The Destruction of the Books

by Mel Odom

  Craugh acknowledged the greeting and sat with the harness reins in his hands.

  Varrowyn stepped back and waved to the other dwarves guarding the gate. After a moment, the massive gates moved, pushing outward and rolling on specially designed stone tracks. The present wall and gate had replaced the earlier one, which had been made of a jumble of rock.

  Slapping the reins across the rumps of the mules, Craugh guided the cart inside the Library grounds.

  Anticipation filled Juhg as he took in the landscaped grounds. As much attention had been given to the outlying area of the Library as the inside.

  The front of the Library was for show, to entertain the few guests that made the trip up from Greydawn Moors. Neat flower gardens and fruit trees, all of them planted in holes dug into the stone and in earth that Librarians in the past had laboriously brought up into the Knucklebones Mountains, lay neatly between paths of bare stone left from the mountainscape. The plotting and planting rendered intricate geometric shapes that were as pleasing to the eye as the stained-glass windows.

  In several places, black, white, yellow, and rose stones made up the patterns. Ships’ captains in the past had thrown out ballast on the south side of the island that had come from all over the mainland. Most of those stones were not indigenous to the island. Over the years, Librarians had transported choice stones to the Library and used them to build rooms, the outbuildings, and the patterns.

  Craugh brought the cart to a halt at the foot of the steps leading up to the main doors. “Well, Wick, you’re home again and of a piece.”

  The Grandmagister nodded, slipped his finger inside the book to mark his place, and turned to look at Juhg. “Get up to your old room. You’ll find robes in the wardrobe that will fit you.” He turned and slid down from the cart’s seat.

  “What?” Juhg asked.

  Looking impatient, the Grandmagister said, “Robes, First Level Librarian. You must wear robes if you’re going to be working throughout the Library. We stand on tradition and decorum in the Library, and I’ll not see that put aside.” In a flurry of his own robes, the Grandmagister turned and scurried up the steps.

  Juhg marveled at his mentor. He turned and looked at Craugh, who sat still in the cart and watched the Grandmagister pass through the doors. The Grandmagister’s appearance alone was enough of a rebuke to three Third Level Librarians who were lazily going through the books they’d brought up from the undeclared sections of the Library to classify that they got to work in a frenzy.

  “He is a strange one, isn’t he?” Craugh asked.

  Juhg refrained from replying, thinking silence was surely the most certain and safest course.

  “Many people take one look at Wick and misjudge him,” the wizard went on. “But if you know what to look for—and I do, young apprentice, because I’ve had a friendship with him that has lasted years—you can see seeds of greatness in him. His passion for what he does is all-consuming.” He shook his head. “By the Old Ones, Wick would have made a fine wizard had anyone but started him on that path.”

  Juhg didn’t know about that, but he did know that he hadn’t ever seen the like of the Grandmagister in his life.

  “Of course, that same passion is what sets a donkey apart from the rest of livestock.” Craugh handed the reins to a Novice who showed up to take care of the animals and the cart.

  Juhg dropped over the cart’s side and landed on his feet. Craugh stepped down lightly and with surprising alacrity for someone his age. The Novice led the team and cart toward the stables along the eastern wall, out of sight behind the main building.

  Craugh took out his pipe and glanced at Juhg. “Well, what are you waiting on? There’re mysteries to be solved. Do you want the Grandmagister to solve them all by himself?”

  “No,” Juhg said, and he stepped away from the wizard and hurried into the Library.

  * * *

  “What are you doing back?”

  Straightening his robes, Juhg glanced at the open doorway of the room he’d gotten twelve years ago when he’d made First Level Librarian. All Second and Third Level Librarians had to share rooms. Novices bunked four to a room.

  First Level Librarian Randorr Cotspin stood in the doorway with his arms folded and a disgusted expression on his face. He was heavyset, even by dweller standards. His arms and legs looked like sticks pushed into his body. Heavy-lidded eyes peered from an oval oblong face whose longest circumference was from side to side rather than up and down, almost succeeding in masking his pinched nose. Hairy eyebrows stood up in pugnacious spikes, mirroring the twisted tangles of black hair and the wisps of a beard he was still desperately trying to grow to make him look more intimidating.

  “Hello, Randorr,” Juhg said. While he had been at the Library, Randorr had always carried a grudge against Juhg, whom he claimed was the Grandmagister’s favorite when the Grandmagister wasn’t supposed to have favorites.

  “Well?” Randorr snapped.

  “I came at the Grandmagister’s request.” Juhg carefully folded his traveling cloak and his outerwear, then stored them in the large oak chest at the foot of the simple bed. Even though he’d lived alone, the room was small. Librarians didn’t live the lives of luxury that so many townspeople in Greydawn Moors accused them of living. Copies of famous paintings of places Juhg would have liked to have seen before they were destroyed in the Cataclysm hung on the walls. He’d made the copies himself, eliciting comment even from the Grandmagister on occasion at how fine his hand was.

  It was unusual, however, to see the small bookshelves and desk devoid of books. He’d always had several projects going on at once, those of his own choosing, as well as tasks the Grandmagister had assigned to him. One of the hardest things he’d had to do before leaving the Library was give some of those tasks, his own and the Grandmagister’s, to other Librarians. Grandmagister Lamplighter had helped in the choosing of some of the Librarians who had taken over for him, but it still had not been easy letting go.

  “I thought you’d left Greydawn Moors,” Randorr stated petulantly.

  “I did.”

  “Now here you are.”

  “Yes.” Juhg felt like quoting from Janse Aschull’s Obviousness and Its Tiresome Wear: A Guide for Those Who Want to Master the Lost Art of Conversation Among the Elite and Those Otherwise in Possession of Their Senses.

  “The Grandmagister insisted you would be back,” Randorr said.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Juhg said, “my return is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.”

  “Not just a surprise,” Randorr said. “Your arrival is also quite displeasing.” He entered the room and walked around without being granted permission. The act broke several tenets of the Librarians’ Code of Behavior regarding the treatment of another Librarian’s privacy.

  “I’m sorry you find my presence here displeasing.”

  “Oh, don’t go acting so naïve.” Randorr looked out both windows of Juhg’s room. Most rooms only had one window. Juhg’s possession of two windows had always struck Randorr as a personal affront. “You knew I didn’t like you, even before you left the Library.”

  “Yes,” Juhg admitted. “Though I’ve never understood why.”

  Randorr put his sticklike arms behind his back, folded his hands together, and peered out the window. “I don’t like you because your presence here is a distraction.”

  “A distraction?”

  Turning to face Juhg, Randorr said, “The Grandmagister should devote his energies here. To the Library. He should not be haring about the mainland as he seemed so intent on doing since he discovered you in some goblin’s mine pit.”

  Anger surged within Juhg. Randorr wasn’t just insulting him; the other Librarian was also insulting the Grandmagister.

  “Grandmagister Lamplighter,” Juhg said in carefully enunciated words, “had a habit of going to the mainland, even before he found me.”

  “You made it worse.”

  “How?”

  “You ga
ve him companionship. In no time at all, the Grandmagister was going more and more frequently—and dragging you off with him.”

  “The Grandmagister searched for books,” Juhg protested. “He read about small libraries and collections that were left behind during the Cataclysm in journals and notes of generals and educators that were found in the Library. Not all of those were there, but enough of them existed that he took chances on carefully researched information.”

  “The Grandmagister made other trips to the mainland as well. When his friend the thief—”

  “Brant,” Juhg supplied automatically.

  “Whatever.” Randorr waved the name away, as if it was insignificant. “When his friend the thief got into trouble in some far-off place—”

  “In his homelands. He fought against the goblinkin that had held his people and his family lands. Not only did he fight them, but—with the Grandmagister’s help—Brant succeeded in reclaiming those lands.”

  “That was wasted effort. The Grandmagister should have been here at the Library. He’s given his time away too freely.”

  “The Grandmagister cemented a relationship with an ally. He had been Brant’s friend since their adventures in the Broken Forge Mountains, but once Brant was returned to the barony, those people became friends as well.”

  “Do they know of the Library?”

  “No. The Grandmagister has never let that information out.” Brant and the others knew, but they had kept the secret between them.

  “Then how do you know they are friends of the Library?”

  “They would be,” Juhg said stubbornly. “In times of trouble.”

  Randorr paced the room like a general marshaling his troops. “We don’t need any relationships with the mainland. That is why the Unity established Greydawn Moors out in the Blood-Soaked Sea. No one is supposed to know about the Vault of All Known Knowledge.”

  Juhg took a deep breath to calm himself. “The Library was hidden in the beginning, when the goblins ran rampant in the world and darkness covered the lands and seeped into the seas. The elves were chopped from the forests. The dwarves were buried in the earth they mined. And the humans had their ships shattered at sea. The Unity did not know if they would survive against the Goblin Lord. They wanted only to preserve the knowledge that the goblinkin warred so hard to destroy.”

  “To preserve it, you must protect it. And to protect the Library, you must keep it secret.”

  “The Library isn’t supposed to be kept secret forever,” Juhg said.

  Randorr snorted. “Oh right! And we’re supposed to catalogue, restore, copy, and care for this Library, only to give it away at some point? We’re just custodians, then, with no glory of our own to earn? Once we give this knowledge back into the world, we’ll be nothing. Don’t you realize that?”

  The naked hate in Randorr’s voice surprised Juhg. For years he had known the other Librarian sought attention and wanted to improve his station. Randorr had often vocalized his demands to the Grandmagister that the townsfolk of Greydawn Moors be forced to acknowledge the debt of gratitude they owed the Librarians for being allowed to live on the island.

  “The Librarians were given the task of keeping and sorting the information,” Juhg said, “but only until the world was safe enough to entrust the knowledge back among the people.” He remembered how Raisho had said he would like to learn to read, and his own immediate impulse that such teaching couldn’t happen. He felt guilty now.

  Stubbornly, Randorr shook his head.

  “And we wouldn’t be giving it away,” Juhg hurried on before the other Librarian could interrupt. “We’d make copies of books that were given away, train people to read, and make available knowledge of other books, other resources.”

  “It’s not theirs. It’s ours. It was given to us.”

  “It’s not ours,” Juhg pointed out. “Many people lost their histories when the goblinkin destroyed their books and schools. We were entrusted with the books. We can give that back to them. Let them reconcile their pasts with the present they now have.” He paused, knowing he was baring so much of his personal belief—and part of the reason he had left Greydawn Moors. He and the Grandmagister did not see eye to eye on these issues. “We could give those people brand-new futures.”

  “Those people along the mainland,” Randorr stated, “will never be ready to trust with the knowledge that we hold.”

  “They might.”

  “Listen to yourself! What colossal tripe! Can you imagine the kinds of problems those people would create if they knew as much as we do? If they had access to all the knowledge we guard so fiercely? There was a reason that knowledge was removed from them!”

  Juhg bridled at the vicious nature of the other Librarian’s attack and the narrow-minded view. Before he could stop himself, he crossed over to Randorr and stood in his personal space. That was Lesson One from Kalberd’s Intimidating Presence and the Vanquishing of Enemies Without Fisticuffs.

  “Those people,” Juhg stated in a harsh voice, “are the ones who observed laws and science and events, experimented till they understood what they saw, and recorded their findings. That knowledge has never been ours. They paid for it in blood and sweat, and we were fortunate enough to be given a role to play in the safeguarding of it.”

  Randorr grunted, “Eeeep!” and stepped back quickly. He raised his sticklike arms over his head.

  Juhg let the other Librarian go. With the anger running through him and the fact that he as a Librarian was responsible for the deaths of so many sailors aboard Windchaser, he didn’t trust himself. He had never committed violence against another Librarian, though he had fought for his life a number of times on the mainland.

  “You speak as though we don’t make a difference,” Randorr whined.

  “We’ve only made a difference,” Juhg said in a more measured tone, “when we’re able to go back among the races along the mainland and give the knowledge back to them.”

  Randorr avoided Juhg, giving him a wide berth as he made his way back to the doorway. Once through the door and safely out into the hallway, Randorr said, “You’re as insane as the Grandmagister. I don’t know which of you has infected the other worse. Edgewick Lamplighter should have never been made Grandmagister. That position should have gone to Gaurilityn.”

  Gaurilityn was a human Librarian. Since all Grandmagisters of the Library in the past had been humans, everyone at the Vault of All Known Knowledge had expected Gaurilityn to be named Grandmagister. Grandmagister Lamplighter’s appointment to the position by the previous Grandmagister, Grandmagister Frollo, had surprised everyone in the Library. First Level Librarian Lamplighter had maintained an adversarial relationship through much of his career with Grandmagister Frollo.

  “Out!” Juhg ordered. “Get out of my sight before I do something we both regret.”

  “You’re a barbarian,” Randorr accused. “A mainlander. Perhaps Grandmagister Lamplighter took you from those savage environs, but he didn’t exorcise the savagery from your nature.”

  Juhg walked toward the door and Randorr fled. Out in the hallway, Randorr continued to run away, gathering his robes like an old woman and tottering away in an ungainly manner that Juhg found much more satisfying than he knew he should have. He knew he wasn’t a man to be afraid of. He’d met men who inspired fear in others as naturally as a fish breathed, but he knew he was not one of them.

  Yet, in Randorr’s world, Juhg knew he truly was a savage. That saddened him. He would never be accepted at the Library. Not truly. He had pointed that out to the Grandmagister and received only arguments in return. The Grandmagister had remained certain that Juhg’s history would soon be overlooked. All these years later, he had still ventured the same argument when he’d tried to dissuade Juhg from shipping out with Windchaser.

  And now look at you, Juhg chided himself, back at the Library only a short time and already at odds with Randorr. He walked down the quiet hallways, scarcely noticing the happy glow of the glimmerworm lante
rns.

  He followed the torturous maze that formed the inside of the Library. As the exterior buildings had been constructed on top of the caverns that had served as the first resting place for the vast libraries dumped there by the Unity transport troops, little thought had gone into the design. The way everything fit together came much later. At that time, the dwellers who worked in the Library had labored like ants, building more rooms for the Vault of All Known Knowledge, then shoveling the books into the areas that were delegated for the different categories. As a result, Novices were constantly getting lost in the labyrinth, forgetting that sometimes it was necessary to take staircases up and down to get places.

  This one last task, Juhg promised himself. Once you’re finished with helping the Grandmagister find the solution to his latest puzzle, you’re going back to the Yondering Docks. If Windchaser won’t have you, there are other ships.

  * * *

  Nearly three hours later, Juhg was winded and his back felt near to breaking as he carried the latest stack of books into one of the Library’s Great Rooms.

  “Is that the last of them?” Grandmagister Lamplighter asked across the room.

  “Yes.” Juhg placed his burden on the floor, then placed his hands on his knees to stretch his back and shoulders like a cat. He felt so light after carrying the books that he thought he might actually float up from the floor.

  “Did you find Darg Tarkenbuul’s Treatise on the Lives of Inner Selves?” The Grandmagister moved slowly through the three hundred and nineteen volumes they had gathered from throughout the Library.

  “Yes.” Juhg massaged his back, thinking that it would surely never be the same again. “Dissitan had it. Just as you remembered.”

  When the book had turned up missing from its shelf, Juhg had been convinced the search for it would take considerable time. Instead, even though the book wasn’t assigned to anyone—which required paperwork to be filled out, the Grandmagister had known exactly who’d had it. His knowledge of the Library, as well as the one hundred and twenty-odd Librarians who worked there, was nothing short of amazing.