The Destruction of the Books (54 page)

“How many potions does he have?” Juhg asked.

“One,” a new voice answered.

Turning, recognizing the voice, Juhg saw Craugh standing on the stern castle. The wind billowed the wizard’s cloak.

“You were dead,” Juhg said hoarsely. “I saw you shot with an arrow. I saw you fall.”

The wizard shook his head and looked amused. “You saw what I wanted people to see. Wizards are hard to kill. When we want to be.”

Juhg focused on the problems at hand. There were so many. “How many potions?” he asked again.

“One,” Craugh said. “They are very hard to make. Very time-consuming. And if it hadn’t been for Wick, I wouldn’t have bothered at all.”

The despair over what had happened hit Juhg like a punch. “You should have made more than one.”

Craugh frowned. “The first one was bother enough. Having to divide the potion into two components that weren’t magical apart but were together, have you any idea of how hard that is? Near impossible, I tell you. And I—” Then understanding widened his eyes. “Wick gave you his potion. That’s how you escaped.”

“Yes.” Juhg felt terrible.

“Then he is trapped aboard that ship with them goblinkin,” Hallekk said. All the humor had drained from his voice. “We’ve got to—”

“Think,” Craugh interrupted. “We’ve got to think. If we try to take Wick back by force, they may well kill him out of hand.” He stroked his beard. “No, to accomplish this, we’ll need to be devious and deceitful.”

Hallekk nodded. “That sounds like somethin’ more along your callin’.”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted or not,” Craugh said.

The dwarves nearest Hallekk quickly moved away. A wizard’s wrath generally came quickly and unmindful of whom was around.

“That there,” Hallekk said quickly, his left eye ticking nervously, “now that there, why, ’twas a compliment, ’twas. An honest an’… an’ complimentary compliment.”

Juhg looked at Craugh. “The situation is worse than that. Aldhran knows
The Book of Time
is in Imarish.”

“The canal city? I didn’t know it was there.”

“The Grandmagister told me I needed to go there as soon as I could,” Juhg said. “Right before he told me to leave.” He paused. “They’ll try to get there as well, as soon as they put into port.”

“Well, then, apprentice, it appears that you’re going to have to run your master’s race for him,” Craugh declared. “At least for a time.” He turned his face toward the ship’s prow, and Juhg had no doubt that the wizard was thinking of the Grandmagister.

As Juhg stood there in the wind whipping across
One-Eyed Peggie
’s deck, shivering under the blanket in his soaked clothes, he felt the doubt and fear grow in him. He looked back at Craugh.

“I can’t do it,” Juhg said.

The wizard turned his steely eyes on him.

“I’ll try,” Juhg said, wanting to make that clear, “but I’m not as good as the Grandmagister is. I don’t know everything he does.” He swallowed hard. “I’m afraid, Craugh. I’m afraid that I’m going to make a mistake or not know something I should, and that I’m going to get him killed.”

The wizard descended the steps and walked to Juhg. He threw an arm around his shoulders.

“Now, you listen to me, apprentice,” Craugh said in a hoarse voice. “Wick is my friend. I’ve got precious few of those in this world. He brought me into this and I believed in him. Now, he chose to set you free instead of himself, even though everything in the world appears to be at stake.”

Juhg blinked back tears.

“I’m not going to believe that my friend made a mistake,” Craugh said gruffly, “or that he threw away his life for no reason. I choose to believe that he knew what he was doing and acted in all our best interests. Do you understand?”

Juhg nodded. “If I hadn’t been up on that Tower—”

“But you were,” Craugh said. “And maybe that was meant to be.”

“I was the one who brought the book to the Vault of All Known Knowledge and got all the books destroyed.”

“And forced this confrontation,” Craugh agreed. “We were not ready for them, but hopefully they weren’t ready for us either. We will see.” He paused. “Now, compose yourself, apprentice. There is much we need to do and precious little time remaining to us to get it done.”

Juhg nodded.

“You’re not alone in this, apprentice,” Craugh said. “We will help you.”

But with everything facing them, as unprepared as he was, Juhg wished that he were still aboard the goblinkin ship and that the Grandmagister was still free. All of them, he felt certain, would have a better chance if that were so.

A preview of

LORD OF THE LIBRARIES

BY MEL ODOM

Available July 2005

1

“They’re
Our
Monsters!”

One-Eyed Peggie
lurched hard over to starboard and a horrendous scraping noise drawn out like a banshee’s wail filled the ship’s waist from prow to stern.

Only quick reflexes, a determination not to mar pages, and years of experience aboard a sailing vessel allowed Juhg to keep the freshly dipped quill from the paper before he could render a mistaken stroke. His other hand slapped at the papers, pinning them in place and managing to hang on to the inkwell.

Then the fear set in as he, like all the dwarves gathered in the galley, waited expectantly for the sound to be repeated. Or for someone to scream that the ship’s hull had been ruptured and she was sinking.

He sat alone at a table in the pirate ship’s galley working on the journal. Lanterns filled the area with golden light. He was the only dweller among the group seated at the tables. Brown breeches and a maroon shirt, his clothing marked him as different from the others as much as his smaller stature. His fair hair and light-complexioned skin spoke of a life spent mostly indoors with some time outside. He was also, despite a month of travel aboard the vessel, cleaner than most of the crew.

One-Eyed Peggie
was a pirate ship, one of those given the duty of patrolling the Blood-Soaked Sea so that no ships from the mainland sailed out to discover Greydawn Moors and the Vault of All Known Knowledge hidden there. Juhg had sailed aboard her before, but never with such grim purpose as he did now.

“That weren’t just me, were it?” a dwarven pirate asked in the tense silence that followed the noise.
One-Eyed Peggie
still rocked as she leveled out again. “I mean, I’ve had a little grog to drink, but I didn’t think I just imagined that kind of cauterwaulin’—”

“We’ve run aground,” another dwarven pirate cried out in a trembling voice. “We’ve been skirtin’ too near the coast. I knew this was gonna happen. There’s too much broken rock and reefs there. The cap’n knew that, too. He knew he orter be more careful.”

“I didn’t think that were just me,” the first one replied. He finished his cup of grog and glanced anxiously around.

“Stow that bilge,” another pirate growled. His name was Starrit and he’d been with
One-Eyed Peggie
under the old captain as well. Most of his life had been spent tending the pirate ship. “Cap’n Hallekk knows whereat he’s a doin’. I’ll not suffer ye to be a-talkin’ behind his back.”

The accuser glared at the other pirate, but said nothing more.

Captain Hallekk, Juhg knew, had the respect of his crew.

The other pirates got up from their meals, automatically picking up their plates and cups so they wouldn’t slide around unattended if the ship should hit again. Gradually, the ship righted herself, pulled back into position by the ballast she carried.

Juhg allowed himself a deep breath as he waited, as every pirate in the galley did, for the fear-filled cry that
One-Eyed Peggie
had been holed. He’d spent enough time aboard ships while journeying with Grandmagister Lamplighter on errands for the Vault of All Known Knowledge that he felt certain he’d know if the vessel had been damaged and was now taking on water. In years past, he’d gone down in both ships and boats while adventuring with the Grandmagister.

I know this ship,
Juhg told himself nervously.
I’ve sailed on her many times. If she weren’t all right, I’d know.

In fact, the Grandmagister had gotten shanghaied aboard
One-Eyed Peggie
all those years ago and set upon the path that had led him to his destiny. Edgewick Lamplighter had learned to wash dishes and peel potatoes in this very galley, something only cooks did at the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

Juhg had seen dozens of drawings and sketches of the galley in the books that the Grandmagister had written that detailed his adventures with the pirates then and later. A lot of time at sea the galley had been a place where councils of war met, where wounds were tended, and where the pirates came for safe harbor during fierce storms or lulls in hot seas.

“Wasn’t a sandbar or a reef,” another pirate said. “Woulda hit again if’n it was.”

“Unless we just got lucky,” said a third.

Without warning,
One-Eyed Peggie
lurched again, turning even harder to port than she had to starboard. All of the dwarves who had been standing ended up on the floor, squalling and hollering.

“Topside!” a raucous voice screeched from the companionway leading to the deck. “Topside! Topside, ye scurvy dogs! Cap’n’s orders! Squawk!”

In the next instant, one of the ugliest and most malignant birds Juhg had ever seen flapped into the kitchen. The bird was a crimson horned rhowdor, intelligent as any being, some said. Of course, Critter, the bird, maintained that he was more intelligent than most.

The bird’s harsh hatchet face, bearing its cruelly curved beak, looked merciless. The features matched their owner’s disposition perfectly. Bright pink horns, one of them broken off midway, thrust up four inches, each of them curled. He only had one bright emerald eye. The other was covered with a fierce black leather eyepatch that featured a skull made up of shiny brass studs. A gold earring dangled from one feathered eartuft.

With a graceful flap of wings, Critter landed on the table where Juhg worked. That was impressive considering that
One-Eyed Peggie
still lurched back and forth. The effort was doubly impressive because the rhowdor had only one leg. The other was a wooden fork carefully whittled to size and fitted to his leg stump.

Whatever we hit,
Juhg thought as he held on to the table,
or whatever hit us, was huge.
The pirate vessel was large and wide-bodied to handle a lot of cargo and men.

“Avast there, ye miserable flea-biters!” Critter screamed, flapping his wings menacingly and limping on the fork as he walked across the table. “Get yer fannies to movin’, ye goldbrickers! Cap’n’s orders!
Peggie
’s takin’ on water, she is, an’ I’ll have everyone of ye topside fer orders or I’ll keelhauls ye meself!”

The dwarven pirates scrambled up and made for the door immediately. Despite the fact that he was a bird, Critter enjoyed all the rank and privileges of a member of the crew. Currently he served as Third Mate under Captain Hallekk.

Critter turned his one-eyed attention to Juhg. “Squawk! Ye get movin’, too, ye mangy cur!” The rhowdor had few true friends on this ship, but he was a fine Third Mate, proving himself both irascible and unyielding. “Cap’n needs ever’ hand. Ever’ able body he can get. We’re even takin’ dwellers.”

Juhg capped his inkwell, placed his quill into the box of writing instruments he had, closed his book and tied it shut, then shoved everything into the waterproof rucksack hanging from the back of his chair with his traveling cloak. He pulled on the cloak, then hoisted the rucksack over his shoulder.

“Ye think ye remember how to handle yerself?” the rhowdor challenged.

“Yes,” Juhg answered, loath to get into an argument with the mean-spirited bird. “It hasn’t been overlong since I was aboard this ship.”

“Then why are ye here a-jabberin’ to me when ye should be topside?”

Exasperated, tense, and fatigued from not sleeping well and worrying about the Grandmagister’s whereabouts for the last month, Juhg stared at the short-tempered and unkind bird. He was tired of getting pushed around. For the last month, Craugh the wizard had kept Juhg with his nose buried in work, penning one book and making copies of it. The wizard had also ducked every question regarding how the Grandmagister had ended up in the hands of their enemies at the battle for Greydawn Moors.

More to the point, Juhg was tired of carrying around the guilt that he was more to blame for the Grandmagister’s predicament than any of the others. Perhaps Edgewick Lamplighter and Craugh had schemed together to put the Grandmagister in a position of vulnerability, but Juhg had cost the Grandmagister his way out by getting captured and needing rescue himself. The Grandmagister hadn’t hesitated and had immediately given Juhg the potion that had gotten him free of the goblinkin ship.
One-Eyed Peggie
had swooped in and picked him up from the sea almost immediately.

But the Grandmagister had been left trapped with his foes. The three ships had made straightaway for the mainland, toward the South where the goblinkin forces were strongest. Alone and in dangerous waters,
One-Eyed Peggie
and her crew of dwarven pirates hadn’t been able to effect the Grandmagister’s rescue.

Then again, with Craugh not talking to him much over the past month, Juhg wasn’t even sure that was the plan.

“What are ye a-starin’ at?” the rhowdor demanded.

Juhg didn’t know what to say. The bird didn’t deserve all the rancor he felt compelled to unleash on him.

“Keep it up,” Critter threatened, “just keep it up an’ I’ll peck yer eyes out for ye, I will.”

Ignoring the bird, knowing that he could never win an argument with Critter—or, if he did, that the bird would never admit it—Juhg headed for the door.

One-Eyed Peggie
lurched again, and this time the sound of a timber cracking shot through the waist. The report was enough to cause a sailing man’s stomach to knot.