The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [42]
Anger threaded through Krystarn. If not for her training to prefer treachery and duplicity over face-to-face confrontation, she would have struck the baelnorn with her morning star. "You talk brave words, ghost. Is this your true form, or do you taunt me from a projection of yourself?"
"I should tell you?" The baelnorn grinned and shook his head. "Better that I should wear at you like the conscience that you do not possess."
"Do not wear too heavily, ghost. If you try my patience too hard, it may be that I find it necessary to track you down to your lair and destroy you." Krystarn gave the baelnorn a harsh look. "Or maybe you've lived so long down here that you no longer remember that it is possible to die a true death?"
"I would never fear a drow." The baelnorn curled his lip at the thought.
"That is your choice, foul creature," Krystarn said. "But in the year and a half that I have known of you, I find it interesting that you have never given me your name. Perhaps this is because I will find out who you are, and where you hide."
"Finding me would only bring you your death, heartless wench."
"I would find death, true, but that would only send me on my way to the Spider Queen. If you were to die, where would you go? You've already turned down the elven afterlife as your people see it."
The baelnorn remained silent.
"And what of the precious treasures of the house you yet guard?" Krystarn taunted. "I have seen you fret and worry because of the wights and skeletons that roam these tunnels who might discover your secrets. Can you imagine the hands of a drow going through those treasures?"
A pained look flashed through the baelnorn's eyes.
"I also promise you this, ghost," Krystarn said, stepping closer to the baelnorn and drawing her remaining magic energies into a tight weave around her, "that any of those treasures that I find lacking, I'll scatter above the ground in the ruins of Myth Drannor for any wandering band of adventurers to find. Each located far enough apart to guarantee that they'll be found by separate groups. Your house, should they ever realize that you have failed in your assigned task to keep their legacy intact for a time when they could return from Evermeet and safely claim it, would take lifetimes tracking them all down again. And it would be your fault."
"You have no honor."
"Honor," the drow said, "is merely one of the weaknesses I do not have. Thank you. I had not expected a compliment from someone such as you so early this morning."
"I will relish the day that Folgrim Shallowsoul turns on you, witch." The baelnorn turned and walked into the solid wall of rock beside it, vanishing without a trace.
Krystarn cursed the baelnorn and turned back to watch the hobgoblins below. None of the creatures had heard the exchange between her and the elven crypt guardian. An idea formed as she looked at the hobgoblins. Servants within the confines of the subterranean world were lacking. Especially ones that Shallowsoul did not know of.
Marshaling her strength, she stood up, making herself visible to the hobgoblins fifty feet below.
The females and the children scattered, taking the bedrolls and supplies from the illumination of the cookfire. With her drow vision, Krystarn could still see them all clearly.
"Beware, drow!" a hobgoblin male challenged. The dark gray hair covering the exposed parts of its body bristled. Its blue nose wrinkled in distaste, pulling at a ragged wound along its right temple. The naked length of a short sword reflected firelight in its right hand, and a coiled whip shook loose in its left, black leather slithering across the rock. "This place is claimed by the Sumalich Tribe!"
Krystarn almost laughed at the petty arrogance of the hobgoblin. "Who are you to address me in such a threatening manner?"
The hobgoblin stretched to its full height of nearly seven feet, taking a deep breath to throw out its chest. "I am Chomack, Taker of Dragon's Teeth, chief of the Sumalich!" Another hobgoblin male trotted over to stand beside him, holding the tribe's standard, a hand holding a