XIII

7 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet

"Leaving, are ye? And just like that? With no fare-the-well?"

Pacys looked up from securing his backpack and saw Khlinat standing in the doorway. The dwarf had been generous enough to loan him the couch while they searched for the boy. The old bard had put the bedding away and packed his things. "Yes. I was going to leave a note."

Khlinat's eyebrows climbed. "Oh, and ye are in a hurry too."

"Yes."

"Do ye know where the swabbie is?"

"No, but I've found out where I'm supposed to be," Pacys replied. He pulled the backpack up and settled the straps over his shoulders. "I have to trust that our paths will intersect again as they're supposed to."

"I've continued poking me nose into places around the city, but I've yet to find a solid lead."

Pacys shook his head. Music raced through his mind again, traveling chords. "I don't think you will. However he got out of the city, he's not here any longer."

"Aye, and I know that's true enough." He looked troubled. "Where are ye off to?"

"I don't know. While I was at the church, I got a vision. It told me where to go, but not where I'd be going. I guess I'm supposed to figure that out after I get there."

"Ye make this sound mysterious."

"The gods do tend to move in that manner," Pacys said.

Khlinat ran a hand through his tangled beard. "Ye going to be all right on yer own?"

"I always have been." Pacys rummaged in his coin purse, trying not to notice how light it was for a man possibly traveling a great distance. "I know you've not been able to work at the shipyards since you've been injured. Let me pay you for letting me bed here."

"Faugh, and that would be a laugh. Don't think yerself so high and mighty, old bard. I'm a steady working man and no traveler from place to place depending on the generosity of strangers. I've got silver enough to do me awhile."

Pacys closed his purse, knowing it would be better to keep his meager coin as long as he could. As long as he stayed within a civilized area he had no doubts about being able to sing for enough to eat and put a temporary roof over his head, but if he was out in the wilderness things might be different.

"I got a question to ask ye," Khlinat said, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Yes."

"While ye are out and about, who's going to watch yer back? I mean, it's going to be powerful hard to find the swabbie if yer fertilizer for some lonely patch of forest."

"I've always watched out for myself," Pacys answered.

"Aye, but things seem to have greater stakes at the moment. I've a mind to go with ye meself, kind of keep ye out of trouble and it away from yer door. If ye would have me."

Pacys looked at the dwarf, realizing the warrior's nature that resided in the short, powerful frame. Despite missing a leg and the wounds he'd suffered only three days ago, Khlinat seemed prepared to leave during the next drawn breath.

"I don't know how far I'd have to go," the old bard stated. "Nor how long I'll be gone."

Khlinat nodded. "Something put me there where that boy was. I still feel its pull on me now. I never been a coward, no dwarf worth his salt is, but that night with that boy, I felt like I was fighting the good fight, the kind a warrior would want to sell his life at if blood price was demanded for participation. I ain't too willing to let that feeling go. Losing me leg, I've felt like half a man for a lot of years. With him, facing them sahuagin claws and jaws, a true axe in me hand, I felt like me old self. I want that back." He paused to clear his voice. "I ain't one to go begging, but if ye will have me, I swear by the anvil and hammer of Moradin to look over ye, be the shield over yer back should ye need it till I see ye clear of this mess."

Emotion choked the old bard. Riffs of music, carried on the unmistakable basso that marked many dwarven songs, echoed inside his head. "You truly feel that this is what has been put before you?"

"With all me heart," Khlinat responded. "I went down to the apothecary and bought meself a dram of heal potion to get meself more right for if ye should have need of me. Don't be telling me I wasted me coin."

"Get your gear together," Pacys said. "I've already wasted two days when I was supposed to be doing something."

Pacys led the way into the Hall of Wonders, between the black doors that floated in the air in front of it. The white many-toothed wheels on the doors looked exactly as they had in his vision.

The Hall of Wonders sat on Windspell Street, across from the High House, its parent temple. Stone gargoyles clung to the roof on clawed feet. The building stood three stories tall and ran straight back, a hall as its name implied. It was immaculately clean and the windows were scrubbed, shining glass.

A watchpriest greeted them dressed in a wheeled hat and a robe with a sash at the waist that contained gears, locks, hooks, and bits of tin, steel, and wood. Pacys paid the priest eight silvers, the entry fee for Khlinat and himself.

The old bard's feet made only slight noise against the waxed stone floor. Tall stone pillars ranged on either side of them under the vaulted ceiling. Between the pillars, display cases held the inventions and instruments for sale. Duplicates were kept and manufactured in the building's cellar.

"Have ye been here before?" Khlinat whispered, overtaken with the expansiveness of the hall and the tidy surroundings.

"Many times," Pacys replied. "I've purchased some musical instruments here over the years. While functional, I found them to be lacking in intrinsic quality. There's nothing like an instrument you've made yourself."

"Aye, and a certain satisfaction as well."

Despite the attack on Baldur's Gate only a few days ago, the Hall of Wonders still held numerous gnomes openly gawking at the displayed devices. Even Khlinat's attention was captured by some of them.

"Ah, the Ironeater clan I'm from would like to see this place," the dwarf said. "If they haven't already."

Halfway down the Hall, Pacys found what he was looking for.

The mirror was perfectly made, nine feet wide and nine feet tall, framed in red lacquered wood. The unblemished surface gleamed, offering a faultless reflection of the old bard, the dwarf, and the section of the Hall behind them.

Khlinat scowled at his image, running fingers through his tangled beard. "Ooch, now there's an ugly brute for ye."

"Gond Wonderbringer's blessing be upon you," an unctuous voice stated. "Is there any way I may be of service to you?"

Pacys glanced at the young priest that approached them, then looked back at the mirror. Except for its size, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary about it. For a moment he doubted the vision he'd been given in Oghma's temple.

"Tell me about this mirror," Pacys requested.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes," Pacys replied, "but Gond isn't known for his taste in beauty."

"I could disagree," the young priest pointed out. "The beauty of the gifts Gond bestows upon us is not inconsiderable."

"My apologies," Pacys said. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but what I referred to was the fact that Gond never built anything that wasn't functional in some way."

"And you're wondering how this is functional?"

"Yes."

The young priest approached the mirror. "It was ground as all mirrors are, and polished to its present sheen here. The sand it was made from came from a fallen star in the Inner Sea. Chosstif, one of the High Initiates of the Mysteries of Gond here, paid mermen in the Inner Sea for its recovery, then had it shipped here fourteen years ago."

"Fourteen years ago?" Pacys asked. The time frame fit in with Narros's story of the Taker destroying the merman village. "I don't recall seeing it when I was here before. The last time I visited was less than two years ago."