by Mel Odom
The Grymmlings remained just behind him. The low, growling buzz of their tiny voices pursued him relentlessly.
Despite their quick uptake on the situation, the Librarians weren’t as fleet of foot as Juhg was. He caught up with them and passed them, feeling instantly bad when the Grymmlings caught up with the Librarians in the next breath. He shoved and pushed his way through the Librarians.
Juhg shut their piteous cries out of his head. He couldn’t stop. If he fell, the great bell would never be rung and the dwarves would not know that Death had found its way into the Library. Down in the mines, he had sometimes been forced to chop the leg off a dweller who had died of overwork and starvation. Chains had bound them all together, and dragging a dead body around till the end of a shift put an impossible drain on the rest of the chain crew.
Three times during his long years in the goblinkin mines, Juhg had chopped the legs off dwellers who had fallen. They’d also had to carry the leg of a fallen friend back with them each time, to show that the dweller free of the chain hadn’t simply escaped. The average goblinkin wasn’t overly bright, but even they had known that dwellers came with two legs.
Behind Juhg, cries for help became cries of agony. He ran, leaving the cries behind him, but hearing the steady skittering of chitin-hard, overly large feet slapping against the stone floor of the hallway behind him. Unable to help himself, he turned to look.
Lantern light glinted from the crystal knives two Grymmlings carried as they continued their pursuit of Juhg.
Frightened, knowing that his fatigue was slowing his step, feeling the iron bands that had seized up tight around his chest, Juhg faced forward again just before he took a nasty spill down a flight of stone steps. Unfortunately, he knew he would never be able to slow in time to manage the long flight without tripping and falling, quite possibly to his death.
And then there would be no one to ring the bell.
Trusting to his dweller’s surefootedness, Juhg leapt to the railing to the right of the stairs. Only when he gained the railing did he realize he was along the portion of the underground section of the Library most referred to as the Pit.
When the Builders had formed the island during the Dark Years of the Cataclysm before any of the races became certain their warriors stood a chance against Lord Kharrion and his goblinkin army, they had drawn up the earth they had used to make the island from the sea floor. Whatever magic and skills they had used had left a long, vertical pit in the center of the Knucklebones Mountains.
The pit was thirty feet across and, at least from where Juhg stood, ninety feet straight down. The Librarians drew their water from that pit. The salt of the Blood-Soaked Sea—and whatever other revolting stuff lurked out there in those crimson depths—was strained out by the limestone roots of the island.
Heart in his throat, Juhg ran along the railing, telling himself he would not fall. One misstep, he knew, and his race would be run. Rocks waited at the end of that long fall at the bottom of the Pit. Even if he survived the fall and somehow found the small opening that allowed egress into the heart of the mountains again in the complete darkness below, and if the water level was high enough at the moment that he might reach that opening, he would never be able to sound the bell in time.
Despite the Grandmagister’s seeming confidence, Juhg held no real hope that even the dwarven warriors would be able to hold back the things that walked into the Library through the mystical gate. But he ran, fleet of foot, through the dim glow provided by the occasional lantern. This part of the Library generally required a Librarian to bring his own light, as the Librarians he’d heard fall behind him had done.
Reaching the bottom of the railing, he leapt to the floor. No sooner had he landed than one of the two Grymmlings that pursued him landed across his shoulders. Evidently the creature had taken the same route while its companion tumbled and bumped down the stairs.
Cruel teeth bit into Juhg’s right shoulder. Blood coursed, warm and thick, down his side under his blouse. Pain exploded inside his skull as he screamed in fear. Off balance, he fell heavily to his right, slamming into the railing next to the Pit just as he managed to lever his right arm under the Grymmling’s chin and start pulling.
The railing caught Juhg in mid-chest. More pain burned along his ribs as he bent over the railing. However, the sudden stop worked even less in the Grymmling’s favor. The creature tore loose from Juhg, leaving a wake of ripped clothing and long scratches along bruised flesh.
The Grymmling made no noise as it hurtled out into the darkness in the center of the Pit. The last thing Juhg saw of the creature were the venomous yellow eyes and the gleam of the crystal knife as it dropped from sight.
Then the other Grymmling plopped onto the floor in a fetal ball.
Gasping for air, certain his heart was about to explode into a million pieces, Juhg watched as the creature unfolded its limbs, looking like a spider as it shoved out its arms and legs. Then its head popped up and the jackrabbit teeth flared open as it squeaked menacingly.
Juhg pushed himself from the railing and ran the final distance to the door to the alarm bell. Every floor had access to the stairwell that led up to the curving steps that snaked up to the top of the alarm tower. Thankfully, the Grymmling was too stunned to follow at speed until after Juhg grabbed the lantern from the wall outside the doorway, then started up the stairwell.
The Grymmling howled its eerie buzzing noise.
Inside the stairwell, Juhg wasted a moment to look for a latch to lock the door behind him. Then he realized that he was back in the Vault of All Known Knowledge and that no one locked doors inside the Library.
He turned and started up the stairs. His knees protested at once. He felt light-headed and couldn’t quite catch his breath, which tasted like heated brine anyway.
But he made himself go. He had spent years in the goblinkin mines. That experience had not defeated him, only made him stronger in mind and in body than he had ever truly realized before now.
He went, two and three stairs at a time, round and round to the right, so fast that he felt dizzy. The lantern bounced in his other hand and the light whirled around him. He thought he was going to be sick, but he forced himself to keep going, charging into the gloom ahead of him while a lethal shadow nipped at his heels.
* * *
At last, just when he was certain that his legs would burst into flames and he couldn’t go another step, Juhg spotted light ahead. Breathing in shuddering gasps, black comets whirling in his vision, he raised the lantern high at the end of his trembling arm.
Around the next turn, he spotted a beautiful stained-glass window showing Enloch standing tall at the Bridge of Loronal, one of the key conflicts during the final push against Lord Kharrion during the Year of Hope Redeemed, which would have been named the Year of Shattered Courage if Enloch and his group hadn’t managed to hold the bridge till the majority of the Unity’s armies could draw back to fight again. Enloch had died during that battle, but the second battle fought the next day had helped break the back of Lord Kharrion’s army.
Juhg chose to take the stained-glass representation as a good sign. His lantern light reflected against the stained-glass panes, and only then did he realize that sunset had fallen outside. They had worked so long to gather the three hundred nineteen volumes named in the book Windchaser had recovered that they had lost the day.
Only night lay outside the walls of the Vault of All Known Knowledge, Juhg realized. Most of the town sleeping below the Knucklebones Mountains would be abed. His heart sank. His feet faltered. He fell and bruised his shins against the sharp stone corner of the step.
Before he could get to his feet again, the Grymmling caught his ankle and pulled.
Juhg’s chin impacted against the step with enough force to almost knock him out. He screamed and yelled, knowing the whole time that no one could possible hear him. Images of Grandmagister Lamplighter’s poor torn body flashed through his mind.
No! he told himself w
ith grim determination. That has not happened! I will not allow that to happen!
He rolled into the side of the staircase in an effort to dislodge the loathsome creature. It clung to him stubbornly. The insane buzzing chatter filled his head. The jackrabbit teeth bit into his ear and more blood spilled down the side of his face.
The Grymmling drew back its blade and drove the weapon home into Juhg’s side. New pain scalded the dweller’s mind. He drew his arm forward and brought his elbow back in a manner Master Pohkem taught in his book on martial arts, The Unarmed Warrior Bares His Knuckles and Teeth and His Heart, and Other Things.
His elbow popped into the Grymmling three times. The creature tumbled backward, but not before managing to shove the crystal blade into Juhg’s arm once for good measure.
Spinning, knowing for all his efforts that he had only earned a moment’s respite, Juhg swung the lantern into the Grymmling. The lantern shattered at once. Glass fragments and glimmerworm juice flew over the creature and the wall behind it. The wick remained lit and landed at the Grymmling’s foot. Although glimmerworm juice burned cool, it also burned easily, soaking into a wick as if the two had been separated and were only then reunited.
Flames spread along the Grymmling. The creature buzzed and shrieked in agony and fear, jerking and jumping. Then, as if realizing that it couldn’t put the flames out, the Grymmling turned its yellow eyes on Juhg. Madness dawned there, fueled by the clinging lummin juice.
On his back, Juhg shoved his feet forward and caught the nearest step, propelling himself up the staircase. The steps bruised his back, but he got enough distance to flip over and use his hands to push himself up and run again. He didn’t run, though, so much as he managed to fall up the stairs a very long way.
He reached the platform where the bell was and saw the coil of rope wound round a great iron hook set into the wall. Dust and spiderwebs covered the rope and the great bell. The Librarians tended not to be overly interested in cleanliness unless a certain state of dishevelment could be directly attributed to a particular Librarian.
Summoning the final dregs of his strength, near-to-passing-out because he couldn’t catch his breath, Juhg dove for the bell rope and clung with both hands. Incredibly, the bell didn’t move. Aghast, he glanced up and saw that the clapper and the spindle the bell was mounted on had evidently rusted in place.
The great bell had been forged by Thomak-Oolufsin, one of the Burning Iron Forge Dwarves during the early days of the Library. Thomak-Oolufsin also designed and smithed much of the wrought iron in the common rooms where the Library was expected to entertain guests. Since there were so few guests that came to the Vault of All Known Knowledge, much of Thomak-Oolufsin’s final works went unviewed.
Juhg had always considered that a sad thing, but the saddest thing at the moment was that no one had seen to the great bell more often.
The flaming Grymmling forced its way up the steps. The creature no longer moved quickly, but that it moved at all let Juhg know he was not long for the world. Even though it was smaller than him and still burning in some places, although the chitinous outer skin made that hard to discern in most places, he knew from grappling with it earlier that it was stronger than him.
Thinking quickly, first—guiltily—of his own survival, then of how he was to ring the bell, Juhg spotted a lantern filled with lummin juice hanging on the wall. The Library was filled with lanterns because Librarians often didn’t pay attention to how much lummin juice they had left in their lanterns and often got stranded in the dark.
As a result, the Librarians who were responsible for filling the lanterns again when it was their turn did not miss a lantern. Although the great bell was not ready—and Juhg had to admit that no procedure existed for testing the bell—the lantern was full.
The bell hung twenty feet above Juhg. He dug his nimble toes into the rope and shoved himself upward, using his free hand. After all of the countless hours climbing Windchaser’s rigging, climbing the rope was simple. However, the Grymmling climbed just as easily. Fiercely, the deadly little creature followed him, its knife tucked securely between the jackrabbit teeth.
At the top of his climb, Juhg reached up, caught the edge of the bell, threw his feet against the wall, and walked up to the bell by pressing his hands against the bell while he pressed his feet against the wall. He carried the lantern in his teeth.
The Grymmling didn’t possess arms long enough to continue its climb. It hissed and buzzed inside the bell.
Safe for the moment, Juhg held on to the top of the bell, knowing if he fell the creature would be all over him. Bracing himself on his elbows, almost strained to the limit, he opened the lummin juice reservoir and reached up to pour the liquid over the spindle that held the bell in place. He poured more through the hole at the top where the clapper was affixed.
In addition to burning with a cold flame that didn’t often prove combustible to other mediums, Grymmling chitin proving one happy exception at least, lummin juice also combatted rust with a vengeance. Before Juhg could secure his hold again, his weight forced the freed bell into motion.
He fell, tumbling and squalling in fear, flailing with both hands until he grabbed the bell rope. No sooner had he seized the rope and stopped his fall than the clapper smacked into the side of the bell and released a huge, clangorous note that felt like it turned his bones to jelly. He lost his hold on the rope and fell again.
Hitting the stone floor below almost knocked Juhg unconscious. The impact did knock out what little air he had in his lungs. Before his senses fully returned, something landed on his chest. Curious, and a little afraid because he thought he knew what the lump might be, he looked up into the yellow eyes of the Grymmling.
The thing grinned, obviously a little woozy from the bell’s clangor as well. But it definitely had murder in mind as its hard-knuckled fist closed on the crystal knife.
Then the bell bonged again, filling the bell tower with even stronger noise than the first time. The vibrations shuddered through Juhg and disoriented the Grymmling.
Taking advantage of the creature’s hesitation, Juhg slapped his palm into its face and shoved it from his chest before it could sink its blade into his heart or its teeth into his throat. The Grymmling rolled backward, but came to its feet again as Juhg did.
The creature threw itself in one of those incredible jumps its kind was able to perform. Juhg ducked, putting up a hand into the creature’s stomach to keep it off of him. It slashed at him in its passing, though, and the blade drew blood from the back of his hand.
Juhg turned, expecting the thing to bounce off the wall behind him and hurtle itself at him once more. Only it didn’t strike the wall; it struck the stained-glass window.
Delicate and fragile, pieced together from hundreds of shards of glass mounted in a delicate framework, the stained-glass window shattered outward at once. Silver moonslight caught dozens of pieces of glass and rendered them into gleaming jewels spread out in a long spray of color.
The Grymmling vanished from sight, headed for a very long, very hard fall down the north side of the Knucklebones Mountains.
Shaking and weak, almost overcome by fear and his exertions, as well as blood loss, Juhg walked to the window and peered down. He saw the Grymmling, parts of it still covered in flames, lying against the unforgiving stone below. The creature did not move.
Just as Juhg caught a breath of fresh night air that constricted his lungs, light invaded the bell tower. He turned, holding his hand up against the bright light that leeched the darkness from the tower.
The bell continued to bong hollowly, making any other sounds impossible to hear.
At first, Juhg had feared the worst, that some other creatures had followed him from the research room where the mystical gate had opened. Then the man holding the lantern held it to one side so that his features were revealed.
“Varrowyn,” Juhg cried, and knew the dwarf had not heard him because he could not hear himself over the clanging bell.
The dwarf reached out and took Juhg’s arm, turning the limb slowly to examine it under the lantern light. He glanced back up at Juhg and his lips moved.
Unable to hear because of the bell and unable to read the dwarf’s lips because of his fierce beard, Juhg pointed through the broken window at the body of the Grymmling. Juhg doubted greatly that the dwarf knew what the creature was, but he was certain Varrowyn knew it didn’t belong in the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
Varrowyn growled and spat. Then he clamped a hand like a vise of iron on Juhg’s upper arm so hard the dweller lost the feeling in that limb, and marched him down the same stairs that Juhg had fought so hard to climb up with the Grymmling at his heels.
Juhg protested the harsh usage at first, because the grip hurt his arm so badly and he was already hurting, but he remembered that life hadn’t looked all that rosy for Grandmagister Lamplighter and Craugh the last time he had seen them. He only wished that they weren’t dead.
The bell renewed its clangorous assault on Juhg’s hearing. He glanced back and saw that one of Varrowyn’s dwarven warriors was pulling the bell rope mightily. Two score more, all of them dressed in plate armor and carrying battle-axes and pikes, followed Varrowyn.
At first Juhg didn’t know what Varrowyn was doing. Then he noticed the dwarven leader’s attention riveted to the steps. In the next instant, he realized that Varrowyn’s hunter’s eyes followed the blood trail back the length of the hallway.
At the bottom, before the Grymmling had leapt onto Juhg and bitten his ear so that the blood flowed even more easily, the blood drops were farther apart, but the trail remained. Varrowyn lengthened his stride. Juhg tried desperately to keep up.
14
The Destruction of the Books
“Is the gate still open, then?”
Juhg shook his head. “I don’t know, Varrowyn. Perhaps Craugh has closed it by now.” But I don’t see how. If the wizard were going to do that, he would have done it immediately. Maybe. Juhg had to admit that he was no wizard and had no idea of what wizards could do in circumstances like they had just witnessed.
