The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Feeling someone on its head, the snake bobbed and weaved in an effort to dislodge Juhg. He held tight desperately. I’mgonnadie, I’mgonnadie! With his legs wrapped snugly around the lunging creature, he took a fresh grip on the dagger haft and yanked the blade free. Bilious blue ichor spewed from the wound, but the bleeding slowed almost immediately as the puncture started closing because of the snake’s innate magic nature.

  Juhg’s effort to get the knife threw him off balance. He slid down the snake’s neck, looking at the same time for the copper coin embedded in the room’s ceiling. Knowing he had only one chance, he sprang from the snake’s back. Faster than Juhg would have believed possible, the snake snapped its jaws open and struck at him.

  Great gleaming fangs rushed at Juhg as he drove the dagger at the coin embedded in the ceiling. Letmehitit! Letmehitit! He put out his free hand to keep his face from smashing into the ceiling. He shoved the dagger at the coin, missed by two inches, and cut a deep groove across the wooden ceiling. The snake’s mouth lay open like a dark fanged pit beneath him. The forked tongue flicked out and caught him in the ear.

  Then the dagger’s point caught the edge of the coin, slid into the deep wood, and the coin spun free. The snake didn’t disappear immediately as Juhg had thought. As gravity overcame him and he fell, he dropped into the snake’s mouth, felt the cold and wet rush of reptilian flesh around him, and knew he wouldn’t stop plummeting till he reached the thing’s gullet.

  He closed his eyes. That’s what you get for thinking you know so much!

  Then he landed flat on his back on the floor hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, realizing only then that he wasn’t in the snake’s belly as he’d feared he would be.

  Without warning, Raisho leaned in over him with a worried expression.

  Startled by the unexpected sight of his friend, Juhg yelped in fear.

  Pumped up by his own battles and the near thing that had just happened, Raisho yelled back, thinking he was under attack from behind. He whirled with his sword in his fist. Gust, frenzied from being chased around the room by the huge snake, chose that moment to leap on Raisho’s shoulders from the cabinet space he’d taken refuge in. Evidently the monk believed Raisho was an island of safety in a suddenly insane world.

  Raisho yelled again and grabbed the monk. He drew back his cutlass as he swung the monk around.

  “No!” Juhg said, scrambling to his feet. “It’s just Gust!”

  Chest heaving from his exertions and the panic that had seized him, Raisho managed to stay his hand. Held by the scruff of his neck, the monk dangled and whimpered with his hands over his eyes.

  “Stupid monk,” Raisho growled. He opened his hand and Gust dropped to the floor on all fours.

  Gust retreated quickly and hid under the wizard’s bed. He leaned out from under the edge of the bed and shook his fists at Raisho while screaming monk imprecations.

  Raisho quickly surveyed the room, searching for enemies and surprises. Then he looked at Juhg, hugged him tight for a moment, and grinned. “Ye’re alive.”

  “I am.” Juhg, still somewhat stunned by that fact, ran his hands over his chest to make sure he was still whole as well.

  “Where did the snakes go?”

  “I broke the spell.”

  “An’ ye know magic now, do ye?”

  “Not exactly.” Juhg grimaced as his hand found a big glop of what appeared to be snake spit running down his side.

  “Careful with that,” Raisho advised. “Could be poison.”

  Now, there’s a cheery thought, Juhg thought. He took his hand away and grabbed some of the bedding from the wizard’s bunk.

  Raisho took a fresh grip on his cutlass and picked up the dagger Juhg had dropped when he’d slammed against the floor. “Will them snakes be back?”

  “No.” Juhg turned and looked back at the shattered debris of the writing table. A patch of red fabric caught his eye and filled his heart with hope. “With the enchantment broken, they’re banished back to whatever place the wizard called them from.”

  “Why didn’t ye think of breakin’ the enchantment the other night when we was runnin’ for our lives?”

  “Because we were running for our lives.” Juhg crossed to the patch of fabric and dug through the debris. He felt a smile spread across his face as he uncovered the book. The tome was unharmed despite the snake’s fierce blow. “Surviving can be very distracting.”

  “Hmph,” Raisho snorted. “I’m just sayin’ that if ye could break the enchantment, it would have been better, is all.”

  “And we’d still have had the goblin crew to worry about.”

  “Aye.” Raisho looked up. “Well, we got yer book. Let’s get back topside an’ see how we’re doin’.”

  The reminder about the battle going on there dimmed Juhg’s feelings of success. Carefully, he tucked the book away inside his blouse and followed Raisho. He stopped at the door long enough to call for Gust. If the monk didn’t return to the ship, Herby would be heartbroken.

  Reluctantly, Gust emerged from under the bed and bounded across the room. He latched onto one of Juhg’s legs, wrapping his arms and legs as well as his tail around the dweller’s limb. Burdened by the weight of the monk and unable to persuade the creature to let him go, Juhg limped down the hallway after Raisho.

  The young sailor immediately started up through the hold.

  Juhg dashed past the ladder.

  Halting just under the deck, Raisho peered down. “Where ye goin’?”

  “To check the hold,” Juhg replied, racing past a dead goblin in the hallway toward the hatch that led down to the cargo hold. “Those goblins that came after me were wet.”

  “Ye think Blowfly is leakin’?”

  “Has to be. Have you ever heard of goblins bathing?”

  Raisho scowled. The idea of goblins bathing was disturbing on two fronts. For one, gobins never bathed unless the creatures were caught out in a rainstorm. And two, goblins were hideous enough dressed. A naked goblin had to be truly stomach-wrenching.

  Juhg took a lantern from the hallway wall on his way. The goblin ship listed hard, and the thunderous cannonade of Windchaser’s hull slamming into her again filled the hallway. He bounced off the wall, painfully jarring his shoulder. Then, reaching the hatch, he dropped to his knees and held the lantern out over the opening.

  Twenty feet and more below, water rushed from Blowfly’s prow to her stern, mirroring the movement of the ship in the water. Crates and barrels floated on the water, hinting at the depth the vessel had already taken on.

  “She’s holed.” Raisho peered over Juhg’s shoulder. “Looks like her bottom’s busted up somewhere, though I can’t see where. We’ll have to tell Cap’n Attikus. If Blowfly rips loose all at once, she could drag ’Chaser down with her.”

  Gust shrilled and shook one tiny fist.

  Raisho clapped Juhg on the shoulder, nearly knocking him down. “C’mon, then. I’m sick to me stomach over this blasted stench.”

  Worrying, knowing that the waters around the Tattered Islands were filled with hidden reefs and sandbars, Juhg followed Raisho back to the ladder. Raisho climbed swiftly to the top, and Juhg trailed along as best as he could with the monk wrapped fearfully around his leg.

  Raisho halted at deck level and shoved the slashed sailcloth out of the way. “It’s clear,” he advised, then hauled himself up.

  Struggling, Juhg crawled out onto the deck as well. Once more in the open, Gust released his leg and scampered into the ship’s rigging. Dread filled Juhg at once as he stood on the heaving ship’s deck.

  Dead goblins and sailors sprawled in all directions. Blowfly’s sails and rigging hung in tatters. To port, Windchaser strained under her own weight, as well as the additional weight of the foundering goblinkin ship.

  Even with their losses and having being outnumbered at the onset, the pirate crew had defeated the goblinkin. The survivors clustered in the ship’s stern
with their swords as they faced Ertonomous Dron. Despite being cornered as he was, the wizard showed no fear.

  Raisho ran forward, leaping and dodging bodies of friends as well as opponents.

  Not feeling nearly as heroic or driven, Juhg hung back. Finding a new home in a snake’s gullet had been a near thing. Still, he was drawn reluctantly to the action.

  The bodies of the sailors slain by the wizard’s invisible blade earlier lay in a half-moon around Ertonomous Dron. Wind clawed at the old wizard’s iron-gray hair and beard. Several of the sigils on his blue robe glowed with inner fire, but more of them were dull and lifeless.

  Five archers aboard Windchaser loosed arrows. Imperiously, Ertonomous Dron waved his hand and reversed the course of the arrows so they struck the archers and drove them back down onto the pirate ship’s deck.

  “Any man that seeks to touch me dies,” the wizard promised.

  The sailors hung back as their foe held them off with his steely gaze. Superstitious by their very nature, sailing men wanted nothing to do with anything that smacked of magic unless it promised good luck.

  Raisho strode forward. “Yer ship lays a-dyin’, wizard. Even now she founders, an’ she’s gonna go down. Unless ye can sprout wings an’ fly away, ye’ll go down with her soon enough.”

  “Mayhap,” the wizard threatened, undaunted, “I’ll just turn you into the giant popinjay that you are and fly away on you.” He pointed his wand.

  All of the sailors, including Raisho, drew back.

  “Avast there,” Captain Attikus called from Windchaser. He stood on the pirate ship’s stern deck. Blood streaked his clothing from the arrow in his shoulder. He clung to the railing and Juhg felt certain it was as much for support now as it was to stand against Windchaser’s pitching deck. “You’ve got nowhere to run to, wizard. I’ll negotiate your surrender. If you’re willing.”

  A feral grin lighted the wizard’s face. “I think not, Captain. No matter what you say, I don’t believe your offer would be overly generous.”

  “I’d see you live,” Captain Attikus replied gruffly, taking a little offense at the wizard’s pointed declaration.

  “On your word of honor?” Ertonomous Dron curled his lip in a cold sneer. “How quaint. Do you know what a sense of honor is, Captain? It’s a vulnerability. A chink in a man’s armor. No, I don’t live my life as an honorable man, nor will I hold others to such a thing.”

  “‘A man who knows honor recognizes it in others,’” Captain Attikus said.

  The quote of Seldorn the Gracious, king of Coppertop and author of The Art of Chivalry, surprised Juhg. He knew the captain wasn’t a man of letters, so Attikus must have heard the quote at some point.

  “I see no honor,” Ertonomous Dron said. “Nor do I seek it. I’ve always been a man who has made my own way in this life.” He turned abruptly and pointed the wand at Juhg, calling out commands in an inhuman tongue.

  Before he could move, Juhg saw the near-invisible force surround him. Then whirling winds lifted him from the deck and sailed him through the tangled mess of rigging and ’yards. In a moment, he hung suspended before the wizard.

  Ertonomous Dron’s eyes widened in surprise. “A dweller.”

  Juhg wriggled inside the whirling winds that held him but couldn’t escape. He was trapped.

  “I was told one of the brigands who stole aboard this ship the other night was a dweller,” the wizard said. “I even thought I saw you myself, but I knew it couldn’t be.”

  “Let him go,” Raisho yelled, stepping forward.

  Ertonomous Dron whirled on the young sailor. “Or what? You’ll die before him?”

  “If ye kill the little man,” Raisho growled, “ye’ll perish right after him.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Ertonomous Dron said. “If he lives, then I live?”

  The arrogant tone the wizard wielded like a weapon echoed over the deck, drowning out the creak of timbers and whine of rigging.

  “All right,” Ertonomous Dron said. “You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll do it. I’ll let the little dweller live, though I do loathe the vile creatures, so that I may live. But I must admit, I hate being blackmailed into such an agreement by men who were only moments ago offering me honor.”

  Juhg pitched and strained against the force that held him. Unfortunately, his efforts only succeeded in setting him to spinning inside his invisible cage. He clawed the air frantically in an effort to stop his wild, head-over-heels gyrations.

  The wizard gestured again and Juhg stopped whirling.

  “What were you after the other night?” Ertonomous Dron mused. “Even pirates usually have better things to do than rob vessels crewed by goblins. Unless they’ve come to rescue family members or friends who were taken on as slaves.”

  Juhg’s heart pounded. The wizard hadn’t been taxed as much as he’d believed.

  “And since when do dwellers travel so easily among humans? Hmmmm?” the wizard asked. He smoothed his beard with his free hand. “There is more to you than meets the eye, dweller.” The wizard gestured with his free hand.

  Movement stirred in Juhg’s chest. For a moment, Juhg believed the wizard had worked a spell that yanked his heart from his body. Then he saw the red clothbound book spin free into the air in front of him.

  A frown furrowed Ertonomous Dron’s weathered face. “You were after the book?”

  Juhg tried to think of a lie, but his skills weren’t that good. He knew any falsehood he tried out would be immediately known for what it was.

  “Are you a Librarian, dweller?” Ertonomous Dron demanded.

  Fear stilled Juhg’s tongue, but he felt that he was going to throw up. From the corner of his eye, he saw Raisho duck away quickly, fading back into the crowd of sailors. Juhg felt terribly betrayed. He couldn’t believe Raisho would so handily abandon him.

  “Did you hear me?” Ertonomous Dron asked more forcefully. He gestured with the wand.

  Inside the bubble of magical force, Juhg shook and spun. The air turned thick as syrup and wouldn’t move from his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

  “For years I’ve heard the stories of the Librarians.” Ertonomous Dron stepped closer, examining his captive with renewed interest. “Dwellers who know how to read and write. Hmph. It’s always been my experience that trying to pass on any kind of higher learning to a dweller was wasted effort. Put them at the end of a pick or a hoe, or leave them a pile of dirty dishes that need cleaning. That’s the kind of work dwellers are best suited for. If you can get them to work at all.”

  The harsh words stung Juhg’s pride. After all the years he’d spent swinging a pick in the mines under goblinkin supervision, he knew he had grown and changed under Grandmagister Lamplighter’s expert tutelage. Mainland dwellers didn’t even have rudimentary written language. They didn’t know about the existence of the Vault of All Known Knowledge on Greydawn Moors.

  “A bunch of poppycock are what those stories are,” Ertonomous Dron announced. “Just stories a few meek dwellers tell themselves to make themselves feel better about their lot in life.”

  What dwellers? Juhg wanted to know. But he couldn’t speak.

  Over the years, only a few dwellers ever left Greydawn Moors. Most believed there simply was no better place in the world—at least, not for dwellers. The warders, sailors, craftsmen, and merchants who traded out of Greydawn Moors all believed in the great Library and would not betray its secrets. They were all watched like hawks. If loyalty didn’t keep them in check, then the elven warders assigned to keep prying eyes away from the island would find them and execute them.

  “Where are you from, dweller?” the wizard asked.

  In that moment, Juhg knew that the wizard believed all those stories that he had heard. The question was a trick, designed to get the location of Greydawn Moors from him.

  “Why would you steal a book?” the wizard asked. “Do you work for Craugh?”

  The question surprised Juhg. He hadn’t known that Craugh was known outsi
de of Greydawn Moors. However, a number of times Craugh had accompanied Grandmagister Lamplighter on forays out into the mainland. Or, at least, had started the Grandmagister out across the Blood-Soaked Sea.

  “I’ll have your secrets, little dweller,” the wizard promised in a low and threatening voice. “There are people who would pay dearly for what I believe you know.”

  “Hey,” Raisho called as he stepped out from the crowd carrying a fishnet in his arms. “Wizard.”

  Irritation filled Ertonomous Dron’s face as he turned toward Raisho. Before he could say anything, Raisho threw the fishnet.

  The wizard threw up his hand. The fishnet slowed in midair but didn’t stop advancing. Juhg thought maybe it was because the net wasn’t a projectile weapon because some magic only turned edged attacks or objects the wizard who cast the spell recognized as potentially lethal. Or maybe it was because the net was larger than an arrow or spear.

  Whatever the case, the net belled out like a jellyfish, then fell over the wizard. The net wasn’t heavy enough to bring the wizard down, but it staggered him. The bubble around Juhg dropped a few inches, and for just an instant the thick, syrupy air in his lungs became breathable. Then the bubble tightened with bone-breaking strength and the air returned to syrup.

  “You’ll pay for that, you insolent fool,” the wizard threatened. He shoved his free hand through the net and gestured as he called on whatever dark powers he’d ascribed his allegiance to.

  A shimmering wave of force smashed into Raisho and knocked him reeling. He flew backward and landed hard enough against the stern castle railing to crack several of the boards.

  Ertonomous Dron used his free arm to pull at the net. But the net refused his efforts, becoming increasingly entangled around him.

  Three other sailors darted forward, intending to take advantage of the wizard’s weakness. Juhg could have told them—if he could have only spoken through the heavy liquid that gurgled in his lungs—that they were wasting their time. Ertonomous Dron curled his fingers, then snapped them forward. The three sailors jerked back as if pierced by harpoons. Blood gushed from wounds that suddenly opened up on their chests.