The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Silently, Juhg hoped that the Grandmagister simply gave the account he was writing to yet another Librarian to do a finished record. As a resource for the real work that would be written, Juhg’s own efforts would seldom be seen.

  “Juhg,” Raisho whispered.

  “Yes.” Juhg didn’t dare look at his friend seated beside him.

  “Begin.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It’s a voyage, mate. Nothin’ more. Just somethin’ ye’ve got to see done. Like mendin’ a fishin’ net. Thinkin’ about what ye’ve got to do sometimes makes yer fingers thick an’ dumb. But ye’ve tied knots afore, an’ ye’ve written books. Just start an’ trust yerself.”

  Resolutely, drawn by the paper even more than he was pushed by Raisho’s words, Juhg opened the pouch and took out quills, a small knife to sharpen them, and inkwells with different colors of inks.

  Raisho picked up his lantern and set it to Juhg’s right so the light played over the page. Juhg folded his knees and balanced the book there as he had so often while accompanying the Grandmagister on one of the quests along the mainland.

  Almost unbidden, hypnotized by the need to explore the page to find the images and the words that he would uncover, Juhg filled the quill with black ink and began. The title, usually one of the hardest things he had to think of unless the Grandmagister had already assigned it, came to him immediately.

  THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOOKS

  Or an Accounting of the Attack on the Vault of All Known Knowledge

  Drawn into the events, Juhg relived them. He began the history where it had started, in Kelloch’s Harbor, with the rumor of the cooper who was fencing stolen goods. He laid out an image of the harbor and the city jammed into the cracks and crevices of the ice-blasted mountains in quick strokes, surprised at how quickly his skills warmed to the task, in spite of everything he’d been through.

  “Kelloch’s Harbor,” Raisho commented, peering over Juhg’s shoulder.

  Juhg nodded. “Everything began there.” Knowing he would return to the ink drawing at some future time after the lines he’d laid out had time to partially dry, he moved on to the next page, letting the first stand till the ink completely dried. He’d already laid the ink on thin enough that it wouldn’t run.

  Time passed as he worked, telling about Windchaser, then adding a brief sketch of the ship. Craugh continued to sleep and the dwarves talked in low voices. Juhg was surprised at how quickly and easily his fingers worked, despite the chill that hung in the Library.

  “Am I in the book?” Raisho asked.

  “Yes.” Taking a moment, Juhg brought to life a rough sketch of the young sailor standing in Windchaser’s prow. He put a sword in Raisho’s hand and a cloak billowing around behind him.

  “I am handsome, ain’t I?”

  Somehow the incongruity of the question against the backdrop of all the horrible things that had happened brought a smile to Juhg’s lips. “And so modest, too.”

  “Women don’t like a handsome man what don’t know he’s beautiful,” Raisho said. “Makes him come off all unconfident an’ makes it so they can’t be mad at themselves for likin’ that man but bein’ understandin’ at the same time.”

  Juhg ignored the comment and kept working. In no time at all, he was back aboard the goblin ship fighting for his life against the wizard’s snakes.

  18

  Aftermath

  Deep inside the Knucklebones Mountains, parts of the Vault of All Known Knowledge still burned.

  Standing on Draden’s Spur, a rocky outcropping that stood taller than the Library and offered a view down onto the edifice built into the mountains, Juhg surveyed the ruins of the Library in disbelief and dismay. Out beyond the cover offered by the rocks, the wind was chilly enough to make someone without outer garments uncomfortable, but where Juhg stood in the full view of the afternoon sun, he was comfortable enough in breeches and shirt.

  Most of the main buildings still stood, despite the collapse the eradication of the gateway spell had caused. Sections of those buildings lay in collapsed ruin, while others disappeared through holes that led down to the caves beneath the aboveground buildings.

  Behind the main building, where the Library reached its tallest point, a large chasm had opened up and swallowed a chunk of the mountains large enough to shove a ship through. Smoke boiled through that opening incessantly, reminding Juhg of the Smoldering Tar Pits described in Nerestes and the Penance of Crystal-Tooth, a lively romance from Hralbomm’s Wing that the Grandmagister had recommended.

  Juhg took a deep breath and flexed his hands. After hours of writing and sketching, his fingers felt cramped, like they would never be the same again. He knew from experience that the feeling was only momentary, requiring only a brief respite and a little loosening exercise before he could return to his task.

  There are a lot of things, he told himself, that won’t be the same again.

  Craugh had woken only a short time ago and declared himself fit enough to walk. Juhg, remembering how grievous the wound had been, had felt certain the wizard was overestimating his own recuperative powers. Broken bones and torn flesh did not mend so easily or quickly. Surprisingly, Craugh had made the long, twisting journey up to the main halls of the Library and then out into the courtyard under his own power. Outside the Library and in the keen afternoon light, Juhg had insisted on examining the wound over Craugh’s protests and was surprised to find only advanced scar tissue instead of bruised and recently knitted flesh.

  The courtyard remained alive with activity. Librarians under the Grandmagister’s direction worked in shifts above and below ground to haul books from the Library. From Juhg’s perch above them, they looked like ants working at a hill.

  Seemingly filled with inexhaustible energy, the Grandmagister ran back and forth among them. He had a plan for the recovery of the Library. Unfortunately, that plan received several setbacks as new levels of loss were uncovered.

  But the Grandmagister remained driven.

  Dwarves and Librarians descended into the Library, seeking out the rooms that had histories first, and brought volumes out. Librarians verified the editions, catalogued them, and cross-referenced them with previous catalogues.

  Catalogues were also made of volumes that were badly damaged, needed reconstruction, or were lost completely. There were a lot of the latter, and those numbers continued to grow with heartbreaking speed against the snail’s crawl of the rescued books. Perhaps the Dread Riders and Grymmlings had died under dwarven axes and elven swords and bows, or been pulled back to wherever they had come from when Craugh had broken the spell at such immense cost, but their legacy of destruction lived on. They had accomplished a large part of what Craugh had stated their agenda had called for.

  And Juhg still had no idea of who had created the spell. Or of who might choose to still remain such an enemy of the Vault of All Known Knowledge so many years after the Lord Kharrion’s fall and the end of the Cataclysm. Goblinkin carried hatred from those years, but they lacked the magical power to create such a spell.

  Also, Juhg reminded himself, turning over the most unsettling part of the puzzle, goblinkin don’t read. Whoever laid this trap knows how to read and is well read.

  So where did someone come from who had those things? Reading ability, knowledge of books that had disappeared from sight at the time of the Cataclysm, and magical skill, any of which made for a rare individual indeed.

  Juhg pushed his thought from that line of inquiry. He did not have enough information, though he felt certain the Grandmagister knew far more than he was telling. The fear that had showed on the Grandmagister’s face at the time the gate opened had also held knowledge of inevitability. The attack hadn’t been as unexpected to the Grandmagister as it should have.

  Over the years, Juhg had learned that the Grandmagister held his own counsel and kept his own secrets from those who lived on Greydawn Moors. Juhg had even known Grandmagister Lamplighter to keep secrets from him, one
s from before they had become acquainted and ones that the Grandmagister had kept concealed even during their journeys.

  With dedicated commitment, Juhg turned his attention to the efforts taking place around the ruins of the Library. Whatever secrets the Grandmagister held, Juhg knew from experience that Grandmagister Lamplighter would never reveal them until he was ready.

  The task before the Librarians, Juhg knew, was almost impossible. When the Vault of All Known Knowledge had first been constructed, armies and navies had shipped the books to the island. Thousands of people had been involved in the transportation.

  Now that job of rescuing all that remained salvageable was left to the forty-seven Librarians who survived the attack, and the dwarves, humans, and elves who came up from the forest and from Greydawn Moors to help. Only a few dwellers had made the trip up the mountain. The Grandmagister had spoken vehemently to those he’d sent to secure help from the town, reminding them of the debt their ancestors had incurred on their behalf all those years ago. Only a few more had come, token laborers gathered from the young sons of the town’s dweller merchant class.

  Juhg had wanted to stay and help with the reclamation effort, but the Grandmagister had ordered him to continue working on the book. With a sigh, Juhg cut a fresh quill and turned to a fresh page in his personal journal. Working swiftly and surely, feeling only a twinge every now and again in his fingers from the constant time he’d spent at the task after once more stretching them out, he captured the image of the Library as it now stood.

  He wasn’t to that part in the book yet. At the rate he was working, if he could keep up the effort, he wouldn’t reach the point of the afternoon’s labors until the day after tomorrow.

  The Grandmagister had seemed pleased with the progress he was making. After flipping through the pages for just an instant, doing no more than giving them a casual perusal, the Grandmagister had handed the book back, pronounced the effort a worthwhile endeavor, and told Juhg to continue working on the project.

  The Grandmagister had freed Juhg from the salvage operations. That decision, even though it was the Grandmagister’s, hadn’t set well with the other Librarians. Of course, they couldn’t be mad at the Grandmagister for that, but they could be mad at Juhg.

  And they were. Juhg was painfully aware of that, even if the Grandmagister wasn’t or simply chose for the moment to ignore that. Juhg knew his chosen departure from Greydawn Moors to ship aboard Windchaser had distanced him from the other Librarians. He’d willingly chosen not to be one of them. Then he’d returned and brought “the cursed book.” That was what they were calling the trap-laden volume. He’d already overheard a few of them talking about the book that way.

  “Cursed book. Cursed book and the cursed mainlander dweller who came in with it.”

  First Level Librarian Randorr Cotspin had survived the attacks. Probably by hiding beneath his bed, Juhg believed, though he didn’t begrudge the other Librarian his health. However, now Randorr was the chief proponent among the Librarians who spoke beneath their breaths against Juhg and the Grandmagister’s decision to have him working on the Library book project instead of helping them to salvage books.

  For himself, Juhg longed to be gone from the Library, far away from the Knucklebones Mountains and away from Greydawn Moors. But he couldn’t leave while the Grandmagister needed him. And he couldn’t leave until he’d properly told the story of how the Library was destroyed. Left in the hands of a Librarian other than the Grandmagister, Juhg felt certain he would be named and vilified as the cause for all the deaths and loss. Despite the fact that he was willing to leave the Library, pushed by his own reasons, he didn’t want to let someone else write the history of the attack and judge him harshly for his part in the unfortunate events.

  At least, Juhg told himself, he couldn’t leave at this moment. But later, after the book was finished and the Grandmagister accepted his efforts, Juhg planned to be gone the first chance he got.

  Watching the ruins of the Library, having to capture the images in the book the Grandmagister had given him to work on, was almost too much. He didn’t have many good memories of his younger years. With the Library’s destruction, he felt an emptiness inside, as though they were being stripped away.

  Juhg had put some thoughts and sketches into his personal journal for later reference because he’d wanted to capture those ideas and images in the moment they occurred, rather than try to reconstruct them later. The duplication of effort slowed him somewhat, but he knew from past experience that he’d be better able to write what he needed to when the time came to do that.

  A tern cawed behind Juhg, drawing his attention for a moment.

  There, in a crevice behind him and to his left, a nest of baby terns made up of twigs, grasses, and small pebbles sat in the shadows. Their world, Juhg thought, wouldn’t change because of the damage that had been done to the Library. They would continue to live and mature and raise nestlings of their own that would one day do the same.

  But that isn’t necessarily true.

  The realization trickled through Juhg and brought fatigue and dismay. Craugh had said that enemies would come one day, now that the attack had taken place.

  Those enemies certainly numbered goblinkin among them. And once goblinkin chose to destroy a people and a place, the creatures destroyed everything. Goblins knew no other way to behave. Several towns that had held out against Lord Kharrion’s forces and had cost several goblinkin lives had been put to death to the last male, female, and child.

  The goblinkin had poured salt and foul corpse drudge (a jelly made from the bodies of their victims combined with toxic mushrooms and poisons) into the earth where those towns had stood before the houses and meeting halls had burned to the ground. In some of those places, even hundreds of years later, vegetation had still not returned.

  If the goblinkin learned where Greydawn Moors was, if they learned that the Library was there, Juhg had no doubt they would travel there to destroy the island and all who lived there.

  He looked to the west, out into the fog-shrouded expanse of the Blood-Soaked Sea. To the north, ships filled the harbor at Greydawn Moors. Pirate vessels as well as fat-bodied merchant vessels shared harbor space. Several members of those crews had journeyed up the mountain to help with the Library. Of all the peoples who knew of Greydawn Moors and the secrets held upon the island, only those who served as contacts with the mainland and stood as defenders against potential discovery showed the greatest allegiance to the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

  But the presence of those sailors here leaves the harbor unprotected. And it leaves the sea unpatrolled.

  The island’s greatest defense had lain in the fact that no one knew it existed. That was gone. Whether or not the Dread Riders and Grymmlings knew where the island was, the powers behind them knew of its existence now. After seeing the efforts the unknown enemies had gone to, in order to destroy the Library, Juhg felt certain that they wouldn’t give up trying to finish what they had started.

  Unless they believe the Library is already destroyed.

  Quick as that thought entered Juhg’s thoughts, he pushed it right out again. Craugh’s magic had shattered the spell. Whoever—or whatever—had crafted the spell, had opened the gateway, and had marshaled the armies of Dread Riders and Grymmlings had to know that someone had closed the gateway.

  No doubt existed that another attack would take place. Only the amount of time between those attacks remained unknown.

  Juhg turned his attention back to his work. The quill slid smoothly across the paper, despite the erratic jumping of his thoughts and the certain fear that vibrated within him.

  * * *

  The book took Juhg nine days to write, three days longer than the Grandmagister had expected. Thankfully, Grandmagister Lamplighter chose to be satisfied with the extra effort and time rather than remonstrate about it.

  Juhg had slept only when he could no longer keep his eyes open. Even those times were brief because nightmar
es chased him awake again nearly immediately every time.

  During those days and nights, Juhg occupied himself with nothing more than writing. He wrote with his right hand and his left, utilizing the seldom-seen skill of ambidexterity that he possessed.

  In the goblinkin mines, he had learned to swing a pickaxe and use a shovel with either hand. Although those tasks normally required the use of both hands, he had taught himself to use either hand to guide the effort. Also, picking out gemstones from broken rock required both hands. And sometimes, one hand or the other had been injured, through work or torture. The goblinkin had relished inflicting pain, although they weren’t supposed to disable the slaves. Sometimes they had killed victims too injured to work the next day and told their supervisors that the weak dwellers had died rather than be held accountable for their actions.

  After handing in the book, Juhg had turned to helping with the excavation of the surviving collections. Often, he’d ended up working alone, foraging down deep into the Library’s cavernous depths to bring out particular volumes the Grandmagister assigned him to find. The work was disheartening. So much had been destroyed. His best estimate at present was that the Vault of All Known Knowledge had lost nearly four books out of five, an astonishing percentage.

  Even as prepared for the amount of destruction facing the Library as he’d thought he had been, Juhg felt hammered by the devastation and despair that hung over the place where he had spent the only truly good years he had known. Being ostracized by the other Librarians—and the Grandmagister’s uncharacteristic ignorance of the matter—further weighed on Juhg.

  If not for Raisho, who came and went while running errands for the Grandmagister, Juhg would have been totally bereft of friendship. As it was, Raisho was gone nearly as often as he was around. When Raisho did manage to visit, other Librarians always seemed to interrupt them so much so that Juhg could barely have a decent conversation with his friend. There was simply too much work to be done.