Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [66]
"Good, good," nodded Strasus. "So we have an end date, then." He stroked his beard. "And more than two hundred years before the founding of Selgaunt and Saerloon. What about-?"
"-a possible beginning date?" Krin sounded pleased with himself. Keph rolled his eyes in boredom as he began lifting covers and heaping a plate with grilled bread, olives, spiced chicken livers, and boiled eggs. He mouthed nonsense words along with Krin as his brother-in-law answered Strasus. "Among the coins was a sealed pouch containing fifty new gold coins from Calimshan celebrating the ascension of Qysar Shoon III of the Shoon Imperium, an event that occurred in 107 DR, the Year of the Fledglings. The striking on the coins was still sharp. They hadn't been circulated. I think they became part of the cache soon after their minting."
Strasus was stroking his beard so quickly Keph was surprised the whiskers weren't falling out.
"Well done, Krin," the old man said.
"Calishite coins among artifacts from Netheril and a Netherese survivor-state," commented Dagnalla. "That's an odd combination. I didn't think the two civilizations had much to do with each other."
Strasus sighed and shook his head. "I'm certain the tiles from the cache would tell us more, if only I could translate the writing on them. They resist even magical translation." His fingers slowed. "A picture begins to emerge, however. On the eve of Anauria's fall, artifacts of Netherese heritage are smuggled out of the doomed nation. Those escorting the artifacts make for Calimshan-some ally there has sent them Calishite coin. They travel east from their doomed nation and south, skirting the settlements growing in the Dale-lands, and head for the docks at a rough quarrying community, perhaps to seek passage across the Sea of Fallen Stars and south…"
"But why abandon their treasures?" Dagnalla asked. "And why avoid the Dalelands?"
"If they were traveling in secret, they might have wanted to avoid anyone who could seize their treasures," suggested Roderio. "And when they had to meet with other people in Yhaunn, maybe they hid their treasures with the intention of retrieving them later, but were unable to go back."
"Possibly. But why were they going to Calimshan?"
Keph dragged a chair away from the table with a loud, penetrating scrape.
"Most importantly," Keph said, "why bother asking?"
He set his laden plate down and dropped into the chair with a satisfied groan. Malia gave him a look of disgust.
"Some people want to know things, Keph," she said. "Things other than what the inside of a jail cell looks like and how much ale they can drink before they throw up."
"Knowledge for knowledge's sake, then?" Keph asked. He impaled a liver on his fork and gestured with it. Spice-stained sauce splattered across the table. "Nothing purely practical, like unlocking the secret of some forgotten Netherese magic, for instance?"
Strasus looked at him with a long face. "Wouldn't that be a good thing to know?" he asked.
His voice was slow with the infuriating patience of an adult talking to a child. Keph's lips curled. He popped the liver in his mouth, and talked around it as he chewed. "How much ale you can drink before you throw up is a good thing to know, too."
Roderio flushed, blood showing bright red through the pale translucency of his newly healed skin. "Charming as ever, aren't you, Keph?"
"I have to keep up with you, Rodo."
His brother's face looked ready to bleed. Keph held back a satisfied smirk as he tucked into his breakfast. He glanced up at his family. Malia, Krin, and Roderio were staring at him. Strasus and Dagnalla were looking at each other, their old hands clasped.
"Go on," Keph mumbled around a mouthful