The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Only a few buildings made up the small city. The Customs House to the east, where goods were logged in and out, was the tallest and most impressive. The lighthouse on the craggy finger of land extending out into the harbor was the second tallest. Two bright lanterns spun in the windows, their dwarven gears spun by the incoming and outgoing tide so that captains familiar with the water could tell at a glance whether the tide was rolling in or rolling out.

  The market area, at the western end of town with its handful of small permanent structures supplemented by tents of all sizes and colors, spread across the most area. Windchaser arrived home early in the morn, so a number of traders were in evidence at the market area, bartering their harvests so they could get back to their fields or shops after the midday meal.

  The rest of the buildings in the town proper were mercantiles, taverns, the school where all dwellers were taught the rudiments of reading and writing, and a stable for the horses of a few of the businesses, as well as corrals for the few head of livestock—mostly cows, pigs, and chickens farmers raised—that were sold or traded to the various ships. The animals were purchased and butchered on the spot, then salted and loaded onto the ships in barrels. Occasionally, new livestock were brought onto the island to keep the herds supplied with fresh blood.

  Houses sprinkled the foothills leading up from the shore and the town. The homes were mostly dweller shacks, made up of whatever the owners found that came to hand. Pieces of ships that had come back from battles in the Blood-Soaked Sea too battered and broken to be repaired, crates no longer necessary to hold cargo, wood from past buildings that had finally collapsed, and lumber harvested by the elves from the forest made up the houses. They all looked as though a strong breeze might blow them down, but they looked bright nonetheless because dwellers tended to favor bright colors and the dwarves made paints of all hues. Oddments and other items that other people might call junk became treasures that the dwellers used to accessorize their homes.

  In sharp contrast, the dwarven homes were neat and tidy, with sharp corners and straight walls. White fences, which dwarves claimed made good neighbors of dwellers because they didn’t feel so inclined to take something they saw because they were certain the dwarves living there didn’t truly appreciate enough that item’s worth, defined yards and gardens that were carefully tended. The elves made their homes in the trees and farther up into the Knucklebones.

  The humans on the island, their numbers much fewer because there weren’t as many of them and the fact that humans by their very natures were wanderers, lived wherever they chose. Most of the humans were sailors and fishermen, always pitting their skills against the wind and the sea. And every so often, as if their lives weren’t short and fleeting enough, those humans gathered into a monster-hunting party and went after one of the great beasts that resided in the Blood-Soaked Sea. To keep the numbers of the monsters in check, they claimed, but Juhg had the distinct feeling that they mainly just wanted to see if it could be done, then if it could be done again.

  The Barrel of Ale tavern, which was a human establishment, boasted the head of one of the monsters that dwelt out in the Blood-Soaked Sea. On those rare occasions that the monster hunters returned with a prize, the Barrel of Ale served up monster steaks. Juhg, for the life of him, didn’t know why anyone would want to eat anything as repulsive—and possibly as poisonous—as one of those forbidding creatures.

  But that was Greydawn Moors, lost in time and in place to the mainland, and it was truly the only safe place Juhg had ever known.

  The wind blew out of the south, snapping across the Knucklebones, then plunging to fall over the forested lowlands. Juhg stared into the teeth of the wind and felt the chill that often lingered in the mornings. The cold came from the sea, and there was never a time in Greydawn Moors when people went long without their cloaks.

  Having grown up in the South on the mainland, where goblins tended to congregate the most, Juhg longed for the warmer climes that he remembered. The chill, not actually an uncomfortable cold, was a constant reminder that he was not a native to the area.

  Even after twenty years of living among the people of Greydawn Moors, he still felt like an outsider. The citizens’ fear of outsiders seemed almost bred into them. But not an elven, dwarven, human, or dweller child who grew up on the island didn’t know the horrifying tales of Lord Kharrion and the goblinkin that had almost destroyed the world.

  The island people knew the ships’ captains and crews that came to trade there, and nearly all of them were born of the island. Very few outsiders were allowed into the ships’ crews. No outside traders were allowed into Greydawn Moors.

  Strangers in town meant the worst kind of danger. If the wrong person shipped aboard with a crew that sailed to Greydawn Moors, then went back to the mainland and told of the existence of the island and the Vault of All Known Knowledge, all the work that the warriors who had stood against Lord Kharrion and the goblin hordes would be undone. The goblins would brave the Blood-Soaked Sea to find the island and not be afraid of sailing over the edge of the world as they generally were.

  The harbor patrol put out four sleek ships manned by human, elven, and dwarven warriors. Their lanterns burned through the fog. The ships were small two-masters built with shallow keels so they skimmed the ocean quickly, and constructed with round bodies to better afford fighting decks. Giant crossbows and ballistae occupied their decks.

  Warning bells clanged as the small ships appeared. Archers stood on the decks, their bows nocked.

  Captain Attikus stood on the stern deck and awaited their arrival.

  “Ahoy the ship,” one of the officers aboard the closest harbor defense vessel shouted. “Furl yer sails an’ identify yerselves.”

  “We’re Windchaser,” Captain Attikus roared back through the wisps of fog that darted between the ships. “These are our home waters. I know you, First Mate Faggul, and you should know me.”

  The burly dwarf standing in the ship’s prow motioned the archers to put their weapons away. He grinned a little and put his massive war hammer over his shoulder. “So ye do, Captain Attikus. But ye weren’t expected back here fer a time, if’n I recall rightly.”

  “There have been problems,” Captain Attikus said.

  A sour look knotted the dwarf’s face. “Come ahead on, then, an’ we’ll get ’em sorted out soon enough.”

  * * *

  “What a sorry homecomin’ this is,” Raisho grumbled in a low voice as he threw out a line.

  Looking at all the people thronging the dock as Windchaser’s crew cast off lines and tied the ship up, Juhg had to agree. They held lanterns filled with smokeless and sweet-smelling glimmerworm juice, which was a product unique to Greydawn Moors. Bearing the lanterns was the custom, but the crowd was somber instead of talkative as was usual. Normally when a ship came back in to harbor after being gone on an extended trip, families turned out to welcome loved ones home with food and gifts.

  Feasts were sometimes set up at the market and hours of revelry ensued as sailors delighted or frightened their listeners with tales of the outside world that few in Greydawn Moors had ever seen. Of course, the stories grew bolder and scarier in the telling, and the sailors’ own courage in the face of grim obstacles grew larger with it.

  And the wit the sailors exhibited, with their cutting remarks and careful attention to detail about mythical beasts and whatever puzzles they swore they encountered that kept incredible treasures just out of their hands, was nothing short of the kind of brilliance staged by the elven playwrights of Delkarrian Falls. Those scribes wrote stories designed especially for the branches of trees where they performed, using the placement of the branches as a military tactician might use the lay of the land.

  Some of the families onshore were already crying, having heard some of the news of the seventeen who had died as Windchaser’s crew had talked with the harbor guards as they made their way to the free dock. Others anxiously awaited to find out if one of their kin had been amon
g those lost.

  Through it all, Juhg knew he was responsible for the sadness that would grip the community.

  Bells continued to ring out in the harbor as the small cargo skiffs plied their trade among some of the outlying ships. Greydawn Moors maintained a small navy of merchants and pirates. The clangor carried across the waves lapping at the rocky edge of the shoreline and sounded too loud to Juhg.

  “Where ye gonna be later, bookworm?” Raisho asked in a quiet voice that didn’t carry.

  “Probably at the Library,” Juhg said. “I’ll have to find the Grandmagister and show him the book.” He paused, his heart heavy and leaden inside his chest. “He’ll have to be told of the circumstances we recovered the book under. And I want to tell him of those men who gave their lives to get it.”

  Raisho shook his head. “I’ll not be comin’ to the Library for ye. They’d never allow the likes of me inside them walls.”

  Juhg knew that wasn’t true. Over the long years of its history, the Library had entertained any number of guests from all walks of life. Of course, most of those had come there at the invitation of the reigning Grandmagister at the time. And none visited that did not have business there. Many still told frightening stories about the dreadful secrets the Librarians sometimes uncovered that claimed the lives of those who beheld them.

  “But if’n ye’re back in town afore we set sail,” Raisho continued, “ye’ll find me in one of the taverns. I’d be proud to share yer company. I’ll be stayin’ at the Sails Inn.”

  Juhg looked at the people lining the harbor and felt thankful for his friend’s generosity. “I’m grateful for your offer, Raisho. I doubt there’s many who would feel that gracious after they hear I was responsible for their losses.”

  “Wasn’t ye, bookworm.” Raisho dropped a big hand on Juhg’s shoulder. “Was just bad luck. An’ it were our bounden duty to get that book after we heard of it. An’ it wasn’t just them what lost kin an’ friends. Was us, too. Me an’ ye.”

  “I know. But it will cause another rift between the Library and the town.”

  “Won’t cause one. But ’twill remind them again of their separate natures.” Raisho shook his head. “That has nothin’ to do with ye. The Library’s always been here as long as Greydawn Moors, an’ there’s been a passel of Librarians afore ye. That’s what’s always been, an’ what’s always will be.”

  The long-standing feud between the citizens of Greydawn Moors and the Vault of All Known Knowledge had started roughly when the first stone was put into place for the Library. The dwellers who had been placed on the island had relished the idea of being cut off from the goblin hordes, and hadn’t minded dedicating some of their young to become caretakers to the vast amounts of books placed for safekeeping in the caverns that had first housed the Library’s holdings. But they had resented the fact that the Grandmagister held sway over so much of what their everyday lives were like.

  Many shopkeepers and merchants disagreed with how the Grandmagister got a small percentage of their profits for the support of the Library, even though that amount was meager and small because the Librarians were trained to make do and tend to their own needs. Over the years, the townsfolk had tried to separate themselves from the Librarians, feeling that the Vault of All Known Knowledge was a strain on their resources.

  “Besides all that,” Raisho said with some of the humor that was so characteristic of him, “I still think ye’re the onliest one what can make a rich man of me.” He clapped Juhg on the shoulder again, dropped to his knee, and said his goodbye with a hug that two warriors blooded in battle together might give.

  Juhg’s heart soared for just a moment before it came crashing down when he remembered how they’d come to be blooded together. Most of the rest of the crew said goodbyes as well, but Juhg knew they thought themselves well shut of him.

  The harbor guard ran out gangplanks from the dock. Captain Attikus made the work assignments, deferring them for the next day after he graciously accepted the help offered by the harbor guard in watching over Windchaser while the crew debarked to see their families and comfort those families that had lost members. The humans at Greydawn Moors were a close-knit group. Even Herby and Gust gamboled down the gangplank and were welcomed into the crowd, though Juhg guessed that no few of them would soon find themselves relieved of small trinkets and coins.

  Torn in what he had to do and knowing how much he dreaded that, Juhg went to report to the captain, who still remained at his familiar position at the stern castle despite the entreaties of his family. He begged off, saying he wanted to do a final inspection of the ship before leaving her. The captain stood with his arm still in a sling, but his back was ramrod straight.

  “Well, then, Librarian Juhg,” Captain Attikus said, “I expected you to be the first one off ship. That book is important.”

  “Yes, sir, and I’ll be on my way as soon as I finish up here.”

  The captain waited.

  Juhg hesitated, not really knowing what he had come to say, but knowing he had to say something all the same. He feared what he was about to ask, and he couldn’t turn away from it because he knew he had to ask.

  “Librarian Juhg,” the captain said in a softer voice, “I know what troubles you.”

  “You do, sir?”

  The captain nodded and looked out at the people gathered in the harbor. “Of course I do. Command is not an easy thing to handle.”

  “Command, sir? But I’m not in command.” That wasn’t the issue at all that Juhg had in mind.

  “You’re a Librarian,” the captain replied. “Of course you’re in command. Perhaps you only call it being responsible, but the feelings are the same. You could no more ignore the call of that book than I could foreswear the oath I took when I stepped upon this vessel as captain.” He cut his gaze to Juhg. “There will be many who fault you for what happened when we encountered Blowfly. Perhaps some of them will be survivors who made it through this voyage. But that isn’t where the ultimate blame rests. If anyone is to truly be blamed, Librarian Juhg, it is I.”

  “But, sir, I—” Juhg didn’t understand how the captain could possibly see the matter that way.

  “I should have been better prepared, should have found another way to take that ship, should have been better able to protect my men.” Captain Attikus was quiet for a moment. “Those things are in my purview, Librarian Juhg, and I’ll not allow anyone to say elsewise in my presence.”

  “Captain—”

  “Nor you, Librarian Juhg. I won’t have it.” Captain Attikus adjusted his shoulders. “You have your mission before you, as I have mine to get this vessel once more shipshape and back out on the salt.”

  Juhg felt a glimmer of pride at the captain’s words. Taking the book to the Grandmagister is a mission. And it was one that he had trained for. If only he had succeeded in making sense of the text he’d found on those pages.

  “Now, if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know,” Captain Attikus said. “Otherwise I expect you to get on with your duty.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Juhg turned and started to leave, then turned back around. He had to ask what was uppermost on his mind. “If I should get the chance to ship with you, Captain—”

  “You’d be most welcome, Librarian Juhg. I’ve enjoyed our dinner conversations. Take care of yourself. Till we meet again.”

  “And you, sir.” Juhg walked down the gangplank with his pack over his shoulders and the book heavy inside his cloak.

  * * *

  Cracked oyster shells lined the winding road that led up from the docks. They shifted and clacked beneath Juhg’s bare feet. He breathed in the scent of the town.

  Fresh bread still baked in the bakeries that serviced the taverns and sailors’ inns that were kept for those seafarers who never truly made a home in Greydawn Moors and remained only welcome transients. Spiced meats hung in the windows of the butcher shops. Smoke from fireplaces in homes and fire pits in inns and taverns tickled hi
s nose.

  He’d missed those things out on the ocean. Cooks were always baking in the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Dwellers liked their meals. When they could schedule them, they liked them six and seven times a day. The galley had come as a weak replacement for those things.

  But though the smells were enticing, Juhg found he had no appetite. He’d eaten a little aboard Windchaser because he had trained himself to do so while working in the goblin mines. A weak dweller who couldn’t lift his pick or help pull an ore cart was a dead dweller by dark.

  He pulled the traveling cloak a little more tightly around him as the wind gained in intensity as he reached the top of the last hill that led to Raysun Street, the thoroughfare that cut through the heart of the town.

  Shopkeepers and townsfolk stood outside the buildings and gazed down at the harbor. All of them were talking, and Juhg knew they talked of the ship’s ill-fated voyage and the Librarian who had been among the ship’s crew. Some of them pointed in his direction, thinking that he did not see them.

  A cart clattered by him. The iron horseshoes of the pair of matched mares pulling the vehicle cracked the oyster shells. A dweller man and his wife rode on the springboard seat, and three small children huddled in the back among barrels and sacks.

  Rounding the corner where the shipwrights had their building yard, Juhg gazed up the long road that led out of town, through the forest and the foothills of the Knucklebones. At the other end of the long road that wound so torturously through the broken terrain, the Vault of All Known Knowledge sat surrounded by high walls covered in thorny bushes. The natural barrier, tended to by the elven warders, layered over the man-made barrier.

  In case the Library was ever attacked from without, the walls offered proof against its enemies. A standing guard of dwarven warriors stayed at the Library in shifts.

  If goblins did discover the island and the Library, they would have to fight their way up from the harbor. Getting through the dwarves and pirates and sailors in the town would be difficult. Beyond that lay the forests, where the elven warders promised quick and silent death from their hiding places and from the great hunting cats and fierce falcons they had trained to fight with them.