The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Gingerly, Juhg moved to the center of the skiff, then to the prow. He had never liked small boats. Ships, at least, carried enough mass and solid footing to inspire a little confidence.

  Raisho stepped aboard easily, hardly stirring the skiff. He took the bench seat in the bow and motioned Juhg farther toward the prow. “Light the lantern there. Then take up that pole an’ shove us off.”

  “We’re going to be seen.” Juhg took out the tinderbox he carried.

  “We don’t light these lanterns, we’re gonna get noticed somethin’ fierce out there.” Raisho started removing the oars from the oarlocks.

  Realizing the logic in Raisho’s words, Juhg bent to the task. He raised the slim tube of hurricane glass to expose the wick. The thick stink of cargiff oil stuffed his nostrils.

  Juhg struck sparks with his flint and steel, then blew an ember to life on the wick. A yellow glow, much too cheery for anything like the clandestine work they were doing, at least to Juhg’s way of thinking, sprang easily to life. He crossed the skiff with the lantern and lit the one aft.

  “Fair enough,” Raisho said, settling both oars into the water with slight splashes. “Now, ye just set yerself an’ let’s be about our business.”

  Nervously, Juhg took an oar from the prow and sat on his knees. He cast off the prow line, then paddled to bring the skiff around to face the open water. Once he’d turned the boat toward the middle of the harbor, Raisho gripped both oars and pulled. The skiff lurched forward with surprising speed, skating over the tops of the incoming waves.

  Remaining on his knees and paddling, Juhg aided in guiding the skiff. With the skill that he had, Raisho could have done the job himself, but the forward oar made steering easier. Salt spray broke over the skiff’s prow and coated Juhg, stinging his eyes and nostrils. Mercifully, the traveling cloak kept him dry enough. The lantern bobbed and waved overhead.

  Voices carried farther and faster over water. Juhg had become aware of that at the Yondering Docks while learning the rudiments of sailing. Snatches of conversations reached the dweller’s ears. Judging from most of what he heard, Kelloch’s Harbor held a number of cutthroats and pirates tonight.

  Or maybe they’re just sailors, Juhg told himself. Maybe all these tales of violence and robbery and sea monsters are balderdash.

  But he knew that wasn’t true. The constant threat of pirates, murderers, sea monsters, and evil wizards kept Greydawn Moors hidden from the rest of the world. And the possibility of a book in goblin hands caused Juhg to reach inside himself for the courage he needed to take the trip with Raisho. That, and his friendship with the young sailor.

  Surprisingly, none of the few scattered sailors standing watch on the ships around the harbor paid the skiff any mind. A few other cargo skiffs plied the waters, their lanterns waving as gaily as the one above Juhg’s head.

  The dweller watched the suspect ship’s decks. Few shadows moved there, and only a few lanterns marked the ship’s presence. He didn’t understand that. A crew just coming into harbor usually stood at the ship’s rails to see the other ships and what was available. When the captain released them from duty, except for a guard crew, they headed for the taverns.

  “’Ware there, bookworm,” Raisho called softly.

  In almost the same instant, Juhg spotted the soft lantern glow that sprouted up amidships. As he watched, goblin sailors climbed from belowdecks.

  The goblins stood almost as tall as humans, provided the goblins didn’t stand hunched over as they normally did. Almost as broad across the shoulders as dwarves, goblins tended toward skinny and fat, depending on how high up one was in whatever hierarchy one belonged to. The higher up in the hierarchy, where the spoils grew more plentiful, the fatter the goblin.

  The lantern light ghosted over the goblin sailors, adding a glowing sheen to the splotchy skin that somewhat masked the horrid gray-green natural hue. Triangular heads held wide jaws and broad, flat skulls that tapered to narrow chins the same blunt shape as a leatherworker’s punch. Spiky black hair covered the heads, matched by the spiky beards the males and the females wore, as well as the tufts of hair that jutted from the huge, wilted ears that framed the fierce features as forcefully as bookends.

  Goblin children possessed faces that nothing could love, not even goblin parents. As a general rule, goblinkin children were uglier than the mothers and fathers. The little creatures grew up hateful and jealous, and remained so. Only Lord Kharrion had ever talked the goblinkin hordes into setting aside traditional feuds and enmity long enough to become an army.

  The goblins dressed as sailors, wearing breeches and shirts, but the creatures could never have passed for anything other than goblins. Swords and knives hung from waist sashes. The sailors spoke in goblinkin tongue: rapid clicks and whistles that made them sound like animals.

  Juhg tried to make out the splinters of bone and beads woven into the goblins’ whiskers. Tribes and clans marked members by the patterns and number of beads and bones used in beards. Generally, the bones came from humans, elves, and dwarves the creatures had fought and killed.

  Or humans, elves, and dwarves the goblins caught unawares and murdered, Juhg amended. None of the bones were supposed to be those of dwellers. No goblinkin would ever admit to using a dweller’s bones, and that possibility was used as a taunt when goblins argued, but Juhg felt certain the foul creatures did use dweller bones for barbaric decorations.

  Despite his efforts, Juhg did not recognize the designs in the whiskers of the ship’s crew. Then he realized that Raisho was calling to him. He glanced over his shoulder.

  “To port,” Raisho urged with quiet desperation. “To port. The ship there. Quick-like.”

  Taking a firmer grip on the oar in his hands, Juhg pulled the skiff toward the nearby ship. His heart hammered. He felt the iron manacles clamped around his wrists and ankles as if they were still there. He also felt the rough wooden handle of the miner’s pick that he’d carried for all those long years of his captivity. His back still bore scars from the whips of the harsh goblin taskmasters and tormentors that had run the mine shifts.

  “Back, now,” Raisho called. “Ease off on her an’ pull her about, now.”

  Skillfully, due in large part to Raisho’s abilities, the skiff tucked in close to the two-master cog. The ship’s deck rocked on the tide twelve feet overhead.

  “An’ blow out that lantern.”

  Juhg lifted the hurricane glass and blew out the fluttering flame. Nervously, he peered upward, wondering if they’d alerted the ship’s crew standing watch over the vessel. If they were spotted, he felt certain the hue and cry of alarm would fill the harbor. At the very least, they would be challenged about their presence.

  “Be easy,” Raisho whispered. He sat in the skiff’s bow, his attention on the goblin ship. His sword lay naked across his knees.

  “They’re goblins.” Juhg kept his voice low and tried to keep his fear under control.

  “Aye. I see that, right enough.”

  “We can go back now.”

  Raisho nodded.

  “Captain Attikus only wished to know if the ship belonged to goblins.” Juhg wanted to be back aboard Windchaser, snug and warm and safe beneath his cover in his hammock. He trembled in the cold night air, but he knew it wasn’t because of the chill.

  “Aye,” Raisho agreed. “That he did, an’ he will as soon as we tell him.”

  The goblins talked in excited, or possibly angry, voices. A fat goblin in an ill-fitting captain’s uniform stepped onto the deck and the crew fell silent. The captain talked for a moment, then the crew swung longboats over the ship’s sides on block-and-tackle falls and plopped them into the water.

  “An’ once we tell the cap’n,” Raisho asked, “what do ye think he’ll want to know next?”

  Glumly, already knowing what his friend was thinking, Juhg kept silent. The splashes of the goblin oars hitting the water as the crews filled the boats rolled over him.

  “I’m thinkin’,” Raisho said,
“that the cap’n will want to know if’n there’s truly a book aboard that ship.”

  “He will,” Juhg agreed.

  “The way I see it, there’s two ways the cap’n can find that out. Mayhap he’ll keep ’Chaser here fer a few more days, then follow that ship out into open water an’ take her.”

  Juhg envisioned that with dread. Fighting ship-to-ship was bloody business.

  “Or,” Raisho said.

  With stomach-sinking conviction, Juhg knew that his friend wasn’t talking about the paddle in his hands. He also felt certain he knew what the young sailor was about to suggest.

  “—or I steal aboard that ship after the crew’s leave,” Raisho finished, “an’ look around to see what’s what.”

  “That would be foolish.”

  “Ye say ‘foolish.’ I say brave. Mayhap I can keep the cap’n from riskin’ ’Chaser an’ her crew from takin’ this ship later if’n there’s no reason to.”

  “If we get caught, no matter what you call it, we’re just as dead.”

  “Aye.” Raisho grinned. “But only if’n we’re caught, bookworm.”

  Juhg swallowed.

  “An’ it won’t be ‘we,’” Raisho continued. “It’ll be me. An’ I won’t get caught neither. I’ll just ask ye to mind this here boat whilst I’m gone to look fer that book.”

  Juhg turned and stared at his friend. “Do you even know what a book looks like?”

  Raisho scowled and watched the goblins rowing for the piers. He looked back at Juhg. “A lot like that one ye keep scribblin’ in.”

  “No. That’s just one way a book can look.” Juhg shook his head. “There’s any number of ways an author can assemble a book. Before Lord Kharrion assembled the goblinkin and set to burning libraries and destroying books, authors used all kinds of mediums to record their histories, their philosophical discourses, and their texts concerning the sciences.”

  “A book is a book,” Raisho growled defensively. “Yers wasn’t the only one what I ever seen.”

  “But that’s all you’ve seen,” Juhg argued. “You haven’t been trained to look for books as I have.”

  Grandmagister Lamplighter trained Juhg in that task. Seeing that Raisho either didn’t grasp his point or chose to ignore it, Juhg threw his verbal sails into the air and tried another tack.

  “Did you know that the Kupper elves used to live in this hospitable place?”

  Raisho didn’t answer.

  “They did,” Juhg went on. “Before Lord Kharrion, before the Cataclysm reshaped the known world, the Kupper elves lived along the shore of the Frozen Ocean.”

  “Elves live in forests,” Raisho grumbled. “Ever’one knows that.”

  “Not always,” Juhg said. He was surprised at his friend’s limited knowledge of the world. Then he reminded himself how narrow his own knowledge of the world had been until Wi—until Grandmagister Lamplighter had taken him into the Vault of All Known Knowledge and begun his true education. “The Kupper elves divided their lives between the sea and the forest. They wrote books with shells and pebbles, and their language was laid out in color and shape and texture and sound.”

  “I never heard of such a thing.”

  “The Tordalian humans,” Juhg went on, “wove their books into carpets and tapestries. “Their language spoke through thread length and thickness, through skillfully tied knots and patterns. Khroder dwarves carved obelisks with their picks that interlock so tightly no seams can be seen. Reading a Khroder dwarven book requires a knowing hand, and the meaning of the sequence of the pieces, as well as the icons carved on their surfaces, tell the message.”

  Raisho grunted in disgust.

  “So you see,” Juhg said, “you might not know the book for what it is even if you see it.”

  Growling an oath, Raisho shook his head. “Means I got no choice, then, bookworm.”

  Juhg felt a little relieved, then felt guilty almost at once. He should want to know about the book as much as Captain—

  “Ye’re gonna have to go with me,” Raisho said.

  4

  The Book

  Juhg stared through the shadows at Raisho. The young sailor gestured again, pointing out the length of rusted anchor chain that ran from the goblin ship’s stern. Reluctantly, Juhg slowly stood in the cargo skiff and took hold of the rough links of the chain. He started climbing, hauling himself up the chain with relative ease.

  Under the cover of the night and with the skiff lantern out, he and Raisho had quietly rowed to the goblin ship undetected. Whatever skeleton crew, and Juhg hated the images that term automatically summoned to mind after having read some of the selections from Hralbomm’s Wing that Grandmagister Lamplighter had recommended, remained aboard appeared uncaring about the security of the ship.

  Of course, Juhg said, few people try to sneak aboard a goblin ship. He grabbed another handful of rusty chain and pulled himself up farther.

  Only a short time later, he reached the railing. His arms ached and his body quivered from exertion. He held on with his cramped fingers, his nose barely hung over the bottom rung, and peered across the deck.

  The huge ship’s wheel stood abandoned, locked in place by a wooden bar and leather tethers. The furled sails along the ’yards above rattled in the wind. Three goblins stood in the hesitant glow of the ship’s forward lanterns. A pot of soup, so ill-smelling that Juhg’s stomach threatened to turn, hung from a nearby railing. The goblins filled bowls of the vile concoction, and—occasionally—bones crunched as the creatures chewed.

  “Well?” Raisho demanded in a hoarse voice from below.

  With his feet wrapped around the anchor chain and one hand securely on the deck, Juhg turned and held up three fingers.

  “Three guards?” Raisho asked, rising to a standing position in the skiff. “That’s it?”

  Juhg put his forefinger to his lips. “That’s all I see.”

  Raisho growled a curse. He rigged a quick harness over his back to hold his cutlass, then tied the skiff to the anchor chain, and climbed.

  Mastering the fear that resonated within him, Juhg hauled himself over the ship’s side and remained within the stern deck’s shadows. He crouched, thankful he was so small and so slight. But he knew that Raisho didn’t have those natural attributes. He dreaded his big friend’s arrival.

  Staying in the skiff, Juhg realized, would have been so much safer. But he knew his own argument about whether Raisho would have recognized a book if the tome were rendered in any other fashion than the written page held true.

  And if there was a book aboard the foul ship, Juhg felt beholden to get it. During the Cataclysm, the Old Ones first fashioned the dwellers, rendering them meek and small and weak so that they could better hide the books from Lord Kharrion. He had his heritage to live up to, as well as his Librarian training.

  He calmed himself, drawing his breath in through his nose and pushing it out through his mouth, using a technique developed by Mathoth Kilerion, a noted human tactician who had raised fierce guerrilla armies to face the goblin hordes when Lord Kharrion had threatened to dominate the world.

  The effort worked a little, but Juhg still felt frightened. At least, he felt a little better until he spotted Raisho’s hand appear and grab the railing. Lantern light glinted against his dark eyes and the silver hoops in his ears.

  The three goblins guarding the ship stayed occupied with conversation and the meal.

  Silent as a cat, Raisho vaulted the railing and landed on bare feet on the stern deck. He drew the cutlass in one smooth motion, reversing his grip on the handle and keeping the blade low. No light reflected from the blade due to the way the metal had been cast. The cutlass was a fighting man’s weapon, and Raisho took pride in his possession.

  “Captain’s quarters,” Raisho whispered.

  Before Juhg could object, the young sailor took two lithe steps and vaulted the railing from the stern deck leading to the main deck amidships. He disappeared below the stern deck’s edge at once.

>   Heart in his throat but determined not to let Raisho down, Juhg dropped to his hands and knees and scuttled to the stairs leading down to the main deck. He expected to hear startled shouts from goblins that Raisho might have inadvertently surprised with his bold move.

  Juhg halted at the railing beside the steps, his hands wrapped around the rungs, and peered down.

  Raisho was already on the move, racing for the door set against the stern castle. Broad in the beam as the goblin ship was, the vessel afforded larger quarters there, as well as a steadier ride across the rough seas. Captains always kept their private quarters there, if the ship was large enough to provide the necessary space.

  Pausing at the door, Raisho glanced up. He pointed to his eyes with two fingers, then in the direction of the goblin guards.

  Juhg understood immediately and nodded. He hunkered down in the shelter of the stairs, staying high enough to watch the goblins.

  Raisho sheathed his cutlass between his shoulders, then knelt and removed something from the rolled-top boots he wore. He leaned into the door and worked on the locks. After a moment, he looked back up at Juhg with a grin on his face. He motioned to Juhg, calling him down.

  Juhg’s hopes that the locks would force Raisho to give up sunk. He wouldn’t have been too badly disappointed if the locks had proven too much for Raisho. The dweller forced himself up again, crouching on trembling knees as he went down the steps. Once on the main deck, he joined Raisho at the door.

  “I see that Herby isn’t the only one with dubious skills,” Juhg whispered.

  Shrugging, Raisho replied, “A knack. Something I picked up in me youth. Merely a passin’ fancy.” He drew his cutlass again, then pushed against the door.

  Juhg remained to one side of the door. His heart seemed like it was going to explode. He fully expected something to rush at them from the darkness of the captain’s quarters.

  “Can ye see anythin’?” Raisho whispered.

  A dweller’s vision at night, like an elf’s and a dwarf’s, was better than a human’s. That was one compensation the Old Ones had endowed the other races with after providing humans with such a capacity for reproducing and tastes for conquering and exploring. At least, Vodel Haug had put forth that possibility in his Treatise on the Races: The Lasting Impact of Wars and Poetry.