The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [83]
I know. But what if you are wrong and Golsway left no message for you?
Baylee was quiet for a time, still using a long-legged stride. Only two more streets in front of him, he spotted Hakamme's blacksmith shop. Hakamme also had horses and a full kit, for a price.
I don't know, Baylee finally answered. First, I need to know if there is a note.
*****
Cordyan got her men organized quickly, splitting them up into groups. Luckily, some of the men had horses nearby. She heard about the purchase Baylee Arnvold had made at Hakamme's only moments after it happened. The blacksmith was reluctant to give the information, but when he found out he was speaking to a lieutenant of the watch, he gave the answers quickly enough.
Seated on her borrowed mount, Cordyan wheeled about. All the blacksmith had was the general direction Baylee had taken: further into the heart of Waterdeep.
"He has a destination," Calebaan said. "Does Golsway have any other
holdings in Waterdeep?"
Cordyan shook her head. "None that we've found."
"What about the law-reader Golsway used?"
"Senior Civilar Closl has already talked to him. There was nothing he could tell us."
"Could or would? Mayhap he's only awaiting Baylee's arrival to turn over whatever properties he was charged with handling for the old mage after his death."
Cordyan conceded that it was a good point. She called to one of the other riders and sent him spurring his mount away. She was angry with herself. She should have known not to trust the ranger.
But to further complicate matters, Civva Cthulad had also disappeared from the house. *****
Baylee tied his newly acquired horse in front of Nalkie's Ale and Bitters. He spoke a few soothing words to the gray dappled gelding, easing its mind. He could tell from the way it moved under him that it had picked up on his anxiety.
Nalkie's was down in the dock ward, and fully half of the building hung out over Waterdeep Harbor. With space around the dock area being at a premium, old Nalkie had been offered several times what the building and the business were worth over the years, but had repeatedly declined to sell. Part of it was because he enjoyed the men his establishment brought in, usually sea-faring men and adventurers.
The other part was because men like Fannt Golsway chipped in with an annual stipend to make running the business more worthwhile. Men who were going to get things done without being in the public eye needed a place where they could meet men who dwelt in shadows. No one knew exactly how much Nalkie brought in on an average year. To hear Nalkie tell it, though, every year he'd just missed ending up in the Lords' Court for not paying his taxes.
Baylee kept Xuxa hidden under his cloak, feeling her body pressed against his. The road in front of the tavern was narrow and treacherous. Stores fronted each other in a horseshoe bend. A pocket of trees separated Nalkie's from a clothier's next to it, and the trees reached all the way down the hillside to the ocean. The tide had worn the rocks smooth over the years, creating dis?tinct borders within the stone.
A fountain occupied the center of the horseshoe space. Baylee knew none of the original work orders for the fountain remained; nothing that would tie Fannt Golsway's name to the building of the fountain.
Huge and round, it depended on pressured aqueducts from the groundwater from the heart of Waterdeep to keep the merry splashes dancing in the sunlight. The statue of a zaratan filled the center of the fountain amid the spraying water. On a much smaller scale than the giant turtle, the statue still held an island on its back, the peaks of the mountains reaching up.
Baylee sat near the head of the zaratan. No one else was about, although
most of the shops held customers.
You'll never have a better opportunity, Xuxa coaxed.
With a feeling of trepidation, Baylee counted three stones down from the