by Mel Odom
“Actually, toads can’t do much of anything. Except eat flies.” Craugh brushed cookie crumbs from his beard. “I believe that was the point.”
“We need these people’s goodwill.”
“Over the years, Grandmagister, I have found that people demonstrate an overall lack of enthusiastic goodwill without being properly motivated. Especially when it comes to public projects. I merely provided the motivation. Had I been here two days ago, doubtless you would have already been finished.”
One way or another, Juhg silently agreed.
“Now if Wick had addressed those people today—” Craugh caught himself and shook his head. “Alas, but that’s not to be, is it?” He smiled a little, but sadness touched his green eyes.
“I regret that I’m not Grandmagister Lamplighter,” Juhg said, feeling the old pain stir inside him as well. Although he understood Grandmagister Lamplighter’s decision to explore the realms opened up to him by The Book of Time, Juhg hadn’t quite forgiven his mentor for leaving.
“No,” Craugh said forcefully. “Never regret that. You are you, Grandmagister Juhg, and were it not for you, the possibility of giving back all the lost knowledge to the people of the world would never have come this far.”
Pain tightened Juhg’s throat. For all that they argued and disagreed, he and Craugh had shared a love and deep respect for Edgewick Lamplighter. They were the only two who knew most of the Grandmagister’s life. They had shared his adventures outside Greydawn Moors and had gotten to see him work. None of the Grandmagister’s acquaintances on the Shattered Coast had ever come to Greydawn Moors.
“Thank you,” Juhg whispered.
“Your friendship these days,” the wizard said, “means a lot to me.”
That admission from Craugh was both surprising and touching. Juhg didn’t know what to say. The silence stretched between them, crowded by the conversations throughout the rest of the tavern.
“You didn’t come here today for the presentation, did you?” Juhg asked. He’d asked earlier, but Craugh had never answered him. The wizard didn’t answer any questions until he was ready. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be asked again.
“No, I didn’t.” Craugh took another tort and nibbled at the edge. “Something else brought me to you.”
Silently, Juhg waited. Only trouble would bring Craugh to him. He didn’t want to ask what that was. So he didn’t.
“Tell me,” Craugh said almost conversationally, as if the potential fate of the world didn’t hang in his words, “have you ever heard of Lord Kharrion’s Wrath?”
Juhg reflected for a moment. “No. Not really. There was some mention of it in Troffin’s Legacy of the Cataclysm.”
“I’m not familiar with that.”
“Most people aren’t. The Grandmagister had me read it one day, but he never explained why.”
“Ah. What did the book say about Lord Kharrion’s Wrath?”
“Only that it was a weapon the Goblin Lord had been building toward the end of the Cataclysm. I think the legend was eventually dismissed as a fabrication.”
Craugh took out his pipe and filled it. He snapped his fingers and a green flame sprang to life on his thumb. In short order, he had the pipe going merrily and a cloud of smoke wreathed his hat.
“What,” the wizard asked, “if I told you the story of Lord Kharrion’s Wrath was true?”
Juhg thought about that. “Then I’d say it was over a thousand years too late.”
“Perhaps not.”
Disturbing images took shape in Craugh’s pipe smoke. Wars were fought in those small clouds. Juhg didn’t know if the smoke revealed things yet to come or were drawn from the wizard’s memory.
“Wick, at one time, was on the trail of Lord Kharrion’s Wrath,” Craugh said. “Quite by accident, though. He’d ended up in the Cinder Clouds Islands as a result of an argument between Hallekk and another ship’s crew one night in the Yondering Docks.”
“The Grandmagister wouldn’t get involved in an argument,” Juhg said automatically. “Besides, there’d be nothing to argue over. The Grandmagister would know the answers.”
“No one believed him.”
“And he went to prove them wrong?” Juhg shook his head. “That still doesn’t sound like the Grandmagister.”
Craugh coughed delicately. “Actually, Wick wasn’t given a choice.”
Juhg lifted a suspicious eyebrow.
“We waited until Wick was deep into his cups, then we took him back to the ship.”
“You shanghaied him? Again?” Juhg could’t believe it.
“It was Hallekk’s idea, actually.”
At the time, Hallekk had probably been first mate on One-Eyed Peggie, Greydawn Moors’ only dwarven pirate ship. The crew had shanghaied Grandmagister Lamplighter from the Yondering Docks all those years ago to fill their crew, so deep in their cups they hadn’t realized then that he was a Librarian.
Juhg wondered why the Grandmagister would have gone adventuring again just to satisfy Hallekk’s need to win a wager.
“Did the Grandmagister believe in Lord Kharrion’s Wrath?” Juhg asked.
“He did. He saw it.”
That announcement took Juhg by surprise. “He never mentioned it to me.”
“Wick has lived … an adventurous life. Quite contrary to a normal dweller’s desires.” Craugh puffed on his pipe and a dreadful dragon sailed in full attack in the clouds dappling the tavern ceiling. Several nearby patrons sat in frozen astonishment, then carefully—quietly—left their seats and departed. “I’m sure he didn’t tell you everything.”
“I’ve read everything he wrote.”
“Perhaps he didn’t write about everything he witnessed.”
Juhg shook his head immediately. “That wasn’t his way. He taught me the importance of keeping a journal.” Reaching into his robes, he took out a journal he’d made himself.
After placing the journal on the table, he flipped through the pages and revealed the images and words he’d wrought over the last few days. Images of Shark’s Maw Cove, the meeting hall, the principal attendees he’d met, as well as plants, structures, and animals that had caught his curious eye all filled the pages amid notes and monographs.
“This is just the bare beginning of this book, though,” Juhg said. “I’ve been working on a more finished one on board Moonsdreamer.” He closed the book and put it away. “The Grandmagister kept a record of everything.”
“So he did. Which leads us to the conclusion that you haven’t read everything Wick wrote.”
“Impossible.”
Saying nothing, the wizard reached inside his traveling cloak, took out a fat book, and dropped it with a thump onto the table. “Have you read this?”
Juhg recognized Grandmagister Lamplighter’s handiwork immediately. The Grandmagister had always been very exact when he built a journal to record his adventures. This one had a lacquered finish over maple stained deep red that would be proof against impact and water.
Opening the book, Juhg found the Grandmagister’s hand upon the pages. Juhg knew his mentor’s style instantly from the Qs. Grandmagister Lamplighter had the most beautiful Qs of any Librarian.
Several of the pages, though, showed charring. Other pages showed where pinholes had burned through.
The frontispiece showed an exquisite drawing of One-Eyed Peggie sitting at anchor at the Yondering Docks. Dwarves, one of them barrel-chested Hallekk, stood on the deck working at their chores.
“Where did you get this?” Juhg asked, astounded.
“At the Vault. I just came from there.”
“Impossible.”
“You didn’t know where all Wick’s hiding places were,” Craugh said.
“He would have told me.”
“That book that you hold in your hand proves that he didn’t.”
Juhg couldn’t argue that and didn’t, though he sorely wanted to. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe he just never got around to it,” the
wizard gently suggested.
Looking at the opening pages, Juhg discovered that he couldn’t read them. “It’s written in code.”
“Wick was very careful.”
Let’s only hope the Grandmagister still is, Juhg fervently hoped. Wherever The Book of Time has taken him.
“Can you read it?” Craugh asked.
Quickly, Juhg took out his own journal and tried some of the various codes he and the Grandmagister had devised over the years of their adventuring. In short order, the strange symbols became perfectly understandable words.
“Yes. It’s written in one of the first codes the Grandmagister taught me.” Excitement filled Juhg at the discovery.
“Good. That proves that he intended to let you know about this book at some date,” Craugh said.
Relief flooded Juhg. “Why did you bring this book to me?”
Craugh was silent for a moment, contemplating his response. “Because I can’t read it. I need it translated.”
“You want me to translate this?”
“Can you name another more suited to the task?”
“No,” he replied.
“Neither could I.”
“Don’t you already know what this book contains?”
Hesitantly, Craugh shook his head. “I don’t know. Though Wick and I trusted each other and would have laid down our lives for each other—and almost had occasion to do so now and again—we still maintained our own counsel in some areas.” He sighed and a lightning storm manifested in the smoke over his peaked hat. Green sparks danced within the storm. “I think it was because Wick knew—knows—that I have my own secrets from him.”
Chief among those secrets had been Craugh’s own early villainy and search for power through The Book of Time. And the fact that Craugh had fathered Lord Kharrion. Only Juhg knew that, and it had been the first secret he had kept from Grandmagister Lamplighter.
“But I was with Wick when he found Lord Kharrion’s Wrath,” Craugh said.
“It is a weapon?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“Read the book,” Craugh directed. “I don’t want to risk influencing translations or interpretations of what you find there. When you have the book decoded, we’ll compare what we know.”
Suddenly a thump sounded on the tavern’s roof. Then more thumps followed, as if a giant were walking across the split wood shingles. Other thumps sounded in different spots, indicating that more than one thing now walked atop the building.
Craugh stood immediately and took up his staff. His eyes narrowed in consternation. “Quickly, Grandmagister. It appears my arrival here hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“Unnoticed?” Juhg got to his feet. “You were trying to arrive unnoticed?” That could only bode the gravest trouble.
Striding to the center of the big room, Craugh glared up at the ceiling.
“Unnoticed by whom?” Juhg asked, remaining by the table. He peered through the window. Outside, night had come to Shark’s Maw Cove. Lanterns lit the crooked boardwalks that led through the boggy marshland to the docks and dilapidated warehouses.
“Those who would prevent me from learning anything further of Lord Kharrion’s Wrath, of course.” Craugh took his staff in both hands. Green sparks whirled around both ends of it.
The magic was so intense in the room that Juhg felt the hairs on his arms standing to attention. He reached down and slipped out the long fighting knife his friend Raisho had given him years ago when they had entered a trade partnership. That had been when Juhg had tried to leave the Vault of All Known Knowledge because he and Grandmagister Lamplighter had been of different views on how to proceed with the Library.
Juhg said, “Who—”
Then the roof splintered and caved in, scattering shingles in all directions. Three impossible figures dropped to the tavern floor and stood on clawed feet with toes as big as tree roots.
They were vaguely human in shape, possessing two arms and two legs, and had vaguely human features that looked like ridged skulls with flat brown eyes the size of saucers. No nose and a ragged slit for a mouth completed their features. Warped ears twisted like conch shells stuck out on the sides of their heads. They had four fingers and four toes at the ends of their extremities, but those were each as large as a man’s wrist. Their skin looked like cypress bark streaked with moss. When they stood, Juhg realized they very nearly reached the ceiling beams, making them at least thirteen or fourteen feet tall. Pungent and strong, the stink of a fecund swamp clung to them.
As one, they turned their gazes on Craugh.
“Get behind me,” the wizard ordered.
Juhg did as he was bade, but he was thinking that since the creatures seemed interested in Craugh, maybe that was the last place he wanted to be. Still, he couldn’t desert the wizard and leave him to face his foes alone. He shoved Grandmagister Lamplighter’s coded book into his backpack, took a fresh grip on his fighting knife, and peered around Craugh’s leg.
“Dark magic!” someone cried in warning.
“Bog beasts!” another shouted.
The Keelhauler’s Tavern emptied in short order. Several of the patrons simply threw chairs through the windows and followed them outside. Only a few elven, dwarven, and human warriors remained. Most of those who had been bending their elbows were sailors and merchants, not versed in the arts of combat.
“Wizard,” one of the bog beasts growled in a deep voice that seemed to erupt from within him. It threw a hand forward and a vine leaped from it like a fisherman’s line. Thick and fibrous, the vine streaked straight for Craugh.
Hardly moving, the wizard attempted to block the vine with his staff. The vine reacted like a live thing, curling around the staff and tightening. The bog beast fisted the vine and yanked.
Incredibly, Craugh stood against the creature’s immense strength, once again demonstrating that he was more than human. He spoke a Word in a harsh tongue. With a bamf!, green flames spread along the staff. The vine crackled, burning to ash in the space of a heartbeat.
The bog beast screamed in pain and drew back its hand.
“Get back, foul swamp spawn!” Craugh commanded.
The bog beasts surged forward. Their feet hammered against the wooden floor, shattering thick planks that had withstood the test of time till that night.
“Axes!” one of the dwarves yelled. “Don’t let them black-hearted beasties tear up our tavern!”
At once, the dwarves broke up into three groups of four, standing one by two by one deep. As needed, they rotated the leader in case he grew tired from attacking their enemies or was wounded, moving into the defensive anvil formation—two by two, with shields raised—to wear through an opponent’s attack, then back into the axe formation.
The elven warders had nocked their bows. Arrows sped across the short distance of the room and feathered the bog beasts. The creatures roared in anger and pain but showed no sign of turning from Craugh.
Roaring, unleashing Words of power, Craugh raised his flaming staff and brought it crashing down on the floor. In response, Juhg thought the earth had shivered free of its moorings. He toppled and fell, striving desperately to push himself back to his feet.
Everyone in the tavern fell, including the elves, dwarves, and humans. Even the bog beasts toppled. Then what was left of the roof dropped as well, crashing down around Juhg. None of it hit him. When he peered fearfully up from under his folded arm, he saw that a green bubble surrounded Craugh and him. Sparks shimmered along the surface of the bubble. Then it disappeared.
Juhg stood. Tremors continued through the ground and he felt certain the earth would open up and swallow them at any moment.
Bellowing angrily, the bog beasts surged up from under the debris that had fallen on them. One of them threw a vine at Craugh, catching the wizard around the lower right leg. Obviously drained by the spell he had cast, Craugh was slow to react. The bog beast yanked, pulling the wizard from his feet.
Moving by ins
tinct, Juhg scrambled after Craugh, leaping to the top of a broken table and slashing his knife across the vine. The fibrous length parted with only passing resistance. Another bog beast cast its line, but Juhg stomped on an abandoned serving platter and caused it to leap into the air. The vine pierced the platter and was deflected from its target enough to miss, though it was only a matter of inches.
Craugh regained his feet and clapped his hat back on. He took a firmer grip on his staff.
“Scribbler!” a familiar voice yelled.
Turning, Juhg saw Raisho standing in the crooked doorway. The young sailor had become Juhg’s best friend during recent years. They had become trading partners when Juhg had been determined to abandon the Vault of All Known Knowledge eight years ago; Raisho had only been twenty.
(Eight years meant a lot to a human. Now Raisho had found his true family, married a mermaid, and had one child and another on the way, and captained Moonsdreamer, the ship he’d named after his daughter. At six feet two inches tall, he had filled out over the years, becoming thicker and more powerful, but still went smooth-shaven because his wife preferred him that way.)
Blue tattoos showed on his ebony skin, marred here and there by scars from men and beasts he’d battled while sailing the Blood-Soaked Sea and adventuring with Juhg. A headband of fire opals, made by his beautiful wife, held his thick, unruly black hair back from his handsome face. Silver hoops dangled in his ears. He carried a dwarven smithed cutlass in his hard right hand. He wore only sailor’s breeches, soft leather boots, and a chain mail shirt over his bare chest.
“Scribbler!” Concern etched on his face, eyes straining against the darkness inside the tavern, Raisho strode into the tavern.
“I’m here,” Juhg called.
“Thank the Old Ones,” Raisho said, striding over to join him and Craugh. “I thought ye’d ’ad yer gullet slit for sure this time. Especially after I’d ’eard Craugh was about an’ I saw the dragon flyin’ around.”
“Dragon?” Juhg echoed.
Raisho nodded. “I was told it was the dragon what dropped them creatures onto the tavern. Didn’t know what they was lookin’ for. Till I ’eard Craugh was ’ere with ye.”