Their feathers jutted from the wood, and the leaf-shaped blades caught the two coin pieces before they could drop to the ground.
Stunned silence followed the display of accuracy.
Cordyan had no doubt that the rangers at the forgathering would talk afterwards. She crossed the twenty feet, took out her darts, then tugged the hatchet free and returned it to the young ranger she had borrowed it from.
Stopping in front of Rasnip, she said calmly, “There was some mention of prize money.”
Rasnip thrust out a hand. A woman dropped a bulging leather coin purse into it. Quietly, he surrendered it to Cordyan. “What was your name again?”
“Cordyan Tsald,” she replied as she took the purse. “Junior Civilar Tsald, of the Waterdeep Watch. And I’m here on business to see Baylee Arnvold. Tell him that when you see him.” She turned and walked away, leaving a crowd of staring rangers and assembled animals behind.
&nb
sp; A tall, thin man with a short, clipped, graying beard fell into step beside her. He kept his hands clasped behind his back. He wore robes and a pointed skullcap that marked him as a wizard before he worked one spell. “Was that really necessary?” he asked in a dry voice.
“Not if you’ve found Baylee Arnvold,” Cordyan answered.
“I haven’t.”
Cordyan watched the movements of the rangers around them, reading the patterns from long years of practice. “They know who we are.”
“Yes.” Calebaan Lahjir nodded. He was a watch wizard assigned by Closl to Cordyan’s unit. As such, they shared a joint command over the watch team, which irked Cordyan.
“They let us in,” the watch lieutenant said, “so they could watch us.”
“Precisely.” Calebaan smiled slightly. “When you look at it in the right fashion, you can see the humor of the situation.”
Cordyan cut her eyes toward the wizard. They’d worked together off and on for years. When she had worked some of her first investigations in Waterdeep that had involved wizardry, Calebaan had tutored her and given her time that he hadn’t had to. “They’re hiding him.”
“Baylee is one of their own.”
“So I thought I’d let them know we knew what was going on as well.” Cordyan stopped at a table burgeoning with food. “The fact of the matter is that we can’t just take Baylee from them.” She worked to fill a clay plate with foodstuffs, finding herself politely aided by the rangers helping serve out. “All we can do is make ourselves as interesting to Baylee as we can.”
“I see. You have always had a direct way about you, Cordyan, that I only sometimes admire.” The wizard surveyed the table, finally settling on a few squares of apple nut crunch.
Cordyan signaled to the rest of her troops, having them stand down. They could watch over each other and join in the feast All fourteen men and women signaled back. The watch lieutenant couldn’t see them all, but the signals were relayed. By the time she had two cups of wine for herself and Calebaan, she had all the numbers.
“How much do you know about Baylee Arnvold?” she asked the wizard as they found space at an empty table.
“I have heard of him,” Calebaan admitted. “Though I must admit, usually only in conjunction with Fannt Golsway, may the Lady keep him close.”
Cordyan said a short prayer to Mystra, asking her to bless the food and her quest. At the end, she touched the Harper pin hidden by her tunic. Lord Piergeiron and the Watch of Waterdeep weren’t the only ones interested in what had happened to Golsway. “Baylee’s major weakness is his curiosity.”
“So you seek to draw him in.” Calebaan looked around in distress.
“Like the moth to the candle.”
10
Krystarn Fellhammer.
The drow warrior felt the words in her mind as she sat before her altar to Lloth. The rooms around her were immersed in total darkness, but her drow vision brought all the details out clearly. The smell of incense lingered in the room. “Yes,” she replied. The telepathic touch of Folgrim Shallowsoul made her cringe inside.
I have found the ranger, Baylee Arnvold. Shallowsoul’s voice sounded, thin, raspy, and cold.
“I am on my way.” Krystarn closed her prayers to the Spider Queen, asking only for the strength to see her mission through to the end, begging forgiveness for not being able to offer up the heart of an enemy at this time in sacrifice.
She took up her weapons and her traveling clothes. Shallowsoul would not have called had she not been going somewhere. With all her gear strapped about her, she pulled on her piwafwi over it all. The last tenday had been filled with boredom awaiting Shallowsoul’s attempts at finding the ranger, but she’d pursued her efforts at finding Shallowsoul’s real hiding place. None of those efforts had met with success.
The rooms were elegantly furnished with furniture she had recovered from what had been the finest houses around Myth Drannor. It was a pocket-sized palace, but she knew it was only a gilded boil inside a corpse.
She warded the door behind her as she stepped through into a hallway filled with ruin. Two male drow under her command stood watch over her door. They worked in shifts, making sure she was never alone or unprotected in her rooms.
“Malla,” they said in unison, using the drow term for an honored one. The title always made Krystarn smirk.
“Go get the others,” she ordered one of them. She couldn’t remember his name.
The drow male hurried away. The remaining one fell into step with her, holding his spear butt just clear of the ground so it wouldn’t make any noise.
Krystarn followed the hallway to the other end. No lights lit the walls, but she didn’t need them. A wall blocked the end of the hallway. She put her hand out against it, then discovered it was still solid. She remained facing the wall, listening to the others of her entourage fall into lines behind her.
She didn’t need to look to make sure they were all there. Twenty-two drow males had followed her from Menzoberranzan, their lives pledged to her task, accepting that she had been placed upon her quest by Lloth, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, herself.
The wall rippled before Krystarn, then pulsed like a great mouth about to open.
“Come.” Shallowsoul’s command filled her mind.
“Wait for me,” Krystarn ordered the male drow warriors.
“Yes, Malla,” Captain V’nk’itn responded. “We shall stand steady.”
Krystarn knew that the male drow wouldn’t stand there out of loyalty, but out of fear of her vengeance if they failed. When she had taken them, she had tied their blood to hers; if they fled, she could follow.
She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the morning star and stepped through the door. Immediately, the rush of cold wind wrapped around her and she went blind and deaf. She felt like a leaf trapped in a treacherous whirlpool in the streams that cut through the Underdark. Yet, at the same time, she maintained her sense of equilibrium.
The darkness cleared like cool fog drifting in from one of the streams leading into Menzoberranzan. Cool air obscured her true Drow vision for a moment.
“Enter.” Shallowsoul’s physical voice sounded even worse than his mental one.
Krystarn took exactly two steps forward. As always, the room she appeared in was not one she had been in before. Her heart stilled in her chest as she gazed around at the shelves of books that occupied all four walls and stood in stacks in the center of the large room.
This was what she lusted for, what she had promised Mother Lloth her direct obedience forever after in exchange for her success. A stack of books stood so close to her that she could reach out and touch them if she but moved her arm. But she didn’t, because she knew to do so would mean instant death. Shallowsoul allowed no one to touch the books.
She scanned the titles, finding them in a language she did not comprehend. Shallowsoul played his games with her avarice and she knew it. Deliberately, she was teleported of late into rooms of the vast library where she could not read the titles. Thick and pristine, arranged so neatly on the shelves, the books called out to her.
Shallowsoul laughed, and the noise sounded like bones grating, somewhere on the other side of the stacks. “Even from here I can feel your greed, drow.” His voice sounded like it was squeezed from a narrowly open crypt, deep but somehow still breathless.
“Be glad of it,” Krystarn said. “Else how would you know I would stay in your thrall?” She let him have his laugh. Every time she saw a new volume that she had not seen before, she carefully recorded the symbols and warped languages she remembered. Already in her bag of holding that never left her side, she possessed a book with dozens of inscriptions.
“It would do you good,” Shallowsoul said, “to remember who is master in our relationship.”
Krystarn bowed her head in humility. She was a drow female, not born to know the yoke of a man even among her own people, much less to subjugate herself to the whims of such a thing as Folgrim Shallowsoul. A lesser dro
w, one less committed to Mother Lloth, would have broken. There were some, she knew, who would have mistakenly believed that the Queen of the Demonweb Pits had deserted them.
Instead, Krystarn knew that Lloth was only molding her anger, tempering it into the greatest weapon the Queen of Spiders would ever have in her arsenal. And when the time came to bare that weapon, edged with all the knowledge she would reap from the library, all of Toril would not be safe from her unleashed hatred.
Folgrim Shallowsoul rounded the stack in front of the drow elf and stopped. Tortured nightmares had given him shape, while fierce magic had given him form. Gaunt and skeletal, his gaze burned with the pinpoints of green light surrounded by the black emptiness nesting inside the eye sockets. A fistful of dead white hair stuck to his head in a long, unkempt mane that trailed down his back. Blue–green dead flesh clung to its skull, stubbornly giving it features in spite of the immutability of nature. The lips had peeled back from its teeth, giving Shallowsoul a permanent sneering grimace.
He wore clothes of nobility, the cloth interwoven with fine strands of gold and silver, spotted with sapphire chips worked in intricate patterns. Over the long decades, the clothing had rotted and become tattered.
He held a volume in one hand. A long taloned finger with skin so thin the bone showed through marked his place. “You remember Baylee Arnvold?” he asked.
“Fannt Golsway’s apprentice,” Krystarn answered, knowing Shallowsoul should know by now that she never forgot anything.
“Yes. He is at a forgathering. You’re aware of what that is?”
“A forgathering is a meeting place of rangers.” Krystarn waited, knowing from experience that Shallowsoul would not tell her his news until he was ready.
“This one is called the Glass Eye Concourse,” Shallowsoul went on. He walked through the stacks, motioning Krystarn to follow.
The drow elf waited a step before trailing. Shallowsoul was a lich, and as such he radiated an aura of cold and darkness that unsettled even her nerves. Immediately, she felt the wall of freezing despair lift from her, and it seemed as though a thousand pounds had dropped from her shoulders.
