said.
Baylee dropped his hand away from Xuxa. She made a frantic grab and managed to snatch the bacon morsel from his fingertips. 'That has no bearing on our present course,' Baylee pointed out.
“True.' Cthulad finished the last bite of his wheat cakes. 'Tell me about Uziraff Fireblade, the man we are going to the Moonshaes to meet.'
'He considers himself an explorer.' Baylee made a grimace of disgust. 'But he is little more than a freebooter who sometimes strikes the skull and crossbones to do a little trading with those who wish to purchase certain discoveries he's been fortunate enough to discover.'
'I wouldn't think a man of Fannt Golsway's reputation would deal with such a man.'
'When it comes to antiquities,' Baylee said, 'those are the people an honest explorer deals with most of the time. Grave robbers. Tomb raiders. Body snatchers. Thieves. And killers. You run the gamut of the bottom of all Faerun when you seek to uncover the past. And you have to deal with them all.'
'Why?'
Baylee sopped up more honey with another wheat cake and popped it into his mouth. 'Because those are the people who generally get into areas that you haven't been able to get into yourself. Some of the regions they make discoveries in are sanctioned, and explorers are viewed only as interlopers. They take things that are better left to museums and true collectors.'
'For a price?'
'Yes. If you have a collector with a deep purse, those grave robbers know they can get a lot of gold pieces from someone who really wants a particular piece.'
'I've heard some say that the work of an explorer is only one step removed from a grave robber,' Cthulad said.
Baylee started to take offense.
He is only asking, Xuxa said, seeking to better understand how you see yourself.
Forcing himself to relax, Baylee said, 'In some respects, I suppose the comparisons are inevitable. We operate from the same deep purses. The grave robbers demand the money after they've made the discovery. Explorers ask benefactors to put the money up ahead of time, wheedling and pleading, and showing as much of the information as they dare so that it is not stolen and used by someone else. In the end, all the items that are worthwhile and are recovered end up in the same museums and collectors' hands. Only the prices differ. A thief won't care about the history that goes with a particular piece, but an explorer will learn from it first before passing it along. In fact, many of an explorer's discoveries will be of things that are not of gold or silver. Codices to a forgotten language, for example.'
'So it wasn't unusual for Golsway to deal with someone like Uzi-raff?'
'No. In fact, most of the business we did involved dealings with people like him. And much worse.' Baylee handed another section of orange to Xuxa. 'There are some who lure a willing buyer into a remote location to close the sale, then kill him and seek out yet another buyer.'
'When we see Uziraff, will we be able to trust him?'
'If we don't let him out of our sight.'
'He has a crew and a ship?'
'Yes.'
Cthulad made a sighing noise. 'Have you considered the fact that there are only two of us…”
Three, Xuxa added.
'Three,' Cthulad corrected himself, 'of us who are walking into this pirate's den to strike a deal with him?'
'There is no one else to deal with,' Baylee stated simply.
'It will be hard to hold him accountable to any bargain we may strike. Unless you know something I don't.'
'If we try to hold him accountable by force,' Baylee said, 'hell know he has something worth a great deal. It would make him even harder to bargain with.'
Cthulad gazed out over the open sea for a time. 'I'd feel better if we had a small group of battle-hardened men.'
'If that were the case,' Baylee said, 'we wouldn't even find Uziraff.'
'What is it Uziraff has?'
'The location to a shipwreck that happened during the Flight of the Elves from Myth Drannor,' Baylee explained. Then he embellished the story, bringing in all the details of Faimcir Glitterwing that Golsway had told him.
When he finished, Cthulad said, 'Evidently the library is guarded by someone with a lot of power. Even if you are able to divine the library's location from something in the shipwreck, there remains that to consider.'
'I know,' Baylee said. 'But I'm working on this expedition only one miracle at a time.'
'Perhaps it would be better to ask for help from Waterdeep. They have shown an interest. And I've some knowledge of Lord Piergeiron.'
'You know him?' 'We've met.'
Suspicions filled Baylee's head. Xuxa?
His thoughts are unreadable to me, the azmyth bat responded. But everything I can sense about him and his reasons for joining us are nothing but good and honorable.
'Lord Piergeiron would undoubtedly be interested in your mission,' the old ranger went on.
'I prefer to chart my own course for the time,' Baylee stated evenly. 'Gifted as Lord Piergeiron may be in other matters, this is my field of experience.'
'I understand perfectly,' Cthulad replied. 'I only sought to offer an alternative that may be more palatable at a later date.'
'We'll consider it then,' Baylee said. 'Until such time, I still have to find Uziraff.'
'Shouldn't we have overtaken Kerrijan's Hammer by now?' Cordyan Tsald asked, shading her eyes as she peered out over the Sea of Swords.
'Thirteen hours to be precise,' Westalfe Sternrudder replied. The dwarf captain stood beside Cordyan on the specially built box in the prow of his ship that gave him a higher perspective than his short size would normally have provided. He was thick-bodied and able, with a square-cut black beard and a weathered, pinched face. 'And we lay fallow for two days early on in this venture, as I'm sure you recall, while waiting for the winds to become more favorable. There was every chance that Kerrijan's Hammer wasn't so encumbered by fate.' He patted the railing of the ship with genuine affection. 'Tsunami Dancer is a proud ship. She'll do fine by you in the end. You'll see.'
Cordyan gave up staring across the blue-green expanse of sea. She hated traveling by ship. The only way to truly see the world was from the saddle of a horse. 'How far out from Caer Callidyrr are we?'
'Another two or three days,' the dwarf captain answered, 'should see us in the anchorage. Even if Kerrijan's Hammer wasn't mired in the windless sea as we were, we should arrive within a few hours of her. One way or the other.'
Cordyan excused herself and walked back amidships.
'Troubled?' Calebaan asked. He sat in the shade of the main mast, reading a tome of magic that was written in a language Cordyan had no comprehension of.
'No,' she answered irritably.
Calebaan closed the book, using a cloth ribbon to mark his place. 'You received this ship when you asked Lord Piergeiron.'
'Somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to me.'
'Yet here you are.' The watch wizard paused. 'There are times in your life, Cordyan, when you just have to trust to the gods.'
'I would,' the watch lieutenant agreed, 'except that I know there are those among the gods themselves who would only see evil wrought. Cyric casts a long shadow these days.'
'So you see Cyric's hand in this?' Calebaan seemed slightly amused.
'Stuck aboard this ship this past tenday, especially with the two days of lackluster sails,' Cordyan snapped, 'I've had time to see this pursuit from all sides.'
