Crypt of the shadowking - Mark Anthony [50]
Mari descended the narrow back staircase then, clad in doeskin breeches and her customary green velvet jacket.
She poured herself a cup of pale sweet wine and joined the two men.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing to one of the molder-ing books that Tyveris had opened before him.
"A history of the lands west of the Sunset Mountains," the loremaster explained. He ran a big hand affectionately over a yellowed page, then drew out quill, ink, and parchment from his satchel to scribble a few notes. It was clear he was in his element. Still, Caledan couldn't help but remember the days when Tyveris had held a sword as comfortably as he now did a pen.
Caledan leaned over to peer at the faded words carefully scribed on the page. "I can't read a word of that."
"That's not surprising, given that it's written in a language that hasn't been spoken in a thousand years," Tyveris replied with a rumbling laugh. "It's called Talfir." He picked up the wrinkled scrap of paper on which the thief Tembris had scrawled the single word: Malebdala.
Mari arched a single eyebrow in curiosity. Caledan motioned for the loremaster to go on.
"The Caravan Cities-Iriaebor, Berdusk, and Elturel- were founded about three centuries ago," Tyveris continued. "That may seem like quite a long while, but against the full sweep of history it's really quite a recent development. People have lived in the lands along the banks of the River Chionthar for millennia. They raised kingdoms that had fallen to dust centuries before the first folk crossed the Sunset Mountains from Cormyr to the east to resettle these lands. And those ancient people spoke a different language than the one your ancestors brought with them. That language was Talfir."
Mari picked up the scrap of paper bearing the strange word. "Can you translate it?"
Tyveris nodded. "I think so. A number of books written in Talfir have survived over the centuries. We have a few in the abbey's library, and I've been studying them." He took the small piece of parchment from Mari. "Mai signifies shadows or twilight, and dala is a book or tome. Mal'eb'dala. The Book of the Shadows. That's how I would translate it."
Caledan frowned. "Ravendas had Tembris steal a book for her?" He had never known the Zhentarim lord to be the literary type. How could a book be so important to her?
"It would seem so," Mari replied, rubbing her square chin thoughtfully.
"I asked the other loremasters at the abbey if they had ever heard The Book of the Shadows mentioned before. One of them, Loremaster Avros, showed me this." Tyveris opened another book, this one bound with two flat pieces of wood. The pages were darkened with time.
"You can read that?" Caledan asked dubiously.
“This will help," the loremaster said. He took a pinch of white powder from a small clay pot and sprinkled it across the page. Then he blew gently. The powder seemed to stick to the parchment but not to the faded ink. The words stood out more clearly now, written in some archaic tongue Caledan could not make out. He looked at the Harper, but she shook her head doubtfully.
"What does it say, Tyveris?" she asked.
The monk pushed his spectacles up and studied the passage. "It's a story about a book," he said in his deep voice. "'A tome writ upon enchantments myriad and shadowed.'"
"The Book of the Shadows?" Caledan asked.
Tyveris nodded. "I think so. It's a long passage, which tells of all the various copies of the original Book of the Shadows and what became of them over the course of time. The original was destroyed in a fatal battle between two mages. Almost all of the other copies have since been lost or ruined. But there is said to be one copy still in existence, kept under lock and key in the library of Elversult to the east, where it has lain for the last two centuries or so."
"And is it there still?" Mari asked.
Tyveris shook his head. "Loremaster Avros journeyed to the library in Elversult recently and found things in a bit of a stir. It seems the Mal'eb'dala was stolen about a year ago."
Caledan swore. "So Ravendas