The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [131]
"Who are you?" the ranger asked, bringing his long sword to the ready.
"I am Nevft Scoontiphp, a baelnorn charged with protecting the crypts of my family. Those crypts are now endangered by the lich you seek." The creature regarded Baylee with its colorless gaze.
"What lich?" Baylee was aware that Cordyan had spread her men out behind him, their weapons at the ready.
"The library caretaker," Scoontiphp replied in his eerie voice. "He calls himself Folgrim Shallowsoul these days. His mortal name is long forgotten, even by himself, I believe."
Xuxa? Baylee prompted.
His intentions are honorable, the azmyth bat replied.
Baylee knew about baelnorns from his studies of old elven legends, but he'd never met one. Nor had he met anyone who had. "Why do you show yourself to us?" he asked. He'd always heard they were solitary creatures who didn't like anyone outside of the family they protected to see them.
"Because there is no one else who will rise up against Shallowsoul." A cold smile twisted the dead lips. "I even entertained ideas of supporting the drow woman's bid for power over the lich, but she wouldn't have me."
"What drow woman?" Baylee asked.
"Krystarn Fellhammer. She believes that her goddess, Lloth, Queen of Spiders, led her to Shallowsoul and placed her in his control so that she might learn from the great library Glitterwing had assembled." The baelnorn turned his head toward the tunnel with the dimensional door. "She pursues the lich now as well. Shallowsoul has been so intent on killing first Fannt Golsway, then yourself, that he has missed much of what she is doing. She's assembled an army of hobgoblins here in these caverns and is now breaking into the library."
"How do you know this?" Cthulad demanded.
The baelnorn flicked his dead gaze over to the old ranger. "Because I am there as well."
Baylee remembered then that a baelnorn possessed the power to project an image across a distance. But that story had never been confirmed. Until now.
"Why should we trust you?" Cordyan asked.
"You shouldn't," Scoontiphp replied. "Because I seek to serve my own ends."
"Here as well as with the drow?" Cthulad asked.
The baelnorn nodded. "Else why would I be in either place? I would gladly not suffer humans set foot in these caverns. I've killed dozens over the years who would not heed my warnings when they neared the crypts of my family. And I've killed other manner of men and near-men."
"Then why are you here?" Baylee asked.
"Because Shallowsoul must be stopped," Scoontiphp answered. "If that is possible. Even now, it may already be too late. He seeks to move the library, to shift from this plane into the astral plane itself. There, amid the floating rocks and bodies of dead gods, he feels he will be safe from any more interlopers. And there will be less chance of anyone coming to take the library. If he succeeds, the vacuum left by the library's absence will be horrendous. Perhaps all of the underground will be destroyed. The library is very big."
What do you want from us? Xuxa asked.
"In another part of these caverns," Scoontiphp said, "I am helping Krystarn Fellhammer gain entrance to the library. She will attempt to steal as many books as she can, and in doing so, she will set off a number of alarms the lich has in place in the library. That will provide a diversion for you for a time. Maybe even enough time to succeed."
"Succeed at what?" Cordyan asked.
The baelnorn fixed her with his dead gaze. "Weren't you listening? Shallowsoul is a lich. As such, he will have a phylactery."
"I don't know what that is," the civilar replied.
"It's a container," Baylee said automatically. "When a lich is created, it also creates a phylactery to hold its life essence.