The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Hearing the captain’s voice, Juhg looked up at the stern castle. Captain Attikus stood at the railing, his left arm in a sling to protect his wounded shoulder.

  “Yes, sir,” Juhg replied. Rigging creaked and sails cracked overhead. Windchaser ran through the sea like a racehorse, completely in her element under the clear skies and across the smooth sea.

  “You could eat that down in the galley, you know.”

  Juhg carried a plate in one hand and a mug of chulotzberry tea. The plate was piled high with sweet breads, nuts, grain cakes, jerked pork, and cheese. He carried two apples tucked inside his blouse. It was too late for breakfast actually and too early for lunch, but it was his first meal of the day because he’d slept late after working into the wee hours by lantern light. His eyes still burned and were light sensitive from overwork and lack of sleep.

  “That’s all right, Captain,” Juhg said. “The morning light is better out here.” That wasn’t the real reason he wasn’t eating in the galley and they both knew it. Despite the passage of three days since the attack on Blowfly, the crew still kept their distance from him. He had become an outcast on what was essentially a very small island in a huge ocean.

  It didn’t help that he had been released from shipboard repairs, which turned out to be considerable down in the hold, where caulking threatened to come loose and temporary patches had to be made to fix hull timbers where they had cracked. Windchaser was taking on water, but not at an alarming rate and not anything that the pumps couldn’t handle.

  “A moment of your time if I may, Librarian Juhg.”

  Reluctantly, knowing the captain would be asking about his progress on translating the book seventeen men, threescore or better goblins, and one wizard had given their lives for, Juhg trudged up the stern castle stairwell. The book rested inside his blouse, along with his journal and the fresh book he’d made from packing supplies aboardship.

  “How is it going, Librarian?” the captain asked. His gaze continually scanned the horizon ahead of them. The gray-green water was starting to take on the red-purplish hue that had given the Blood-Soaked Sea its name.

  “I’ve not given up on the book, Captain,” Juhg responded, deciding to cut to the crux of the matter because it would save time for them all.

  “No, I hadn’t thought that,” Captain Attikus said.

  “And I haven’t made any progress either.”

  Captain Attikus gave a short nod. “That distresses me, Librarian. I had hoped to give the men some news of the book’s contents that might make the losses of their fellow crewmen easier to bear.”

  Secretly, Juhg doubted that was possible. Not many “pirates” who protected the Blood-Soaked Sea were often called upon to spend their lives. Usually the crews of those ships put up the skull and crossbones any time an outside ship showed up in the area and scared off potential discoverers of the island.

  “I understand,” Juhg said.

  “It’s a hard thing to lose good men.”

  Juhg couldn’t think of anything to say about that.

  “There is one other thing, Librarian.” Captain Attikus kept his gaze out to sea. “If you should discover that we’ve only managed the rescue of a cookbook, I’d rather the men not know that. Even while we’re in harbor at Greydawn Moors.” He paused. “Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Juhg replied.

  “Then I’ll talk to you when you have more news.”

  “Yes, sir.” Summarily dismissed, Juhg trudged back down the stern castle stairwell and went forward. The encounter almost robbed him of his considerable appetite, one in which he felt would truly match his dweller heritage.

  No one has any faith in you. Juhg knew that. After three days, no one believed he could decipher the book. And if he did, they fully expected it to be only the crassest sort of joke.

  He made his way to the prow rigging and climbed up into the ropes. Sitting cross-legged in the netting, he placed the heaped plate in his lap and tried to summon his appetite again. He studied the water around them, amazed at how peaceful it was at the moment, like a plate of the finest glass.

  The mid-morning sun hung behind the ship. Shadows from the taut sails fell over Juhg, and the absence of direct light almost made the loose blouse and breeches too flimsy to wear in the chill. In the distance, Juhg noticed the first faint wisps of the fog that rolled constantly over the Blood-Soaked Sea.

  An unfamiliar feeling coursed through Juhg as he looked at the fog and knew that Greydawn Moors lay only a few more days’ sailing beyond. The feeling was bittersweet. He was going home after weeks away from the city and the Library and the Grandmagister, and he wanted to be there, to be in familiar surroundings after all the atrocities he’d witnessed.

  He’d been a fool to leave. He should have stayed. He saw that now. During the days before he’d left, Grandmagister Lamplighter had tried in vain to get him to see that.

  Well, I see it now.

  He only hoped he translated the book, or at least got a start on the translation before Windchaser dropped anchor in the harbor at Yondering Docks. Going back to the Vault of All Known Knowledge and to Grandmagister Lamplighter with a puzzle he couldn’t unravel on his own after all the time the Grandmagister had invested in him would be almost more than he could bear after everything he’d been through.

  Sailors worked aloft today. He heard their voices behind him, and that simple thing reminded him how far apart he was from them. He remembered Grandmagister Lamplighter’s own tales of his first voyage aboard One-Eyed Peggie, of how the Grandmagister had gone from potato peeler to pirate in just a matter of days.

  But Grandmagister Lamplighter had saved lives aboard the pirate ship. When the Embyr had alighted in the rigging, Grandmagister Lamplighter had gone and talked to her, convincing her that she didn’t want to harm them or the ship.

  He saved lives, Juhg thought bitterly, and I set my friends upon a course that took them. During the few hours of sleep he got a night, dreams of the killings aboard Blowfly haunted him, shocking him awake in a cold sweat in his hammock where he slept on the main deck.

  He picked up a grain cake, mixed with honey and cinnamon to bond it, and nibbled, hoping to work up some kind of appetite. He had to eat. He needed his strength. As he ate, he reached inside his blouse and took out the red clothbound book.

  He felt the tingle of something again. It felt like something alive, though he knew it couldn’t be. The only explanation he could think of was that some innate magic remained within the book and he was sensitive enough to “feel” it.

  That was a scary probability. A few Librarians at the Vault of All Known Knowledge had inadvertently tried reading tomes of magic that were meant only for wizards’ eyes and had ended up dying hideous deaths. Specialists were trained who perused such volumes and hid them away until such time that Craugh came visiting.

  Juhg flipped open the cover and started scanning the first page again, looking for some clue as to who had written it. So far he hadn’t even ascertained which race had authored the book. Juhg spoke a couple dozen languages, most of them dead after the events of the Cataclysm, which had driven nearly every race to learn a new language together, one that allowed them to work quickly and efficiently together.

  After the Cataclysm, after Lord Kharrion and the goblin hordes had finally been beaten, although many of the lands remained inhospitable to man or beast as a result, the races had kept the common tongue they had devised during their decades-long wars. So many languages had been lost during that time. At least, the oral versions of them had been lost. The written versions still existed within the Library.

  As he ate, forcing himself now when he had so been looking forward to the meal only moments ago, Juhg studied the pages of writing, trying to discern something—a pattern or a few words—that would give him the key to unlocking the language that bound the secrets in the book.

  * * *

  Juhg roused from a nightmare, feeling embarrassed because he knew he’d been cry
ing out as dead men and goblins rose from Blowfly’s decks and came after him. He blinked up at the night sky, feeling his heart hammering inside his chest.

  Overhead, Jhurjan the Swift and Bold, the greater of the two moons, burned a red glare across the dark heavens. He would cross three more times during the night at this time of year. Farther to the south now, Gesa the Fair showed pale blue and was in her shy phase when she could hardly be seen at all due to Jhurjan’s magnificence.

  “Ease up there, bookworm. You’re all right.”

  Juhg turned at the sound of Raisho’s voice and saw the young sailor sitting in the rigging over the prow only a short distance away. A nearby lantern occupied a spot on the prow railing.

  Two more days had passed and Juhg had not broken down any of the language in the book. Nor had the crew broken down their standoffishness against him.

  Suddenly aware that he was hanging out over the dark ocean as Windchaser sailed along under the night sky and that it was only a short drop into the brine and a quick disappearance with no hope for rescue for a man with a knife, Juhg shifted warily in the rigging. Raisho always carried plenty of knives.

  “What are you doing here?” Juhg asked.

  Raisho shrugged. “I have missed ye.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” Juhg said, “but I wasn’t the one who chose to stay away.” He couldn’t avoid placing the blame where it lay, though he wished he were a bigger person than that.

  “No,” Raisho admitted, looking a little guilty. “No, ye weren’t. Were me. Were the crew too, but they ain’t seen the error of their ways yet.” He paused. “Give ’em a little more time an’ they’ll come around.”

  Sitting up, Juhg wrapped his arms around his knees. “They judged me harshly, Raisho. They found me responsible for the deaths of their friends. Of our friends.”

  “Aye, they did at that. As did I.” Raisho glanced out to sea. “Them men we lost, they were good men. It shouldn’t have happened.”

  Silence stretched between them for a moment, fragile and intense, then Juhg broke it. “If I could take it back, I would.”

  “An’ if’n ye did, why, then ye wouldn’t have that book what’s the cause of us runnin’ back to Greydawn Moors as we are.”

  “That’s something else no one is happy about.”

  “Mayhap. But one thing I know, sailors is a lot that likes to gripe. Show me a sailor what ain’t gripin’ about how his lot in life is an’ I’ll show ye a sailor what ain’t givin’ this job his all.” Raisho grinned.

  In spite of his despair and anxiety and wariness, Juhg smiled back.

  “Ye know what really brought me around to remember that ye ain’t just no Librarian?” Raisho asked. “That ye were also Juhg, me friend?”

  Juhg shook his head, not wanting to offend in any way. And he did not have a clue.

  “Was Herby,” Raisho declared.

  “Herby?”

  “Aye. This afternoon I was talkin’ to Herby. He told me about yer book.” Raisho opened his hands and showed Juhg his personal journal.

  Juhg felt uncomfortable about Raisho having the journal until he remembered that the young sailor couldn’t read. Then he felt inept because he’d left out all the books, the one they’d found in the goblin ship as well as the copy of it he had so diligently made, in the knapsack he kept his tools in.

  “Herby talked about all them stories ye told him about the men who died,” Raisho said. “Heroes, ye made ’em out to be.”

  “They were heroes,” Juhg said.

  Raisho flipped the thick journal open to some of the latest entries. The lantern light turned the parchment pages golden brown. Ink drawings of the crew embroiled in battle with the goblinkin filled the pages. Other pages held pictures of the dead crewmen as they sat around tables in the galley or did shipboard chores, and even images of the funeral that had taken place aboard Windchaser. Some of the pictures were clearer, more detailed than others, but all of them were recognizable.

  “I suppose I never have realized what it is ye do with all yer scribblin’,” Raisho admitted. “I’ve seen ye spend hours on end scribblin’ an’ drawin’ in yer book. Now an’ agin, I looked upon them pictures ye drawed, an’ I listened to them stories ye told. I thought ye had a fair hand at drawin’, but I never once put it all together an’ seen what it is ye really do.”

  Juhg shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  Raisho sighed with feigned irritation. “Why, ye’re savin’ them men. Turnin’ them into forever heroes is what ye’re doin’.” He hesitated. “See, me an’ the rest of the crew, why, we’ll tell stories about them men. But each time the story gets told, among ourselves an’ even to other people, why, that story will change. In just a short time, them stories about these men an’ what happened aboard Blowfly an’ what we lost will be nearly all made up. Nothing will remain of them men the way they really was. But this book—” The young sailor shook the book and the moonslight showed unshed tears in his eyes. “—why, it’s a permanent thing an’ the story in it will never change, never become less or more than them men were. It’ll be a fair an’ accurate accountin’. I know that ’cause I know the way ye are.”

  Embarrassed at the sentiment that he heard in Raisho’s words, Juhg had no idea what to say.

  “Ye’ve got a fine an’ uncommon gift, bookworm,” Raisho said. “I don’t think I ever appreciated what you do as much before as when I was sittin’ here lookin’ at them pictures an’ seein’ all that scribblin’ by ’em. I’d almost be willin’ to learn to read if’n only to read about them friends we lost.”

  “I could teach you.” The words were out of Juhg’s mouth before he knew it. He knew he’d made a mistake. No one outside the Vault of All Known Knowledge and Greydawn Moors was taught to read. The skill was considered too dangerous, considering all the books that were left out in the world. But Juhg didn’t think about that. He’d come from outside Greydawn Moors as well, and the Grandmagister himself had trained him to read and write and think a thing through.

  “Mayhap.” Raisho nodded his head. “Mayhap ye will. But fer now, ye just get ye some more rest. Don’t ye be worryin’ about them night haunts nor nothin’ else. I’ll be right here, an’ I’ll protect ye from them.”

  Cautiously, still not quite trusting Raisho because of his own past problems, Juhg lay back down. He remained quiet, not wanting to offend his friend, and feigned sleep, intending to be prepared just in case this was a trick and a way to get rid of him. But somewhere in there he went to sleep, and he didn’t rouse again until the sun was warm on his face and someone was yelling, “Land ho!”

  10

  Greydawn Moors

  A curious feeling filled Juhg as he stood in Windchaser’s rigging and looked out at the small port city that appeared in the thick fog looming over the Blood-Soaked Sea. The feeling was one that he had never felt before, even when he’d returned from trips with Grandmagister Lamplighter. He felt like he was coming home.

  “Well,” Raisho said, “ye’ve got a smile on yer face, ye do.”

  “I know.” Juhg clutched the rigging and stood tall as the gentle winds that swept the natural harbor played over him.

  Greydawn Moors occupied the northern foothills of the Knucklebones Mountains, the curious ridges that shoved toward the sky at the island’s highest point and looked like the hard knuckles of a closed fist. But that fist was impossibly large, containing caverns and the immense buildings that housed the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Below the Knucklebones ran an almost perpendicular set of ridges called the Ogre’s Fingers which looked disturbingly like a hand closed around the wrist of the fist that made up the Knucklebones. Once that image had settled in, the viewer couldn’t help but think of the mountain range as the hands of two gigantic warriors forever locked in battle, their bodies sunk in the rocky island.

  Legend had it that the Old Ones created the island from the bodies of two monsters: an ogre and a champion who had held the ogre off while the island was made by
magic. According to those stories, the giants’ toes had dug into the bedrock of the ocean floor and anchored Greydawn Moors when they were turned to stone.

  Juhg didn’t know if those legends were true, but what he had learned from the books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge and his travels with the Grandmagister was that every legend and lie had a seed of truth somewhere.

  The city occupied the coastal area. For hundreds of years, Greydawn Moors had existed in protective isolation at the edge of the Blood-Soaked Sea. The population had increased only gradually and some speculated that number was also managed by the same magicks that had created the island, hidden it from the rest of the world, and enshrouded the area with perpetual fog.

  And filled the Blood-Soaked Sea with monsters, Juhg thought as he heard one of the massive creatures call out farther out to sea. The monsters were real, but they didn’t linger around the island much.

  Three wooden docks ran out to sea, all of them short and compact to handle the infrequent sea traffic. Few merchants made their way to the island to trade, and then only those who had been born on Greydawn Moors and promised the allegiance to the island and to the secret of the Library.

  Mostly, the citizens of Greydawn Moors saw to their own needs from the arable lands to the south and east that the farmers tilled. They also took deer and coneys from the woods, but the elven warders given charge of taking care of the island’s needs tended to those numbers.

  The populations of the deer and the rabbits were carefully husbanded and parceled out. Only elven warders hunted in and took meat from the forests, and those bounties were traded for meager supplies the elves needed or wanted. All of them had taken vows to protect the island. The few dwarves that worked Greydawn Moors’ two forges to provide needed hardware had taken the same vows and traded under the same circumstances.

  Most of the town’s population was made up of dwellers, and from their numbers the Librarians came. The dwellers, though, came with increasing reluctance over the years because being a Librarian was the hardest and most demanding occupation on the island.