by Mel Odom
“Might as well be on one of the moons, for all the good that does us,” Raisho said. “It would take a team of dwarven engineers days to dry dock that tunnel. An’ then, they wouldn’t be able to do it because this room might not be big enough to hold all the water what’s down there.”
“Maybe there’s an air pocket down there.” Juhg was loath to turn away from the chance to find the piece of The Book of Time. The Grandmagister had given him the task and he didn’t want to let go of it.
“Did the diagrams you looked at show any upward turn in the hallway leading down?” Jassamyn asked.
“No.”
“Then there’s no air pocket down there,” she said. “That area is filled with water. No one can hold their breath long enough to go down there and back. And you said the Grandmagister couldn’t free the fragment from whatever was holding it.”
“Get to the other side of the room,” Craugh ordered as he stepped forward, stopping short of the trapdoor, and held the staff on the ground before him in both hands.
Juhg and the others quickly cleared the area as the emerald sparks around the end of Craugh’s staff whipped themselves into a frenzy. In a powerful voice, the wizard spoke in the language of magic.
Immediately, a whirling waterspout rose from the water in front of Craugh. It stood nearly four feet tall, moving so violently that spray spattered Juhg on the other side of the room.
More harsh words followed.
In response, the waterspout skated from inside the hallway, spitting up even more of the brackish water as it shot toward the big room where they had entered below the waterline. A moment later, the water inside the hallway rushed out, spilling into the room where they all stood and running in the direction the waterspout had taken.
“The waterspout is a construct,” Craugh said. His brows knitted in concentration. “An artificial thing. It’s very hard to maintain, and it takes a lot of power.” He glanced at Juhg. “We’ll have to be quick about this.”
Hesitantly, Juhg walked to the wizard’s side and peered down the hallway in disbelief as the water continued to run uphill and evacuate the bottom two floors. The gurgling noise of the water rushing by echoed within the room, sounding like the ocean.
Long moments passed. Juhg didn’t know how many thousands of gallons of water Craugh caused to relocate, but he knew he was witnessing something few wizards could master. He remembered again how Craugh had wrought the healing spell to mend his own broken leg down in the basement levels of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
Magic that healed or changed things without destroying them was hard to work. Generally only very strong wizards could work such spells, and most of them didn’t because it took too much from them. Craugh had sworn Juhg to secrecy, not wanting him to tell anyone about the incident. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know that he handled “good” magic.
For a moment, Juhg felt guilty about being suspicious of Craugh’s intentions. The wizard had done a great deal for the Library and for the Grandmagister.
But he’s got a lot to atone for, Juhg told himself in rebuttal. Unleashing The Book of Time into this world. Fathering Lord Kharrion. All those untold people he put to death and the empires he overturned. Besides that, although he doesn’t destroy them so the spell is supposed to be inherently good because of that, turning someone into a toad is not a good thing.
“Hey!” Dusen squalled from the other room. “You’re floodin’ the buildin’! Hey! Can you hear me!”
Craugh gestured and a single green spark tore through the rooms, heading back toward the smuggler.
Dusen cried out in true alarm, sounding panicked. “Okay! Okay! I’ll shut up! Just make the spider go away again!”
Just when Juhg could see all the way to the bottom of the stairs, though water still rushed from the downstairs area, a terrific crunching sound came up from the bottom of the building. The floor listed underfoot, increasing the angle the building was already sitting at.
Craugh put out a hand and the water stopped coming up the stairs for a moment.
“Taking all the water out of there has affected the way the building’s sitting on the sea floor,” Jassamyn whispered. “It’s already not sitting flat, but the water changing places is affecting it.”
Gradually, the crunching sound stopped and the building seemed once more anchored in the mire of the sea.
Peering down into the hallway, Craugh said, “We’ve got to continue. I’ve not taken out enough water yet.”
Eventually, puddles followed the deluge. After a time, no more water came up the stairs.
“All right, apprentice,” Craugh said in a strained voice, “let’s see if we can find The Book of Time.”
Raisho took the lead, walking boldly down into the hallway with his cutlass in one hand and a lantern in the other. Cobner followed him, both hands on his battle-axe.
Juhg looked down at the water that was now up to his waist. He wasn’t happy. A lot of water had been moved, and if Craugh lost control of his spell, a lot of it would rush back down into the hallway. He followed Craugh, stepping through the water and past the invisible wall that held it back from the hallway.
He held the lantern high as he walked down the narrow curving stairs. Steep anyway, and wet now, the stairs were made even harder to negotiate because the building leaned in their direction. Juhg experienced a touch of vertigo as he went down because he was leaning so far forward.
They passed a number of sprung traps and bones of what were probably victims of those traps. Juhg had to step over cruel spears that jutted out of the walls in two places, duck through the legs of a skeleton that had its head pinned to the ceiling, and negotiate a section of the stairs that had gone flat as a result of a trick step that caused twenty steps to fold downward. There were also four open pits where more skeletons were wrapped around jagged spears of glass.
At the second floor, Raisho and Cobner split off to search the rooms.
Craugh looked back over his shoulder at Juhg. “Our destination is down farther still, isn’t it, Apprentice?”
“Yes,” Juhg replied.
And they were off, leaving Cobner and Raisho exploring. The dwarven warrior and the young sailor caught up with them before the others reached the second floor.
The bottom of the stairs let out into an immense circular room.
Craugh walked into the middle of it. His face was ashen and his hand holding a lantern shook a little.
“Are you all right?” Juhg asked.
“It is a lot of water, apprentice,” the wizard snapped. “Don’t waste what time we have. Find the hiding place Wick wrote of.”
Getting his bearings in the room, barely able to see the lines of the sundial marked on the floor, Juhg walked to the wall to the right. Skeletons littered the floor. Several of them wore different uniforms and carried weapons showing diverse craftsmanship. Juhg’s practiced eye told him they were of separate cultures and disparate times.
When it was first built, the room was probably an entertainment room for the Baron of Seadevil’s Roost and his most important guests. Remnants of broken furniture lay all around the room, mixing with the skeletons and shattered stonework. Maybe there had once been a fortune in fine goods, in gold-rimmed glasses or beaten copper mugs bearing the baron’s crest, but now there was only moldering garbage.
And, perhaps, a final secret still.
Another quaver ran through the building, causing everyone to glance up apprehensively.
“Apprentice,” Craugh said hoarsely.
Turning his attention to the wall, Juhg searched for the hidden door. Water droplets gathered on the stone surface and ran down through the grooves. A preternatural chill filled the room, so cold with him in wet clothes that his bones ached.
Holding his lantern up high, Juhg wiped his free hand across the wall until he found four circular patterns that looked like the rest of the design. Satisfied that he’d found what he was looking for and that the design matched the description in the
Grandmagister’s book, he depressed the top upper left pattern, the bottom right, pressed down and turned the upper right counterclockwise, and pressed down and turned the lower left clockwise. Then he pressed at the block in the center, causing it to sink back three inches till it locked.
Rumbling echoed through the big, cold room.
Listening for the sound, Juhg turned to the center of the room. A circle four feet across unlocked in the room’s center, then it dropped down the height of a human man and revealed a recess in the stone.
Something glowed a deep sea-blue inside.
“I’ve got it,” Raisho said, dropping over the edge and starting for the object.
Walking closer, glad the young sailor had volunteered, Juhg watched with interest. The blue glow radiated from two gemstones floating inside the space. The gemstones possessed square bases that flared up to cube-shaped points that were flat on top. They looked like short mesas on broad bases.
No, Juhg thought. That can’t be right. That isn’t a book.
But he knew that it had to be because the pieces matched the description the Grandmagister had given in his journal. The Voldorvian elves wrote on handmade amber jewels they grew layer by layer and then laid spells upon so the book within could be read in the mind of the person who held the gems. They were some of the hardest books Juhg had ever had to read because they took such a high level of concentration. Most of the First Level Librarians at the Vault of All Known Knowledge hadn’t been able to read them. The Grandmagister had been able to read them as easily as he might read by trailing a finger along a line of script. Juhg had heard rumors that some wizards carried spell books written by the Voldorvian elves, although that craft had been lost back during the Cataclysm.
Tentatively, as if realizing that he had put himself directly into the path of danger, Raisho reached into the space with a knife. Without warning, he dropped to his knees as the knife fell from his hand.
“It burned me,” Raisho exclaimed.
Wanting to make certain his friend was all right, and to tend to his wounds if he wasn’t, Juhg dropped inside the recessed place as well. A quick examination of the young sailor’s hand showed no injury.
“Well,” Raisho said sheepishly, “it felt like it burned me.”
“The knife is iron,” Craugh said. “Some of the old magic wars with iron.”
Juhg remembered that then. Iron was a product wholly of the world, not of whatever place magic came from. That was why the magic swords in so many of the romances in Hralbomm’s Wing didn’t really exist. Iron and magic could seldom be bonded, and only then with simple spells and for not very long.
Well, if the gemstones reject iron, Juhg thought, that’s one argument for these being ancient pieces.
“If you’re just going to look at it,” Craugh growled, “let me down there.”
Hesitant, Raisho reached into the space for the two floating gemstones. His hand seemed to graze them because they suddenly tumbled end over end. But when Raisho closed his hand, it came out empty and the two gemstones continued to float and spin inside the space.
“I could have sworn I had them,” the young sailor said. He tried again, but experienced the same results. Still, the gemstones spun differently, as if he’d made contact yet again.
Abruptly, the building shivered again. A sudden deluge sprayed down the stairwell and Juhg thought the wizard’s spell holding the water back had slipped. But after the initial splash, no more water came.
“We need to hurry,” Craugh said, sounding more strained than ever.
“The Grandmagister had the same problem retrieving the gemstones,” Juhg said. “He came here and saw these gemstones, but he couldn’t get hold of them.”
When he’d decoded that passage in the Grandmagister’s journal, Juhg hadn’t known how that could be possible. Now he’d seen Raisho struggle with the same problem several times.
“Let me,” Juhg asked, stepped around Raisho and reaching out to the gemstones. He felt them somehow slip through his fingers like cold mist up in the mountains. Repeating the action, he watched more closely and saw that he wasn’t missing the gemstones, his fingers were actually passing through them like they were apparitions instead of the real thing.
“What’s taking so long?” Craugh demanded.
“I can’t close my hand on them,” Juhg said. “I mean, I can close my hand on them, but they pass through my hand. I can feel them, feel how cold they are, but I can’t get a grip on them.”
“Maybe they’re an illusion,” Jassamyn offered. “There have been traps all along the way, thankfully much removed from this point in time, but who’s to say if the gemstones are really the part of The Book of Time that is supposed to be here? They could be part of a trap that was left here all those years ago.”
“No,” Juhg said. “This is it. It has to be. The Grandmagister would not be wrong about something like this.” He felt the chill of the gemstones pulse against his hand, like they were there one instant and gone the next. Concentrating on the pulses, he tried to time them, get a feel for when he could close his hand on the gems.
It’s like a tumbler lock, he told himself. You just have to feel your way through it. There. Almost. No, wait, wait. They have vibrations. Like music. To the untrained and unknowing ear, music is just sound, but a mathematician recognizes the patterns and sequences and knows they have measure and form.
He felt for the measure and form, listening to the music of the gemstones. They grew more tangible in his hand, and the feeling of physical presence lasted longer and longer.
Unexpectedly, Craugh fell, obviously no longer able to hold onto his staff. Or hold the water back. In the next instant, Juhg heard the gurgling sea rushing pell-mell down the hallway.
And in that instant the contact he had with the spinning blue gemstones was at its strongest. There was an instant of jarring shocks and he went deaf. Then he was gone from the basement level of the Baron of Seadevil’s Roost.
13
“What Do You Know About the Nature of Time, Librarian?”
When Juhg reopened his eyes, he was on a narrow trail that wound around a mountain that vanished in the clouds before him. He looked everywhere, up the huge stone mountain to his left, over the steep side of the drop-off to his right, then up the trail he was apparently following in the direction he was headed, and back along the way he must have come to get here.
Where are Craugh, Raisho, Cobner, and Jassamyn? Juhg asked himself. And why can’t I remember climbing this mountain?
Only a short distance from him in any direction that he looked, gray clouds obscured his vision. He couldn’t tell how far he’d come up the mountain or how much farther he had yet to go.
“Craugh?” he called. He remembered how the water had started pouring down through the hallway, knowing that the wizard had overextended himself. He raised his voice. “Craugh!”
His voice was lost in the cloudy darkness. Not even an echo came back to him.
Think, Juhg. You can reason this out. You were trained to use your mind at the vault of All Known Knowledge, by the best Grandmagister who ever lived.
He glanced down at his clothing, discovering that he was dressed in First Level Librarian robes. Where had his clothes gone? He would never wear the Librarian robes outside of the Vault of All Known Knowledge or Greydawn Moors. Reaching up to his head, he was surprised to discover that his hair was no longer wet. In fact, he was dry all over.
How much time had passed since Craugh had fallen? Then a cold suspicion stared to creep in at the edges of Juhg’s mind.
Am I dead? Is this what death is like?
“You’re not dead, Librarian Juhg.” The voice was quiet and pleasant.
Turning, Juhg discovered that there had been another traveler on the road after all, though he didn’t know how he could have missed the fellow earlier. He must have stepped out of the clouds. That’s it. He just stepped out of the clouds while I had my back turned. Unfortunately, he knew he hadn’t had h
is back turned long enough for the other traveler to have climbed the mountain, not even the short distance he could see.
The figure was tall as a human but looked more like a praying mantis. Standing on its back four legs, the creature held the other two arms curled up under its chest. The body was sleek, covered in a bright green carapace with mottled purple brushed in. The creature was so thin that it looked fragile, but the chitinous hide looked like armor. The head was a rounded triangle with a carved mouth and two bulging black eyes. The antenna wriggled constantly, slight movements that tested the air.
“Who are you?” Juhg asked, stepping back from the fantastic creature till he teetered at the edge of the cliff. There was nowhere else he could go.
“Your guide.”
“My guide?”
“Yes.”
“My guide to where?”
“Wherever it is you wish to go, Librarian Juhg.”
Juhg took heart in the fact that the thing hadn’t tried to eat him. “Where are my friends?”
“Back at the building.”
“I want to go back there.”
“You’re already there,” the creature said.
“Nonsense,” Juhg said, “as you can plainly see, I’m here. Wherever here is.”
“And you’re there.” The reply was stated calmly and reasonably.
Juhg blinked his eyes, realizing he was suddenly back in the basement room watching Craugh still falling and the water rushing down the hallway to fill the room where they were. The two blue gems hung frozen in the secret space before him, and for the first time he realized the chill of contact with them was maintaining. He closed his hand on the gems only to feel them fade through his fingers again. When he blinked his eyes again, he was once more standing on top of the mountain with the praying mantis.
“Here,” the creature said, “time is malleable and has no rules. Or rather, time here has every rule. You are here, and you are there.”