The Destruction of the Books (31 page)

Around the next turn, he spotted a beautiful stained-glass window showing Enloch standing tall at the Bridge of Loronal, one of the key conflicts during the final push against Lord Kharrion during the Year of Hope Redeemed, which would have been named the Year of Shattered Courage if Enloch and his group hadn’t managed to hold the bridge till the majority of the Unity’s armies could draw back to fight again. Enloch had died during that battle, but the second battle fought the next day had helped break the back of Lord Kharrion’s army.

Juhg chose to take the stained-glass representation as a good sign. His lantern light reflected against the stained-glass panes, and only then did he realize that sunset had fallen outside. They had worked so long to gather the three hundred nineteen volumes named in the book
Windchaser
had recovered that they had lost the day.

Only night lay outside the walls of the Vault of All Known Knowledge, Juhg realized. Most of the town sleeping below the Knucklebones Mountains would be abed. His heart sank. His feet faltered. He fell and bruised his shins against the sharp stone corner of the step.

Before he could get to his feet again, the Grymmling caught his ankle and pulled.

Juhg’s chin impacted against the step with enough force to almost knock him out. He screamed and yelled, knowing the whole time that no one could possible hear him. Images of Grandmagister Lamplighter’s poor torn body flashed through his mind.

No!
he told himself with grim determination.
That has not happened! I will
not
allow that to happen!

He rolled into the side of the staircase in an effort to dislodge the loathsome creature. It clung to him stubbornly. The insane buzzing chatter filled his head. The jackrabbit teeth bit into his ear and more blood spilled down the side of his face.

The Grymmling drew back its blade and drove the weapon home into Juhg’s side. New pain scalded the dweller’s mind. He drew his arm forward and brought his elbow back in a manner Master Pohkem taught in his book on martial arts,
The Unarmed Warrior Bares His Knuckles and Teeth and His Heart, and Other Things.

His elbow popped into the Grymmling three times. The creature tumbled backward, but not before managing to shove the crystal blade into Juhg’s arm once for good measure.

Spinning, knowing for all his efforts that he had only earned a moment’s respite, Juhg swung the lantern into the Grymmling. The lantern shattered at once. Glass fragments and glimmerworm juice flew over the creature and the wall behind it. The wick remained lit and landed at the Grymmling’s foot. Although glimmerworm juice burned cool, it also burned easily, soaking into a wick as if the two had been separated and were only then reunited.

Flames spread along the Grymmling. The creature buzzed and shrieked in agony and fear, jerking and jumping. Then, as if realizing that it couldn’t put the flames out, the Grymmling turned its yellow eyes on Juhg. Madness dawned there, fueled by the clinging lummin juice.

On his back, Juhg shoved his feet forward and caught the nearest step, propelling himself up the staircase. The steps bruised his back, but he got enough distance to flip over and use his hands to push himself up and run again. He didn’t run, though, so much as he managed to fall up the stairs a very long way.

He reached the platform where the bell was and saw the coil of rope wound round a great iron hook set into the wall. Dust and spiderwebs covered the rope and the great bell. The Librarians tended not to be overly interested in cleanliness unless a certain state of dishevelment could be directly attributed to a particular Librarian.

Summoning the final dregs of his strength, near-to-passing-out because he couldn’t catch his breath, Juhg dove for the bell rope and clung with both hands. Incredibly, the bell didn’t move. Aghast, he glanced up and saw that the clapper and the spindle the bell was mounted on had evidently rusted in place.

The great bell had been forged by Thomak-Oolufsin, one of the Burning Iron Forge Dwarves during the early days of the Library. Thomak-Oolufsin also designed and smithed much of the wrought iron in the common rooms where the Library was expected to entertain guests. Since there were so few guests that came to the Vault of All Known Knowledge, much of Thomak-Oolufsin’s final works went unviewed.

Juhg had always considered that a sad thing, but the saddest thing at the moment was that no one had seen to the great bell more often.

The flaming Grymmling forced its way up the steps. The creature no longer moved quickly, but that it moved at all let Juhg know he was not long for the world. Even though it was smaller than him and still burning in some places, although the chitinous outer skin made that hard to discern in most places, he knew from grappling with it earlier that it was stronger than him.

Thinking quickly, first—guiltily—of his own survival, then of how he was to ring the bell, Juhg spotted a lantern filled with lummin juice hanging on the wall. The Library was filled with lanterns because Librarians often didn’t pay attention to how much lummin juice they had left in their lanterns and often got stranded in the dark.

As a result, the Librarians who were responsible for filling the lanterns again when it was their turn did not miss a lantern. Although the great bell was not ready—and Juhg had to admit that no procedure existed for testing the bell—the lantern was full.

The bell hung twenty feet above Juhg. He dug his nimble toes into the rope and shoved himself upward, using his free hand. After all of the countless hours climbing
Windchaser
’s rigging, climbing the rope was simple. However, the Grymmling climbed just as easily. Fiercely, the deadly little creature followed him, its knife tucked securely between the jackrabbit teeth.

At the top of his climb, Juhg reached up, caught the edge of the bell, threw his feet against the wall, and walked up to the bell by pressing his hands against the bell while he pressed his feet against the wall. He carried the lantern in his teeth.

The Grymmling didn’t possess arms long enough to continue its climb. It hissed and buzzed inside the bell.

Safe for the moment, Juhg held on to the top of the bell, knowing if he fell the creature would be all over him. Bracing himself on his elbows, almost strained to the limit, he opened the lummin juice reservoir and reached up to pour the liquid over the spindle that held the bell in place. He poured more through the hole at the top where the clapper was affixed.

In addition to burning with a cold flame that didn’t often prove combustible to other mediums, Grymmling chitin proving one happy exception at least, lummin juice also combatted rust with a vengeance. Before Juhg could secure his hold again, his weight forced the freed bell into motion.

He fell, tumbling and squalling in fear, flailing with both hands until he grabbed the bell rope. No sooner had he seized the rope and stopped his fall than the clapper smacked into the side of the bell and released a huge, clangorous note that felt like it turned his bones to jelly. He lost his hold on the rope and fell again.

Hitting the stone floor below almost knocked Juhg unconscious. The impact did knock out what little air he had in his lungs. Before his senses fully returned, something landed on his chest. Curious, and a little afraid because he thought he knew what the lump might be, he looked up into the yellow eyes of the Grymmling.

The thing grinned, obviously a little woozy from the bell’s clangor as well. But it definitely had murder in mind as its hard-knuckled fist closed on the crystal knife.

Then the bell
bonged
again, filling the bell tower with even stronger noise than the first time. The vibrations shuddered through Juhg and disoriented the Grymmling.

Taking advantage of the creature’s hesitation, Juhg slapped his palm into its face and shoved it from his chest before it could sink its blade into his heart or its teeth into his throat. The Grymmling rolled backward, but came to its feet again as Juhg did.

The creature threw itself in one of those incredible jumps its kind was able to perform. Juhg ducked, putting up a hand into the creature’s stomach to keep it off of him. It slashed at him in its passing, though, and the blade drew blood from the back of his hand.

Juhg turned, expecting the thing to bounce off the wall behind him and hurtle itself at him once more. Only it didn’t strike the wall; it struck the stained-glass window.

Delicate and fragile, pieced together from hundreds of shards of glass mounted in a delicate framework, the stained-glass window shattered outward at once. Silver moonslight caught dozens of pieces of glass and rendered them into gleaming jewels spread out in a long spray of color.

The Grymmling vanished from sight, headed for a very long, very hard fall down the north side of the Knucklebones Mountains.

Shaking and weak, almost overcome by fear and his exertions, as well as blood loss, Juhg walked to the window and peered down. He saw the Grymmling, parts of it still covered in flames, lying against the unforgiving stone below. The creature did not move.

Just as Juhg caught a breath of fresh night air that constricted his lungs, light invaded the bell tower. He turned, holding his hand up against the bright light that leeched the darkness from the tower.

The bell continued to bong hollowly, making any other sounds impossible to hear.

At first, Juhg had feared the worst, that some other creatures had followed him from the research room where the mystical gate had opened. Then the man holding the lantern held it to one side so that his features were revealed.

“Varrowyn,” Juhg cried, and knew the dwarf had not heard him because he could not hear himself over the clanging bell.

The dwarf reached out and took Juhg’s arm, turning the limb slowly to examine it under the lantern light. He glanced back up at Juhg and his lips moved.

Unable to hear because of the bell and unable to read the dwarf’s lips because of his fierce beard, Juhg pointed through the broken window at the body of the Grymmling. Juhg doubted greatly that the dwarf knew what the creature was, but he was certain Varrowyn knew it didn’t belong in the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

Varrowyn growled and spat. Then he clamped a hand like a vise of iron on Juhg’s upper arm so hard the dweller lost the feeling in that limb, and marched him down the same stairs that Juhg had fought so hard to climb up with the Grymmling at his heels.

Juhg protested the harsh usage at first, because the grip hurt his arm so badly and he was already hurting, but he remembered that life hadn’t looked all that rosy for Grandmagister Lamplighter and Craugh the last time he had seen them. He only wished that they weren’t dead.

The bell renewed its clangorous assault on Juhg’s hearing. He glanced back and saw that one of Varrowyn’s dwarven warriors was pulling the bell rope mightily. Two score more, all of them dressed in plate armor and carrying battle-axes and pikes, followed Varrowyn.

At first Juhg didn’t know what Varrowyn was doing. Then he noticed the dwarven leader’s attention riveted to the steps. In the next instant, he realized that Varrowyn’s hunter’s eyes followed the blood trail back the length of the hallway.

At the bottom, before the Grymmling had leapt onto Juhg and bitten his ear so that the blood flowed even more easily, the blood drops were farther apart, but the trail remained. Varrowyn lengthened his stride. Juhg tried desperately to keep up.

14

The Destruction of the Books

“Is the gate still open, then?”

Juhg shook his head. “I don’t know, Varrowyn. Perhaps Craugh has closed it by now.” But I don’t see how. If the wizard were going to do that, he would have done it immediately. Maybe. Juhg had to admit that he was no wizard and had no idea of what wizards could do in circumstances like they had just witnessed.

Varrowyn still maintained a merciless grip on Juhg’s left arm as he followed the Librarian’s directions back to the research room. Not much direction had been needed, though, for the dwarf had a keen eye and the lummin juice burned brightly in his lantern. Blood splatters led back a long way.

Juhg had evidently torn a long scratch along his right leg when he’d slid across the table in the research room to avoid the Grymmlings that had pursued him. Blood still ran freely from that wound as well.

After years in the mines, Juhg had learned to ignore his wounds, even though they scared him. One of the first things having a goblinkin overseer did was make a slave realize what was only a wound and what would kill him.

“The books were used to open this gate?” Varrowyn asked.

“Yes,” Juhg said. “But it wasn’t the Grandmagister’s fault.”

Varrowyn shook his head. “I reckon not. But there’s gonna be them what blame the Grandmagister fer them deaths that we can’t stop in these halls all the same.”

Glumly, Juhg realized that what the dwarven guard said was true. Despite how tightly their origins tied with those of the Library, the people of Greydawn Moors considered themselves a separate entity. Families, like Grandmagister Lamplighter’s own, considered it a hardship to let one of their own don the robes of a Novice Librarian to serve the Library.

Another few feet and the party of dwarven guards came upon the Grymmlings that had given up chasing Juhg after finding easier prey among slower-moving Librarians. The lanterns glinted against the evil yellow eyes of the monsters. Blood smeared their lipless, razor-edged mouths.

“All right,” Varrowyn growled, pushing Juhg back, “let’s see how much fight these here beasties gots in ’em to give.” He took up his two-handed battle-axe and set the lantern on the ground. The light played over the horrible scene ahead, and Varrowyn’s shadow loomed tall and long as he strode in front of the lantern.

Other dwarves kept shoving Juhg to the rear of the pack, then placed their lanterns down as well and joined their leader.

Mindless and greedy, the Grymmlings attacked, even though they were outnumbered.

Numb with horror but with a part of his mind screaming that they needed to hurry, that they needed to find out what had happened to the Grandmagister, Juhg watched as the dwarves divided into four-man groups called
anvils,
setting up two by two.