The Destruction of the Books (53 page)

“Grandmagister,” Juhg said, not knowing what he was going to ask, not certain if he just wanted to know his mentor had discovered the greatest secret any Librarian could hope for, or if he only wanted information to help bargain for his life.

“I can’t tell them, Juhg. I apologize for that. I didn’t mean for you to get caught and brought into this. But there were so many things I couldn’t foresee, so many chances I had to take.” The Grandmagister paused, looking years older than he was and more tired than Juhg had ever seen him. “The book is in a safe place. A dangerous place. A place that mortal beings might not even be able to get to. At any rate, it’s a long way from here—if it’s there. And that serves us now.” He held his hand so that only Juhg could see the two small glass vials cupped in his palm. “Remember Imarish?”

“The canal city?” Juhg asked, recalling the dangers he and the Grandmagister had faced there not so long ago. He was confused that the Grandmagister would bring the city up, but he was mostly confused by all the secrets that had spilled out in just a matter of moments.

Aldhran and his cohorts listened attentively, and Juhg knew they were trying to decipher everything the Grandmagister said, looking for some clue among his words and half-spoken thoughts.

“Yes,” Juhg responded. “I remember Imarish. The canal city.”

“Good.” The Grandmagister smiled and looked pleased. “I’ve left something for you there.”

“The book?” Aldhran demanded, stepping closer.

“You must go and get it, Juhg. You must get it and carry on in my stead if I am unable to complete my quest here.”

“All right,” Aldhran snarled. “That’s enough of that. Now we’re going to do things my way.”

The Grandmagister ignored the human. Deftly, the Grandmagister opened the two small bottles in one hand, using skills a pickpocket would have envied, and mixed the two contents. One liquid was red and the other was clear. When they were mixed, however, they glowed a virulent green against the Grandmagister’s palm.

The color reminded Juhg of Craugh.

“What are you doing?” Aldhran demanded. He turned to the goblinkin. “You checked him, didn’t you?”

The goblinkin nodded.

“There’s magic in this room,” Aldhran said, “and it wasn’t there a moment ago!” He stepped toward the Grandmagister, sliding a knife free from his hip.

“Drink this.” The Grandmagister poured the contents of the two bottles into Juhg’s mouth. “Swallow.” He gripped Juhg’s face and massaged his cheeks.

The liquid tasted bitter and dry, like roasted almonds. Since he’d been without drinking water for hours or possibly for days, Juhg had a hard time swallowing the liquid. But once he did, he started feeling lighter, healthier.

Cursing, Aldhran yanked the Grandmagister back and shoved the knife forward, obviously planning on sticking Juhg with it.

Unable to stop himself, Juhg backed away, knowing the wrist and ankle shackles would keep him from being able to move completely out of the way. He felt the coldness of the knife plunge into his chest.

Strangely, there was no pain.

Scared and puzzled, Juhg peered down at the knife thrust into his chest. There was also no blood. Then he noticed that Aldhran’s hand had plunged into his chest as well, crowding in all the way up to the wrist.

Magic,
Juhg realized, remembering the spell Craugh had used in the Library to pull him and Varrowyn’s dwarven warriors through the floor to escape certain death. Even as he thought of that, the wrist shackles dropped through his arms and splashed to the wet floor.

Gaining courage, Juhg stood, moving through Aldhran and pulling free of the ankle shackles as well. A goblin swung a sword at him, passing the blade through his hands and neck as Juhg instinctively tried to defend himself.

“He gave him a potion!” Aldhran yelled.

“Go, Juhg,” the Grandmagister said. “Escape. You’ve got to get to Imarish. I’m sorry I have to leave this to you, but Craugh can help. And there are others.”

Craugh? Craugh is dead.
Juhg looked at the Grandmagister and wondered if his mentor was becoming mentally unbalanced. They had both seen the wizard shot with the arrow and plunge over the side of the tower.

And what others?

Aldhran stepped over to the Grandmagister and put his knife to his throat. “If you try to escape, apprentice, I’ll cut his throat.”

“He won’t do it, Juhg,” the Grandmagister said. “He needs me. Without me he can’t find the book.”

Aldhran eyed Juhg fiercely. “I’ll kill him! By the Eternal Darkness, I swear I’ll kill him!”

“He won’t,” the Grandmagister said. “I gave you the potion so that you could escape. If you stay here, Juhg, they will make me talk.” Sadness showed in his eyes. “I can’t protect you and protect the book. I can only hope that through saving you I can save the book from them. But you must hurry. The potion will only last for a short time.”

“Grandmagister—” Juhg started.

Grandmagister Lamplighter stood straighter, causing Aldhran to yelp in fury and surprise and pull the knife from his captive’s throat before he cut him.

“First Level Librarian,” the Grandmagister said in an imperious voice, “you have been given your assignment. Do not fail or you will fail us both.” His voice lowered. “I will not be dishonored, Juhg. I won’t be known as the Grandmagister who lost
The Book of Time
to those that would destroy the world. Now …
go.
”

Juhg felt the power of the spell waning. He was already starting to feel a little heavier, and the pain was sharpening again, becoming more than a dim echo. Tears blurring his vision, not knowing why the Grandmagister hadn’t saved himself, he turned and reached for the wall behind him.

“Stop him!” Aldhran roared.

The goblinkin rushed forward and tried to grip Juhg, but their hands and their weapons passed through him.

Knowing he didn’t have enough time to run through the goblinkin ship and effect his escape, Juhg took the more direct route. If he hadn’t been through the floors of the Library, he knew he wouldn’t have thought of escaping through the ship’s hull.

But he did.

Passing through the wood, stepping from the lantern-lighted hold to the cold blackness of the sea, was disconcerting. There was a moment of greasy resistance, then he was free of the ship and floating in the ocean.

His immediate thought was of the monsters that lurked in the Blood-Soaked Sea. Images of the great and terrible beasts that had attacked the goblinkin ships out in the harbor filled his mind and he grew desperate and afraid.

Despite being underwater, he breathed naturally. He didn’t even think of that till the cold grew stronger and he sipped his first taste of salty seawater. Instinctively, he knew the potion’s effects had ended before he choked on the sea, and he held his breath.

Frightened but telling himself that he couldn’t be more than twenty or thirty feet beneath the ocean’s surface, he swam upward. Just as his lungs were about to give out, he clawed through to the air.

Night hung over the Blood-Soaked Sea. Clouds obscured the stars and fog rode the waves.

Floating there and taking in deep draughts of air, Juhg knew he had no idea where he was. Or how far it was to shore. Or even in what direction to swim.

Gazing to his left, he saw the goblinkin ship pressing forward under full sails. Evidently she had been going full tilt to get away from Greydawn Moors and the monsters that lived in the Blood-Soaked Sea.

As Juhg watched, lanterns ran up and down the deck. Evidently Aldhran had set his goblins to searching for Juhg, not realizing that the ship’s speed would take it away from him. There was no possibility that the ship would be able to turn around any time soon and come back, or even find the place where Juhg had slipped through the hull.

He hoped with all his might that the Grandmagister was right and that Aldhran had not killed him. But Juhg knew the Grandmagister was right about one thing: If they’d both stayed on the goblinkin ship, one of them would have been killed.

In minutes, the ship was gone, disappeared over a rolling wave and into a fogbank.

Juhg treaded water, wondering if the Grandmagister had truly saved him or banished him to a long, lingering death in the middle of the ocean.

Cold leeched into his bones. Resolutely, knowing that if he at least swam in the direction the goblinkin ship had apparently come from that he would be getting closer to Greydawn Moors, he started swimming and tried desperately not to think of the enormity of the task before him.

His thoughts careened inside his head.
The Book of Time. Lord Kharrion’s actual designs. Imarish.
All those things and more bounced like puzzle pieces in his mind and he tried to make sense of them as he swam.

Before he knew it, a ship crested a rolling wave of water and nearly ran over him. The vessel looked hard and bleak against the darkness of the sea and the moonless night. He couldn’t help thinking that any ship out on a night like this, especially in the Blood-Soaked Sea, couldn’t be out for any good purposes.

“Help!” Juhg yelled up. “Help!” He choked on a mouthful of seawater and worried that he might get caught in the ship’s undertow and drown. He was more used to bad luck than good.

“Avast there!” a man’s deep voice roared. “There’s someone down there!”

Movement rolled along the ship as deck hands raced along the hurtling length of the vessel. She was passing Juhg by quickly, and he grew afraid that the same problems that had prevented the goblinkin ship from pursuing him would mark him for doom if this mysterious ship missed him now.

Just as the ship passed him, a fishing net flew from the stern. It splayed like a spider’s web, barely visible in the darkness, then fell over Juhg and gathered him in tight, taking him into the brine.

For a moment, he was again afraid he would drown, then he was pulled clear of the water and hauled to the deck. Sailors gathered around him in the darkness as he fought free of the net.

“Give ’im a hand, lads,” a coarse, deep voice said. “Give ’im a hand.”

In short order, Juhg was freed from the net and stood on his own two feet for inspection by lantern light. Someone brought him a blanket.

The crew was dwarven, not unheard of in the Blood-Soaked Sea, but not common either.

A broad dwarf taller than most of his kind faced Juhg. The dwarf’s broad shoulders made him seem almost as wide across as he was tall. A long, fierce beard hung down to his belly, and yellowed bits of bone cut into fish shapes held the beard in braids. Gold hoops dangled in his ears.

“Well, now,” the dwarf said. “Ye’re the strangest fish we’ve taken up outta these waters in a long time.”

The crew laughed.

“Thank you,” Juhg said, teeth chattering. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“Ain’t like I ain’t done it afore,” the dwarf said.

Recognizing the voice then, knowing he hadn’t before only because he’d been so overcome and distracted with everything that was going on, Juhg peered up at the big dwarf. “Hallekk?”

“Aye, Juhg.” Stepping into the lantern light so that he could be seen more clearly, the dwarven pirate frowned. “Don’t go an’ be tellin’ me ye’ve already forgotten me.”

“Never,” Juhg said, feeling joyful. Hallekk was first mate on
One-Eyed Peggie,
the ship that had shanghaied the Grandmagister all those years ago. Juhg had met the ship’s crew while traveling with the Grandmagister.

Hallekk pulled at his beard. “I know it’s been a lot of years, but I ain’t one most people forget.”

“I didn’t forget,” Juhg said. “I just didn’t expect you to be here.”

Hallekk grinned. “Oh, now, we didn’t just happen along.”

Understanding dawned in Juhg. “You were following the Grandmagister.”

“Aye,” Hallekk agreed. “That we was.”

“But how?” But even as he asked the question, Juhg knew. “Through the eyeball of the monster.”

Hallekk nodded again.

Part of
One-Eyed Peggie
’s history included the tale of One-Eyed Peggie, the ship’s builder and first captain. One-Eyed Peggie had run afoul of a sea creature in the Blood-Soaked Sea that had taken one of her legs. For revenge, she’d hunted the sea monster and taken one of its eyes, though she hadn’t been able to claim its life.

The eyeball was kept in a jug under the bed in the captain’s quarters. Every sailor who was made a member of the pirate crew had to swear an oath of fealty on the jug containing the eyeball.

Juhg had never become a pirate, despite traveling with them while accompanying the Grandmagister on occasion, but he had seen the eyeball. The orb still lived within the jar, and through it the ship’s captain could find any of his men when they were separated from the ship. The bad thing was that the sea monster could also see
One-Eyed Peggie
through its missing eyeball and sometimes came to attack the ship.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Juhg said. “They’ve got the Grandmagister. They’re going to kill him.”

Hallekk looked troubled. “Well, now, that ain’t what we’re supposed to do.”

“What?” Juhg doubted he’d heard the dwarf correctly.

“Ol’ Wick, now he’s up an’ got hisself a plan,” Hallekk said. “He’s goin’ along with them people what’s up an’ catched him to figure out the lay of the land, so to speak. He knows some’at of the story of
The Book of Time,
but he don’t know it all. That’s why he up an’ let himself be catched as he was.”

“He let himself be caught?” Juhg asked. And just behind that was the realization that the Grandmagister had told Hallekk about the book. “The Grandmagister told you about
The Book of Time
?”

Was there anyone the Grandmagister
hadn’t
told?

“Aye.” Hallekk grinned. “Why, Ol’ Wick is a slippery one, he is. I taught him everything he knows.” He shrugged and looked sour. “Well, me an’ Cobner, I guess it was, truly.”

Juhg felt like he was going to fall over.

“An’ ye best not be a-frettin’ over Wick,” Hallekk advised. “He’s got himself a potion Craugh whipped up that will see him clear of that ship when he sees fit to be. The sea monster’s eye will let us see that when it happens. Then we’ll pick him up.”